the narcissistic person has a well honed ability to scan a room and figure out who is worth it for them so they can go grab up Supply and status and they make a beline to them so let's start by considering and you could write this down you could drop it in the chat let's talk about what happened to your needs when you were in a narcissistic relationship where did they go what happened to them and how do you get them now the needless person I wrote these words down after I had done one of the
many podcast interviews I've been doing for this book right and I wrote the words down and they wanted to think about them as a concept for somebody to bring to YouTube right and then I walked away from my desk and a few days later I looked down at the note on my desk and I was confused and I thought what the heck does what was I meaning when I wrote needless person I was reading it now like needless to say like a person we don't need and then I remembered what I really meant because people
often ask me what kind of person does well and I put well in quotes with a narcissistic person because obviously nobody really does well but what kind of person may make it work and dawned on me that would be someone with very few needs and very little sense of self why would this be a person why would a person be like that well lots of reasons severe trauma bonding since childhood cultural factors that so incentivize just being what other people want of you and not yourself lack of knowledge or education about these patterns or being
surrounded by other people who are living or have to live this way right so let's talk about this needless person because this is literally what the narcissistic person really wants though they would never articulate it that way right the needless person never articulates any needs or and they always put whatever needs they have second and they've been indoctrinated into believing that not needing and giving in and taking care of others is virtuous or good or they've learned that to be needless is the only way to survive to have no needs and become needless could be
a form of trauma response become what the other person wants and then you are safe connected and attached it's horrifying and it's tragic but don't delude yourself into believing that this phenomenon is something that we'd only see in heavily authoritarian or inequitable cultures where I don't know for example women may not have many rights NOP it's happening right near all of us think of how many people walk through the world I see this on the internet and social media and articles and stuff they'll say they try to view themselves as easy I don't need anything
I don't make any demands I'm just cool I don't need you I don't know need anybody I can just go with the flow folks that's the modern version of the needless person I don't need anyone I can do it all myself and I can just be cool and go along where it has been culturally Twisted though is that we view this as being someone who's flexible easygoing modern adapt cable basically have no needs and you're a catch because you're so amenable and you can easily see how a very strong person who values their own capacity
to meet their own needs and go with the flow and never be perceived as needy or demanding who views being easy breezy as making them more attractive you can see and if you don't you should can get someone hor horribly stuck in a narcissistic relationship because over time I promise you at some point you will be criticized for having a need and the trains in your life with a narcissist will generally run on time if you don't have any needs but keep in mind that the narcissistic person will never Pat you on the back and
thank you or congratulate you for being so need free the needless person is a sad artifact of History meeting modern times of sociological chickens coming home to roost of the sense that the more easygoing you are the better a world where we confuse flexibility with having no needs and let me tell you the narcissistic people have glomed onto this and when I see narcissistic relationships work it is often because one person had to completely surrender which is not good for the person who surrendered really it is not the evolution of a person becoming a needless
person can begin in childhood where the message from a narcissistic parent is have no needs become what I want and you will be loved the child may make needs known at some point voice their needs and then they'll be labeled as ungrateful or selfish or they'll just have their needs ignored and the child who's needing to be attached or connected slowly gives up on their needs and either figures things out themselves or collapses into helplessness this can follow these kinds of patterns can follow a person into adulthood and then you can easily become the needless
person the narcissistic person doesn't necessarily Target these so-called need L persons they don't know initially but what may happen is that the narcissistic person will take advantage of the needless person the needless person may put up with the BS Games that the narcissistic person plays they call they don't call they text back wait then they text back a lot and then they make you feel foolish if you voice your needs of wanting better communication in the relationship the needless person may not feel their wants or needs will with regard to communication will ever be honored
so they don't try and the ground game quickly becomes what works for the narcissistic person in the relationship over time the needless person is more likely to get stuck in one of these relationships because the Dynamics of the relationship May simply go unquestioned people who remain needless are at risk they're at risk for not caring properly for themselves or advocating for themselves at a crucial time like during a Health crisis we did a workshop in our healing program recently and the number of people who are sharing that they've developed autoimmune conditions as a result or
because of or while they were in narcissistic relationships is staggering that sort of chronic unrelenting stress and and the absence of any of your needs ever being met you may think that you're just being easy breezy but all of that accumulates physiologically and hurts you and you're at risk for meaning Miss missing out on meaningful opportunities in your life in terms of Education career family and just the stuff of life when you are needless and most pointedly you may not be able to discover and explore what happens to you when you're needless the needless person
is forever stuck in the subjugated web of service to the narcissistic person or the narcissistic system but the needless person is still put out there as an ideal perfect for rhetoric around how all relationships are sacrificed and difficult that parenting is meant to be a one-way Street of giving your yourself up for your children for their entire lives that we're supposed to work all the time without breaks or vacations compromise and sacrifice in relationships Is Not a Bad Thing per se it is part of the equation of balance but it only makes sense if it's
being met and supported that there is a reciprocity in mutuality and you feel like you're being seen heard valued and being actually allowed to be your true self frankly under those conditions if you're sacrificing it doesn't feel like sacrifice and a healthy partner or family or even a workplace will recognize if someone is not exerting their needs and check in on that and make sure that the person's okay but if you are in a long-term or have been in a long-term narcissistic relationship being needless sort of sadly if you will worked while it took a
toll on you I have to tell you I remember as a child thinking that perfect being perfect being ideal meant that you simply went along with everyone else you caused no friction and you were easy and flexible and always enthusiastic about what other people wanted but I was never taught the other half that in a healthy relationship two people or a group of people go along with each other listen to each other's needs meet each other halfway or at least part of the way needless to say needless to say none of us should be needless
healing means figuring out what yours are from the kind time to space to meaningful activities to needing a snack to the thermostat setting to what temperature you want your water that you drink to be to how you hope to communicate to how you feel safe know these things and find spaces where you can express them when you recognize there's folks in your world who shut you down grieve that and then learn from that grief is not just a process but it is also a mighty teacher sadly we think that the counterweight to need less is
needy which implies desperate sad pathetic right the counterweight to needless is actually self-aware and self-compassionate no human being should ever exist solely in the service of another all of us have a basic human right to our true selves the narcissistic people don't want to give you that so don't go living so don't go looking for it there find your safe spaces even if initially they are with yourself and let yourself need and know what you need it may also make you less vulnerable and more Discerning in n narcissistic and in other toxic relationships this is
a really lovely proverb don't know if any of you have heard it before but it goes like this in love there is always one who kisses and one who offers the cheek so this this proverb it is a French proverb and I thought I was very interested interested in it when I read it um and as you know like I said Proverbs are kind of 50/50 some have great narcissism messages and some are kind of Ena but like I said this particular proverb it's a French proverb it is circulated over time and obviously in its
simplest terms it's the idea that in most relationships one person in a relationship loves more than the other or at least feels entitled to the other person in the relationship reaching out and doing more of the work I mean I think that this is a dynamic that may even be true in healthy relationships and for those of you in long-term relationships you may even reflect on the idea that there were times when there was one person who would offer the cheek and then at other times in your relationship there was someone else so you would
notice that sort of there was a an equit you know sort of difference in equitability in terms of how the relationship played out but in that narcissistic relationship maybe for a minute during the love bombing stage when they are trying to win you over maybe then they are reaching in to kiss you more but once that's over it will always be them who offers the cheek and trust me that the months when they are trying to win you over the game is what makes that interesting to them and from that then from that point forward
once the love bombing is over they will expect you and everyone else to be leaning in to kiss them now everyone always wants to know do the narcissists really believe they're hype do they really think they deserve us to be kissing their cheek their ring or their ass superficially yes yes narcissistic people don't like rejection or abandonment and they love control and domination and they like the idea that someone else has to do the work to reach in and to kiss them so they offer the cheek and we keep reaching in to kiss them why
do we do that I recently talked to a group of people about that idea of the list that people make for what they might be looking for in a part partner and that idea of somebody sort of ticking all the boxes that's an idea that may matter more in romantic relationships but also has relevance to all relationships work family friends the narcissists often have the cheeks we want to kiss because too many of us make the mistake of viewing qualities like credentials success money achievements appearance as what's important we are told that these folks are
a catch with whatever that means in the workplace it could be a prestigious company or University or hospital or other agency so we feel we need to lean in to work at that place and kiss the cheek the problem with this is that there is a power differential from the jump when you throw trauma bonding into the mix the internalized messages that too many of us have from childhood that we are not enough is problem then there is that likelihood of the feeling that leaning in to kiss them is as good as it gets for
us cu no one's going to lean in and Kiss us and to ask for anything more as hubris for example the idea that maybe they'd lean in to kiss us well that's way too much to ask so that combination of the people who are almost socialized to believe that they have to lean in and kiss the cheek of unempathic invalidating narcissistic parents really does create a world of kissers and kisses we must break out of the habit of thinking we are lucky to be with the narcissist or when the narcissist goes away that we will
not find someone else that's a load of nonsense after they depart Our Lives we may actually find someone healthy or just be good with being alone for a while and finding our own stride narcissistic relationships are about a difference in past power not necessarily the power that comes from strength or money or influence but the power that comes from not playing on an even playing field and getting to be on the higher part of that playing field narcissistic people are willing to manipulate and take advantage and Gaslight in a relationship to get their way and
maintain their reality and we are just thinking that they are on the same page with us and that they have the same definition of Love they simply don't one of the worst legacies of growing up in a narcissistic household is to end up with the idea that you're lucky that someone wants to be your friend or your partner or hire you or work with you I got to be fully honest as a Survivor that's actually one of my core wounds and I'm still surprised when somebody actually wants to be friends with me or hang out
with me so that Legacy means you are more likely to lean in and do all the kissing and do all of the work breaking out of those thought patterns becomes critical to get out of the cycle that you believe someone is doing you a favor by loving you it's difficult for survivors of narcissistic abuse to lean back and recognize that sometimes they are worthy of having someone lean in and kiss them and that healthy relationships involve some being kissed and some reaching out and doing the kissing the imbalance in mutuality is a Hallmark of a
narcissistic relationship because narcissistic folks use relationships as a way to get their own needs met exclusively with little regard for yours so it's a lot of them sticking their cheek out and waiting for the kiss you are worthy of being the one being reached in for whose K cheek is to be kissed not just during the love bombing period but far beyond that if you feel you have to lean in because that was your family role or you were told or experienced that you were not enough or that you're so lucky to be in this
relationship be careful now you don't need to start counting kisses but ask yourself how much of the heavy lifting are you doing in this relationship if it's a narcissistic relationship then I'm guessing you're doing most of it the cool girl is a girl who's too cool for expectations in the relationship the cool girl is okay with putting up with stuff that makes her uncomfortable because talking about being uncomfortable that's not cool cool girls don't have issues cool girls don't have needs cool girls are independent and they can take care of all that themselves cool girls
or cool people have remarkable restraint they can hold themselves back from texting back for weeks or texting sending a text wondering where a person went because it wouldn't be cool but in the meantime they're obsessing about why the other person isn't getting back to them so a lot of time and mental bandwidth can get wasted in the process of being a so-called cool girl you want to know who loves school girls narcissistic people regardless of their gender this whole idea of the cool girl cool person just be cool call it whatever the hell you want
thing has been burbling up for a long time it's interesting the concept of sort of the cool girl was at first codified in 1995 with books like the rules where the rules were be cool don't call them nowadays it's don't text them just be an inert cool girl object with no needs and then maybe they will chase me and want me because I'm so enticing and I'm cool and I'm not just giving in this stuff is narcissism Chum on the water because game playing in relationships is the narcissistic person's bread and butter they want games
they want the thrill of the hunt they want the pursuit and above all they want the win I think that the challenges around this whole cool girl thing is that people view that the opposite of the cool girl is somebody who's needy demanding and neurotic that the person who is Not Cool is showing their hand and giving away all their power that by showing your interest in someone it's over they won't be interested in you there's a middle ground here and I'll get to that in a moment but the challenge is that this idea of
dating and relationship rules the whole idea of the cool girl keep it cool paradigms literally cement the Dynamics of a narcissistic relationship before you can say love bomb at the core of the cool girl Paradigm is the idea that the person the girl can just go along and be easy and not it all be demanding you don't want to communicate with me that's cool yeah I got a life you might you might find yourself doing thinking and saying things like you want to have dinner with your ex on your own yeah that's cool I'm an
open person you want to go out for drinks with that person who posts lots of thirst trap pictures and is texting and dming you late at night yeah that's cool I'm not even going to ask you if this person doesn't know that I'm your partner because I'm cool and that's what a cool girl does right we don't ask because it's cool to not ask oh you don't post pictures of me on your social media that's cool it's okay that other people don't know that we are together even though you tell me that this is a
committed relationship but I'm cool it's cool social media is fake it doesn't matter to me that people think that you're single cuz I'm cool that's how this whole cool girl thing works like I said it's narcissism Chum so the assumption is that being cool in a way means power right it's this sort of false indifference and let's face it in a way indifference is power it's akin to the idea that the best negotiation tool is the willingness to walk away from the table but it's also walking right into the narcissistic person's trap to be cool
really means that you don't voice needs you don't voice wants or concerns or discomforts it means that you may ignore your own physical sematic responses because you want to seem cool as though cool people would never have trauma responses so you don't bring anything up and the narcissistic person certainly is not going to have empathy for you and think o maybe me going out with the thirst trap to talk about work will make my partner uncomfortable no no no they will never think that their entitlement and their lack of empathy means that they aren't even
thinking about you but my cool friend if the tables were returned if you were to go have drinks with that attractive person who is helping you with a work thing oh my oh my oh my the hypocritical hell you would have to pay you would be called called every name in the book branded everything you could imagine and they'd probably end the relationship with you so let's say you get to the point where you can't keep doing cool anymore you just can't do it you can't sit back and let the Attractive people posting on their
social media you can't let it go you can't let the late night Shady text that they're getting go you can't keep letting them get away with the drinks with the attractive person or the dinner out with someone that makes you uncomfortable and you fck finally bring it up cool girl leaves the house and in fact your reaction may be stronger than you want cuz that that doesn't feel cool right because you've bottled it up for so long well you know what happens then then they Gaslight you and tell you that you are out of your
mind and crazy and then they say what you're just bringing this up now for the first time what's your problem those of you who've been in these relationships have been to this Rodeo before and you know how this goes because by definition a narcissistic relationship is a place where you cannot be you you cannot express wants needs disagreements discomfort so the whole cool person Trope plays into that model perfectly you think you're being cool you're keeping it cool and that it's attractive the dynamic that they want is just being met by you being cool you
have no demands or wants that are being voiced so everything moves at their Pace it's narcissist heaven but unfortunately that's never going to translate into a good relationship instead it will translate into something where you will be taken for granted even more quickly than someone in a narcissistic relationship if that was even possible here's the facts folks we as human beings have psychological histories things happen to us trauma neglect adversity abandonment betrayal infidelity abuse and just life and all of it affects us how we think how we relate it affects our nervous system these histories
can undercut our sense of trust and our sense of safety depending on what's happened to us so there are people out there for whom their partner going out to dinner with a flirty colleague or social media lurker or an ex it doesn't bother them it's not that they're cooler or healthier necessarily that's just not their wound that's not their story it's not their trigger maybe theirs is different there are people out there especially those with a history of other narcissistic relationships who have been cheated on repeatedly or lied to or betrayed in other ways and
so relationships for people with those histories already feel like risky places and we carry that fear and betrayal in our bodies we may literally feel a tightness in our chest a heaviness in our gut or even on our head when we believe our partner is out with someone attractive without us and when they come home you want to be cool girl we want to be cool so in a voice that is much higher than our usual pitch we say oh hey did you have a good time I hope so but that's not us that's the
cool person in us that's not authentic and we attempt to silence our true selves our anxieties we don't share those vulnerabilities and acting cool like it doesn't bother us it doesn't mean that it all goes away instead what happens is that we slowly start to get sick each time we have to play at being the cool person we may get anxious hypervigilant distracted angry can't sleep we might get physically sick but at least we're cool right remember the narcissistic person needs Supply lots and lots of supply and they can only get it from other people
that's why they are so often Shady why they need flirty comments and likes and DMS they need them it's like food food for them and if you've been hurt by this behavior in the past it doesn't feel okay in a healthy normal growth oriented safe respectful compassionate relationship we can share our wounds our fears our worries and the other person protects us in a healthy relationship each partner is a custodian of the vulnerabilities of the other person it's not about being cool it's about being real it may be that someone not responding to your text
or a one-word answer over and over again doesn't work for you well a cool girl would never dream of saying anything but a healthy person might say h you know what this doesn't work for me and they recognize that the other person may not have more in them than one word and delayed responses it's good to learn this stuff early so you can cut your losses because in between these two extremes between the extreme of the having to be the cool girl and then the chronically needing to be the reassured neurotic needy person is the
person who can express their needs and wants who behaves in a way that is in line with their true selves and vulnerabilities you're let's say you're thinking about someone you're dating or you read something you think they'll like you send it to them you don't say who it's too soon if sending a text too soon is what leads them to withdraw or become cold and distant that's what leads them to do that well then that's their own strange attachment journey and that's probably not going to work for you cut your losses for a narcissistic person
the game the chase the hunt the intense attention and then withholding from you that's how they play the game because that works for them I mean speaking about attachment Styles most narcissistic people have anxious and avoidant attachment Styles one the other or often a mix of the two so much of the relationship advice out there and there's a lot of it is about tactic rather than being about being yourself this is even more pronounced in the era of online dating and this really matters if you have had a history of narcissistic relationships since these relationships
steal most of our ability to be ourselves because we are ashamed for being ourselves so any guidance that tells you to be cool or you think that will work it can set a precedent early on of not expressing yourself and then getting caught in this tyrannical system of a narcissistic relationship where you always feel silenced or gaslighted I say this as someone who sort of internalized the cool girl within my trauma bonded narcissistically abused interior that if I was ever going to get anyone to notice me I I had to go with the flow or
I was definitely going to be rejected so the stuff I endured in relationships has been atrocious and I still carry tremendous Shame about the relational stuff I put up with in the name of being the cool girl easy breezy I don't care I'm open I'm not needy I was never needy but I did have vulnerabilities and if someone couldn't cherish me and Safeguard those and meet me where I was at then they weren't my person but it took me nearly 60 years and a lot of narcissistic BS and not just in Intimate Relationships but in
friendships and the workplace and family to figure that out I don't want that for you I don't want this to take you 60 years so please listen and get there quicker than 60 if telling someone within reasonable limits that you're uncomfortable like listen it's not going to fly to tell someone that you're uncomfortable that in they're getting up in the morning and going to work but it's absolutely understandable that you would be uncomfortable if for the third night this week they are having dinner with that one colleague after work or and and this is one
of my favorites when people say my work is on social media so the people making those sexy comments is just the job actually not and it's okay for you to say it doesn't feel good to me again it just may not be your person but if telling someone that you're uncomfortable makes you not cool or makes it that they call you demanding or needy or neurotic or too much which is gaslighting remember it's not you you're simply sharing a vulnerability it's actually on them if they can't hear it or if they make it about them
to every person out there who is staring at their phone and wondering I wish I could text them but then I wouldn't be cool or I really want to tell them that this thing they're doing I'm not comfortable with it but then I wouldn't be cool please know that this isn't about coolness it's about a paradigm that relationships work if you don't have any needs but FYI that's not a relationship that's servitude and I am no longer cool I'm not sure that I ever was I'm just a big old human backpack full of vulnerabilities and
wounds and I'm tired of playing it life as though I'm not because honestly the opposite of cool is actually warm and that is the loveliest thing a person can be stop playing a cool so saying that the social climbing narcissist to me feels like a redundancy all narcissistic people are social climbers by definition social status is a major motivator for them because it's conflated with all of that power control and domination stuff but let's break down the different ways it can look because it can really cast a light on a very common theme in narcissistic
relationships every narcissistic person without exception uses a relationship as some means to an end it's not about the affiliation in the connection or the love it's about a means to an end and that end is usually Supply and social status status it's a form of Supply narcissistic folks are also chameleons who will tell stories and misrepresent themselves to get a seat at the table of people who have more social heft than them more hip cred in fact if you are a fancy shiny person you have money or fame or high status or a fancy family
you are narcissism crack you are what they want and folks like you may be disproportionately prayed upon interestingly by narcissistic folks in an intimate relationship first of all they may be social climbing they may be using you as a tool of social climbing right doesn't feel good to recognize that but if like I said if you have money resources credentials a family with influence or power or some notoriety or resources whatever it is if you represent a step up for a narcissistic person in terms of status it could even be your appearance then you may
meet a narcissistic person and face one hell of a love bomb the narcissistic person may do their homework ahead of you ahead of time about you we can do that quite easily now learn about you what you're about your place in the world and yes your social status will matter greatly in their pursuit of pursuit of you and while it doesn't feel good remember they aren't getting to know anyone they are in a relationship with social status or no your social status is the quality they want to pursue so it's not a you thing it's
how they pick people this really plays out if the narcissistic person may not have a lot going for them but they're very attractive or they have some kind of hip cred or they're just a really good liar and can sell a pretty fancy compelling story about themselves that's really not entirely true or you may just be a nice person who saw something that you liked about them because they're so good at selling a story and then you get into a relationship with them they are so manipulative that they may even play on how they really
just wanted to get to know you as a person and they see deeper than the superficial stat is stuff that other people must be trying to take advantage of when a narcissistic person gets into a relationship with someone who will improve or lift their social status your narcissistic Supply becomes Rocket Fuel because it carries with it so much other stuff that they get for the sort of the price of just one relationship but after a while your relationship will go south in a terrible way it always does right because when the narcissistic person gets into
a relationship with someone that they're using to social climb or to get an improvement in social status or even financial status the narcissistic person is also they're so insecure and they're constantly kind of on edge so their shame is always right at the surface right their rejection sensitivity their hyper sensitivity all around it's right there they over perceive every slight every critique they know at some level they're punching above above their weight class and they want to climb up in the ranks and they want to be seen as the one with social status independent of
you in these types of social status climbing relationships the narcissistic person may be in a rush to get a ring on it or get married as that would imply a more concrete connection in a relationship and that through marriage they would then have the status themselves they will very quickly take on all the characteristics and identity of the status they are climbing to spending money that they may not have going into debt or spending your money to get cars or clothes they might start dressing in a certain way just doing things associated with that higher
Social Status and this may not happen only within an intimate relationship narcissistic people are social climbers plain and simple they May seek out fancy friends they may even endure humiliating treatment by those higher status friends just to be close to the action they may try to social climb through their jobs hang out at places I guess the types of places where wealthy people congregate that might be certain kinds of restaurants clubs Resorts private clubs and they may attempt to get these expensive memberships to these private clubs repeatedly anything to put them in proximity to lots
of people with higher Social Status they will talk about famous people they met one time or rich people or high status people as though they are friends or business contacts they will be assertive and even aggressive in courting business and social contacts for example their kid may go to school with a kid of a person they want to meet or do business with and they'll try to use their own poor kid as a playd date Pawn to get closer to the fancy parent trust you me I grew up in LA and I saw that dance
happen many many times here within families you may have also witnessed this a narcissistic parent for example wanting higher Social Status perhaps be even being dismissive of your other parent who wasn't making that life happen for them right couldn't keep up with the Joneses the proverbial Joneses or desperate to belong to whatever social groups existing whatever those social groups were when you were a kid growing up so they could move socially up they may have been the parent you might have had a parent that urged you to play with children whose families represented higher status
in your community even if you didn't like those children obviously at work and in employment situations this is a thing and especially if your job is coales around sales and high-end CL fancy kinds of clients because you need to get those folks near you and the social climing of being near fancy people because you can send sell them stuff is a part of that but the social climbing is not always a means to an end it's not just to get the fancy lifestyle or close the sale for a narcissistic person it is the end in
the DSM one of the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic person personality disorder is quote believes that he or she is special and unique and can only be understood by or should associate with other special or high status people or institutions so social climbing in and of itself is the thing and it reflects the grandiosity and entitlement and covetousness and power obsessive focus of all narcissistic personality styles their social climbing this can also explain the devaluation and the discard especially if you were not the high status partner that helped them climb the ladder they may have met
you and then because they do tend to have a roving eye they may in the course of your relationship or marriage meet or observe someone who has greater social status and whether or not they leave you for them they may do things like compare you to them compare your lifestyle to theirs and yes at least in the status Department you're always going to come up short the narcissistic person will be chronically dissatisfied in their life with you if they have this idea that there is somehow more out there and you aren't bringing it love compassion
respect that's not enough the same thing can happen in family systems where the narcissistic person want me may want to distance themselves from a family that may not have the high status they want and this can be particularly pronounced if the narcissistic person managed to make it or succeed really Leap Frog away in terms especially financially from their family of origin and they may want to distance themselves from the humble beginnings or a family that isn't so hip or sophisticated and or just regular folks the social climbing narcissistic person may even in some cases try
to make over their family perhaps getting them into new clothes or cars or the like not always typically they'll just distance from them even if that family and their support was what got that narcissistic person to that place their empathy lack of empathy means they don't care if the narcissistic person in a relationship with you manages to score a new high status person yes there is a good chance that they will leave you for them always remember for narcissistic people relationships are superficial and exist for their regulation and for their needs so someone coming in
with the motherload of the ultimate Supply is very enticing and impossible for them to turn down I cannot tell you in the years I've been doing this in practice how many times I've seen this happen because the narcissistic person is like a damned fishing tler they have hundreds of lines in the water always looking around to see who the biggest fish in the room is so when that person who can climb them up the ladder does start to bite and they can sort of snivel their way into there they will and it feels awful if
this happens to you when this happens and keep in mind social status may be more than just money or family status or something it may just be that they want the status of someone younger and the social climb that comes from spinning around around town with a shiny new thing if this happens to you when you are left for the social climb trade out it's an awful feeling and many people will say this particular Dynamic multiplied this grief and it takes a minute and feels deeply unjust especially as you witness the narcissistic person roll into
a new life which of course they have to broadcast on Instagram because really for a narcissistic person what's the point of social status if you can't make people Envy you which is another diagnostic Criterion for narcissistic personality disorder by the way narcissistic friends will do this too they may blow you off claim to be sick and then you see the Instagram post of them at some high status event with other people narcissistic people don't always have the best frontal loes so they just have to post even though they know you might see it after they
lied to you and they also lack empathy so they wouldn't ever stop to think about how it would affect you and they just assume you'll come back around because friendships aren't monogamous friend narcissistic friends can pursue their social climbing in a different way and make claim they have to do it for their career for networking or whatever but if the social climbing ladder friends engage with them you will always be the be list the backup plan if the high status new friends aren't available so what does that mean for us you got to always remember
that any relationship with a narcissistic person was never and could never be deep this confirms it and I promise you this they may come sniffing around and hoovering again if the rungs of the social climbing ladder break and they come crashing back down social climbing and social status are the same in terms of function as entitlement and grandiosity and arrogance and charm and Charisma and all of the narcissistic defenses that protect a narcissistic person from internal insecurity and shame and with the social climbing comes the contempt and snobby and a sort of looking down at
you if they perceive you as someone who really can't help with their social status the narcissistic person has a well honed ability to scan a room and figure out who is worth it for them so so they can go grab up Supply and status and they make a beline to them they are also masterful at talking to a person and pretty quickly figuring out if that person they're talking to can do anything for them and if they can't again quite quickly move on to their next Target but if you are on the receiving end of
this kind of discard it hurts and as much as I say it's not you it's them it doesn't take away the sting a feeling that you weren't enough but enough what for the narcissistic person it may be about whether the new person's family has money or they can go on some fancy ass vacation or they have social standing or they have connections or a beach house or can make them help help them make something happen like Finance their business or are simply young the new partner simply young and they can seem more viral or interesting
by having a disproportionately young and attractive partner on their arm these are superficial indicators but it hurts nonetheless and my holiday prayer for each and every one of you that has been through this kind of experience is that you get to see their social climbing experiment fall apart may we all get to witness that I got to say I got that once when a particularly mean lady who had clearly CL social climbed as the story I was told goes I didn't know but that's what I was told about her and who because I was sort
of the kind of dumpy overweight mom kind of looked at me like sort of smelly laundry and wouldn't give me the time of day when she first met me in fact I think she probably thought I was one of the servers at the event that she that I first met her at and not an attendee many many years later she reached out wanting help when her narcissistic husband big surprise left her for the much younger replacement set she reached out wanting therapy she said oh I remember you knew me way back when I had already
closed up my practice by then so I was able to politely Demmer and say I'm sorry I don't take new clients I have empathy so I felt a I did feel bad for her I felt shaded for of course but I felt bad for her but she was a cautionary tale of the dangers of social climbing get too high and the thud when you land is a lot more painful and I had enough Pride to say yeah no thanks always remember how the Mighty Fall and there's a lot more oxygen here down at sea level
anyhow let those narcissistic people keep reaching for their Castles in the Sky it gets them out of our lives and frees us up for healthier and more authentic relationships with healthier and more authentic people who like to keep their feet firmly planted on the ground and speaking of the it's not you really it's a book it's not you please check it out link is in the the notes check it out and hopefully you want to pre-order it thanks again
