When to Believe Narcissists - Part II

Psychological defense class: How narcissists reveal themselves.

Cheers and thanks for spending some of your valuable time learning more about how to use CNI. If you are up for it, this is a broad strokes psychological defense class.

In Part I of When To Believe Narcissists, we discussed what a strange sensation it is to now have some political experts saying to the public that when someone like serial liar trump tells you who he is, or what he is going to do, “believe him,” and how from a CNI perspective, it does not seem wise to tell the public to employ the highly abstract concept of occasionally believing a serial liar sometimes, in some things, without firm psychological guidance in how to consistently find a needle of truth in a haystack of BS.

Therefore the purpose of this analysis is to assist in the public awareness and understanding of some of the key moments when narcissists let the truth slip. Ironically, many tells often happen unbeknownst to the narcissist themselves because most of their compulsive behaviors happen on a subconscious level.

That means that when reality-based people of good intentions learn to recognize when a narcissist’s tells reveal a truth, they will often have an advantage these compulsive egomaniacs will rarely realize or understand unless the good person mistakenly reveals their truth-seeing advantage to them, or to one of their flying monkeys, who will then immediately blab it to their puppet-master at the first opportunity. Believe it or not, most narcissists won’t get it and the ones that will already know it.

So with the foundation laid in Part I, we can now cover how to recognize a few of the rare times when a pathological or serial narcissist unknowingly reveals the truth or slips in an occasional truth we should believe, heed, and work harder to counter.

How narcissists unconsciously reveal themselves

One of the main opportunities to find out a narcissist’s truth is one many people know a bit about already, and we touched on it in Part I, but to use this knowledge most effectively, one must deeply process it as the counterintuitive concept that it is, because it is not about believing a narcissist.

This is about how when any kind of narcissist tells a certain kind of lie about someone else, they are revealing a deep and dark truth about themselves, almost every single time, because this behavior is done unconsciously.

For those who guessed it already, yes we are talking about projection, or as it is often better known as nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels most famous saying, “Always accuse the other side of which you are guilty.” In a case of sad irony, it is likely Goebbels learned about projection’s conceptualization by reading the analysis of the father of psychoanalysis, Austrian Jew Sigmund Freud.

The first time I ever heard of projection was in the first psychology class I took, because it is so foundational. Per my memory of its definition, “projecting one’s own faults onto others,” stuck with me because I knew someone who accused others of what they were guilty of all the time back then. In hindsight, it was certainly no coincidence that this person always used projection as an attempt to get others in trouble and/or to take the heat of their terrible behaviors, lies and deeds off of themselves, by sending the heat in another direction. Nearly forty years later, they are still consistently up to their same old horrible behavior.

Ironically, I do not remember another single thing we were supposed to learn in that class. Unfortunately, psychology is all too often presented in boring, monotone, jargon-filled ways that may work well for professionals and treatment but is a poor strategy for helping average rangers learn and remember, which is why CNI highly values entertaining stories and mnemonic devices that can assist in learning and the memorization of the important lessons of narcissist psychology.  

The simple way to remember the abstract yet easy concept of projection is that almost every single accusation that comes from a narcissist, sociopath or psychopath is a confession. It is truly shocking once you realize that any accusation is almost always an admission of something the narcissist has done, is currently doing or wants to do. Again, it is another high odds, safe bet in your favor that almost everything you hear a narcissist accuse others of is a confession, because almost all projection is done subconsciously, so they do not even realize they are confessing.

Interestingly, early in my twitter days, I posted something about the GOP systematically projecting what they were doing onto Democrats, just as Goebbels and the nazis had done to the Jewish people, and everyone else they wanted to blame for Germany’s problems, so they could rise to power.

A woman with some psychological knowledge responded by saying I was using “projection” incorrectly because it is only done subconsciously. I then asked what was the word for doing it consciously and she said, “I don’t know but you are using it wrong.”

I said, “Well until I hear a better word for someone purposely accusing the other side of which they are guilty, I am going to keep using the term projection,” and I am still waiting for the conscious version. However, the experience did help bring home the mostly unconscious nature of projection when narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths do it, but have no doubt they also will shamelessly project consciously when caught doing something wrong. “But so and so did it first and worse” is the norm.

It is however so fascinating how consistent people like the trumps and most other narcissistic villains seem to be at unconsciously confessing their crimes via projection, as proven by the facts there is rarely anything that “liddle donnie” accuses someone of, that he has not done himself.

Certainly trump’s obsession with saying everyone else is cheating so he can only lose if the election is stolen is both a standard narcissist psychological manipulation and rationalization for cheating and ignoring rules themselves. 

We also know that he was trying every single trick and cheat method to keep the Presidency, and since trump has never given any indicator that he is not a pathological narcissist, it is a near certainty that he will keep projecting and cheating in everything in every possible way, because he has only shown compulsive, maladaptive behavior his entire life, and “malignant” means progressively gets worse.

Simplicity is the beauty of projection from an ease of use and effectiveness POV. All someone’s agitated subconscious needs to do is to accuse someone else of something it knows well, because they are the actual guilty party. With the lie often only being about who the real guilty party is rather than what happened, every detail of the story is easy for the liar, narcissists and truly guilty party to remember, since they were the ones who did the outrageous thing they are accusing others of doing.

So regardless of whether it is done consciously or unconsciously, you can almost always trust that every accusation by a pathological narcissist is a projected confession, thus you know that narcissist accusations can almost always be believed as being the opposite of the truth.

Seeing projection for what it truly is reveals some of the many lies and manipulations happening beneath the surface of a narcissist’s “so-called life,” and is likely what a narcissist is really up to (or about) beneath their steady flow of lies, manipulations and highly deceptive superficial charms.

Finding a needle of truth in a haystack of BS

First and foremost, it is always very important to understand that narcissists are almost always lying to some degree to others and themselves, but there are certain indicators, tells and antisocial pathologies that can help you identify the hidden truths within a narcissist’s relentlessly self-serving blizzard of lies.

One main opportunity to discover a narcissist’s truth and when to “believe them” is logical and fairly easy to recognize once you train yourself to pick up on this tell in plain sight, but take heart because it is understandably all too easy to miss a kernel of truth in a relentless downhill flow of a narcissist’s self-serving lies, manipulations and BS.

In simplest terms, if any kind of narcissist tells you they want to do something or go after something that greatly benefits them, you can pretty much take it to the bank that it is something they want badly, it is just the start of what they want, and they are doing all they can to actively pursue it, because they are always compulsively trying to fill a bottomless pit inside themselves that they can never fill, so they can never stop themselves from going after more narcissistic supply, unless their fear overpowers their compulsion.

In other words, they will always do what benefits them unless they think they know something that benefits them even more and satisfies an insecurity and/or craving. Essentially, they will do anything and everything they are allowed to do or think they can get away with, that they want, crave or need 24 / 7 / 365 for the rest of their lives, and in some cases beyond, and this will be true until there are effective treatments to cure these seemingly forever imprinted personality disorders.

Certainly the more covert and/or higher functioning narcissists are highly practiced and skilled at lying about and/or hiding their true intentions, but massively insecure, grandiose ones like trump usually cannot keep their big mouths shut, and love justifying their antisocial behaviors by saying to those who question them on bad behavior after the fact, “I told everyone I would do” said evil, so why are you questioning me now that I am doing what I said I would do.

This is indeed a tough argument to reject unless you can easily show that like trump, they predicted every other outcome, thus rigging the game. By declaring most possible outcomes at one point or another, they can later claim clairvoyance or what a “stable genius” they are, and in trump’s case, he always has a sound bite to prove it, as long as all his other contradictory sound bite predictions made to cover all possible outcomes are forgotten.

Forgetting all the contradictory claims that trump makes on nearly every subject is clearly a failed job requirement of “conservative” media, but it is also often a consistent pattern of failure and incompetence of the so-called “mainstream media.”

For several years, MSM has consistently failed to throw trump’s own contradictory predictions back in his face or to prove his “accurate predictions” are just illusions of predicting all possible outcomes. The usual unofficial justification for interviewers pretending trump only made the one accurate prediction is so they do not lose their “access” to him. How sad and suicidal it is that corporate media is ready, willing and able to trade the truth and our democracy for access, ratings and profit. Clearly this perverse media incentive structure needs to be corrected before it destroys our democracy and Constitution that lets the “free press” be free.

What most people too often fail to grasp or fully process is how ruthless, shameless and often tone-deaf narcissists are in attempting to gain whatever they want, because most to all of the time, they do not see feelings as feelings, integrity as integrity or other people as humans. They just see all other sentient life and everything else as tools to be used towards whatever their goals are, regardless of whether it includes people they are supposed to care about, or not.

Sadly, far too many kind souls still do not grasp that nearly every malignant narcissist truly does not care about anyone but themselves and never will, until we can grow consciences and empathy in humans who have neither due to evolutionary selection, physical defect, heredity, and/or trauma.

So with malignant types of narcissists in mind regarding the recent advice from various experts saying that when trump or any other wannabe authoritarians say what they are going to do, “believe them,” indeed when a narcissist like trump basically says, if he gets the power of the Presidency again, he will go on a revenge tour, appoint all “yes men,” will weaponize the Justice Department and essentially destroy every foundational principle of “equality under law,” that the American legal system is based on, to go after his political enemies, rivals or anyone who does not bow before the orange shit-gibbon, believe him.

That is the kind of power that every narcissist fantasizes about everyday of their lives, and would act very similarly to trump with their own twist if given the opportunity. However, it seems fairly certain that the DeSantis version would be even darker and more dangerous.

It is the same situation when trump attacks American national security, and questions and undermines the value of NATO. He has strongly implied if not directly said he will take the U.S. out of NATO if given the chance. The reason this is something you can believe him on is because it is one of the greatest gifts he could ever give to his superior narcissist Putin, and every known chance he has had to help Putin as President, he did it, which clearly has proven helping Putin is a main compulsion.

Destruction of the alliance that defeated Russia’s Soviet Union would be many a former KGB officer’s ultimate revenge fantasy, and Russia would certainly pay him billions to wound American and European security and unity so deeply, and since trump has given every indication it is a deal he has already made, he is to be believed because it is in his interest.

Putin’s war in Ukraine was to stop them from joining the EU and NATO, since Putin would not survive Ukraine becoming a stable democracy and vibrant economy on Russia’s border. Destroying NATO is a decades old Russian fever dream Benedict Ahole has been told by Putin to get done and he will be greatly rewarded for, if he ever becomes President again.

The fact that NATO kept Europe and America safe during the Cold War and its loss would massively reduce American and global security, will never enter trump’s thought process at all, because he sees no personal benefit to NATO.

Like every narcissist, all trump thinks about is what he gets out of it and how it will help him personally. At least in trump’s massively feeble brain, there has never been an indication of any other kinds of thinking going on in his head, and why whenever you hear him say something self-serving, greedy or evil like he plans to pull us out of NATO, we should “believe him.”   

Ergo, whether or not a narcissist is telling a kernel of truth in a pile of lies, the main times you need to seriously consider believing them and paying close attention to their words and deeds usually turns on whether or not what they are saying and wanting to do is closely related to something they need, want to acquire, or achieve, and whatever it is massively benefits them and/or someone who controls them.

Certainly there are some other areas beyond projection and completely self-serving truths that reveal other realities but these two main areas are primarily where the big threats to big things like our democracies and global security must be prioritized for the foreseeable future, because the future is very bleak and dystopian if the foundations of free and fair democracies are not aggressively defended from malignant narcissists like trump.

In this light, please consider helping to fund CNI or recommending us to donors you may know so we can utilize more resources and take on a broader, more proactive approach in revealing and countering malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths in our midst, trying to take over every family, group, business, organization and government in our world.

Of course for legal purposes, this is all just opinion and professionals should be consulted when trapped in a narcissist’s web or other type of dilemma, because every situation is unique, and full of its own pitfalls and land mines, so the best we can do in CNI’s publication is give general advice on general situations.

To go further down the rabbithole of potential and best practices psychological defenses, private sessions are a benefit of the yearly and founding-level subscriptions, for those interested in positive and solutionally-driven moral support and intelligence!