Narcissists have the ability to dishonor you, while simultaneously claiming that they love you. Another word for a narcissist is, EMOTIONAL TERRORIST!

I know it would be childish to play this on the TV while they are actively giving me the silent treatment. But man do I really want to. 😊

I LOVED it when my dad would employ the silent treatment. Then we could do as we pleased and he'd keep his mouth shut. No insults. No demands. No put downs. It was a reward in our(family) case it was wonderful.

Silent treatment never worked with me because I was always so relieved when they left me in peace.

I have ghosted more than one narcissist in my life and I have no regrets.

The silent treatment can also be them going somewhere for a couple of days and not responding to your calls or text. When they feel you have suffered enough they return to your depleted self. Cruel? Absolutely! But it works….. until it doesn’t because you are done with their emotional and mental abuse. Then you go NO CONTACT. 😊

My X used silent treatment until one day I out silenced him. When he was ready to talk again I stayed silent for the same amount of time he did. He never did it again!

I guess the reality is that you can't in fact stop abuse, so the only option is to learn to recognize it and do whatever you can to keep distance, boundaries, and protect yourself. ❤❤❤ Thank you so much Dr. Ramani!!!!!!!!!!!!!👍

I used to hate the silent treatment for the first few years, but now it's a gift. I actually really like it.

Silent treatment and stonewalling ride a very thin line to grey rocking. The difference is, the silent treatment feels petty, and the goal is to hurt you and get something. With grey rocking, the goal is to avoid chaos, arguments, gaslighting, and keeping the peace. While still being open to communication, you’re just keeping it short and uninteresting. Sometimes, people on the outside might view your grey rocking as narcissistic silent treatment or stonewalling. Because the narcissist will be recruiting them. Just letting you know, in these abusive situations you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Just leave if you can.

I am my moms caregiver because no other siblings will do it. She has been horrid our whole life. She did something 1 day to totally embarrass me to ppl in public, I came home and for the first time in 56 years I went off on her. She gave me the silent treatment for an ENTIRE YEAR! We live in the same house. It was the BEST year so far of having to care for her.

I think the silent treatment often comes from the narc feeling genuinely hurt and insulted when his or her demands are not met, as if you have done something seriously awful to them, like in a normal person, you kicked their puppy or something. I think the silent treatment is also an attempt of the narc to re-gain absolute control over communication when in active communication that control has slipped. All narcissistic behaviours in the end aim at controlling the victim.

I have been ignoring the narcissist's silent treatment. I refuse to let him know it got to me when he first did it. Now I just act like everything is normal, I haven't even noticed it and am not hurt by his lack of response. I used to feel terrible and wind up apologizing for something I shouldn't have apologized for. Now I just focus on being happy and know I am a decent person who doesn't deserve to be ignored. I bring a lot to the table and am still happy to offer love and care to my friends. If he doesn't want to answer back it's his loss. I don't know if it's healthy - but I sure feel better.

I would love to see you do a video on reactionary abuse. Someone who purposely pushes your buttons, does things that they know will traumatize, sabotage & gaslight for the reactions they get out of you. Someone who then convinces you & everyone around that YOU are bipolar, have anger & mental issues which causes you to become isolated. A short video on facebook about it actually opened my eyes to the fact that it had been happening to me for 20yrs. It could help someone else who believes there's something wrong with them when they're actually being abused & manipulated

I've trained myself to not give an F and it was the best thing I've ever learned. Thank you Dr. Ramani

Narcissists are exhausting… they drain the life from you… which in turn keeps them thriving. For my own wellbeing, I have recently distanced myself from a narcissistic ’friend’. Since I am a people pleaser, this hasn’t been easy, as in free from feeling bad… but keep reminding myself that I have to take care of myself.

As a victim, the silent treatment is probably one of the worst tactics a person can use. Nobody can read another persons mind and yet it seems like they expect you to and may throw a tantrum if you get the answer wrong 🙄

Thanks! I greatly appreciate your work. I am an adult child of a grandiose narcissist who is learning that i married a covert narcissist. You’ve been instrumental in helping me help myself and my children while we navigate this. God bless you.

The worst part of this is, in my experience, when I make a conscious effort to communicate in a healthy respectful way, I feel like I'm being punished for it. It took me a long time, after becoming an adult, to realize that I wasn't a failure at communicating. Fact is that I was being forced to interact with an unhealthy form of communication by their cruel tactics growing up and gaslighted into thinking that I was the failure at communicating and consequently to blame for any escalation to a disagreement.

I chose to go no contact with a narcissist, they then continued to text me and ask "why are you giving me the silent treatment?" They acted as if I was punishing them. I just wanted to get away from their abusive behavior

Oh well, my father used the silent treatment on me all my childhood, for the sole purpose of making me feel insignificant (my mother just generally ignored me but would at least reply to me). No wonder I attracted the most awful people later in life as I felt worthless, but now I'm healing and gaining myself back ! Thanks to Dr Ramani for her awesome work :)

The silent treatment can absolutely be a vacation

That first tactic is actually heavily encouraged on social media, often under the guise of self care, and not tolerating "negativity". ANY disagreement is seen as negativity, rather than just a difference of views/opinion.

I got the silent treatment for 6 months before I left my marriage last year. If she needed help with something there would be a brief pause but the silent treatment would start again straight afterwards. She was very upset and surprised when I left. Loss of control is very upsetting for a narcissistic person.

This video has come at the right time, thank you, Doc!! Recently I'm being gaslit by a few family members, especially my older brother who keeps trying to convince me I'm insane, just because I refuse to speak to my abusive narc father, now take boundaries seriously, and also I refuse to endure the generational abuse. I'm being told things such as: "Are you normal? Do you need your medication?", "Stop overreacting and being defensive, be nice to your mother she gave you birth", "talk to your father he'll feel better", and so on. I also realized that I ended up making a huge mistake and allowing my emotions to speak for me, expecting these sick people to understand but oh boy I was wrong. Each and every emotion of mine has been weaponised and used against me. I feel absolutely angry and frustrated these days, have multiple panic attacks. It is so difficult to be young and live in a family full of narcissists and enablers. It's draining, so much to the point where it can drive a sane person to feel insane and even at times, suicidal.

"And tantrums are for children" geeze... that ... really hits so many actions they do

37 years with a covert narcissistic closet alcoholic. In the tail end of a two year divorce now. A few years ago he told me "When you try to talk to me about stuff, I just go outside and smoke some pot". Ok, so now let's add drug addiction to the issues. Thanks Dr Ramani for helping me slowly start to understand what I've been dealing with most of my adult life. Wish I had understood narcissism 40 years ago. 👍

I've been feeling heavy, depressed because I'm finally understanding how sick my husband of 18 years is..and that it won't change. I used to hope and believe it could before. I now feel so bad because the person i agreed to spend my life with ..is emotionally like a child.

Silent treatment combined with microaggressive behavior (for example, pushing the front seat way back to give me no leg room in the back, or breaking something of mine and pretending it was an accident, or bumping into me and pretending it was an accident, or disappearing when it's time for us to set up for an event)

Word Salad... that sounds exactly like many conversations we've had. I was under the impression that it was me not being able to keep on topic but when others heard him talking to me (via recording), others agreed that it made no sense to them either. I was so relieved but then started to worry about his mental health.

I still remember my mother's silent treatment , in the beginning was hurting me but to be honest at one moment I was happier to be treated silent than to be verbally aggressed and insulted and controlled by her. I considered those periods of time a good time to get on track and to restore myself, to rest . But sometimes , as she felt that , she was often the one to cut the silence and bite and bite and bite until I lost my cool and react , so I was feeling bad again , and sudden. It's disturbing to live in this way. And exhausting.

I am so thankful for you, Dr. Ramani. The first silent treatment, I still vividly remember, is my mother refusing to answer my questions. She was doing dishes, and I was begging, tugging at her apron, begging her to talk to me. I finally ran to my father, in tears, "There's something wrong with Mommy, she can't hear me!" He was intimidated by her, and instead of helping me, he explained, "She's upset with you because you do not want to go to cathechism. It was a lifetime of her silence. If I sat down at the dinnertable, and she had unexpressed frustration or anger, it was directed at me. She'd pick up her plate and take her food to her room. My father would blame me for "making your mother leave the room". When I reached adulthood, she refused to speak to me for 25 years, then died. I felt nothing but relief.

Important things said in this video I can't stress enough (the whole video is full of important things, I'm just emphasizing some) : - stopping talking to someone/cutting someone out doesn't make a narcissist of you - getting angry, and even blowing up a little doesn't make a narcisist of you It's all in the proportion of the reaction, and what triggered it. If someone hurt you or wronged you, you have the right to be angry and stop talking to them. They know what they did, you told them, and they don't want to work it out. Fine. Get lost. Narcissist won't tell you what you allegedly did wrong, they'll let you guess. The silence treatment comes out of the blue. You really can't say what triggered it. Same with the rage. Someone can get angry, that's a natural emotion. But narcs will get triggered for absolutly nothing. And go on and on and on for sometimes hours.

Thank you, Dr. Ramani. I finally understand why it killed me inside when my narcissist husband gave me the silent treatment.

Yes!!! Re the silent treatment, if you learn to ignore it, enjoy it in a way, they will eventually cave because they will know that you are winning. They can't stand that. And yes, they may stop using that particular tactic, but rest assured they will reach into their bag of tricks and find another way to try on you. Stonewalling is pretty painful because it makes you feel rejected like you do not matter. It makes you realize just how one-sided the relationship is. It can backfire for them when they realize that you have stopped caring about their opinion since you no longer ask for it.

Thank you so much for sharing Dr. Ramani. I'm currently going through this with a few people I know and I've learned to just stop dealing with them. I've tried working out arguments by having adult conversations and when I realized that they just want to "keep arguing" because that's a form of comtrolling "your" emotions, now I walk away to collect my emotions and get some grounding. I've learned to stop arguing, and made a point to them that I no longer argue and, so I no longer deal with them. Narcissists hate when they can't control your emotions. But when it comes down to it, I'd rather get the silent treatment vs continually dealing with their chaos.... I choose my peace and I pray for theirs.

I think sometimes the silent treatment is combined with the secretiveness of many narcissists- they are making their plans for the discard in their silence. Also gaslighting can be involved, as in saying, “Well, I don’t speak to you in the morning until you speak to me because I never know what mood you’re in”. (and where do we go from there?). It can get very convoluted. I’m three weeks out from this roller coaster ride (no contact-I’m done), and still amazed at what it’s shown me. A lesson I had to learn. Think this time I passed. Won’t need to do it again. 😎

BIngo! Hindsight is 20/20. I was always told that I acted like a child. Turns outs, all of these communication tactics confused the hell out of me!

Im adept at the silent treatment. And I'd rather be left alone because I'm introverted. My mother stopped putting me on timeout because i would be enjoying myself in the corner. So when I got older and I married a narc and she did the silent treatment, she found that I would enjoy being left alone and she wouldnt get supply. So she changed her tactics.

No contact has been so wonderful for my daily peace of mind. Thank you for doing these videos.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for clarifying that going NO CONTACT is not a part of this. I was emotionally abused and coerced by someone who, after my multiple attempts to correct the situation, refused to be respectful, and I had to finally just go NO CONTACT. After a month of breathing free with no contact from her, she sent me a box of things that I had sent her over the years along with a scathing letter, saying that my heart is black LOL. I just tossed everything along with the letter, as it was confirmation that she didn't want to be respectful or caring.

If the good doctor and team would find the time, I would love to see, listen a deeper dive into a narcississm in medicine, in doctors, nurses etc. Because there are a lot of cases where doctors for instance gaslight a patient for their grievances. "It's all in your head, you are just stressed, you are imagening things, don't manifest illnesses etc." I really think this issue needs to be adressed, because medicine often misses underlying diagnoses and the patients are left to suffer😢. Thank you in advance. 🧡

Getting out of those abusive and crazy making relationships is vital If you want to live a peaceful and normal life.

Word salad? No no no no no, narcissists have the best words. They know all the words, the very best words. So smart, people go up to them crying. They say, "sir, your words were so beautiful. I'm a miner, haven't cried in 69 years, but your words made me cry." The best words.

I had to stay silent when I was with my ex, because anything I said would be used against me, cruelly. The times I did try to talk things out with him, it almost always made it worse. So, I felt awful staying silent at times, but it always just felt like the best way to keep myself a bit safer when he was angry.

They will silent treatment you in your own home. They won’t talk to you but they will be super nice to the kids in front of you. Its so awkward for everyone

I used to frequently use the silent treatment when I was in a toxic relationship. When they flip, there’s no having a normal conversation. Its just insults, blame shifting, threats, straight up lies, changing history, making accusations, and changing what you said in order to use it as a reason to keep raging. Imo it was easier to just get away from it by going into another room or shutting off my phone.

very timely as my partner just gave me the silent treatment, after i said my non-negotiables, he hit me with "i miss you" lmao, that is after unfriending me from all social media and not talking to me. i told him if he needs space then i need space too.i realized there are so many fishes in the ocean and that i am worthy of someone better, someone secure and someone i can connect to deeply

Dr. Ramani, thank you. When I'm tempted to respond to the narcissist, I just watch your videos, and I'm reminded of exactly why I shouldn't. And that word salad thing is scary, because that's what I've been dealing with. It seems- for now, at least- the less I feed him supply, the crazier the narcissist's rants become. It's like he's throwing anything at the wall to see if something will get my reaction.

I would like to hear more about silence. Coming out of a nonstop, narcissistic relationship, silence was a place for me to create boundaries for myself and protect myself from the chaos and manipulation and confusion of conversations with my narcissistic spouse. I needed to avoid those conversations because they were incredibly toxic and confusing. I was trying to decide if I was staying or leaving and needed to disengage from those confusing conversations. I’d like to hear some discussion about the difference between safe silence and narcissistic silence.

Toxic friendship have been my issue lately. Not seeing the signs because I wasn't aware of my own cognitive disorder from multiple childhood and adult traumas. Now I'm listening very closely at what people say and the vibe I get from them. I'm usually a happy person and all it takes is kindness to win me over. That's all in the past. I'm more attentive and alert negate in healing and refuse to allow anyone to destroy what's work so hard to rebuild within myself. I'm always doing the self check. I'm I hurting others with my ideas, actions or words and if so in what way? This way I can stop doing those things because I did care about how I make others feel and if they don't care about my feelings I'm out. Crossing my boundaries and anything that isn't aligned with my overall peace of mind. Your videos are very helpful because I can see where the signs come in and I can navigate my emotions accordingly and usually with minimal conflict. So thank you for gifting us with this very important info. I can see, feel, and know where I need healing and when it's actually happening or I've succeeded at overcoming a particular trigger. You're a gift and a blessing to all who come across your channel. New sub❤❤❤

This last year I was slowly rebuilding a relationship with a family member after many, many, many years. Out of no where began the silent treatment. Gotta say, I was stunned. They seemed they had grown out of this. After a few attempts to make contact ( maybe something had happened, they were going through) I finally told them: " I love you but I cannot chase you down." It still hurts. However, I must go on with my life and thrive. With or without them. Great breakdown & explination of this behavior. Ty!

This is my dad to a "T". He completely ignores my existence unless he needs help, or wants to rehash old arguments. He also likes to take bad about me to people as I'm not in the same room with him. He never wants to have a vulnerable conversation. He just want me to go back to my old role of being a people-pleaser. I'm not a good daughter in his eyes because I fit the ideal image he wants. All he does know is stomp around the house in silence to let everyone in the house know that he's angry.

My mother was the queen of the silent treatment. It was devastating as a young child. When people know this they use it against me knowing how hurtful it is. Tells me alot about a person when they are quick to hurt me with something so painful.

Yes. I’m saving this video. My ex would say, “I’m not even going to talk, I always say the wrong thing, so what’s the point?? I’m trying to say something but a different thing comes out, you don’t understand me, so there’s no point in talking”. I’d tell him he just needs to be careful on what he says, and to accept that he’s not always right, and he’d say, “you act like you’re always right, and I’m wrong, so you can say whatever, but I can’t? Wow, you always want everything your way that’s why we never get anywhere”. I’d just give up at that point, because it’s stressful to always be a therapist to someone who doesn’t want to work on themselves and doesnt see himself as a problem, rather a victim, and I’m his abuser. The silent treatment was used when I’d make him use his money for bills rather than weed. We both worked, we agreed what he’d pay, and I’d pay, (mind you, the bills were under my name since he moved in with me). When the bills were due, he would say he rather pay the bills late so he can buy his weed, I’d tell him no, he needs to pay the bills, kuz our kids are not going without light and a roof over their head. He’d say he’ll just pay the late fees, no biggie and I’d say no, either you pay the bills or we’re done, I’m not going to control how you use your money, but if you’re not going to do what me and you agreed on, we’re done. He ended up paying the bills, and slept on the couch, messaged women, get rides from other people to and from work instead of me like he usually did, he’d get his mom and sister to make him dinner instead of eating what I made at home. It was like we were roommates, all because I held him responsible. I wouldn’t apologize, I’d just give him a taste of his own medicine, so I wouldn’t wash his clothes, or do his dishes when he’d make something. He eventually yelled at me for being childish, petty, a bad girlfriend, and immature. The irony. I’d explain how he’s ignoring me and acting like my roommate, so I’ll treat him like one, and he’d start yelling about how I’m controlling, I’m so strict, I’m financially abusing him, I want everything my way, etc, etc. sometimes I would just apologize and give him what he wants, but it would end BADLY. He’d end up leaving me before the late fees of those unpaid bills would come, and I’d have to end up paying the bills, AND late fees. So when I’d bring those examples up to him, he’d say, “that’s was SO long ago!!! Idk how your mind thinks, but you need to let go of the past and move on, you’re always bringing up old sh*t, let’s talk about now, NOW, how recently have I done that???”. My response would be, “well I’m just mentioning it because those are repeated offenses, I’m going by patterns not your words, I’m not going to put me and my kids in an unstable situation, so either pay the bills, or we’re done”. He’d say, okay, since you’re saying I always bail, then what’s the point of proving you wrong, fine, I won’t pay them, pay them yourself, I’m out. So those “past” behaviors would be CURRENT behaviors, and if I’d bring THOSE up, he’d say I made him do those bad things so it’s my fault why he wasn’t responsible. I’d feel horrible, like I shouldn’t have doubted him, I shouldn’t think of the past, etc etc. but now i know, that man is a narcissist. Can’t no one change my mind on that. Now coparenting with him, is harder than it was when we were together. He withholds child support, he puts my kids through verbal altercation situations, smokes with them in the same room/car, leaves our kids with toxic people when he wants to go out, etc. He ignores my texts and calls when I’m trying to get him to talk about something important like child support, his missed visitations, him hurting our kids, or his family hurting our kids. It’s HARD. Court is an option, but I fear him lying and trying to manipulate the judge about my character. He’s so good at acting like a victim and making me look like a bitter, angry ex. He did it before, and the judge scolded me, i didn’t speak up for myself, I could’ve defended myself but for some reason I just stayed quiet, i couldn’t speak, and the judge ended it by congratulating him for being such a good dad. I was confused, mad at myself, and I never went to court again.

I would like to differentiate the " silent treatment" of a narc from the situation where you have tried to talk to people/ get them to see what's important to you but their disrespect etc is so bad that you have to walk away and stay silent for your own mental health. So the silence is to protect yourself until you can get the energy to re engage with them/ build up your self respect and go through that cycle again

You never fail to have unbelievable timing with these topics in my life. 😮 I am dealing with the silent treatment from a "friend". She's also begun a smear campaign, including talking about me in unnamed social media comments with mutual friends. I'm proud to say though, after the catalyst- telling her directly, privately, that I felt hurt by her attitude during a discussion about money- at which she blamed me and ranted a full 2 paragraphs about how "after all I've done for you" guilt trip garbage, I recognized her silently leaving our group chats as the silent treatment. I said to myself, 'oh, she expects me to dm and beg her not to go!" 😂 hold your breath, sweetie. Thank you so much for your work!!!

I've studied psychology for years. NLP. Madenes, whose psychodynamic theories are useful, and others. Freud and Jung, obviously. The love languages stuff. The brilliant John Gottman. All great stuff. But no one comes close to Dr. Ramini. She's a genius. No one comes close.

Silent treatment and ghosting by a narcissist = the garbage taking itself out😊

The world salad explanation 35:56 is frighteningly accurate. I found it was used whenever we were having a serious conversation. About anything. Even something like did you take the bins out? They response would be 'did you?' It made every day increasingly impossible to just do normal adult resonsible things like, communicate, plan, shop, clean etc. It was so incredibly strange. She would deliberately talk about shallow lighthearted things all the time. 'Look at those puppys, beautiful weather, its so cold, I'm so tired.' Of course these things arent bad at all but it was the same thing every day hundreds of times throughout the day. I came to understand this was a deliberate avoidance tactic and way to control the relationship. Anything I would say that was of substance would be 'drama.' Like 'hey you said you'd organise dinner but you haven’t and I've been at work all day.' 'I'm not your maid' 'I know this but you clearly said you had dinner organised.' It was like living with a six year old.

The silent treatment, and not responding in more than one word, could also be somebody protecting themselves from being bated constantly

Out of the 4, word salad makes me the most frustrated. If I can avoid a narc, I do it. If I’m communicating with one, it’s because I absolutely have to. When I’m forced to do so, having that jumbled up, sidetracking, all over the place, exchange, makes my blood pressure rise. I *hate* word salad.

Doctor Ramani, here is a little somthing to thank you from the bottom of my heart for this video. I honestly feel this video saved my life!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS WORD SALAD EXAMPLE OF THEIR ARGUING!!! It makes it so hard to explain arguments to friends when seeking support. They won’t stop until they see they’ve broken you, broken your will - made you cry. Logic need not apply. You Can’t EVER make them satisfied with anything you say back. It brings them satisfaction and I truly belief a release of endorphins or serotonin in them when they see you break/cry. They need their drug fix. It’s subtle but you can see their eyes soften and go from looking glaring/angry to satisfied. It burns off your emotional feelers and you survive by separating yourself and walking around like a robot just to survive.

Silent treatment is a form of emotional abuse because narcs know they have been caught and called out and they can't handle it so they go silent

Every single manipulation tactic all but implies the use of the lying tactic and the gaslighting tactic. I actually dislike it a little calling out gaslighting as a manipulation tactic as it's actually an effect. All manipulation tactics will contribute to it by nature of what manipulation is. Some tactics however certainly take the gaslighting effect to a whole different level. Blatant lies that are so bad they insult your intelligence is one of them. That kind of shit will make you feel like you are in the twilight zone after a while. Here are some of the reasons they do this: To test their control. To feel superior and/or entertainment. This proves to themselves how much control they have over you. In the end, you will give up and you will not leave (trauma bonded). In the process of getting to the giving up stage, you will go through some pretty nasty emotional states ending in massive amounts of cognitive dissonance to swallow all of that. Cognitive dissonance is a trauma defense mechanism where you essentially lie to yourself in various ways so that you can bring back some semblance of equilibrium to the insanity you find yourself unable to escape from. As part of the ‘backing you into an emotional corner’ tactic. This is a tactic where you are manipulated into being emotionally unstable inevitably leading to you losing your shit. This gives the narcissist a big dopamine burst, they feel powerful and superior having so deftly controlled you and manipulated into this emotional state. To finish the little game they play, they make sure to point out how unhinged and unstable you are and suggest that perhaps you need help or medication. Of course, you will internalize all that shame and guilt and the million other raging emotions they have created and swallow all that essentially allowing them to scapegoat their blame and accountability onto you. Bring on some more cognitive dissonance and gaslighting effects. To condition you to expect less respect, and ultimately put up with more abuse. You will tire of the inevitable circular argument trying to convince the narcissist of the blatantly obvious lie and eventually find yourself challenging them less and less as you subconsciously accept the fact that if you do it will just make your life and emotional state more miserable and you will be denied the satisfaction of any kind of ‘win’ even if it is easy to disprove. This is part of the domination process and makes sure all the power in the relationship ends up with them by the end. To turn your mind to mush as the gaslighting effect takes hold more and more over time. This makes you even easier to control. Many times while easy to disprove it requires some kind of concession of some obvious truth that the narcissist can just doggedly refuse to agree with or remember (‘the intentional forgetting’ tactic and the ‘feigned confusion or ignorance’ tactics are often employed for this). So, in fact, it is not so easy to prove when the narcissist refuses to correctly remember what happened 10 min ago or accept sound logic or reasoning. You will just turn blue in the face trying. Of course, in some cases it is indisputable. A phone log or something. My experience is when this kind of stuff happens it wasn’t their intention typically, although sometimes it was. But in these scenarios, you will typically get some sort of angry ‘invalidating’ tactic, with some good old ‘manufactured rage’ and ‘intimidation’ tactics to ‘put you on the defensive’ and get you more susceptible to further manipulation. Maybe something like: “Get over yourself already” followed up by some ‘blame-shifting’ tactics with some good old ‘guilt’ and ‘shame’ tactics, like “Why the hell are you spying on my phone records anyway? What kind of relationship is this? I don’t have any privacy? I don’t know if I can do this anymore! You have major jealousy issues! You need help!” You will walk away as the loser either way. There are resistance tactics that can be used but this is a very difficult tactic to deal with and it is one of their favorites. I won’t get into the counter-tactics here though. The only way to really win in a relationship with a narcissist is to leave them and go no contact. Moreover, Catching a cheating spouse might be difficult, and knowing what local laws say you can and cannot do might be even more difficult. To simplify the process, consider hiring a private investigator to do the sleuthing for you I genuinely appreciate how incredible you are and your work! Thank you for a job well done Metaspyhub@gmail. com..

Stonewalling was such a huge issue (among many others) in my past abusive relationship. It left in me in a constant state of rumination and unable to have any closure or resolution. I would end up having the same conversations over and over and trying my best to word it in the “perfect” way so as to elicit a different response. Any response! He always would pick and choose what he would reply to and it was usually something so minuscule and unrelated, then take offence and deflect it back on me. I always ended up confused and not realising what happened until hours later. It’s torturous!

I was about thirteen, I traveled somewhere and when I came back my mom wasn't talking to me. For two months I tried to figure out why. Eventually I dug up my diary that was locked and hidden behind a drawer in my room. There it was. A pages long rant from my mother on how I could berate her to my "dear diary". She didn't let me go to a party, so I ranted and cursed at my diary. I was working up my courage to trust my diary with the abuse I was suffering. That halted everything. I had nowhere and no one to turn to. I am 46, just now I started writing up my memories from that time.

Dr. Rama - could you please make a video about how to manage “your” employee who is a narc? As a manger of a narcissist employee, it is a horrible and dangerous situation when you are the boss. Most people comment about how to handle having a boss who is narc, but hardly anybody speaks to the ongoing torture of having a narc employee (note - in a corporation, you can’t just fire them). Love your videos. They’ve helped me tremendously!

Thank you, Dr. Ramini, for explaining with such clarity this crazy-making dynamic running rampant through my own family system. It's such a toxic, no-win style. You are the voice of sanity I needed to hear today.

Yes, spot on, yuuuuuup! All insanely accurate to these egotistical demons. NARC FREE IN 2023!

I learnt how to deal with the silent treatment in marriage by ignoring it and continuing as normal- as you said it’s a childish form of communication

Word Salad!!! Love this part of the video. It happens to me exactly as you explained....they want to make so confused and feel guilty that you forget what you where trying to discuss or explain. Thank you so much for your videos. I am using all your tools to move on from my narcissist husband who ened our 30 year marriage now that he has a new supply.

11:41 I LOOOOOVE THE SILENT TREATMENT. It’s my most favorite thing EVER.

It's important to talk about the difference in the silent treatment given by the narc and the silent treatment, eventually given by the victim of the narc. While the former is a weapon, esp to punish, the latter is out of exasperation and when all else has failed , including trying to reason with the narc and tell them time n agn what their behavior does to u! I hope u make a video differentiating between these so the victims who have finally adopted the silent treatment towards the narc don't have self doubt or question themselves 🙏

I'm currently going through this. It's hell, and this video really helped me.

Love your videos. I’m just learning that I have been with a narcissist for 34years! I now have failing health and emotional issues.. Two deceased adult children who I now know in my heart would still be alive if not for the toxic environment I allowed us to live with through his control! Thank you for opening my eyes and teaching me how to continue to move forward and how to deal with hi. Oh boy you sound just like every part of him. Bless you for helping so many!!! 💕🙏. Yep,he goes through our-son which has caused great problems for his mental health and he is now treating me poorly. They do turn them against you!!!

The silent treatment is so, so toxic. My narcissist is the king of silence. This is ( in his own mind) his “super power”. Such sick, toxic, vile behavior…refusing not only to speak, but refusing to even acknowledge that you exist. It’s a power trip for the narc. Too bad that the narcs don’t care how much damage they do to you. Toxic, so so very toxic!

😂😂😂 the word salad! Ah, unfortunately, so familiar and relatable. And hearing you do it makes it so clear how it totally doesn't make sense, and is not our fault if we can't work it out... 😄

I would LOVE the silent treatment!

If only I had this to listen to as a child! Or heck, even in my 20's. At least at 50 I'm finally understanding my life.😅 Love what you're doing Dr Ramani!

Thank you for this video. I'm in this silent treatment at this time. I saw & hear your video that make my life more and more cleaner and now I know why my problems like this. I had gone to a therapy but my therapist was not understanding the problems so I thought my problems are unsolvable and I'm all alone in this world. Thank you so much your video helps a lot.

Using the silent treatment at the 11th hour before a romantic break, birthday, Xmas, and any other special event has me in pieces. Always at these times. Especially at these times.

LOL! I lived with one of these!! They are so funny, pretentious and petty. I ignored him. He was landlord tenant and only raged when he did talk. The secret is to not want anything from them, including conversation or acknowledgement. See them for who they are and go about your business.

Thank you, Dr. Ramani, for living and breathing narcissism-and going further with research and study to share accurate knowledge with us!

Dr. Ramani is the G.O.A.T.❤❤

This has been what I experienced as a child teen and adult. When I was fighting cancer and when I had my baby. I always thought it was my fault I would always apologize they would turn the family on me. My self esteem was so low. This channel is helping me so much.

2 things I wish I have learned 23 years ago, one of them is how to deal with a communal narcissist friend, throughout our friendship she started to control me and when I finally understood (thanks to Dr Romani's videos) the kind of relationship we had I managed to break it and at the moment she is doing exactly the silent communication.

Word Salad! The example given was the exact scenario I had experienced from 2 different partners! Now I know why I was left feeling totally bamboozled! Thankyou!

Thank you Dr. Ramani for making the distinction between the classical use of the term "word salad" in psychology as compared to the way it's used when talking about narcissism. I heard it come up in some videos on narcissism, and having only had an understanding of the term "word salad" in its traditional use, I kept thinking, "That's not quite what a word salad is." I am glad to hear a trained and licensed treatment provider make the distinction and validate the use of the term for narcissism. I work at an inpatient behavioral health hospital. The most devastating personal experience I've had with word salads has been conversations with an alcoholic suffering from "wet brain" (the clinical term is slipping my mind). He would start conversations making total and complete sense, but by the third or fourth sentence it devolved into complete word salad. So sad. He was a very intelligent man. He destroyed his cognition with alcohol 😥

Your wise words have helped me so much. My narcissist left after us living together for 11 years with no word or explanation - so confusing and hurtful.

In my late 50's now. I appreciate your videos they've helped me understand past issues with family 👪 friends & of course boyfriend's 😉 Over the years I've realized 😳 mental health issues in society are being ignored and never addressed which leads to so many falling between the cracks.

Thank you again Dr. Ramani. I am in a relationship with my sister that has been hard to understand she has been stone walling me for years and I never knew why, this podcast has cleared up the why. This is life changing for me, it is going to be hard, as you know, but at least now I can do the work to take care of me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Dr. Ramani, you wear an invisible hero cape that only some of us see and cherish :) Thank you so much for helping me understand, arm up, and protect myself from these horrible people. It has lifted so much weight off my shoulders, and made room for more positive relationships and experiences!! Life CAN be good :)

I was cleaning up while listening to this video and was silently nodding to everything Dr. Ramani was saying up until the point where she started giving an example of a word salad rant. As soon as I heard it, I just laughed out loud. But it was not because it was funny, but because I have experienced so many of word salad rants like this in my childhood and throughout my adult life at the hands of my mother. It is just the most disarming weapon, because it is SOOOOO CONFUSING! You are like, what in the world? Why are you bringing up distant relatives and events of the past three decades in the conversation, when I asked you a simple question which required a yes or no answer?

Brilliant and perfect breakdown of what I'm dealing with right now. Wow.

Yours videos have being a life line and what helped me leave a terrible relationship as finally could make sense of all these behaviours and stop being manipulated

Dr Ramani - you are a ray of hope in an otherwise very dark experience of narcissistic abuse. thank you for your steadfast, smart and funny (!) approaches to this awful thing called narcissistic abuse.

A caveat to the “silent treatment” is if someone is being abusive, or are emotionally unstable and can’t have a rational conversation. You are absolutely free to disengage with someone, they are not entitled to your response. It’s best to say “I need time, can we talk about this later” or something like that. There are so many reasons how this can be, jumping to narcissism doesn’t feel accurate.

Some weeks ago, I was on a camel in the Sahara as you do. This was the pinnacle of a trip. In my enthusiasm, I almost said a sentance of fun observation. The comeback was ... I want to be silent. So I was shushed. Literally, within a minute, I hear...oh, look at that... I say, I'm meant to enjoy the silence. The kill joy nature of these folks.... nobody likes being shushed. Fortunately, I knew this was coming to a close and could let it roll pretty much to not let the strain effect a special experience. The silence of the dunes is pretty cool, tho.