Have you experienced narcissistic ‘kindness”?
Narcissists can do the “nice” thing—fix the car, buy the gift, plan the perfect dinner—but still leave you feeling dehumanized. This video unpacks the confusion of when the narcissistic person is helpful, but cold, dismissive, or even cruel in the process. It’s a trauma bond trap that makes you question your standards, your reactions, and sometimes even your sanity. Just because the driveway is plowed doesn’t mean the emotional abuse didn’t happen.
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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.
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It’s offering a cold drink to you with a great big smile after they have pushed you into a pool. It’s classic crazy making and you have to be strong.
Just don’t tell them you were born to order.
God, I’m sorry. That’s nasty. 😞
Only lasts 2 or 3 days then goes back to nasty
💯 my mother did this to me constantly. It’s so weird. She pretended to be kind because when the real them comes out it’s horrible as in demonic.
Truth
They’re capable of amazing feats…to make themselves look impsccable & to keep score
YES!!
Scorekeepers for sure!!
It comes with a price
My experience has been that the narc does one nice thing and this is intended to erase all the other nasty things they do to you that follow. And yes, I was expected to hold on to that one nice thing forever whereas the dozens of nice things I did for the narc were not only not acknowledged but almost sneered at.
Not sure if narcs feel guilty, but I was once told, “I feel bad about the things I do so then I buy you things.” Wouldn’t it just be easier to be nice to me?
They know perfectly well what they do to us and how it hurts..They want it that way, that is why they chose to do it!!!
With a narc, there’s always a string attached. Never genuine.
Exactly
Yup… a.ways transactional.
You have spoken the greatest truth about the Narc EVER!!!!! The Narc never does anything out of kindness. Their behaviour is always a VERY calculated ploy and trap.
This is ALL my mother, they will focus on what’s not needed.
She complained all the time, but also would do things to gdt something, or to look “good” or “nice”.
But the raging moment AFTER they do something you ether asked for or that needed to be done. It felt like damned if you do, damned if you don’t. 😕
I stopped asking for anything. I made sure I could do it myself.
That was their plan all along: Screw up constantly until you become so exasperated that you stop asking and just do it all yourself.
@@marciaoh7056so happy I figured that out. But still they find fault with that path too. Then you get hyper critical analysis on why you SHOULD have or things I COULD habe done differently to get the outcome THEY wanted or think is best. These people are insufferable!
At the end of the day I held true and did it my way and whatever the consequences I took total responsibility and moved on.
This is exactly what happened to me, and the moment I set boundary, they disappeared.
My sister would do nice things as a way of saying “Now this is the right thing to do.” It is all about playing mind games.
I can say without reservation that they can be hugely kind 😇 this is kindness dressed up . Smoke & mirrors and also I believe to make victims dependent so it is difficult to escape. This has really confused me for years .
There’s a huge difference between being nice, and being good.
Even healthy gifts from healthy people still feel icky, but time and distance have helped the initial response. It really takes me a min to step back and let kind people be kind without overanalyzing the motive. Ive never heard someone articulate this dynamic, thank you…
They throw tantrums like a child when they are asked to do something. And most times with my experience the things they do on their own that contribute to the household, they do the chore only about 75% complete. Purposly putting dishes in the wrong spots or only cutting half the yard…. hoping you will ask about it and then that is their opportunity to get angry about it and claim YOU are the controlling one etc. They will do the thing, and do it incomplete so that they can then yell at you for being ungrateful some will do this alot so you get so fedup that you no longer ask for help and just do it yourself
This is exactly what my narc father does. I do 90% of the household chores and he only ever does the dishes. But he does a 50% job. Doesn’t put things away. Doesn’t clean things all the way. Puts things in the wrong spot even though I’ve corrected it over and over. And of course in his mind as a narc, he’s the only person that does any household work, and I never do anything. Again, despite being the person that does 90% of the household work. In his mind, his contributions are the most important things in the world and no one else does anything. He would be living in filth if I wasn’t here. He WAS living in filth before I moved in.
Lol at the purposefully putting the dishes in the wrong spot. Yessss….
Survivors try to do everything themselves… It’s so true. When someone offers help, the first feeling i get is panic.
Or ask why they offer help.
@@danielaom5172 Exactly! I’m always like: “what do you want?”
After many years I’ve learned to do everything myself. I never want to feel in debt to people. I know there are some good people out there but it sucks being burned later on.
Same here…
Something a dear friend tries to tell me at times like that: You’re taking away the option for someone to be kind to you. How would you feel if you want to help me but I’d decline all of your offers? Don’t you feel good when you help people? Why are you not allowing others to feel good about helping someone they care about?
Maybe it helps 🙂
@@antoa5825 I laugh reading your comment, thank you!
My sister took my mom and step father to doctor appointments. On the surface, it looks fine. It is always a great story to tell to people who don’t know her well. Those people will fill in the details themselves and they’ll think what a thoughtful daugter, she’s such a good person. However, they weren’t there to watch how resentfully she did all the ‘nice and helpful’ things she did.
Also, it was about power and control. She expected them to be grateful and beholden that they interrupted her life taking care of her husband (her husband IS her financial plan) to drive them around. She is very good at making family understand how much of an inconvenience they are to her while using that same circumstance to burnish other people’s perception of her.
She gets away with it knowing family will never meet the other people she associates with. I just happened to be present once, then it all became clear how performative her deeds were. My parents are gone now and it also became clear that another part of it was to gain control of their estate.
Thank you Dr Ramani.
🥀💔🥀
This is a beautiful refresher so that we may not forget what a narc’s intentions are.
I think they do the nice things to convince themselves that they are good, not to be kind to others.
Yes I do agree. Over the weekend I was thinking about this very topic and thought, well, he did do this or that, but he wasn’t pleasant about it either. Made me think he did it to say he did it, not to do something out of kindness for the receiver.
@@sarahgilmore9990no like i was just thinking that he’d literally throw gifts at me when he’d give them to me. and he didn’t look at me when he gave them to me either. i thought maybe he was just autistic but at the same time i was still very turned off by it. looking back, i was so fascinated by his attributes that i didn’t really set boundaries. even when i confronted him about his odd behavior, i still settled for his weak explanations.
after some time away from the abuse it resonates and feels simular to incest and other grose feelings
Don’t forget they use their “nice things” as currency to bank in on. It’s not so much to convince themself, although that too is a thing, it’s more so about their public image and how it can serve them. That’s why they can get angry at you for not accepting their “kindness”, they want something and you’re not accepting their “currency”.
yeah – they always seem to do ‘nice’ things but there are ALWAYS strings attached. Not because they want to help out but because they want something in return. I tend to do everything on my own because I don’t want to be beholden to anyone else. I know what that looks like – and that’s fine. Not everyone is like this – it ‘should’ look like a give and take – but with a narc? It’s always going to be transactional.
They Will hold that “kind” thing they did over your head forever as a means of trying to guilt-trip you into things you dont want to do. Or expect eternal gratefulness that they did it and react badly if they dont get it
This really nails it: narcissists can ‘do the thing’—fix the car, give the gift, follow the routine—but the coldness and lack of warmth prove it isn’t kindness. It’s duty without empathy.