Toastmaster’s Speech#6 Telltale Signs of Narcissism
My speech is for people who feel like abandoned shipwrecks inside.
People who struggle to recollect their favourite colour. People who cannot pinpoint their feelings at a given time. People overwhelmed with self-hate at the slightest error.
At Toastmaster’s, one develops a healthy communication style. How’s that possible without understanding the shadow of it- the toxic communication style?
Narcissism is very subtle with no visible signs of abuse and, hence, goes undetected. It is used as an unhealthy control mechanism by toxic partners, parents, friends and so on.
Over time it eats away at your self confidence, finally destroying your sense of self.
Here are five tell-tale signs of narcissistic abuse.
1.Lovebombing
20 percent of the time, the narcissist will shower you with superficial love. This includes gifts, flattery and other signs of superficial love. Conversations at this point are aimed at extracting information from you about yourself. This is how they gain your trust. This information will be used against you at your most vulnerable to meet their needs.
The remaining 80% of the time the narcissist will simply be angry about everything. They will flare up without warning. They will shame you for not letting them micromanage your life.
It’s like walking of eggshells. In order to cope, you will excuse this erratic behaviour in favour of the random acts of superficial love he showers. Nothing will ever add up and they will use anything you do against you.
2. Gaslighting
Say you have a vivid recollection of an incident and you narrate it. In the calmest voice possible, the narcissist outright denies what you say. Something like this:
‘You’re imagining things, get yourself checked.’
He constantly tweaks your version of reality and convinces you that you’re delusional. This happens with every memory you have. The aim is to warp your perception. Soon you begin to second guess your memory, questioning yourself about things you’re sure of.
3. Emotional Invalidation
With the narccissist, you’re simply not allowed to express negative feelings. Say you mention you’re sad. They’ll say…
‘No, you’re not sad. You’re just tired.’
‘You’re too sensitive.’
‘It could be way worse. You’re few of the lucky ones. Be grateful.’
This does two things. It makes you question your own feelings. It creates toxic shame to the point where you blame yourself for having unpleasant feelings. Finally, you suppress them altogether. You lose touch with your feelings and that is detrimental to your mental health.
4. Smear Campaign
The narcissist will keep a tab on your relationships- the healthy ones that actually help you grow. They will also regulate these relationships and ensure you saty isolated enough from them However, they surround you with people who enable the narcissist. If you step a toe out of line, the enablers attack you based on a distorted version of the truth.
They pounce on you like a mob, shaming you for making personal choices. You feel cornered and exhausted to simply be a human being.
It feels exactly like a smear campaign and you sense how isolated you are while being in the midst of people who pretend to care.
5. Enmeshed relationships
The narcissist does not care for personal boundaries. They ignore the need for it and guilt trip you when you insist on having one. At the same time, the narcissist frequently overshares information about himself that leaves you feeling mentally drained.
It fills you with a negative sensation in your stomach and you cannot shake it off, nor do you understand the reason for feeling this invaded.
This is because someone violated your boundaries and attacked you nevertheless, even though it was psychological in nature.
These are just 5 of numerous signs. They all feed into each other creating a vicious cycle of abuse one cannot easily escape. If any of this feels familiar to you, I insist you go home and analyze what you tolerate.
Don’t set yourself on fire to keep a narcissist warm. It will never be warm enough.
