Real Narcissists - Early Warning Signs

welcome back my name is dr. Craig Malkin if you haven't been following me I'm a clinical psychologist in lecture at Harvard metal school Medical School and I'm the author of rethinking narcissism which is just released in paperback in an honor of that release to thank all of the people who supported me I am releasing this series of videos answering your questions and really again I just want to thank you so much for the outpouring of questions it takes great courage to share your story and that is a part of healing I said that in the first video and I want to say that again so you know you should feel good that you've taken the step to break silence if you're breaking silence for the first time and you're reaching out for help because a lot of questions about can I ever recover from this and this this is the start I want to say something about to help people who are dealing with subtler forms of narcissism and and what are the signs so even if you're not looking at some of these fully-fledged a lot of questions about how can I tell if somebody has a narcissistic personality disorder it's really for a mental health practitioner to make that determination as a mental health diagnosis I gave you the Triple E exploitation entitlement and empathy impairments you can see the previous video if you missed that to help understand to help understand and help you clear about when somebody has disordered level of narcissism pathological narcissism but there are so there are some more common signs that I talked about in rethinking narcissism stem from why someone becomes extremely narcissistic another question suddenly had about is a genetics it's genetics environment maybe I can get into that and another video I'll do separate one on on parenting but narcissists are insecure in a particular kind of way we know they're insecure forget about all the stuff that you've read forget about all the stuff saying that they have high self-esteem it's not true it's illusory if it's high self-esteem first of all it comes mostly from research on extremely extroverted narcissists who say they're great at everything so sort of course they say they have great self-esteem when you hook them up to a fake lie-detector and ask them they have self-esteem suddenly they're they don't have great self-esteem suddenly they're saying no I don't feel good about myself so forget about that they have a particular form of insecurity called insecure attachment now a secure attachment is when you feel if you're sad or lonely or scared you can turn to someone special person or persons and feel like you can depend on them like they will be there for you know come you know when push comes to shove they will be there for you that is what secure attachment is we know that narcissists are not securely attached because they devalue love particularly extroverted outgoing sociable charming manipulator that you hear so much about but also the introverted kinds who can be just as arrogant and argumentative even if they're not outwardly grandiose even if they don't feel good about themselves and their self doubting and even communal narcissists who all they care about a seeming like the most helpful person that you know self-sacrificing they may not stand up on a stage and talk about all the great things they're doing but they'll they'll want you to know that they've done good things for the community and good things for their family and they might consider you the most selfish person on earth if you don't so um we know that anybody is extremely narcissistic is it securely attached an addiction to feeling special soothing yourself when you feel sad or scared or lonely is just a way of coping with insecure attachment and it's a way of avoiding being vulnerable narcissus the more narcissistic they are do not like to depend on people so far more than looking for vanity or greed or somebody who's who's power-hungry or somebody who has no empathy at all these are these are all sort of red herrings if the person seems to have zero empathy at all times than you're doing with extreme psychopathy and likely malignant narcissism and and the chances are very little of change but in the milder range and where you know that even where you're not seeing abusive behaviors because this can happen the one thing people are extremely narcissistic all have in common is they they are loath to depend on others in healthy ways and that will gain and to be vulnerable to put themselves in authentic vulnerable put themselves in your hands emotionally so there are predictable strategies for going around that one of the most common and this is going to go straight to a question a number of questions people had about really what's called gaslighting but you'll find a number of people who asked this question about what's going on when the when their narcissistic partner is telling them that there's a crazy one they're mentally ill things like that that is known as as gaslighting it's actually a form of one of those red flags that can take a much subtler form that i call playing emotional hot potato think of this like a playing emotional hot potato with feelings of insecurity I don't want to take I don't want to feel this way here you take it so one of my clients for example was applying for graduate school and she was going through all of the different applications and trying to see you know which one was best for her her boyfriend was in a terrible place terrible place he didn't know what he was going to do next was completely unsure and so rather than say that to her rather than say that he felt insecure or he was so happy for her doing this but he felt sad because he's not sure what he's doing he felt scared about the future what he would do is stand over her and say are you sure that's the school you want to apply to are you sure that's it you know this was a way of his feeling like he was the one in the know this is a way of feeling special he was one in the know at the same time getting rid of his worries that he didn't know what he was going to do next that he was completely unsure himself right so now he's saying and doing things to make her feel unsure at the extreme this is saying and doing things to make you feel like you're crazy what you know and I'm going to use that word because it was used as a clinical psychologist not fond of it but I do know that people engage in gas line the ALPHAN call their partners crazy or mentally ill I want to say to all of you out of there who have heard this all of you out there have heard this even if you have post-traumatic stress disorder from the hell that you've been through nobody who cares about you should call you mentally ill or crazy they should be supportive they should shore up your self-esteem even if it is true that you were struggling and that's what you're hearing that's abusive that's emotional abuse nobody who cares about you would approach it that way they just won't so this is a form of emotional hot potato what happens is people who are extremely narcissistic when when they start to get it confronted with their failures when things start to fall apart I mentioned this in the first video that the form and quality of their thinking becomes disrupted they don't start seeing and hearing things they develop something called a thought disorder and they feel like they're like they're not holding it together and at those times they're most likely to say and do things to make you feel like you're the one who's not holding it together like you're the one who's somehow losing your mind but more straightforwardly they you know when somebody is cheating when they're having affairs they have to convince you that you're not seeing things the way they are because if you're seeing things the way they are then you're having affairs then they're having affairs and they can't be trusted so you get lots and lots of lies one of the questions that came up yeah okay so here it is how do I deal with the story twisting narcissist Canon Middies Dunn's this is from Angela can a minute he's done something wrong and steady changes the story you can't change is the story because he to apologize again this is one of those predictable ways of dealing with an insecure attachment to apologize means to acknowledge disappointment and to acknowledge that I've disappointed you means that I am in your hands completely you may forgive me you may not that's out of my control and if you think about the fact that somebody who's extremely narcissistic doesn't trust people to be there for them to care for them then of course they're going to look for ways around apology and that means changing the story which is also a form of gas lining but that but the maneuver there is to avoid feeling vulnerable in any way I you know that for people who are extremely narcissus Peschel II for those who who have been abused or neglected a part of them feels I can never put myself in that position again I will never allow myself to be that vulnerable again so they look for ways like emotional hot potato another is putting people on pedestals this has its roots in something normal when we're in levels people we tend to put them on pedestals there's a large-scale study of 40,000 couples and the strongest predictor of whether or not the couples stay together after the first few weeks was not one or the other partners have a winning personality or high self-esteem it was did one or the other partners or one or both partners see their partners better than they actually are something called positive illusions an aspect of what's known as healthy narcissism maybe we can say a little bit about that because people did have some questions about it but you want to think of it like having rose-colored glasses now the reason people do that is that if you are with God and you're with an idol then you can't be disappointed and you're with somebody who's so special that being close to them makes you feel special how special is that what a wonderful feeling I'm with this person who walks on water now of course the problem is and this is what people experience they call devalue and discard idealization and devaluation cycle you can't stand a pedestal forever if you're with somebody who's a friend in their 30s and their 40s and they have you cemented to a pedestal it's a very dangerous sign again this is one of those early warning signs because this shows this person needs that sense of feeling special in some way instead of being able to turn to you in an authentic real relationship and even if you don't see abuse even if you don't see those obvious signs early on those signs will be present even when people who are subtly narcissistic they will dodge avoid vulnerability in these different ways like playing emotional hot potato another example really straightforward stealth control why what is abuse about why has narcissism and abuse been so closely linked in the community the reality is that we know as clinicians like us know that all kinds of things cause abuse including being abused and childhood post-traumatic stress disorder people with post-traumatic stress disorder often can develop abusive patterns of behavior we do what we've been taught better to be the victimizer than the victim is really logic of it so lots of things it cause someone to be abusive and I want to make this point too for those of you who are asking just a little sideline before I get back to the story twisting narcissist for those of you who have been experiencing abuse physical abuse gaslighting emotional abuse and with somebody who is not willing to look at it and not going to change was in who's in denial as a dangerous situation to you it's a dangerous situation to your self-esteem again you want to get help leaving and getting support leaving I had a lot of questions about where people described abuse and said is it possible that my partner is narcissistic so I want to redirect you your concern here shouldn't be whether or not they're narcissistic your concern should be that they are abusive regardless of what causes it could be alcoholism that causes it tension over gambling or extreme narcissism abuse is one of those stop signs so work with a good therapist work with a support group somebody asked about support groups there there are many out there you can look them up but one of my favorite particular people are going through divorce and custody issues is a online community started by a woman named Tina swith and called one moms battle just go to Facebook one moms battle I often will tag them on my on my own page dr. Craig Malkin on Facebook when I have relevant information about narcissism we often work together it's an extraordinary community talk about a great supportive community and one where you could ask questions like so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel like what should I do some questions that came up what should I do if I have to have contact with my ex and he's continually being abusive what the community will tell you is that you need to find ways to put barriers up and there are means of doing that if you have I have this idea that I call what the policy do the policing where if you have set up by the courts that you're supposed to have certain contact and the person is pushing pushing pushing you document that and my favorite approach is to have some kind of wall set up some kind of firewall if you will there's a system called family wizard where all everything has to go through there the person can't text you or send you emails willy-nilly so you're not constantly exposed to the toxicity and the nice way to a nice way to handle that excuse me for whatever fell in the background a nice way to handle that is if you have a friend or a supportive family member who can screen those for you half the time there's no need to respond you get bluster if there are facts that are relevant to custody and relevant to the care of the child then you can respond to those so I'm sort of tipping into the next category parenting so let me put that on hold how do I deal with the story twisting narcissist you need to look for the patterns where very often it is a cover it's an attempt to cover and if you've seen the person engage in lies and manipulations with others it's very likely left scope what's going on with you and number one do not isolate yourself when you're trying to get confirmation of the truth of what's going on you need to be telling your story so you can hear from friends so you can hear from supportive people in an online group or a group of friends oh no that was real this is what happened trust me I remember you telling me or trust me I was there you can't confront the story twisting because because again it's if the person is that addicted to feeling special they have to change the story to fit their image of themselves and often they do it reflexively it's they're struck with that fear that they can't articulate we know fear is a big part of this in the research too it's unarticulated unexpressed fear and then out comes the reflexive response reflexive way of coping I have some people who worry that about struggling with narcissism self and I want to speak to that okay I'm going to pause here because I want to go to the aftermath of relationships really I'm breaking this down now into two categories sort of the background questions of relationships and narcissism and what do you do to cope and I've already touched on that a little bit but I think I need to say something about post-traumatic stress disorder and in particular trauma that happens when someone is in a relationship with with an abusive partner often called narcissistic abuse when the person is narcissistic because they tend to engage even more in in behaviors like like gaslighting in an effort to maintain some kind of control it's often called coercive control to you

Channel: Dr. Craig Malkin

Views: 354,376

Rating: 4.8219442 out of 5

Keywords: narcissism, narcissist, relationships, dating, friendship, coping, self-help, narcissistic abuse, abuse, abuse recovery, emotional abuse, craig malkin, Dr. Craig Malkin, narcissistic personality disorder, Rethinking Narcissism, The Narcissist Test, attachment theory, attachment research, extroverted narcissism, introverted narcissism, communal narcissism, dr craig malkin, The Narcissism Spectrum Model, Narcissism Spectrum Model

Id: RFmvhDRqCys

Length: 18min 32sec (1112 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 08 2016