What is "narcissistic amnesia"? (Glossary of Narcissistic Relationships)

hi everyone its dr. Romani and believe it or not it's one more episode for the glossary series the series that's never going to die what's amazing is that more and more people are reaching out to me with suggestions and in it and additionally I'm coming up with more and more stuff as I as I am always doing research and reading about this so as the terms come up we'll keep adding them this glossary as many of you know is really a way to just sort of create understanding about the terms that are relevant to understanding narcissism and narcissistic relationships and also highlighting terms you may have never heard before but might give you a greater understanding today we're gonna take on the term narcissistic amnesia but before we get to that I'm always going to ask you please consider subscribing to this channel hit the button that says subscribe and if you want notifications each time we post a new video please hit the bell so what is narcissistic amnesia so this term narcissistic amnesia there's variations on this particular term arose when I was reading different pieces of research and theoretical work about narcissism and narcissistic abuse other sources have termed this abuse amnesia but I really do think this sort of kind of amnesia we observe in narcissism takes in more territory than just forgetting about how they've abused you in the past amnesia refers to memory loss of any kind in the case of narcissistic amnesia it comes down to how they conveniently forget things they have said and that they've done but they are very selective about what they forget they conveniently forget about the bad stuff that they've done now ironically the flip side of narcissistic amnesia is narcissistic grandiosely extraordinary memory because they have an uncanny ability to remember the few good things that they have done for you with the press of a supercomputer but let's take on the abuse amnesia or the narcissistic amnesia piece of this what does this look like because as soon as I start giving you these examples you're gonna know exactly what I mean they forget the really icky things that they're responsible for and these are the kinds of things that might happen in a close intimate relationship things like the one-night stand they had when you guys were engaged but you still marry them or the weird micro cheating emotional affair they had with a co-worker that was actually quite scandalous or the time they got drunk at your work event and behaved badly in front of your boss which actually kind of hurt you in your job now this kind of abuse amnesia this narcissistic amnesia can also happen with parents if it's your parent it could be the time they forgot to come to an important event for you or they chose to go to their own party on a night when you were very thick and a little bit scared or humiliating you in front of a new wife or your new boyfriend or your new husband or your new girlfriend or lying to you about an important family matter they forget narcissists in general forget the things that make them look bad they forget the things they did that raised the possibility that perhaps they're just not a very nice person and because narcissistic individuals are so insecure they do not allow themselves to integrate anything into their inner world that chips away of that precious portrait of them as anything but that grandiose and charitable Superman or superwoman they really wish that they were and are delusional enough to believe that at some level they are and in that way narcissistic amnesia is very protective for them if they conveniently forget it then they do not have to struggle with the parts of themselves that make them uncomfortable the parts of themselves that do bad things now listen we all screw up but we also and we uncomfortably remember the screw-ups and we own up to them and we cringe when we remember them and ideally we don't do them again narcissistic amnesia is a form of gaslighting their unwillingness or their inability to recall their bad behavior really does undercut your reality now the million-dollar question of course does the Darcis system really not remember that bad thing they do now since no one's ever really systematically done the research on this it's actually hard to know all we know is that they will often deny the bad things they do claim to not recall the bad things they do and when they're shown evidence of these bad things if evidence even exists they might cop to it but in that hazy way that someone in a soap opera who's lost their memory would do like oh yes now I remember it was so long ago and I just forgot about it it's not that important it was so long ago to hear that feels absolutely awful because that memory of that very real transgression of that bad behavior was often very devastating for you and it may have even been a turning point in the relationship or even in your life for you a massive red flag a point when you considered pulling the plug ending the relationship going no contact or may have felt so depressed or anxious you just didn't know what to do there rather convenient amnesia in some ways is an invalidation of your experience and it can leave you feeling as though the two of you weren't even in the same relationship honestly in some ways you weren't because narcissistic amnesia can really impact you in the same way as gaslighting it is obviously very destabilizing the other challenge that's raised by narcissistic amnesia is when you attempt to talk about these forgotten events for them when you try to bring them back up you may be written off Petie as somebody who keeps dwelling in the past as somebody who's unable to ever let go they use their convenient memory loss to paint you in an unflattering and invalidating manner it can make raising these issues even more difficult and you may find yourself ruminating questioning and obsessing over these past episodes and since the narcissist claims to have forgotten these past episodes you are left holding the bag and wondering if it even ever happened you start to look like one of those people in those UFO movies the only one who saw the UFO but the government claims there's no record and no picture you know how that goes you're the only one who saw it right those those poor people in those movies end up sort of losing their minds now narcissistic amnesia is also very problematic because since the narcissists forget their past actions forget their past actions their amnesia then means that they cannot learn from these behaviors and change their patterns when the rest of us do something bad as much as we may not want to we do remember and then hopefully we try not to do these things again but if you have forgotten you did something and then you have no memory of it it's not going to result in change and as such narcissistic individuals keep making the mistake and it's as they bully look at it it's like it's like the first time they ever did it and before long you are living in Groundhog Day they keep mistake they keep making mistakes and doing bad things they keep forgetting them and they keep repeating them now what is really galling is that this narcissistic amnesia is definitely selective amnesia like I said they remember the few times that they did something good you know that time they drove you to the airport or that time they did wait in the emergency room with you or that they took your parents on a vacation they remember those things forever and ever and they parade out those memories of the good things they did forever and ever they wear it like a big superficial and grandiose show of what a great person they are and they need to do that remember that insecurity they have is why they are always validation seeking and preening and polishing their trophies and needing people to tell them they're great and prop up their fragile egos that's why they remember their good stuff their minds are true like a trophy case for the few good things they did god forbid they had to store all the bad ones now in real amnesia people would forget just about everything some people mmm Nisha forget very old stuff from earlier in their life some people them need you forget recent memory but they do not engage in cherry-picking amnesia amnesia you clear out the the internal hard drive the narcissistic amnesia just like gas lading can not only leave you feeling like you are the one who is losing your own memory but it can also play on a sense of guilt which is a common dynamic in these relationships you can feel like a bit of a negative Nelly kind of holding on to these painful stories and memories that the narcissist sort of blithely forgets but that those were watershed important moments for you and then you just get tired of only talking about all those good times when they were so peppered by so many really abusive ones now over time the narcissists amnesia not only leaves you confused and upside down as well as doubting yourself but it also leaves you feeling isolated because entire swathes of your relationship are missing you remember them the narcissist does not this process happens gradually the first few times they say they don't remember something you may make excuses for them maybe he really didn't remember it maybe I am remembering it wrong ah no one remembers everything they do or say and then over time you feel as though you have stepped into the twilight zone now I recognize that some of you watching this may have witnessed family members or other loved ones who have experienced dementia or the memory loss that is often here due to aging as well as specific dementia like Alzheimer's disease or associated with any number of disease processes and if you have also witnessed narcissistic amnesia then you know the difference between the two in true dementia where amnesia is a central part of it the brains memory systems are failing or have become damaged due to a stroke or other deteriorate deteriorate of process that's due to aging or an illness head injury or dementing processes like I spoke about like Alzheimer's disease or even things like I'll call it a frontotemporal dementia in which specific brain areas and functions are lost people with dementia may also lose memory for prior events from a long time ago or recent events things that they just did today or have other kinds of changes such as behavioral changes or even personality changes but in dementia and the amnesia associated with dementia it tends to be all encompassing and while their memory may come in and out it may be better in the morning it may be worse in the evening this this pattern of amnesia associate with dementia overtakes a life it makes getting through the days for them much much more difficult at times even dangerous and it can be very very painful to witness because you can see the struggle on your dear ones face on this person who's close to you and watching them have this now trust me this is not what narcissistic amnesia looks like in narcissistic amnesia is a process in which the person looks just fine most of the time and then when it is convenient for them they forget the abuse they forget the abuse they put on you they forgot how badly they treated you they forget what would make them look bad while you would feel tremendous compassion for a person living with dementia or other forms of organic memory loss you do not feel compassion for the person who is manifesting narcissistic amnesia instead what you may be feeling is anger confusion or anxiety and none of these are good feelings and they're certainly not compassionate the abuse amnesia of a narcissist can be galling when it is your parent and this plays out most horrific alee when the amnesia is for bigger-ticket abuse such as physical or sexual abuse I suppose it could be argued whether it is their pseudo amnesia or whether it's denial either way whether they don't remember critical events that harms you or they they sort of kind of forget the many cool and invalidating things they said or did during your childhood not only did it shape a confusing and painful childhood riddled with invalidation and self-doubt but this becomes a legacy you take into adulthood your parent may very well still claim to not remember any of the abuse of events that may have happened in your childhood which further invalidate your experience and frankly really does a number on your mental health as you try to piece together your own history in the name of simply just wanting to have some self understanding and the person the other person your parent who holds the other puzzle pieces isn't willing open willing to open up about them I actually do believe that narcissistic in a narcissistic amnesia that a parent would engage in over the course of a lifetime is the most destabilizing form of narcissistic amnesia because it shapes who you are and it steals important pieces of your history that if those weren't stolen it would have made it a lot easier for you to move forward and let go abuse amnesia is something we witness in all forms of narcissistic relationships and narcissistic abuse even in the workplace a narcissistic boss or a toxic colleague may forget a past difficult experience and that difficult experience might be because they were horribly disorganized or lost important files or just engage in other bad behavior which sets you up to repeat that cycle again and again in the workplace and it is the repeated cycles that is the problem Santayana said those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it and right there is the problem by them not remembering their abuse they often just keep perpetrating the same errors and the same abusive behavior and then conveniently forget it and do it again narcissistic amnesia or again or abuse amnesia call it what you will our key pillars of how narcissistic abuse is inflicted on another person it feels like a combination of gas lighting and denial and can be as confusing and angering as both of those if not more so in the face of it as is the case in all narcissistic relationships in order to survive you need to hold tight onto your reality and memories and the narcissists forgetting anything cannot be an eraser to your own experiences their abuse amnesia may work out real well for them but it is not good for you and for any of you who have had this experience of the narcissist in your life just sort of forgetting just forgetting and then when you do finally put it in front of them or have evidence of it and then they kind of hit you with gosh you are a petty person just always bringing up the past you know how this cycle plays out it's a real thing it's a real part of narcissistic abuse and it is the kind of thing as part of your healing to at least understand this phenomenon so that when it happened - you know it's not your brain that's not working well it's the difficult situation you find yourself in I hope this was helpful and makes this idea of narcissistic amnesia or abuse amnesia a little bit more clear to you if you're enjoying this content as always please join this channel hit the subscribe button hit the bell if you want notifications on new content and again if you have other ideas for this glossary series we'd love to hear them and as always we'll keep bringing you as much content as we can about all things Darcis ism by

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 321,648

Keywords: yt:cc=on

Id: J_6DD35aVCk

Length: 18min 20sec (1100 seconds)

Published: Wed May 13 2020