Narcissists See You As A Liability Or An Asset

Welcome to Breakdown to Breakthrough,

The podcast that empowers you to transform your life by awakening to your true,

Authentic self.

I'm Lisa A.

Romano,

Your host.

As an award-winning author and certified life coach,

I've dedicated my life to helping others understand the incredible power of an organized mind.

I believe that true empowerment begins with awakening to our false self.

My mission is to support you on your journey toward mental and emotional regeneration through conscious and deliberate awakening.

In this podcast,

I'll share insights,

Tools,

And transformative stories that illuminate the path to healing and self-discovery.

So today,

We're going to be discussing how to talk to a narcissist in a pinch.

Okay,

So a couple of things that we need to figure out first is that narcissists have serious behavioral issues.

They have serious cognitive issues.

They have serious consciousness issues.

They do not see people as 3D autonomous human beings that are worthy of respect.

They sort of rank people in terms of their assets to them or whether or not someone could be an asset or a liability.

So a narcissist is always trying to figure out and really like figure out like seriously in the moment,

Like is this person going to be advantageous to my life or is this person going to hinder my life in some way?

And that's really sad because they are so missing the mark on what a true relationship is.

So when we're thinking about somebody who is highly narcissistic,

We want to remember that this is someone who is not highly self-aware.

This is someone who,

If you're not self-aware,

You can't be self-accountable.

If you're not self-aware,

You can't walk and live in integrity.

If you're not self-aware,

Then you can't operate from a place of vulnerability and humility for too long.

In fact,

Your ego is going to do a dance.

Imagine looking at someone who is dancing on a hot tin roof.

Imagine what their feet would look like.

That's what a narcissist's feel would be.

That's the way they feel in their energy.

No,

No,

No,

No,

No.

I can't go there.

I can't go there.

I can't feel humble.

I can't feel vulnerable.

I can't say I'm sorry.

I can't feel shame.

I can't,

I can't,

I can't,

I can't,

I can't.

And then what they do is they go into all these ego defensive behaviors.

I think most of them are unconscious.

I think that narcissists operate so below the veil of consciousness and just rationalize so quickly as to why they're doing what they're doing.

So they're unconsciously malignant.

When we're talking about somebody who's conscious of their malignancy or their emotional,

Psychological malignancy,

We're talking about a psychopath.

We're talking about somebody who is deliberate,

Someone who is monitoring themselves and knows exactly what they're doing.

But I think overall narcissists are generally,

They're like pathological in a sense that they don't even know that they're doing it.

I don't think that matters much.

I think that in terms of being a victim of narcissistic abuse,

Whether parental narcissistic abuse or sibling narcissistic abuse or friend narcissistic abuse or whatever,

Boss narcissistic abuse,

Whatever,

Just being a random person,

You know,

Shopping at Target and then having someone like completely blow up on you because of their narcissistic rage.

It's been triggered and you're the person in their vicinity.

It's really more about understanding from the perspective of the victim.

And in my opinion,

What I try to do is I try to empower you.

So if you're somebody who is dealing with someone who is highly narcissistic,

You're going to need tools because dealing with someone who is narcissistic,

You're going to be taught through gaslighting and triangulation and projection and through smear campaigns,

Through flying monkeys,

That you're the person who has the problem.

So a narcissist's mind works like a Rubik's cube to like instantaneously,

Faster than the speed of light,

Figure out a way to put you in a position where you are defending yourself.

So it's like you're always on the ropes.

They're hitting you with question after question.

Remember the person asking the question is a person in control.

And so what I try to do is like understanding this,

Like their narcissists exist,

Understanding that narcissistic parental abuse is going to set you up for self-loathing,

For cognitive dissonance.

Narcissistic parental abuse is going to put you in a position where you feel less than,

Where you're not going to have self-esteem.

So unfortunately,

Even in modern society,

And they've done studies on this,

Where they've asked people who have committed heinous crimes,

To look at videotape of people walking the streets of Manhattan and said,

Who would you choose to mug or who would you choose to assault?

And they always pick the same type of a person,

The person who had a very slow gait,

Somebody who was hunched over,

Somebody that was in their own world.

They did not pick out the people who walked around like they had a stainless steel spine.

They did not pick the people that look like they were aware of their surroundings.

So this is something that is innate within all of us.

We're always sizing people up.

We're always trying to figure out like,

Who is this person?

So that is part of our,

I would say,

Human psychological makeup that is subconscious.

But when we're dealing with a narcissist,

We're dealing with someone who is subconsciously predator-like in their emotional experiences within,

And they are malignant,

And they will suck you into their victimhood.

They will suck you into their sense of feeling less than,

And then give you the sense that you're responsible for them feeling less than,

And they will berate you and punish you.

And if you're not very careful,

You're going to get caught up in this tidal wave.

And so I wanted to give you some tips and some tools on how to talk to somebody who you now understand is a highly narcissistic person.

By the time that you figure out that someone has high narcissism,

You're done.

You're pretty much spent.

You may have been someone who kept trying to help them.

If you're a reasonable person and your life is moving forward,

Then you feel like you've got some pearls of wisdom to offer somebody.

And so even though you're maintaining your own sense of self,

You have integrity in your word,

And your bills are paid,

And your life is moving forward,

And your relationships are pretty good,

And you have this person over here in your life that is just a dark cloud and always irritated,

And is a high conflict personality,

Can't go along with anybody.

There's always got to be an edge.

It could be that they're just so resistant to dropping their guard due to childhood trauma,

And they have this edge about them.

They have a lot of narcissistic injuries,

Or just a couple that are really,

Really deep,

Deep narcissistic injuries,

And they're all twisted on the inside.

And if you get too close to this person,

Then they will project all of this onto you.

And if you are someone who's trying to understand them,

Especially if you have high empathy,

And if you have high empathy and you're codependent,

You have the need to please,

You're a fixer by nature,

You're a caretaker by nature.

Carl Jung talks about the caretaker archetype,

Which I believe I was born with.

And I just think my childhood experience has just made that worse.

I can't not help people in need.

I can't not have empathy.

I can't not feel like I need to help people.

It's gotten me into more trouble than it was really worth in the end,

Because I have gone above and beyond for the people that I've really cared about,

I've clicked with due to trauma,

Tried to save them,

Tried to save them.

And it's really painful when that person turns on you with no reason.

There's no reason for you to turn on me,

Except that they got another source of narcissistic supply,

And they're able to push you in a way,

This way,

And accuse you of things you're not guilty of,

Because they have another source of narcissistic supply.

There are other reasons that someone who is highly narcissistic will lash out at you for sure,

You just don't agree with them,

Or you're challenging their perception of reality.

And it's always fun when you challenge someone's perception of reality legitimately,

Because you actually think differently,

And then they hit you with the,

Oh,

You're always right bomb,

Right?

Like,

Oh,

Okay,

We're pulling that card,

Right?

Because I disagree with you,

I'm pulling me,

Oh,

You're always right card,

To try to make you feel guilty,

And try to get you to back off of your perception of their perception,

Because they can't handle the conflict.

Maybe that's how they feel,

They're always wrong,

Or they just don't want to be wrong,

And so they have to punish you for challenging them.

That's always fun.

But you need tools.

If you are somebody who has given,

And given,

And given,

And you've hit a roadblock with this person,

You're done.

You could be married to this person,

And you're just like,

It ain't worth it.

Like,

It ain't worth it,

No matter what I do,

It's not good enough,

I keep hearing that it's because of them,

They saved me,

I heard that from my ex,

I rescued you,

I'm like,

From where?

And I remember thinking to myself,

How sad is it that he cannot fathom,

This is the why,

Asset versus liability.

It took me so long to figure this out,

And I'm going to save you decades of nonsense right here,

Right now.

Are you listening?

Put your ears on.

And so,

It took me a long time to realize that he had to use that language because he believed it.

He could not conceive that I actually loved him,

That I actually wanted to try to make it work with him,

Because that isn't how he felt about me.

When he married me,

It was asset versus liability.

Here's a woman,

Fairly attractive,

Healthy,

And she just quit nursing school,

So it's probably going to be an asset to keep her in my life,

Because she wants to have kids,

I want to have kids,

She's not bad to look at,

She can cook,

She can clean,

We always complained about my cooking too,

But I would say that that was rightfully so,

He had a right to complain about my cooking at the time,

But I've gotten much better,

I digress.

But I think when he married me,

It was like asset versus liability.

In other words,

I was going to be an asset.

It wasn't about love,

It wasn't about,

She's kind,

It wasn't about,

She's going to be good to my family,

It wasn't about,

Wow,

She's going to be a great mom,

It wasn't about that,

It was transactional.

I'm going to marry her,

She's going to live in this house,

She's going to cook for me,

She's going to clean with me,

She's going to be intimate with me,

Going to get it on with her,

She can't say no,

Because look how she lives,

And she's financially dependent upon me.

I really do think that that's what it was all about,

It was transactional.

And this idea in his head that she needs me is what fueled this sickness between us.

And it took me so long to realize that,

Okay,

Here I was all these years trying to connect,

Trying to make it better.

And I admit wholeheartedly,

I was an immature,

Codependent,

People pleaser,

And I played out the drama triangle where it was like,

I want to take care of you,

And that I am so immature,

I'm going to expect you to read my mind,

Rather than tell you what I need.

And when you don't fulfill the need that I don't even know that I have,

I'm going to cry,

Boo-hoo,

You abandoned me,

You failed me,

And the way that I feel is your fault.

I admit that I was that person,

I'm not proud of it,

But look at me,

I'm working it through and I'm teaching you how to not do that.

Which is there anything more valuable for someone who really wants to learn and who is into personal development,

And who is trying to heal from codependency,

And who's trying to resurrect themselves after a life of feeling so stuck?

I don't think so.

And God bless Melody Beatty,

Who just recently passed away last month,

She was my mentor,

And I owe a lot of who I am today to her,

Because she was a great author.

She was the author of Codependent No More.

And when I was reading her books,

What I loved most was her personal stories,

How she related hard codependency to her life.

And I swore to myself,

I'm getting goosebumps just talking about it,

I swore to myself that if I ever figured this out,

That I was going to write books that were very much along that line,

Where I'm going to use my personal stories.

I mean,

We need stories,

Right?

The Bible is a story.

That's how we hand down traditions,

We hand down wisdom.

We need stories.

And I swore to myself that if I ever figured this out,

That I was going to use my voice and my ability to be a very good storyteller,

At least I think I am,

To help other people heal,

To take my pain and turn it into purpose.

And I love the quote,

Like,

Your mess is your message.

And that is true for me.

My mess is my message,

And I'm actually proud of that today,

And you should be too.

Don't be ashamed that you're here.

Don't be ashamed that you're codependent.

Don't be ashamed that your mother was a narcissist or your father was a narcissist.

Don't be ashamed that you've married a narcissist and it's been 20,

25,

30 years.

Don't be ashamed.

Right?

You want to look at that in the face and say,

When you marry a narcissist,

You can get roped up in their narcissistic abuse for decades,

And that ain't your fault.

Should I say that again?

That ain't your fault.

Can I get an amen?

That ain't your fault,

Because you're a kind person,

And you're an empathic person,

And you can even see .

.

.

What got me stuck was I could see my ex-husband's trauma.

I could see his pain,

And I wanted to fix it.

And I thought that if I could just fix it,

Then he would bond with me,

And the skies would open,

And the clouds would go away,

And we'd doop,

Doop,

Doop,

Doop,

Doop right off into the sunset.

When you're a codependent woman,

In my case,

Codependent woman,

You seek to rescue others so that they can rescue you.

You're really looking to be rescued.

Rescued from what?

Low self-worth?

No sense of self?

Feeling like a shell?

Feeling stuck?

You don't even realize that your whole reason for being is to take care of someone else.

That is so sad.

And out of all my three children,

I see this in my son,

And I pray for the day,

And maybe you can pray with me,

And just hold him in your heart.

Hold all of this in your heart,

Because having empathy is a beautiful thing,

But when you're highly codependent,

What you do is you focus so much on your partner or the person that you love that you literally lose yourself in their dreams and in their emotions,

And you don't even know that you're doing it.

And then what happens sometimes,

Not always,

But what happens,

You become so enmeshed that you have no identity outside of pleasing this person.

You've lost yourself,

And you get to an age in your 60s,

70s,

And 80s,

And if you live that long,

And you look back,

And you're like,

Where did my time go?

Time runs out for everybody.

So if you're codependent,

You seek to be rescued and rescuing other people,

And I can tell you that's what I did for a long time,

And I don't want you to do that.

I don't want you to waste your time.

And so my mess is my message.

My pain has been turned into purpose and passion.

When you're dealing with someone that you finally understand is highly narcissistic,

You've had it.

You've hit a wall with them,

And you're done.

You're just done,

And you can't go back,

Because once you start studying narcissism,

You start to see it.

You start to see the patterns,

And your inner self can no longer hide the truth.

That's why they say the truth can set you free.

I want you to understand that the goal is to not allow them to bait you into ongoing,

Highly emotional conversations.

They're going to try to pull you in.

They will start conversations that sound very cold,

Very stoic.

You'll ask them a question,

And they'll give you a one-word answer,

And what they're really hoping is that you're going to feel uncomfortable with their one-word answer,

And then you'll say something like,

Is something wrong?

Ah,

They got you.

You sound like something's bothering you.

Ah,

They got you.

Did I do something?

Ah,

They got you.

When you give into the drip,

The emotional drip,

When you start to feel them pulling away and getting a little bit cold,

That's when you have to go shutty-shutty.

That's when you've got to go into complete surrender and acceptance.

That's where you got to say,

Pass the butter.

That's where you got to take the hook out of your mouth,

And you got to look at that hook and say,

This fish ain't catching that hook today.

Peace out.

I'm out of here.

I am not picking up that hairy brush.

I'm just not doing it.

Leave it there.

Now,

What will happen is if you stay on the phone long enough,

Or you stay in the company of someone who's stonewalling you,

And withdrawing,

And withholding,

That's all a freaking stupid game.

What are you,

Two?

What are you,

Two?

Give me a break.

Yeah,

They're two.

Right?

Once you realize this,

And you understand from a very high state of consciousness,

From a very critical .

.

.

Think about critical thinking.

This is analysis thinking.

This isn't reactivity in the amygdala,

Oh no,

Daddy's mad at me,

Oh no,

My brother's mad at me,

Oh no,

My wife is mad at me.

No,

No,

No.

That's Amy,

The amygdala.

Calm her down.

Right?

Calm her down.

Climb up the ladder out of the amygdala,

And look at it from an analysis.

Ask yourself,

Is this person being fair?

Is this person withholding?

Is this person stonewalling?

Is this person trying to bait me into an argument?

If that's a yes,

You say,

Hell no,

I'm not doing it.

Someone who's highly narcissistic,

Very emotionally dysregulated,

They want to bait you.

They want to pull you into that boxing ring,

Because they're really good there.

The reason they want to pull you into the boxing ring is a couple of things.

They might be feeling disempowered.

They might be feeling powerless.

They might be feeling less than.

Maybe something happened in their life that caused them to feel like they're behind in life,

Or that caused them to feel like someone else is getting validation and praise that they're not getting,

And that triggers their narcissistic injury.

I'm not good enough,

And people don't think that I'm good enough,

And it's everybody's fault that I don't have those qualifications,

And it's everybody's fault that I'm not where I should be.

Right?

You start to trigger that in somebody.

Not your fault.

If that wasn't in them,

There'd be nothing to trigger.

If they would work on that and actually do what they have to do to feel better,

That wouldn't be a trigger.

So,

None of this is your fault.

What I want you to remember is to simply notice when this person is trying to bait you,

And then take the high road.

Just refuse to go low with them.

Just stick to the high road.

The other thing that I want you to remember is that the narcissist is looking at you in terms of asset or liability.

Is it worth it for me to keep this person in my life for any reason at all?

Maybe you have influential friends.

When you start calling the narcissist out,

They're going to start fawning,

Because in that moment,

You're worth more to them if you're in their life,

And you're a liability to them if you're not in their life.

Do not be surprised if when you start pushing a narcissist back,

If you have any value in their life at all.

It could even be intimacy.

It could be fooling around with them.

If they see you as an asset,

Don't expect them to be gone for long.

You could really use that to your advantage.

Let's say that you have influential friends,

Or let's say they're living in your apartment building,

And you've been kind enough to them,

And now they've just stopped paying their rent,

And they're playing the pity game,

And they feel entitled to stay there.

You can hear it in their language.

There's no humility.

There's no integrity.

There's just poor me,

No accountability,

None whatsoever.

One sob story after another,

And you're done.

You're done giving them a break.

So it is probably more of an asset to them to keep you in their life,

So don't be surprised if they suddenly come up with half the rent.

Don't be surprised if they suddenly want to wash your car,

And they want to barter.

Don't be surprised if they suddenly produce money that they've always had,

But they just never wanted to give it to you.

Because remember,

Narcissists can't play by equal rules.

They have to have power over you.

So even if they can afford the rent,

They ain't going to pay you.

They're just not.

Even if they have the money in the bank,

If they can hold something back,

That's the power game they play.

So try to remember that narcissists operate through the realm of asset versus liability,

And so if you are somebody who has dirt on them,

They're going to try to get rid of you really fast.

They're going to ghost you,

Get rid of you really fast,

Distance themselves from you.

That happened in our life a few years ago.

Someone came into our life,

Pathological liar.

I would say,

This person should be in jail,

And the minute the gig was up,

She was gone.

Like the wind,

Gone.

We never heard from her again.

Of course,

Because we are a liability now,

Because we know your truth.

We know where the bodies are buried.

We know.

So she skedaddled,

Right?

And so try to remember that when you're dealing with someone who's highly narcissistic,

You're not a real person.

And that's really,

That cuts through the noise.

It's like,

Wow,

I'm not a real person to this person.

So I need to start going into self-preservation mode,

And you will.

So try to remember asset versus liability,

And then also remember that when you're dealing with someone who is highly narcissistic,

You should not take the bait.

If you have to agree with them,

Agree with them.

In other words,

Like,

Wow,

I really had a tough day today.

Yeah,

That sounds tough.

Or,

Oh,

You know,

My boss got angry at me today,

And now I have to do the night shift.

You don't feel sorry for them.

You say,

Wow,

That sounds really tough.

And that's it.

You don't go into,

Yeah,

But you know what?

You keep showing up late for work.

You're not here to teach a narcissist anything anymore.

Like that ship has sailed.

Like once they start turning on you,

It's all over,

Done,

I'm done.

That's what happens with someone who's highly empathetic.

You just cross that line once too many times,

And once the highly empathetic codependent person who is highly sensitive,

Once they get your number,

It's done.

And so this is the route you want to take.

So dealing with somebody who's trying to bait you,

Don't take the bait.

Take the high road.

If there's talking about how bad everything is,

How everybody's out to get them,

You just acknowledge them.

Yeah,

That sounds tough.

You don't go into teaching them anymore.

That's over.

And if you can remember that when they're looking at you,

They're trying to figure out,

Is she an asset or is she a liability?

Is he an asset or is he a liability?

And once you see that,

That's going to up-level your consciousness,

And you're going to be more self-preserving,

Which means that it's going to be far easier for you to set boundaries with this person than it ever was before.

Namaste,

Everybody.

Until next time,

As I bow to the love and light that is absolutely in you.

Bye for now.