Narcissists Exploit Your Need To Be Needed

We all need to be needed, and in healthy relationships, this need is valued and reciprocated. However, when it comes to highly narcissistic individuals, this need is exploited as a way to gain narcissistic supply. Lisa A. Romano, Certified Life Coach and bestselling author, breaks it down.

Transcript

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Bestselling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

We're going to be talking about how narcissists exploit the very natural human need to be needed.

If you are here,

You're trying to learn about narcissism.

Narcissism is absolutely on the rise,

And we are all targets for narcissists.

The thing that we have to pay attention to is whether or not we are able to acknowledge red flags,

Whether or not we are able to acknowledge when someone says something and their behavior doesn't match what they say,

And whether or not we're able to actually make decisions based on when things like that happen.

When we are dealing with a narcissist,

We have been martyred with love bombing.

We have been made to feel seen in ways that we have never felt before.

We are taught to,

Or conditioned,

Or brainwashed to believe that we can trust this person,

That they have our best interests at heart.

They give us the sense that they want to learn everything that there is to know about us,

And we open up,

And we share.

It feels good.

When you're dealing with a narcissist,

They fast track you.

They have to.

They don't have a lot of time to invest in figuring out whether or not you're going to be someone who trusts them early and will tolerate when they begin to devalue you.

They need to know if their gaslighting is going to work.

Are you going to set boundaries or are you not?

Will you push back or won't you?

We really have to be aware as people in society today that narcissism is on the rise and that narcissists live in this false reality.

They really do believe,

Although if you ask a narcissist,

Do you think that you're better than everyone else?

Some narcissists will say yes,

And other narcissists will say no.

I don't think I'm any better than anybody else,

But if you listen to the way they talk,

If you are their best friend,

If you are their lover,

If you are their spouse,

If this is your mother,

If this is your father,

If this is your boss,

You will feel differently.

You will know that what they're saying is absolutely not true.

If you're dealing with a narcissist,

You are going to end up feeling like you can't trust your reality because so much of what they say doesn't make sense.

It conflicts or conflicts with the way they represented themselves when you first met them.

You experience cognitive dissonance because you believe that this person is freaking awesome and then they act like they're awesome.

It could be six months,

Eight months,

Nine months,

A year,

Sometimes longer before the mask starts to slip or before.

It could be an entire marriage before you realize that you married someone who was living a double life.

I have coached a number of clients who found out 20,

30 years into a marriage that their spouse was living a double life.

These were not people that were unintelligent,

Unaware.

These were people who were duped by fantastic liars,

Fantastic actors.

It happens.

These are narcissists.

They lie.

They're pathological liars in lots of the cases.

If you're someone who is here and you're trying to learn about as much as you can about this thing called narcissism and it's because you've been in an abusive relationship,

My heart goes out to you because it takes time to recover.

It takes time to make sense out of what happened.

It takes time to put all the pieces of the puzzle back together again and absolutely collecting data and collecting information is absolutely part of that journey and that might be where you're at.

I want to offer you some life experience that I've had personally and life experience that keeps showing up professionally in the clients that I coach and that is that narcissists tend to exploit the very natural human need to be needed.

If you are not a narcissist,

You enjoy being needed by your family,

By your children,

By your best friends and it goes back and forth.

Your best friend might need you one day and you might need them one day and you feel like you're part of a community.

It makes you feel like your life has a meaning and has purpose and in healthy relationships,

This does not get exploited.

However,

When you're dealing with a narcissist,

A narcissist will absolutely exploit your need to be needed,

Especially if you're dealing with a vulnerable,

Shy,

Covert narcissist who will play on your empathy and get you to feel like they need you to take care of them.

So now you're being needed and there might be this payoff for you emotionally like,

I'm a good person and this is what good people do and it's good to do for others who cannot do for themselves beautiful things if you think about it,

But it can be exploited and there are narcissists who will exploit your need to be needed.

There are also overt narcissists who will exploit your need to be needed.

This is someone who feels entitled and who is grandiose and who is very flippant about how they treat you and who can blame shift very quickly,

Who can turn the tables.

For instance,

You're upset that the narcissist drank too much at a party and became belligerent and embarrassed you.

You sit down and you talk to the narcissist when they're sober about their behavior and before you know it,

They're flipping their tables and they're talking about how you weren't there enough for them and that's why they're drinking or their best friend passed away six years ago,

They never got over it and that's why they're drinking.

And you should be more conscientious about these ideas and you should feel guilty for being upset with the narcissist because they're belligerent and they drank too much.

So this is a complete shift of the conversation.

The fact that you had a serious concern about the way that you were treated goes right out the window,

Now suddenly your emotions are being exploited and part of this can pull on your heartstrings and part of it definitely moves into this area of needing to be needed.

And if you struggle in that area,

Especially if you have high codependency traits,

If you came from a dysfunctional home where you did not receive the emotional connections that you deserved and needed and required to grow into a healthy self,

This might be a very gray and murky area for you.

You might get a sense of self from being needed.

Those of us with high codependency and I am one of them and I work on it every day,

This is not something that I can drop the ball on because codependency becomes subconscious programming.

Codependency is learned.

Codependency is tied to limiting belief systems.

It's tied to a lack of self.

It is a lens by which we see the world through.

And if we have these subconscious beliefs that have us believing that we need to be needed and our sense of self is tied to needing to be needed when and if we need to confront someone like a narcissist who is unable to hold the space for us that is healthy,

In other words,

A space where if you are dealing with a narcissist,

Where they blame shift and they turn it around,

If this person was healthy,

Even if they had a drinking problem and they weren't a narcissist,

This person could say,

I can see how my behavior was irresponsible and I apologize and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that I never do it again.

I care about how you see me.

I want you to feel supported.

I want you to know that you're a priority in my life and that will never happen again.

That's what happens in a healthy conversation.

There's conflict resolution.

You're able to say,

This is what I think.

This is how I feel calmly.

You're not accusing.

You're not accusatory.

You're not belligerent.

You're not condescending.

You're not character assassinating.

It's very black and white.

You had X amount of drinks.

You were belligerent.

These are the words that you used against me.

This was your behavior.

I was embarrassed by your behavior and I felt very sad about it and I felt unappreciated and it felt as if you didn't care at all about my experience at that party and being humiliated.

You acted this way in front of my coworkers.

You acted this way in front of my clients and really hurt me by behaving this way.

So a healthy person,

Even if it's uncomfortable to take that hit,

Receives it and understands how their experience affected you.

And a healthy person says,

I'm sorry,

I hear you.

And they look to understand your experience of them.

Not so with a narcissist.

A narcissist will do anything that they can to get you off that track,

To make it about something else.

And if they're very good at manipulating conversations and especially your emotions,

What will end up happening is you end up apologizing for making the narcissist aware of their behavior.

You get to a point where you're just exasperated,

You're crying uncle,

And in that space you're very confused.

They've knocked you off your game.

I think part of that as a life coach and someone who deals with this ongoing in my own life is I have,

At least this is what I believe in my humble opinion,

Is that I think there's a link for those of us who get thrown off our game by a narcissist.

The link might be that we have this need to be needed and we have developed this need to be needed and it is tied to a sense of self.

When you are highly codependent,

You need to find ways to make yourself feel good about yourself because you didn't get your needs fulfilled as a child.

So you really don't believe that you were ever needed.

You don't ever really believe that you were ever wanted.

You don't really believe that you were ever loved or appreciated.

You've been taught that your feelings are irrelevant,

That you need to acquiesce in order to find good graces with someone else.

Love is conditional for you.

And so no,

It's not easy for you to feel happy and secure about the self.

You are other focused.

And so when you're dealing with someone who does this,

Who exploits your needs to be needed,

In this space,

When you try to confront them,

They very easily throw you off your game.

And it's because I think many of us have this subconscious belief that has us believing that it is good to be needed and it is also where we identify with a good sense of self.

How many of us think we are good or we have a positive self image because we take care of other people?

How many of us get a healthy sense of,

Well,

We think it's a healthy sense of self,

Or we get a sense of the self and a good positive sense of self by being needed by other people,

Especially when they're at their low point?

And so how many of us then tolerate abusive,

Toxic relationships and are unable to set a boundary because below the veil of consciousness,

We have beliefs that have us believing and operating on default,

That has us feeling and sensing that our sense of self is tied to being needed.

And if we have this sense of self that's tied to being needed,

It's going to be very,

Very difficult for us to break away from relationships from people who are toxic,

People who are absolutely a threat to our own mental health,

Our children's mental health.

And so if you are someone who is struggling with dealing with a highly narcissistic person who is exploiting your need to be needed,

Someone who says,

You should be doing this for me,

You should want to be doing this for me.

I hear this with my clients who have adult children who are guilting them into buying them a house or guilting them into taking care of their children or guilting them into giving them money,

Guilting them into paying for vacations.

Adults need to learn how to live within their means.

Adults need to take responsibility for themselves.

By all means,

It's wonderful if you have adult parents who can help you,

But it's not so important.

It's something that I think as adults that we are entitled to.

And I think the goal is to live within our own means and to be as gracious about what we're able to manifest as possible.

And I'm someone who believes that your personal growth is a mirror for what you experience in your life.

So the more you focus on personal growth,

The more abundant your life will be.

One of the best things that ever happened to me was when I got the feeling and the sense that I was never going to be able to truly rely on my ex.

I was never going to be able to rely on my parents.

I was never going to be able to rely on my siblings.

I really felt like there is no rescue boat coming.

And it was a fantastic gift because what I learned was that I am enough.

And if I focused as difficult as it was,

I was a single mother that did not have a job.

That quit college and whose business was sold by my ex-husband.

So I literally had to start all over.

And I did not know if I was going to make it from one week to the other.

But what I did do was I focused on myself and I did everything I could to better myself.

And I committed myself to personal growth and personal development and healing from codependency.

And I learned that I absolutely could do it.

And part of that journey was learning to understand that I needed to heal the need to be needed.

Reviews

Great thank you

🕉️🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

🙏Namaste.

Thank you for sharing- I now have realized I married a narcissist-bless you for breaking into parts to digest. I laughed when you shared about Applebee’s when ex-began to give you the silent treatment. You hit it on the nose-“the humming” as if nothing is wrong.

Thank you. So much. I had to "heal the need to be needed".

Yes I see that need to be needed. That is where my sense of self worth has come from. Codependency is hard enough without adding a narcissistic relationship. I see how I’ve been an easy target. I’m a work in progress, and your pod casts are eye opening. Thank you for sharing your own personal experiences. It gives me hope that I can heal the need to be needed.

Being severely codependent due to a narc mother and enabling alcoholic dad almost cost me my kids. I’ve worked the last three years to change this behavior and it’s relearning how to do life. Leaning how not to be needed is exactly what people like me should strive for. Learning how not to be needed is a goal statement!! Thank you.