Are you dealing with a narcissist and you are so sick of their mind games,
and you want to know what they actually are so that you can fight back against them?
By the end of this video, that's what you're going to know.
Hi, I'm Rebecca Zung, top 1% attorney and the best-selling 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 many thousands of
people go from lives of drama, trauma, chaos, and the narcissist toxic stew of a world
all the way to lives of freedom, possibility, purpose, feeling good, breaking free. Doesn't that
sound good? That's what I help you do right here on this channel. So make sure that you subscribe
and you hit that notification bell, and that way you'll get notified when I upload new content and
go live and do all the cool things that we do here on this channel, in this incredible
community of people who are here lifting each other up, supporting each other and helping you
escape the clutches of that toxic, horrible personality. Believe me, I've been there. And
so I know the mind games that they play. I've seen them. I've dealt with them. In my practice, I've
been a divorce attorney for over 20 years now, so I've certainly seen the worst of them there.
I've only ever practiced divorce law. I've only ever dealt with divorce law in a high
conflict, high asset situation. So I've been up close, personal dealing with
the most flaming of narcissists in my practice as my client or as the opposing client,
or maybe it was the opposing counsel. Yeah, lots of those. And the judges sometimes too.
I mean, narcissists are everywhere and so I've dealt with them up close and personal like that in
my practice and I became a master at negotiating and actually have spoken all over the world on
negotiating, but it wasn't until I dealt with two narcissists that I started to see their mind games
up close, where I really actually became one of their targets and that was two of them in my life.
So one of the ways that they play mind games with you and especially the covert narcissist is being
passive aggressive, and so this is where they say little things that might be construed as okay,
but then is also not. So that's one of the things they do, or they just don't do something that
they say they're going to do, or they do something that they said that they wouldn't. But it's little
things, little passive aggressive things, like going to the store, asking if you want something,
coming home and forgetting your thing. "Oh, I forgot." And that's a plausible deniability
thing where, okay, maybe they actually forgot, but you know that they didn't and it's a little dig.
It's a little way to devalue you or they'll agree to something to your face
and then you see them behind your back not agreeing or they're super nice to your face,
and then you find out that they said something bad about you behind your back. These little passive,
aggressive things, and especially covert narcissist. And if you want to know more about the
covert passive aggressive narcissist, check out my video on the Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist.
And there's also a great book on The Covert Passive‑Aggressive Narcissist that I read, and it
totally opened my eyes and it is by Debbie Mirza and we will also drop a link to that book below
as well if you'd like to know more about that. The second way that narcissist says use mind games
is ghosting. This is where they just stop talking to you for no reason, or they just go dark.
All of a sudden you've been talking for days on end and you've been texting each other and back
and forth, and all of a sudden they're gone and then they pop back up and they say, "Oh,
I was working." Or, "Oh, I was doing something else." And you know that they could have at least
written a text back to say, "Hey, I'm working." But that's what they do and they do that to
mess with you so that you want them, so that you're wondering what's going on and it sends
you into this tail spin. So related to that is this hot and cold thing where one minute
they're love bombing you and saying that you're the most beautiful or the most handsome or the
most smart or the amazing and you're perfect and blah, blah, blah, and then the next minute
they're like, "Oh, what are you doing here? I don't want to talk to you," and blah, blah, blah.
It's just like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. What's going on with that? So
that's another way that they play mind games with you is hot and cold. So ghosting, hot and cold,
passive aggressive, those are all ways that they play mind games with you. Another way that
they play mind games with you is future faking or making empty promises that they have no intention
of keeping. So if you're upset with them or there's something that you're calling them
out on with their behavior, they'll just sit there and they'll say, "Oh, this will never
happen again." Or, "From now on, I will always do this." Or, "This is how it's going to look
going forward." Or, "Yes, I'm going to marry you." Or, "Yes, I will take out the trash
from now on." Or, "Yes, I will take care of the kid." Or whatever it is that you're upset about,
or, "Oh, I will never again drop the ball on this particular thing." And then you're believing them
and in that moment you stop and so they've kind of love bombed you into believing some fake future.
And if you want to know more about future faking, check out my video on Future Faking and I have
a whole series on Narcissism 101 that you can check out as well. But that's one of the ways
that they play mind games with you as well. And if you think that they're just such total
fakers, give me a fakers! in the comments. Another way that they play mind games with you is their
very personal favorite, all narcissists engage in this and that is gaslighting. And what
gaslighting is, is it's just a way of trying to make you feel like you're crazy. So they act like
something that was talked about, never was talked about or something that was never talked about
was talked about or they will refute evidence that's right in front of your face. You found
a text message from somebody else that maybe has a sexual innuendo to it and they say,
"Oh, that's not what it is." That's gaslighting. I had a situation with a client one time where
the wife said that if something didn't happen, that she was going to call the authorities,
and my client responded, "There's no reason to threaten that you're going to call the cops."
And then she writes back, "I didn't say I was going to call the cops, I said I was going to
contact the authorities." Again, it's just a form of gaslighting because who else would be
the authorities other than the cops? But they just change these things around and change up
the conversation in a way that is trying to make you think that you're crazy. So gaslighting comes
from a movie called Gaslight from, I think, in the '30s or '40s and in that particular movie,
the husband was trying to make the wife think that she was crazy by blowing out the gas lights,
and she would say, "Oh, wasn't that just lit?" And he would say, "No, no, wasn't lit. Wasn't lit."
So that's where that term actually comes from. It's just crazy making and it's a way to actually
manipulate you and eventually you start questioning your own judgment.
You start questioning your own ability to do anything and it eventually just breaks
you down. It's like death by a thousand cuts are kind of chipping away at you, little by little,
and so that is a way that they play mind games. And by the way, I see all of these happening in
a negotiation, and what happens in negotiations when you're dealing with a narcissist, either
in divorce or other type of negotiation, is they start gaslighting you and using all of these other
forms of mind games at steroid level, because they want to keep control over the situation.
So it's really, really important when you are negotiating with narcissists to
understand that these are the types of mind games that they're going to be playing with you
so that you can recognize them and go, "Ah, that's what's happening. I'm not falling for that."
And that way you can be empowered in the situation and actually negotiate from a place of strength.
And if you are getting ready to negotiate with a narcissist or you're even in negotiations or
in the process, make sure to grab my free ebook, which is my Crush My Negotiation prep worksheet.
You can just get it at winmynegotiation.com. We'll also make sure that there's a link to it below.
And if you like this video, give it a like, give it a share so others can
know what kind of crazy mind games narcissists use, and make sure that you drop me a comment,
you subscribe, you hit that notification bell, and also please feel free to join me in my free
private Facebook group. It's called Narcissist Negotiators with Rebecca Zung and we'll make
sure we drop a link to that below as well. So thanks so much for joining me today. Today is a
great day to start negotiating your very best life. And I will see you in the next video.