Everything in those relationships is fear based: Walking on eggshells. Rehearsing everything you're gonna say in your head. Coming home right away after work. Not resting when you're sick. Not asking anything. Not taking time for self-care because of criticism. Not expressing your needs. Avoiding places, activities and subjects of conversation. Doing everything so as not to set them off with a request. Saying yes to everything. Getting a knot in your stomach each time a text message comes in or the door opens. Doing everything they want is. Staying. Thinking of leaving... Fear dominates your life. Interestingly, it's not until you get out of the relationship and start healing that you realize how much brain-washing/conditioning you were subjected to and how much fear you lived with daily. Growth, peace and healing to all. ❤
This!! The eggshells, tiptoeing around their sensitivities, fear of abandonment whilst simultaneously abandoning ourselves. I'm so glad I'm out of the situation but I have so much healing to do.
Excellent point. Wouldn't it be great if we had identified that feeling as fear earlier ? Everything becomes so clear after the facts, yet it's so confusing when you're in the midst of it...
This biggest contributor to the fear is the fact the rules are always changing so you can never avoid the punishment No Matter What! In addition to the dehumanization of never having your feelings or neeeds ever being a factor.
That is so true. I always was blamed for not following rules and not attending to his needs.. I am trying hard to get out of my 4 years relationship and it is almost impossible. I can't date anyone else, I just want to be alone and I am ruminating
So true. I've noticed they're pathological at punishing you for your emotions but everything about them is emotional and things change according to how they feel. It's like standing on quick sand!
😂😂😂 That's so insane and true at the same time. When you read it out like this you see how ridiculous they really are. My god. The last part sent me off the edge😂
@Namalama268 yeah it's so crazy and when I was in it I didn't realize just how bad it was. It took being out about six months for the PTSD to hit and that lasted three years. Panic attacks flashbacks, daymares. I've been good for three years now. 😊
This is SO spot on; the manipulative power of fear and how it trains us - the fear of rage, abandonment, and menace; the feeling of not being safe in my own home, walking on eggshells to try my best not to set off yet another temper tantrum and absent silent treatment (I got both together)... I used to think if I just did everything possible not to make the EX mad I could avoid it all. I got good at managing my tone, my words, my reactions -- but of course it was not fool-proof, and this is NO way to live! I put my own needs aside until I decided not to anymore (in spite of being horribly trauma bonded). Now I am loving my freedom and incredible peace. Also in this video you explained something that never made sense to me before; why did he consider himself such a kind, generous and empathic person? This question has caused so much cognitive dissonance.
I lived in fear of my ex and he would say that all he ever wanted was for me to feel safe, and that he was the only person that ensured his previous partners’ safety too. Obviously he has a saviour/hero complex. To him safety only referred to physical and sexual safety. Psychological and emotional safety NEVER entered his mind. Any time he would betray me and lie to me, he would discount it as any form of betrayal. At the end he threatened my life as well as our pets and damage to property. Of course he wouldn’t be responsible if he acted on his threats, it was all my fault. Total lack of accountability!
A friend called my ex a "white knight" - always has to be rescuing somebody. He can spot emotional vulnerability from a mile away. He knows all the right things to say to make you feel like he understands you and he wants to support you. His victims don't recognize that he's prancing around the tower on his white horse, yelling that he's going to rescue you from the evil sorcerer, but he never actually rescues you because he _is_ the evil sorcerer.
I'm so sorry you learnt that. I learned that not all doctors are trustworthy, but I learned to disagree and walk away. It sounds like you were in a situation with someone who was horrendously cruel, and who you couldn't walk away from. I feel for people in that situation and wish you'd be able to leave, or at least find tools to cope, and how to be targeted less.
I’m just noticing that I am never “allowed” to be happy in my own thoughts. I think narcissists can’t handle true joy or happiness. So they take it away and then breadcrumb you to control its flow. Now every time I feel a little peace or joy it’s always followed by thoughts that disrupt it.
Ngl, I don’t even know what would make me happy rn. Knowing my kids are happy and feel safe makes me some sort of happiness, but other than that, idk… my life is and has been for the last 8y all “things that I have to do, like it or not” and not in ways that I wish I could’ve done them. I just want peace, I want my dignity and freedom restored, I want to wake up in the morning without having to worry if my children and I are safe for another day or if we’ll have to move again. I’ll think of my happiness after that craziness finally ends.
I feel like that too... Anytime I am just finding happiness and sitting and being quiet I get screamed at for not doing anything. I have to be doing something 24 hours a day cuz if I ever sit and rest and just want to relax and listen or read, I'm not "allowed" to.
This is so true. You have to be very careful when you decide to stand up to them. Some can be dangerous. Be very strategic when you start to pull away from them.
If you even give them a clue that you are leaving things will quite dangerously get way way way out of hand. It's the most dangerous time of your life when leaving the narc. It must be very secret & handled very delicately 😮
My now ex would blow up at me over the smallest things, start yelling over me to shut me up when I’d try to take up for myself, stonewall me and give me the silent treatment, come back and try to break up with me. This happened for over two years. When I tried breaking up with him, he begged me not to and I fell for him only for him to discard me a month ago right before we were supposed to go on vacation and there’s so much more. It hurts so bad, but he did me a tremendous favor. Get the hell away from me. My health has suffered on so many levels from this. Anxiety is absolutely horrible at this point. Do two narcissistic people ever end up together? That would be an interesting dynamic. Let them suck the life out of each other and leave us empaths alone. 😢
It's the fear of them making a scene in public and embarrassing you. The fear of them abandoning you right at the moment they promised to show up. The fear of them being mean and abusive even though you're treating them so well. The fear of having to let them go and drown in their own filth after loving them for so long. The fear of burying your loved one even though they're still alive.
I'm only 4 minutes and 40 seconds in I'm getting new levels of clarity on the abuse I experienced. My stbx dropped the " you can just leave" line multiple times,. What he left unspoken was "and I'll keep our 6 kids and you'll never see them again". Also, the only time he would ever ask me if something was wrong or bothering me was when he was standing at the door on his way out to go somewhere. I didn't know that was a "thing" with narcissists!
All true, sadly. And in my experience, the fear gets compounded when you yourself make a mistake, because to a narcissist, your mistakes are ammunition to be used against you forever. They have the most amazing ability to remember and draw on even your small mistakes and weaponize them against you. At some level you know this, and so you live in constant fear not only of the narcissist, but of yourself. Any mistake they make, of course, is out of their mind in five minutes or less, and they will deny that it ever happened.
His narcissist mother, sister, and the flying monkeys were so overwhelming & awful. Dealing with them was so EXACTLY like you just described, that I couldn't see past it at all the ways he was mistreating me (He was his mother's golden child, but she didn't like me, so they were trying to break us up. He turned out to be just like her. The mind eff of it all. Im so glad i finally woke up to the truth about him ❤️🩹 )
Yesterday, I had a mental breakdown, flashbacks, and worst panic attacks. I thought I had healed, 10 months after the divorce and tried to date. I realised I am far from healed. Everything said here is like a diary of 5 years of marriage and 6 years of the relationship.
It takes time but don't loose hope! I've been away for 2 years now and had to move to another country because I could not find peace because of 7 months stalking. I understand what you are dealing with because I was with a covert narcissist many years. Dr. Ramani helped me, Richard Grannon also. He has a special course about how to overcome the flashbacks. Yoga helps a lot too because you focus on yourself. It helped me to reset myself and not have him in my mind every day and every night. Take care and keep safe 🙏🏻🌷
So my dad was 59 when I was born and he was in the hospital when I was a baby. The youngest three kids myself included were always in fear that he’d die. My mom was passive and she’d use looks to threaten abandonment. She was kind of helpless and more like a child than a parent. So if my dad passed there was no way she’d be able to take over as a parent. So she had sort of a passive way of control by threat of disability. She was silent in terms of parenting. Then I’d turn to my dad but he’d bounce responsibility back to her. Then parenting would just vanish. They’d go back to the status quo. And then I’d be left to sort out my parenting needs alone. They buried all those things and I had two selves. One they accepted and one they pretended wasn’t there. There was and is a lot of pain in that space.
When my ex would ask me what I wanted to do on a given day, I learned to say "nothing, what would you like to do" because any plan I had would get cancelled...or trips I wanted to take either wouldn't happen or be ruin by him picking a HUGE fight over an unbelievably tiny thing...like him screaming things like "what did I tell you" and if I didn't repeat it back verbatim it followed by more screaming....this was done just to ruin my enjoyment of the trip he never wanted to go on in the first place
It's the constant not knowing what you're going to get. In my experience it gets even worse as they get old and forgetful! They lever the controls and the mood swings are quicker and more of them. They'll tell you on Tuesday to ask them if you need help with anything, you ask for help on Wednesday and you're treated to contempt disdain, rage or passive aggression. They are not trustworthy. It's like standing on quicksand! Mine have also become quite paranoid! Along with vindictive. I don't love them anymore.
4:00 When he threatens to leave, I tell him "ok, bye". It just makes him more angry and he doesn't actually leave. I'm at the point where I try to break up And he won't let me! They say they want to leave but they don't mean it.
This is it this is exactly what I've been living for the last 6 year's, I ended the relationship 4 weeks ago. I have an adult disabled son from a past relationship. He constantly told me how good he was to have my son always around. He also used my son's disability to make himself look caring and loving in front of other's. I became to mentally unwell to carry on with the relationship
Take care of yourself! Being involved with . someone who exhibits toxic behavior can feel like you're losing a part of who you are. I spent years trying to help my partner, only to discover that he had been hiding things from me, including financial secrets and other troubling behavior. It became clear when he became more distant and secretive, even locking me out of shared accounts to spend without my knowledge. I only uncovered the truth with the help of Brad.
As a child, my narc mother never let me have any accomplishment for myself. For example, "Well, you get your smarts from me and that's why you make good grades". She used fear to make my sisters and me responsible for her moods because she is bipolar. I wanted to divorce her from my life since age 20, but the guilt of fear in how she'd handle the rejection kept me in a very strained relationship with her until age 36. I am so happy without her in my life and can't wait for the day I get a call telling me she's dead.
Same here but what’s crazy is she has some delusion that I’ll regret it or that this is somehow hard for me or idk lol. It couldn’t be further from the truth. She’ll bring up death herself as a warning about how mistaken my no contact is. Meanwhile I feel just like you in your last sentence lmao.
Honestly idgaf anymore. No fear or worry. Living a beautiful life in the mountains with my family instead of letting that stuff have any effect on my emotional state. I expect my narc mom to go haywire at any point so there are no surprises.
Omg, thats exactly what i felt like. She was so unpredictable and trying to do what she wants that i got lost in her ways. Fear and total unsecurity overtook me.
Wow! This video is so spot on I'm feeling triggered. It frames fear in a very interesting way. I recall my ex quoting Machiavelli saying it was better to have people fear you. Now I understand that so much better and it gives me the chills. I remembered all the narcissistic relationships I've had and yes, there's always been fear. I feared for my safety, abandonment, being left without money or a place to go, etc. Very enlightening. Thank you Dr. Ramani.
Being with my ex narc for the past 8 yrs. made me observe this very pattern. I think they wanted to feel very important in a way that is disturbing. Instead of building trust with their intimate partners, they destroy the trust that they built with you (in that case lying when they tried to put you in their pedestal). Once they have a committed partner, they can’t stand being loved authentically by one person. Instead they go on and prey on other women that is susceptible to their love bombing. My ex narc was a compulsive pursuer in a relationship. He would go back and forth to the women he were involved before or try to meet women in complicated situation so that going public isn’t an option while having you as their main supply. In the end they destroy the very person that loved them. They are like toddlers testing your love for them. Showing and telling them you love them isn’t enough, they will cheat on your face to make you feel inadequate even if you are more than they deserve. They want to test your love for them so they keep hurting you and when you have enough of their abuse, you leave. Then they tell you, ‘you never loved me because you abandon me’. Well in fact it’s their actions and narcissistic behavior that made you leave or in other cases they discard you and will give silly reasons of the discard. Mine would use, ‘she’s crazy’, ‘she’s a nega-star’, ‘she insults me’, ‘she cheated on me’ et al. So with this pattern of infidelities and emotional abuse (who knows what else) it’s better to walk away. I did walk away and is now rebuilding my life with our daughter. We are struggling financially because I’m not earning enough to provide for my daughter but now we get to laugh and bring with us sunshine every day. No lies, no abuse and no fake love. We only live once, forgive yourself and move forward but never forget the lesson that narc abuse taught you. That is to respect yourself to walk away from what’s hurting and destroying you. That you deserve a life of solitude, happiness and love. Hugs*** :) Additionally I got to know about my narc husband bad ways when I reach out to a private detective digitalinvestigate@gmail. com for help he did a perfect work for me I can see everything he’s doing on his device.
Always, leaving. "We're not suited is that what you are saying? It's over, okay I get it." This happened when I got the gumption to explain my feelings. Omg, always the "menace". He would put his hands up in a strangle gesture. It never occurred to me that breaking of things was violence...He would just say "Stop sooking...it's just a... You need to get help". You are so helpful Dr Ramani, I have healed so much and done your course and bought your book. I learn something new every time I listen to you. So much gratitude for the knowledge. It literally saves lives.❤
Wow! This episode resonated with me more than any other. Your description of how "living with menace" changes a person so that they're in a constant state of hyper vigilance, that was my experience. Luckily, I left my narcissist many years ago, but I continue to educate myself with your channel so that I can label what happened to me and verify that I wasn't crazy.
I am minutes into this video. Pausing now before I loose this thought. “Domination by my neglectful, narcissistic husband is him talking over me.” It’s maddening. So DONE !!!
@@Ascensionhelpline I don't think so. I was abused by a narcissist for years and I developed extreme anxiety and PTSD, so sometimes when I'm in conversation I may ramble on, or interrupt someone. I too was worried about this and thought I was a narcissist but my therapist told me that in my case my behaviour was caused by pure and severe anxiety. Now if I'm in company, I often say " I'm sorry if I start to interrupt. I get very anxious at times." Usually, people understand and by saying it I find I don't get as anxious, or interrupt as much, or at all. I hope this helps ease your mind a little but just ask a therapist and I'm sure they will reassure you that it's probably your ADHD. Usually, people who are narcissists don't ask if they are because in their minds they are never at fault. Best wishes to you.
My husband will interrupt me and continue to talk for another hour, than if I try to say one word he will say this is why I don’t want to talk, and then say since what you have to say is so important then say it, meanwhile while I’m sharing he’s mumbling under his breath. Or he will never finish his thought because he says I interrupted him, so that I can beg him to finish what he was saying, then I get the silent treatment. So because of this ongoing behavior I now don’t share, but now he says he has to break down walls that I have up. I’m soooooo tired of this after over 30 years
THANK YOU! I'm in the process of divorcing my narc husband. I have always been able to articulate that the children and I are afraid of him. ...terrified sometimes. But have never been able to explain it to other people in the neuansed way you did. And I've particularly struggled with explaining how he would "punish" us - outside of the actual physical abuse. But this hits it right on the dot! So, THANK YOU again!
I was living with my daughter. We were having an argument, as usual, I walked into the kitchen in the semi dark, and she was standing there holding a butcher knife. I said “if you’re going to do it do it now.” Calling her bluff. She didn’t do anything. Yes I used to be afraid of her. I haven’t seen her for two years.
Exciting video, A year ago I took the no contact route, well i wouldnt say it didnt go well, but i missed her and sometimes you have to leave your comfort zone and go for what you want, Without knowing and having a huge ego, we might actually miss out on our soul mate all in the name of not settling for less, I know who i am, and at the same time i know what i want for me, so i did all i could to get her back, and I must say, it was the best decision i have ever made, we have been together again for over 7 months, yes marriage isnt always rosey, but i am lucky to have her, just as she is to have me, we compliment each other.
its difficult to let go of someone you love, i am in a similar situation, and i do not know what else do to have him back, i have been dying inside, people actually think i am happy, i am not.
I feel your pain sister , after trying out the no contact experiment that failed miserably, i had to find other means, i had to reach out to a spiritual adviser, it was brilliant idea which i never thouht it was, but it worked wonders for me.
Dr. Ramani, you are a saint and a godsend! Thank you for this episode. You just explained the 5.5 year relationship I just left. With your help and advice, I was able to figure out what I was going through, and was able to find an exit strategy. Radical acceptance and no contact has helped. This episode hit hard. Keep up the good work and wishing you healing as well!
Thank you for this video Dr Ramini. The fear he instilled in me was a reminder of an abusive husband I had many years ago. The recent break up was from a man who could also rage over the slightest thing leaving me physically shaking and worried to say anything he might find upsetting. His rages were terrifying and would pop out of nowhere over nothing at all. I have now since left him and slowly finding myself again....but have to keep reminding myself that he'll never change so even though he lives nearby, I must stay strong and stay away from him. Every day I tell myself I'm worth more than what he made me feel...disrespected, belittled and used .
The fear of not knowing what would happen when I get home from work was awful I would spend 15 minutes driving around town just trying to calm my nerves enough to go home cuz I never knew what to expect
The narcissist in my life seems to enjoy humiliating me in front of others and still catches me unaware, I freeze and go defensive, then she claims to be 'only joking"
My fear was that I couldn't leave or end it well. I wasn't getting my needs met, he wasn't prepared to change and so he ended up harassing me, stalking me and hoovering. So the fear was never being able to leave.
Oh, thank God, Dr. Ramani is addressing this issue. My adult brother terrorized me and my elderly parents for several years until I developed PTSD. He's no longer living with us but it's been 3 years since he left but I am still in therapy trying to recover from his absolutely horrific behaviour. Unless you have seen a narcissist rage, you would think that people who have been abused by narcissists are exaggerating when they describe their behaviour.
Oh yeah. During the rages, he’d always mention he was going to “talk to a lawyer about getting divorced.” When he raged, it would be the same physical situation, him standing over me while I was seated. His fists clenched. Onetime I got out of the chair before he could block me. He then charged at me so I turned away and shielded myself. He stopped and asked me why I stepped aside. I told him I thought he was going to hit me. HE GOT MAD AT ME for being afraid that he was going to hit me! The day he left, he literally stood with one foot out the door while he told me how awful he thought I was for the last “22 years” of our 32 year marriage. Good grief. What a phony. The victim of “me.” Passive aggressive fear monger. The nicest guy in the world. 😅 I didn’t know during my marriage what I now know about vulnerable narcissists. Please young people, be braver than me and get out if you can it does not get better. It gets worse.
If perfection could be achieved on the facts of narcissism it would be this video. Every word in this video is accurate in every way possible. Thank you Dr. Ramani for seeing us out here and for your courage and bravery to speak out about these horrifying truths of our lives.
Wow this is brilliantly put. Went through this for five years and three months ago I finally built myself up enough to end it. Now regrouping and relaxing into myself again.
It's about finding your balance within the other because we're all one. You're just fighting with yourself, especially if you are next to the one you are paired with. I really really wish I could sit down and talk with you. Also, you're amazing you're smart and you make me question everything I know. OMG thank you
This is such an amazingly accurate video. I dealt with all aspects of this in my 20 year relationship with my narc ex. I left 30 years ago and am still learning and recovering. Videos like this are invaluable in that recovery. Thank you.
Yes, it is like walking on eggshells. I have at times done good things & all the sudden they are lashing at you. I am afraid of that reaction. I “try” to express myself & it is a bombardment of attacks & insults. Yes, they say to leave the relationship to get one “back on track.”
Dangling abandonment was precisely my exes weapon of choice and exactly my core wound. I felt like a never was able to speak. I have so much remorse around the words I never got to say. Thank you for the validation.
I have definitely felt that fear of a malignant narcissist. The unpredictability. The wondering just how far they’ll take things and when. The backlash I might get, for doing anything about it, from the narcissist and outsiders, including leaving. But, one of the worst, ongoing fears I have is two fold. That, once their mask begins to drop and/or I begin to pickup on those patterns and red flags, the two questions are, how much of my dang time have you taken up thus far and how long is it going to take to rid myself of you? All of the circus that they are, is a time suck. Everything from the mind games to the legal colosseum fighting to my own rumination, takes away from my time, sleep, life planning and creativity. It is a murder of sorts. That is why, when some enabler feels I’m not being empathetic enough, my thoughts is, “What the heck page are you on!?”
@ yes. I began realizing something was VERY WRONG, in early 2018. I spent the next 4 years, day-to-day, with that phone phobia, hoping I’d not be contacted and, on occasion, I was. Then, my mother died and I’ve been in a legal battle with a sibling that even the court must look at, as an utter nut. And, now, that I’ve bapped them over the head, with a BIGGIE, I know I’ll need to continue to be hyper vigilant, over my safety. This is an emotional and psychological cancer, metastasizing into the legal, physical and financial. And, oh yes. When my mother was alive, I feared reactive abuse. I feared that, if she kept being abusive and play with my mind, she’d end up at the bottom of a staircase.
Always gonna leave you. Over and over. But also always coming back. Using all your trauma triggers against you to control you and force you stay because of guilt. All the while you never realize it, self blames and actually think you are in love with them.
When I fractured my skull, coworkers had to go into work to find contact information for my family out of state so that they could air lift me to a trauma center. My sister never called to find out how I was doing, either while I was in the hospital or when I was released. In fact, she never asked me about it. Years later my accident came up in a casual conversation. When my sister finally realized how potentially serious the injury could have been, she started to tear up and blamed my mother who she said had led her to believe it was not that serious. Just to be clear my mother never called either. In fact, my brother was the only one that called the hospital (once) and from that brief conversation with the charge nurse concluded I was fine. No one called either the hospital or me when I was released from the hospital. What is really sad was that I just accepted this as normal behavior on their part.
I'm so sorry that you experienced that. I hope you are fully healed and staying away from your toxic family and enjoying your friends and people that truly care about you! 🙏♥️
A note from a domestic abuse survivor - if they’re breaking things to intimidate you, threatening to harm (or harming) children or pets, threatening self harm, or physically blocking your way to keep you from leaving a space, you are already experiencing domestic violence. And it will escalate.
@@mememefinallythat‘s what people believed in the 1980s.. DV has changed! Men are not stupid enough anymore to give a woman a black eye and knowing they’d end up in jail. DV just like men, has evolved. Nowadays they specialize in covert tactics that are “not too obvious on the surface”, and that’s why they can get away with it for years without anyone suspecting sh!t, “he was such a good guy, I’ve known him for a decade, I never would’ve thought he’d be capable of doing such a thing, I never saw it coming!”. Why? Because they’re very pressurized ticking time bombs, one that day will come where they’ll go from “being an arse” sometimes to a total explosion, which always ends very tragically. Please, have a serious sit down with your man and educate him on Dv (and note how he reacts!), cause he clearly doesn’t know and that is a liability for you to seriously consider. The idea is to leave BEFORE we get hit. I do not recommend waiting for this to happen, him to potentially badly hurt you, to understand the danger you might be in with this man. His reaction and responses will give you everything you need to know about him. Good luck, stay safe 🙏🏻
@@a.b.2850 It's not as cut and dried as you make it sound. Most of us are not in this by choice and leaving before anything bad happens is not always an option. Your comment is not based in many people's reality.
I have experienced all the above and have left home but now he's trying to hoover me back saying he's sorry and he needs me to be home to make things right. He said he didn't know his behaviour made me fearful and unhappy and it is not fair I ran away and talked about him to my friends without first talking to him about it
It's true that fear is the language of narcissistic behavior and thankfully we learn that to be in fear of someone each day is truly not love. Excellent insights, Doctor Ramani Durvasula, thanks for helping us to heal and find grounding perspectives, showing us to be capable and worthy of truly safe love as the healing process..and it is a necessary process..unfolds
I can't believe how much this resonates with me! Every romantic relationship I have ever been in exploited my abandonment wounds constantly to the point that I am content with being alone. I learned that loneliness is a state of mind and I always felt lonely when I was with someone romantically. Now that I'm healing and through my research the men I was with were all narcissists or at the very least toxic.
Wow… this is exactly how my mom acted toward us for my entire life. Not knowing when she will have an episode of outburst. Interestingly, her random outburst always taking on special days about me, a celebration day of my career achievement, my birthday, the first day of I start a new job, etc. Then finally I had coverage to confront with her of how she acts, I would be told that she doesn’t remember what happened and things probably wasn’t half bad and it was all because of my sensitive brain. For all my life, I believe I am unloveable by anyone outside my family and something inherently wrong in me, until I started therapy and realize the one who have problem is not me.
This is 💯 my brother and his wife. Mainly his wife, who if you disagree with her, stand up for yourself against her attacks, or say anything they don’t like, they punish us, rage at us and refuse to come to family dinners. It’s disgusting. Then they come back to the family when they feel like it or need something, and the enablers welcome them back like nothing happened. I can’t stand it. I keep my boundaries despite what they think. I get shamed and attacked no matter what I do, I have always been supportive yet they have been horrific to me, so I really do not want anything to do with them. Thank you Dr Ramani ❤
Well done for maintaining your boundaries. People like that are so draining, and it's worse that you have their enablers to deal with too. I hope you'll be able to reduce your interactions with your toxic family members, keep your boundaries up, and protect yourself from their rage.
Thank you so much for this video! I really needed this topic discussed! My spouse constantly threatens abandonment, and claims they do it because they're "just being honest".😅
Due to your teachings, I was able to see the narcissistic patterns behind many of my boyfriend’s seemingly unrelated choices and dramatic actions. And that emboldened me to state my boundaries early and strongly…. and it also allowed me to see very soon, his uncaring ways. I finally left. And he is shocked! I feel so relieved and free of drama. My peace is returning. I am grateful for your teachings and I feel like I am finally growing up in my 50’s! You are like a good mom to me. (My real mom is a narcissist and we don’t talk).
Dr. Ramani, you are right on the money. If I had a dollar for every time I was told, “I did not ask you to do those things.” Again, being driven by fear, she may not have asked me to do those things, but I did them out of fear of her wrath if she did not get EXACTLY what she wanted and when she wanted it.
It's not fear for me, but the pains I endure. It's like an adult with a child. Children play games and it's a narcissists mind game that causes me pain; especially the ones that bring back grief that I had already dealt with. Their biggest game is the projection game because they refuse to have any inward reflection to handle shame, they regulate it on the outside. They flip every word and action of lifting others up and make you look bad in their eyes. The truth is a strong person lifts others up, but a weak one puts them down. The opposite of trust is fear. Trust is a choice, but fear is an emotion. Trust goes through a logical process, but fear doesn't. You have to be calm to use Trust. They flip the choice of trust into fear by betrayal. We feel betrayed and so trust turns into fear. Trust isn't the only choice concerning relationships, as forgiveness is also a choice. Forgiveness is hard and it is not about forgetting as hurt and damage needs repair and is part of relationship. Relationship means to make connection. If there is no connection, then the relationship falls into disfunction. Another game comes from their black and white thinking. Their thinking is either you are good or bad; for or against. You are not neutral or average in their eyes.
Doctor Ramani! ...all i can say is WOW and THANK YOU! I have watched several of your videos in the past, and yesterday about 4 more videos , including this one ( Fear is there love language) and it blows my mind! You explain everything that my girlfriend does to me... its like reliving the horror in a sense...and its not really a celebration !... because we have a child together ( almost 4 years old) But thanks to you...i can CONFIRM that I am 100% with a ( female) narrsacist!!! Now if only i can figure how to GET OUT without losing my sanity, without hurting my child and amicably leaving my narcissist girlfriend....(i know, pipe dream) i am at the end of my rope adter 5 years of this bullshit....
It’s a terrible thing to leave in fear. 30 years of it turned me into something I would never suspect I could become. We all know the saying “ don’t corner a wounded animal “.
Yes, when we live in fear we probably leave in fear but it must be done. It was the worst & scareyest time in my life but I'm so glad that I left. Now I can find out who I really am ❤
Everything in those relationships is fear based: Walking on eggshells. Rehearsing everything you're gonna say in your head. Coming home right away after work. Not resting when you're sick. Not asking anything. Not taking time for self-care because of criticism. Not expressing your needs. Avoiding places, activities and subjects of conversation. Doing everything so as not to set them off with a request. Saying yes to everything. Getting a knot in your stomach each time a text message comes in or the door opens. Doing everything they want is. Staying. Thinking of leaving... Fear dominates your life. Interestingly, it's not until you get out of the relationship and start healing that you realize how much brain-washing/conditioning you were subjected to and how much fear you lived with daily. Growth, peace and healing to all. ❤
This!! The eggshells, tiptoeing around their sensitivities, fear of abandonment whilst simultaneously abandoning ourselves. I'm so glad I'm out of the situation but I have so much healing to do.
That's my story - thank you !
@@christelleny so relatable, thank you for putting this out there. Wishing you and all of us the same strength, peace, and healing. ❤️✨💪🏼🙏🏼🤗❤️
@@anne4116 same! 💪🏼❤️🙏🏼✨
@@ea1112 mine too 🫶🏻
I think the fear factor with a narcissist is that they are capable of anything and you have no value to them.
Where there is fear there can't be love. Fear and love don't go together.
Wow! Those 2 sentences could change the world!
So true, that's not love.
Excellent point. Wouldn't it be great if we had identified that feeling as fear earlier ? Everything becomes so clear after the facts, yet it's so confusing when you're in the midst of it...
@@sushmayen I’ll remember this! Next time I ever feel fear for wanting to broach a topic for discussion that will be my cue/red flag.
My mom would threaten to kick me out of the house if I hinted at anything she didn’t want to hear. Since I was a teenager.
This biggest contributor to the fear is the fact the rules are always changing so you can never avoid the punishment No Matter What! In addition to the dehumanization of never having your feelings or neeeds ever being a factor.
You will always be punished, even if you do exactly what they tell you to do. There's always something wrong and it's always your fault.
That is so true. I always was blamed for not following rules and not attending to his needs.. I am trying hard to get out of my 4 years relationship and it is almost impossible. I can't date anyone else, I just want to be alone and I am ruminating
Heads they win, tails we lose…
So true. I've noticed they're pathological at punishing you for your emotions but everything about them is emotional and things change according to how they feel. It's like standing on quick sand!
When they rage on you and then they blame you for making them angry when all you did was get home from work
@DoctorRamani1r scam reported
😂😂😂 That's so insane and true at the same time. When you read it out like this you see how ridiculous they really are. My god. The last part sent me off the edge😂
@Namalama268 yeah it's so crazy and when I was in it I didn't realize just how bad it was.
It took being out about six months for the PTSD to hit and that lasted three years. Panic attacks flashbacks, daymares.
I've been good for three years now. 😊
This needs to be elevated to the country. America is in a narcissistic relationship, and needs to learn how to navigate it.
The world is run by narcissists. It seems that we sort of take that for granted.
This is SO spot on; the manipulative power of fear and how it trains us - the fear of rage, abandonment, and menace; the feeling of not being safe in my own home, walking on eggshells to try my best not to set off yet another temper tantrum and absent silent treatment (I got both together)... I used to think if I just did everything possible not to make the EX mad I could avoid it all. I got good at managing my tone, my words, my reactions -- but of course it was not fool-proof, and this is NO way to live! I put my own needs aside until I decided not to anymore (in spite of being horribly trauma bonded). Now I am loving my freedom and incredible peace. Also in this video you explained something that never made sense to me before; why did he consider himself such a kind, generous and empathic person? This question has caused so much cognitive dissonance.
Reminding me of how grateful I am that I walked away.
I was just about to write a similar message.
I'm glad that you could, not all of us are able to just walk away.
@@Floridafanatic28 my heart goes out to you
I also got away, but now I have to coparent. PRAY FOR MEEEE
Yessss me too
I lived in fear of my ex and he would say that all he ever wanted was for me to feel safe, and that he was the only person that ensured his previous partners’ safety too. Obviously he has a saviour/hero complex. To him safety only referred to physical and sexual safety. Psychological and emotional safety NEVER entered his mind. Any time he would betray me and lie to me, he would discount it as any form of betrayal.
At the end he threatened my life as well as our pets and damage to property. Of course he wouldn’t be responsible if he acted on his threats, it was all my fault. Total lack of accountability!
A friend called my ex a "white knight" - always has to be rescuing somebody. He can spot emotional vulnerability from a mile away. He knows all the right things to say to make you feel like he understands you and he wants to support you.
His victims don't recognize that he's prancing around the tower on his white horse, yelling that he's going to rescue you from the evil sorcerer, but he never actually rescues you because he _is_ the evil sorcerer.
@ love that analogy. Thx
Over the years I learned to expect the worst of him. He still showing me there is no limits to human cruelty.
I'm so sorry you learnt that. I learned that not all doctors are trustworthy, but I learned to disagree and walk away.
It sounds like you were in a situation with someone who was horrendously cruel, and who you couldn't walk away from.
I feel for people in that situation and wish you'd be able to leave, or at least find tools to cope, and how to be targeted less.
I’m just noticing that I am never “allowed” to be happy in my own thoughts. I think narcissists can’t handle true joy or happiness. So they take it away and then breadcrumb you to control its flow. Now every time I feel a little peace or joy it’s always followed by thoughts that disrupt it.
Yes. That's their m.o.
Yes, I've noticed that. It's like they find other people's joy disgusting.
Ngl, I don’t even know what would make me happy rn.
Knowing my kids are happy and feel safe makes me some sort of happiness, but other than that, idk… my life is and has been for the last 8y all “things that I have to do, like it or not” and not in ways that I wish I could’ve done them.
I just want peace, I want my dignity and freedom restored, I want to wake up in the morning without having to worry if my children and I are safe for another day or if we’ll have to move again.
I’ll think of my happiness after that craziness finally ends.
❤absolutely
I feel like that too... Anytime I am just finding happiness and sitting and being quiet I get screamed at for not doing anything. I have to be doing something 24 hours a day cuz if I ever sit and rest and just want to relax and listen or read, I'm not "allowed" to.
This is so true. You have to be very careful when you decide to stand up to them. Some can be dangerous. Be very strategic when you start to pull away from them.
Yep, and as secretive as possible. It's never good to even let them think you might be leaving them.
If you even give them a clue that you are leaving things will quite dangerously get way way way out of hand. It's the most dangerous time of your life when leaving the narc. It must be very secret & handled very delicately 😮
My now ex would blow up at me over the smallest things, start yelling over me to shut me up when I’d try to take up for myself, stonewall me and give me the silent treatment, come back and try to break up with me. This happened for over two years. When I tried breaking up with him, he begged me not to and I fell for him only for him to discard me a month ago right before we were supposed to go on vacation and there’s so much more. It hurts so bad, but he did me a tremendous favor. Get the hell away from me. My health has suffered on so many levels from this. Anxiety is absolutely horrible at this point. Do two narcissistic people ever end up together? That would be an interesting dynamic. Let them suck the life out of each other and leave us empaths alone. 😢
It's the fear of them making a scene in public and embarrassing you. The fear of them abandoning you right at the moment they promised to show up. The fear of them being mean and abusive even though you're treating them so well. The fear of having to let them go and drown in their own filth after loving them for so long. The fear of burying your loved one even though they're still alive.
So true
I'm only 4 minutes and 40 seconds in I'm getting new levels of clarity on the abuse I experienced. My stbx dropped the " you can just leave" line multiple times,. What he left unspoken was "and I'll keep our 6 kids and you'll never see them again". Also, the only time he would ever ask me if something was wrong or bothering me was when he was standing at the door on his way out to go somewhere. I didn't know that was a "thing" with narcissists!
All true, sadly. And in my experience, the fear gets compounded when you yourself make a mistake, because to a narcissist, your mistakes are ammunition to be used against you forever. They have the most amazing ability to remember and draw on even your small mistakes and weaponize them against you. At some level you know this, and so you live in constant fear not only of the narcissist, but of yourself.
Any mistake they make, of course, is out of their mind in five minutes or less, and they will deny that it ever happened.
@ Alas, I’m not very tech savvy. Is this a phone line? I should add that I’ve gone no contact with most of the narcissists in my life.
His narcissist mother, sister, and the flying monkeys were so overwhelming & awful. Dealing with them was so EXACTLY like you just described, that I couldn't see past it at all the ways he was mistreating me (He was his mother's golden child, but she didn't like me, so they were trying to break us up. He turned out to be just like her. The mind eff of it all. Im so glad i finally woke up to the truth about him ❤️🩹 )
This is so accurate. The shame and fear was real. The lack of vulnerability and withdrawal/abandonment. It was a devastating cycle. 😒
I have experienced every single thing talked about from my ex-husband....it flooded me with bad memories
((HUG)) Me, too. Is difficult to hear. But also so important to talk about.
Yesterday, I had a mental breakdown, flashbacks, and worst panic attacks. I thought I had healed, 10 months after the divorce and tried to date. I realised I am far from healed. Everything said here is like a diary of 5 years of marriage and 6 years of the relationship.
It takes time but don't loose hope! I've been away for 2 years now and had to move to another country because I could not find peace because of 7 months stalking. I understand what you are dealing with because I was with a covert narcissist many years. Dr. Ramani helped me, Richard Grannon also. He has a special course about how to overcome the flashbacks.
Yoga helps a lot too because you focus on yourself. It helped me to reset myself and not have him in my mind every day and every night.
Take care and keep safe
🙏🏻🌷
So my dad was 59 when I was born and he was in the hospital when I was a baby. The youngest three kids myself included were always in fear that he’d die. My mom was passive and she’d use looks to threaten abandonment. She was kind of helpless and more like a child than a parent. So if my dad passed there was no way she’d be able to take over as a parent. So she had sort of a passive way of control by threat of disability. She was silent in terms of parenting. Then I’d turn to my dad but he’d bounce responsibility back to her. Then parenting would just vanish. They’d go back to the status quo. And then I’d be left to sort out my parenting needs alone. They buried all those things and I had two selves. One they accepted and one they pretended wasn’t there. There was and is a lot of pain in that space.
So Brilliant. Framing fear as a Love Language of narcissism really brought it home. I'm speechless.
When my ex would ask me what I wanted to do on a given day, I learned to say "nothing, what would you like to do" because any plan I had would get cancelled...or trips I wanted to take either wouldn't happen or be ruin by him picking a HUGE fight over an unbelievably tiny thing...like him screaming things like "what did I tell you" and if I didn't repeat it back verbatim it followed by more screaming....this was done just to ruin my enjoyment of the trip he never wanted to go on in the first place
This is my life now.
Dr Ramani how we need a video called „when a malignant narcissist becomes the most powerful person in the world“
I realised from this video that what i have been feeling is fear. My son has just moved out. I feel a difference, but it will take time!
There is no fear in love. Please get out, if this is your situation.
It's the constant not knowing what you're going to get. In my experience it gets even worse as they get old and forgetful! They lever the controls and the mood swings are quicker and more of them. They'll tell you on Tuesday to ask them if you need help with anything, you ask for help on Wednesday and you're treated to contempt disdain, rage or passive aggression. They are not trustworthy. It's like standing on quicksand! Mine have also become quite paranoid! Along with vindictive. I don't love them anymore.
As a child, I remember telling my mother that I was afraid of her. She laughed and said "If you were afraid of me, you would do what I say."
4:00 When he threatens to leave, I tell him "ok, bye". It just makes him more angry and he doesn't actually leave. I'm at the point where I try to break up And he won't let me! They say they want to leave but they don't mean it.
This is it this is exactly what I've been living for the last 6 year's, I ended the relationship 4 weeks ago. I have an adult disabled son from a past relationship. He constantly told me how good he was to have my son always around. He also used my son's disability to make himself look caring and loving in front of other's. I became to mentally unwell to carry on with the relationship
Take care of yourself! Being involved with . someone who exhibits toxic behavior can feel like you're losing a part of who you are. I spent years trying to help my partner, only to discover that he had been hiding things from me, including financial secrets and other troubling behavior. It became clear when he became more distant and secretive, even locking me out of shared accounts to spend without my knowledge. I only uncovered the truth with the help of Brad.
*fountain_cybersecurty* (Brad) helped me and many others, he will do the same and you'll be happy you did.
Fear is the opposite of love.
As a child, my narc mother never let me have any accomplishment for myself. For example, "Well, you get your smarts from me and that's why you make good grades".
She used fear to make my sisters and me responsible for her moods because she is bipolar. I wanted to divorce her from my life since age 20, but the guilt of fear in how she'd handle the rejection kept me in a very strained relationship with her until age 36.
I am so happy without her in my life and can't wait for the day I get a call telling me she's dead.
Same here but what’s crazy is she has some delusion that I’ll regret it or that this is somehow hard for me or idk lol. It couldn’t be further from the truth. She’ll bring up death herself as a warning about how mistaken my no contact is. Meanwhile I feel just like you in your last sentence lmao.
They’re unhinged and we’re deceived into believing they are not. Imagine leaning on a railing near a cliff and it is not securely attached … (scary)
Love this analogy!
Unhinged is the best word ! I called my ex unhinged because that was his behavior .
@@mariefriedmann3203 Thanks 😊
This made me grateful where I am now. I got my peace. Thank God🙏🏼
Honestly idgaf anymore. No fear or worry. Living a beautiful life in the mountains with my family instead of letting that stuff have any effect on my emotional state. I expect my narc mom to go haywire at any point so there are no surprises.
Omg, thats exactly what i felt like. She was so unpredictable and trying to do what she wants that i got lost in her ways. Fear and total unsecurity overtook me.
And she always told me like 1000 times if u dont like it u can leave, there is ur exit door.
Wow! This video is so spot on I'm feeling triggered. It frames fear in a very interesting way. I recall my ex quoting Machiavelli saying it was better to have people fear you. Now I understand that so much better and it gives me the chills.
I remembered all the narcissistic relationships I've had and yes, there's always been fear. I feared for my safety, abandonment, being left without money or a place to go, etc. Very enlightening. Thank you Dr. Ramani.
You articulate the way I felt for many years which became normal. Glad I left after 30 years. So peaceful n happy now.
Being with my ex narc for the past 8 yrs. made me observe this very pattern. I think they wanted to feel very important in a way that is disturbing. Instead of building trust with their intimate partners, they destroy the trust that they built with you (in that case lying when they tried to put you in their pedestal). Once they have a committed partner, they can’t stand being loved authentically by one person. Instead they go on and prey on other women that is susceptible to their love bombing. My ex narc was a compulsive pursuer in a relationship. He would go back and forth to the women he were involved before or try to meet women in complicated situation so that going public isn’t an option while having you as their main supply. In the end they destroy the very person that loved them. They are like toddlers testing your love for them. Showing and telling them you love them isn’t enough, they will cheat on your face to make you feel inadequate even if you are more than they deserve. They want to test your love for them so they keep hurting you and when you have enough of their abuse, you leave. Then they tell you, ‘you never loved me because you abandon me’. Well in fact it’s their actions and narcissistic behavior that made you leave or in other cases they discard you and will give silly reasons of the discard. Mine would use, ‘she’s crazy’, ‘she’s a nega-star’, ‘she insults me’, ‘she cheated on me’ et al. So with this pattern of infidelities and emotional abuse (who knows what else) it’s better to walk away. I did walk away and is now rebuilding my life with our daughter. We are struggling financially because I’m not earning enough to provide for my daughter but now we get to laugh and bring with us sunshine every day. No lies, no abuse and no fake love. We only live once, forgive yourself and move forward but never forget the lesson that narc abuse taught you. That is to respect yourself to walk away from what’s hurting and destroying you. That you deserve a life of solitude, happiness and love. Hugs*** :) Additionally I got to know about my narc husband bad ways when I reach out to a private detective digitalinvestigate@gmail. com for help he did a perfect work for me I can see everything he’s doing on his device.
SAME. He's a predator and extremely sadistic. Not safe with kids or teens. KNOWINGLY spreading STDS for decades, thinks it's FUNNY.
"we get trained"... Yes!.... this is exactly what the narc in my life used to brag in front of his friends as "I have trained her well"...
Always, leaving. "We're not suited is that what you are saying? It's over, okay I get it." This happened when I got the gumption to explain my feelings. Omg, always the "menace". He would put his hands up in a strangle gesture. It never occurred to me that breaking of things was violence...He would just say "Stop sooking...it's just a... You need to get help". You are so helpful Dr Ramani, I have healed so much and done your course and bought your book. I learn something new every time I listen to you. So much gratitude for the knowledge. It literally saves lives.❤
Wow! This episode resonated with me more than any other. Your description of how "living with menace" changes a person so that they're in a constant state of hyper vigilance, that was my experience. Luckily, I left my narcissist many years ago, but I continue to educate myself with your channel so that I can label what happened to me and verify that I wasn't crazy.
I am minutes into this video. Pausing now before I loose this thought. “Domination by my neglectful, narcissistic husband is him talking over me.” It’s maddening. So DONE !!!
As someone with ADHD, I never mean to talk over people I love but sometimes I get too excited. Does that make me a Narcissist?
@@Ascensionhelpline my husband talks over me to invalidate, menace me and exhaust me. That’s his super power.
@@Ascensionhelpline I don't think so. I was abused by a narcissist for years and I developed extreme anxiety and PTSD, so sometimes when I'm in conversation I may ramble on, or interrupt someone.
I too was worried about this and thought I was a narcissist but my therapist told me that in my case my behaviour was caused by pure and severe anxiety.
Now if I'm in company, I often say " I'm sorry if I start to interrupt. I get very anxious at times."
Usually, people understand and by saying it I find I don't get as anxious, or interrupt as much, or at all. I hope this helps ease your mind a little but just ask a therapist and I'm sure they will reassure you that it's probably your ADHD.
Usually, people who are narcissists don't ask if they are because in their minds they are never at fault.
Best wishes to you.
My husband will interrupt me and continue to talk for another hour, than if I try to say one word he will say this is why I don’t want to talk, and then say since what you have to say is so important then say it, meanwhile while I’m sharing he’s mumbling under his breath. Or he will never finish his thought because he says I interrupted him, so that I can beg him to finish what he was saying, then I get the silent treatment. So because of this ongoing behavior I now don’t share, but now he says he has to break down walls that I have up. I’m soooooo tired of this after over 30 years
@@daniellewest1510 been there for 27 years too…
THANK YOU! I'm in the process of divorcing my narc husband. I have always been able to articulate that the children and I are afraid of him. ...terrified sometimes. But have never been able to explain it to other people in the neuansed way you did. And I've particularly struggled with explaining how he would "punish" us - outside of the actual physical abuse. But this hits it right on the dot! So, THANK YOU again!
The plot twist is if they know you want them to leave it’ll never be mentioned.
Yes, I've tried to convince them to leave, but that only gets them to dig in with their claws tighter.
I was living with my daughter. We were having an argument, as usual, I walked into the kitchen in the semi dark, and she was standing there holding a butcher knife. I said “if you’re going to do it do it now.” Calling her bluff. She didn’t do anything. Yes I used to be afraid of her. I haven’t seen her for two years.
I appreciate you for all you do and are doing …. Thank you So much! 🙏🏻
Exciting video, A year ago I took the no contact route, well i wouldnt say it didnt go well, but i missed her and sometimes you have to leave your comfort zone and go for what you want, Without knowing and having a huge ego, we might actually miss out on our soul mate all in the name of not settling for less, I know who i am, and at the same time i know what i want for me, so i did all i could to get her back, and I must say, it was the best decision i have ever made, we have been together again for over 7 months, yes marriage isnt always rosey, but i am lucky to have her, just as she is to have me, we compliment each other.
its difficult to let go of someone you love, i am in a similar situation, and i do not know what else do to have him back, i have been dying inside, people actually think i am happy, i am not.
I feel your pain sister , after trying out the no contact experiment that failed miserably, i had to find other means, i had to reach out to a spiritual adviser, it was brilliant idea which i never thouht it was, but it worked wonders for me.
Amazing, how did you get a spiritual counselor, and how do i reach him/ her?
Her name is Shelly renee white , and she is a great spiritual counselor who can bring back your ex.
Thank you for this valuable information, i just looked her up now online. impressive
This is why secure people can easily say “Yes, please let’s walk away and break up” Now they have no power over you 😊
Dr. Ramani, you are a saint and a godsend! Thank you for this episode. You just explained the 5.5 year relationship I just left. With your help and advice, I was able to figure out what I was going through, and was able to find an exit strategy. Radical acceptance and no contact has helped. This episode hit hard. Keep up the good work and wishing you healing as well!
Thank you for this video Dr Ramini.
The fear he instilled in me was a reminder of an abusive husband I had many years ago.
The recent break up was from a man who could also rage over the slightest thing leaving me physically shaking and worried to say anything he might find upsetting.
His rages were terrifying and would pop out of nowhere over nothing at all.
I have now since left him and slowly finding myself again....but have to keep reminding myself that he'll never change so even though he lives nearby, I must stay strong and stay away from him.
Every day I tell myself I'm worth more than what he made me feel...disrespected, belittled and used .
The fear of not knowing what would happen when I get home from work was awful I would spend 15 minutes driving around town just trying to calm my nerves enough to go home cuz I never knew what to expect
It sucks when you'd rather spend time at work with coworkers than go home. That's just wrong. I understand your dread, I feel the same way.
@@Floridafanatic28 I didn't stay at work, I drove around country roads trying to decompress from work stress and anticipate his mood.
And the catch 22 is that they ultimately end up doing the exact thing that you fear anyway.
It’s weaponizing emotional energy
@@mariapodesta3090 yup
😂 He said am leaving I said ok...Stood my ground.He was so shocked.Turned tables around and said I left him still said ok
Dr. Ramani you are a genius! Thank you for helping globally
What a nightmare. I've been there. But Jesus set me free. ❤
The narcissist in my life seems to enjoy humiliating me in front of others and still catches me unaware, I freeze and go defensive, then she claims to be 'only joking"
Thank you, Dr Ramani. I finally realized I lived in fear, passive aggressive, blame, hoovering, tension, flying monkeys, menace, enmeshment, co-dependancy, manipulation, silent treatment, guilt,trauma, exclusion unless, trauma bonding, covert operations lol, all in the name”I care” HEALING❤
Absolutely true Dr. Ramani… I have lived through fear my entire life…
My fear was that I couldn't leave or end it well. I wasn't getting my needs met, he wasn't prepared to change and so he ended up harassing me, stalking me and hoovering. So the fear was never being able to leave.
Oh, thank God, Dr. Ramani is addressing this issue.
My adult brother terrorized me and my elderly parents for several years until I developed PTSD. He's no longer living with us but it's been 3 years since he left but I am still in therapy trying to recover from his absolutely horrific behaviour.
Unless you have seen a narcissist rage, you would think that people who have been abused by narcissists are exaggerating when they describe their behaviour.
Oh yeah. During the rages, he’d always mention he was going to “talk to a lawyer about getting divorced.” When he raged, it would be the same physical situation, him standing over me while I was seated. His fists clenched. Onetime I got out of the chair before he could block me. He then charged at me so I turned away and shielded myself. He stopped and asked me why I stepped aside. I told him I thought he was going to hit me. HE GOT MAD AT ME for being afraid that he was going to hit me! The day he left, he literally stood with one foot out the door while he told me how awful he thought I was for the last “22 years” of our 32 year marriage. Good grief. What a phony. The victim of “me.” Passive aggressive fear monger. The nicest guy in the world. 😅 I didn’t know during my marriage what I now know about vulnerable narcissists. Please young people, be braver than me and get out if you can it does not get better. It gets worse.
If perfection could be achieved on the facts of narcissism it would be this video. Every word in this video is accurate in every way possible. Thank you Dr. Ramani for seeing us out here and for your courage and bravery to speak out about these horrifying truths of our lives.
*fountain_cybersecurty* (Brad) helped and he will do the same to you. Don't hesitate! You'll be happy you did.
Wow this is brilliantly put. Went through this for five years and three months ago I finally built myself up enough to end it. Now regrouping and relaxing into myself again.
It's about finding your balance within the other because we're all one. You're just fighting with yourself, especially if you are next to the one you are paired with. I really really wish I could sit down and talk with you. Also, you're amazing you're smart and you make me question everything I know. OMG thank you
This is such an amazingly accurate video. I dealt with all aspects of this in my 20 year relationship with my narc ex. I left 30 years ago and am still learning and recovering. Videos like this are invaluable in that recovery. Thank you.
Haven’t watched the video yet, but the title alone explains my entire childhood. Bullseye. Ouch.
Yes, it is like walking on eggshells. I have at times done good things & all the sudden they are lashing at you. I am afraid of that reaction. I “try” to express myself & it is a bombardment of attacks & insults. Yes, they say to leave the relationship to get one “back on track.”
Every bit of this! I describe the narcissistic ego as a hot wet pea. Squished Instantly!!! 😮
Dangling abandonment was precisely my exes weapon of choice and exactly my core wound. I felt like a never was able to speak. I have so much remorse around the words I never got to say. Thank you for the validation.
NO FEAR . NO FEAR> over and over again, my Lord says NO FEAR
I have definitely felt that fear of a malignant narcissist. The unpredictability. The wondering just how far they’ll take things and when. The backlash I might get, for doing anything about it, from the narcissist and outsiders, including leaving.
But, one of the worst, ongoing fears I have is two fold. That, once their mask begins to drop and/or I begin to pickup on those patterns and red flags, the two questions are, how much of my dang time have you taken up thus far and how long is it going to take to rid myself of you?
All of the circus that they are, is a time suck. Everything from the mind games to the legal colosseum fighting to my own rumination, takes away from my time, sleep, life planning and creativity. It is a murder of sorts. That is why, when some enabler feels I’m not being empathetic enough, my thoughts is, “What the heck page are you on!?”
I completely relate to your comment. So much wasted mind time, utterly exhausting
@ yes. I began realizing something was VERY WRONG, in early 2018. I spent the next 4 years, day-to-day, with that phone phobia, hoping I’d not be contacted and, on occasion, I was. Then, my mother died and I’ve been in a legal battle with a sibling that even the court must look at, as an utter nut. And, now, that I’ve bapped them over the head, with a BIGGIE, I know I’ll need to continue to be hyper vigilant, over my safety. This is an emotional and psychological cancer, metastasizing into the legal, physical and financial.
And, oh yes. When my mother was alive, I feared reactive abuse. I feared that, if she kept being abusive and play with my mind, she’d end up at the bottom of a staircase.
Always gonna leave you. Over and over. But also always coming back. Using all your trauma triggers against you to control you and force you stay because of guilt. All the while you never realize it, self blames and actually think you are in love with them.
Just the title alone is enough content for me to know the entire video is a winner!!
When I fractured my skull, coworkers had to go into work to find contact information for my family out of state so that they could air lift me to a trauma center. My sister never called to find out how I was doing, either while I was in the hospital or when I was released. In fact, she never asked me about it. Years later my accident came up in a casual conversation. When my sister finally realized how potentially serious the injury could have been, she started to tear up and blamed my mother who she said had led her to believe it was not that serious. Just to be clear my mother never called either. In fact, my brother was the only one that called the hospital (once) and from that brief conversation with the charge nurse concluded I was fine. No one called either the hospital or me when I was released from the hospital. What is really sad was that I just accepted this as normal behavior on their part.
Oh god, I hope you are doing well.
@@Kartoffelchen I am well. Thank God for Dr. R. I finally realize how bizarre the situation was and that it was NOT ME.
I'm so sorry that you experienced that. I hope you are fully healed and staying away from your toxic family and enjoying your friends and people that truly care about you! 🙏♥️
I'm so sorry, you deserve more than that.
..and then you are becoming people-pleaser to try to avoid their anger
A note from a domestic abuse survivor - if they’re breaking things to intimidate you, threatening to harm (or harming) children or pets, threatening self harm, or physically blocking your way to keep you from leaving a space, you are already experiencing domestic violence. And it will escalate.
I have said this but ofc I am accused of pretending to be a victim because I am scared. "I don't beat you"
@@mememefinallythat‘s what people believed in the 1980s.. DV has changed! Men are not stupid enough anymore to give a woman a black eye and knowing they’d end up in jail. DV just like men, has evolved. Nowadays they specialize in covert tactics that are “not too obvious on the surface”, and that’s why they can get away with it for years without anyone suspecting sh!t, “he was such a good guy, I’ve known him for a decade, I never would’ve thought he’d be capable of doing such a thing, I never saw it coming!”. Why? Because they’re very pressurized ticking time bombs, one that day will come where they’ll go from “being an arse” sometimes to a total explosion, which always ends very tragically.
Please, have a serious sit down with your man and educate him on Dv (and note how he reacts!), cause he clearly doesn’t know and that is a liability for you to seriously consider.
The idea is to leave BEFORE we get hit. I do not recommend waiting for this to happen, him to potentially badly hurt you, to understand the danger you might be in with this man. His reaction and responses will give you everything you need to know about him.
Good luck, stay safe 🙏🏻
@@a.b.2850 It s not only men who are abusive. It's a woman.
@@a.b.2850 It's not as cut and dried as you make it sound. Most of us are not in this by choice and leaving before anything bad happens is not always an option. Your comment is not based in many people's reality.
I have experienced all the above and have left home but now he's trying to hoover me back saying he's sorry and he needs me to be home to make things right. He said he didn't know his behaviour made me fearful and unhappy and it is not fair I ran away and talked about him to my friends without first talking to him about it
I hear you. I've been through some crap
And it works. I'm afraid of what I say, who I say it to, my every move, my moves I don't make. They do it because it works
It's true that fear is the language of narcissistic behavior and thankfully we learn that to be in fear of someone each day is truly not love. Excellent insights, Doctor Ramani Durvasula, thanks for helping us to heal and find grounding perspectives, showing us to be capable and worthy of truly safe love as the healing process..and it is a necessary process..unfolds
I fought back and I’d been told that unless I started to treat him better the things are going to get worse for me.
I can't believe how much this resonates with me! Every romantic relationship I have ever been in exploited my abandonment wounds constantly to the point that I am content with being alone. I learned that loneliness is a state of mind and I always felt lonely when I was with someone romantically. Now that I'm healing and through my research the men I was with were all narcissists or at the very least toxic.
You described my relationship with my 90 year old mother & my sister
Wow… this is exactly how my mom acted toward us for my entire life. Not knowing when she will have an episode of outburst. Interestingly, her random outburst always taking on special days about me, a celebration day of my career achievement, my birthday, the first day of I start a new job, etc. Then finally I had coverage to confront with her of how she acts, I would be told that she doesn’t remember what happened and things probably wasn’t half bad and it was all because of my sensitive brain. For all my life, I believe I am unloveable by anyone outside my family and something inherently wrong in me, until I started therapy and realize the one who have problem is not me.
This is 💯 my brother and his wife. Mainly his wife, who if you disagree with her, stand up for yourself against her attacks, or say anything they don’t like, they punish us, rage at us and refuse to come to family dinners. It’s disgusting. Then they come back to the family when they feel like it or need something, and the enablers welcome them back like nothing happened. I can’t stand it. I keep my boundaries despite what they think. I get shamed and attacked no matter what I do, I have always been supportive yet they have been horrific to me, so I really do not want anything to do with them. Thank you Dr Ramani ❤
I’m with you
Well done for maintaining your boundaries. People like that are so draining, and it's worse that you have their enablers to deal with too.
I hope you'll be able to reduce your interactions with your toxic family members, keep your boundaries up, and protect yourself from their rage.
There is an eeriness I have felt from some too.
Thank you so much for this video! I really needed this topic discussed! My spouse constantly threatens abandonment, and claims they do it because they're "just being honest".😅
heck yes I'm scared of them. I wouldn't hate them and work at destroying them, if I didn't have fear of them.
Due to your teachings, I was able to see the narcissistic patterns behind many of my boyfriend’s seemingly unrelated choices and dramatic actions. And that emboldened me to state my boundaries early and strongly…. and it also allowed me to see very soon, his uncaring ways. I finally left. And he is shocked! I feel so relieved and free of drama. My peace is returning. I am grateful for your teachings and I feel like I am finally growing up in my 50’s! You are like a good mom to me. (My real mom is a narcissist and we don’t talk).
Captured it. Situations for sure came to mind.
Dr. Ramani, you are right on the money. If I had a dollar for every time I was told, “I did not ask you to do those things.” Again, being driven by fear, she may not have asked me to do those things, but I did them out of fear of her wrath if she did not get EXACTLY what she wanted and when she wanted it.
Thanks!
It's not fear for me, but the pains I endure. It's like an adult with a child. Children play games and it's a narcissists mind game that causes me pain; especially the ones that bring back grief that I had already dealt with.
Their biggest game is the projection game because they refuse to have any inward reflection to handle shame, they regulate it on the outside. They flip every word and action of lifting others up and make you look bad in their eyes.
The truth is a strong person lifts others up, but a weak one puts them down.
The opposite of trust is fear. Trust is a choice, but fear is an emotion. Trust goes through a logical process, but fear doesn't. You have to be calm to use Trust. They flip the choice of trust into fear by betrayal. We feel betrayed and so trust turns into fear. Trust isn't the only choice concerning relationships, as forgiveness is also a choice. Forgiveness is hard and it is not about forgetting as hurt and damage needs repair and is part of relationship. Relationship means to make connection. If there is no connection, then the relationship falls into disfunction.
Another game comes from their black and white thinking. Their thinking is either you are good or bad; for or against. You are not neutral or average in their eyes.
Being unable to unwilling to take and accept responsibilities for behavior is mega mad exhausting!
You are so right about everything you are saying. I can’t believe this is what I’ve been putting up with for aooo many years. What now?
Dr Ramani, I feel like I'm so in sync' with you! Everytime you post a video, it's just what I need to hear and right on time. Wow! ❤
Doctor Ramani!
...all i can say is WOW and THANK YOU!
I have watched several of your videos in the past, and yesterday about 4 more videos , including this one ( Fear is there love language) and it blows my mind!
You explain everything that my girlfriend does to me... its like reliving the horror in a sense...and its not really a celebration !... because we have a child together ( almost 4 years old)
But thanks to you...i can CONFIRM
that I am 100% with a ( female) narrsacist!!!
Now if only i can figure how to GET OUT without losing my sanity, without hurting my child and amicably leaving my narcissist girlfriend....(i know, pipe dream)
i am at the end of my rope adter 5 years of this bullshit....
It’s a terrible thing to leave in fear. 30 years of it turned me into something I would never suspect I could become. We all know the saying “ don’t corner a wounded animal “.
Yes, when we live in fear we probably leave in fear but it must be done. It was the worst & scareyest time in my life but I'm so glad that I left. Now I can find out who I really am ❤
You are so right!!! I really needed to watch you tonight. Thank you Dr ramani
I told my ex narc that he scared me. He said you always say that! This was while I was planning his exit.