Do you suspect your partner has NARCISSISTIC/selfish tendencies?

Shelley: Today I'm going to talk about how you can identify if somebody's treating you badly and might earn the label of narcissist. Hi, I'm Shelley Treacher from Underground Confidence. I help people to recover from all kinds of addictions, from comfort eating to toxic relationship. But before I talk about the addiction of narcissism or the addiction to a narcissist, first I want to share with you some of your words. I've been looking back over the answers to my quiz. (The link will be in the show notes). And it occurred to me to share some of these words with you as a way to normalise how you might be feeling and to let you know that you're not alone. When I asked people to tell me about their eating story, these are some of the things that they said. My BMI is over 35 and I feel like I look disgusting, but that still doesn't stop me overeating the wrong things. I have tried every diet imaginable. I don't recognize the person I look at in the mirror anymore, and I hate myself. I feel disgusting. I feel like I'm in mental torment every day. Everyone around me has no idea what's going on in my head. And just to remind you what we're all doing here, when I asked what people needed going forward, this sums it up nicely. This is not my words. The doctors just want to prescribe pills when all I really want is to get to the root of the problem and I want to sort out the psychological things to do with my weight rather than just go on a diet and I want to be a normal eater who's not overweight. I'm talking about narcissism today. Such a difficult word to say. I'm talking about narcissism today and in the last podcast because comfort eating is often a coping mechanism for dealing with the suppressed, confusing, and difficult feelings that are often left from having a relationship with a narcissist or someone who treats you badly. The last podcast, my stats were lower than they usually are of people who are listening to the podcast. I can only assume that this is because the word narcissism is not really relatable to. You only get to know this word when you have to, when you're looking for an explanation because you've had dealings with a narcissist. Narcissism is an extreme sounding label, and not one we automatically understand or identify with. But covert narcissists can be subtle and hard to spot. So today, I'm going to give you ways to identify them. With a little of my real life experience that I've had of narcissists, or what I assume are narcissists, in the past. Because just like with comfort eating, identifying what you're dealing with is the most important thing to start with before you learn how to cope and recover. So here are some warning signs for narcissistic tendencies, particularly covert narcissism, the introverted type of narcissist. They can be extremely charming at first and win you over. Unfortunately in the dance world, which I am part of, there are a lot of people with narcissistic tendencies, particularly the people who are really good at dancing. Sadly, I dated someone on the spectrum, I believe. Thank goodness, we only had two dates. This was with someone who I'd danced with for years, and thought I knew to some degree. But it turns out I really didn't. When we first started dating, or just before, he was extremely charming. His very first offering to me was extremely expensive. He paid for a first class ticket for me to go and visit him. And, during the rest of our communication, he always offered the finest and the best things to do. And his final parting gift to me on our second date was more expensive than I made in a month at the time. All of this made me feel special, but it also felt a bit strange. It was kind of sudden and kind of odd, nothing like this had ever happened to me before. So that was the materialistic side. It fits with him having to have the best, having to do the best, having to be the best. Another thing to look out for is them not listening to you. This guy was clever. He would say things like, Tell me your whole story. I'm fascinated to learn everything about you. And then he wouldn't listen when I actually gave the answer or tried to. He also readily offered support and encouraged me to talk about any difficulties I might be having or any emotions I might be feeling. He really actively encouraged me to do that. But then again, when I would try to talk about how I felt, he would dismiss my feelings. So there's another warning sign, dismissing your feelings. One of the biggest signs is avoiding vulnerable feelings. There were several times when this guy just didn't seem to respond to any deeper feeling that I would have or would ask about in him. So, for example, at the time I was visiting a friend in hospital who was really, really ill. And I was really worried about him. And I expected, on the day that I went to visit this person, I expected a text saying, How was it? How are you feeling? Because I always came home sad after these events. I got nothing. And on its own, that might seem, well, that's just, you know, it was early days. It was only the second day we'd been communicating, but kind of sparingly. So maybe that's understandable. And that's what I went through in my mind too. But it wasn't just that. There were so many different things that I tried to mention that just got glossed over or not noticed. So that's the third thing, avoiding vulnerable feelings. This is often one that you can catch early on with somebody. Another really good sign of a narcissist is them not showing any remorse or contrition. And this is certainly something I recognise with this particular person. He could never really seem to say sorry. Another warning sign is that they're trying to control you. If it feels like they're not responding to what you want to do, and they're always the one who has to be in control of when you have contact with each other, and everything that happens between you, it's possible they're trying to manipulate you. I got hints of this from him, of wanting to be in control and having an insecure, fragile ego. For example, we went to the theatre one night. That was our first date. And the main character was a really buff, good looking guy. And he took his shirt off during the performance. And the whole audience was women, and they went deadly silent when this guy took his shirt off. Personally, I felt a bit uncomfortable. But now I see why I felt so uncomfortable. There was something coming from my date, from this guy. And I couldn't identify the feeling, but the closest I can think is rage. He just seemed really bothered by everybody paying this man attention. And I thought, I flagged it up, I thought, I'll ask him about that further down the line in our relationship if it gets that far. Because it just felt so powerful and strange. And nothing I'd ever felt before in a man. And then there's the times where he would put other people down, particularly men, actually. He just would get on a big rant, complaining about them. And once I started noticing this, I noticed that he did it about a lot of things. And where he was really charming to me to begin with, he also started to creep in with little tiny digs and criticisms. Nothing big, because as I say, it was only two dates. But I suspect further down the line this could have got a lot worse. One way that a narcissist copes is by imagining that they are impervious to support. So you may spot this in the relationship too. And I, again, spotted this in my relationship with this person. It seemed like I could never help them. Emotionally, you know, that's what I do. And actually, he seemed pretty dismissive of what I do. So I can now look back on that and think, Oh yeah, that's because he couldn't admit vulnerability. Another good example of this is I was dating another chap actually at the time, early days, as I say, and at first he came across with this attitude of, he really doesn't mind, he wants what's best for me and, you know, ever so altruistic and relaxed. But then further down the line, he made a show of saying, I'm jealous. I'm jealous. I think you should do what's best for you, but I am. I'm jealous. And I actually, at the time, remember thinking, well, which is it? You're easygoing and you don't care or you're jealous and you want me to be yours? So that's confusing even for me at the time. But now I look back on both of those and think neither of them are accurate, actually. If he fits with the narcissistic tendencies, perhaps he really doesn't care who I'm dating because he may be dating all kinds of other people who make him feel good, and care about me at all if he's a narcissist and the jealousy, maybe that was to control me in some way. So, one of the interesting things about a narcissist is they're going to coerce you into feeling the feelings that they are not allowed to feel, that they actually do feel, but that they squash. And so, I mean, this is well known in any relationship. If someone's trying to squash how they feel, they're going to try and make you feel that way. And so I felt rejected and dependent and needy. I can only assume that that's because he does underneath all of this. The weird thing for me was that he spoke such a good talk that I actually trusted him on some level to care about my feelings, even though the evidence wasn't really there. He was saying that he did, he was saying that he cared very much about me and how I felt, and that he had done for years. So I trusted that, and I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I'll talk much more next week about how to cope and how I coped, narcissists often get angry. To avoid any vulnerability, sadness, fear, pain. Mine didn't get angry, but he was patronising and quite blunt. Whenever I tried to say how I felt about that, he would, just like everything else, excuse it with something. And so he explained his bluntness as a cultural thing from where he came from. This culminated, this behaviour culminated in an outright lie, further down the line. And to this day, I don't know how he expected me to believe it. It was just so obviously not true. I mean, he's probably lied to me several times, but this one was really obvious. And that's another characteristic of the narcissist. They either don't care, or they think that you'll believe anything, because they think they're untouchable. Another sign to look out for is them feeling superior or acting superior. I've kind of touched on this one already, but I'm going to give you another example. I was mentioned in the media at the time talking about something specific and I showed this to him expecting him to come back with, oh congratulations that's a really nice thing to have happen. He didn't do that. He came back with his own opinion on what I had written about and it was a much bigger opinion. I thought that was odd. Another trait to look out for is them placing you on a pedestal and again I can identify with this one. This makes them feel special. And I could feel this pretty early on. So after our first date, I went back thinking... I'm not really sure about that date. There were some nice things in it, but there were some things in it that I wasn't sure about. And, so I asked him how the date was for him. Or something like that. But he came back with, It was everything I had hoped it would be. And at the time I thought, That's really strong. I didn't really understand it. But now it fits with putting me on a pedestal. And there are so many other things that you did to do that. Like I mentioned, he was really complimentary about my dancing in a way that utterly took me back. It was like I, my dancing had elevated, higher level than I really felt that I deserved. But this guy was... A good dancer, so I had to trust his opinion and was really flattered. But as I say further down the line, he started criticising my dancing. Another way of describing this, putting me on a pedestal is twinning. So this is another thing to look out for. If they make you as good as they are, as special as they are, and you're the only two in the world. So at the end of our first date, I said something about the performance and he said, there you go. That's the response I would have. so much in common. And again, I thought that was really disproportionate. I'm like, that's a really nice thing to think. But yeah, I don't know if that really shows that we have so much in common. This man also said I love you pretty early on on our second date. And again, I was touched and flattered by it all. But I didn't really understand why it was coming so early. But one of the weirdest things that he did, and I think this shows a lot of the traits, he, we were talking about how I drop my phone all the time and break the screen. He said that when he got his new iPhone, he took a tutorial on YouTube of how to hold his phone for an hour. I've never heard such a thing. I've never looked actually on YouTube to see if that tutorial exists. But yeah, I mean, it just was so, I remember looking at him thinking that's such an odd thing to do. And I remember his face. He was, he just looked so concerned. But now it just kind of fits with him bigging himself up and being superior. He always has to go on better, not realizing how strange he sounded. Questioning you is another sign to look for, and I think we've already covered that one in my examples. But perhaps the biggest lie of all, and this is a little taboo, this subject, he claimed that he wasn't really into sex, he was into the intimacy and the affection side of things, and that he wasn't really used to getting that. This was like an aphrodisiac for me. But his actions spoke a very different story. Perhaps another sign of a narcissist is their sense of humour. This guy's sense of humour was just dreadful. It was mostly bawdy, like Benny Hill kind of sexist humour, which I just don't find funny and I don't think many women do find that funny. I could be wrong, please let me know if I'm wrong. Or a kind of sardonic humour, where someone was being put down. And so... It became quite clear to me that actually he was very interested in sex. Apparently a typical way that a narcissist will behave sexually is about your pleasure, not about his. Of course he has to be the best at that as well. I couldn't possibly say whether this is true of this man, but he certainly seemed to have more of a focus on sex than intimacy. But perhaps the best sign of all is how you feel. The narcissist's listener Has a fear of looking needy, and this accelerates when you're with a narcissist. The feeling is that it's not okay to want special attention from your partner. But also, as I said, how I felt, something was just off. I was seduced a little bit by the gifts and the attention and the promise of intimacy. But it just didn't follow through. So this is the biggest sign of all to look out for. So this is what I'm going to start addressing next week. How to cope in relationship with a narcissist. Remember that the narcissist needs to feel good about themselves in any way possible because they didn't as a child. Using you to make them feel good is an addiction and a strong one. It's about getting validation from something outside of you and avoiding your own insecurity and feelings. I just want to remind you that neither you or I can diagnose somebody with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I also want to mention that being a psychopath is something entirely different again. A psychopath is devoid of sadness, guilt, remorse, they steal, they're angry, and they're violent. I read a little story recently about a man who got in a truck for a lift. And the guy he got in a truck with wasn't very nice. He seemed very cold and he was talking about women as if they were lesser than men and talked about how they deserve all that they get coming to them. And the guy said he just felt so uncomfortable he couldn't wait to get out of the truck. He did get out of the truck. And he later found out that that was Peter Sutcliffe. The message here is if you come across someone like that, if you feel like that, run. There is no working with this person. But unlike a psychopath, or an overt narcissist, a covert narcissist does not announce themselves to you. What I learned from my dealings with this person with narcissistic traits is to look out for someone who can apologize. Not just saying sorry, but being sorry for the effect that they might have had on you, even inadvertently. With kindness and compassion. But I'll talk more about that next week. Thank you for listening all the way through. I apologise that this is a day late. I'm usually delivering podcasts on Wednesdays, but this week I didn't feel very well. I'm recovered now, and... This week I've been working on my comfort eating recovery programme. And I've been setting interviews up with some ex clients so that I can ask them what it is that they want from a programme. If you can answer that question too, I would love to hear from you. Because what I've noticed through delivering this program over a few years is that it develops due to feedback. And it's a much better program than it ever was because of that. The program I'm developing is going to be much bigger. So I need you to tell me what you need. You can find various ways to contact me in the show notes here. Or you can find lots of different ways to contact me through social media. Just look up Underground Confidence. This has been Shelly Recher from Underground Confidence. I'll see you next week.