Transcription
Hey everyone, it's Dr. Romney. Welcome back to this YouTube channel on narcissism. So today's question is, do narcissists believe their lies? Now, drop that your answer to that in the comments. But this is a question that many people have sent in, and it's a little bit of a complicated one. So let's start with basics.
Narcissistic folks definitely tend to lie more than the rest of us. And why do they lie? So they can maintain an image to other people that will continue to get them validation and praise and admiration. None of us are perfect, right? None of us, not us, not the narcissist, anyone. And if we sometimes, if we do something that makes us not look good, and we tell the truth about it, we might look less than perfect. So, or less perfect. So let's say someone says, "Why were you late?" And the truth is, "Because I slept in, and I laid around in bed, and I was fooling around with my phone, and I didn't even really want to be here." That's the truth. Are you going to say it? Probably not, because it's not a good look. So instead, people might lie and say something like, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I got stuck in traffic." And part of that's because I got held up because my elderly neighbor needed me to shovel some snow from their front walk. Sounds a lot better, right?
So when we think about lies, and certainly the way narcissistic people lie, they often maintain their own version of reality. And so they will create a narrative through fiction, sort of mixed with fact, to maintain that reality, often of them as being a good person. Now, this pseudo-reality that is designed to maintain their grandiosity and ensure that they keep getting validation and protect their ego, all of that becomes their identity, which then ends up blurring any lines between truth and fiction. The delusion and the lies become real, and any threats to that reality are overpowered and dominated by tactics like manipulation and gaslighting.
So that takes us to this question that a lot of you have sent in of whether narcissistic people actually believe their lies. You know what? It may actually be the wrong question for us to be asking, because the only thing that is stronger than their lies, that may even drive their lies, is their need to maintain a sort of certain reality to the world. For this reason, narcissistic folks are, they get, they get obsessed with getting the right picture, or living in the right house or apartment, or wearing the right outfit, or having the right labels, or driving the right car. Looking good to them is more important than the reality, because if they look good, that means that the world looks at them and says, "Well, their lives must be good because it looks good." Because that's how they view the world, that, well, if that looks good, then it must be good.
The lies for a narcissist become a way of maintaining that false reality. And once we dig deeper to a psychological level, that the narcissist is definitely not connected to, because it's so unconscious, it's their fear. Their fear that their inadequacy, their insecurity, and the shame that would be activated if all of that messy insecurity and inadequacy were to get revealed. The narcissistic person lives in an unnamed, unidentified fear of sort of being found out. They'll hide back stories and tell revisionist stories about their families of origin, their education, their jobs, their lives, their relationships. It's all more lies.
Narcissistic people know damn well what is and what is not viewed well in terms of behavior by society. It's interesting, they know it, they just don't follow it. For example, most narcissistic folks know that if they get caught in, I don't know, unethical behavior, or cheating on a spouse, or something like that, it's not a good look, and that they will be judged badly. So what do they do? They lie about it. They lie because they want, they want to be able to impulsively do what they want to do, but they don't want to be judged badly for it. This is actually very different from psychopaths, who actually, yeah, they'll lie, but they don't care if they get caught, and they often really don't care what other people think of them. They may still lie just to sort of smooth out the rough spots, but they actually really don't care. Narcissists care, and that's what drives their lying.
Lies themselves are a complicated space. There are white lies that really carry no harm, and white lies are often designed to protect another person. So white lies would be things like, "Wow, that dress looks great on you," or "I can't wait to go to your sister's wedding." Now, on the other hand, are the betrayal lies. Betrayal lies are on the other end of the spectrum, and are the lies that hide information that will harm someone else when that information gets out, like misappropriating money, infidelity, lying about a crime, or some sort of significant ethical breach. Narcissistic folks definitely engage in both types of lies. I don't know that they do the white lies to protect other people, but they definitely will engage in the betrayal lies.
It's very interesting to catch a narcissistic person in a lie. If you have enough evidence, for example, video or photos, or some other kind of smoking gun, even when you have that evidence, the narcissistic person will often not cop to the truth. They will instead blame you for being paranoid, or call it a smear campaign, or a witch hunt. They will make it about people being jealous of them. But what they will often not do is simply own it and say, "I lied. I lied because I wanted to look good, and I didn't want to look like the bad person that this behavior is showing me to be." And they would also never say, "I lied because I wanted to look good, and I'm just sorry that I lied because that lie hurt you." They don't have the empathy to care, and they don't have the insight to connect the dots on what the function of the lie is. They really don't. That's how baked in it is for them.
So the short answer to this question of whether narcissistic people believe their lies, frankly, what they believe is that they should be able to do what they want, whenever they want, never be judged badly for that behavior. When they step out of line and hurt people, and not face consequences, that's what they believe. The lies are a way to keep that entitled reality alive. But they understand the rules of society enough. So narcissistic people understand how society works enough, so they know better than to say either of those things out loud, that they should, that this idea that they should be able to get away with whatever they want, whenever they want, and not ever have to be accountable, and that they, the reason that they lie is because they're entitled. It's just not going to do that. It's not something that looks good to other people, and what is it going to do then? It runs the risk of stopping them from getting validation, which is sort of the energy that fuels them.
The narcissistic person's lies are just as impulsive as their bad behavior is. They just do it. They lie literally without thinking, because their all of their investment isn't looking good to other people. But because that unconscious process and the need to look good are so key to their identities, they kind of do believe the lies. Why? Because they have to. The narcissistic person's inner world is like a bunch of messy closets that contain lots of secrets, skeletons, and lies, and they don't want anyone to see any of it. The unconscious and the automatic lying that's such a classical part of narcissism means that it's less about their belief about their lies and more about the fact that the lying is just a tactic for how they get through the world. For a narcissistic person, gaining dominance and validation takes precedence over everything, including the truth. That means if you are in a relationship with a narcissistic person, the lying, it kind of goes along with the territory, and you have to get your head around the idea that at some level, they have to believe their lies. So they do. And you, or me, or anyone, none of us are going to be the ones to school the narcissists on their lies or teach them to stop lying. I know that many people out there have the fantasy that if I could just show the narcissistic person that I am onto their lies, then when we, then we can make a fresh start. Not. They're just going to be mad that you took off their mask, and then rage further, and then take their lies deeper underground.
The lies are who they are. Each of the lies, you can almost view it as a sort of like a little mosaic tile that makes up the mask that the narcissistic person wears to be able to continue to live and portray that false reality to the world, as well as their identity that allows them to believe that they look good to the world. So I could have made this a very short video. So narcissists believe their lies? Yes, they do, because they have to. And what does that mean? That means that they're never going to stop.
So I hope that answers that question. Please, as always, if you're new to this channel, please subscribe. Hit that notification bell, you can get told every time we have new videos coming out. And if you did like this video, please give us a thumbs up. Thanks so much.