Are you in a relationship with a covert narcissist?
I've been there too, and it totally sucks. And if you want to know how
covert narcissists attack their victims, watch till the end and you'll find out.
Hi, I'm Rebecca Zung. I've been recognized as one of the top 1% of attorneys in the country,
and I've written two best-selling 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 figure out how
to deal with narcissists and get out of these narcissistic relationships. And that's what I
do for you right here on this channel. So, if you haven't subscribed already, now is a great time to
do that. Just so easy, just hit subscribe, and hit that notification bell, and that way you'll get
notified when I upload brand new content and go live and do all kinds of things for you, because
I've been in relationships with narcissists. And so, I've made it my mission to help
you get out of these relationships, either through legal means or any other means, but
negotiating with narcissists is something that we are all going to end up having to do at some point
in our lives. They say that one in 10 people are either narcissistic or have narcissistic traits.
And if each one of those people narcissistically abuses five people in their lifetimes,
we're talking about 3.4 billion people. The bottom line is that, nobody is immune. We've
all been there. We've all had to deal with these people. And something I've said before,
and I want to make sure that I say again, is that narcissists don't attach themselves to you because
you have so little value, which is what they want you to believe because they come after you
and then they start devaluing you, it's because you have so much value. Because narcissists need
that endless amount of narcissistic supply. And covert narcissists in relationships
are no fun. And if you want to know more about covert narcissists in relationships, specifically,
check out my video on covert narcissists in relationships and you'll learn more about that.
But today I'm going to be talking about how covert narcissists attack their victims. So, covert
narcissists are so different than the grandiose narcissist. And covert can be malignant as well,
by the way, but covert narcissists tend to be under the radar. To the rest of the world
they look amazing. They look perfect. They're wonderful. They're kind. They're generous.
They're so easy to get along with. They only show their ugly, horrible heinous face
to their victims. And so, here you are with somebody who when you first meet them,
is generous, and kind, and says all the right things, and everybody loves them. And oftentimes
they're in positions where people love them, like clergy, or doctors, or psychologists, people who
seem to be very caring, who seem to be just the most amazing people that you could have ever met.
And so, they come on with love bombing, just like all narcissists do. And if you
want to know more about love bombing, check out my video on love bombing. But basically,
it's that time where they are grooming you to become their target. They're testing you out
to see if you're the right one for them, to see if you're going to be good. And so,
they present themselves to you as wonderful. And if it's a romantic situation, they're the
perfect spouse. If it's a business situation, they're the perfect business partner. So they
get themselves ensconced into the relationship with you. And then once they're firmly in place,
then they start with devaluing. And they start saying little things. So the first way that covert
narcissists attack their victims is through passive aggression. And what that is, is they
seem like they're being very nice, but then they're also saying something that's not so nice.
So, they'll say something like, "Oh, you are doing so well with your weight loss. I mean, you still
have a way to go, but you're not looking as big as you normally do." Something like that. So, it's
sort of like a compliment, but also a devalue. It's also a put down. So, you'll see these
little kinds of things, like, "Oh, I see that you took care of the bank statements or balancing the
checkbook or whatever it is. I just went ahead and fixed this mistake that you had. But good
for you for doing that, that's really great. But I just went ahead and fixed your mistake." Little
things like that. They're just like this dig that are so like passive aggressive that you're not
really sure what's going on. Another way that they can be passive aggressive is to say that
they're going to do something and then not do it. And now you're left in this position of trying to
go after them and go, "Hey, how come you didn't do the thing that you said that you were going to
do?" And they say, "Oh yeah, yeah. I'm going to do that." And then they never do it. It's almost like
a little rebellion against you. Like I'm not going to do what you want me to do kind of a thing.
So, passive aggression is something you see a lot in covert narcissist because it's something that
they can do under the radar and people don't necessarily see it. It's not overt. It's not
in your face. It also gives them the ability of plausible deniability, where they can go,
"Well, I wasn't saying anything bad. I was complimenting them. What are you talking about?"
And so, they don't seem like they're the bad ones. They're so excellent at passive aggression,
and it just eats away at you. It's like little by little you just get little chunks taken out
of you. And so, you're just like nothing left of you, or they just like suck a little blood
at a time or death by a thousand cuts. I've heard all of those expressions before. And because the
two narcissists that I had to deal with were both coverts, I understand it completely and
it is no fun to deal with that. So, passive aggression is the first one. And by the way,
if you want to know more about the covert passive aggressive narcissist, I do have a video on that.
But I also highly recommend the book by Debbie Mirza called The Covert Passive-Aggressive
Narcissist, and will drop a link to that below as well. If you've ever dealt with these energy
vampires and you know exactly what I'm talking about, give me a vampires in the comments below.
So, the second thing that covert narcissists use to attack their victims is, oh, their
good old fashioned favorite, gaslighting. All narcissists love gaslighting. And gaslighting
is basically a way to try to make you think that you're crazy. And so, they say things like, "Oh,
we talked about that." When you know you didn't talk about that. Or "You said you were going to
do that." And you know that you didn't. Or even if you see something that's evidence right in front
of your face, like a text message that looks like they're being inappropriate with somebody else,
they say, "Oh, you're just reading things into it. You're just imagining stuff. I'm just friends
with this person." Or "I work with this person." And "Why do you always have to be that way?" So,
gaslighting is a way to get control over their victims and start making victims almost question
their own reality, question their own thinking, question their own self in a lot of ways.
I mean, you just get to this point where you don't even know what's real anymore,
because they're just constantly gaslighting you into making you think that you're the one that's
crazy. Another way that covert narcissists attack their victims is by isolating you. So, making you
put all your attention and focus on them. Being jealous if you are talking to anybody else.
Making sure that everything that you do is about them. And even if you're trying to tell
them something about you or how you're feeling, they'll interrupt you, they'll start saying how
they're the victim. Whatever it is that you had a problem with ends up getting shoved aside because
they have to talk about their problem and what it is. And I can't believe you're attacking me,
and especially because I'm depressed, or I'm sick, or this is all going on,
and you know that this is going on with me. And so, it's all stuffed aside. And isolating you
from your friends and your family. Why do you have to be talking to this person at this time? This
should be our time together. And who's calling you at this hour? And, why are you leaving to go
talk to somebody else or be with someone else? And so, you just end up with no family or
friends because you've got to put 100% into this person. Another thing that covert narcissists do
is stone-wall. So, they'll just not get back to you. They'll just basically ghost you and
stop talking to you. And if you want to know more about ghosting, you should check out my
video on ghosting. But they just go dark. It's sort of a form of passive aggression
in a way actually, where you're trying to reach them and they don't respond to you.
And then when you finally do get a hold of them, they're like, "Oh, I was busy. I was working.
I was this. I was that." And you know that they could have at least sent you a text back to say,
"Hey, I'm busy. I'll talk to you later." Or something like that. But they just want you
to be worried. They love creating drama. They love creating like, where you're scared about
something, where you're intimidated. So, that's definitely another way that covert narcissists
attack their victims. But another of their main little ways is triangulation. So this
is not a direct attack on you. So, coverts tend to hang back. They don't want to do the
direct attack thing. They're sneakier. They go around. They figure out ways to attack you
in very subtle ways. It's so much worse in some ways than somebody who comes right at you.
So, one of the things that they do is they triangulate. So, they get all of their
flying monkeys all lined up and believing that there's something wrong with you.
And they couch it in ways like, "Oh, I'm just so concerned about how much she's drinking."
Something like that, like they care so much. And "I can't believe that they're doing that."
Or, "Oh, it's just it makes me so sad that she's talking to these other people or she's doing
these things to me." So that they become like the victim, like that the other person is doing things
to this person. And so, that's another thing that they do. And they get all of their flying monkeys
lined up to thinking that you are bad in some way. And the best flying monkeys, the ones that
they love the most, are the ones that they think you want to have a relationship with. Or you want
them to respect you, or love you, or like you, or whatever.
And so, those are the ones, especially if they can spot weakness, they're very, very good at
manipulating their masters, master manipulators. So, they'll look for people who are going to be
open to having this conversation with them, and open to maybe hearing what they have to say.
I know one of the covert narcissists that I had to deal with actually got my own cousin
to come and talk to me about what a victim this other person was. And I just couldn't believe
that this was actually happening, but that's how good they are. And I was since able to
get my cousin to understand what was really going on and that's not happening anymore.
But that's something that covert narcissists do, is triangulate and line up their flying
monkeys. And it is certainly something that they do during the discard phase of the relationship.
When you are ending a relationship and you're having to figure out how to end it,
whether it's negotiating a divorce, negotiating a business settlement, any kind of negotiation,
this is the kind of thing that they are going to be doing as covert narcissists.
They're going to attack you even more. Everything that they were doing during the relationship
will be magnified and on steroids over and over and over again. And so, you need to be prepared
for that. And so, when you go to negotiate with them, please make sure you have my free,
Crush My Negotiation Prep Worksheet. You can just get that at winmynegotiation.com. And if
you are dealing with a covert narcissist, I know like the craziness that they do in your brain,
it's like, you just can't stop ruminating on it. And it just actually attacks every ounce
of your cells, they're energy vampires. So please don't do it alone. Join me in
my free private Facebook group. It's called, Narcissist Negotiators with Rebecca Zung. And
we'll make sure that there's a link to that below as well. If you like this video, give it a like,
share it so other people can have this content and start to learn to protect themselves as well.
And then make sure that you have dropped me a comment and subscribe
and hit that notification bell. I'm so glad you stopped by my channel today.
I'm Rebecca Zung. Thank you so much. And I will see you in the next video.