Speaker 1: Hey, navigators, on this episode of Navigating Narcissism, I'm answering
Speaker 1: all of your burning questions about enabling. Believe it or not,
Speaker 1: the problem with narcissism doesn't end with the narcissistic person.
Speaker 1: There is an equally toxic presence afoot and these people
Speaker 1: are known as enablers. From Red Table Talk podcasts and iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: I am Doctor Rominy and this is Navigating Narcissism. This
Speaker 1: podcast should not be used as a substitute for medical
Speaker 1: or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek independent
Speaker 1: medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare professional
Speaker 1: with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue, or
Speaker 1: health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. The views
Speaker 1: and opinions expressed are solely those of the podcast author
Speaker 1: or individuals participating in the po and do not represent
Speaker 1: the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, iHeartMedia, or their employees.
Speaker 1: Sherry writes, last week, my sister told me I'm enabling
Speaker 1: my mom's narcissism. I know my mom can be difficult,
Speaker 1: but I don't think I enable her. What does that
Speaker 1: even mean? Okay, so there's a few pieces to this one. First,
Speaker 1: let's talk about what enabling is within the context of
Speaker 1: a narcissistic relationship. Enabling is the at times silent and
Speaker 1: sometimes active, not simply avoidance and not addressing the narcissistic
Speaker 1: person's behavior, but also doubting or even gaslighting the experiences
Speaker 1: or reactions other people are having to the narcissistic person.
Speaker 1: In essence, what the enabling person does is they reinforce
Speaker 1: reward and allow the narcissistic person to maintain there be
Speaker 1: Enablers may or may not clearly see what's going on,
Speaker 1: but they justify it or poo poo it in a
Speaker 1: way they can actually do a lot of harm to
Speaker 1: these survivors. As it were, In these situations, people wonder
Speaker 1: like why why do enablers do this? Well, it serves
Speaker 1: a lot of functions for the enabler. For some enablers,
Speaker 1: above all else, it allows them to maintain the status quo.
Speaker 1: We can keep pretending we're a very happy family, or
Speaker 1: I don't need to deal with a fight at the
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving dinner. It's a way of just keeping things sort
Speaker 1: of artificially stable. And because the narcissistic person tends to
Speaker 1: be the most volatile in the system. If you can
Speaker 1: keep them appeased, then usually the system will keep working.
Speaker 1: And then the sacrifice and all of that are obviously
Speaker 1: the people getting harmed by the narcissistic person, But for
Speaker 1: the enablers, a lot of it is about status quo.
Speaker 1: We're going to get into the types of enablers that
Speaker 1: will also help you understand why it is the enablers
Speaker 1: do what they do. Keep this in mind, this sort
Speaker 1: of term enabling came out of the addiction literature. It
Speaker 1: was used there and it sort of was related to
Speaker 1: other concepts like codependency. But what was happening was that
Speaker 1: people who are considered enabling in that space where people
Speaker 1: would do things like overlook the drinking or drug behavior,
Speaker 1: keep alcohol in the house, keep giving the addict money,
Speaker 1: so these behaviors that would allow the addictive behavior to
Speaker 1: continue unquestioningly. And it all represented in some ways a
Speaker 1: form of denial, because one of the pieces that's happening
Speaker 1: at the core of enabling is some form of denial.
Speaker 1: Either it's active denial I just want to not see
Speaker 1: this as happening because I don't like how this looks,
Speaker 1: or it's passive denial. They simply aren't aware of it.
Speaker 1: I even can say personally. I remember a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: who is one of the most lovely human beings I've
Speaker 1: ever met in my life, has a little bit of
Speaker 1: an enabling streak, and one day said, you know why
Speaker 1: I don't like what you talk about, because if I
Speaker 1: really listen to it, it's going to mean I have
Speaker 1: to look at some stuff happening around me, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to do that. And I thought that was
Speaker 1: such an honest assessment. I said, that's fine, but never
Speaker 1: guesslight someone who's going through it. So we were able
Speaker 1: to have an open and honest, enabling conversation. Enablers aren't
Speaker 1: necessarily bad people, and that's what makes it so complicated.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about the different types
Speaker 1: of enablers. One type of enabler is just a Pollyanna,
Speaker 1: like everything's just great, and aren't we all getting along
Speaker 1: and aren't we all friendly? It's a little bit immature,
Speaker 1: kind of head in the clouds, And so the Pollyanna
Speaker 1: enablers are just sort of people who just I think
Speaker 1: there's just good in everyone, and you're thinking, I kind
Speaker 1: of believe that. But this interaction wasn't Okay, so they
Speaker 1: kind of take that good in everyone thing a little
Speaker 1: bit too far. When we sort of push the accelerator
Speaker 1: on the Pollyannas, we're taken to the toxically positive people. Now,
Speaker 1: the toxically positive people will shame other people who aren't
Speaker 1: being positive, like I don't like this energy, I don't
Speaker 1: like this word narcissism. I don't like that, you know what.
Speaker 1: They have their own story and we have to hold
Speaker 1: space for their story, like what, Okay, they keep lying
Speaker 1: and betraying people, but if that's how you want to
Speaker 1: frame it, the toxically positive enablers are a bit more
Speaker 1: dangerous than a Pollyanna enablers because they tend to shame
Speaker 1: the survivors and say, you're not being positive. This is
Speaker 1: a you issue. Maybe if you were nicer, they would
Speaker 1: be nicer too, that kind of thing. Then there are
Speaker 1: what I call the transactional enablers. These are the enablers
Speaker 1: that are somehow benefiting from the narcissistic relationship. This could
Speaker 1: be money, this could be resources, this could be status,
Speaker 1: it could be tuition, it could be a car. Whatever
Speaker 1: it is, they're very much benefiting. And while they're not
Speaker 1: transparent about it say, hey, I'm ignoring their behavior because
Speaker 1: I'm getting a car out of this. There is this discomfort,
Speaker 1: sort of dissonance that they know, like I don't want
Speaker 1: to burn this bridge. I'm getting stuff from this narcissistic person,
Speaker 1: so I don't want to know it. I don't want
Speaker 1: to see it. It is sort of this active I
Speaker 1: don't want to see this because then the implication would
Speaker 1: be it could sort of throw off this transactional structure
Speaker 1: they have with this narcissistic person. Again may not be
Speaker 1: happening consciously, but keeping that status quo and not burning
Speaker 1: that bridge. There are also trauma bonded enablers. These folks
Speaker 1: are tricky because you may have tremendous empathy for them.
Speaker 1: You yourself were probably there with the narcissist yourself at
Speaker 1: one point. Then you saw it, you did the work,
Speaker 1: you did the healing, you're more clear on it. The
Speaker 1: trauma bonded enabler is enabling the narcissistic person by justifying
Speaker 1: their behavior, by giving it a free pass, by doing
Speaker 1: all the things that trauma bonded people do, minimizing their behavior,
Speaker 1: and may in some cases even gaslight you. Because for
Speaker 1: the trauma bonded person, it is still about maintaining that
Speaker 1: tie in that case con to this harmful narcissistic person.
Speaker 1: For the trauma bonded enablers, this process is really unconscious.
Speaker 1: These are often people you actually may very much care
Speaker 1: about or love. Where this dynamic gets the most tricky
Speaker 1: is if the trauma bonded enabler is your other parent.
Speaker 1: So you have a narcissistic parent, and then the other
Speaker 1: parent was trauma bonded to that parent, so they were
Speaker 1: enabling their stuff. Now, that trauma bonded parent might have
Speaker 1: been very loving to you, very sweet to you, really
Speaker 1: was actually the only bright light in your childhood, but
Speaker 1: they did keep giving the narcissistic parent a free pass,
Speaker 1: which did leave you confused. You go into adulthood, the
Speaker 1: enabling becomes clear to you, and then you might have
Speaker 1: a very complex set of emotions about that trauma bonded
Speaker 1: enabling parent, feeling like how could they have led us
Speaker 1: twist in the wind like this? Why don't they see it?
Speaker 1: And while you may have empathy for their trauma bondedness
Speaker 1: and you may feel guilt about being angry at them,
Speaker 1: you may feel very angry at a person who's a
Speaker 1: trauma bonded enabler, especially if their presence really influence your
Speaker 1: development in your life. Now, listen, some trauma bonded folks
Speaker 1: may be mildly narcissistic themselves, so they may not even
Speaker 1: take note of the entitlement and the grandiosity and the
Speaker 1: arrogance is a thing like get over yourself, you know
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. The mildly narcissistic folks also don't
Speaker 1: have that much empathy for you, So their lack of
Speaker 1: empathy combined with the sense that this behavior might actually
Speaker 1: be okay, can mean those folks can be enablers. And
Speaker 1: then there are cultural issues, and when it comes to enabling,
Speaker 1: the cultural stuff is really really important. When we think
Speaker 1: of cultures where it's family first and everything stays within
Speaker 1: the family and don't talk about our family business out
Speaker 1: of here. The person that does break ranks and might
Speaker 1: go to therapy or want to actually call out abusive
Speaker 1: stuff in the family, that person will be viewed as
Speaker 1: the problem, whereas the family close ranks and protect the
Speaker 1: narcissistic person. It may not even be that the family
Speaker 1: doesn't see the narcissistic person's behavior is bad, but whatever
Speaker 1: sort of cultural rules of order there are. Maybe they
Speaker 1: might be sort of patriarchal qualities, They may be related
Speaker 1: to other sort of authoritarian structures, may simply be cultures
Speaker 1: where again it's family first at all costs. That at
Speaker 1: those times, people will often report feeling very gaslighted and
Speaker 1: very confused, because they'll say, people know this person's bad,
Speaker 1: they're all talking smack inside the family system, but we're
Speaker 1: just not allowed to go and get help for that.
Speaker 1: And that can leave people in this very confused spot.
Speaker 1: Can I get help? Can I talk about this? Am
Speaker 1: I the bad person for talking about this? Don't forget
Speaker 1: about the flying monkeys. The flying monkeys are absolutely a
Speaker 1: form of enabler that is a much more active enabler,
Speaker 1: and even in a more terrible level. Not only do
Speaker 1: the flying monkeys enable the narcissist, they attack on their behalf.
Speaker 1: The smear campaigns, spreading gossip, holding up rumors and innuendo
Speaker 1: coming at you, bothering you, stalking you, harassing you. So
Speaker 1: to me, the flying monkey maybe the worst form of enabler.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, When a narcissistic person has flying monkeys,
Speaker 1: they feel so emboldened because now they literally have someone
Speaker 1: out there doing their bidding. The flying monkeys are the
Speaker 1: type of enablers that may very well cause the most harm.
Speaker 1: As you can imagine, some of these enabling patterns overlap.
Speaker 1: But the point again I want to make is the
Speaker 1: reason enabling is so insidious is that there are people
Speaker 1: in your life you really adore and say, this person's
Speaker 1: actually very empathic, very nice, has been a good loyal friend.
Speaker 1: But where the cracks began to show was when I
Speaker 1: was talking about maybe a mutual narcissistic person in our lives,
Speaker 1: and the enabler was more likely to jump to the
Speaker 1: narcissistic person's defense. They'll say they're still empathic, I'm still
Speaker 1: cool with them around everything except this one relationship. And
Speaker 1: you can see then how in some ways enabling relationships
Speaker 1: can be even more confusing than the narcissistic ones. In
Speaker 1: our next question, Glenn asks, I feel like I'm losing
Speaker 1: my mind. I know my brother is a narcissist and
Speaker 1: uses every opportunity to gaslight me. The people around him
Speaker 1: know how difficult he is, but they never call him out.
Speaker 1: I'm so sick of the that's just how he is.
Speaker 1: Come on, Glenn, let it go be the bigger person.
Speaker 1: So in Glenn's case, here is that all these people
Speaker 1: around him again, it's that status quo that's such a
Speaker 1: big part of the enabling process, that it's not that
Speaker 1: they want to hurt you, but that they don't want
Speaker 1: the system to get cracked or in some cases have
Speaker 1: to face up with what they already know is an
Speaker 1: uncomfortable truth, but it's almost like something that they don't
Speaker 1: want to deal with, looking at as any of us
Speaker 1: sometimes don't want to when we're in a close relationship
Speaker 1: with someone where we've invested time in years and feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: I really don't want this to be true of this person.
Speaker 1: So what happens is in Glenn's case, who's Glenn is
Speaker 1: losing his mind? Glenn knows something to be true, that
Speaker 1: his brother's behavior is unacceptable, unhealthy, and frankly toxic. But
Speaker 1: what's making it worse is that the people around him.
Speaker 1: It's almost worse gaslighting because you're with the narcissistic person,
Speaker 1: You're like, Okay, they're gaslighting me. But when the enablers
Speaker 1: are saying, let it go, it's just how he is,
Speaker 1: or you be the bigger person. The implication when somebody
Speaker 1: tells you to be the bigger person. Is that if
Speaker 1: you call this person out, then you're being a smaller person.
Speaker 1: That's gaslighting. The thing within neighbor is to stay solid
Speaker 1: within yourself that you're very clear in what's happening in
Speaker 1: the narcissistic relationship. Have other sort of what I call
Speaker 1: gaslight free zones in your life where you can talk
Speaker 1: to people and say, this is what my brother did.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me what you think of it? And
Speaker 1: those people say that is not okay. You then will
Speaker 1: feel perhaps more steadfast in the face of the people
Speaker 1: who are telling you that you're the problem because you
Speaker 1: won't let it go, that you need to be the
Speaker 1: bigger person, or they sort of rationalize the behavior by
Speaker 1: saying that's just how he is. If I can give
Speaker 1: you one piece of guidance, now, how I always tell
Speaker 1: you don't call out the narcissist. Double that, and don't
Speaker 1: try to convert the enablers. It is so tempting. They
Speaker 1: may ask you, what's this narcissism thing you're talking about? Say, well,
Speaker 1: it's when a person doesn't have empathy and is entitled
Speaker 1: la la la la la. You give them the list.
Speaker 1: The other person may not and say okay, cool and
Speaker 1: keep going. You may plant to see, but this idea
Speaker 1: of you need to see that my brother is narcissistic,
Speaker 1: that's not going to work. If anything, by pushing your
Speaker 1: experience at them in your assessment of the situation, they're
Speaker 1: probably going to double down on No, you're the one
Speaker 1: who's the problem. They're not ready to see Glenn's brother
Speaker 1: in a clear light or at least understand Glenn's point
Speaker 1: of view. For many folks, for a lot of enablers,
Speaker 1: they actually know that the behavior that the narcissistic person
Speaker 1: is engaging in is toxic. But they don't want to
Speaker 1: poke the bear. They don't want to deal with it,
Speaker 1: and that not wanting to deal with it. I struggle
Speaker 1: with that because in the not wanting to deal with it,
Speaker 1: people who are really enduring a lot of abuse have
Speaker 1: to keep enduring more because nobody is willing to step
Speaker 1: up to the plate. Here's one thing we do know.
Speaker 1: There is strength in numbers. When multiple people recognize that
Speaker 1: something's not okay. It's not going to change the narcissistic
Speaker 1: person's behavior. But the people who are all sharing amongst
Speaker 1: themselves this isn't okay. You feel heard, and you feel seen,
Speaker 1: and all of those are essential ingredients sort of letting
Speaker 1: this go and healing. So I feel for Glenn, and
Speaker 1: I understand why why Glenn is losing his mind. What
Speaker 1: Glenn needs is some gaslight free zones to at least
Speaker 1: have a sounding board and recognize that you're not going
Speaker 1: to be able to turn these enablers around overnight. The
Speaker 1: best thing that many people can do in a situation
Speaker 1: like this is just say, you know why, I'm struggling
Speaker 1: with my brother's behavior, because he did this, Because he
Speaker 1: did this, and because he did this, stick to observable behavior.
Speaker 1: They're still probably going to gaslight you instead of making
Speaker 1: it about your brother's narcissism. So to stick to the
Speaker 1: behaviors and you'd be surprised maybe a few people will
Speaker 1: come around. One of the worst positions to be in
Speaker 1: is to be the first person in a group or
Speaker 1: a fan family to be the one who recognizes that
Speaker 1: the narcissistic person may very well be narcissistic. It's a
Speaker 1: little bit like the Boy and the Emperor's and your clothes, right.
Speaker 1: He was the first one to probably say it. Maybe
Speaker 1: the other people in the parade knew the emperor wasn't
Speaker 1: wearing any clothes. The boy saw it and got it
Speaker 1: and said it. To be the first person to see
Speaker 1: it is actually not particularly an enviable position, because you
Speaker 1: may doubt your judgment about it, if you have your
Speaker 1: own trauma bonds and your own history with this person,
Speaker 1: if you feel like by saying this, you're going to
Speaker 1: kind of up end a fantasy about this being a
Speaker 1: happy family or a great place to work or something
Speaker 1: like that. So it's a lot of guilt for people
Speaker 1: who say, I don't want to be the one who
Speaker 1: punctures the hole in the balloon that everybody really cares about.
Speaker 1: But in the same breath, you may also see not
Speaker 1: only the toll that is taking on you, but on
Speaker 1: other people in the system. If you are the first
Speaker 1: person who gets it, the most important thing you can
Speaker 1: do is find sounding boards that might be therapy. It
Speaker 1: may be so groups, It may simply be friends who've
Speaker 1: seen it for a long time and might say glad
Speaker 1: you finally got up with that. And I have to say,
Speaker 1: as a therapist who's worked in this space, I remember
Speaker 1: many years ago saying someone was sharing me with me
Speaker 1: about a sibling. I said, whoh, your brother sounds narcissistic,
Speaker 1: and it was actually a bad thing I did. The
Speaker 1: person's behavior was so egregious I couldn't let it slip.
Speaker 1: That was a bad therapist moment of mine, and I said, oh,
Speaker 1: your brother's narcissistic. And the client just reeled back and
Speaker 1: said come again and didn't like it because they weren't ready.
Speaker 1: And so that was a real lesson for me. Now. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: years later that person said, you know, you were the
Speaker 1: first person who ever saw it. I didn't take that
Speaker 1: as congratulations. I saw that as trying to rush someone.
Speaker 1: In a point of view, my work at that point
Speaker 1: is a therapist, and actually for anyone, even as a friend,
Speaker 1: would be how do you feel, how does their behavior
Speaker 1: affect you? Tell me more about those behaviors, helping them
Speaker 1: create a vocabulary about how this behavior is affecting them.
Speaker 1: It's so tempting to say that's a narcissist, but it
Speaker 1: actually doesn't do anyone any favors unless we can really
Speaker 1: frame it and think about it in terms of how
Speaker 1: this behavior is affecting us. We will be right back
Speaker 1: with this conversation in our next question. Alina writes, do
Speaker 1: all narcissists have enablers, not necessarily, but you almost have
Speaker 1: to view a narcissist as a plant and the enablers
Speaker 1: as water. Without that water, that plant is going to
Speaker 1: wither and die. And without enablers, a narcissistic person's grandiosity
Speaker 1: and posturing and all of that will fade. You may wonder, then,
Speaker 1: what's left If a narcissist doesn't have enablers. You may
Speaker 1: see anger, you may see acting out, You may even
Speaker 1: see maladaptive behaviors like addiction, and in some cases you
Speaker 1: may even see depression. An example of this would be
Speaker 1: someone like the character of the Joker, who was somebody
Speaker 1: who wasn't getting that validation. He didn't have anyone close
Speaker 1: to him, didn't have family, didn't have an audience, and
Speaker 1: it just really sort of ate him up from the
Speaker 1: inside out. It's actually an interesting illustration of them, but
Speaker 1: most narcissistic people do. Keep in mind, narcissistic people are charming,
Speaker 1: they're charismatic, they're sociable, they're extroverted. Many people want to
Speaker 1: be close to them, and as a result, they often
Speaker 1: do have a rather robust social network. They do great
Speaker 1: on social media. They post all the time. Everybody likes
Speaker 1: their stuff. A lot of people want to be near
Speaker 1: them so as long as they're getting validation as well
Speaker 1: as have people around them who not only validate them
Speaker 1: but let them get away with stuff. The narcissistic a
Speaker 1: person is adequately supplied, they might even feel well regulated,
Speaker 1: and they go through their lives quite contentedly. But not
Speaker 1: all do. And some people have enablers and then they
Speaker 1: lose enablers. We might see this in older adults, people
Speaker 1: who once had marriages and children and jobs. They may
Speaker 1: get older, they may leave the job, they may get
Speaker 1: pushed out of the job. The kids may have burned
Speaker 1: all their bridges with the parents saying enough's enough. They
Speaker 1: may get divorced, their partner may predecease them, partner may
Speaker 1: completely cut off from them, and in later life. What
Speaker 1: you might see, and I've seen this over and over
Speaker 1: again in the family systems of hundreds of clients I've
Speaker 1: worked with, is that the narcissistic parent who no longer
Speaker 1: has their enablers really kind of goes off to a
Speaker 1: very angry, lonely, isolated older age, and they may actually
Speaker 1: have difficulty finding placements for them in assisted living or
Speaker 1: other kinds of facilities. Because they can often be rather
Speaker 1: difficult and combative, so it's not a pretty picture. And
Speaker 1: you see a narcissistic person without enablers, most do not
Speaker 1: all do, and when they don't, they actually don't do
Speaker 1: well because there's nobody any longer propping up their behavior
Speaker 1: and letting them get away with stuff. And without enablers,
Speaker 1: there's no one making excuses, so even as new people
Speaker 1: come in, they'll say this is bad, and there's no
Speaker 1: one saying no, no, no, you're reading the situation wrong.
Speaker 1: So enablers are not only sources of validation, they're also
Speaker 1: sources of excuses, and when those things go away, the
Speaker 1: narcissistic person loses a lot of their power. Many keep
Speaker 1: their enablers their whole lives, especially if they're from family
Speaker 1: systems where it's not okay to step away. And also
Speaker 1: people who may have a lot of wealth and power
Speaker 1: and privilege may continue to have enablers around them, a
Speaker 1: bit like vultures circling something because everyone's waiting for their
Speaker 1: piece of the pie, so they may continue to have
Speaker 1: enablers around them that prop them up, perhaps waiting for
Speaker 1: the reward on the other side. Jonah says, I have
Speaker 1: recently realized my dad is a covert narcissist. This has
Speaker 1: helped me understand so much about my family. But I'm
Speaker 1: having a tough time with feelings towards my mom. I
Speaker 1: realize I'm very hurt and angry at her for protecting him,
Speaker 1: defending him, staying with him, and giving up her joy
Speaker 1: and happiness for a terrible marriage. How can I work
Speaker 1: through my hurt and anger while still maintaining a relationship
Speaker 1: with my mom? So Jonah's question is one of the
Speaker 1: most complicated ones we see around enabling relationships, because, as
Speaker 1: I said, the enablers in our lives may be people
Speaker 1: who are very important to us, who we do love,
Speaker 1: and who we've actually seen suffer. In Jonah's case, his
Speaker 1: mother definitely sounds like she had a rough time in
Speaker 1: this relationship and that she gave up her life, She
Speaker 1: gave up her joy, she gave up her happiness. It's
Speaker 1: not like the mom had an easy ride, whereas the
Speaker 1: father probably just got away with a lot. Mom just
Speaker 1: endured a lot. However, her endurance became a form of
Speaker 1: enabling that hurt Jonah. It would have shaped Jonah's developmental experience.
Speaker 1: Jonah is hurt and anger absolutely makes sense. But for
Speaker 1: a lot of folks in Jonah's position, there's also a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of guilt. My mother's already suffered so much.
Speaker 1: My mother's already given up so much joy, so much happiness,
Speaker 1: and now I'm one more person piling on This is
Speaker 1: where this concept. I've talked about this on Navigating narcissism before,
Speaker 1: and I'll talk about it over and over again, is
Speaker 1: this concept of these stacked up multiple truths. Multiple things
Speaker 1: can be true. Jonah likely loves his mom. Jonah is
Speaker 1: hurt by his mom's enabling Jonah is angry. Jonah may
Speaker 1: very well feel guilty. What's he supposed to do with this?
Speaker 1: All of this stuff can coexist. Being angry at his
Speaker 1: mother doesn't mean he can't have a relationship with her.
Speaker 1: Like Jonah, Actually there's a benefit if it's possible to
Speaker 1: go to therapy with your mother. We often don't think
Speaker 1: of that as adults. It's actually going to therapy with
Speaker 1: the covert narcissistic father makes absolutely no sense. But with
Speaker 1: his mother having that if you will, referee or a
Speaker 1: sort of guidance in the room, could really be a
Speaker 1: place where Jonah feels safer sharing his anger. Mom, after
Speaker 1: years of a marriage to a covert, vulnerable narcissist, has
Speaker 1: probably learned to swallow her feelings and will just capitulate
Speaker 1: her husband's anger. A therapist could be a great place
Speaker 1: for Jonah's mom to make sort of her experience more understood.
Speaker 1: And it's very very likely that Jonah's mother feels a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of grief and regret over what happened, but
Speaker 1: may not feel that she has the vocabulary to express it.
Speaker 1: And keep in mind, after however, many decades of invalidation
Speaker 1: Jonah's mother experience in her marriage, she probably doesn't even
Speaker 1: feel justified hearing her voice her feelings herself separate from
Speaker 1: her husband. So it's possible, and the hard part becomes
Speaker 1: how do you maintain a relationship with someone when you
Speaker 1: have such a complicated mix of hurt, anger, guilt, and love.
Speaker 1: It's small steps and it's good boundaries. I wouldn't advise
Speaker 1: Jonah his mom to go on a two week vacation,
Speaker 1: but taking little bits of time doing it separate from
Speaker 1: his father, and that might be a really important ask
Speaker 1: for Jonah. Say, if we're going to spend time together
Speaker 1: I don't want him around, and that's a very fair ask,
Speaker 1: and to slowly have those opportunities of getting to know
Speaker 1: each other. Jonah may feel that there are limits, that
Speaker 1: some of his hurt and anger might mean that he
Speaker 1: can only go so deep with his mother. He may
Speaker 1: not fully trust her and the loss of whether it
Speaker 1: be respect or regard he had for his mom for
Speaker 1: staying in this in the harm that came to him. Again,
Speaker 1: there's only so deep he may be able to go,
Speaker 1: which is why also individual therapy in these cases can
Speaker 1: be really really important. Just because someone was an enabler
Speaker 1: in your life, especially the one that was a parent,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that there's not a path forward. There absolutely is,
Speaker 1: and honestly, in giving a name to these feelings instead
Speaker 1: of just staying mired and guilt, but understanding that this
Speaker 1: is a really complicated mix of hurt and anger and
Speaker 1: grief and guilt and love can mean that there's a
Speaker 1: possibility for a conversation, but it's slow. The boundaries have
Speaker 1: to be good, you have to trust yourself, and if
Speaker 1: it's possible to have someone guiding you in this process
Speaker 1: like a therapist, could be incredibly helpful. Alexandra asks About
Speaker 1: a year ago, I stopped speaking to my friend who
Speaker 1: is a narcissist. Since then, some of our mutual friends,
Speaker 1: people I care for deeply told me I should make
Speaker 1: amends and reconnect with this narcissistic person. Are they considered enablers?
Speaker 1: And how should I respond when they say this? So
Speaker 1: to Alexandra, the thing that I would want to know
Speaker 1: is have your friends actually listened to your experience to
Speaker 1: what happened for you. It's not I can't imagine you
Speaker 1: woke up one day and said, Hey, this person in
Speaker 1: our friend group is narcissistic. Out. My guess is lots
Speaker 1: of things happened over a long time that led you
Speaker 1: to come to this assessment. Are your friends aware of this? Listen?
Speaker 1: It's not your job to be the narcissism education police,
Speaker 1: but to give them context may help them understand why
Speaker 1: you've stepped away. One of the dangers in groups of
Speaker 1: people is when we say I want nothing to do
Speaker 1: with them they're a narcissist. A lot of people still
Speaker 1: don't know what this means, and so they're thinking, what,
Speaker 1: you don't like her because she looks in the mirror
Speaker 1: a lot and post selfies. No, that's not what the
Speaker 1: issue is. And so if you were to break it
Speaker 1: down and say, listen, this person, this happened, this happened,
Speaker 1: this happened, this happened. That left me feeling this, this,
Speaker 1: and this, and it is not a healthy space for me.
Speaker 1: That's a very different conversation than saying this friend is
Speaker 1: a narcissist. It can put you on your back heel
Speaker 1: because now people are saying, well, you're the one who's
Speaker 1: name calling and it's not really that. But by painting
Speaker 1: out a more behavioral picture and an experiential picture of
Speaker 1: what you went through, your friends potentially may come up
Speaker 1: with more empathy. Now, Alexandra, let's say you've done that,
Speaker 1: You've explained all of this to them and said what happened,
Speaker 1: and they're still saying you should make amends and reconnect.
Speaker 1: Not great, that feels more inably, It really comes down
Speaker 1: to how much information they have. They have a full
Speaker 1: working knowledge of what happened, and they're pushing you to
Speaker 1: do this. I would then really say that you think
Speaker 1: through again that status quo. They may just want things
Speaker 1: to be the way they were. They might find themselves
Speaker 1: tired of having to be your friend and her friend
Speaker 1: and kind of having to keep things separate. But if
Speaker 1: you can have that conversation and they're aware, but if
Speaker 1: they still hold their position, yeah, despite all those things
Speaker 1: that she did, Yep, you still need to make amends
Speaker 1: if you feel up to it. And Alexandra, I don't
Speaker 1: know that you'd want to. Some do, some don't. Is
Speaker 1: to say, what is this to you? Why is it
Speaker 1: so important to you that this happens? If they give
Speaker 1: you some ephemeral while everyone should forgive to move forward,
Speaker 1: that's not an answer. Hold their feet to the fire.
Speaker 1: See if they tell you what's really on their mind.
Speaker 1: A good friend may be disappointed that a friend group
Speaker 1: has split up. A really good friend will say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm bummed out that we're not all one group, but
Speaker 1: I understand that you need to do what feels right
Speaker 1: to you and I got you, and then proceed to
Speaker 1: maybe even have the conversation. Are you comfortable that they're
Speaker 1: still friends with that other person? Some people can toe
Speaker 1: that line, but it really requires that your friend can
Speaker 1: really be able to appreciate and empathize with your point
Speaker 1: of view. Gina says, my father is my mom's enabler.
Speaker 1: Anytime I bring up her behavior, or even read direct
Speaker 1: quotes she's texted to me. He denies it or says
Speaker 1: the classic she didn't mean it like that. I'm at
Speaker 1: the point I need to go no contact with my mom,
Speaker 1: but I'm so afraid i'll lose my dad too. How
Speaker 1: do I navigate this? Oh, Gina, isn't one of those
Speaker 1: catch twenty two's that these narcissistic situations bring up all
Speaker 1: the time in a family. You know, right from the jump,
Speaker 1: you can see how enablers, how their gaslighting can be
Speaker 1: just as potent as the gaslighting of the narcissistic person.
Speaker 1: She's reading direct quotes to the dad from the text
Speaker 1: or showing him the tax and he's saying, she didn't
Speaker 1: mean it like that, didn't mean it like what? How
Speaker 1: do you know? It's really dangerous And I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go on a little bit of a side rant here.
Speaker 1: One of the most dangerous things any of us can
Speaker 1: do is to draw a conclusion about a person's intention.
Speaker 1: Anytime we do that, nine times out of ten, we
Speaker 1: make a mess out of a relationship. You do not
Speaker 1: know what is going on in someone's head. I get
Speaker 1: paid to do this, and I don't know what's going
Speaker 1: on in someone's head, I ask them, and I highly
Speaker 1: would recommend you do the same. So unless Dad has
Speaker 1: gone to Mom to get her to decode her toxic text,
Speaker 1: dad doesn't know now and he doesn't know. But again
Speaker 1: that's status quo. Enablers wanting to keep everything just the
Speaker 1: way it is, is that he's going to say whatever
Speaker 1: he needs to say to be able to keep Mom
Speaker 1: on the good side of the fence. The challenge with
Speaker 1: enablers is that there's a sort of a simplification they're
Speaker 1: trying to engage in. It's really, really hard when you
Speaker 1: have someone in your life who's narcissistic that you have
Speaker 1: no intention of removing from your life, and then you
Speaker 1: have somebody who's being hurt by that narcissistic person, and
Speaker 1: you don't want to get rid of both of those
Speaker 1: people or you don't want to lose them, right, and
Speaker 1: you're trying to be in that sort of middle place
Speaker 1: between the two. If I can give all of you
Speaker 1: one piece of guidance, if you find yourself in that situation,
Speaker 1: do not be the narcissistic person's publicist, because that, in
Speaker 1: essence is what enabling is. Let the narcissist make their mistakes,
Speaker 1: they're not your mistakes. And if that means this other
Speaker 1: person is like that behavior is not okay. Your role
Speaker 1: then becomes to foster a relationship with the person being
Speaker 1: hurt by the narcissist that helps that person feel heard
Speaker 1: and seen and recognized and empathized with. It is possible.
Speaker 1: Is it easy? No? But if you care about someone enough,
Speaker 1: you'll figure out how to do it. Doesn't mean you're
Speaker 1: kicking the narcissistic person to the curb, but to keep
Speaker 1: them in your life doesn't mean you have to kick
Speaker 1: the other person to the curb. Just remember that. But
Speaker 1: in this person's case, that she's now feeling like I
Speaker 1: can't do this with Mom anymore. And here's where this
Speaker 1: gets tricky. I'm happy to say we're gonna be taken
Speaker 1: on your no contact questions as well, because no contact
Speaker 1: is its own kind of complex sort of space. But
Speaker 1: this idea that will I lose Dad if I go
Speaker 1: no contact with Mom? I wish I could sugarcoat that here,
Speaker 1: But the answer to that is you might if Dad
Speaker 1: is really trauma bonded with and really committed to being
Speaker 1: Mom's enabler. When you lose a narcissistic person. When you
Speaker 1: put down that absolute boundary, it's not about one person.
Speaker 1: There's often a lot of other people you may lose
Speaker 1: as well. In some ways, also becomes an uncomfortable place
Speaker 1: because people don't like to give ultimatums. But in the
Speaker 1: same breath, is Dad willing to In essence, it sort
Speaker 1: of feels like he'd be sneaking behind Mom's back to
Speaker 1: see you. I cannot tell you how many people I
Speaker 1: have walked through the space of is there a way
Speaker 1: to kind of keep both? One thing I can say
Speaker 1: to Gina, Gina, if Dad matters that much to you,
Speaker 1: stop showing Dad the Mom texts, because what you're going
Speaker 1: to then have to realize is that a relationship with
Speaker 1: Dad means that you don't talk about Mom. He is
Speaker 1: not your ally in that space. He is not your
Speaker 1: advocate in that space, and he does not want to
Speaker 1: see it. If you can have a relationship with Dad
Speaker 1: and carve out that piece of talking about Mom, if
Speaker 1: you think you can do that, you can have Dad
Speaker 1: in your life on that limited basis. And if Dad
Speaker 1: starts bringing Mom up, Hey, we're having a nice time.
Speaker 1: Maybe next time Mom could come, then you set the
Speaker 1: boundary and say no, I love you, Dad, I want
Speaker 1: to spend time with you. I don't want to spend
Speaker 1: time with her. It can feel painful if ultimately Dad
Speaker 1: sort of start stepping back because Mom is actually going
Speaker 1: at him. How dare you get together with her? Because
Speaker 1: you know Dad's going to be foolish enough tell her
Speaker 1: the truth. But at the end of the day, if
Speaker 1: he does, you gotta remember your dad can make his
Speaker 1: own choices, and it's painful if you feel that you're
Speaker 1: on the losing side of that choice. Brittany wrote, I've
Speaker 1: just left the narcissistic boss I worked for for nearly
Speaker 1: twenty years. As part of my healing, I'm realizing I
Speaker 1: was enabling a lot of toxic behavior. How do I
Speaker 1: process the fact that my behavior hurt a lot of people? Brittany,
Speaker 1: That's a tough one. So this actually is a spot
Speaker 1: where I can talk about something that is sometimes termed
Speaker 1: moral injury. Moral injury is the negative emotions that occur
Speaker 1: when a person believes that they have done something bad
Speaker 1: that hurts someone else. It's an experience. It almost feels
Speaker 1: like post traumatic stress that we have when we feel
Speaker 1: as though we were doing something Often in the line
Speaker 1: of our or our work that ended up with people
Speaker 1: getting harmed. So it might be somebody having followed orders
Speaker 1: exactly as they were supposed to, but by following orders,
Speaker 1: a person or many people got hurt, and although on
Speaker 1: paper the person did the right thing, those people got hurt,
Speaker 1: and the person experiencing moral injury will feel responsible for this.
Speaker 1: One of the strongest examples we had of this was
Speaker 1: in the pandemic, where a lot of healthcare workers when
Speaker 1: we didn't have enough PPE, we didn't have enough beds,
Speaker 1: we didn't have enough spaces in emergency rooms, were actually
Speaker 1: feeling that the kinds of decisions they were having to
Speaker 1: make could have ended up resulting in significantly worse illness
Speaker 1: or even death for people, and they felt a sense
Speaker 1: of moral injury. It wasn't their fault, there wasn't enough
Speaker 1: PPE and gloves and masks and all of that stuff,
Speaker 1: but that the people were getting sicker or dying. That
Speaker 1: a lot of healthcare workers took that upon themselves, And
Speaker 1: there's now research showing that that happened for people at
Speaker 1: that time, and the way we carry moral injury ourselves psychologically, again,
Speaker 1: it looks a lot like post traumatic stress, a lot
Speaker 1: of anxiety, a lot of rumination, a sort of a
Speaker 1: sense of vigilance, attention, a self blame. It's an incredibly
Speaker 1: and comfortable space to occupy. And in this case, Britney
Speaker 1: recognizes that in my job, doing my job, probably being
Speaker 1: told you even did your job well by enabling this
Speaker 1: toxic behavior, that in retrospect there is a recognition that
Speaker 1: people got hurt by this. I'll tell you this right now.
Speaker 1: One thing we know about moral injury is we still
Speaker 1: haven't come up with good psychological treatments for it. And
Speaker 1: one of the most important things that somebody in Britney's
Speaker 1: situation could do is talk it out. I could sit
Speaker 1: here till I'm blue in the face saying clearly you
Speaker 1: were trying to survive, and that is totally understandable. But
Speaker 1: I also, in the same breath recognize that you may
Speaker 1: have hurt people in a very real way who are
Speaker 1: also struggling, and say, well, you know you didn't mean
Speaker 1: to I can't you know what I'm saying. We're back
Speaker 1: to that issue of intention. So for Brittany, this is
Speaker 1: very much an issue of going into a space and
Speaker 1: talking it out. Now, if we want to lift from
Speaker 1: systems like twelve step, and to me, probably one of
Speaker 1: the most powerful aspects of twelve step and of working
Speaker 1: a program is the aspect of making amens. Having watched
Speaker 1: patients do that over the years, having worked with many
Speaker 1: clients who are going through the making a men's phase,
Speaker 1: I find it particularly profound because making amends is done
Speaker 1: without an agenda. This isn't about them accepting your apology.
Speaker 1: This is about you rolling up and saying I'm aware
Speaker 1: that some of these decisions hurt you. I was part
Speaker 1: of that, and I'm genuinely sorry for the pain you experienced.
Speaker 1: And that's that, no explaining, no nothing, And for brittany
Speaker 1: part of your process may very well be over time,
Speaker 1: and again this would be something one made me to
Speaker 1: explore very carefully in therapy. And there may even be
Speaker 1: because it's a workplace issue, there could be life liability
Speaker 1: issues involved in this. So you have to proceed very
Speaker 1: very carefully. But if there is a way that might
Speaker 1: help them feel more whole and in making amends, that
Speaker 1: might also be something that you explore. A lot of
Speaker 1: people are able to connect the dots, they're able to
Speaker 1: see that I see where this decision came from and
Speaker 1: I see the person who was executing it, Brittany. Doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that people are going to be fond of you,
Speaker 1: but they may also be able to connect the dots
Speaker 1: to up here and keep finally in mind that you
Speaker 1: were hurt by this process too. It's so easy to
Speaker 1: get lost and the pain you may have caused that
Speaker 1: you forget that this experience also significantly harmed you twenty
Speaker 1: years in a toxic workplace situation. That's no joke and
Speaker 1: it is really harmful. So you do have a process
Speaker 1: of healing to go through too, and it is very
Speaker 1: likely that some of the people that you believe you
Speaker 1: hurt were also aware of the hurt that you were
Speaker 1: experiencing as well. Brittany's question isn't an easy one and
Speaker 1: it's not one that could really be resolved without therapy.
Speaker 1: This is definitely not a self fix kind of a thing.
Speaker 1: And so through therapy determining whatever that path forward looks
Speaker 1: like for you, and that many of us sometimes have
Speaker 1: to carry these burdens for a long time and may
Speaker 1: determine that there are other ways we can pay them forward.
Speaker 1: You may then engage in some form of mentorship, working
Speaker 1: with people in a volunteer capacity, doing something that you
Speaker 1: feel at least pays back or even makes things right,
Speaker 1: depending on whatever industry you're working in, And while it
Speaker 1: may not turn back the clock, it may at least
Speaker 1: help you feel that not only are you not contributing
Speaker 1: to a problem, but that you may be protecting people
Speaker 1: from things like this happening in the future. My conversation
Speaker 1: will continue after this break. Samantha asks, is it necessary
Speaker 1: to remove people from your life who don't get it
Speaker 1: when trying to separate from a narcissist. Listen, if we
Speaker 1: did that, we are going to have some real small
Speaker 1: social networks really fast. I mean, Samantha, it's tempting. And
Speaker 1: I talk in my own work of something I call
Speaker 1: the toxic dump, when once you get out of a
Speaker 1: primary narcissistic relationship, you kind of look around and say, WHOA,
Speaker 1: I've felt a lot of unhealthy stuff happening. But as
Speaker 1: you are separating from a primary narcissistic relationship, that's going
Speaker 1: to be enough psychological energy. If there are people around
Speaker 1: you who are second guessing you, doubting you, blaming you,
Speaker 1: shaming you, guilting you, or trying to give the narcissistic
Speaker 1: person a free pass at that time, significant boundaries are
Speaker 1: needed because you're going through enough of a difficult experience.
Speaker 1: For example, if it was a divorce, that having to
Speaker 1: manage all of these dissenting opinions can be really, really overwhelming.
Speaker 1: When you get through the initial crisis of separating from
Speaker 1: a narcissistic relationship, which can last a while if you
Speaker 1: account for things like post separation abuse, but it can
Speaker 1: really take a while before you feel like you've separated
Speaker 1: from that relationship. Then as you kind of lift your
Speaker 1: head over that dust cloud, is the time when you
Speaker 1: look around and say, are some of these people in
Speaker 1: my life healthier? Are they not? And then to ask
Speaker 1: yourself when I needed a friend, was my friend more
Speaker 1: interested in moralizing about marriage than she was to be
Speaker 1: there for me? Or was my father complaining more about
Speaker 1: losing his golf buddy than being a father to me?
Speaker 1: Those then become the difficult conversations you have with yourself
Speaker 1: and set boundaries and make those choices accordingly. I got
Speaker 1: to tell you, trying to do it all the same time,
Speaker 1: it's probably a little overwhelming, and you question, Samantha, you
Speaker 1: ask is it necessary? No, it's not necessary. What we
Speaker 1: learn as we navigate this territory of narcissism is discernment
Speaker 1: about how deep or not deep we let people into
Speaker 1: our lives. You realize that that friend who is that
Speaker 1: moralizing not able to be there for you person As
Speaker 1: you have another conversation with her, you recognize that you
Speaker 1: leaving your toxic marriage was actually really unsettling for her
Speaker 1: as she started wondering about her own marriage, that she
Speaker 1: was talking from a place of fear. You may still
Speaker 1: feel as though some connective tissue was cut, but you
Speaker 1: may still feel as though there's a place for her
Speaker 1: in your life. Discernment means that everyone doesn't get to
Speaker 1: have a front row orchestra seat to that theater called
Speaker 1: your life. That some people are going to be in
Speaker 1: the cheap seats and some people get to be backstage,
Speaker 1: and you get to make choices about that by really
Speaker 1: paying attention and saying I value myself in a way
Speaker 1: to make choices in my life about people who are
Speaker 1: good for me and who helped me grow and who
Speaker 1: are safe. Fact is is that discernment is everything when
Speaker 1: we're thinking about narcissistic relationships. Charlotte asks, why is it
Speaker 1: that as I've begun healing. I have more contempt for
Speaker 1: the enabler than the person with the narcissistic personality. Who, Charlotte,
Speaker 1: that's a question. I love that question too. This is
Speaker 1: so common. The funny thing about the day we finally
Speaker 1: get the narcissistic personality piece, we recognize that it's not
Speaker 1: good for us, we recognize the harm in it, we
Speaker 1: recognize that it's not going to change. We may even
Speaker 1: understand how their backstory made their narcissistic personality and still
Speaker 1: give ourselves permission to set a boundary or get out.
Speaker 1: That almost feels more clear to us than this really
Speaker 1: messy space of the enablers, people who we may have
Speaker 1: let far more deep into our lives, we may even
Speaker 1: have talked about the problems in this relationship, been very open,
Speaker 1: very vulnerable. So once you get the narcissistic person figured out,
Speaker 1: like okay, that's their personality, But with the enablers, especially
Speaker 1: if they're not narcissistic, but people who really may be
Speaker 1: sort of again, whether it's for a transactional reason or
Speaker 1: a pollyanna ish reason, or a trauma bonded or just
Speaker 1: plain old denial reason, that they could let you down
Speaker 1: in that way, despite having opened up to you, despite
Speaker 1: you having had what felt like a friendly relationship, that
Speaker 1: feels like a deeper betrayal because your feeling is they
Speaker 1: do know better, I've seen them know better, but for
Speaker 1: whatever sort of thing that they're stuck on around this
Speaker 1: narcissistic relationship, that they can't get unstuck and just be
Speaker 1: there for me. Listen, you may not even be asking
Speaker 1: the enabler to agree with you that the narcissistic person
Speaker 1: is narcissistic. You just need them to be there for you,
Speaker 1: to not gaslight you, to hold space for your point
Speaker 1: of view. That's all you need, because not everyone's going
Speaker 1: to read like I don't know about the narcissism peace,
Speaker 1: but I totally agree that this person has treated you
Speaker 1: horribly all these years, and I get why you need
Speaker 1: to step away. That is sometimes, in fact, often more
Speaker 1: than enough. And for that reason, the contempt we may
Speaker 1: have for the enablers, you saw that they did get
Speaker 1: it at times, they'd even endured some of the narcissistic stuff,
Speaker 1: especially if the enabler feels it all self interested that
Speaker 1: it's as though if I do this, then I may
Speaker 1: not get those tickets to the super bowl, or if
Speaker 1: I do this, then may not be able to get
Speaker 1: to go to the beach vacation this year, Like you
Speaker 1: chose the beach vacation over me. Not a good feeling.
Speaker 1: And so I think that there's certain kinds of enabling
Speaker 1: experiences that feel so much more invalidating because it was
Speaker 1: basically they were playing both sides of the street, and
Speaker 1: that doesn't feel good at least a narcissist is just
Speaker 1: on that side of the street. But when someone is
Speaker 1: sort of being your friend but then not really there
Speaker 1: for you, that can actually feel more betraying. Max writes,
Speaker 1: my cousin's wedding is coming up, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: be in touch with my enabling on a lot during
Speaker 1: the planning process. How can I control myself without feeling triggered? Oh,
Speaker 1: the family wedding. There's just so much happening at family weddings,
Speaker 1: and then there's a bunch of strangers you don't know
Speaker 1: who bring their own toxic mess to the party. But
Speaker 1: in this particular case, that with your cousin's wedding coming up,
Speaker 1: that is going to put you in proximity with family
Speaker 1: members you may traditionally not if you're involved in planning,
Speaker 1: or you're a member of the wedding party, or you're
Speaker 1: actually the person in the bride or the groom, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, you are now having proximity to somebody who
Speaker 1: may be an enabler of another toxic person in this
Speaker 1: family system, which is very unsettling for you. And most
Speaker 1: of the time you don't need to do that. One
Speaker 1: of the most useful tools you can have when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with narcissistic people or enabling people is so simple.
Speaker 1: It's preparation. You know what your aunt's about, so what
Speaker 1: that means is And I wish we could almost view
Speaker 1: boundaries as these little gates around us that we could
Speaker 1: pull up. You know they go shutters that go on
Speaker 1: windows when you're out of town or businesses closed at
Speaker 1: the end of the day. Imagine those around you, and
Speaker 1: I know how they go click click click click click
Speaker 1: click audible sound like okay, going to see the auntie
Speaker 1: enable click click click, click, click click click maybe up
Speaker 1: to here, Okay, toxic person. The whole thing goes around you.
Speaker 1: But that click click click as silly as it seems,
Speaker 1: it's a visual and an audible sensation that you can
Speaker 1: have of like going in with the aunt. Click click click,
Speaker 1: imagining that around you, something protecting you, that sense of
Speaker 1: self awareness, giving yourself, for example, permission to step away
Speaker 1: when the enabling AUNT is enabling or signing off on
Speaker 1: the toxic behavior of a key narcissistic family member. Knowing
Speaker 1: is so much because you really can gird yourself again.
Speaker 1: Click to click those shutters up and down as you need.
Speaker 1: It may very well be that another time you're talking
Speaker 1: to the cousin and you may love the cousin. Shutter
Speaker 1: comes down, Aunt comes in the room, shutter goes back up.
Speaker 1: You might want to put that shutter on a remote
Speaker 1: control as you plan this wedding. But the feeling is
Speaker 1: self possessed about this, the enabling aunt being an enabler
Speaker 1: is not a surprise. It is unsettling. And when we
Speaker 1: are triggered or activated, I prefer thinking of it like
Speaker 1: the pluck of a string that keeps reverberating for a while.
Speaker 1: But when that happens, it's our nervous system saying I
Speaker 1: don't like this, and what we need then is sometimes
Speaker 1: time to come down. After those encounters, if you are
Speaker 1: in a situation where you can get out of the situation,
Speaker 1: in this particular setting, one rule could be, as soon
Speaker 1: as Auntie starts enabling, I'm stepping out. I can work
Speaker 1: with this. We will talk about flower arrangements and who's
Speaker 1: gonna get aunt Melba up from Florida or whatever. I
Speaker 1: do all that, But the minute this person starts signing
Speaker 1: off on toxic person's behavior, I am going to start
Speaker 1: excusing myself from the conversation. Not abruptly, not dramatically. They
Speaker 1: may think you need to go to the bathroom a lot,
Speaker 1: but just get up and step away, give yourself a
Speaker 1: second to talk yourself down. Say I can step away,
Speaker 1: I can give myself permission to do this. I can
Speaker 1: pull those shutters up. But this is a very intentional,
Speaker 1: aware process. The more of that you have, the more
Speaker 1: you don't feel surprised and shocked, and again, the more
Speaker 1: you might even feel more in command of what this
Speaker 1: entire experience is like. Good luck to your cousin. Enabling
Speaker 1: takes the harm caused by the narcissistic relationship and magnifies
Speaker 1: it one hundredfold. The very people you thought you could
Speaker 1: turn to for support all of a sudden feel as
Speaker 1: though they are allied with the narcissistic person, and that's
Speaker 1: a moment that not only feels really gaslighting, it can
Speaker 1: be unsettling, uncomfortable, and magnify existing issues you're having, including shame,
Speaker 1: self blame, and guilt. We put so much focus on
Speaker 1: the narcissistic people that we forget how much of this
Speaker 1: story is playing out with lots of other people in
Speaker 1: our lives, and to recognize that somebody that we actually
Speaker 1: may care about isn't able to fully appreciate the experience
Speaker 1: that we're having can be heartbreaking. One of the most
Speaker 1: difficult things about enabling is that in a healthy situation,
Speaker 1: you're not asking people to choose sides. It's not as
Speaker 1: though you're saying to the enabling person, do not have
Speaker 1: anything to do with that narcissistic person anymore. It doesn't
Speaker 1: quite work that way. We may want that to happen,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't always work that way. That sometimes all
Speaker 1: we need from the enabler, all we wanted, I should say,
Speaker 1: from the enabler, is that they could have simply held
Speaker 1: space and seen our hurt, our loss, our pain, and
Speaker 1: our experience, because for most human beings, being seen and
Speaker 1: having someone bear witness to our pain is an incredibly
Speaker 1: healing experience. For someone to not do that, and the
Speaker 1: sense that they may be doing it to maintain some
Speaker 1: status quo or in a way that helps or preserves them,
Speaker 1: can really really create a schism and break our hearts
Speaker 1: in a way that's very different than what happens in
Speaker 1: the narcissistic relationship. I'm so glad we didn't ask Doctor
Speaker 1: Rominy episode on enabling, because it's a thing. I have
Speaker 1: to say that once people get narcissism. Don't get me wrong, devastation, devastation, devastation.
Speaker 1: But it's almost like there's a playbook for that. Okay, yeah, insecurity,
Speaker 1: got it, grandiosity, invalidation, got it, got it, got it
Speaker 1: all right, So it's like, got it right, there's a roadmap.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's an easy roadmap. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: it's easy territory with the enablers. It's like the wild West.
Speaker 1: It's just open territory. Like my sister I love, and
Speaker 1: then this happens my best friend from college, and then
Speaker 1: there's an enabled thing. It is incredibly complicated space. Enablers
Speaker 1: don't just bring up simple feelings. I'm not saying the
Speaker 1: narcissistic people do either. But the feelings are so complicated,
Speaker 1: and then if you think it's bad going through narcissistic abuse,
Speaker 1: the shure all those enablers coming in there is absolutely overwhelming.
Speaker 1: So this was a really really important Q and A,
Speaker 1: because this is a show for you, the survivors, and
Speaker 1: so keep in mind that when the enabling's happening, it
Speaker 1: can really really make the narcissistic abuse feel so much worse.
Speaker 1: So I'm so glad we did this.