Controlling, Abandoning YOU: Neglectful vs. Fretful Narcissist Passive-aggression

1. Definition of Fretful Narcissists

• Fretful narcissists exhibit anxiety, distress, irritation, and catastrophize negative outcomes. They often display excessive worry and protective behaviors presented as concern for others but manifest as control and coercion. Many narcissists, especially communal pro-social types, show fretfulness, often co-occurring with anxiety disorders [00:00 – 01:20].

2. Characteristics of Fretful Narcissists

• These narcissists appear overly caring and involved, constantly offering advice and reminders, but this over-involvement is a form of anxiety externalization and control. This manifests as social activism or victimhood activism in communal narcissists [01:20 – 02:40].

3. Definition of Neglectful Narcissists

• Neglectful narcissists display the opposite behavior by ignoring, abandoning, or rejecting their partners, projecting care by giving “freedom,” which is essentially disinterest or lack of involvement. They are often covert narcissists [02:40 – 04:00].

4. Narcissist’s Self-Perception vs. Partner’s Experience

• Both fretful and neglectful narcissists view their behavior as expressions of love (worry or freedom), but their partners perceive it as control or abandonment, leading to conflicting relational dynamics and antagonism due to lack of shared narratives [04:00 – 06:00].

5. Passive Aggression in Narcissism

• Both neglectful and fretful behaviors are forms of passive aggression: fretful narcissists overpower and control, while neglectful ones withdraw and neglect. Fretful narcissists tend to be communal, neglectful ones covert [06:00 – 07:30].

6. Emotional Diffusion and Narcissist’s Search for Meaning

• Narcissists experience diffuse, generalized negative emotions like anger and anxiety, seeking external reasons for these feelings related to perceived injustices, mistreatment, or conspiracy against them. This emotional cloud drives their aggressive or controlling behaviors as a reaction to frustration [07:30 – 10:20].

7. Narcissistic Entitlement and Emotional Responses

• Narcissists feel entitled to justice, stability, and safety; when denied, they become frustrated and aggressive. The emotional reaction cycle involves searching for justifications to validate their anger or anxiety and responding with sabotage, control, or passive aggression [10:20 – 11:40].

8. Impulse Control and Emotional Regulation

• Narcissists struggle with impulse control due to negative affectivity (e.g., rage, envy), compromising their executive functions. They feel externally controlled by their emotions and environment, perpetuating reactivity rather than internal regulation [11:40 – 13:30].

9. External Locus of Control and Self-Concept Conflict

• Narcissists externalize control over their emotions, believing external forces drive their feelings and actions. They suffer a conflict between a grandiose self-concept (godlike) and a victimized self-narrative feeling powerless and attacked, resulting in inconsistent behaviors linked to childhood trauma [13:30 – 15:40].

10. The False Self and Addiction to Narcissistic Supply

• The narcissist’s false self, formed to cope with abusive or neglectful childhood environments, is harsh, controlling, and demands sacrifices of the true self. Narcissists are addicted to narcissistic supply (usually from others), making them reactively controlling or neglectful, projecting their inner turmoil outward [15:40 – 17:40].

11. Relationship Dynamics: Control via Fretfulness or Neglect

• Narcissists alternate between two controlling strategies: fretfulness (worry, over-care) and neglect (ignoring, rejecting), swinging between these without coherent narrative or continuity. This approach-avoidance cycle is internally generated and disconnected, victimizing partners who might mistakenly believe they are special [17:40 – 20:40].

12. Narcissism as a Contagious, Self-Aggrandizing Belief

• Victims who believe they are special or chosen by narcissists are engaging in self-aggrandizement, reflecting the contagious nature of narcissism. Partners are often incidental, objects subject to narcissists’ fluctuating emotional states and control efforts [20:40 – 21:40].