How I Finally Learned to Spot Narcissism: 5 Videos That Made It Clear

Aug 08, 2025

*Narcissus*, by **John William Waterhouse**

By Iris Lennox

When a relationship ends in silence instead of resolution, it leaves behind a particular kind of wreckage. One filled with contradictions, confusion, and cognitive dissonance. You replay conversations. You revisit red flags. You wonder how someone you thought you knew could pivot so sharply, as if none of it had ever been real.

What I came to understand, slowly and painfully, is that I had been in a relationship with a narcissist. Not the loud, boastful kind portrayed in pop culture, but the calculating, image-conscious kind who weaponizes charm and disappears the moment truth requires accountability. These five videos helped me name what I had experienced. Each one offered a piece of the puzzle: how narcissists maintain long-term facades, how they manipulate without being obvious, how they discard without looking back, and how emotional thinking keeps us from seeing the truth until we’re on the outside looking in.

If you’ve ever walked away from something that left you reeling, or found yourself doubting what you lived through, these might help name what you sensed but couldn’t yet explain. They helped me. Maybe they’ll help you too.

Video #1: Codependency and Complex Trauma - Part 2/10 - Narcissist or Co-Narcissist?

By: Tim Fletcher
YouTube Channel: Tim Fletcher

Once Erik disappeared, I was left with hundreds of points of cognitive dissonance. What in the world just happened?

The first chasm I fell into opened when he completely switched from one person to another the moment my husband confronted him. He belittled me, threw me under the bus, lied to my husband, and then asked if he could pray with him, almost certainly for the benefit of the person he’d quickly asked to film the interaction. The whole scene was shocking. His mask didn’t just slip—it shattered.

This video might as well have been written as a guidebook to my relationship with Erik. I was either witness to, or made privy to, every single thing Fletcher describes here.

Video #2: How Do Some Narcissists Stay In Long-Term Relationships? - 3 Reasons

By: Paula
YouTube Channel: Narc Con

This was the first video that helped answer a question that had been haunting me: If he’s a narcissist, how could he have stayed married for so long?

I knew very little about Erik’s wife, but what he told me—repeatedly—was that she did “everything for the family” and that “as long as I do the dishes, she’s happy.” It wasn’t exactly a glowing description. What I took from it, and what I assume he wanted me to take from it, was that she filled a role that made his life run smoothly. He didn’t speak of her as a romantic partner. He spoke of her as someone who kept the household in order. A mother figure, not an equal.

In this video, Paula from NarcCon explains how narcissists often hold on to long-term spouses who help maintain the illusion of normalcy, especially in religious settings, where divorce could end your career. These partners often complete the narcissist’s “mask,” offering social legitimacy while the narcissist privately pursues validation elsewhere.

This was a major ah-ha moment for me.

Video #3: 7 Phases of Shared Fantasy: Why Narcissist Needs YOU, begins around 4:45.

By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
YouTube Channel: Sam Vaknin, author of Malignant Self-Love

In this video, Vaknin explains that a narcissist does not relate to you as a real person. Instead, he constructs an idealized internal image of you—called an introject—which he uses to sustain his own sense of perfection. He connects with that fantasy, not with your actual self. When truth or consequence threatens the illusion, the narcissist begins a mental discard process, followed by external separation. To preserve his grandiosity, he splits you into an all-bad figure, devalues the image he once idealized, and attempts to discard both.

Video #4: The 5 Most Common Manipulations of the Narcissist

By: HG Tudor
YouTube Channel: Knowing the Narcissist

This video helped me understand the everyday ways narcissists manipulate others, not just with dramatic cruelty, but through subtle, repeatable patterns. Tudor explains that every interaction with a narcissist is a form of manipulation, designed to gain control, emotional fuel, or practical benefits. Most narcissists, especially those unaware of what they are, use these tactics instinctively. Five of the most common are: the pity play (to extract sympathy and support), bringing up the past (to provoke and confuse), future faking (to control with promises they don’t intend to keep), the silent treatment (to dehumanize and destabilize), and denial (to shut down accountability and preserve control). Each tactic reveals a system of emotional exploitation.

Video #5: Cognitive Dissonance and Emotional Thinking: Understanding the Effects of Narcissistic Abuse