Transcription
I'm often asked what is the difference between covert narcissistic abuse and overt narcissistic abuse, both in terms of impacts on victims and the process of healing and recovery. I'm going to dedicate a few videos to this question, but today I would like to start from the topic of language. Because language is a very critical instrument in the arsenal of the narcissist. Narcissist uses language, verbal abuse, repetitive rhythmic iteration of utterances. Narcissist uses all these sounds basically to entrain the target, to penetrate the victim's mind, to install and introject there, and to continue to control and manipulate the victim, sometimes from afar, remotely. The role of language is critical. I've dedicated to it several videos; you can find the links in the description. But today I'm going to attack this issue from a different angle.
My name is Sambakin. I'm the author of "Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited," and therefore very adapt adept with languages, and I'm a professor of psychology. Whether you choose to believe it or not, that's entirely your problem. Remember, there's a 3-day seminar in Scopia, the Republic of North Macedonia, May 22nd to May 25th, free completely. In order to reserve a seat, please write to me at samvaknin (one word) at gmail.com or contactrfoundation.com.net. I'm sorry, contact atvroundation.net. You can find the email addresses in the description. Just write to me, and I'll reserve a seat for you. Okay, let's delve right in.
Both overt and covert narcissistic abuse—in other words, narcissistic abuse metered out by the overt narcissist and narcissistic abuse metered out by the covert narcissist—both types of abuse have a lot in common. The shared fantasy, introjection, entrainment—all the mechanisms are actually the same. But there's there are a few major differences, and perhaps the first core difference I would like or distinction I would like to tackle is that of language. Covert verbal abuse in the shared fantasy: the overt narcissist is usually grandiose, in-your-face, defiant. You see them coming; what you see is what you get in many respects. The use of language is instrumentalized; the language is transparent. The narcissist uses language, mainly—the overt narcissist uses language mainly—to subjugate and subdue other people, to harass them, to bully them, to stalk them, and so on. So the language in the case of overt narcissism is a form, or at least allied with, externalized aggression. But as I said, the language is transparent in the sense that you don't have to second-guess, decode, decipher a lot of the communication, except, of course, in some cases which I've dwelt on in my videos. So, but the covert narcissist is different.
The covert narcissist uses language in surreptitious, subtle ways, nuanced ways. Even language is an art form in covert narcissism because nothing much else is available. The covert narcissist is a collapsed narcissist; it's a narcissist who fails or has failed and is failing to obtain narcissistic supply in any other way. The covert narcissist is seething with animosity and hostility and antagonism, is passive-aggressive, is, on the one hand, pretends to be modest, super-humil, pseudouility, pretends to be altruistic and charitable. Covert—many covert narcissists are ostentatiously pro-social and communal—but deep inside the picture is completely different. And because of this discrepancy between the covert narcissist's implicit self-esteem, the covert narcissist inferiority complex to use Adler's term, and the covert narcissist explicit self-esteem, which is essentially self-esteem based on resentment, on bitterness, on contempt for others, on the rejection of, in many ways, social mores and conventions, covert narcissist is much closer to psychopathy uh in some ways than the overt narcissist. It doesn't qualify—covert narcissist does not qualify as a psychopath for a variety of other reasons—but these elements are common with the psychopath: this hatred of society. The psychopath detests society because he regards society as inferior. The covert narcissist deplores and abhores society because he believes that he has been dealt a raw hand, that is being discriminated against, that is being overlooked, and that is being treat is being treated unjustly.
Okay, so the covert narcissist, covert narcissism is about disguise, is about camouflage, is about pretention, is about faking, and of course the language is responsive to these exigencies and constraints. The language similarly must be underhanded, under the radar, camouflaged, disguised. What you see or what you hear is not what you get. The language has a double meaning, and we call this situation hidden text and overt text. There is a hidden text in the speech of the covert narcissist, and there is the overt text, which usually has nothing to do with the hidden text. The hidden text is authentic, is real, is reality, whereas the hidden text is manipulative and Machiavellian, or the hidden text—the aim of the overt text is to disguise the hidden text somehow. The covert narcissist, therefore, has multiple layers of meaning, multiple hermeneutic layers, multiple layers of organization and meaning, not only in speech but also in behavior. There is covert behavior, hidden behavior, occult behavior, and there is overt behavior, and the aim of the overt behavior is to camouflage and disguise the covert behavior. The aim of the overt behavior is to manipulate people, to modify their behaviors, to get them to do what the covert narcissist wants them to do. And in overt narcissism, that this this gap, this abyss between hidden and and open, between real and fantasy, between um authenticity and display, they exist in all types of narcissism, but in overt narcissism the abyss, the cousin, the gap usually rises to the surface sooner or later. The overt narcissist is so contemptuous, feels so superior and so godlike that most of the time he doesn't bother, he doesn't bother; he takes for granted that he's entitled to other people's property, other people's attention, other people's admiration and adulation, other people's help and so on, collaboration. So this sense of entitlement in the overt narcissist usually renders the need to disguise and to camouflage and to hide quite unnecessary, whereas in covert narcissist it is intact. The covert narcissist is lacks self-confidence and self-esteem. Covert narcissist is unable to regulate his or her sense of self-worth, either from the outside with with narcissistic supply, time for my tea, or from the inside. All the covert narcissist uses language not to communicate, but opposite, to discommunicate, to avoid communication, at least meaningful communication, communication which is a revelation, whereas the overt narcissist uses language to manipulate, to impress, and to create a shared fantasy and so on. The covert narcissist uses language to avoid, to withhold, to withdraw, to constrict. One could say that the overt narcissist uses language to be in order to become, in order to be, in order to become or to to merge with an inflated, grandio, fantastic self-concept. So the overt narcissist uses language to become, whereas the covert narcissist uses language to unbecome, to not be.
A perfect example of this is dog whistling. Dog whistling is way more common among covert narcissists. Overt narcissist um would use dog whistling mainly in order to humiliate or subdue someone. The covert narcissist would use dog whistling for literally the entire communication. Now dog whistling is a situation where words or phrases have a meaning that is private, a meaning that is limited to two people or a group of people, but the same words and the same phrases would be interpreted and understood completely differently by outsiders. So dog whistling in dog whistling there is an in-in-group, a semantic in-group. This semantic or in rare cases semiotic in-group is one or two or three or four or nine people or hundreds of people, but a limited group, an in-group where words and phrases have a meaning known only to the members of the in-group, and outsiders who observe the in-group would never be able to make full sense of the language used by the members of the in-group. Now the narcissist abuses this mechanism. The overt narcissist uses dog whistling, as I said, to shame or guilt-trip or humiliate his target or his victim or his intimate partner or his friends or his colleagues. So the overt narcissist would use words or phrases which induce in his targets what we call negative effects or negative affectivity; he would make them feel bad and ego-dystonic, whereas the covert narcissist would use dog whistling almost exclusively as the only form of communication. The language of the covert narcissist is highly idiosyncratic, highly privatized. Wittgenstein would disagree with me, ladwick Wittgenstein, the famous philosopher; he said that there's no such thing as private languages. I think this was perhaps the only case in his entire career that he said something that is manifestly stupid. Of course, there are private languages. The covert narcissist is one proof of that. Private languages, idiosyncratic languages are pseudopsychotic. People with psychotic disorders very often have their own type of disorganized speech, word salad. Word salad is a schizophrenic um clinical feature um and so in covert narcissism the language is organized; it conveys information; it is communicative; it is reactive and responsive, and in this sense the covert narcissist is not psychotic, but the language has layers of meaning which are obscured, layers of meaning which are inaccessible to anyone except the members of the in-group, the covert narcissist in-group, layers of meaning which are motivational, they cause action, they modify behaviors in other people, layers of meaning which are used to not only manipulate people but and not only to shame them or to guilt-trip them the way the overt narcissist does, but actually to create an ambiance, the equivalent of a linguistic shared fantasy within which communication is cultish, cult-like. The covert covert narcissist use of verbal verbal abuse, dog whistling, and so on so forth is highly instrumentalized, much more so than the overt narcissist and much more idiosyncratic and private than the overt narcissist. In this sense, the language of the covert narcissist is the functional equivalent, operational equivalent of gaslighting in psychopaths.
Now you know that I keep teaching you that narcissists do not gaslight. They do not gaslight because they cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy, whereas gaslighting requires the ability to know what is real and what is fantastic and then to lie. This is not the case with narcissists, but the practical implications of the narcissist's behavior and language, choice of language or use of language, these implications are such that actually the victim or the target is being gaslit, experiences gaslighting, in other words, develops—the victim develops impaired reality testing. Victim begins to doubt her ability to gauge, appraise, and evaluate reality. She begins to doubt herself; she asks herself, "Am I going crazy? Do I see things correctly?" And so on so forth, and this renders her dependent on the narcissist. Okay, the covert narcissist gaslights even when he or she does not gaslight, whereas the overt narcissist imposes on the victim or the target a shared fantasy which is the functional equivalent of gaslighting. The covert narcissist uses language to construct a total reality that is essentially in its entire in its entirety, in its totality, in its completeness and wholeness, gaslight gaslighting. So with a overt narcissist, gaslighting is or gaslighting-like behavior is actually instrumental and has to do with the shared fantasy. With the covert narcissist, the the gaslighting is built into the fabric of the covert narcissist experience, life and interpersonal shared relationships. That's a massive difference; it's a very important difference. Again, let me emphasize: narcissists, covert or overt, do not gaslight. They cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy, and they don't use gaslighting as a manipulative, Machiavellian tactic the way a psychopath does, but the outcome, sharing a life with with a with a narcissist, interacting with the narcissist, the victim or the prey or the target are being gaslit, experience gaslighting, even though the narcissist had no intention to gaslight, he ends up gaslighting. And whereas the overt narcissist gaslights occasionally, instrumentally, functionally, and in relation with the shared fantasy, the covert narcissist's entire being, entire existence is one big gaslight experiment, one big gaslighting experience, and the victims who are exposed to overt narcissism react differently than the victims who are exposed to covert narcissism. In overt narcissism, the overt narcissistic abuse has ramifications and consequences on the victim which are harrowing and terrible, but the victim, sorry, but the victim loses herself much less with the overt narcissist than with a covert narcissist. When the victim is with a covert narcissist, her dissolution, the loss of her core identity, her disorientation, sense of dissipation, one could even say dissociative reactions like amnesia, derealization, depersonalization, are much higher, much more dominant and prevalent than in an exposure to an overt narcissist. With an overt narcissist, the impacts again are very very pervasive and very problematic and troublesome. The same impacts occur when the victim is exposed to a covert narcissist, but much more so, like the the impacts are not attenuated and but they are amplified and magnified and maximized. Being with a covert narcissist is like being with an with someone who is 10 times the overt narcissist. The damage, the trauma with a covert narcissist is much more insidious, permeates the victim's existence much more fundamentally and much more persuasively than with the overt narcissist. Being with your overt narcissists can be is the equivalent of spending time with a psychopath or spending time with a child, a temper tantrum child, a spoiled brat. Being with a covert narcissist is spending time with a figment, spending time with a non-entity, spending time with a true black hole that is about to consume you. In my opinion, covert narcissistic abuse is far more dangerous and pernicious than overt narcissistic abuse, and one of the elements that create this immersive environment with the case of covert narcissism is the covert narcissist use of language. I will deal in future videos; I will deal with other elements, but we are starting with language. Covert narcissist uses language to construct a world which is immersive, all-consuming, and dissolving. Feel that you're dissolving; it's not regression. The overt narcissist regresses you, infantilizes you, renders you dependent and addicted, and then proceeds to take away your identity, infiltrate your mind, and gain control over you, and that's bad enough. The covert narcissist dissolves you, eliminates you by reducing you to molecules, dissipates you, evaporates you, and the feeling is, of course, much more much more horrible than when you are with an overt narcissist.
Now I mentioned that every person, every human being, healthy and unhealthy, we all have an inner text, and we compare every information and every stimulus emanating from the environment to this inner hidden text. We could conceive of ourselves as walking, talking, carbon-based narratives. This is called narrative theory, and so there's the inner narrative which is an organizing principle, the kind of structure, provide structure, provide order and predictability and so on so forth, based based on experience; it's a kind of theory, a theory of one's own mind and so and so. This inner text is there, and whatever happens in the environment, you compare it all the time, compare this information all the time to your theory, theory of your own mind, theory of other people's mind, theory of relationships, known as internal working models. This library of theories, it these are all hidden texts; these are all occult textics, and everything that's coming from reality, from the universe, is the overt text. Your behavior, which is also observable in the known universe, is also an overt text. When there is no discrepancy between your internal hidden text and the overt text, you're a healthy, mentally healthy person. When there is a discrepancy, it's an indication of pro a problem with mental health or maybe even mental illness, and so we determine what is missing and we determine what has been purposefully omitted by using this mechanism of by using this comparative mechanism, by constantly comparing what the overt narcissist does to you—the overt not the covert—what the overt narcissist does to you, he falsifies the overt text; it falsifies the environment, the input, the stimuli, the information you're getting from the environment is wrong, is fake, like fake news, like misinformation. Consequently, the process of comparing this environmental knowledge to your internal text, inner text, yields erroneous outcomes, misguide it, misguides you; it misleads you, and then you make the wrong decisions and choices which are actually beneficial to the overt narcissist. So the overt narcissist focuses uh on reconstructing or reordering or reframing or falsifying the external environment via the shared fantasy. The covert narcissist falsifies mostly your internal text, your inner text. If the covert narcissist falsifies who you are, not only the external environment but also who who you are. So whereas the the overt narcissist, the classic grandiose, phallic overt narcissist, the in-your-face, defiant, pseudopsychopathic, antisocial overt narcissist, grandio type, you know, obnoxious, unbearable, arrogant, this kind of narcissist would impose on you a shared fantasy which is cult-like, cultish, and which has very little to do with reality; it's counterfactual; it's not grounded; it's unrealistic, thereby falsifying the input from the environment and causing you disorientation, which allows then the narcissist to take over, control you and manipulate you. But the overt narcissist rarely reaches into your mind and touches it; he installs an introject; the introject speaks to you, but the overt narcissist is a surface; is on the surface; he's very shallow and supercilious and superficial. That's a good definition of overt grandio narcissism. So he is more interested in using the environment to manipulate you, whereas the covert narcissist is deep running water; it's much more dangerous. So the covert narcissist falsifies, reframes, changes, transforms both the external environment by via the shared fantasy and the internal, your internal environment. The the covert narcissist falsifies both the in-inner, the hidden text and the overt text, whereas the the overt narcissist falsifies only the overt text but not the hidden text. The damage in the case of covert narcissism is much much uh more extensive. In overt narcissistic abuse, the overt text, the falsified overt text and the hidden text seem to conform. This is the power of the covert of the overt narcissist. The overt narcissist convinces you that the shared fantasy that he has created for both of you actually is responsive to who you are, to your needs, reflects you, incorporates you seamlessly, is good for you; you should be a part of it; it's something you've dreamt of your entire life. So the overt narcissist creates a semblance of resonance and conformity between your internal text, your inner text, your hidden text and the overt environmental external text, convinces you that that the shared fantasy he's offering you is actually your idea, your shared fantasy, your you you were your dream, your wish, and so you adopt it; you adopt it, and you're ego-syntonic about it; you feel good about it. So in this case there's not much need for trying to decode or decipher or deconstruct the nar the narciss the overt narcissist hidden text and overt text. In the case of exposure to an overt narcissist, there's not much need for deconstruction of the messages emanating from the overt narcissist. I call it thin deconstruction. You need thin deconstruction. The narcissist speaks to you, and of course his speech is convoluted, symbol symbol laden and has hidden strata and meanings; it's all true, and it is true that you do need to dedicate some time and attention to what an overt grandio narcissist is telling you, and you need to decipher it and decode it and analyze it and think about it and deconstruct it. This is all true, but much less so than with a covert narcissist. So in the case of the overt narcissist, you would need thin deconstruction, whereas in covert narcissistic abuse the overt text, the environment, the shared fantasy has little to do with the covert text with with the hidden text, with you, has little to do with you in effect, and the reason you feel otherwise is because the covert narcissist has falsified you as well. The overt grandio narcissist force creates a shared fantasy but does not falsify you, so you fit into the shared fantasy; he shapes, he makes the shared fantasy in your shape, whereas the covert narcissist reaches into your mind, arranges the furniture, renders you unrecognizable to yourself; you feel a strange alien to yourself, and that's why you feel comfortable with the environment that is engendered by the covert narcissist with the shared fantasy of the covert narcissist because you are no longer you. The covert narcissist shared fantasy does not reflect you; it reflects the covert narcissist. The overt narcissist shared fantasy reflects the overt narcissist but also you; it takes into account who you are; it caters to your needs and wishes and dreams; it misleads you; it's a cult; it's fallacious; is likely to end in heartbreak, but initially in the love bombing phase, idealization phase of the overt not covert, overt narcissist, there the narcissist pays attention to you; it tailors and customizes everything to make you feel at home, cozy, comfortable, fitting. That's not what the covert narcissist does. The covert narcissist gets rid of you first and foremost; he gets rid of you; he gets rid of you by poisoning you, by entraining you, by brainwashing you, by dissipating you, by dissolving you, as if the covert narcissist was some kind of an acid; you dissolve in it; nothing is left, not even your bones. Having gotten rid of you, the covert narcissist then creates a shared fantasy which is 100% about himself and 0% about you because you don't exist anymore, and he gives you then a false identity, a fake for identity, and tells you this is the new you; this has always been you; in you just did not realize it; you were not self-aware. Now there's an awakening; you woke, and now says the covert narcissist that you have found yourself, that you have discovered yourself through me. Now you can fit into the overt text, the environment, the shared fantasy that I've created for you. So the overt narcissist, the grandio classic phallic overt narcissist, tailors the shared fantasy, the overt
Text to conform to your hidden text, to your internal text, because the shared fantasy is factious and fake and wrong and unreal and not ground, and so on. This, in due time, has a massive, adverse, deleterious aspect on your internal text, in due time, as time passes, as exposure continues.
So initially, in the initial phases of the shared fantasy of an overt narcissist, the fantasy is going to fit you like a hand in glove; you're going to feel very comfortable in the shared fantasy. Only gradually, because the shared fantasy is not, is counterfactual, is a fantasy, is nonsense—it's nothing to do with reality—only gradually will you discover that if you want to remain within the shared fantasy, if you want to have the narcissist in your life, you need to suspend yourself; you need to deceive yourself; you need to lie to yourself; you need to become someone else. So this is the process with an overt narcissist.
With a covert narcissist, the process is exactly reversed. With a covert narcissist, the first thing you have to do is disappear, lie to yourself, deceive yourself, pretend, fake, not be you, suspend yourself. This is the ticket, the entry ticket; this is a precondition for then becoming a part of the covert narcissist's shared fantasy. So with the overt narcissist, it's from A to B; with the covert narcissist, it's from B to A.
The overt narcissist, the fustian deal of the overt narcissist, is: I'm going to give you a shared fantasy which would make you feel in heaven, would make you feel wonderful, would make you feel that you are being mothered, that you are a perfect being that you are, and I'm going to give you this fantasy, but gradually you will disappear; gradually you will become not you. Whereas the covert narcissist's message is: You need to become not you; you need to disappear if you wish to enter my shared fantasy.
And so, in the case of covert narcissism, there's a dire need for deconstruction of language, a dire need for unearthing and mining the meaning behind the sentences and utterances and statements of the covert narcissist. And this requires a lot of heavy work, and I call it thick deconstruction, in the case of covert narcissism.
From the very get-go, there is disorientation. Disorientation is defined this way in the dictionary of the American Psychological Association: an impaired ability to identify oneself or to locate oneself in relation to time, place, or other aspects of one's surroundings. Long-term disorientation can be characteristic of neurological and psychological disorders; temporary disorientation can be caused by alcohol or drugs or can occur in situations of acute stress, such as fires or earthquakes. Disorientation, of course—so this is the definition, and I'm adding—disorientation, of course, can be induced by exposure to uh environments which conflict somehow with one's reality testing. When one thinks one, one knows reality, when one believes in one's ability to gauge reality, and suddenly reality changes in ways which undermine or or challenge or um our perception of reality—that's very disorienting. That's what the narcissist does; it creates totally fake, fantastic environments that challenge our perception of reality, and this creates confusion.
Confusion, according to the dictionary, is a mental disturbance characterized by bewilderment, inability to think clearly or act decisively, and disorientation for time, place, and person. It's also called mental confusion. I propose that the mental disorientation of victims of narcissistic abuse, especially covert narcissistic abuse, extends not only to one's core identity—who am I? There's disorientation; there's confusion about one's identity, who am I—but I think it extends to everything you see. Our memory is like a topographical map; we have, we our memory is spatial; it's like space where you have all kinds of objects which serve as benchmarks and milestones. And so when we try to imagine or reimagine our memories, we use spatial, space-related metaphors. And so when uh when the narcissist induces in the victim disorientation, the disorientation is also topographical, but it's not topographical in the classic objective sense, topographical in real in the real world, on the street or on in the countryside. No, it's not topography in the physical sense, but it is a topography of memory. The narcissist induces in the victim a topographical mental disorientation which has to do with a spatial metaphor of memory.
The dictionary defines um topographical disorientation this way: a disorder of spatial visualization, space vis visualization, exemplified by difficulty in recalling the arrangement of rooms in one's house or of the furniture in a room within that house. Individuals with topographical disorientation also may be unable to recall or describe the location of landmarks or other familiar objects in their neighborhoods. The condition is typically associated with impairment of the right parietal lobe. It's also called topographnosia. Okay, I claim that the narcissist induces in you topographia; in other words, he induces in you a topographical sense of disorientation because the landscape of your memory becomes alien to you. Your memory is like a space, internal space, and it's full with landmarks and milestones, as I said. Then when the narcissist takes this away, falsifies it, you you begin to regard your own memory, which is a core core feature of your identity, you begin to regard your memory and identity as an alien planet, and you feel like an extraterrestrial in your own internal planet. He takes the sense of comfort and familiarity with yourself away from you. We all have this comfortable sense that we are familiar with who we are, that we are intimate with ourselves; the narcissist takes it away from you, and the covert narcissist way more than the overt narcissist induces in you disorientation, sense of disorientation, way more in covert narcissism than with the overt narcissism.
In the next video, we will discuss other impacts of covert narcissistic abuse versus overt narcissistic abuse.