← The Little Shaman: On Narcissists & Toxic Personalities
The Little Shaman: On Narcissists & Toxic Personalities
Episode 248: Narcissists Cannot Read You (The Reality Is Worse!)
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Hey everybody, it's Shaman Sister Sin, and you're listening to the Meditations and more podcast on thelittleshaman.com brought to you by Trans Relational Healing and littleshaman.org that's me, the little shaman. Today, I wanted to talk to you about something that is extremely common to hear when talking about narcissists and the dynamics of narcissistic relationships, and that is that narcissists can read other people, that they can read other people's emotional states. We hear this all the time. It is often cited as the reason that narcissists can be so successful at manipulation. For example, the idea is that narcissists are able to accurately read and interpret the emotions of other people, that they can understand these and therefore use them against others for their own gain. It's understandable that people believe this is the case. At first glance, narcissists appear to be able to home in on people's weaknesses with almost supernatural precision. However, it's also true that narcissists generally have a pretty severe empathy deficit, and that causes some issues with the idea that they can read or understand the emotions of other people. Empathy is the understanding of the reality of other people's emotions and the ability to understand how these emotions impact other people, how they make others feel. If narcissists have no empathy, then by definition they cannot read, understand, or interpret the emotional states of other people accurately. That's what empathy is. If they don't have it, then they can't do that. Some people have floated the concept of cold empathy as pertaining to narcissists, which is the logical understanding and interpretation of emotional states minus the emotional warmth. But that doesn't necessarily ring true either, considering the enormous amount of projection that narcissists are engaging in all the time. Empathy, either warm or cold, is the opposite of projection. When we are engaging in empathy, we see how the other person feels. When we are engaging in projection, we see how we feel. The fact that pathologically, narcissistic people are so wrong so often about what they claim other people are feeling speaks more to projection than anything else, as does the fact that the emotions they believe they are reading or feeling from other people are almost always negative and almost always about them. People sometimes cite the times that the narcissist was, quote unquote, right about their feelings as proof that narcissists can read other people. But this very often seems to fall into the category of even a broken clock is right twice a day. That means that sometimes it's just a coincidence. If you constantly expect a thing to happen, eventually it will happen and then you will be quote unquote right. If every time a car comes onto the street you say it's red, then eventually you're going to be right. This isn't proof that you knew the color of the car. It's just proof that if you guess the same thing over and over again once in a while, you're going to be correct. If the narcissist in your life constantly accuses you of being angry at them or feeling negatively toward them, just based on the law of averages, sometimes that's going to be true. Especially if they're constantly provoking you and accusing you. This doesn't mean that they were reading you accurately. They are generally wrong much more often. A broken clock is right twice a day. Yes, but it's wrong every other time. It's kind of like with a phony psychic. People want to believe in this psychic so much that they only remember or place any importance on the things that sounded right. And they dismiss or forget about all the other stuff that was actually incorrect. What appears to actually be happening is that rather than reading and understanding other people's emotional states, narcissists are observing people people's reactions and projecting meaning onto them that lines up with what the narcissist is expecting, what they're afraid of, or what they already perceive to be true. It is completely self referential and has nothing to do with the other person at all. This is perhaps where the idea of cold empathy came from in this context. Because yes, narcissists are very much studying your reactions. Since they lack empathy, they have no other way to gauge what any of the things that you're saying or doing meaning. In fact, they can focus so much on trying to interpret nonverbal cues that they actually miss what's being said. That happens all the time. The problem with the concept of cold empathy here is that narcissists generally cannot read or interpret these reactions very well at all. And due to the level of projection that they're engaging in, they appear to only interpret things through the lens of what they themselves are thinking and feeling anyway, without consideration for any other factor at all. Engaging with empathy, even cold empathy, would result in more accurate readings. The reality is, anyone who has engaged with narcissists will tell you that many of them are wrong about how they perceive others to be feeling an overwhelming majority of the time. They cannot read facial expressions accurately, they cannot read body language accurately, they cannot read tone accurately. They simply cannot read other people. They watch reactions and they interpret these through their own emotional and self referential lenses. And they tend to believe that they are far more accurate regarding this than they really are, resulting in what can be almost constant misunderstandings or misinterpretations and extreme resistance on the narcissist's part to being corrected about that. It is much, much more common for them to assume the other person is lying about or doesn't know their own feelings and motivations than it is for them to even consider the possibility that they them could be wrong. Not surprisingly, this leads to continuous conflict and it also results in reinforcing gaslighting because people believe the narcissist can read them. So they assume there's something wrong with the way that they are presenting or expressing themselves. They change their tone, their expression, their timing, their words, and everything else they can because they're taking the narcissist feedback seriously. The truth is though, that even if the feedback from narcissists were sincere, which is a rather large assumption on its own, a narcissist cannot really read other people accurately at all. And their interpretation of things is based on projection of their own emotions, fears and insecurities. Very little if anything else. Their perspective lens is entirely self referential. Entirely. So how do they become so versed in manipulation if they can't actually read or understand other people's emotions accurately? Practice for one, mimicry for another. The fact that the type of manipulation narcissists engage in most often is the very basic emotional manipulation that even little kids know how to engage in. But more than any of these things is the fact that you don't need to understand how something works to do it. People prove that every day when they drive cars. Narcissists don't need to understand people's emotions to use them. Children can be very manipulative in the same kinds of ways, and they don't understand how it works either. Not only are children actual children with a child's limited experience and understanding of things, but empathy is a function of emotional maturity. That is why adults often look back on their behavior, even in high school and feel bad for the way that they treated other people. The full impact of their actions often does not become clear to them until years later when they're more emotionally mature. We assume that narcissists understand what we understand because they're adults, but this actually appears to be largely projection on our part. There really is no evidence that implies any understanding on their part at all, other than Our assumption that there must be some. We forget that their brains have attempted to compensate for these deficits in ways that mimic normal functioning as much as possible, such as observing reactions in place of empathy and enmeshment in place of bonding. We forget or we're not aware of how much they engage in mimicry and in imitation, often without ever understanding why they are doing the things that they're doing. Because their only real goal is to give the right response and keep up the charade that they're not having the enormous amount of difficulty that they're actually having that they're the same as everybody else. It's kind of like toddlers imitating their parents. They pretend to sweep the floor with their little broom, or they cook and wash the dishes with their little play kitchen and stuff like that. They don't understand what they're doing or why. They're simply doing what they have seen grownups do with those things. This is very similar to how narcissists engage with the world, especially regarding emotional situations. They do what they have seen other people do in similar situations or what they have learned works. This is why their responses are often offbeat or inappropriate. They don't appear able to truly read and understand emotional states, to innately respond the way that people with empathy do. So as a result of that, they often miss the mark or get it wrong. To understand this better, think about how you process things. When you're talking to somebody just in a regular conversation, odds are you're not spending all of your time frantically trying to read their expressions and interpret their body language, to look for cues, or racking your brain for what the right response is to whatever they're saying so that you can seem like you understand. And you're just like everybody else. You're just talking. And because you have empathy, all of that is happening automatically for you and transmitting information to your brain without you even realizing it. You are able to rely on your perceptions in this area to the point that you don't even need to pay any conscious attention to them. It's just happening for you automatically. For people who don't have empathy, this does not happen. They have to often consciously and intentionally attempt to translate what they're hearing and seeing into some kind of understanding of what's being said and how the other person feels. For people with empathy deficits, who are also narcissists in particular, they struggle enormously with what's called mentalization, which is the understanding of the mental states of the self and other people, a process that helps us understand the motivations behind the behavior of ourselves and others. For example, if your child is being unusually quiet at the dinner table and this is a behavior that is different, you might think about what mental or emotional states could be behind this behavior and what factors might have caused that. For example, you might consider if they had a bad day at school and they feel sad about that, or if they were up too late the night before and now they're tired. You might consider that they're mad at you because you said that they couldn't go to the sleepover on Friday. You can use the skill of mentalization plus your empathy to try to understand your child's behavior. And then whenever you talk to them and ask them what's wrong, if they decide to tell you, you can use the skill of mentalization and your empathy to have that conversation and really be able to understand what they're telling you and where they're coming from. Narcissists cannot do these things. They instead try to consciously translate what they're seeing and hearing and are projecting onto and reading into these things as well. Which means that not only are they attempting to translate and interpret something they really have no understanding of at all in the first place, they are superimposing their own fears, traits, feelings, insecurities, and whatever else on top of that. And because their perspective is almost entirely self referential, they assume by default that everything is about them. This means their chances of legitimately reading another person accurately are actually almost zero. That's important because it really brings home the futility of trying to communicate with a narcissist. They just really cannot understand you or how you feel. In some ways, you're like an alien to them, same as they are to you. It seems hard to believe for many people, because anybody who's ever spent time with a pathologically narcissistic person will tell you, narcissists have feelings, they have emotions. How is it then that they do not understand the reality of the emotions of other people? But that's how lack of empathy works. That's what lack of empathy is. Many people think lack of empathy is caused by a lack of emotions. But narcissists and many other people with empathy deficits have their own emotions. The thing is, having emotions does not equate to understanding emotions. Narcissists generally don't understand or connect with their own emotions. Either asking them questions about their emotions or attempting to try to talk about these things often just goes nowhere. They may react with distress, hostility, indifference, or confusion. If you do get a response, it's often one that really answer the question at all, amounting to some version of I don't know. Conversely, if asked how they feel, they may respond with what they did, what they thought. Or they might report a physical reaction, such as, my stomach was hurting or I got a headache or my chest tightened up. In other words, again, no answer. They cannot answer about emotions. Very, very often, this happens all the time. Narcissists often struggle with even admitting to feeling emotions as well, especially those that are perceived to be negative, like anger. They might deny that they're feeling an emotion outright despite it being very obvious. Or they may project these things onto other people. I'm not angry. You are, and you're like, then why are you screaming? There is every possibility that many narcissists are not really able to recognize, connect with, or even name their own emotions. This is very much like a child. Even those who may seem able to superficially discuss or engage with their own emotions often flounder when it comes to any real discussion about them. It makes sense, then, that this person would not be able to recognize or connect with the emotions of other people or understand the emotional experiences of people around them. We take a lot for granted when dealing with other adults. We assume that they're like us, that they feel like us, that they know what we know, that they can do, what we can do. The reality is, it's just not always true at all. And even if someone appears to have the same capabilities or know the same things or whatever, we still should not automatically assume that that's true or ever disregard evidence to the contrary, because we don't understand it or we find it hard to believe. It may be hard to believe that pathologically narcissistic people cannot understand or connect with emotions in themselves or in other people, for example, especially considering that manipulating people's emotions is their stock in trade. But through dealing with them, the evidence of this just becomes too overwhelming to deny. It's just one more paradoxical component of this entire paradoxical situation. To illustrate how it can be that a person can use something without knowing how it works, we can use an analogy that we've used before on this channel, the remote control. When you use a remote control, you probably don't know how it works. You know that pushing this button causes this action or that reaction to happen in the device that the remote is paired with. But how or why pushing that button causes that action or reaction is probably something that you don't know, and you actually don't need to know how it works to use it. You just need to know which button to push. That is how so many narcissists use emotional manipulations. They can engage in emotional manipulation without understanding or even recognizing the underlying emotions or other mechanics involved. They've learned which buttons to push based on observation and experience. This allows them to achieve desired outcomes without any real emotional insight or understanding at all. Again, it's just knowing which buttons to push. They're following a learned pattern. We can see evidence of this in the way that they can't seem to make any significant adaptations to their manipulative structure or pattern based on the situation or people involved, with remarkably few variations. They essentially try the same thing on everybody, and if it doesn't work, they either try harder or they move on. They don't, for example, try something different. If they really had any understanding of emotions and how these manipulations work, they would be able to do that. They would be able to adapt and tailor these things to specific people or to situations. But they don't do that. They just do the same thing over and over again until it works on somebody. Their assumed roles or Personas are generally pretty consistent, too. Narcissists who manipulate by presenting themselves as a victim, for example, don't usually deviate from this too much, regardless of who they're dealing with or what the situation is. This is what results in these absurd situations where someone who has very obviously harmed other people tries to swap the narrative over to how they are the actual victim, how they have been so wronged and mistreated. We see abusers and murderers, for example, do this all the time. It is blatant evidence of a lack of empathy. Someone with even basic empathy, understanding of emotions, and the ability to read other people would realize that trying to advance this narrative in this situation is not only inappropriate and harmful to other people, but it would make them look bad. Narcissists don't see that because they cannot read other people. Even in situations where narcissists appear to be switching roles based on who they're dealing with, what we often find is that these are just stereotypical, generic offshoots of the master role, and they all lead back to the same basic, learned pattern of behavior, there seems to be no real ability to adapt this basic pattern and very few variations to it. The hero is always the hero. The victim is always the victim. The martyr is always the martyr. If someone does not buy into these manipulations, the narcissist generally does not try to do something different, something that would resonate with that particular person or in that particular situation more. They just try the same thing on a different person or in a different situation. Even when they appear to be changing manipulation tactics, we find that these are just variations on a theme and the underlying premise always remains the same. We can see this clearly in aging narcissists who are no longer able to utilize the same manipulative patterns that they used when they were young, but they're unable to adapt to their new reality with more appropriate or relevant manipulations. The 80 year old tough guy is still trying to intimidate people, even though he's frail and in ill health and is not intimidating. The 70 year old beauty queen is still trying to seduce people, even though she's not even a shadow of her former self. These things no longer work, but they are still used because this is all this person knows how to do. And again, this is an example of narcissists being unable to read people or to adapt, because if they could, they would realize by people's reactions that these things come across as desperate or even grotesque, and do something different, something more appropriate to their current circumstances. But they don't, because they're acting according to learned behaviors and patterns, not any innate ability to read and interpret other people or to even understand the reality of the situation or other people or themselves. For them to just keep on with the same old things that don't work anymore, or perhaps never worked as well as the narcissists thought they did, is proof of how disconnected this person is from just literally everything. Reality, themselves, the situation, the other people. This is important because, as we touched on earlier, the idea that narcissists are somehow accurately reading other people and offering sincere feedback actually reinforces gaslighting. It sets the narcissist up as a reasonable voice in the discourse, as a source of rational feedback that should be taken seriously, whose words should be given weight and importance. And this is dangerous. Pathologically, narcissistic personalities are what can be referred to as unreliable narrators. In literature, an unreliable narrator is what is called when the person telling the story cannot be relied upon as factual. We usually see this in stories that are told from the first person point of view. And in these situations, the narrator's interpretations and recitations of events are colored by their own emotions or beliefs, leading the reader to doubt whether the narrator is perceiving and relating events accurately. A good example of this in literature is American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. The reader is never sure whether the graphic violence described in the book is real or not, or whether any of the events are happening in the way that the narrator is actually relating them. Some examples of this phenomenon in film are the Usual Suspects with Kevin Spacey and Fallen with Denzel Washington. Some other examples are Taxi Driver with Robert De Niro and Forrest Gump with Tom Hanks. Fight Club the Telltale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe features an unreliable narrator as well. In each of these stories, the person telling the story is not trustworthy for some reason or has had their credibility compromised somehow and therefore they cannot be completely relied upon regarding the narration of events. This is the same with pathologically narcissistic people, except that they are unreliable narrators in real life. Their perception is clouded and self referential. Their motives are self serving and often hidden. They do not see reality. They do not see you. They cannot read you. Worse, this person's whole goal is to create and uphold their own narrative. That's it. Everything they do and say is toward that end, whether intentionally or otherwise. It hurts other people or not. It's not to get along better or improve relationships. It's not to offer honest feedback in order to help you. It's not to resolve anything or to understand things better. It is for that one reason and that reason only. For these reasons, the feedback and criticisms of narcissists cannot be accepted at face value. If it's accepted at all. These things are poison. Poison is something that is capable of causing illness and even death if it's ingested or absorbed. To give these things any weight or importance at all is to allow somebody to poison your own mind against you. Don't do it. Leave the nonsense where it belongs. It's difficult to do that when we care about somebody. But the hard truth is that if you cannot deal with this person without understanding that their perception of you, themselves, just basic reality, is totally compromised and should essentially be completely ignored if you are going to take what they say about you seriously and allow it to get into your head. Trying to have a relationship with a narcissist or even just being around one could destroy you. You will be swallowed up in their single minded pursuit of identity and importance. It is a common theme that narcissists can read and interpret other people so masterfully. Many narcissists claim this themselves in fact, which might very well be where that narrative came from. From they certainly do try, but again they tend to believe they are much better at this than they actually are, which we can see not only from our own experiences with them, but also from the results of studies that consistently demonstrate the same thing over and over again. People with high levels of narcissism cannot read or interpret the emotions, facial expressions, or body language of other people accurately. This leads to massive misinterpretations and misunderstandings on their part. This is made worse by the fact that many narcissists not only engage in projection along with this, but they mistake projection for empathy, believing themselves to be seeing and feeling the emotions of other people, when in fact these things belong to them and are just reflections of their own emotions, fears, traits, insecurities. Because they are sure that they are feeling other people's feelings, they cannot be convinced that they are wrong. They can feel it. Therefore it's true. People often ask how narcissists are so good at love bombing or hurting other people if they can't read people, if they can't read their emotions. But if you've been educating yourself on pathological narcissism, then you should know that they all say and do mostly the same things, regardless of the people they're interacting with, the type of relationship it is, or any specific circumstances. Why? Because good or bad, these are all things that will impact and affect just about everybody on some level. Humans have near universal vulnerabilities and insecurities, and narcissists target those. There's no reading of individuals or emotional insight required at all. It's just targeting the ego's need for validation and to feel special. Every person is vulnerable to that. Now, this can be hurtful for people to hear that they were not special or unique in the way that they might have thought they were, that in fact they were susceptible to the same things that everybody else is, and that there was no personalized reading or understanding of them involved at all, because it's not even necessary. But that's okay. These are the things that make us all able to understand each other, to be able to connect on the level that we are connecting on now. It also speaks volumes regarding how limited the narcissist's understanding of being human really and truly is. The reality is, it's just not possible that someone with this much of an empathy deficit, who engages in this much projection and is this disconnected from reality, is somehow reading the emotional experience and reactions of other people accurately in any way. They're just not. And if we take a step back to disengage from our own narratives and our own projections, we can actually see that plain as day. They cannot read you. They do not see you. They do not know you. They're not looking. They're not listening. They are acting out a movie in their heads and they are reading this script from that movie, not you. It's like some improv acting class where people are supposed to be interacting with each other while one of them is Jack from Titanic and the other one is waiting for a bus to Mars. Two completely different realities that simply cannot coexist. You're on totally different planets. Here you are trying to have a relationship and they are trying to enact some grand story in their mind about who they are and what they're doing. They interpret your actions and reactions according to that, not according to actuality. The sooner we can actually see that, the better off we will be and the better able to protect ourselves we will be. I hope this clears a few things up for you. As always, I look forward to your comments, questions and suggestions, so please keep those coming. I take appointments online, over the phone, via text, via messenger, via email, and through Skype worldwide. Also on Zoom. So if you are interested in Speaking with me one on one, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that. I have several books out for publication, so if you're interested in picking up a copy, you can do that on littleshaman.org or on Amazon. I would like to thank everybody who donated to our hurricane disaster recovery. Thank you so very much. We now have power and water, so fingers crossed it stays that way. Please consider donating to some sort of disaster relief. There are a lot of people who were really severely impacted by Hurricane Helene and they're going to be impacted for a long time to come. I teach workshop seminars and clinics throughout the year, so if you're interested in attending that or seeing what we're running this month, you can visit littleshellman.org to do that. And if you're interested in joining our support support group with access to exclusive content, weekly support meetings and more, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that. You have been listening to the Meditations and More podcasts here on the little shaman.com brought to you by Trans Relational Healing and littleshaman.org that's me, little Shaman. May the Great Spirit bless you. Have a beautiful day.