Hello I m Darren Magee and today s question asks if I would discuss the closet
narcissist. Now if you like this video, if you find it helpful, please click like and please
consider subscribing to my channel, but just as a reminder, this video is not a substitute for
support from a mental health professional, nor is it a tool to be used to diagnose someone.
Now the closet narcissist can be quite difficult to spot, and is often confused with the covert
narcissist. Now I think this is largely because a lot of the strategies, the tactics, the behaviours
they are largely the same. There's the insensitive to criticism. There's a sense of helplessness and
vulnerability. There's controlling, manipulating others through acts of guilt tripping and shaming,
and I've made videos on vulnerable narcissism before if you want to check those out.
But what it is that makes them difficult to spot is that with narcissism, remember there s often
this self-absorbed kind of selfish, lacking empathy and a huge sense of entitlement, but
this is all directed inwards. It's the narcissist puts themselves at the centre of the universe.
With closet narcissism, all of those qualities, characteristics, those traits are still there,
but it is not themselves is the centre of the universe,
it is someone else. The closet narcissist can be afraid of the spotlight. It can be quite subtle,
so they tend to give credit for their own work, their own achievements, their qualities
to someone else. They live to serve, now live to serve normally, a grandiose narcissists
in order to get their own needs met, they bask in someone else's high regard and high esteem.
The one they worship is maybe a partner, though more often than not, commonly it's a parent.
But to them that person, whoever they are, they are wealthy, they re intelligent, they are very
attractive. They're very virtuous, they are noble. They re high up in the church. They,
they do, a lot of charity work. They feel good whenever the one they worship looks good. Whenever
they re esteemed highly. So everything they do is to make the person they worship look good.
So with narcissism you often hear things like How great I am, how I was able to do this.
You know, how I accomplished that? I'm so, I'm so brilliant that this With closet narcissism it
sounds different. It's aren't they great? Isn't that wonderful, isn't what they did absolutely
fantastic? They are their narcissists apologists, they re the flying monkey, the best agent they
have there. They re the mascot, their supporter, they re the cheerleader. There is a pervasive
preoccupation with their idol s image through status. Their well being on their reputation.
They get their validation through association through being involved with that person.
Their self esteem is met by living vicariously through someone else. Everything they do,
every act of charity, everything they accomplish, every act of kindness is for the benefit
and for the enhancement of that person they worship. As I said, they can be difficult to spot.
I think however they can be easier to spot in a relationship and for two reasons. First of all,
they may be in a relationship with the grandiose narcissist themselves, so they enable the toxic
behaviour. They give that narcissist everything they want, they turn a blind eye to the cheating,
to the religious, to the selfishness. They are constantly promoting them,
praising them to others. They take the insults, the unkind humour. The cheating is never the
fault of the partner, or the narcissist. It's the kid s fault. It's their works fault. It's their
parent s fault. It's even their own fault. Or it could look a little differently.
They may have one time really loved and idolised the partner, but when, as normal, the partner
doesn't quite live up to the ideal version that they created, then comes out the covert narcissism
to undermine, to sabotage new neglect, devalue, in order to punish them with Another way to spot
them in a relationship is when that person they worship that, that, Their narcissists is maybe
a narcissistic parent. Now it's almost like the parent is the third person in the relationship.
The parent will always know what's best. Things told to them in their youth are still held as
if they're true today. Now, as a teenager, they may have been told they weren't allowed to drink,
so in their thirties, forties, even fifties, they're still not drinking. They may have
been told they weren t allowed to go to a certain place nearly on holiday or to visit or whatever.
Again in their twenties, thirties, forties they have never ever been to that place.
If their partner ever so much is disagrees with the Narcissistic parent, doesn't accept the
interference in the marriage. Doesn't accept the unkind humour, the insults that jokes with Jags.
They are now the villain. The partner gets punished for not worshipping that parent the
way they do. So some of the common characteristics of the closet narcissist include a lot of empty
promises. Now unless, unless it's the person that they worship, unless it's the person that
they idolise, like regardless of what it is they agree to with someone they have no intention of
keeping it. No intention of keeping their part of the bargain. Unless it benefits the person
they worship somehow. And as is common with a lot of different kinds of narcissism, there was a lot
of trauma in their past, but it's a trauma that's not fully understood. Now this could look like the
closet narcissist. The same things like they were bullied a lot when they were younger when they
were at school. What they don't acknowledge what they don't see is that the bullying didn't stop
when they got home. Sometimes they were actually safer in school than they were at home. Because
regardless of how badly they were treated or are being treated by the grandiose narcissist,
the closet narcissists cannot hold in their head even for a moment the thought of that person ever
doing, saying anything that was inappropriate or bad or harmful. Another common characteristic
would be they lack assertiveness. Just like the covert narcissist, their counterpart. They lack
assertiveness so what they will often do is they tend to gossip to others when someone upsets them,
let's them down so much rather than just challenge them or confront them. Either that or they can
just ignore that person as if they don't exist. That could be a former friend, family member,
an ex partner you know about person talks to the closet narcissist and they just look right through
them. It's like they're, they're not even there. Another common characteristic would be
using manipulative language and again. If someone is being raised by a narcissistic parent, now,
have never really learned to ask for anything for fear of being humiliated, rage, rejection.
So it's really difficult for them to ask for anything an adult, food, or partner might
hear things like, Would you like to make me some coffee? Or, are you making dinner?
They're not going to say things like, are you making coffee? Any chance I could get a cup?, or,
do me a favour, could you make a dinner tonight? I'm a bit tired . Their esteem is so fragile,
so shaky they can't just ask for it. That there is a fear of being told no. There is a fear the
other person doesn't care about them, and there's a fear of, of being ridiculed somehow because they
have never learned to fully understand or a knowledge their own needs. They struggle to
articulate them honestly and openly, and like the covert narcissist will try to manipulate and shame
others into feeling obligated to help them. So what is it, makes a closet narcissist? Well,
I don't think there's any one answer, but I will give you some personal experience I suppose.
Again, you think of someone being raised in a narcissistic home, Okay? And you think of the lost
child, I made a video on the lost child before, this is the child that is hidden in plain sight,
never over achieving, they don't want to outshine the Golden child but never underachieving because
they don't want to end up like the scapegoat. They may have been punished for getting any kind
of attention. So they learned to give credit to others for their work, they they learned that
they got positive attention through others. You know if there OK, then I'm OK. They learn
to put everybody else's needs, everybody in the cult like family that they grew up in,
put their needs in front of their own so they grow up feeling empty. There is no sense of self they.
They gave up everything to appease the parents so they don't really know how to self reflect. They
lack insight and when they have no one to worship, there's no one to admire they tend to feel bored,
ythey feel dissatisfied and when their partner, as I said earlier, it when their partner does not see
their idol, their parent whatever the way they do. Quite commonly that's where we see
the covert narcissist dynamics kicking into place and not relationship with the partner, the kids,
and everybody else. So that's a brief outline of the closet narcissist. Now remember it s the
narcissist who lives to serve and promote another narcissist. Now if you have any
thoughts experiences you'd like to share, by all means please use the comment box below.
There have been some interesting discussions and observations starting around these videos.
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future updates on mental health related topics and until next time Thanks for watching.