← The Little Shaman: On Narcissists & Toxic Personalities
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Hey, everybody, it's Shaman Sister Sin, and you're listening to the Meditations and More podcast here on thelittleshaman.com brought to you by Trans Relational Healing, shamanspiritcenter.com and littleshaman.org that's me, little Shaman. Today I wanted to talk to you about something that many people wonder about when dealing with narcissists. And that is why narcissists lie. Lying is usually a pretty big concern when dealing with narcissists, generally, because there's so much of it. Big lies, little lies, stupid lies, pointless lies. Lies about anything, lies about everything. Lies about nothing. Lies that make no sense, lies that make too much sense. Lies for no reason, lies for every reason. The sheer number of lies involved when dealing with a narcissist can be staggering, as can be the things that are lied about. This is part of the reason that there's so much disorientation and confusion around the lies that narcissists tell. Pathologically, narcissistic people often lie about things that other people would not lie about. That makes it hard to process finding out that they're not true. It's not uncommon to find out that entire histories of abuse or heroism or accomplishments or whatever else is just completely made up. The narcissist has often made these lies an integral part of their identity. And it can come as a tremendous shock to people to find out that it's false. They can't believe anybody would lie about these things, would make them up. It's just too unbelievable that an adult person would do that. That seems to be a big part of how they get away with it. People just cannot believe an adult would lie like that. But some do. It's not uncommon to find out that narcissists are leading double lives or that they have entire careers that are made up and just all kinds of stuff. It's not just the big lies, though. It's the hundreds of thousands of little ones. Where they've been, what they were doing, who they talking to, what they ate, what TV show they were watching, everything. And then there are all the things that aren't lies but might as well be, because they have the same effect on people. Such as all the things that were true yesterday but now are not true today, or. Or all the things that they think happened differently or that didn't even happen at all that they insist they did. And all of these things, as bad as they are, are in addition to the fact that these personalities can seem to be a different person every day, or seem to change from one person to another in seconds. The entire climate and culture of the relationship is flimsy and unstable, with people never sure of where they stand or what exactly is true. It's like a house built on quicksand or a castle made of air. Deception and falsehood permeate the entire climate of the situation around this person, and nothing is ever what it seems. But why? Part of the reason is that this is intentional. Not only are most narcissistic personalities intentionally deceptive because they're trying to hide things that they're doing. Their motives, their emotions, just everything, including things that don't even need to be hidden because of how they are, often incorrectly believe these things will reflect upon them, which is how you get lies about simple mistakes and things like that. But many also feel powerful and clever when they're able to trick or deceive other people into believing things that are not true, even when they're really small things. This ties into the fact that information is power to narcissists for many reasons. They fear being exposed. They fear being seen for who they really are, whatever that actually means to them. Which means that information, or more specifically, controlling information, is extremely important in their lives. Often much of it is information that nobody would even care about, but for whatever reason they think it's important or it's embarrassing or exposing or whatever, and they guard it very closely out of fear and a desire to control their fear. Narcissists also don't like for people to have more information than they do. It seems to make them feel less than, in whatever way, perhaps less intelligent, less in the know. This can result in some truly bizarre situations, such as them getting angry at you because you saw movie spoilers, not that you spoiled the movie for them, just that you saw the spoilers. Or being upset because you know the correct lyrics to a song and they don't. Or you know, which turn to take to get to the store, or you know your dog's favorite toy, or any number of other stupid things that demonstrate that you know something that they don't. The disproportionate shame that narcissistic personalities attach to being wrong features here as well. Beyond whatever toxic shame is triggered by these events. Narcissists seem to feel that if they don't know something, people will take advantage of them or make a fool out of them somehow, which often results in them refusing to admit that they don't know something, arguing things that are very easy to prove incorrect, or pretending that they do know things when they don't. This probably also ties in with the almost phobic reaction to not knowing that drives them to jump to conclusions and make assumptions about things without having all or even any of the information that they actually need. They seem unable to stand the discomfort of and the danger they believe is inherent to not knowing, of being uncertain. So they just assume that they do know. In their minds, everything's a worst case scenario anyway, so what does it even matter? Even if you didn't do that or you weren't thinking thinking that you could do that and you could think that, and if you could do that and you could think that, then you basically did do that, and you basically did think that. So again, what does it matter? They're not really wrong and they have all the information. Nobody can fool them. As an aside, this is what results in these just truly horrific scenarios where people are punished and berated for what the narcissist believes they would do, even if it's acknowledged very clearly that they didn't actually do it. In a narcissist's mind, the fact that someone is capable of it is enough to result in extreme retaliation. If you're capable of it, you essentially already did it. And you will always be capable of it in a narcissist's estimation. Because in a narcissist's estimation, anyone is capable of anything, no matter what. They never get to know you and they cannot read you, so you are essentially a stranger to them forever. This also gives them the perfect opportunity to punish somebody and to feel powerful while doing that. So narcissists intentionally deceive other people for various reasons, most of them centering around power and control. Because they are secretive and afraid, because they enjoy tricking and fooling other people, because they feel shame when they're wrong or they don't know something, because they feel vulnerable when they're uncertain, and because they feel less than when other people know things that they don't. Any specific situation could include any single one of these reasons, any combination of more than one of these reasons, or even some other reason that we can't think of because we don't think like narcissists think. It could be any all or none of the above. But there is a bigger, perhaps more fundamental reason that deception is so entrenched in these relationships and situations. Narcissists don't just lie to other people, they lie to themselves. Arguably, they lie to themselves more than anybody else. No one is a bigger target for the narcissist deceptions than they themselves are. And no one is ever hurt by their lies more, which is really saying a lot. In a way, they are actually the only real target of their own BS at all. Others are the props used to make the many lies to themselves more believable. If you believe it, if you act on it, if you react to it, if you live it, then they can too. In this manner, the entire life of the pathologically narcissistic personality is a lie. And generally this is an illusion that centers completely around their identity and how they want to see themselves. It's a fantasy created by someone who cannot accept or deal with reality as it exists and must change this so that they can. The way they view themselves, the way they view other people, the way they see the world, their estimation of their own accomplishments, potential importance, everything false, overblown, absurd. And why? Because they can't tolerate it being any other way. For it to be any other way means that they don't matter. They're not important enough. And if they don't matter, they don't exist. As we stated in the podcast entitled When a Narcissist Loses control of you, the only place that pathologically narcissistic personalities really exist as a concrete entity and identity is in the minds of other people. This concrete entity is of course, entirely predicated on whatever image this person or these people have of the narcissist. Which is why it's so important to the narcissist to. To control that image, to control how people see them. They do that by spinning their illusion narrative, their identity fantasy about themselves and their place in the world and the relationship, as well as the narrative regarding the other person or the people. They spin this fantasy around the situation to create that curated image of themselves in other people's minds. When people react to this image as if it's real, it becomes real for as long as that's true. To understand better how this works, think about how movies and media work. What is a big part of making scary movies scary? Watching other people being afraid. How do special effects work? It's all dependent on the actors reactions to the thing that's supposed to be there. Why are reaction videos so popular? Because we are watching someone's reactions and emotions in real time. We can see what they're looking at or what they're viewing through their eyes. In a manner of speaking, people's reactions to things help make the things more real. And this often works even when we can't see the thing that they're reacting to. You see that in scary movies all the time. In this same way, people's reactions concretize narcissist projected identities, their self concepts. In this sort of inverted reality, truth and facts are negligible. They are whatever the narcissist says they are. Essentially whatever they can believe and get other people to believe. Because of that, these things can change very easily and very quickly. This can lead to massive confusion for the people around narcissists when their entire personality seems to change or flip and things that they've held as true for years are now no longer part of the conversation at all. Most of us are pretty much stuck with the truth and the facts. We have to deal with things as they are. We all have our own perspective on these things and our perceptions of them, of course. But generally speaking, most of us don't go around inventing completely false alternative realities and narratives to suit our own needs. In a very real way, that is what pathologically narcissistic people are doing. Everything is true based on how it works and fits in with the narrative right? Now, if they've always professed to like apples, but they believe that liking apples now somehow works against them in the moment, now they don't like apples. They have in fact never liked apples and they never said that they did. This is very confusing for people for many reasons. First of all, why would anybody lie about that? Why would you lie about that? Second of all, why would someone claim that they didn't say something that they clearly did say repeatedly over a period of time? Third of all, they clearly do like apples. This is obviously a fact. Who just denies blatant facts about themselves or anything else? Most people have more of an attachment to preferences and facts about themselves than you see here. But okay, fine, they don't like apples anymore. Okay, they never did. Fine, whatever. But later, when you don't offer them an apple because you're operating off of this new information that they don't like apples. Now there's a problem because you didn't offer them an apple when you know they liked them and they always have. And you're like, wait, what? What happened to that whole thing about you don't like apples and you never liked them? And I'm crazy because I thought that, nope, never happened. This is very difficult for people to deal with because there's no even basic stability that someone can rely on of like, okay, these are the facts of the reality that we are inhabiting, and we are all bound by these parameters. This is also why the image of the narcissist in other people's minds needs constant reinforcement and curation. It's unstable, and their behavior often does not support it at all, which puts it in danger if someone has convinced you to see them as a victim, meaning that they now are a victim in the dynamics of the relationship or the situation, but they're now constantly engaging in abusive, domineering, controlling, manipulative behavior. It makes it really difficult for people to hang onto and believe in that image of this person as a victim. It starts to crumble, to be overwritten with the evidence of how this person truly behaves, how they really are. Fantasy and illusion cannot stand up to facts, no matter what. It's like a sandcastle on the beach. When the tide comes in, the water just erases it. On a side note, this is why narcissists are often more invested in people they barely know, compared to their family or their partners and people who know them in the minds of strangers. The image that the narcissists want to see of themselves is much more solid and clear because it has not been eroded by the narcissist's behavior. Yet they enjoy that much more because the reactions they get from people are based on that image of who the narcissist is, rather than reality of who they really are. So when they come in with their sad stories of constant victimhood, or their tall tales of heroism and accomplishment, or whatever else, these people are much more likely to believe them and react with the things that the narcissist is looking for to sustain that image of themselves. Sympathy, being impressed by them, whatever. Because as of yet, these people have no reason not to react that that way. They have no reason not to believe the narcissist with people who know them. This is generally much less satisfying, if for no other reason than because these people have already heard these same stories or these same type of scenarios over and over and over again, so they can't react the way that they once did. Most of the time, people who know the narcissist also don't believe the narcissist image of themselves anymore anyway, which can result in them reacting in a way that is actually damaging to the narcissist belief in in that image. It goes like this. The narcissist comes home from work with the big dramatic story about how they were victimized by a co worker, for example. Because you've already heard all these stories many times and you've seen how they're not actually true, because you've been the target of These stories already many times and seen how they're actually not true. You don't react with an outpouring of sympathy for the narcissist and negativity toward the evil co worker. Instead, you offer a more balanced perspective, if you offer one at all. This actually damages their image of themselves as the victim. Here they are feeling some type of way about their interaction with this co worker and they're trying to feel better by having their fantasy image of themselves validated. This is accomplished in our example by someone staunchly and a thousand percent taking their side against the evil co worker and berating or bashing that person, while also offering sympathy for the narcissist as the injured innocent victim in this situation. As you might guess, image validation of this type is a driving force behind smear campaigns and with flying monkeys as well. All of this together conspires to create a climate where truth and reality have no place at the table. Any relationship or situation that involves these personalities really cannot be anything but deceptive and predicated on lies and falsehoods, because without these, the entire thing falls apart. To love and to be loved, we must first suffer the indignity of being seen, of being known, of all things. These personalities cannot tolerate that. More even than that, they can't provide it. There's nothing to see. It's like taking the sheet off of a ghost to reveal nothing. External objects and perceptions made it real. You take those away and there's nothing there. It's like in the wizard of Oz when Dorothy and her friends were so mesmerized and intimidated by the illusion of the wizard, Oz the Great and Terrible, the people called him. The people thought he was some amazing wizard because he came down from the sky in a hot air balloon. They had never seen that before, so they thought it was magic. It was not. It was an illusion created by perception. And in order to keep the image of Oz the Great and Terrible and keep his position as the ruler of this community, he created more illusions so that they would not see see what he really was. He made promises that he could not keep to Dorothy and her friends, and he sent them on essentially a suicide mission, believing that they would fail so that he would not be called upon to produce the miracles that he promised them. When he was finally exposed, he starts hollering out, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. A desperate attempt at misdirection when all of his illusions and glamours were seen through at last and he was forced to admit that he was not a wizard at all just a dime store magician, an illusionist, a con man who was lucky enough to find people who didn't know any better and wanted to believe that he was more than that. This is what you see with pathologically narcissistic personalities. In the Silence of the lambs, Dr. Hannibal Lecter invokes the Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius to Clarice, saying of each particular thing, ask what is it in itself? What is its nature? He is telling her to look more closely at what the killer does, and through doing that she can figure out who he is, both intentionally and just, as a matter of course. Because this is how they function. Narcissists are deceptive. They lie, they invent, they distort, they misdirect, they create illusions, they throw glamours. They deceive not just others, but themselves as well. Most especially themselves as well. Their entire understood existence is based on things that are not true. Of each particular thing, ask what is it in itself? What is its nature? At their core, narcissists are an illusion. Therefore their nature is to deceive. That's it. We can delve into the why fors and the reasons thereof. And we did. But to boil it down, that's the gist of the situation. When you engage with a person who is pathologically narcissistic, you are engaging with an illusion. You are engaging with deception. And due to both the nature of this person and the nature of how an illusion functions, it's not going to ever be any other way. It is what it is. The way to combat this is to stay grounded in reality and stick with the facts. 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 and Zoom Worldwide. So if you're interested in speaking with me one on one, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that. I have several books in publication, so if you are interested in picking up a copy of any of those today, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that. Or you can find them on Amazon.com I teach workshops, seminars and clinics, so if you're interested in seeing what we're running this month, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that. And if you're interested in joining our support group with weekly support meetings, access to exclusive content and more, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that as well. You have been listening to the meditations and more podcasts here on the little shaman.com brought to you by Trans Relational Healing, shamanspiritcenter.com and littleshaman.org that's me, the little shaman. May the Great Spirit bless you. Have a beautiful day.