Speaker 1: Welcome to Go, Ask Alli, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with iHeartRadio. I think, like Gyorginas have
Speaker 1: a lot to say. I think we should let them
Speaker 1: speak out of it and they'll just talk. Yes, one
Speaker 1: of the hardest things to absorb for those who are
Speaker 1: new to these kinds of fights. Again, if we want
Speaker 1: all of them, we wouldn't be here. If you see
Speaker 1: a monster, don't try to run away, step right up
Speaker 1: to it and say what do you have to teach me?
Speaker 1: Why are you? In my mind, I want to be
Speaker 1: the person who has cancer and doesn't run a marathon, Like,
Speaker 1: do I have to work that hard? No, it's the
Speaker 1: best excuse not to run a marathon. Welcome to Go,
Speaker 1: ask Alli. I'm Allie Wentworth. So we've all heard the
Speaker 1: word narcissist being thrown around. He's a narcissist, she's a narcissist.
Speaker 1: But what exactly is a narcissist? And how do we
Speaker 1: spot a narcissist in our life and how do we
Speaker 1: get them the hell out of it? There is no
Speaker 1: better a person to talk to about this than doctor
Speaker 1: Craig malcol He's a clinical psychologist, author and lecturer for
Speaker 1: Harvard Medical School. His internationally acclaimed book, Rethinking Narcissism, The
Speaker 1: Secret to Recognizing and Coping With Narcissists, has been translated
Speaker 1: into twelve languages. That's how many narcissists there are in
Speaker 1: the world. In February this year, Rethinking Narcissism was named
Speaker 1: by Oprah Daily as the best book to read if
Speaker 1: you have a narcissist in your life. One hundred percent
Speaker 1: chance you do. His articles, advice and insights on relationships
Speaker 1: have appeared internationally in outlets like Time Magazine, NPR, and
Speaker 1: the Oprah Winfrey Network. Doctor Malkin is President and Director
Speaker 1: of y M Psychotherapy and Consultation in Cambridge. Well, doctor Malkin,
Speaker 1: are you a narcissist? I'm just curious how you got
Speaker 1: involved in researching narcissism. Are you a recovering narcissist? I
Speaker 1: should ask. I'm actually covering echoist, which is a whole
Speaker 1: other topic that is related to narcissism. What's an echoist?
Speaker 1: So if you think of narcissism along a spectrum, and
Speaker 1: you really should, because study after study, decades of research
Speaker 1: show that it's really best to think of narcissism as
Speaker 1: pervasive universal trait that exists to some extent in all
Speaker 1: of us, to a greater or lesser degree. I think
Speaker 1: of as the drive to feel special, and we can
Speaker 1: talk about why. I think that captures all forms of narcissism.
Speaker 1: But you think of that drive to feel special along
Speaker 1: a spectrum. Imagine it from zero to ten. A lot
Speaker 1: of times people start at some narcissism bad and then
Speaker 1: all the way up to a lot of narcissism really bad.
Speaker 1: But what we've learned from the research is a little
Speaker 1: of that drive is helpful. And if you have none
Speaker 1: of it, if you have what's called a failure to
Speaker 1: self enhance, that is what I describe as echoism. And
Speaker 1: the term echoism comes from the myth of narcissists. In echo,
Speaker 1: Narcissus is the vain Greek youth who fell in love
Speaker 1: with his reflection. Echo is the nymph who was cursed
Speaker 1: to repeat the last few words she heard. She had
Speaker 1: no voice of her own, and she fell in love
Speaker 1: with Narcissus. And I like to think of echoism along
Speaker 1: those lines. These are people who, because of their experiences,
Speaker 1: have no drive to feel special or very little, fail
Speaker 1: to self enhance, and they intend to have fall into
Speaker 1: relationships with extremely narcissistic friends and partners, not always a
Speaker 1: lot of time, and that pretty much describe my dating
Speaker 1: life right for most of my early adulthood. Interesting. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you've just described a lot of people. I know, a
Speaker 1: lot of women. I know. All right, So let's dive
Speaker 1: right into narcissism because I think that and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've dealt with this A lot people get confused with
Speaker 1: exactly what narcissism is, and we need to be very
Speaker 1: clear because I feel like the word is thrown out
Speaker 1: so casually all the time. So how would you, doctor Melkin?
Speaker 1: How would you define narcissism we've just discussed. I think
Speaker 1: the starting point is the drive to feel special, exceptional,
Speaker 1: or unique compared to the other eight billion people nearly
Speaker 1: eight billion people on the planet. Is it the drive
Speaker 1: or do you feel those things? It's both. It's both.
Speaker 1: The reason it's both is because the drive is there,
Speaker 1: that is, the intense engagement in experiences in a relationship
Speaker 1: in a way that's expressly geared to maintain this sense
Speaker 1: of feeling special. But people will struggle with narcissism, particularly
Speaker 1: in the extreme, don't always feel special. They're driven to
Speaker 1: create experiences that they can have that feeling, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't always stick and they don't always feel that way,
Speaker 1: So I would say it's both. There are three terms
Speaker 1: for a narcissist. Correct, correct? Can you tell me what
Speaker 1: these three terms are? Sure, so you think of the
Speaker 1: drives you feel special as the heart of narcissism. There's
Speaker 1: lots of ways to feel special, but to date they
Speaker 1: come down to three that we've identified in the research.
Speaker 1: The first is extroverted narcissism, also called overt or grandiose
Speaker 1: or obvious. Really it's that loud, outgoing brand of narcissism.
Speaker 1: The second type is introverted when people were more inward
Speaker 1: and reflective and less outgoing. Doesn't mean they don't have
Speaker 1: any aspect of that. So that's more introverted or vulnerable
Speaker 1: or covert. And these are people who agree in self
Speaker 1: report with questions like no one understands my problems. A
Speaker 1: few people have suffered as much as me, so you
Speaker 1: get the idea the flavor of it, which is with
Speaker 1: overt narcissism, the grandi is obvious and the insecurity is hidden.
Speaker 1: In covert narcissism, the insecurity is obvious, shy, anxious, withdrawn,
Speaker 1: self doubting, low self esteem. The grandiosity is on the
Speaker 1: inside or hidden, hence covert. And then there's a third
Speaker 1: brand of narcissism that we've identified recently in the research,
Speaker 1: which is communal narcissism. And communal narcissists agree with statements
Speaker 1: like I'm the most helpful person I know and it
Speaker 1: always makes me laugh without fail. So I'm the most
Speaker 1: helpful person I know, and one day I'll be known
Speaker 1: for my good deeds. So these are people feel special
Speaker 1: by virtue of their helpfulness or their altruism. As you
Speaker 1: might expect, their belief in their altruism and helpfulness isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily correlated with their actual altruism or helpfulness, but that's
Speaker 1: how they feel special. So those are the three types.
Speaker 1: And so are you born a narcissist? How do you
Speaker 1: acquire narcissistic traits? You know it? Like most answers in
Speaker 1: psychology and development and personality, the answer is it's really
Speaker 1: best understood as a combination of genetics or temperament and environment.
Speaker 1: We know from a terrific longitudinal study by a psychologist
Speaker 1: named Phoebe Kramer, where she traced people over time for
Speaker 1: twenty one years. She used data that had been around
Speaker 1: to track patterns of behavior, and one measure was early
Speaker 1: precursors for narcissism in preschoolers, like being melodramatic, being impulsive,
Speaker 1: always wanted to be the center of attention, being aggressive.
Speaker 1: These were signs as early as age or four or
Speaker 1: five that she discovered predict later on unhealthier pathological narcissism
Speaker 1: unless those kids had a kind of parenting called authoritative parenting,
Speaker 1: which you want to think of as a combination warmth
Speaker 1: and structure. It's kind of what it sounds like. They
Speaker 1: set limits, they have boundaries, but they're carrying, they're connected,
Speaker 1: they're empathic with their kids. And if those little sort
Speaker 1: of obnoxious tikes had that experience over time, they didn't
Speaker 1: grow up to be extremely narcissistic, they didn't show unhealthy narcissism. So,
Speaker 1: combined with genetic studies that also show what we call
Speaker 1: in the research a concordance rate, where you look at
Speaker 1: twins and if one twins particularly separated at birth, but
Speaker 1: they're identical twins and they're separated, if one has narcissism
Speaker 1: does the other, there's a high concordance rate. So that
Speaker 1: also suggests there's genetics or temperament involved, but we know
Speaker 1: that's not enough because kids need a particular experience that
Speaker 1: leaves them insecure in a very specific way that also
Speaker 1: causes them to develop unhealthy narcissism over time. So if
Speaker 1: you had a narcissistic toddler and you're not an authoritative parent,
Speaker 1: let's say you're a free range parent, chances are that
Speaker 1: narcissism would grow absolutely, particularly because that kind of unhelpful
Speaker 1: free range parenting that you're talking about is often called
Speaker 1: permissive parenting, and it's not simply hands off. It's not
Speaker 1: just lais a fair. Parents who slip into that kind
Speaker 1: of permissive parenting are also not really paying close attention
Speaker 1: to what's going on with their kids. And so you
Speaker 1: take a kid with this kind of earth and we're
Speaker 1: talking a particular kind of narcissism, I should mention right
Speaker 1: when it's outgoing, when it's aggressive, that one tends to
Speaker 1: develop along these lines, particularly when kids don't have limits
Speaker 1: and boundaries. And if you take a kid with that
Speaker 1: temperament and put an an environment where the parents just
Speaker 1: kind of asleep at the switch in all kinds of ways,
Speaker 1: not just in boundaries and limits, but more importantly emotional intwuments.
Speaker 1: Are they paying attention to when their kid is sad
Speaker 1: or scared or lonely or blue. They're not paying attention
Speaker 1: to other things like obnoxious behavior. They're not paying attention
Speaker 1: to that either. That is a recipe for unhealthy narcissism.
Speaker 1: So is it a leap to say that narcissistic toddlers,
Speaker 1: when not having a strong connection to their parents, become
Speaker 1: bullies in high school. No, it's not a leap at all.
Speaker 1: The core of the problem there this brand of narcissism
Speaker 1: which is extroverted. It's the loud, brash, as I say,
Speaker 1: narcissists we all know and loathe, right, we all recognize that.
Speaker 1: And what drives that most powerfully is aggression, which is
Speaker 1: also wired in. We also come into the world with
Speaker 1: that biological equipment, taking kid with that kind of aggression
Speaker 1: and give them an experience where they're not taught to
Speaker 1: consider others, where they have, say an authoritarian or bullying
Speaker 1: parent themselves, or parent who doesn't really help them think
Speaker 1: about other people in these the kind of empathic way
Speaker 1: that we're talking about. Authoritative parenting Yeah, they're going to
Speaker 1: become a bully. Sure, and you just hope they don't
Speaker 1: become president one day. Correct. Yes, that's an interesting topic.
Speaker 1: Of course, most presidents they're narcissists, yes, yeah, but there
Speaker 1: I would imagine different levels of narcissism that works in
Speaker 1: their favor, and then there's those that work again correct, Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you have to be somewhat of a narcissist
Speaker 1: who want to be president of the United States, and
Speaker 1: that is that is confirmed by research. There's a couple
Speaker 1: of researchers, James de Luga, another one Scott leland Field
Speaker 1: Lelandfeld excuse me, who took measures of narcissism, of which
Speaker 1: we have many, and took one of the most popular.
Speaker 1: And you can take a measure like that, and you
Speaker 1: can ask expert people to rate someone on that scale,
Speaker 1: and both these studies did that and not surprisingly, look
Speaker 1: at presence over time and looking at their behaviors, and
Speaker 1: there's plenty of biographical historical data for this. Most of
Speaker 1: them scored high enough on these measures to be called narcissists.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean disorder, which is your point. It means
Speaker 1: they had the drive to get them to that place.
Speaker 1: Exactly and a high enough drive that it's well above
Speaker 1: average compared to other people. But we know from the
Speaker 1: research too, is there's healthy and unhealthy aspects of narcissism
Speaker 1: and expressions of it, and they don't rise and fall
Speaker 1: in perfect step with one another. So you can be
Speaker 1: high enough on the narcissism scale to agree with statements
Speaker 1: like I'm a natural born leader, which you hope and
Speaker 1: somebody who wants to lead a country, for example, but
Speaker 1: not score high on measures. I won't stop until I
Speaker 1: get the respect. That's doom and I like to look
Speaker 1: in mirrors. Right right, I will be the fascist dictator
Speaker 1: of a democratic country. People with narcissistic personality disorder, which
Speaker 1: we should probably define, are so addicted to that that
Speaker 1: need to feel special, so driven by it that they
Speaker 1: demonstrate what I call triple E, which is the core
Speaker 1: of pathological narcissism. Exploitation, which is doing whatever it takes
Speaker 1: to feel special no matter the cost to others. Entitlement,
Speaker 1: which is acting as though the world should bend to
Speaker 1: our will because we're so special, and empathy impairments exactly
Speaker 1: what it sounds like, becoming so blind in the needs
Speaker 1: and feelings of others because of our drive to feel
Speaker 1: special that we have to maintain that at all costs.
Speaker 1: We can't see what's going on with other people. And
Speaker 1: triple E accounts for all the most destructive, dangerous behaviors
Speaker 1: that you see in narcissistic personality disorder. Okay, so let
Speaker 1: me jump First of all, did you know your mother
Speaker 1: was a narcissist when you were a kid? I didn't.
Speaker 1: But circling back to your question, this is what got
Speaker 1: me into it, and I didn't know. There are no
Speaker 1: words for this anyway, to kind of think of myself
Speaker 1: as an echoist. And these things came later for me
Speaker 1: in my own thinking and research as well. But when
Speaker 1: I was younger, I had of Dara say, had a
Speaker 1: special connection with my mother. I mean, I knew her
Speaker 1: to be kind and caring and supportive. Looking back, there
Speaker 1: were red flags of her narcissism. Can you tell me
Speaker 1: what those were? That our relationship was really organized around
Speaker 1: me being a consummate caretaker. So she, for example, had migraines.
Speaker 1: I think she had migraines. I don't know now. All
Speaker 1: I know is she locked herself in her room, isolated herself,
Speaker 1: and seemed to be in pain and needed special attention.
Speaker 1: You see where this goes. This is what looking back,
Speaker 1: I think of as a red flag. Just wanted many
Speaker 1: but she often called me, you know, her little helper,
Speaker 1: her little doctor, in terms like this to really valorize
Speaker 1: and reinforce how great I was it attending to her.
Speaker 1: At at the same time, she could be caring with me,
Speaker 1: and she was often warm. I wouldn't say she was
Speaker 1: the best listener. Again, another red flag. It was only
Speaker 1: when I later started learning about narcissism an undergraduate that
Speaker 1: I saw a description of narcissistic personality disorder in a book,
Speaker 1: and by then I'm a young adult and it fit
Speaker 1: her so well. And that was stuck with this paradox
Speaker 1: of this stark contrasts between the mother I knew as
Speaker 1: a child and the mother that I knew as an adult,
Speaker 1: And how do I reconcile those Well, it sounds like
Speaker 1: you had a narcissistic mother, But it sounds like what
Speaker 1: you said up top of the podcast you were echoing,
Speaker 1: and so you were probably in relationships where you participated
Speaker 1: in some form of what you were like as a
Speaker 1: child with a narcissistic partner. Oh spot on Allie, I'm
Speaker 1: not a professional, but those are the connections I would make.
Speaker 1: There's a lot more to come after the short break
Speaker 1: and we're back. So the majority of my listeners are
Speaker 1: women and younger women, even older women that are already
Speaker 1: in a relationship, maybe pursuing a relationship. What are some
Speaker 1: of the things they can look for when it comes
Speaker 1: to narcissism. I'm sure you've come across this as yourself.
Speaker 1: Most of the sort of signs that people list the
Speaker 1: warning signs, they're really things that tend into abuse, gas lighting,
Speaker 1: put downs, and those are behaviors that often come later.
Speaker 1: Most people are trying to put their best foot forward
Speaker 1: in a relationship, including people who are extremely narcissistic. So
Speaker 1: those are not the ones I focus on. Really, they
Speaker 1: all come down to what I call the vulnerability dodge,
Speaker 1: and what I mean by that is the more narcissistic
Speaker 1: someone is, the more they have that particular form of
Speaker 1: insecurity I mentioned earlier called attachment insecurity, And what attachment
Speaker 1: insecurity is is it means that this is a person
Speaker 1: doesn't trust themselves in other people's hands emotionally when they're sad, scared,
Speaker 1: lonely blue, when they have vulnerable emotions. In particular, they
Speaker 1: don't trust that they can turn to a special person
Speaker 1: or persons with that for mutual care and comfort. That
Speaker 1: is attachment security and extreme narcissism is a way of
Speaker 1: coping with that. And one of the ways narcissists cope
Speaker 1: with it is they avoid vulnerable states. If I don't
Speaker 1: go into those vulnerable feelings, if I stay away from them,
Speaker 1: if I don't feel them, if I don't share them,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to risk being hurt. Nothing bad is
Speaker 1: going to happen to me. So you see these things
Speaker 1: early on. Subtle signs like one of them I call
Speaker 1: emotion phobia, and a lot of people are phobic when
Speaker 1: it comes to emotion, but this is a particular brand
Speaker 1: that happens with all forms of narcissism, where say, for example,
Speaker 1: you're chatting with your date and you know, you're talking
Speaker 1: to them about an experience that you've had, say you
Speaker 1: went through difficulty at work, and you're feeling sad and
Speaker 1: you're feeling hopeless, you're feeling upset, and you're just trying
Speaker 1: to share a little bit about that, and they say
Speaker 1: to you, oh, gosh, I can't say I've ever felt
Speaker 1: that way. I try to look on the bright side
Speaker 1: of things. Now. A lot of people make a mistake
Speaker 1: like that, but delivered in that way. That is particular
Speaker 1: combination of where they're not only trying to stay away
Speaker 1: from any vulnerable feelings in you, but in themselves and
Speaker 1: at the same time self enhance. I would never feel
Speaker 1: that way. What's wrong with you? That's the message, right,
Speaker 1: that's weird who would feel that way? And as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, I feel the opposite. It's strange that
Speaker 1: you would feel otherwise. That's a good example. You're weak,
Speaker 1: that's the implication, and it can be subtle. I may
Speaker 1: have played it up more than I should have, but
Speaker 1: everybody runs into this from time to time. And when
Speaker 1: it's that combination of staying away from any kind of
Speaker 1: vulnerability and self enhancing, trying to feel special or on
Speaker 1: top of experience or better at emotions than you are. Right,
Speaker 1: that's a sign of narcissism. Yeah, I would assume that
Speaker 1: narcissists in a relationship, if they've started a relationship and
Speaker 1: the person they're having a relationship with maybe they're going
Speaker 1: through hard time, which makes them vulnerable and emotional. A
Speaker 1: lot the narcissist would leave. That's a great segue. Sometimes.
Speaker 1: Remember there is a brand of narcissism introverted or vulnerable
Speaker 1: or covert, and these are people who feel special except
Speaker 1: for unique by virtue of their suffering. Right, I'm no
Speaker 1: one's more misunderstood than me. No one has been passed
Speaker 1: over for promotions more often than me, all right, And
Speaker 1: in the beginning of a relationship, they're going to put
Speaker 1: their best foot forward as well. And what that means
Speaker 1: is they might join you in that vulnerability and you
Speaker 1: might not catch early on that it doesn't feel fully authentic,
Speaker 1: that it doesn't feel fully mutual, more along the lines of,
Speaker 1: oh I've been through that too, And you may not
Speaker 1: catch the lack of mutuality. But they wouldn't necessarily leave.
Speaker 1: They'll stay around long enough if they're extremely narcissistic in
Speaker 1: this covert way, to show you that you don't understand
Speaker 1: how much and they've suffered. That's where it will trend eventually.
Speaker 1: So what this would look like in the interaction is
Speaker 1: they might join you early on and talking about oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been through that too, and I remember this one time,
Speaker 1: and very quickly you realize that they're talking about their suffering,
Speaker 1: and you're not sharing yours at all anymore, right, and
Speaker 1: it must feel like sort of a fake attachment, which
Speaker 1: is the opposite of that right before. So exactly, let's
Speaker 1: fast forward and somebody is now married to a narcissist,
Speaker 1: let's say an extreme narcissist. Is there any advice you
Speaker 1: can give them if they need to stay in the marriage.
Speaker 1: So we might need to break this in parts. I
Speaker 1: have a lot to say about it. Yeah, good step one.
Speaker 1: And this is true of any relationship experience you have.
Speaker 1: I put the emphasis on safety. And not all extremely
Speaker 1: narcissistic people are abusive, but many are. It correlates. Actually,
Speaker 1: I mentioned that aggressive drive. The more aggressive drive somebody has,
Speaker 1: the more likely they are to show that really outgoing,
Speaker 1: loud bullying kind of narcissism, which is not the covert
Speaker 1: of vulnerable kind that doesn't come out in that way.
Speaker 1: And those types of narcissists are more likely to exhibit
Speaker 1: overt aggression as well, which could be in physical abuse,
Speaker 1: it could be like an onslaught of emotional abuse. So
Speaker 1: I always always talk to people about the three stop
Speaker 1: signs first for any relationship. All kinds of things drive abuse.
Speaker 1: Not just narcissism, but if you hear put downs as
Speaker 1: the person is trying to control you financially, if they're
Speaker 1: gas lighting you, right, if they're trying to say and
Speaker 1: do things to make you feel like you're crazy when
Speaker 1: you're just trying to report events as they happened, Like
Speaker 1: I saw you look at your phone. Oh no, you're
Speaker 1: imagining things that kind of thing. This is gaslighting. If
Speaker 1: you see that kind of abuse, that's one of the
Speaker 1: stop signs. Another stop sign is denial. I've talked to
Speaker 1: people about this a lot too. Just in the same way,
Speaker 1: if you have a partner who has substance abuse problem,
Speaker 1: if they're addicted to alcohol or if they're addicted to
Speaker 1: opiates and they can't acknowledge that there's any problem at all,
Speaker 1: they're not going to get better. So now imagine somebody
Speaker 1: who's extremely narcissistic, where their whole problem is they can't
Speaker 1: allow mutuality in a relationship. You know that they're drive
Speaker 1: to feel special overtakes everything, all right. If you imagine
Speaker 1: that situation of somebody who can't eignet a knowledge they
Speaker 1: struggle in any way, and it's not going to get better.
Speaker 1: It's going to get really bad, and in fact, in
Speaker 1: the research, denial is a horrible predictor, meaning it predicts
Speaker 1: horrible things down the line. It often only gets worse.
Speaker 1: And then the third stop sign is psychopathy. Psychopathy and
Speaker 1: narcissism are related. Psychopathy it's another trait like narcissism, but
Speaker 1: unlike narcissism, where people and at their worst have blocks
Speaker 1: in empathy impairments. Their empathy might come and go if
Speaker 1: they're motivated. Just as we were talking about early on
Speaker 1: in a relationship, you might see flashes of empathy. With
Speaker 1: a psychopath, it's all show and they feel almost wired
Speaker 1: in a lack of remorse or guilt. So this is
Speaker 1: somebody who you catch them in a lie and they
Speaker 1: don't flinch, and they show no remorse and they show
Speaker 1: no guilt. We've gone beyond narcissism to psychopathy at that point,
Speaker 1: and again, to me, that's another one of those stop
Speaker 1: signs that's not going to work in a relationship. You know,
Speaker 1: I have an example I want to give just because
Speaker 1: there's something that I witnessed in my own life that
Speaker 1: I think is important because you are pretty much describing
Speaker 1: the whole thing, which is I have a friend who
Speaker 1: was married, and whenever I was around them, he was
Speaker 1: so verbally abusive to her, you know, and it was
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable for people to be around them because you'd say, oh,
Speaker 1: what do you know, you're so stupid you don't know,
Speaker 1: or well, you just won't lose that baby fat, and
Speaker 1: you know, just it was so it was horrific, and
Speaker 1: but you know, people at that level, people go, well,
Speaker 1: I guess there's got to be good points to that,
Speaker 1: because she's still in it. And then one day she
Speaker 1: showed up at my apartment and he had beaten her
Speaker 1: up because she found meth and a pipe in his belongings.
Speaker 1: And so for me, thinking quite rationally, I said, we
Speaker 1: have to call the police, and she kept saying, oh, no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't want to rock the boat. I don't want
Speaker 1: to get him mad. He's a father of my children,
Speaker 1: you know, protect him, protect him, protect him. Anyway, long
Speaker 1: story short, they went through a horrific divorce. He's a
Speaker 1: meth addict, he's also gay, and he showed all the
Speaker 1: extreme signs, the red flags that you're describing. But at
Speaker 1: the beginning, it was that kind of narcissism. Seemed like
Speaker 1: he was incredibly you know, he was a proud man
Speaker 1: and he was so secure and he knew himself and
Speaker 1: that's what attracted her to him. And then over time
Speaker 1: all these things developed to an extreme obviously, Yeah, an
Speaker 1: alpha male in the beginning. Yeah, and he controlled the
Speaker 1: finances and all those other things. But you know they're
Speaker 1: now finally divorced. And but for me as an observer
Speaker 1: of this, this to me was an extreme example of
Speaker 1: everything you're talking about. Such a classic example too, of
Speaker 1: how insidious this is in an abusive relationship, where again,
Speaker 1: obviously he got worse and worse over time. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think the drugs helped either, No, no, And
Speaker 1: they often go hand in hand as well. Nothing exacerbates
Speaker 1: personality or character pathology more quickly than substance abuse or addiction.
Speaker 1: So obviously it was all it was all escalating with him.
Speaker 1: But it's horrible to witness that. And it's the classic
Speaker 1: depiction that you're describing right now, where the person in
Speaker 1: the abusive relationship is just in it and they do
Speaker 1: a number of things. One is they take on responsibility
Speaker 1: for the bad behavior. We just have to wait for
Speaker 1: a pass. They're going through a difficult time, we've got
Speaker 1: to make sure things are better at home. Don't want
Speaker 1: to rock the boat. That's taking responsibility for someone's abuse,
Speaker 1: and it's inevitable if you're trying to stay connected to
Speaker 1: someone who's abusive. We see this, and this is why
Speaker 1: it becomes harder and harder to leave over time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about that. It seems
Speaker 1: like it's incredibly difficult to extract yourself from a relationship
Speaker 1: with a narcissist. How do you do that? For practical
Speaker 1: reasons and emotional reasons. Yeah, one of the biggest barriers,
Speaker 1: I would say, And this will speak particularly to people
Speaker 1: who struggle with echoism because it's sort of central to
Speaker 1: their defensive style. There are ways of protecting themselves. One
Speaker 1: of the biggest berries of self blame. So you're in
Speaker 1: a bad relationship and you've got sunk cost as we
Speaker 1: call it, where you've invested a lot, it's been years,
Speaker 1: you've got kids, your lives are inextricably bound together or
Speaker 1: seemingly inextricably right, it's going to be hard to untangle things.
Speaker 1: There are a lot more reasons to explain to yourself
Speaker 1: why you should stay than why you should go. And
Speaker 1: one of the ways that people accomplish that is they
Speaker 1: tell themselves, well, I'm being too sensitive. I need to
Speaker 1: approach this differently. I need to understand that he's going
Speaker 1: through a difficult time. I've always been this way, where
Speaker 1: I have really intense emotional reactions. I have to be
Speaker 1: mindful of that that self blame stands in the way
Speaker 1: of the anger that's natural and healthy and important that
Speaker 1: you felt watching this happen. I'm sure you weren't just sad.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you were angry at times on your friend's behalf.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, I mean I wanted to do all
Speaker 1: kinds of legal action and absolutely, and that is the process.
Speaker 1: When I work with people who are in abusive relationships,
Speaker 1: whether it's a mild form, but regardless of whether somebody's
Speaker 1: extremely narcissistic, whatever it's causing us, one of the first
Speaker 1: things I do is try to get them in touch
Speaker 1: with healthy anger. I don't know if you know, people
Speaker 1: are always surprised when I talk about anger being important
Speaker 1: and healthy. It is. It's wired in it's primary Anger
Speaker 1: helps us stand up and say no and connect to
Speaker 1: feelings about what matters and what's right for us. Part
Speaker 1: of dignity feelings, and if we learned that it's dangerous
Speaker 1: to express anger, which is the other in cities impact
Speaker 1: of an abusive relationship, like it makes things worse often
Speaker 1: when we try to express our anger, all right, So
Speaker 1: then it gets easier and easier to try to silence
Speaker 1: or swelch it. But the tradeoff then is that you're
Speaker 1: cut off from the kinds of impulses and awareness and
Speaker 1: insight that help you leave. So my first step is
Speaker 1: helping people end self blame and instead of asking what
Speaker 1: am I doing wrong, to ask am I disappointed or angry? Right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would assume it's how you acquire agency of your
Speaker 1: own life, you know. And I watch somebody who had none,
Speaker 1: you know, and now it would seem to me, even
Speaker 1: though it's counterintuitive that they then repeat this pattern, like
Speaker 1: this friend of mine, you know, I don't know what
Speaker 1: she's going to do, but I hope she doesn't now
Speaker 1: meet another narcissist and sort of get into the same
Speaker 1: cycle that can have. And this is one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I developed the concept of echoism. Remember, kind of
Speaker 1: the rule of living for an echoist is the less
Speaker 1: room I take up, the better, And that's their stance
Speaker 1: in life, and they're caring and generous people that they
Speaker 1: can have relationships with, and they're lucky to find them.
Speaker 1: But the reality is that anybody who needs you to
Speaker 1: give up your voice in order to feel connected to
Speaker 1: you or to feel comfortable with you, anybody who needs
Speaker 1: you to continue that way of living that you've become
Speaker 1: comfortable with, is probably going to be more narcissistic because
Speaker 1: they're kind of flip sides of each other. Would narcissists
Speaker 1: have an extreme drive to feel special, echoists are afraid
Speaker 1: of special attention, and when that becomes a way of
Speaker 1: living life, staying connected to people and moving through the world,
Speaker 1: you've got to think about who's drawn to that. The
Speaker 1: person who's going to be comfortable, most comfortable with you
Speaker 1: is the one who likes that you don't take up
Speaker 1: any room, right, who likes that you don't challenge their
Speaker 1: extreme drive fuel special. So what starts out feeling as
Speaker 1: you being careful or mindful of others in a relationship
Speaker 1: can become what I call defensive empathy right where it's
Speaker 1: kind of the mirror of the what about me stance
Speaker 1: in extreme narcissism. The echoing side of that is, well,
Speaker 1: what about him, what about her? Look what they've been through.
Speaker 1: They've told me about their childhood. Often people who are
Speaker 1: extremely narcissists have been abused and elect themselves, so they
Speaker 1: have that as part of their backstory. And often people
Speaker 1: who continue to get into abusive relationships, one of the
Speaker 1: things that they struggle with is they trade their anger
Speaker 1: for empathy when you should be able to have both. Right,
Speaker 1: So it sounds like there's two different types of childhood
Speaker 1: trauma that then inform kind of who they are or
Speaker 1: will be as adults. So I'm calling it a submissive
Speaker 1: and the other abused child is sort of cooked into
Speaker 1: the narcissistic traits. That seems like a perfect match. It
Speaker 1: is narcissists in echo. It feels like low versus high
Speaker 1: self esteem in a way. The high self esteem takes
Speaker 1: up all the room and the low self esteem just
Speaker 1: powers in the corner and takes what it can get
Speaker 1: it can be. I prefer to think of it as
Speaker 1: addictive self enhancement or drives people special versus a failure
Speaker 1: to self enhance or fear of special attention. Alright, the
Speaker 1: reason because you lecture at Harvard, So I'm putting it
Speaker 1: in this is yber. But the reason also is because
Speaker 1: narcissists often don't even have high self esteem, but they
Speaker 1: mask it well. The loud, brash kind you remember, the
Speaker 1: introverted or covert narcissists may visibly suffer from low self esteem.
Speaker 1: They might even endorse statements like I'm not all that special,
Speaker 1: nobody really cares about me, right, which is the harder
Speaker 1: narcissist to spot, because I think in our culture we
Speaker 1: always equate narcissism with big, loud bullies, like I said before,
Speaker 1: so the quieter ones are very hard to label narcissists.
Speaker 1: They could be so many other things. Yes, and it's
Speaker 1: time for a short break. Welcome back to go. Ask Galley,
Speaker 1: what would be your advice to people that have familial
Speaker 1: relationships with people that are narcissists. How do you preserve
Speaker 1: your own dignity self control when you're constantly having to
Speaker 1: deal with a narcissist. Yeah, Often people can't just take off,
Speaker 1: they can't just go no contact, as it's often described.
Speaker 1: Could you never abandon your mother because she was a narcissist?
Speaker 1: I didn't, So what I did is again, in non
Speaker 1: abusive relationships, something alcohol empathy prompts I used these with
Speaker 1: my mother all the time, and that is when she
Speaker 1: was being critical or accusing me, for example, of using
Speaker 1: funds from selling off stuff that was at their house
Speaker 1: after my father died to help her move because she
Speaker 1: was a destitute, because she'd spent down all her cash,
Speaker 1: and I needed to use some of it to pay
Speaker 1: for the move. Because I was a poor, starving graduate student,
Speaker 1: I didn't have I didn't have the money to do
Speaker 1: it without some help. So we got a few thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: some of which went to the move, and she spent
Speaker 1: an hour interrogating me about what had happened to the
Speaker 1: rest of the money. With her, I used an empathy prompt.
Speaker 1: It's like, Mom, I love you, I care about your
Speaker 1: my mother, You're one of the most important people in
Speaker 1: my life, and it's devastating to hear you ask me
Speaker 1: this as though you think I might have just taken
Speaker 1: the money. It makes me feel like you think I'm
Speaker 1: a horrible person or nothing in your eyes. That's an
Speaker 1: empathy prompt where you first emphasize the importance of the
Speaker 1: person to you, the specialness of the relationship, if you will,
Speaker 1: and it kind of lights up those blocked areas of
Speaker 1: the brain devoted to connection and carry and concern, and
Speaker 1: somebody's extremely narcissistic, and then you share from a vulnerable place.
Speaker 1: It would be tempting for me, It would be tempting
Speaker 1: for anybody to say, what the hell are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Are you out of your mind? How could you even
Speaker 1: ask me something that awful? Which you can do, but
Speaker 1: as anybody on the receiving end of that is going
Speaker 1: to get more defensive and protective, and with a narcissist
Speaker 1: that means they get more narcissistic. And it actually cuts
Speaker 1: me off from the point, which is I want my
Speaker 1: mother to be caring and I want to have a
Speaker 1: connection to her, and me blasting her is actually about distance,
Speaker 1: which is great if you don't have to be in
Speaker 1: the room with a person and you just want to
Speaker 1: get away. Not so great. Of what you're saying is
Speaker 1: I need you to be kinder to me right for
Speaker 1: us to be close. So that's an empathy prompt. That's
Speaker 1: what I did with her. I mean there are other
Speaker 1: things that I did that were more about managing the relationship,
Speaker 1: but that's something worth trying. If you have connection with
Speaker 1: this person and they're more in the mild range. Remember
Speaker 1: that spectrum from zero that I talked about to give
Speaker 1: from zero to ten left to right zero extreme echoist,
Speaker 1: ten is pathologically narcissistic. Someone around a six or seven.
Speaker 1: It's worth trying. Empathy prompts with it's good to know.
Speaker 1: What else are you learning? Like, is there any kind
Speaker 1: of medication that's going to come out so we can
Speaker 1: medicate narcissist and block those brain scepters that tell them
Speaker 1: to be the way they are? Well, you've got a
Speaker 1: point that you're making there that actually taps into what
Speaker 1: we do know works one medication. So the people I
Speaker 1: see who have narcissist in personality disorder, there's kind of
Speaker 1: a selection bias, as we call it, where for somebody
Speaker 1: to get in my door, for example, they are not
Speaker 1: likely to be the kind of person with narcissistic personality
Speaker 1: disorder who won't admit to problems. And we know this
Speaker 1: is confirmed by research. It's usually people with introverted narcissism.
Speaker 1: They're the ones who show up for therapy because they're
Speaker 1: willing to say, I'm upset, I'm anxious, I'm depressed, and
Speaker 1: will you give somebody like that in the room. One
Speaker 1: of the first things I do with them. I do
Speaker 1: this with everybody to some extent, but especially somebody who's
Speaker 1: extremely narcissistic, as I help them reduce their anxiety. So
Speaker 1: anything that helps somebody with particularly vulnerable narcissism feel less anxious,
Speaker 1: whether it's medication or whether it's psychotherapy, is going to
Speaker 1: reduce their narcissism over time eventually, because the less anxious
Speaker 1: someone is, the less they're operating in defense mode. The
Speaker 1: whole point of these automatic or unconscious defenses, like pathological narcissism,
Speaker 1: which has a collection of defensive responses, you know, they
Speaker 1: can all boil down to the vulnerability dodge. As I said,
Speaker 1: like with any of these, the more anxiety drops, the
Speaker 1: less people are operating in the defensive mode. So it's
Speaker 1: not atypical for me to have somebody in the room,
Speaker 1: whether it's bases, a combination of us talking about in
Speaker 1: them getting on some anti anxiety meds, or just working
Speaker 1: with me to help them know what it feels like
Speaker 1: to not be in that fight or flight state, or
Speaker 1: tense or angry, which is also anxiety masked. So often
Speaker 1: people with covert narcissism are irritable or briskly but it's anxiety, right,
Speaker 1: and so when I help them reduce that anxiety, that's
Speaker 1: often an event in and of itself. I had somebody
Speaker 1: recently come to me and they said, I've ever felt
Speaker 1: this calm in my life. Wow. And they started using
Speaker 1: these techniques. And once I've got them there, somebody who's
Speaker 1: calm isn't going to go on the attack. They're not
Speaker 1: going to put you down. They don't need to. They
Speaker 1: don't have the insecurity firing up in them. Right. So
Speaker 1: direct answer to your question is I, I mean, you
Speaker 1: get them on me on medication that reduces their anxiety,
Speaker 1: it's going to help, right, I mean it's going to
Speaker 1: help most problems really if they get lower the stress factor.
Speaker 1: So yeah, before I let you go, Um, this is
Speaker 1: going to sound very narcissistic, but it's my podcast, and
Speaker 1: I ask the people that come on is my guests
Speaker 1: a lot of questions, and so I like to turn
Speaker 1: it at the end and let my guests ask me
Speaker 1: a question about anything. So do you have a question
Speaker 1: for me? Can you call me schmoopy? I'll call you smoopy.
Speaker 1: Course that's not my question. It is related though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are certain shows that we grew up with that
Speaker 1: that we watched addictively. For me, it was Gilligan's Island
Speaker 1: I was little, but in my twenties it was in
Speaker 1: Living Color. Oh Wow. Yeah, I watched that show again
Speaker 1: and again and I watched it with my friends. And
Speaker 1: I'm not going to assume that it was a great
Speaker 1: experience for you. But my question is, what's your most
Speaker 1: memorable time on in Living Color? Wow? Well, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you one thing that you'll appreciate because of what you do,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, very early on, I learned that
Speaker 1: I thought that humor and comedy could actually be kind
Speaker 1: of healing tools. And it was on in Living Color
Speaker 1: that I realized making people laugh was actually a superpower.
Speaker 1: And so that was one of the great things that
Speaker 1: came out of it. And I talk a lot in
Speaker 1: my podcast I use humor to parent, yeah, because I
Speaker 1: find it more effective than saying, like, you go to
Speaker 1: your right now. So let's say, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: memories within Living Color. And I got to me Jim
Speaker 1: Carrey and David Ellen Greer and Jamie Fox. I will
Speaker 1: say I had a lot of fun with Jamie Fox,
Speaker 1: and we did a lot of crazy sketches together, and
Speaker 1: one sketch we did was he had a character called
Speaker 1: Ugly Woman where he yeah, he will make up in
Speaker 1: a way, and we did a basic instinct ugly Woman
Speaker 1: and I was Sharon Stone, and so in the sketch,
Speaker 1: now we did it live, so you know, there was
Speaker 1: no changing anything. And so in the sketch we're supposed
Speaker 1: to kind of fake kiss, and Jamie was chewing gum
Speaker 1: and he just stuck his tongue in my and he
Speaker 1: deposited the chewed gum in my mouth. So rather than
Speaker 1: you know, sort of freak out or hide it, I
Speaker 1: took the gum out of my mouth and held it
Speaker 1: up and the whole audience was like, you know, but
Speaker 1: that was that was how off the rails we were,
Speaker 1: which was exciting. I mean, they would never be able
Speaker 1: to make this show today everyone be canceled. But at
Speaker 1: the time, you know, it felt very groundbreaking, and you know,
Speaker 1: you felt like you were pushing the envelope a little,
Speaker 1: which was pretty cool. You are awesome on thank you
Speaker 1: and thank you for thank you for all your work
Speaker 1: you're doing and rethanking narcissism. I've so enjoyed your book,
Speaker 1: Doctor Malkin, and I really I bought a bunch of
Speaker 1: them to send us some friends, not because I was
Speaker 1: calling them narcissists, but I think it's an important read
Speaker 1: and recognizing and coping with narcissists in the world. So
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you coming on and talk to me
Speaker 1: about this. Thank you, You're so welcome. Thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to Go Ask Alli. I've got to hop off
Speaker 1: this podcast because I just realized I am riddled with
Speaker 1: narcissists in my life and I need to go get
Speaker 1: rid of them. Please read doctor Malkin's book Rethinking Crassism,
Speaker 1: The Secret to Recognizing and Coping With Narcissists. Follow him
Speaker 1: on Instagram at doctor Malkin or YouTube at Craig Melkin.
Speaker 1: For more info and what you heard in this episode,
Speaker 1: just check out our show notes. Be sure to subscribe,
Speaker 1: rate and review Go Ask Gali and follow me on
Speaker 1: social media on Instagram at the Real Alley Wentworth. Now.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to ask me a question or suggest
Speaker 1: a guest or a topic dig dig into, I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from you, and there's a bunch of ways
Speaker 1: you can do it. You can call or text me
Speaker 1: at three two three three sixty four sixty three five six,
Speaker 1: or you can email a voice memo right from your
Speaker 1: phone to Go Ask Gali podcast at gmail dot com
Speaker 1: And if you leave a question, you just might hear
Speaker 1: it and Go Ask Gali. Go Ask Gali is a
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