← 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, the little shaman. Today I wanted to talk to you about something that is extremely important to understand about dealing with narcissists, and that is that narcissists don't provide closure. Closure is a very important aspect of healing. For people to achieve closure in the context that we're talking about means to feel like an emotional or traumatic event has been resolved. This can take many forms, it can look like many things, but the end result is that a person feels like the situation has been resolved to the degree where they can live with it and move forward into whatever awaits them them. With narcissists, there's usually a lot to resolve. Traumatic events, emotional issues, confusing things that make no sense. There's a lot of stuff here. Closure in these relationships can really be a long time coming, and for good reason. There's a lot to get through and much of it is confusing and horrible. One of the biggest issues with closure in these relationships too, is that narcissists typically do not help in any way with closure. Indeed, trying to get closure from them often causes more trauma because they are obstinate, they're unrepentant, they're egocentric, and they have memory issues on top of all that. They might not even remember the thing that wounded you so terribly that you think about every day. If they do, their perception of it will be very different from yours. That's very hard for people to take. The thing that hurt you so badly, that may have even changed your life is something they don't remember at all. It's extremely difficult to find out that not only is this person not sorry, it didn't even register with them on any real level. But when you try to get closure from narcissists, this is the best case scenario. They just don't remember or care. In a worst case scenario, they do remember, or they say they do. And the way that they remember it is that they were actually the victim, or they were actually the hero, or they were actually the martyr, or they were whatever it is that makes them not the perpetrator of something bad against another person. This is also very hard to take when people have been hurt and mistreated. The thing that most of them want above all else is for this to be acknowledged by the person who hurt Them. And this, of all things, is something you are generally not going to get from a pathologically narcissistic personality. Not only do they not want to admit it, they probably can't anyway, because they just don't see it that way. Narcissists are pathologically egocentric and they lack empathy. It's almost impossible for a person with just this combination of traits alone to appreciate the impact of anything on other people, including their own behavior, especially their own behavior. Legitimately almost impossible just based on these two things alone. And this is not even taking into consideration all the other deficits and difficulties that narcissists have in addition to egocentricity and lack of empathy. When you ask narcissists to acknowledge your pain, as horrible as it is to say, you are giving them power over you that they just should not have. Some people should not have some power. And pathologically narcissistic people should never have any power over your feelings and your healing, your life, your choices, your self esteem or anything that involves how you see yourself. They just shouldn't. They are far too irresponsible, too selfish, too damaged and too reckless. In an ideal world, they would never be permitted to be in positions of power over other people at any time. This is not an ideal world though, and therefore narcissists often are in positions of power over other people. Narcissistic parents are a perfect example of how dangerous this really can be. At the very least, they're completely indifferent to how they affect other people and at worst, they exploit that. Asking them for closure and to acknowledge your pain just hands them another thing they can withhold in their little power games. You want this thing, so I'm not going to give it to you because if I do that, then you win. Yes, this is stupid. Yes, this is childish. Yes, this is cruel and heartless and all the other things that's what deal with personality disordered people who lack empathy is like. And your belief that this situation should be more important than their stupid, pathetic, childish bullshit is accurate but irrelevant. They don't see your side. They don't see you. They don't care at all. It's past not caring. It doesn't even exist. Nothing exists to this kind of person except themselves and how they feel. You can't understand that, of course, and that's why trying to get closure from narcissists is pointless. You see, people want answers from the narcissist in their lives because they often feel that if they can understand, they could finally move on. They Believe that that is what's holding them back. Rather than, for example, their own unconscious refusal to believe that this kind of person exists. Or their failure to acknowledge, for example, that there are some things that they're just never going to be able to know. The reality is, you will never understand. There's nothing this person can tell you about what they did to you that's going to make you say, o, okay, that makes perfect sense. And now I can let this all go and move on in peace. Even if the narcissist or the abuser in your life said what is likely closest to the real truth, which would be something like, I don't really know why I did that. I don't think about it. I'm a selfish jerk who does things that hurt other people, and I don't really care about that. Could you really understand that? Is that really good enough for you? No, that's not good enough for you. And you can't understand that. Anyone who's not that kind of person can't understand that. Even that kind of person probably doesn't really understand that. They don't think about it. What is there to understand? They're a selfish jerk and they don't care. That's pretty much the whole thing, isn't it? No mystery there. Nothing bigger than that. But not for you. For you, it's much bigger than that. It has a lot more meaning for you. You want answers that reflect that level of impact, and you're not going to get them. Not just because this person will not give them to you, but because there aren't any. Humans always try to make meaning out of everything, especially when the things have meaning for them. That's understandable, but it doesn't mean that the things actually have meaning beyond what we're giving them. And it does not mean that cruel, callous, or abusive behavior has any meaning for the person who did it. This is one of the hardest things for people who have been hurt or wronged. To have something that is such a big deal for them mean nothing to the person who hurt them. But the harsh truth is that most of the things that hurt other people are stupid and needless. And the reasons for doing them are usually stupid, too. They will almost never be reasons that make any sense or are understandable. They will almost never be reasons that are good enough. In a previous episode of the show, we talked about a situation on one of those true crime documentaries where a young woman was asked, asking her father why he killed her mother, though he actually did tell her what happened. He got angry and strangled her mother, and the mother died. She still keeps asking him why he did it. And it's very obvious why she's doing that, because his answer is not enough. It doesn't have any meaning. It doesn't explain why she lost her mother. It doesn't explain why her father didn't consider the impact on her or anybody else. It doesn't explain anything. She clearly wanted a bigger answer, one with more meaning, one that would explain why she had to lose the most important person to her, why she had to suffer for the rest of her life. He was getting frustrated because he gave her the only answer that he really had. And she was getting frustrated and hurt even worse because she wanted an answer that would make it make sense, but there really wasn't one. It's the same for all victims of abuse and trauma perpetrated by other people. They want to know why they had to suffer. They want to know why they had to be misused, mistreated. They want to know why they had to be hurt. They want to hear how someone could treat another person that way. They want to hear that this meant something to the person who did it, even if it's negative or hateful, and that the abuser understands how much these things affected them, even if it's only to hear that the abuser took pleasure in that. Sadly, most people just don't get that if they find anything at all. What most people find, and what is so hard to take, is that it just really wasn't that important to the abuser at all. A violent person doesn't kick the dog because they hate the dog. They kick the dog because the dog is there. They break the phone because that's what's in their hand. They throw the plate because the plate was where they could grab it. This is very often, really all the explanation for this kind of awful, stupid behavior that there is. There are a lot of bad, stupid people in the world who do bad, stupid things without caring very much about it either way. And refusing to acknowledge this just makes things harder. At some point, for our own peace and sanity, we need to be able to understand that awful, stupid behavior is not going to make sense to us because we're not awful, stupid people, and we need to be able to leave it at that. Our example of the girl with the murdered mother seems perhaps extreme to some people, but it illustrates perfectly that for abusers, even in the most extreme circumstances where somebody got killed, there's no consideration of impact on other people at all. Therefore, the Abuse and the horrible actions have no impact on the abuser. That makes sense because if they were capable of considering other people in the way that they would need to be capable of considering them in order for this to matter, they would not be abusers in the first place. Point blank. Because of this. Narcissists cannot provide closure to people that they have mistreated. They can't acknowledge your pain or the impact that their actions had on you. They can't explain to you why you had to suffer and be mistreated. And even if they could explain, they very likely won't because then they would be admitting that they did something wrong. And not only will they generate generally not do that, they don't really think it's true anyway. So many people end up more traumatized and more hurt by trying to get closure from narcissists because what they want is something that narcissists cannot give them. It's a natural thing to want and it's a natural thing to try to do. But in this case, it's a mistake. Not only can they in all likelihood not do what you're asking for anyway, they don't want to. There's no benefit for them in that. In fact, as far as they see it, it's bad for them. Narcissists don't care if you have closure. It's doubtful they even understand what closure is. They don't care if you feel better. They don't care if you're traumatized and you can't function. They don't register any of these things. People who have narcissistic personalities do not register how things impact other people. Therefore they don't do things that benefit others unless it benefits them somehow. That's the only time they see value in doing anything. Even narcissists who try to portray themselves as altruistic and generous are this way. And you can see that if you look. This is something that really needs to be understood because it's the primary reason that asking this kind of person for anything is a waste of time, even if they would benefit from doing it somehow. Many narcissists appear to be unable to recognize a so called win win situation and will still refuse to go along with it. There can't be two winners, there can only be one. And if the other person is getting anything, then the narcissist feels like they lost. Period. Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of trying to negotiate or come to a compromise with one of these personalities knows that it is a non starter from the word go, everything is a power struggle with this person. And that's not being facetious, it's not hyperbole. Literally every interaction with this kind of person is a power struggle. They seem to view every interaction as some type of contest where they have to stop the other person from winning by taking control. Once you truly understand this, you can see why trying to get them to validate your experience is never going to happen. Especially when this includes them admitting that they did a bad or a wrong thing. They can't, because on top of all the other reasons that we already discussed, then you would win. It sounds so stupid. It is so stupid, but it's also the truth. And if you look at your interactions with this person, you will see that they will fight to the death over how to pronounce a word or what time something is coming on tv. And not only will they fight to the death, they will say the most horrific things about you personally because you dared to suggest something different. You dared to argue, you dared to contradict. This is lunacy. It really is. And trying to get closure from this kind of person is only going to hurt you more. They can't give it to you. And even if they could, they won't. Giving you closure would hurt them. People who try to get closure from narcissists only end up being blamed, gaslit, attacked, shamed, laughed at, set up, or just straight up lied to. It's a pointless endeavor that only hurts people more in the end. The desire to get closure can also be a very sneaky way for people to lie to themselves about why they, quote, unquote, need to break no contact. We hear this constantly. It's the voice of addiction speaking. Don't listen to it. It's a trap every single time. And part of you knows that. Listen to that part. You do not need anything from this person. And even if you did, it doesn't matter because you're not going to get it either way. Don't bother. All a narcissist can offer is pain and confusion. The way to get closure with these relationships is to understand what happened. This will lead you to the understanding that you did not cause this, could not control it, and were therefore not able to fix it. This helps us understand that it was not our responsibility to take care of this because it's beyond our ability to affect in any real way. It is, in fact, a problem with the other person. And the reality is that we can usually see that pretty early on this person is not reasonable or logical or however it shows up. We don't know what the issue is, but we usually can see it in some way. When we learn about narcissism, then we have confirmation that the problem is in fact not ours. If we're still in the relationship at this point, most of us will then switch from trying to change ourselves to spending a significant amount of time trying to get the narcissist to do something about it, usually to no avail. At last, when we find that there's nothing that can or will be done, we exit the relationship in some way. Our closure will eventually come from this knowledge that we did everything we could do to address the situation and it didn't work. There's nothing else we really need to know or figure out as far as that goes. We know that we did everything we could and it didn't work. We know why it didn't work and we know what happened because we understand pathological narcissism now. We now know who is responsible for addressing the issue, what the issue is, and what actually happened to us where we were confused when we realized that there was nothing else that could be done, why it didn't work, work, and how this all happened. We know who, what, where, when, why, and how those things are enough to come to closure. Trying to understand why a disordered person did the disordered, dysfunctional things that they did is a rabbit hole that has no bottom. It's a distraction from the real healing that needs to happen so that we can move on. And it's a trick because you're never going to be able to understand. It's unfortunate, but people say it all the time. I can't move on until I get some answers from them or I cannot let go until acknowledge what they've done to me. That's a totally understandable feeling, but it's not true. And it's also such a terrible place to condemn yourself to. This person is never going to give you anything. They don't care if you move on or not. They'd probably rather that you didn't, to be honest, because then they're still important. This means that now you just stay stuck in this awful place forever. When someone says that, they're saying that unless a known liar who doesn't care about other people at all tells them something that they can believe and understand that explains why they were lied to and mistreated so horribly, they can't move on. The narcissist has that much power still, that much control over them and their mind and their actions and their feelings, even if the narcissist is not around anymore. That's so unfortunate for somebody to believe because it's not true. The narcissist is not in charge of your healing. They have no power over you. And whether you can move on or not, you don't need anything from them. You really don't. You don't need any information or any validation or agreement from them about anything. You know enough right now to be able to process what has happened and be able to bring it to a resolution in your mind. It will take time, it's not easy, but it can definitely happen. Don't get sucked into the false idea that the narcissist has this power over you. They don't. You can come to closure on your own and move forward into whatever better life awaits you. 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 and Zoom for clients 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, you can find them on Amazon.com or on littleshaman.org I teach workshop seminars and clinics, so if you are interested in seeing what we are running this month, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that as well. And if you're interested in joining our support group with access to exclusive content and weekly support meetings plus more, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that as well. You've been listening to the Meditation and more podcasts here on the little shaman.com brought to you by Trans Relational Healing, shamanspiritcenter.com and littleshaman.org that's me, little Shaman. May the Great Spirit bless you. Have a beautiful day.