Transcription
Hi everyone, it's Dr. Romani. Thanks again for tuning in to this series, which is sort of a handbook of all the terminology you need to make sense of narcissistic relationships and narcissistic abuse. Today's video is going to take on two common narcissistic dynamics: devaluing and discarding.
Before we go on to that, please do click on the bell if you want to subscribe to this channel. You'll get daily updates when new episodes of this series come out, as well as all of the other content that comes out on this channel. So let's take on this issue of devaluing and discarding.
The classical narcissistic fairytale starts with idealization and then moves on to devaluation and then discarding. Everyone thinks it won't happen to them, and yet, without exception, the story goes down the same way every time. To feel thrown away by another person is an awful experience, but yet, it is sort of a universal part of the narcissistic relationship.
So let's start by taking a look at the narcissistic relationship cycle. In most cases, not all, not all by any means, but many of most, the idealization often takes the form of love bombing, which is another video in this series. So love bombing or idealization lasts just long enough to get you stuck in this relationship dynamic. Just when you exhale and believe in the fairytale, then BAM, that's when the devaluation phase starts.
Devaluation can start slow. It's when the little criticisms begin, when you start experiencing the contempt, when the gifts and the big "I love yous" go away, when the narcissist's phone becomes much more interesting than you sitting in front of them, and when the sideways comments like, "I don't know, like, are you really gonna wear that?" and other comments of that ilk start to creep into the relationship. It can be a real time of intense confusion in a relationship because you can't figure out when the love bombing ended and when the contempt began. All you know is it's though the weather changed. It went from being very warm to very cold, kind of quickly.
The devaluing phase tends to happen just as you start to feel more settled into the relationship as a real relationship. You may have actually been resisting the relationship for a while, and you might have even had been savvy enough to think, "Oh, this love bombing is a little bit too good to be true. I'm not gonna be played." And then just when you settled in, when you felt like it was a real and whole relationship, that is when the devaluation begins.
The reason for this sort of shift, it's a bit nuanced, but it largely happens because at the deepest deep, a narcissist's self-loathing is actually so deep and so unprocessed that just as someone does see the good in them, it's as though it activates their self-contempt, which they then project onto you. And then, voila, devaluation. It's as though they project their devaluation of themselves onto you.
Now, devaluation can last for months, years, and even decades. It becomes, before you know it, sort of a new normal. Your life tends to be punctuated by insults and by invalidation.
The discard, just what it sounds like. Discarding is honestly like throwing out the trash, like they're done with you. Now, sometimes discarding never really truly happens. You may just kind of get stuck in the purgatory of devaluation forever. But discarding happens when they cast you aside, and it, this is almost like discarding is like, it can be really cold, and you can actually have a narcissistic relationship that keeps happening even when you've been discarded.
So, for example, your narcissist may have an affair, an extramarital affair, just cheat on you, and so you were in essence discarded, but you still stay in the relationship. Or they may take a job or take advantage of an opportunity that doesn't take you into consideration. So either you have to leave your life behind to join them, or be left behind. So they're just kind of doing what works for them.
The discarding is often motivated for the narcissist from a place of both contempt and of boredom. Basically, your narcissistic supply has become quite stale, and narcissists tend to be very novelty-seeking. So it all depends on your story. No matter what, it feels awful to be discarded from a relationship that you actually believe that you're in.
Many narcissists expect you often to do the dirty work and end the relationship so they can turn around and say, "Oh, she was the one who left me. He was the one who filed for divorce. She moved out and walked out on me and the kids. Oh, he walked away from his family." When that happens, they get to look good to the world, and since the narcissist is often gonna turn around and tell the world a false story, then you look like the one who is unfeeling or unkind or willing to walk away from something, which doesn't feel good.
Now, the mistakes that people most often make during the devaluation and the discarding phase is to ask that killer question: "Why?" During the devaluation phase, they're going to gaslight you and deny that they are devaluing you. And in fact, they may turn around and call you paranoid or hypersensitive or crazy. Now, during the discarding phase, if you try to make them accountable for their behavior, again, you're gonna run into more gaslighting.
Now, people want to make sense of this process, so asking "why" is understandable, but there's really no sense to be made of it because the narcissist isn't going to cop to it. The narcissist isn't going to turn around and say, "Yeah, I'm not capable of making healthy attachments, and I'm deeply insecure, and I have contempt for intimacy, so I am actually, yeah, I'm rejecting you, and I'm treating you badly to see and test my hypothesis that you will observe my insecurities and that you will leave me, and my fantasy is that's the case, and then let's see if that comes true." Now, they are not going to say that to you, even though that's the dynamic that's likely unfolding.
So asking them for an explanation is likely to bring more harm than good because they themselves aren't in touch with what's happening.
Now, the devaluing and discarding cycles happen in families as well. In general, if you aren't just blindly going along with a narcissist's agenda, then they often think that you are against them. And in a family, this can happen when you just don't go along with the program with what the narcissistic parent or sibling or aunt or grandparent want. Your family members, the family members will find out that if you are, they learn that if you appease the narcissistic family member, then you will be able to keep them calm and stay in their good graces. And this can be particularly profound if the narcissist has some kind of power, so for example, the money that they may use to control family members. So if you do lay down some real boundaries, that's when often in a family, the devaluation and discarding cycle can begin.
Now, for scapegoats in a family system, the discard and devaluation cycle is an eternal part of the scapegoat's role in the family system. They're constantly being devalued, constantly being devalued, and if the scapegoat tries to set a boundary, boom, they'll be discarded.
Now, devaluing and discarding can also absolutely take place in workplace settings, and in those cases, that's in which narcissistic bosses and narcissistic managers and leaders devalue the people that they think aren't their team players. Basically, these are the people who are not the yes men or the yes women. And then ultimately, they may make life so miserable for the people who don't just sign on with whatever twisted agenda they have that those people actually end up leaving or may get fired.
Now, the devaluation and discarding cycle is, sadly enough, often followed by hoovering. That's why it's a dysfunctional cycle. Some people get so disgusted by the discarding cycle that they do ultimately leave, but it's not unusual for that insecure narcissist who wants to keep control to try to Hoover them back. Now, if you fall for it and allow yourself to be sucked in, that whole cycle is going to begin again: idealization, devaluation, and discarding. It's just sort of this eternal cycle that's really only gonna end if you're the one who's going to be courageous enough to break it.
And it can really be quite addictive. Lots of people confuse the excitement of hoovering and idealization with love. It's really not. It's abuse. And therapy becomes a key tool to at least start thinking about how to end the confusion and the conflation that love and abusive relationship cycles are the same thing.
Now, narcissists devalue and discard for many of the reasons mentioned, but also because they devalue intimacy, and because they have very limited empathy. They don't really care how these cycles are hurting you or impacting you. They just do it without thinking. And in some ways, the chaos, it feels comfortable for them, and they don't have any regard for how it hurts you, but they do kind of like the excitement and the roller-coaster nature of this cycle.
Now, these toxic cycles take a tremendous toll on the people who get stuck in them. Basically, this turns relationships into rollercoasters and almost like addictive cycles, and these can often perpetuate early childhood patterns you may have had around rejection. In some ways, these toxic cycles keep their relationship exciting for the narcissist, and it's very easy to get sucked into their vortex and cycle. And for some people, this cycle strangely enough becomes sort of a reenactment of trying to win over their unwinnable parent in childhood. It almost feels familiar to be rejected, and it can feel exciting when you are hoovered back in and idealized for a minute, and in that moment, you're almost taken back to childhood when you feel like, "I've won that parent over." But then when the devaluing and discard cycles happen, and it's inevitable that they will, sadly, those cycles feel familiar too, and your ancient script of feeling like you're not enough gets activated again.
Now, some people allow these devaluation and discarding cycles to happen because they'll often buy into the narcissist's narrative about how difficult their lives were. And the narcissist's eyes may very well have been quite difficult. The narcissist will often share a story about having never seeing love when they were growing up, and that it was so terrible for them. And you endure the narcissist's cycle because you believe it's the loving thing to do, that maybe you're gonna correct it for the narcissist. And it's not allowing yourself to be harmed in the name of love isn't love.
Their tale of woe or abuse or trauma, it may be very, very true. They may have actually had a very rough childhood, and it is you're sorry about that, but it's not your responsibility. It's not your responsibility. You can't change their history. And remaining there as an object that at times they value, but more often reject, is not only, you know, not doing the narcissist any favors, it's taking a tremendous toll on your mental and physical health. There are no winners here.
Now, being discarded is an awful feeling. It can raise tremendous triggers around abandonment and rejection, and lots of people will fight for the relationship at that point. They want to maintain that fantasy of the happy relationship or the happy family. The fact is, in some ways, we are really stubborn creatures. We're human beings, and we fight for those things we can't have. We get stuck on the things we can't have, and things often become much more interesting when they're slipping away or we're just not allowed to have them. We're all kids who want the thing in the cookie jar, and don't fall for that trick.
If you have been devalued and then you're being discarded, receive it, believe it or not, as a gift. I know that sounds paradoxical, but it's a chance to get away from a relationship that is likely making you sick. But to do that, you have to value yourself first, and that requires a deeper dive into where those scripts about self-devaluation come from and flipping yourself over into a space of self-compassion.
Keep in mind that self-compassion is like kryptonite against the charms of the narcissist. Once you have self-compassion, honestly, the narcissist is rendered powerless, and you can finally walk away. It's interesting to think that in a discard and a devalue cycle, that you could actually get that kind of power. You often feel like you're stuck at the whims of the narcissist, when they will devalue you, when they will discard you, whether that's a partner, family member, or even a boss. But the fact of the matter is, ultimately, believe it or not, in these cycles, you have a lot more power than you think in the form of self-compassion.
Self-compassion not only allows you to say, "Yeah, no, I'm not doing this cycle. I see what it is. It's not good for me," and allow you to step away, but self-compassion also allows you to feel compassion for the other. And as difficult and challenging as these narcissistic relationships are, as I said many times, narcissistic individuals have had very difficult backstories. In fact, it's what explains a lot of their personality and why it's organized the way it is.
There is no need for you to engage in those kinds of toxic cycles. You don't have to devalue and discard from a place of self-compassion. You can also let them go from a place of compassion and in your heart, hope that maybe they can go and get the help they need to grow into a healthier future. However, that's not your job. Self-preservation is a right, and if you're going to preserve yourself in these cycles, you've got to exercise that right and break the devaluation and discard cycle.
Thank you again for tuning in. I hope this video helped you understand the theme, the terms devaluation, and more importantly, discarding, which are very much a part of the narcissistic relationship cycle. As always, if you like this content, I just ask that you hit the bell, subscribe to this channel. Not only will you get notifications about the rest of this series, but all of our future series and the weekly content we put out 52 weeks a year. So thanks again for tuning in to this series, and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode.