Dr. Ramani on the Consequences of Leaving a Narcissist

hi everyone it's dr romney and welcome back to this youtube channel that takes on all kinds of stuff relevant to narcissism and other kinds of high conflict and antagonistic relationships we're going to take on a very interesting question that you often don't think about with narcissism but it's a big part of the dynamic which is abandonment so let's talk about that when we play out the usual narcissistic relationship cycle idealization devaluation discarding and hoovering it can look like the narcissist is fully in control it feels that the narcissistic person is the one pulling the strings

doing the love bombing engaging in seduction or doing the deep dive into pseudoempathy and once they have you they start getting uninterested in you right they devalue you it's their contempt at the point they have you and their incapacity for intimacy the chase is typically the most engaging part of a relationship for a narcissistic person and then oftentimes it's them who decides to leave or at least threatens to leave but sometimes and i would argue far more often than you would think people leave narcissists and in fact as we get more awareness of narcissism and

narcissistic abuse i think people are actually leaving narcissistic relationships more often than we think because people are recognizing that these patterns are probably not going to change when you leave a narcissistic relationship in general the narcissist does not like it it means that they have lost control of the narrative and frankly lost control in general it means that they're going to be losing validation losing whatever conveniences you brought to their life and losing power their responses to being left by you or being left by anyone will range from rage to mockery you really think you're

going to make it without me to seeming indifference but the piece that many people forget about is that people who are quite narcissistic or narcissistic personality styles are very vulnerable to feelings of abandonment we often view abandonment in line with more sort of fragile or despairing personality patterns or mental health issues we think that the narcissist is too cold for that abandonment though is also a bit of an interpretation issue abandonment can even be experienced when somebody just goes away on a trip or goes to work or just goes home for a little while just

that moment of separation activates something quite primal in people who are narcissistic it's not true that narcissists are immune to abandonment for a variety of nuanced psychological issues narcissists do not regulate abandonment well some of this relates to work that comes from the world of attachment theories which hold that people who have narcissistic personalities are likely to have attachment styles that are characterized by anxious disorganized or avoidant patterns as a result it can be very very difficult at a primitive level for a narcissist narcissistic individual to safely put roots down with another person for people

with these kinds of attachment styles the moment of departure is always very difficult for them it activates all that attachment stuff now some of you in relationships that are characterized by narcissistic patterns or who have been in these patterns in these relationships in the past you may recognize this pattern let's say in a narcissistic relationship you may need to have to be away from each other for a few days or a few weeks a business trip or some other travel a work thing a family issue that needs to be dealt with and the day of

departure is getting closer and closer you will notice that things will get more and more tense in your relationship and the narcissist will get more and more agitated they will start arguing with you about small things the relationship will just feel more difficult you may feel frustrated because you want your last few days or hours with this person to be pleasant but the more you try the worse they behave and you may get into a blowout battle on the way to the airport or whatever as you get to the hour of departure a similar pattern

can arise when you see them again when they get back from the trip or when you get back from the trip instead of falling into each other's arms with each other you may find that your your narcissistic partner a narcissistic person may be tentative almost detached dis and distant these patterns are not uncommon in people who have these attachment issues anxious or avoidant or disorganized attachments and all of this is consistent with the idea that that upcoming departure starts triggering those primitive abandonment feelings and the coming back together is actually kind of characterized by anger

i can't believe you left me in the first place and this happens even if it's the narcissist who is the one leaving on the trip doesn't matter who's going it's that you guys are parting ways for a little while and all of this is because abandonment is a very primitive experience it's not an adult goodbye see you later i'll call you when i get there and you feel confident that you will see them later it's the terror a baby feels because it doesn't understand that their caregiver is something separate from them and they can't understand

what happens when that person leaves the room it's like a part of them goes it's primitive and the narcissistic person as an adult is obviously not in touch with this as a result when somebody in the adult relationship with them is going away or they're going away for hours days maybe in some cases forever internally they experience it as a cataclysm now people with antagonistic personalities are high in equality called rejection sensitivity the experience of rejection for them is emotionally unsettling and they are often quite hyper reactive in the face of any kind of rejection

even someone not wanting to come to their house for dinner this is sort of a lower grade level of abandonment fear may not be as big but that rejection sensitivity can explain some of the excessive reactivity that rises in any form of criticism or again not showing up you say i can't come to lunch today they may interpret that as a really primal loss of love or regard now outwardly despite all of this fragility it's a different story remember a person with a narcissistic personality does not like to look weak to other people so they

will deny the impact of these departures and are actually more likely to rage against you because you're the person who has activated these uncomfortable feelings they don't understand then they are going to be wanting to understand them you may be so used to them being the controlling dominant one in the relationship that you are surprised that they are becoming so fragile in the face of an upcoming or even possibly sort of threatening super separation to them that doesn't even exist and when you try to become sweet and soothe them they may actually become more contemptuous

because in some ways you're sort of bringing their fragility to light fears about abandonment and strong reactions against it are often considered to be a part of what is designated as what's traditionally been thought of as a borderline personality style abandonment and borderline personality are often viewed together but the borderline and narcissistic personality styles are sort of closely related in terms of some of their origins so the abandonment crises of the narcissistic personality just theoretically in light of the attachment stuff does make sense we just aren't expecting it with a narcissistic individual because we don't

see the same levels of sort of despair and instability that we might see with for example more of a borderline style the issue of abandonment can also explain hoovering you may be wondering if they're afraid of abandonment why would a narcissist leave and then try to pull you back and they might try to pull you back if you're the one who left but why interestingly narcissists will often leave relationships because sometimes when people are afraid of something they try to get ahead of it they try to abandon the other person first it allows that person

the lever to control the narrative to control the fear it's like knowing when the scary part of the movie is going to come rather than being startled by it but after a person who tries to kind of get away or get ahead of the abandonment by pulling out themselves there can be a sort of primitive attempt to work this through can i bring that person back that disorganized approach avoiding go away no come back no no go away no come back that's the style that often characterizes narcissistic relationships and that's where you often see the

hoovering and you may fall for it and then the whole cycle starts again again it's like the child that aggravates the mom the mom does step away and the child's like i want to get mom back the fear of abandonment shared by many narcissists is often related to the fear of losing validation narcissistic supply control and then there's the activation of shame scripts around being rejected and when you think of it that way it may make more sense but all of this adds to the roller coaster quality of any relationship with a narcissist so that

begs the question what's the antidote to abandonment how do how do any of us keep our abandonment fears at bay by feeling secure and safe in the world now how does a person get there if they didn't have healthy attachment experiences earlier in life it comes down to therapy and doing the work doing the work of self-compassion of self-reflection of self-awareness and recognizing that emotions are not scary none of this comes easy to people with narcissistic personalities and so for some of you you have some of you many of you didn't have early secure attachments

but you have been able to do the hard psychological work of helping yourself as an adult feel safer in the world for a narcissistic individual though that is highly highly unlikely there will always be this sense of threat remember something i've said throughout these videos think of the narcissistic individual as somebody who feels a constant sense of threat from the world they always feel like something is coming at them right and even when there's nothing coming at them part of it is sort of what they're saying to themselves in their own head and abandonment is

pretty high on that list of threats a person with a narcissistic personality style feels a great example of this would be some of you who've been in narcissistic marriages you yourself would say i don't want to get divorced i don't believe in divorce i want to stay married i have to stay married we have kids together our money is like this it's my culture it's my religion whatever your reasons are you don't want a divorce you're in a narcissistically abusive marriage and one day you finally you can't take it anymore but in your relationship throughout

the relationship something that is not unusual in a narcissistic marriage is that the narcissistic partner will threaten divorce threatening divorce or threatening to leave a relationship and not doing it is actually a form of gaslighting it's a way to keep the other person on their toes so they fall in line with you because they think that oh if i don't fall in line with them they're going to get up and leave so it's not an uncommon gambit by a narcissist well here's where it gets interesting more often than you would know the person in a

narcissistically abusive marriage especially the one who doesn't want to get divorced will hear this threat over and over again oh yeah i'm going to divorce you i'm going to call an attorney i'm out of here you the non-nurse like i don't want this to happen okay okay what do i need to do one day like i'm done you you want a divorce sounds great i'll give you one then the narcissist will often say i didn't mean that we could work on this boom the abandonment script got activated as long as they were running the narrative

they were the one who could threaten divorce then they were in control of it especially when they realized you didn't want it but the day you give in and say great you want a divorce i'm all in let's let's let's call this done it is amazing how often the narcissist will say what do you wait what do you mean that's what i mean about that abandonment always being sort of the baseline the sort of the back thrum to one of these relationships so i hope that gives you some insight it really speaks to some of

the vulnerabilities inherent in this personality style and if it happens to you or happened to you i'm hoping this gave you some clarity again if you're new to this channel please subscribe join us it's a great community and look forward to seeing you again