Have you had to deal with a covert narcissist in your life? I have too. Ah, the worst. By
the end of this video, you're going to know exactly what the worst things are about covert
narcissists and what to do about it. Hi, I'm Rebecca Zung, and I've been recognized
as one of the top 1% of attorneys in the country. I've also written two best-selling books,
Negotiate Like You M.A.T.T.E.R And Breaking Free, A Step-by-step Divorce Guide. I've helped
thousands of people go from lives of drama, trauma, and chaos to step into lives of freedom,
possibility, and purpose. I do the same thing for you on this channel. Make sure that you've
hit the subscribe button and you've hit the notification bell. That way, you'll get notified
when I upload brand new content, and when I go live, and I have incredible interviews
coming up for you. So you will not want to miss one single thing. Hit that subscribe
button and hit that notification bell. Now, let's talk about the worst things about
covert narcissists. Well, first of all, I can just tell you that I've had to deal with
two of them. I think malignant narcissists are heinous and awful. I think that overt
or grandiose narcissists are terrible too. If you want to know more about the main kinds
of narcissists, check out my video on the main kinds of narcissists, none of them are
great. All of them are awful. But covert are just the worst because you
don't see them coming, number one. And number two, they're so good at hiding their behavior
to the rest of the world, so that only their target, only their victim really sees who
they are. They do things so that they have this plausible deniability. In other words,
it's really easy for them to just deny it and have it seem plausible what they're denying.
It's really, really hard to prove. And so, they do these little tiny things that make
it worse for you. I know the first thing that I thought of when
somebody pointed out that someone was a covert was... Somebody pointed out to me that one
of the people that I was dealing with was a narcissist. That person did not use the
word covert. That person just said that other person that you're dealing with is a narcissist
and has cluster B personality disorder. I remember thinking, "Oh no, that can't be right."
To me, a narcissist was a person who was very, very boastful, very, very braggadocious, really
out there telling everybody how great they are all the time for no reason just to tell
people, and didn't have any care or compassion for others. I did know that narcissists lacked
empathy and didn't have the ability to care for others. But to me, the grandiose narcissist
is the one that I had in my head. I didn't have a picture of a covert narcissist. I had
never even heard that term before. It wasn't until I read the book, The Covert
Passive Aggressive Narcissist, that I really started to understand the personality type.
That book is by Debbie Mirza. I will definitely drop a link to that below. If you want to
know more about the covert passive aggressive narcissist, check out my video on the covert
passive aggressive narcissist, that will definitely help you as well.
Some of the worst things that I think about covert narcissists is how underhanded they
are. They do things that are very passive aggressive. That was one of the things that
I really noticed about the narcissist that I was dealing with. They would forget to call
you back, or email you, or do things that they're not supposed to do, or are offensive.
You call them out on it and they say, "Oh, I thought we agreed to that." The rest of
the world thinks that they're so wonderful. They think that they're so nice. They come
across as the nicest most wonderful people. Sometimes, they even paint themselves as a
victim, maybe they're sick all the time, or something like that. They just seem like the
world isn't fair for them. And so, they paint themselves in these pictures. Covert narcissist
also show up, by the way, as clergy, religious figures, leaders in a lot of ways. And so,
it's really, really hard to pinpoint them. In Craig Malkin's book, Rethinking Narcissism,
he talks about the three E's, the three E's that covert narcissists, or he calls them
introverted narcissist have. The first thing that he says that you see in covert narcissists
is exploitation. A lot of narcissists do this, but coverts especially, they will exploit
situations and people to use them so that they get more attention, so that they feel
more special. That is definitely what happened with me.
It's just something that they use to try to get narcissistic supply. They attach themselves
to people so that they can suck supply out of them and almost try to become that person.
And so, one of the things I want you to make sure that you understand is that narcissists
don't attach themselves to you because you have so little value, even though that's what
they want you to think. They attach themselves to you because you have so much value, because
they wouldn't be interested in you if you couldn't give them narcissistic supply. So
exploitation is one of the things that you will definitely see, and it's one of the worst
things about covert narcissists. If you think that this behavior is so disgusting, give
me a yuck and the comments. The second thing that you will see, the second
E that Craig Malkin talks about in his book, Rethinking Narcissism, is entitlement. They
feel very entitled, even to things that don't have anything to do with them. They want to
take credit for things that they didn't do. They want to have attention for things that
they didn't accomplish, but they feel entitled. They should sit in the seat of the best seat
in the house, whatever that looks like, because they need that in order to feel special. And
so, entitlement is that second thing that you often see in covert narcissists.
The third thing that he talks about is empathy impairment, which again, you see with all
narcissists. What I have seen with covert narcissists is they know what they need to
say in the moment that they need to say it. One of the things that I've noticed about
covert narcissists is that, when somebody is ill, or in the hospital, or something like
that, they are actually the first ones to show up. It's unlike the other narcissists.
Coverts will oftentimes be the first ones to show up, be at the bedside, sending gifts
weekly, or doing whatever they need to because they recognize that it's an opportunity to
look good, to recognize that it's an opportunity for everybody to pay attention to the fact
that, look at how wonderful this person was. They sat at the bedside the entire time. They'll
only be doing that, if they think there's going to be a vast audience, that the right
people will see it. It's not just because they actually care.
The worst thing about covert narcissist is they know how they are supposed to behave,
and they will do it if they need to. But it's very strategic, very manipulative. If nobody's
watching, they don't care at all. It becomes very, very clear when they don't have an audience.
Because then suddenly, where are the phone calls? Where are they? Not showing up, because
they have this empathy impairment. If you are getting ready to negotiate with
the narcissist, grab my free, Crush My Negotiation, prep worksheet at winmynegotiation.com. Don't
walk into a negotiation without it. Just do yourself a favor and grab it, winmynegotiation.com.
If you like this video, give it a like. If you know somebody who's dealing with covert
narcissists, please share it. Make sure that you've dropped a comment, and subscribed,
and hit that notification bell. If you feel like you're dealing with covert narcissists
and you're feeling alone, I know what it's like, because I... Nobody else really understands
how these people operate. They're so under the radar. It can drive you crazy. So come
and be part of my Facebook group. It's private. It's supportive. It's so many people who are
in there helping each other. It's called Narcissist Negotiators With Rebecca Zung. We'll drop
links to all this stuff below, including links to the books that I mentioned in this video.
Thanks so much for stopping by my channel. I'm so glad that you stopped by. I'll see
you in the next video.