Are you the victim of narcissistic injury and maybe that narcissistic rage? In this
episode of the narcissism 101, I'm going to talk all about what that is, what the destructive
force is of that narcissistic injury and how to avoid it. Hi, I'm Rebecca Zung, Top 1%
Attorney, and the bestselling author of the books, Negotiate Like You M.A.T.T.E.R and
Breaking Free A Step-By-Step Divorce Guide. And I've helped thousands of people go from
lives of drama, trauma, and chaos, just step into lives of freedom, possibility, and purpose.
And I do the same thing for you right here in these videos.
So, if you haven't subscribed to my channel already, now's a great time to do that. Subscribe
and hit the notification bell, and then you'll get notified every time I upload brand new
content. Now, let's talk about narcissistic injury. What is that? So, narcissists, if
you don't understand their personality type, are actually the most insecure, fragile people
on the planet. They do a lot to cover that up. I often think of like they're little wizard
of Oz, by the time they got up this big, huge, yellow brick road and they saw Emerald City
and it was this massive, huge thing. And they get there and they're talking to this person
and this being, and it's super loud. And it's really just this little old man behind a curtain
who's like pulling all the strings. That's what a narcissist is.
They cover themselves with tons of trappings in order to cover up the fact that they're
actually the most scared little people on the planet. So, what happens is, something
happened to them when they were children, maybe when they were five, six or seven years
old, and they started to believe and see the world as a place that's not safe, and as a
place that they couldn't trust, and as a place that they had to survive. And so, what happens
is, they have no inner sense of self esteem. They have to get all of their self esteem,
they don't even get any self esteem, but they have to get all of their sense of value from
the outside world. And we call that narcissistic supply. And
if you haven't watched my video on the Narcissism 101: Narcissistic Supply, I suggest that you
go and do that. What narcissistic supply is, is anything that feeds their ego. So, it might
be money. It might be compliments. It might be a big house. It might be a prestigious
job, something like that. But it also comes in the form of a dark underbelly, which is
anything that feeds their ego in a bad way. So, it could be degrading, devaluing, debasing
people, judging people, gaslighting people, using word salad. So, when you're dealing
with narcissistic injury, it's this open scab basically, almost like an open sore for them.
That if you touch on that, you're going to see the narcissistic rage come flying out.
Basically it's this little fragile ego inside of them that if they feel slighted in any
way, then they react with this unbelievable rage.
And they can smell being slighted or any kind of tone, even if it's made up, this slight
could be potentially just made up. But if for some reason they sense that you're not
for them in any way, then you are against them. And that's when that narcissistic rage
will come flying out. So, what narcissistic injury actually is, is like a vulnerability
inside of them, a vulnerability in their self esteem, that if there's any form of criticism
or any form of defeat or any form of perceived going against them in some way, even if it's
made up, even if they suspect that you're cheating when you're not, or they suspect
that you talked badly about them or that you just made an offhanded remark at a dinner
party about, I don't know, some ex boyfriend or girlfriend or something.
And now, all of a sudden, it's just a three day huge fight because that injury was triggered.
It's almost like hitting a scab that is now open. And so, the reaction to any kind of
bumping up against that narcissistic injury is going to seem like way out of proportion.
You're going to be thinking, what the heck is going on here? I mean, it could be just
the slightest little thing and it gets triggered. And in my divorce cases I see it a lot because
somebody will, let's say, they offer you some sort of a parenting plan or something like
that and you want to change it a little bit. Well, now the narcissistic rage will come
flying out. I mean, I had a situation with a client one time, and this was actually pretty
recently, where we were getting ready to mediate a case with a malignant narcissistic husband.
I was representing the wife. And he showed up and he just didn't even like the way the
mediator was talking to him. I mean, the mediator was just basically giving his opening statement
and saying, "I'm the mediator, and this is how long I've been a mediator. And this is
your day of opportunity to settle your case and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And this
guy at that point hadn't hired a lawyer. He did end up going to find a lawyer after that.
So, my client and I were on one side of the table, and he's on the other side. And the
mediator is at the end of the table. And the mediator made the mistake of saying something
about, "Okay, I understand the issues to be a property division and alimony." And when
he mentioned the word alimony, this guy stood up and started freaking out and screaming
and yelling. And finally, I said to my client, I said,
"Why don't you and I just step out." So we stepped out. We left the mediator in there
to try to talk him down and calm him down. And he didn't ever calm down. He just screamed
and yelled and then he just left. And so, we didn't even get to mediate the case because
that narcissistic injury was somehow touched within him. That after a 32 year marriage
where he was the breadwinner, that he might actually have to pay some support to my client.
And then, later on we even went back and mediated the case again once he had a lawyer. And we
mediated it over two days, and he started off by taking these unreasonable positions
and all these things, it's all because that injury within him was triggered by the divorce
and by the fact that she didn't want to be in the relationship anymore.
So, that's what you see with narcissistic injury. And if you are so ready to get away
from this narcissistic injury and all this crazy chaos, give me a so ready in the comments.
So that's narcissistic injury in a nutshell, there's actually probably whole entire books
written on it, but that's just enough in a nutshell so that you can understand it so
that when you go to negotiate with it and create leverage around it, you'll understand
that personality type. If you are getting ready to negotiate with a narcissist, make
sure you grab my free Crush My Negotiation Prep Worksheet. It is basically an E-booklet,
and you will not want to go into a negotiation without it. You can get it at the link below,
or you can just go to winmynegotiation.com and it will be all yours.
And if you want to join my free private Facebook group, it's called Narcissist Negotiators
with Rebecca Zung. Come on over and get supported. Be with other people who are dealing with
Narcissists in a private setting. We'd love to see you there. And if you like this video,
give it a like, give it a share, drop me a comment. Let me know that you were here. I'm
so glad that you were here. And remember, today's a great day to start negotiating your
best life. I'll see you in the next video.