Are YOU the Narcissist?

Oh jeez! You could be the Narcissist! Or you could be Married to the Narcissist. All hope is not lost though. Even Narcissists sometimes want therapy to improve their relationships and feel more stable. I know it sounds odd, but sometimes Narcissists feels bad about themselves and their actions. They know change is needed, but they’re not sure how to get there.

If you’re a Narcissist, you can get more emotionally connected to your loved ones, more considerate, and more thoughtful of both their wishes and how you affect them. Maybe it’s your kids that you’re worried about. Maybe it’s your partner. Maybe it’s a girlfriend or boyfriend.

Watch the video or read the transcript below to see if YOU’RE the Narcissist and then email me if you would like help.

Transcript

Hi, everyone. It’s Dr. Liz, with FloridaPsychotherapy.com and Conversations for Effective Living. Today, I’m going to talk a tiny bit about whether someone’s a narcissist. One of the most popular blog posts on my website is called When You’re Married to a Narcissist. The other day, I was sort of laughing with a friend. I was like, “Why is everyone clicking on that? Do they all think they’re married to a narcissist?” She said, “No. I bet they think they’re the narcissist, and they’re trying to check it out.” I thought that was great. Like, yeah, okay, I worry about being a narcissist, particularly because I had a narcissistic mother, and it is a constant theme through my life. I was married to a narcissist, which is how that article came about. I work with women all the time that are actually married to narcissists, or they have narcissistic parents, and the effects of it are huge in their lives.

All right, how do you tell if you’re a narcissist? Well, there’s all kinds of quizzes you can take, first of all. There’s what’s considered healthy narcissism, which is healthy self-esteem, and healthy thinking about yourself, and not putting others before yourself so that it affects you negatively. All kinds of stuff like that.

Unhealthy Narcissism

Then, there’s unhealthy narcissism, where you’re really self-absorbed, everything is about you, everything in the relationship is about you. You have a really hard time thinking about other people, or taking their perspective, or you can intellectually, but you can’t from the heart. You don’t really emotionally relate to them in that way. That’s when it starts to get extreme. It starts to go into Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That’s when that really becomes an issue.

Psychology Today ran an article a couple of months ago. This is June 2016, when I’m filming this. They ran an article and the whole article is this study that a psychologist had done on how you tell if you’re dating a narcissist or something. I think he was writing it for online dating or people getting into new relationships. How do you tell? Before I give you the answer to the question, I’m going to tell you a bit of background about that.

When you start Dating a Narcissist

What happens, generally, when you start dating a narcissist is that they are awesome at the beginning. They make you feel like you are the world. They are trying to take you on trips, and trying to do this, and they’re so attentive and everything. They come in and they bowl you over, and you’re think, “Oh my god. This is the most wonderful man in the world, or the most wonderful woman in the world.” That will last about 3 to 6 months, sometimes 9 months. Then, they will start to reveal themselves. Things will start to go downhill. Then, people are always trying to get back to the beginning. Like, “Wait a minute. If we could just get back to the beginning, when everything is so wonderful, and this was the most amazing man on the planet, or the most amazing woman on the planet, everything would be great.”

You can’t get back to the beginning with a Narcissist

That can never happen. You can’t get back to the beginning. You really can’t. In any relationship, really. You can’t get back to the beginning. What happens is that a person gets trapped into doing that, and then the narcissist generally gets less and less attentive, often downright mean. They will start to do all the narcissistic feeding kinds of stuff, and even go into abuse sometimes like gas lighting, and putting you down. Sometimes that’s very subtle. Sometimes that’s more direct. My point is, the relationship deteriorates.

The Psychology Today article is like, “Okay, how do you tell?” In the beginning, how do you not get into this process? It boiled down to . . .  You can just ask them. That’s it. That’s the answer. The psychologist who ran all kinds of studies and quizzes and everything, and he’s like, “What’s the most accurate thing you can do is that you can ask them, “Are you a narcissist?” If they say yes, then you have your answer. You can make a decision moving forward.

I just thought it was the most hilarious article. You don’t need to look for this, this, this, and this, you just need to ask them, pretty much. That’s the same with you. Are you a narcissist? “No. I know I’m not.” I get fearful that I am (which is a sign that I’m probably not), but I know I’m not. If your immediate answer was yes, then you possibly are. You probably are, actually, according to this article. Yeah, you’re a narcissist.

It doesn’t mean things are hopeless. It means that you can get some help. You can get into therapy with a therapist who’s really confrontive with you, who can see the signs of narcissism, and say, “Okay, let’s work on this.” If you want to. Most narcissists don’t really want to go to therapy and work on themselves, but there are quite a few who do. I definitely know some in person who want to work on themselves, and want to feel better, and want to have better relationships. That’s a great goal. They realize it affects their relationships. They realize it affects how they think about themselves, even. That’s a worthy goal.

If you would like some help feeling more connected and better about yourself and your life and you live in Broward county and the Fort Lauderdale / South Florida area, email me at drliz@floridapsychotherapy.com.

Yours in health,
Dr. Liz