Hello I m Darren Magee and the topic for today s video comes from questions around narcissistic
people and victimhood. Questions including, How and why do they claim and exploit victimhood? Why
does it seem to work for them? Why do others believe them? So to answer those questions,
I'm going to be looking at research that s been carried out that shows how dark personality
types are more likely to claim exploit and indeed sometimes even weaponise victimhood. I will add
that research in the description of this video. And there is a lot to cover in this topic so today
I'm going to be looking at the exploiting and weaponizing victimhood. In the next video will be
looking at why it seems to work for them. Why they seem to getaway with it. And the following might
just sound like the sort of thing you would see on social media but remember these things happen
in families, workplaces, communities, even in romantic relationships. So to begin with,
if you've been in a situation or a relationship with a narcissistic person you might recognise
that anytime you reacted to their bad behaviour they focused on your reaction as evidence of them
being abused, them being mistreated. They never seem to pay attention to what causes the reaction.
And this is what's known as reactive abuse. Now I have made a video previously on reactive abuse if
you want to check that out. When it comes to the dark personality and claiming victimhood, we're
often talking about much more than just blaming their victims. When it comes to dark personality
according to research, what we're looking at is people with strong characteristics found on
the dark triad. Now the Dark Triad consists of narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism.
Narcissism, that s characterised by a sense of self importance. There's a huge sense of
entitlement, being highly disagreeable and highly resistant to criticism. There is also a lack of
empathy for others. Psychopathy, now that's the anti social element. That's characterised
by callousness and a disregard for the safety and the well being of others. Machiavellianism that's
being exploitative, manipulative and duplicitous. And although the research I looked at focused on
the dark triad, more recently other research into the dark personality has added a fourth component,
and that is sadism. They call that the dark tetrad. And sadism is characterised
by taking positive delight and pleasure from the pain and the misery of others. So how do
these characteristics come together to exploit victimhood? Well when these traits are co-occuring
together what you often see is someone is prepared to lie and scheme in order to get what they want,
regardless of what it might cost others. Someone who will glorify their own or other people s pain
just for attention or to get resources or to avoid accountability. Someone who will use
cruelty often disguised as moral outrage just to get others to conform. When they can justify
their abusive behaviour towards others because of their issues, their exaggerated slights.
So how do they go about it? Well, the research shows there are two elements to this. Firstly,
there is watch referred to as victim signalling. This is publicly expressing pain, struggles and
disadvantages in order to get them what they want and to control others. Claiming victimhood can
increase someone's access to resources. It gets them attention it sometimes they even believe it
can absolve them from responsibility for their actions. It's a form of manipulation. It's also
quite parasitical. But remember narcissists have a huge sense of entitlement. They want admiration,
sympathy, status, resources without having to earn anything. They prey on and exploit
other people's goodwill, their kindness, just to get them what they want. They tap into people's
consciences. They exploit them. No one wants to be blamed for hurting people who are already hurt.
When they don't get what they want well they claim that they are being abused, neglected,
oppressed, others don't care about them. They are deliberately withholding things just to make
their lives difficult. Secondly, there's virtue signalling. Now this is displaying their good,
kind nature publicly for others to see. They portray a moral, upstanding member of the
community. They might be involved with a worthy cause, supporting others who are less fortunate
than themselves. Remember, narcissists want to be admired. And the research shows that whenever dark
personality types both victim and virtue signal this is known as virtuous victimhood. They are
noble, virtuous and wounded all in one. Their ability to manipulate, exploit and hurt others
hugely increases. They get sympathy, validation, time, resources. And sometimes behave as selfish
and abusive as they want, because no one wants to condemn a victim, especially not a brave and noble
one who is fighting on behalf of others. So some of the common ways in which dark personality types
exploit victimhood would be firstly exaggerating disadvantage. Now exaggerating that regardless of
their social standing, regardless of their position, say in an organisation or in the
community, even in a relationship. They will still claim some kind of unfair disadvantage.
They re ill, they have trauma, they have issues so terrible they can never be resolved. They are
where they are today because of unfairness and mistreatment. They act like that disadvantage
gives him a moral high ground. In relationships they might claim their partners needs or actually
selfish demands. Their boundaries are selfish. How the partner feelings about something is unkind,
it's immoral and it's abusive. They judge and criticise their partners and indeed others from
a twisted sense of morality. Partner might say, Oh I'm hungry. Well, they might come back with,
Oh you re hungry well enjoy your meal, there are people over there starving. The partner
leaves them, the partner was unreasonable. The partner left them to struggle alone. The
partner abandoned them, the partner lacks empathy. They are the injured party. In a work situation,
if they didn't get that promotion well, it's because of something personalised against them.
They were rejected and their disappointment often becomes a grievance against the company. Now,
in the mean time, they often begin to look for and highlight anything negative they can
find about the person who actually got the job. But they do it as if they are fighting against
something really unjust. They can't be quite creative and how they demonise others from their
sense of victimhood. But remember, they have had a lifetime to learn how to manipulate. They knew
what hurts on what shames. They also know what gets them sympathy, or what their audience wants
to hear. Which is why we often see them magnifying negative, unlikable and immoral qualities in their
targets. Next, there's constant misery. Now this would mostly be associated, but not exclusive to
covert narcissism. I often think this is maybe the sort of person who just lives their life like an
open wound in public. Everything is painful. Nothing is fair. The truth is, many people do
tend to sympathise with those in pain and those who have been through hardship. But after a while
maybe they find themselves being exploited but afraid to say no because of how that might look
to others. Again, nobody wants to be seen as someone who kicked somebody when they're down.
Then there is dumping responsibility onto others. For instance, someone leaving an
abusive relationship, now the abuser might threaten to harm themselves or to harm
someone else if they don't come back. They are making the victim responsible for their safety.
Or if their victim doesn't comply, doesn't tow the narrative, well, they might claim that others may
be harmed or may harm themselves if they don't. Next is envy. Narcissistic people can be very
envious of others. When they see others with something they don't have, or can do something
that they can't, it's got nothing to do with hard work, skills, sacrifice or competence. It usually
comes down to unfairness. They got thought they got where they are through unfair advantage.
Other people's success can only come through their oppression and exploitation. Other
people's happiness must mean that someone else is miserable. It comes at their expense. In
many relationships with narcissistic people, partners tend to play during their strengths,
their qualities, hide their true feelings due to narcissistic envy. When it comes to weaponising
victimhood, this is when they use their own victimhood, their own difficulties, disadvantages
or other people s victimhood as a way to dominate, control and punish. And I think in cases like
this, this is we often see the psychopathy and the sadism come into play and I'm going to elaborate
more on that in a moment. What we often see are issues, problems, difficulties magnified.
Sometimes even just made up. Not getting what they want is abuse. It is evil. We see all or nothing
thinking. So disagreement is hatred and there is no reasoning. There is no debate. Many times
victims are often terrorised into complying or not speaking up. There is a fear of the rage, the fear
of being called out as wicked and immoral. There's fear of being labelled as cruel and unfeeling.
Victims often fear rejection from their wider social group. There's a loss of status there,
maybe even a fear of losing their job. And I'm not just talking about cancel culture that you
hear about online, because a common threat in relationships with narcissistic people is that
they threaten to tell others about what their victim is really like. They threatened to contact
friends, families and workplaces. And I think in reality, what they're often really saying is, I'm
going to tell people about the things I accuse you of. That being said though, threats like that are
callouss and sometimes enough to frighten people into silence. And then the compliance. Well let's
look at the sadistic side. Enforcing sadism is a sub type of sadistic personality and that would be
described as someone who acts as if it is their moral duty to seek out and punish wrongdoers,
wrong thinkers. They behave as if they are on some kind of moral crusade. You find people a lot like
this on social media, workplaces, communities and in families. Like their sole purpose in life
is to look for evidence of other people s bad behaviour and punish them. And the punishment,
humiliation of their targets is often merciless. But they claim moral immunity due to their
virtuous victimhood. It's like my pain is evidence of your wrong doing, my outrage is evidence of how
noble and justified I am. You must be punished. But what we really see is callousness, cruelty
and vindictiveness disguised as justice. Now as a result of the behaviour of dark personality types,
many genuine victims of abuse, many people with genuine grievances and disadvantages can fear
coming forward or speaking up out of fear. Fear of that vindictiveness. They fear they may be
vilified for having a grievance. They fear that what they have been through may be hijacked and
either used against them or used to hurt someone else. Because victim and virtue signalling is
becoming more and more prevalent many are afraid that they may be accused of doing the very things
that the dark personality types are doing, so instead suffer in silence. Dark personality types
get a lot of attention, sympathy and power from their moral outrage, especially if that outrage is
on behalf of others. They also get encouragement from other like minded dark personality types. Now
I've made a video on communal narcissism if you want to check that out. But they all validate each
other. They stand up for each other and seem to take a sadistic delight in tormenting and
targeting those they see as opponents. Narcissism by its very nature is destructive. Even when they
claim it is for the greater good. So that's a brief outline of how dark personality types
exploit victimhood. In the second part of this video I'm going to outline the why and the how
they getaway with it and maybe look at some ideas to keep yourself safe. But if you've been on the
wrong end of the narcissistic, dark personality types I would invite you to think about reaching
out to someone for support, an organisation, a mental health professional, and I will add some
resources in the description of this video. But as always, if there's anything I haven't included,
please feel free to use the comment box below. And if you found this video interesting,
please consider subscribing to my channel. And until next time, thanks for watching.