Exquisite presentation and content as always. Your point at the end about victims of narcissists having support on the internet also has a flip side. So-called social media predictably enough has fomented a lot of very self-absorbed people. I wonder how many become full-blown, game-playing narcissists. Given the growing infantilisation of people, and "reality" shows essentially pushing the admiration and mimicry of the self-absorbed tantrum-throwing rejects such shows attract (as if they were somehow "role models"), I suspect that the two effects (not growing up + self-absorption) combined would have a higher outcome of full-blown narcissistic behaviour than either one in isolation. Picking up on your points about religious groups, this also seems to have fed into new dogmatism of the "progressives" and their witch-hunt mentality. Identify the "witch", and demand an apology for their alleged behaviour or thought crime. Any apology is simply a confession for which there is punishment (unless you are Justin Trudeau it seems). Fail to apologise and you're still guilty merely by the allegation. Due process be damned. That said, since there is nothing to be gained by apologising to the inquisition, not apologising still seems to give the better outcome from what I can make out.
Yep - I think you're spot on. If narcissist behaviours are basically equivalent to those of maniacal children then infantilisation and the celebration of self-absorption, victimhood and unreasoning persecutory drama are pointing in that direction.
I agree in broad strokes with your thoughts above, but want to push back on the idea that such double-binds are mainly the tactics of a single political group or ideology. As far as I've seen, any political group or movement has individuals willing to push these tactics when it serves their interests, and that may not be representative of the intent of the whole movement. Social media platforms like Twitter seem particularly conducive toward forming the sort of "outrage mobs" you seem to be alluding to, and they can be extremely toxic. However, we should be cautious about overgeneralizing that phenomenon outside that particular venue and the people who use it frequently.
@@nathanhopkins7976 Very much agree. As I stated in a post elsewhere, watching our political environment now is akin to being forced to watch the worst possible remake of the movie A Fish Called Wanda. In that vein I'd like to point out a memorable talking head on Fox news who mused over whether a fist bump between Michele and Barrack Obama may have been, as she put it "a terrorist fist jab?" Very depressing times.
@@nathanhopkins7976 - It is worse on the left due to the focus on identity politics leading to self-absorbed narcissism instead of unification behind an issue. Old left would rally for labor unions, workers, civil rights and the environment. New left is all about personal victimhood dividing people into different camps. "A circular firing squad." as Obama perfectly described them. Epidemic.
Double bind: Mom gets mad when I celebrate her birthday - says she doesn't want to be reminded of getting old. Next year: Mom gets mad because I ignored her birthday.
@@thereisnosanctuary6184 Hah, this had me laughing out loud, then feeling guilty about it. My mom has been dead for over six years, so I should let go of trying to protect her feelings.
The story of your father's painful death brought me to tears. It's clear why you have such a passion for uprooting manipulative, abusive behavior. I'm glad you use your skills to educate and encourage others to cease and avoid abuse. The world would be a much better place if everyone knew about your channel.
That's where individuals like us who make his "fanbase"/community holds a part of responsibility, not to say that everyone should act like ants or whatever of course just that we as human beings enjoy doing "good deeds" so it's best to approach that aspect in that manner in my view, personally I constantly share stuff that are useful to people I encounter on the internet and my family, just like this guy's channel and the ones like his are by far some of easiest to recommended because of what can be gained from the content and the impact they give, what people do with the content depends on them and their circumstances though. At least people like me who can't really allow themselves to support him through patreon can compensate through sharing.
I see a lot of his mother's behavior in my spouse; and unfortunately some of his father in me as well. I worry for our kids because when the false accusations and double binds start to fly, I'm the one who steps in to defend them and then I find that I have become the target. It puts us in a constant good parent/bad parent setup that both of us resent and of course it's not healthy for our children either. 😔 Any advice would be appreciated. There is hope, right? How do you get someone who is NPD or borderline to recognize their destructive behavior and commit to changing it? Or is that just a fool's dream?
@@galacticbob1 Communication, trust and honesty. I value these most high when thinking about the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. If you cannot talk to your spouse about their self destructive behaviour that is harming the whole family? Then there are none of these things. Obviously you aren't communicating, you don't trust the partner to tell them about how you feel and you can be afraid to be honest with them without them becoming angry (or something else). I don't pretend to know you and your relationships (or be an expert for that matter, this is just one person's opinions), and from the comment it sounds like you have attempted communication, but if that communication starts to fade and your spouse is not growing and attempting to see that they may be at fault... then the above situation is most likely starting. Particularly if that initial communication isn't having an effect. From your spouses position, she is cutting you off from meaningful communication by not acknowledging your concerns, so even though you may communicate, trust them and are being honest, they are not. They aren't communicating with you, they aren't trusting you to take your concerns seriously because they are in the right and you are undermining them, and they aren't being honest with themselves. This isn't to say that in other areas of your relationship you might be communicating, trusting and honest healthily, in multiple different ways with each other. What I want to say is don't give up on them, as Theramintrees' father said, "I think your mother is sick". Your spouse might need your help to overcome this, but while you are working through this difficult issue for you, don't get pulled in by lies. Keep alert and evaluating your own and their actions and what you say to each other. If they refuse to see where the problem is, or are maybe unable to, then the situation is only going to get worse, at which point you might need to make a choice. They need to be able to see the problem for themselves. Personally, I would try and engage in a role play (not that kind! get your mind out of the gutter ;P ) with your spouse. Present them with situations where they are on the child's end of this double bind scenario, and get them to think about how that feels. Talk about it and how this is how they are making you and your children feel. Empathy is very powerful is changing people's perspectives. I wish you all the best! I can't imagine how difficult those situations must be for you. I didn't expect to write this much (I feel a little embarrassed now!) so I hope at least some of it will help you or someone else.
Zeal all though in principle I agree with what you wrote about marriage in most cases a long term relationship is the same thing as marriage, do you mean don't get involved in long term relationships?
This should be taught in school. Seriously. How many of us go through life struggling to appease a narcissist, unaware of the futility of being trapped in a game we cannot win?
Two of the biggest problems within a non narcissistic person who knows a narcissist are 1) the 'desire to appease', and 2) the almost undying hope that the narcissist will "get better".
Young people are so lucky to have access to information like this. I wish I would have watched this video 40 years ago, my whole life would have been different. Well done.
Same Dark Soul. I'm 57 and just learned the N word a little over a year ago and see all my relationships (friends, intimate and work situations were full of Narcissism). I worked for bosses who were horrid, even saw a few therapists that were standard issue one threatened me when I confronted his BS and blocked the door when I attempted to leave telling me if I left, I wasn't allowed back. Thank God, I realized that that was sick and told him bye...
@@lovelydaze413 what you say is valid, we older folks realize that, but you miss the point, sanity being challenged 24/7 is so anxiety causing, you have the benefit of seeing the truth around you. When you have that comfort, you can begin to disengage. We oldsters thought we were wrong, that the narcissist was correct and the flying monkeys supported their "truth". If you are looking for support then don't be a professional victim by not seeing the full picture.
The sad part is that even if you refuse to follow their game, you still spent a great deal of time and effort planning how not to fall, how to respond, how to deflect. So in the end is like they always win, because your life still, in a way, revolves around them.
Definitely can confirm that this is true. Tried to think about what I was going to say to my father because I presumed the communication issues we were having were at least 50% me if not mainly my fault. In my last in person interaction with him, it became clear he didn’t care what I had to say, and before I blocked him on my phone he made it even more obvious that he didn’t want a discussion. For all of his accusations of “you just need to be right” when we disagreed on something, he certainly had no interest in leveling with me or trying to see where I was coming from. His messages would start with “I’m sorry, but-“, and I realized he was in no way apologetic for his actions. Outside of just processing my own emotions around the situation, I’ve stopped trying to practice speaking with him completely.
In my opinion that's the wrong takeaway. In life, bad events such as car accidents can befall people and their only option is to endure and overcome that event. Narcissistic people are like those events, and therefore you have to find a way to endure and overcome them. But even more importantly, like with those bad events that we put effort into overcoming, the question of whether our life revolves around them is a question of mindset. If we get too bogged down over whether our life revolves around something, we lose control and we get our minds warped to hyper fixate on all of the bad things in our lives. Instead we should not put too much emphasis on the sense of loss and lack of control, because it's a natural part of overcoming obstacles. We will always need to put great effort into overcoming the tragedies in our life, but even so we should look on it as a necessary part of enduring, and something we can be proud of.
@d0ntbanme That's a disingenuous argument. Most people don't choose to entangle themselves with a narcissist, either. The narcissist often disguises itself until it's become engrained into its victim's life enough to severely hinder a chance of escape.
@@paigemosher8697 You may be confusing a narcissist with a psychopath. Psychopaths are generally much better at hiding their true intentions and have actual motivation to seek growth. Narcissists are just obviously way too much into their own worlds and MAY grow, but internally, they feel they are already fated for success; their attempts to manipulate comes as a side effect, not as a goal or means to one. At least that is my understanding.
"Don't argue or show emotion" This scared the crap out of me. These are literally the exact two things I have figured out by myself long before seeing this video, just from communicating with my parents. I have learned that arguing and showing emotion is suicide, and my strategy since realizing this has been to basically succumb to their personalities until I can escape the house and support myself.
I think this is partly wrong solution. I have the same experience as you and I agree that showing emotion is not good. If you get mad it's game over. But, making good arguments that cut through and point out the bullshit can be the best thing to do. Of course it depends on the narcissist. It's just hard because it's not easy to do that. You gotta make good arguments while avoiding traps. It also sucks that we learn to not show emotions because it fucks us in friendships and romantic relationships. Its something I've been working to undo for a long time. I'm sorry that you have to go through this and I hope you find the support you need.
@@luke8553 don't worry I already do this, i just don't show emotion and I try to avoid taking "bait". I usually argue only in ways that are impossible for them to punish me for, if that makes any sense
unfortunately in my case, this didnt/doesnt work. if i dont show emotion, she will keep trying to mentally get into my head until she gives up and gets physical. if i dont argue she will sit there for an infinite amount of time ripping me appart. i have recordings of hours of convos where i literally dont say a word. but somtimes she will notice and accuse me of not listening. she will ask me why this, why that, and i get 3 words of an answer and she goes ballistic for interrupting her. the best thing that works is to basically agree with everything and go along with it. but this takes several hours out of my day several times a week and i dont have the time to do it. even when things come up and i have to go, she will say things like, "i dont care, im not done. if you hang up im showing up at your house/spam calling your work/never letting you see your son again/stab you/ etc/. all i feel i can do, is finish my school in time to start my job. which will allow me to take the kid out of the scary situation. but she has made threats saying she will use her connections to get me killed if i ever tried to take him from her. i hope you are out or soon get out of this situation Nalla!
jeez, i’m so sorry you are in that situation. i can relate but on a way less severe level. that’s why what i said works for me sometimes. i hope you get away from her safely
They go through the same trauma we do most times, yet come out absolute monsters. I'll never understand the choice to be narcissistic when you could just be a masochistic denier like me until you discover thermain and break free, choosing the third option to disengage and escape methodically.
@@Sarahizahhsum Im not sure its a choice. Despite the diabolical shrewdness they seem to have at extracting anguish out of those close to them, they definitely have some pretty big holes in their intellect as well. Lack of a sense of humour when it comes to abstract, sophisticated or subtle humour (in the case of my Narc it was ANY joke with a punchline lol) is one, lack of a sense of ethics seems to be another, although it could be said that one is a choice on their behalf, I don't think so, i think they can learn ethics and what other people find fair and reasonable, but they never quite understand it. They certainly have no empathy.
@@m.b.82 That's a bit generalizing. It's very individualistic and personality disorders can be entirely treated. I am a survivor of borderline and I don't think that way anymore. I love myself now. BPD falls in the same cluster of personality "disorders" so it's definitely treatable. All of them are. It's hard work changing the way you think, but it can be done with determination, resilience, and insight. Not every narcissist is a monster. Just some of them are and that's a choice at the end of the day. I had some narcissistic traits as well but now I feel guilty and empathy. All is never lost for anyone. We must accept their diagnosis, not their behavior. There's a huge difference there.
@@Sarahizahhsum Thank you for the insight and congratulations and making the turn around. That is an enormous achievement and would have require amazing resolve. But from my limited understanding, BPD is a little bit different from the other disorders in the cluster as it is the only one that is treatable? Can i ask how you came to recognise you had a problem and make the decision to seek diagnosis and help? I have lost years off my life trying to get my ex help.
@@m.b.82 It takes insight. BPD is just a coping mechanism. So is narcissism, antisocial, obsessive compulsive personality disorder, schizo personality, etc. All the personality differences are treatable because it's the way you think. It's best understood as a thought disturbance. The fact that it's called personality is discriminatory and a hit on people who suffer from them. I am not and never was my BPD or NPD. That's a misconception. There's a whole a lot more stigma surrounding them than there is help. In fact, my therapy I did on my own with just a bit of guidance from my counselor. You can change the way you think. We've seen this from brainwashing in religion and society. I trashed all of it and learned the way I wanted to because I know myself better than anyone else.
@@Ghally Taken form the Oxford dictionary: Sociopath - A person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience. Narcissist - A person who has an excessive interest in or admiration of themselves. They can be similar in some ways, but there are major differences.
@nasolem The fact of the matter is that there is a clear distinction between the two terms, and using them so loosely is not a good mentality to have. Narcissists aren't antisocial. That's one of the biggest differences. Of course the narcissists will admire their persona, because they think that their persona *is* their personality. They fear showing any weakness (usually because of trauma/abuse in their past), so they put on a persona of a perfect person, and when something threatens that persona, they get defensive, and often lash out. Again. Not using terms properly is not a good thing to do, so it's important to know the distinction between similar terms.
when I was 3 police took me away from both my mother and father due to them being horrible people and parents. They gave rights to my grand parents who promptly just gave me back to my parents. Life time of physical emotional and sexual abuse with no one to look out for me taught me a few things. 1) You MUST DEFEND YOURSELF AT ALL COSTS NO MATTER HOW WRONG PEOPLE TELL YOU DEFENDING YOURSELF IS. 2) the people that hurt you the most usually dont use violence. 3) If you do not become strong, the world will ruin you. 4) Everyone who abused me where not evil, but all did have UNACKNOWLEDGED mental disorders. 5) They all tried to convince me my abuse was MY fault. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. The reason I get abused is because im a bad person, the reason I should always do for them, and never question, is because I need pay for being such a bad person. 6)Their favorite tactic, is to make people sad because they DO believe they deserve the abuse they get. These people actually enjoy having such control over people. 7) Some people will lie about how they are an abuser to their death. No matter the evidence faced, no matter the other people backing, they will lie and say they where the victim till death.
Like the chocolate example, my mother would do that to me when I "let her sleep in". From ages 8 to 14 when I tried to wake her she would say something like "I am getting up" or "I am resting my eyes a minute" and then get mad if I asked her to get up again. Then after she slept in, she'd get mad that I "let her" sleep in. Or if somehow she did manage to wake up (never on the first ask), "why didn't you wake me up sooner?" My whole life was filled with double binds like this. Then when my parents got divorced and we were all the bargaining chips, it became impossible to make one parent happy without upsetting the other.
This is on a smaller scale, but this reminded me of the time we still live with my aunt. I was a toddler back then, aunt told me to use utensils when eating because "manners", then my mom told me to just use my hand if I'm not used to utensils, then my aunt told me again to use spoon and fork. This happened in one table. Then when we already live in my father's home, gramps told me to practice using my hands when eating. When I got used to it he told me to practice using spoon and fork because again, "manners". For context: Most Asians use spoon and forks instead of knife and fork. The spoon makes it easier to scoop rice instead of poking them with a fork.
@@hanzquejano7112 except this is just the people around you contradicting each other, which is totally normal. It isn’t a narcissist doing it to you to drag you down.
One of the worst things a child can be born into is having an evil narcissistic mother and an useless enabling father for parents. The stepping stones to never trusting anyone as an adult.
I think calling the father “useless” undermines their victim status. It’d be as erroneous as calling a woman with an abusive, manipulative husband “useless.” The reason I don’t think this language is helpful is because it both implies that the parent themselves can’t be a victim and that this kind of abuse wouldn’t happen to “useful” people, when in reality we know humans to be malleable enough that literally anyone is subject to fall into mind traps at any point.
@@jcnot9712 useless to the innocent children that couldn't leave, do you understand what l mean? My dad was not useful, he could have left, instead he drank and didn't even try to protect us from the neglect, beatings and starvation. Useless.
@@irishcountrygirl78 I understand, and in your case that very well seems to apply. I initially interpreted your comment as an assessment to the general case in this abuse scenario as opposed to anecdote so that’s where the misunderstanding arose.
@@jcnot9712 much like when people use the word "anecdote" : an account regarded as unreliable or hearsay, amusing or interesting story. Not a word I'd use when describing a scenerio that is as serious as childhood abuse. Tbh people who stay with narcissistics have some serious unresolved issues themselves, it's in no way normal to stay with these people. I have zero sympathy for those who not only stay, but allow the abuse of their children. "Useless" in this case is a perfect word, because a parent who won't protect a child is pretty useless IMO.
@@jcnot9712 and BTW if a woman stays with an abusive narcissistic man and doesn't put her kids first well she's useless to them, her kids need someone who'll get them out of there and not sit back and allow the trauma to continue. Also a useless person. Why have children? I'd die for my kids. There is no victim mentality here, if my husband abuses me and l stay my children are the only real victims.
The word "sick" is problematic to me. If it's that their behavior makes you sick, sure that's undeniable but it's not being phrased in that way. Saying that "they're sick" reduces their agency and culpability while perhaps containing a kernel of hope that they can become healthy again... which is rarely the case.
My dad strangled me against the bathroom wall when I was 4 years old. I believed for a long time that justice would eventually come and he would either get arrested eventually or he would grow up a miserable man. Emotion has a powerful way of deluding our world view. So one day when I got arrested because my dad called them, I told the social services everything. Unfortunately, there is no where near enough evidence to prove all of that, because it was over a decade ago. The only evidence that remains is the fake relationship between my father and me, and the mental scars that will take a long time to fade. I don’t love him. I’ve tried so hard to look for some hint of authenticity; but after watching your videos I realised there is none. This is a very sick man.
No contact him but if you must contact, record him on your phone audio at all times. You don't want to miss the moment he slips up. At least you will then have evidence to show anyone he lies to.
That’s happened to me and my brother. But my dad stopped when I was about 8 and now he’s lovely and I love him dearly. He’d also hurt my mum but not as much as Conor and I because my mum was half paralysed when I was younger. I think he was just stressed taking care of two young children, my half paralysed mum and providing for us by working a stressful job. Back then my dad would be scarier when he was drunk. But now he’s much nicer when he’s drunk and really funny.
Watching this made me realize sometimes, i'm the narcissist. I lost the love of my life because i was too dismissive. I've since reflected on my actions, and deeply regret them. Seeing this, made me understand how my thought process was before. I hate it, but thank you.
Same , after months of trying to understand myself and be better , all i really wanna do is apologize to her in person whole heartedly for all ghe things i did to her , i wish someday i could
Me too. But that narcissistic personality is so deeply rooted that I'm afraid I'll never be able to be truly "normal". Heck, I started doubting myself so much I'm not sure anymore if I can genuinely like anyone. I'll keep trying to figure it out. Well, just wanted to share, you're not alone. Best of luck to you.
@@reikanx it's only the narcissists who don't accept that there's anything wrong with them who are behind changing. The fact that you're aware in and of itself proves that you aren't as lost as others are.
@@maxsync183 It honestly seems like we have to rewrite the code for core aspects of our personality... A daunting task, admitting I have a problem is only a first step. The deepest parts of me are still comfortable with what they are and sometimes this becomes painfully obvious... Thank you for the comment, still. And for being understanding. I see hate for people like us left and right, and it's understandable to some extent because we do hurt others with our behavior. But what we need in order to change is reasonable support.
@@reikanx for sure. None of us are flawed by choice, if humans could choose not to deal with personal issues like insecurities, narcissism, self doubt etc, most of us would choose not to have them. So in that sense, it really isn't our FAULT in that we deserve it but it is our responsibility to manage if we want to be a part of society. The fact that we're aware that we have something to work on should always stand in your mind as an example that you are not too far gone, you might be falling but you haven't fallen. I do also wonder how much of this aspect of people, this narcissism, is built from being raised to believe that you are inherently special and more in tune with the divine creator of the universe than other people who are too foolish or evil to agree with your beliefs...
I disagree completely; this is an ignorant and dangerous line of thinking. People need the support and trust of others to change themselves: relying on others is legitimately the basis of our entire society. What if parents didn't raise their kids because they felt the kid needed to raise themselves? What if teachers didn't instruct students because they felt the class needed to learn without help? What if nobody was friends with anybody because they thought needing to be with others was enabling them to not change?
Oh my god THIS. Every single time I've been in a situation with double binds, pointing it out does nothing because they always say what you said, or alternatively, "why do you always have to make it all about you?"
Jesus Christ. I had this exact exchange. Literally almost verbatim. There was truly no winning, even pointing out to impossible bind was subject to ridicule, scrutiny, accusation.
@@sinceritynature202 They are literally all the same. I define it as “behavioural software”. Might be different physical hardware but it runs the same way. The only relief is knowledge. Hope you’re healing ♥️ This will stay a long time, but it gets easier.
My ex used to complain that I didn’t love her because I wouldn’t get phased, mad or angry each time she purposely tried to provoke me or wind me up. She used to say that I was too soft and wasn’t a real man. When I eventually had enough of her games after months of this and started to shout and get angry at her she would play victim and say that I was nasty, toxic and abusive. “Get angry/Don’t get angry”
love equates to abuse, in unhealthy identities, by not abusing her and make her feel unworthy, she feels you do not love her, the attempts to unhinge emotions is to sooth insecurities through control, this are deep defense mechanisms, very hard to change.
Real life scenario from having been raised by a malignant narcissist. Listen to me. Don't speak when I'm speaking to you. Well what do have to say for yourself, answer me. I told you not speak. Do you have anything to say? I told you to be quiet. What to do? What to do?
The line, spoken with great sincerity, leaps to mind: "I'm terribly sorry, but you seem to have mistaken me for someone who gives a shit." Then walk away. Keep in mind calling the police or Child Protective Services is always an option.
You try to do whatever will cause you the least amount of damage. My father would attack me for fighting in school against bullies or for not standing up to them. I would figure out what was the better outcome, dealing with the abuse from the bully and taking the punishment from my school or tolerating the bully. I got it from my father no matter what I did. Ironically I became friends with one of my ex bullies. His dad was a narcissist too.
Working as a nurse seemed to be a constant double bind. It seemed like no matter what you were screwed. Here is one example: So I worked in a psych ward. I constantly was told by shift managers and such that I was too nice to the patients and acted like their friend. But there was another person I worked with who got the opposite : you are too mean and too strict. I got really upset one day and pointed this out and they told me you can find a middle ground. But you cant. At the same time I was told I looked like I didnt work on my work "look" and the other nurse was told "work isnt a beauty pagent" I QUIT
Believe me, as someone who’s been to psych, we need people that treat us like friends there. So many of us landed stays because of breakdowns during narcissistic abuse. We remember the people that treat us as humans instead of garbage defects.
@@greasybumpkin1661 Government as well. It's why the directors are awarding themselves six figure salaries in both the public sector and charity sector. People stopped giving so much money to charities when they found out.
What's wrong with treating patients like friends, especially if they're psychiatric patients. They probably don't get many friends in real life anyway so they need anyone to be friendly to them.
Parents: I want you to talk with me more. Share your thought and interests. Also parents: that’s pointless and stupid. Why are you wasting your time and money. And parents wonder why their kids don’t call them.
This is the kind of dilemma I have with my dad. I don't think he's a malignant narcissist, but one of the stronger memories I have of growing up and even post-moving out, is that he will ask me what I'm doing or what my aspirations are, then reply to those with comments about it being pointless, unprofitable, something about me isn't up to snuff for that thing, showing him stuff I've accomplished only gets him to pick at what he perceives are flaws. My response to this in later years (27 now) is simply to tell him that "It's going" and leave it at that.
Issah Wywin I know that feel. My dad thankfully doesn’t do it that often, but repeatedly asks me when I’m, “going to do something with my life.” 😑 I’m sorry? Are you curing cancer over there dad? I fail to see how a career in construction is any less worthwhile than one in commercial aviation, other than that you make more than me. 🤣
If this is narcissistic I am a narcissistic father. The balance is soo difficult. On one hand you want your children to have freedom and an own mind but only as long as it fits your values because you know best as a parent, right? And that might be the case but anyhow you flip it, you both lose. That's why balance is key. In most things actually. Good vid to start questioning one's own motives and values.
When I was small my family used to berate me for being a crybaby or a soppy sap. After training me not to show any emotion they would berate me for being an emotionless robot.
I relate to this so much. I was literally chased around the house by my older brothers with a boombox, so they could play music to drown out my crying and mock me by telling me what beautiful music I was making. Later on they were surprised that I grew up to become quiet and distant from the family.
I've ran into a LOT of people doing that throughout my life. Nowadays I go "Computer" on them. "I do as you tell me what your preference is, if that's not what you want it's *your problem* for not communicating clearly. (And if you call me dense for not reading between the lines, fine, I'll be dense, but I'll still take you at face value)" When I ran into this at work I just refused to work and kept asking for clarification until I had clear instructions. Just like a computer, who can only do exactly as told. I was the least stressed person at that place because of that. Bonus: You get the enjoyment of watching the manipulators twist and writhe (I've seen some physically do that) being confronted with their own tactics. It's like holding a mirror in front of Medusa. (Of course, this only works for actions rather than statements about you as a person)
I have fallen to this tactic too in a new job I started. I wasnt sure at first, but after getting away from the office (and my abusing boss) I realised that I was not at fault. This realisation that I could do a good job if my leader were clear in their intent is what drives me. I notice when they try to poke me for a reaction. I dont give it. They want that specific thing? They can have it,even if it is not what our customer needs. Unfortunately this has led to her making me look bad in front of our customer, so alas I will have to leave when I am able because I will never progress here. But it is better to realise sooner rather than later! I feel sorry for the rest of the team though. I dont know to what extent they experience this, but I have no idea how to help them.
"Computer tactic" works great on these cases. Points out their fallacy perfectly. The bad part is, it only makes them even more angry, because they KNOW they are wrong.
Mom used to hold my funeral when I was in the next room and she’d deliberately pitch her voice so that she knew that I heard her . I was 9 . I soon learned to sneak out of the back door when she was spouting off . Her funeral planning upset me considerably but by sneaking out I prevented her from enjoying her abuse. She only kept it up for about 3 weeks. Everyone wondered why I don’t miss her after she died. Pretending to be a good parent is not being a good parent.
@@painkillerjones6232 You said what we all thought! ;) The most malignant, violent and narcissistic ideology in the 21st century is blatantly calling themselves Islamic, the religion of peace. LMAO!
You forgot a really common one: Narcissist: "Why do you like/love me?" A: "Because you are really beautiful/attractive" Narcissist: "So you just care about my appearence, not about my character! I'm just some piece of meat to you!" B: "Because you have a really good character" Narcissist: "Oh, so you think I'm ugly! Why else would you talk about my character now!" C: "Because we've been friends for such a long time. I really enjoy hanging out with you." Narcissist: "Oh, so it's just about what I can do for you! You only care about yourself. You are the Narcissist here, not me!" D: "I don't know, I just like you. You don't need a special reason to like someone." Narcissist: "Oh, so I'm just some passing entertainment to you, and you'll leave me at the first opportunity, once you change your arbitrary mind!" E: *silence Narcissist: "So, why do hate me?"
Option D sometimes work, I've seen this scenario and the boyfriend just answers 'I love you because I do' then gave her a hug, before both of them kissed each other in front of the masses, and yeah that was quite smooth like it was from a romance movie
I mean, you could technically just combine A, B, C, and D into 1 and say them all, which in my head works, but there's probably some fatal flaw with it. The best option is to get out of that relationship because if someone would do that then you shouldn't be around or with them.
I am doing that in fact. It contains a lot of his ideas since I have been listening to him for a long time now. The book is about half done at the moment.
Your story with your mother reminded me horrifically of my own story with a malignant Narcissist. My sister was the Narcissist in my story, always hurling abuse and mistreatment at everyone around her. She used to project it on my brother and I, until my brother moved out and I started standing up for myself. It got to the point where we were standing face to face screaming at one another but she would "back down" and usually go on a wild tantrum, throwing food and furniture around the house, if she failed to win an argument. It felt good to stand up to her... until I realized that the abuse was just redirected to my widowed father and my grandparents. The things I heard her say and do to them, gutted me. When my father was in the hospital, she would call him and berate him until he broke down sobbing, saying things like "I wish you had died and not mom". She put my grandparents through immense stress by calling them after driving into bad neighborhoods in Detroit, claiming she was in danger and her car broke down so we would have to come and get her. As my father was dying from coronary heart disease, she stole money out of his bank account, and after he passed, she stole a car that technically belonged to me(I paid for it after dad's car was totaled after a fire). The most frustrating part is she'll have her episodes, then go on pretending nothing ever happened. She'll switch right back to the pleasant sister act. It was terrifying. It was like living next to a walking minefield. Truthfully, I haven't recovered from her, and I'm not even at a point in my life where I want to successfully get away from her. Our family is still desperately trying to remain connected and not exclude anyone, and if I were to push her away completely, it would cause ripples for the rest of my family. I missed out on being able to finish college because of her, I lost money trying to help my dad escape her abuse several times, and all for nothing. It all left me broke and feeling completely destitute and hopeless in my 20s and I have yet to recover. There are times where I wish that, when she threatened suicide in her Narcissist fits, I wish she would have done it. I would have celebrated being free from her wrath. I even told my friends this, that if she does die suddenly, I wanted to go to a friend's house to celebrate.
Sounds like a scapegoated borderline 😞 This is the cult doing it's thing. Literallt listen to the actual words your using. Shes literallt veing framed as the whole issue. Npd is usuallt very together. Not throwing fits like this. I hope you never lose that shame you feel... You deserve it, you arent helping your sibling, you're just as narcisistic and integral to the cult itself. Shes dysregulated and losing her mind. This isnt intentional. Its scary because shes 10x more scared then you've ever been. This lack of compassion is sickening ...
This is something kids should be taught about in school. It can often be difficult to recognise manipulative and abusive behaviour but it can ruin one's life easily.
Unfortunately, there are some teachers that are manipulative as well. I have a teacher who gets angry about literally everything the class does. One tiny piece of trash on the floor? Scold the entire class and go on an angry rant on how we're lazy pigs who do nothing. Floor is spotless? Scold the entire class and go on an angry rant on how we're the reason the janitors are losing jobs. Class does something wrong? Scold the entire year level, go on an angry rant on how our generation is worthless. Class does nothing wrong? Scold the entire year level, go on an angry rant on how our generation is lazy and too passive.
The later stages of his mother’s behavior represents something I’m familiar with: The secret double bind. For example, you express gratitude to a member of the family, and behind your back the narcissist declares you are manipulative; you express no gratitude, and the narcissist says you are ungrateful. You aren’t told any of this is going on. Narcissists usually can’t be cured, they only become more subtle as they age.
I know that this sounds crazy and I don't expect you to believe me. Narcissistic people almost never change because they want to. Their cure can come if someone can enter their psyche and fix them.
@@SkyRied1 That is partially true, but there is one VERY important point you forgot to add. The "gamechanger" person will NEVER change a narcissist intentionally. The super small chance of change could only theoretically come from someone who authentically interacted God knows how with that narcissist. But if somebody went into a relationship with an abuser with that mentality as you described all they would get is... abuse. It's not your responsibility to fix other people
A child has _no_ chance to flee. I didn't have one. Nobody believed me how awful my mother was. I was the spoiled brat who didn't value her "love". And now my niece counts the days until she is 18 and can move out from the home of my sister. :´(
@@solidstate9451 I hope your niece isn't to broken to leave - or that you have a spare room she can use. The worst is when you're so dead inside you can't even leave.
Solid State that’s so true. I had a friend who was a narcissist. He was so cruel to his children and wife. I would distract him when he did this to his children. I staid his friend only to help his children and wife. I was strong so I could take the abuse. I loved his children so much. I had to do it for them. I think I have a better relationship with his children than he does.
In 2018 I had a romantic relationship with a person who did exactly these kinds of mind games, among other terrible things. I don't want to give too much detail, but it was short-lived and very sexual, as I suppose is the norm with this kind of person. After we finally broke up, my mind was very confused, and I didn't even know how to process what had happened to me. The relationship had left me in a state of resentment, anger, hate and utter confusion. This video here, as well as some others from your channel, were incredibly important for me to make sense of my situation and eventually heal. I am enormously grateful, and wish you all the best.
@@adultcontent18 He understood enough to acknowledge she was sick. He was just too beaten down by her to have the nerve to say anything, and probably thought it's just easier to keep her happy. My mom was the same way. She was always so busy trying to appease Dad, she didn't take the time to realize her own power in the situation. It's sad when that happens
The second one reminds me of one my dad does. When he's trying to pick a fight he'll accuse me of 'having an answer for everything' if I respond, or 'acting like a child' if I walk away and say nothing.
I had a parent like that. What's pissing me of is that ppl wrongly believe that the other one is sunshine unjustly suffering. It's not. It takes two for tango and any narc requires victim that is not able to make boundaries. Responsibility is mutual, unhealthy pattern of one person requires unhealthy pattern of another. Stop with the fantasy.
@@DodirAnelaIntuitivnoOtvaranje umm my dad was a victim like that. He used to stand up to her.. now he has dementia... so yeah.. you re wrong. Narcissists are amazing manipulators and you won't even see it coming or you will but you ll even start doubting your judgment.. might even think you re going crazy
Some people play off double binds as “being cute.” I’ve run into people who commonly say things like “don’t listen to what I say, listen to what I want.” What do you even do with that? Lol
Reality check. Whenever I get this siutation I'll say that if you won't be straight with me I'll dissregard completely. Most friends I know who have suffered /are suffering under others with narcissist tendencies aren't able to stand their ground, or stand up for themselves. A simple "no, stop wasting my time" and sticking to it. No reason to accept a relationship of any kind you don't think is fair.
It's an abuse of power, either way & irreguardless of context, no matter how petty. The onis is on them to adapt their communication to your understanding not the other way around, else we might aswell all speak jiberish to each other and expect total transparency. Notice this person will usually either pretend to miss understand abstract concepts you explain to them OR will deliberately not put in the mental effort required to do so - achieving the same result. I redicule people like this, lavishly, as it is extremely catharic to not take them seriously at all(which strips them of their power in that situation), as they're litterally failing the required ethics for communication.
Yeah I always hated that shit Hollywood trope that if a person says they don't want, say, a party thrown for their birthday, it means they actually do want one. And shit along those lines. Like nah fam if I say I don't want something then I don't fucking want it, I don't play mind games with people so please respect me by not playing them with me
@@thedarkmaster4747 "Just a pedantic little note, "irreguardless" isn't a word. It's just "regardless of context..." ;) Also "onus" (not "onis"), "as well" is two words, and ironically you completely misspelled "gibberish". Lastly, it's "ridicule", not "redicule" (the same as it's ridiculous and not rediculous, which is a mistake I used to make). You have a good vocab, just need to know how to spell the words you know ;)
I thought I was the one who was crazy. Until I started keeping daily notes about things he complained about. Just to prove to myself that I wasn't imagining what he'd said the day before. Every complaint was logged. Because, inevitably, it's reverse was going to be presented the next day. This is in the midst of all the other belittling activity narcissists bring to the table. Damn, I am still in recovery.
CPTSD. Sam Vaknin describes it well. Be careful not to go down the rabbit hole too deep with his lengthy narcissistic videos, but he tells it like it is.
Pfff my ex boyfriend said to me that my notes are bullshit and he never said those things. Even my recordings of him were false. And you know what? He was so manipulating that I believed him. I had a video of him saying X, but I believed him that he didn't said X. Extremely stupid, right? Well, that's how manipulation works. You don't believe your own eyes.
@@TechnoScorpion2137 You keep those records for yourself so you can see the pattern of abuse. If this was happening at work the Human Resources department would like to see those records.
I think we shared a mother and father. The ending was a little different for mine. She threw him out once all of her children had left home and she thought she no longer needed an enforcer. She discovered very quickly that this meant she no longer had a slave to shop, cook, clean and deal with the outside world according to her orders. Unfortunately for her, my father by now had had a taste of freedom, so that when she wrote to him inviting him to come back, he met the request with genuine hilarity. I still have a letter which he wrote to her at that time saying that if she were on fire, I (=me, not my dad) would pour petrol on her. In fairness, I wouldn't do that, but I certainly wouldn't be in any hurry to find a fire extinguisher. My siblings and I rapidly reestablished affectionate and supportive relationships with my father, by now quite frail. I decided not to confront him with his failure to protect his children - surely a parent's most important responsibility - or with his failure to acknowledge his part. It wasn't a perfect relationship, but by the end of his life, we had experienced the genuine love and care of a parent who did all he could to support us, in any way he could. I'm sorry your father didn't get to "go clear" but glad for you that you were able to show him informed compassion.
Well I’m glad that you were able to have a happy ending, where u, ur siblings and father were able to escape and now live a happy life, while ur mother is stuck all alone with no slaves to do her bidding or for her to abuse, with no one to blame but herself.
I come from a narcissistic family situation. These traps are extremely common and cruelly applied whenever convenient. It's hard to get your mind back into a good place after drowning in this kind of environment for many years.
I do to! They also will informally diagnose people they do not like with various disorders and try to force others to see their enemies a certain way. It's bemusing when you encounter these people at work or at a party and you can laugh at them and ridicule them in your own time. ..... But when they are a parent and they get their hands on your money, your car, your transport, your education, your job, .... it's not like they ease off when things are too stressfull for you to handle. They do not care. They just care about convincing themselves that they are superior to everyone they have ever met. And they are obsessed by this goal. They will do anything to make themselves the better person by comparison.
My best friend grew up with a father who acted like this. My friend resents his father for his bs behavior and vowed to never act like that towards his future children. Despite his childhood, my friend managed to grow into a great person.
Not despite, but because, they saw that how hurtful such behaviours were and vowed not to do that themselves. My father was severely physically abused by his parents and because of that he never physically hurt me, he still loved his parents, but he realised that getting beaten by a cane or belt every day isn't the best childhood.
I'm grateful my mother left my narcissistic father when I was 3. Unfortunately, my step father and older sister took that role in the family. Damn things are everywhere.
@@NIHIL_EGO this is because there are two types of people. One says because of my father im doing this and the other says BECAUSE of my father im doing this.
my father was beaten when he was very young. when i was five, he often came to my room and gave me a short beating with his belt. At the same time he was explaining to me how lucky i was as he was using the leather side of the belt while his own parents were using the metal buckle on him. Was he not trying his best to give me a better treatment than he once received as he beat me for no reason? i hated him. even if he died long ago the hatred won't leave me. i'm 42 and i never managed to enter a relationship with a girl, i'm scared of myself. scared of being like him.
My brother always said I was doing the wrong thing by not bending to my parents. He didn’t understand that personal cost. He admitted that my parents were wrong, but insisted that my “pride” was causing issues. He didn’t understand that submitting was a bigger problem and devalued the impact it would have on me. Needless to say, I’ve cut communication with him, and when I have the chance, the same will go for my parents. The people we surround ourselves with have more of an affect on our ability to live successfully than we’d like to admit. Don’t give in.
Your brother is my mother! She got mad at me for not wanting to talk to my grandmother. There’ll probably be a time where I have to cut all of them off, but I’m not looking forward to it at all.
@@Christian-97 surround yourself with friends and make sure you have a support system. I didn’t have anyone to rely on when I separated myself from my family and that was quite difficult. 0/10 do not recommend
@@speakersr-lyefaudio6830 I do, and I’m beyond grateful to have them. I’ve told two of them about the situation I’m in, and I’m pretty sure the rest of them probably know a little something.
As a Father going through a sudden custody battle with a Narcissist, I can identify with this video so much. I was in that codependent relationship, and the moment I took action, my confidence in myself and my decision making vastly improved.
hi, i hope your custody battle is going well. my dad got full custody of me last year or so and it was Such a process. good luck! my advice from watching what my dad went through in court is to Save Everything, and never compromise yourself. every text they send never delete it (even if it’s mean and you want to) but also don’t give into playing the game. i’m court it shows u keep a cool head and it paints her as irrational an unfit parent (important bc of the gender bias in custody cases) also, for your kids, don’t talk about their parent to them negatively. honestly it hurts so bad. even if your parent has hurt you, or is mentally ill, you still love them and it puts that child in a position where they have to defend the other parent and that’s not a good time.
I hope everything works out. I paid a lawyer to modify my visitation to escape my ex's interference and now my daughter "hates" coming to my house. So it may be time to fight again. Keep your head up.
I completely understand this situation. I have one narcissist who has poisoned my kids against me, is now going around spewing negative stories about me, uttering threats whenever she gets a chance. This video is an excellent narration that has rescued some of us.
My grand father in law was dying in a hospital. He told me "I want you to come to my funeral but please, dont let your kids play video games. I dont care about anyone elses kids, but your kids I do." At the funeral my wives mother told me to get the kids 3ds's (video games) so that they would leave her alone. I told her what her father asked of me. She started screaming at me instantly acting like I hit her. She wouldnt stop screaming. I didnt move. She just kept saying hes hitting me! and screaming, and everyone looked over, then she yelled "this is my family, you have no place to tell me what my father said at his funeral. You have nothing to do with this family, and you are not wanted here." So without saying anything in return, not 1 word, me and my family left. 4 years later we are still treated by her as if we are MONSTERS for leavng the funeral and HOW dare we walk out and disrespect her father so badly. She still wants an apology from me.
This video reminds me of the time in grade school that my friend asked me “why do you never say anything your bullies? Why do you let them say what ever they want?” Because they will make fun of me either way. I would rather they laugh at the person they think I am, than open my mouth and let them laugh at the real me. They will have it either way. Narcissists are not allowed to have access to my true self and real thoughts.
true that, bullies are like, that one tiny pebble in your shoe, that is stuck in a way that cannon be removed cuz when u take off the shoe you cant see the pebble but you can feel the pebble there when u put it on and it makes u angry but u know it's useless so u get a new pair of shoes and they are comfy
@@ghoulbuster1 Why is that so painfully accurate. Not like 100% but close enough to be like "Holy hell, a part of my life was just analogized by shoes."
Every time TheraminTrees releases a new video, I feel like a kid again. It feels like Christmas. Just today on the subway, I was watching his video on childhood indoctrination, even though I have seen the video so many times. The quotes within are super deep and super memorable. TheraminTrees and QualiaSoup should write books. I swear. I'll happily buy them. I'll happily spread the word. We as humans can all be manipulated. And we need to be more equipped to resist abuse, psychological or otherwise. THANKS FOR YOUR WORK!!!!! - Lloyd
I thought maybe I was the only one watching some of these over and over trying to memorize some of the DELICIOUS sentences. It's not that I want to parrot someone else. But when learning good ways of expressing feelings and ideas that I already have I have to start somewhere.
I constantly manipulate myself with double binds. I ask myself, am I smart? If I answer yes then I’m cocky, narcissistic, arrogant, egotistical etc. if I answer no then I am self conscious, depressed, Unconfident, etc. I think this is the nature of indecisiveness, being brutally aware of the consequences of certain decisions.
@@intravine it's not about only logic of the idea but about it's authenticity as well. So, if world is not black and white, application of this idea is not the best alternative in decision-making
I have been the same, noddle. But there IS a solution. Here it goes: What makes the difference is in answer yourself : (about being smart i.e.) - Am I smart? YES - Is it good to be smart? YES, if it's used in a moral, decent way. - How I use being smart in my life? example answer: "Well, I help people to solve their problems and make their lives better". - WHY I want to solve people's problems and make their lives better? answer: Because I want them to be free from troubles, burdens and pain. Here is your answer. Part 2: Ask yourself : "Do narcissistc, arrogant, egoists help people to set them free from troubles, pain, burdens? " Well, the answer is very obvious: NO. Result: Having this feature and using it in a way you use it DOESN'T make you being a narcissist. By the way, no narcissist worries about a possibility of being a narcissist. Trust me, I was raised by 3 narcissists. They believe(d) they never made any mistakes, they were most noble people ever, nothing was ever their fault and in their opinions they never thought they might have any flaws. The sole fact you're worried you might be a narcissist is a proof you are NOT a narcissist.
the answer I’ve found is that this is a misuse of the logical law of the excluded middle; a logical fallacy. The law of the excluded middle requires that a thing must either possess a given attribute, or must not possess it. A thing must be one way or the other; there is no middle. My argument is fallacious because it excludes the middle, when there is indeed a middle ground; it is possible to be both smart and not smart.
😂 i was always massively chastised by my parents for being a shy somewhat reclusive kid. At the same time, they did their best to imprison me within the house and isolate me from the outside world. As I grew up, and my social anxiety lessened, i made more friends in school and my parents did their best to sabotage any relationship i had with friends under the justification that “they aren’t a great fit for me” or “their families have bad reputation” ..etc
When i was a kid, my father often had unpredictable fit of rage where he terrified us by yelling, throwing chairs, slamming doors and breaking plates. There was one evening where he threw a big tantrum because he wanted to eat endive but it was not on the menu. He yelled hard at my mother for not satisfying him. The next evening he once again burst into a rage as there was still no endive to eat, bringing my mother to tears with his verbal abuse. The next evening another huge fit of rage, he was mad. my mother had took the long time necessary to cook endive, but it was too late, he didn't want endive anymore, so once again chairs were flying. Now the scene ridiculousness is obvious to me, but back then in my mind was only terror and the hope he would calm down. Another time, at noon we were all eating together. the atmosphere was calm, peaceful yet tense, because living with my father was like living with a time bomb. He asked me for the salt and i quickly reacted, afraid a slow reaction would make the bomb explode. He exploded, yelled, slammed the doors, etc... in my hurry to provide the asked salt i had handed him the first salt shaker i saw, alas there was two in front of me, one almost filled the other almost empty. i had handed him the almost empty one, he glared at both, then at me, then exploded. another day i was alone with him and he felt like throwing another childish tantrum that used to terrify me. At some point he thought he needed to throw a bottle at a door to support his argument. With such a strong throw we both fully expected the glass bottle to break. But no. The bottle hit the door top first and instead of breaking it stayed there, stuck. It completely shook my father who, just like that, forgot he was supposed to be in a fit of rage and was now instead enjoying the sight and how he successfully did something quite amazing, sharing with me his feeling of amazement with a joyous face. At that time i realized how much all of his tantrums where just a show and not real feelings. His previous show was stopped when a better show popped out of the blue. those show of his made my mother go hiding to cry so many times but to him it was just a sick kind of game made to be the one in control and to claim attention. Despite all the good times we shared, i hated him when i was a kid because he was an unpredictable violent madman that was always belittling me, on 3 different times going as far as calmly telling me with hatred that i would be better dead. But as i grew up i started to hate him because I slowly came to realize how pathetic and toxic he was. Then hated him because of this one time where i held my ground against him as he burst in angers just because we crossed path in the house as i, for once, dared to go out of my room and failed to avoid him. I failed to hear he was behind a door and didn't retreat, thus we simply met with surprise as i passed the door. He glared at me, upset to have been surprised, then hit the door with rage to show off. i was sick of acting in fear of him so i glared back, hit the door harder then went my way. No words were said, but just for this he went mad, fetched his hunting rifle, tried to kill me with it but failed to find me. Luckily, i was outside and my brother came to warn me of what was happening. Once he had calmed down, my father realized what he had tried to do and went to the police to give them the culprit rifle. he never talked about this event, like it never happened, and resumed being an asshole.
Wow people should be screened before allowed to raise their own children. I am so sorry that happened. I hope you are making the best of your life moving forward, I find breathing techniques and using a life coach had helped me tremendously with my own past traumas.
@@jbeim777 Thank you :) i appreciate your kind words. I wasn't hoping for such word by writing this, what i would really be glad about is to hear it helped someone. When i was a kid, watching the TV i heard many times about parental violence. But every time on TV they where discussing case of kids hiding their bruises, having fractured bones, being killed. At that time i was wondering if i should reach out for help or if i was not worthy. Was it OK? After all i had never been killed by my father. My father was terrifying but no one was talking about that aspect so it didn't count. He was sometime slapping me or such, but it was rare and only hurt on the moment. it was nothing compared to the kids shown on TV. And well i had not a lot of... self-worth thanks to the belittling stuff i received. In the end i thought it was not so bad, at least not as bad as other kids who where more "legit" victim of child abuse with their broken arms, or even sexual abuse. Bullshit, what i was going through was abnormal and seriously bad. Of course i should have been helped... i should have reached for that help instead of staying hidden in my room. i should have talked about it at school instead of keeping it secret. More importantly i should have fled, tried to convince my mother this was not ok. instead, in my ignorance, i endured, suffered a lot and nearly got killed. And the only "benefit" of enduring this long is the big mass of hatred that is still there in my heart as well as a super low self-esteem. I want for people who are victim of abuse to know this simple truth: Run!
@@pipMcDohl The reality for all children growing up is that every one of them has flawed parents who royally mess up somehow, and yet most kids are not better off with someone other than their own parents because there's no huge world of volunteers looking to raise other people's children with love and skill. The foster system isn't exactly a comfortable alternative unless the abuse is quite horrible.
"A polite smile will acknowledge you've heard them. You could even thank them for sharing their thoughts. Then, you can ignore everything they've said and keep being yourself." This quote is way funnier than it should be. Maybe it should be repurposed as a meme format? Anyway, this is a very thought provoking video. You've earned a new viewer, thanks for sharing.
I feel physically sick watching this..the impact of generational trauma and abuse is horrendous and the reason for the loss of so many lives..we didn't loose them to cancer or inevitable death, the ongoing psychological stress was without a doubt a contributor. I really hope the world wakes up to the damage of dysfunctional families stunting so many today. Content like this only helps. I'm deeply grateful for this video, for this channel. Your music is a blessing too! Keep Going. Amen.
"you shouldn't have called the firemans for help" Said my mother after pretending to try to kill herself by jumping out of the window. "You don't care about me, nobody Care if I die !" Said my mother when I didn't call any emergency services while she was pretending to be trying to kill herself. If I do something I lose, if I do nothing I lose.
@@wissemaljazairi she tried more than 14 Times... And she's still alive. The reality is that she's not actually trying she's just pretending so that she can get whatever she's asking for. (Asking for things like "break that bitch's stuff" or "kill her", "swear on my life that you love me and kill that bitch" (the "bitch" being my step mom) and other stuff like that. You can hardly agree to that.) The first 5 Time you might actually believe that she's doing it for real... But at some point, when it's like the 6th time you start to understand that she is just pretending. Also if you want a bit of context she also tried to kill my sister, and if you're a "pro-life" Well then I guess you can Say that she tried to kill me (not really thoo I was like 6 month old inside of her and she try to drown herself in a river) anyway, she's still alive, every times she "try to kill herself" it's conveniently when there's people around to save her... It's just pretending to get what she want and she will continue as long as it work, as long as people give her what she want. By doing that she got to keep everything in the divorce, the 350 000 euro house, 30 000 euro mobile home, 250 000 euro bank account. Everything and my dad was left with nothing even thoo he was the one who built the house.
This structure of having a narcissist mother and a coward father is a lot more common than any of us could have ever realized had this video not existed, so thank you for that. It doesn’t solve the problem, but it makes me feel better to know that I’m not alone, and I’m sure others feel the same.
I got a narcissist father and a coward, enabling mother. They divorced early with mother dragging me through three marriages always resulting in one more sibling and another divorce. Even today, when we meet, she portraits herself as the victim while father talks only about himself and his stuff for solid two hours without even asking me how I feel or what am I doing... It makes me sad but that was just the cards I've been dealt.
@@LiborTinkaMy wifes parents are the same way. It amazes me how she grew up with such horrible parenting but became such a wonderful person. I hope you are doing well, and have surrounded yourself with the friends you deserve.
One narc and one enabler is a really common abusive household structure. Narcs often repel each other; think of how many problems a narc has with ordinary people, then imagine how upset they'd get having to deal with another monster like themselves.
I've experienced this a lot, only I wasn't the victim in my story. There were so many times I tried to make my partners feel like they were garbage and had to seek my guidance, and I felt some sick sort of accomplishment whenever I succeeded, even though deep down I knew something was wrong. It really hit hard when I realized what I had been doing, and I finally understood why all my relationships had broken after one year at the latest. Now that I'm aware of my 'monster' (that's what I called this trait of mine) I've been able to lead a stable relationship for the past 3 years. Nevertheless I sometimes still have trouble sleeping at night because of the memories of the suffering I caused and I *still* have to be cautious not to fall back into old habits! If you ever find yourself with a person that does these things to you, save yourself a *lot* of sanity and leave them!
I’ve never actually seen anyone acknowledge they did this before. Most either seem unaware of it or don’t see it as a problem/refuse to acknowledge it altogether. The first step in solving any problem is to know what it is, so you’re well on your way. I wish all the best to you and your partner, and I hope you continue understanding yourself on deeper levels and improving the way you treat others. Thanks for sharing.
Wow. Congrats on your self aw awareness and work you do on yourself. Go inside to examine where your need to control others comes from. Perhaps trying to control outcomes in a world that’s scarily unpredictable ? Fear the unknown less and go with it with courage. When that actually works out fine, maybe everything doesn’t need quite such control as you though
If it makes you feel any better, you aren't alone! I think people see narcississm and people with a disordered level of it as a binary thing, you either are one or you aren't. Having grown up in a family with multiple people with varying degrees of it I can say that is absolutely not the case in my experience. Empathy and self awareness are learned skills, despite how much we like to think they're innate, thats why narcissist behaviour can come across as extremely childish, it comes from a childlike lack of empathy, self awareness, and emotional maturity. ("You didnt do it right!" "I did it how you told me to!" "Well then you must not have been listening to me at all! I said -insert something completely different than what they originally said-!") My birth mom is the classic full blown kind. Manipulative, abusive, neglectful, literally believes other people dont have feelings, at least not ones that matter more than hers, blatantly favored one kid as her Golden Child, ignored two of them as much as possible, and abused one of them as much as possible (lucky me! /s), the works. And a hoarder to top it off. (We literally had an entire room in the basement filled with nothing but cat piss and shit.) My oldest brother on the other hand is a bit more like you. We've talked about it a LOT. I know, like me, he never even had the remotest chance of developing in anything close to a healthy way. He has enough empathy and self awareness to understand hurting people is bad and to learn and admit he did something wrong, but it takes him a ton of effort to figure it out on his own when he has and take responsibility for his own actions. He and I have talked openly about it in the past, he would say that talking to me makes it easier for him to understand than when he tries on his own. He liked taking to me about his issues because I could help him understand things and I liked helping him learn more about himself. I did a mini test once when he said and did something I immediately understood as being rude and selfish. Normally I would have gently explained to him how his behavior came across but since it was extremely minor (it was the emotional equivalent of a little kid offering a bunch of candy to a friend but then guilting them for eating ALL of it the moment they reach for ANY of it, and ultimately giving away only a single piece of something neither like) I decided to hold off on mentioning it and see if he would on his own. Six hours later, he did! Apparently he had been feeling bad all day and couldnt figure out why with out thinking hard about it for a while and eventually realizing it was because he had been selfish and rude. I told him about how glad I was he figured it out himself and then we talked about how long it took him, how awareness of his behavior been instant for me yet for him it took six hours of hard thought. That was an eye opener for both of us I think. I got a better understanding of just how difficult it is for him to practice things that come so easily to me they feel natural, and he got a better understanding of why people who love him can find it incredibly difficult to deal with him sometimes. Narcissism doesnt make you an inherently bad person any more than empathy automatically makes you a good person. Everyone is capable of being selfish. Hell the ability to still do things considered nice is what makes manipulative narcassists so successful! My birth mom was an *expert* at that shit. She turned lovebombing me into its own cruel game where if I didnt reciprocate with an even greater intensity I would get guilted and abused even more, and no matter how much I grew to hate her, I still wanted to believe her "I love you" actually meant anything other than "tell me how much YOU love ME. RIGHT NOW. OR ELSE." Point is, people who struggle with narcissim can commit acts of abuse but still strive to be good people, and people who think they have lots of empathy can still be capable of cruelty and abuse. That said, you should never feel obligated to maintain a relationship with someone who is not safe or healthy for you to be around, even if they're related by blood and they're trying to do better. Its a common manipulation tactic to keep control over someone by showing a big display of remorse and claiming to want to get better that guilts people into staying and continuing to take their abuse because " at least they're trying!". In reality, when someone truly becomes aware of an abusive pattern in their behavior and they actually WANT to get better, they make a serious effort to change and stick with it, even if it means removing *themselves* from the environment/relationship. They might still makes mistakes but they dont actively try to keep the cycle going by keeping their victim trapped with assurances of love and change.
There is a prominent narcissist in my life, so this was very instructive. Thanks for sharing your insights TT. They are always more than illuminating. I'm so glad that you can still find the time and inclination to make videos! All the best, TLD.
Hey TLD. I hope all's well with you. Sorry to hear you're dealing with a prominent narc - sounds draining. They truly suck don't they - they suck time, energy, humour .... you name it. Good luck keeping yours at bay. Peace ;8)
"Quit being such a drag" "Why do you never take anything seriously?" God, that hits WAY too close to home. I recently stumbled into your channel via youtube's recommended section because of your videos on theological topics (which are all excellent, I've been listening for the past few hours while I work on some artwork) when this one came on through the autoplay. I've tacitly related to the psychological tactics you touch on in other videos, but seeing my own experiences so clearly outlined is... Well, it's actually really hard to hear, if I'm being honest. I'm only 18 so I still live with my parents while I attend community college, and for the longest time I tried to rationalize their behavior as a consequence of something I've been doing wrong this whole time, but the more I talk to the only friend I trust with that kind of discussion, the more I realize that there probably isn't anything I can do to please them. It's faded a little as I've gotten older, but it's definitely still there. My parents will tell me that they want me to just stay home and focus on school, but then when I make a mistake on household chores they yell at me about how I'm a lazy piece of shit who doesn't even have a job so why can't I just clean the entire house every day without being asked, it's not like I have anything better to do... When I failed my first driver's license test, I was under the impression that most people fail the first time and that it wasn't a big deal, but my dad was pissed and said it was all my fault for failing. When I failed the second time, he got mad at me when I was upset about failing instead of just brushing it off and trying again later. When I leave my long hair (itself a great source of disapproval) wavy and free-flowing the way I prefer it, they tell me that I look like shit and that I should wash it better or just cut it, you're a boy so why do you want long hair anyways? But then when I'm fresh out of the shower and it's all slicked back the way they always tell me to do it otherwise, they say i look ridiculous and that I'm trying too hard. When I clean up after them, they yell at me for not putting their stuff away right, even when I think I'm following their instructions to the letter, and when I don't, they yell at me for not cleaning the house because, of course, what else am I going to do with my jobless hours? Obviously I lie about how much schoolwork I have just so I can play videogames all day... They've even pulled stuff that you mentioned in your own video. I'm rather quiet and skittish by nature, so I'm always getting comments to lighten up and talk a little, etc. etc., but then when I'm talking to all two of my friends on discord they wonder aloud why I never take anything seriously and talk on the phone all day. It doesn't help that I have a really bad case of ADHD, which makes it all the more difficult to parse through what is me genuinely messing up and them being unreasonable. I used to think it was all me, because that was all I was ever told both by them and some of my other family like my grandmother and uncle. But nowadays, I don't know what to think anymore. I cannot thank you for helping me figure out what they're doing. I've had plans to move from Cali to Pennsylvania to get away for a while now, and I feel more comfortable with that plan now than I ever have before. I just hope I can gain enough financial independence to go through with it.
@@scumparasite2014 - who fails the driving test twice? Literally every single person I asked failed at least once, including my driving instructor. Many failed 2, 3, or even 4 times. My second fail was only one mistake away from passing. - you told us you play a lot of videogames no, I told you what my parent's rhetoric regarding videogames is like. I spend the vast majority of my time either cleaning or doing school work on my computer. Yes, even during the summer, I have summer classes. - no excuse to be jobless Well when I don't have a license to drive and my parents keep telling me to focus on school (even as they contradict that a lot), what am I supposed to do? I understand you want me to introspect a little, and that's ok. But try and understand that that's what I've done my entire life, and while I have a lot of my own personal problems, the ones I laid out are definitely external.
FireyDeath4 I’ve actually started doing this EVERY time i begin to argue with my parents. I start recording on my phone. But the thing is people can’t be bothered to listen and just write it off as me being nutso. More like trying to defend my name. It really does make you feel crazy, though. Always being wrong.
My father's in the hopsital with Covid, he has COPD, he's not doing well and we're very worried he's going to die. My mother (who's been divorced from him for 13 years both me and my sister are nearly 30) started to grow increasingly upset and enraged over me and my sister bickering playfully about who was holding what stencil when we were making him a poster to hang on the window of his hospital room. She claimed it was over fear of getting paint on her new table, but after a minute of argueing with my sister she admitted it was because it was "disresceptful" to be making a poster for him in HER and my step-dads house. It was a heavy blow to know that after all these years shes still bitter over their divorce and holds it over our heads purely out of the fact that we love him and we're worried for him. Anytime she gets upset she accuses us of not being fair, for not loving her like we love him, and using our love for our own dad against us.
The humor part when dealing with narcissists really hit home for me like a clock to the face. Lots of people call me unexpectedly funny or hilarious, but it's not for nothing. I learned very early on with my narc mother that humor was the literal dangling, shiny golden key to distract her. I've always had a sense of humor, people have always said I was funny, even when I wasn't trying to be, but in her case, it was survival. I know the big rule of funny is not outright admitting you're funny. It's more of a show, not tell kind of deal, but I have to say it for the sake of this experience. The more I was able to work on, and refine my humor, voices, acting, punchlines and jokes, the safer I was. A jester in her court of madness if you will. Appealing to her vanity, praising even her smallest accomplishments as if they were ground-breaking scientific revelations, or sometimes dressing down when she was around a certain event was another tactic. Though I didn't always do that, if she was going too far, I was not scared to bluntly tell her to knock it off, and she was making a fool of herself, and no one was stupid enough to go along with whatever she was trying to pull. Sometimes, she'd have the gall to literally ask me. "hypothetically..... what would YOU do if you were ME?" So she could get another fresh brain or eyes into her scheme, but on the rare occasion I humored her, she would then flip it around like it was her idea. If she tried "what I would do", and it didn't work out, she would come at me in a rage like I was trying to set her up. If she exposed herself because she twisted my words around and went and did something stupid, she would still fly into a rage. This could be things as small as purchasing different brands of milk for a recipe or something. 3-4 hour rages and holding hostage to hear her talk in circles. Her #1 fear was being found out of her misdeeds to the community she tried so hard to look like an angel in front of, and I let her know I knew it. Being funny also got me out of binds with other non-narcs, so humor is mostly welcome by most, but narcs seem to receive it most, ESPECIALLY when that humor is self-depreciating.. on your end of course. Any other narcs I run into, the "funny trick" usually works...unless they are those rare ones who just have to be #1 funny person (solely for the adoration), or they are the more classical sexist narcs who are so fucking adamant that no women can be funny, ever.... but in my case, here's this woman that has everyone in stitches at work, a speech, at dinner or an outing. I ran into one who was a combination of the two types. Even when I wasn't talking, or doing my own thing, he would just glare at me with dead, expressionless eyes, and just kept demanding with a sneer that I wasn't funny, I was copying someone (a guy), even if I was talking about my own life experiences, or that I was "trying too hard to be male". He said women didn't even need to be funny, and because society does view me as "attractive" in general, my humor was uncalled for. When his demanding that I shut up, and know my supposed gender place didn't work, he then went on this stupid, elaborate, almost hilarious campaign to get everyone on the bandwagon that I'm just not funny. Yes, humor is subjective, no one's going to find everyone funny, I know I'm not going to be funny to everyone, and that's okay, but no normal person went through the lengths he did to try and convince the whole world of why it was gospel fact that I wasn't funny simply because I was a woman. He was trying to break me down, and cease any positive experiences I had for making people laugh. If someone laughed at my joke, or an action or impression that I did, he'd try and control the other person's reaction to my humor as if they made some unforgivable slight against him. He'd try and make jokes and people just didn't find him funny. If no one laughed at him, he'd always bring me up and accuse them of laughing at my jokes just to spite him, or that because I was a woman, they were being "easy" on me, or they wanted to "sleep" with me, even if the people he was accusing of such claims were straight women or gay men. His toxicity was slowly being recognized by all in the group, and they were distancing themselves. He then accused me of that too, convinced I had something to do with it, but he just couldn't see that I didn't have to do anything. I rarely spoke of him, and his actions were all most people with half a brain needed to see. To stick it to him, when he was around, instead of that brash, semi- vulgar humor, I switched to that really, really dry, intellectual humor that completely went over his head. Like, 100% confusion on why people were still laughing and his campaign didn't work. There's different kinds of humor out there, one of them is in-joke humor. He wasn't around us for very long, so in-joke humor went right over him. I will admit, to "ease" his suffering, and confusion, I did look him in the eye and let him know I was messing with him, obviously implied that I knew just what he was, and what he was trying to do and at this point, I was just having some fun. At one outing, the guy was up to his old tricks, trying to quiet everyone down from laughing at my jokes. He then started firing off with jokes, and when people didn't laugh or were confused, he'd just bang the table and ask why they weren't laughing, thinking it was a gang-up against him. I was fed up, so I eventually explained to the whole group of friends about different types of humor and it was grand that some people just didn't get it, no matter how big their temper tantrums get or how much they want to brainwash others into what is funny or not. Oh, and that women can be funny. The way that guy looked at me, if looks could kill, I'd be a red smear on the floor. He had to excuse himself from the table a few times because he was shaking, fists white-knuckled on the table, and turning a bit red-purple in the face. All narcs get red to even a brilliant purple in their faces, and start shaking in a bout of impending narc rage. Me personally? I recommend introducing them to a stun gun if they want to go crazy and attack you for no reason other than their poor little ego was bruised when nothing even happened...it was all in their brains. No need to bruise your fists, bruise them, break chairs, or get possible murder charges, just shock the mess out of them with the highest voltage you can legally get. If they scream like a possessed banshee, get redder in the face, get the blank-black eyes, bare their teeth, (the usual narc crap), and get back up to attempt battery on you again, shock, rinse, repeat if necessary. Put them down like the crazed animal they are, tell them never to do that again, and get out. I would rather be peaceful always, but in my existence on earth, I find that narcs only understand three key main things in terms of consequences: Possible mass exposure, loss of supply, and pain. If you simply expose a narc, they will fight to the death, but you maim, injure, or beat the ever loving crap out of a narc, they usually don't come back. They don't even send their flying monkeys to do their dirty work for revenge, they'll just avoid you instead, and act so "hurt." Oh yes, they'll have the tears, waterworks, and how "awful" their traumatic event was, how "crazy/demonic" you are, and to pray for them. You were supposed to let them hurt you, not the other way around. That's not how the script goes, but you did them damage instead. They would get revenge for your insolence, but narcs understand pain, and they don't like it. Psychopaths, and to an extent, sociopaths tend to be able to stand a lil' pain, risk, or damages, and will come after you, or send others after you if they feel the need, even if they were tortured, or got beaten within an inch of their life, they'll just come right back. Narcs on the other hand, tend to avoid these things, and it points to their very scared and fragile natures, and it thus proves the narc only has empathy and love for themselves. They will call you crazy for defending yourself, will have no issue ruining you from the inside out for some perceived slight, but who's the crazy one, for say, raising a lethal weapon to someone with blank-eyed rage, because someone rightfully won something, or someone calmly told them, "no"? Narcs love themselves too much to tangle with someone who has no issue rearranging their face, shooting out a kneecap, or putting them in an embarrassing sleeper hold. Narcs never learn though. Even if they meet an even crazier person than they are, they'll just go for softer targets, and stupidly, go right back to trying to test and break down stronger targets, who may have been just like the last guy/girl who beat them up, which points to the narc's utter stupidity. They. Are. *STUPID*. I can imagine narcs always looking over their shoulder, because of all of the people they pissed off over the years, which is evidence that they KNOW what they are doing, and all of this is a CHOICE. This whole thing was just fascinating to me. I'm not scared of narcs, because not only do I know how to deal with them, I have no problem in letting them know just how pathetic they are. I think on my feet, and I'm pretty blunt, so it is possible to beat them at their own game---until you can get the hell away from them, and for GOOD. Narcs are poison, staying around poison for too long can literally kill you, and in this case, it can kill your sanity, dealing with the noxious fume of these..."people." I find them funny, but not in the good way. I didn't have to put up with him for long though, he was a temporary stay and went back home to his own family. Thank you for bringing light to the humor aspect, Theramintrees. It is absolutely 100% correct. People, if you cannot so easily go no-contact with these vile individuals, work of the art of funny. IT WORKS.
I don't have much to say, except that I really want to have your kind of mental strength. It's really admirable that you could not only be emotionally intelligent enough to notice and deal with that kind of double binding, but also that you're smart and quick enough to take control of the situation and let them know who's stronger.
Sounds like this person just wants to show dominance for whatever reason, but I have no clue why this should be related to gender. In my experience this happens regardless of the group configuration gender wise.
I feel like it's not. That's just their perception of you. If you disagree and they don't believe you, they might just not be convinced. A double bind would be more like: "Stop being SO sensitive" *Doesn't react to their insults* "Omg you are so cold"
I view it more as a form of gaslighting. "You're SO sensitive" means "there's something wrong with you for not enjoying abuse". They claim their abuse is not actually abuse, and that you're defective and immature for reacting to it in pain.
@@Chikin1ninjas Isn't that situational? Some people might not react as you do. In some cases it may indeed be abuse but I'm sure some people say it in it's non-toxic meaning. Edit: Somehow I didn't read your first sentence. I'm not totallt on board with these terms. Isn't gaslighting when you make someone doubt theirself or something?
I remember overhearing one of my parents telling the other accusingly: "YOUR child [me] always leaves the room when I come in." Which was true because ... Well, see video. What an odd redirection of blame from themselves to me to the other parent.
@The Skeptic Philosopher We're talking about Narcissists. They're incapable of having meaningful relationships and will NEVER look at their own behavior without shifting blame for any bad behavior. It's not only pointless but harmful to believe any real connection or meaningful relationship is possible.
@@ianbowden2524 Narcissistic parents don't believe there is anything wrong with them so when they see the child fail or not live up to their impossible standards they think it has to be the other parent. "I have nothing wrong with me so it must be them!"
I used to avoid both of my parents too. It was just too painful to be in the same room with the insults belittling and humiliations with mom especially if we had those black family get togethers for holidays. I’d get so anxious I couldn’t eat or I’d be nauseous. Even if no one was around mealtimes were like walking on eggs. .
The parts about your mother are sobering to hear. When I think about how my mother acted around me, end especially when I tell others how she acted, I can't help but feel I'm being too dogmatic, that I'm overreacting or embellishing stories or was seeing abuse where there was none. The particular part about your mother's "victory stories" though, was indistinguishable from my own. Even when I was barely old enough to remember her conversations I recall all the times she came home talking about how she's "never going back to x store again" or how she had to "do y worker's job for them", and when you're young and impressionable you just think "wow my mum's incredibly unlucky with the people she runs into" or even fall into admiration, "wow, she has such a quick wit about her". It's only when you get old enough to process what's happening when you're with her, and linking it to your own experiences, you stop yourself. When I was about 6 or 7, me and my mum were waiting at a Pizza takeaway. I heard the people working speaking a foreign language and was genuinely curious, so I asked my mum what language it was. She turned to the people working, and for her, this came out as "where are you from?". I didn't really understand this at that age, but of course that kind of question can come across as abrasive and a bit aggressive to someone just doing their job, so they coldly shrugged off the comment. What happened next was her voice raising strikingly quickly, insisting she know, insisting they be polite, and acting incredibly slighted in an immense overreaction. I felt incredibly embarrassed that she was insisting this was an innocent question on behalf of me, I hated, and still hate, confrontation on any scale (to the point where it's a genuine flaw I want to try and fix) and I wasn't nearly invested enough in the answer to spark, from what I remember, my mum shouting insults at just some random takeaway worker. I'd be perfectly fine, if not a bit grumbly at being told to mind my own business. Anyway it took only 30 seconds for her to storm out dragging me with her arm, just sort of dazed by it all. From that point on, whenever she brought home another "victory story", and when she tried to manifest angry labels on me to manipulate me, I kept thinking about the guy in the takeaway worker just trying to do his job, and think "did that really happen?".
As someone who tried to build a relationship with a narcissist, I find it true that the best strategy is to avoid such people. When someone with self-esteem issues encounters a narcissist it may lead to a whole lot of self-hatred, while it was never personal from the very moment you've decided to talk to that person. Their logic is so absurd that anything you do turns into gaslighting. The amount of manipulation is absurd, the amount of self-love mixed with even stronget self-hatred is absurd. Narcissism is an essense of absurdity. I was lucky to notice all that early on and ditch that person. TL,DR: if anyone treats you like shit, just stand up and leave. You'd be happier without them than living an eternal mental torture with no hope for the future
You are so awesome! I'd whish I was so clever as you when I decided to be born as the child of a narcisstic mother. No, that couldn't have happened to YOU, you are such a badass!
Sometimes I feel like the more you interact with someone who displays narcissistic tendency the more you yourself become a narcissist. I can't even tell if I was the narcissist or whether my mother was but the relation we had and have today is still tumultuous at best and rather unstable.
@@incognitonotsure909 Don't feel TOO bad about it. Everyone is narcissistic on a scale of 1 to 10 and I found myself at the end of those relations just like you said, becoming narcissistic myself, because I was eventually left with no choice but to be FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE Which is advertently lead to it bleeding into other areas unrelated my life for where sometimes I was firing machine guns in squirt gun fights. Recovery from narcissistic abuse/ insults is often a two steps forward/ one step back process.
Narcissist: “You’re always mad. You never smile anymore” Me: damn that is true. I need some better company 😆 goes out to relax + have fun with friends. Narc sees me laughing and having a good time with a friend “why are you acting weird? Is there something going on between you two?!” 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
I was never allowed to be silly as a child and would often be shamed for basically being a child. Then when I'd had the silly punished out of me, to the point where others being silly gave me high anxiety, I was shamed for being too serious. Fuck you, "dad".
I was raised in a cult, couldn't even go outside alone until I was 12. Could never have friends over or go to thier house. But I was also punished for being "lazy" "antisocial" and staying inside all day. Plenty of daily double binds, admitting to things I hadn't done. When my mom left the cult she tried to convince me it was for my sake, that she finally started to care about the abuse. Turns out she was just cheating with some guy she met at a pretzel stand and wanted her shot to be a gold digger. She kicked me out a couple months after leaving the cult and then got engaged to pretzel guy. He's a genuinely good person, and intervened when she'd show her true colors. Honestly I'm just hoping he's not stupid enough to give her another kid to abuse, and smart enough to get a divorce before she destroys him.
I was raised in the Jehovah's Witness cult. It is a large cult with many of the same characteristics of all cults (one of them is the hamster wheel of activities - keeping the people busy to exhaustion).
Many would hold resentment for the pretzel stand guy in your situation, that's very big of you to wish him well in hoping he escapes the Narcissists abuse.
your videos feel like an academic course where topics you’ve brought in earlier fit together with seemingly unrelated topics, except unlike college, these are free, and you’re a very clear and organized speaker (unlike some lecturers i know)
23:50 reminds me of that well known quote: "First they came for X, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an X. Then, they came for Y, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Y either. And then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up for me." The bystander mentality is probably the most important to maintaining systems of oppression. It gives that false sense of the majority being okay with whatever terrible stuff is happening, and from there desensitizes people until that illusion of the majority being okay with what's happening eventually becomes the reality.
My brother in law helped my mother and my sister in their narcisstic abuse, made it worse for me. When I finanlly moved out he was the new scapegoat. I don't pity him. He got what he deserved.
yet people who try to warn about growing oppression are accused of being paranoid or subscribing to slippery slope fallacy. Those uninterested or lazy will do everything to justify why they are smart and in the right.
Adventure time was teaching us the double bind dilemma in the episode were Finn develops a fear to clowns; he could allow the nurse-clowns to heal him and feel terrible by it, or leave with his wounds and make the clown-nurses upset. Even the parts of the talking tree were a more obvius reference of the dilemma; he was presented only two paths in those situations, but both were terrible options either way. Luckily he manages to solve this situations "on his own way" Adventure time is such a good show, teaching children and adults to identify problems and solve them while being fun...
I wish I had had this year's ago. In my own abusive relationship with my mother, instead of sticking to my values and trying to improve myself, I got sucked into a spiral of apathy in regards to my abuse and it gave me some really bad habits and character flaws I'm still struggling with. I feel like I've lost so much because of it
I understand you. I myself had exactly the same problem. I was so depressed the psychologists declared me legally incapaciated. My mother is dead for 20 years now, but I still have feelings of vengeance. My father and brother suffered too, but they are in denial and think that I am in denial.
@@umbreon-wn2to or when they're chasing you and you manage to lock yourself somewhere, so they stand out of the door and they're like "if you don't open the door I'm gonna beat the shit out of you" and similar and you just brain-freeze and somehow id always end up opening the door because I was scared and got beat up anyways
this comment made me remember a couple of kids I used to help baby sit. They where twins about 9 years old. They said their father beat them all the time and where told to not cry, and if any of them cried they where beat more. Over and over. The kids went to many people asking for help. Even social services came but said theres no proof, and lots of kids say things and hear at school to call social services to get parents in trouble. They did nothing and left. People went to him and would talk to him about it, to which he would flip out and say DONT TELL ME HOW TO RAISE MY KIDS. few weeks later, the kids grabbed a hammer each, went into his bed room, and hit his head while he slept as hard as they could. They killed him. Due to being 9, and previously have called social services for abuse, they did not get in trouble. Sad part is, I know their life will be better because of it.
@@umbreon-wn2to Same here. I grew up in a house where I had my own room, but the door had no lock. I'd put one but it gets removed because she says if I do put some form of security, then I might be doing something shady inside, or keeping something of value to the "family", and that I shouldn't be selfish and share it with everyone, whether it be food/valuables. Often I'd wake up in the middle of the night, in the dark, with my mom over me and whispering on my ears. Then when I tell her wtf she doing, she would just casually walk away and leave the door ajar. Next day, I'd confront her about it, and she acts all innocent or tells me that either I'm losing my mind or that it's "all in your head", or that I'm making accuses early in the morning, and she'd act as if she was a victim. She would go to physical retaliation if I confront her more about it, would backhand slap me and I had to get my glasses repaired multiple times when I started standing up for myself, and she would always flip and say that I'm "wasting" family money when we could use that money to buy food instead.
Slime Bucket man that’s heavy stuff. It’s crazy to think that 9 year old kids... at 9 years old they had the resolve to realize their situation was inescapable. It must’ve been really bad for them. This is the price you pay putting people in these traps though. These sort of traps only work if you are in a position of power. You can’t corner a person and expect them not to fight back. Even a little animal like a rabbit. A little rabbit sees you and it’ll try to scurry away. You corner the rabbit and close in on it then the panic button will hit. Even though it’s just a tiny little rabbit, that thing will sometimes attack when cornered. You give something no option but to fight then it’ll fight. I don’t feel bad for the father. I don’t know if it’s a wrong way to look at it but part of me thinks what those twins did was kind of heroic.
Wow- I've subbed for years, and just now I'm dealing with a narcissist smear campaign from a woman I broke up with a year ago. Very timely, since this isn't your typical content
@@---Free-Comics---IG---Playtard good luck with your victimhood. This is what always bothers me with TheraminTrees content. His popularity has much to do with his own style of manipulation (like the gothic symbology and chants) in his videos. When you demonize the 'other' as he does here about his Mom, you make mental misrepresentations and fail to see context. He gets to bypass any other member's behavior (including his own) so that it manifests embodied in his account of his evil mum. The problem becomes the lack of self actualization in the mental representation of locus-of-control. The Zen Master's influence is to get the student out of a program where the teacher holds all the power and allows the student to feel compelled to act on their own accord. Though it might also still be seen as manipulative in engaging the student into compliance with the teaching...if a negative victimhood narrative is the focus. To see the world as bullies/the bullied, never allows for empathy and sympathy for those who may just be regurgitating their own abusive upbringing! Quit demonizing anyone and take responsibility for understanding the behavior. See life as a scientific undertaking where if you understand deeply enough you can solve problems instead of destroying 'the other' and be very alert to those that frame people in Victor/Victim labeling. The site you mention, while seeming to have Some good info, references bullies etc too much for me to find it credible.
i’m watching this in my lounge room rn. i’m moving out from my house next week and my parents are very controlling and adamant against me moving out. my mum threatened me and said “go move out tomorrow if you’re gonna be shitty with me” so i notified my roommate that i’ll be moving tomorrow when i reminded my mum that i still plan on moving out tomorrow, she said “no you’re not, that’s just something i said in the heat of the moment”. if i had known better, i wouldn’t have argued “well you still said it”, because she just retaliated with “you’re taking things too literally”. i really cannot wait to get away from all these mind games and abuse that she says isn’t even abuse, i feel so unsafe right now. if anyone else is a victim of abuse, i see you. what you feel is REAL, you’re not going crazy, just keep going. we’re all in this together and by looking within ourselves, i hope we can all come to break these shitty cycles of trauma and not impose them onto other people
Wow. My ex-girlfriend was a narcissist and I’ve seen these same patterns. She went on a smear campaign on one of my best friends accusing him of physically abusing his then girlfriend and she would also put me in double binds. The way I dealt with it was too keep pointing out that she sent mixed messages, which she would of course deny vehemently, even denying something she clearly said not five minutes ago. I started keeping track of text messages when she would do this and I would again point out her mixed messages. Over time the behavior stopped, but like the video stated, that was an illusion. She simply found other targets of the double bind. I’m gonna help share this video so more people know about this
The thing is, even seeing this video would hardly change anything for people that are in love. I have always knew that a certain girl was a narcissist, sadist and mentally unstable, and it didn't change a thing - not until it was too late for me.
ChaoticStray sometimes you’ll have to drag yourself away from people who are harmful, even if you’re in love It’s very emotionally taxing sometimes, but staying with a narcissist will always be worse Don’t stay with them in hopes that you can change them, then you’re just the guy sitting on that bench next to the gate keeper
I had a narcissist friend and I did exactly what you did. Logic works a lot and he hated it. Just keep asking them what they want to do in their life with a bit appraisal. You are so interested in them kinda. They will talk very different points every time. Something poetical, traveler, political power, social power, every extreme. Confront them about it and say that you don't like one of your idols being confused about what they want to do. Use their own tactic against them. They all have one common weak spot and that's appraisal. They need constant source to boost ego.
Double bind I came across in first grade: A girl accused me of making fun of her parents divorce (which I didn't even know about). The teacher put me on time out until I admitted to it, even though I honestly had no clue what anyone was talking about
I'm not only impressed by this guy's talks, but his animation skills, especially as they've progressed over the years. Also jeez man, your mom reminds me of mine in a very unpleasant way.
This might sound a little strange, but this video helped me despite my never having had an experience with a narcissistic abuser. I've been dealing with some really insidious anxiety-based mental health problems recently, most of them having to do with a strange and irrational fear surrounding my ability to attain a state of mindfulness; of course you can imagine this makes that very difficult to attain. While I was watching this video, I realized that your descriptions of the actions of narcissistic abusers reminded me a lot of the anxious thought-loops I had previously been trapped in. If I imagined the thoughts as the "abuser," and myself as the "victim," a surprisingly hefty chunk of the video felt relevant to my situation. When I was in those loops, it really did feel like a "no-win" situation - if I indulged the inclination to think hard about what I was worried about, it always ended up making it worse, and if I decided to avoid thinking about it, the fear just popped back up again. The solution was the same, too - when I disengaged fully and moved on, it lost its power over me. I'm not sure what that says about my brain (the fact that I seem to have managed to put myself into an abusive relationship with, well, myself) but I wanted to express special appreciation for the time you took to make this video (and all your others) and I found this unexpected crossover really interesting. Thanks for the work you do, by the way - I found your channel recently and can't get enough.
Same here! I have had the thought a few times before that my brain was operating like an abuser, but didn't know the term to accurately describe what traps I was allowing myself to fall into. For me it's the "taking life too seriously/not seriously enough" trap, and yeah no matter how I act or respond I'm always in the wrong. And when I get angry I also "hear" this voice in my head laugh like it finally got me... I've found that not responding/mocking it works, had to learn that from dealing with OCD. Weird how our own brains can fuck with us like this.
Our mothers are much the same. My own has tried to quit smoking so often that it kills me to come home, cause we lived in a 4 room apartment and there was no way in hell I'd miss her bs'ing. She follows up her tangents with "Oh you're amazing I love you so much uwu" so she can reset and start all over again. Blaming her own actions on my brothers and I, going out of her way to point out flaws in people that she herself makes sure never change. My second eldest brother is entirely co-dependant on her, has lost jobs because of her actions and went through horrible psychological tribulations when begging for therapy. Whenever it came to things like medical situations and things outside school necessities it was always "We don't have enough money because your father left and doesn't pay child support" when she shows up home with 8 bags of clothes, shoes and wine. Did I mention she frequently uses shrooms? CPS has come to our apartment several times on anonymous referral and several times my brainwashed brother who needs therapy, a dentist, a physiotherapist, and a fuckton of other medical help, uses his one most amazing skill to turn them away like nothing's wrong; his acting. He's grown so used to our mother's manipulation that he's developed multiple fake personalities to avoid confrontation and ease situations subconsciously, which causes him serious mental pain and occasionally makes him pass the fuck out. This is just one of three boys in the family btw. She only wanted boys, so I was kinda SOL for anything at fucking all. My eldest brother got the fuck out and ended up on the street for two years before getting back on his feet through our grandparents, my youngest is still in school and I only just graduated a year and a half ago. We all had to suffer her until we could escape, and I ended up in an apartment for a year until just a few months ago I went to live in my grandparents place who were moving out. My youngest brother is afflicted with depression on a suicidal level, my second eldest brother lives on autopilot trying not to suffocate from his own debilitating anxiety, and my eldest brother only barely freed himself from it all. I wonder what would've happened if my dad had been around. I've met him a few times but all I can imagine is that our abuse would've ramped up. Why? Because he beat my eldest brother. I know I'm spilling the fuck out but I don't have people to tell this to without anonymity because I don't have the confidence. My mother always made sure I knew I was a failure (without the reset suck up), and she found thousands of creative ways to get the message across. I remember making a cake once when I was trying to get into baking. She never bought me supplies or anything, then just as I stopped caring since I couldn't do fuck all without cake to make, she made some fondanty bullshit cake boss thing then taught me a lesson on cake making, slipping in a few "but you don't need to learn that cause you'll just screw it up"s in. My favourite was when my brother mentioned the sky once and she talked about light pollution, then started screaming at me in public when I questioned the term, having never learned it. "This isn't an argument, this is baffling stupidity"/"I can't believe I gave birth to you"/"I never would've raised such a fucking retard". So yeah, she goes off on nothing, makes sure she's better, and puts you down if you aren't her ideal short brown hair, green eyed, 6'2", male powerhouse son with straight A's and participation in every group and club and getting every award and scholarship, you're a failure. I was an honours student until grade 10 when I realized it was futile and gave up. I remember how in my brother's grad speech he didn't add our mother into the "thank you" since he'd rushed it without knowing what it was, and she fucking smacked him repeatedly beside the car while he was still in his grad gown, screaming at him in front of all of his friends while he stood paralyzed from anxiety. He stopped contacting people after grad, couldn't hold a job, and became a homestay. My mother just didn't like how I graduated because she didn't see me get 9 scholarships or an international award. I had to sit alone with her for an hour long drive while she explained to me in detail 9 different life paths all ending in me getting raped or otherwise losing my virginity, because she knows that hearing those fucking things sets me off. She throws around alcoholism and drug allegations without proof of shit and if you say no she calls bullshit. She's still convinced I'm going off having abortions every fucking week and ruining my life, all while trying to get me to give her my money. I'm gonna file for a restraining order or non-contact thing or whatever, but I'm scared for my brothers. I know if I call cps my brother will turn them away with ridiculous proficiency but I'm willing to try. I started this then just kept going, sorry. I've never had the chance to spill like this since I was only recently disillusioned myself, so it just lifts of a weight I suppose.
Thank you for sharing your story. I'm glad you don't need to live with her anymore. Best of luck for your brothers. You can probably ask for advice with communities of people who lived through this kind of abuse.
Very much reminds me of my own family, and I am pretty convinced that such families are beyond help. Even if you maintain contact, try to get away asap (before your mind and body starts to fall apart) to an address unknown to them or out of their reach, because there is a good chance she would follow you just to make sure you'll always remain as miserable and lonely as her. Such mothers will never accept that the other is also a human being, so for her you will always remain her own aching body part known as "daughter."
If you're worried that your brother "will turn them away with ridiculous proficiency", then remember to explain to the CPS what you told you just now. Warn them that they'll definitely encounter deception and bullshit and that they should come mentally prepared. Anonymous reports filed by concerned neighbours are nothing compared to the insisting call of a *first-hand witness of the abuse* so be confident. Also, I ask you to keep us updated. I'm sure people will agree with me if I say that we all need the closure. So far, accept my gratitude for your captivating little rant. I wish you all the luck and joy you deserve; and you deserve all of it.
So basically it's me on uni. "Hey i forgot my ID inside, can you let me in?" "No can do, you need an ID" "But it's inside" "Then go get it.. show me an ID first"
Guy: "Did you hear Joe was diagnosed with ligma?" Theramin: "What's li... I'm not falling for that. Who's Joe?" Guy: "Joe mama." Theramin: *I want to explore a particularly poisonous mind game, called the double bind*
My abusive ex used to say stuff like “I need you to tell me a week in advance when you won’t be seeing me” but also “I refuse to see you on a schedule like you’re making an appointment” lol. All I wanted was some free time and to see my friends/family. Lose lose. She was also a vegetarian and would get mad at me for not picking a restaurant to take her to, but when I picked a place she would get mad at my choice. There was a time when she told me not to get her any gifts for our anniversary, but then at a family party afterwards she embarrassed me by letting everyone know that I didn’t even buy her a gift. Projection is also HUGE for narcissists. My ex used to accuse me of not being affectionate enough and cheating on her when she was the one that refused affection and she was ACTUALLY cheating on me. Also when she started to tell me I wasn’t affectionate enough, I tried to hold her hand more, and she would refuse saying “you’re only doing that because I called you out!”. I apologize for the wall of text but the rabbit hole goes extremely deep for me and I feel like I can vent here 🤣
@@fathimamuhammad3799 Thanks I really appreciate that. On the bright side I learned a lot of manipulation tactics early on in life and I feel immune to them now. I’m with a girl going on two years now that treats me fantastic.
Sounds like my ex gf too a tea. Guess what i figured out? My mom is the saaaaaame way 😂 Guess that explains the repeating patterns into adulthood thing
I was also accused of cheating constantly, never did, and he ended up cheating on me with a complete stranger he met on Facebook. Now whines and whines for me to come back to him.
My coworker did this to me, accusing me of stealing. When I got defensive, she acted like it was because I was mad I got caught. It got to the point where I was afraid to touch anything, even the "free" things in the office because my coworker would email my boss to have her ask me to buy more of the "free" office items, because I had taken "too many".
I wonder if that is a deflective admission of guilt - she herself had done it and as a result would attempt to put the blame on others to avoid accusations herself?
Heads I win, tails you lose....a funny joke to play on an unsuspecting bet but a great short example of what is being discussed in your comment and this video
Personally, I'd be making sure I was out doing important stuff or shopping every time she was taking a nap if I were in that position. "Sorry, wasn't around to hear the phone, I was out getting food for our dinner..."
@@scottwall8419 yeah i remember "losing" a simple bet when i was a kid like that once...however, there was no possible way i could explain that i KNEW what they said, but just THOUGHT that they fumbled their words and meant to say the normal way of betting on a coin. When i tried to explain, he was like, nope, heads i win, tails you lose, so i win. Like, interrupting me so i wouldnt even bother, and of course probably saying something like "you're just making that up cause you lost". Like i thought the guy was just stupid and said it wrong. And i guess he really was stupid for not being able to understand how i could have (in my eyes) ignored the so called grammar slip-up in his call to, what i thought, was to play the regular game. Cause for what reason would anyone cheat, thats no fun, was my frame of mind, probably, so it wasnt even a thing that even registered. you know, quick call to play a game of heads or tails...i wasnt going to nitpick his choice of words, sometimes people jumble up what they say on accident. so i ignored it and was like yeah sure, and trying to be a regular, normal, honest person backfired on me and probably ruined my day, whatever the bet was about. i was young
I can remember my mother yelling at me for what she thought I was thinking. I don't know of she's an actual narcissist or not, I know she's bipolar, but she's spent most of her life refusing mental health treatment and blaming everyone around her for her behaviors, even going so far as to blame my sister for her own suicide attempt.
you could totally have put quotes around "suicide attempt". Because narcissistic "suicide attempts" somehow never work. And blaming someone else for it is a pretty sure sign it was this kind of "suicide attempt".
My ex used to pretend he could read my mind too, it was infuriating and stupid at the same time. They seriously think they have God-like powers when it's really just projection or bullshit they make up.
I find myself coming back to this video every 6 or so months. Every time when you discuss you mother's tendencies, the rage that fills me is unbearable.
when i was a new cook i learn that lesson from my master. He told me when he was a kid he had a family like that and he escaped from his house when he was like 10 years old and changed city. He told me when you find toxic people on your life cut them out no matter who they are. Even mother or father. Just cut them off because they are just toxic and harmful no matter what you do.
This is actually the phrase that gets me out of 99% of my bullshit interactions with people. Even if they're in the middle of their sentence - just hit em with a "whatever, dude" and just go about whatever the fuck you were doing lol. It really works! If they continue all you gotta do is say "Did I fucking stutter?" and that seals the deal on the remaining 1% lol
@@nagsterthegangsterMaybe for work/school environments or people you don't have to live under the same roof. If I would try to do this to my mother as a child, a teenager or even a young adult, still living under the same roof I would end up bruised from face to toes. Even as a grown up if tried to defend myself, as my sister once did, she would start to scream and saying that her daughter was attacking her and would call neighbors and police, and case would be seen as an out of control teenager or young child abusing an elderly. Also for abusive relationships, this kind of answer, quickly escalates to more violent aggression. Do not recommend if you live under the same roof, there's children involved, and the narc is violent.
@@tituslafrombois1164 not towards bs about stalinism and everything related that you're all being taught (not that you could be blamed for this due to carefully selected information, number manipulation and speculations that you're being presented to). It's politics, baby.
These kinds of things are actually inherently political... Or perhaps a better way of putting it is that psychology influences politics and behaviour, so not talking about one part of that set would be leaving a lot out.
If you go into the political parts, especially present day politics for examples, you easily and needlessly get accidentally partisan, especially if you got something wrong. At least you may be perceived so; especially since politics are a highly partisan thing for most people. Being in the "synthesis seeking" center, for lack of a better term, will always get you accused by all wings of the political spectrum to be either a fence sitter, or worse: part of the other group. Thus whatever sane solution you seek, you will be demonized by one side or the other or even both. Transsexuals who reject the new-age idea of the non-binary for its lack of scientific substance abundant levels of narcissism of those claiming to be are shunned "the right (conservatives)" for being transsexuals, mentally ill deviants, and by the current Left for not being "transphobic" of this new seemingly internetborn idea that reads like a fanfiction of their medical condition to them. Thus using this as an example either way would also render your educational and helping product partisan one way or another or even both. Dr Stephanie Sarkis made such a mistake in her pretty good book "Gaslighting", which illustrates the patterns of Gaslighters and Gaslighting behaviour and chapter by chapter in various aspects of life. However, in chapter 6, politics she makes a relatively significant blunder: While her historical examples are from all sides of politics, she also brings present day politics into the fray, especially of issue that turned out to have been false. She herself, an expert on Gaslighting, was herself a victim of political partisan cult-like mentality. The lesson to take from this is simply to stick with general, personal or historical examples. Present day politics are always a mess of propaganda vs propaganda, belief vs belief. So yeah, in short, I'm a fan of sticking to the topic like this as well.
My heart goes out to you. Listening to what you had to deal with as a child, and hearing you having to deal with such an awful person when trying to cherish the final moments of your time with your father was truly heartbreaking. I’m glad you are able to reflect on what had happened with such strength and recognise your mother’s behaviour as unacceptable. Much love.
I remember one time, when my ex GF accused me of cheating. She said "You either admit that you cheated or we are done and you get the hell out of my house." I was so infatuated to her, was such a weak willed man and didn't want to lose her so damn bad, that after half hour of insisting that I never cheated, I ended up admitting to a crime I didn't commit. Then she said "now, we'll only be casual partners, don't expect anything more from me." Days laters we had another fight and I said "you know what, I can't with this, I'm out." That was the must fucked up double bind I've ever experienced in my life.
@@_iam1533 police interrogations aren’t supposed to go past a certain point because it’s been proven to get false confessions. People confess to get out of the terrible interrogation
Dear Theramin Trees - This is the single most helpful video I have come across. I have seen thousands of Narcissistic abuse videos. I am so sad you had this type of experience growing up, as did all of us here! This video nailed what I have experienced since I was born and you made the pressure in my chest lift. I took pictures with the captions so I can re read all this until I get it in my thick skull and learn to undo what and how I react to my very hurtful, vindictive father who manipulates and distorts everything to his convenience to satisfy whatever he is lacking inside. Thank you for helping me! Hugs!
@@TheraminTrees This sort of activity that you engage with in the comments shows that atheists can be kind rather than being a "community breaking" force. I really enjoy your content. You give so much more than a few days worth of college could give, in just a 20-40 minute video.
I’ve had bosses who did that. I had a narcissist “friend” who did that. It’s hard to see once you’re already into it. Or, if you see it, sometimes it’s difficult to exit.
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Exquisite presentation and content as always. Your point at the end about victims of narcissists having support on the internet also has a flip side. So-called social media predictably enough has fomented a lot of very self-absorbed people. I wonder how many become full-blown, game-playing narcissists. Given the growing infantilisation of people, and "reality" shows essentially pushing the admiration and mimicry of the self-absorbed tantrum-throwing rejects such shows attract (as if they were somehow "role models"), I suspect that the two effects (not growing up + self-absorption) combined would have a higher outcome of full-blown narcissistic behaviour than either one in isolation.
Picking up on your points about religious groups, this also seems to have fed into new dogmatism of the "progressives" and their witch-hunt mentality. Identify the "witch", and demand an apology for their alleged behaviour or thought crime. Any apology is simply a confession for which there is punishment (unless you are Justin Trudeau it seems). Fail to apologise and you're still guilty merely by the allegation. Due process be damned. That said, since there is nothing to be gained by apologising to the inquisition, not apologising still seems to give the better outcome from what I can make out.
Yep - I think you're spot on. If narcissist behaviours are basically equivalent to those of maniacal children then infantilisation and the celebration of self-absorption, victimhood and unreasoning persecutory drama are pointing in that direction.
I agree in broad strokes with your thoughts above, but want to push back on the idea that such double-binds are mainly the tactics of a single political group or ideology. As far as I've seen, any political group or movement has individuals willing to push these tactics when it serves their interests, and that may not be representative of the intent of the whole movement.
Social media platforms like Twitter seem particularly conducive toward forming the sort of "outrage mobs" you seem to be alluding to, and they can be extremely toxic. However, we should be cautious about overgeneralizing that phenomenon outside that particular venue and the people who use it frequently.
@@nathanhopkins7976 Very much agree. As I stated in a post elsewhere, watching our political environment now is akin to being forced to watch the worst possible remake of the movie A Fish Called Wanda.
In that vein I'd like to point out a memorable talking head on Fox news who mused over whether a fist bump between Michele and Barrack Obama may have been, as she put it "a terrorist fist jab?" Very depressing times.
@@nathanhopkins7976 - It is worse on the left due to the focus on identity politics leading to self-absorbed narcissism instead of unification behind an issue. Old left would rally for labor unions, workers, civil rights and the environment. New left is all about personal victimhood dividing people into different camps. "A circular firing squad." as Obama perfectly described them. Epidemic.
Conflating the fringe, authoritarian left with actual progressives is quite disingenuous. All ideological groups have their extreme niches.
Double bind: Mom gets mad when I celebrate her birthday - says she doesn't want to be reminded of getting old. Next year: Mom gets mad because I ignored her birthday.
Moms die.
I've been in that exact situation
@@thereisnosanctuary6184 Hah, this had me laughing out loud, then feeling guilty about it. My mom has been dead for over six years, so I should let go of trying to protect her feelings.
I have one
My mom gets mad when politics come up
My mom drums up politics and says we are unamerican for not talking about it.
@Nivedita Pingle mmhh... that's sad.
The story of your father's painful death brought me to tears. It's clear why you have such a passion for uprooting manipulative, abusive behavior. I'm glad you use your skills to educate and encourage others to cease and avoid abuse. The world would be a much better place if everyone knew about your channel.
That's where individuals like us who make his "fanbase"/community holds a part of responsibility, not to say that everyone should act like ants or whatever of course just that we as human beings enjoy doing "good deeds" so it's best to approach that aspect in that manner in my view, personally I constantly share stuff that are useful to people I encounter on the internet and my family, just like this guy's channel and the ones like his are by far some of easiest to recommended because of what can be gained from the content and the impact they give, what people do with the content depends on them and their circumstances though.
At least people like me who can't really allow themselves to support him through patreon can compensate through sharing.
I see a lot of his mother's behavior in my spouse; and unfortunately some of his father in me as well. I worry for our kids because when the false accusations and double binds start to fly, I'm the one who steps in to defend them and then I find that I have become the target. It puts us in a constant good parent/bad parent setup that both of us resent and of course it's not healthy for our children either. 😔
Any advice would be appreciated. There is hope, right? How do you get someone who is NPD or borderline to recognize their destructive behavior and commit to changing it? Or is that just a fool's dream?
@@galacticbob1 Communication, trust and honesty. I value these most high when thinking about the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. If you cannot talk to your spouse about their self destructive behaviour that is harming the whole family? Then there are none of these things. Obviously you aren't communicating, you don't trust the partner to tell them about how you feel and you can be afraid to be honest with them without them becoming angry (or something else).
I don't pretend to know you and your relationships (or be an expert for that matter, this is just one person's opinions), and from the comment it sounds like you have attempted communication, but if that communication starts to fade and your spouse is not growing and attempting to see that they may be at fault... then the above situation is most likely starting. Particularly if that initial communication isn't having an effect. From your spouses position, she is cutting you off from meaningful communication by not acknowledging your concerns, so even though you may communicate, trust them and are being honest, they are not. They aren't communicating with you, they aren't trusting you to take your concerns seriously because they are in the right and you are undermining them, and they aren't being honest with themselves.
This isn't to say that in other areas of your relationship you might be communicating, trusting and honest healthily, in multiple different ways with each other. What I want to say is don't give up on them, as Theramintrees' father said, "I think your mother is sick". Your spouse might need your help to overcome this, but while you are working through this difficult issue for you, don't get pulled in by lies. Keep alert and evaluating your own and their actions and what you say to each other. If they refuse to see where the problem is, or are maybe unable to, then the situation is only going to get worse, at which point you might need to make a choice. They need to be able to see the problem for themselves.
Personally, I would try and engage in a role play (not that kind! get your mind out of the gutter ;P ) with your spouse. Present them with situations where they are on the child's end of this double bind scenario, and get them to think about how that feels. Talk about it and how this is how they are making you and your children feel. Empathy is very powerful is changing people's perspectives.
I wish you all the best! I can't imagine how difficult those situations must be for you. I didn't expect to write this much (I feel a little embarrassed now!) so I hope at least some of it will help you or someone else.
Which also explains to me that their videos seems to be of interest to fellow victims as demonstrated by the patron poll.
Zeal all though in principle I agree with what you wrote about marriage in most cases a long term relationship is the same thing as marriage, do you mean don't get involved in long term relationships?
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
Откуда эта цитата, что-то знакомое.
@@Sintarzus "WarGames" 1983
ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Военные_игры
That's definitely still one of the best movies to this day.
Unfortunately, not playing is also wrong.
Or you can play it with "counter-offensive" playstyle/strategy
This should be taught in school. Seriously. How many of us go through life struggling to appease a narcissist, unaware of the futility of being trapped in a game we cannot win?
The win comes from losing the person, even tho it doesn’t feel like that. It just is…
The government won't teach you the same tricks they use on the masses.
Two of the biggest problems within a non narcissistic person who knows a narcissist are 1) the 'desire to appease', and 2) the almost undying hope that the narcissist will "get better".
By narcissists???
Magicians do not like to explain how their magic tricks work
Young people are so lucky to have access to information like this. I wish I would have watched this video 40 years ago, my whole life would have been different.
Well done.
Absolutely!
Same Dark Soul. I'm 57 and just learned the N word a little over a year ago and see all my relationships (friends, intimate and work situations were full of Narcissism). I worked for bosses who were horrid, even saw a few therapists that were standard issue one threatened me when I confronted his BS and blocked the door when I attempted to leave telling me if I left, I wasn't allowed back. Thank God, I realized that that was sick and told him bye...
@@lovelydaze413 what you say is valid, we older folks realize that, but you miss the point, sanity being challenged 24/7 is so anxiety causing, you have the benefit of seeing the truth around you. When you have that comfort, you can begin to disengage. We oldsters thought we were wrong, that the narcissist was correct and the flying monkeys supported their "truth". If you are looking for support then don't be a professional victim by not seeing the full picture.
@Ваня Сергеев come on, fuck off
What happened?
"you are in denial"
"I am not in denial."
"Only someone in denial would say that"
"Are you in denial?"
There's the opening. "ONLY".
That's where you respond "Not only them. Also you."
But what if you are in denial?
Maybe
We are all because this is a communist house hold
@Jeffrey Herrera And if you were in paris and did that, you'd have to be insane !
The double message "be truthful and don't be truthful" is actually one message obfuscated behind it:
"Serve me"
Do as the pastor says! Oh, pastor says to don't lie? Tell xyz that I'm not home! Never lie! (expect I profit from!)
The sad part is that even if you refuse to follow their game, you still spent a great deal of time and effort planning how not to fall, how to respond, how to deflect. So in the end is like they always win, because your life still, in a way, revolves around them.
Definitely can confirm that this is true. Tried to think about what I was going to say to my father because I presumed the communication issues we were having were at least 50% me if not mainly my fault. In my last in person interaction with him, it became clear he didn’t care what I had to say, and before I blocked him on my phone he made it even more obvious that he didn’t want a discussion. For all of his accusations of “you just need to be right” when we disagreed on something, he certainly had no interest in leveling with me or trying to see where I was coming from.
His messages would start with “I’m sorry, but-“, and I realized he was in no way apologetic for his actions. Outside of just processing my own emotions around the situation, I’ve stopped trying to practice speaking with him completely.
The only way to deal with a narcissist is to rid them from your life.
In my opinion that's the wrong takeaway. In life, bad events such as car accidents can befall people and their only option is to endure and overcome that event. Narcissistic people are like those events, and therefore you have to find a way to endure and overcome them. But even more importantly, like with those bad events that we put effort into overcoming, the question of whether our life revolves around them is a question of mindset. If we get too bogged down over whether our life revolves around something, we lose control and we get our minds warped to hyper fixate on all of the bad things in our lives. Instead we should not put too much emphasis on the sense of loss and lack of control, because it's a natural part of overcoming obstacles. We will always need to put great effort into overcoming the tragedies in our life, but even so we should look on it as a necessary part of enduring, and something we can be proud of.
@d0ntbanme That's a disingenuous argument. Most people don't choose to entangle themselves with a narcissist, either. The narcissist often disguises itself until it's become engrained into its victim's life enough to severely hinder a chance of escape.
@@paigemosher8697 You may be confusing a narcissist with a psychopath. Psychopaths are generally much better at hiding their true intentions and have actual motivation to seek growth. Narcissists are just obviously way too much into their own worlds and MAY grow, but internally, they feel they are already fated for success; their attempts to manipulate comes as a side effect, not as a goal or means to one.
At least that is my understanding.
"Don't argue or show emotion" This scared the crap out of me. These are literally the exact two things I have figured out by myself long before seeing this video, just from communicating with my parents. I have learned that arguing and showing emotion is suicide, and my strategy since realizing this has been to basically succumb to their personalities until I can escape the house and support myself.
I think this is partly wrong solution. I have the same experience as you and I agree that showing emotion is not good. If you get mad it's game over. But, making good arguments that cut through and point out the bullshit can be the best thing to do. Of course it depends on the narcissist. It's just hard because it's not easy to do that. You gotta make good arguments while avoiding traps. It also sucks that we learn to not show emotions because it fucks us in friendships and romantic relationships. Its something I've been working to undo for a long time. I'm sorry that you have to go through this and I hope you find the support you need.
@@luke8553 don't worry I already do this, i just don't show emotion and I try to avoid taking "bait". I usually argue only in ways that are impossible for them to punish me for, if that makes any sense
unfortunately in my case, this didnt/doesnt work. if i dont show emotion, she will keep trying to mentally get into my head until she gives up and gets physical. if i dont argue she will sit there for an infinite amount of time ripping me appart. i have recordings of hours of convos where i literally dont say a word. but somtimes she will notice and accuse me of not listening. she will ask me why this, why that, and i get 3 words of an answer and she goes ballistic for interrupting her. the best thing that works is to basically agree with everything and go along with it. but this takes several hours out of my day several times a week and i dont have the time to do it. even when things come up and i have to go, she will say things like, "i dont care, im not done. if you hang up im showing up at your house/spam calling your work/never letting you see your son again/stab you/ etc/.
all i feel i can do, is finish my school in time to start my job. which will allow me to take the kid out of the scary situation. but she has made threats saying she will use her connections to get me killed if i ever tried to take him from her.
i hope you are out or soon get out of this situation Nalla!
jeez, i’m so sorry you are in that situation. i can relate but on a way less severe level. that’s why what i said works for me sometimes. i hope you get away from her safely
Yes i use the exact same strategy. It’s the only way to have some peace.
“I watched her holding onto that donut for ages, waiting to be found.”
There’s something uniquely pathetic about narcissists.
They go through the same trauma we do most times, yet come out absolute monsters. I'll never understand the choice to be narcissistic when you could just be a masochistic denier like me until you discover thermain and break free, choosing the third option to disengage and escape methodically.
@@Sarahizahhsum Im not sure its a choice. Despite the diabolical shrewdness they seem to have at extracting anguish out of those close to them, they definitely have some pretty big holes in their intellect as well. Lack of a sense of humour when it comes to abstract, sophisticated or subtle humour (in the case of my Narc it was ANY joke with a punchline lol) is one, lack of a sense of ethics seems to be another, although it could be said that one is a choice on their behalf, I don't think so, i think they can learn ethics and what other people find fair and reasonable, but they never quite understand it.
They certainly have no empathy.
@@m.b.82 That's a bit generalizing. It's very individualistic and personality disorders can be entirely treated. I am a survivor of borderline and I don't think that way anymore. I love myself now. BPD falls in the same cluster of personality "disorders" so it's definitely treatable. All of them are. It's hard work changing the way you think, but it can be done with determination, resilience, and insight. Not every narcissist is a monster. Just some of them are and that's a choice at the end of the day. I had some narcissistic traits as well but now I feel guilty and empathy. All is never lost for anyone. We must accept their diagnosis, not their behavior. There's a huge difference there.
@@Sarahizahhsum Thank you for the insight and congratulations and making the turn around. That is an enormous achievement and would have require amazing resolve. But from my limited understanding, BPD is a little bit different from the other disorders in the cluster as it is the only one that is treatable?
Can i ask how you came to recognise you had a problem and make the decision to seek diagnosis and help?
I have lost years off my life trying to get my ex help.
@@m.b.82 It takes insight. BPD is just a coping mechanism. So is narcissism, antisocial, obsessive compulsive personality disorder, schizo personality, etc. All the personality differences are treatable because it's the way you think. It's best understood as a thought disturbance. The fact that it's called personality is discriminatory and a hit on people who suffer from them. I am not and never was my BPD or NPD. That's a misconception. There's a whole a lot more stigma surrounding them than there is help. In fact, my therapy I did on my own with just a bit of guidance from my counselor. You can change the way you think. We've seen this from brainwashing in religion and society. I trashed all of it and learned the way I wanted to because I know myself better than anyone else.
this made me appreciate having parents who weren't sociopaths, geez
Narcissists, not sociopaths.
Completely different things.
@@cargnome Not mutually exclusive concepts. I'd say there is a huge overlap
@@Ghally Taken form the Oxford dictionary:
Sociopath - A person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.
Narcissist - A person who has an excessive interest in or admiration of themselves.
They can be similar in some ways, but there are major differences.
@nasolem The fact of the matter is that there is a clear distinction between the two terms, and using them so loosely is not a good mentality to have.
Narcissists aren't antisocial. That's one of the biggest differences.
Of course the narcissists will admire their persona, because they think that their persona *is* their personality.
They fear showing any weakness (usually because of trauma/abuse in their past), so they put on a persona of a perfect person, and when something threatens that persona, they get defensive, and often lash out.
Again. Not using terms properly is not a good thing to do, so it's important to know the distinction between similar terms.
when I was 3 police took me away from both my mother and father due to them being horrible people and parents. They gave rights to my grand parents who promptly just gave me back to my parents. Life time of physical emotional and sexual abuse with no one to look out for me taught me a few things.
1) You MUST DEFEND YOURSELF AT ALL COSTS NO MATTER HOW WRONG PEOPLE TELL YOU DEFENDING YOURSELF IS.
2) the people that hurt you the most usually dont use violence.
3) If you do not become strong, the world will ruin you.
4) Everyone who abused me where not evil, but all did have UNACKNOWLEDGED mental disorders.
5) They all tried to convince me my abuse was MY fault. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. The reason I get abused is because im a bad person, the reason I should always do for them, and never question, is because I need pay for being such a bad person.
6)Their favorite tactic, is to make people sad because they DO believe they deserve the abuse they get. These people actually enjoy having such control over people.
7) Some people will lie about how they are an abuser to their death. No matter the evidence faced, no matter the other people backing, they will lie and say they where the victim till death.
Like the chocolate example, my mother would do that to me when I "let her sleep in". From ages 8 to 14 when I tried to wake her she would say something like "I am getting up" or "I am resting my eyes a minute" and then get mad if I asked her to get up again. Then after she slept in, she'd get mad that I "let her" sleep in. Or if somehow she did manage to wake up (never on the first ask), "why didn't you wake me up sooner?" My whole life was filled with double binds like this.
Then when my parents got divorced and we were all the bargaining chips, it became impossible to make one parent happy without upsetting the other.
This is on a smaller scale, but this reminded me of the time we still live with my aunt. I was a toddler back then, aunt told me to use utensils when eating because "manners", then my mom told me to just use my hand if I'm not used to utensils, then my aunt told me again to use spoon and fork. This happened in one table.
Then when we already live in my father's home, gramps told me to practice using my hands when eating. When I got used to it he told me to practice using spoon and fork because again, "manners".
For context: Most Asians use spoon and forks instead of knife and fork. The spoon makes it easier to scoop rice instead of poking them with a fork.
@@hanzquejano7112 except this is just the people around you contradicting each other, which is totally normal. It isn’t a narcissist doing it to you to drag you down.
One of the worst things a child can be born into is having an evil narcissistic mother and an useless enabling father for parents.
The stepping stones to never trusting anyone as an adult.
I think calling the father “useless” undermines their victim status. It’d be as erroneous as calling a woman with an abusive, manipulative husband “useless.” The reason I don’t think this language is helpful is because it both implies that the parent themselves can’t be a victim and that this kind of abuse wouldn’t happen to “useful” people, when in reality we know humans to be malleable enough that literally anyone is subject to fall into mind traps at any point.
@@jcnot9712 useless to the innocent children that couldn't leave, do you understand what l mean? My dad was not useful, he could have left, instead he drank and didn't even try to protect us from the neglect, beatings and starvation. Useless.
@@irishcountrygirl78 I understand, and in your case that very well seems to apply. I initially interpreted your comment as an assessment to the general case in this abuse scenario as opposed to anecdote so that’s where the misunderstanding arose.
@@jcnot9712 much like when people use the word "anecdote" : an account regarded as unreliable or hearsay, amusing or interesting story. Not a word I'd use when describing a scenerio that is as serious as childhood abuse. Tbh people who stay with narcissistics have some serious unresolved issues themselves, it's in no way normal to stay with these people. I have zero sympathy for those who not only stay, but allow the abuse of their children. "Useless" in this case is a perfect word, because a parent who won't protect a child is pretty useless IMO.
@@jcnot9712 and BTW if a woman stays with an abusive narcissistic man and doesn't put her kids first well she's useless to them, her kids need someone who'll get them out of there and not sit back and allow the trauma to continue. Also a useless person. Why have children? I'd die for my kids. There is no victim mentality here, if my husband abuses me and l stay my children are the only real victims.
when a man with terminal cancer calls you "very sick"
Sick enough that he doesn't dare say it to your face.
God has a sense of humor and the devil is arrogant. Pure irony. I hope those words (darts) don't stay on you too long. Wellness and be blessed Quasar
Carlton Lou I hope that sourness far up your ass doesn't stay there too long either
The word "sick" is problematic to me. If it's that their behavior makes you sick, sure that's undeniable but it's not being phrased in that way. Saying that "they're sick" reduces their agency and culpability while perhaps containing a kernel of hope that they can become healthy again... which is rarely the case.
I'd rather have terminal cancer than have a weird fetish.
My dad strangled me against the bathroom wall when I was 4 years old. I believed for a long time that justice would eventually come and he would either get arrested eventually or he would grow up a miserable man. Emotion has a powerful way of deluding our world view. So one day when I got arrested because my dad called them, I told the social services everything. Unfortunately, there is no where near enough evidence to prove all of that, because it was over a decade ago. The only evidence that remains is the fake relationship between my father and me, and the mental scars that will take a long time to fade. I don’t love him. I’ve tried so hard to look for some hint of authenticity; but after watching your videos I realised there is none. This is a very sick man.
No contact him but if you must contact, record him on your phone audio at all times. You don't want to miss the moment he slips up. At least you will then have evidence to show anyone he lies to.
And the experience made you gay. I feel very sorry for you
Watched my dad choke my brother and then say my step mom will lie if I called the cops. Hes in jail but my little brother still worships him. :/
@@o-matt3570 F
That’s happened to me and my brother. But my dad stopped when I was about 8 and now he’s lovely and I love him dearly. He’d also hurt my mum but not as much as Conor and I because my mum was half paralysed when I was younger.
I think he was just stressed taking care of two young children, my half paralysed mum and providing for us by working a stressful job.
Back then my dad would be scarier when he was drunk. But now he’s much nicer when he’s drunk and really funny.
Watching this made me realize sometimes, i'm the narcissist. I lost the love of my life because i was too dismissive. I've since reflected on my actions, and deeply regret them. Seeing this, made me understand how my thought process was before. I hate it, but thank you.
Same , after months of trying to understand myself and be better , all i really wanna do is apologize to her in person whole heartedly for all ghe things i did to her , i wish someday i could
Me too. But that narcissistic personality is so deeply rooted that I'm afraid I'll never be able to be truly "normal". Heck, I started doubting myself so much I'm not sure anymore if I can genuinely like anyone. I'll keep trying to figure it out. Well, just wanted to share, you're not alone. Best of luck to you.
@@reikanx it's only the narcissists who don't accept that there's anything wrong with them who are behind changing. The fact that you're aware in and of itself proves that you aren't as lost as others are.
@@maxsync183 It honestly seems like we have to rewrite the code for core aspects of our personality... A daunting task, admitting I have a problem is only a first step. The deepest parts of me are still comfortable with what they are and sometimes this becomes painfully obvious... Thank you for the comment, still. And for being understanding. I see hate for people like us left and right, and it's understandable to some extent because we do hurt others with our behavior. But what we need in order to change is reasonable support.
@@reikanx for sure. None of us are flawed by choice, if humans could choose not to deal with personal issues like insecurities, narcissism, self doubt etc, most of us would choose not to have them. So in that sense, it really isn't our FAULT in that we deserve it but it is our responsibility to manage if we want to be a part of society. The fact that we're aware that we have something to work on should always stand in your mind as an example that you are not too far gone, you might be falling but you haven't fallen.
I do also wonder how much of this aspect of people, this narcissism, is built from being raised to believe that you are inherently special and more in tune with the divine creator of the universe than other people who are too foolish or evil to agree with your beliefs...
Don't speak when you talk to me
There's always one...
@@samuraistep574 what have you done
@@samuraistep574 no there's only 2 ones, are you delusional?
(Getting a beating)
“Say you’re sorry and I’ll stop”
“What have I done?”
“If you don’t know I’m not telling you!”
Okay. * makes fart sound *
People need to learn two things.
1. People don't change without a massive amount of effort done only by themselves
2. Learn to walk away from people.
You nailed it. People need to take responsibility.
Thanks for reminding me again.
Truth and truth. And also pretty short too. Nicely done.
I disagree completely; this is an ignorant and dangerous line of thinking. People need the support and trust of others to change themselves: relying on others is legitimately the basis of our entire society. What if parents didn't raise their kids because they felt the kid needed to raise themselves? What if teachers didn't instruct students because they felt the class needed to learn without help? What if nobody was friends with anybody because they thought needing to be with others was enabling them to not change?
@@grrstr7473 Other people can inspire you. But ultimately, you choose your own decision to change or not.
"Just tell me what happened and I promise I won't be mad at you"
“Any questions? Remember, there are no stupid questions and you can be honest with me.”
I’ll never forget being told this and then subsequently getting hit in the face with a spatula
Mate, fucking tell me about it. You say the wrong thing and youve enterd the fucking target range
True, this would always happened to me.
@@superriley1093 And they pull the trigger the second you open your mouth as to feel like the victor lol.
Me: “no matter what path I choose, no matter what I do, I can’t win.”
Her: “Why does everything have to be about winning with you?”
Oh my god THIS. Every single time I've been in a situation with double binds, pointing it out does nothing because they always say what you said, or alternatively, "why do you always have to make it all about you?"
Ha! Wow. Same.
Yes, somehow YOU're the narcissist.
Jesus Christ. I had this exact exchange. Literally almost verbatim. There was truly no winning, even pointing out to impossible bind was subject to ridicule, scrutiny, accusation.
@@sinceritynature202 They are literally all the same.
I define it as “behavioural software”. Might be different physical hardware but it runs the same way. The only relief is knowledge.
Hope you’re healing ♥️
This will stay a long time, but it gets easier.
I clicked on this having absolutely no idea what it was or what to expect
It was kinda interesting though
I'd like but i'll keep the 69 like count
Aeden Zinzell useless comment
Same, enjoyed it though
That is always a good time
My ex used to complain that I didn’t love her because I wouldn’t get phased, mad or angry each time she purposely tried to provoke me or wind me up. She used to say that I was too soft and wasn’t a real man.
When I eventually had enough of her games after months of this and started to shout and get angry at her she would play victim and say that I was nasty, toxic and abusive.
“Get angry/Don’t get angry”
Sounds like she likes that toxic masculine syndrome. The macho Man type.
Sounds like my wife.
Hear you loud and clear, my x same mind games.
My wife to a T
love equates to abuse, in unhealthy identities, by not abusing her and make her feel unworthy, she feels you do not love her, the attempts to unhinge emotions is to sooth insecurities through control, this are deep defense mechanisms, very hard to change.
Real life scenario from having been raised by a malignant narcissist.
Listen to me.
Don't speak when I'm speaking to you.
Well what do have to say for yourself, answer me.
I told you not speak.
Do you have anything to say?
I told you to be quiet.
What to do? What to do?
The line, spoken with great sincerity, leaps to mind: "I'm terribly sorry, but you seem to have mistaken me for someone who gives a shit." Then walk away.
Keep in mind calling the police or Child Protective Services is always an option.
You try to do whatever will cause you the least amount of damage. My father would attack me for fighting in school against bullies or for not standing up to them. I would figure out what was the better outcome, dealing with the abuse from the bully and taking the punishment from my school or tolerating the bully. I got it from my father no matter what I did. Ironically I became friends with one of my ex bullies. His dad was a narcissist too.
@@machintelligence That would have gotten me killed, in many cases it's better to just call the police when this happnes
@@SilverMoon459 eh . I had to do it at school. Then make sure they wouldn't let me back. Last time I was thrown out of a window
Speak your mind fuck the resf
Working as a nurse seemed to be a constant double bind. It seemed like no matter what you were screwed. Here is one example: So I worked in a psych ward. I constantly was told by shift managers and such that I was too nice to the patients and acted like their friend. But there was another person I worked with who got the opposite : you are too mean and too strict. I got really upset one day and pointed this out and they told me you can find a middle ground. But you cant. At the same time I was told I looked like I didnt work on my work "look" and the other nurse was told "work isnt a beauty pagent" I QUIT
Believe me, as someone who’s been to psych, we need people that treat us like friends there. So many of us landed stays because of breakdowns during narcissistic abuse. We remember the people that treat us as humans instead of garbage defects.
I wonder if they were working together to trap you.
Nursing and Charities is where many narcs congregate, I feel in different times they'd be in churches or some other area that's highly praised.
@@greasybumpkin1661 Government as well. It's why the directors are awarding themselves six figure salaries in both the public sector and charity sector. People stopped giving so much money to charities when they found out.
What's wrong with treating patients like friends, especially if they're psychiatric patients. They probably don't get many friends in real life anyway so they need anyone to be friendly to them.
Parents: I want you to talk with me more. Share your thought and interests.
Also parents: that’s pointless and stupid. Why are you wasting your time and money.
And parents wonder why their kids don’t call them.
thegeneralscall straight up
This is the kind of dilemma I have with my dad. I don't think he's a malignant narcissist, but one of the stronger memories I have of growing up and even post-moving out, is that he will ask me what I'm doing or what my aspirations are, then reply to those with comments about it being pointless, unprofitable, something about me isn't up to snuff for that thing, showing him stuff I've accomplished only gets him to pick at what he perceives are flaws. My response to this in later years (27 now) is simply to tell him that "It's going" and leave it at that.
Issah Wywin I know that feel.
My dad thankfully doesn’t do it that often, but repeatedly asks me when I’m, “going to do something with my life.” 😑
I’m sorry? Are you curing cancer over there dad? I fail to see how a career in construction is any less worthwhile than one in commercial aviation, other than that you make more than me. 🤣
This is too close to home
If this is narcissistic I am a narcissistic father. The balance is soo difficult.
On one hand you want your children to have freedom and an own mind but only as long as it fits your values because you know best as a parent, right?
And that might be the case but anyhow you flip it, you both lose. That's why balance is key. In most things actually.
Good vid to start questioning one's own motives and values.
When I was small my family used to berate me for being a crybaby or a soppy sap. After training me not to show any emotion they would berate me for being an emotionless robot.
Oof
Beep boop son, beep boop
mood
Yep...😒😢
I relate to this so much. I was literally chased around the house by my older brothers with a boombox, so they could play music to drown out my crying and mock me by telling me what beautiful music I was making. Later on they were surprised that I grew up to become quiet and distant from the family.
I've ran into a LOT of people doing that throughout my life. Nowadays I go "Computer" on them. "I do as you tell me what your preference is, if that's not what you want it's *your problem* for not communicating clearly. (And if you call me dense for not reading between the lines, fine, I'll be dense, but I'll still take you at face value)"
When I ran into this at work I just refused to work and kept asking for clarification until I had clear instructions. Just like a computer, who can only do exactly as told. I was the least stressed person at that place because of that.
Bonus: You get the enjoyment of watching the manipulators twist and writhe (I've seen some physically do that) being confronted with their own tactics. It's like holding a mirror in front of Medusa.
(Of course, this only works for actions rather than statements about you as a person)
I have started using this in my life and it is making things better for my sanity with my own mother. Thank you for the suggestion.
I have fallen to this tactic too in a new job I started. I wasnt sure at first, but after getting away from the office (and my abusing boss) I realised that I was not at fault. This realisation that I could do a good job if my leader were clear in their intent is what drives me. I notice when they try to poke me for a reaction. I dont give it. They want that specific thing? They can have it,even if it is not what our customer needs. Unfortunately this has led to her making me look bad in front of our customer, so alas I will have to leave when I am able because I will never progress here. But it is better to realise sooner rather than later! I feel sorry for the rest of the team though. I dont know to what extent they experience this, but I have no idea how to help them.
Sounds kinky
"Computer tactic" works great on these cases. Points out their fallacy perfectly. The bad part is, it only makes them even more angry, because they KNOW they are wrong.
My God that's awesome. I think you just taught me something.
Mom used to hold my funeral when I was in the next room and she’d deliberately pitch her voice so that she knew that I heard her . I was 9 . I soon learned to sneak out of the back door when she was spouting off . Her funeral planning upset me considerably but by sneaking out I prevented her from enjoying her abuse. She only kept it up for about 3 weeks.
Everyone wondered why I don’t miss her after she died. Pretending to be a good parent is not being a good parent.
How did she hold your funeral if you're not dead? What
@@Dkryptd I don't get it either. It's extreme.
May the afterlife be unkind to her. Every child deserves a parent, but not every parent deserves a child
Good God.... I have no words.😞 Maybe it was not only narcissism but also a madness? I mean.... it's a madman's behaviour.
Omg
"Displays of unshakeable conviction do not require the possesion of truth"
You just gained a new subscriber.
Muslims.
@Dionysian Beast That's nice.
@@painkillerjones6232 You said what we all thought! ;)
The most malignant, violent and narcissistic ideology in the 21st century is blatantly calling themselves Islamic, the religion of peace. LMAO!
@@gill426 They don't need to be in this country, especially not in our politics.
@@painkillerjones6232 Agreed. 👍🏻
You forgot a really common one:
Narcissist: "Why do you like/love me?"
A: "Because you are really beautiful/attractive"
Narcissist: "So you just care about my appearence, not about my character! I'm just some piece of meat to you!"
B: "Because you have a really good character"
Narcissist: "Oh, so you think I'm ugly! Why else would you talk about my character now!"
C: "Because we've been friends for such a long time. I really enjoy hanging out with you."
Narcissist: "Oh, so it's just about what I can do for you! You only care about yourself. You are the Narcissist here, not me!"
D: "I don't know, I just like you. You don't need a special reason to like someone."
Narcissist: "Oh, so I'm just some passing entertainment to you, and you'll leave me at the first opportunity, once you change your arbitrary mind!"
E: *silence
Narcissist: "So, why do hate me?"
Option D sometimes work, I've seen this scenario and the boyfriend just answers 'I love you because I do' then gave her a hug, before both of them kissed each other in front of the masses, and yeah that was quite smooth like it was from a romance movie
I mean, you could technically just combine A, B, C, and D into 1 and say them all, which in my head works, but there's probably some fatal flaw with it. The best option is to get out of that relationship because if someone would do that then you shouldn't be around or with them.
"Why do you ask that?"
There is no right answer to "Does this dress make look fat?", but I can promise you that "Why are you blaming the dress?" is not it.
Oh my god! I just felt stressed by that.
Have you considered writing a book? Would love to hear your ideas in an even longer form.
His ideas I believe are best presented in video
True; I'd get the audio book! The animations are a nice touch, and boom! You've got yourselves a video! :)
@@carealoo744 TheraminTrees: The Movie
I am doing that in fact. It contains a lot of his ideas since I have been listening to him for a long time now. The book is about half done at the moment.
I agree. Especially if he makes an audio version as well with his honey like voice.
Your story with your mother reminded me horrifically of my own story with a malignant Narcissist. My sister was the Narcissist in my story, always hurling abuse and mistreatment at everyone around her. She used to project it on my brother and I, until my brother moved out and I started standing up for myself. It got to the point where we were standing face to face screaming at one another but she would "back down" and usually go on a wild tantrum, throwing food and furniture around the house, if she failed to win an argument.
It felt good to stand up to her... until I realized that the abuse was just redirected to my widowed father and my grandparents. The things I heard her say and do to them, gutted me. When my father was in the hospital, she would call him and berate him until he broke down sobbing, saying things like "I wish you had died and not mom". She put my grandparents through immense stress by calling them after driving into bad neighborhoods in Detroit, claiming she was in danger and her car broke down so we would have to come and get her. As my father was dying from coronary heart disease, she stole money out of his bank account, and after he passed, she stole a car that technically belonged to me(I paid for it after dad's car was totaled after a fire).
The most frustrating part is she'll have her episodes, then go on pretending nothing ever happened. She'll switch right back to the pleasant sister act. It was terrifying. It was like living next to a walking minefield. Truthfully, I haven't recovered from her, and I'm not even at a point in my life where I want to successfully get away from her. Our family is still desperately trying to remain connected and not exclude anyone, and if I were to push her away completely, it would cause ripples for the rest of my family. I missed out on being able to finish college because of her, I lost money trying to help my dad escape her abuse several times, and all for nothing. It all left me broke and feeling completely destitute and hopeless in my 20s and I have yet to recover.
There are times where I wish that, when she threatened suicide in her Narcissist fits, I wish she would have done it. I would have celebrated being free from her wrath. I even told my friends this, that if she does die suddenly, I wanted to go to a friend's house to celebrate.
I relate to this so much cause my sister is the exact same way 💔
Sounds like a scapegoated borderline
😞
This is the cult doing it's thing. Literallt listen to the actual words your using. Shes literallt veing framed as the whole issue.
Npd is usuallt very together. Not throwing fits like this.
I hope you never lose that shame you feel... You deserve it, you arent helping your sibling, you're just as narcisistic and integral to the cult itself.
Shes dysregulated and losing her mind. This isnt intentional. Its scary because shes 10x more scared then you've ever been. This lack of compassion is sickening
...
I have to say, I also relate to this, you’re not the only one.
This is something kids should be taught about in school. It can often be difficult to recognise manipulative and abusive behaviour but it can ruin one's life easily.
No, sciences with no practical use is what they should learn
Unfortunately, there are some teachers that are manipulative as well. I have a teacher who gets angry about literally everything the class does. One tiny piece of trash on the floor? Scold the entire class and go on an angry rant on how we're lazy pigs who do nothing. Floor is spotless? Scold the entire class and go on an angry rant on how we're the reason the janitors are losing jobs. Class does something wrong? Scold the entire year level, go on an angry rant on how our generation is worthless. Class does nothing wrong? Scold the entire year level, go on an angry rant on how our generation is lazy and too passive.
The Rockefeller system is phyco/ narc .
@@jillsmcfarland2001 🎯
"Parents rights" activists would not allow that.
The later stages of his mother’s behavior represents something I’m familiar with: The secret double bind. For example, you express gratitude to a member of the family, and behind your back the narcissist declares you are manipulative; you express no gratitude, and the narcissist says you are ungrateful. You aren’t told any of this is going on. Narcissists usually can’t be cured, they only become more subtle as they age.
there is the sweet release of death that is the cure for narcissists.
I know that this sounds crazy and I don't expect you to believe me.
Narcissistic people almost never change because they want to.
Their cure can come if someone can enter their psyche and fix them.
@@SkyRied1 If you are crazy I want to know what you mean. If you aren’t crazy then don’t reply.
@@SkyRied1
That's enabler-talk.
@@SkyRied1 That is partially true, but there is one VERY important point you forgot to add. The "gamechanger" person will NEVER change a narcissist intentionally. The super small chance of change could only theoretically come from someone who authentically interacted God knows how with that narcissist. But if somebody went into a relationship with an abuser with that mentality as you described all they would get is... abuse.
It's not your responsibility to fix other people
The worst is with family. Other kinds of relationships are easier to cut off.
Trying to cut off from mine here in Africa. It's hard here when they sabotaged my means of livelihood
A child has _no_ chance to flee. I didn't have one. Nobody believed me how awful my mother was. I was the spoiled brat who didn't value her "love". And now my niece counts the days until she is 18 and can move out from the home of my sister. :´(
@@solidstate9451 I hope your niece isn't to broken to leave - or that you have a spare room she can use.
The worst is when you're so dead inside you can't even leave.
@@anna2belle783 : She knows, she's always welcome in my house. I hope, she uses it.
Solid State that’s so true. I had a friend who was a narcissist. He was so cruel to his children and wife. I would distract him when he did this to his children. I staid his friend only to help his children and wife. I was strong so I could take the abuse. I loved his children so much. I had to do it for them. I think I have a better relationship with his children than he does.
In 2018 I had a romantic relationship with a person who did exactly these kinds of mind games, among other terrible things. I don't want to give too much detail, but it was short-lived and very sexual, as I suppose is the norm with this kind of person. After we finally broke up, my mind was very confused, and I didn't even know how to process what had happened to me. The relationship had left me in a state of resentment, anger, hate and utter confusion. This video here, as well as some others from your channel, were incredibly important for me to make sense of my situation and eventually heal. I am enormously grateful, and wish you all the best.
Why not go and forgive your mother for what she did to you?
I had a very similar situation, my heart goes out to you bro
Oh man the story about the letters broke my heart. Your poor father. He deserved none of that.
He could have stood up for his kids. He was an enabler by choice
@@ElanaVital83 He was a victim.
@@adultcontent18 True. But he needed to stand up to her. Enablers need to stand up, especially when they have kids.
@@ElanaVital83 I agree. But that's easier said than done, especially when you don't fully understand the ways in which you are being manipulated.
@@adultcontent18 He understood enough to acknowledge she was sick. He was just too beaten down by her to have the nerve to say anything, and probably thought it's just easier to keep her happy. My mom was the same way. She was always so busy trying to appease Dad, she didn't take the time to realize her own power in the situation. It's sad when that happens
1) getting called a sheep and believing everything I hear. 2) getting put down for being a fact checker
People that need others to change in order to take part in their reality are denying their own reality
facebook be like
The second one reminds me of one my dad does. When he's trying to pick a fight he'll accuse me of 'having an answer for everything' if I respond, or 'acting like a child' if I walk away and say nothing.
@@TheMusesOrg lol. Dont get me started with my mom. People argue with her because they know she's right. She's a Jehovah Witness.
Anyone who puts others down for being a fact checker is awfully dishonest
My heart breaks hearing about you and your father. I'm so sorry.
Mine too. :(
I really wanted him to keep going, with that story, about him and his parents.
420 likes
I had a parent like that. What's pissing me of is that ppl wrongly believe that the other one is sunshine unjustly suffering. It's not. It takes two for tango and any narc requires victim that is not able to make boundaries. Responsibility is mutual, unhealthy pattern of one person requires unhealthy pattern of another. Stop with the fantasy.
@@DodirAnelaIntuitivnoOtvaranje Huh?
@@DodirAnelaIntuitivnoOtvaranje umm my dad was a victim like that. He used to stand up to her.. now he has dementia... so yeah.. you re wrong. Narcissists are amazing manipulators and you won't even see it coming or you will but you ll even start doubting your judgment.. might even think you re going crazy
"Displays of unshakable conviction don't require the possession of truth" - that hits home
Some people play off double binds as “being cute.” I’ve run into people who commonly say things like “don’t listen to what I say, listen to what I want.” What do you even do with that? Lol
Mine seems to think I really do.
Reality check. Whenever I get this siutation I'll say that if you won't be straight with me I'll dissregard completely. Most friends I know who have suffered /are suffering under others with narcissist tendencies aren't able to stand their ground, or stand up for themselves. A simple "no, stop wasting my time" and sticking to it. No reason to accept a relationship of any kind you don't think is fair.
It's an abuse of power, either way & irreguardless of context, no matter how petty. The onis is on them to adapt their communication to your understanding not the other way around, else we might aswell all speak jiberish to each other and expect total transparency. Notice this person will usually either pretend to miss understand abstract concepts you explain to them OR will deliberately not put in the mental effort required to do so - achieving the same result. I redicule people like this, lavishly, as it is extremely catharic to not take them seriously at all(which strips them of their power in that situation), as they're litterally failing the required ethics for communication.
Yeah I always hated that shit Hollywood trope that if a person says they don't want, say, a party thrown for their birthday, it means they actually do want one. And shit along those lines. Like nah fam if I say I don't want something then I don't fucking want it, I don't play mind games with people so please respect me by not playing them with me
@@thedarkmaster4747 "Just a pedantic little note, "irreguardless" isn't a word. It's just "regardless of context..." ;) Also "onus" (not "onis"), "as well" is two words, and ironically you completely misspelled "gibberish". Lastly, it's "ridicule", not "redicule" (the same as it's ridiculous and not rediculous, which is a mistake I used to make). You have a good vocab, just need to know how to spell the words you know ;)
I thought I was the one who was crazy. Until I started keeping daily notes about things he complained about. Just to prove to myself that I wasn't imagining what he'd said the day before. Every complaint was logged. Because, inevitably, it's reverse was going to be presented the next day. This is in the midst of all the other belittling activity narcissists bring to the table. Damn, I am still in recovery.
CPTSD. Sam Vaknin describes it well. Be careful not to go down the rabbit hole too deep with his lengthy narcissistic videos, but he tells it like it is.
Pfff my ex boyfriend said to me that my notes are bullshit and he never said those things. Even my recordings of him were false. And you know what? He was so manipulating that I believed him. I had a video of him saying X, but I believed him that he didn't said X. Extremely stupid, right? Well, that's how manipulation works. You don't believe your own eyes.
@@TechnoScorpion2137 that is gaslighting! terrible i’m sorry you went through that
@@TechnoScorpion2137 You keep those records for yourself so you can see the pattern of abuse. If this was happening at work the Human Resources department would like to see those records.
Heads I win tails you lose.
Nice example!
Coin lands on edge... Do over, doesn't count!
Heads you lose tails you lose
@@mb-of7wc thanks for that
Flip coin, coin leaves Earth's orbit, never to return.
I think we shared a mother and father. The ending was a little different for mine. She threw him out once all of her children had left home and she thought she no longer needed an enforcer. She discovered very quickly that this meant she no longer had a slave to shop, cook, clean and deal with the outside world according to her orders. Unfortunately for her, my father by now had had a taste of freedom, so that when she wrote to him inviting him to come back, he met the request with genuine hilarity. I still have a letter which he wrote to her at that time saying that if she were on fire, I (=me, not my dad) would pour petrol on her. In fairness, I wouldn't do that, but I certainly wouldn't be in any hurry to find a fire extinguisher.
My siblings and I rapidly reestablished affectionate and supportive relationships with my father, by now quite frail. I decided not to confront him with his failure to protect his children - surely a parent's most important responsibility - or with his failure to acknowledge his part. It wasn't a perfect relationship, but by the end of his life, we had experienced the genuine love and care of a parent who did all he could to support us, in any way he could. I'm sorry your father didn't get to "go clear" but glad for you that you were able to show him informed compassion.
Well I’m glad that you were able to have a happy ending, where u, ur siblings and father were able to escape and now live a happy life, while ur mother is stuck all alone with no slaves to do her bidding or for her to abuse, with no one to blame but herself.
I come from a narcissistic family situation. These traps are extremely common and cruelly applied whenever convenient. It's hard to get your mind back into a good place after drowning in this kind of environment for many years.
how did it work for you
I do to! They also will informally diagnose people they do not like with various disorders and try to force others to see their enemies a certain way. It's bemusing when you encounter these people at work or at a party and you can laugh at them and ridicule them in your own time. ..... But when they are a parent and they get their hands on your money, your car, your transport, your education, your job, .... it's not like they ease off when things are too stressfull for you to handle. They do not care. They just care about convincing themselves that they are superior to everyone they have ever met. And they are obsessed by this goal. They will do anything to make themselves the better person by comparison.
My best friend grew up with a father who acted like this. My friend resents his father for his bs behavior and vowed to never act like that towards his future children. Despite his childhood, my friend managed to grow into a great person.
I feel like people who got really rough childhood either become saint or complete monster.
Not despite, but because, they saw that how hurtful such behaviours were and vowed not to do that themselves. My father was severely physically abused by his parents and because of that he never physically hurt me, he still loved his parents, but he realised that getting beaten by a cane or belt every day isn't the best childhood.
I'm grateful my mother left my narcissistic father when I was 3. Unfortunately, my step father and older sister took that role in the family. Damn things are everywhere.
@@NIHIL_EGO this is because there are two types of people. One says because of my father im doing this and the other says BECAUSE of my father im doing this.
my father was beaten when he was very young. when i was five, he often came to my room and gave me a short beating with his belt. At the same time he was explaining to me how lucky i was as he was using the leather side of the belt while his own parents were using the metal buckle on him. Was he not trying his best to give me a better treatment than he once received as he beat me for no reason? i hated him. even if he died long ago the hatred won't leave me. i'm 42 and i never managed to enter a relationship with a girl, i'm scared of myself. scared of being like him.
My brother always said I was doing the wrong thing by not bending to my parents. He didn’t understand that personal cost. He admitted that my parents were wrong, but insisted that my “pride” was causing issues. He didn’t understand that submitting was a bigger problem and devalued the impact it would have on me. Needless to say, I’ve cut communication with him, and when I have the chance, the same will go for my parents. The people we surround ourselves with have more of an affect on our ability to live successfully than we’d like to admit.
Don’t give in.
Your brother is exactly like my sister. Can’t wait to get out, and I hope life is kinder to you now
Your brother is my mother! She got mad at me for not wanting to talk to my grandmother. There’ll probably be a time where I have to cut all of them off, but I’m not looking forward to it at all.
@@Christian-97 surround yourself with friends and make sure you have a support system. I didn’t have anyone to rely on when I separated myself from my family and that was quite difficult. 0/10 do not recommend
@@speakersr-lyefaudio6830 I do, and I’m beyond grateful to have them. I’ve told two of them about the situation I’m in, and I’m pretty sure the rest of them probably know a little something.
Hopefully you've learned not to cut people off over silly things. Just go with the flow some times. You don't always have to be right.
As a Father going through a sudden custody battle with a Narcissist, I can identify with this video so much. I was in that codependent relationship, and the moment I took action, my confidence in myself and my decision making vastly improved.
hi, i hope your custody battle is going well. my dad got full custody of me last year or so and it was Such a process. good luck!
my advice from watching what my dad went through in court is to Save Everything, and never compromise yourself. every text they send never delete it (even if it’s mean and you want to) but also don’t give into playing the game. i’m court it shows u keep a cool head and it paints her as irrational an unfit parent (important bc of the gender bias in custody cases)
also, for your kids, don’t talk about their parent to them negatively. honestly it hurts so bad. even if your parent has hurt you, or is mentally ill, you still love them and it puts that child in a position where they have to defend the other parent and that’s not a good time.
I hope everything works out. I paid a lawyer to modify my visitation to escape my ex's interference and now my daughter "hates" coming to my house. So it may be time to fight again. Keep your head up.
😔
Good luck, I survived a custody situation with a Borderline. They are crazy enough that often judges see through it. Get a good, female, lawyer.
I completely understand this situation. I have one narcissist who has poisoned my kids against me, is now going around spewing negative stories about me, uttering threats whenever she gets a chance. This video is an excellent narration that has rescued some of us.
My grand father in law was dying in a hospital. He told me "I want you to come to my funeral but please, dont let your kids play video games. I dont care about anyone elses kids, but your kids I do." At the funeral my wives mother told me to get the kids 3ds's (video games) so that they would leave her alone. I told her what her father asked of me. She started screaming at me instantly acting like I hit her. She wouldnt stop screaming. I didnt move. She just kept saying hes hitting me! and screaming, and everyone looked over, then she yelled "this is my family, you have no place to tell me what my father said at his funeral. You have nothing to do with this family, and you are not wanted here." So without saying anything in return, not 1 word, me and my family left. 4 years later we are still treated by her as if we are MONSTERS for leavng the funeral and HOW dare we walk out and disrespect her father so badly. She still wants an apology from me.
Good god
I don't understand what narcissistic people really have in mind, like they have really obscure thinking and twisted mind I guess?
Violent Banana they want submission and absolute attention
I mean, not letting your kids play games is weird. I'll say that. But shouting and lying, in your HUSBANDS FUNERAL?!?! Christ
That doesn't sound like narcissism it sounds like complete batshit insanity
This video reminds me of the time in grade school that my friend asked me “why do you never say anything your bullies? Why do you let them say what ever they want?”
Because they will make fun of me either way. I would rather they laugh at the person they think I am, than open my mouth and let them laugh at the real me. They will have it either way.
Narcissists are not allowed to have access to my true self and real thoughts.
That's logical. Good for you.
Señor Pants thank you for this
I wish more people thought like you do.
true that, bullies are like, that one tiny pebble in your shoe, that is stuck in a way that cannon be removed cuz when u take off the shoe you cant see the pebble but you can feel the pebble there when u put it on and it makes u angry but u know it's useless so u get a new pair of shoes and they are comfy
@@ghoulbuster1 Why is that so painfully accurate. Not like 100% but close enough to be like "Holy hell, a part of my life was just analogized by shoes."
Every time TheraminTrees releases a new video, I feel like a kid again. It feels like Christmas. Just today on the subway, I was watching his video on childhood indoctrination, even though I have seen the video so many times. The quotes within are super deep and super memorable.
TheraminTrees and QualiaSoup should write books. I swear. I'll happily buy them. I'll happily spread the word.
We as humans can all be manipulated. And we need to be more equipped to resist abuse, psychological or otherwise.
THANKS FOR YOUR WORK!!!!! - Lloyd
I thought maybe I was the only one watching some of these over and over trying to memorize some of the DELICIOUS sentences. It's not that I want to parrot someone else. But when learning good ways of expressing feelings and ideas that I already have I have to start somewhere.
Lovely comment! Yes, wouldn't that be nice? It's so interesting to watch his videos and reevaluate my childhood 😔
@@ericmishima Yes, Some of his phrases are truly delicious!
I constantly manipulate myself with double binds. I ask myself, am I smart? If I answer yes then I’m cocky, narcissistic, arrogant, egotistical etc. if I answer no then I am self conscious, depressed, Unconfident, etc. I think this is the nature of indecisiveness, being brutally aware of the consequences of certain decisions.
The thing is world is not black and white
@@trappart9209 But when it is, this applies
@@intravine it's not about only logic of the idea but about it's authenticity as well. So, if world is not black and white, application of this idea is not the best alternative in decision-making
I have been the same, noddle. But there IS a solution. Here it goes:
What makes the difference is in answer yourself : (about being smart i.e.)
- Am I smart? YES
- Is it good to be smart? YES, if it's used in a moral, decent way.
- How I use being smart in my life? example answer: "Well, I help people to solve their problems and make their lives better".
- WHY I want to solve people's problems and make their lives better? answer: Because I want them to be free from troubles, burdens and pain.
Here is your answer.
Part 2: Ask yourself : "Do narcissistc, arrogant, egoists help people to set them free from troubles, pain, burdens? " Well, the answer is very obvious: NO.
Result: Having this feature and using it in a way you use it DOESN'T make you being a narcissist. By the way, no narcissist worries about a possibility of being a narcissist. Trust me, I was raised by 3 narcissists. They believe(d) they never made any mistakes, they were most noble people ever, nothing was ever their fault and in their opinions they never thought they might have any flaws.
The sole fact you're worried you might be a narcissist is a proof you are NOT a narcissist.
the answer I’ve found is that this is a misuse of the logical law of the excluded middle; a logical fallacy. The law of the excluded middle requires that a thing must either possess a given attribute, or must not possess it. A thing must be one way or the other; there is no middle. My argument is fallacious because it excludes the middle, when there is indeed a middle ground; it is possible to be both smart and not smart.
"If you tell the truth, I won't get mad." [GETS MAD ANYWAYS]
My childhood ... great memorys
I have to walk on eggshells with EVERYONE besides my brother in my life lmfao so dumb
@@brittany5872 LOL! It's the opposite with me. I'm okay with everyone...except my brothers.
Brock Lee aww haha really that’s so funny !
😂 i was always massively chastised by my parents for being a shy somewhat reclusive kid. At the same time, they did their best to imprison me within the house and isolate me from the outside world. As I grew up, and my social anxiety lessened, i made more friends in school and my parents did their best to sabotage any relationship i had with friends under the justification that “they aren’t a great fit for me” or “their families have bad reputation” ..etc
When i was a kid, my father often had unpredictable fit of rage where he terrified us by yelling, throwing chairs, slamming doors and breaking plates. There was one evening where he threw a big tantrum because he wanted to eat endive but it was not on the menu. He yelled hard at my mother for not satisfying him.
The next evening he once again burst into a rage as there was still no endive to eat, bringing my mother to tears with his verbal abuse.
The next evening another huge fit of rage, he was mad. my mother had took the long time necessary to cook endive, but it was too late, he didn't want endive anymore, so once again chairs were flying.
Now the scene ridiculousness is obvious to me, but back then in my mind was only terror and the hope he would calm down.
Another time, at noon we were all eating together. the atmosphere was calm, peaceful yet tense, because living with my father was like living with a time bomb. He asked me for the salt and i quickly reacted, afraid a slow reaction would make the bomb explode.
He exploded, yelled, slammed the doors, etc...
in my hurry to provide the asked salt i had handed him the first salt shaker i saw, alas there was two in front of me, one almost filled the other almost empty. i had handed him the almost empty one, he glared at both, then at me, then exploded.
another day i was alone with him and he felt like throwing another childish tantrum that used to terrify me. At some point he thought he needed to throw a bottle at a door to support his argument. With such a strong throw we both fully expected the glass bottle to break. But no. The bottle hit the door top first and instead of breaking it stayed there, stuck.
It completely shook my father who, just like that, forgot he was supposed to be in a fit of rage and was now instead enjoying the sight and how he successfully did something quite amazing, sharing with me his feeling of amazement with a joyous face.
At that time i realized how much all of his tantrums where just a show and not real feelings. His previous show was stopped when a better show popped out of the blue.
those show of his made my mother go hiding to cry so many times but to him it was just a sick kind of game made to be the one in control and to claim attention.
Despite all the good times we shared, i hated him when i was a kid because he was an unpredictable violent madman that was always belittling me, on 3 different times going as far as calmly telling me with hatred that i would be better dead. But as i grew up i started to hate him because I slowly came to realize how pathetic and toxic he was.
Then hated him because of this one time where i held my ground against him as he burst in angers just because we crossed path in the house as i, for once, dared to go out of my room and failed to avoid him. I failed to hear he was behind a door and didn't retreat, thus we simply met with surprise as i passed the door. He glared at me, upset to have been surprised, then hit the door with rage to show off. i was sick of acting in fear of him so i glared back, hit the door harder then went my way.
No words were said, but just for this he went mad, fetched his hunting rifle, tried to kill me with it but failed to find me.
Luckily, i was outside and my brother came to warn me of what was happening. Once he had calmed down, my father realized what he had tried to do and went to the police to give them the culprit rifle.
he never talked about this event, like it never happened, and resumed being an asshole.
@@anthonyjames4247 Belgian endive to be accurate, but whatever, that was not the point. the point was the no-win situation my mother was placed in.
Wow people should be screened before allowed to raise their own children. I am so sorry that happened. I hope you are making the best of your life moving forward, I find breathing techniques and using a life coach had helped me tremendously with my own past traumas.
@@jbeim777 Thank you :) i appreciate your kind words.
I wasn't hoping for such word by writing this, what i would really be glad about is to hear it helped someone.
When i was a kid, watching the TV i heard many times about parental violence. But every time on TV they where discussing case of kids hiding their bruises, having fractured bones, being killed.
At that time i was wondering if i should reach out for help or if i was not worthy.
Was it OK? After all i had never been killed by my father.
My father was terrifying but no one was talking about that aspect so it didn't count.
He was sometime slapping me or such, but it was rare and only hurt on the moment. it was nothing compared to the kids shown on TV.
And well i had not a lot of... self-worth thanks to the belittling stuff i received.
In the end i thought it was not so bad, at least not as bad as other kids who where more "legit" victim of child abuse with their broken arms, or even sexual abuse.
Bullshit, what i was going through was abnormal and seriously bad.
Of course i should have been helped... i should have reached for that help instead of staying hidden in my room. i should have talked about it at school instead of keeping it secret.
More importantly i should have fled, tried to convince my mother this was not ok.
instead, in my ignorance, i endured, suffered a lot and nearly got killed. And the only "benefit" of enduring this long is the big mass of hatred that is still there in my heart as well as a super low self-esteem.
I want for people who are victim of abuse to know this simple truth:
Run!
bro isn't that attempted murder? thats jail time daddy
@@pipMcDohl The reality for all children growing up is that every one of them has flawed parents who royally mess up somehow, and yet most kids are not better off with someone other than their own parents because there's no huge world of volunteers looking to raise other people's children with love and skill. The foster system isn't exactly a comfortable alternative unless the abuse is quite horrible.
"A polite smile will acknowledge you've heard them. You could even thank them for sharing their thoughts. Then, you can ignore everything they've said and keep being yourself."
This quote is way funnier than it should be. Maybe it should be repurposed as a meme format?
Anyway, this is a very thought provoking video. You've earned a new viewer, thanks for sharing.
Yellowishnesses “understandable, have a nice day 🙂✌️”
Good advice 😁
Its a meme quote from RDJ too.
I had a narcissistic friend and this is exactly what I used to do to keep from killing him. He was also a business partner.
My friend says this is being passive aggressive!
I feel physically sick watching this..the impact of generational trauma and abuse is horrendous and the reason for the loss of so many lives..we didn't loose them to cancer or inevitable death, the ongoing psychological stress was without a doubt a contributor. I really hope the world wakes up to the damage of dysfunctional families stunting so many today. Content like this only helps. I'm deeply grateful for this video, for this channel. Your music is a blessing too! Keep Going. Amen.
I love the famous "dont argue with me!" one liner.
Or "my house my rules"
@@theprocrastinator6813 "I brought you into this world!"
@Elder Statue my response to that one has always been “ah, so you admit (insert whatever started the argument) was your fault.”
Because I said so!
How about "stfu and dont speak out of position?" Theres this thing called structure and thats how it works
TH-cam needs more of this content in the "trending" section.
Hahahahahaha
TH-cam and Google ARE the narcissist in this situation...
id agree, but this requires observation and critical thinking which most of society lacks today
Nah, trending is already occupied by endless play station 5 adds
Agreed.
"you shouldn't have called the firemans for help"
Said my mother after pretending to try to kill herself by jumping out of the window.
"You don't care about me, nobody Care if I die !"
Said my mother when I didn't call any emergency services while she was pretending to be trying to kill herself.
If I do something I lose, if I do nothing I lose.
Jesus christ
What the heck...
@@wissemaljazairi We can all see you had the chance to have had a normal mother, not a narcisistic one...
@@wissemaljazairi
she tried more than 14 Times... And she's still alive. The reality is that she's not actually trying she's just pretending so that she can get whatever she's asking for.
(Asking for things like "break that bitch's stuff" or "kill her", "swear on my life that you love me and kill that bitch" (the "bitch" being my step mom) and other stuff like that. You can hardly agree to that.)
The first 5 Time you might actually believe that she's doing it for real... But at some point, when it's like the 6th time you start to understand that she is just pretending.
Also if you want a bit of context she also tried to kill my sister, and if you're a "pro-life" Well then I guess you can Say that she tried to kill me (not really thoo I was like 6 month old inside of her and she try to drown herself in a river) anyway, she's still alive, every times she "try to kill herself" it's conveniently when there's people around to save her... It's just pretending to get what she want and she will continue as long as it work, as long as people give her what she want.
By doing that she got to keep everything in the divorce, the 350 000 euro house, 30 000 euro mobile home, 250 000 euro bank account. Everything and my dad was left with nothing even thoo he was the one who built the house.
@@wissemaljazairi Wow. How horrible are you to your mother than you will disobey her explicit commands?!?!?!
This structure of having a narcissist mother and a coward father is a lot more common than any of us could have ever realized had this video not existed, so thank you for that. It doesn’t solve the problem, but it makes me feel better to know that I’m not alone, and I’m sure others feel the same.
Yeah
I got a narcissist father and a coward, enabling mother. They divorced early with mother dragging me through three marriages always resulting in one more sibling and another divorce. Even today, when we meet, she portraits herself as the victim while father talks only about himself and his stuff for solid two hours without even asking me how I feel or what am I doing... It makes me sad but that was just the cards I've been dealt.
@@LiborTinkaMy wifes parents are the same way. It amazes me how she grew up with such horrible parenting but became such a wonderful person. I hope you are doing well, and have surrounded yourself with the friends you deserve.
so true.. it makes me feel better that I'm not alone
One narc and one enabler is a really common abusive household structure. Narcs often repel each other; think of how many problems a narc has with ordinary people, then imagine how upset they'd get having to deal with another monster like themselves.
I've experienced this a lot, only I wasn't the victim in my story.
There were so many times I tried to make my partners feel like they were garbage and had to seek my guidance, and I felt some sick sort of accomplishment whenever I succeeded, even though deep down I knew something was wrong.
It really hit hard when I realized what I had been doing, and I finally understood why all my relationships had broken after one year at the latest. Now that I'm aware of my 'monster' (that's what I called this trait of mine) I've been able to lead a stable relationship for the past 3 years. Nevertheless I sometimes still have trouble sleeping at night because of the memories of the suffering I caused and I *still* have to be cautious not to fall back into old habits!
If you ever find yourself with a person that does these things to you, save yourself a *lot* of sanity and leave them!
I’ve never actually seen anyone acknowledge they did this before. Most either seem unaware of it or don’t see it as a problem/refuse to acknowledge it altogether. The first step in solving any problem is to know what it is, so you’re well on your way. I wish all the best to you and your partner, and I hope you continue understanding yourself on deeper levels and improving the way you treat others. Thanks for sharing.
Wow. Congrats on your self aw awareness and work you do on yourself. Go inside to examine where your need to control others comes from. Perhaps trying to control outcomes in a world that’s scarily unpredictable ? Fear the unknown less and go with it with courage. When that actually works out fine, maybe everything doesn’t need quite such control as you though
That's incredibly interesting. When did you start showing signs of narcissism? Do you know why you were that way? I hope you're doing well!
If it makes you feel any better, you aren't alone! I think people see narcississm and people with a disordered level of it as a binary thing, you either are one or you aren't. Having grown up in a family with multiple people with varying degrees of it I can say that is absolutely not the case in my experience. Empathy and self awareness are learned skills, despite how much we like to think they're innate, thats why narcissist behaviour can come across as extremely childish, it comes from a childlike lack of empathy, self awareness, and emotional maturity. ("You didnt do it right!" "I did it how you told me to!" "Well then you must not have been listening to me at all! I said -insert something completely different than what they originally said-!")
My birth mom is the classic full blown kind. Manipulative, abusive, neglectful, literally believes other people dont have feelings, at least not ones that matter more than hers, blatantly favored one kid as her Golden Child, ignored two of them as much as possible, and abused one of them as much as possible (lucky me! /s), the works. And a hoarder to top it off. (We literally had an entire room in the basement filled with nothing but cat piss and shit.)
My oldest brother on the other hand is a bit more like you. We've talked about it a LOT. I know, like me, he never even had the remotest chance of developing in anything close to a healthy way. He has enough empathy and self awareness to understand hurting people is bad and to learn and admit he did something wrong, but it takes him a ton of effort to figure it out on his own when he has and take responsibility for his own actions. He and I have talked openly about it in the past, he would say that talking to me makes it easier for him to understand than when he tries on his own. He liked taking to me about his issues because I could help him understand things and I liked helping him learn more about himself. I did a mini test once when he said and did something I immediately understood as being rude and selfish. Normally I would have gently explained to him how his behavior came across but since it was extremely minor (it was the emotional equivalent of a little kid offering a bunch of candy to a friend but then guilting them for eating ALL of it the moment they reach for ANY of it, and ultimately giving away only a single piece of something neither like) I decided to hold off on mentioning it and see if he would on his own. Six hours later, he did! Apparently he had been feeling bad all day and couldnt figure out why with out thinking hard about it for a while and eventually realizing it was because he had been selfish and rude. I told him about how glad I was he figured it out himself and then we talked about how long it took him, how awareness of his behavior been instant for me yet for him it took six hours of hard thought. That was an eye opener for both of us I think. I got a better understanding of just how difficult it is for him to practice things that come so easily to me they feel natural, and he got a better understanding of why people who love him can find it incredibly difficult to deal with him sometimes.
Narcissism doesnt make you an inherently bad person any more than empathy automatically makes you a good person. Everyone is capable of being selfish. Hell the ability to still do things considered nice is what makes manipulative narcassists so successful! My birth mom was an *expert* at that shit. She turned lovebombing me into its own cruel game where if I didnt reciprocate with an even greater intensity I would get guilted and abused even more, and no matter how much I grew to hate her, I still wanted to believe her "I love you" actually meant anything other than "tell me how much YOU love ME. RIGHT NOW. OR ELSE." Point is, people who struggle with narcissim can commit acts of abuse but still strive to be good people, and people who think they have lots of empathy can still be capable of cruelty and abuse.
That said, you should never feel obligated to maintain a relationship with someone who is not safe or healthy for you to be around, even if they're related by blood and they're trying to do better. Its a common manipulation tactic to keep control over someone by showing a big display of remorse and claiming to want to get better that guilts people into staying and continuing to take their abuse because " at least they're trying!". In reality, when someone truly becomes aware of an abusive pattern in their behavior and they actually WANT to get better, they make a serious effort to change and stick with it, even if it means removing *themselves* from the environment/relationship. They might still makes mistakes but they dont actively try to keep the cycle going by keeping their victim trapped with assurances of love and change.
I think you'd all be very surprised to know how many people struggling with this monster are watching this video right now.
There is a prominent narcissist in my life, so this was very instructive. Thanks for sharing your insights TT. They are always more than illuminating. I'm so glad that you can still find the time and inclination to make videos! All the best, TLD.
Hey TLD. I hope all's well with you. Sorry to hear you're dealing with a prominent narc - sounds draining. They truly suck don't they - they suck time, energy, humour .... you name it. Good luck keeping yours at bay. Peace ;8)
"Quit being such a drag"
"Why do you never take anything seriously?"
God, that hits WAY too close to home.
I recently stumbled into your channel via youtube's recommended section because of your videos on theological topics (which are all excellent, I've been listening for the past few hours while I work on some artwork) when this one came on through the autoplay. I've tacitly related to the psychological tactics you touch on in other videos, but seeing my own experiences so clearly outlined is... Well, it's actually really hard to hear, if I'm being honest.
I'm only 18 so I still live with my parents while I attend community college, and for the longest time I tried to rationalize their behavior as a consequence of something I've been doing wrong this whole time, but the more I talk to the only friend I trust with that kind of discussion, the more I realize that there probably isn't anything I can do to please them. It's faded a little as I've gotten older, but it's definitely still there.
My parents will tell me that they want me to just stay home and focus on school, but then when I make a mistake on household chores they yell at me about how I'm a lazy piece of shit who doesn't even have a job so why can't I just clean the entire house every day without being asked, it's not like I have anything better to do...
When I failed my first driver's license test, I was under the impression that most people fail the first time and that it wasn't a big deal, but my dad was pissed and said it was all my fault for failing. When I failed the second time, he got mad at me when I was upset about failing instead of just brushing it off and trying again later.
When I leave my long hair (itself a great source of disapproval) wavy and free-flowing the way I prefer it, they tell me that I look like shit and that I should wash it better or just cut it, you're a boy so why do you want long hair anyways? But then when I'm fresh out of the shower and it's all slicked back the way they always tell me to do it otherwise, they say i look ridiculous and that I'm trying too hard.
When I clean up after them, they yell at me for not putting their stuff away right, even when I think I'm following their instructions to the letter, and when I don't, they yell at me for not cleaning the house because, of course, what else am I going to do with my jobless hours? Obviously I lie about how much schoolwork I have just so I can play videogames all day...
They've even pulled stuff that you mentioned in your own video. I'm rather quiet and skittish by nature, so I'm always getting comments to lighten up and talk a little, etc. etc., but then when I'm talking to all two of my friends on discord they wonder aloud why I never take anything seriously and talk on the phone all day.
It doesn't help that I have a really bad case of ADHD, which makes it all the more difficult to parse through what is me genuinely messing up and them being unreasonable. I used to think it was all me, because that was all I was ever told both by them and some of my other family like my grandmother and uncle. But nowadays, I don't know what to think anymore.
I cannot thank you for helping me figure out what they're doing. I've had plans to move from Cali to Pennsylvania to get away for a while now, and I feel more comfortable with that plan now than I ever have before. I just hope I can gain enough financial independence to go through with it.
Ah, good this hurts. Mix messages are so annoying.
Glad your doing ok now
You did great Orange Ninja. It's hard to come out of a parents house like this unscathed. Wish you great success and luck on your way.
@@scumparasite2014
- who fails the driving test twice?
Literally every single person I asked failed at least once, including my driving instructor. Many failed 2, 3, or even 4 times. My second fail was only one mistake away from passing.
- you told us you play a lot of videogames
no, I told you what my parent's rhetoric regarding videogames is like. I spend the vast majority of my time either cleaning or doing school work on my computer. Yes, even during the summer, I have summer classes.
- no excuse to be jobless
Well when I don't have a license to drive and my parents keep telling me to focus on school (even as they contradict that a lot), what am I supposed to do?
I understand you want me to introspect a little, and that's ok. But try and understand that that's what I've done my entire life, and while I have a lot of my own personal problems, the ones I laid out are definitely external.
All I can say is, same. It’s beyond frustrating. And to everybody on the outside you just look like a failure who’s own parents, even, hate them.
FireyDeath4 I’ve actually started doing this EVERY time i begin to argue with my parents. I start recording on my phone. But the thing is people can’t be bothered to listen and just write it off as me being nutso. More like trying to defend my name. It really does make you feel crazy, though. Always being wrong.
My father's in the hopsital with Covid, he has COPD, he's not doing well and we're very worried he's going to die. My mother (who's been divorced from him for 13 years both me and my sister are nearly 30) started to grow increasingly upset and enraged over me and my sister bickering playfully about who was holding what stencil when we were making him a poster to hang on the window of his hospital room. She claimed it was over fear of getting paint on her new table, but after a minute of argueing with my sister she admitted it was because it was "disresceptful" to be making a poster for him in HER and my step-dads house. It was a heavy blow to know that after all these years shes still bitter over their divorce and holds it over our heads purely out of the fact that we love him and we're worried for him. Anytime she gets upset she accuses us of not being fair, for not loving her like we love him, and using our love for our own dad against us.
Update?
The humor part when dealing with narcissists really hit home for me like a clock to the face. Lots of people call me unexpectedly funny or hilarious, but it's not for nothing. I learned very early on with my narc mother that humor was the literal dangling, shiny golden key to distract her. I've always had a sense of humor, people have always said I was funny, even when I wasn't trying to be, but in her case, it was survival. I know the big rule of funny is not outright admitting you're funny. It's more of a show, not tell kind of deal, but I have to say it for the sake of this experience. The more I was able to work on, and refine my humor, voices, acting, punchlines and jokes, the safer I was. A jester in her court of madness if you will. Appealing to her vanity, praising even her smallest accomplishments as if they were ground-breaking scientific revelations, or sometimes dressing down when she was around a certain event was another tactic. Though I didn't always do that, if she was going too far, I was not scared to bluntly tell her to knock it off, and she was making a fool of herself, and no one was stupid enough to go along with whatever she was trying to pull. Sometimes, she'd have the gall to literally ask me. "hypothetically..... what would YOU do if you were ME?" So she could get another fresh brain or eyes into her scheme, but on the rare occasion I humored her, she would then flip it around like it was her idea. If she tried "what I would do", and it didn't work out, she would come at me in a rage like I was trying to set her up. If she exposed herself because she twisted my words around and went and did something stupid, she would still fly into a rage. This could be things as small as purchasing different brands of milk for a recipe or something. 3-4 hour rages and holding hostage to hear her talk in circles.
Her #1 fear was being found out of her misdeeds to the community she tried so hard to look like an angel in front of, and I let her know I knew it. Being funny also got me out of binds with other non-narcs, so humor is mostly welcome by most, but narcs seem to receive it most, ESPECIALLY when that humor is self-depreciating.. on your end of course.
Any other narcs I run into, the "funny trick" usually works...unless they are those rare ones who just have to be #1 funny person (solely for the adoration), or they are the more classical sexist narcs who are so fucking adamant that no women can be funny, ever.... but in my case, here's this woman that has everyone in stitches at work, a speech, at dinner or an outing. I ran into one who was a combination of the two types. Even when I wasn't talking, or doing my own thing, he would just glare at me with dead, expressionless eyes, and just kept demanding with a sneer that I wasn't funny, I was copying someone (a guy), even if I was talking about my own life experiences, or that I was "trying too hard to be male". He said women didn't even need to be funny, and because society does view me as "attractive" in general, my humor was uncalled for. When his demanding that I shut up, and know my supposed gender place didn't work, he then went on this stupid, elaborate, almost hilarious campaign to get everyone on the bandwagon that I'm just not funny. Yes, humor is subjective, no one's going to find everyone funny, I know I'm not going to be funny to everyone, and that's okay, but no normal person went through the lengths he did to try and convince the whole world of why it was gospel fact that I wasn't funny simply because I was a woman. He was trying to break me down, and cease any positive experiences I had for making people laugh. If someone laughed at my joke, or an action or impression that I did, he'd try and control the other person's reaction to my humor as if they made some unforgivable slight against him. He'd try and make jokes and people just didn't find him funny. If no one laughed at him, he'd always bring me up and accuse them of laughing at my jokes just to spite him, or that because I was a woman, they were being "easy" on me, or they wanted to "sleep" with me, even if the people he was accusing of such claims were straight women or gay men. His toxicity was slowly being recognized by all in the group, and they were distancing themselves. He then accused me of that too, convinced I had something to do with it, but he just couldn't see that I didn't have to do anything. I rarely spoke of him, and his actions were all most people with half a brain needed to see.
To stick it to him, when he was around, instead of that brash, semi- vulgar humor, I switched to that really, really dry, intellectual humor that completely went over his head. Like, 100% confusion on why people were still laughing and his campaign didn't work. There's different kinds of humor out there, one of them is in-joke humor. He wasn't around us for very long, so in-joke humor went right over him. I will admit, to "ease" his suffering, and confusion, I did look him in the eye and let him know I was messing with him, obviously implied that I knew just what he was, and what he was trying to do and at this point, I was just having some fun. At one outing, the guy was up to his old tricks, trying to quiet everyone down from laughing at my jokes. He then started firing off with jokes, and when people didn't laugh or were confused, he'd just bang the table and ask why they weren't laughing, thinking it was a gang-up against him. I was fed up, so I eventually explained to the whole group of friends about different types of humor and it was grand that some people just didn't get it, no matter how big their temper tantrums get or how much they want to brainwash others into what is funny or not. Oh, and that women can be funny. The way that guy looked at me, if looks could kill, I'd be a red smear on the floor. He had to excuse himself from the table a few times because he was shaking, fists white-knuckled on the table, and turning a bit red-purple in the face. All narcs get red to even a brilliant purple in their faces, and start shaking in a bout of impending narc rage. Me personally? I recommend introducing them to a stun gun if they want to go crazy and attack you for no reason other than their poor little ego was bruised when nothing even happened...it was all in their brains. No need to bruise your fists, bruise them, break chairs, or get possible murder charges, just shock the mess out of them with the highest voltage you can legally get. If they scream like a possessed banshee, get redder in the face, get the blank-black eyes, bare their teeth, (the usual narc crap), and get back up to attempt battery on you again, shock, rinse, repeat if necessary. Put them down like the crazed animal they are, tell them never to do that again, and get out. I would rather be peaceful always, but in my existence on earth, I find that narcs only understand three key main things in terms of consequences: Possible mass exposure, loss of supply, and pain. If you simply expose a narc, they will fight to the death, but you maim, injure, or beat the ever loving crap out of a narc, they usually don't come back. They don't even send their flying monkeys to do their dirty work for revenge, they'll just avoid you instead, and act so "hurt." Oh yes, they'll have the tears, waterworks, and how "awful" their traumatic event was, how "crazy/demonic" you are, and to pray for them. You were supposed to let them hurt you, not the other way around. That's not how the script goes, but you did them damage instead. They would get revenge for your insolence, but narcs understand pain, and they don't like it. Psychopaths, and to an extent, sociopaths tend to be able to stand a lil' pain, risk, or damages, and will come after you, or send others after you if they feel the need, even if they were tortured, or got beaten within an inch of their life, they'll just come right back. Narcs on the other hand, tend to avoid these things, and it points to their very scared and fragile natures, and it thus proves the narc only has empathy and love for themselves. They will call you crazy for defending yourself, will have no issue ruining you from the inside out for some perceived slight, but who's the crazy one, for say, raising a lethal weapon to someone with blank-eyed rage, because someone rightfully won something, or someone calmly told them, "no"? Narcs love themselves too much to tangle with someone who has no issue rearranging their face, shooting out a kneecap, or putting them in an embarrassing sleeper hold. Narcs never learn though. Even if they meet an even crazier person than they are, they'll just go for softer targets, and stupidly, go right back to trying to test and break down stronger targets, who may have been just like the last guy/girl who beat them up, which points to the narc's utter stupidity. They. Are. *STUPID*. I can imagine narcs always looking over their shoulder, because of all of the people they pissed off over the years, which is evidence that they KNOW what they are doing, and all of this is a CHOICE.
This whole thing was just fascinating to me. I'm not scared of narcs, because not only do I know how to deal with them, I have no problem in letting them know just how pathetic they are. I think on my feet, and I'm pretty blunt, so it is possible to beat them at their own game---until you can get the hell away from them, and for GOOD. Narcs are poison, staying around poison for too long can literally kill you, and in this case, it can kill your sanity, dealing with the noxious fume of these..."people." I find them funny, but not in the good way. I didn't have to put up with him for long though, he was a temporary stay and went back home to his own family. Thank you for bringing light to the humor aspect, Theramintrees. It is absolutely 100% correct. People, if you cannot so easily go no-contact with these vile individuals, work of the art of funny. IT WORKS.
cool
Mind game problems require mind game solutions
I don't have much to say, except that I really want to have your kind of mental strength. It's really admirable that you could not only be emotionally intelligent enough to notice and deal with that kind of double binding, but also that you're smart and quick enough to take control of the situation and let them know who's stronger.
Sounds like this person just wants to show dominance for whatever reason, but I have no clue why this should be related to gender. In my experience this happens regardless of the group configuration gender wise.
@@-butterfly-594 smart doesn't always mean aggressive
"You're SO sensitive" is this a double-bind? You either have to accept it, or try to refute it without appearing sensitive to the accusation
yeah it is, been through that one
I feel like it's not. That's just their perception of you. If you disagree and they don't believe you, they might just not be convinced. A double bind would be more like:
"Stop being SO sensitive"
*Doesn't react to their insults*
"Omg you are so cold"
I view it more as a form of gaslighting. "You're SO sensitive" means "there's something wrong with you for not enjoying abuse". They claim their abuse is not actually abuse, and that you're defective and immature for reacting to it in pain.
@@Chikin1ninjas Isn't that situational? Some people might not react as you do. In some cases it may indeed be abuse but I'm sure some people say it in it's non-toxic meaning.
Edit:
Somehow I didn't read your first sentence. I'm not totallt on board with these terms. Isn't gaslighting when you make someone doubt theirself or something?
probably the simplest double bind there is
I remember overhearing one of my parents telling the other accusingly: "YOUR child [me] always leaves the room when I come in." Which was true because ... Well, see video. What an odd redirection of blame from themselves to me to the other parent.
@The Skeptic Philosopher We're talking about Narcissists. They're incapable of having meaningful relationships and will NEVER look at their own behavior without shifting blame for any bad behavior.
It's not only pointless but harmful to believe any real connection or meaningful relationship is possible.
Oh yeah me too. Same thing. Why do they always say your child?
@@ianbowden2524 Because otherwise they'd have to admit some fault might lie with them.
@@ianbowden2524 Narcissistic parents don't believe there is anything wrong with them so when they see the child fail or not live up to their impossible standards they think it has to be the other parent. "I have nothing wrong with me so it must be them!"
I used to avoid both of my parents too. It was just too painful to be in the same room with the insults belittling and humiliations with mom especially if we had those black family get togethers for holidays. I’d get so anxious I couldn’t eat or I’d be nauseous. Even if no one was around mealtimes were like walking on eggs. .
The parts about your mother are sobering to hear. When I think about how my mother acted around me, end especially when I tell others how she acted, I can't help but feel I'm being too dogmatic, that I'm overreacting or embellishing stories or was seeing abuse where there was none. The particular part about your mother's "victory stories" though, was indistinguishable from my own. Even when I was barely old enough to remember her conversations I recall all the times she came home talking about how she's "never going back to x store again" or how she had to "do y worker's job for them", and when you're young and impressionable you just think "wow my mum's incredibly unlucky with the people she runs into" or even fall into admiration, "wow, she has such a quick wit about her". It's only when you get old enough to process what's happening when you're with her, and linking it to your own experiences, you stop yourself.
When I was about 6 or 7, me and my mum were waiting at a Pizza takeaway. I heard the people working speaking a foreign language and was genuinely curious, so I asked my mum what language it was. She turned to the people working, and for her, this came out as "where are you from?". I didn't really understand this at that age, but of course that kind of question can come across as abrasive and a bit aggressive to someone just doing their job, so they coldly shrugged off the comment. What happened next was her voice raising strikingly quickly, insisting she know, insisting they be polite, and acting incredibly slighted in an immense overreaction. I felt incredibly embarrassed that she was insisting this was an innocent question on behalf of me, I hated, and still hate, confrontation on any scale (to the point where it's a genuine flaw I want to try and fix) and I wasn't nearly invested enough in the answer to spark, from what I remember, my mum shouting insults at just some random takeaway worker. I'd be perfectly fine, if not a bit grumbly at being told to mind my own business. Anyway it took only 30 seconds for her to storm out dragging me with her arm, just sort of dazed by it all. From that point on, whenever she brought home another "victory story", and when she tried to manifest angry labels on me to manipulate me, I kept thinking about the guy in the takeaway worker just trying to do his job, and think "did that really happen?".
Water repels witches? I thought witches float because they're made of wood.
I get that reference
No, they float because they weigh the same as a duck. 😉
@ZeOverman but rocks dont burn as great as woods and ducks.
Who are you so wise in the ways of science?
@@bonogiamboni4830 Arthur, King of the Britons!
As someone who tried to build a relationship with a narcissist, I find it true that the best strategy is to avoid such people. When someone with self-esteem issues encounters a narcissist it may lead to a whole lot of self-hatred, while it was never personal from the very moment you've decided to talk to that person. Their logic is so absurd that anything you do turns into gaslighting. The amount of manipulation is absurd, the amount of self-love mixed with even stronget self-hatred is absurd. Narcissism is an essense of absurdity. I was lucky to notice all that early on and ditch that person.
TL,DR: if anyone treats you like shit, just stand up and leave. You'd be happier without them than living an eternal mental torture with no hope for the future
You are so awesome! I'd whish I was so clever as you when I decided to be born as the child of a narcisstic mother. No, that couldn't have happened to YOU, you are such a badass!
Sometimes I feel like the more you interact with someone who displays narcissistic tendency the more you yourself become a narcissist. I can't even tell if I was the narcissist or whether my mother was but the relation we had and have today is still tumultuous at best and rather unstable.
@@incognitonotsure909 Don't feel TOO bad about it. Everyone is narcissistic on a scale of 1 to 10 and I found myself at the end of those relations just like you said, becoming narcissistic myself, because I was eventually left with no choice but to be FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE Which is advertently lead to it bleeding into other areas unrelated my life for where sometimes I was firing machine guns in squirt gun fights.
Recovery from narcissistic abuse/ insults is often a two steps forward/ one step back process.
"When x is playful they are told to be serious. When x is serious they are told to be playful."
Story of my life
Narcissist: “You’re always mad. You never smile anymore”
Me: damn that is true. I need some better company 😆
goes out to relax + have fun with friends. Narc sees me laughing and having a good time with a friend “why are you acting weird? Is there something going on between you two?!” 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
I was never allowed to be silly as a child and would often be shamed for basically being a child. Then when I'd had the silly punished out of me, to the point where others being silly gave me high anxiety, I was shamed for being too serious.
Fuck you, "dad".
I was raised in a cult, couldn't even go outside alone until I was 12. Could never have friends over or go to thier house. But I was also punished for being "lazy" "antisocial" and staying inside all day.
Plenty of daily double binds, admitting to things I hadn't done. When my mom left the cult she tried to convince me it was for my sake, that she finally started to care about the abuse. Turns out she was just cheating with some guy she met at a pretzel stand and wanted her shot to be a gold digger. She kicked me out a couple months after leaving the cult and then got engaged to pretzel guy. He's a genuinely good person, and intervened when she'd show her true colors. Honestly I'm just hoping he's not stupid enough to give her another kid to abuse, and smart enough to get a divorce before she destroys him.
I was raised in the Jehovah's Witness cult. It is a large cult with many of the same characteristics of all cults (one of them is the hamster wheel of activities - keeping the people busy to exhaustion).
Many would hold resentment for the pretzel stand guy in your situation, that's very big of you to wish him well in hoping he escapes the Narcissists abuse.
your videos feel like an academic course where topics you’ve brought in earlier fit together with seemingly unrelated topics, except unlike college, these are free, and you’re a very clear and organized speaker (unlike some lecturers i know)
Well he does teach us about forms of manipulation and what makes them manipulation, so they are going to have some aspects in common
Kelli R. Morris You know hacking people is illegal, right?
23:50 reminds me of that well known quote: "First they came for X, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an X. Then, they came for Y, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Y either. And then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up for me." The bystander mentality is probably the most important to maintaining systems of oppression. It gives that false sense of the majority being okay with whatever terrible stuff is happening, and from there desensitizes people until that illusion of the majority being okay with what's happening eventually becomes the reality.
So deep
My brother in law helped my mother and my sister in their narcisstic abuse, made it worse for me. When I finanlly moved out he was the new scapegoat. I don't pity him. He got what he deserved.
Here's the story you speak of: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_... It's about Nazi Germany.
By Martin Niemoller.
yet people who try to warn about growing oppression are accused of being paranoid or subscribing to slippery slope fallacy. Those uninterested or lazy will do everything to justify why they are smart and in the right.
"By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you will be happy. If you get a bad one, you will be a philosopher" -Socrates
AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW
Rofl
Well me and my Journeys have never had a girlfriend but me seeing just how the world is I can applaud Socrates...
“What do you believe reveals more about a man’s character, his arrogance or his attempt to disguise it?” -A.B. Powell
Well, you can say the same about the husband 😂😂😂
Adventure time was teaching us the double bind dilemma in the episode were Finn develops a fear to clowns; he could allow the nurse-clowns to heal him and feel terrible by it, or leave with his wounds and make the clown-nurses upset.
Even the parts of the talking tree were a more obvius reference of the dilemma; he was presented only two paths in those situations, but both were terrible options either way.
Luckily he manages to solve this situations "on his own way"
Adventure time is such a good show, teaching children and adults to identify problems and solve them while being fun...
Did the clown nurses choose to be clowns?
I wish I had had this year's ago. In my own abusive relationship with my mother, instead of sticking to my values and trying to improve myself, I got sucked into a spiral of apathy in regards to my abuse and it gave me some really bad habits and character flaws I'm still struggling with. I feel like I've lost so much because of it
I understand you. I myself had exactly the same problem. I was so depressed the psychologists declared me legally incapaciated. My mother is dead for 20 years now, but I still have feelings of vengeance. My father and brother suffered too, but they are in denial and think that I am in denial.
I was in this position too, until I cut out the narcissists from my life.
@@threethrushes very well done. It's the only solution. Talk to the narcissist is no use
@@rowlandandros1012 Agreed.Just move on with your life.
@Jay Bee thank you for that. I'm already improving but it still is a situation I wish I'd never have gotten in
I was trying to play and my mom hit me really hard. Then she’d yell at me to not cry. Then threatened to beat me more harder if I didn’t stop crying.
Then she’d tell me to act normal like nothing happened
@@umbreon-wn2to or when they're chasing you and you manage to lock yourself somewhere, so they stand out of the door and they're like "if you don't open the door I'm gonna beat the shit out of you" and similar and you just brain-freeze
and somehow id always end up opening the door because I was scared and got beat up anyways
this comment made me remember a couple of kids I used to help baby sit. They where twins about 9 years old. They said their father beat them all the time and where told to not cry, and if any of them cried they where beat more. Over and over. The kids went to many people asking for help. Even social services came but said theres no proof, and lots of kids say things and hear at school to call social services to get parents in trouble. They did nothing and left. People went to him and would talk to him about it, to which he would flip out and say DONT TELL ME HOW TO RAISE MY KIDS. few weeks later, the kids grabbed a hammer each, went into his bed room, and hit his head while he slept as hard as they could. They killed him. Due to being 9, and previously have called social services for abuse, they did not get in trouble. Sad part is, I know their life will be better because of it.
@@umbreon-wn2to Same here. I grew up in a house where I had my own room, but the door had no lock. I'd put one but it gets removed because she says if I do put some form of security, then I might be doing something shady inside, or keeping something of value to the "family", and that I shouldn't be selfish and share it with everyone, whether it be food/valuables.
Often I'd wake up in the middle of the night, in the dark, with my mom over me and whispering on my ears. Then when I tell her wtf she doing, she would just casually walk away and leave the door ajar.
Next day, I'd confront her about it, and she acts all innocent or tells me that either I'm losing my mind or that it's "all in your head", or that I'm making accuses early in the morning, and she'd act as if she was a victim.
She would go to physical retaliation if I confront her more about it, would backhand slap me and I had to get my glasses repaired multiple times when I started standing up for myself, and she would always flip and say that I'm "wasting" family money when we could use that money to buy food instead.
Slime Bucket man that’s heavy stuff. It’s crazy to think that 9 year old kids... at 9 years old they had the resolve to realize their situation was inescapable. It must’ve been really bad for them.
This is the price you pay putting people in these traps though. These sort of traps only work if you are in a position of power. You can’t corner a person and expect them not to fight back. Even a little animal like a rabbit. A little rabbit sees you and it’ll try to scurry away. You corner the rabbit and close in on it then the panic button will hit. Even though it’s just a tiny little rabbit, that thing will sometimes attack when cornered. You give something no option but to fight then it’ll fight.
I don’t feel bad for the father. I don’t know if it’s a wrong way to look at it but part of me thinks what those twins did was kind of heroic.
Wow- I've subbed for years, and just now I'm dealing with a narcissist smear campaign from a woman I broke up with a year ago. Very timely, since this isn't your typical content
antisocial.suspectsociety.org
@@---Free-Comics---IG---Playtard Yeah that really is a great source.
This isn't the first video he's done on narcissism, there are plenty more in the video history. If you havent seen them yet, they may help you.
@@---Free-Comics---IG---Playtard good luck with your victimhood. This is what always bothers me with TheraminTrees content. His popularity has much to do with his own style of manipulation (like the gothic symbology and chants) in his videos. When you demonize the 'other' as he does here about his Mom, you make mental misrepresentations and fail to see context. He gets to bypass any other member's behavior (including his own) so that it manifests embodied in his account of his evil mum.
The problem becomes the lack of self actualization in the mental representation of locus-of-control. The Zen Master's influence is to get the student out of a program where the teacher holds all the power and allows the student to feel compelled to act on their own accord. Though it might also still be seen as manipulative in engaging the student into compliance with the teaching...if a negative victimhood narrative is the focus.
To see the world as bullies/the bullied, never allows for empathy and sympathy for those who may just be regurgitating their own abusive upbringing!
Quit demonizing anyone and take responsibility for understanding the behavior. See life as a scientific undertaking where if you understand deeply enough you can solve problems instead of destroying 'the other' and be very alert to those that frame people in Victor/Victim labeling.
The site you mention, while seeming to have Some good info, references bullies etc too much for me to find it credible.
@@JH-ji6cj You have no idea what he's going through. There's no reason to be like this.
i’m watching this in my lounge room rn. i’m moving out from my house next week and my parents are very controlling and adamant against me moving out. my mum threatened me and said “go move out tomorrow if you’re gonna be shitty with me” so i notified my roommate that i’ll be moving tomorrow
when i reminded my mum that i still plan on moving out tomorrow, she said “no you’re not, that’s just something i said in the heat of the moment”. if i had known better, i wouldn’t have argued “well you still said it”, because she just retaliated with “you’re taking things too literally”.
i really cannot wait to get away from all these mind games and abuse that she says isn’t even abuse, i feel so unsafe right now. if anyone else is a victim of abuse, i see you. what you feel is REAL, you’re not going crazy, just keep going. we’re all in this together and by looking within ourselves, i hope we can all come to break these shitty cycles of trauma and not impose them onto other people
My prayers to you for Gods 🙏✨ Peace and safe escape 🙏🕊️🕊️🕊️🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🌅🌅🌅
Wow. My ex-girlfriend was a narcissist and I’ve seen these same patterns. She went on a smear campaign on one of my best friends accusing him of physically abusing his then girlfriend and she would also put me in double binds. The way I dealt with it was too keep pointing out that she sent mixed messages, which she would of course deny vehemently, even denying something she clearly said not five minutes ago. I started keeping track of text messages when she would do this and I would again point out her mixed messages. Over time the behavior stopped, but like the video stated, that was an illusion. She simply found other targets of the double bind.
I’m gonna help share this video so more people know about this
The thing is, even seeing this video would hardly change anything for people that are in love. I have always knew that a certain girl was a narcissist, sadist and mentally unstable, and it didn't change a thing - not until it was too late for me.
ChaoticStray sometimes you’ll have to drag yourself away from people who are harmful, even if you’re in love
It’s very emotionally taxing sometimes, but staying with a narcissist will always be worse
Don’t stay with them in hopes that you can change them, then you’re just the guy sitting on that bench next to the gate keeper
I had a narcissist friend and I did exactly what you did. Logic works a lot and he hated it. Just keep asking them what they want to do in their life with a bit appraisal. You are so interested in them kinda. They will talk very different points every time. Something poetical, traveler, political power, social power, every extreme. Confront them about it and say that you don't like one of your idols being confused about what they want to do. Use their own tactic against them. They all have one common weak spot and that's appraisal. They need constant source to boost ego.
@@As-tray It's never too late.
Kelli R. Morris sorry but no advertising here pls, this is a serious thread
Double bind I came across in first grade: A girl accused me of making fun of her parents divorce (which I didn't even know about). The teacher put me on time out until I admitted to it, even though I honestly had no clue what anyone was talking about
I'm not only impressed by this guy's talks, but his animation skills, especially as they've progressed over the years. Also jeez man, your mom reminds me of mine in a very unpleasant way.
Same... ugh
sandakureva i love his voice too. Soothing
This might sound a little strange, but this video helped me despite my never having had an experience with a narcissistic abuser. I've been dealing with some really insidious anxiety-based mental health problems recently, most of them having to do with a strange and irrational fear surrounding my ability to attain a state of mindfulness; of course you can imagine this makes that very difficult to attain. While I was watching this video, I realized that your descriptions of the actions of narcissistic abusers reminded me a lot of the anxious thought-loops I had previously been trapped in. If I imagined the thoughts as the "abuser," and myself as the "victim," a surprisingly hefty chunk of the video felt relevant to my situation. When I was in those loops, it really did feel like a "no-win" situation - if I indulged the inclination to think hard about what I was worried about, it always ended up making it worse, and if I decided to avoid thinking about it, the fear just popped back up again. The solution was the same, too - when I disengaged fully and moved on, it lost its power over me. I'm not sure what that says about my brain (the fact that I seem to have managed to put myself into an abusive relationship with, well, myself) but I wanted to express special appreciation for the time you took to make this video (and all your others) and I found this unexpected crossover really interesting.
Thanks for the work you do, by the way - I found your channel recently and can't get enough.
Same here! I have had the thought a few times before that my brain was operating like an abuser, but didn't know the term to accurately describe what traps I was allowing myself to fall into. For me it's the "taking life too seriously/not seriously enough" trap, and yeah no matter how I act or respond I'm always in the wrong. And when I get angry I also "hear" this voice in my head laugh like it finally got me... I've found that not responding/mocking it works, had to learn that from dealing with OCD. Weird how our own brains can fuck with us like this.
Our mothers are much the same. My own has tried to quit smoking so often that it kills me to come home, cause we lived in a 4 room apartment and there was no way in hell I'd miss her bs'ing. She follows up her tangents with "Oh you're amazing I love you so much uwu" so she can reset and start all over again. Blaming her own actions on my brothers and I, going out of her way to point out flaws in people that she herself makes sure never change.
My second eldest brother is entirely co-dependant on her, has lost jobs because of her actions and went through horrible psychological tribulations when begging for therapy. Whenever it came to things like medical situations and things outside school necessities it was always "We don't have enough money because your father left and doesn't pay child support" when she shows up home with 8 bags of clothes, shoes and wine. Did I mention she frequently uses shrooms?
CPS has come to our apartment several times on anonymous referral and several times my brainwashed brother who needs therapy, a dentist, a physiotherapist, and a fuckton of other medical help, uses his one most amazing skill to turn them away like nothing's wrong; his acting. He's grown so used to our mother's manipulation that he's developed multiple fake personalities to avoid confrontation and ease situations subconsciously, which causes him serious mental pain and occasionally makes him pass the fuck out. This is just one of three boys in the family btw.
She only wanted boys, so I was kinda SOL for anything at fucking all. My eldest brother got the fuck out and ended up on the street for two years before getting back on his feet through our grandparents, my youngest is still in school and I only just graduated a year and a half ago. We all had to suffer her until we could escape, and I ended up in an apartment for a year until just a few months ago I went to live in my grandparents place who were moving out. My youngest brother is afflicted with depression on a suicidal level, my second eldest brother lives on autopilot trying not to suffocate from his own debilitating anxiety, and my eldest brother only barely freed himself from it all.
I wonder what would've happened if my dad had been around. I've met him a few times but all I can imagine is that our abuse would've ramped up. Why? Because he beat my eldest brother. I know I'm spilling the fuck out but I don't have people to tell this to without anonymity because I don't have the confidence. My mother always made sure I knew I was a failure (without the reset suck up), and she found thousands of creative ways to get the message across. I remember making a cake once when I was trying to get into baking. She never bought me supplies or anything, then just as I stopped caring since I couldn't do fuck all without cake to make, she made some fondanty bullshit cake boss thing then taught me a lesson on cake making, slipping in a few "but you don't need to learn that cause you'll just screw it up"s in. My favourite was when my brother mentioned the sky once and she talked about light pollution, then started screaming at me in public when I questioned the term, having never learned it. "This isn't an argument, this is baffling stupidity"/"I can't believe I gave birth to you"/"I never would've raised such a fucking retard".
So yeah, she goes off on nothing, makes sure she's better, and puts you down if you aren't her ideal short brown hair, green eyed, 6'2", male powerhouse son with straight A's and participation in every group and club and getting every award and scholarship, you're a failure. I was an honours student until grade 10 when I realized it was futile and gave up.
I remember how in my brother's grad speech he didn't add our mother into the "thank you" since he'd rushed it without knowing what it was, and she fucking smacked him repeatedly beside the car while he was still in his grad gown, screaming at him in front of all of his friends while he stood paralyzed from anxiety. He stopped contacting people after grad, couldn't hold a job, and became a homestay. My mother just didn't like how I graduated because she didn't see me get 9 scholarships or an international award. I had to sit alone with her for an hour long drive while she explained to me in detail 9 different life paths all ending in me getting raped or otherwise losing my virginity, because she knows that hearing those fucking things sets me off.
She throws around alcoholism and drug allegations without proof of shit and if you say no she calls bullshit. She's still convinced I'm going off having abortions every fucking week and ruining my life, all while trying to get me to give her my money. I'm gonna file for a restraining order or non-contact thing or whatever, but I'm scared for my brothers. I know if I call cps my brother will turn them away with ridiculous proficiency but I'm willing to try.
I started this then just kept going, sorry. I've never had the chance to spill like this since I was only recently disillusioned myself, so it just lifts of a weight I suppose.
Thank you for sharing your story. I'm glad you don't need to live with her anymore. Best of luck for your brothers. You can probably ask for advice with communities of people who lived through this kind of abuse.
If you have any evidence of her wrong doing, show it to the cps.
Very much reminds me of my own family, and I am pretty convinced that such families are beyond help. Even if you maintain contact, try to get away asap (before your mind and body starts to fall apart) to an address unknown to them or out of their reach, because there is a good chance she would follow you just to make sure you'll always remain as miserable and lonely as her. Such mothers will never accept that the other is also a human being, so for her you will always remain her own aching body part known as "daughter."
@Tom Garcia Yep, congratulations for Marie Fiction for surviving. Seriously.
If you're worried that your brother "will turn them away with ridiculous proficiency", then remember to explain to the CPS what you told you just now. Warn them that they'll definitely encounter deception and bullshit and that they should come mentally prepared. Anonymous reports filed by concerned neighbours are nothing compared to the insisting call of a *first-hand witness of the abuse* so be confident.
Also, I ask you to keep us updated. I'm sure people will agree with me if I say that we all need the closure. So far, accept my gratitude for your captivating little rant. I wish you all the luck and joy you deserve; and you deserve all of it.
So basically it's me on uni.
"Hey i forgot my ID inside, can you let me in?"
"No can do, you need an ID"
"But it's inside"
"Then go get it.. show me an ID first"
Had a similar situation as I lost my purse and someone found and brought my passport to police. 😀
Money well-spent, I'd say
@@oOIIIMIIIOo lmao
Police: "Show me ur passport"
You: "But you are holding it"
Police: "Yes, but show me ur passport"
@@mleah7409 Yes, it was funny. We all laughed.. 😀
@@oOIIIMIIIOo Yeeea! 😁
Guy: "Did you hear Joe was diagnosed with ligma?"
Theramin: "What's li... I'm not falling for that. Who's Joe?"
Guy: "Joe mama."
Theramin: *I want to explore a particularly poisonous mind game, called the double bind*
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
10/10
im scared
I came here for this
a humorous take on a serious video, I love it
My abusive ex used to say stuff like “I need you to tell me a week in advance when you won’t be seeing me” but also “I refuse to see you on a schedule like you’re making an appointment” lol. All I wanted was some free time and to see my friends/family. Lose lose.
She was also a vegetarian and would get mad at me for not picking a restaurant to take her to, but when I picked a place she would get mad at my choice.
There was a time when she told me not to get her any gifts for our anniversary, but then at a family party afterwards she embarrassed me by letting everyone know that I didn’t even buy her a gift.
Projection is also HUGE for narcissists. My ex used to accuse me of not being affectionate enough and cheating on her when she was the one that refused affection and she was ACTUALLY cheating on me.
Also when she started to tell me I wasn’t affectionate enough, I tried to hold her hand more, and she would refuse saying “you’re only doing that because I called you out!”.
I apologize for the wall of text but the rabbit hole goes extremely deep for me and I feel like I can vent here 🤣
Dude I'm so sorry you had to go through that. But thankfully she's your ex now and you will only get better as time goes on
@@fathimamuhammad3799 Thanks I really appreciate that. On the bright side I learned a lot of manipulation tactics early on in life and I feel immune to them now. I’m with a girl going on two years now that treats me fantastic.
Sounds like my ex gf too a tea. Guess what i figured out? My mom is the saaaaaame way 😂
Guess that explains the repeating patterns into adulthood thing
@@AnimosityIncarnate I’m sorry to hear you had to go through the same. At least we know what to look out for in the future huh? Haha.
I was also accused of cheating constantly, never did, and he ended up cheating on me with a complete stranger he met on Facebook. Now whines and whines for me to come back to him.
My coworker did this to me, accusing me of stealing. When I got defensive, she acted like it was because I was mad I got caught. It got to the point where I was afraid to touch anything, even the "free" things in the office because my coworker would email my boss to have her ask me to buy more of the "free" office items, because I had taken "too many".
I wonder if that is a deflective admission of guilt - she herself had done it and as a result would attempt to put the blame on others to avoid accusations herself?
Someone calls my wife when she's taking a nap. Two possibilities: "Why did you wake me up" and "Why didn't you wake me up".
Heads I win, tails you lose....a funny joke to play on an unsuspecting bet but a great short example of what is being discussed in your comment and this video
Third possibility: turn her ringer off before she wakes up and lie and say you never heard it ring
Personally, I'd be making sure I was out doing important stuff or shopping every time she was taking a nap if I were in that position. "Sorry, wasn't around to hear the phone, I was out getting food for our dinner..."
@@scottwall8419 yeah i remember "losing" a simple bet when i was a kid like that once...however, there was no possible way i could explain that i KNEW what they said, but just THOUGHT that they fumbled their words and meant to say the normal way of betting on a coin. When i tried to explain, he was like, nope, heads i win, tails you lose, so i win. Like, interrupting me so i wouldnt even bother, and of course probably saying something like "you're just making that up cause you lost". Like i thought the guy was just stupid and said it wrong. And i guess he really was stupid for not being able to understand how i could have (in my eyes) ignored the so called grammar slip-up in his call to, what i thought, was to play the regular game. Cause for what reason would anyone cheat, thats no fun, was my frame of mind, probably, so it wasnt even a thing that even registered.
you know, quick call to play a game of heads or tails...i wasnt going to nitpick his choice of words, sometimes people jumble up what they say on accident. so i ignored it and was like yeah sure, and trying to be a regular, normal, honest person backfired on me and probably ruined my day, whatever the bet was about. i was young
And yet, you stay. What does that say about you...?
I can remember my mother yelling at me for what she thought I was thinking. I don't know of she's an actual narcissist or not, I know she's bipolar, but she's spent most of her life refusing mental health treatment and blaming everyone around her for her behaviors, even going so far as to blame my sister for her own suicide attempt.
Yes, she is. Imho.
Sounds so familiar. My mother often ranted at us that it was our job to make her happy.
My mom is exactly like this so I feel your pain.
you could totally have put quotes around "suicide attempt". Because narcissistic "suicide attempts" somehow never work. And blaming someone else for it is a pretty sure sign it was this kind of "suicide attempt".
My ex used to pretend he could read my mind too, it was infuriating and stupid at the same time. They seriously think they have God-like powers when it's really just projection or bullshit they make up.
I find myself coming back to this video every 6 or so months. Every time when you discuss you mother's tendencies, the rage that fills me is unbearable.
when i was a new cook i learn that lesson from my master. He told me when he was a kid he had a family like that and he escaped from his house when he was like 10 years old and changed city. He told me when you find toxic people on your life cut them out no matter who they are. Even mother or father. Just cut them off because they are just toxic and harmful no matter what you do.
I find that, unless there is a real threat of violence, the classic
"Whatever Dude" response shuts narcissists down immediately
Mhm ... or a simple unemotional, “ok”... 😁
I saw a guy try that with a cop during an aggressive traffic stop.
Cop got mad and pointed a gun at his head.
@@user-wz4nn4ii4r don’t do “ok.” Thats more of an accepting way of saying “whatever.” Don’t accept their shit.
This is actually the phrase that gets me out of 99% of my bullshit interactions with people. Even if they're in the middle of their sentence - just hit em with a "whatever, dude" and just go about whatever the fuck you were doing lol. It really works! If they continue all you gotta do is say "Did I fucking stutter?" and that seals the deal on the remaining 1% lol
@@nagsterthegangsterMaybe for work/school environments or people you don't have to live under the same roof.
If I would try to do this to my mother as a child, a teenager or even a young adult, still living under the same roof I would end up bruised from face to toes. Even as a grown up if tried to defend myself, as my sister once did, she would start to scream and saying that her daughter was attacking her and would call neighbors and police, and case would be seen as an out of control teenager or young child abusing an elderly.
Also for abusive relationships, this kind of answer, quickly escalates to more violent aggression.
Do not recommend if you live under the same roof, there's children involved, and the narc is violent.
I love how these videos get into the psychology of this instead of all the political stuff, which gets a bit tiring after a while.
Yes, whenever he mentions politics he makes sure to remain unbiased and very observational, it's quite refreshing.
@@tituslafrombois1164 not towards bs about stalinism and everything related that you're all being taught (not that you could be blamed for this due to carefully selected information, number manipulation and speculations that you're being presented to). It's politics, baby.
¿Political stuff of interpersonal relationships? ¿Did we watch the same video?
These kinds of things are actually inherently political... Or perhaps a better way of putting it is that psychology influences politics and behaviour, so not talking about one part of that set would be leaving a lot out.
If you go into the political parts, especially present day politics for examples, you easily and needlessly get accidentally partisan, especially if you got something wrong. At least you may be perceived so; especially since politics are a highly partisan thing for most people. Being in the "synthesis seeking" center, for lack of a better term, will always get you accused by all wings of the political spectrum to be either a fence sitter, or worse: part of the other group. Thus whatever sane solution you seek, you will be demonized by one side or the other or even both. Transsexuals who reject the new-age idea of the non-binary for its lack of scientific substance abundant levels of narcissism of those claiming to be are shunned "the right (conservatives)" for being transsexuals, mentally ill deviants, and by the current Left for not being "transphobic" of this new seemingly internetborn idea that reads like a fanfiction of their medical condition to them.
Thus using this as an example either way would also render your educational and helping product partisan one way or another or even both.
Dr Stephanie Sarkis made such a mistake in her pretty good book "Gaslighting", which illustrates the patterns of Gaslighters and Gaslighting behaviour and chapter by chapter in various aspects of life. However, in chapter 6, politics she makes a relatively significant blunder: While her historical examples are from all sides of politics, she also brings present day politics into the fray, especially of issue that turned out to have been false. She herself, an expert on Gaslighting, was herself a victim of political partisan cult-like mentality. The lesson to take from this is simply to stick with general, personal or historical examples. Present day politics are always a mess of propaganda vs propaganda, belief vs belief.
So yeah, in short, I'm a fan of sticking to the topic like this as well.
My heart goes out to you. Listening to what you had to deal with as a child, and hearing you having to deal with such an awful person when trying to cherish the final moments of your time with your father was truly heartbreaking. I’m glad you are able to reflect on what had happened with such strength and recognise your mother’s behaviour as unacceptable. Much love.
I remember one time, when my ex GF accused me of cheating. She said "You either admit that you cheated or we are done and you get the hell out of my house." I was so infatuated to her, was such a weak willed man and didn't want to lose her so damn bad, that after half hour of insisting that I never cheated, I ended up admitting to a crime I didn't commit. Then she said "now, we'll only be casual partners, don't expect anything more from me."
Days laters we had another fight and I said "you know what, I can't with this, I'm out."
That was the must fucked up double bind I've ever experienced in my life.
Why would you accept something you did not do? That's fishy.
Well good for you walking away.. unfortunately I wasn’t that strong and kept trying..see my reply to brilliant chaos a few comments above
@@_iam1533 you ether haven’t experienced what he’s talking about or maybe you are the type of person he is talking about
@@_iam1533 It's called desperation.
@@_iam1533 police interrogations aren’t supposed to go past a certain point because it’s been proven to get false confessions. People confess to get out of the terrible interrogation
Dear Theramin Trees - This is the single most helpful video I have come across. I have seen thousands of Narcissistic abuse videos. I am so sad you had this type of experience growing up, as did all of us here! This video nailed what I have experienced since I was born and you made the pressure in my chest lift. I took pictures with the captions so I can re read all this until I get it in my thick skull and learn to undo what and how I react to my very hurtful, vindictive father who manipulates and distorts everything to his convenience to satisfy whatever he is lacking inside. Thank you for helping me! Hugs!
Glad to have helped - I wish you well in moving into your new patterns.
@@TheraminTrees Can you put my heart back? I saw a typo in what I had written and when I went to fix it, your heart went away.
With pleasure
@@TheraminTrees This sort of activity that you engage with in the comments shows that atheists can be kind rather than being a "community breaking" force.
I really enjoy your content. You give so much more than a few days worth of college could give, in just a 20-40 minute video.
I’ve had bosses who did that. I had a narcissist “friend” who did that. It’s hard to see once you’re already into it. Or, if you see it, sometimes it’s difficult to exit.