Narcissist Know You Need Others To Know They're Narcissistic

If narcissistic parents raised you, chances are you feel pretty unlovable. Narcissistic parents often put their own needs above their children's, leading to feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness. Narcissistic parents offer their children, conditional love. Love is used as a weapon against the children, which leads a child to feel unworthy of being valued. In this episode, Lisa A. Romano flushes out some consequences of being raised by a narcissistic parent.

Transcript

Today we're going to be talking about why it is a narcissist is very happy that you might become Fixated on trying to convince other people that they are a narcissist My intention on this channel is to raise your awareness about narcissism to raise your awareness about your own personal codependency traits So that you can discern healthy behavior from unhealthy behavior in yourself and others If you are not someone who is a narcissist per se then you are someone who will appreciate Information such as this if you are someone who is more codependent if you are an empath that lacks boundaries If you are someone who moves about in the world feeling like it is your obligation or responsibility to fix and or heal people and you tend to attract people in your life who take advantage of you and Exploit your empathy and exploit your generosity then this information will prove very beneficial for you So today we're talking about why it is someone who is highly narcissistic Would want you to get stuck in the trap of trying to convince other people that they are in fact narcissists Very interesting when you are involved with the narcissist it is often a very lonely Bewildering experience because you are inside a world that no one else sees there is and there are terrible toxic things happening behind closed doors that Narcissists absolutely know that they cannot exhibit in front of other people You might have a pastor that's a narcissist who is highly toxic to his daughters and sons and wife And yet in front of the congregation he is revered Everybody wants to know this person.

Everybody wants to break bread with this person yet.

The family is bewildered by this Dichotomy that this is not who my father really is and it is very like I said Bewildering when you are inside the fishbowl and you know that the person that you're stuck in the fishbowl with is a shark But yet everybody outside the fishbowl is looking in thinking this person's this little minnow This person is kind this person is generous.

This person is empathic This person has amazing qualities and yet you're stuck in the fishbowl with the shark when you're dealing with the narcissist What they do is they rely on This experience of others.

They love bomb people on the outside they seem to be very fawning over people on the outside and They do things for other people and they get other people to admire them and they can rely on this They can rely on this outer experience to justify why they are toxic towards you Why they have no empathy towards you and if you're not careful And I think most of us end up in this situation where we're confused by what we're experiencing on the inside of the fishbowl and It's normal,

Right?

So all of us look to the outer world for some sense of semblance to make sense out of how we feel our Human mind always needs to ask the question why why why?

Unfortunately when you're dealing with someone who has high narcissistic traits,

You're dealing with someone who does not take accountability This person is grandiose.

They have an inflated sense of self They generally think that they're better-looking more important more intelligent than other people that their opinion Trumps your opinion that their feelings are more important than your feelings if you're dealing with someone who is a covert vulnerable narcissist This is someone who gets insulted very quickly This is someone who in a crowd has a problem with just about anyone and if this person is not able to Manipulate how other people see them and let's say you're in an inner room with someone who is a covert vulnerable Narcissist and they expect the person across the room to make them feel good about themselves Let's say they just turn their head as the covert narcissist is looking in their direction a covert Narcissist will take that very personally get defensive create a whole story in their head and get actually angry at this person Who they feel slighted them and there was no slight maybe the person across the room didn't even see them This is just one incident.

So if you're dealing with someone who is a who is a covert narcissist This is somebody who is wreaking havoc wherever they go if you are the child of a covert narcissist You are listening to someone who is always complaining who always feels like a victim and who turns situations around and is very Convincing that the children have upset them or the wife has upset them or the husband has upset them It's always someone else's fault Because of why this person can't keep it together.

And so it's very easy to insult them They are highly sensitive to criticism.

This is someone who may even seem vulnerable This is someone who tells you how they feel But what you might not pay attention to is how often they create drama in their life And so if you love this person your nose is barely above the waterline This is someone who is never happy and who just insists that everybody else is responsible for why they are unhappy No introspection whatsoever.

Always someone else's fault when you're dealing with someone who is more grandiose It's a little bit more obvious to see so you might see outbursts of anger.

You might see the need for admiration You might see this sense that they put you down if you don't admire them like the neighbors do The minute you say there's some hypocrisy in the way that you treat me and the children versus how you treat the congregation or there's some hypocrisy as to how you treat people in the office versus how you treat the Children and I or how you treat your mother or how you treat your father.

They will become highly activated maybe dismissive They will use this as an excuse to betray you.

And so these are the traits of a more grandiose narcissist It's they're more extroverted and they have more of an obvious need for admiration now There's nothing wrong with wanting to be somebody who helps other people But when you're dealing with a narcissist,

You're dealing with somebody who overtly at least seems like they want to help people But they're not doing it for the person.

They're doing it for the accolades.

They're doing it for the power They're doing it for the prestige.

They're not doing it to help a community of people I often get that question on my youtube channel is this person a grandiose narcissist?

Because they are doing this thing and it all comes down to what is the intention of the person?

Who is doing this thing?

So the person who is out there as a missionary are they a missionary because they want to actually help people who are in tough Situations or are they a missionary because they get to talk about being a missionary on social media Are they a missionary because of the status it brings them because of the people that they meet and that is really how?

We're able to discern whether or not we're dealing with someone who is authentic altruistic and who has the intention of helping other people or we're dealing with someone who is doing what they're doing to Dominate for a sense of power because then it's all about them It's all about their narcissism and so you can see how when we're talking about someone who is narcissistic It's really a spectrum of traits it does help us to recognize what these traits are and to flush out How it might show up because oftentimes people who are in relationships with narcissists are very confused They are emptied out.

They're hollowed out.

They're exhausted.

They have tons of cognitive dissonance They're questioning themselves lots of times.

They're sick and Physically ill tremendous anxiety they start to develop cognitive dissonance They have brain fog they have stomach issues hard for them to get out of the out of bed in the morning Having issues with the children if you've lived with a narcissist for any length of time your body starts to revolt on itself Because you've been living with someone who is gaslit you who has judged you who has Used intermittent validation to keep you on the hook threaten to abandon you and then we'll turn the kids against you look at your mother She can't get out of bed look at your father.

He's pathetic all he does is drink We might drink because we're trying to deal with the anxiety of living with someone who is Impossible to please or we have to walk around on eggshells around I'm not condoning using alcohol to excess But my point is it's not uncommon to be someone who self-medicates who lives with someone who is highly narcissistic It's not uncommon for someone who lives with someone who is highly narcissistic to become depressed to become anxious to lose themselves and to really almost completely lose the self and Detach from the self and live in a world of how do I please this person and or how do I avoid?

Making this person upset so we are detached in the self completely now when we're talking about and flushing out narcissistic traits It's important to recognize how those traits show up in other people but also the consequences of those traits on people who love them because it might be the only way that you're able to figure out What you're dealing with one of the common traits that I see in my online coaching programs in my once one personal Coaching is that people who are in?

Experiences and relationships with Narcissists can get tripped up when the veil is removed from their eyes and they start figuring out who?

They are dealing with and suddenly the fishbowl experience makes sense They are swimming with a shark but yet their children their mother their father Still see this person as a tadpole the person who is the main source of narcissistic supply When they start to awaken is seeing things very differently than the rest of the world So imagine being in a fishbowl with a shark and knowing that the people that you love the most who are closest to you All believe the shark is actually a tadpole or they all believe the shark is a minnow Or they all believe that the shark is a dolphin Imagining how maddening that is to be in the fishbowl With the shark that knows that you know that he or she is a shark and they also know that The other people in the fishbowl think they're a minnow think that they're a dolphin think they're a turtle right think there's some innocuous being in this fishbowl with them that they don't have to be afraid of now imagine Looking outside the fishbowl now imagine being that person who knows I've been swimming with a shark But my kids don't know he or she is a shark.

My parents don't know this person's a shark I didn't even know this person was a shark imagine how maddening that is to be in the fishbowl with that person and now Imagine looking outside of the fishbowl think about the congregation Think about where your spouse works think about where your friend your narcissistic friend works Maybe you work with your friend who is highly narcissistic think about how they schmooze Everyone that you know everywhere that they go suddenly you're someone who recognizes I've been sleeping with the enemy I've been having coffee with the enemy I've been going on vacation with the enemy all of us have been drinking the Kool-Aid And I'm the only person as far as I can tell that knows what I'm dealing with That is a maddening experience and it can leave you feeling very topsy-turvy Very insecure you don't have your sea legs yet.

You're still coming out of the fog You didn't even know you were in a fog and as you move forward the natural response is to reach out to your children Adult children hopefully reach out to your in-laws reach out to people that you love even maybe your own sister your own brother your mothering father your best friend the natural response is to Want to get validated from the external world that your reality of the shark is actually the reality Because when you're alone in this perception You don't trust anything you feel so insecure like you can't eat You can't sleep your stomach's upset.

You can't think I remember going through this experience I remember shaking like I was just so nervous I was just so rattled and in my situation when I realized how my codependency had played into this how my lack of personal boundaries how my propensity to Subjugate it's just as a norm to think that it was my responsibility to pay attention to everyone else's needs and to not have a need and to think and to be brainwashed and Programmed and conditioned to think that is the way so when I started coming out of the fog Not only was I aware that wow this is someone who is wired to not hear me This is someone who really wants to dominate the relationship through stonewalling through passive aggressiveness Through just not having conversations.

I am not heard in this relationship.

No wonder I'm so angry,

But another layer for me personally was I was a codependent female Who had been brainwashed by a codependent female my mother was a codependent wife My mother was someone who lived her life subjugating her needs for the sake of her husband I was also someone who my mother emotionally psychologically exploited And so when I as a woman and I get it now But when I as a little girl and even as a young woman a teenager adolescent Any time I broke out of the shell the subjugating shell and I said I think I feel I need her want my mother shut It down and I get it.

It was she was projecting onto me So what she couldn't have she wasn't able to allow her daughter to have she wasn't evolved enough to recognize that she was trapped inside her own codependency Which was tied to being the adult child of two alcoholic parents and in my opinion My mother was a dry alcoholic and so she was trapped inside of that paradigm Unaware that she was unaware and like all wounded adult children do they project unconsciously onto their children if we're fortunate on the path as wounded adults ourselves who are now parents we Recognize our wounds and we do everything we can to retrain our brain to live in a different paradigm and to take accountability for our wounds not responsibility,

But accountability It's sort of like if I get shot in the leg by a neighbor It's my responsibility and my I need to be accountable for tending to the wound I am not responsible for the wound,

But it is my responsibility to be accountable for taking care of the wound So that's the difference When you are in a relationship with someone who is highly narcissistic and you're coming out of it It is mind-bending because no one else sees it I've gone through this a number of times in my life when I began to understand my parents I was alone in it.

My siblings didn't see it.

My neighbors didn't see it.

My friends didn't even see it It wasn't until much later that my friends were able to see the traits that I saw there was a whole lifetime of Me feeling very much alone like my family.

We're not close like We hurt each other.

This doesn't feel good.

This doesn't feel warm and fuzzy I don't feel a part of this community.

I remember feeling like was an alien from time I was seven years old like this just doesn't feel right.

I didn't have the vocabulary But my body knew something was wrong my brain knew I'm not attached here I'm very insecurely attached This doesn't feel right what I ended up doing as a little girl was fawning trying to please my mother trying to be good enough I became perfectionistic I ended up with an eating disorder just trying to figure out how to connect with other people and Because love was conditional my little mind assumed that there was something wrong with me I was broken and I had to fix it.

I had to fix it and what made sense to me was well I'm not very thin maybe I should be thinner or maybe I should get straight A's or maybe my room should be really perfect Maybe I should just be quiet always trying to figure out in search of how to fix this thing in me That was broken and so I had that experience with my mother like no one else sees what I see and there was a time in my early 20s where I got super invested in trying to convince my brother and my sister that my Reality of my parents was my reality of my parents and I so needed them to come on board and it totally backfired In my face when I was married.

I was married for a dozen years and it took me quite a long time To sift through the dynamic between myself and my ex in the beginning I thought that it was me for a very long time.

I would berate myself.

I'm just selfish.

I'm not good enough I'm not trying hard enough.

It's me.

This person's perfect.

Everyone loves him.

Why can't I just be happy?

I fell into the narrative that was created in me when I was a child My brain had been wired to think there was something wrong with me when you're dealing with someone who is a covert narcissist They exploit that in you eventually they figure out what your boo-boos are and they exploit it So what I heard was well,

You're you've never been happy That's why you can't be happy with me and it made sense based on what I had been programmed to believe This is never happy much later.

I figured out that our family had this thing called codependency My father was narcissistic.

My parents were adult children of alcoholics.

They had control issues They had problems with intimacy.

My brother my sister and I were emotionally neglected.

We were emotionally abandoned We were gaslit as children I wasn't crazy everything that I felt my unhappiness was valid But when you're dealing with parents who are so unconscious so below the veil of consciousness Who in their head think they do we think everything right?

They tell you that you were the one with the problem And so I married someone who had the same ideology who had the same Emotional energy who had the same perception of themselves.

I'm perfect You're not perfect.

You know that you're not perfect and therefore you were the one with the problem It was as far as my family's perfect You know that your family's not perfect which took me a while to figure out also oftentimes narcissists will tell you that their families are perfect and that Gives them the right to put you down when you're someone who is more authentic and comes to them and says This is the reality of my family you come to them vulnerable you come to them trying to create intimacy You come to them trying to explain who you are and they store it in their arsenal and they use it against you later so when you're complaining perhaps about their mother,

That's a little bit intrusive the Commentary is well.

There's nothing wrong with my family You're the person who has a problem with their family your family's messed up.

Not my family,

So it's used against you It's a very very common for someone who was highly narcissistic to think that their family was perfect you can get caught up like I did when I began to realize what I was dealing with because What I wanted and needed at the time when I was living above the veil and processing My experience inside this relationship and taking responsibility and accountability For my codependency and how I made everything worse Because I suppressed my feelings and I did my best to look like my marriage was perfect Even though I felt like a wreck inside So,

Of course after a dozen years when I start understanding wait a minute.

This is a very codependent narcissistic dynamic I've lost myself.

I am frustrated I've got nothing left to give I know that I look like the crazy person I know that I'm complaining all the time and I look like the person that is Impossible to please but you don't understand this is after a dozen years of trying to please someone Who I could never be good enough for this person who put me down who gaslit me was passive-aggressive who stonewalled me and Who was very resentful of me who treated me differently behind closed doors and front nobody understood that all they saw was 12 years Lisa was done.

She's got a mouth on her She's the one with the problem and I got stuck trying to explain to people.

No,

This is the dynamic Now what we have to be careful of as we're coming through this is that when you're dealing some with someone who is highly narcissistic that person Knows that you want other people to know that they're a shark what they do at that point is they start fawning So if your husband for instance never had anything to do with the children Suddenly he has interest in the children if your wife never spent any time with your daughter alone Suddenly she wants to take your daughter out for a manicure suddenly She wants to do mommy daughter things if you have a friend who?

Never spent any other time with any time with your other friend another friend.

Let's say a third friend Suddenly the friend that you now feel is narcissistic that you've had a confrontation with is suddenly super nice Super attentive suddenly on time and now fawning after other people in your group This is when they raise the ante they've raised the bar and they will play with your head in that space and what you have To do and I know it's very difficult But you have to let go you have to not allow a narcissist to wedge you into that spot Where they are they are psychologically tormenting you with the truth now when you open your eyes And you see that shark in the fishbowl that sharks ammunition is that person?

Wants everyone else in the fishbowl to know I'm a shark.

What do they do they morph into a kitten?

Suddenly the person who is highly narcissistic Where it would have been a little bit easier for you to call them out on something suddenly those traits go into hiding Suddenly their mask has become thicker Suddenly they're fawning they're acquiescing on the surface They're even subjugating to other people and you want to scream You want to pull your hair out because the people in your life are drinking the Kool-Aid So let's say you have a narcissistic husband who?

Refuses to spend time with your children all of a sudden he wants to take them on vacation all of a sudden He wants to pay for college tuition All of a sudden he wants to buy your son a car,

And that's the kind of game that they play so they will use Narcissistic supply they will use love bombing against you and if you're not careful You will get sucked into this paradigm,

Which is exactly what a narcissist wants you to do It is so difficult to set boundaries around these experiences But I encourage you to think about these ideas I encourage you to understand that when you're living with a shark inside a fishbowl and You start awakening you start to understand the dynamic that you're living with the ammunition that they are using Ends up becoming part of your soul.

It's inside your head.

They're destroying you from the inside out they know That you want everyone else to know that they are dealing with the shark and so what do they do to hurt you?

Psychologically is they become kittens They become butter in people's hands,

And you know that they're doing it for show You know that they're doing it to hurt you you know that they're trying to get your children to think poorly of you by Subjugating to your children by people pleasing to your children.

You know it's a game You know it's a tactic But the people in your life start to fall for it because the narcissist activates their narcissism And so now if you're a parent who's setting boundaries your children want nothing to do with you if you're a friend who has Boundaries your friends are like you know what you're just too difficult I know that I told you I was going to go to your house party on Saturday But listen you know so-and-so rented this boat sounds like it's going to be a good time,

And you're a little ornery these days I'm going on the boat meanwhile the narcissist hates boating never wanted to be around your friends or a lot of people and yet suddenly When you have a fallout with them this person now becomes what everybody else wanted them to be and you Know what they're doing and they want you to be tormented by it not easy to do dear ones I get it.

I learned the hard way.

I fell on my face many times I was angry at the people that I loved that couldn't see what I felt was right in front of their face and That anger blinded me to the fact the fact was that even I didn't see it even I didn't understand it And it took me a while to figure it out And I had to humble myself to allow this dynamic to play out Until it all came full circle and in my case it took about seven years for it to come full circle But it came full circle.

I had to let it go I had to let my kids Be activated I had to let my kids feel that their father was doing the right thing by them I had to let go of trying to control how they saw him I let it all go in the meantime.

I focused on my own life.

I found myself.

I found hobbies I Started a company.

I started two businesses,

And I ended up writing books like in my spare time meditating journaling taking care of myself Life coaching just really really embracing myself and embracing my mission in life Which was to help people find themselves after being in narcissistic relationships Helping people discover the true self after being brainwashed and having their brain trained to be codependent To not have a sense of self and so that's how I turned this very negative Experience into a positive experience and in time it does work out because our energy is all about How we feel and if I am stuck?

Feeling tormented by a situation that I cannot control then the shark wins the narcissist wins when I let go and say I know That you want me to be stuck on the fact that nobody sees what I see I know you want me to be stuck there,

But guess what I refuse to be stuck there So you fawn you?

Subjugate you spend your money on whoever you want to spend it on you spend your time on Whoever you want to spend a time spend it on I'm not going to try to control something.

I can't control.

I'm thankful I see you for who you are.

I'm thankful.

I'm no longer in your web I'm thankful that I am no longer shark bait I am thankful that I am not your primary source of narcissistic supply And if you can develop that mindset and like I said,

I know it's not easy You have to wrestle your ego because your ego is going to naturally want to defend itself because it just feels like such an injustice But I can tell you that this type of psychological warfare someone who is highly narcissistic They're built for it and most people aren't most people will be drained by trying to have this type of a fight And it's just not worth it when you can take all of that energy and flow it towards something Positive and plant those seeds and in time if you nurture those seeds your life must provide you with Abundance in many many forms you will have to have health you will have to be vibrant you will have to Manifest success in your life and success isn't just about money as a matter of fact abundance is about love.

It's about health It's about vitality It's about doing what you love even if you live in a room somewhere in someone's home but if you're doing what you want to do every day,

And you don't owe anybody anything and You have the job that you have that allows you to afford your bills But you live in a space of freedom.

You're not a source of narcissistic supply You're not worrying about what your friends are thinking you're not worrying about what your mother thinks you're not worrying about with your father Thinks you wake up every day,

And you're focused on yourself And you are working towards personal development spiritual growth and you were evolving yourself,

And you're on the path to enlightenment And spiritual awakening dear one you win That's abundance never ever ever compare yourself to someone else judge your success by whether or not you are free Mentally and emotionally and psychologically That's how you judge success and if you stay on the path in spite of what sharks are doing success must be yours namaste everybody Until next time bye for now you

Reviews

i especially loved the shark in the fishbowl analogy- and the need for me to react because my ego wants to defend itself because the other person’s behavior was such an injustice were my big take aways. thanks 🙏🙏🙏

Wow! A sincere thanks for leading others out of the darkness! Much gratitude for your authenticity. It can feel a bit lonely. Thank you for validating so many inconsistencies about the shark! 🙏🏼✨💖

Fantastic talk with great advice to move forward ❤️ And as always i feel so validatet - it means everything.
Thank you so much 🙏❤️

Thank you Lisa for your illuminating podcasts. Even though i am haunted by wicked sharks who are able to give the kitten-like presence, i feel flushes of hope and optimism again!

Lisa has saved my mental and emotional life. I want to meet her, to hug her.

You are so on the mark, and I love your insights
I see the way out of the bowl and am climbing out

Thanks for sharing your journey

Namaste 🙏