These 4 things make YOU vulnerable to narcissists

now we know that narcissistic people operate as vampires and instead of blood they suck out empathy right and as a result they are naturally drawn to empathic people because they can suck them dry and the empathic person will rarely step away talk about this vulnerability that some people have that can really make it risky for them that they're going to fall into a narcissistic relationship and what I'm about to tell you're going to say lady everyone feels this way not as much as you might think the vulnerability I'm talking about is people for whom it's very important and they very much want to be wanted and you're like Dr Ramen are you crazy everybody wants to be wanted to appoint to a point where this becomes a vulnerability is when that desire that want to be wanted is such a powerful draw that it runs the risk of blinding a person to the other things that are happening early in a relationship so let me tell you what I mean by this the this sense of almost having too much of a desire or a want to be wanted a desire to be desired as it were can be very powerful for people who may not have always gotten consistent regard as kids or alternatively kids who almost got too much regard as kids but what's more more common is people who didn't get that consistently as a kid so they would soak up those moments when they were the focus the focus of attention of wanting to be wanted of wanting to be seen those singular moments maybe it was their birthday maybe it was when they Maybe sang in a school play maybe it was when they were doing something that was their parents were so proud of they hold on to those moments as though they're so precious and they internalize them and as adults they want to feel that magic that moment when they felt so wanted that can drive into adulthood almost too much of a need too much of a want to be wanted or desired so when it finally comes to a person it makes it harder for them to notice red flags desire is an incredibly powerful thing and when we know we're desired when somebody's eyes on us make us feel desired somebody's attention on us make us feel desired it is incredibly incredibly seductive and I don't just mean in an intimate relationship I also mean potentially in a professional relationship when somebody thinks you're so amazing and they're like oh my gosh you're the smartest person I've ever met or you're the most creative person I've ever met or this is the coolest work I've ever seen we're often like wow this is amazing it's like being reborn it's going back to that childhood wound of so desperately wanting to be seen sometimes it can even happen in other relationships like friendships somebody's like wow you're so amazing you know how to do X or Y better than anyone I've never met anyone like you and they're so dazzled by you we want to Dazzle people it can be really really overwhelming but what gets tricky and what I've seen happen time and time again that that that that absolutely seductive draw to wanting to be desired to wanting to be wanted to wanting to almost be pedestalized as I put it like sort of put up on a pedestal can really really give us a sort of interesting form of psychological tunnel vision when we feel so overwhelmingly wanted or desired by someone it is in some ways like a fantasy it's an ancient fantasy the child who desperately wanted to be seen but it's also an adult fantasy who doesn't want that moment of someone looking at them and feeling like they they the other person believes they just hung the moon or they're just the most beautiful thing they've ever seen we want those moments and the fact of the matter is it's very healthy there's nothing more beautiful than being in love with someone and they look at you they don't see anyone else it's actually really quite beautiful when you work with someone and you're so vibing with each other that like it's almost like the two of you just completely focused on this goal together and they see all your gifts it's amazing the key though when you're in that beautiful moment is to keep your wits about you don't get so caught up in it that you're not also critically discerning the other things going on around you maybe a classical example of this a more simple example could be a heavy sales pitch right you go into a place and a person's chit chatting with you and you're talking to them and they're saying wow like you're really cool like you know a lot about this but at the end of the day they're trying to sell you something I actually recently bought a car you remember that car thing I did actually finally do it and because there was no haggling over the price the salesperson was still trying to win me over and I was able to look kind of look at him with a twinkle in my eye and say I'm buying the car we're good you know no need to blow smoke anymore so I think part of it is when we're getting that full court press when that that sort of heavy wow you're so amazing is happening that we are able to keep our humility and our wits about us so we can pay attention to what else is going on in that moment you're trying to sell me a car what else are you trying to sell me at this moment it's a little bit cynical what I'm suggesting but you do need to sort of lift the hood and look at what's under it what's really going on I have worked with countless numbers of clients when we do sort of the post-mortem they're in the worst I mean the narcissistic abuse is through the roof which is why they've attempted to set up an appointment and pay the money and all of that but I do the postmortem when we go back to the very beginning and time and time again what many people have told me is that they even thought this person wasn't perfect and they was like no it wasn't even really attracted to them but boy were they into me and it was the fact that that narcissist was originally so into them that almost blinded them in fact they'll even admit it they're like they weren't even all that but how into me they were is what turned my head and then because they were so into them because in some ways it was addressing that childhood wound wanting to be wanted wanting to be seen they would start excusing a lot of the behavior a very common rookie mistake and I have to say this is gendered I've seen more young women make this mistake than young men but a rookie mistake is when you're in a relatively new relationship and that person is So Into You but they're also a little jealous curious about exes wondering about other people noticing you and they rationalize it is I am just so into you like I can't even see straight you're so amazing the idea that these other people like I don't want someone else to snap you away from me this is beyond a red flag like this is a red banner these people who are so good at wanting people too much it's part of Love's bombing that it's easy for that to get sort of turned into I'm So Into You that I can't imagine sharing you I can't imagine losing you I can't imagine I don't even know I don't I'm not even comfortable with other people noticing you it can feel seductive a couple years later you realize it was the opening shot on somebody being really really controlling when somebody almost over desires you over wants you it almost seems like they want to entirely possess you even though it can feel like a fantasy it's often a sign of some other slightly more dangerous signs like possessiveness like relationship control like I said it's often part of the love bombing phase that they're trying to win you over but that over Desiring you in the love bombing phase will very quickly turn into control your vulnerability in this is when it's important for you to want to be wanted listen I would love for people to sit in front of me say you're a genius and you're so smart and you know so much about narcissism there's lots of other people who know a lot too and it's important for me to know I know what I know I respect what other people know I thank goodness that all of us are out here trying to educate people to help them and keep them from more harm but you got to catch yourself because if you don't catch yourself that's when you can get lured by the charms of narcissistic people who may be trying to take your money trying to take your heart or trying to take your sanity you have to go backwards and think about what was it about my own story that makes it so powerful to want to be wanted think back to maybe it was a pretty those rare few opportunities in childhood when you were seen and you were hurt it can make you very vulnerable as an adult almost starving for those experiences again it's perfectly appropriate to want to be seen in fact it's healthy and everybody deserves it the key is to notice if it's so overwhelming that you're not paying attention to the other things that might be happening in the early phases of a relationship whether it's somebody that's trying to Snooker you into taking a job that's going to underpay you but they're telling you you're all that so you're willing to take the bad deal somebody who's trying to win you over in a relationship and they tell you you've hung the moon you're the most Exquisite Celestial beautiful creature they've ever seen and so you stop noticing things like the control the possessiveness the jealousy or the rage whatever it may be when that person tries to draw you in you've got to pay attention to your own vulnerabilities for people out there who have that vulnerability who's so so so want that person to be so so in their face I love you the most amazing thing in the world and feel like that's important to them it's often a sign that maybe seeking out therapy wouldn't be a bad idea just to see where that wound comes from where that want comes from and then finding healthy ways to get it being in relationships where it's reciprocal someone sees you you're wonderful you see that they're wonderful but in a healthy way you can keep the eyes in front and in back of your head aware to make sure that you're not getting lured in on an early wound but rather because this person sees you accurately isn't trying to control you isn't trying to manipulate you isn't trying to overpower you but rather truly looks inside of you and sees your beauty inside and out and sees your worth inside and out but here's the thing ultimately it has to start with you if you are able to be self-possessed of your strengths your wonder your goodness and also be self-possessed of the things you don't know and be able to see yourself in a whole way you're going to be less vulnerable to someone Sweeping in and overwhelming you and filling in that hole of wanting to be so overwhelmingly desired many of the clients I've worked with who got into narcissistic relationships that were characterized by heavy levels of control where are you going who are you seeing who are you talking to whose picture you're liking who is that you were hitting up on Instagram there are that ongoing control often start from this place of a person who desperately just wanted to be really really wanted and that narcissist swept in overwhelmed them really desired them and then their signals got confused and they couldn't see how much of that overwhelming desire also coupled with control much of how we bring people into our lives is really about self-awareness and self-awareness is not just about knowing our strengths and weaknesses but also understanding our stories understanding the things that bring us to this point in time when we understand that and we understand our vulnerabilities because we've all got them those proverbial Achilles heels those are the places where people can get in and really take advantage of us for some people that deep deep primitive drive just to be seen just to be desired and to be wanted can be one of those vulnerabilities and it's one of those places that when a narcissist gets in can rather quickly turn into control manipulation and coercion pay attention many times learning our own vulnerabilities and blind spots are an important way to keep us protected safe and good Gatekeepers so we don't let the narcissist in when I talk about forgiveness and then we think about it in line with narcissistic abuse and what happens to people in emotionally abusive relationships when we're talking about it in terms of forgiveness is a really fraught area and a difficult area I've been very clear with all of you about it and my thinking I do believe forgiveness is a very personal journey and I also believe forgiveness is not required I think you can heal from narcissistic abuse without forgiving and I think it's this is especially important if you're going to have to have ongoing contact with the narcissist remember for people with narcissistic personalities they take forgiveness and they don't view it as a gift they view it as permission to just keep Behaving Badly because they're like I'm going to get away with it now there's this other person is going to forgive me they continue behaving in an egocentric manner they keep doing seeking out validation and being manipulative and doing all kinds of egocentric things and lacking empathy and then they apologize later and you forgive or if you're with a really malignant toxic narcissist they don't apologize they will just blame you and somehow rationalize what they did and then they'll just do it again in some different form it can be Soul destroying to keep forgiving someone to have them and then you forgive them and they keep repeating their transgressions it truly is that proverbial seventh circle of hell but I was recently witness to some stories that Rapture told to me in my sort of my friendship life and some experiences that reinforce for me one more time and highlighted why when you forgive narcissists too quickly not only does it really demoralize you because you're continually abused from being in this narcissistic relationship despite forgiving them but I see now it places you at risk for letting more narcissists into your life so let's start by revisiting this idea of cognitive dissonance I've talked about it many times cognitive dissonance is the idea that we cannot keep two contradictory ideas in our minds at the same time easily we can but it's not easy so we often justify something that is wrong or doesn't fit so we can get comfortable it all goes back to that original Aesop's Fable remember the fox and the sour grapes right cognitive dissonance is why people get stuck in narcissistic relationships they justify the bad behavior of the narcissist over and over again so they can keep the relationship going but it goes One Step farther people not just survivors of narcissistic abuse but people in general they do not like to be disillusioned they don't we too many people out there want to believe family is good and we should be loyal to our families and love is great and married is great and being married is better than single and love can rescue everything and it's just loyal good great we don't want those lifetime beliefs to be penetrated and this is a big reason for why many people forgive so they can maintain their illusion and sometimes delusion of a happy family or a loving parent or growing old with someone and then for a minute it may even be good right you forgive and things are good and then boom you're right back where you started then the narcissist is toxic again the rubber band goes back to its original size and they start Behaving Badly again obviously it is not good for you to be caught in the revolving door that is a narcissistic relationship but also a problem the sort of forgiving The Narcissist thing is a problem for another reason when you keep forgiving the toxic people in your midst at some level you have to keep yourself blind right you have to forget that you've already forgiven them in the past before and they keep doing the same thing to you they keep saying the same invalidating stuff they keep gaslighting you they keep lying they keep doing whatever cruel thing it is that they do right you gotta forget some of that and be blind to that because really to keep forgiving under those circumstances and then to make things even worse by you being the forgiving saintly martyr all the time lots of people tell you how great you are oh you're so strong you're so forgiving why because your forgiveness lets them also keep up their little Illusions and delusions of happy families and people can change you get to keep that up because you're being such a nice forgiver and because being viewed as a saintly person is kind of nice but being viewed as that saintly person is only going to work if you stay blind and you stay blind to their patterns and you keep forgiving them that unseeingness that not seeing the narcissist patterns is dangerous in a world full of narcissists because when you keep forgiving and keep believing in change and keep and believe it's all going to be okay when they say I'm gonna change that that unseeingness that unwilling to see you also get blocked in seeing the new narcissists that come along okay and these can be new friends or co-workers or extended family and you can't see all these narcissists in your world because you're putting so much damned effort into forgiveness time that you don't get to develop the muscle the much more uncomfortable muscle to develop that forces you to stop and say like this isn't cool the way this person's treating me or I'm not going to spend any more time with this person no no no by forgiving the narcissistic people around you repeatedly you actually run the risk of becoming a world-class enabler and once you leave that door open it's like flies more come in the door right and lots more narcissists will come in I see this happen all the time I've actually had people tell me you I'm I'm sort of mean or dismissive or unkind because I'm not giving people another chance or I'm not being fair to the narcissist or that I'm just a sort of an awful dark person for saying to walk away I get that a lot and inevitably those messages are coming from the forgivers these are the people who keep letting more and more and more toxic people in and make excuses for them as well I'm sure some of those messages are also coming from The Narcissist but really from those people who don't want to see it listen when two healthy people are involved in a relationship the fact is none of us are perfect none of us and forgiveness is a Divine and Rich Human Experience I believe in forgiveness when there's two healthy people involved but when a narcissist is involved forgiveness is simply going to perpetuate the abuse so now if you're able to go full on no contact with a narcissist from your world and the narcissist can no longer get access to you then perhaps perhaps you might be able to make forgiveness work for you because they're gone they have no ideally no more impact on your life except for the wounds you still carry but if they are still in your life and you forgive not only is that narcissistic person going to slip and continually keep doing what they do and hurting you but you're just going to keep letting more narcissists in the door I am always struck by how many people will tell me that they are on their third marriage to a narcissist or they're they're a fourth partner who was a narcissist or who have multiple friends like this and I wonder are they part of this whole forgiveness Brigade that is out there because otherwise after this happens to you once you'd like to think you'd never want it again I'm not going to sit here and tell you whether or not you want to forgive that is your personal decision I can only tell you what the experience of forgiveness is going to look like with a narcissist but I can also tell you that forgiveness will place you at risk not only for ongoing harm from The Narcissist already in your life but for letting more and more people with these kinds of personalities in the door and the more difficult people you were exposed to the greater the toll will be on your mental and physical health so keep in mind that you do you you forgive and narcissists all you want but it carries risks and even risks you didn't consider not just ongoing the ongoing Shenanigans of the narcissist you know but sadly introducing a lot more narcissists in your life that you didn't know and and not being able to accurately identify the people already in your life who have difficult personalities I consider it a win when somebody really does the Deep dive on narcissistic abuse in their life they're willing to identify it set appropriate boundaries and then they're like holy cow this is my sister this is one of my close friends this is my this is my colleague I always wondered why these relationships were exhausting these are really painful reckonings when you open your eyes and you recognize that perhaps all that forgiving you were doing was letting a lot of people in your life get away with a lot of harm on yours well I was recently doing an interview I was being interviewed by a therapist some of you may have heard of named Terry real and in our conversation he reminded me of something I had learned about long ago the concept of empathic reversal a concept that has been discussed in the family therapy and Trauma literature but this concept of empathic reversal actually has a lot of bearing on understanding what happens to you in a narcissistic relationship as well so I think it's really important for us to talk about it on this channel empathic reversal sort of manifests is when a person who has had suffered trauma or even narcissistic abuse earlier in life they will be they will give a lot of empathy out to other people but give themselves almost no empathy so lots out none to themselves right so what does that look like people who are caught an empathic reversal will over empathize with other people be over concerned with how other people are feeling check in on whether other people are doing okay they will tend to them and they'll do this empathizing almost to a point of exhaustion but show no empathy to themselves now we know that narcissistic people operate as vampires and instead of blood they suck out empathy right and as a result they are naturally drawn to empathic people because they can suck them dry and the empathic person will rarely step away now since for so many survivors of narcissistic abuse it is a lifelong issue that started in childhood let's start by talking about this from childhood the child of a narcissistic parent doesn't have much of a choice but to attempt to forge some kind of alliance with their narcissistic parent no matter how distorted this Alliance may be for no other reason than for the child to protect themselves and get their attachment needs met the child then will disproportionately pay their empathy forward to the parent try to be good helpful attentive to the parent aware of the parent pleasing the parent and at the same time be very unempathic to themselves one the child themselves wondering what am I doing wrong maybe I'm not a good kid blaming themselves this sets that reversal precedent of lots of empathy out but almost no empathy back into the self being empathic to yourself when you are in a narcissistic relationship especially as a child is almost incompatible to the empathy demands that these relationships have empathy isn't modeled for the child nor and it's also not safe it's unsafe for the child to be empathic to themselves the parent will stop that then that child grows up and the empathic reversals persist the empathic reversal is always a problem because the person is always giving a disproportionate amount of their emotional bandwidth to other people but if the empathically Reversed good person encounters a good person a kind person then that good and kind person then they might be more likely to have the experience of that good kind person stepping in and offering some care and empathy back because left to their own devices that empathically reversed person is only going to put the empathy out but alas those empathically reversed people out there often end up in the crosshairs of the narcissists people who have this tendency towards empathic reversal they give and they give and the narcissist takes and takes and because healing only happens when a person is kind to themselves this model of empathic reversal all but guarantees that healing will be slowed and blocked since a person is giving all of their empathy away and have none for themselves which is essential for healing the destruction that is part of the narcissistic relationship is observed in their willingness to take all the empathy being offered and not only not offer any back but the people they most often prey on will not only not have empathy for themselves but the narcissistic person won't encourage them to have empathy for themselves people who have this empathic reversal will find it uncomfortable to have empathy for themselves they won't feel comfortable setting boundaries or saying no they will sacrifice what they need for the other person because it literally feels more natural so the work for the person who is prone to empathic reversal is to start slowly getting comfortable with flipping the Paradigm and tolerating what it is like to address their own needs the concept of the empathic reversal helps us understand the empath narcissist Dynamic so much better it's not as simple as the narcissist having some sort of homing device that allows them to prey on empaths but rather it is the narcissist's willingness to play on this empathic reversal mechanism The Narcissist needs get met and the other person expects nothing and give themselves not and give themselves nothing and the narcissist loves that right so pay attention to this Dynamic think about whether you find it naturally easier to give to others and if you actually might even feel safer when you're the one putting the empathy out rather than having to be empathic to yourself because if that is easier it also stands to reason that you may simply get more naturally pulled into narcissistic relationships so while this empathic reversal is a natural extension of what happens when you have early life trauma or narcissistic relationships it it's so crucial to address it we tend to glorify the people out there who are all give and no take but that's actually a really bad precedent because it's a setup for being preyed on by narcissists all healthy things are about balance and how you hand out empathy that needs to be about balance too lots of us see ourselves as loyal it's a virtuous State a healthy State I would argue it's something we value in people as equality more than almost any other quality we value loyalty now of course just because someone says that they are loyal doesn't mean that they are some people who claim to be loyal are anything but and will Proclaim and sell folks on their loyalty while simultaneously stabbing people in the back pretty regularly narcissistic people in particular love to consider themselves as loyal virtuous morally upright how they even think of themselves as empathic right so that's how much Distortion and almost the sort of strange delusionality there can be with this personality style but this video isn't about them we already know that in general narcissistic people are disloyal but what does loyalty mean to you for most of us it's about honoring our word standing by people we care about especially at a difficult time standing up for something or someone we believe in following through sticking to a moral code keeping promises all stuff we would agree is loyalty and generally this stuff is these are our behaviors right the way we show up relates to loyalty but what about thoughts can thoughts be disloyal give you a simple example anyone in a relationship might have experienced this simple example might be noticing someone attractive and wondering what it might be like to have a physical dalliance with them and you're in a relationship with someone else you don't do it you don't even communicate about it you just fantasize about it is that disloyal so that takes us to where a lot of survivors of narcissistic abuse get stuck which is the thought that if you think someone who is close to you someone you're supposed to carry a care about or love a parent a spouse a or a partner or an adult child a really dear friend if you have the thought that they're narcissistic or that they're abusive or that they're never going to change or that they're always going to be a toxic person is that disloyal I'm struck by the number of people who believe a thought with no action thought can be disloyal and that right there becomes a real stumbling block to Healing what happens is that folks maybe even you may stumble onto a YouTube channel like this or to an Instagram page or to a book and think yikes I'm reading this I'm listening to this I'm watching this oh dear old dad or my wife or my son whoever it is that he may be narcissistic there are all these things they're awful in their behavior they're doing all this stuff this person's talking about every so often the relationship's okay but generally they say and do things that have consistently hurt me and it keeps happening and nothing I've ever done or said works with them so you have that thought maybe they're narcissistic and then people will think oh no no I'm the bad one I am a piece of for thinking that how can I have so little faith in someone I am supposed to love maybe I'm the bad-hearted one maybe I'm the narcissist maybe I'm the rotten person now this is especially bad when it's you're having these thoughts about family of origin a parent or a sibling you're told you're supposed to love them and when you think this bad thought a lot of people will feel guilty and they'll either pivot and blame themselves for being so bad as to think my mom's narcissistic or they go back into denial or pull out a million justifications like they can't be narcissistic they sent me a text on my birthday that sort of thing now I get it I understand how people can go there and this is not easy I thought about this a lot during the holidays when I do know quite a few narcissistic folks and I had some decent moments with some of the narcissistic folks in my life and I tried to receive it as a sunny day to be my best self with them but then when it went South again and it always did I knew I was right that they were narcissistic or narcissistic but it didn't mean I have to be fists up all the time the radical acceptance is a way to allow us to remain Serene enough in the face of their narcissism coming up again but I also double down on being my best Romney the best I could with no expectations of reciprocity or that they would do right even if I did right I didn't have to lose myself but I also did have moments where I did wonder maybe I'm a those moments would typically fade pretty fast when their behavior proved me wrong and they would do something narcissistic again but even then I'd have that moment of like maybe you're getting lost in all your narcissism stuff from me I personally and as a shrink don't believe that thoughts are disloyal I think thoughts are a place where we can process stuff create working models to help us make sense of the world we can try out a thought and it may then connect to a Feeling by Framing the narcissistic people in our lives by Framing their toxic behaviors unacceptable and recognizing sadly that it is part of a personality that is who they are and isn't going to change it may bring up grief but it also allows us to maintain realistic expectations then we can dig deeper into our authentic cells despite being in the presence of behavior that is not good for us we can show up as a good version of ourselves for ourselves and not because we think it will change them it's a process but this loyalty barrier can really block people from getting to radical acceptance and then subsequently healing it's okay to have the thought that a parent's Behavior disgusts you or that a sibling is horrifying to listen to or that you wish you never had to spend another minute with a narcissistic family member or that you hope that your narcissistic adult child moves away and falls out of touch okay it doesn't make you disloyal to have these thoughts and makes you human and frankly honest and aware being honest with yourself is a key first step to healing and having a Feeling or having an experience within you doesn't make you disloyal anyone who wants to know more about healing we break out on these topics a lot more than this go check out the link in the in the video notes until then remember your thoughts for your thoughts a place to try new stuff out that doesn't affect anyone else when it jumps the lines into Behavior it's a different conversation thanks again

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 298,853

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Id: zoWxBHWFwec

Length: 38min 46sec (2326 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 22 2023