10 Red Flags of Covert Narcissism

In this video, I will explain 10 hidden traits of covert narcissism. By understanding these red flags, you will gain the insights and information you need to identify a covert narcissist. I will also provide you with 3 devastating consequences of remaining in a long-term romantic relationship with a covert narcissist.

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About Lise Leblanc
Lise Leblanc is a Therapist, Life Coach Practitioner, and Author with over 20 years of experience in therapeutic, educational, and leadership roles.

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DISCLAIMER: THE INFORMATION IN THIS VIDEO IS NOT INTENDED NOR IMPLIED TO BE A SUBSTITUTE FOR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE, DIAGNOSIS OR TREATMENT. All content is for general information purposes only and does not replace a mental health care of consultation with a health professional.

If you have thoughts about harming yourself, get help right away by taking one of these actions:

Call 911 or your local emergency number immediately.
Call a suicide hotline number. In the U.S., call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255) In Canada: 1.833.456.4566
Call your mental health provider, doctor or other health care provider.
Reach out to a loved one, trusted friend.
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE A SUBSTITUTE FOR MENTAL HEALTH CARE.

#NPD #covertnarcissist #narcissism #narcissist

[AnMuS]

1. 1:11 Often are the victim, don't take responsibility.
2. 2:35 Casts you as their hero / rescuer. Will act meek, vulnerable, put you on a pedestal. Sheepish charm. Will elicit a sense of guilt in you and make you feel responsible to take care of such a vulnerable person to whom life failed so much.
3. 3:28 Envy. Downplay your success, don't compliment or show interest in good things in you. Subtle things to discourage you. Ambiguous negative comments. Makes them feel less inferior.
4. 5:03 Passive aggressive behavior to communicate dissatisfaction. Plausible deniability behind aggression. Hold grudge and are vengeful.
5. 6:40 Crave attention and admiration, seek it in sneaky ways. For example they can verbally put themselves down, to fish for compliments or validation that they aren't.
6. 7:47 Fake empathy. Present as caring, humble people and may believe it, but don't feel it. Offer superficial support, act like they care.
7. 8:29 Fragile self esteem. Hide it behind their charm, or even extreme confidence sometimes.
8. 8:55 Often do manipulative tactics like gaslighting, twisting words. You find yourself questioning whether you're misinterpreting things, such as a conversation, emotions (even your own), your memory recall, etc.
9. 9:28 Double standards. Rules and boundaries for you not for them. Get mad when you do things they themselves do.
10. 10:00 Need for control over you. How you eat, drive, dress, go out with. If you don't do it they lash out. Devalue you (hate) in those moments.

[A_n_y_t_i_m_e]

If you are their main prey/target, at first they will be whatever you need the most in a person at that time, a perfect best everything. Once you're in, the mask falls down.

[kevinjonker]

My ex focused exclusively on the manner of my departure rather than the reason: I left her right when her mother died. Didn't say a thing about her affair. Go figure.

[drumdadsdl]

The passive-aggressive tactics are maddening. You are supposed to be a mind reader about things and know instantly how they feel or felt about something that happened even weeks ago.
Stupid mind games.

[Trapanzano]

jealousy kills them. They are just people that never will feel happiness.

[esmcl]

You have described everything I experienced. I got hooked shortly after discovering my wife of 27 years was having an affair, with no intention of ending it. I wasted another 4 years experiencing all of the behaviours you described, and more. Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately) I see red flags everywhere now, so I’ve chosen the single life. I much prefer the contentment I’ve found by myself, than the mayhem and chaos I’ve lived though.

[icarusfalls]

You can get past their subtle by telling them "NO" They hate this world and will throw a fit and blame someone you've never met or someone they see as a threat...

[keithbieberly]

I wish I had known this a long time ago. Everything you say hits a bullseye.

[NKRAIEM]

We shouldn't feel we wasted time. We actually needed to go thru this to see ourselves and our wounds. Our wounds drew us to this person and kept us in the relationship. So whenever we woke up, is whenever we became enlightened to the reality. But it's really a wake up call to look into ourselves, and not feel remorse for years spent in the relationship. Ppl go their whole lives being broken and wounded. This is a 2nd chance which we may not have gotten if not for this extremely unhealthy relationship. So embrace it and be thankful, bc this experience if handled correctly will finally lead us to healthiness and healthy relationships😊

[thegridrunner]

This channel, especially the PHIL acronym, were instrumental in helping me to understand what my wife is. I have gone through all of these phases in repeated cycles through 26 years with her.
1. You are never the hero they claimed you were in the beginning.
2. They don't want you to solve the problems. They want you to empathize with their perpetual plight.
3. You will always be required to heal them with pieces of yourself. Repeated surrender. IYKYK.

[rhettbaldwin]

My ex talked negatively about her best friend constantly, then she would cut contact with that friend for months at a time due to that friends "toxic behavior" then she would later start talking to her friend again and then hold it against me that I still don't like this friend based on what she's told me about that friend.

[alfredodoardi]

...and, how long have you known my wife?

[Tololo]

Thanks for the information, very accurate and very true. Just recently had a two month mini relationship with my covert ex. But once again her mask fell and I just picked up every flag and had to end it and for good. A relationship like this taught me that if you stay, you get torne into pieces with absolutely no remorse from their part. But I’m better off this time than the last discard. I realized the best revenge and healing process is self work and self love. You end realizing it was for the better to let go. Good luck everyone and thanks again for your great work.

[vampireslayer]

Lise, you are a very pleasant and knowledgeable woman.
I was involved with. BPD. Initially I through she was a covert Narcissist. There was probably some comorbidities.
Yep, give them time and they will reveal themselves. Passive aggression is the worse. Finally I had to say goodbye to Crazy Town.
Thanks for this vid.

[ft]

Covert narcissists prey on previously implemented social norms such as empathy, offering help, etc...and they also prey on your ego when it comes to love bombing. You have to be vigilant: do not fall into the trap of the social norms, do not try to be overly empathetic, do not give help always, think about and try to examine if help is really needed and if you are even the one who should act...and of course resist your ego when it comes to love bombing, this is the biggest temptation, please resist it and the narcissist will search for another mark. For this short term fake love/infatuation/ limerence you pay a high price.

[johnharmon]

These videos have literally saved my sanity. The first one randomly popped up in my feed a few days after I had been discarded for the 3rd time in 3 months by the same girl. It was Lise's "10 Toxic Traits of Female Covert Narcissits" video. The feeling I got as Lise went down the list was indescribable. Literally every single trait fit this girl to a tee. I thought, "Oh my God! It all makes sense now."

I was going crazy trying to figure out how it went wrong. She put me through an intense love/sex-bombing phase during the first couple of months we were together. During that time, she declared that I was her soulmate, that I was the only person in the world who understood her, that I was only person she could be herself around. I was so intoxicated by the feeling that I did EVERYTHING to make her happy. Flowers, gifts. She was a vegetarian, so I started eating vegetarian too. When she and her family got sick with COVID, I would drive 40 minutes round-trip just to see her for 5 so that I could drop off various care items...homemade plant-based chicken soup, medicine, candy, cards, puzzles. For her AND her family. Nevertheless, the "pulling away" phase started very soon after. Suddenly, everything I did was wrong. She would accuse me of intentionally trying to upset her. She even accused me of acting "just like her ex-husband, " a guy who she constantly told me how much she hated, a guy who had been physically and emotionally abusive to the extreme (or so she said). I bent over backwards trying to fix whatever she said was wrong. I took the blame for things that I didn't even do.

Well, after a few weeks, that seemed to work! She was all lovey-dovey again. She was back to telling me how amazing I was. She even said she wanted to marry me. Wow! I was high as a kite again! That feeling lasted for another month. Then, one Saturday, after a lovely day out of brunch and little boutique stores, we had what I thought was a slight disagreement about something that happened in the TV show we were watching. It was not an argument. There were no raised voices. There were no flared tempers (at least not on my part). I actually thought we were having a fun time theorizing about the show. It eventually ended when I said, "Well, I think we have to agree to disagree." That was it. She left the room without saying a word. I waited for a couple of minutes, thinking she had gone to the bathroom or something. I finally went out to look for her, and I found her sitting on the couch in the living room. I tried to sit down next to her, and she immediately got up and stormed off into the kitchen. I asked her what was wrong, and God did that set her off. She unleashed a torrent of venom. She told me that she was sick of how I always had to be right, how I never cared about her feelings, how I ruined the day, how I wasn't the guy she thought I was. It was so out of left field that there was no way I could take the blame this time. I said, "I'm really sorry if that's how I made you feel, but I really wasn't trying to do that. I thought we were just having a silly talk about the show." To which she laughed and replied, "I knew you were going to say that. It's not your fault for hurting me. It's my fault for feeling this way." Well, even I have my limits on what I can concede in good faith. I said, "I'm sorry. But if you're looking for someone who will tell you that you're right even when I don't think so, then I'm not the guy for you." She got up and started pushing me towards the front door and telling me to leave. "I never want to talk to you again."

I was pretty much floored. I had done everything I could think of to make her feel special. She told me I was her freaking soulmate. And she was ending our relationship over a TV show?? Of course, as Lise has pointed out in some or her videos, this girl wasn't done with me forever. This was just a ploy to assert her dominance. She texted me a couple of weeks later telling me that she still wanted to be friends and asking if I wanted to have sushi the next day. I said "sure, " and we met up the next day. She immediately kissed me on the lips and held my hand as we walked from the parking lot to the restaurant. I'll spare you the details of the next couple of weeks, but suffice to say that she broke up with me again for another ridiculous reason: I forgot my lunch at work one day and decided to buy a smoothie from Jamba Juice in a plastic cup, even though I know how much she cares about the environment.

She texted me again a couple of weeks later, asking if I wanted to meet up as friends. And yes, we were in bed together a few days later. Our relationship ended again a couple of weeks later. I won't even put the reason this time because it's so stupid that no one would believe it.

Whew! That was cathartic. Sorry to anyone who read this whole comment to hear about my ridiculous relationship drama. But damn, did that feel good to finally get off my chest! I'm so grateful for these videos because, as crazy as this chick is, I seriously spent weeks wondering how I could have acted differently to save the relationship. As I said, that love/sex-bombing phase was intense, and I don't think I'll ever be able to replicate that emotional high again. We've been broken up again for a week, and I fully expect her to text me again in the next few days. If she does, I'll probably answer and placate her. She really is damn good in bed. But this time, I'll be sure to not let myself get too emotionally attached.

[xenofett]

Our son-in-law is a covert narcissist. He acted super nice in the beginning. Once our daughter got married to him and had our grandchild, it was like a switch went off. Our daughter, whom we were very close with prior, started limiting contact with us. Her husband started to increasingly talk down to us like we were preschoolers when we did visit and we felt like we had to walk on eggshells. Things finally came to a head when we went to their home on Christmas in 2021 when the son-in-law started lecturing us 5 minutes into the visit. We had decided enough was enough and called our son-in-law out on his controlling behavior. Shortly after our daughter said she didn't want us around for awhile and called my wife and I horrible things and her husband even convinced my wife's son to break off contact with us.

We refuse to play by the "son-in-law's" rules and are keeping our distance because we know we will be vilified no matter what. My wife is devestated that both her children have been manipulated from her. She has a online support group, friends, and myself that are there for her and she tries to be strong, but I can still see the pain in her eyes. The only thing we can do at this point is pray one or both of our kids wise up and get out from under our son-in-law's spell.

[zimandolaallday]

You're saving lives Lise May God bless you

[NKRAIEM]

This was so helpful in allowing me to understand the passive aggressive behavior. I really couldnt understand it in real time, and now on reflection I do. Thank you! You're helping me stay sane here. And clear !

[larryprimeau]

narcissists think they're the only one who's ever had a hard time with others.