When Narcissists Reason With You Like a Kid

[Music] okay I want you to begin by thinking about some of the engagements that you've had with the narcissus that didn't turn out very well and most of you probably don't have a hard time figuring out where you start on that one right and I want you to ask how many times have you thought to yourself I can't reason with this person I feel like I'm trying to bring an adult mindset and an adult way of thinking to the equation and there's just nothing there on the other side this person operates in a very childlike way there's an immaturity they can throw temper tantrums and they can invalidate and criticize and whine and gripe and and try to make my life miserable kinda like a kid on a playground I can't reason with them well it's very interesting to note that when we're dealing with individuals who have a real strong narcissistic bent one of the words that we don't use to describe them is the word maturity they're in a very immature place or another word for immaturity in this sense can be childlike now with children you hope that there's going to be a certain progression in the way that they engage with the world around them they start out in an egocentric kind of way I mean you've been around two three four five year old little children and it's all about me give me that and I want this and this makes me feel good and it can be cute when you're around kids that way because that's just the way they are but then as they progress you hope that they're going to become more socio centric and by that it's like they see themselves as one part of the greater group and so they learn to factor in other individuals and it becomes the beginning point for empathy they learn to share and they learn to take turns and make sure that they do things with the needs of the other individuals involved and sometimes you have to give little children some very specific lessons but hopefully they pick up on that and then as they age and get deeper into the adolescent years you're hoping that they can add some abstract thinking to the way that they interact with the world in other words they understand the whys and the reasoning and the principles and values or in the scenes narcissus him not to have a whole lot of that Y mentality they tend not to have a real strong socio centric way of living their way back at that egocentric way of thinking that's frankly almost preschool in the way that they do it although some grade school kind of kids do it and sometimes uh adolescents can be eccentric abut you hope that as they grow older it becomes more and more minimized now I'm gonna go through a whole list of things here that we can see that are a part of that childlike ego centrism and and I'm as I'm saying this obviously I want you to see that that is a part of a the personality thing that are the developmental thing that children have to go through but I also want you to see that I'm running some parallels to the way that narcissus lived for example when you have small children that are in that egocentric 'el way they operate with raw impulse they tend not to have a very good filter system now do they little children can have a lot of binary thinking black or white right wrong you're with me you're against me this is correct this is incorrect I can do this I cannot do that your friend your foe and so it's just all very measured out in their in their mind or when when they're going to do something they think well what does the rule say that you can do and cannot do and and they they can be very specific and very gender driven in the way that they learn to think small children don't have a good ability yet to learn how to accommodate other people's feelings or their needs of the moments or their interpretation or their historical references kids don't know how to put that into context and and it's just very difficult for them in addition children have difficulty with mystery or uncertainty or vagueness that it's like I don't know what to do right now they they tend not to have a curiosity as much about who you are I remember a while back I was with the family in the heaven nine-year-old girl and we had met at a restaurant and the nine-year-old girl looked at me and said how was your day today at work nine-year-old kid asked me that about that well not only did I listen well I had a very nice day thank you for asking then she started asking me well tell me what you do at your work and what kind of people do you see I'm thinking what nine-year-old child does this now that is a very unusual situation because we think of nine-year-olds as saying well here's what I did and here's what I want tomorrow they tend not to be real curious about you little children who have that in that egocentric way of living 10 not to have a whole lot of patience do you know a lot of five and six year old kids that are saying yeah take your time I'm good they tend to have a difficulty with things like self-restraint they can have irritability and anger and agitated that can be very disproportionate to the circumstance in front of them let's say you have a seven-year-old child and their nine-year-old sibling and one of them doesn't do with the other ones and they just throw a huge temper tantrum and you think the real somebody just died or somebody broken arm no you took my something or another and now I want it back in silicon they can have anger that's way out of proportion you ever know any adults that think that way now little children can be pacified by instant gratification okay here's a sucker maybe you don't feel better right now or okay okay I'll let you do this just quit yelling any adults think that way that you know of the little children sometimes have difficulty sharing and someone else's joy now many times they can share in a joy if something good happens to someone else like on a team and all they can high-five each other but very often it's like why didn't I get to do that or I want that too and they can have ND children can be even prone towards pouting and fuming and going into shutdown mode now it's fascinating to look and say well yeah when you're four years old or eight years old we can excuse a whole lot of that because that's where you are in your personality development but what if it's a 48 year old person in four of you doing it that way or a CEO of a corporation or a boss at work or someone that you're married to or someone that you grew up with like you know a mom or a dad and they're still operating with this you'll notice certain trends and tendencies that they operate with for example when you have that adult who's still fixated in that childlike position trying to have a conversation with them when feelings clash now healthy people can say tell me what you feel and I'll share with you what I feel but but the the childlike narcissist is over there thinking this isn't fair or I'm going to leave I've taken my marbles and go home or you're being mean to me or I'll show you and they go in to bully mode it's pretty much a childlike way of thinking or many times that narcissist can be driven by greed and envy or in childlike parlance I have to be first in line I want the I want the the chocolate with the sparkles on it you know that kind of thing because and they they just want the the favored treatment and if somebody else gets favored treatment ahead of them it's like they go back to that this isn't fair that's how they think or when you're dealing with that narcissist they are very unwilling to consider nuances you may have a situation and your interpretation of it differs from theirs rather than the Narcis is saying we think differently let's figure out how we arrived at our conclusions tell me about yours I'd like to tell you about mine they can't think that way it's like I don't care about nuances I don't care where you come from and what your unique set of circumstances are it's all about me in the moment just like when you're five years old narcissists have a real strong or a real low sense of we and us it's just about me so understanding that you're dealing with this binary black and white all about me whining and childlike kind of an adult in front of you how are you gonna respond well first it's very important that you know what's in front of you rather than than thinking you know what's going on here why are they doing this well these are people that are emotionally and developmentally stunted and so factor that in as you engage with them and rather than requiring them to have the fuller adult way of reasoning that you want them to have although that would certainly be nice know what you're dealing with and establish your expectations accordingly it's kind of sad to think I'm dealing with a 54 year old person that reasons like a 7 year old but establish your rep and your expectations based on what your facts are rather than what your wishes and dreams might be and then second and this is huge don't get drawn into a counter childlike way of responding now I'm just going to ask you to think how many times have have you been in the presence of that childish narcissist who's throwing the temper tantrums and can't think beyond themselves and you do the same thing in Reverse and you can walk away shaking your head thinking how did I let that happen again it's because you're too much in a in a reactor mode and you're not taking your own healthy initiatives make certain that you have your own separate distinctions that you operate with that are much more adult and so that means that you need to know what you believe you need to know where you're going you need to know who you are and you live according to that rather than letting this childlike adult who's into all of their control and manipulation and exploitation that has more adult connotations rather than letting that person dictate who you're going to be and so absolutely make sure that you don't allow them to establish the the atmosphere that you are going to breathe into so just like when you're dealing with a child make sure that you have good boundaries unfortunately sometimes you have you say to a child if you do a than be happens and then when they quiet and complained you enact B these are my stipulations these are my consequences this is what I stand for hopefully later on you can sit down with them and reason and take them a little bit more to that abstract thinking with adult narcissists they are so not used to being able to do that then you're not going to get there so it means that you have to have your firmness you have to have your adult mentality and unfortunately it also means you're probably going to do more of the work in terms of trying to coordinate life but that's where you are and rather be in that position and over there than that 7 year old style of living adult living our life so understand that when you're dealing with narcissus you're dealing with a lot of that binary child like egocentric whole way of thinking and your task is to make certain that you don't get pulled under and become just like the kids on the playground that just can't get along with each other we're gonna have to put you in timeout you don't want to go into timeout I do hope that you gain good value from videos such as this beneath the video you're gonna see that subscribe button and if you haven't already done so I would invite you to to hit that so that we can keep you apprised to more videos we also have an email list if you sign up for that well you'll actually be a available to have available bonus videos and articles and promotions that we have if you are in need of online counseling and I'll let some of your at places where you don't have people that can counsel with you there in person we have some online possibilities there that you might want to look into there's a link there and then we have my books and online workshops and things of that nature so if you need to avail yourselves to that that's what we're here for all of that being said thank you for letting me be a part of your journey and it's one adult hopefully to another adult we're just going to keep thinking this thing through until we get it right all right okay that having been said I shall see you next time [Music]

Channel: Surviving Narcissism

Views: 93,851

Keywords: Narcissism, Narcissism in relationships, Narcissist Personality disorder, Les Carter, Dr. Les Carter, personality disorders, gaslighting, scapegoating, covert narcissism

Id: PjonrlTu9gI

Length: 12min 59sec (779 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 12 2019