Are you dealing with a narcissist and so tired of arguing with them and you want to know
what their argument techniques are so that you can spot them coming a mile away? Then
watch till the end of this video. And you're going to know exactly when they're using those
techniques on you. Hi, I'm Rebecca Zung, top 1% attorney and
the best-selling author of the books, Negotiate Like You M.A.T.T.E.R. and, Breaking Free,
A Step-By-Step Divorce Guide, and I've helped millions of people go from lives of word salad,
toxic stew, drama, trauma, and chaos. And I've given them the best steps, the step-by-step
guidance to go all the way to brand new lives, new beginnings, and new futures and that's
what I do for you right here on these videos and on this channel. So make sure that you've
subscribed and you hit that notification bell, and that way you'll get notified when I upload
new videos and when I go live. So let's talk about narcissists and their
argument techniques. So narcissists have no inner sense of value. They try to derive all
of their value from the external, and we call that narcissistic supply. And if you're a
regular watcher of my channel, you know I talk a lot about narcissistic supply. And
the reason why I talk about it so much is because that's the only thing that drives
a narcissist. So if you're getting ready to negotiate with the narcissist, if you're divorcing
a narcissist, if you are in a relationship with a narcissist in any way, shape or form,
whether it's business, family, personal, then you are dealing with a person who is driven
by one thing, one thing only, and that is narcissistic supply.
So when they go to argue with you, their techniques are going to be all driven around, how can
I preserve my narcissistic supply or how can I get narcissistic supply? Because that's
what drives them. It's their food, it's their oxygen, it's their lifeblood, it's what they
need to live on. They're like vampires who are sucking energy out and trying to get as
much from a person as they possibly can. And the crazy thing is that they actually try
to keep people around just because they might be a potential source of supply. So even if
they're in the discard phase, then they still might be wanting to keep you around for a
source of supply. And when I talk about supply, I don't necessarily
mean compliments and respect and fluffing up their egos and that sort of thing. What
I mean is that the other side of narcissistic supply is what I'm going to be talking about
today with the argument techniques, and that is that they get supply also from leading
you on, getting you to believe their lies and just generally jerking you around and
leading you by the nose, to use an old expression. So let's talk about some of the ways that
narcissists use for arguing some of their techniques and also how you can then respond
to them. So the first way that narcissist says use
for arguing is they deliberately misunderstand you or they argue in bad faith, we'll call
it arguing in bad faith. But it's like they know what it is that you're saying, but they'll
act like you're trying to say something else. Like you didn't take the trash out, oh you're
accusing me of trying to meet with somebody on the street or something like that, and
you think, no, I just want you to take the trash out. They'll just totally deliberately
misunderstand what it is that you're saying. Or they have it be about something else. One
of their favorite techniques is to start going off on the tone of how you said something,
because that way they don't have to address what it is that you're saying. So now it's
about the tone or now it's about something else. Oh, you brought that up, that was disrespectful.
And so now you're talking about that it's all kind of arguing in bad faith, let's make
it about something else, let's deliberately misunderstand what it is that you're saying.
So that's number one is arguing in bad faith. The next technique that they use is word salad,
fallacies, and nonsense. And arguing with a narcissist often involves this word salad
thing where they basically, deliberately speak in a way that makes no rational sense. And
if you want to know more about word salad, you should definitely check out my video Narcissism
101, Word Salad. In fact, there's a whole series that I have on Narcissism 101 that
has the basic terminology and the basic vocabulary that you need to have to be able to understand
narcissism and I talk all about these things as a lawyer, because if you want to successfully
negotiate with a narcissist, if you want to successfully be able to step-by-step, get
out of these relationships in a way that you feel like it's sort of fair for you, you can
actually kind of somewhat feel whole and complete as you exit this relationship, then you have
to be able to understand what drives narcissist, you have to be able to understand the types
of techniques that they're using. So with word salad, nonsense, fallacies, what
they're doing is they speak in a way that makes no rational sense so that you can't
really even respond properly. You don't even know what the heck it is that they're talking
about. And then when your response isn't even completely coherent, because you don't know
what it is that they're talking about, then they use that against you and so you're constantly
feeling like you're this crazy one. Gas lighting is a form of that where, we talked about that,
you know that we did, we had that conversation last week. And you're like, "What? We didn't
have a conversation about that and we weren't even talking about something that was happened
last week, we were talking about something that happened today." And now you're off on
this thing and your brain just feels like it's basically scrambled eggs, so that's the
second one. The third thing is provoking, bullying, or
intimidating. And this is where they say things or do things that make you feel afraid, make
you feel intimidated. Maybe they'll throw things, maybe they'll punch things. Or maybe
they'll just say something that is kind of guised as a... it feels like a veiled threat.
You better be careful, you don't know what you're doing, you don't know what's going
to come if you keep going like this, something like that, where you start to feel afraid,
you start to feel intimidated. And so you kind of become scared and maybe your brain
goes into that fight-flight-freeze mode, because you just are now trying to survive this conversation.
And so you feel like you can't really continue in this conversation in a normal rational
way, because you're feeling like, "Oh my God, what's happening? What did that person just
say? What kind of a threat? What is it is it that they're going to do to me?" And that
again, gives them that control over you and you also feel scared. So they get a double
dose of supply that way, they get control and you are scared. So both things are a wonderful
source of supply for a narcissist. And if you have seen a narcissist, use one of these
tactics in an argument and do this thing, "Oh my God, I can't believe this. I'm shaking
my head right now. I can't believe that this is what I'm dealing with. I've known that
this is what I'm dealing with, but now I really see it." And if that's what you're thinking
right now, and you're just shaking your head, just give me an SMH for shaking my head in
the comments. The next thing that you will see is lying
and denying. In fact, if you catch a narcissist in a lie, there's the four D's, which I'm
not going to tell you what they are, but I'll tell you, the two of them are denying and
deflecting. If you want to know what the other two are, you should definitely go check out
my video on what happens when you catch a narcissist in a lie. They act as if you know,
you're the crazy one or somebody else is at fault. It has nothing to do with them or maybe
it has something to do with you, maybe you're the one that has the problem. So again, it
has nothing to do with anything bad about them, because they have no sense of self.
So if they give anything away at all, they feel like they're not surviving. I mean, they're
in survival mode, they're in scarcity mode at all times.
So it can't be called out on their behavior, or they just become like a total victim and
the whole thing. And, "Oh, I can't believe that this is my life and this is awful. And
I've just been under so much stress lately." And so now it becomes about that. And another
technique that they use is the flying monkeys, triangulation technique which is, "Everyone
else thinks that you are, or no one else thinks the way you do or I spoke to your mother and
your mother agrees with me, or everyone at work thinks that you're the one that's crazy,
because they all think that I'm wonderful." So that whole triangulation, flying monkeys
technique is another form of argument that they use.
So when you see this, the way you want to respond to it is you want to just stay out
of it, stay out of the emotion of it, put up boundaries, just look at it as if you are
looking at a two year old having a tantrum. You wouldn't get down on the floor and scream
with them, and you're not going to do the same thing with narcissists. So when they're
arguing with you like this, the thing you want to do is just say things like, "I can
see that you're upset. I know that's what you think," things like that. I have another
whole video on phrases to disarm a narcissist you should definitely check that out as well.
And if you're getting ready to negotiate with the narcissist, as I mentioned, make sure
to grab my free Crush My Negotiation prep worksheet, it's an e-book, and don't walk
into a negotiation without it, and you can get it at winmynegotiation.com and we'll also
drop a link to it below in the description. If you like this video, make sure you give
it a like, share it to help others and drop me a comment and subscribe and hit that notification
bell so that you'll get notified when I upload new videos. If you need more support, I invite
you to join me in my free private Facebook group, it's called Narcissists Negotiators
with Rebecca Zung. And we'll make sure that links to all of these things are below, including
to the videos that I mentioned during this video as well. So thanks so much for joining
me today. I'm so glad you stopped by my channel. Remember, today's a great day to start negotiating
your best life. I'll see you in the next video.