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. The whole thing is a
Speaker 1: con job. There's nothing authentic happening at all that I've
Speaker 1: ever been able to see other than the occasional pepper
Speaker 1: ring of truths so as to confuse both. That is
Speaker 1: a lie. Everything is basically a lie. Why would anyone
Speaker 1: ever run almost three hundred miles in a wedding dress? Well,
Speaker 1: maybe some of you are thinking to run away from
Speaker 1: the altar instead of marrying a narcissistic partner. Well, let's
Speaker 1: find out. In this episode, we are going to hear
Speaker 1: the story of Vanessa Riser. Vanessa Riser is a mother, entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: life coach, advocate and a psychotherapist specializing in working with
Speaker 1: survivors of narcissistic abuse. Vanessa herself is also a survivor
Speaker 1: of narcissistic abuse. As part of her process of healing
Speaker 1: and raising awareness. Vanessa made international headlines when she ran
Speaker 1: two hundred and eighty five miles across the state of
Speaker 1: New York in a wedding dress to raise awareness for
Speaker 1: narcissistic abuse in May of two thousand twenty one. So
Speaker 1: welcome Vanessa. Hi, thank you for having me. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. It's so lovely to have you.
Speaker 1: I know, for me, I had actually we had connected,
Speaker 1: but then I saw I think I was reading a
Speaker 1: magazine once on like a Saturday or a Sunday and
Speaker 1: saw about your run, and I thought, I've got to
Speaker 1: get in touch with her again. And here we are.
Speaker 1: So I am. I'm just honored happy to have you here.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. So Vanessa, your story of narcissistic abuse,
Speaker 1: it's so compelling because when any of us who are
Speaker 1: therapists go through it, it's always all the more interesting.
Speaker 1: People say, well, if you're going through it, it's gonna
Speaker 1: happen to me. So that's how I think your story
Speaker 1: becomes even more important. So let's start at the beginning.
Speaker 1: What was your life like before meeting your ex partner.
Speaker 1: I had a childhood that was filled with adversity, So
Speaker 1: there were a lot of ups and downs, tons of toxicity,
Speaker 1: no boundaries, quite chaotic, and so when I got involved
Speaker 1: in this relationship, the ups and downs were quite familiar. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was definitely something that my system was accustomed to. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, so that was love to you. Chaos was love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it felt comfortable, It felt familiar. I would probably characterize
Speaker 1: it at that time as somewhat eccentric, manic. It felt
Speaker 1: familiar and happy in a lot of ways. There were
Speaker 1: a very big swing from the ups and downs. The
Speaker 1: love bombing was particularly heavy based on resources that he had,
Speaker 1: So the ups and downs were rather severe, and that
Speaker 1: was something I was familiar with with my upbringing. And
Speaker 1: when you think about your childhood, because what I'm hearing
Speaker 1: from you is that the chaos, the ups and the
Speaker 1: downs of your childhood, the vulnerability they gave to you
Speaker 1: was that it normalized chaos. So if somebody came along
Speaker 1: and behave like that. That was not something that was
Speaker 1: going to flick a red flag for you. If anything,
Speaker 1: the familiarity made it really enticing. Yeah. I think in
Speaker 1: some ways I coveted it, probably more because I maybe
Speaker 1: needed to resolve that. I think we've done. Did that? Now?
Speaker 1: Did it affect you in any other ways to be
Speaker 1: from a family that was characterized by this again, this adversity.
Speaker 1: Did it affect your sense of self for how you
Speaker 1: conducted yourself in other spaces of your work, not just
Speaker 1: relationships but friendships or work. I think that I was
Speaker 1: too diversified. The boundaries were not there. I would let
Speaker 1: anybody into my circle. And as certainly as a social
Speaker 1: worker that was cemented. People can all be rehabilitated and
Speaker 1: everyone deserves rah this kind of stuff. So it was
Speaker 1: like very like part of my fiber to be all
Speaker 1: encompassing and like the least judge mental person you could ever.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just really would advocate for all different
Speaker 1: types of demographics and I really had no filter around that.
Speaker 1: I would not discriminate whatsoever. And that really was something
Speaker 1: that came to bite me that I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: Do you still believe everyone can be rehabilitated. No, okay, alright,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna get to that. So I know it's
Speaker 1: probably hard to think about now, but what or who
Speaker 1: did you fall in love with when it came to
Speaker 1: your ex myself in the rear view mirror, I know
Speaker 1: that it was myself that I was spending a great
Speaker 1: time with. I fell in love with the fantasy, an
Speaker 1: idea of parody, a con job that was very meticulously orchestrated,
Speaker 1: someone who was wickedly manipulative and a deviant, and I
Speaker 1: had no idea, just was super naive, very naive. And
Speaker 1: you said that there was a lot of love bombing initially,
Speaker 1: what did that of bombing look like? Because I think
Speaker 1: that love bombing is this term, but it's so diverse,
Speaker 1: it looks so different in every relationship. So there were
Speaker 1: extravagant trips, helicopter rides south of France, diamonds concerts. You
Speaker 1: are my soul mate, You're the most amazing lover. I've
Speaker 1: never met anyone like you. Everyone is jealous of us.
Speaker 1: We are power couple, all of these sort of staples
Speaker 1: that they generally or rate. So I got it, and
Speaker 1: I got it bad right that one. Everyone is jealous
Speaker 1: of us. It's such an interesting kind of a love bomb.
Speaker 1: At the same you get two for the price of one.
Speaker 1: You get the love bomb and you get the triangulation.
Speaker 1: You're really sort of in something that again, it feels
Speaker 1: larger than life. And if you don't have a roadmap
Speaker 1: for this, and you have a backstory characterized by any
Speaker 1: kind of chaos, it's very appealing. Most of us have
Speaker 1: not been socialized to say, oh, you're telling me this
Speaker 1: is all great, it must be terrible. That's not what
Speaker 1: we're taught to do. So you never experience you had
Speaker 1: never experienced the love bombing, the highs the lows the
Speaker 1: way you did in this relationship and any other relationship
Speaker 1: before this. No, so this was the first right and
Speaker 1: I think that was known by him, and it was
Speaker 1: probably a great deal of fun because it felt very
Speaker 1: like I grew up. I was raised by wolves, and
Speaker 1: so I was very much the pretty woman's scenario. So
Speaker 1: every single thing, from the Lulu lemon pants to the
Speaker 1: dollar engagement ring, that whole gamut, everything along the way
Speaker 1: wowed me because I was this ragmuffin Irish kid running
Speaker 1: around those shoes and no food and no heat for
Speaker 1: my childhood, so I was very easy to impress with
Speaker 1: the slightest thing. So if you could imagine I was,
Speaker 1: it was like a fever dream. I had no idea
Speaker 1: and and the hits just came left and right, and
Speaker 1: it was like it just swept me away. Okay, So
Speaker 1: that contrast is again something to so pay attention to
Speaker 1: a person grew up with and then someone rolls up
Speaker 1: with this, so we understand what would have drawn you in.
Speaker 1: What were the first red flags that you saw? I
Speaker 1: think the first real red flag was he made a
Speaker 1: purchase for me, and on the day of the purchase,
Speaker 1: which was an automobile, it I was punished for something.
Speaker 1: Again not essentially, I had the goal to bring up
Speaker 1: a conversation I have with a friend on that day.
Speaker 1: How could you bring that up on this day where
Speaker 1: I'm so it was this like giving of the gift
Speaker 1: and then kicking out the legs simultaneously. That created this
Speaker 1: confusion within me? And how did you make sense of
Speaker 1: that day? I beat myself up. Why would I ever,
Speaker 1: you know, have the audacity to communicate something random on
Speaker 1: a day that I'm being gifted a car? Right, So
Speaker 1: when you say it now, it sounds unreasonable, but on
Speaker 1: the day it happened, it is. I mean that uses
Speaker 1: this extraordinary gift is being given to Vanessa is raising
Speaker 1: the issue of narcissistic gift giving here. It's a rather
Speaker 1: twisted space. It's a mishmash of grandiosity love bombing, but
Speaker 1: ultimately it's a transaction in which they are trading on validation.
Speaker 1: They want you to ooh and ah and praise them
Speaker 1: and admire them for their gift. In her situation, she
Speaker 1: was being given a gift, and the implicit communication was
Speaker 1: that him giving that gift meant that he sort of
Speaker 1: owned the day and for her to mention something he
Speaker 1: didn't want to hear about, in her case, something about
Speaker 1: a friend he experienced reactive hypersensitivity and rage. Narcissistic folks
Speaker 1: may give you an over the top gift, but it
Speaker 1: will always have psychological strings attached. Were there any other
Speaker 1: red flags you notice, because what I'm hearing there is
Speaker 1: that sense it was a reactive sensitivity. Right things didn't
Speaker 1: You didn't do exactly what he wanted, and so he
Speaker 1: strongly reacted. It was communicated to you. In that moment,
Speaker 1: you give up on being you and you do it
Speaker 1: my way right, But what other red flags other than
Speaker 1: that one did you observe? Pretty early on in the relationship,
Speaker 1: speaking of marriage, right away, he wanted to build out
Speaker 1: my career. He was very focused on my career and
Speaker 1: how he was going to help me with my career,
Speaker 1: and I remember thinking it was great, but also thinking
Speaker 1: it was very heavy. It felt almost pressured, like I
Speaker 1: had to be performative. I remember being at a Broadway
Speaker 1: show front seat, always right front row, and we were
Speaker 1: with another couple and he was pushing my buttons and
Speaker 1: I remember turning to him and reacting, and he sat
Speaker 1: back in his chair so the couple with us could
Speaker 1: witness my reaction, and I remember thinking it was very
Speaker 1: peculiar that he sat back. He literally physically was like,
Speaker 1: look at her, watch what she's about to do. And
Speaker 1: there were just moments like that. He would speak very passive,
Speaker 1: aggressively and disappear. There was a lot of silent treatment
Speaker 1: where he would go days without talking to me, and
Speaker 1: it was confusing. There was never a physical component. While
Speaker 1: I had heard from others that were with him there
Speaker 1: were it was not like that with me, but it
Speaker 1: was this up and down and then there was this
Speaker 1: classical cycle of abuse. There was the makeup phase and
Speaker 1: then the tension building and the fallout, and the makeup
Speaker 1: and the tension building and the fall and it just
Speaker 1: went like this. And I would say, if we could
Speaker 1: just go more than a couple of weeks without this,
Speaker 1: we'd be okay. We never were able to do so.
Speaker 1: So one of the things you said, Vanessa, it's really
Speaker 1: jumping out at me is the fast it moved fast.
Speaker 1: You moved in together fast, you were talking about marriage fast.
Speaker 1: And it's so funny because so many people think like
Speaker 1: fast is exciting, fast is intoxicating. Fast feels like I'm
Speaker 1: so sure it's a sure thing. And yet I've heard
Speaker 1: that story so many times of people saying, when I
Speaker 1: look back, we moved too quickly. Everything was like, it's
Speaker 1: sort of fast eating gluttons, fast, money, making fast cars, fast, fast, fast,
Speaker 1: never assciated a hole in the bucket. It was just
Speaker 1: this unfillable void of yes, fast and furious attainment and
Speaker 1: needing to have everything all the time. And it just
Speaker 1: it was dizzy, and I truly was becoming sick. And
Speaker 1: let me tell you, nobody keeps up with me. I'm
Speaker 1: an athlete, and the rest and it was making me sick.
Speaker 1: It's such an interesting visual you're putting out there, the Vanessa.
Speaker 1: I can almost picture it right, the intensity, the fast,
Speaker 1: and when I think of something so fast, something fast
Speaker 1: is going to move quickly across the horizontal, but it
Speaker 1: can't go deep. When everything is so fast, it's almost
Speaker 1: like acquiring all the time, but you can never go
Speaker 1: deep because you're going so quick. And that's what I
Speaker 1: hear there. You just gave me the children writing that down.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really really a frenzy. But when something
Speaker 1: is happening that fast, we almost can't. We can't pay attention,
Speaker 1: we can't process information. I don't know that this guy
Speaker 1: was smart enough to think of it that way. But
Speaker 1: for the other person in the relationship, they're at a
Speaker 1: market disadvantage because things are happening so fast that unless
Speaker 1: they say slow down, and then it's very likely that
Speaker 1: the person you're telling to slow down would rage at you.
Speaker 1: So you learn quickly if I do that, I'm going
Speaker 1: to have to end the relationship, which also might feel scary,
Speaker 1: or I'm going to get raged at so I might
Speaker 1: as well try to keep up. And someone has driven,
Speaker 1: especially as an athlete is you you're going to keep up.
Speaker 1: You're gonna keep up. Yeah. And it's funny because if
Speaker 1: you say to a narcissist, slow down, their ears will
Speaker 1: perk and they'll say, oh, this person potentially could be
Speaker 1: on to me, and you might find yourself discarded. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this slowdown is not going to work for if you
Speaker 1: want to slow down, it's on to the next Bye.
Speaker 1: I know you're committed to helping survivors and helping prevent this.
Speaker 1: How do we let people know? And that's okay to
Speaker 1: honor yourself enough say this is too fast for me,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna say slow down, they'll discard you. It's
Speaker 1: helping people recognize that the discard is actually a good thing.
Speaker 1: And that's a tough sell because that's got some deep
Speaker 1: developmental roots for a lot of people who may experience
Speaker 1: that as abandonment or rejection or any of those things. Vanessy,
Speaker 1: So you're a therapist. I'm a therapist, right. Everybody wants
Speaker 1: to think that therapists, of all people, would see the
Speaker 1: red flags before anyone else would. Everyone else would write
Speaker 1: do you think that there are things that you actually
Speaker 1: did notice because of your training as a therapist. I
Speaker 1: had him pegged for some manic That's what I was
Speaker 1: witnessing and thinking was going on because I didn't receive
Speaker 1: enough education around personality disorders in general. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: was busy studying it in a d h D was
Speaker 1: obviously flying around in my mind and others, But this
Speaker 1: was not something that ever came into my mind until
Speaker 1: the day I left and I was gifted that information
Speaker 1: from one of his exes, And that was the day
Speaker 1: I went through the portal. Was like here ago. And
Speaker 1: I did know at that time as a therapist that
Speaker 1: one of the big indicators for this disordered personality was
Speaker 1: no empathy. I didn't know that, and that was enough
Speaker 1: for me, because even the girl who was raised by
Speaker 1: wolves knew enough that I couldn't be with any person
Speaker 1: that didn't experience empathy. I just I couldn't even fathom
Speaker 1: that concept. Okay, so how long did it take you
Speaker 1: to figure out that this person didn't have empathy? It
Speaker 1: was that day that I was told and I just
Speaker 1: remembered somewhere along the way, remember hearing that narcissists didn't
Speaker 1: have empathy. It was just something that was in my
Speaker 1: in my mind somewhere in the corners of my mind,
Speaker 1: I knew that to be true, and you were experiencing
Speaker 1: him is not having empathy, right. I remember then reflecting
Speaker 1: on when my beloved Katie the go the retriever did
Speaker 1: pass away, that he was missing, that he was indifferent,
Speaker 1: that he kept like carrying on as if nothing had occurred,
Speaker 1: and I was just destroyed by this. I would often
Speaker 1: tell my son Anthony, I love you, but I really
Speaker 1: love Katie. So the connection I had to this dog
Speaker 1: was known by most to be really special to me,
Speaker 1: and so it was something that just didn't There was
Speaker 1: no registering of it for him, and I was totally
Speaker 1: I was acutely aware of that. Okay, So that that
Speaker 1: was the penny drop moment. Many every narcissistic relationship has one.
Speaker 1: It is interesting, though, in the sense that you said
Speaker 1: something that really just stuck with me, that I had
Speaker 1: a sort of a framework for what I thought was
Speaker 1: going on with this guy. I had the wrong framework,
Speaker 1: and then I learned this other framework. But what it
Speaker 1: comes back to is, in some ways your training might
Speaker 1: have actually been a liability because you were actually trying
Speaker 1: to apply a framework. The thing you weren't doing was
Speaker 1: just paying attention to how you felt and saying I
Speaker 1: don't care what the framework is. This is not cool.
Speaker 1: And I always try to help people say, I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to put a name to your this whole
Speaker 1: thing you're dealing with, but you don't need the name,
Speaker 1: you just need the feeling. Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I think it definitely was a problem for me because,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, I was also a fixer what
Speaker 1: he's going to get fixed? And I think that concept
Speaker 1: was something that was I would have argued long and
Speaker 1: hard with a lot of people about and I was
Speaker 1: totally wrong. What were you wrong about that everyone could
Speaker 1: be rehabilitated? That this was something that was just like
Speaker 1: in my fiber, that like, no matter what it is,
Speaker 1: we can fix it. And I was wrong about that.
Speaker 1: And I think that does come from my training in
Speaker 1: a way. It's almost like there was just you'r in
Speaker 1: this relationship. Things are happening that felt uncomfortable, You kept
Speaker 1: going with it. You had a framework, you feel now
Speaker 1: it wasn't the right framework. You are like every survivor.
Speaker 1: I'm like every survivor, We've all been through this. What
Speaker 1: do you think was the block for you that you
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out what the problem was at first, Like,
Speaker 1: clearly this relationship wasn't going well, what do you think
Speaker 1: was blocking you from figuring what out this problem was?
Speaker 1: Given all your knowledge. That's why I'm asking that I
Speaker 1: was still was blaming myself. I think I was still thinking,
Speaker 1: it's got to be your ex husband left you gotta
Speaker 1: and you're you're kissing vinegar because I am I'm a
Speaker 1: tough person, and so I figured and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people around me still question that because of
Speaker 1: how strong I am, like, oh, it could never have
Speaker 1: been him. It had to have been her kind of
Speaker 1: a thing. And so I feel like I blamed myself.
Speaker 1: Such an important thing again for people to know, you
Speaker 1: had a couple of things going on. You had your
Speaker 1: own training as a therapist number one, which is a
Speaker 1: blessing and a curse. Number two, you had a belief
Speaker 1: that anyone could be rehabilitated, and that can sometimes obscure
Speaker 1: us from the toxic patterns we see because we're thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: this tool shall pass. And then you know the third
Speaker 1: thing you're saying, which is I think the signature of
Speaker 1: every narcissistic relationship is the self blame. It's got to
Speaker 1: be me. Someone else's left me in the past. I
Speaker 1: am a handful, I'm tough, I'm not always the easiest,
Speaker 1: all of those things which are often internalized narratives from childhood's,
Speaker 1: especially if you came from adverse or difficult childhood experiences. Yep,
Speaker 1: that's exactly how it felt. And I think it was
Speaker 1: then cemented even further by his sort of presentation generally
Speaker 1: of being sort of philanthropic and kind and donating money
Speaker 1: and perpetuating this con narrative. So I just became confused
Speaker 1: around it must be me, And that was something that
Speaker 1: took a lot for me to realize. At the end,
Speaker 1: when I finally did vacate the home and leave, I fled.
Speaker 1: It was because I had seen something that I knew
Speaker 1: it wasn't me anymore, and that there was the day
Speaker 1: I realized it wasn't me. And what was the moment?
Speaker 1: What was that aha moment where you're like, this isn't me.
Speaker 1: What happened for you? That he was insatiable, that he
Speaker 1: never going to be sad, satisfied, There was nothing that
Speaker 1: was going to make him happy, content fulfilled. It was
Speaker 1: just this ongoing neediness that I thought was absurd quite honestly,
Speaker 1: for a time, did you actually try to fill that insatiability?
Speaker 1: Like did you know when you see someone who can't
Speaker 1: ever be satisfied? A real risk for a partners that like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll keep doing more, I'll keep giving more, I'll be more.
Speaker 1: Was that how you managed it? I think on a
Speaker 1: lot of occasions, there was a lot of travel, and
Speaker 1: I remember I get motion sickness, So I remember being
Speaker 1: on planes, trains and automobiles, drivers, private jets, running around
Speaker 1: the entire world, and I was fully exhausted. And I'm
Speaker 1: so much a homebody, like I love Christmas and puzzles
Speaker 1: and red wine and my puppy and things like that.
Speaker 1: I don't tend to be excited about travel. And I
Speaker 1: know that sounds like very strange, but I tend to
Speaker 1: be sort of grounded. And I remember that I kept
Speaker 1: going everywhere, and I kept forcing myself to get on airplanes.
Speaker 1: And I remember being a Barcelona and I had to
Speaker 1: have a doctor come to the hotel room because I
Speaker 1: had gotten very ill from running around. I didn't participate
Speaker 1: in flitting about the earth a lot. Then I really
Speaker 1: didn't want to stuff I did, So you kept trying
Speaker 1: to meet him where he was out with all this
Speaker 1: endless travel, even though it wasn't who you are, You're
Speaker 1: you're giving up your preference for him. So ultimately, then
Speaker 1: how would you characterize Like how what was the word
Speaker 1: you were using to describe him to yourself? You're saying,
Speaker 1: this is a difficult person, toxic person, narcissistic person. Like
Speaker 1: when you got to this aha moment, how did you think?
Speaker 1: Like what how did you describe this person to yourself
Speaker 1: to help you make sense of this? It took me,
Speaker 1: I would say, about three weeks to fully process what
Speaker 1: had even happened. So for nine days I shook like
Speaker 1: a drug addict because I was in a very wicked
Speaker 1: trauma bon I mean, fully shaped crying. And then when
Speaker 1: that sort of lifted, I still had this dissonance, right,
Speaker 1: so I was still confused things were happening in the
Speaker 1: courtroom now, and I was actually second guessing myself having
Speaker 1: sent texts because I was getting cyber gaslet and all
Speaker 1: of these weird hackings were occurring, and I remember thinking
Speaker 1: I was very crazy at that moment, and thinks I
Speaker 1: had a good group of friends that were telling me,
Speaker 1: You're not crazy. But I still didn't really understand until
Speaker 1: probably a month later, she said, I was so trauma
Speaker 1: bonded that for nine days, I felt sick. I was shaking.
Speaker 1: Talk a little bit more about that, because I think
Speaker 1: that people need to understand that, even when we know
Speaker 1: intellectually it's good for us to leave the idea of
Speaker 1: leaving one of these relationships because of this trauma bonded experience.
Speaker 1: It's so uncomfortable and it's so physically unsettling. That's what
Speaker 1: pulls a lot of people back in. Are they endured
Speaker 1: the nine days you did? What was that nine day
Speaker 1: period like? And again the physical feeling of it, if
Speaker 1: you could talk more about that. So for nine days
Speaker 1: I shook like a drug addict because I wanted him
Speaker 1: to fix it. He always fixed it before, and I
Speaker 1: was conditioned for that cycle to begin again. So this
Speaker 1: is the cycle of abuse, the love bombing, de valuing discards.
Speaker 1: So the love bombing is the makeup part. Okay, So
Speaker 1: in the very first place, it's love bombing with the
Speaker 1: love vombing is equivalent to the makeup version in the cycle.
Speaker 1: And the makeup was supposed to be coming soon, and
Speaker 1: when it didn't come, I was just physically experiencing it.
Speaker 1: The other part of this is I had to go
Speaker 1: stay with my mother, who was my childhood adversity, so
Speaker 1: I had a compounded experience. And then when I finally
Speaker 1: got home, it was like a rebirth of sorts. It
Speaker 1: was really scary. A lot of my friends left me.
Speaker 1: They didn't support me. They were you know, he didn't
Speaker 1: do anything to me, so I had to experience that also.
Speaker 1: It was it was not for the week No, it's
Speaker 1: not for the weekend. That's why I think every survivor
Speaker 1: is so strong and to anyone listening and hearing Vanessa's
Speaker 1: story here that idea of physically shaking this is a
Speaker 1: woman who's trained as a therapist, who knows about trauma
Speaker 1: and the physics that physiological experience of when our trauma
Speaker 1: bonded experience is cut. I want this to humanize the
Speaker 1: experience of listeners who sometimes will feel there's something wrong
Speaker 1: with me, or maybe this is a sign that I'm
Speaker 1: not supposed to leave this relationship. If I feel this terrible,
Speaker 1: it would actually be easier to go back and end
Speaker 1: that feeling, and that it is really about pushing through
Speaker 1: that discomfort, because that's the only way you're going to
Speaker 1: get to the other side. I think that was important,
Speaker 1: But you also said something so important too. So many
Speaker 1: survivors go through this. Here you are leaving this narcissistic
Speaker 1: relationship which is emotionally abusive, and then you had to
Speaker 1: go live with your mother. It sounds like maybe more
Speaker 1: an original kind of a sort of a narcissistic abuser,
Speaker 1: and that is not a unique story. Many people will
Speaker 1: get their finances intermingled with the narcissist or just leave
Speaker 1: with what they've got just to get out and then
Speaker 1: find themselves. And the really problematic position of then having
Speaker 1: to turn to people who were once people who took advantage, abused,
Speaker 1: you know, invalidated all of that, and now they're having
Speaker 1: to go back into that space, which can also feel
Speaker 1: almost like a re traumatization. So leaving is no picnic.
Speaker 1: So ultimately, even as how did you survive the relationship
Speaker 1: and then how did you survive the end of the relationship.
Speaker 1: I survived the relationship with my friends, the ones that
Speaker 1: stood by me and helped space for me and loved
Speaker 1: on me in spite of what seemed to be a
Speaker 1: strange experience or something that I was. It didn't seem
Speaker 1: believable in some ways because his sort of his facade
Speaker 1: is such that you maybe wouldn't have noticed or seen
Speaker 1: anything wrong. In fact, it was like, what do you
Speaker 1: mean you found Prince Charming? What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: So the ones that honored my truth were carrying me
Speaker 1: through that. So every two weeks, as I mentioned, I
Speaker 1: would find them and be like, what the hell is happening,
Speaker 1: and they would sit with me and believe me. So
Speaker 1: those friends carried me through this. And my son also,
Speaker 1: who I think at one point I'm actually quite sure
Speaker 1: of it was on the verge of getting gasolt and
Speaker 1: grooms a little bit. When I snatched him back, I
Speaker 1: was like, this is what's happening. And thankfully we had
Speaker 1: such a great relationship that he locked arms with me
Speaker 1: and his father. His father also said, listen, you always
Speaker 1: stay with mom, and we were able to kind of
Speaker 1: keep him out of the clutches of that like faithful,
Speaker 1: like that scary, grooming, poisoning, manipulating thing. I just remember thinking,
Speaker 1: like my only child, if he gets poisoned by this
Speaker 1: and he starts to believe this and he's being gaslight
Speaker 1: But there was a moment in time I saw it,
Speaker 1: and then thankfully he didn't bite, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. Yeah, it got a little scary because
Speaker 1: you know, the fallout is so pervasive. Everything they touched
Speaker 1: just just gets destroyed. So that was that was I
Speaker 1: was on the precipice of that, and that would have
Speaker 1: wrecked me. And I see that with so many of
Speaker 1: my clients, is that their precious children are manipulated, gaslate, destroyed, ruined, traumatized,
Speaker 1: and we have to do so much work in the
Speaker 1: judicial system to fix that. That is really that's everybody's
Speaker 1: lions done at this point. It absolutely is. I think again,
Speaker 1: that's a whole other conversation and one we actually did
Speaker 1: also with Tina Swidden, who was on this podcast but
Speaker 1: love her. Yeah, she's great, And this idea of you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right, it's not enough that the narcissistic relationships so
Speaker 1: traumatizing people, but then the systems that exist in our
Speaker 1: world right now all re traumatized and the survivor almost
Speaker 1: doesn't have a fighting chance. So how did you do after,
Speaker 1: like what was the survival like after the relationship ended,
Speaker 1: because in some ways that's almost more precarious. It was
Speaker 1: at first, I was very alone. It was COVID, which
Speaker 1: was isolating enough, and so I had to sit in
Speaker 1: the muck of my healing. But my God, was that
Speaker 1: the greatest thing I've ever done, because I had to
Speaker 1: sit and work on all of the stuff that I
Speaker 1: should have worked on a zillion years ago. And I
Speaker 1: got good and comfortable being by myself, listening to jazz
Speaker 1: music and talking to my friends and just pasting around
Speaker 1: and running, and I just began to love myself in
Speaker 1: a new way and just build confidence that I kind
Speaker 1: of had before. A lot of my clients and a
Speaker 1: lot of cult members get robbed of their childhood. I
Speaker 1: really was tough before I met this fool and I
Speaker 1: went back to her. So I got back on my bike,
Speaker 1: or I got back into like I kind of lost her,
Speaker 1: but she was already there. Some people don't even have that.
Speaker 1: So many children never really haven't a sense of self.
Speaker 1: I was fortunate enough to just go ahead and find
Speaker 1: that girl again. I was putting on the hip hop
Speaker 1: music again and the reggae, and I was just I
Speaker 1: was getting back into myself and it was It wasn't
Speaker 1: as scary for me as I think it is for some.
Speaker 1: And it nearly killed me. Imagine that it was nothing
Speaker 1: compared to others, and it was. It nearly killed me. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a matter of degrees, right. I also see narcissistic
Speaker 1: abuse as being on a continuum. I think at the
Speaker 1: quote unquote lower ends, it still plays with someone's head.
Speaker 1: And obviously at the most moderate and severe end, you're
Speaker 1: talking about people who walk out of these relationships with
Speaker 1: post traumatic stress. But when it is a lifelong relationship,
Speaker 1: you've been dealing with narcissistic relationships from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: It really does rob a child of their identity. They
Speaker 1: never ever ever get to to develop the who of themselves,
Speaker 1: the personhood, what they like, what they don't, who they are.
Speaker 1: It's almost as though without that sort of big, glooming
Speaker 1: narcissistic person, they don't even have a way to define themselves,
Speaker 1: and they're defined by that person. So that time alone,
Speaker 1: which is something I preach, you need time alone to
Speaker 1: find yourself. You need to know what kind of pizza
Speaker 1: you like. You need to know what time of day
Speaker 1: you want to exercise, you need to know what TV
Speaker 1: shows you like, because all of that was stolen from you.
Speaker 1: And so I agree that even when it feels like
Speaker 1: you had a decent start with it. It's still completely
Speaker 1: did in number for you. Were there any sort of
Speaker 1: practical things that you did or structural things you did
Speaker 1: at the point you left? Was there anything you need
Speaker 1: to prepare for moving out of the house that the
Speaker 1: two of you share together. So I had a little whisper,
Speaker 1: probably only six months into the relationship, so I was
Speaker 1: probably moved into the home only two months. This is
Speaker 1: how chaotic it was. And it was just a lot
Speaker 1: of fighting all the time. And so I remember I
Speaker 1: had this whisper that was like this makes me emotionals,
Speaker 1: like hi to Anthony's pictures. So my son is twenty three,
Speaker 1: but because he's twenty three, his pictures are actual photographs, right,
Speaker 1: So we don't have those anymore. But there were bins, big, big,
Speaker 1: big bins of pictures of my boy, and somehow there
Speaker 1: was this voice that was like, hide the pictures. Hide
Speaker 1: the pictures, hide the pictures. And every time there was
Speaker 1: like an argument, I would shuffle them over to the
Speaker 1: guesthouse and tuck them into a closet, and another argument
Speaker 1: that I would lock the closet door. And then I
Speaker 1: remember I have like an eight thousand dollar tri bike,
Speaker 1: and I remember same things, scurrying it over to the
Speaker 1: guest house. I remember talking. I was aware that something
Speaker 1: was going to happen, but it was the universe was
Speaker 1: like that, as we have to hide this stuff. Literally,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I should rent a storage unit, and then
Speaker 1: he would love bomb me again, and then I would
Speaker 1: on hand it. I would become lazy and complacent the rest.
Speaker 1: But I was able to fundamentally at least remove things
Speaker 1: from his direct grab. Let's say, so that what I
Speaker 1: did exit, I was able to stash it all in
Speaker 1: my car and run. That's actually an interesting strategy. I
Speaker 1: know in the past what I've said, and this is
Speaker 1: pre pandemic, when people might have still had an office
Speaker 1: and said, get some of the whether it's copy scans,
Speaker 1: things that matter to you, get them out of their friends, house, friends, garage,
Speaker 1: something somewhere, so that if you did have to do
Speaker 1: it quickly, at least around the sentimental stuff. And then
Speaker 1: obviously there's all the other stuff like having a burner
Speaker 1: phone and having some cash that you can access quickly
Speaker 1: and all of that stuff that's much more strategic. But
Speaker 1: even those things, like you said, a box of photographs,
Speaker 1: we don't think about that. But those are the things
Speaker 1: that would throw you into a pan neck And when
Speaker 1: you're already teetering on the brink, you're like, I can't
Speaker 1: leave because the photographs are still in there. So by
Speaker 1: getting those things out when the moment comes in, the
Speaker 1: moment will come for most people that you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can get out, and all the rest of it
Speaker 1: is just stuff. Yeah. I always tell my clients to
Speaker 1: get the passports, get the tax returns, get the computer.
Speaker 1: I say it all the time. I'm not afraid because
Speaker 1: my clients are in harm's way, make a safety bag,
Speaker 1: get the kids pajamas, put in the neighbor's house. We
Speaker 1: talk about things that are a little bit different in rogue,
Speaker 1: and I don't apologize for that. And I will say
Speaker 1: hide the money. Start hiding your money. Now, these are
Speaker 1: conversations that I have with my clients. I think that
Speaker 1: what happens is so many structures aren't supportive, so these
Speaker 1: things are so manipulative. We need to give people those skills.
Speaker 1: So I think that's absolutely great. My session with Vanessa
Speaker 1: will continue after this break. What I'd like to do
Speaker 1: Vanessa's given what you've been through and what I know about.
Speaker 1: I'd love to go over with you some of the
Speaker 1: warning signs for people to look out for when they're
Speaker 1: in a relationship with a narcissist, which I know you
Speaker 1: know about just because you also work in this space too.
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you some patterns, and you've already
Speaker 1: talked about some of these, like, for example, the relationship
Speaker 1: moving really fast as one of the signs that you
Speaker 1: might be in a relationship with a narcissistic person. What
Speaker 1: about the idea of a mask. Did you experience any
Speaker 1: of that wearing a different mask in public than in private. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the mask generally is this sort of facade, so
Speaker 1: they will wear it for others to see, they will
Speaker 1: be nicer to the public than they are to you.
Speaker 1: At some point, the mask might slip and then fall directly,
Speaker 1: depending upon many variables. But it's just their optics. They're
Speaker 1: concerned about how they're perceived by others, right, and that
Speaker 1: perception is really about validation. I think that there's such
Speaker 1: a simplicity to understanding narcissism once you get it, in
Speaker 1: the sense that everything is driven by validation. Right. But
Speaker 1: if they can get validation and they can overwhelm another person.
Speaker 1: In other words, so that other person has no sovereignty.
Speaker 1: They're not a differentiated person from them. They exist to
Speaker 1: feed them like you're almost like a pipeline feeding them,
Speaker 1: so that the those the mask, these optics, as you
Speaker 1: put it, it becomes a way to get validation. But
Speaker 1: the second piece of the simple model is their need
Speaker 1: for regulation. That mask is exhausting for a narcissistic person
Speaker 1: to have to play nice, and so when they're behind
Speaker 1: closed doors, then you get to the simple part number three,
Speaker 1: which is domination. Not only are they going to show
Speaker 1: you I dominate you, but also they're exhausted from depleting
Speaker 1: all that bandwidth having to be nice and in inhibiting
Speaker 1: maybe things they wanted to say, and they'll take it
Speaker 1: out on that person in private. And the danger of
Speaker 1: that means that everyone is seeing this person in public
Speaker 1: as being a great person. In private, you're experiencing something awful.
Speaker 1: And you yourself had that experience of some of your
Speaker 1: friends saying I didn't have any problem with him, and
Speaker 1: that's the foundation of that. The interesting thing with many
Speaker 1: other mental health issues, the person looks the same all
Speaker 1: the time, Like agreeable people always look agreeable wherever they
Speaker 1: are people were sad depressed, even look consistently depressed. The
Speaker 1: narcissistic person is charming in public and horrific in private,
Speaker 1: and that differentiation is a choice. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: we need to recognize that classically, poets, priests and politicians
Speaker 1: are sort of these legendary characters of the Boogeyman. Doesn't
Speaker 1: look like the Boogeyman. We need to understand that just
Speaker 1: because you don't see it doesn't not make it. So
Speaker 1: this is so important. What you're saying is is a
Speaker 1: big piece to the puzzle because even with our own experience,
Speaker 1: myself included, even my own experience with my abuser was
Speaker 1: a lot of dissonance for me. So imagine, I can
Speaker 1: absolutely put my mind around the fact that you don't
Speaker 1: see it because I can barely see it, and I'm
Speaker 1: with it because I'm confused myself. So I honor what
Speaker 1: you're doing. But what we really need to do is
Speaker 1: start believing people who are dealing with emotional abuse. We
Speaker 1: need to start talking about it and identifying it as
Speaker 1: not being somebody who's sort of overt and obvious. There's
Speaker 1: nothing obvious about this, That's what makes it so bad.
Speaker 1: Our entire legal system and our justice system is based
Speaker 1: on things we can see, right, things that are actionable,
Speaker 1: a crime that can be identified, and that right there
Speaker 1: is the bane of every survivor of narcissistic abuse, because
Speaker 1: short of taking a video or recording of someone, which
Speaker 1: is then not admissible, there's no way to capture this
Speaker 1: unless by happenstance, someone happened to see it. And then
Speaker 1: even still, people may not even believe that person in you.
Speaker 1: So you're absolutely right, it's really really insidious. Another pattern
Speaker 1: that is so common in narcissistic relationships is lying is
Speaker 1: deceit was that something you experienced? Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: that's very interrelated to the manipulation in the gas lighting,
Speaker 1: because it all becomes muddy. I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: that first of all, that the narcissist knows all that
Speaker 1: they're doing. I know they know a lot of it,
Speaker 1: but they oftentimes confabulate and become confused and deluded around
Speaker 1: all the lies they've been telling. The truth is is
Speaker 1: totally lost. And people will say to me, you can
Speaker 1: tell the narcissist is lying when his lips are moving
Speaker 1: and or her lips are moving, And I say no,
Speaker 1: the narcissist doesn't even have to move the lips because
Speaker 1: they're lying to themselves. The whole thing is a con job.
Speaker 1: There's nothing authentic happening at all that I've ever been
Speaker 1: able to see other than the occasional peppering of truths
Speaker 1: so as to confuse. Most of it is a lie.
Speaker 1: Everything is basically a lie. There's a few things that
Speaker 1: randomly are truths, because a broken clock is right twice
Speaker 1: a day. Right, Well, let me think that's what it is.
Speaker 1: And it is delusional grandiosity. They have to believe their
Speaker 1: hype that they are. They're not even ordinary people. They
Speaker 1: don't have any needs, they're not weak like the rest
Speaker 1: of us. It is delusional and in and of itself
Speaker 1: that that becomes a lie because they do have needs
Speaker 1: and in fact, probably way more needs and all the
Speaker 1: rest of us. And it's a it's this mix of lying,
Speaker 1: like you said, gas lighting, delusion, all of that. And
Speaker 1: one time we're talking about things that people miss is
Speaker 1: are things like insecurity and anxiety. We think the narcissist grandiose, arrogant, bully,
Speaker 1: But insecurity is what sort of at the center of
Speaker 1: all this was that something you experienced in yours. This
Speaker 1: was something I was able to discern for some reason
Speaker 1: because I felt secure enough in myself and I remember
Speaker 1: picking up on this like it was he was so insecure,
Speaker 1: and I remember saying, you are so insecure. I've never
Speaker 1: seen anyone who had everything be so insecure, because it
Speaker 1: was where you're going, what the neediness was, you know,
Speaker 1: it was showing me the insecurity because it was like,
Speaker 1: if you were suppose security wouldn't really care about the
Speaker 1: mailman talking to me or whatever it was. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the insecurity was just glowing, glaring all the time. And
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, this is the root of
Speaker 1: part of why they behave the way they do. But
Speaker 1: this wicked insecurity is a big part. Every narcissist is insecure, correct,
Speaker 1: It's a core dynamic of narcissism. And the fact is
Speaker 1: all these other defenses, the grandiosity, the arrogance, even the
Speaker 1: lack of empathy, these are all sort of a They're
Speaker 1: a mask. It's almost like a suit of armor around
Speaker 1: this shameful sense that they're not all that. So they
Speaker 1: have these delusional states that they maintain so they can
Speaker 1: be all that. And yet that insecurity is always sort
Speaker 1: of knocking on the door. They're not able to integrate
Speaker 1: that vulnerability into themselves and lash out at anyone that
Speaker 1: reminds them of their insecurity. So you stepping out or
Speaker 1: maybe talking to the postman would be enough, because you're
Speaker 1: reminding them that maybe they're not all that. So they're
Speaker 1: going to rage you. You how dare you do that?
Speaker 1: But it's that part, I agree is not conscious at all.
Speaker 1: They're raging because this sort of sense of shame and
Speaker 1: inadequacy has sort of been has been brought up in them.
Speaker 1: Another theme we see in these relationships are smear campaigns,
Speaker 1: so when the whole thing, even sometimes when people are
Speaker 1: in the relationship, there will be smear campaigns, but they
Speaker 1: certainly come up afterwards. Was that your experience, girl? Oh?
Speaker 1: So I was on the board for the local domestic
Speaker 1: violence center where I lived and and I was so
Speaker 1: proud I am a wicked advocate. So he wrote a
Speaker 1: letter that I was the abuser and tried to get
Speaker 1: me kicked off the board and it was so horrifying
Speaker 1: to me. And the other thing is they didn't exactly
Speaker 1: handle it right. President of the board said to me,
Speaker 1: we believe both of you, and we had to have
Speaker 1: a meeting, and it was really, really horrifying. And I
Speaker 1: know you and I have talked a little bit about
Speaker 1: how DV centers maybe don't do a good enough job
Speaker 1: around calling narcissistic abuse narcissistic abuse and what that's meant
Speaker 1: to so many of my clients, because it would be
Speaker 1: like if you went to the hospital and they said
Speaker 1: you're sick, and you say, well, what do I have
Speaker 1: and they said, well, you're sick, Well what is wrong
Speaker 1: with what is it? So the validation that I give
Speaker 1: my clients and that others like yourself and a gaggle,
Speaker 1: there are so many of us, not enough, but that
Speaker 1: gift of validation for somebody who's super confused is not
Speaker 1: being given to them by DV centers. I know that
Speaker 1: they have their place and we need them. In my experience,
Speaker 1: it was equal parts sort of. This was just another
Speaker 1: compounded thing where these were my friends and they were
Speaker 1: supposed to support me, but because he was a big donor,
Speaker 1: I was made to feel a certain way. It was horrible,
Speaker 1: and I know that this that I'm not the first
Speaker 1: one to have experienced something like this where a donor
Speaker 1: the wife stays in the shelter and things like this.
Speaker 1: I know that because I was told that that happens
Speaker 1: a lot. But that smear campaign was horrible for because,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, I'm that tough girl, um, that
Speaker 1: sort of gritty broad and it was easy enough, I
Speaker 1: think for people to subscribe to the look of Fanessa,
Speaker 1: like she's not going to get pushed around. Who's it?
Speaker 1: Just it was horrible, And in some ways that's important
Speaker 1: to mention because I feel like I'm able to understand
Speaker 1: the male victim correct of narcissistic abuse because I'm in
Speaker 1: some ways the outliers, so I say to them. And
Speaker 1: even though my work is very much around advocacy for women,
Speaker 1: because of patriarchy and that's a whole other macro conversation,
Speaker 1: I can put my mind at it because I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't. I don't fit the profile either, right,
Speaker 1: So not to the extent I want to honor that,
Speaker 1: but like somewhat I could put my mind er at it,
Speaker 1: and I try to honor that too. It's hard for
Speaker 1: me because of patriarchy and just like structure that's built
Speaker 1: into our cultures and the rest. But yeah, the spear campaign. Sorry,
Speaker 1: long dietrage. The smear campaign was terrible for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think it's beyond the scope we can talk about.
Speaker 1: But the history of where the world of domestic violence
Speaker 1: kind of came up a little bit short when it
Speaker 1: comes to narcissistic abuse. Back in the seventies, there was
Speaker 1: a lot to pushback on not wanting to place a
Speaker 1: diagnostic label on an abuser, right because that would imply
Speaker 1: that it's something that could be changed and fixed, and
Speaker 1: it almost takes the lens away from the abuse and
Speaker 1: getting helped for the survivor. But I think what's happened
Speaker 1: now is that we've you know, it's very muddy conversation,
Speaker 1: and I've said to people a narcissism is not a
Speaker 1: clinical diagnosis. It's a personality style and be you can't
Speaker 1: shift it. So if I'm telling you someone's narcissistic, your
Speaker 1: ears should perk up, because now I'm basically telling it,
Speaker 1: there ain't much that could be done. So this person
Speaker 1: is harming this person, They're going to keep harming this person,
Speaker 1: and we need we need to keep that in mind
Speaker 1: rather than oh, they're narcissistic, So what do we do?
Speaker 1: I mean the punchline to that is not much, not much.
Speaker 1: We will be right back with this conversation with Vanessa.
Speaker 1: M So, Vanessa amazing and your stories extraordinary and all
Speaker 1: of that. But after your traumatic relationship, you decided to
Speaker 1: do something about this with your very personal flare. And
Speaker 1: it's something so unique. Why did you choose to run
Speaker 1: two hundred and eighty five miles in a wedding dress
Speaker 1: to raise awareness? Well, as most of my brilliant ideas occur,
Speaker 1: I was on a run and I thought, how can
Speaker 1: I make people understand? And I knew that because I
Speaker 1: was a clinician, that it was my duty to warn,
Speaker 1: it was my duty to say something, to speak out,
Speaker 1: to be the voice for all of the silent victims.
Speaker 1: I just knew it. I was like feeling like, oh,
Speaker 1: here we go, and I thought, okay, let's get this
Speaker 1: dress hacked, let's start running. My son graduated from college
Speaker 1: a day before, and I was like, I love you,
Speaker 1: here we go and off I went, just like the nutty,
Speaker 1: you know person that I am, And it was very
Speaker 1: healing for me, but I think it validated so many
Speaker 1: people in my inboxes, like thing the thing. Everyone was like, oh,
Speaker 1: thank you for you know, and I remember, at some
Speaker 1: point in my court proceedings, because I've been dealing with
Speaker 1: this for quite a while, my son was like, what's
Speaker 1: wrong with you? You have to stop. I go like,
Speaker 1: can't stop. These people need me to do this. I
Speaker 1: can't stop, and I haven't. And you know, here we are.
Speaker 1: Why did you choose to do it in a wedding dress?
Speaker 1: What was that symbolically? So the narcissist generally exploits fantasy
Speaker 1: is that we have So if you tell the narcissist
Speaker 1: that you don't want them to feed your child peanut butter,
Speaker 1: then you can guarantee that the child's going to get
Speaker 1: peanut butter. So the wedding is something that they understand
Speaker 1: generally and holistically is coveted by in our culture women specifically,
Speaker 1: the wedding is your faked and dangled and the rest.
Speaker 1: So the wedding is very problematic, not just for the
Speaker 1: interpersonal love affair, but the narcissistic mother generally gets very
Speaker 1: kicked up by this. It tends to be a hot
Speaker 1: spot that narcissists exploit. They're just very uncomfortable around this,
Speaker 1: or they dangle it. It's it's a big deal. So
Speaker 1: the wedding dress is a symbol of something fantastical, so
Speaker 1: it's very, very vulnerable. Spot my interpretation of it when
Speaker 1: I I saw you do it, and there's this absolutely
Speaker 1: beautiful image of you running and the entire dress and
Speaker 1: the train are trailing behind you. It's just a beautiful picture.
Speaker 1: And what I saw from it was a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Number One, it was like runaway. That was one interpretation
Speaker 1: I had. And the other interpretation I had was it
Speaker 1: was about putting on this dress that on the day
Speaker 1: somebody could potentially marry a narcissist that they're going to
Speaker 1: be imprisoned. And yet you took that costuming and turned
Speaker 1: it into an act of strength and persistence and perseverance.
Speaker 1: And that's how I interpreted when I saw that, because
Speaker 1: I think we still view a woman in a wedding
Speaker 1: dress is something demure, and you turned it into something
Speaker 1: very strong, and that's what I loved about it. You
Speaker 1: know that that was what from you. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm just taking notes because I didn't set out to
Speaker 1: necessarily do that, but I'm thrilled that that was something
Speaker 1: you saw, and that sort of speaks to me about
Speaker 1: the warrior you are. Because at that time I was
Speaker 1: talking about something that was being exploited, was this sort
Speaker 1: of coveted experience. But I just love that that's what
Speaker 1: you saw. I'm taking a note good good because obviously
Speaker 1: everyone's going to project onto that image because it's such
Speaker 1: a unique one that this it's actually, if anything, a
Speaker 1: bride to me an address is such a restricted thing,
Speaker 1: and then there's something so free about it. And that's
Speaker 1: the problem in a narcissistic relationship. You don't get to
Speaker 1: be free, you don't get to be you. And the
Speaker 1: day you put on a wedding dress. In a narcissistic relationship,
Speaker 1: it's over for you in a way. But you were
Speaker 1: saying you can be free, you can be you, and
Speaker 1: so I think that that was really really important. So
Speaker 1: you said, you've got a lot of traffic in your inbox.
Speaker 1: What do you think your run did for other women
Speaker 1: who have followed it on social media? I think they
Speaker 1: were so connected to somebody that had the balls to
Speaker 1: say something, do something. I saw women crying. Some people
Speaker 1: came and they met me out there, and again this
Speaker 1: is the problem. They themselves want to rage. They can't
Speaker 1: because they are raising children with this. The real problem
Speaker 1: that we have to address is the judicial system. As
Speaker 1: Tinus Webben definitely is clear about my leg and my
Speaker 1: work is the clinical piece, but as the social worker
Speaker 1: that macro lens and being an advocate, I attached myself
Speaker 1: to that directly because that is really what the problem is.
Speaker 1: My clients can't speak because of that problem. That's exactly
Speaker 1: where I couldn't agree more. And you know, listen, it's
Speaker 1: going to be a slow burn of educating judges, educating attorneys,
Speaker 1: changing laws. So how do you plan and you know
Speaker 1: you've already started in a big way, but how do
Speaker 1: you plan on continuing to bring awareness to domestic violence
Speaker 1: and to narcissistic abuse. Yeah, I'm going to run the
Speaker 1: state of New Jersey in at the end of September,
Speaker 1: September and October one, and we're gonna hopefully do this
Speaker 1: a virtual version this time. So last year we did
Speaker 1: just me in New York. This time we're going to
Speaker 1: have others run in their wedding dresses in their respective
Speaker 1: states regions and if they're willing share their stories so
Speaker 1: we can hopefully either blurb out their face or something,
Speaker 1: because we want other stories to be high lighted whilst
Speaker 1: protecting their identity. So we're trying to peek into others
Speaker 1: voices and I think ultimately the idea is for the
Speaker 1: wedding dress run to become a yearly thing and we
Speaker 1: really this time. I think we're going to hopefully hear
Speaker 1: from others and they'll share their stories. They'll have their
Speaker 1: cameras and and highlight some part of their story so
Speaker 1: we can capture a little bit more of it and
Speaker 1: create a movement. Tell us about your organization. Is there
Speaker 1: any other things that you do to raise awareness about
Speaker 1: narcissistic abuse? Sure? So, I have a nonprofit called tell
Speaker 1: a Therapist dot org, which is just a nonprofit where
Speaker 1: if you contact us, we will connect you with the
Speaker 1: North Savvy clinician. Great. The goal ultimately is to get
Speaker 1: an app The goal is to also maybe open up
Speaker 1: a center at some point. I know these are very
Speaker 1: big goals, but we're not playing games over here. There's
Speaker 1: been such a wonderful conversation hearing about your process, and
Speaker 1: it's again somebody who's in the field also who has
Speaker 1: gone through this, and you know some of O Listen,
Speaker 1: I'm someone who is in the field. I have been
Speaker 1: through this more than once and in fact, you know
Speaker 1: the sort of decide ee joke as well. Girl, If
Speaker 1: you keep getting stuck in this, does this mean you're
Speaker 1: not very good at it? And I think you nailed
Speaker 1: it that even stable can discard you, and chaotic will
Speaker 1: discarade you. And it is about that constant checking in
Speaker 1: with yourself. But as a psychologist that's been hurting many
Speaker 1: kinds of narcissistic relationships, I have to say that I
Speaker 1: think it's really humanizing for people to see that all
Speaker 1: the knowledge in the world that our trauma bonds are histories,
Speaker 1: are back stories, and honestly, sometimes just our empathy is
Speaker 1: what can get us back into these relationships. So I
Speaker 1: can't thank you enough, Vanessa. And I couldn't fit one
Speaker 1: leg into my old wedding dress, but if I could,
Speaker 1: I would not be running but walking alongside of you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for everything. I'm just so thrilled
Speaker 1: to be with you. I just I think the world
Speaker 1: of you, and I'm fan girling and loving your work
Speaker 1: and I'm excited to be on this journey with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Vanessa, I am too, and again we're sending
Speaker 1: you nothing but good luck and wins at your back
Speaker 1: as you make this this this run across New Jersey,
Speaker 1: which is the state I was born in, So I
Speaker 1: send your good Jersey girl vibes. Here are some takeaways
Speaker 1: from my conversation with Vanessa. First, Vanessa's story teaches us
Speaker 1: once again of the complicated role of social support in
Speaker 1: helping us survive narcissistic abuse. She told us her story
Speaker 1: of the friends who doubted her, which made her process
Speaker 1: much more difficult, but also of the friends who held
Speaker 1: her up. Listened and we're there for her. As you
Speaker 1: go through your experience of nar statistic abuse, the one
Speaker 1: thing that you're going to learn is who your real
Speaker 1: friends are. A person doesn't have to have gone through
Speaker 1: this to be a supporter. They merely need to be empathic.
Speaker 1: But sadly, because so many people don't understand this, it
Speaker 1: can be a tall order and you will run into
Speaker 1: the folks who say, well, I never had any trouble
Speaker 1: with him. But when you find those people who do
Speaker 1: have that empathy, they are absolute treasures in this process
Speaker 1: of recovery and healing. Our next takeaway is that Vanessa
Speaker 1: is a therapist. She has learned about trauma, mental health,
Speaker 1: mental illness. She does therapy with clients, and yet she
Speaker 1: has the humility to observe that trauma bonds can interfere
Speaker 1: with seeing red flags. No matter who you are, be
Speaker 1: kind to yourself as you go through this process. Red
Speaker 1: flags can be clear as day when we look back
Speaker 1: at them, but trauma bonds actually mean that while we're
Speaker 1: in it, we can't see red Her story is also
Speaker 1: a reminder that even when a toxic relationship ends in
Speaker 1: those early days, we literally feel sick, and the easy
Speaker 1: play is to go right back into the relationship, behoovered
Speaker 1: and start the cycle again. It's normal to feel that depleted,
Speaker 1: sick feeling. We carry trauma and loss in our bodies.
Speaker 1: This is a reminder of why therapy is so important
Speaker 1: in the process of healing, but also to recognize that
Speaker 1: your body, when it feels so sick, it's not telling
Speaker 1: you to go back, it's reminding you how bad it was.
Speaker 1: And in our last takeaway, in Vanessa's story, she was
Speaker 1: recovering from her relationship in the early days of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: which forced her to be alone, and it's pretty clear
Speaker 1: that solitude was a key part of her healing. Many times,
Speaker 1: being alone can be a scary feeling and isolating feeling,
Speaker 1: But for survivors of narcissistic abuse, that time alone to
Speaker 1: let our nervous system sort of settle down, a time
Speaker 1: when you can listen to the music you want, do
Speaker 1: the things you want, give yourself the time you need,
Speaker 1: and to do all of that without criticism is absolutely crucial.
Speaker 1: Solitude is how we come back to ourselves. It can
Speaker 1: be easy to want to throw yourself back into crowds
Speaker 1: and people, but make sure you give your body and
Speaker 1: your psyche a minute to rest and recognize how great
Speaker 1: your company is by spending some time alone. Hey everyone,
Speaker 1: so I've been welcoming hearing your emails and I have
Speaker 1: one that somebody sent in. I have been listening to
Speaker 1: your Navigating Narcissism podcast. Thank you. Without a question of
Speaker 1: a doubt. I have been married to a narcissist for
Speaker 1: fifteen years. So my question is is divorced the only
Speaker 1: option for someone in a relationship like this. I have
Speaker 1: come to the conclusion that I cannot change him, but
Speaker 1: can I change the way I think and relate to him?
Speaker 1: To that question, I give a resounding absolutely. I want
Speaker 1: to reassure everyone who is listening because a lot of
Speaker 1: people hear this and hang their head and say, oh, no,
Speaker 1: I this is all hopeless. It's actually not. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you right from the jump, folks, fifty of people
Speaker 1: stay in these relationships. It's not always practical to leave.
Speaker 1: Reasons of money, children, culture, religion, support, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: They're your reasons and that makes them valid reasons. So
Speaker 1: don't immediately say, oh my gosh, I'm married to a narcissist.
Speaker 1: Got to call an attorney. No, no, no. I think
Speaker 1: it's sort of slow down for a minute and really
Speaker 1: think about, Okay, I'm not going to be able to
Speaker 1: change this person, but how can I ratchet my expectations
Speaker 1: and come at this from a place of radical acceptance.
Speaker 1: This isn't going to change. These patterns aren't going to change.
Speaker 1: So what do I need to do to sort of
Speaker 1: make this doable? As it were? There's a lot of
Speaker 1: steps you can take. One is it's not always going
Speaker 1: to be I'd say, in the cases of more mild
Speaker 1: to moderate narcissism, people can make a horse race of it.
Speaker 1: There's some grief, though. I'm gonna tell you right now,
Speaker 1: this relationship won't have the sort of the depth and
Speaker 1: the intimacy that you may have hoped for in your
Speaker 1: love story, and again there's a lot of grief and
Speaker 1: loss around that that you have to process, and therapy
Speaker 1: often becomes a really important space in which to do
Speaker 1: that that holding out for that someday better is not
Speaker 1: likely to come. Creating that depth in other areas of
Speaker 1: your life, though, becomes very important. One of the most
Speaker 1: important things that survivors can do is to cultivate other
Speaker 1: deep experiences in their lives. Whether that's relationships with family
Speaker 1: members you actually do, like your own children, friends. It
Speaker 1: might be work you do you may take on, whether
Speaker 1: that's volunteer work, whether that's paid employment, whether that's pursuing
Speaker 1: a goal you had. In a way, it's recognizing that
Speaker 1: you're now going to transfer that misplaced psychological energy that
Speaker 1: you've been putting into this narcissistic relationship and that yields
Speaker 1: no return, and actually investing it into you, into your
Speaker 1: healthy relationships, into the healthy people around you, and into
Speaker 1: the things that matter. What I often tell people who
Speaker 1: decide to stick it out with a narcissistic partner is
Speaker 1: make yourself a promise once a year, your own personal
Speaker 1: anniversary date to revisit it and reassess. Some folks while
Speaker 1: for divorce the day their youngest child turns eighteen years old.
Speaker 1: Some people sort of waited out and wait for other
Speaker 1: transitions in life to happen. Some people wait until something
Speaker 1: really egregious happens in the relationship, for example, perhaps something
Speaker 1: like infidelity. Only you know what that process is. But
Speaker 1: before getting ahead of yourself and taking on something that
Speaker 1: feels as big as seeking out a divorce, I really
Speaker 1: really want to stress to you that you take the
Speaker 1: time to decide what can you live with. Remember the
Speaker 1: hard part of a narcissistic relationship, this is going back
Speaker 1: and forth between good days and bad days. And a
Speaker 1: piece of advice I give to all survivors is don't
Speaker 1: burn your umbrellas. And what I mean by that is
Speaker 1: on those good days, you might think, oh, we're on
Speaker 1: a good roll. Here, it's going to rain again, so
Speaker 1: hold on to that umbrella. The bad days are that reminder,
Speaker 1: and maybe you can just sort of ride the wave
Speaker 1: on those good days, and on those bad days, maybe
Speaker 1: you got a little bit of bandwidth from those good
Speaker 1: days when you had realistic expectation on those good days
Speaker 1: that the bad days are coming, instead of those bad
Speaker 1: days feeling like a slap in the face or a
Speaker 1: bucket of cold water, you like, I knew this was
Speaker 1: kind of coming, and that you start building up strategies
Speaker 1: and the like to help you manage. And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: leave you with one little gift here And this is
Speaker 1: for all of you. And I say this over and
Speaker 1: over again on this pab guest. When you're in a
Speaker 1: narcissistic relationship, because these relationships are not deep, it is
Speaker 1: crucial that you remember that you don't go deep in
Speaker 1: these relationships. And what do I mean by that, I
Speaker 1: mean don't defend yourself, don't explain yourself, don't engage with them,
Speaker 1: and don't personalize what they're doing. If you can remember
Speaker 1: that little rule and keep it in your pocket, it's
Speaker 1: a great way to say, oh, I'm not even get
Speaker 1: into this with them, and I am not going to
Speaker 1: defend myself so they can just start gaslighting and it's
Speaker 1: not about me, this is them, this is their personality.
Speaker 1: If you don't go deep, you might be able to
Speaker 1: buy some time and take a minute before you make
Speaker 1: a decision that has major implications for your life. A
Speaker 1: big thank you to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith,
Speaker 1: Valon Jethrow, Ellen Rakaton and Dr Romeney de Vassela. And
Speaker 1: thank you to our producer Matthew Jones, associate producer Maria
Speaker 1: Della Rosa, and consultant Kelly Ebling. And finally, thank you
Speaker 1: to our editors and sound engineers Devin Donaghy and Calvin
Speaker 1: Bailiff h