Transcription
So, today we will look in short bites at what many people wrongly or distortedly believe they know about narcissism and narcissistic people. I find things like this now and then in my comments, but also in presentations by other content creators who offer their information on social media. Let's jump right into the first point. It is very common for people to equate narcissism with narcissistic personality disorder, and that is wrong. Narcissistic personality disorder is a diagnostic term, and only medical and psychological psychotherapists are authorized to diagnose such a disorder at all. Not all people whose behavior can be described as narcissistic due to recurring patterns meet the criteria for this personality disorder, and above all, most narcissistic people do not go to therapy where this could possibly be determined. The conclusion, however, is that you, as a layperson, cannot judge this diagnostically at all. I think some people should ask themselves why it is so important to them to explain narcissistic behavior with a clinical diagnosis and thus ultimately label narcissistic behavior or the person carrying it out as sick, as if they were not quite right in their minds or were acting so externally controlled. Yes, some behaviors from this complex can have very harmful and long-lasting consequences for the people around them. For some more, for others less. However, to label any narcissistic behavior per se as sick is also gaslighting. They are ultimately people like you and me. Pathological behavior would be if, for example, due to a psychosis, I started doing things that I hadn't done before and then had little memory of them. But behavioral patterns that develop and take shape over decades are not a permanent psychosis. That is the way this person goes through their life and perceives their life and interacts with other people in their life. It is advisable to talk here about narcissistic personality flaws and narcissistic personality structures. This does not sugarcoat the effects of corresponding behavior at all. The fact that personality disorder is often spoken of is certainly also due to the fact that content from half-practitioners of psychotherapy is often watched, who themselves often use this term incorrectly and without clear distinction. In very short training courses, insufficient theoretical content is conveyed to enable a distinction between personality structures and disorders. And by the way, Heilpraktiker of psychotherapy are not allowed to make clinical diagnoses at all. Therefore, they should better remove the diagnostic term from their content altogether. The next point is equally important. In the same breath in which some people speak of narcissistic personality disorder and perceive it as an illness, there are those who speak of narcissism as personified evil, i.e., biblical evil. Biblical evil usually refers to something or someone being born evil. You are not born narcissistic. Narcissistic personality structures develop from childhood to adulthood, and this has various developmental paths, not just one. Yes, some people on this spectrum do very evil things. I don't want to downplay that either. But just as when speaking of illness here, the attribution of evil here also means a form of gaslighting. And I also think that both take away some of the responsibility from the person who is behaving narcissistically. When you call narcissistic people evil, yes, it always seems as if they were possessed or something. Yes, they exhibit human behavior and experience that can harm others as well as themselves. Please stop talking about personified evil here. That does not do justice to the matter either. I understand that it can make some people feel better and more liberated. When I define something as sick and evil, it often encompasses a very clear area. It makes it clear to me, with sharp distinction, what is wrong and what is right, and then I think I can feel safe now. And with that, we come directly to the next point, the red flags. The warning signs for narcissism, attributions of sickness and evil, but also the assumption that one has now understood everything about narcissistic behavior, can lead to one feeling safer again. But also to believe that one is now bulletproof against narcissistic people and narcissistic behavior. I no longer let narcissistic people into my life. This sentence alone would imply that you were somehow also to blame for that person being there, that there was something about you that led to it, or that you were naive. No, it can happen to anyone that they encounter narcissistic people. Anyone. Narcissistic behavior and narcissistic people are often not recognized in the first moments. It takes a while. It can often only show itself after weeks or months. That's how long it takes to recognize patterns in behavior. Even informed professionals do not recognize this at first glance, and even then it cannot always be clearly assigned, especially when dealing with vulnerable narcissistic people. Narcissistic relationships always start beautifully. If they showed negative sides when you first met them, you would never get involved with such a person. No, they often start just as beautifully as healthy relationships start. In the good times, you won't recognize who you're dealing with. And no matter how many red flags you've already memorized, they are not always present at the beginning or in the first few weeks. And if you now think, I know all the red flags, I can recognize every narcissistic person at point XYZ, then you haven't made yourself bulletproof, but you're preparing for the next round. Then you will fall for all those narcissistic people to whom point XYZ does not apply. Please throw this belief out the window that you can make yourself bulletproof against narcissism. Then you will be no different from Achilles. You will overlook your heel. People, if it were so easy to recognize all this after a short time based on three or four things, don't you think there would already be a comprehensive manual? Even I would never claim that I will never fall for it again. And other professionals would also never say that it will never happen to us again. Please let go of this false pride. I know where it comes from. You want to secure yourself, of course. You don't want to fall for it again if you've been through really nasty stuff. Rather, pay attention to how the behavior is when problems arise, when the first conflicts emerge, because it is clear that this will eventually happen. That is part of the human experience. Yes, look at how the behavior is when someone makes a mistake, when there is stress at work or in other areas. Pay particular attention to how this person deals with it and how this person then deals with you or with others. What behavioral patterns can you observe then? Do certain rather harmful behaviors appear more frequently? The good times, yes, in those you will generally recognize little. In good times, a narcissistic person can also look good, show their best side, that's what they are designed for. The good times are easy. Anyone can have a good and easy time. It doesn't take much for that. Pay more attention to the behavior when things are not going well for any reason. A narcissistic person can no longer conceal their negative behavior here. Why? Because then all the structures that support and protect the narcissistic person are activated, practically automatically. This is essentially on a nervous system level. In bad times, it becomes more visible who you are dealing with. Dr. Ramani, one of the leading experts in the field of narcissism, recently published a very instructive video in which she talks about the one thing by which she recognizes a narcissistic person. And this is based on her decades of work with narcissistic people and people who have experienced narcissistic abuse. In addition to all the behavioral patterns, yes, consisting of egocentricity, lack of empathy, the feeling that they are somehow special and more outstanding than others, the fear of true intimacy, and so on, she named this one thing, and that is the lack of accountability for their own wrongdoing. In English, lack of accountability. When a narcissistic person makes a mistake and you point it out to them, exactly that happens. Their own responsibility for it is rejected. There is no real apology. There is no reference to you if the mistake affects you in the sense of "I'm sorry, right? This must have really hurt or offended you," and above all, there is no attempt at making amends or repair. "Hey, I'll make it right, and I'll make sure it doesn't happen again in the future." Example, you had an appointment, the person forgot. Then you point it out, and then it starts. There won't be an "Oh, damn, I'm so sorry. I had so much to do. It slipped my mind. I don't know how that could have happened. You must feel hurt. I'll make it right." None of that happens. Totally unlikely in a narcissistic relationship, but what follows is the typical narcissistic reaction: blame shifting. In German, Schuldumkehr. Yes. Okay, I forgot. I'm sorry too, but you could have reminded me too. Yes. Yes, there seems to be an apology in there, but it's not a real one. And suddenly you are the problem. Suddenly you are to blame for the meeting not taking place. Yes, I forgot to clean up, but you could have reminded me too. You know how much I have going on right now. Yes, true. I secretly created a dating profile and wrote to other people, but you haven't paid me enough attention lately, and so on and so forth. Blame shifting is a form of gaslighting. Yes, it does not acknowledge your reality and makes you the problem of the whole thing. A truly empathetic person does not react with blame shifting when they have made a mistake. Such a person acknowledges their mistake, learns from it, and engages with you. Taking responsibility for one's own mistakes is the basis for conflicts and problems to be clarified and resolved at all. And when that happens, you may have already had that experience, then you feel closer to the person. More inner connection, emotional intimacy arises. But this is an area that narcissistic people must avoid and ward off all of this with narcissistic defense strategies. So if you want to pay attention to one thing, pay attention to whether a person takes responsibility for their own wrongdoing, and genuine responsibility at that. By the way, it is not uncommon for narcissistic people to punish you after they have made a mistake, because you have pointed it out to them, inflicted a narcissistic injury, and scratched their grandiose self-image. To restore dominance and control, you are usually punished, sometimes through unbridled rage, but also through stonewalling, ghosting, silent treatment, questioning the relationship, and in the worst case, through a discard. In this context, it is therefore less about recognizing so-called red flags, which are not always present, but about having your own standards, namely in how you want to be treated in relationships and how you want to enter into relationships. I think if you try to make yourself somewhat bulletproof, it's not about looking for red flags first, but about looking at what is actually important to you, what you need, yes, and what is absolutely not acceptable. And for that, you don't always need so-called red flags, sometimes you just need the bad times to recognize how a person actually deals with you during that time. Next point, which is often misunderstood. Especially in romantic relationships that turn out to be narcissistic, it is often stated that the non-narcissistic person is codependent or conarcissistic and therefore cannot get out of the relationship. That is also wrong. The term codependency actually originates from the field of addiction disorders and has been extended to narcissistic relationships, among other things. In the context of addictions, codependency refers to any behavior that serves to enable the addicted person to maintain their consumption. This can have various causes, and many codependent people do not realize at first that they are maintaining the addiction with their behavior. Nevertheless, something happens through this term in our perception of this person. Because codependency also always means that they also have a responsibility for how things are going here. They are also to blame. Applied to narcissistic relationships, this can often mean that they ensure that the other party cannot behave differently. Or why didn't she or he just leave? They must have gotten something out of it, otherwise they wouldn't have stayed. It couldn't have been that bad then. So, of course, that is also victim blaming and therefore gaslighting. Above all, it overlooks the driving force of every narcissistic relationship, and that is trauma bonds, or in German, fear bonds. Personally, I wish that all those people who have never been in such a relationship would just shut up or listen, try to understand, or quietly leave. But unfortunately, they often don't. Fear bonds are what keep people in toxic and narcissistic relationships, not codependency. The non-narcissistic person does not ensure with their behavior that narcissistic behaviors persist. They existed before and will exist for the next person. Narcissistic behavior is not an addiction. They are defense and protection strategies for an extremely fragile ego. And I think it's self-explanatory that people who, for example, grew up in narcissistic families in childhood through trauma bonds, i.e., fear bonds, and all the other patterns of narcissistic behavior, already carry the blueprint within them of what relationships look like, that love and affection must be earned, that one must win over the parent again and again, make no mistakes and be allowed to make none, and so on, and that all of this is often reflected in their adult relationships. I provide more information here about the origin of trauma bonds in childhood. Fear bonds can also arise initially, but also only in adulthood. And last but not least, there are still people out there who believe that narcissism is simply a form of genuine self-confidence. No, genuine self-confidence is not loud. It does not need to humiliate other people and artificially inflate itself. People with genuine self-confidence do not react defensively and reactively to criticism. They do not use gaslighting and other manipulative strategies to keep others small and confused. And they also do not need visible status symbols to demonstrate dominance and grandiosity. Genuine self-confidence is also paired with genuine empathy and is not afraid of emotional intimacy. Narcissism is a defense mechanism against external threats and serves to protect the fragile ego and to support and enhance the outwardly visible false self. Sometimes people also claim that there is also a kind of healthy narcissism. Counter-question: Are there healthy cigarettes? What things do you often notice that are wrongly conveyed about narcissism? Feel free to write it in the comments. Yes. [music] [music]