hi everyone it's dr romini and welcome back to this youtube channel that takes on all kinds of little and big issues related to narcissistic relationships so some of you are thinking i've watched so many of your damn videos lady i get this i really get this now well now i'm going to let you know in a way you're kind of screwed once the narcissist knows that you know so let's take that apart and really lay out what that means for you so this relates to a consistent question i get from people all the time via
the comments or emails or whatever does a narcissist know do narcissists know that they're narcissistic or difficult and maybe even more important is the question of do narcissists really know how insecure they are because clearly this person's insecure do they know the answer to that is ish remember that shame right rage spiral i talk about so often narcissistic people aren't demented or frankly delusional they are able to see that there are consequences to their behavior and they know that their behavior at times is not a good look but their impulsivity and their entitlement in some
ways means that they cannot stop themselves and don't think they should have to it's as though they will burst if they don't get their nonsense out it's that tension reduction i talked about so they know that over time their behavior is kind of causing a problem but they will rationalize their behavior justify their behavior explain it defend it but yeah in a tiny corner of their brains they know what they're doing is probably not a good thing and sometimes in therapy if they're in therapy they may even admit that they can't stop themselves it's too
uncomfortable they just need to get it out and they know it sounds silly if they actually spoke their truth which would be why can't everyone just let me get away with what i have to say i don't really mean it and i just need to let it out i think that everyone is out to get me when they don't let me and life is so unfair to me and i do always know what's best why can't everything just be my way and let me have my tantrum they can't say that and they know it but
that's what's happening so there's an inflection point in every narcissistic relationship it's the point when they see that you get it it's a subtle dance it's something that that's happening just under the radar it's almost imperceptible you aren't taking the bait as much you aren't letting the gaslighting get to you as much you're gray rocking a little more you're not defending you're not explaining you may even be holding yourself a tiny bit taller because now you get it maybe you aren't putting yourself down as much or getting as anxious when they say they will cut
bait and leave or maybe we need to get a divorce or when they throw their passive aggressive stuff at you interestingly at this phase of the relationship it becomes even more miserable and the narcissistic person will act out even more it's as though you have peered into their insecurity and figured out their game and they don't like that when people start to gray rock you can almost graph it it looks like a roller coaster the narcissist's rage will increase for a while they aren't getting the same fights out of you the bait isn't working remember
they need you to take the bait and behave in an unhinged way so then they can say oh somebody's all worked up and they can feel better about themselves so they start getting meaner up up up the roller coaster they start insulting your friends or family they start going after things about yourself that they know are triggers for you they may make fun of your job they may make fun of your cooking it starts getting more and more toxic you didn't think it was possible but it is but if you could stand your ground and
not break get to the top of that roller coaster the narcissist will actually start to deflate in some cases they'll get bored but they'll deflate however on your way to this destination top of the roller coaster is a world of abuse anger and rage so if you thought it was bad before so when you finally start to get it somehow they sense it for all of their lack of empathy people with narcissistic personalities are tremendously attuned to their worlds but from a very to the world around them but from a very egocentric perspective they're always
monitoring for threats they're always looking for that person who looks at them the wrong way they don't believe that they're ever shown the respect they believe they deserve they feel like they don't get enough validation for all their greatness they notice the shifts and they notice that people are on to them there is a point for every narcissistic person when they recognize that they have gone a bridge too far that they really really pushed a person to the breaking point and that other person they push finally shuts down this can actually be quite impactful if
it happens for example at work or with a lower stakes person the narcissistic people takes the people closest to them like family and partners for granted so they may not notice it there but the idea that someone out there in their world like their work world or something doesn't think well of them actually really activates their shame once they recognize that people are starting to see it and are starting to kind of walk around the narcissist as though the narcissist is unhinged that in essence they sort of feel like they're being kind of handled by
other people they don't like it because it again it activates shame but now they're in a catch-22 because at some level they kind of know they're unhinged so it's a big strange circle and at that point you if you're in a relationship with them may slowly work your way to indifference once you have the road map for narcissism and i'll be frank with you that road map is the reason for me even starting this channel i want to show you every subtle pattern there is so you can detect it so you can consider dr romini's
youtube channel as like narcissism gps because then the pattern makes sense you face the hard work of breaking your internal cycles of trauma bonding etc but once you see it you start walking a much bigger circle around them and they start to say like oh they see they may have a wide range of behavior when you start walking that bigger circle and go between rage and trying to show you that they can keep it together and aren't and try to show you i'm actually a nice person they may go to insults to passive aggression the
narcissistic relationship is all about control controlling the image of the relationship to the world controlling the people in the relationship controlling the narrative and controlling the narcissistic supply control control control so once you understand what's happening they want to control you even more and they will not let you throw off their controlling ship because they want to control the narrative and yet once you understand it their destabilization will mean that they can't get the control back and now they're gonna rage even more there's no getting away from the rage you may be thinking is there
a way for me to understand it without them losing it losing it around me all the time probably not you will either get bored of this relationship and leave or if you can't leave you just might make the relationship what we call very perfunctory and mechanical or you'll hope that they leave or you hope that they'll have a place to go to whenever they tantrum because you're not going to listen to it at some point your presence is going to be such a shame activator that they will either try to destroy you with their rage
or they may leave and run away because your presence is too shame inducing for them neither of those outcomes are going to feel pretty good especially if you're not sure you want this relationship to end yeah i get it you might think i shouldn't want it and you may not want it to end you may also wonder is there a way for you to understand this and for them to not understand that you understand it probably not again your best behavioral shifts are going to be noticed it's frustrating and demoralizing because they didn't notice you
when you were crying or didn't notice that you when you were actually trying to get them to notice you but you make a tiny shift in narcissistic supply you give them and they notice it getting narcissism understanding narcissism is tricky and your partner will likely pathologize you for the change they'll say things like oh you've changed you're cold you're weird it seems like you're getting a little bit less socially skilled in your old age on and on and on they'll pathologize you for understanding them so the very thing that will set you free actually understanding
the narcissism can make your life miserable for a while in the long term it's a win but in the short sprint be aware that it will be unpleasant so you can at least prepare so for you to just think about this getting it understanding narcissism once you get it you might feel like ha ha i have the keys to the kingdom i get this but as your behavior shifts the narcissistic person you're in a relationship is going to notice it whether it's a family member whether it's a partner whether it's someone you work with they're
going to notice it in many many cases and that might mean that they're uncomfortable because what really was the power they held and you know it was a power of the hell because you didn't understand what was going on you were upside down with the gaslighting and the manipulation now you get it you see it there's actually a strange calm and serenity that will come over you because you get it right it's almost like ah this is how you do the trick and now it's not even interesting anymore but they'll notice that shift and recognize
they can no longer dominate overpower you confuse you then they've lost their power and they get frustrated and that frustration is something you will experience as rage like i said in the long term it's healthier for you to get it for no other reason so that you stop blaming yourself and personalizing it and that's your work to do to not blame yourself is not your fault it's just that once you get it you should have unlocked the code and this rather quiet manipulative way they kept you under their thumb you've kind of lifted it in
a way it can feel very unsatisfying as a relationship at this point but at least you're not living in a place we are constantly invalidated confused and don't know which way is up i hope that helps thanks again
