Are you dealing with a closet narcissist, and maybe you don't even know it?
By the end of this video, you're going to know exactly what a closet
narcissist looks like, how to spot it, and maybe how to run
away if you need to.
Hi, I'm Rebecca is top 1% attorney and the author of the books, Negotiate Like You M.A.T.T.E.R.,
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Now, are you dealing with a closet narcissist?
You're not exactly sure if the person that you're with or that you're dealing with or
is in your life is a narcissist.
And you're thinking to yourself, I'm thinking things don't seem right, they just
aren't feeling good.
You just know in your gut that something isn't the way that it's supposed to be, but
you're just not sure what to call this person.
Are they in narcissist?
I know that sometimes, when I've been dealing with narcissists in my own life, when somebody
pointed out to me that a person might be a narcissist,
I remember thinking, "I don't know.
I don't think that person is a narcissist.
I mean, I think that person is like extremely insecure, but narcissist, no."
Because to me, a narcissist was that person that was
out there, telling everybody how great they were all the
time, and obviously, you've got the other side of what a narcissist is, which is that
they don't have the capacity to care for or love a person.
And to me, that's what a narcissist was.
It was a really obvious thing.
I never really thought about the fact that a narcissist could actually be what we call
narcissist, also called a covert narcissist.
And covert narcissists, in some ways, I think are one of the most dangerous types of narcissists
because you can't spot them.
And so if you're wanting to know more about why I think they're dangerous, you
should definitely check out my video on the most dangerous type of narcissist, and I'll
drop a link to that below.
But a covert narcissist, I think is dangerous, or closet narcissist, because they're so hard
to spot because you really aren't sure what you're
dealing with.
They do these crazy things and things aren't right, you feel it in your gut and you do
feel it in your gut probably from the beginning, which I've talked
a lot about in some of my other videos, like my interview with Joanna Kleinman on, do this
to move on from narcissists, I talked very specifically
and personally about the narcissists that I've had to deal with in
my own life.
But two of them were definitely covert narcissist, and I didn't even understand what I was dealing
with, that they were even narcissists until I read
the book, the Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist, by Debbie
Mirza.
And I'll drop a link to that book below as well, but when I started to understand that,
that's what I was dealing with, it all started to come together
for me.
But remember that all narcissists have no inner
sense of value.
They have to derive all of their value from the external.
The other thing that narcissists all have in common is this underlying rage,
this super angry person that lives inside of them.
They hate the world, they hate themselves, so they hate
anybody that comes close to them.
So it's way easier to spot in a malignant narcissist, who's just
outwardly angry and nasty and has a horrible temper and can
be prone to fits of violence.
But the closet narcissist, the covert narcissist doesn't act that way.
They have this inner sense of rage and resentment and anger and bitterness that
the world hasn't given them what they feel that they
deserve and that they haven't achieved what they think they should have achieved because
no one has given it to them, because the world isn't
fair, because things haven't gone the way they should, because
it's this person's fault or that person's fault, or this happened or that happened.
It's never anything that has anything to do with themselves.
So they're deeply angry, oftentimes very depressed.
They will often tell you that they're depressed
And they have this festering thing that's inside of them, they don't show the world.
They'll tell you that they're depressed, or they might tell you
that they're sick, or they might tell you that the world isn't fair,
but you don't understand the depths of what's going on inside of them, unless you get close
enough to them to be their target or their victim.
Remember that all narcissists are predators and they need pray,
they need to find that endless source of supply so that they can feed off of that.
All narcissists have that, covert narcissists, closet narcissists, they're
not immune unfortunately.
But the problem is that these closet narcissists covert narcissists are
often seen in these positions where they're going to have a
tremendous amount of respect and be seen as very caring or warm or loving or kind or generous.
They're often put in positions of like clergy or psychologists or lawyers or doctors or
politicians, things like that, where they're going to be respected,
but they also have this underlying rage and anger.
So what you will see in them is this passive aggressive behavior where they do these little
things that just kind of drip, drip, drip on you.
And you know that it's not right, but when you go to tell somebody
about it, the other person goes, "Well, that doesn't seem so bad.
The person seems so nice.
I'm sure that must be a mistake.
I'm sure that must be inadvertent.
I'm sure they didn't mean it."
And then that actually only serves to have you be victimized
again, because now, not only have you been victimized
from the closet narcissist, but now you're also being victimized by this person and the
person doesn't even mean to, they're just thinking, "Well,
I don't see that.
I don't see what you're seeing."
So then you actually start to think that you're crazy.
I mean, and they use these gaslighting tactics as
well.
Like, "Oh, we had that conversation and you agree to that, don't you remember?"
And you know, you never had that conversation.
But when they start doing that over and over again, you start to kind
of question your own sanity.
You start to feel like you have scrambled eggs as brains, they talk in this
toxic stew type of language and communication that literally starts to scramble your brains
after a while.
So some of the other ways that you'll see these closet and covert narcissists act is
they'll do something called withholding.
Withholding sex with holding finances, withholding information.
They don't give you information.
You find out about it.
And you say, "Why didn't you tell me about that?"
Something like that.
Another thing that they do is show up late.
You expect them to be there on time, you expect them to
show up at a party, you expect him to show up at a function, you expect them to be home
on time.
You expect them to show up at a dinner date or
whatever it is, and they're just late.
And they're late all the time.
It's just these little ways of showing that they don't respect you and they de-value you,
and it's also a way of gaining control.
Another thing that they'll do is not do something that they promised.
And when you ask them about it, they'll say, "Oh,
I forgot," or, "Oh, yes, I'll get to that," or, "Oh, here it is,"
and it's just sort of like this half-ass thing that they just threw together.
Like when I was dealing with a covert narcissist in a business setting, I would ask this person,
"Oh, you said you were going to do this.
Where is it?"
And of course, why didn't the person just do it in the first
place, right?
They made me have to ask for it.
And then when I would ask for it, I just wouldn't get an
email for the next several hours.
And then suddenly I would get an email response, but it was very
clearly like half-assed put together, it was only because I asked for it that they decided
to do it.
And then they are just kind of showing me that they
weren't really going to do a good job with it, that kind of
thing.
So not doing what you asked or not doing what you asked well or not doing what you asked
on time.
Another way that they act is not being there for you when they led you to believe that
they would be there for you.
So you expect them to show up and help with a particular event.
And all of a sudden they're not available, but they don't tell
you that until right before the event started, or maybe they just
don't tell you that at all and they just don't show up.
And then down the road, they'll say, "Oh, I got tied
up and I didn't mean to not show up," or whatever, but maybe they'll apologize and maybe they
won't, but it's too late because you already had
figure out what to do without them.
Or you have an agreement that you're going to purchase tickets together on the next day
or something and then they went ahead and they just do
it without you.
And you're like, "Well, I thought we already talked about that we were going to do this
together.
Little things like that but when you go to tell
somebody like, Oh, this is what the person did.
The other people are like, well, I mean, it's not like so
awful.
It's not like they stole money from you or they called you a horrible name or something
like that.
It's just little, little things, little passive aggressive things like that.
So one of the ways that you can really spot this is, has this person been traumatized?
Do they tell you I was traumatized as a child?
Do they have a deep wounds?
Because if that's true and you start to see these signs, then you may be dealing with
a covert narcissist or a closet narcissist.
They really are masters at being under the radar of doing
just enough to make you think that you're the one that's
crazy, but not having the rest of the world see what's going on.
They quietly betray your trust, they quietly disappoint you, they quietly abuse
you in a way that if you tell the world, it doesn't seem
malicious, but you know that it was meant to be malicious and you feel it.
And even if you haven't completely come to terms with it, you know that something isn't
right, you feel it in your gut, you know the person doesn't
have your back, you know the person isn't for you.
And if that's what you're dealing with, you're probably
dealing with a closet or covert narcissist.
Is this sounding familiar to you so far?
If so, give me an amen in the comments.
And you need to run like hell to get the heck away from this person, because
they're not going to change.
No amount, if you try telling them, this isn't right, and this is what I
want, and here's how you should have behaved, and please
apologize to me, is going to make it right.
It just isn't, unfortunately.
If you are dealing with a covert, narcissists and you were getting ready to negotiate with
this person, you definitely want to grab my free, Crush my
Negotiation Prep Worksheet.
You can get it at the link below or just go to winmynegotiation.com.
If you want additional support, come on over and join me in my
free private Facebook group.
It's called Narcissists Negotiators with Rebecca Zung and I'll drop a link to
that below as well so that you can join us over there.
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drop me a comment, let me know that you were here.
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And remember that today is a great day to start
negotiating your best life.
I will see you in the next video.