Narcissistic manipulators are everywhere.
They prey on everyone and if they lock sights on you, the first thing they'l do is make
sure they don't set off any of your natural alarms.
In past videos we've had the opportunity to spot real life examples of narcissistic manipulation
traits, so I decided to create a list about the 7 most common behaviors of this kind of
manipulators and how to neutralize them.
It's great to have you back, my Body Language Baddies!
My name is Jesús Enrique Rosas and I'm the Body language Guy.
The best way to support my channel is subscribe and hit that bell so you don't miss any of
my body language analysis and tips.
Even if there's no visible trait or feature that allows you to spot a narcissist just
by looking at them, there are behavior traits that you can detect easily.
These predators can be colleagues at your workplace, a classmate at school or even inside
your family.
But one of the most dangerous scenarios to meet them are relationships.
That's why I'll be focusing these narcissistic traits on dating so you don't get "entangled"
with them.
The first one is that they crave attention at all costs.
They will always feel uncomfortable if they are in a situation where they are not the
center, or the smartest person, or the most important guest.
And that's why some people get this wrong about partners who don't like to go to family
or friends reunions.
Narcissistic manipulators sometimes will prefer to have all your attention so they will prefer
to hang out only with you, but... if going to the meeting or reunion means that there
will be people that admire them, or say how great they are, or your partner has a higher
status than them, wether if it's financial or academic or anything else, then they will
prefer to go to the reunion.
And that's one of the warnings about trying to detect a narcissistic manipulator by a
single event or trait.
Sometimes they will want to hang out just with you, sometimes they'll like to take you
to meetings or reunions... the question you should ask yourself is, which reunions are
they running away from, and which ones do they like?
That way you'll start picking up patterns that will come in handy later.
Narcissistic manipulators are known for separating people from their family and friends.
But this happens in two stages.
In the first stage, they will use all their charisma to make sure both your family and
friends love them.
They will attend family reunions, they will be glad to hang out with your friends... it
will be a great time, because for a few months you'll think that you found a special someone
that actually fits in your life.
But this first stage is in fact, part of the plan.
The narcissistic manipulator uses this phase to spot the different relationships in your
circle of friends and in your family with a very clear goal: identify both the ones
that could be a threat to them, and the ones that could become their allies.
And they have an uncanny ability for that.
Most of the time it's natural, even subconscious the way they use it.
What do they do with this information?
Well, they start to plant very subtle conflicts to undermine your relationship to the ones
that they consider a threat.
And at the same time, secretly reinforcing relationships with those that could become
allies in the future.
The kind of allies in your circle of friends or family that could help them, without being
aware of it, to take you on a guilt trip.
To make you feel guilty of something.
Of course, since most of your friends and family, say 90% of your friends and family
will be a threat to them, a threat to them being the center of your life, then they will
be making that distance one member at a time.
That's how they isolate you and that's why the first stage of the relationship with a
narcissist is totally different from what you could expect.
The next one is facial expressions, and again, I'm not talking about something such as, if
your fiancé puts their face like this, it's because they are narcissists... no, it doesn't
work that way.
But it works in the sense that their facial expression reactions will give them away when
the emotions they project in their faces are not the emotions that they are trying to express
with their words and actions.
And in that sense, a narcissist will be very careful not just to say kind words, but also
make sure their actions match that apparent kindness.
Something as simple as a narcissist acknowledging someone's work, or value, or achievements...
that could be a good thing; they act and say something good.
Something appropriate.
But if at that instant you spot that their facial expression changes for a split second
and shows a contradicting emotion, like anger, or disgust, THAT could be a signal of their
true feelings.
This is where we enter the fascinating realm of triggering emotions.
When you don't wait for a circumstance to arise so that the narcissist displays those
microexpressions; but instead, you are suspicious that they could be a narcissist, and then
you set them up in a situation in which they would have to go against that.
Such as praising someone.
I know it sounds machiavellian, to set up a situation to trigger an emotion on someone,
but it's something we do subconsciously all the time.
Like when you learned which was the right time to ask something to your parents to maximize
the odds of a yes.
You remember that, right?
Back then you learned to set up an emotional response, in that case a positive one.
For the narcissist, you're trying to spark an emotional reaction that confirms those
narcissistic traits.
And if it helps to be sure about their true intentions, then... it's fair game.
Now, this is important: not every narcissist is a manipulator; and not every manipulator
is a narcissist.
In fact, your partner could be a narcissist and not manipulate you.
There is no flawless human being and we all came to this world with a different mix of
personality traits, character, features, superpowers, and weaknesses.
Nurturing and how a person was raised goes a long way in recognizing their own blind
spots and how to correct them.
So, someone who was born with narcissistic traits but had the luck to be born into parents
with emotional intelligence tools to channel that trait, will learn to control it over
time.
They will never stop being narcissists, but they will understand, rationalize that they
will not get very far in relationships being like that.
On the other hand, there are people that are born without the narcissistic traits and if
they're born into a toxic family they will develop manipulative strategies just to cope
with those situations.
Sadly, that will leak into their profession, their relationships, etcetera.
This does not mean, in any situation that you can "change" or "fix" someone.
This is extremely important.
If you take one thing from this video, it should be this.
That question pops up all the time.
Can I fix my husband? can I heal my girlfriend? even if your intentions are good, it's not
your duty.
It's theirs.
Because no matter what you do, if they haven't realized their nature and what they cause
to those around them, and make the decision to change, any action on your part will be
fruitless and what's more, even sink you further into their manipulation.
And when we talk about a manipulator's weapon of choice, it's always going to be gaslighting.
Gaslighting is the tactic of making you doubt your own sanity, and there's a lot of ways
that it can be manifested.
The easiest and most common, is that today they say something, and tomorrow they will
swear to God that they never said that.
Or, if they said that, they didn't mean that.
Or it was you who didn't understand them.
In any case the attack will not be physical but psychological.
They could even say that with a smile, and in a charming way.
"Aw sweetie, I'm already used to you forgetting things, but... nevermind".
Other gaslighting tactic that is used a lot at workplaces is a passive aggressive attack,
when the manipulator asks you for something and gives you some instructions.
"You should do this, and this, and this"... but the instructions are deliberately vague
so you're going to mess up.
That way they'll have another opportunity to say, "Hey, you messed up, now I have to
fix this, thank you", and make you feel really bad about yourself.
And if you feel bad about yourself today, and it happens again next week, and the next
and the next, you not only will develop serious doubts about your own skills and sanity, but
also will depend more and more on the manipulator.
And narcissistic manipulators love this because it means that they are the center.
You're just the satellite that depends on their gravity pull.
Now, if you mess up, they will be condescending.
But what if they mess up?
In that case, they will do absolutely anything just to confirm and to be clear that it was
not their fault.
That it was someone else's fault.
That it was the weather, or a colleague at work, or the neighbors, or their ex, or their
family, or, specially, you.
You'll be amazed at their ability and skills to craft the perfect alibi or explanation
about what just happened that had nothing to do with them, because they are, essentially,
flawless.
Perfect.
And this is a real red flag, and one that combines body language, attitude and the words
they use.
They will be angry, they will be emphatic, they will be driven, they will spend a huge
amount of energy in making sure the world understands that they had nothing to do with
what went wrong.
Of course; they will spend all this energy on proving their 'innocence', not on solving
the problem itself.
Consider yourself lucky if they don't blame YOU for the problem.
If you have been in a relationship with a narcissist you will remember that these 'bad'
episodes don't happen all the time.
And that's how the emotional rollercoaster works.
The manipulator first drops love bombs on you.
That is, making you feel great, loved, blessed, happy, in a way that overwhelms your senses.
In a way that no one ever has done for you.
But then, while you're at that cloud, high up in the sky, they gaslight you.
A very small one.
One that gets unnoticed.
You laugh it off.
Then the love bombing begins again but two weeks later, another gaslighting episode.
"Oh, you forgot this again".
"Oh, you messed it up, but don't worry".
"Oh, nevermind, being sloppy can be cute".
And so, the Love Bombing started high up here and the gaslighting was almost invisible but
as time passes, the love episodes are less and less often or intense, and the gaslighting
is more and more evil and obvious.
The problem is that by this point, you're hooked, addicted to those scarce moments of
love.
If you combine the gaslighting with that "scraps of love" you will enter a downward spiral
in which you depend emotionally of the narcisisst.
And that's what they wanted from the start.
Be extremely careful because spotting narcissistic manipulators can be tricky due to the fact
that their manipulation usually develops over a long period of time so it's hard to notice
the change.
It usually helps listening to words of warning from your friends and family.
They are looking at the situation from outside so they have a fresh set of eyes.
There's another tool that can help, and it's journaling.
Keeping private, personal notes of your life is the best "time machine" you have to backtrack
a few weeks or months to identify how you felt back then in your relationship, and if
something has changed since then.
Journaling is also great for your own well-being so I most probably will be elaborating in
another video about how to do it right.
If you don't want to miss it, subscribe.
I've got more videos that explore the body language and behavior of narcissists.
You can also download my 100 body language tips right in the description.
And don't forget so subscribe and hit that bell so you don't miss any of my new episodes.
See you next time!