Video Transcript: The Eight Lies of a Narcissist

Now, before I go into that, I want to see if I can give you a little illustration to set up what I'm going to be saying. Have you ever been in a situation with a young child, let's say seven or eight years old, and you know that they're telling a lie, but they just won't be honest and straight with you. Let's say for example, you walk into the kitchen, and there's a big mess that's there and something bad happened, it was an accident or something. So you bring the child in and say, Do you know anything about this mess? And you know that the child is deeply involved in it. So the kid can perhaps look straight at you and say, No, I don't know anything about this. And then you may say, Are you sure? Because you were the last person here. And I know that there was something that was going on. And the child can look and say, I don't know what happened, it just wasn't me. Has that ever happened with you or with people that you know? Now unfortunately, it's the nature of kids to have some of that, that denial and that fear that they're gonna get in trouble. But that's the point I want to make. When people tell lies, they're living with a certain amount of fear and uncertainty:, that child who's telling a lie is thinking, well, if I deal straight up with the truth, I'm not sure if I'm gonna get in trouble. I'm not sure if you're gonna get mad at me, if you're not gonna lie, like me. And so they create their their false story in the hope that everything is going to be okay. But it's all very fear based.

Narcissists have constructed a great deal of falsehoods that they live on. And it's very important for you to realize these are fear based people. Somewhere deep down in their personal development, they came up with the conclusion that this is a cold, harsh, cruel world. And there are many people out there that might chew them up, or they might condemn them, or not like them, or give them rejection. So they've learned to compensate with for those fears with creating a false self. And as they live inside their false self, then they start believing falsehoods, and then they put them onto you. And then part of the whole dynamic of living with the narcissist is to try to figure out what's accurate and what's not accurate. Now, I'm going to be talking with you today about eight different lies that narcissists can put on you, so that as you're aware of them, then you can learn how to sidestep it and not get pulled under and have your psyche damaged.

Now, before we go into those eight, I do want to make you aware that below the video, I have some books available to you, a couple of mine. When Pleasing You Is Killing Me. Another one is called The Anger Trap. Another is by my partner Lar Carranza, and it's called Ugly Love. And I'm hoping that each of those books might help explain some of the things that we talked about in our videos here. And then we'd also invite you to subscribe to our channel so that we can keep you apprised when more videos come up.

Now, there are eight primary lies, actually, I can come up with a whole lot more, but I'm focused on these eight that I want you to be aware of so that as the narcissist puts these untruths onto you, you're going to be able to see through them and recognize this as part of their fear structure. Therefore you don't have to take that untruth onto yourself. 

Now the first false, or the first lie that I want you to be aware of that the narcissist speaks is very simple. The narcissist believes, I am truly superior to you, they genuinely think, they allow themselves to think that they're better than who you are. Now in a healthy relationship, we try to have as much of a sense of equality as we can, we realize that there are differences in skills and interests and capabilities. But down at that level of human worth, there's a sense of equality that we engage with. The narcissist is like, Huh, no, I don't like to think in equal terms, because that means they'd have to deal with both their pluses and minuses. And keep in mind, they're afraid of vulnerability. They don't want to go to that place. And so they just can concoct this story that says, Well, if there's any problems here, it can't be me. I'm better than you. So the problem must be you.

Now, along with this 'I'm better than you' lie that they tell is a second lie and that is that they honestly believe you're supposed to give your power over to me. And basically, what they mean is that you're not allowed to be decisive, because they have to continue to craft the narrative in a way that allows them to come off ahead--again, part of their fea., Then what they're saying is, I require you to think like me. So since I already have the corner of the market on truth, why don't just be the one to make all the decisions, and if you'll just realize that that's the way that things operate here, you and I are gonna get along just fine.

And so there's, there's that sense of invalidation of you, which leads to line number three. And that is, the Narcissus will inevitably imply 'You're nothing.' 'Without me, there can be such a need to be on the high end of the relationship, that they can honestly invalidate pretty much anything that's good about you. In fact, I recall, one guy that mentioned to me that he had had an award at work, and it was some sort of a great effort kind of award, and you've done real well, and when he went home and told the wife, his wife said, Well, you realize that you wouldn't have gotten that award had it not been for me. And she went on to all this, you know, I've done this, and I've done that. And because of that, then you were somehow or another able to glean from my wonderful intelligence. And the man was just saying, why can't we just celebrate the fact that something nice happened to me? But the narcissist in his life hijacked his good sense or his good accomplishment and said, well, without me, you're nothing. And so keep in mind that if anything good comes from you, it's not really you, it's me.

Well, that leads to a fourth lie that narcissists will purvey to you. And that is, it's your job to keep my ego propped up. Now, many times narcissists will look for folks, we call this looking for narcissistic supply, who are going to give them compliments, who want to adore them, and who give them special treatment. And the narcissist is thinking, yeah, that's right. That's the way it ought to be. And so as they continue on in their relationship with you, they remind you that you need to do certain things for me, because I have to be in the high position. And so as long as you can recognize that, and keep passing along that supply to me, you and I are going to get along just fine.

Well, that, of course leads to another lie. And that is that you owe me. You see, if they ever do anything nice to you, they try to, at least sometimes, put some things out there that seem helpful and nice and good. But again, it's all part of the manipulation scheme. If they do something nice, then you can pretty much guess there's a hook on the backside of it. It's like now that I've done something nice for you, or now that I've shown myself to be a really terrific person, what are you going to do for me? How are you going to make my life better? Because well, I mean, you should because you ought to be grateful for me, you owe me anything that that's nice here, it's because of me.

Well, then this can take us to another of the lies that they tell and that is that your feelings, and your opinions are irrelevant. How many times have you engaged with that narcissist, and you are attempting to say, well, here's the way I think about things. And this is what I want you to understand. And they either shut you down really quickly, or they shrug and say who cares? Or they explained to you all the 14 different reasons why your thoughts and feelings are no good or they just ignore you entirely. You're irrelevant to that person. But that's their lie, and it doesn't have to be your truth.

Another line that narcissists will give you is  that it's your fault. If there's any kind of problem or any kind of collapse or difficulty that happens in the world with you and the narcissist, the narcissist immediately goes into the blame game. Okay, what did you do? How did you mismanage things? Because it couldn't have been me because they have to keep themselves in that superior position. And so if there's a problem, it's your fault. Let's figure out again, what's wrong with you.

And then finally, we can say that the narcissist another lie that the narcissist has is that you're making my life miserable. And so they can point out all sorts of blame things that keep in mind the narcissist tends to go straight to the victim place very quickly. And rather than saying, you know, maybe the reason I'm feeling miserable is because my life is built on all sorts of false narratives and I have unrealistic expectations. I don't have good insight or awareness or my emotional management is shot and so it's no good. Yeah, maybe that's the problem. No, they can't say that, it's you.

So knowing that the narcissist meddles with you and tries to mix up and mess up your mind with all of these untruths, how are you going to respond? Now I've got I've got four thoughts here, first do not take on the task of trying to correct the narcissist, because keeping in mind that when you attempt to say, well, that's not the case, or this is not correct, let me explain to you what the better alternative is, they're going to go back through all those lies and give you portions of each of the ones that I just mentioned. They have poor self awareness, they certainly don't want to be accountable. And they certainly don't want to hear anything reasonable that comes from you.

Well, that leads to a second thought and that is, develop a very low level of expectation as to how you're going to engage with that narcissist. You're not going to have closeness with that person, you're not going to be able to have a high level of coordination unless you just do everything that individuals way. So keep your expectations very low.

And then a third thought, and this is kind of sad to say, but sometimes you just need to remove that person from your life, or at least get away from that person as a primary source of interaction and involvement. Because the more they continue to have influence over you, then the more it means that you're just going to keep pouring in all these falsehoods. And if you can't get away, let's refer to, say for example, it's a relationship that you simply are not going to be able to 100% extricate yourself from, at least make sure that you get around other people who know you in a much cleaner and truthful way, and greatly minimize your exposure to their mental and emotional influence.

And then a final thought is, stay grounded in your own truth. Now the narcissist wants to have the final word on pretty much anything and everything. Well, when it comes to you, Well, what do you believe about you? And I'm hoping that as you are trying to study this whole narcissistic trend and pattern, it's going to take you to the place of saying, what's the better alternative? And you hear me say things like, human beings have worth and human beings have dignity and there's a sense of equality that we need to to maintain with each other and we need to show understanding to one another. Do you believe in those kinds of characteristics and those kinds of philosophies that go along with it? Don't let the narcissist set your truth. You set your own truth. Now, one of the sad realities that we have is that when we engage with a narcissist is that you can't reason with an unreasonable person. And the beginning of unreasonableness is they don't accept truth and they don't hold themselves accountable. So make certain that you see yourself as separate and distinct, so these lies don't get on the inside of your mind and drag you down to a place that you don't need to be.