If You HEAR THIS, That's A Narcissist Trying To TRAP You! (Don't Argue Or Fight) | Dr. Ramani

there are these archetypes and types of narcissism and I think it's worthwhile to go through some of them and you've outlined them in your book and written about it previously can you walk us through those yeah so the most classical form of narcissism that we most often think about is grandiose narcissism and the grandiose narcissistic person is it's almost like our armchair textbook definition arrogant pretentious preing look at me status oriented really cares about appearances interestingly of all the types of narcissism grandiose narcissistic folks kind of have the best outcomes believe it or not because

they're not as victimized like as long as things are going generally the way the grandiose narcissist wants I'm not saying it's a healthy relationship I mean we're we're talking about really like matters of like you know what's the the best worst disease to get kind of thing here right so it's it's really a matter of though the grandio narcissistic person really cares about appearances they're very very forward- facing right so that's the grandiose narcissist and that typically even in the DSM and other diagnostic spaces that formulation of narcissism is what we've classically focused on however

especially in the last 10 years there's been more focus on what's called vulnerable narcissism which to me is probably the most important evolution in this conversation the vulnerable narcissistic person is the one we often miss because they're not quite as Charming charismatic shiny compelling these are folks who are sullen petulant resentful victimized passive aggressive they are angry at everyone in the world they feel like everyone has gotten more than them why me wo was me Witch Hunt everyone's out to get me and so and and also vulnerable narcissistic people may be more sad they may

be more socially anxious so to somebody looking from the outside in they'll actually say this person is not narcissistic they're kind of not well put together actually and they often sort of pull for being rescued right so a lot of people will get caught up in trying to help them let me give them an opportunity let them give me a let me give them a couch to sleep on let me give them let me borrow them let me loan them some money let let me help them and then it becomes like this literally a Vortex

a black hole to which you could just keep putting more and more and it's never enough and they sort of remain Frozen in time and space no matter how much resource time support encouragement you give them that's the vulnerable narcissist now grandio and vulnerable narcissism are sort of like these kind of um these these complimentary structures if things start going wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong for the grandio narcissist they start looking like a vulnerable narcissist Sullen petulant AG grieved everyone's out to get me if things start going really right for the

vulnerable narcissist their grandiosity will pop out so people people are either more primarily grandiose or more vulnerable but circumstances can kind of flip it and and sort of make that other form of narcissism show up the next form of narcissism could I insert one thing there just to clarify uh one of the things that I heard you sh share previously is that vulnerable narcissist even though we talked about women being the brunt of most of the narcissistic behavior the receiving end of it you typically would find when you do find a woman who's a narcissist

it's often more likely to be a vulnerable narcissist is that actually yeah absolutely so vulnerable narcissism is pretty much equally distributed between genders grandiose narcissism is much more prevalent in men malignant narcissism is where we're talking about that more severe narcissism we may still see some of the the sh the uh the charm and the Charisma but we can also see a callousness at this point right there is a lot of um vindictiveness in the malignant narcissist there is the willingness to take advantage of people's vulnerabilities isolate another person so the charm is really kind

of shortlived and not nearly as shiny as it is with the grandiose narcissistic person malignant narcissistic people will be very controlling and the way that might even show up in an intimate relationship is they may be intent focused on someone else like I want to spend all my time with you why do you want to spend time with your friends aren't you into me they might do things like buy them a phone as a gift which is a way they can track them I always tell young people don't ever accept a device or a phone

as a gift from someone you're in an intimate relationship with it's very dangerous you maintain your own phone accounts and your own devices always until you are so certain that this is a safe relationship but that seems like a generous gift you could get from someone right so it's it's it's those kinds of things that a malignant narcissistic person would do those relationships can get dangerous and of all the forms of narcissistic relationships physical violence and aggression is going to be most likely to show up in a malignant narcissistic relationship and then secondarily in a

vulnerable narcissistic relationship then we get to some interesting forms of narcissism most pointedly the communal narcissist the communal narcissistic person is the I call them sort of the the sort of the shirt off your back narcissist these are the people who seem generous they seem like they're they're um humanitarian seem like they're trying to save the world they're out there putting out their message and that's how they get their validation so some one will say well there's probably no such thing as human altruism isn't anyone trying to do good in the world trying to do

it for some validation not that's usually not the the primary motivation and the reason we know this is if a communal narcissist isn't getting lots of cheers and congratulations and you're so great and you're the best they will get quite angry and they will usually take that anger out at family members again those very those people in their Inner Circle so lots of people will say will look at a even a celebrity seeming like you know humanitarian and then someday we'll see the leaks of people saying oh my gosh this was the most nightmarish thing

I've ever worked on or their families will say it was so hard because we couldn't even get support everyone said our dad was the hometown hero and built a Little League field and yet we were all suffering with this really cruel person at home that's the communal narcissist at the at the highest most severe end of a communal narcissist we're seeing someone who looks more like a cult leader at the more mild end of the communal narcissist we're looking at that kind of really cruel PTA mom who's going to run everyone into the ground doing

that right then we have the self because in their eyes the ends justify the means but no because in their eyes they need to be validated and this is a great way this is a really great way to get validated and so they and like social media really blew the communal narcissist kind of up because look at I'm rescuing I'm rescuing the animals on the beach um you know Tuesday is elephant rescue day and it's like everything is something with them and like look at me I'm so great I'm rescuing the world and they'll often

get to be quite judgmental of others like well have you done your your volunteering this week and you're thinking lady I'm not even able to get into bed before 10 o'clock and like well I make time for other people so it's all about them being validated and look and yet I having run into some of those PTA mothers very controlling very invalidating almost very cruel and yet everything's like I'm doing it for the kids I'm like doing what for the kids invalidating and destroying the souls of the other mothers seems like not a great way

to do it then we have the self-righteous narcissist the self-righteous narcissist actually back in the day that was a personality style called the anankastic style it's like an obsessive compulsive style not like OCD obsessive compulsive but like obsessive in terms of obsessive with regard to detail morality these are often people who are very workaholic they are judgmental they are very very stingy with money they're punitive they're cold um they often live very very very rigidly obsessively ordered lives like everything just so and if anyone messes with their schedule so I mean listen if somebody wants

to get up in the 4 in the morning and drink goat milk with kale you do you you let me keep sleeping and don't judge me for not but these are the folks who will shame other people well I live better than you I am better than you and they're they're the folks who will say if dinner's at 6 and someone has got sick kids and it's quickly trying to get there gets there at 6:15 they'll say well dinner is at 6 and we have eaten and so it it comes off is very moralistic and

cold and if you grow up with a self-righteous narcissistic parent it is a horribly cold cruel invalidating experience because a child feels like they're constantly being judged these are kids who will say we were very anxious at kids because we have to do as kids we had to do everything they said the rooms is like military you know bedrooms and the schedules were like that and the dining T the the dinner table was such a Frau space so it's a it's a very very cold invalidating like I said moralistic judgmental um work above all shaming

anyone who's had bad luck the kind of thing like well if you'd saved your pennies you wouldn't be in the situation not accounting for they had lost their job and then they got very ill then there's none of that like if you lived your life like me everything would be fine so there lack real lack of empathy and an entitlement in that style that comes out in a really self-righteous way you know it's so helpful to hear you break them down because I can imagine that everybody listening is going to be thinking that there's probably

at least one person that they know and could even be somebody who raised them correct commonly very Comm and with all of these across the board I think the thing that is important to remind people is that often because it takes many years and in the case of children you don't you don't know that your parent is narcissistic when you're younger if you were unfortunately raised by somebody like that so many people who are listening today who are saying okay yeah this feels like somebody that's in my life they also regardless of what type it

is they have felt at some point in time that they were the cause or they were to blame where does that come from right so we as human beings are oriented towards attachment and connections we need human relationships and obviously that's more most pointed when we're children to have to survive we need attachment there's no plan B there's no other parents we can find so we got to make the people we've got in front of me that's why children can endure horrific abuse and still try to remain connected to a parent because that's all we've

got but as adults that doesn't go away our need for attachment persists it's a very Central core part of being a healthy human being that means that when we are in a close relationship and these kinds of invalidating negating um man manipulative pattern show up our first go-to isn't I'm out of here for many people it's how can I make this work how am I contributing to this and the more we can internalize it within ourselves internalize the blame in ourselves the more we can do something about it so the child not only is told

by the narcissistic parent that their needs are shamed their emotions are shamed their wants are shamed the child is basically put in a position where they exist to serve the parent rather than the parent protecting them there's no psychological safety in these spaces so that child has to become smaller and smaller and smaller and exactly what the parent wants them to be to be able to survive in those systems so when that child goes into adulthood guess what they're going to keep doing in relationships be small and not show up in their whole self because

they're convinced if I do that I'm not going to be able to be close to someone right and that's a very felt sort of an experience so the child blames themselves I'm a bad kid I'm I I'm not enough I I'm not smart enough I'm not good I'm not a not a good kid basically they internalize that that becomes their identity the identity of damage the identity of Shame the identity of not being good enough because that's in essence what the parent is implicitly communicating that again dogs a person into adulthood but if we can

take this on ourselves we can remain attached right but if we see it in the other person well then that's a call to action to saying this isn't good for me and then what then then sort of the axiomatically it means we got to go and so anything to take away that we got to go so we hold on to things like hope or what can I do or how can I fix this or almost not seeing it like there's there's a dissociative quality when we're in these relationships there's a phenomenon that Dr Jennifer fried

calls betrayal blindness we conveniently kind of don't see these things that will get in the way of us maintaining an attachment cognitive dissonance we don't like it when the pieces don't fit this is my spouse they're really mean to me how do I make the pieces fit maybe they just had a bad day maybe I'm not keeping the house clean enough those things are all put together um by the time it's done a person truly believes they're the bad one and then you throw some gaslighting on top of that and the gaslighting where the narcissistic

person is literally telling you not only you're wrong but there's something wrong with you you hear that enough you believe it and so then the person in the relationship feels as though there is something wrong with them and without somebody explaining what's going on then they're going to hold that on as an identity and that's magnified if they grew up with a narcissistic or invalidating parent wow so for that person who's listening who might feel that they're in that space the person who's internalized that blame felt that they were maybe a big contributor or the

biggest contributor to the reason that this narcissistic individual was acting the way they are is step one for them truly just first having awareness that this is even going on in the first place so I think that what what is we're we're in an era where we feel things in our body before we feel things in our mind so people will say I am so wiped out after spending time with them like I'm just not feeling well or I you know once we give name to like yeah you don't feel psychologically safe right it's it's

starting to give name to what people are feeling but people will say like why am I dreading going like why am I procrastinating going to their house in a million different ways we're telling ourselves like we don't like this relationship right we dread the weekends what instead of welcoming the weekends because on the weekends it might mean you have to spend time with them right so all of those things are happening but people don't quite understand it listen I'm sure the reason my YouTube channel has so many hits is that at 3 in the morning

people are typing in my spouse has no empathy and is super selfish and yells at me a lot Bing Dr romany's YouTube channel I'm convinced of that because I don't think people have a name for it they're just sort of what is this what's going on and people also feel embarrassed and ashamed about taking that to their friends because they may not on leaving the relationship and they don't want to sort of create bad Buzz about their partner or their family member to people are close to them some people may get into therapy but a

lot of therapists don't know what this is so they might keep focusing on and I think this is one of the big mistakes of therapy the therapists often F what's happening for you how do you feel what's your experience girl I don't care about your experience I need to talk to you about that mess you live with that's how I do therapy wow you know I can say as somebody in my audience you know knows me I can can raise my hand and say I've been there at one point in time in my life probably

a couple points in time in my life and my story around that was not not wanting to throw the word narcissist around because I thought it's not spiritual or whatever else you know you've heard all this before I've felt you know what this is a difficult personality they have wounds that are driving them I can see some of those wounds wounds I have to be stronger no to managed that which I know now isn't true but I'm sure you've heard that from people oh and I'm sure many people listening to this still feel that way

because I think this is where the toxic positivity movement has done a lot of disservice to people in narcissistic relationships who Su just that well they're wounded so I need to be better I'm like no they're wounded they need to you they need to take responsibility for their wounds like no human being should ever be enlisted into the role of being another person's punching bag or Pacifier that is not how life works and so there's and and the fact that the matter is is that the narcissistic person will gobble the other person up alive they

don't care I think it's getting your head around that this person actually doesn't care they may even be like people say but they're so smart they're so smart how could they not care I'm like why do you think smart and Care have anything to do with each other they are so smart and they don't care that can be one sentence and I think people struggle with that they'll say w they're really good at this or they're such a good cook like good they're a good cook and they don't care like you can have this as

one sentence so people are coming up with these strange constructions but I hear you when you say that they they do have wounds and people there are many many many the vast majority of wounded people out there do the work they go and they face those demons painful as it is and that is something that that narcissistic person could do but again they CH it's a choice not to and that's the hardest part of all of this but I also know that not everyone can walk away this isn't about walking away that's not the only

path forward it's knowing what it is and knowing how to engage in it so if somebody never listens to you talks over you has no empathy for you has no interest in you laughs and mocks you laughs at you and mocks you when you share an emotion tells you you're ridiculous and gaslights you then that really should be a wakeup call that you shouldn't be sharing anything with them you want to talk to them about the weather do it you want to talk to them about the Dodger game fine but don't talk to them about

anything else I mean it's the equivalent of having a really precious antique in your home and giving it to someone who's drunk and careless and is going to drop it on the ground in fact that's one of the tips inside of your book is this idea of like we all have some of those people in our lives and maybe it's a boss a coworker a parent a parent who's getting older and different forms of narcissism might come out it could be anything could be a partner and in those situations one of your big things is

don't engage or engage as minimal as possible you just kind of broke it down but I think you have a framework for that right it's I say don't go deep don't defend don't defend don't engage don't explain and don't personalize what types of relationships in our life as an example because I'm sure there's some relation like that may not work with a spouse sure it will potentially it it will absolutely because you're not engaging right so when they say um why um why don't you ever take out the trash and you're the one taking out

the trash every single day three times a day don't defend yourself and say that they're not they're looking for a fight they're not looking for a quantitative breakdown of the number of times you take out the trash they're not interested in the truth they're interested in bashing you so when they say why don't you take out the trash more often they're like okay and that's your answer instead of saying but I take out the I took the trash out three times yesterday in fact I know I took it out three times yesterday because it was

raining no you don't explain so many people want to say but I want them to hear my point of view they're not listening they're not listening and sometimes people say but I want to defend myself I said if you want to then do it then be prepared to be gaslighted be prepared to be talked over be prepared to be humiliated so I I'll say do whatever you want but then you need to be prepared for what's going to come back at you and if you don't want those things to happen to you then don't do

it so and I think people get sad they're saying are you telling me that all there's really left to talk about with my spouse if I don't want to fight with them is the weather and the change of season and that the freeway might be closed this weekend I'm like yep and they'll say I feel really sad and I said let's compared to what this relationship's been and like yeah that's been really sad too you know so I think that this don't go deep really shows the relationship for what it is and there's a lot

of grief this whole process is riddled with grief people wanted these to be not just marriages that lasted but marriages that were healthy and had depth that they will never have and so radical acceptance is you can stay but this is never going to be a deep intimate connected um person who stands by your side on tough times relationship it's just not so you better start building up the supports who will be your people when you do have your tough days when you need that ride to a chemo appointment when you need someone to talk

to you when you get scary medical news when you're going through a Dark Night of the Soul after you retire whatever it may be it ain't going to be the narcissist hey if you like this video check out the next clip and I'll see you there