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Today, we're going to be talking about the difference
between a grandiose narcissist and a vulnerable narcissist.
And we're understanding that narcissism is about traits.
And narcissism taken to the extreme
can develop into a narcissistic personality disorder.
And so the reason why I think it's important for us
to establish the differences is so
that those of us who are suffering inside
of these relationships-- remember,
fact that you're on YouTube, the fact
that you google looking for information,
like, what's wrong with my partner,
or what's wrong with my relationship
is a sign that something's wrong.
People who are in healthy relationships
aren't googling what's wrong with my partner,
or is my relationship toxic, or am I dating a narcissist?
They don't do that.
There's no reason to.
You're out there, and you're out and about.
You're enjoying your life.
As someone who believes, in my humble opinion,
I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist.
But based on information data and the research that I've
done, I believe that I've attracted more
than one narcissist in my life.
And they're different.
And so if you're someone who is in a similar situation
to where I was, and your googling it,
and you're curious about it, you can feel so confused,
because a staple of being a victim of narcissistic abuse
is this idea that your reality is distorted.
You don't trust your reality.
And I think that it's worth discussing,
because I always found that I felt better
when I understood why.
When I found a problem, and then I
understood why that problem was there,
and then I found a solution to that problem,
suddenly I felt lighter, like, oh, I'm
dealing with a culvert narcissist.
Or, oh, I'm co-dependent.
Or I'm a fixer.
I'm a rescuer.
Oh, that's controlling also--
didn't realize it.
That's for another video.
Oh, this is grandiose narcissism versus more vulnerable and shy
narcissism.
And then, of course, there's malignant
narcissism and even now communal narcissism.
But for this video, I want to talk
about the difference between grandiose and vulnerable
narcissism.
So a grandiose narcissist is your garden variety narcissist.
They're the people in our lives that are more extroverted.
And they want to be praised.
And they can be very manipulative.
And when their sense of self is challenged,
they can become vindictive and rageful even.
And yeah, they can end up persecuting you.
They can go off into a smear campaign
and triangulate you and go down this route
when you've challenged how they see themselves, right?
So grandiose narcissist is somebody
who boasts-- yo, I'm the biggest, and I'm the best
and puts other people down.
And they really believe that they are better
than every everyone else.
So if they're in real estate, they're
the best real estate agent.
If they're doctors, they're the best surgeons.
If they're lawyers, they're the best attorneys.
If they're CEOs, they're the smartest.
Their companies the best.
And no one else can compare to them.
So it's that sort of boasting.
You can have grandiose narcissism in a PTA room
where one mom thinks that she's smarter than the next mom.
And she's entitled to dismiss other moms.
Or you have soccer coaches on the field
who think their team is better than every other team.
And they're entitled to play dirty on the field and ha, ha,
ha, ha, ha.
It's not even about the kids.
It's about the coach.
It's the coach that's having that
is this grandiose narcissist.
And this is where you can get confused,
because I've coached so many people, men and women.
And I am one of them that did not
realize when I was with a vulnerable narcissistic.
It blew me out of the water.
And so when you're with a grandiose narcissist,
you will have your reality messed with.
You will be told that you didn't hear that the right way.
Or I never said that, right?
You'll go through that.
Now, and you'll end up doubting your reality.
But it might be easier for you to go, oh, my god, this guy,
this girl is so full of themselves.
Like, listen to her.
She puts everybody else down but herself, right?
Yeah, oh, my god.
It's we're talking about her again.
And, oh, my god.
It's going to be much easier for you to spot.
If you're dating someone, that's a grandiose narcissist.
It might be really easy for you to figure out what happened.
But what happens lots of the times
is when we leave one relationship like this,
we are in danger of then manifesting
a narcissistic personality.
But in many of the cases, we can just switch.
We switch from a grandiose narcissist
to a vulnerable narcissist.
Or if you were with a vulnerable narcissist, then
you are in danger of manifesting.
If you're with a vulnerable narcissist,
you're in danger of manifesting a more grandiose narcissist.
And it's very, very confusing.
So if you're dealing with a narcissist,
generally you're going to feel very confused.
You're googling.
You're trying to figure things out.
With a vulnerable narcissist, what you're going to find
is you can find someone who appears to be very shy--
could be also seem to be altruistic.
This person could be volunteering
at all sorts of shelters--
loves to help charities-- could be a rabbi--
could be a priest--
could be a PTA mom.
It could be anybody in your community
that you are observing who has these amazing qualities.
And when you first meet them, you're drawn into them.
Usually what you'll hear eventually
is, maybe not right away.
But you'll hear a sob story.
A vulnerable narcissist is going to try to play off your empathy
and play off your sympathy.
Right, so you'll hear it in their language.
It will sound something like, oh, I could
have been a rocket engineer.
I never really had any breaks.
Astronauts are out there.
They all come from money.
That's why they're astronauts.
So there's this woe is me--
poor me attitude.
And those of us with high empathy
and who are co-dependent, for instance, what will happen
is, we're looking at their actions.
And then we're listening to their story.
And we're like, confused.
Like, OK, and it makes sense.
This is a person who has come from a difficult background
and look what they're doing for the good of the community.
But if you listen, what you'll hear is woe is me.
Interesting thing about a shy, vulnerable narcissist
is that they might know that they
need to tell you this story.
And it might not even be true.
In lots of the cases, the story isn't even true.
I had that situation happen to me
where I was totally pulled in by this story of how
this man that I was dating had been cast out by his family.
And in the beginning, I had no reason to doubt him.
He was very intelligent.
He came off vulnerable.
He came off reserved, more introverted than an extrovert--
extroverted narcissist.
And his story sounded like it made sense.
But over a few months, what began to happen
was the mask started to slip.
And I began to hear things like, they're jealous of me.
And the reason I got into trouble.
The man actually got arrested and didn't
take any accountability for it.
It was because people were out to get him.
And he could have gotten so far in his life
if people weren't out to get him.
And it took me a while to like, process what had happened.
And so a vulnerable narcissist will come off reserved.
They might be very quiet.
They're not going to be grandiose.
They're not going to be out there.
But in time, what you'll notice is that they
are resentful of other people.
When they think they've really gotten you good,
then, you'll notice that they feel entitled.
So they might hurt other people to get where they want to be.
Like, he didn't present as somebody who was grandiose.
He presented as somebody who was timid and humble
and had this amazing story of wanting to help other people.
But what I didn't realize at the time was this story,
it was eventually mixed in with woe
is me and look how the world has hurt me.
The other thing that I noticed with covert narcissists
is that their pain will always trump your pain.
Or their pain will always trump the pain of someone else.
You'll see a pattern of them putting down
people who are successful.
They'll always be a reason.
And it won't be because that person legitimately
got there and worked their ass off to get there.
It'll be because it was daddy's money.
Or she slept her way to the top or whatever.
It's very difficult for them to compare themselves
in their head to someone who is successful,
because their base idea is that the world has done me wrong.
And that's why I can't do with this other person has done.
It might be that they're just not
as talented as the person who has succeeded.
Or they can't get out of their own way
because they're always making excuses for why they can't go.
Or their base core belief is I'm not enough.
And their behaviors is such that they get through life
through manipulating other people and by through lying
and by feeling entitled.
And so that'll only get them so far.
And when they finally exhaust a narcissistic supply,
they need a new source of narcissistic supply.
So essentially what they're doing
is they're just spinning their wheels.
And it is very sad.
But those of us who are victims of narcissistic abuse--
understanding the difference between a grandiose narcissist
and someone who feels entitled--
somebody who is more extroverted.
Somebody who is going to have that affair, and who's
going to justify that affair, and who's going to flirt,
and who's going to make you doubt yourself
and pumps their chest.
Or if it's a male narcissist, or if it's a female narcissist,
and she's throwing her sexuality out there,
and she's using her sexuality to get what she wants,
that might be easier to spot.
And if you're dealing with this type of a person,
you're going to be confused.
And you're going to feel run over.
And they are so convinced that they're right.
It makes a rational person question their own reality.
It will make you doubt that you have a right
to feel what you feel.
That's why you get confused on that end when you were dealing
with a grandiose narcissist, because they're
so damned convinced that they're right, and you're wrong,
and you're less than them.
And so is everybody else.
And they're entitled.
And they have every right in the world
to do what they want to do if they have the impulse
to do it and damn you if you get in their way.
Whereas vulnerable narcissist, if you're co-dependent,
if you have high empathy, you're going
to get drawn in by their shyness.
It's going to shock you.
The term I used to describe one of the covert vulnerable
narcissists that I was with was the Boy Scout narcissist,
the nice narcissist, who had this Moses
complex in my opinion, who loved to remind me
how good he was to people, and how rotten I was.
Like, we would say things like, that's not what Jesus would do,
Lisa.
And I would say I don't remember saying that I was Jesus.
I'm trying to have a conversation about boundaries
or fairness.
He loved to throw the religion at me.
And so in his head, because he was tied to the Bible,
he was better than me.
And that made him better than me.
And that allowed him to be highly, highly arrogant
and critical of me.
And it was very confusing, because on the surface,
everybody loved this person, right?
I, myself, and my children were the only people
that seemed to have a problem with this person.
But everybody else loves this person.
And so it was so confusing because he
wasn't the grandiose narcissist that I was looking for.
My dad is more extroverted.
And I knew that I didn't want to attract
a man that was like, loud and out there
and arrogant, obviously arrogant.
And that's why I was so shocked when
I began to realize, like, oh, my god these are the same traits--
the holier than thou, better than everybody,
the entitlement, the arrogance, the inability
to have empathy for how other people feel,
the lack of accountability that it just blew my mind
and ended up ending up feeling so confused
by this shy vulnerable narcissist who just blamed
everybody for why he couldn't get where he wanted to get.
And then when challenged, he was able to punish me and punish
the kids and found different ways
to do with this smear campaign-- the triangulation
with the kids.
It's what they do, using my children as a pawn.
I want to make sure I hit all.
Oh, and passive aggressiveness.
When you're dealing with a vulnerable narcissist,
one of the ways that they deal with you the most
is through passive aggressive behavior.
And you end up asking yourself, did he just insult me?
Or did she just insult me?
I'm not so sure if I was insulted,
but I feel like I was just insulted.
You don't know.
But, whereas with the grandiose narcissist,
they are insulting you right to your face in lots of the times,
not always.
They can also be very passive aggressive.
But with a vulnerable narcissist,
it's like, backhanded compliments.
And you notice it's crazy.
It's crazy making because you feel it.
You think I think they're hurting me, right?
But I have nothing to point at.
What I used to say to my ex-husband was,
you're like boxing a ghost.
Like, it's like you're jabbing at me, but you're a ghost.
But I can still feel that these wounds are hitting me.
But I can't see them.
And it wasn't until I was like, oh, my god.
This is what it is it's vulnerable narcissism.
It's not overt.
It's a covert form of entitlement, of abuse.
And it kept me stuck for a very long time.
And it took me a long time to get my faith back in myself
and to trust that I had these wounds, because they weren't
wounds that I could see.
They were wounds that I could feel.
And I really think it's important
that those of us who are victims of narcissistic abuse
understand the difference between a grandiose
and a vulnerable narcissist.
If you're dealing with somebody who is a malignant narcissist,
you're dealing with somebody who has the ability to hurt you
and to hurt other people.
And what's really, I think, that the thing
about malignant narcissism that is very confusing
is that they are able to have empathy for you.
If they feel like you're a member of their team,
they will have empathy for you.
But having this team is not about the team.
It's about them.
It's about getting the team or getting the family
or getting the office or the company to praise them, right?
So it's not about the team.
And as long as the people and the members of the team
praised this person, then you're good.
But a malignant narcissist will stop at almost nothing
to hurt somebody that opposes them and/or that challenges
them.
And that's what's so confusing about a malignant narcissist,
because you will feel like, oh, this person sees me.
And this person has my best interests at heart.
It's not about you.
It's about them.
It's about you praising them.
It's about you putting them on a pedestal.
And as long as you continue to put them on a pedestal,
you're good.
But woe to you to the person that goes against that person
and challenges their perception of themselves.
So I hope that this video has helped
clarified some of the differences between a covert
and an overt narcissist or a grandiose narcissist
and a more vulnerable or shy narcissist.
Now, I'm going to say dear ones, until next time,
be careful out there.
Bye for now.
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