Transcription
We talk a lot about narcissistic men. We're told how to spot them. We're told how to deal with them endlessly.
If you're wondering if your boyfriend is a narcissist, something my therapist taught me a long time ago is that if you guys are fighting and he says something kind of mean to you, or yells at you, or upsets you in some way, and you start crying, and he doesn't try to comfort you, he doesn't hug you, he doesn't say he's sorry, he doesn't show any empathy, babe, that's a narcissist.
Narcissists love to choose a strong person, a strong woman who's got her stuff sorted, who's got a career going for her, who feels good about herself.
So, as a therapist, I can spot a narcissist from a mile away.
Narcissists suddenly care about the children when they realize it's the only way left to control you.
So, of course, we're given the impression that this is a distinct male issue. And this fixation on the grandiose, loud caricature of the narcissist has hidden a much more common type, the type that doesn't dominate but suffers, the female narcissist. And so today, we're going to go through three concrete examples of how you, where you can see this in your daily life.
The first example is the striving for certain mental health labels. Thank you.
"Autism. I'm diagnosing you with autism."
"Thank you."
"Sorry. I didn't think I was going to cry."
"That's okay."
And I say "certain" because the narcissism reveals itself in the type of labels, the type of diagnosis they seek. No one wears clinical depression or plain anxiety as a badge of honor. Instead, the favorites are ADHD, as we've talked about before, autism, as we've talked about, and the ever-expanding category of trauma responses. Notice how they are neurodevelopmental. "I was born this way," or trauma-based, "something someone did this to me." And with that, they place the origin outside of the self. It offers, conveniently, no concrete route to treatment and also, conveniently, shifts the burden of adaptation onto everybody else. So schools and workplaces must accommodate partners. They have to just adjust, and therapy becomes an endless program of validation, safety, and self-care rather than meaningful change.
So, a woman who's simply neurotic and sensitive to rejection because of that, she'll attribute every interpersonal wobble to a trauma response. "Easily done," or "complex PTSD." She feels anxious after a conversation. She's triggered. Terms like "rejection sensitivity" are such, in my opinion, because they flatten an extremely painful early environment that causes us to feel sensitive to rejection because we were being rejected. So, of course, your body, your bodily memory, being wise as it is, is going to alert you to anything that could instigate that original feeling of wounding.
Um, another woman who misses deadlines, she, you know, says with this, uh, curious pride that she has ADHD brain, or she has executive dysfunction, or my favorite, "My brain just isn't wired to be on time." No joke, that has been said to me.
"We have ADHD. Of course, we're always running late."
"I forgot my phone. We have ADHD. We go to a room and we forgot what we wanted."
Or someone who dislikes unpredictable plans. Again, much more likely caused by anxiety and neuroticism, but she can say that she's autistic. And the entire vocabulary is designed to recast temperament as injury, and injury as identity. Now, this isn't to say that every woman who uses these labels are narcissistic, but this is to highlight how vulnerable the modern mental health landscape is to being hijacked by female narcissism.
"I just went for a checkup and now I have a diagnosis of autism. Like, I'm not, I'm not mad about it. I wanted this. I asked for this. I just didn't see it coming. So anyway, my name's Ash. I have ADHD and autism."
And when that hijacking appears, we want to be readier than we are now. And there are certain signs that appear with a remarkable consistency. One of these signs is that if you gently prod the narrative, just gently, something as simple as suggesting a calendar, or a different routine, or simply a behavioral tweak, something that worked for you, you will instantly be met with irritation, defensiveness. You will be told, in no uncertain terms, that you don't understand, or that, at worst, that you are dismissive, God forbid. And, and so what you've done, you, you haven't threatened her well-being in any sort of way, although that's how you will be made to feel, but you have threatened the status she extracts from this label, from this diagnosis.
"Hey, I've been diagnosed autistic and ADHD, which finally explains why I've struggled so much with life up until this point. We're all a little bit on the spectrum, but you don't have real autism. Don't start acting differently, though, now, just 'cause you've got a diagnosis."
And the diagnosis has become a psychological asset, which means that any hint of improvement would, of course, devalue it. And this is where the narcissistic mechanism reveals itself. So, because we have made victimhood a form of social currency, the most important social currency, really, if you think about it, the psychological move is that I'm not just struggling. I'm the most struggling. I'm the best victim. I'm the best at being small. So, it lets narcissism hide in this performance of vulnerability. And this, of course, secures the benefits of status without having earned it, without having to work for it.
"Well, of course, I'll tell you how, how awful it was to go to the different psychiatrists and having to fill out forms like this. When they diagnosed me with ADHD, they were like, 'Okay, perfect. You have really bad ADHD. Don't know how you've actually gone this far in life without a diagnosis. Kind of crazy. Here's 50 pages of paperwork you'll need to fill out. You'll need to book two follow-up appointments today, okay? And you need a letter from your GP. You need all these things, and then we'll discuss medication with you.' And I was like, 'What? Like, really? Like, you don't have another method for me? You can't help me at all? Like, you know, this isn't getting done.'"
And the status of victimhood will then, um, invite social admiration for their hardship. And this hardship, I'm sorry, it's wildly out of proportion to reality. Usually, it's just a way of gaining moral superiority. And this is especially important for women because evolutionarily, we are rewarded for appearing kind and appearing self-sacrificing. Nobody likes, really, an ambitious and very confident woman. She doesn't have a lot of friends. And now she can do that by out-competing others in perceived suffering.
The second example, and now it's getting a little spicy. Just prepare yourselves. This is the, the, this is where I'm going to go out on a limb. Uh, but this is the diagnostic labeling of, uh, children as a sort of maternal identity construction. And there are, there's no doubt that there's a rising number of mothers securing highly specific diagnoses for their children. For example, a child that struggles with transitions, he is immediately described as neurodivergent. The mother will then recount the ordeal of securing an assessment. And this is so telling.
"We had to see three different specialists before someone finally understood him."
"So this is going to be the journey, uh, it took me to get my youngest daughter tested for ADHD."
"You know, as, as though the difficulty in itself confirms the child's uniqueness." You also have the mother who will describe the, the child's refusal to participate in group work as him being bored because of his giftedness. And, and she'll then position herself as the one who has the rare task of raising a temperamentally extraordinary child. And then from her friends, she'll receive admiration, sympathy for dealing with the system, with the institutions who didn't help her enough or appropriately, who isn't giving her what she needs. And, and no wonder it's like that when you had to wait that long.
"In some of the very first things that I would do if I was receiving an autism diagnosis for my child for the first time. Now that I know all the things that I know and I've been an autism mom for years. If you're new here, my son is 13. He has level three non-speaking autism. He's got six other disability diagnoses, but I'm going to focus on autism today. The first thing I would do is I would find myself a therapist and I would make sure that I have a very good community around me."
And here too, you'll see the narcissistic element. If you lightly questioned a diagnosis, you'll be met with disproportionate defensiveness. Even a suggestion like, "Have you tried less screen time?" It will be a direct attack on the mother's self-concept, self-image. And this is where it gets interesting. Now, we're getting into it. A lot of people will, will, um, confuse this with Munchausen by proxy, or say, "Oh, this is that." But it's different. So where Munchausen by proxy is where a mother will induce or fabricate symptoms to get medical attention. Her goal is to get into the hospital to talk to nurses and doctors. Her, her goal is the medical attention. Whereas with the narcissistic mother, it's quite different. She doesn't want emotional strokes. You'll see that the narcissistic mother deliberately seeks out diagnoses that don't really require that much treatment, at least not invasive. And it will always be sort of treatment or therapy that she chooses when and how, uh, where she can say, "We don't want to do that. It doesn't suit us. It doesn't work for him."
"So, your kid was just diagnosed with ADHD and now what? First of all, take a deep breath. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with your child. It simply gives them a label to help better understand where they're coming from."
They don't really demand medication. Don't force change. At least she'll always have the control to implement change. But it will be diagnoses where the responsibility shifts onto schools, uh, institutions, clinicians, systems, and the, the prescribed therapies or doctor's notes. They will be used as tools, as leverage, to, uh, to acquire such, to acquire accommodations, to make people do what you want them to do, while all the while she can remain exempt from change. So that's the difference. I've even seen a lot of mothers who refuse to, they reject Ritalin for their ADHD child wholesale, and I think that's good. I don't think that that, you know, that children should be getting Ritalin, but that's another reason. Her reason is that, um, the medication was never the point. The diagnosis was the point. So, contrary to the Munchausen by proxy mother, the reward of the narcissistic mother isn't medical attention, but easily earned social status and control.
"Dominance through, 'Why aren't you compassionate enough? Why don't you understand? Can't you have some empathy? Don't you see his suffering? We've been through so much already, and now you want us to do this too?'"
Now we get to the third example. This is gentle parenting as a sort of stage for narcissistic theater. When you look at the modern parenting culture, and I'm talking about the, the, the gentle, the hyper-attuned, feelings-first variant, it is the perfect stage for female narcissism.
"If you don't know me, my name is Kelly. I practice gentle parenting and have done for almost two years now. Jesus. I show the highs and lows and everything in between of gentle parenting. There's no judgment here. If you want to do it, do it. If you don't, that's cool, too. But let's talk about the word 'sorry.' If you are wanting to do gentle parenting, here's why it's important not to force the word 'sorry.'"
And it's because it's relational. Their, their dominance is relational. They're excellent at emotional manipulation. And because this form of narcissism looks like the very culturally encouraged virtues of compassion and understanding, it fits very neatly with this parenting philosophy that is built on attunement, of reflective dialogue with a three-year-old, and endless emotional literacy.
"Right? And be all done yelling. Because mommy is getting very frustrated and very upset, just like you. And if mommy is frustrated and upset, then I can't do a good job calming you down."
And, and I mean, for this mother, this, this parenting style is just irresistible. Irresistible. She gets to be the enlightened mother, the exquisitely attuned, the morally superior, obviously raising a child with an emotional intelligence that lesser parents could never hope to match. So this, for a woman whose self-esteem is just depends on social prestige, this, this identity is a gold mine. But inside the framework, the child's emotional life, um, stops being about the child. A normal developmental moment of frustration, and or, or boredom, or, or, or refusal, or anger, it will be experienced by her as narcissistic injury that she isn't doing something properly. And then she will rush in with emotional micromanagement that's much more about her than the child. And they'll rename feelings, and she'll offer scripts, and say things like, you know, "Don't tell the child how it makes her feel, or how it makes her sib, how it affects the siblings." So the child's emotional state has to stay in very, in, inside very tight parameters, and not, not because the child needs it, but because she cannot tolerate being anything less than being seen as anything less than perfectly attuned.
And there's a predictable irony, of course. These children, they invariably end up, you know, the behavior spirals. Uh, they end up, um, being more unruly without enforced boundaries. And, uh, when the, when the, when the inevitable tantrums and, and the impulsivity, when they appear, then she will shift into martyrdom. She will speak at length about her highly sensitive child and all the exhausting routine she, routines she performs. And then her friends will say, "You do all that? I couldn't. I don't know how you manage. You're incredible." And she will make her struggle her credential. So what happens is that the child's dysregulation becomes just proof of her exceptional motherhood. It's not definitely not a sign that the method is failing, or that she is failing, but only used as proof of the burden that she is so heroically carries.
"Gentle parenting is breaking you because you've got emotional dysregulation and you're not gentle parenting yourself. I'm a mom with ADHD, so I found out the hard way because I struggle with emotional dysregulation and rejection sensitive dysphoria on top of being a perfectionist, just to name a few. Due to my untreated ADHD, I was also pretty much feeling constantly overstimulated and overwhelmed. Because I just couldn't mask anymore. That part of my brain that was occupied with masking is now occupied with everything child-related."
And then over time, when the child gets older, uh, he will learn that there's this reversal happening. So he will learn that he has to manage his emotions to keep her stable. And then the child has become both the trigger for and the regulator of her emotional world. So that's what we see. And these dynamics, they flourish because they are embedded in a culture that treats women's emotional expression as inherently virtuous and discourages any scrutiny of maternal behavior. When we emphasize, as we do, psychological literacy, trauma awareness, and doing the work, we provide a, a moral vocabulary through which narcissistic, um, uh, female narcissistic strategies can be reframed as, for example, conscientious parenting.
These three examples I've outlined, it, it illustrates, um, it shows us a consistent pattern in contemporary, in female narcissism. Each of them provides the transformation of ordinary difficulties into narratives of exceptional burden, insight, or sensitivity. Each converts relational environments into stages where they can construct their moral identity. And each is sustained by a cultural moment that treats women's self-presentations as intrinsically credible, interprets emotional language as a sign of psychological depth, and refuses to attribute self-serving motives to maternal behavior.
That was it. I hope you enjoy this video. And, uh, click on the two videos if you want to know more, if you know, if you want to know more about the hypocrisy of beauty standards, or if you want to know about all ADHD.