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• Understanding covert narcissism involves recognizing hidden traits.
• Covert narcissists display inconsistency and unreliability.
• They often project a false image of morality and victimhood.
• Covert narcissists manipulate by portraying themselves as victims.
• They also seek admiration by playing the hero role.
• Over time, their facade wears thin, revealing their true nature.
• Victims may feel deceived and gullible for believing the narcissist's facade.
• It's crucial to prioritize personal character over propping up the narcissist's reputation.
• Maintaining integrity protects against manipulation and maintains self-respect.
Overall, detecting covert narcissism involves recognizing patterns of inconsistency, manipulation, and false personas. Protecting personal integrity is essential in navigating relationships with narcissists.
Number one is we need to understand what the word covert means when it comes to detecting covert narcissism. Now we're going to tie these six points together in just a moment. I like to say it's kind of like watching Bob Ross paint a picture.
You don't necessarily know where he's going with this thing until he's done and then you can see how all the parts fit together. So we're going to do that in just a few moments. But first thing is we need to understand what covert means.
Now we want to detect covert narcissism. Covert, as you know, means hidden. So the covert narcissist has all the elements of a narcissist, only he or she hides them.
In other words, they're very fake. So we're talking about how to detect a covert narcissist and now we're beginning by saying it's all hidden. But that takes us to number two, is it doesn't stay hidden or as we like to say, the narcissist tend to be by their very nature, inconsistent.
They are unreliable. So what we find happening with this person is they may play the part of the, I say may, they almost always do, at least in my life's experience, 70 plus years, which I'm trying to with you and I hope I'm doing a good job, is they like to put on this air of being moral and upright sometimes. Well, they just love religion.
Not all of them, but many of them. They're attracted to religious, what do they call those faith groups? Okay. Churches or synagogues or whatever.
They love to pretend to be moral and upright. We can only do that so long. I like to use the example of the dancing dog.
Yeah, you could teach a dog to dance on its hind legs, but when a squirrel comes by, you better have that dog very well trained because nature takes over. And the same thing is true of a narcissist. He could put on this moral show and it is a performance.
This portrayal of the upright person, maybe the religious person, but they can't put on the act forever. Well, nobody can. But this person is in particularly devious in the way that they present and project themselves as the upright super person.
They're trying to develop a reputation that is contrary, contradictory to their true character. The character is they're a narcissist. They're deceptive.
They are scam artists. Maybe they're not artists. They just scam people, but they're not very good at it, but this is what they do.
And they will go to the other extreme of being super moral, pretending to be super upright to cover that dishonesty. And they want you to be supportive of that. But when you see that inconsistency, and by the way, all of us are inconsistent.
I mean, I've never met anybody who wasn't, including myself. We all have those inconsistencies, but with a narcissist, there seems to be more pronounced because they go to the extreme again to play that part of being the moral character.
Number three, and again, we're going to tie these together in just a moment, but the narcissist loves to play the role of the victim.
They play on other people's empathies. So they want your support. And they've learned that if they play the victim, people will come to their aid or help pet them on the back, poor baby, you know, hugs and cuddles.
So they love it. They love the attention. They love the ego boost.
So they play the victim so they can manipulate other people. And one of the ways they play the victim is to portray you as the victimizer. So they're playing you against them in the eyes of others.
And you may not even see it because they don't do this. At least at the beginning, they don't do this in front of you. You'll start to see it again, that inconsistency will start to show itself.
But they love to play the victim. It's one way that they manipulate other people. And then number four is they love to play the hero at the same time.
Now, I've used this illustration in other videos, but I want you to imagine a fireman who is also an arsonist. He sets the fire and then he goes, puts it out, plays the role of the hero. Yeah, I put out that fire.
He doesn't tell people that he started it. And the guy always has a job because there's always fires because he's always starting them. You know, he plays the role of the hero.
That's what the narcissist does. The narcissist will play the victim. He'll start the fires and then he will play the hero.
You know, the overcomer who had all these adversities in his life, some of them real, most of them invented, a lot of them exaggerated. And he was the hero and he came to his own rescue and he's playing it both ways.
So now he has your empathy because he is the victim and he has your admiration because, or at least the admiration of others, because he is the hero feeding his ego.
Call that the hero ego, if you want. Number five is this, that persona, as we kind of pointed out before, it wears thin after time. I mean, they can't keep it up forever.
They try to, but things begin to emerge. I mean, the lies become too obvious. The narcissist, for example, may borrow money from you.
Not much, just a little bit, not pay it back. No big deal. Hey, it's my friend.
He's had some hard times. I'm going to help him out. And then he borrows a little more money.
It's always a little bit more, you know? Well, you know, I understand it's tough, or he may need a favor from you, need a ride somewhere or what, you know, whatever. Okay. No problem.
It's my friend. I'm sure he'd do the same for you or for me, you know, probably wouldn't. But he's always dependent on you.
And he makes you dependent on him or her by being dependent on you. So that makes sense. Yeah.
I need a ride and I'm going to be your friend. So you're dependent on this person because, well, they're your friend. You're dependent on that.
You like to have friends, right? You need that reaffirming assurance of somebody in your life who cares about you. And needs a ride or needs to borrow money or need something else.
So you have this trauma bonding thing going on here.
But that wears thin. Eventually you realize, hey, this guy is not going to pay me back. Next time he asks for money, I'm not going to get it back.
Next time he needs a ride somewhere or needs a favor, that favor is not going to be returned. And you notice that pattern begins to emerge. And it begins so obvious.
I like to use the illustration of a sunrise. You know, first crack of dawn, it's really pretty dark, you know. Then as the sun rises, it becomes a little bit more clear.
Things become a little bit more clear. But then in the light of day, eventually, there you see the narcissist in their true form, still trying to hide it. And what possibly could be more pathetic?
Then again, we're going to tie all this together in just a second.
But what could be any more pathetic than an exposed narcissist? Now, there's probably a novel somebody could write about that. I don't know, maybe you could call it Gaslight. Gaslight.
Number six, you can detect a narcissist because they are dragging you along. In other words, this thing, this friendship, this love, interest, whatever you thought was a partnership, and it's not. It's all about him, all about her dragging you.
And you're finding that it's all pull, it's all push, and it's all on their part. Let's do what I want to do according to the narcissist. But what you want to do, are you crazy? That's not fun.
We don't want to do that. We don't want to go there. No, you're doing it the wrong way.
You need to do it this way. And what you find is the narcissist is always right. You are always wrong.
Now, in the beginning, you can do no wrong. You know, during the love bombing stage, the friend bombing stage, it's different then, but it wears thin, because that's not the nature of the narcissist. That's just a ploy.
And you find as your relationship matures, which may not be the best of words, but as your relationship matures, you discover that you were tricked. And this is a person who is dragging you along, unwillingly, but you go along with it because, well, you know, it's my friend.
Or, you know, this is my partner. This is my love interest. Okay, maybe we're not partners. Maybe this is a one-way love street.
And it's all going the narcissist way. Makes it kind of obvious, right? You're detecting the narcissist.
All right, let's tie all this together.
And that is simply this, your character, not your reputation, but your character is more important than the narcissist reputation. Well, think about all the things we talked about.
The fact that a narcissist, covert narcissist is hiding, protecting his reputation.
He or she realizes, man, they're inconsistent. So the reputation is not their character. In fact, it seems they don't have a very good character.
And they're playing the victim. You know, they're lying in their actions. Actions are louder than words.
They're lying when they play the hero, you know, the ego hero. They're creating a reputation. And in so doing, they're harming your reputation.
They can't hurt your character. Your character is who you really are. And so their reputation is elevating and yours is being depleted.
And as that persona of the narcissist wears thin, you begin to realize not only is the narcissist being exposed for being a narcissist, but you are being exposed, I hate to say, for being the fool, but we're exposed for being gullible.
Not only to others, but to ourselves. Yeah, and that's probably one of the most maybe hurtful things about a relationship with a narcissist is when we have to come to terms with that.
That, yeah, I was fooled. I was duped. And they love doing it.
They've been dragging me along all the time and I didn't catch on until, you know, until later. Maybe until it was too late.
Depends on how deep you got into the relationship.
But we tie this all together by understanding that maintaining your character again, your character is who you really are, is far more important than propping up the narcissist reputation, which is fake.
His character is he or she is a narcissist. The reputation that they are this loving, moral, upright, maybe even religious person, that's all fake.
Don't jeopardize your reputation. This is just me talking to me, but don't jeopardize your reputation by propping up the narcissist reputation.
Use your character as your default. You want your reputation and your character. Again, this is me talking to me.
You can listen in, 70 some years of experience, but align your reputation with your character because the narcissist is going to do just the opposite to you.
He wants to smear your reputation, destroy your reputation. You know, once you're on to him or her, they want to destroy you.
And your objective is to make sure, best you can, and you can't always do it 100%, to make sure that, you know, the character that you really are, that your reputation, others see you for who you really are.
And that's a good thing in that they see the narcissist, who they really are, which is a bad thing, but it's a good thing that they see it.
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