Hi everyone, it's Dr. Ramani. Welcome back to this YouTube channel that takes on a whole plethora of issues about narcissistic relationships and narcissism in general. Today we're going to take on a pretty interesting question that many people emailed in, which is, do narcissists know that they hurt you?
Now before I answer that question, I always invite you please hit the bell, hit the subscribe button, join us on this channel. But now I'm going to move on to the bigger question. Do narcissists know that they hurt you? Now, this is a question that I get from so many people.
I get it from emails. I get it from clients. get it in group sessions I do. So what will happen for a person is a narcissistic person hurts them.
But what the person who's been hurt wants to know, do they know? Does this narcissistic person know that they hurt me? Now, I guess the first thing I often want to know is like, what is your motivation for wanting to know this? Okay. So one of the things that might be driving you is wanting to know, is the narcissist doing this intentionally?
Are they actually sitting down with the intention of hurting me? Or number two, is the narcissist so clueless that they have no idea that they're hurting me? And here's what's interesting.
The answer is actually a little of both. In a subset of cases, they set out to hurt you and that is often quite punitive. So when you might see a narcissist intentionally setting out to hurt someone is for example when they're on the defensive. They might want to lash out at you for some sort of perceived slight or for your feedback or a critique you gave them or because you didn't compliment them the right way. At those times when they feel slighted in some ways, now that can come out either through a passive-aggressive barb or directly, they do set out to hurt you.
And more than anything, it is punitive. It's a way, in a way, they're trying to make you feel as bad as they just felt a minute ago, but they're not in touch with that. It sort of sets the scales right for them, and it almost gives them that sense of justice that they always feel like they desperately need.
It's almost like they feel better now that they've done something to you, so that you feel bad because they're already feeling bad. But I got to tell you, in more cases, narcissists are just really careless. They say what they want.
They do what they want. They have very little care, very little regard for how their words or their actions will impact you. I'm going to be telling you, they just don't care. And there are a few ingredients that sort of come together here to help you understand that. First, and always...
It's their lack of empathy. They just don't take into account the feelings of other people, and they also have very little self-reflective capacity. They don't stop to think about how their behavior or their words might impact somebody else. The second thing to pay attention to is their impulsivity, and they will often use their impulsivity to impulsivity as an excuse. They'll use it as an excuse when they want something or they want to say something or they want to do something.
They just do it or they say it. They don't think. They just do or say or take what they want. Now, as you can imagine, their impulsivity can often get them into a bit of trouble and it can be very painful.
Their impulsivity can mean that they say things that are hurtful. They engage in dismissive insults. They may lie, you might see infidelity, physical acting out, including violence, driving very erratically, spending money that they don't have, expressing rage.
But as a rule, narcissists act first and ask for apologies later. And sadly, because most people give them absolution, let them off the hook, They keep behaving badly. It's one of the key ways the world enables them. They let them get away with all their impulsivity.
Now the third piece is their entitlement. Remember, they don't believe the rules apply to them. And they're actually very hypocritical. They hold other people's feet to the fire about the rules. They just don't follow the rules themselves.
So as a result, what it might mean is that You might make a passing comment that they don't like. and that they feel that when you say that it's completely unacceptable. But if they make the same error, if they say something that they feel that they know wasn't right, then they'll say, I'm just a human being.
Sometimes I make mistakes. Entitlement means no rules for them, but the right for them to do as they want. And that can be angering. Now, fourth is their arrogance and their contempt. Their arrogance that somehow they are above all of the demands of intimacy in a human relationship and their contempt for the sensitive and the emotional parts of human relationships.
What's interesting about narcissists, these, you know, again, they've been called the disagreeable extroverts, they like human relationships to the degree that they're able to get narcissistic supply and validation and the conveniences. that other people bring to their life or the profit or the sex or other things that they want or need but they really don't like the messy business of having to deal actually deal with people and their emotional worlds. So now when we break it down into all these sort of sub components of narcissism you can see how all of this together means that they may not set out to hurt you.
They just don't care enough. to think about whether their behavior actually will hurt you. And after they do hurt you, they don't really care that they did hurt you.
And all of that can really leave you feeling a bit confused. If they didn't mean to hurt you, then maybe it isn't that big a deal. That's something for you to consider. Now, certainly, if you are in a relationship, With someone who intentionally sets out to hurt you, that is something that starts careening into more of a sadistic realm, that somebody actually gets off on harming you.
It's easier to get your head around the idea that someone intentionally hurting you is a bad thing, and even get your head around the idea that maybe you need to get out of this relationship. And sadly, even when you know that they may be intentionally trying to hurt you, You may still stay in the relationship and that's a different conversation. But it is a little easier to say, okay, they're intentionally hurting me. This is not okay. I may need to get out.
However, because so often in narcissistic relationships, the reason they do hurtful things is really their carelessness and their impulsivity. That is the more likely backstory of their hurtful behavior. Does that change things for you?
Does it really matter to you? if it is intentional? Listen, give you a stupid example.
If someone hands slips, I don't know, they're doing something and they end up slapping you across the face really hard just because they slipped. Now, obviously you may interpret it differently if it was an accident, but that slap hurts. And if they keep making that slip and keep slapping you across the face and it's always accidental, I wonder how long you're going to put up with that. And I wonder...
how long you're going to be willing to say, yeah, this isn't okay. In relationships, yes, people make mistakes all the time. In our relationships, we say things that could be hurtful and that are hurtful.
And in healthy relationships, you catch it. You catch yourself when you do or say those things and you take responsibility and you apologize genuinely and hope that the other person accepts it. And most, most importantly, you don't repeat that hurtful behavior. Now, with a person who's narcissistic, even if, and that's a big if, that they catch their behavior, they probably won't.
In fact, the only way they may understand that they behaved badly is because you or someone else said something. Like, oh, I'm sorry, is that a problem? If they don't see it, if they don't identify it themselves, then it is a very low likelihood that they're going to apologize.
They're more likely to either A, blame you for their behavior, B, blame someone else or some other situation in their life for their behavior, oh, I'm working so hard, defend or rationalize their behavior. or gaslight you and tell you that you are overreacting or being too sensitive. Or even better yet, they may do a combination of all of these things.
So even if you make the courageous step of calling their behavior out as hurtful, not only are they not likely to take responsibility for it, they are also extremely unlikely to apologize for it. and completely unlikely to change it. So let's go back to the original question. Do they know they hurt you?
Maybe. Sometimes they may see the expression on your face. Their insecure core doesn't want to take responsibility and because they don't want to view themselves as the person who does hurty things, their more likely response is gaslighting or deflection. Taking responsibility for bad behavior is overwhelming and it can result in shame for them. Now, so this next part is going to be of little solace to you.
I'm going to, on a probability basis, I'm going to tell you now, they probably do know they hurt you. But they don't like how that makes them feel, so they don't own it and they don't address it. And this is what I mean when I say narcissists rarely change. It doesn't matter if they think they have changed. If it doesn't translate into behavioral change, then no, they didn't.
If someone's like, no, I see that I do these things that hurt you, but then they keep doing them, that's not changing. And because of their deeply ingrained lack of empathy and entitlement and arrogance, and contempt and impulsivity, the odds of changing them are pretty close to zero. So you may wonder what would happen if you explain to them very clearly that they hurt you or that maybe even that someone else explains to them that they hurt you. They just don't care.
And as I said, plan on a gaslight, deflection, rationalization, invalidation response from them. So in that way, you just get more hurt on top of the original hurt. When it comes down to brass tacks, yeah, they might know they hurt you.
Yeah, they may see the hurt in your face. But they will almost never take... responsibility.
They may, as narcissists do, issue an empty apology, but even that may not be very likely. And I can promise you this, they are very unlikely to change that behavior. So you can plan on it happening again. And what's painful is that means you're forever on this carousel with narcissists, carelessly or intentionally hurting you over and over again.
So whether they know they hurt you. or not, it's not going to stop. And based on that, it really is on your shoulders.
It's your responsibility to make the choice that is best for you. Does it matter if they know they hurt you or not if they keep doing it? It's a bit of a philosophical question.
And some people say, well, if they didn't mean to hurt me, then is it that bad? So the question I really am going to put to you then is maybe they do. didn't mean to hurt you, but once they find out they hurt you, they don't care they hurt you.
What are you going to do with that? It's often difficult to infer other people's motivations, and especially in the case of narcissism, they're often not very transparent about their intentions and motivations because they themselves aren't actually in touch with them. They're very willing.
to make assumptions about other people's motivations and assume oftentimes you are insulting them, letting them down, making fun of them, or whatever. But it's always a risky game we play when we do it. So whether or not they intended to or not probably matters less than the fact that they did, and that after they do, their unwillingness to care about it or take responsibility, that's the point that you need to think about it from.
I hope this gives you some clarification on that question. Thanks again for tuning in. As always, please join us. Hit that subscribe button. Hit that notification bell.
Join us. And thanks again, as always, for tuning in.