Transcription
Let's do a creepy thought experiment together. Let's put ourselves inside the mind of a narcissist. Let's imagine that we're a person who is fundamentally addicted to a false version of who we are, a false narrative of who we are and what our lives are about. Let's add to that that we are hopelessly addicted to, dependent on narcissistic supply. That means we need to coerce, gain undue adulation, reverence, attention from human beings around us. So we become a kind of a walking performance. Everything we do, we do for effect. Everything we do is calculated to control the perceptions and the emotions of the people around us so that we can get as much of this precious narcissistic supply as possible to feed this false grandiose sense of who we are. Pretty awful, right?
Let's make it worse. Imagine you have no empathy whatsoever. Just none. You don't care who this hurts. You don't care who this damages. It could be your own kids you're using for narcissistic supply. Family members, friends, lovers, uh husbands, wives, literally no moral boundaries whatsoever. And let's make this this horrible exercise a little bit worse again. Let's imagine that not only are you a narcissist, but you're a peculiar subtype of narcissist that's called a covert or fragile narcissist. So, you do believe that you're amazing and special. You have that entitlement and you have that haughty demeanor, but you've learned through experience that sometimes people don't agree with you. So with very effective people in the external world, they claim to be beautiful and they actually are. They're very high IQ, they actually are. They have tons of money, they really do. So on and so forth. They can leverage and instrumentalize that actual worldly material power that they have and use it to dominate people, bully people, exploit them, and instrumentalize them for narcissistic supply.
We've just created a simulation. We've just put the the the VR goggles on and we're not that. We're not that. We are incredibly envious of the power of the admiration of the exaltation that other narcissistic types we can see around us are getting. And we hate them for it. And we hate the world for giving it to them. Because in the core of our being which never developed uh beyond um infancy, we believe that that is all for us and it's we sort of create a a bitter worldview where we say that's all being taken away from me but it was actually for me. You the other kids you know in kindergarten level they stole the cake that was for me. They stole the toys that was meant for me.
Another, and this is the last awful thing I'll ask you to imagine, is you have grandiose fantasies of power. You and I, we're both pretending to be covert, fragile narcissists. We want power. We want adulation. We think that we're wonderful. But for us, unlike the grandiose narcissist, because supply is fleeting, intermittent, low-quality, dependent on a huge amount of effort and output, typically we have to target people who have quite weak boundaries. And then we have to do quite a lot of work on them to suck the juice. Gross. The way I said that to sucker the juice. I said it in a juicy way. I think that's what was disgusting about it. To suck the juice, the narcissistic supply out of people. We have to put in quite a lot of work.
So the final crazy part of this, we actually do feel ashamed of our narcissistic fantasies. Now this is not Richard Grannon YouTuber crazy conjecture about personality disorders. You do get that from me sometimes where I go off the map. Uh this is actually the general clinical consensus that one of the things that defines a neurotic, covert, fragile, vulnerable narcissist from the grandiose narcissist is they cycle through periods of intense shame specifically for the grandiosity of their fantasies. So an internal voice that they they wake up and they think I deserve blah blah blah. Make it up. Whatever. Maybe you're thinking of a person you know. Maybe you're trying to be inside the mind of your mother, your father, a person you worked for, a boss, a friend, a lover. So, so you would know them quite well. So you, that's a good idea. Use them. Use somebody you know. You wake up and you want adulation. And you have the grandiose fantasy. I deserve this adulation. And what comes immediately after that is shame. Is shame. Because a part of you knows.
Now, let's be very very careful because psychotherapeutic language has bled into the culture and and sometimes what psychiatrists and psychotherapists say when they use these words. It's a little bit different to how we would just commonly use them day-to-day in everyday parlance. So I'm saying the covert narcissist uh it is said in the clinical literature the covert fragile narcissist is actually deeply ashamed of their own grandiosity. Ah but wait a minute here's the nuance. This is not healthy shame. This is not the shame that uh that I would feel that you might feel. I don't know you wake up in a bad mood. You don't feel good and you're snappy with somebody. Um it happened to me. Uh I travel quite a lot. Uh it was a customer service uh type of situation and I wasn't nice to the person. I wasn't insulting, but I was I was cold. I was robotic because I was not feeling good cuz I was in a mood and something happened at the the place where I was staying. And it wasn't this person's fault. It's just that was my response. And then I felt ashamed. And later on before that person's shift ended, I went over and spoke to them. And I said, "Listen, I'm a little bit stressed out. I'm sorry about that." And they couldn't believe it. They Their eyes were wide. They were like, "No, no, no. It's fine. Like, I don't think anybody had ever apologized to them before." That's healthy shame. We should have healthy shame that says, "Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't don't infringe on other people's boundaries. Don't treat other people badly because you're not feeling good." That's healthy shame. The shame of the covert narcissist that we're talking about here is not that shame. It's neurotic shame. Forgive me for that arcane language. I like it. It's a neurotic form of shame. I'm not ashamed. Now, you're not ashamed. You're still running the simulation of what you're doing to people. You're ashamed that you can't get the narcissistic supply you feel you deserve. So they are much more emotionally labile, emotionally disregulated, far more moody, much more moody than the successful, high-flying, grandiose, classic narcissist, which is everybody largely agrees is what the DSM is defining as kind of a classic, grandiose, probably more masculine, uh, featured type of a narcissist. This one comes with shame cycles built in. So I'm emotionally quite disregulated. And if you look at the literature, you'll see what is narcissism frequently comorbid with? It's actually frequently uh also comorbid meaning also diagnosed with um anxiety disorders and mood disorders and unsurprisingly addiction, alcohol, drugs, prescription drugs, recreational drugs, all in an effort to moderate how I feel. My emotional dysregulation is occurring.
And now I want you to imagine all of this inside of your mind. You're feeling shame because you're failing to bully enough people. You're feeling shame because you're failing to con enough of the right type of people in the right way into showing you the veneration that in the core of your being you fundamentally believe you deserve. Remember this is a personality disorder where entitlement is is built in to the structure. Massive amounts of entitlement that breeds to that leads to this as it says in the DSM this this haughty snooty demeanor. Also in the DSM and I and I think this is I have many criticisms of DSM but I think this is correct. Believing that you have the right of access to special people who are like you. believing that the rules don't really apply to you. So, you're running the simulation with me, this uh this dark this exercise in in dark empathy. I've got you playing. Imagine living like that and thinking, gosh, I should be with those people over there who are in an elevated hierarchical status. I should be seen as the the chief of the parent teachers association. I should be seen as whatever the realm is, wherever this personality disorder finds itself, whichever part of the system, it's going to think I deserve to be in charge. I deserve and and not with any responsibility. I I shouldn't have said in charge. I deserve to be at the top of the hierarchy so that I am rightfully worshipped. This is not good clinical language, but I'm a YouTuber. I get away with it. So that I can be right rightfully worshipped for my brilliance. And every time, not not every time, but frequently when that thought comes up inside of this covert, fragile, vulnerable narcissist, shame comes up and the voice says, "You're not going to trick them. They don't believe you. It's not going to work. You're not strong enough. You're not beautiful enough. You're not powerful enough. You're not rich enough." And so this leads to a lot of uh emotional ups and downs.
Now this is confusing for the targets of this kind of narcissistic abuse because they're looking at somebody who is very emotionally uh labile and disregulated. They're up, they're down, they sulk a lot. It's a it's a sulky condition. They're petulant. They're sullen. They're resentful. And why is that happening? Because they've gone into narcissistic depletion and now they're at the mercy of their own internal super ego injunctions that are telling them that they're useless. What do they do to combat that? They have to reach for domination as a compensation for these feelings and for these thoughts. So they start to bully people. They start to create interactions in which they can be the winner. And what you'll notice with the particularly with the fragile vulnerable narcissist is they can turn anything into a competition. Any discussion, any argument, any scenario, any experience, they turn it into a competition. Why? We speak a lot about Freud. We speak less about his his peer uh Alfred Adler. He identified Adler Alfred Adler the inferiority complex. It's a compensatory drive. I believe I'm amazing. Most of the world doesn't. I have a few brainwashed acolytes who do. It's easier for me to brainwash my own children. I think when we're talking about parental, it's a conversation that we need to have is when we're talking about parental narcissistic abuse. How much of that is covert, it's probably going to be more prevalent because it's easy to brainwash your kids. And of course, tiny children are raised with a biological impulse to venerate their parents. I so I think it happens uh probably is more prevalent inside of family units, but they can also learn whatever strategies they've learned inside of a family unit and take it to the workplace if they can put themselves into a mothering role. Whether they're male or female, it doesn't matter. If they can put themselves into a a mother hen role, if that guy, that woman can put him himself or herself into a mothering role, they can also play out this cycle of uh essentially bait and switch.
Remember, you have two things going on at the same time. And this is where we as the recipients of this start to feel like we are the ones who are crazy. So, the covert narcissist is operating in two realities. in inside of a a split, if you will. The fantasy reality that that is the core of their being is I'm your mother and I love you. I'm your father. I want what's best for you. Uh I'm your boss and I care so much about all my employees. Look at what I've done for you. Look what I sacrificed for you. Is this narrative sounding familiar? These are the stories that I tell myself and tell others to wear them down into a state of guilt and shame so that they submit to the false reality which is I am a good and kind person who only has your best interests at heart. This can start to happen at the state level, at government level, at systems of control as well. But the real reality, which is what we should be seeking for, is observable patterns of behavior across time that lean towards exploitation and lean towards an excessive centralization of that person at the core of every scenario, every story, every experience. they somehow manage to centralize themselves as being the most important part of that. They don't really have worldly power. So they have to steal little bits and scraps of power inside of their own smaller petty as in the French petit the derivative of petty petty worlds. So they become like a petty narcissist and their behaviors are petty. They're super petty. They're hyper competitive. They're scoring points. And they always need to feel that they are winning and you are losing. At times I've even spoken to people with fragile narcissism and they've said, uh, life is fundamentally a game of winners and losers. And I remember looking at this person, my eyes going wide, and thinking, oh dear, that doesn't sound like a very healthy way for doing reality.
The key element for overcoming and dealing with somebody who's in that covert narcissist, fragile narcissist space is seeing the truth of who they are by observing the behavior across time. Somebody said to me the other day, uh it was on an Instagram question. and they said, "Um, oh, is it true that the INFJ from the Myers uh Briggs um categorization, "Is it true that the INFJ can see through uh a narcissist's BS every time?" And I replied to them, "I'm an INFJ and I didn't see anything at all. There's no there's no personality type that I'm aware of that can see through these things instantly." Part of what it is is staying awake and staying aware and realizing that all people play games. Everybody's playing games. Everybody's signaling who they are in this way and that way. And there's power games everywhere. And that's normal. What we're talking about is when it's taken to a pathological level and when the effects on the people around them are deleterious. And I claim the covert narcissist probably does more damage than the grandiose narcissist because they sow the seeds of doubt inside the mind, inside the heart of the target.
If you're looking to overcome narcissistic abuse, whether it's grandiose or covert, vulnerable narcissism, I have a course for you that does that. It's a complete guide to deprogramming from narcissistic abuse. It is not a fast course. It's not a quick course. It's not an easy course, but it's a very thorough course. No stone is left unturned. And my intention is once you've completed the course, however long that takes you, maybe uh a couple of a couple of months if you work at it consistently, you will never get into another narcissistically abusive relationship ever again. And that's available now from richardgrannon.com. Ladies and gents, thank you very much for your time and for your attention. And I look forward to speaking to you again very soon. Thank you.