Did a narcissist leave you EMOTIONALLY TWISTED?
When you're in a narcissistic relationship, emotions get scrambled. You call it joy when it’s just relief. You lash out at those trying to help you, not the person hurting you. And you hold on to toxic people because nostalgia makes the past look sweeter than it was. This video explores the emotional confusion that keeps survivors stuck—and how to start seeing things clearly.
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DISCLAIMER: THIS INFORMATION IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE A SUBSTITUTE FOR CLINICAL CARE. PLEASE CONSULT A HEALTH CARE PROVIDER FOR GUIDANCE SPECIFIC TO YOUR CASE. THIS VIDEO DISCUSSES NARCISSISM IN GENERAL.
THE VIDEO DOES NOT REFER TO ANY SPECIFIC PERSON, AND SHOULD NOT BE USED TO REFER TO ANY SPECIFIC PERSON, AS HAVING NARCISSISM. PERMISSION IS NOT GRANTED TO LINK TO OR REPOST THIS VIDEO, ESPECIALLY TO SUPPORT AN ALLEGATION THAT THE MAKERS OF THIS VIDEO BELIEVE, OR SUPPORT A CLAIM, THAT A SPECIFIC PERSON IS A NARCISSIST. THAT WOULD BE AN UNAUTHORIZED MISUSE OF THE VIDEO AND THE INFORMATION FEATURED IN IT.
Have a great day everyone🫶🏻
You couldn’t have said this any better Dr. Ramani🙏🏻
Another good video, I hope people are paying attention to this.
Narcissists would always twist things to make you doubt your thoughts and question your own reality. It was constantly walking on eggshells around them. I’ve learned to stay calm, even in the middle of their games and not have to explain myself all the time. Just be realizing and seeing things clearly was in a way freeing. I stopped reacting and started to protect my peace, which is helping me feel like myself again.
You don’t think about it when you are in that circle though… Scary
@@SnorkfrökenKattsnackso true
After experiencing over 6 hrs in the ER last night watching my spouse acting playfully doing the Baymax fistbump with our son as if he was his personal healthcare assistant it was hard not to react. At one point I had to say, “I have never seen you do that before!”.
I was sandwiched between that and a sarcastic, smug healthcare worker who I felt was lashing out in his passive aggressive way because my son is adult. I stated (the only one mind you) that I was not okay with things as is.
I took that all inside. I had to sit for hours. I still haven’t responded in a family group chat because I honestly Don’t. Know. How. To. Respnd.. It isn’t as if I don’t love them I just haven’t found it within myself to CHAT. Individually I have responded to questions with a basic yes or no, or nothing.
Dr Ramani always delivering great and helpful info- thanks.
Also the blue looks so good on you!
I never looked at it this way but this really hit close to home. The nostalgia and memories kept me making excuses I never should have made.
I just found out about something that happened to a long time friend of mine, it was horrendous and I am so depressed. Some people are just evil.
Oooff, I’m sorry. Keep your peace and love. I hope you get out of that depression.
I’m dealing with a friend now who’s mad at everyone because it’s to hard for her to tell the narcissist to hit the road. Nostalgia I got the tee on that! I let go of a 60 year relationship! I will always treasure the fun and love we had. It’s a grief but it is what it is. I have to remember I love the fun we had , no I don’t love her. The last part joy! Wow my narcissistic dad and my relationship! How insane to describe it like that but true! It was a good time when he wasn’t putting me down and ragging on me or someone else. I love to hear my experiences put in words. Dr Ramani hits a home run once again!
I was totally destroyed 😢
This really resonates. I have happy memories of vacations, but it was the other 50 weeks of the year that were the problem. My mother wanted to go through old photos together, I just got out of that, I don’t want to do what I did as a kid and be drawn back in to those happy times whilst feeling terrible inside for the rest. Her memories aren’t my memories and what she wants to do is relive how she felt and get me back into that confusion. She never connected to me, she was living out her needs that she didn’t get met. She remembers tv shows she liked, birthday cakes she liked, clothes she got me that she liked, vacations she liked.
I think that trying to help a person has three broad components: (1) listening to them and trying to correctly understand and describe the situation, (2) giving them practical advice and (3) giving practical help beyond listening and talking (3 is often impossible). I think that too often, little time is spent on (1), and the person who wants to help jumps too quickly to (2). This often results in unrealistic advice (for example, the advice would be too stressful to implement, the advice cannot be implemented because some things are practically irreversible, or the advice would create significant financial or other hardship for the person who has to implement the advice that the giver of the advice will not have to suffer themselves). This means that, in practice, (1) is the most important and realistic thing that we can do: listen, be there for each other and offer compassion without necessarily telling the person what to do. I think that focusing on (1) can also minimize instances of lashing out.
Yep, I’ve helped out an ex friend who was getting physically mentally emotionally and financially abused my her live in ex husband. My husband and i got her an Airbnb for a month. I paid off some of her bills and car repair. I thought helping her get away and becoming unreliable on her lousey ex husband. She decided to go to his house within a week. God knows why. Those two got in a physical fight. She called me told me what happen. And i couldn’t believe it! I questioned why she would go back to his house knowing she’ll be harmed and that she needs to get her live together. She leashed out hard on me and ended up hanging up after screaming at me. I spend $G’s helping her. And I’ve never felt so stupid. Not like I’m getting any of it back. What a waste.
It’s not your fault, though. You did what you could and whether she gets that or not, you have that knowledge.
@@AmyLSacksthanks Amy! I don’t get it. I truly feared she was going to be murdered by her ex. I must have feared it more then her. I really loved that lady. We’ve known each other since the early 90’s. I saw the lost little girl in her while I was helping her😢
@@Desiree-u7g I’m sure he kept working on her/hoovering her, and that’s not your doing either. I don’t remember its title, but the cartoonist Mary Fleener had a really good story about this many years ago. Her friend who she tried to support turned on her because the friend’s abuser husband kept spinning up lies about her. Ugh. (Though her friend did finally get away from him.)
“The people just trying to help”. Meaning you. You don’t deserve any anger. It’s not about you. You don’t feel any pain. You don’t feel any danger that could serve as a warning. You’re oblivious because you’re the one helping. It can’t be you.
11:22-ish, “Nostalgia Sucks.” 😸 Nostalgia hounds on Le Tube confuse me. Maybe I’m distorting in the opposite direction, but when they start going on about these perfect, carefree childhoods or decades I always want to ask, “What planet did YOU grow up on? I thought I was there, too but I don’t remember it like this AT ALL.” 😵
This was the best video of yours I’ve seen in a long time. Thank you so much. I’m sending it to my sister married to a malignant narcissist. I think it might help her.
Thank you sm for this video ❤ I’m still dealing with some annoyances w friendships. I’m kinda done w these -ships that ain’t taking me nowhere
Such a powerful compilation of videos that had somehow slipped past me before. Thank you!
I cut out 3 old friends from uni after finally understanding narcissism. 2 for their toxicity and 1 because I couldn’t bear watching her marry a full blown narcissist.
My healing of two narcissistic parents, narcissist boyfriend and narc ex husband, started when I took a speaking with confidence course. It opened my mind to another way to think and live. It also took counselling with ex to learn it really wasn’t me. It took a while before we went to an abuse counsellor to realize he is a malignant narc and would never heal and didn’t want to heal. Stopped playing the games, quit doing things for him and with him. That’s all it took for him to show everyone who he really was. Best decision of my life. I love who I am. I love being alone or in large groups. If a soul comes along that tickles my mind and soul, I am ready to be with someone.
Oh oh my 40 years friendship. You nailed it
I grew up under the control of a narcissistic and psychologically abusive parent. My childhood was marked by instability, including long periods of homelessness with him. Eventually, I found a way out. I was helped by people who had compassion—people who gave me shelter when I had none.
Then something I never expected happened: extended family members found me online. They offered me a place to stay, a way into a life I never got to have. My aunt said “why not come stay here?” They flew me in first class to go be with them. At first, it felt like fate. They even called me a gift from my grandmother who had passed away. For the first time, I felt like maybe I would finally have a real home, with my own family. Everything seemed very promising at first, after a brief honeymoon period, things shifted. I began to feel like living with them was too difficult due to how transactional, fragile, and deeply conditional their love and regard seemed to had been. I constantly felt like I was being judged, not embraced. Like I had to prove myself worthy of being there. I overheard them say things like, “He just wasn’t raised properly,” and “It’s going to take time,” as if I was broken, defective, or emotionally behind—rather than simply someone who came from trauma and psychological abuse.
My aunt once asked me, “What advantages do you think you have being here?” I wasn’t looking for advantages. I wasn’t trying to take anything. I came because I thought I could finally have a family home—just like any other kid might want after growing up without one. I told her “I don’t know” and she said “then why did you come live with us honey?”
They didn’t ask me to leave. But over time, they seemed to have created an environment so mentally chaotic, so heavy with discomfort and emotional dissonance, that I felt I had no choice but to go. It was never said outright, but it felt clear: I didn’t belong there. And I still wonder if that was their intention all along.
I tried to speak about it—to friends, to strangers—and was met with cold, invalidating responses. Some said, “Why should they love you?” or “You’re not their kid.” “you don’t seem to realize you want a warped and distorted image of your family.” metaphorically I get stamped in the forehead being labeled as having a “sense of entitlement”…wow. A former friend laughed and told me a messed up comment “Well they raised your brother!!” As if that explained everything. As if that excused the pain. Where does that leave me then? What does that mean about me?
I’ve stayed with friends whose parents treated me with more compassion than my own relatives. One mother let me live with them because she couldn’t bear the thought of me sleeping in a car with my father. I felt like I was treated equally as their two boys.
I thought I was going to have that with my family, and my sibling in which I never grew up with since we were born.
I grieve the life I didn’t get. The family that I should’ve had. I wanted to belong. I feel that it isn’t really fair that my life and upbringing kinda got robbed by a toxic parent while my sibling got to have what they called a “privileged life”.
someone on discord said, “he was brought up by them and you weren’t you can’t go thinking you could have the same home life the world doesn’t work that way.” I find that to be absurd, but another person—someone who truly listened—said, “how on earth could you not be allowed just the same if not more?”
I never chose my parents, and I never chose this life.