← The Little Shaman: On Narcissists & Toxic Personalities
The Little Shaman: On Narcissists & Toxic Personalities
Episode 286: Dealing With Narcissists: The Most important Thing To Know
00:17:36
In this episode, The Little Shaman discusses the most important thing to know about relationships...
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Hey, everybody, it's Shaman Sister Sin, and you're listening to the Meditations and More podcast here on the Little shaman dot com. Just type that address in. It will take you directly to the YouTube channel. Today's episode is brought to you by trans relational healing, shamanspiritcenter.com and littleshaman.org that's me, little Shaman. Hey, today I wanted to talk to you about something that every person dealing with a pathologically narcissistic personality needs to understand. The most important thing to understand, and that is that narcissists need to win at all costs. This sounds obvious, maybe even trite, but it should not be overlooked. In point of fact, it cannot be overstated. Narcissists need to win every situation, with every person, every single time. This includes conversations, it includes relationships, it includes jobs, it includes who gets to the traffic light first. It includes every single situation they are in for every single moment of their entire life. Anything can and will be a casualty of this mindset. If it gets in the way, that means you, your relationship, your family, your children, a home, a job, anything, including themselves. This is not a person who values these things, and certainly they do not value them over winning. Nothing is valued over the need to win. Even to say they need to win is an almost gruesome understatement. It makes it sound like this is just some egotistical quirk when it is so much more than that, so much more fundamental and important to their psychological framework than just that. It's not just winning, it's survival, it's validation, it's existence. It's not just the validation of being right. Again, this is much too hollow of a phrase, however true it might be in definition. Unfortunately, language has connotations that can transmit a meaning that's independent of the actual definition of the words that we're using. To say narcissists need to win is functionally accurate. It's the best, most accurate way to communicate what needs to be explained here. But it almost seems dismissive or to minimize the gravity of the situation. Maybe that's because in most situations where you hear those words, this is not what they mean. To understand the true meaning of what we're saying here, we need to understand the way that narcissistic pathology operates. They can only exist in contrast or comparison to other people and things. That's why, for example, narcissistic personalities will so often tell you what they are not instead of what they are. This is easier for them because to say what you are requires you to define yourself independently, as a solo, sovereign, independent thing. But to say what you're not only requires you to bounce off of something else that's already defined. For example, I'm not a bad guy or I'm not a liar. This phenomenon is especially noticeable when they are refuting something that they've not been accused of. Such as when they're saying that they're not a liar, when nobody said that they were. Or they take something that they know is considered universally bad, or that a person has specifically pointed out as negative or harmful and present and position themselves opposite of it, as we see in what's called virtue signaling. Of course not everyone who engages in these things is a narcissist, but we very often find that narcissists engage in these things either exclusively or much more often than not. It's their way of defining themselves when they actually have no real definition. I can't tell you what I am, but I will tell you what I'm not. This is what serves as an identity because they don't actually have one. So because of this black and white contrast comparison way of operating, every single person in the world is viewed in either the one up or one down position. In regard to the narcissists themselves, they're either better than you or you're better than them, period. You're either plus one or you're minus one. This is a required framework in order to create the comparisons that are necessary for the self definition. As we just discussed, they're either better and the winner or they're worse and they're the loser. That's it. It's no more complicated than that. And its very simplicity is what makes it so dangerous. Part of this is because in a very real way, it's too simple. Life is not black and white like that. Certainly people are not black and white like that. To reduce them to black and white requires an almost delusional level of ignorance of reality. And anyone who has dealt with a narcissist knows that is what you run into over and over and over again, delusional levels of ignorance of reality. Narcissists don't have the processing ability or emotional maturity to understand whole object relations, which is what we're talking about. They can't understand that a person can have both good and bad qualities, or that a good person might do a bad or a hurtful thing, or that a bad person might do a good thing, or that even careful people can make mistakes. It's like a kid. We often hear that narcissists require perfection, and that is accurate language to use based on our understanding of that word. But the reality is more that one bad thing destroys every good thing. It's not about perfection per se, even though that's how it plays out functionally, because if you make one mistake, that's it. But it's more about their inability to understand or process whole object relation. They are so arrested in their emotional development that they can't understand it in any real way. They might say they do. They might say, oh, I don't expect anybody to be perfect, or I understand. People make mistakes, but their actions prove that this is not really true. This one up, one down positioning results in what's called a zero sum game. Because they cannot define themselves except using the already existing definitions of others and for other reasons. Narcissists cannot create or sustain anything of their own. Everything is reactionary, which means they can only win if the other person lost. If they lose, it's because somebody else won. This is not the kind of person who can understand that, for example, there doesn't always have to be a winner and a loser, because for them there does. If they did not win, they lost, and if they lost, then you won. That makes you their opponent, their enemy. It is simple and as brutal and stupid as that. Narcissists are not so different from just about everybody else in the world in the sense that they believe everybody else operates the same way that they do. They think that you see it the way they see it. They think, therefore, that you're laughing at them and gloating because you won't. And more importantly, because they lost. You probably don't even realize there was a competition, let alone that you somehow won. But they do. And they will burn with resentment over that. It can be hard to understand the stakes in these awful, terrible, stupid games, because what winning means to narcissists in any given situation or at any given moment is very often not what it would mean to other people. They see stakes in competition in situations where nobody else does, which is one of the reasons it's so hard, for example, not to upset them. You would legitimately have to be able to read their minds to succeed here, and you can't do that. So there's no way to avoid them feeling as though you've shown them up or you've beaten them at something, or you've made them look stupid somehow or otherwise, somehow embarrassed them. All of those things and many, many, many more are considered losing. Again. This cannot be overstated. Any relationship you try to have with any narcissistic personality is going to be poisoned in this same way. You can either get out of the way or you can get run over, but you can't be in the situation and think that you just won't play their game. It does not work like that. It's like standing on a baseball field while the game is going on and insisting that even though you're standing there, you're not playing. Someone's going to throw the ball to you and if you don't catch it, you're going to get hit with it repeatedly until you get off the field. Or being in a car when somebody else is driving and insisting that you're not going where they're going. Well, yes, you are. You can either get out of the car or you can go where they're going. Those are your choices. You can't sit in the car with them driving along and. But just keep saying that you're not going, you are. Any interaction you have with this person is going to end up the same way. Because it doesn't matter whether you're playing or not. They're. They are. And that's the dynamic that you're going to be forced into whether you agree with it or not. It's like if you were trying to talk to somebody and all they did was recite lines from Titanic. It doesn't matter what you say, you cannot have a conversation. The reason that narcissists do this is because they have to. To win is to succeed, to survive, to be a worthy person, worthy of life, worthy of air and food and space, and right to. To be validated as having an identity and a self. To be. To be validated as being, as existing. To lose is to not get any of these things. They only exist as reflections in the eyes of other people. Remember, therefore, to not secure these things is just not an option. The importance of this to the way the narcissistic personality structure functions is often not understood very well by people. So to put it very simply, we can say this. The human personality functions like a wheel with spokes radiating outward from a hub. In the middle of a wheel, if you think of like a bike tire, a person's identity is that hub. It's the thing in the middle that all the spokes are sticking out of. Narcissists just have a bunch of spokes floating around trying to be a wheel with nothing to hold them in place. Without a hub, a wheel cannot function. In the absence of a hub, the narcissists have to Constantly attempt to try to project one into that empty space. That is what narcissistic supply does, and therefore why winning is so important. Because winning converts into narcissistic supply, the supply of their ego, their sense of self. This is who I am. This is what I am. It validates that the hub is there and that it's real, because it's actually not either one of these things. It's not there and it's not real. Even one loss, one invalidation can destroy the entire thing. It works like this. The hub is the core premise, such as in a narcissist, I am the good guy, I am the victim. All of the spokes radiating out from it rely on this particular hub to be validated so that the wheel can turn. The spokes are all the things that make up the rest of the narcissist's personality, whatever that is. Their justifications, their fears, their entitlements, whatever. If something happens that invalidates the Hub, it disappears because it's not actually real. The only thing keeping it in place and making it seem real are the reflections from other people. Something happens to screw that up, it's gone. You can see what would happen if that were to be allowed to occur. All the spokes fall. When this happens in the human personality for anybody, the results can be catastrophic. It can lead to actual death, often by suicide, but also through things like super extreme risk taking behavior, substance abuse, lots of other things. Narcissists generally don't know that that's what's happening, but they know how they feel. And how they feel is destabilized and terrified. So they just don't allow it. They fight and they argue and they lie and they gaslight and they blame and they shame and they ghost and they run away and they latch on to whoever else is there, whatever else they have to do in order to preserve that image as the Hub. And that's all it is. It's just an image. This is not an image. At the Hub, the image is not on the Hub. The image is the hub, just a flickering hologram of who this person wishes they were or think they need to be. It's a reflection created in the minds of other people that the narcissist is attempting to convert into a definition of themselves so that they can exist. This is why reality is perceived as an aggression by narcissists. It literally threatens their existence. It threatens that hub. And without that Hub, we all fall down. When we understand that we can see why winning is so important in the context that we're talking about here and the futility of even bothering to try to engage with this type of person. They are required to see you as an opponent that they need to beat. And if they can't do that, if they can't beat you, and many of them cannot, they then see you as an enemy who has beaten them, Which Automatic resentment, automatic competition, automatic anger. You're never going to get through. And it doesn't matter how hard you try or how much you care about them or how strongly reality is on your side. Reality is on your side. It doesn't matter. They will literally die if they listen to you. If you're dealing with a narcissist in any capacity, you have very likely seen this behavior for yourself many times. They always have to be right. They always have to be first. They always have to be on top somehow. Or to put it more accurately, perhaps they can't be wrong, they can't be last. They can't be beneath other people. Because remember, it's not about what they are, it's about what they're not. It's not that they're right, it's that they're not wrong. The key to dealing with narcissists without going crazy is remembering this, because it's not going to change. When I speak to clients, sometimes they'll say things like, well, the narcissist in my Life owes me $20,000. Or they have collection of commemorative Princess Diana plates. How do I get those things back? And I always ask them the same question, how bad do you need it? Because if you need it, then you need it and it is what it is. But if you don't, it might be worth considering just letting it go. It's almost never worth the battle, and it rarely goes well, even if you feel like you won in the end. It's a bad position to be in to want something from a narcissist. And it's an even worse position to be in to need something from a narcissist. In order to win, they have to not give it to you. You see how this goes. Pick your battles. These are people who will spend $10,000 to get back 200 bucks. They will destroy everybody and everything, including themselves, in order to be able to believe that they're the winner. Let them think they won. Who cares? They don't live in reality anyway. It's not worth it. Most of the time when your ego gets involved in these situations, you is almost always a recipe for disaster. Their ego is completely dysfunctional. And has no limits. It's not worth it. You won by getting away from this person, not having to deal with them in the same way anymore, and nothing they say or they do takes that away. No matter what, no matter how they pretend, no matter what they put out there, it doesn't matter. That's the truth. Even if they were the ones who ended the entanglement, you still won. That's the reality. Regardless of how it feels, regardless of like what our egos might try to tell us, it doesn't matter. The truth is you won when you got away from this person or when you don't have to deal with them in the same way anymore. Point blank. Period. That's the truth. You won your self respect, your well being, your freedom, your reality, your sanity. Those things are worth more than anything else. That is what matters.
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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, so if you are interested in speaking with me one on one about this or anything else, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that. I have several books in publication, so if you are interested in picking up any or all of those, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that or find them on Amazon.com I teach workshops, seminars and clinics, so if you are interested in seeing what we are running this month, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that. 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 podcast here on the little shaman.com just type that address in. It will take you directly to the YouTube channel. The meditations and More podcast is 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.