This is probably the most important part of the video. Narcissists don't like being patient. They want you to fall head over heels for them right away. They want you to fall in love with them, like yesterday.
Hey what's going on my beautiful people, this is certified life and relationship coach, Coach Court. In today's video, per request, I am going to be doing a video about how to spot a narcissist early on. Before I get into that content, I want to make sure that you guys understand that this content is only for informational purposes. I'm not a therapist, I'm not your therapist and it's not to be replaced for mental health services or therapy.
The video I'm going to be doing today is about narcissism. Information that I've consumed over the years from schooling, people I've observed in the community, people I've observed in my own personal life and even people that I've coached before. I'm going to give another disclaimer. I'm not saying that one of these things mean that a person is a narcissist and I'm not saying that all of these things mean that the person is a narcissist. I have five of them for you today, but if you see these happen all in unison where they're hitting about four or five of these, then you're probably looking towards narcissism here. This is the script that they usually run, this is the ‘narcissistic playbook’ but we also want to make sure that we're understanding the type of narcissist that you're dealing with.
If you're dealing with someone that's a covert narcissist, they can be a lot more difficult to spot and understand early on in the dating process because they're very good at hiding who they truly are. For the overt narcissist, the grandio narcissist, the malignant, it's pretty simple, like, you know that something's off with this person. You know from out of the gates, but for the covert narcissist it's a little bit more difficult and you have to be more like a sleuth to understand who they truly are under the mask.
The very first one is something that's really easy to spot, love bombing. My definition of Love bombing is when people give you compliments, when people are over the top with things as far as praise, as far as some of the things that they've accomplished in their life. It almost feels like they're like this inflated person, like there's someone that's not real. For example, you could be someone that they have just met, you've been on your first date and they're talking about how pretty you are, which is okay, people like compliments. They're charismatic, they can be very thoughtful , they can be really in depth with some of things that they notice about you. Like, if you got your nails done, if you got this going on with yourself, they're really good at that, they can spot it. They know how to praise and boost you up. We interact with a lot more narcissists on a day in day out basis than you guys realize. Another example of a love bomb that I've seen is, when they tell you that you're the love of their life, things like that. You're my soulmate, you're the love of my life, you're the person that I've always been looking for, and they're 45 years old. In your mind you're thinking, there's no way that he hasn't or she hasn't met someone that has made them feel the way that I've made them feel before. Like, I know for a fact that they have met someone else. If they were married before, what were they telling their ex-husband and their ex-wives? So it's kind of not adding up. They can know nothing about your love life or your parenting life, and they can be saying like ‘oh I see you post pictures on Instagram, you're such a great mom’. If they're trying to get you to let your walls down and you're someone that's insecure about how you parent, this is one thing that will help you let your walls down because you want to be acknowledged. Let's say that you were in a marriage, where the person didn't acknowledge how much you did or how many things you sacrificed for your children. Then this person comes along and says ‘hey you're such a great mom’, it's like everything that you've ever wanted to hear, but is it real? How do they know that you're a great mom from one date, from a Facebook or Instagram post? They don't truly know that, but they're good at understanding what your vulnerabilities are very early. It’s kind of like they’re throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. The things that make you be more starry-eyed and more into them, they'll probably continue to do more of that. For example, I had one couple, one lady that I coached. This guy early on was buying her things, he was over the top with some of the things that he was doing and taking her on lavish vacations. If something happened, like her phone broke, he'd buy her a new phone. I'm like, okay, he did all this within the first month, that sounds like a love bomb to me. He had the means to do it, so she didn't really think any of it, but the monster started to come out over time where he would throw those things back up in her face. I bought you this or I did this for you, and I'm like, he didn't do that selflessly, he was actually trying to buy you and to get you to do things that he wanted you to do. This was more of a manipulation from him.
The second thing that they do is, they take inventory on your life, on your history and they don't tell you much about themselves. Like you may know nothing about this person, but they know everything about your ex so and so, and how you did this and that. They really seem interested in investing in your life. I've always seen this happen where they're actually taking inventory. When I say ‘taking inventory’ they're taking data stats on you so they know what to use against you in the future, a big pain point. I mean, this is one of the more egregious examples. One of my clients, his mom had died, and when he and his narcissistic ex-girlfriend got into it, she would always bring up his mom. She’d always bring up little pain points from his childhood and even went to the extent of saying his mom dying was her own fault because she died of lung cancer and she smoked a lot. This was a way for her to try to get him to stop smoking. For me, it looked very unhealthy, and after a while he started to realize that as well. So they take inventory on your life and you may know nothing about theirs.
The next one is, the things that you do know about their life, it either seems very inflated, it seems extreme, and like they were always the victim in other situations. In other relationships they were always the one that was cheated on, they were treated poorly or they had a rough childhood. So it conditions you to not want to repeat the cycle for them. You want to be on your best behavior because they've never had anything good in their life, but if you truly understand narcissism, they are all about the image. They want to look a certain way in front of you and in front of other people. This is why they cut a lot of their exes off and why you don't know much about their exes. They're trying to keep you guys from each other.
Number four is, they're usually codependent. What codependency means for me is they can never be alone. I was actually talking about this in a short I did the other day, the difference between a narcissist and an avoidant. The avoidant wants someone in their life, but the narcissist needs someone in their life. They constantly need some type of, what psychotherapists and therapists call “supply” in their life. Someone to make them feel good about themselves, someone to boost their ego. Their phone can never be dry. Which means, they always have to have someone texting or flirting or feeling some type of emotional connection with someone, but it's usually a transient feeling, and it's usually short lived. I mean, narcissists can't keep relationships very long, and they move on rapidly. They'll be in a new relationship by the end of next week if you guys have broken up today. If there's an overlapping relationship where they're just breaking up with their girlfriend or boyfriend and getting off or getting on hinge within that next week or so, then you should be concerned.
Number five, early on you'll see along with the love bombing, which was number one, a lot of ‘future faking’. Which means, they're promising you things that are going to happen in the future, that usually never happens, and they know it's not going to happen. These feelings that they're feeling in this moment, if it sounds great, it's another way to get you to let down your emotional barriers and to be vulnerable with them. It's the things that people talk about in the movies: I want kids, I want the dog, I want the house and the picket fence. They're okay with promising those things and they're okay with saying I love you right away. Take it slow, this is how you combat a narcissist here. This is probably the most important part of the video. Move extremely slow to see if what they're saying and what they're doing is authentic. Narcissists don't like being patient. They want you to fall head over heels for them right away. They want you to fall in love with them, like yesterday. My suggestion is to take your time and call them out on some of the things that they're saying. Like if they're love bombing, you say, “hey I don't really know you like that, so you don't know me” or “you don't know if I am a good coach” or “you don't know if I'm a good parent or not we just met” or “it makes me really uncomfortable when you say things like that”. They may not like it, but they won't say anything, they'll just go ghost. If anything, that's helping you out because setting healthy boundaries for yourself is something that we all should be trying to work towards anyway. Narcissists hate boundaries.
So if you found this video of any value, please like, comment and share. You can reach out to me on my other social media accounts: TikTok is [iamcoachcourt], Instagram is [iamcoachcourt] and Facebook is [coachcourt]. Thank you guys and I want you to always remember, when you go be love, you'll never have to find it. Namaste.