← The Little Shaman: On Narcissists & Toxic Personalities
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Hey, everybody, it's Shaman Sister Sen, 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, the little shaman. Today, I wanted to talk to you about something that's really important to understand about dealing with pathologically narcissistic personalities in your life. And that is that for as difficult as it is to understand, there's no real mystery here. Understanding how narcissists function and why they are the way they are is complicated. Yes, it's complex and it often seems counterintuitive, which makes it confusing. However, the truth is there is no mystery here. When it comes to understanding the reality of this person, there's no mystery at all. Even though they are not what they may first appear to be, what you see is also what you get. What does this mean? It means that for all the confusing, counterintuitive complexity that you have to wade through to understand how and why this person is behaving the way that they are, their behavior and they themselves are actually pretty simple. Beyond simple, really. Two dimensional in a way. That's the mystery that there is no mystery. This person is exactly what they seem like they are. Once you get past the illusion and the glamour, a cardboard cutout without much going on at all, that's hard for most people to wrap their heads around. How can someone with such complexity be so basic? There must be more to it than that. There must be something that I'm not seeing. There must be something else there. There must be. This idea, this certainty can keep people engaged with narcissists much longer than they might otherwise engage with a person who behaves the way that narcissists behave because they simply cannot believe that this is all there is. It can't be. The reality is, though, that the more you look, the less you see. It's like if you drove through one of those fake towns for those old western movies. If you just drove through at 50 miles an hour, it would look pretty standard, pretty normal, right? But if you went slower, if you looked harder, if you stopped and got out and looked around and examined, you would see what it really was. Immediately you would notice all of the things that aren't actually there. The more you look, the less you see. The truth is, narcissists only seem complex because they're functioning in a way that's different from you. That makes it hard to understand. It makes it confusing. These Things don't equal advanced, though in a sense, the way pathologically narcissistic personalities function is actually arrested and even primitive compared to other personalities. There are things that they are missing and there's things that they can't do. This sort of primitive simplicity appears complex only because it's so different. Sort of like how it might be hard to figure out how to use a very old version of something that you use today. It's unlikely that the more primitive version of the thing is more complex than the version that you use now. You're just not familiar with it. So it seems complicated, confusing, or hard to understand. But there's no mystery here. There's no magic, nothing to solve or uncover. This person is exactly what they appear to be in this sense. Someone with nothing really real to offer, no real feelings for other people, no ability to see or care about anything outside of themselves. Someone who is just always looking for a way that they can capitalize or benefit somehow, who will do so without sparing one thought to how this affects other people. A person who does not appreciate anything, who is not grateful for anything, someone who has no real moral or ethical conflicts regarding their own behavior. That's what they seem to be, and that's exactly what they are. That is what this person is. And it's our job to believe them whenever they show that to us. And they will, because they always do. A zebra can't change its stripes, they say. And that's true. They could hide them for a little bit, but they can't change them. And, and to be real about it, most narcissists aren't even that good at hiding it. They can't be, because this is how they really are. And that's hard for anybody to hide. Most of the confusion that people feel when dealing with narcissists is due to their own inability to understand and reluctance to believe that this is truly how someone could be and that there's not much more to them than this. This is all there is that's understandable for most of the people in the world. That's not true. Most people have more to them than what you see on the surface, what their behavior demonstrates. But narcissists are not most people. There is no real depth for most of these personalities because there's too much identity disturbance and instability. Your identity is what gives you depth. It's, quote, who you really are underneath of all this other stuff. If somebody doesn't have that, then there's nothing deeper under all that other stuff. This means that you have already found whatever there is to find of this person. You have already met them as deeply as it's possible to meet them. And which is to say that you've really not met them at all, because there's nobody to meet. The truly pathologically narcissistic personality is a ghost, a reflection of parts and pieces of other people's qualities and affectations that they have pasted over themselves to create some kind of an approximation of an identity. The longer you engage with somebody like this, the more you will see that, or perhaps the less you see. There's often a lot of pushback to this idea. It's part of the reason people want to believe that there are such diabolical depths to narcissists. They simply cannot believe that there could be a person without any real depth at all. And that's not to say that narcissists are not intentionally and purposefully harmful. Many, even most of them absolutely are. It's one of the worst things about dealing with them. But these things don't imply depth. People just assume they do because for them depth would be required. They would need to plan and think about how to be cruel and vicious and manipulative and so self serving. But these personalities are not like you. They don't do what you do. They don't act how you act. They don't think like you think. They don't feel what you feel. They just don't. So viewing them through the same lens that you view yourself to try to understand them is a mistake. And that's another reason there's so much confusion here. You're looking at what you would do or what makes sense to you and it's just not the same. You're considering a whole host, host of factors that they're not. You have abilities that narcissists do not have. There are a lot of differences here, so many that the idea that you could understand them by examining yourself and your own motivations or whatever is not just a mistake. It's almost a joke. And that is often where it feels like there's a mystery. We assume that they have the depth and the abilities and the considerations that we have. So how can they act so differently? The reality is they don't. They don't have all of those things. There is no mystery as to how a person just like you could behave this way, because that's not what's happening. Narcissists are not just like you. Yes, they are people and yes, they have feelings and every kind of thing like that, but they tend to view most things very, very differently than people who are not pathologically narcissistic. People who are not pathological are considering things outside of themselves, for one thing. And they can see the whole Pict picture much more clearly than narcissists ever will be able to. The perception of narcissists is extremely affected and skewed by their own egocentricity, their fear, their dark way of seeing things just in general. Everything is dark and ugly and scary and threatening. They blame this on other people, but it is actually coming from them. The entire situation becomes an external projection of their own internal chaos and darkness. Everyone is bad, everyone is out for themselves. Everyone is dangerous and untrustworthy and sneaky and conniving. And perhaps even more important, and certainly more noticeable than the narcissist's perception of others, is their perception of themselves. Pathologically narcissistic personalities are extremely egocentric. The word egocentric means self centered. Ego is self centric, is centered around self centered. This doesn't just mean that a narcissist perceives themselves as the center of their own universe, but as the center of the actual universe. As anyone who has ever dealt with a pathologically narcissistic person knows, this way of experiencing the world can be very difficult to contend with, and it can really do extreme damage to relationships and other people. The reason for this is very simple. Again, no mystery here either. When someone experiences life through the lens that they are the only person who really exists and there's no consideration for other people at all, that's bad enough. But they also believe that all the things that happen around them or that other people do are about them. This creates constant conflict and problems with other people, as of course it would, because people are constantly being forced into reality that does not match their actuality. They are constantly being told that they have thoughts, feelings and motives that they don't really have, people tend to push back against that. From the narcissist perspective, the same thing is happening to them and they're pushing back as well. This dynamic causes constant, enormous problems with other people for narcissists. And sadly, they're incapable of seeing that this really is a problem with them. They walk through life truly believing that literally everyone is against them, that everyone's attacking and insulting and offending and stabbing them in the back, that they are the only thing on everybody's mind and the motive for everything everybody does. This is extremely stressful for narcissists, and they vent that stress onto other people. Making it the other person's problem and claiming that it's the other person's responsibility. It does no good to tell them that this is not true. They have no ability to see things any other way. They are experiencing this the way that they are, through this lens of perception. It feels how it feels. And for this personality, their feelings are facts. This means that whatever they think they are experiencing is the truth. For narcissists, regardless of any other factors, there's no understanding of subjective experience versus objective experience. For example, for a narcissist or feelings versus facts, perception is literal reality. For narcissistic personalities, I feel it, therefore it's true. That's very unfortunate for the people around them because it means there is virtually no chance of getting a narcissist to even consider that how they're experiencing things, things happening might not be how things are actually happening to them. It just looks like denial or like you're lying. This can definitely be confusing, but it's no mystery. It's very simple. If someone thinks that they're the only thing that matters, then they can't see anything else, period. The fact that you think they should be able to see other things doesn't matter. Nor does the fact that reality does not match their perception at all. It's not relevant beyond not relevant. In fact, it's non existent. It doesn't enter into the equation in any way. And your attempts to put it in the equation are met with confusion, if not suspicion and outright hostility. It's hard for people to accept the reality of these situations. Not because it's so complicated, but because it's just so unbelievable for many reasons. Not just because we don't want to believe it about this person or that person specifically, but because it's hard to believe that anybody could be like that. It's so different from how we ourselves operate that it seems mystifying. It's not though. It's very simple. They do the things that they do because they are the kind of person who does those kind of things. Once we actually accept that, the confusion that we feel over that disappears. It's not a mystery to solve. Nothing we need to uncover. The answer is actually right there. For people who do that kind of stuff, that's the kind of stuff those people do underneath of it all. It really is just that simple. This might sound kind of trite, but it's not. The reality is people who are dealing with narcissists often spend so much time focused on trying to figure out why things are happening. And trying to stop them, of course, that the actual fact of the things happening almost gets overlooked. This can result in a level of normalizing that's very dangerous. People are so focused on the narcissist motives or understanding what the hell is going on that the actual fact of the abuse and mistreatment is almost an afterthought in this situation. Instead of focusing on getting out of the situation and away from the abuse, first and foremost, people's attention gets distracted by why it's happening. This is completely understandable. But it's also a terrible mistake, because in the end, like, does it really matter why someone who says they love you, punches you in the face, or sleeps with your friends, or steals from you, or harms your children, or cuts you out of the family, or turns all your relatives against you with lies, or has you arrested for something that you didn't do, or gets you fired, or does any of the horrible things that these personalities are notorious for doing? In the end, does why they are doing this really matter at all? No, it really doesn't. It feels like it does. But the truth is, we don't need to know in order to move on. And that's good, because also, we never really will know. Not really. People often believe that they can get closure if they could just understand it all. But the fact is, nothing is ever going to make the way that you've been treated understandable for you. To the degree that most people are looking for, it's just not going to happen. The narcissist in your life likely doesn't even really know anyway. By the way, most narcissists have almost no insight into their own behavior. And even if they did, the chances of them telling you anything, even approximating a truth that you could actually accept or understand and live peacefully with, are almost zero. On one of those true crime documentary shows, a girl was reaching out to her incarcerated father to find out why he killed her mother. He explained that they were arguing, he got angry and strangled her, and she died. That's almost like exactly how he said it. The girl kept asking, why? But why? But why? As if there must be a bigger answer or one that somehow is going to make more sense. But it's very likely that what he told her is exactly what happened. It's a stupid, terrible reason for a stupid, terrible thing. But most things that hurt other people are stupid and terrible. And the reasons behind them generally are not any less stupid or any less terrible. Us wanting them to have more meaning does not give them more meaning. That's not to say that understanding what happened isn't important. It definitely is. Because if we cannot understand what happened to us, we can't deal with it in any way. We can't process it at all. Our brains become stuck on just trying to figure it out. It's important to understand what has happened. However, expecting that it's ever going to make any sense to you in a way that you can actually truly understand how they could do these things that they did to where you can be at peace with it is expecting too much. You can come to peace, but it's probably not going to be like that. Focusing too much on solving the mystery or figuring out the puzzle can keep people in the relationship. Remember, the what is more important than the why. It's understandable to focus on the why to a point. But remaining in the relationship while abuse is happening is like staying in a house that they're bulldozing because you don't understand why they're tearing it down. At that point, it doesn't even matter. You can figure it out later. Right now, your safety is the most important thing. This sort of analysis paralysis occurs often in dealings with narcissistic personalities. Their behavior is so confusing and so alien to people that people become excessively focused on the narcissist behavior, behavior and motivations to the point where, as we stated earlier, the actual fact of the abuse and the toxicity almost takes a backseat. This is dangerous. It is a dangerous distraction from what is actually happening. Trying to find some way to mitigate abuse instead of just getting away from it as soon as you possibly can is very dangerous as well. Analyzing this person's motives or even understanding them does not help you in the sense that this information will have some real world impact on this person's behavior. It doesn't have any impact on this at all. The one thing it can do is help you to understand that you're not causing this behavior and therefore you can't control it. But this is something we can explore once we're safe. The reality is, even if you were somehow causing someone to abuse you, which you are absolutely never doing, the solution is still to get away from the situation as soon as possible. Period. Educating yourself does not change this. Educating yourself about someone else's behavior or motives or mindsets or anything else has no impact on them at all. You can change and educate and understand and everything else as much as is humanly possible, and it still won't matter because the other person has not changed. It's funny because after all, the Education and experience. After all is said and done, people end up coming to the same conclusion that people come to when they don't know very much about it at all. It doesn't matter why someone is behaving in toxic, hurtful, or abusive ways. You can't stop them. You can't make them care. So the only thing you can do is exit the situation as soon as possible. That's it. That's the answer. Everything else is in many ways beside the point. It really is. It can be a very sad education to go through everything people go through with these personalities, often for years, for decades, trying to force narcissists into therapy or into rehab or into family counseling or onto some kind of treatment plan, spending years pleading and bargaining and explaining, and then more years learning and researching and educating themselves, only to find out that after all that, the answer has not changed one bit. It's still the same answer that it was in the beginning. It doesn't matter why it's happening. It doesn't stop. And that is what matters. People sometimes say, well, can't you offer a little more hope? Or can't you be less negative about this? This is so hard to hear. No. After speaking with thousands of people over the years and hearing from tens of thousands more, it's the same story over and over again. There is no hope to offer. And pretending that there is just to make people feel better is not helpful. In fact, it's actively harmful. If you're dealing with someone who's pathologically narcissistic, that is to say, their personality is so affected by narcissism that it impacts most or even all areas of functioning. There's no point in offering false hope for change beyond no point. In fact. It's cruel. It's dangerous. Humanity has been working on a way to deal with this for literally thousands of years, and still the only answer that anybody can come up with is, if someone hurts you and thinks it's okay, stay away from them. Why? Because nothing else works. Even if someone's not pathologically narcissistic, if they're mean, selfish, inconsiderate, abusive, toxic, if they don't listen to anything you say, if they disrespect you, if they violate your boundaries, and if you telling them about these things does not stop them from doing any of these things, what hope should there even be? What is there to be positive about? And really what is there to understand? What mystery is there to solve? That's why we say there's no mystery with narcissists the truth is in front of us the entire time. Our job is to make sure that we don't get so caught up in trying to understand the why that we let this overshadow the practical realities of the what. I hope that 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, so if you're interested in speaking with me one on one, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that. I teach workshops, seminars and clinics throughout the year, so if you're interested in attending one of those, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that. I have several books in publication, so if you'd like to pick up a copy of one of those, you can find them on Amazon or visit littleshaman.org to pick one up. And if you're interested in joining our support group with access to exclusive content, weekly support meetings 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.