How to Spot a Covert Narcissist and Rise up in your Power

40. How to Spot a Covert Narcissist

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a trauma informed spiritual mentor, certified meditation teacher, and human design expert. I'm empowering empaths three times a week in recovery and healing from narcissistic abuse, childhood trauma through human design, self-care, mindfulness advice, and expert interviews. This is season five

Episode 40, how to spot a covert narcissist. One of the toughest things to spot. Is a covert narcissist. There's something off about them, but you just can't put your finger on it. They aren't the cliche, grandiose self obsessed. Look at me, narcissist. Instead, they are quietly cruel and behave in much a more passive aggressive way, which ironically at the moment,

Mars is going to be entering into cancer, which is all about passive aggressive. So I thought talking about covert narcissists around about this time, we can really open our eyes to see. How Mars interacts in cancer, which is passive aggressive, which is the covert narcissist. Yeah, so. Gosh. So here we go.

Let's talk about this.

I saved this amazing post from bloomin truth project. She states that covert emotional abuse is the hidden hard to name. Regular and repeated behavior used to mistreat another person. And cause harm to their heart and their inner emotions. Similar to how mother-in-law's do. These tactics. Are hard to describe. They're hard to name and therefore nearly impossible to confront. And when you do confront them, it's very easy for them to twist.

The blame back onto you. And call you crazy. Call you sensitive call you irrational.

The all or nothing. This is one example using black and white thinking to divert the focus off the perpetrator. In order to disarm the victim. I think this is the most toxic and horrible thing going on in our . Society today, as well as our relationships. It's all or nothing. You have to, I mean, it's similar to what religion and the church says is, believe in God, or you go to hell.

Or you have to believe in vaccines or you're a horrible person, or it's like all this judgment. I mean. We are humans. We're just doing our breasts are trying to figure this out. And so what this thinking does is it distracts us from our connection, from our humanity, from our vulnerability, from our empathy as humans, from the heart of the matter.

And I know I'm guilty of falling into this fear, uh, in the black and white thinking. I'll admit it. And it's something that we need to continue to awaken. And to stand up against, which is really hard because this black and white thinking will present itself with our safety in mind. With our systems in mind with our best intentions.

In mind, however, it's damaging to our relationships and it is harmful to the victim. Blaming and reverse blaming. So in blaming the issues are always one-sided or reversed. Who whoever's blaming is not taking any responsibility. Correct. They're making excuses for their behavior. It was this, it was the traffic. It was the weather.

, it's because you made me do this and you're so stupid. You're so crazy. You made me hurt you, right? It's like not taking responsibility for their horrible actions. And that's when it gets more over, when they start to blame you, but there's other covert ways to blame.

You know what the like the most covert way to blame is, oh no, you misunderstood me. I actually meant this. Or I thought that I could do this because you said this. It's like, no, you can't cross the boundary just because I said something out to the universe or in general, not specifically to you.

That opens a door for you to just shove in , your awkward and. Inappropriate behavior, right. Especially when the mother-in-law's sitting there criticizing you. I just have to give a shout out to one of the followers on Instagram, .

Michelle B Joe Han.

. She made like the best skit ever of a mother-in-law sitting there covert. Passively aggressively insulting. As she was sipping the chiefs like, oh my gosh. Oh, you got another cat? Oh, I can't believe you. I don't know how you keep them alive or something like that. She was just like the best skit ever. So you have to go take a look at that.

Real.

So instead of leaving the ministry out of it, I'm going to share

The audio here. . Today

I'll post it in my stories the day of here, when this airs to just hop on into my stories and find that it's hilarious and so true. That is covert narcissism. Before I head into commercial break, I'm going to read an excerpt from my book in path and the narcissist. Page 91. Three types of narcissists. Covert narcissist. They are the quiet victimized types. They believe the world never saw how great they were. They are angry at the world, Solon and looked depressed.

When they are triggered, they get very angry and dangerous. And they will go off on you, lecturing or yelling for what feels like hours. Nothing goes their way. And then they are bitter and vengeful. Think of the joker from Batman. His life didn't go. As he expected every step and he was passionate to seek revenge. broken promises. Here's the third one broken promises. Isn't another example of covert narcissist. Making promises.

To do certain things or change then denying, ever making those promises. Oh, gaslighting refusing to keep them or saying they forgot. That's the worst.

Catastrophizing creating fear, a negative dependence in the victim. And blowing things out of proportion.

This is a big one, right? Because as We're sensitive. We want to make sure everyone's safe and everyone's taken care of. And so magnifying the fear. And having you. Isolated and dependent on others because of their negative viewpoint, right. Black and white viewpoint. Of something. You're now dependent on them, like the dependence in the victim and then blowing things out of proportion. So making you kind of backtrack and.

Uh, really zinging and amplifying your open solar plexus. And you're like, I don't want to feel this horrible, fearful, uncomfortable feelings or the spleen center. So let's just appease them. Do whatever they want to say, calm it all down. Even if that means that I'm self betraying myself. Then everything will be okay.

But in the end is not okay because now you're just going along and enabling the covert abuse. Coverups. Attempting to prevent people from discovering the truth about a person's behavior or actions reminds me of a, he who must. Puppy named, for example, volunteering in the community or giving gifts to cover up destructive behavior done behind doors.

Crazy-making behaviors. Intentional distortions of reality for the purpose of making the victim feel confused. It's a cousin of gas lighting.

It is a form of gas lighting.

Uh, but it's through behaviors.

So they may say one thing. And then they act completely different. And we cannot hold on to their empty words anymore. Just only through actions that we can see their change and their love. Creating a cloud of confusion, telling false and grandiose stories to third parties in order to objectively undermine and manipulate the end result or outcome.

Yeah. This happens, unfortunately, especially in families where there's. Two sides pitted against each other, or there's just a whole bunch of false information spreading around to make sure that that one person is getting all the attention.

Deflection defensively, refusing to authentically communicate. And changing the topic or inventing false arguments. Yeah, like, they'll answer your question with another question about you. It's like, why do you never. Agree with me or acknowledge my feelings. And they will say, well, why don't you ever acknowledge how I feel? And then they start with their laundry list. I work all day. I bring in all the money. I pay the bills. I who look, who pays for your nails. You know, look, who's taking you out to dinner right now. Like I can't have this don't even with me.

Right. They will shut it down immediately.

And if you are like me, You had low standards in men or women in dating? I don't know, maybe it's because you're so kind and openhearted, maybe it's because you were naive to the fact of what exactly a Wolf in sheep's clothing looked like. Or maybe you had some low self esteem or abuse was normalized in your mind and you didn't know what was healthy. I remember my first boyfriend.

Looking back. He's the, he's the healthiest. And I thought he was needy, but he was just giving me the attention that I deserved. I did it felt weird. It didn't feel right because I normal was kind of like a emotionally unavailable person, right. From childhood. And then yeah. I broke it off. He was a sweetest guy ever. And then I met my narcissist next and that felt normal to me. Crazy, crazy making right.

Yeah, but that's okay. We know now. And , you were not in the dark anymore about narcissism. And if you are still figuring it out, this is why you're here listening to the podcast. And today we're covering covert, narcissist. You know, what are the signs? What are they. And are you going crazy?

If you have to ask yourself that question. Then you're in a toxic relationship and they're making you crazy with this deflection and cover ups and crazy-making behaviors. With their denial, with their dismissiveness, with their entitlement, with their confusion. And especially they're forgetting about their abuse, but it's the most painful and.

Harmful. You just won't ever like, you want the justice, you want them to admit it. You want them to say, sorry. You know, especially afterwards you're awakened to it. The form of manipulation, where they appear confused. Or they conveniently forget that they broke your heart. And then you just have to get over it because if it wasn't important enough for them to remember.

It must not be important enough for you to remember it's the most. Painful treatment. Most painful. I mean, the list goes on and on false accusations, gaslighting, grandiosity, lying. Let's just define some of these. The false accusations seem pretty straightforward. They are stating an unexpected, negative lie told to, or about you.

You're being falsely accused of something. And often leads to scapegoating, which is you getting thrown under the bus and they're deflecting their responsibility. And gaslighting. Which gaslighting is a form of abuse. Where they are altering or denying. A shared reality. So that you feel you are wrong in your perceptions and experiences.

And that's the word of the year, last year. Everyone's like what the heck gaslighting that's such a weird term was gaslighting. It's from this old, old movie about this crazy guy who kept turning down the gas lights in the house. And denying that he was doing it anytime the woman said it, you just turn that light down. Cause it went down. Like she thought that there were ghosts in the house or something, and then she ended up going crazy at the end of the movie.

Because he kept denying her reality. He was actually turning the lights down. I haven't actually. I need to watch through and like, look it up somehow. Maybe I look it on. Uh, prime. And actually watch the movie to know why the heck this guy did that. It's like, why do they make this movie? And what was the point? But it's such a beautiful analogy of gaslighting.

Grandiosity inflating one's value to diminish the others. Joking saying mean things and acting as if you were joking, when you're confronted with their behavior. That was a joke. You know, lighten up. , that can be the first sign. Of an abusive relationship. So always look at the sense of humor of somebody you're dating.

If it's dark, if it's sadistic. If it's cutting you down or other people down. That's a red flag. Like don't even go any deeper that person's in a hole and they're just covering it up with their joking.

Of course, they're always minimizing you in your feelings. This is why you're never seen or heard by the narcissist because they have no room for you. They play the victim all the time. They're rationalizing their behavior, making excuses. You know, oh, I have trauma. So this is why I need to hurt you with my words.

Now that is not why you need to hurt me with your words. That's my need to go therapy and fix yourself not to be a narcissist. And yes, trauma does cause narcissism and children as they grow up in this, like their survival mechanism. But now. You're a grown man. You're a grown woman. Stop blaming your childhood trauma.

And grow. That's not an excuse anymore. , we're not taking that excuse anymore. Got it. We're in this together. No more idolizing their trauma and holding them and enabling their bad behavior. We're done with that. Everyone's woke to narcissism. Now, all you nurses. Go to therapy and grow up.

Covert narcissists. They're everywhere. They're like. I like the ghosts everywhere. I see dead people. So after this commercial break, I'll talk to you about how to heal and how to recover from controlling narcissists.

So we talked about one sign about their bad jokes. The first lines in a relationship to never ignore is when they have controlling behavior. That's another huge red flag. For instance, they don't want you to go out at certain times or don't want you to drink by yourself or with girlfriends. They hint that you look better in something.

Uh, they tell you what to put on social media. It's all kind of like fun and games at the beginning. Like, oh, that was such a cute picture. Put that up. You know, and then they start to dig deeper and deeper and control more and more. , what you wear, how you do your nails. And it's all judgment statements. It's not like you should go to your nails, pink and white. It is.

You know, I really love a girl and, , with pink and white nails or, , women who have chipped fingernail Polish, they're just like the bane of existence. They're just so rude, you know, like whatever their excuses. And you sit there and you go, oh, my fingernail Polish is chipped. Does that mean I'm a bad person? I better not have chipped finger. No apologies, because then they're going to get mad at me and they're going to judge me. It's like,

Again, the black and white mentality of judgment is a huge red flag. You may think it is a little weird at first with some of , their jokes or their controlling gestures, because. You know, again, they do it. Out of like, I care for you, or I really love you in this, or there's so much. Dopamine going on that you kind of shrug it off.

Like as a rowdy boys actions and it's really nothing like no bother. But. If you were in the mindset of needing a relationship. You will focus on all the other good qualities and overlook those microaggressions. So. The number one thing. To repel covert narcissist is to not need them. Not need anybody.

You can handle your own self all in your own. You need nobody. Whoever comes into your life is extra. You love you. And when you ignore danger of this is when you ignore these subtle toxic behaviors.

And lean into the teachings of quote. If he doesn't beat you or cheat on you. Then you're good and quote. . Then you're in for a world of hurt. It will lead you down a path of being in a toxic relationship. And your heart will be hooked. They'll be attached and it will be so hard to get out of the trauma bond with the narcissist.

Because emotional abuse. Is real abuse.

The narcissist love is very transactional. Another sign that you were with someone toxic is they never celebrate you for who you are. You always feel like you have to over-give and overcompensate in other ways, in order to prove your value. All of my open route centers. This is something that check yourself.

You always feel like you have to prove yourself with an open white root center in your human design chart. For instance, you feel the need and there is an unspoken contract for you to cook all the time for them or give them as a stressed victim massages. You know, back to the cooking example,

if you have to, if you mess up when you're cooking. And you have to cook again. Because you know, you're going to be punished or be rated. And you'll hear his big, giant manhood or womanhood, whining and complaining. They've already trained you to please them. Here's another thing, Jenna, Jake, she's going to be a guest on our show. She texted me the day she had this huge aha moment she had. Oh my gosh, Raven.

I was sitting in this call and, you know, it was a real life circumstance and her dog was barking and she's like this big personality. That she was in this training for. Like celebrity kind of person. And she's like, if I was on a meeting because she used to work with her ex with my narcissist act and I got, I spelled a name wrong.

Or our dog barked or something, didn't go perfectly. He would have a kitten. He would berate me. I mean, he berated her in front of the client and her daughter who is in the room. And her daughter recorded it. , but he would be right here for misspelling, a name that can so easily be spelled like 10 different ways. Like , that is unhinged. That is not acceptable and it is not healthy or normal to be berated on making a little mistake. We are human. And so I, she was like having this weird, like PTSD kind of like panic attack. And then she was like,

Curious to see what other people were putting in the comments. Everyone was so supportive of , this woman who had a dog, they saw her as like a real human being. And that's good. That's healthy for the narcissist. Oh my God. They would have. They would just , if I don't act perfect that I'm nobody like that. Certain security. So that's why they overreact.

To when things go wrong or, , you or someone who represents them. Makes a mistake. Now you'll just get in trouble. Boy, will you get in trouble? So it's real. It's real. And we shouldn't be punished for our mistakes. Mistakes are human. And honestly, all of us, normal, healthy humans, love dogs, barking, love mistakes, love cats hopping up on tables. Like.

We don't, we're not robots. We want the element of humanity in our lives.

So it's just this emotional berating, emotional neglect is what the covert narcissist.

If you feel neglected by someone who is in a role. Of a lover or a parent. That's a big red flag. So how, okay. So how do we.

How do we heal? How do we distance ourselves and how do we heal?

This really boils down. To knowing your worth. No you're worth. As they sure as hell don't know your worth. They don't even know their owns. That's why they're putting so much of their worth and perfectionism into you being a representative of them.

No your worth, because any narcissist will stab you in the back immediately. As soon as it serves them. So it's important to distance yourself. Tune in to how amazing you are, discover who you are, what your types are, shield up your solar plexus, shield up your root. You have nothing to prove.

No you're worth.

Prove nothing.

You do you, who cares what everyone else does? Who cares? What they want you to do? If you doing, you causes fights and arguments, then you don't have freedom. And if you don't have freedom, you shouldn't be there. You're in a prison. . You can break free from this prison.

It is not like an actual bar where they have the key, you have the key and you can unlock it any time. Ms. Emotional prison.

Is yours to break free from. And rising up. Into your warrior goddess. Your warrior pose.

You're the hero of your story. And you remember? No, let no one else hold the pen. When it comes to writing . The story of your life. So if you're the year of your story and you are writing your story and you're done letting the covert, narcissist, write your story.

The number three, all you have to do. His rise up and speak your truth.

The time is now. Number one because Pluto's moving into Aquarius and it is of the people to rise up. Against narcissistic relationships. Narcissistic structures. In our society, individual. Us people individually. It's our time to rise up it's revolution time. And it starts with you in your personal life.

To rise up.

No you're worth. Speak your truth and take the actions. To find yourself free from this tyrannical emotional control.

And there's lots of ways to break free and how to leave the narcissist is.

All throughout this podcast and I'll link an episode in the show notes.

36 in this season, five, how to leave a narcissist Q and a. Because that's really your next step. If you're still with them. And if you are not with them, then all you need to do is go no contact. Or very minimal. If you have custody issues.

And find your freedom. Love yourself. And this is what I'm going to close with today is how to love yourself after narcissistic abuse.

This is a beautiful post that I posted on my page. And it's really resonated with so many people. Self-love after an abuse. Here am I. Five suggestions. Go out without makeup. Like either no makeup or full makeup, whatever your comfort zone is. Be you. Without all the coverup. Take yourself out to a delicious meal.

I love me some come pouch, chicken noodle soup. Cuddle with a pat. Cat a dog, a Guinea pig. No yourself intimately. Discovering your human design chart. And celebrate yourself and do what lights you up no matter if anyone else wants to join.

Let's embrace the flower child, Aquarius energy of the season with Pluto moving into Aquarius. And celebrate yourself. You are amazing just as you are. You don't need to be. Bob Taylor, Sean Maria. You don't even need to be any of these celebrities. Right. I looked at these wonderful role models, Daniella poor Ryan holiday.

Mel Robbins. At my shadow side goes, gosh, I wish I was them. And I'm like laughing at myself. I'm like, they're like 15 years ahead of me. Like I have time and if they can do it, I can do it as well. But I've been doing a myPath that's the same for you. Do it on your own path, celebrate yourself. We each have a unique.

Complex energy body that we're here to bring to the world here to bring to the earth. And it's time to shine our lights out and paths. We need all of our light shining brightly. So get rid of the narcissistic cover. Unless shine on.

Shine on my dear empath.

So, how do you know your energetic blueprint?

All you got to do is get your human design. Chart downloaded. I can download it for you. Send a quick reading of your type strategy and inner authority. And those are the main things to understand. How to shine your light out uniquely every Tuesday. Right now, I just started a series this Tuesday. So two days ago,

You can tune in. We're going to talk about all the centers. How they're vulnerable to narcissism and then how to shield them and to grow. And gain freedom from the narcissist through each center. So tune into that once you've got your human design chart. Again, when you sign up and join the empath healing community.

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And remember, always key. You're you unique, light shining.

Losing time, I'll fade in fast. I just wanna make it last. Try to let go of the past. I close my eyes. Embrace the blast. Sleepless nights and headache stuff, restlessness to hell and back. What's my purpose? But do I grab a slippery resu surface, a heart attack? Sometimes you just gotta something that'll give you relief.

What we're broken. It's tragic. We're not all elastic, but maybe there's magic. Believe you could.