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How to know if narcissists are actually changing · The Mental Healness Podcast

• 0:01
  So everyone wants to believe in America, but you?
• 0:05
  Do you believe in miracles? No, everyone.
• 0:07
  Everyone wants to believe in miracles.
• 0:09
  But in the world of narcissist and highly toxic people,
• 0:13
  miracles are usually just another form of love bombing,
• 0:17
  another form of manipulation, another form of keeping people
• 0:21
  stuck. If you're not, if you're new
• 0:24
  here, I'm a clinically diagnosed narcissist and I've been in
• 0:27
  psychotherapy for nine years dealing with this personality
• 0:31
  disorder. And today I'm going to tell you
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  from my mind, from my heart, how to tell if a person that you're
• 0:37
  with that you think is narcissistic.
• 0:39
  How to tell if that person is actually doing the work or if
• 0:43
  they're just learning new ways to be manipulative, learning new
• 0:47
  ways to trick you, learning new ways to keep you stuck.
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  Like sometimes they go to therapy and use the therapist
• 0:54
  vocabulary in order to be more manipulative towards you.
• 0:58
  So that's what we're tackling today, y'all?
• 1:00
  That's literally we hopping. We wasted no time.
• 1:04
  No, we wasted no time hopping directly into this thing.
• 1:08
  Because you know, if you've been dealing with a narcissist, a lot
• 1:11
  of them will promise to change. A lot of them will promise to go
• 1:14
  to therapy. A lot of them will.
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  I'm going to change my behaviors.
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  I promise, right? I'm going to, I'm going to be
• 1:20
  the best version of myself that I could be.
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  I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that.
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  I'm going to be the best version of a person that I could
• 1:30
  possibly be because I love you and I want to be with you.
• 1:34
  Right. Just learning new ways.
• 1:37
  Yeah. A lot of narcissists will just
• 1:38
  go to therapy just to learn new ways to be manipulative.
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  Manipulative. That's going, look, if we can
• 1:43
  get that out of the way now, because that is true.
• 1:46
  Like some narcissists go to therapy to put on a performance,
• 1:52
  right? And the number one, the number
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  one way you can tell if a narcissist or toxic person is
• 1:57
  actually changing and putting the work in is to measure their
• 2:00
  consistency versus the intensity, right?
• 2:05
  Measure the consistency, like you want to accept consistency
• 2:10
  over intensity, because some people will like intensity.
• 2:14
  An intense person, an intense narcissist that's trying to show
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  you that they will change. We'll go to therapy four times a
• 2:19
  week for a month and say I'm healed, I'm done.
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  Consistency looks like me, right?
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  Nine years of therapy once or twice a month, right?
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  That's consistent over an extended period of time, right?
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  That's consistency over an extended period of time.
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  It's not just faking the funk. It's not just being
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  manipulative. It's consistency over time.
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  This is, and this is what happens.
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  Consistency over time is how people is, is how you get how we
• 2:49
  get you here, right? It's consistency over time.
• 2:51
  That's the only way that you can realistically tell if somebody
• 2:55
  is actually putting the work in. Because most times, let's keep
• 2:58
  it real, most times nurses are not going to change.
• 3:00
  Most times they're just going to be intense.
• 3:03
  I'm working on myself. Look, I've been to therapy four
• 3:06
  times this week and the therapist said that you're the
• 3:08
  problem. Actually, the therapist said
• 3:10
  they were amazed at how fast I've caught on.
• 3:13
  The therapist said they're I don't even know why I'm here.
• 3:17
  They think you should be there talking to them instead.
• 3:20
  That's how good of therapy. That's how good therapy has been
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  going for me. They think you should be here,
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  old world, old the old world venture stuff like you, you
• 3:30
  should be here. The old you should be here.
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  Science you should you should be here.
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  They think that you should be the one in therapy as opposed to
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  them and who wins it? Who wins in that situation right
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  there? Y'all who wins?
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  If you're the one that go into therapy as opposed to them, you
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  would think that the narcissist win without actuality.
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  You win because you're waking up because you, you.
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  The more therapy you go to, if you have a, if you have a good
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  therapist, the more therapy you go to, the better off your life
• 3:56
  will be, right? If you have a good therapist.
• 4:03
  And that's the important like a big if, a big if, who's that?
• 4:07
  Who's that is right here. I wouldn't go to couples therapy
• 4:10
  because I felt he would manipulate it and he wouldn't go
• 4:12
  to individual. Yeah, that's what happens.
• 4:13
  Like if they go to couples therapy because they don't think
• 4:16
  they need individual therapy, right?
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  That's a telltale. Yeah.
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  That's a telltale sign right there.
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  I can't talk straight to that, right.
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  So if a the consistency versus intensity thing, narcissist love
• 4:27
  grand gestures, right? They'll go to a 1:30 session a
• 4:31
  bunch and come home acting like they didn't change.
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  That's intensity. Like I had one great therapy for
• 4:37
  me and they said I would. They were amazed by me.
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  That's a red flag, y'all. It's a Sprint to the finish
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  line. It's a Sprint to get you to
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  lawyer go. It's a Sprint to get you to have
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  false hope, Reality. Real change.
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  For a narcissist, even like myself, it's boring y'all.
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  It's a slow methodical process. It's a slow steady increase in
• 4:59
  self-control over months and years.
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  You have to look for the small things, the small changes like
• 5:06
  look for the small things like did they stay calm when the
• 5:09
  Wi-Fi went out? Did they stay calm when somebody
• 5:12
  passed in front of them in traffic?
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  Did did they stay calm when the kid dropped the glass and broke
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  something or do they do they still continuously rage out like
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  they've been doing for years? Did they apologize for the small
• 5:26
  insult that they gave you? That's reality.
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  That's consistency over intensity, right?
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  Anybody can go to therapy and say I made a change over one
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  time, right? I made one change.
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  I did this and the doctor said I was amazing person, blah blah
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  blah. Boo Boo Boo Boo.
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  Y'all get, y'all get in that space right there. 100% right,
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  y'all get it. So the next thing that you want
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  to possibly watch out for to see if you're a narcissistic partner
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  or whatever is changing is the yo watch out for the the therapy
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  language, the therapy speak weapon.
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  Watch out for that right there. The red flag in this situation
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  right here is in like in 2026. Narcissistic people have evolved
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  y'all. The same information that is
• 6:06
  available to impasse is also available to narcissists.
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  They get narcissists had getting smart.
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  I think people think narcissists are dumb like narcissists.
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  Are there some dumb narcissists? Yes.
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  But the dumb narcissists still get in the relationships with
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  smart people right? Are there dumb narcissists?
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  Yes. Dumb does not mean you don't
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  have the ability to manipulate people.
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  So narcissists have gotten smart.
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  They use words like trauma response boundaries and like my,
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  my nervous system is dysregulated.
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  They use that to justify their toxic behaviors, right?
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  If they look, if they can't say I talk about it.
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  Like I said, if they say if you catch them cheating and if they
• 6:47
  come to you and say I can't talk about my cheating right now
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  because it's dysregulating my nervous system, it's triggering
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  my trauma, that is a narcissistic person or
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  narcissist using therapy language to be manipulative to
• 7:00
  avoid accountability. That's what it is right there.
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  That's the red flag. The green flag is a situation
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  like this. A narcissist who is changing
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  will use the therapy language on themselves internally inside
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  out. Real change comes from the
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  inside out. They'll say I caught myself
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  trying to blame you just now and I'm going to sit.
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  I'm going to sit in the shame instead.
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  That's how it works right there. It's personal accountability.
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  It's not trying to change you. It's not trying to do the make
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  you do the work. It's them, right?
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  It's them. I try not to give them any.
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  I try not to give them any vocabulary.
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  Yeah, but the online people can get online and do it, right?
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  They can get online and do it. You don't have to give them
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  anything. They can get online and do it.
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  That's what happened right there.
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  I'm just keeping it hot. I'm just keeping it ready,
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  right? That's what we hot and ready
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  like a Little Caesar's pizza. But that's got hell.
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  What's going on, girl? But yeah, that's what goes on
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  right there. So the next ready, the next, the
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  next thing you want to watch out for, y'all is you can run an
• 8:07
  accountability test, right? You can run an accountability
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  test on a narcissistic person. Now, how to hold them
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  accountable is a question that I get a lot, right?
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  You don't want to wait for like the big fights, the huge
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  moments, right? You don't want to test those
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  huge moments, right? Test the little things, test the
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  small things first. Like if you bring up something
• 8:29
  that hurts you, something a minor hurts, something that's a
• 8:32
  snide comment that that they made.
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  Do they deflect? Like do they afflict deflect
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  accountability? Or do they say, I hear you and
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  I'm sorry for doing that? If they say if they look, think
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  about it like this. If they can't handle a small
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  correction, a small No, they are they not ready for a big a big
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  change. How you go?
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  Yeah. How you going to make big
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  changes if you can't handle the smaller stuff first, right.
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  How you going to make big changes if you can handle the
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  smaller stuff first? That doesn't make any sense.
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  You don't you want to make a big change, but you can't handle a
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  small correction in your behavior, a small comment, you
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  can't handle that. No, that doesn't make sense
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  right? They think about like and do
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  some narcissists relapse? Yes yo real authentic change
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  does have relapses. It's not a perfect science.
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  They're going to be mistakes. It's not going to be a perfect
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  relationship. So many people think like you're
• 9:25
  going to go from a toxic relationship to a perfectly
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  healthy non argumentative workshop work relationship.
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  Healthy couples have conflicts. Y'all healthy conflict.
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  Healthy couples do have conflicts.
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  Now think about it like this. If they mess up, they have to
• 9:41
  own it immediately and go back to doing the work.
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  That's a sign of a positive shift in behaviors.
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  Now if they mess up and say, well, you made me do it because
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  therapy is hard, they haven't changed.
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  They haven't changed. Think about it like that.
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  You made me do it. They haven't changed at all.
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  So I said please save the live. It'll be reposted out.
• 10:09
  It's it's coming up right after y'all.
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  It's not going to be a very long one anyway.
• 10:13
  Like it. They haven't changed at all.
• 10:16
  You made me do it, huh? What you see what I'm saying?
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  You made me do it and the last thing we all we're going to
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  cover y'all is like empathy, an empathy test, right?
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  They might not feel your pain yet.
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  You know, narcissists lack empathy, include myself.
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  Like there's a lack of empathy, right?
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  They might not feel your pain just yet since like
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  realistically, since emotional empathy is slowly built up over
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  time, especially from childhood. He's coming from childhood,
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  right? But they are choosing to act as
• 10:52
  as as if they do. That's cognitive empathy, right?
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  I have a lot of cognitive empathy.
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  I see the pain, I understand the pain that you might be in or
• 11:02
  other people might be in. I just don't go through it with
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  you. I just don't experience you like
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  that on a emotionally, on an emotionally empathetic level.
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  Cognitively, I understand it. I can resonate, resonates with
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  me. I just don't feel it.
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  Like if I see you crying, I'm not going to cry with you, but I
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  understand why you're crying and I can console you.
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  You see what I'm saying? Like, if they experience more
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  cognitive empathy, they stop the harmful behavior because they
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  value the stability of the relationship more than the hit
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  of the narcissistic supply that they get, right?
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  That's what goes on right here. This is the mindset.
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  This is the mentality right here, right?
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  This is how it goes. There's the type of stuff that
• 11:43
  you should like. You have to understand that that
• 11:45
  goes on in the mind of a narcissist.
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  You know what I mean? Saying no, it's a silver bullet.
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  Yeah, you might. You might.
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  You're hitting the werewolf with the silver bullet when you say
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  no. 100% right. And yes, absolutely.
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  They have to be open to change. Like, and you can't force them
• 11:58
  to change. You can't force them to go to
• 12:00
  therapy. Forcing somebody to go to
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  therapy won't. It will not have a positive
• 12:05
  outcome, I promise you. Because will some of them go to
• 12:08
  therapy if they're forced? Yeah.
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  But will they get better? No.
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  No, no. Hell no.
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  Why? Why?
• 12:17
  Why would they get better if they're forced?
• 12:19
  They're going to be angry. My ex-husband says he's in
• 12:22
  therapy but it's definitely not helping him because he's not
• 12:24
  even making little changes. I have to go no contact again
• 12:27
  because he's still lying and taking no account.
• 12:28
  Good for you but this time you have to be consistent with the
• 12:31
  no contact. You said no contact again, stay
• 12:33
  no contact because real change happens over time.
• 12:37
  It's not in a vacuum. You're not going to go to 1
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  therapy appointment. And she'd be like I'm better
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  yay. That's not how real change works
• 12:43
  y'all. It absolutely is not how real
• 12:45
  change works. That's not how it goes y'all.
• 12:48
  So if you got something from this video, y'all, make sure you
• 12:50
  hit that subscribe button, especially on YouTube.
• 12:52
  Hit the thumbs up button, go back, go back after the live
• 12:56
  ends, go back and hit the thumbs up button on a live, drop a
• 12:58
  comment in a comment section. Just just show some support,
• 13:00
  y'all, 'cause it's got to be a quick live 'cause I actually
• 13:02
  have to take my mom to her very first Hornets basketball game
• 13:06
  today. So I'm excited about that.
• 13:08
  I have to hit the road. I have to go from Durham to
• 13:10
  Charlotte right now. It's two hours.
• 13:13
  So take my mom to her first basketball game, y'all.
• 13:15
  I appreciate this y'all tuning in for me today.
• 13:18
  Be safe. Hit the subscribe button y'all
• 13:20
  and we'll be chat later this week y'all.
• 13:22
  Peace. Thanks Etta.
• 13:23
  Hope you're doing well girl. Oh, I ain't in the end y'all.
• 13:28
  Appreciate you as well. Appreciate you as well.
• 13:30
  Thank you. Thank y'all for tuning in y'all.
• 13:32
  I'm gonna go live again this week y'all.
• 13:34
  Be safe y'all. Peace.
• 13:37
  I did hit it that time y'all.