🔍 Free download: Suspect someone you know might be a narcissist? This checklist breaks down the phases of narcissistic abuse, so you can see how it stacks up with your own experience: www.commonego.com/checklist

Them copying you and minimising your uniqueness and ridiculing you

Never marry anyone you feel sorry for-probably a covert narcissist.

9:17 A huge red flag and automatic deal breaker for me in friendships is when a friend bad mouths another person behind their back but is nice to their face. If they’re doing it to that other person, they’ll probably do it to me eventually.

The eyes glazing over when you are not talking about them or their interests. 😂

Covert narcissists are creepy. Ever got the feeling someone is watching you while you are doing random things or talking to someone else? Then you look at them and they actually are staring at you like observing a study object in a cage.

Gossip - they tend to call others "crazy" with impunity. Anyone who does something they don't agree with...the person is "crazy."

One of the best indicators is that they are extremely quick to dismiss and avoid any issue or something they've done wrong, they cannot handle it at all. They don't discuss real solutions or ways they could improve, and often just declare that everything was already resolved behind the scenes and you're the one who's in the wrong for not noticing (the work they haven't actually done).

After 29 years of Narcissist family abuse, they abuse me no more.

My covert narc mom ticks every box. Will "confide" in you about everything "wrong" with everyone else, and will poison others against you behind your back. All personal information, opinions, emotions, reactions are weaponized against you. In the absence of that, she just makes stuff up and lies. Complains that people are cold, distant, and evasive toward her, yet doesn't have the self-awareness to understand why. It's something "wrong" with that other person.

I had a rude awakening 3 years ago to a "friend" . I educated myself about narcissism, only to realize I was also married to one. Once I saw the truth, I could not look the other way and my imaginary world required enormous changes. I'm divorced and no longer living in that town. It took about 2 years to come to terms with my issues (common denominator thing), yet I have no interest whatsoever in dating or going back into any social circle. Some people refer to me as a recluse, but I really don't care.

"You don't want to find yourself stuck in the situation where you're wasting years of your life waiting for someone to be willing to stop acting in hurtful ways" Too late, wish I knew about narcissism sooner.

Always keep your boundaries.

The narcissist always tell me. " I am not gossiping but I am just sharing with you..."

When they feel comfortable with you then they'll dump all their whiny complaints about everyone else on you, too. They'll crap all over entire groups of people, regularly. They're hyper critical of others, and you're next on their crap list.

Loving is not in them. They do not know love, or experienced it. It’s a concept they saw in movies but they can’t relate to it. It’s like you seeing flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz (no pun intended). You see it, you know what it is, but you can’t relate to being a flying monkey. You just know what one looks like. That’s how narcissists see love, character, integrity and empathy. They recognize it, they can pretend (like pretending to be a flying monkey) but that is the limit. They also don’t want to be a flying monkey, that’s why they don’t want to love, care, or change….especially for you wanting them to be a flying monkey…that’s how they perceive it. So they leave you and discard you because this is how they perceive it and your communication about anything. Your relationship is their fantasy island and it needs to run the way it is in their head. It’s their script. You either perform your role or they will find another cast member who will. Stay on their script. The relationship with you is not real to them. You are not real. They are living and experiencing their mind.

1. Mixed messages: They ask for help or advice and either do not follow or ignore the help / advice or argue / question it in a dismissive or condescending way.

This was said during the love bombing phase: "If people look at you and my ex, people can tell that I don't date women for their looks". When asked what he meant by that, "Oh, I mean I date women for their personality". By the third year of the relationship (which came after the ghosting and breadcrumbing phase), it turned into outright demeaning, "My friend xyz was asking me why I was with a girl as ugly as you". I have been out of that 'relationship' for six years, healing for three and only woke up to the reality of it this year. The scariest thing is that the denigration and breakdown of sense of self continues even after the relationship ends.

I could not see my own compliance until I saw the entire picture in its truthfulness. This horrible stuff has been hiding in my subconscious as my shadow side.

An anecdote about someone who served me a very sneaky one: ski/snowboard trip with boyfriend and his bestie, who brought his new girlfriend to meet us. I don't really ski well, or do anything sporty well except swim. I have balance issues from a visual impairment plus a congenital inner ear problem, so I play it safe and I stick to the kids/beginners hills. I don't mind that others go off to more challenging stuff, I'm just happy to have a day off from work outside with friends. So prior to this girl coming along, everyone was cool with the arrangement. She's an excellent skier and snowboarder, and has competed seriously. I watch her playing around at the beginning and remark to our friend that new girl is so graceful and takented, she makes it look easy. Later while they're up on the hard hills, friend tells her about my compliment in an attempt to communicate that his friends all like her. She took offense to what I said and once they reached the bottom if the run, she huffs over to me asking wtf I meant by saying that. I said, I just meant it nicely, she's awesome at this and seems as if she finds it effortless, when a lot of people don't ski like her after decades of practice, and as for me, I just wasn't capable of that skill, and I admired it. This appeared to piss her off even more. She called me manipulative, passive aggressive. Said it was a backhanded compliment meant to belittle her. The rest of the day she was antagonistic and pouty. She said me making a big deal about what little bit I'd seen of her skills was condescending and sarcastic like I was "congratulating a para Olympian for mediocrity "ooohhh, goood jobbbbb Lisa, you didn't fall down!" That comment made me lose my temper for insinuating that I was being snotty as well as that there is something lacking in para Olympians, and the whole afternoon just went to hell from there. Suddenly my boyfriend was pushing me to try stuff beyond my comfort zone and when I said no, he got mad and cut the trip off early. We all left angry and of course I got blamed for sticking my foot in my mouth. I felt terrible, like I couldn't say anything right. Later, I was told by our friend that she was insulted because she had only been warming up. She thought that I was making fun of her, sarcastically saying she was really good when what I saw wasn't near where her skills actually are, just a warmup. Smh at the way she used righteous indignation and DARVO on me just to point out she was actually much better at skiing than I had seen. A very convoluted, sneaky, hostile way of putting me down and promoting herself when all she needed to say, what a healthy person would've said, is, "thanks! I've worked really hard to reach the level I'm at."

Good luck to everyone who deals with these individuals.

victims but they were actually the agressor - yeah exactly

One thing I noticed about my narcissistic ex (who I just broke up with 🎉) was that the victim complex applied to even little things in her everyday language. It was never just “I’m cold,” it was always “the apartment is cold,” meaning I had to be constantly changing the temperature instead of her putting on a sweater or something.

This is *exactly* my mother. If I ever disagreed with her, even about anything benign, she would literally scream at me, point out some random unrelated "flaw" she perceived that I had, then hang up on me or leave the room. Cutting all ties with her was the best decision of my life.

She rightly identifies jealousy and resentment as motivating forces behind narcissistic abuse. Be sure that you understand that the person will not just come out and tell you, 'I'm generally bitter and resentful, and I will blame you if you give me the opportunity."

They live in a fantasy world. Delusional at minimum. They will take your Money, Energy, Attention, Time, until all is depleated from you. Me feels seriously messed up 😢

"Slapped with a velvet glove" is a PERFECT description for the back-handed compliment!! For so long I thought I was just being overly sensitive and couldn't take a joke. It's so sly/subtle until you catch on. All of these are great tips to watch for, thank you!

He would accuse me of cheating when he was the one cheating 🙄

They love to change history too 🙄

they test their boundaries all the time, when you got agitated, they will say 'i'm only joking, why you so petty, i didn't know you can't take jokes'

I'm in the thick of it right now. The trauma bond. I can't function properly.

You described my life with my narc husband. He makes me the bad guy after he exasperates me. Typically this looks like he asks questions, I answer him and he keeps it going, by repeating himself, I repeat the answers then suddenly I’m being disrespectful because I start to raise my voice because I’m tired of repeating myself. I literally can’t handle it anymore.

I told a covert narcissist that I got my military promotion 20 years after I got out of the military(which is unheard of). The covert narcissist said that it wasn't that big of deal. Anything else I told the covert narcissist about myself, he always knew someone else who did it way better.

FYI- it is good idea to ensure the person isn’t on the autism spectrum either. I unfortunately have a tendency to have one sided conversations and I hate small talk. Working on it, but am self conscious regarding it. But I’m not a covert narcissist 😕

My experiences were with the covert that over the span of many years (this was a friend) that whenever I'd share something that was particularly painful and she just sat there with this blank expression on her face, her eyes showed NO emotion at all - this was her baseline. The only time she'd show any emotion is when someone did something to her.

I started suspecting my boyfriend about 3 years in (I never knew what a covert narcissist was, couple that with the fact that I struggle with BPD and he had me convinced I was the problem; It took me a long time to figure it out, currently still stuck in it thanks to forced financial dependence, but that's besides this point ) but the HUGE red flag that really got me wondering, was I never saw him shed a SINGLE tear over his own mother passing from lung cancer, when he got the call from hospice, he was pretty much emotionless and not in a "in shock" manner and just said so flatly like he was reading, a boring newspaper headline: "My mom passed, I have to go up there (to the hospice)". When he DID cry a few tears reading a speech at her funeral, it seemed almost a little TOO theatrical, almost like he wanted to make sure everybody saw that he was crying. I felt horrifically guilty thinking that at first, until about a year later, when the video he had recorded of himself reading that eulogy at his mother's funeral came up in his memories, and his only comment on it was complementing himself "for writing such a great eulogy". I almost had to physically restrain myself to keep my jaw from dropping, I was appalled.

This is bringing back memories, especially sad ones 😢😢😢

7:16 .. I have found myself talking to others about how my ex wife has treated me in the past. The thing I have found out is the lack of care she has actually had for her destructive behaviors. She is unapologetic about everything unless she doesn’t have a choice. Yet the apology was just to appease in the moment. Anyone who has been in a long term relationship 10+ years with a narcissistic person will behave irresponsibly for a while once that relationship has suddenly collapsed. In many ways it is the narcissist forced in your psyche that is causing your irrational behavior and the victim mentality. Take care of yourself and take your time to recover from it. Because it will seem for a little while that you are the crazy person.

I'm pretty certain that you are the woman talking in the Psych2go videos about narcs. Wow, you do know your stuff. I am a covert narcissist with psychopathic tendencies. All of what you were saying is what I do and used to do. We're not horrible people, but sick for sure. 100% right we have to be WILLING to change this and have empathy for others. It's a big challenge.

For those of you wondering if you are a narcissist, you may occasionally do some of these things. That doesnt make you a narcissist, but it is behavior to try to improve. Your guilt over your mistakes or bad decisions is evidence that you arent a narcissist. You have the capacity for empathy and self reflection.

I signed up for membership again because I am finally getting in touch with the TRAUMA BOND. I see now that it is a horrible prison where the big cat plays with the little mouse. These red flags help me see the evidence of what has been dogging me but has been hidden, 2 things: major fear and denial. The denial is soo bad that my narc has taken everything from me that nourishes me. I wish he was gone because it seems that he is using life and death against me with my needs and even desires to make me comply. The trauma bond is a defense mechanism that the subconscious and/or the spirit uses to STAY SAFE!!!

My ex would say,” you’re not a bad looking woman,for your age.”😮

I was cleaning out my place to move and came across a birthday card from my ex narc husband. It was odd that he’d even given me a card for my birthday which is probably why I still had it four years post divorce. He wrote in it “I’m so proud of you for running that half marathon (I’d never been a runner. I did it bc he said I should) and how well you are doing in school (I’d recently returned to school)…” following that sentence he wrote “But I know you are capable of so much more. You have so much untapped potential and if you just put your mind to it you can accomplish so much more.”. What kind of psycho husband puts that in a birthday card to his wife? “But…”. that fn word. He was giving me backhanded compliments and slyly weaving in that “It’s still not good enough.”

They can share private information as a form of social currency

I was recently ghosted (discarded) by a "friend" who has nearly all these characteristics. The ghosting occurred after a disagreement and a conversation that did not go her way. I see that she was using me to listen to her gossip, sometimes for hours. One warning sign I ignored was her shaming me for setting boundaries in the past.

My boss sister, it was always about her and her drama. After awhile I wouldn't even talk about my personal life as it can be used as ammo. No to mention, she would try to even control that aspect of my life, nor did she genuinely care

Dare disagree with a covert narc? You just don't understand their point of view. Especially if it's facts that are inconvenient to their narrative.

I think since we spend a great deal of our time in the office is where we experience Narcissism in the office. Besides personal life, narcissism also lives quite well in business life! Watch out.!

Stringing you along

Narcissism, the only toxic mental health issue that harms those the narcissistic person interacts with, more than them! It's really sick when you think about it. People you love harm you, elevate themselves and never have to take accountability, while their victims fall apart

Excellent advice! Thank you so much❣

You literally described my husband & also his mother, she really had a master skill level of covert narcissism that catapulted her into a level where she would be so clever & manipulative & snowed everybody, I always knew something was off with her & only a few years ago did I learn about narcissistic personality disorder & then it all added up.

My mother. Doesn’t respect my clear boundary repeatedly so I get firm and make her. And so after all was said and done, she repeats “But you still don’t have to be so mean about it.” 🙄🙄🙄🤯🤯🤯 (So you know it’s like either I relinquish my boundary or I’m a mean jerk. Bcuz being “nice” gets me nowhere. Well ok then. I choose mean jerk lol).

I missed your videos. Glad you are here.

I wish the discussion about narcissists had been a thing back when I married my narcissist ! He destroyed my life.. but he was everything you said.. he did it all. This information is going to save lives ! My narcissists back handed compliment was when we were laying on the family bed watching TV together with our two daughters in the dark.. he was looking at me apparently and said “you’re going to be a beautiful woman someday” mind you I was beautiful.. I can say now because I’m away from him, and I was a grown woman with two children.. ! Made me feel good and not quite good enough at the same time ! I feel like I should write a book about this guy because he sucked me in for so many years.. stressed my friends and family and made them so critical of me for staying when they didn’t understand how thoroughly he had me brainwashed into thinking I was the problem.. and I could make it better if I just stuck it out. I had four children.. two did drugs… one of them was homeless for some years.. two, my sons, were alcoholics like their dad.. one of my sons killed himself and one is in jail which ironically probably has saved his life. Narcissists are literally deadly !! They ruin lives.. they kill and destroy ! Until today I never considered writing a book about this… but now I think I should. Narcissism is insidious …. and outing this and making people aware might be worth the effort .. still don’t feel capable though… it’s a thought worth considering.

My girlfriend said, “once my ex sees you she’s going to laugh so hard and tell everyone she knows how funny it is that I’m dating a fatty, but idc what she thinks, you’re beautiful to me.” I didn’t know how to take that compliment?????

here to check if im secretly a narcissist

This was such a great video.

This happened to me in 2010-2013. She was initially a friend, showed interest in my faith, then she became my stalker, and engaged me for two and a half years as a vulnerable person, who had an ex-boyfriend attacking me. She created 3-4 stalker personality, each would attack me in a slightly different way. It was crazy. She knew i would persevere as I wanted to help her.

A "close" relative thought out all these processes with her stellar intelligence and practiced them into a fine art to accomplish her own designs - what an education, by the grace of God alone did I survive this spiritual battle.

At about 3:00 minutes, you said “things do get better.” Well, I have to add, from my experience, they only get better if you divorce/leave the narcissist. The narcissist will never get better. Your marriage will never get better. Leave. Leave. Leave. And have zero contact.

HAD a friend who called all her family narcissists. Realized it was because they were unwilling to give her financial support or engage. She was the actual narcissist. Didn't really know what a narcissist was and so I started watching videos like this and realized what was actually going on.

Most helpful and timely Wisdom on this subject..spot on re: We must not ignore our Instincts ( had this revelation myself) most recently. With Gratitude for the Service you are providing 🙏

Thank you!

How to empathy handbook that's a good one. Great video thanks for sharing.😋

My uncle is a Narcissist. And I've known it for more than 20 years. And there's no better track for me. He's the power of attorney for my grandmother. And doesn't care about anyone but himself. And when he's down. He comes at me for anything and everything.

"This is what I'm trying to explain to you... " as if I'm a child. When I express my opinion on the matter.. then I'm "an idiot" to which I tell him, you are being disrespectful. Round and round we go..

I called my ex on his mixed messages about him trying to restart our relationship. I told him it was not going to happen. He said he wasn’t trying. Then he told me the next day he cried all night 🤦🏽‍♀️😩🤷🏽‍♀️

I wish I knew this before, but I was vulnerable. I was divorcing a borderline and fell into the arms of a covert. The love bombing and listening to my vulnerability were great, I was hooked. It did not end well. I survived.

This happens to me often by my husband I’m mustering up the guts to be done with it

I notice that everything we do or have done, they also have and usually better. You can’t have, be, or do anything past, present, or future.

I thought"love bombing" was just love....he checked out of marriage very early but was "nice" so I thought it was me not being good enough. Decades later he admitted he knew first year he never should have gotten married ..he wasn t happy married...I asked why he didn t tell ME so I could have potentially found a real husband and he said" I didn t want people to think I was the bad guy". Decades later here I am , broke, frauded off my deed, experiencing chronic health problems etc etc....and of course everyone still thinks he s a "great guy".

This is interesting, but I hope those who are thinking someone in their life is a Narcissist that they really looks at all aspects. I have been called a Narcissist and many other hurtful things because I do have a need for control and I want things to be done a certain way which can cause arguments, but I am also super self critical, self doubting and hold myself to extremely high standards, and recently found out I have OCPD, traits can be similar but the whole picture is what is needed to look at and not just a couple of points because not everyone is saying something to feel superior or to belittle people.

The mirroring to me is a key indicator Have one in my life who copies everything down to my way of expressing myself Has picked up my phraseology, copies my way of signing off on email, mirrors back to me how I speak and what I say at any given moment At first I thought it was freaky but didn’t know what it was Then as I began to read about it more and more did I realise that this is a classic case of mirroring At times, it is just plain freaky

Narc friend would always run to me as if i could solve their problems. Then after listening to them whine about it they would give me verbal abuse with some intimidation mixed in. When people speak to me i dont tell everyone what was said, to me thats the lowest form of conversation. Half of the things the narc says about people im 💯 sure they tell others im saying bad things about them. Trying to isolate and put me off from trying new things all bc the narc thinks ill leave. Well that happened had enough of the juvenile behavior gaslighting criticism unwanted advice total BS higher than thou attitude with no one for the narc to dump all this on hopefully people will see them for the snake they are

The back handed compliment... when I was studying for my degree...Them: ."Oh that's so great that you are doing this later in life. How old will you be when you finish it?" Me: "48". Them: roars with mocking laughter...."That's so old". Gee, thanks.

The most important from someone who did. DO NOT WASTE THE YEARS, even if it is your mother.

Excellent vidéo ! 👌👌

My brother started recording all of the conversations that he had been involved in with any of us (without us knowing it) and would edit them and play them back to us as a form of shaming during any confrontations. He records and then documents every single conversation he has with family members his delusional thinking has him believing that everybody is out to get him or exclude him.

Ex Narc once. told me that he always thought he would marry someone with brown hair so his kids would look like him, while I am blonde. I replied to him... You better marry someone with grey hair then, bc you have grey hair (75% at that point)

One is 'Mixed Messages'. The post effect you feel after interaction. 'So, what did they want to communicate?' Narcissist pushes you into ruminating about what did they even mean in the first place?

They are definitely not masters of disguise. You just have to be willing to call them on their crap.

In the last devaluation phase my husband told me, how good I was in cleaning the bathroom. On the other hand every topic I talked about was boring, sickening and I also must have a lot of sick problems, when I help young women who were raped on their way through a tough court system. But cleaning his toilet, that was a thing I was good at. 🤮

The first word out his mouth when I talk about something no matter the subject is NO and he constantly cuts me off and doesn't let me finish what I was saying. Then because he cuts me off takes what I'm saying out of context. We can never have a conversation to were it doesn't end up in an argument. He says things to me that I've mentioned in the past and twist it that I am at fault that I did those things and not him. Please whom ever you are in a relationship like mine get out of it. Don't waste half your life like I did.

Hey Christina!! Happy 4th of July week! Lol. 🇺🇸 I hope you’re well beautiful! 🙏♥️😍

My mother to a tee! She is truly the most despicable person I know.

7:14 Oooof Felt that Thank you 🫶🏻

I was just thinking of the Benita character, when she brought it up!

One sentence I heard a lot (and still hearing) from my covert narc. wife is: "You have so much knowledge / read so many books etc., but you never tell me anything about it", no matter how much or what I told her in the past. Plus tons of nagging, constant criticism and one of my other 'favorites': "A good husband/father would do this/that ..."

As far as the backhanded compliments go, what my narc does that I finally figured out after about 30 years, is to say something like "those are nice boots" or "that's a nice dress" and that is supposed to be a compliment. It took me over 30 years to come to the realization that he has never complimented ME. He compliments inanimate objects. As you can see I am not in any of those sentences. Remember when you were a kid in English class and you had to diagram a sentence? The subject of the sentence is the inanimate object - the dress or the boots. I am nowhere in that sentence. I came to the realization that he has a real problem with giving a person a compliment. You would say the same thing about a dress hanging on a rack at the store or a pair of boots in the window of a store. Where am I in that compliment? He compliments inanimate objects and tries to pass It off as a compliment to to you personally

❤ your videos, they’ve been extremely helpful. Can you address how to deal with narcissistic people in the work environment? I seem to find an awful lot of them there, and as soon as I’m triggered I quit. I’d like to be able to deal with them instead. Thanks

My mother in law told me to sign a birthday card she got for my hubby, I drew a poohbear with 20 Balloons. At first she seemed like she liked it then she said I ruined it! the whole family was angry at me!! Next thing I noticed she has been drawing Balloons in every birthday card she gives!! And has for 45 years! Strange. I think she was amazed and decided to make it her thing.

I used to work with a girl who I think (in my unprofessional opinion) was/is a covert narcissist. She’d often start a conversation with: “Just between you and me…” then say something about another coworker. I would later hear this “Just between you and me” gossip circle back to me from someone else who she’d also told: “Just between you and me”. It was her way of trying to make people feel like she held them in a higher regard, when all she wanted was for them to spread information and rumors FOR her. Luckily I was married to a narcissist who displayed pieces of almost if not all different narcissistic personality types that I knew what she was doing. Faking a closeness between us that simply didn’t exist. So twisted. 😣

Please remove all narcissistic entities from my life and entities that have ill intentions towards me. I am a Goddess of peace and light and I draw energy of peace and light to me.

What you've discussed here is present in nearly everyone in my life. So, what now? Walk away from them all and be alone?

If you wanna get rid of a covert narc in the easiest way possible, just tell them you’re not interested in gossip. They will disappear.

Manipulation 🎉 TRUTH Mixed Messages. But all on their terms.

This is spot on for my narc ex...

I had a narc ex bf who said "can I confide in you about something?" ..here I am thinking he is going to be vulnerable... then he went into how someone he knows, but not well, is going on a date with his ex gf and how he feels totally disrespected and the guy should ask permission from him to date his ex. WTF! He was just trying to stir the pot.

Be aware in the beginning and watch out for your feelings! Do you feel great because of all the compliments, but at the same time somehow insecure and not enough or have to prove yourself? Bad sign! Their manipulation starts very subtile.