Dealing with a Narcissist: How to Keep Control in the Conversation

well here it is one of the biggest challenges you'll face when it comes to the world of communication how do you talk to a narcissist welcome to the Jefferson Fisher podcast where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything if you enjoy learning tools to improve your communication I'm going to ask you to follow this podcast and please leave a review if you have any questions or topic suggestions just thr them in the comments now on the outside they look totally normal maybe you're related to one maybe you work

with one but a narcissist reveals themselves as soon as they open their mouth now if you don't know exactly what a narcissist is as if you've heard this term a lot but you're not really sure how to define it I'm going to break it down very easy and it is simply somebody who cannot imagine thinking about someone else they can't put themselves in somebody else's shoes it's always about them how great they are how wonderful they are if somebody else is having a good time they need to be having a better time if they're frustrated

they need you more frustrated they understand that it is not empathy that they do it is all about the gratification of oneself and they just can't get there it's always has to be about them they're always the victim and it will always be that way and the best thing about a narcissist typically is they have no problem telling you that they're a narcissist so here are some tools that I'm going to give you the next time that you find yourself talking to a narcissist number one don't play the game anytime you're talking to a narcissist

you are playing a game it's a game I call praise or provoke but at the end we're going to find it's a rigged carnival game it's not something that you can win so we're not going to play it number two anytime that you feel like you don't know what to do understand that the best move you can often make is no move at all and we're going to talk about exactly how to do that and number three rather than getting yourself worked up as if you need to prove to them that they need to see

the wrong of their ways and they need to apologize it's probably never going to happen at least to the extent that you want instead there are ways that you have to look within and understand that you don't need to an apology to to validate your own feelings all right how to talk to a narcissist now I want you to understand for a minute I am no psychologist I'm not a therapist I'm not somebody that has a a degree in this so I'm going to be very clear with you I'm not in a place and diagnose

somebody as a narcissist and unless you really have a the ability to clinically diagnose somebody you have to be very careful when you use that word it's often overused for anybody that's doing something negative that they don't like or maybe they're just not understanding you in a certain way and they're not being willing to understand you it's easy to just throw over a blanket and consider them a narcissist I want you to be very careful about that so that disclaimer out there there are people that are diagnosed as narcissists and there are others that just

have narcissistic Tendencies or behaviors so I want to make sure you understand that distinction I typically see narcissistic behavior in my line of work I see it among attorneys certainly when you have that kind of ego of who's right and who's wrong and who has more cases who's been more successful I see that a lot um but often it's in cross-examination I'm cross-examining somebody let's say they're an expert in something or it's a personality that's on the other side of uh the fence as me in a case and I have to cross-examine them and they're

just never going to admit any kind of blame despite the evidence that suggests otherwise and so the tools that I'm going to be discussing with you today I want you to understand are about as practical as they can be because there is a place that you have to go in your mind to be able to regulate yourself and go to when you know that you are talking to a behavior like this that you have to separate that person from their behavior and understand that what they're doing is a game which is why rule number one

is don't play the game anytime you're talking to a narcissist you are walking into their trap that is a game that they like to play I call it praise or provoke in other words if they don't feel like you're praising them enough if they're not getting enough accolades in the discussion they will turn to provoke they will start an argument with you because they Delight in your frustration just as much as they Delight in your praise and you feel like it's something you can win you feel like when you get into that bad argument that

you can show them the their ways how they're not listening to you how they're not understanding you but they will not do it it is a rigged carnival game because it is that control that they like they feed off of that control have you ever been in a conversation with somebody and you talk well about a third person maybe it's a it's a mutual friend that you have and you're saying something nice about that person The Narcissist will typically go oh well yeah well I've heard about X Y and Z and say something terrible about

this person or they'll say oh yeah well I mean I did this how about me they'll try and focus and put that Spotlight on them narcissists want that Spotlight entirely on them unless they've done something wrong and they'll quickly try and put it on you the key here is understand that this is a game often it is a game it is a um something that they enjoy in the back of their mind and the best thing you can do is not play that game so key number one is recognition recognizing that you are in a

game and you're going to choose to take your pieces off of the board you don't have to play it and that's why rule number two is that the best move you can make is no move at all meaning silence is your best friend often when you're in a conflict with a narcissist and they're saying terrible things you want to push back against it you want to think that you can beat it instead often the best move is to say nothing silence the best thing about it is that it can never be misquoted it can't be

twisted in some sense and and repeated back to you over and over manipulated and stretched into something often you have this urge to say more and say longer things throw in four sentences six sentences of all this reasoning that's logical and reasonable but they don't do that they take those sentences and they string them apart and they'll pick out one word and flip it and all of a sudden they're the ones that look like the victim that's that's the play is they will flip that script to twist it and make it look like they're the

victim they're the ones under attack when you know that's not the truth silence can never be misquoted and if you do anything at all we're going to stay neutral in the conversation when I say neutral I'm meaning you are refraining from saying things that are hurtful because they will lay this trap expecting you hoping that you will say something ugly you will say something disrespectful uh rude in some sense to put them down because that's what they've been doing right they've been throwing these uh arrows and no problem but as soon as you do oh

they like uh woe is me you're the worst person alive and now you're trying to play the comparison game and that's you're going to be out of depth very quickly when you go into that who's more wrong so often when you want to stay neutral in the conversation that means you're going to be saying noted that's good to know okay I hear you you're going to be using these little bitty phrases meaning you're not going to continue to give conversation you're not going to put back in put uh defends back and say well yeah what

if but but what about that's going to just make it worse with a narcissist instead you want to be neutral in that conversation and go okay noted thank you for saying that I understand anything that gives them no ability to grab on to nothing for them to carry on to in the conversation so the more neutral you can be on a just monotone nothing that's engaging in any way nothing that's pressing back on them that's going to going to be a source of strength and number three I want you to understand where you need to

go in your mind when you're communicating with a narcissist there is this tendency that we have within us to make them want to understand our point of view it's very easy to get into this push and pull of oh my gosh they just they're not listening to me they they only think about themselves how can I get them what can I say to to click on the light bulb and make them think about what it's like on my side not going to happen I hate to break it to you but it's not going to happen

they can't they can't do that all right so stop trying stop digging that hole time and time again and and expecting them to fill it it's just going to be an empty hole instead I want you to get to a place in your mind where you think to yourself instead of man they never they only think about themselves where you switch to say it is time that I think about myself and my peace of mind and my source of strength and where I go to the where I draw my strength from who I draw my

strength from because there are friends and people in your life that want to fill you that want to give to you they they want to be part of filling your cup narcissists will only take and they will continue to take and they'll continue to pour out so understand that are givers in relationships and takers in relationships and it's the same way in a conversation so going to that mindset of you're not going to get that apology from them say oh my gosh I'm so sorry you're right I was totally stubborn I was totally ignorant I

was so unreasonable in this I was disrespectful most likely never going to happen so instead understand that you don't need an apology to validate feelings you don't need an apology to feel to feel like it's a bow has been tied on that conversation you can finally finally lay it to rest no you just need to put down the shovel and keep on walking all right okay here is the part that is my favorite I get to answer a question from a follower if you don't know I have a newsletter where I send out a communic

tip once a week right to your inbox and you'll have a there sign up for it if you haven't joined it yet is in the show notes there at the bottom and I get to email people and they ask me questions and I get to respond and I have one right here picked this is my other phone all right let me pull it up this one is from Mary Anne over in North Carolina Jefferson oh my goodness I love your content thank you very much Maryann so I have a situation I am a divorced mother

single mother with two kids uh and my ex-husband is a diagnosed narcissist we have very difficult time communicating and I'm not sure exactly how best to handle the situation I have found certain ways to communicate but everything I do seems to make it worse can you please help me maryan I'm really sorry about that uh that is super difficult but I know that just you asking that question means that you're a good mom all right so I'm going to give you some tools I'm going to put them in the context of what I have seen

work in my world all right because what you're living with I can't relate to that way that's that's not the context environment that I'm in but I know that what I'm going to tell you will help you right it's the same type of of tools narcissists right like we talked about they only think about themselves so often I have to use key phrases that used to work you so somebody's giving me some type of threat in some way some Veiled Threat or trying to instigate something and I know that they're kind of out on a

Ledge with it I will typically respond if you think that's a good look for you if you think that's a good look for you what I'm doing when I say that is I am hinting at the fact that other people are watching see a narcissist is very protective of their reput ation they care a lot about what other people think because they always have to be the best right they always have to be the best the top number one spot uh and so anytime they say something that is kind of on that instigative level and

I say well if you think that's a good look for you often the only choice they have is to pull back because I use that key phrase look for you I gave that keyword you and they're going to take a step back and go okay wait well maybe yeah maybe if I did that other people may not like that so I need to back off of that or I might say something like and you think that's okay and you think that's okay I'm trying to indicate to them that there is a world outside of this

conversation to remind them so that they go oh wait that's that's not going to put me in the best light right now that's not the the smart play I'm going to back off of it cool so maybe you can use some of that another thing to do is try to communicate over text in certain conversations because phone you can't unless you you can record the conversation which I don't want to get into that but if in text at least you have a record of that conversation what has been said and then I would say number

two you try to point out every contradiction that there is maryan meaning let's say something is said 3 weeks ago and you have a record of that well it's now present day and something that they said does not match what they said previously you can easily say this is a contradiction period see how I did that this is a contradiction period you're are inviting them to go what do you mean what are you talking about and then you're going to call their Bluff in that way you're going to use the quotes of the prior conversation

that they had that you keep a record in other words when it's on the phone typically they can say I never said that what are you talking about you're crazy I never I I would never say that and you know good and well that they did right so that's a good way of making sure you have a record of it as as best as you can in many ways and then I would say also you want to make sure that when you are talking to these people uh to in your world when you talk to

that narcissist ex-husband you want to be as neutral as possible just like we talked about so it's a lot of yes got it understood thank you noted evenly as you can because it's not going to escalate that situation it's going to try and be a what they call a gray rock oh and one more thing Maryanne you want to make sure that when you are texting specifically don't go for long texts don't do that don't send paragraphs don't send pages I I would keep it to a Max of one sentence because the longer you give

somebody an explanation they're not going to respond to the whole thing narcissist will pick out like one word or one sentence or one little part of the the U text and flip it and then that's what they'll respond to and you're going what do you that's not even all what I was talking about I'm making the point of X you made it too long so a word of caution is avoid the long texts you just want to keep it short and sweet few words maybe just three words if you can and then that way there's

just not anything for them to draw on and they're not going to be able to lay any kind of trap for you if you enjoyed today's episode on how to talk to a narcissist I'm going to ask you to please follow this podcast and if you would leave or riew this podcast is up wherever you listen to your podcast whether it's on Amazon Spotify apple and it would mean a lot to me if you leave any kind of star or review even if it's a topic suggestion or any kind of feedback at all I personally

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