Speaker 1: This podcast should not be used as a substitute for
Speaker 1: medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek
Speaker 1: independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a health
Speaker 1: care professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
Speaker 1: or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This
Speaker 1: episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people.
Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the
Speaker 1: podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do
Speaker 1: not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, I
Speaker 1: Heart Media, or their employees. Think about the one person
Speaker 1: you love the most, your best memory of love and friendship.
Speaker 1: Now somebody comes to tell you that the person you
Speaker 1: love is a sociopath. Now feel that resistance. Now you
Speaker 1: have evidence that proves this person is a sociopath. Someone
Speaker 1: you love and you thought cared about you is a monster.
Speaker 1: Try on what that feels like. In part one of
Speaker 1: our interview, Mark shared with us how he became part
Speaker 1: of the Nexium organization, which was slowly revealed to be
Speaker 1: a cult like and ultimately an abusive organization run by
Speaker 1: mastermind Keith Reneering. Mark has shared with us his own
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities that put him at risk for Ranieri's manipulation, the
Speaker 1: process of indoctrination into this group, and the gradual erosion
Speaker 1: of his sense of self. Mark's description of Nexium is
Speaker 1: consistent with the architecture of any narcissistic relationship, the love bombing,
Speaker 1: the devaluing, the smear campaign's triangulation, and ultimately the betrayal.
Speaker 1: The narcissistic patterns Mark observed were a mash up of
Speaker 1: a more covert, vulnerable, and communal styles of narcissism. Mark's wife, Bonnie,
Speaker 1: initially shared with him her suspicions that Ranieri's behavior may
Speaker 1: be narcissistic, and once he learned that, the pieces started
Speaker 1: to fall into place. But at the same time, the
Speaker 1: scandal that was Nexium slowly started to show itself, and
Speaker 1: Mark will now share the experience of watching the horror
Speaker 1: of the harm caused by a narcissistic cult leader, his enablers,
Speaker 1: and the challenges of trying to tackle it head on
Speaker 1: without losing himself. Next, I'd like to talk about Bonnie,
Speaker 1: who you know I've not met. Bonnie I cannot wake
Speaker 1: because I'll tell you I have such admiration for her,
Speaker 1: because she's that unicorn who sensed it and saw it,
Speaker 1: And if we had a world full of Bonnies, there
Speaker 1: would be no Keiths because she sensed it and she
Speaker 1: sort of shut it down for her self. But I
Speaker 1: really think that the other wonderful thing about your wife, Bonnie,
Speaker 1: is that she didn't hit you over the head with
Speaker 1: that either. She slowly gave you the information and let
Speaker 1: you come to it. I really preached everyone be a Bonnie.
Speaker 1: Don't go up someone to your husband as a narcissist,
Speaker 1: but kind of gently push the article across the table
Speaker 1: and see how that works out. So I'm a huge
Speaker 1: Bunny fan, so tell us. I think one of the
Speaker 1: most powerful things about her is her intuition, which was
Speaker 1: taken offline for a while, but they couldn't do it enough.
Speaker 1: And I think what happened eventually is things got so
Speaker 1: bad because being somebody who's deeply empathic, I think what
Speaker 1: happens is people like Bonnie feel things in their body
Speaker 1: a lot, very powerfully and early before they're able to
Speaker 1: figure out what's actually going on in the situation, until
Speaker 1: actually they feel in their body. So she was feeling
Speaker 1: something in her body, and I think what happened eventually,
Speaker 1: I think in two thousands sixteen, she said, I have
Speaker 1: so many things going on, I have all these fears.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sit down and be still with myself. And
Speaker 1: she spent about ten days just being utterly still on
Speaker 1: her own. She just went on retreat, and she, I guess,
Speaker 1: found some kind of connection that allowed her to see
Speaker 1: how the entire system was working. When she saw all
Speaker 1: the coercion and all the fear, and all the guilt
Speaker 1: and all the punishment. And shortly after that she took
Speaker 1: a walk with Runari and said to him, you know
Speaker 1: what I see. I see all of these things. And
Speaker 1: of course none of us knew who he was at
Speaker 1: that point, and he said to her something like, it
Speaker 1: seems like if you complain a lot, the squeaky wheel gets,
Speaker 1: the oil gets the grease. Is this maybe just you
Speaker 1: trying to get attention kind of thing? And in her
Speaker 1: mind she was like, all right, I see what we're
Speaker 1: dealing with. And that's when she knew, Okay, this guy
Speaker 1: is not a good guy. She was able to do that,
Speaker 1: though she didn't fall for the it's you sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Instead of saying maybe it's me, she went with this
Speaker 1: guy is not a good guy, got connected to herself.
Speaker 1: I think she's spending those ten days in her own
Speaker 1: She got connected to herself in a way that most
Speaker 1: people don't have time and occult because they keep you exhausted,
Speaker 1: they keep you busy. And I was off shooting a
Speaker 1: film in Mexico and she said to me, I'm going
Speaker 1: to l a. I'm just going to go and like
Speaker 1: just going to retreat. So she took the time to
Speaker 1: connect to herself. And what happens when you get away
Speaker 1: from all that noise is you start to find yourself,
Speaker 1: and she did, and then she became unstoppable. And look,
Speaker 1: we all made mistakes. I made a bunch of mistakes,
Speaker 1: waking people up, trying, you know, too hard, being too brash.
Speaker 1: At first, she also pushed too hard. And then what
Speaker 1: happened is she spoke to this amazing exit councilor who said,
Speaker 1: you can't do that. You have to figure out exactly
Speaker 1: what the mine fields are. So she was very smart
Speaker 1: and how she did it, and by the time that
Speaker 1: the dam broke from me, I was able to talk
Speaker 1: to the exit counselor as well, you know, and this
Speaker 1: person was amazing, she was incredible. I mean. One of
Speaker 1: the first things she said to me, she said, do
Speaker 1: you mean do you have dirt on them? And I
Speaker 1: go probably. She said, you're gonna need it, and that's
Speaker 1: what I really understood. Oh, my friends are going to
Speaker 1: come after me. Yes, I'm going to destroy my life
Speaker 1: and my family. You know, people say it was very
Speaker 1: brave what you guys did, and to some degree, yes,
Speaker 1: but there's something amazing when you get forced against the
Speaker 1: wall and you don't have a choice anymore, it's amazing
Speaker 1: what you'll do. Some people, many people, I would still argue,
Speaker 1: it's grave. We're sitting here basking in the wake of
Speaker 1: it being resolved. While it's not resolved, Mark, and you
Speaker 1: are firing into the unknown, and you know what these
Speaker 1: folks are capable of. It is tremendously courageous. And many people,
Speaker 1: even though they may know the right thing to do,
Speaker 1: they're too scared. And other stories, maybe minor children involved.
Speaker 1: You don't know what stops people. I'm not saying it's
Speaker 1: necessarily a lack of courage, but when it's not known,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to sort of survey the damage after hurricane,
Speaker 1: but you go to a dark place in the middle
Speaker 1: of a category fight, hurricane. Do you know what this is?
Speaker 1: This is me still doing some of the old patterns. Yeah,
Speaker 1: underplaying things. No, No, it's celebrating things. And you don't
Speaker 1: even need to have to celebrate it, but you don't
Speaker 1: get to underplay it. It's to see it realistically, right.
Speaker 1: It's that gray of that was brave. I can't even
Speaker 1: sit here and confidently tell you I would have been
Speaker 1: able to or I would have, and I would have
Speaker 1: It would have wrecked me because it is so terrifying
Speaker 1: when you don't know what's going to happen. It's the
Speaker 1: not knowing. If you felt confident we're going to do
Speaker 1: this and it's all going to be fine, but with
Speaker 1: the not knowing, that's that's terrifying. It was terrible. And
Speaker 1: I think that what happened is when I realized what
Speaker 1: he had done to my friends, my female friends, that's
Speaker 1: when the rage began. And that rage lasted a long time.
Speaker 1: And I think that sometimes it does take someone else
Speaker 1: that you might not even have fought this fight if
Speaker 1: it was just you, but the harms that were coming
Speaker 1: to other people in such a systematic way, I think
Speaker 1: that rallied you, and that speaks to something about you.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's your goodness, saying there can't be this erosion
Speaker 1: of goodness in the will, I gotta go in there.
Speaker 1: So talking to me about how you met Bonnie. Bonnie,
Speaker 1: I met actually I think it was two thousand and
Speaker 1: the first time. I think it was around two thousand
Speaker 1: and six. Maybe I actually was trying to enroll her
Speaker 1: in and we stayed in touch over the years, and
Speaker 1: I think we reconnected in about two thousand nine. We
Speaker 1: went to have tea and she said to me, something
Speaker 1: is really different about you. And she, as she was
Speaker 1: at the time in her life, she was thinking, well,
Speaker 1: the things were not working for me, so well, let
Speaker 1: me see what you have to offer. So she came
Speaker 1: to take it intensive and she liked it. She really
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. She got a lot out of it. What happened, though,
Speaker 1: is our friendship grew more and more. And look, the
Speaker 1: reason that I met Bonnie in the first place is
Speaker 1: I was a huge Star Wars fan and so she,
Speaker 1: being an actress in Star Wars, a mutual friend of ours,
Speaker 1: introduced us and she was a huge fan of What
Speaker 1: the Bleep. So that's how we first met. I've told
Speaker 1: a few people the story. We went out to dinner
Speaker 1: one night to watch a show and to have some dinner.
Speaker 1: And I've never heard her music because she was she's
Speaker 1: a singer, and I said, do you have anything? Do
Speaker 1: you have your music? She said no, but do you
Speaker 1: have a guitar? And I said, actually I do. I
Speaker 1: was staying with a friend up in the Holly Hills,
Speaker 1: went up in the hills. I made her some tea.
Speaker 1: She began playing guitar and singing to me, and it
Speaker 1: was all over. It was the most beautiful sound I'd
Speaker 1: ever heard in my life. And that was the moment
Speaker 1: I realized, I'm screwed. It is all over. And we
Speaker 1: have been incredibly bonded, you know, all these years and
Speaker 1: we've been through so much, and honestly, it has made
Speaker 1: us stronger and stronger. I think that she and many
Speaker 1: people have told me this. Her demonstration of true love
Speaker 1: that is seen in the vow is what fortifies me.
Speaker 1: You know, her goodness, her kindness, and her fierceness. This
Speaker 1: is not a push over. My wife is not as
Speaker 1: she is fierce. And you know, one thing that does
Speaker 1: tell me, though, is that you had and sustained a
Speaker 1: love story simultaneously to going through what you went through
Speaker 1: In Next Yame, she also had her own experience with
Speaker 1: it too. But it's a reminder to everyone too that
Speaker 1: if when people are going through our sassistic abuse, if
Speaker 1: there's even one empathic, loving touchstone in your life, that
Speaker 1: might be one of the most single most important tools
Speaker 1: towards getting out, towards healing. Not everyone has that, but
Speaker 1: if you have one, and in your case it was
Speaker 1: a spouse, a partner, other people, it's a dear friend,
Speaker 1: others it may be a sibling or a family member,
Speaker 1: whatever that looks like, but it is a it's a
Speaker 1: game changer to have that. And what's remarkable as you
Speaker 1: came through this together a real reminder that it doesn't
Speaker 1: always have to be scorched. Sure, it's simultaneously to being
Speaker 1: in this horribly narcissistically abusive system, you were able to
Speaker 1: have and do still have a real loving relationship. And
Speaker 1: I think that is probably to me one of the
Speaker 1: most important parts of your story, Mark, because so many
Speaker 1: people think I'm going through this narcissistically abusive situation, I'm
Speaker 1: never going to love or be loved again. That didn't
Speaker 1: go away for you, and I think to anyone listening
Speaker 1: to know that even when you are being harmed and
Speaker 1: just roid by a narcissistic person, you remain cherishable and lovable.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely. I was also fortunate because I knew what
Speaker 1: actual love was. Yes, that that was a touchstone, a
Speaker 1: comparison all the time, because in next thing, they would
Speaker 1: talk about love and I'd be like, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's what love is. They'd say things like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, love is your ability to withstand pain. That's
Speaker 1: true love, And I go, okay, yes, I can, yes
Speaker 1: to some degree, but like the ship you're talking about
Speaker 1: does not feel good, and the thing that I have
Speaker 1: actually feels amazing. But they try to make that seem
Speaker 1: like a weakness. They trying to make that seem like
Speaker 1: an attachment that you had that you used to get
Speaker 1: rid of. They were constantly trying to separate people and
Speaker 1: that love pain thing. I'm I'm not getting down with
Speaker 1: that thing that now that that's just intellectually, there's certain things.
Speaker 1: You know, if you love a child, are you willing
Speaker 1: to go through enormous pain for your child? Yes, But
Speaker 1: let's not make that a blanket statement and apply that
Speaker 1: to everything and say love is that that is an
Speaker 1: aspect of love. Perhaps, yes, exactly. I think that that
Speaker 1: spinning it in. This is almost like when people are
Speaker 1: told relationships are hard, marriages are work. So that way,
Speaker 1: when it feels really awful, people oh, this is supposed
Speaker 1: to feel like this, and they keep fighting for it.
Speaker 1: All of these experiences you were having, they were being
Speaker 1: equated with pain and any questioning from me, it was
Speaker 1: for your this weakness. They also said the intensive if
Speaker 1: you're feeling uncomfortable, it's working right right. Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: a very slippery evil slow, yes it is. It's a
Speaker 1: very slippery slope. Okay. So Keith Rnary was the focus
Speaker 1: of these stories, Nancy a little secondarily, But you know,
Speaker 1: Keith Rnary was sort of positioned as the leader, the villain,
Speaker 1: rightfully so, but he could not have done this alone.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about the other players in this story
Speaker 1: that supported and may even continue to be supporting him
Speaker 1: and what he's doing. So the thing is there's this
Speaker 1: king right and around him were all these people that
Speaker 1: were constantly talking him up. When I first got there,
Speaker 1: I remember meeting all these people around him, mostly woman,
Speaker 1: who would talk about him in such glowing terms, and
Speaker 1: you start to believe the sort of myth after a while.
Speaker 1: So maybe he is these things. Maybe he is these things.
Speaker 1: I was a bit confused as well, because they seemed
Speaker 1: to be in love with him as well. I was.
Speaker 1: It was a bit odd, but I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well I can get on board with Maybe this guy
Speaker 1: is a really good guy. I never would have believed
Speaker 1: that he was who I eventually believed he was if
Speaker 1: it wasn't for the people around him. In advertising campaign
Speaker 1: was constant, constant. Nancy Salzman looked like she would die
Speaker 1: for him. Wow. Nancy Saltzman was the co founder of
Speaker 1: Nexium with Rainieri. She was actually trained as a nurse
Speaker 1: and worked with Ranieri developing a company called Executive Success Programs,
Speaker 1: which was the forerunner of Nexium. She was sort of
Speaker 1: the second in command in Nexium, and in true CULTI fashion,
Speaker 1: was given the title of Prefect. Saltzman was the bodiment
Speaker 1: of the enabler and would go to great lengths, including
Speaker 1: surveillance of cult members to shut down critics and aid
Speaker 1: and a bet Ranieri. And if I ever said anything
Speaker 1: about him, or somebody else said anything about him negative,
Speaker 1: she would go after you like it was nobody's business.
Speaker 1: She would crush you. It was vengeful at times. What
Speaker 1: would happen? So you're hearing the advertising campaign, and you
Speaker 1: also know there's a cost if you question things. And
Speaker 1: the people like her and a few other people, some
Speaker 1: that have now died, they were his enablers. They were
Speaker 1: sort of you know, the people that spoke constantly about him. Now,
Speaker 1: the thing is everybody began doing that. We all began
Speaker 1: doing that because that was what was required, that was
Speaker 1: what it is expected. In fact, if you didn't do
Speaker 1: it enough, you were told that you have a problem
Speaker 1: with tribute. You know, you can't give tribute to other
Speaker 1: people for their achievements. It means you don't understand what
Speaker 1: achievement is. You don't understand what it means to be
Speaker 1: approach user of value. So I noticed that the way
Speaker 1: you spoke about Keith, you didn't really give him tribute
Speaker 1: for these things here. And I still gave him tribute
Speaker 1: for this and this, But what about these things here?
Speaker 1: Perhaps you need to retake the tribute module to understand
Speaker 1: what your limitation is. So what happened is you were
Speaker 1: admonished if you didn't praise enough, which is like an
Speaker 1: authoritarian exactly right. You know, it's like the authoritarian king
Speaker 1: that you weren't like commenting on the clothing that wasn't
Speaker 1: there enough, or the narcissistic parent or the narcissisic parent. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the truth is everybody became that, but there were
Speaker 1: people and some of them are still loyal to him.
Speaker 1: They it looks like they will die for him, yes,
Speaker 1: and they won't do anything for him. So I think
Speaker 1: it's important for people to see that that there's a
Speaker 1: spectrum here, that there are some people who don't break
Speaker 1: out of the trauma bonded cycle and that unwillingness to
Speaker 1: identify it. That's beyond the scope of what we can
Speaker 1: talk about here, but I do think that's a it's
Speaker 1: a critically important piece that people know that not everyone
Speaker 1: has this same outcome. You came out of it, and
Speaker 1: part of that was your focus, I think, on goodness
Speaker 1: and growth and creativity, and you were loved and my
Speaker 1: session with Mark will continue after this break. In any
Speaker 1: kind of a narcissistic system, whether it is a cult,
Speaker 1: a company, or even a family, when there is someone
Speaker 1: demanding obedience and admiration for the dominator, the leader, and
Speaker 1: the narcissist in charge. It's as though everyone is being
Speaker 1: pulled into the vortex of that mega enabler's trauma bond.
Speaker 1: This kind of dominating and harmful enabler gives the narcissist
Speaker 1: exponentially more power and protection. Think about the one person
Speaker 1: you love the most, your best memory of love and friendship.
Speaker 1: Now somebody comes to tell you that the person you
Speaker 1: love is a sociopath. Now feel that resistance. Now you
Speaker 1: have evidence that proves this person is a sociopath. Someone
Speaker 1: you love and you thought cared about you is a monster.
Speaker 1: Cry on what that feels like. This statement bowled me
Speaker 1: over because I think that so many of us, so
Speaker 1: many people hearing this will say, oh, well, like really,
Speaker 1: call leader, how could you have thought well of him?
Speaker 1: But even people in narcissistic relationships, right that there is
Speaker 1: that day, And it's not a day. It builds up
Speaker 1: to a day, but maybe it is that day you
Speaker 1: read the article and you have the conversation, or you
Speaker 1: watch the video and say, oh my gosh, this is
Speaker 1: beginning to add up. And then that's the day that
Speaker 1: you find out that this person you love is a
Speaker 1: sociopath or psychopath or a narcissist, and there's that day
Speaker 1: you have, Like you said, try on what that feels like.
Speaker 1: It is so important for everyone listening to this to
Speaker 1: do that, because one of the things I struggled with
Speaker 1: most when I watched the vow, when I've anything I've
Speaker 1: listened to or read about with it, was the amount
Speaker 1: of finger pointing what is wrong with these people who
Speaker 1: couldn't see this, who signed up for the sex cult,
Speaker 1: which is not what happened, but the blaming there and
Speaker 1: then almost the more salacious interest in what was happening,
Speaker 1: rather than I want to say, slow down everyone, you're
Speaker 1: all doing this. You's happened to be doing it in
Speaker 1: your own homes. But the humanization that you did here
Speaker 1: is like, just take a minute, slow down, think about
Speaker 1: someone you love now you find out there this, and
Speaker 1: just sit with that for a minute. That is a
Speaker 1: moment every single person goes through when they're in these situations.
Speaker 1: The reason I did that was because I feel that
Speaker 1: everybody who looks at these things is coming from having
Speaker 1: the knowledge already of what's going on. And that's, as
Speaker 1: you said, not what's going on. What's going on is
Speaker 1: you're entranced in some kind of way, be it a
Speaker 1: romantic partner, being a priest, occult leader of the CEO
Speaker 1: of an organization, political leader, president, whatever. You don't know
Speaker 1: any of this stuff yet, And I wanted people to
Speaker 1: really try on what it feels like, that moment of
Speaker 1: shock when somebody tells you who they are and you're
Speaker 1: like no, you like you refuse. It's resistance, but sometimes
Speaker 1: it's rageful resistance. And then what happens when you take
Speaker 1: it in it is a massive shock to the system.
Speaker 1: But what I'm trying to do all the time is
Speaker 1: get people to understand put yourself in the position like
Speaker 1: when people say to me, they say this online a
Speaker 1: lot still sometimes how could you, like? How did you
Speaker 1: not see it? Sometimes I say to them, are you
Speaker 1: asking because you're ridiculing or you really want to know?
Speaker 1: Because if you really want to know, here's a bunch
Speaker 1: of books for you to read and put yourself in
Speaker 1: the position of somebody doesn't have to be me who's
Speaker 1: been hoodwinked and learned about it, but don't come to
Speaker 1: me with these bullshit accusations and said something before. And
Speaker 1: I tell people the single most disrespectful question we can
Speaker 1: ask someone, for example, who is a survivor of domestic
Speaker 1: abuse is why didn't you leave? When people say that
Speaker 1: I see red, I have to step out of a room,
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? Do you not know anything about this?
Speaker 1: And so it's the same thinging why didn't you leave?
Speaker 1: How about we asked why did they do that? You
Speaker 1: want to ask a question, Let's ask the right questions
Speaker 1: when people say that they're literally enabling the abuser. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you now have secondary abuse going up. Yes you do,
Speaker 1: because already you come out of these situations thinking at
Speaker 1: first you're like, I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot, and
Speaker 1: then they say, yes, you're an idiot. Wow, thank you.
Speaker 1: Why don't we talk about the pathology of the person.
Speaker 1: But by the way, has trained their entire life to
Speaker 1: abuse people, and me and people like me and people
Speaker 1: like you yourself didn't train how to destroy people. You know,
Speaker 1: most of us did not. We have training psychopaths, right,
Speaker 1: and the psychopaths probably a little bit more born that way.
Speaker 1: Narcissistic people kind of get that way. But I will
Speaker 1: say this that the way these stories get told, the
Speaker 1: vow is one of many where this story is told
Speaker 1: this way. You know this better than far better than
Speaker 1: I do. As a filmmaker, it's all about where you
Speaker 1: train the lens. And there are times, and I remember
Speaker 1: the scene of the Vow very well, all of you
Speaker 1: were sort of at a summer camp kind of a
Speaker 1: set up and having fun and playing and acting like children.
Speaker 1: There's a blamy thing that went along with that, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you fools carrying on like kids. I think you were
Speaker 1: having such a fun time. Good for them, you know,
Speaker 1: but there is that that entire sense of these are children,
Speaker 1: these are fools, they're playing And I think I find
Speaker 1: it so interesting that we live in a culture that
Speaker 1: pathologizes joy, because as soon as you pathologize joy, you
Speaker 1: really do give the power to the joy less, and
Speaker 1: the joy less are getting more and more power, because really,
Speaker 1: I think that's something we are lacking. Is just sort
Speaker 1: of if people watch The Vow, they would have that
Speaker 1: sense of the story of going from what started out
Speaker 1: as these sort of personal development seminars and esp and
Speaker 1: that then you know, evolved into this larger organization of
Speaker 1: Nexium and then devolved into these sorts of sub factions
Speaker 1: where the abuse was really happening and you had a
Speaker 1: story going on. While all of that story was going on,
Speaker 1: what was it like? How did that all evolve? From
Speaker 1: a first person perspective, As this whole situation was unbraiding,
Speaker 1: you went in for personal development, and obviously, I will
Speaker 1: say even the personal development piece had some of the
Speaker 1: markers of organizations that should concern us levels and their
Speaker 1: sashes and calling him vanguard and changing identities. All of
Speaker 1: that is cultic structure because it's taking one away from identity.
Speaker 1: It's creating artificial hierarchies, leveling up and all of that.
Speaker 1: But even all of that that, then this next devolution
Speaker 1: really into this sort of grooming sexually abusive element of this.
Speaker 1: How did that unfold? Was that happening in parallel and tandem?
Speaker 1: Did it evolved down the road? And what was it
Speaker 1: like to be the presence of all of that? There's
Speaker 1: the surface level of everything, which is personal growth, creating centers,
Speaker 1: creating business paths, that kind of thing. And then people
Speaker 1: that were closer to Raniering seemed to be on some
Speaker 1: kind of other path, which it didn't make a lot
Speaker 1: of sense to me at first, but he had a
Speaker 1: lot of people close to him. I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of this was going on from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: What turned out to be dust this sort of what
Speaker 1: the world sees as some sex slave club that had
Speaker 1: been going on for a long time. He had been
Speaker 1: I found out later that back in two thousand five,
Speaker 1: he had been talking about creating a sort of a
Speaker 1: blackmail club of women that would target certain powerful men
Speaker 1: and try and get black mail material from him. So
Speaker 1: he was thinking about that stuff for a long time.
Speaker 1: It turns out later we all realized he was also
Speaker 1: sleeping with all these people, which we didn't know for
Speaker 1: a long time. That became apparent around two thousand and fifteen,
Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen, I thought, finally, I was thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: so he's not a renunciate, so he is having relationships
Speaker 1: that new to me, and it was new to a
Speaker 1: lot of people. So yes, it was happening in parallel.
Speaker 1: But just imagine the CIO, the n s A. Everything
Speaker 1: is a need to know basis, and if you ask
Speaker 1: certain questions you were shut down. So there was so
Speaker 1: much compartmentalization. Like I remember saying, everybody's whispering, and Bonnie
Speaker 1: and I were talked about everybody's whispering in corners, all
Speaker 1: these people who whispering, And we had a joke because
Speaker 1: the guys weren't whispering, but all the women were whispering.
Speaker 1: Now I realized what was going on. They were all
Speaker 1: stooping him and having issues about it. I didn't understand
Speaker 1: that was going on. So you don't know what you
Speaker 1: were looking at. You just knew something weird was going on.
Speaker 1: What happened is that the woman's curriculum, and then the
Speaker 1: men's curriculum, and then the ethesis curriculum. That's when stuff
Speaker 1: started getting really weird, when the pen and stuff started
Speaker 1: coming in. When love is pain and pain is love
Speaker 1: started coming in, and sacrifice is the highest principle, giving
Speaker 1: of your life is the highest principle. And showing videos
Speaker 1: of that monk that burns himself some self emulation kind
Speaker 1: of thing that was seen as a very noble things
Speaker 1: to do. To die for a principle was the most
Speaker 1: powerful thing you could do. Now we were heading into
Speaker 1: these weird religious odd places that was devaluing just a
Speaker 1: good life as somehow not being a good thing that
Speaker 1: you had to reach for the stars and apparently he
Speaker 1: was the highest principle in human form that you had
Speaker 1: to protect. All of that was this multi pronged un
Speaker 1: ramp to what became dos where people have been so
Speaker 1: hollowed out that they thought they bought the idea that
Speaker 1: slavery's freedom, which is terrifying, and it's double speaking, double second.
Speaker 1: It's a whole bunch of weird things. But they bought
Speaker 1: in because it took a while. This is a guy,
Speaker 1: this is Rains was a salesman for a while and
Speaker 1: multi level marketing. But he also said, you don't get
Speaker 1: somebody from the first step to the tent step. You
Speaker 1: have to get them to step two and get from
Speaker 1: step three, and it's all drooming. And his whole sales
Speaker 1: technique was about basically grooming somebody to buy the training
Speaker 1: eventually incomes training. What we didn't realize though, is everything
Speaker 1: was about in essence. The men were devalued, but the
Speaker 1: women were devalued in a different way. Men were devalued
Speaker 1: to the point that we felt so inadequate and so weak,
Speaker 1: and so, you know, a whole bunch of things, and
Speaker 1: women were as well. But then women were told, your
Speaker 1: salvation is completely subjugating yourself, so I can recreate you
Speaker 1: the way I want. Now, he didn't sell it the
Speaker 1: way I want. He said into something that you should be.
Speaker 1: You know he was. He was basically talking to Alison
Speaker 1: mac about Joan of Arc and getting her obsessed with
Speaker 1: Joan of Arc. You know, there were all these books
Speaker 1: he was having them all read. So I know people
Speaker 1: rag on these women for making those decisions, but they
Speaker 1: don't understand how grooming works, right, No, no they don't.
Speaker 1: It is it's a slow These women should not be
Speaker 1: looked as fool as they're not. No, nobody, nobody who's
Speaker 1: groomed is a fool. It is very stepwise process. And
Speaker 1: when you're pulled away from your ordinary supports, because that's
Speaker 1: how grooming works is also through isolation, so there's no
Speaker 1: sounding board, there's no eyes on you to keep look
Speaker 1: at them. We think classically of grooming, it's a younger person,
Speaker 1: a child, adolescent, middle school puberty, who doesn't have a
Speaker 1: parent who may necessarily or an adult who is either
Speaker 1: distracted or not available or just has neglected them, and
Speaker 1: it is not paying attention. And then that that's the
Speaker 1: child who becomes the mark for the groomer. It is
Speaker 1: I think it's something that any of us, any of
Speaker 1: us are vulnerable. So it's that's why grooming works, because
Speaker 1: it's sort of universally possible for anyone to be taken in.
Speaker 1: So no, it was a very systematic process, and you
Speaker 1: saw other women doing it yes, which normalize yes championing,
Speaker 1: which was very confusing. One of the things I would
Speaker 1: say to people, if you see something like that going on,
Speaker 1: and somebody says to you, it's none of your business,
Speaker 1: make it your business. I couldn't agree to. I will
Speaker 1: never again let somebody say to me it's none of
Speaker 1: my business. I'm gonna make it my business because I
Speaker 1: don't like what's going on. That's right, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: even if I don't know what it is yet, because
Speaker 1: if I see, for instance, I've walked into restaurants, I've
Speaker 1: walked into shops where the entire staff looks broken, and
Speaker 1: I've always said to myself, a narcissist is running this place.
Speaker 1: These people are broken, they're hollowed out, they're terrified, they're lifeless.
Speaker 1: Something is not right. I agree. I've talked with people
Speaker 1: who you could see there's a wide eyed, unsettled, almost
Speaker 1: skittish nature to them, and something's not right. And even
Speaker 1: if it's hard, because in some of those two situations,
Speaker 1: we go into these restaurants and try to converse with them,
Speaker 1: and we want to blink twice. If you want us
Speaker 1: to arrest your boss, I don't know what to tell someone,
Speaker 1: but yeah, but you know, just picking up at that point,
Speaker 1: it's really important to I love what you're doing. And
Speaker 1: also this this film I'm working on now, trying so
Speaker 1: hard to look at the pattern. Yes, yes, because you
Speaker 1: could walk into a restaurant. If you understand the pattern,
Speaker 1: you can see it. And that's the issue with no
Speaker 1: sort of cult porn or stories about narcissist porn. If
Speaker 1: you get too lust in the story and the personalities,
Speaker 1: you won't see the pattern. Yes, yes, I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you brought that up, because I and you and I
Speaker 1: have talked about this ourselves, this idea that again I
Speaker 1: call it narcissism porn. I agree that there's cult porn,
Speaker 1: this idea that we are so compelled by the stories
Speaker 1: of the Keith Rainierians and the and all the people
Speaker 1: who are at the center of these either docuseries or
Speaker 1: even fictionalized series, who are so in your face narcissistic
Speaker 1: that we are almost frozen in that story. In fact,
Speaker 1: Pete Walker, who is a trauma therapist, calls it fawning.
Speaker 1: It's a fawning response. It's literally a sympathetic, nervous system
Speaker 1: response we have to someone that dominant, and it reflects
Speaker 1: an attempt to get attachment needs met when we had
Speaker 1: such a dominating invalidating parent and childhood. But you almost
Speaker 1: find ruling and eyeing and look what they're doing, and
Speaker 1: they're so visionary, and you want to say, slow own, folks.
Speaker 1: I had today, I had a woman asked me about
Speaker 1: healthy narcissism. I said, that's like a safe cigarette. No,
Speaker 1: the two words don't get to go together. And so
Speaker 1: this desire to think that there can be this impressario
Speaker 1: that is somehow a benevolent force, it doesn't exist. And
Speaker 1: we are in a period though every other show out there,
Speaker 1: either everybody on the program is narcissistic or the vast
Speaker 1: majority or the entire storyline coalesces around a very narcissistic individual.
Speaker 1: And I think that this has become accused. We've now
Speaker 1: we're focusing too much on the narcissistic people, and we're
Speaker 1: never giving heed to the story of the people who
Speaker 1: are harmed, and when we do, we portray them as
Speaker 1: fools exactly exactly, And you know, our society right now,
Speaker 1: we enable these people, putting them in movies, we're putting
Speaker 1: them in TV shows. It's like we we worship them,
Speaker 1: Yes we do. It's okay to say, look at these
Speaker 1: people are like doing bad things, but we may have
Speaker 1: to take a look at ourselves as well, society, because
Speaker 1: we are really co contributing to are absolutely every possible
Speaker 1: medium you can think of. We are contributing from elections
Speaker 1: to who's holds corporate positions, to who holds the greatest
Speaker 1: strength in social media, to reality television. You pick a medium,
Speaker 1: pick a medium. They have the platforms, they have the stages,
Speaker 1: and we stop what we're doing and we listen, and
Speaker 1: we are normalizing this behavior to global literally global detriment.
Speaker 1: We will be right back with this conversation with Mark.
Speaker 1: I will say I am worried because I can't fix
Speaker 1: the world. I'm trying to help people at the individual level.
Speaker 1: You said something making it about patterns. If Bonnie had
Speaker 1: rolled up to you that day and said, Mark, he's
Speaker 1: a sociopath, he's a narcissist, your eyes might have glazed
Speaker 1: over a little. She approached you subtly, there's some patterns
Speaker 1: here that concerned me every client I work with say,
Speaker 1: you've raised some patterns here that are concerning me, and
Speaker 1: the empathy is a little patchy and entitlement and how
Speaker 1: does all that make you feel? And then what it is?
Speaker 1: It's almost like I've laid out all the ingredients for
Speaker 1: a soup and they look at that carrot and the
Speaker 1: potato and the broth, and I'm like, oh, we're making
Speaker 1: a soup. I'm like, let's talk about this soup, shall we?
Speaker 1: Because it's all these things are always going to make soup.
Speaker 1: And so I do believe that by talking about in
Speaker 1: terms of pattern you don't get as much of the pushback.
Speaker 1: And I will say, also, and it's a misnomer. A
Speaker 1: lot of people say, oh, you shouldn't say someone's narcissistic.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't diagnose them. It's not a diagnosis. It's not
Speaker 1: a diagnosis. If somebody came up to me and I
Speaker 1: used this example all the time and said, hey, I
Speaker 1: want you to meet my friend. She's really agreeable, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say, don't say, that's very diagnostic. It's a type
Speaker 1: of personality style. And so it's being stubborn, and so
Speaker 1: is being introverted. And nobody calls that stuff diagnostic, this word,
Speaker 1: and I think it's because the people who are the
Speaker 1: powers that be don't like the word. It feels like
Speaker 1: a bad word because it kind of isn't a very
Speaker 1: nice word because it's a bad pattern. But the world
Speaker 1: of mental health is silencing this conversation. I have to say,
Speaker 1: I think they're complicit in it, and they being the
Speaker 1: world of mental health of saying maybe we just need
Speaker 1: to look in the back. So I said, I don't
Speaker 1: need to see any backstory when somebody is doing this
Speaker 1: to another person. All I need to see is the
Speaker 1: front story that I'm looking at right now. I think
Speaker 1: that there are some people are so busy being academic
Speaker 1: that they've lost their moral companies. And this is a
Speaker 1: question of morality. If somebody's doing bad, that they're doing
Speaker 1: bad ship. They may have a pathology, we can look
Speaker 1: into that, but there's a problem. But they're going to
Speaker 1: consistently do bad things. That's the other thing we need
Speaker 1: to remember is everyone personalizes that. Maybe it's something about me.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm bringing out the worst of this person. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm not worthy of this. Maybe they're so much smarter
Speaker 1: than me that I can't keep up and I don't
Speaker 1: know in what world smart is a virtue. Smart is
Speaker 1: like being able to juggle. It's just a skill set.
Speaker 1: And so that idea of it is plausible that it's
Speaker 1: not them, it's me also really adds to this. And
Speaker 1: also something that I know you've brought up in you
Speaker 1: and I discussed once, the Pollyanna attitude of refusing to
Speaker 1: see add things in the world. The toxic positivity. It
Speaker 1: is so damaging to people that are being abused, and
Speaker 1: it allows these people to sort of skim under the radar. Yea.
Speaker 1: The spiritual communities, loosely organized in many ways, bank on that.
Speaker 1: And if a person, for example, isn't experiencing growth, even
Speaker 1: in seminars like you were in, they will say, well,
Speaker 1: it's because you aren't trying hard enough, you're not manifesting
Speaker 1: hard enough, you're not present enough. This is you, not
Speaker 1: your insane curriculum. And so I think that movement and
Speaker 1: every other you know, Instagram post, is that this pseudo
Speaker 1: toxic positivity message. So when a person who's struggling, isn't
Speaker 1: leaning into that positivity, is experiencing real hurt, they pathologize
Speaker 1: themselves saying, well, maybe this is my fault for not
Speaker 1: being able to harness my positivity. And I'll say, slow down, sister,
Speaker 1: You're going to get there, but you need to heal first.
Speaker 1: So let's think of this in terms of aftermaths. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was devastating. We saw the central players in the vow,
Speaker 1: like yourself and her husband, Nippy, but so many people
Speaker 1: were affected by this by nexium and women harmed and
Speaker 1: traumatized and all of that. So let's talk about this aftermath.
Speaker 1: Let's start by talking about what ended up happening to Keith.
Speaker 1: I mean, after this six weeks trial, it was extraordinary
Speaker 1: because the jury came with guilty and all counts, which
Speaker 1: was amazing. That is amazing, and then Judge Garfist gave
Speaker 1: him a hundred and twenty years in prison, which was
Speaker 1: unheard of, and twenty years. I will never forget the
Speaker 1: day I read that in the news and was sitting
Speaker 1: in my living room and I sat down and I
Speaker 1: got tears in my eyes, and I said, finally, out
Speaker 1: of one five hundred thousand these cases, one of these
Speaker 1: cases was finally sentenced properly, and that case is now
Speaker 1: being used as precedent for a lot of other cases. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were clever in their use of racketeering. That was
Speaker 1: something they stayed away from the word cult. They talked
Speaker 1: about tours of psychology and stuff like that. They stayed
Speaker 1: away from cult altogether because it's a very murky topic
Speaker 1: in courts. But yeah, racketeering, that's what it was. It
Speaker 1: was the mob basically yea, but using racketeering statutes, focusing
Speaker 1: obviously things that were very clearly happening, the sexual trafficking,
Speaker 1: the sexual abuse, all of it. I was stunned by
Speaker 1: the sentence, and it was one of those rare times
Speaker 1: where you actually felt that there was justice in one
Speaker 1: of these stories, because they're so rarely is, and much
Speaker 1: more importantly is to the degree you know, what has
Speaker 1: happened to the other people involved who are hurt by this.
Speaker 1: I think it's been very painful to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Um there are people that never said a word and
Speaker 1: just start trying to get their lives back. I'm certainly
Speaker 1: in touch with some of them. And then there's the
Speaker 1: people that are still loyal and and I have finally
Speaker 1: given up trying to help in any way because I can't.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, I don't know what's going to happen,
Speaker 1: and maybe they won't wake up, and maybe it's okay
Speaker 1: they don't wake up, because waking up might be really
Speaker 1: it might be really bad. So I don't know. I
Speaker 1: just it's place. I mean, I have compassion for them.
Speaker 1: I think they're super lost. They're very lost. And as
Speaker 1: we said that, there's a continuum outcome for people in
Speaker 1: narcissistic relationships and in narcissistic organizations such as cult like organizations,
Speaker 1: and not every story ends up right side up, and
Speaker 1: unfortunately we trauma, bonding, coercive control, these things are very real.
Speaker 1: And the fact that there were still I mean, it
Speaker 1: sounds like fifty six seventy people who are still standing
Speaker 1: behind him, and we don't hear much from them, but
Speaker 1: I imagine to their families that feels like a loss
Speaker 1: that they're trying to talk about that they're not getting
Speaker 1: a lot of attention on Twitter constantly Interesting, constantly saying
Speaker 1: things about the whistle blowers and talking about how we're
Speaker 1: just a bunch of victims and you know, YadA YadA. Interesting.
Speaker 1: So they're for ever going to do his bidding and
Speaker 1: they derive identity from all of that. But it's like
Speaker 1: there's a continuum ab outcome here from people who actually
Speaker 1: come out and not only whistleblowers, but are able to
Speaker 1: see a different future, in a different path, and those
Speaker 1: who don't get out. And I will say to anybody
Speaker 1: who's contemplating speaking out, it is, I know, the most
Speaker 1: terrifying thing, but it's the most rewarding thing, because, like
Speaker 1: with any noble battle, you look back and you go,
Speaker 1: I'm so happy I made these choices. I'm so happy
Speaker 1: I did these things. I couldn't imagine looking back and
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, what if I just said nothing? I
Speaker 1: couldn't live with myself. So there's a lot of there's
Speaker 1: a lot of wonderful things that comes out of doing
Speaker 1: the right thing. Absolutely as terrifying as it is, Yes,
Speaker 1: I think so. Like I said, here we get the
Speaker 1: closure of Keith got a hundred and twenty years. But Mark,
Speaker 1: there must have been time in there for all of
Speaker 1: you thinking this guy may not see him the time.
Speaker 1: I was terrified. The whole time. I was constantly worried
Speaker 1: is the jury going to get it? I was worried
Speaker 1: about what the defense was doing. I was worried, as
Speaker 1: a prosecutor is gonna be able to make their case.
Speaker 1: When he finally got sent guilty and all accounts, that
Speaker 1: was the first time that I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: we can close this door. But I remember even that
Speaker 1: I walked out of the courthouse and I was immediately
Speaker 1: on camera and somebody said to me, how do you feel,
Speaker 1: as though I would feel triumphant, and I said, I
Speaker 1: just feel like there's bodies everywhere because the fallout, that
Speaker 1: damage to people, lifelong damage to people, so profound. It
Speaker 1: wasn't so much yea, the badman's got put away. It
Speaker 1: wasn't that. It was, yes, you can't hurt people in
Speaker 1: the same way anymore. But there's so many people that
Speaker 1: got hurt by this, and there are people that are
Speaker 1: upset that we spoke out. They feel hurt by us.
Speaker 1: Even people who don't support him, that's supporting, but they
Speaker 1: think that there was some better way they think we
Speaker 1: should have There are some people that think we should
Speaker 1: have met with him, discuss things with him. So they
Speaker 1: don't get it. They don't understand, they understand, And I
Speaker 1: would say, then you don't understand what we're dealing was here,
Speaker 1: so speaking out wasn't easy, Mark, So you still, I
Speaker 1: mean to this day, granted, you can shut down Twitter
Speaker 1: or not interact, would it not look at that stuff?
Speaker 1: But to this day there are people who are critiquing
Speaker 1: and that idea, oh you could have sat down and
Speaker 1: talked to them, That actually kind of boils my blood
Speaker 1: because it reveals absolutely no understanding of what this is.
Speaker 1: And if we talk about any narcissistic relationship this way,
Speaker 1: the number of people say, well, why don't you just
Speaker 1: reach out and sit with them? So you're sending them
Speaker 1: into a tiger's cage. What are you doing? No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: nobody's sitting and talking about this, And so that sort
Speaker 1: of one size fits all, that kind of mediated response
Speaker 1: might work with some folks not in this, and I
Speaker 1: think the unwillingness to recognize that is when we think
Speaker 1: of people who are going through this in their day
Speaker 1: to day relationships, you can see why it is so
Speaker 1: difficult for people to get out cult or marriage or
Speaker 1: family or any of it. And when you skill these
Speaker 1: abusive relationships like entire political parties, it is it is right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: But I think all of these things that we're talking
Speaker 1: about is why I have become so obsessed with this topic.
Speaker 1: You know why I'm making this film, right, now about narcissism.
Speaker 1: Talked to about that film two thousand seventeen. When I
Speaker 1: realized this guy's the narcissist, that was the obsession began.
Speaker 1: But then I realized, if we don't talk about the patterns,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna get lost in the narcissic porn, so
Speaker 1: to speak. So you know, the film is called Empathy
Speaker 1: Not Included. It will probably come out at the beginning
Speaker 1: of next year. Talked to many experts you included, talked
Speaker 1: to many victims. We're also talking to self confessed narcissists,
Speaker 1: which is absolutely fascinating. And what we're also looking at
Speaker 1: is narcissistic abuse at different scales, from romantic to family,
Speaker 1: to corporate too, churches to to recults all the way
Speaker 1: up to the political level. We don't go after any
Speaker 1: political parties. We want to just look at the pattern
Speaker 1: of how these things work at that level. And I
Speaker 1: believe what we're creating is something that will be very palatable,
Speaker 1: very powerful, and people will want to hopefully study more
Speaker 1: after they see something like this. I hope they'll dive
Speaker 1: even more deeply into your work, or maybe discover your work.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of amazing stuff out there right now
Speaker 1: about narcissism, about trauma, bunding about betrayal trauma is wonderful
Speaker 1: resources now, but I do agree. I don't like the
Speaker 1: fact that sometimes clinicians are sort of anti pathologizing things.
Speaker 1: People need to understand what they're looking at, well, they
Speaker 1: need to understand. You don't even have to pathologize it.
Speaker 1: I said, you have to. You have to understand the
Speaker 1: fundamentals of narcissism. It's rigid, it's inflexible, it doesn't change.
Speaker 1: You know. Daniel Shaw, who's working this field, probably the
Speaker 1: person whose work I admire, living person whose work I
Speaker 1: admire the most, he talks about this loss of intrasubjectivity,
Speaker 1: that there's no space for anyone's reality except there. So
Speaker 1: I always view it as like sort of like the
Speaker 1: big fish eats the small fish, or you know, sort
Speaker 1: of the amba sort of overtakes the and that's that
Speaker 1: you're in the Neva system now. And so the real
Speaker 1: work becomes for a person who survives one of these
Speaker 1: experiences is to give themselves to become a differentiated whole,
Speaker 1: to become something or someone separate from this system. So
Speaker 1: what about you, though, what steps have you marked personally
Speaker 1: as a survivor taken to heal through everything out. I
Speaker 1: also there was a little moment I threw psychology out
Speaker 1: as well, through everything out, and I went to you know,
Speaker 1: Bonnie and I went to Portugal and we went to
Speaker 1: the ocean just stare at the ocean. I had no
Speaker 1: idea who I was. I wasn't entirely sure what goodness was.
Speaker 1: But I knew that the battle I just done, I
Speaker 1: thought that was good. But I had no real deep
Speaker 1: connection to something inside of me until I sat at
Speaker 1: the ocean for a long time and one day I
Speaker 1: don't know what happened. I just felt something inside of myself,
Speaker 1: something wonderful and beautiful, and I said, oh, that's it.
Speaker 1: That's the real me that has been obscured for all
Speaker 1: these years. So I am in a much better place
Speaker 1: than I have been before. I find interesting enough. Working
Speaker 1: on this film about narcissism is not traumatizing. It's actually
Speaker 1: helping me. And actually everybody on the team was involved.
Speaker 1: It's helping them, and every single crew member we have
Speaker 1: has a story of learn and every time they listened
Speaker 1: to an expert, they're like, oh my god, I know
Speaker 1: what they're talking about. So it's been very healing. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I can tell people that there is, you know, life
Speaker 1: after narcisstic abuse. There is, and I don't know how
Speaker 1: can I say this. I think I'm stronger than I've
Speaker 1: ever been in my life. Maybe this is what was required.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I don't disagree.
Speaker 1: I think every journey of narcissistic abuse is a hero
Speaker 1: hero ins hero person's journey in the sense that it
Speaker 1: is the it's the slaying the demons. It's being called
Speaker 1: to adventure and then facing the existential crisis and then
Speaker 1: having the fellow travelers that come along, the friends of supporters,
Speaker 1: the therapists, the people who are there at your side,
Speaker 1: and then returning transform. And that's the story. I hope
Speaker 1: for every survivor is that they recognize that they can,
Speaker 1: that we all have demons. It's only the narcissist that
Speaker 1: become the demons. And I think that everyone else is
Speaker 1: slaying these demons, and even the narcissistic people, I still
Speaker 1: hold that or unicorns there where they don't have to
Speaker 1: become the demon, that they could actually bring themselves from
Speaker 1: the edge. But it's hard work. You've talked to self
Speaker 1: professor narcissistic folks. But I do think that heroic journey
Speaker 1: that exists in everyone is really the story of narcissistic abuse.
Speaker 1: And I think you never look at the world the
Speaker 1: same way that moment of clarity you had in Portugal.
Speaker 1: It's a moment. It's a moment that if survivors can
Speaker 1: go on like sort of let that process unfold, let
Speaker 1: themselves face down that pain. For you, it even culminated
Speaker 1: in a suicidal crisis. This is not small pain. This
Speaker 1: is a big pain. But then come back wholly to yourself,
Speaker 1: separate from any system that if you're going to look
Speaker 1: for goodness, the goodness was there all along. Well, that
Speaker 1: was the thing that had to happen. I had to
Speaker 1: let go of looking anywhere else for the answers. Yes,
Speaker 1: and because there was kind of this abdication of my
Speaker 1: own sense of self that I had to get over
Speaker 1: and by throwing everything out temporarily, and even when I
Speaker 1: threw everything out, I was like, I know, this isn't forever.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling and forever. But stopping to look
Speaker 1: outside for the answers was so amazing because finally I
Speaker 1: could turn inside and now I don't look at other
Speaker 1: people as that they have the answers. I look at
Speaker 1: people as like, oh, that's an interesting perspective. Let me
Speaker 1: feel what that feels like. You know, all the experts
Speaker 1: that i'm that, I'm that I'm talking to, I listen,
Speaker 1: I go that resonates, that doesn't resonate. Okay, that's fine,
Speaker 1: and that's fine. But that idea that you can hold
Speaker 1: space for them, they can hold space for you. That
Speaker 1: a narcissistic person can't hold space for your perspective, but
Speaker 1: too healthy people, even if you don't agree, you can
Speaker 1: sit there and hear that perspective and still know your
Speaker 1: core inside is solid. Unfortunately, that's not how a lot
Speaker 1: of people were raised as children to become their own,
Speaker 1: their sort of own people. For me in this podcast,
Speaker 1: something that's so essential to this is to again deep
Speaker 1: pathologize the survivors who are Whether it's a story of
Speaker 1: just one person's story of their marriage, well, why did
Speaker 1: you stay so long? Why don't you leave to the
Speaker 1: story of getting into a cold to the story of
Speaker 1: people giving people money, whatever it may be, Well, why
Speaker 1: did you do that? Yours weren't beyond that people were
Speaker 1: unkind to you? I would argue cruel to you. How
Speaker 1: did that impact your healing and how have you coped
Speaker 1: with that? That was very hard. In fact, sometimes it
Speaker 1: was an additional betrayal. In some ways, it was incredibly cruel,
Speaker 1: and it did set me back quite a bit. I
Speaker 1: got pretty messed up. I had to go of social
Speaker 1: media for a while. You know, some of some of
Speaker 1: it has begun to make more sense to me in
Speaker 1: the last year because I look at how vengeful people
Speaker 1: are in social media, and I'm beginning to see that
Speaker 1: it's sort of like maybe they haven't dealt with their
Speaker 1: shadow or something, and they're just projecting a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of their own stuff everywhere. But I'm still proud of
Speaker 1: what we did, and I don't care what they say
Speaker 1: in terms of that because we did what we did.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of it. Does it hurt when they ridicule
Speaker 1: us a little bit? Still? What's helped me, weirdly enough,
Speaker 1: is as I'm studying narcissism and narcissistic abuse, I realize
Speaker 1: that pretty much everybody's in some kind of relationship of
Speaker 1: abuse and they may not realize it. That's exactly right,
Speaker 1: and that weirdly freed me because I'm like, oh, so
Speaker 1: you don't see it, So you're shooting on me because
Speaker 1: you see it in me, but you can't see it
Speaker 1: in you. That's right, Okay, Well I hope it doesn't
Speaker 1: go as badly for you as it did for me.
Speaker 1: But you know what, can I say? Correct? Correct? And
Speaker 1: I think that you have that big stew of narcissism
Speaker 1: enablers and people who are in their own situations but
Speaker 1: don't want to see it. So it's much easier to shame,
Speaker 1: blame and pathologize the messenger, which would be someone like you,
Speaker 1: than to look at what is happening in their life.
Speaker 1: And you, at some level you can empathize with that
Speaker 1: until you were ready to hear it, you weren't ready
Speaker 1: to hear it. Well, the other problem is people like me.
Speaker 1: I'm not the only one, but people like me are
Speaker 1: saying monsters are real. Yeah, those stories of Dracula, they're real.
Speaker 1: And people do not like that. No, no, they do.
Speaker 1: And people don't like knowing it's not a just world.
Speaker 1: People don't like the idea that there are are monsters
Speaker 1: amongst us. People don't like that there's not always happy endings,
Speaker 1: and that's a lot. We were raised on this stuff.
Speaker 1: So I really feel that the work in narcissism is
Speaker 1: a dismantling of every religious teaching, every myth, and frankly
Speaker 1: every fairy tale ever told, and having to look at
Speaker 1: these things through a very different eye. So do you
Speaker 1: want to add anything else, Mark, because I just think, honestly,
Speaker 1: I think that the work you're doing is so important.
Speaker 1: People must understand how this works. They cannot keep their
Speaker 1: heads buried under the stand the world is full of
Speaker 1: these people, and they're in very powerful positions, very powerful positions,
Speaker 1: which might explain why I've always had such trouble. I
Speaker 1: always said, this should really be in case through twelve curriculum,
Speaker 1: because you want to get this early. The pushback I've
Speaker 1: always gotten this is too dark for that age, for
Speaker 1: any anyone under eighteen. I said, great, this is when
Speaker 1: kids start dating. We know that there's relationship violence when
Speaker 1: people are in their teens, they may be dealing with
Speaker 1: narcissistic parents, and so it feels as though you're you're
Speaker 1: to talk about narcissism to me is the ultimate anti authoritarian,
Speaker 1: ultimate sort of anti oppressive message. And I think in
Speaker 1: that way, if you've got to keep finding the back
Speaker 1: doors to think and to refuse to talk about it
Speaker 1: is serving somebody and people. It does serve someone, and
Speaker 1: I think I started this relationally, like really working with
Speaker 1: people in their individual relationships, but to ignore the societal
Speaker 1: piece of it. Any time a world event happens that
Speaker 1: involves sort of a narcissistic theme. Every client I work with,
Speaker 1: my phone blows up just thinking I'm unsettled. Of course
Speaker 1: you're unsettled. The world is paralleling your relationship and your
Speaker 1: wounds right now, so it means everything's right where it
Speaker 1: needs to be. We should be disturbed these things we
Speaker 1: have a heart, We should be disturbed. Well, thanks for
Speaker 1: bringing back empathy in your special way making empathy healthy
Speaker 1: and sexy again. I've reached it. What we're doing, that
Speaker 1: is what we're doing. So thank you again. Where can
Speaker 1: people find you? As there anything you want to share
Speaker 1: about how because I personally can't wait to see this
Speaker 1: film on the world. No, I have my website, I'm
Speaker 1: on Instagram and starting tik talk and Facebook. You know,
Speaker 1: it's always just Mark the Cente wherever I am, and yeah,
Speaker 1: people can reach out to me on social media. Great, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you again Mark for This is incredible conversation. Many
Speaker 1: of us watched the Vow and were horrified by the
Speaker 1: stories of sexual abuse, of power, control, and manipulation. This
Speaker 1: conversation with Mark reminds us that the oppressive and manipulative
Speaker 1: mind games used in occult maybe at a larger scale,
Speaker 1: but they're no different than what happens in any narcissistic relationship.
Speaker 1: Mark's relationship with Nexium started from a place a feeling understood,
Speaker 1: feeling seen, and believing in the organization and the leaders.
Speaker 1: As time went on, the lack of empathy, the grandiosity,
Speaker 1: the gas lighting, the projection, blame shifting, isolation, and techniques
Speaker 1: like mentally and physically exhausting people and making them jump
Speaker 1: through hoops. While it may be more organized than what
Speaker 1: happens in a family or a relationship, it's all the same.
Speaker 1: Many people saw the Vow as the story of a cult.
Speaker 1: I simply saw it as one more story of a
Speaker 1: narcissistic relationship. So here are some takeaways from my conversation
Speaker 1: with Mark. First, every narcissistic relationship is sort of a cult.
Speaker 1: A cult of two maybe, but a cult grooming indoctrination,
Speaker 1: having reality stolen, becoming isolated, manipulated and being told that
Speaker 1: the relationship is a special place that no one else
Speaker 1: will understand. That's a cult. When we think of it
Speaker 1: that way, we are reminded that all of us are
Speaker 1: vulnerable to this kind of manipulation. If you are witnessing
Speaker 1: abuse in a family, or a workplace system, or any
Speaker 1: other kind of system, be a support, speak up, and,
Speaker 1: as Mark said, make it your business. Many times abuse
Speaker 1: happens because other people stay silent if it doesn't feel right.
Speaker 1: Reach in and protect others when you can do so
Speaker 1: when it feels safe, but find a way to do so.
Speaker 1: If you suspect someone may be in a narcissistic lee
Speaker 1: abusive relationship, don't just roll up and say, hey, I
Speaker 1: think that person is a narcissist. Instead, when you approach them,
Speaker 1: focus on patterns. When a person is in one of
Speaker 1: these relationships, they often care about or love the other person.
Speaker 1: They may still be in denial, and it can be
Speaker 1: devastating for them to recognize that this relationship is abusive,
Speaker 1: even if they are aware that it doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1: Focusing on patterns rather than simply labeling a person can
Speaker 1: help you communicate with somebody else about it and it
Speaker 1: may leave that other person feeling less defensive. A big
Speaker 1: thank you to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valon Jethrow,
Speaker 1: Ellen Rakaton and Dr Rominey Devassla. And thank you to
Speaker 1: our producer Matthew Jones, associate producer Mara Dela Rosa and
Speaker 1: consultant Kelly Ebling. And finally, thank you to our editors
Speaker 1: and sound engineers Devin Donnaghee and Calvin Bailiff