Does your relationship with a narcissist feel like a roller coaster ride
where maybe they're praising you one day, treating you like you're this VIP in their
life, and then the next day, suddenly they're excluding you.
They're cutting you off and treating you like you are this vile, evil person.
In this video, I'm going to be sharing
with you about why the relationship with a narcissist feels like a never
ending roller coaster ride and what you can do about it.
Now, first, for those of you who are new to my channel, I'm Shaneen Megji.
I'm a transition coach.
Welcome to my YouTube series on Toxicity is not your destiny.
My mission is to help people navigate toxic relationships and environments
in their lives from a biblical, practical and spiritual perspective.
So if you like this video,
please take a moment and click on the subscribe button and click
on the bell, because every single week I'm going to be bringing you a new video
to empower you in navigating toxic relationships and environments.
So now let's get into the subject.
Why is life with a narcissist like a roller coaster ride?
Because there's this thing they do called
splitting where they see the world in black and white or all or nothing.
So the way that this splitting plays out in a relationship is that the narcissist
will always assess you as either being all good or all bad.
And there's always no in between.
And usually their all-or-nothing
assessment is based on the very last interaction they had with you.
So if it was a good interaction, then you're all good.
You're amazing and there's no defect in you.
And if the last interaction was bad, then you're a bad person.
You're evil. It doesn't matter how good you were
all the other 99.999% of the time.
Or if you have a long history with them of being a faithful, loyal person,
if the last time they interacted with you is negative, then you're still a bad
person in their eyes, even with your good track record with them.
A relationship with a narcissist is extremely difficult.
You can feel on top of the world one day and be completely deflated the next day.
The narcissist can praise you to high heavens one day and tear you to pieces
the next day. You can be promoted and demoted
in the same week. You can be their most trusted confidant and trusted advisor
and their biggest betrayer all in the same week.
It is truly a life of instability and walking on eggshells,
let me tell you. You never know where you
stand because everything is subject to change.
And that is because of their black and white thinking.
Why do narcissists think this way?
Because they are incapable of integrating
you as a whole person and seeing you as a whole package deal of good traits
and bad traits and everything in between, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Their way of viewing the world is
an extremely primitive binary way of thinking,
where they see you as either all good or all bad.
This is also where their idealization and devaluing come in.
When they're idealizing you, they have you way up high on this pedestal.
And this is likely what you may have
experienced at the very beginning of the relationship when you had their
admiration, their love, their attention because they were seeing you as all good.
They saw no flaw whatsoever in you.
But, as soon as you did something wrong that disappointed them or upset them,
then suddenly you descended a million notches in their eyes,
where they saw you as having absolutely no value or importance in their lives.
And they thought of you like a piece of garbage. In the narcissist's world
there is no in-between.
While a healthy person is capable
of allowing the good and the bad to coexist together in a person, and being
able to navigate with the gray zones and the nuances and the complexities
that make up a human being, a narcissist is simply incapable
of holding all those parts together to make up a person.
So for their own self-protection,
because they're so unstable in their own sense of self, and they can't deal
with uncertainty and unpredictability that challenges their false self,
they have to keep all of these things separate.
So this splitting the narcissist does really comes out of trauma and is
a defense mechanism from early infancy stage because of parental figures in their
life who did not create a nurturing, safe and stable bond with them.
So because this defense mechanism
of splitting from childhood still sticks to them into adulthood,
being in a relationship with a narcissist on good terms over the
long haul is simply impossible and it's really unsustainable.
I honestly think Jesus Christ,
the Holy Spirit in all the angels in heaven probably would not have been
able to succeed in being in a long term relationship with a narcissist.
And here's why.
It is very difficult to earn their approval.
And if you do have their approval, it is very fleeting because one bad action
can erase all your good actions and all your history of knowing the narcissist.
So the problem in the narcissistic
relationship is that you're always in this position where you're forever trying
to work your way back into the good graces of the narcissist to get back on their
pedestal, so to speak, and to get out of this humiliating disvalue phase.
And it can be so painful when you're in that devalued phase,
because often what happens is that the narcissist will seek out other
people to replace you, because after all, you're not worthy to be on the pedestal,
so they need to find somebody else.
And they're always on the search and the lookout for the next best person.
And maybe they do succeed in finding a new connection that is just amazing in their
life, somebody that can be on this pedestal for a short while.
But like every human being,
it's not long before they also make a mistake, since they're also human.
And they get knocked off the pedestal, too, and they do something to disappoint
the narcissist, and they come crashing down.
And then sadly, that person also becomes the enemy.
They get devalued.
And now that they're devalued,
now the narcissist is noticing you and thinking maybe you're not all bad.
You're all good, and they stick you back on the pedestal.
Suddenly the narcissist sees you as all good again, because now it's this other
person that's all bad and you're back in their good graces, and they see you as
a source of supply to support them and be an ally with them against their enemy.
And that is really how a cycle can happen with a narcissist.
You just go through these extreme highs
and lows of being idealized and devalued by them, depending on how they're doing
with their perceived enemies or real enemies.
So if they're perceiving other enemies
coming at them, they're going to idealize you and they're going to look to you
for supply to help them regulate all their negative emotions.
But if there aren't those people,
then what happens is they start to zone in on the slights and mishaps
of the people closest to them and treat them like enemies.
And that is how it is in the world of a narcissist.
They create these volatile, unstable and competitive environments around them.
They have the ability to transform confident and secure people into people
who doubt, who question themselves, who second-guess and have low self-esteem.
They can turn people who are naturally
calm and peaceful into fearful, anxious people.
If the narcissist calls himself or herself
a Christian or is a spiritual leader, they can cause people who love
Jesus Christ and love the Christian faith to be completely turned off by it.
And narcissistic spiritual leaders are the worst of all because their dark
personality traits can cause Christians to fall away from the faith.
If the narcissist represents God, who wants a God that is a narcissist?
But that is a lie from the pit of hell to turn many Christians away from the faith.
That is one of the devil's ways in these times to bring wolves in sheep's clothing
into the church, to cause many to fall away from the faith.
Narcissists are discontinuous.
They don't build relational equity
in relationships with people because they simply do not bond.
They're incapable of it.
So even if you've been with a narcissist
long term and invested in that relationship,
all your efforts have gone into a big black hole with no bottom.
There's no building happening in that relationship.
There's no foundation being laid of anything.
And that's why it's a roller coaster ride with them and why you're always actually
on an uphill battle, because there's no relational bridge
that exists to sustain any negative withdrawal in their eyes.
Even if you have been the most loyal faithful person. Because of the narcissist's
black and white thinking, you're always having to prove yourself anew with them.
And nothing in the past ever counts, except, of course, the negatives,
because the narcissist doesn't forget the past slights and they will make you pay,
even if it was for something that happened
a year ago, two or three years ago or even a decade ago.
I also just want to mention that black
and white thinking also goes with triangulating,
and this is the insidious form of abuse and gaslighting that a narcissist does.
So, for example, you can be in a marriage.
If you are being devalued by the spouse, they will idealize the children
and triangulate your child against you or you against the child.
Or if you're in a workplace, the boss can devalue you and idealize your
colleague and now cause this triangulation.
So if they wanted to manipulate you and push your buttons,
what they would do is devalue you and idealize someone you both know,
who are you are both close to, to make it very difficult for that person they're
idealizing to empathize with you and what you're going through.
So they will gaslight you and make you
feel like you're the problem and use the people they're idealizing to also
gaslight you and make you feel like the problem,
because after all, those people being idealized are not
seeing what you're seeing or experiencing what you're experiencing,
so it must all be in your head.
So that is how the gaslighting works to make you feel like you're the problem,
and you are the crazy one and you're the one with the issues.
The other thing, too, is that narcissists disassociate a lot.
So their memories are not vivid. They're not accurate.
They don't miss people or have nostalgia or things like that.
They're detached in that way.
So if you were to disappear for a while
out of their life and get reintroduced again, it would be like starting a brand
new relationship with them because they're not continuous people.
They're always reinventing and restarting
new chapters of their lives, which lacks this continuity.
So it's very easy for them to forget people.
So with everything I've just shared about
splitting and black and white thinking, I want to encourage you that what all this
means is that there's nothing wrong with you.
You are not crazy.
You might feel crazy and feel hopeless
because there's nothing you feel you can ever do to please the narcissist.
It feels like a losing battle because they
will always find fault and see you as all bad no matter how much good you do.
So it's really important for you to know that this issue is with the narcissist.
It's not about you.
It is all about them.
This is not your fault.
This problem lies one hundred percent with them.
So you're not to blame and you don't have to turn yourself into a pretzel
in this relationship.
There is nothing you can do to control how
they will see you from one day to the next.
So the best thing you can do is just get off their crazy-making roller coaster with them.
Get off that crazy ride that you're putting yourself on,
that is making you sick. Make every effort to detach yourself.
Detach your heart, your spirit, so that whether they treat you well one
day or are annoyed at you the next day, you couldn't care less.
It doesn't affect you because you know that this is not about you.
They're like the wind shifting and changing directions every moment.
They're unstable people, unstable and everything they do.
So if you can come to terms with the fact that this person you're with is deeply
unstable in himself or herself and that there's no anchor within them
for you to hold on to, the better it would be for you.
It is better for you to disconnect your
heart from them and instead focus and fixate your life on connecting
yourself to the real anchor and the real stable rock, which is Jesus Christ.
The Bible says that Jesus is a solid rock.
He's a firm foundation.
He never changes.
He's the same yesterday, today and forever.
His promises are always yes and amen. His word lasts for all of eternity.
So make a decision that you had enough
of this crazy-making and you're going to get centered on Jesus and you're going
to put all of your eggs in that basket. And also ask God to help you to find love
and support from other people in your life who are trustworthy and who are solid.
Now, when it comes to a narcissistic spiritual leader, it can be tricky.
It can cause you to think that God thinks the same way about you as a narcissist
does, but just know that He absolutely doesn't.
Any narcissist,
even if they call themselves a Christian or do many good works for God who are very
gifted, they're actually sinning against God.
Their black and white thinking or all-or-nothing
thinking is a huge sin against God.
And here is why.
When they see who is all good or put you
on that pedestal, they're actually making you into a God.
And that's a form of idolatry.
God clearly says in his word that you shall have no other gods before me.
Anything or anyone that comes before God is actually an idol.
And so the narcissist sins in this way
in their manner of handling relationships in their lives.
The narcissist not only turns people into gods, but then they demand people
to become perfect like a god, and that is not sustainable or attainable.
Then when you disappoint them, they discard you.
And that's a sin too, because in essence, they're rejecting God.
It's not that you are God, but you have been created
in the image of God. You have this incredible inherent value.
Psalm 139 says that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
So if Jesus can come on earth and die for you because you have such incredible
value and worth in his eyes, like who does the narcissist think he is
or she is to think that you can be discarded like trash?
It's the ultimate form of arrogance
and contempt and something God really hates and actually resists.
But God has a totally different personality than the narcissist.
Remember that God loved you and died for you while you were still a sinner.
So God is entirely capable of seeing all
your bad qualities and loving you even passionately in them.
And he's so fully accepting of you,
even while he is empowering you to change and become more like him.
And God's empowerment to change does not come with shame.
It always comes with inspiration
of wanting to be better, wanting to be completely who you're called to be.
So friend, I just want to encourage you
to get centered on God and find your place of peace and joy by being connected
with Him, because that is the place where you will find freedom and you will find
deep, deep healing from all of the abuse and where you will be able to become
who you're are called to be and step into your God-given purpose.
I hope these insights were helpful.
If you know someone who is on a massive roller coaster ride with a narcissist
in their life and going through highs and lows, share this video with them so
that they can get the insights into the narcissist's black and white thinking.
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So this brings me to the end of my video.
I appreciate you so much.
Thank you for watching.
Until the next time.