Understanding the Narcissistic Spectrum: The Role of Self-Awareness [Ep. 819]

0:01 You're in a good place now you are listening to perspectives with Ashley Burgers. Welcome back to the Ashley Burgess Podcast. I've learned one major thing, and that is that you cannot have narcissism and self awareness together. Self awareness and the lack thereof is a good determination to honestly understand if someone has significant signs and symptoms of narcissism. When dealing with these narcissistic people, you find yourself on a very uneven playing ground. Remember, the rules do not apply to them, and unfortunately, they actually make up the rules around the relationship. So we fall prey into these situations and you end up following them and you become the problem.

0:47 And they don't adhere to the rules. It's interesting, many of them are just immune to their own rules and the rules do not apply. And over a period of time after we call the honeymoon phase or the fame achory phase, many people have gotten honest with themselves and realize that the beginning of the relationship with a narcissist is complete fakery. They're very good at it. They're very good at just claiming one thing and acting like somebody and then changing it all up a few weeks or even a few months down the road, and you're left holding the bag, going, oh my god, what just happened here? I thought I had met my soulmate, the love of my life. I thought this was like the one and only, like this is what they talk about in movies, you know, the one, you know, the the end, all be all, the twin flame. But it's not true. And you learn this over a period of time. And in the beginning, you were usually getting a lot of attention, you were having many favorable experiences, and then well, their metamorphois begins, their attention begins to wane, and they begin giving less and less to the relationship, to the point that it's obvious.

1:58 But the problem is, any of us were well, we were kind of in doctrine in this at a young age. We were raised around narcissistic parents, and so we don't think that this is very odd. We actually think this is kind of normal place. Now when I say normal, I didn't stay healthy. We see this as a normal place, and we try to figure out what did we do wrong? What should I do next? How do I get them to pay attention to me again? How do I get that attention like I had before, and so we fall into this rabbit hole of Okay, what if I do this, what if I do that? What if I take them there? What if we go to this concert? What if we do this? What if we do that? And none of it's really working. You're still not getting to the same space.

2:41 And I want you to think about it in the beginning. Let's say that somebody was a baker and they baked you cakes every week, sometimes twice a week. They were in the kitchen baking you cakes and sending you video of it. Look how great my cake is. Look at the cookies I made you. Look at the cupcakes? Would they pretty? Maybe that someone used to tidy up and clean up your house all the time, Well that stopped instantaneously, and now you walk into your house after work and it is a disaster zone. Maybe you had someone that was very passionate about sex, and sex was amazing and all the time there's this amazing sex. You would come home and there's this amazing sex, and it was amazing. And now all of a sudden, they no longer want you.

3:22 There is no time for sex. They don't want any sex. They don't want any sex. From you, and so you begin to wonder, what did I do wrong and how do I get this person back? Maybe they're going through challenges, maybe there's issues. Maybe I'm not that good of a person. Maybe I need to be better at being me. Maybe I need to be a better person all around. And that's where we fall into the rabbit hole, and that's where we lose sight of reality. Some would say in a narcissistic relationship that the honeymoon is over. Others would say that the illusion has come to an end. Either way, the relationship will never go back to the way it was.

4:03 No matter how much you give, no matter how many passes you give them for their behavior, the narcissist is done with the game and is now showing you they're full on entitlement. Remember that, and that's interesting. Entitlement and narcissism go hand in hand. They expect you to continue to give to them, and they will keep taking from your life. They don't care that you're getting frustrated. They actually feed off your frustration. That's important to know. You might get frustrated and angry with them, you get overwhelmed, you get upset, but that frustration actually gives them fuel.

4:46 I know that many of you have heard of narcissistic supply. What is narcissistic supply, Well, narcissistic supply is the narcissist pulling the energy from you, getting your energy. There's many words for it, but getting your energy, sapping your energy, taking your essence to give them fuel. And that could come in many forms. Crying, sadness, anxiety, depression, feeling overwhelmed. All those things are fuel for the narcissist. And I want you to really think about that, because they will take fuel in any type of fuel. They don't need positive interaction, They don't necessarily need negative interaction. They just need your attention directed to them, on them, and if you are frustrated or anxious or overwhelmed because of them, that actually gives them more fuel. Narcissistic supply, that's what that is. And so that is suck you dry. And so literally you start waking up in the morning exhausted.

5:55 You go through the day exhausted. Every time you have an interaction with them, it's exhausting. You begin to have these arguments with them because they can't see your side. And it's not that they can't see your side, they don't want to see your side. It's either their way or the highway, and they're gonna make that quite clear to you over a period of time. It's very interesting, and so you got to think about it that way. When you get mad at the narcissist and their behavior, remember you're fueling them. They don't see the difference between good and bad attention. Remember, they like it all. They also like to see you get angry, get sad, get upset.

6:41 Narcissists live off of fear and anger, your fear and your anger, and they're successfully getting the best of you, and they like it when you feel overwhelmed and upset. And that's interesting because I don't think a lot of people realize that. I don't think a lot of people understand the gravity of that situation for most part for me, and I know that many of my viewers listeners on YouTube, on the podcast, my clients, they're generally positive people that like to be around positivity. They like positivity in their lives, and they don't like to have arguments and anger. They don't like that. They don't like to do that. And so when they get into these relationships over time, it becomes this very argumentative kind of angry playground that they end up getting kind of sucked into without even realize that they're sucked into it. And eventually, literally they're losing their energy. Their energy levels are depleting, and there's a lot of other things that are going on, and their health starts being an issue. Now, remember there are levels of narcissism. This is very true. You may have someone likes to be the center of attention, but also a pretty decent person overall, and they care about others. You may have someone that has much more narcissistic tendencies and you find it challenging to get along with them or even define common ground. And then you may come across covert narcissists who their entire persona is built on a lie, the wolf in sheep's clothing. And then you have the malignant narcissists who wants to see you lose your identity

8:14 and fall prey to them, taking everything from you and leaving you the shell of a human. And I want you to think about that, because these are levels of narcissism. I know that many people say, oh, we throw that word aro out a lot. Not everybody's a narcissist. Well, no, not everybody's a narcissist, that's true. However, there are a lot of narcissists out there. I believe it's very underestimated the number. And there's different levels of narcissism, one extreme to another, just depends on where they are in the situation. You know, it's definitely a moving scale. You can have a few symptoms and signs of narcissism. It doesn't make you a full on narcissist. But there are full on narcissists out there. And I don't want to underplay that and act like it doesn't exist, because I think one of the biggest kind of situations we have in this world is having these kind of situations with these people that don't want you to really think that it exists.

9:10 They want to underplay it, they want to act like it doesn't exist. They want to basically act like, oh, there's nobody out there like that. Let's play this down, right, because it makes other people look crazy by bringing it up. And I think we have to talk about the reality when we're talking about these types of situation. The way to really identify what level of narcissism that you're dealing with is to begin to see how self aware they are. The less self aware, the more narcissistic they are. This is your narcissistic litmus test. How one sided are your interactions with them? How one sided is the relationship, and how one sided are the demands? How often did they call you out or get angry with you when you do one twentieth of what they do on a daily basis.

9:52 The less self aware, the more narcissistic they are. I want you to think about that. Self awareness does not go hand in hand with narcissism at all. They don't even really see what they're doing. I think to some degree they do. So I'm not saying that they're completely out of it and don't know that they're they're controlling and manipulating and gas lighting. I think some of them really do. I think some of them don't really realize it because they're completely un self aware. I think some are statistic enough to know exactly what they're doing, and I think most of them are a combination, right, so they know some of what they're doing, and they don't know some of what they're doing, and they're just kind of living in their own world and having a relationship with a narcissists is not having a relationship at all.

10:35 It's having a relationship with somebody in their own world twenty four to seven, and you're just kind of hanging out with them, and that's really what it is. You become that person that's there for them, and they're every whim. You might even become a flying monkey to some degree, but it's not a mutual relationship. They don't see you equally to them. You are not equally yoked with them. They will see themselves as superre to you. Always a narcissist doesn't think that you're equal to them, doesn't even think that you shine a light to them. They actually look down on you for what you do, and they think that it's kind of funny because they just look at you and they see you as somebody they can use and take advantage of. They don't see you as somebody that they see as equal. I see narcissism like a disease, and this disease is looking for a host, someone that can take advantage of, someone they can use, and someone that will provide for them while they do very very little. They want a slave, not a lover, not a spouse, not a partner. Think about that slave, not an equal relationship. And this is very important because I think people get into these relationships with these people because they seem so great on paper. They seem so great as far as maybe they're good looking, attractive, Maybe they seem successful. Maybe they have the right friends and the right social group. Maybe they live in the right bi or drive the right cars. Maybe it's a combination, or maybe they seem kind of like the victim, like

12:07 somebody that can you can take care of. You can be the knight in shining armor for whether it's a man or a woman, you can be that savior to them, and maybe that helps you too. And that's a big thing with codependance, right Codependans get sucked in a narcissist very quickly because the code dependant is giving everything that the narcissist wants, all the attention, all the caring. That's exactly that's what good supply is. Literally, a codependant equals good supply for the narcissists. That's your equation right there works every time except for guess what. The codependant gets well beaten down and eventually loses their identity and has to eventually find their way out of this relationship or lose their identity forever. Very important to understand, and I think a lot of people don't get this. A lot of people don't understand what they're getting into. They think, oh, oh, it's not that big of a deal. You know, we're having some bumps in the road. Oh, but you know these bumps will go away and everybody will get better.

13:08 And you know that's what happens a lot of times too. Right, It's like, you have these struggles and then you have these decent times, and you know you have these decent times, you have these struggles and you go, oh, you kind of sweep it under the rug. Especially codependance we love and I'm a recovering code of Pennant, but I used to love sweeping it under the rug. Right, Oh yeah, it was great. Yesterday was great. I'm not going to think about all these other times that this person did me wrong. I'm not going to think about all these other times where this person lied or betrayed or I'm not gonna think about all these different times where I was put down or made fun of. I'm just gonna think about last night, because last night was a lot of fun. Hmm. There's a lot of last nights for a lot of people that are in twenty thirty year relationships with a full on narcissist where they really don't have a relationship with them. It's not really there. You're kind of just there as the slave for the narcissists.

14:00 And I find that very interesting, and I think that that's something that nobody talks about. People don't like to talk about that in the depth of how we have to talk about that. The reason for it is people that have these signs and symptoms don't want you to think about it that way. They want to keep taking advantage of you. It feels good. They got this great supply and guess what, They're sucking the teat of your energy and it feels good to them. Why would they want everybody to wake up and see the truth. You might safeguard your energy, you feel good about yourself, and have all a healthy relationship. Maybe God forbid. Narcissists have a clear strategy for finding their victims. Narcissists apply a complete mask when they meet you and they give you all the attention that you crave. They create a persona that you mistake for the soulmate or you feel like it's forever, You've never had this type of relationship, But it's actually a trap. It's devised to ensnare you into a lifetime of servitude, a lifetime of servitude, And that's it, exactly what's happening. And I think if we all can just step back and look at these relationships and if you're married in a situation right now where you feel like you're married to a full on narcissist, let's get real with that. If you're in a relationship but not married, okay, wait, hold up, hold up, put the brakes on, no reason to get married right this second. Let's think about reality real quick. Let's talk about it. If you're planning on having children with somebody, wait, look, what's the signs? What kind of person are they really? Because one of the

15:35 toughest things you can do is have a child with a narcissist. One of the toughest things you can do in life is having a child. I mean, there's a lot of things that go with it, but when you have a spouse, that's challenging, and maybe they decide one day they're out of there, and then they're going to try to take the child from you. That's very interesting too, and that happens a lot with nars statistic marriages. You know, all of a sudden, you were a good mother or a good father, and now you're not. Now I'm going to go after full custody and take you down to court and beat you down and try to take the kid that you love so much away from you because I really want to hurt you. And that's part of my concept from A to B right, And that's what we call about parental alienation. It happens all the time.

16:22 It's happening every day, all day unfortunately, all over the world. And that's something I want you to think about. I think that's something that we really need to think about over and over again when we're dealing with our lives, our society, marriages, family, all these things are very important to understand all of these things. And that's where it's like it gets really challenging when you start realizing that you have to be very picky, choosy, whatever words you want, I like the word discernment. You have to have discernment to make good decisions on who you're gonna get in a relationship with, and then the next level, who you're gonna get married to. If you're going to get married, A lot of people are choosing not to get married nowadays.

17:13 And then the next level, which a lot of people are choosing not to have children either. But okay, a lot of people aren't. But if you're wanting to have a child with somebody, that's like the trifecta level. You have to be with somebody that you can trust. You have to be with somebody that's not going to hurt you, somebody that has your back even if you fall out of whatever they call that love or lust or whatever. Even you got to have someone that's gonna be an honest person that'll be there and say, hey, you know, let's put our stuff aside, and let's raise this child properly, even if you're in separate houses, separate homes. Let's do the right thing. Let's do what's right for this kid. You have to have somebody that's gonna come up to the plate like you are to do that. And if you don't have that, I really tell you, don't do it.

17:57 I mean, it's much better to raise a child on your own than dealing with those type of situations. And I've even had clients that have gone and you know, gone to sperm donors and had their own child and raising their child on their own because they couldn't find the right mate, They couldn't find the right spouse, and they didn't want to open up their life to chaos. They wanted a child, but they didn't want to open up their life to chaos. And I, for one, think that that's admirable if that's what you want to do. But I know a lot of people out there right now are not wanting to get married because of this. They're not wanting to have children because of this. Some of you who are even fearful of dating because of this, And I get it. And that's where it's like interesting.

18:38 That's where things get interesting when we look at life and we look at situations. Is trying to take care of ourselves and do what's right for us. Being able to put ourselves out there and meet other people and have relationships, but knowing when a relationship is either not help, knowing when somebody might not have the healthiest symptoms or signs. But also the bigger picture is understanding when we are a perfect puzzle piece to be used or abused and being able to see the truth behind that so we don't fall prey into these relationships. And that goes back to self awareness, and so that's one of the things that you can do that you have ability to do.

19:30 You can do this right now and every one of your relationships. And first off, you need to get right on how self aware you are. I mean I think about everything I do. I look at it from many many sides, almost like a prism, Like you look at through the prism and you look through you know, and you see it. I look at how does this action impact someone else? How does this non action impact someone else? You know? When I say this, what's the impact of that? You know? Can I say this in a different way to make this more palatable or understandable, Like I really think about my actions, like how I present myself, the comments I make. I think about these things honestly. How often are you doing that introspection? How often are you going with inside yourself to think about things like, you know, how does this action impact someone else? How do my actions impact someone else? And if they are possibly impacting them in a negative way, how do I augment that action and change my operende to do what's right for people around me. And so if you're right with you, and this is something you have to do on a daily basis. This isn't like, oh, I'm self aware one moment and then I'm not. That's not it at all.

20:51 Being self aware is a twenty four hours a day, seven days a week process to understanding why you do what you do and then seeing the impact that it has on other people and augmenting it if you need to to do what's right for people around you. Now, that doesn't mean sugarcoating things, or kissing people's butt or being people's like narcissistic supply. That's not what self awareness is. Self awareness is getting right with you, feeling good about the presentation of you into this world, and understanding why you choose certain things, why you've gotten into certain relationships, and the impact in the historical reference of how we actually kind of wake up, renew and work on ourselves.

21:37 It's about being better than we were yesterday, not competing with other people. And that's what's really important to understand is that many of us also instead of seeing the actions, we don't look at people's actions. We listen to what they tell us. We listen to what people tell us instead of what they do. What people tell us versus what they do can be two terribly different things. And many of us have gotten in a relationships with people that talk a lot but do very little, or they talk a lot and they do the opposite, or you know, it's interesting. I've met people too that the more they're lying, the faster they talk, and they're talking to speed up to it's like they're talking about all these things because they don't want you to ask any questions. They don't want you to ask any questions because you might get well onto them, you might figure them out because they're not being honest with you. Because remember the beginning of these narcissistic relationships are orchestrated precisely to get what they want from you. The narcissist spots you knows what they want and they're going to go after it. Unfortunately you're not aware, and you're giving them all the supply and all the information they need to get what they want.

23:02 So that's the key here is that once we become aware, and I want us all to be aware, no matter if it's a relationship a friend, maybe it's a family dynamic, maybe it's somebody you're going to go into business with. Maybe it's somebody that you're in a romantic relationship with, or somebody you started dating. I need you to be aware because the more aware you are, the better off you are. And the thing is is that sex does cloud the situation. Having sex with a narcissist will cloud your judgment. The sex has a tendency of lubricating the situation. And the fact of how alcohol does and drugs and all that things where you start saying, oh, well, you know, you start overlooking the red flags, and you know, you start getting involved with being in bed with them. And the problem is is you feel like you're connected to them when you're having sex with them, but you're really not, so it's a false connection. And then the rest of the day you're trying to figure out why you feel disconnected from this person. The narcissist seems perfect for several months, making you believe that you found your person. You tell them all your secrets without thinking of possible outcomes. You aren't yet aware that you are actually supplying that person with the information that they need to hold you hostage for the rest of your life or until you finally find the power to leave this narcissistic relationship. And that's

24:34 a big deal. And self awareness is very much key to understanding that what information are you giving other people before you honestly know them. I don't think many of you all go to your boss at work and say, hey, I want to tell you my deepest, darkest secrets right now. I mean, have only been working here for a few weeks, and I think it's a good idea that I tell you all about this. Just say, you know, for a frame of reference, you don't go and tell your mom and dad everything that you did back the past in high school that they probably aren't going to be happy to hear about. But somehow or not, you tell this narcissist everything that you've ever done that you really don't want to put out there. You don't want it broadcast, and you certainly don't want it put on a billboard. But guess what, in the first few months, you tell them everything so that they can use everything against you later, and they will, and they will, And that's how people lose friends and family and everything else because they've talked about various things that happen in their past. Narcissist isn't very happy about it. So what are they going to do.

25:33 They're going to separate you from all those people that they feel are a threat to them. And so you have just opened up Pandora's box. You've given the key to them. You've told them all your secrets so that they can use them later on when they need to get ammunition to make you feel bad, to take you down, to try to destroy you in the process. And so go back to that self aware, go back to the concept of the self awareness and understanding. Okay, and my self aware of how I'm acting, But am I also aware of how this is making me feel by what they're doing? What is my discernment? How do I have discernment here? Okay? Thinking through it very clearly, not masking your feelings, not sweeping it under the rug. You have a legitimate right to take your time in any relationship to see if somebody will do the right thing over time, and the only thing that you have is time. When it comes to this, now, you many of you need to be more self aware. The red flags are flying.

26:43 It's communists China. You're in the biggest communist China mall, and there's like two hundred and fifty red flags flying and you're still like, I don't know, it looks nice around here. It's all good right here. I think I'm gonna stay here for a while. Wake up. Okay. So we got to get over that. We got to see the red flags for what they are, and many of if you were overlooking them for multiple reasons, you've been sold to bill of goods, of you know, the soulmate, the twin flame, your forever person. You know, maybe the sex is great right now. Whatever I had a quiet recently was telling me, he's like, you know, I get off work, I come home and she is cooking in the kitchen with just an apron and naked. Besides that, and that was week two. Well, you know, after week two into week six, there was no sex. And if it was, it was a currency. It was used as currency.

27:27 So I want y'all really think about this. I want you to like kind of process this concept and realize the things in the beginning of this relationship. If it feels too good to be true, it is it is okay. If everything's perfect and they're doting all over you and everything's going on, this is not healthy. There is something else going on that's trying to get you ensnared into this relationship. Wake up, wake up, Wake up, Wake up. People can be nice and kind, but there is a certain level of well, just over the top. And a lot of times people get what they want because they get they suck you in and they go, oh, look, this is gonna be like this forever. Ooh, the shiny object, it's gonna be amazing. I'm gonna be like this forever.

28:15 I'm gonna be cooking naked, I'm gonna be doing your laundry, I'm gonna be writing love notes to you, I'm going to be cleaning the house, all these great things. And then eventually it's over. You know, all of a sudden, there's like pizza boxes all over the house, uber containers all over the house. There hasn't been a house clean, there's been no baking in the sex well, it's pretty much dried up. So I want you to realize that even though it feels good in the moment, remember this doesn't last. And so when we are self aware, we find people that generally are more well healthy. When we're self aware, we can see unhealthy behavior. We can also see our own unhealthy behavior. By accepting a lot of these things into our life. Remember the narcissists, to some degree, exactly what they're doing. It's a playbook that's followed, and if you fall trap into that, it will be hard to get out of it because that intermittent reinforcement will keep you back in it. All the good stuff, then bad, really bad. Then oh we got a little bit of good. Oh, then really really bad, then we got oh, a tiny morsel is good, but then really bad after that. So I want you to focus on that and realize, don't tell all your secrets in the beginning. In any relationship, it takes. Time will be the only thing that will show you the truth. Your own awareness and time. Don't make extreme decisions like take your time to think about things logically, and that's what I want you to think about.

29:41 I hope that this podcast has helped you. Please share it with family and friends. You can see it here, Oh, you can listen to it on Spreaker, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere that podcast are also if you haven't already, please subscribe to the YouTube channel go to life Coach Ashley Burgess. Life Coach Ashley Burgess. Subscribe. We have almost two hundred thousand followers and growing every day. We put video content up every single week, multiple times a week, so please subscribe to that. And if you'd like to work with me, go to Ashley Burgs dot com. You can click on that contact page and send me a message, or you can go to Ashley Burgs dot com, click on coaching and you can set up an appointment right online, right then. Okay, I hope this podcast has connected with you.

30:27 Please share with others and don't forget to live your true life. Wo