Why Understanding Narcissists Empowers You
Keys to breaking the spell and regaining your power through predictability.
As a clinical psychologist in private practice, I see a surprising amount of people who either grew up in a toxic environment, married into one, or both. A typical session is peppered with anxiety and fear, self doubt, blame, and sometimes righteous anger at the offending narcissist. It’s magnificently gratifying for me to help them walk the path to self empowerment and sanity. Starting with a blunt, “Ok, so first we have to understand your ________ (husband/ wife/ mom/ dad/ sibling/ boss/ etc), and then we can deal with that pesky unfair feeling that’s been plaguing you,” — yeah, that wouldn’t generally go over so well.
In writing, I get a little space to explain why understanding narcissists is important so I appreciate you bearing with me. I promise that I’m on your side. Well, I’m on the side of health assumes you are too. You can feel whatever sort of way about the rest of this article and I won’t be offended. What follows is all I’ve figured out from clinical work as well as my own therapy and life experiences.
What you get from understanding.
When we are hurt, it’s natural to grow the person who hurt us to monstrous size inside our minds. I can’t believe they hurt me like that. Why did they do that? What are they capable of? When you can’t make sense of something, you’ll generally blame yourself. It must be me. I’m so messed up. I’m not enough for them.
Narcissists do some crazy stuff and it can be very difficult to make sense of and understand them. Their behavior seems random and unpredictable. Your world gets smaller and smaller as you disappear avoiding the landmines. The big secret is that they are actually quite predictable. Maybe not the timing or specifics, but definitely the pattern and that’s all you need. Once you have the key that unlocks and unblocks you, everything shifts, and these patterns leap right up at you.
Seeing these patterns is eye opening. That may be enough for you. Really getting solid and unshakeable means you’ve got to peek inside their minds at the inner workings. Here’s just a few of the benefits:
- Brings the narcissist down to a smaller, more accurate size
- Explains their crazy behavior
- Gives you much needed perspective
- Makes problems solvable
- Allows you space to respond rather than react
When you know what’s happening, you write the story. You can see the gaslighting as unfolds and while the behavior is still irritating, you no longer feel crazy. The payoff for clarity is sanity, confidence, empowerment, and eventually — peace.
It’s hard to do this work.
I know I just got you all intrigued and onboard to get inside the narcissist’s mind. If you’re ready to get started, I’ve got a whole course that will lead you through the process. I’ve got a few more things to say about this work in the meantime.
It feels unfair to try to understand them when you know they’re not trying to understand you. They actually can’t but I lay that out in the course. Still feels bad. It’s painful to do this work when you’ve been hurt time and again. You might have built up defenses. You might be really scared. It’s totally normal to fear that understanding them will confirm all the crappy things they’ve said about you. Or have anxiety that you won’t have the strength to hold boundaries if you understand their sad story. I get all that.
One of the things I joke about with my therapist friends is that once you understand someone, it’s harder to be mad at them. Sometimes you just want to be mad. That’s really the point, though — understanding breaks the spell. You might not be ready to do that and if so, that’s totally okay.
What you’ll have to do.
The biggest hurdle in understanding the narcissist is getting past your initial distaste and fear of the process. That takes believing in the payoff. Next, you’ll have to temporarily put aside your feelings, reactions and well constructed walls to clear out a space in your mind. If you keep jumping to your own defense, you won’t get too far down the path. You’ll have to put aside the voice in your mind that says, Yeah, but that’s totally messed up! Who does that??
The most mentally taxing part is using the knowledge you’ve gathered from reading or my course to step into their shoes and look through their eyes. This takes a lot of focused mental energy so you only do it for short periods of time. Trying to see how something makes sense from another person’s point of view requires holding a lot of information in your brain at one time. At first, it’s especially difficult with narcissists because their worldview is dramatically different than most.
What you don’t have to do.
Just because you can see how something makes sense through another’s eyes DOES NOT mean you then have to agree with them. To step into their shoes, you are temporarily adopting a radically different belief system. The temporary part is important — it means you don’t hang on to it just because the logic of the argument makes sense. If you break down any logical argument, it starts with a base assumption, is propped up with supporting statements, and comes to a logical conclusion. I’ll show you:
Assumption A is looking through a narcissist’s eyes and seeing the world as they do. For example, assumption A may be “Everyone thinks I’m a fantastic parent.” The second line might be, “If everyone thinks I’m a fantastic parent, then how I punish must be right.” The third line follows, “If how I punish is right, then my discipline is fair.” Finally, “Therefore, if my discipline is fair, everyone thinks I’m a fantastic parent.” You can’t argue the logic but you can punch holes in the first assumption and all of the statements. Here’s another one:
Assumption A: My spouse should adore me.
1st Statement: If my spouse doesn’t adore me, they are saying I’m bad.
2nd Statement: If my spouse says I’m bad, I can withhold affection.
Conclusion: I am right to withhold affection from my spouse because they said I’m bad.
Narcissists are famous for starting with garbage assumptions and believing their own crap. Stepping into a narcissist’s shoes means you’ve got to follow the logic but you don’t have to believe that the assumption, statements or the conclusion is true.
Steps to truly understanding.
The very first step you can do is to work on raising your own awareness of what’s happening. You can do this without changing a thing — simply observe and take in information. The next step I’d recommend is educating yourself about narcissism. Knowledge is power and collecting it is the key to confidence. It’s the foundation to help you shift perspective and find stability.
You’ll apply your new wisdom to identifying what’s happening in the moment. You’ll follow the patterns from baseline to triggering event, watch the reaction chain, and through to resolution. Now, you’ll see objectively, without judgment, with the curiosity of a field researcher.
Learning to question every assumption, you’ll begin to wonder and ask a lot of ‘why’ questions. I wonder why he’s always triggered by ______. Why does she jump to that particular conclusion? Is that truth or just an assumption I’ve been believing? All interactions are now in the lab of your mind for analysis.
Finally, pulling together your observations and using your education, you’ll start connecting the dots to solve puzzles as they happen. With practice, it becomes easier and smoother. You’ll switch screens in your head, look through the narcissist’s lens long enough to understand some crazy outburst or behavior, then switch back to you.
Understanding doesn’t fix their behavior but it can turn down the alarm volume in your head. The greater your sense of peace, the easier it will be for you to make calm, rational decisions. These are the core components of empowerment.
How understanding them benefits you globally.
The ability to see the world through someone else’s lens helps you to understand people in general — including the ones you love. Partners feel more love and empathy. Parenting is more effective when a child’s unique perspective is understood. Managers strive to acquire this skill. It reduces conflict and anxiety overall. The best part is the increased understanding you’ll gain of yourself. It’s not simply for understanding narcissists — it’s primarily for you and your connections.
Where you can start.
A simple place to start your education is just by googling “narcissism” or “narcissist.” If that’s overwhelming, trying Pinterest and think of it as a visual search engine. If you’re into reading or podcasts, my pro tip is to seek out mental health clinicians and check out their message. If you like how the person is talking about the subject, then that’s the one for you.
I’ve also got a resources page with articles and free downloads on Modern Decisions. You can learn more about my course, Can They Change? Narcissism From the Inside Out, there as well. A lot of time and research went into developing this course. Asking if a narcissist can change is one of the top lingering questions on everyone’s mind. If it were simple, an internet search would be enough. But we know it’s not — we need to know in our bones — we need to be convinced. If a narcissist or otherwise toxic person is who you’re dealing with, this course will put the question to rest and so much more. Simply put, it’s a transformational experience.
I’m grateful to you.
Time, effort and energy are precious resources and you gave a little of yours to reading my words today. I appreciate that and I hope you took something from this article. See you around, fellow traveller.
Originally published on ModernDecisions.com by clinical psychologist and educator, Dr. Laura L. Walsh.
