Let me tell you a little story.
So there was a guy that I dated one time who turned out to be a little toxic.
What was interesting about this person is that one of the first things they said to me is "you know what?
I'm the nicest person I've ever met."
Now at the time I thought that was the nicest thing anybody could have said because I felt
like I really needed a nice person in my life and this person seemed to be the person.
Well, it turned out this person wasn't as nice as I thought, they turned out to be a little toxic.
So what it all came down to was that I learned about a new thing called Virtue
Signalling and that is what we're talking about today at QueenBeeing.com
Virtue Signalling and Grandstanding and how those relate to
narcissists and narcissistic abuse. So let's get started. Closed captioning provided by
Athena Moberg and CPTSDfoundation.org. My name is Angie Atkinson and on this channel
I offer free daily video coaching to help you discover, understand and overcome
narcissistic abuse and toxic relationships. I like to call it toxic relationship rehab.
So if that sounds good to you, hit that Subscribe button, and let's get going. So really quickly, what
narcissists do is, they use
virtue signalling and grandstanding to fool you into thinking they're decent people. What am I talking about?
Well,
let's begin with a couple of quick definitions. First, virtue
signalling. Officially virtue signalling can be defined as the conspicuous expression of moral values.
So basically this is where the narcissist will tell stories or little tales about their own
untouchable virtues and they will claim to have certain values, that they totally stick to all the time.
But in reality, they don't have those values and in fact
those might actually be the opposite of whatever values they're kind of living by at this point.
But the reason that they pretend to have the values is because it makes you see them in a better light, the best light possible.
Does that make sense? Now the term virtue signalling was first used by a journalist.
And you know I love me some journalists.
But it was used to describe any behavior that could be used to
signal virtue. The original guy who used the term was named James Bartholomew and it was in an article in 2015 in The Spectator.
And it was used in reference to the way that people
say things or write things to indicate that they have certain virtues or that they are virtuous in general. Originally
he meant it in regard to religious piety.
Grandstanding on the other hand has a similar definition, but it's defined as the use of morality in a discussion
that is
specifically intended to get the
target to think a certain way about you or think a certain thing about you, to behave in a certain way as a result of it.
So narcissists they take these two behaviors,
they mix them all together and we have a really nasty cocktail. We could call it premeditated control and manipulation.
They play this game really well. Straight up lying. It sounds totally sincere and it makes us fall for them.
But if you really want to be honest with yourself, and you really want to look closely at that situation with a magnifying glass.
What you'll see is that the narcissist put his or her manipulation plan in place very early in your relationship.
So for example when you hear somebody say, I'm the most honest person
I know or I'm the nicest person I know or they might just kind of beef up their apparent integrity and their general morality.
Just try to seem better than they really are.
But you know what, someone who actually has integrity and who actually has a good moral center or ethical compass,
you know what
they don't do?
They don't feel the need to just convince people in general that they're better than anybody or that they have all of these ethics and
morals.
They just live it. Something to think about.
Narcissist will also use this tactic to give them a sort of stronghold when they do mess up in the future.
For example, you might hear a story about how the narcissist's ex cheated on them
and then they might say something to you
like,
"You know what?
I would never do that to you because I know how horrible it feels" And that might seem completely sincere and you totally get that, right.
So you're like okay,
this person would never do this to me and you fall for it because it's really true for you.
Maybe somebody really did cheat on you in the past. It felt horrible
and so you would never do that to hurt another person.
But in reality the narcissist only tells you this because
at some point you may catch them cheating and then in the future when that happens
they can scream in your face and say I told you I would never cheat on you
why would you assume that I did this to you. Even if you're sitting there with photographs of said act in your hand.
That is how blatantly, boldly,
outrageously a narcissist will try to manipulate you. And sometimes they actually get you to believe it, but in reality that's what it's about.
It's about if you catch them cheating in the future they have this to throw back on your face.
And how dare you ask them if you just already knew how strongly they felt about it.
And by the way,
they'll say while we're talking about this if I'm gonna be accused of cheating I might as well go do it.
You ever heard that before? Here's a really quick fact, basic human decency should be the default for your average human, for most people.
But narcissists are different, they lack this basic decency quality because they do not have empathy,
They do not care how you feel, how anyone feels really, unless it directly affects them..
They don't care how it affects you.
Another reason narcissists do this is because it helps them first set the standard for your behavior in the future of your relationship.
They may do this by telling you what their values are and expecting you to live up to them, by stating their own values or
perceived values or they may do this by telling stories about an ex or another person that hurt them in the past.
So for example, they might say to you, you know, my ex never did the dishes.
I could'nt stand it, it made me miserable. It was so horrible that this person never did the dishes. So you might decide to yourself as an empath
Well, I want to prove to this person that people really are good
and so I'm gonna do the dishes every single time.
Now this is obviously a very light-hearted example,
But let's say that you did the dishes every day for five years and then one day you're sick and you can't do the dishes
and then the narcissist will say to you, you're just like my ex,
I knew it!
So even though you've attempted to show this person that in fact you're different from the ex and you're doing the dishes every day
The one day you don't do them. This person attacks you. For this particular example or any example that's similar to this,
the idea is the narcissist wants to create certain sticking points with you at the beginning of the relationship or early in the
relationship by using moral grandstanding and virtue signalling.
So that if and when the mask falls off they can always have something to fall back on and if you do catch a
glimpse of the real narcissist under the mask they can attack you with these sticking points they've created.
The point they're making there is I've always told you X, so you should blindly trust whatever I say.
Have you ever heard that before in your relationship? Blindly trust me? I did a lot.
So in other words the narcissist claims, they are faithful
respectable, honest, otherwise morally correct, intact quality here and they expect you to be exactly like the person they claim to be, but they have
no problem twisting things and lying to you and manipulating you to get what you want.
Which is kind of what we talked about in yesterday's video.
So take a look at that if you haven't yet.
This brings me to the question of the day and the question of the day is, have you experienced a narcissist using virtue signaling or
grandstanding to manipulate you in advance or in real-time. Share your thoughts, share your ideas,
share your experiences in the comments section below and let's talk about it. Alright, that's all I've got for you right now.
But as always thank you so much for being a part of my day and a part of my life and hey,
thanks for letting me be a part of yours.
It really does mean a lot to me. Now before I go make sure you take a look at the videos
I'm leaving for you right here and right here and while you're here hit the Subscribe button right there,
so we can stay connected and continue on this healing journey together.
Don't forget you're never alone. You've always got your SPANily. I'll see you soon.