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Speaker 1: professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
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Speaker 1: episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people.
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Speaker 1: not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, I
Speaker 1: Heart Media, or their employees. The first major argument and
Speaker 1: the most consistent issue in the relationship was his addiction
Speaker 1: to social media. He would constantly be on his phone,
Speaker 1: to the point where I said, you don't even have
Speaker 1: a hobby. Social media is your hobby. You don't watch
Speaker 1: TV shows, you don't read, you don't do anything. You
Speaker 1: just sit on your phone. And he would just watch
Speaker 1: his own stories over and over again and smile to himself.
Speaker 1: He'd watch himself and be smiling to himself. He'd look
Speaker 1: at every every single like, every single comment he just
Speaker 1: read how much people adore him. And that was a
Speaker 1: huge red flag for me. He was in love with
Speaker 1: his own show, and as I as the relationship went on,
Speaker 1: and I really got to understand that it is a show.
Speaker 1: He was so in love with this production that he
Speaker 1: was putting on. Social Media is the playground of the
Speaker 1: narcissistic person. A mirror that actually talks back and through
Speaker 1: likes and comments is even a mirror that validates you.
Speaker 1: We are going to hear the story of one woman's
Speaker 1: love story gone wrong and how social media was a
Speaker 1: big red flag that she didn't initially register but ended
Speaker 1: up being one of many. Her story is the reminder
Speaker 1: that anything that starts by feeling like a grandiose very
Speaker 1: tale rarely ends well. That you can't dress up obsession
Speaker 1: is just intense interest or a grown up crush. It's obsession,
Speaker 1: and that's never a good thing. That our own narratives
Speaker 1: can allow us to sculpt red flags into a love
Speaker 1: story instead of a cautionary tale. I have no doubt
Speaker 1: that many people will hear parts of their story in hers,
Speaker 1: and a reminder that all of us, even myself, have
Speaker 1: been duped in these relationships that feel more like con
Speaker 1: games than connection. Ultimately, these fairy tales turned fables end
Speaker 1: up teaching us some really important life lessons. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being with us. I am just so
Speaker 1: grateful to hear your story somebody who is as strong
Speaker 1: and a power in your own right to share your story,
Speaker 1: because I think what it does is it really pushes
Speaker 1: back on the tropes and even this word victim, which
Speaker 1: I ever like to use. And you know, given your backstory,
Speaker 1: you were whatever the opposite of a victim is so
Speaker 1: But yet you've gone through one of these relationships. So
Speaker 1: can you tell us about your your relationship with your ex?
Speaker 1: What drew you into this relationship? So Funnily enough, when
Speaker 1: I first met him, I despised him. I thought he
Speaker 1: was so attention seeking. He was that person in the
Speaker 1: room that needed everybody in the room to look at them,
Speaker 1: constant jokes. It just seemed like he was trying so hard,
Speaker 1: and and I remember thinking to myself, there's no way
Speaker 1: that I would ever I could ever or I would
Speaker 1: ever be attracted to this guy. But really what it
Speaker 1: was was this NonStop obsession with me. It felt like
Speaker 1: he came at me at a million miles per hour
Speaker 1: and there was absolutely nothing I could do. If I
Speaker 1: took a step back, he'd take ten steps forward, and
Speaker 1: he was so funny, so charming, and really, when I
Speaker 1: say obsessed with me, he would tell me to say,
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with you. I mean, there was one day
Speaker 1: where part of the day he called me. Every seven minutes,
Speaker 1: he would say he wanted to wait outside my door
Speaker 1: of my apartment. He he made me feel like I
Speaker 1: was his perfect woman, and he had finally met his
Speaker 1: perfect woman, and he'd been searching all his life and
Speaker 1: no girl was ever quite right. But then he found me,
Speaker 1: and now he's obsessed with me. And I thought, maybe
Speaker 1: this is what love is. Maybe this is what happens
Speaker 1: when you meet the one, is that they are obsessed
Speaker 1: with you, and you are all they can see, and
Speaker 1: it does come at you in a million miles per hour.
Speaker 1: So I just kind of went with it. Where do
Speaker 1: you think that message came from? That possibly this level
Speaker 1: of sort of obsessiveness could be love that comes from
Speaker 1: a deep desire to be and from childhood trauma, and
Speaker 1: from my own insecurities and my own personal issues and
Speaker 1: my desire to be loved. And that idea that the
Speaker 1: obsession that calls every seven minutes, the I just want
Speaker 1: to wait outside your door. Did any of that ever
Speaker 1: give you concern, and if so, how did you push
Speaker 1: that concern out. I know it sounds nuts, but I
Speaker 1: was never concerned because it was masked in this like
Speaker 1: super charming humor. Everything was funny and he was kind
Speaker 1: of making fun of himself of how obsessed he was
Speaker 1: with me. It was just so entertaining and funny. It
Speaker 1: was like I was watching a show and I was
Speaker 1: the star of the show, and I felt so special.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting you say that, because when we pull
Speaker 1: the behavior out right called me every seven minutes, that
Speaker 1: behavior by itself without the context, I mean, it literally
Speaker 1: feels like so many red flags that we can't even see,
Speaker 1: Like it just too much. It's overwhelming, right, But I
Speaker 1: think that what you've pointed out here is so wise that,
Speaker 1: you know, calling every seven minutes in the absolute obsession,
Speaker 1: if it is embedded in this structure, like you said,
Speaker 1: of almost humor of charm, when it's in that context,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it doesn't feel as red flaggy.
Speaker 1: And I think that what's so hard is so many
Speaker 1: survivors of these relationships afterwards will say, hey, called me
Speaker 1: every seven minutes, How did I not see that? It's
Speaker 1: almost like one of those like find the Shape games,
Speaker 1: When the shape is embedded in a hundred other shapes,
Speaker 1: it's hard to find. But if it's the only thing
Speaker 1: on the page, obviously it would pop out. And I
Speaker 1: think that when we pull out red flags, we tend
Speaker 1: to pull them out without context. I'm so glad you
Speaker 1: framed it that way, because this obsessive stuff it almost
Speaker 1: feels like stalking one oh one. But in that context,
Speaker 1: it really feels almost like intense rom com, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of crazy love. So I just think that that's
Speaker 1: really interesting observation how that happened. Absolutely. I also think
Speaker 1: that I had a history of choosing bad partners. I
Speaker 1: was pursuing guys that would ghost me or treat me badly,
Speaker 1: or you know. I've been in relationships where men had cheated,
Speaker 1: and so to have someone coming at me and obsessed
Speaker 1: with me, given my past and given the traumas and
Speaker 1: issues that I have, I looked at that as Wow, finally, Wow,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe this is what it's supposed to be, and
Speaker 1: maybe I should give this a shot because what I
Speaker 1: was doing before wasn't really working for me, so maybe
Speaker 1: I'll just let it happen. That, too, is like we
Speaker 1: sort of called this pendulum NG and it's how a
Speaker 1: lot of people sometimes get themselves stuck in a new
Speaker 1: sort of toxic situation because having had the experiences you
Speaker 1: had with partners that were almost dismissive or disconnected or
Speaker 1: or unavailable or unfaithful, the offset of this absolute obsession
Speaker 1: means that the session that obsessiveness is not only a
Speaker 1: red flag, it's a comfort because the pendulum has now
Speaker 1: swung this entire other way that it's almost feeding and
Speaker 1: nourishing a need that wasn't met before. And very very
Speaker 1: common and many, many people who found themselves in these
Speaker 1: kinds of toxic relationships will say it was so different
Speaker 1: than the other relationships, and those relationships weren't good, that
Speaker 1: I had to believe that this one might be going
Speaker 1: in in a healthier direction. And so that that balancing
Speaker 1: act is really challenging. And and I'm glad you bring
Speaker 1: it up that because I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: will relate to I finally met this person who was
Speaker 1: totally obsessed with me, and this is this is so
Speaker 1: different than the person who wouldn't answer my calls or
Speaker 1: ghost me or cheat on me. It totally makes sense
Speaker 1: and I think that humanizes that constant pattern that people
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, I'm so silly. I did see the
Speaker 1: red flags, and I'll say, no, I don't know that
Speaker 1: you're silly. If when you think of what it was
Speaker 1: against and all the other stuff, it was happening within relative.
Speaker 1: It's all relative. So he was really funny. What did
Speaker 1: any do for you? When you ask generally women, you
Speaker 1: say what do you look for in a man? And
Speaker 1: of the time she will say, I want someone who
Speaker 1: makes me laugh. I used to say that, and I
Speaker 1: thought that that's what I had. I had someone who
Speaker 1: was making me laugh all the time. And when you
Speaker 1: are constantly on a high, constantly, everything is just like
Speaker 1: euphoric when you're laughing all the time, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's like chemistry going on in your brain that makes
Speaker 1: it so. But in hindsight, that was definitely used because
Speaker 1: it was taken away when he wanted, and it was
Speaker 1: brought back when he wanted. But in the beginning it
Speaker 1: was just pure euphoria, just laughter. And I really again,
Speaker 1: I really thought, like I've always wanted someone that made
Speaker 1: me laugh. Here we are that idea of you know,
Speaker 1: laughter as love bombing is so you know, I've never
Speaker 1: had heard someone sort of put it in such a
Speaker 1: clear way. We know, like people look for humor, but
Speaker 1: in essence, the laughter was a key element of this
Speaker 1: love bombing experience. Absolutely, now that I'm out of it,
Speaker 1: I feel like it was intentionally used to pull me
Speaker 1: up onto this high. Given that laughter, it's such a
Speaker 1: big part of the love bomby. Can you talk about
Speaker 1: the other sort of love bomby elements of the early
Speaker 1: part of this relationship. In the beginning of the relationship,
Speaker 1: it was NonStop calls, texts, dates every day or multiple
Speaker 1: times a day. Didn't want me to leave his site.
Speaker 1: He wanted me in the office with him. I slept
Speaker 1: at his house every night. I was inserted into his life.
Speaker 1: From zero to a hundred. It was shopping, sprays by me,
Speaker 1: anything I want. I felt like Julia robertson Pretty Woman,
Speaker 1: like you know again, it's these things that women dream of,
Speaker 1: You dream of the laughter and Richard gear and the restaurants.
Speaker 1: He lives a life of extreme glitz and glamour, his
Speaker 1: luxury cars, eats in the finest restaurants, walk into any store,
Speaker 1: get whatever you want, I'll pay for it. Again. It
Speaker 1: was just this constant high. The early part of a
Speaker 1: relationship with a narcissistic person is either too much or
Speaker 1: not enough. Either it is what she is describing, which
Speaker 1: is obsessive and exciting and intense. Or it can be
Speaker 1: about waiting by the phone, wondering if they are thinking
Speaker 1: about you, wondering how soon is too soon to text back,
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out if they are even interested.
Speaker 1: And then when they show up it can be fun
Speaker 1: and exciting, and then they disappear again. In healthy relationships,
Speaker 1: that communication, rhythms and expectations are more clear and less chaotic.
Speaker 1: Even in the beginning, like everything was so euphoric and high,
Speaker 1: and we were laughing all the time. It was like
Speaker 1: a dream, a dream come true. You say it's high,
Speaker 1: it actually is high like that much like we can
Speaker 1: go anywhere we want, We could do whatever we want.
Speaker 1: You can have anything you want. That's dopamine, dopamine, dopamine.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's really no different than I hate
Speaker 1: to say it, but doing a line of cocaine and
Speaker 1: it's a very it's it's hits the same brain areas.
Speaker 1: Make no mistake. It's an interesting one to punch because
Speaker 1: you have the dopamine of this is so fun. I
Speaker 1: feel I literally feel high. Then you have this oxytocin,
Speaker 1: which is sort of the huggy hormone, like you feel
Speaker 1: surrounded and you feel loved, and you're in You're with
Speaker 1: someone who wants to be with you all the time.
Speaker 1: When you have those two neurotransmitters of neuro hormones work
Speaker 1: and forget about it, nobody has a chance to be
Speaker 1: frank with you. When you were in these early weeks
Speaker 1: and months, and it was let's spend all our time together,
Speaker 1: that's the keys, Let's spend all our time together and
Speaker 1: doing this really really fun stuff. What would happen if
Speaker 1: you wanted a minute to yourself, I don't know, see
Speaker 1: a friend, or go to the gym on your own,
Speaker 1: or whatever it is you wanted to do on your own,
Speaker 1: or just do something you typically would have done before
Speaker 1: you met him. That did actually happen, and I completely
Speaker 1: stopped working out, and I remember saying to him, you know,
Speaker 1: I've been living your life and I'm kind of sick
Speaker 1: of just living out of the back pack and I
Speaker 1: don't have my routine anymore. I'd love to to get
Speaker 1: back to that. And he got upset, but it was
Speaker 1: more of a no, no, don't no. I want to
Speaker 1: see you, I want to spend time with you. You're perfect,
Speaker 1: it was. It wasn't an angry upset. It was making
Speaker 1: me feel bad for wanting to kind of like break
Speaker 1: this momentum, and why would I want to get off
Speaker 1: the train. Let's keep going on the train. Did it work?
Speaker 1: Did you feel bad? I felt bad and I didn't
Speaker 1: go m okay as time went on. Did you feel
Speaker 1: like you used to put it beautifully? I'm living out
Speaker 1: of a backpack. I've lost my routine. And when we
Speaker 1: lose our routines, we kind of lose our sort of
Speaker 1: our true north, We lose the things that kind of
Speaker 1: keep us oriented, and we kind of get caught in
Speaker 1: this new thing. It's it's like living on vacation, which
Speaker 1: obviously it's not going to work in the long term.
Speaker 1: He said, please don't leave me. I need to be
Speaker 1: with you all the time, and he wasn't angry. He
Speaker 1: was more sad. You felt bad, so you canceled whatever
Speaker 1: those other plans would be. But you were still living
Speaker 1: out of a backpack that wasn't going to be sustainable
Speaker 1: for a really long time. So how did you figure
Speaker 1: out that impast? Did you just keep living out of
Speaker 1: a backpack and going back and forth between your residents
Speaker 1: and his. Yeah, I just kept doing it until he
Speaker 1: said move in with me. He bought an apartment and
Speaker 1: he said, I'm closing on this date, so we just
Speaker 1: need to suck it up for a little bit longer
Speaker 1: and then we're going to live together. And I mean,
Speaker 1: it all happened so fast, I would say the day
Speaker 1: I met him, he was saying, I'm obsessed with you.
Speaker 1: I love you. You're perfect. You're a woman that I've
Speaker 1: always wanted. Two weeks later he said he really loves me.
Speaker 1: And this is probably three or four weeks, and he said,
Speaker 1: we're going to move in together. Fast. Yeah, very very fast.
Speaker 1: I was with this person for nine or ten months,
Speaker 1: and I try to explain to people that nine or
Speaker 1: ten months in the world of a narcissist feels like
Speaker 1: a lifetime. It was like dog years. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: it's like dog years, exactly right, because even three weeks
Speaker 1: you're moving in and it's I love you and all that.
Speaker 1: In a way, in three weeks you've kind of compressed
Speaker 1: a year to two years. So if you do the
Speaker 1: math on that. So three weeks equals two years and
Speaker 1: you were together? Did you say nine months? Ten months?
Speaker 1: So what is that that? How many weeks is that?
Speaker 1: That's like forty weeks, let's call that. Let's call it.
Speaker 1: Just give my numbers. Even thirty nine weeks and three
Speaker 1: weeks this year, that's thirteen years, right, That's what it
Speaker 1: felt like. Yeah, I bet, and that's what a lot
Speaker 1: of people will say. But you know what I wonder
Speaker 1: about is here, you're going through this intense experience. You're
Speaker 1: meeting this person. It's a whirlwind romance. It's it's almost
Speaker 1: like a fairy tale. Were you sharing this with your friends?
Speaker 1: And what were your friends saying to you? My friends
Speaker 1: were telling me that they were happy, that I'm happy,
Speaker 1: but it's very fast. There were remarks about it's very fast.
Speaker 1: It's very fast. But the other thing is is this
Speaker 1: person as a public figure, this person has a blue
Speaker 1: check on their next to their name on Instagram, this
Speaker 1: person must be a legitimate, trusted person. Because I hate
Speaker 1: to say it, but a huge part of it was
Speaker 1: like the level of trust that social media gave. He
Speaker 1: was also very open about his life on social media.
Speaker 1: You could click on his Instagram and see what he
Speaker 1: was up to at any time of the day. Like
Speaker 1: it also gave me a very weird and false sense
Speaker 1: of trust for this project. Was it as though you
Speaker 1: felt like you were you were actually seeing the real
Speaker 1: person because you were literally seeing what he was up
Speaker 1: to all the time. Literally, maybe even millions of people
Speaker 1: were kind of buying into who he was. So it's
Speaker 1: an interesting form of gas lighting because you were doubting
Speaker 1: your reality. Like, even if you did experience something like
Speaker 1: this is too much or I don't feel comfortable, millions
Speaker 1: of people think this is cool, so I would have
Speaker 1: to be wrong. How could millions of people be wrong exactly.
Speaker 1: I've never quite articular it. Did it just like that?
Speaker 1: But it has throughout this process and even through the
Speaker 1: process of coming out of this and healing from this
Speaker 1: of was I crazy? Was I wrong? In my experience?
Speaker 1: Because there are a lot of people out there that
Speaker 1: that love him. In this situation, the legitimacy of her
Speaker 1: partner was created by his status and his believability on
Speaker 1: social media. It in a sense legitimized him and millions
Speaker 1: of people can't be wrong, right. However, this also happens
Speaker 1: when a person gets into a relationship with someone who
Speaker 1: may be legitimized because of their profession. Doctor, attorney, professor,
Speaker 1: corporate executive, to name a few jobs where people may
Speaker 1: believe but they are in a professional position and if
Speaker 1: I have an issue, it must be me because they
Speaker 1: seem legit. People need to trust their intuition, their gut.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how many letters someone has after their
Speaker 1: name or how prestigious their job is. Emotional abuse and
Speaker 1: manipulation can be perpetrated by anyone. They would say they
Speaker 1: loved him on social media in your life together in
Speaker 1: the nine months, like the nine months, which is again
Speaker 1: thirteen narcissist dog years, I guess whatever that was. But
Speaker 1: the nine months isn't a short period of time. Nine
Speaker 1: months is in a long period of times. It is interesting, though,
Speaker 1: a lot of folks we talked to on this podcast,
Speaker 1: nine months to a year was really where it all.
Speaker 1: It became so clear some folks were lucky and got out.
Speaker 1: For some people they stayed in. But they're like, at
Speaker 1: that point, okay, I see this clear, no doubt, And
Speaker 1: I understand that a lot of folks on social media,
Speaker 1: we're sort of propping up this image of him as
Speaker 1: being all that. As you look back on the relationship,
Speaker 1: the nine months of the relationship, and obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: we understand why some of those early red flags weren't
Speaker 1: perceived as such, But as you look back, what were
Speaker 1: some of the other red flags that jumped out at
Speaker 1: you that now you're like, oh, absolutely, this was a
Speaker 1: red flag. And I'm very clear on that now that
Speaker 1: I'm out of it. There's so many. I remember the
Speaker 1: first time he completely snapped at me, and it was
Speaker 1: over something so small, whether we can we're going to
Speaker 1: check in the luggage or take it on board, and
Speaker 1: he just completely snapped at me. I sat there in
Speaker 1: silence for about thirty seconds, and then he went back
Speaker 1: and it was immediately back to funny, charming. I'm so
Speaker 1: sorry I did that, And I remember thinking, wow, there's
Speaker 1: a whole other side that I haven't seen. And then
Speaker 1: it started happening more frequently. He snapped a couple of
Speaker 1: times in front of his brother. I remember definitely red
Speaker 1: flagging that at the time, but he always had an
Speaker 1: excuse and he always covered it with more humor and charm.
Speaker 1: It was always so sorry, I had a tough day,
Speaker 1: You're the most amazing woman in the world. You know,
Speaker 1: it went back to more dopamine, more dopamine. I went
Speaker 1: back on that high. I remember he would drive these
Speaker 1: insanely expensive luxury cars and spent so much money, but
Speaker 1: was struggling with money, and I used to questioned him
Speaker 1: a lot about it. To keep up in appearance. Was
Speaker 1: a huge red flag for me. Another one was his
Speaker 1: addiction to social media, complete addiction. If you get every
Speaker 1: every single like, every single comment, he just read how
Speaker 1: much people adore him, and that was a huge red
Speaker 1: flag for me. He was in love with his own show,
Speaker 1: and as I as the relationship went on, and I
Speaker 1: really got to understand that it is a show, it
Speaker 1: was a production that he was putting on. He was
Speaker 1: so in love with this production that he was putting on.
Speaker 1: What was the goal of doing all that? He really
Speaker 1: wants to be famous, to be fame, just famous for
Speaker 1: the sake of fame. Famous, And I used to say
Speaker 1: to him, for what you need? You know, normal famous
Speaker 1: people are they saying or they act or they have
Speaker 1: a church tour, like what what? What is it? And
Speaker 1: he used to just say, just I want to be famous.
Speaker 1: But he didn't tell you why he made it seem
Speaker 1: like work. I was the one that was pestering him
Speaker 1: to get off the phone, but he's working. This is
Speaker 1: but never clear on the why of the famous. The
Speaker 1: reason I say that is I remember many years ago
Speaker 1: I was consulting with someone to the team. Now. Somebody
Speaker 1: was very very narcissistic as part of this group, young
Speaker 1: man probably in his twenties or so, made late twenties,
Speaker 1: and his goal singularly is I want to be famous.
Speaker 1: I want to be famous. And I kept pushing tell
Speaker 1: me the why of this, like, what's the I could understand,
Speaker 1: for example, why a singer would want to be famous
Speaker 1: because they want to sell albums, you know. I could
Speaker 1: understand why the actor would want to be famous so
Speaker 1: people would come see the shows or films they were in.
Speaker 1: But same thing didn't really have any famousness. I think
Speaker 1: actually though that he was might have even been trying
Speaker 1: to become an actor, but really just wanted to be famous.
Speaker 1: And finally cracked him on. What this person said was
Speaker 1: I want to be famous so I never have to
Speaker 1: be alone. And I had similar reaction. I said, oh,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, and we could work with that, and then
Speaker 1: we continue that what does it mean to be alone,
Speaker 1: and and and there was this deep, deep loneliness. But
Speaker 1: the ideas if you're famous, you were always stuck in
Speaker 1: people's minds. People would always want to be with you
Speaker 1: because you're famous. And it cut down to that deep
Speaker 1: insecurity of well, otherwise, why would someone want to be
Speaker 1: with me? But nobody with that kind of personality would
Speaker 1: ever be able to articulate that. Right, But the fame
Speaker 1: then becomes its own form of defense. In essence, wanting
Speaker 1: to be famous is just a manifestation of grandiosity. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so interesting that you say that, because another red
Speaker 1: flag that I had was he was never alone. It
Speaker 1: was even if I needed to go out of the
Speaker 1: house to run to CVS to go get something, he'd
Speaker 1: be like, no, stay, he could not did not ever
Speaker 1: want to be alone. And if he was alone, he
Speaker 1: would pick up the phone and call someone, anyone to
Speaker 1: come and meet him. Can never ever be alone. That's
Speaker 1: so interesting that the two go very much together when
Speaker 1: you think about it. Our depiction of famous people in
Speaker 1: our culture, as they always have like these groups of
Speaker 1: people around them, these hangers on, these helpers, these as
Speaker 1: just dencies. You know, again, you famous people always seem
Speaker 1: to be sitting in a group, and I think that's
Speaker 1: just because that's what we see. Maybe famous people spend
Speaker 1: time alone. I don't know when a famous people to
Speaker 1: know that, but I think that there is this idea
Speaker 1: that to be famous for the sake of being famous
Speaker 1: is definitely a grandiose defense without it being a means
Speaker 1: to an end of person. I want to be famous
Speaker 1: how I can, everyone will buy my clothes, So that
Speaker 1: kind of thing is just I simply want to be famous.
Speaker 1: It's really really fascinating. So there's a lot a lot
Speaker 1: of red flags. Some of them you describe, like, for example,
Speaker 1: the snapping, then the quietness, and then the going back.
Speaker 1: That sequence is really really interesting to me because it's
Speaker 1: so confusing. If all he had done was snapped and
Speaker 1: didn't course correct in a way, you'd almost be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is just not a nice person. They're ray g
Speaker 1: they're snappy. But the snap in the correction is so confusing,
Speaker 1: and it really drives that cognitive dissonance and that trauma
Speaker 1: bond of oh, they didn't mean it, they caught it
Speaker 1: right away, they know what they're doing because they immediately apologized.
Speaker 1: That's a really tough one. In some ways, it's almost
Speaker 1: worse than a person who snaps and then just keep snapping,
Speaker 1: because that just feels bad. But the snap and the
Speaker 1: correct that's tough. Yeah, it makes me feel like he
Speaker 1: was working on himself, maybe even like he knew it
Speaker 1: was wrong, and it was very much let's just forget
Speaker 1: about that and forget that happened. So I felt I
Speaker 1: felt almost pressured to Okay, we're having fun, we're laughing,
Speaker 1: we're on the train, we're on the happy train. Let's
Speaker 1: let's come on, get back on. Yeah, exactly. And he
Speaker 1: was setting it up that way because if he kept
Speaker 1: saying rag d and snappy about the luggage or whatever else,
Speaker 1: your mood would have changed too. And he wasn't very
Speaker 1: he was very invested in your mood being up. If
Speaker 1: your mood was up, then it was a mirror of
Speaker 1: his mood being up. And so it was a really
Speaker 1: challenging dance. But yeah, and then this idea that you said,
Speaker 1: I want to change myself to make this work. It's
Speaker 1: so interesting you went there too, because that's a to
Speaker 1: trauma bonded pattern. I'm going to change myself and then
Speaker 1: this will be fine. Is that a pattern you've had
Speaker 1: all your life or is that something that was new
Speaker 1: to this relationship. I would say that that's a quality
Speaker 1: that I've had in romantic relationships. Yeah, I would say
Speaker 1: so right. And it's one of the hardest things for
Speaker 1: survivors to work on because we can't be completely stubborn origins.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to change one thing about me. But
Speaker 1: then it's how much do we relent and change everything
Speaker 1: about us? Like how to hit that gray in the middle.
Speaker 1: It's really really hard, you know, I think, especially for
Speaker 1: women in our society. So I also think that I
Speaker 1: was so convinced, meaning that he had convinced me. I
Speaker 1: was so convinced that this was my person. But I
Speaker 1: felt like I had to sacrifice things that were on
Speaker 1: my supposed checklist because he told me that this is
Speaker 1: my person. He told me that he is my person.
Speaker 1: And this is what love is like it is a
Speaker 1: million miles per hour, and it is euphoric, and this
Speaker 1: is this is what you've been waiting for, what he's
Speaker 1: been waiting for, and and whatever idea you had in
Speaker 1: your mind of what love is, throw that away because
Speaker 1: this is it, which makes sense because how many people
Speaker 1: walk away from euphoria? Right, Why would I? Why would anyone?
Speaker 1: You know, It's it's almost someone saying, Hey, you're here
Speaker 1: in this place and there's plenty to eat, and the
Speaker 1: weather is perfect, and there's a big, beautiful everything you've
Speaker 1: ever wanted. So you want to walk over to this
Speaker 1: other place that's more uncomfortable? People like, no, I'm good.
Speaker 1: So that's the challenge. So the last question I want
Speaker 1: to ask you is, again, it was a euphoric start.
Speaker 1: And while we could sit here all this time later
Speaker 1: and look back and say this was a red flag
Speaker 1: and that was a red flag, but now we recognize
Speaker 1: it's really hard to just pull these strands out of
Speaker 1: something that's so complex. It was euphoric. It was euphoric.
Speaker 1: Nobody ever wants again, nobody walks away from euphoria. But
Speaker 1: what was the first thing, What was the first behavior
Speaker 1: that punctured that sense of euphoria and made you say, whoa,
Speaker 1: even though it was euphoric, and even though it would
Speaker 1: go back to euphoric, what was the first time in
Speaker 1: behavior that came through that made you sort of doubt
Speaker 1: the whole enterprise. This would have to be when I
Speaker 1: first found out that he cheated. Okay, that'll do it.
Speaker 1: That was the first time where the the image cracked
Speaker 1: and there was a permanent crack there, and I realized,
Speaker 1: I'm part of a show. I've been lied to, and
Speaker 1: I can't unsee it. I can't go back now. I
Speaker 1: mean I went back, but but I I couldn't unsee that.
Speaker 1: I think that the not being able to unsee it,
Speaker 1: That's what I was getting at, is that the I
Speaker 1: can't unsee it and this wasn't good even though you
Speaker 1: physically psychologically go back to the relationship. It's not that
Speaker 1: there's a penny drop moment and it's done. It's that
Speaker 1: there's this moment of like, oh I saw this. I
Speaker 1: can't unsee this. You say, I was in a show,
Speaker 1: so it was all this, But there was actually this
Speaker 1: other side to the story. It's like somebody has a
Speaker 1: favorite author or something and then they come to find
Speaker 1: out they did terrible things, and you're sort of like,
Speaker 1: can I read their books anymore? And I, what's this
Speaker 1: real story here? Is that you see? That's right? So
Speaker 1: it actually wasn't even the cheating that I couldn't unsee
Speaker 1: because I think I had invested so much into the
Speaker 1: relationship that I would have overlooked the cheating no matter
Speaker 1: what it was what I had seen, yea. And what
Speaker 1: makes so much sense about that too, is that, as
Speaker 1: you said, the betrayal the cheating, and that would be
Speaker 1: a probably a deal breaker for most people. However, adding
Speaker 1: to that, it was multiple people. But like you said,
Speaker 1: the disgust over everything this person portrayed themselves to be
Speaker 1: was absolutely a lie. And there was so much reinforcement
Speaker 1: in the relationship, especially in the beginning of the low
Speaker 1: bombing stage. He'd always say, I'm solid, I'm never going
Speaker 1: to embarrass you, I'm never going to cheat on you.
Speaker 1: It would be my worst nightmare if you cheated on me.
Speaker 1: There was so much reinforcement of his hatred towards and
Speaker 1: ideality and how that would be his ultimate nightmare. The
Speaker 1: old Shakespeare line goes, the lady doth protests too much.
Speaker 1: Methinks we can take some liberties with Shakespeare here and
Speaker 1: say the dude doth protests too much. Shakespeare understood reaction
Speaker 1: formation hundreds of years before Freud wrote about it, which
Speaker 1: is this idea that the thing a person protests so
Speaker 1: vigorously or as a holy roller about is actually the
Speaker 1: very sin that they are likely to be committing, and
Speaker 1: narcissistic folks are notorious for their reliance on reaction formation.
Speaker 1: Simply put, it's the narcissistic shame, losing out like slime
Speaker 1: and coming out as bizarrely self righteous pronouncements. Told me
Speaker 1: a story about how he'd been cheated on when he
Speaker 1: was sixteen, and it traumatized him. He never wants to
Speaker 1: feel like that. This is you never need to worry
Speaker 1: about that with him. And any time I would question
Speaker 1: it or you know, he was on his phone a lot,
Speaker 1: so if I wouldn't question it, if I would doubt him,
Speaker 1: he would be like, you need to sort yourself out,
Speaker 1: because I've already told you that I don't do that.
Speaker 1: If you look hard enough, I'm sure you'll find you're
Speaker 1: torturing yourself. How easy the lies came off, how natural
Speaker 1: it was to him. That was something that I couldn't
Speaker 1: ever unsee either. Chilling. It's chilling when somebody can lie
Speaker 1: so easily. Yeah, I think there's a real difference when
Speaker 1: you're in a relationship and someone cheats on you, and
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's this isolated incident, but when there's
Speaker 1: a cheating that has this extreme level of deceit. They
Speaker 1: intentionally purposefully went out and cheated and then lied to
Speaker 1: you about everything they were doing and then blamed you
Speaker 1: for even thinking that. It's just layers and layers of
Speaker 1: deceit that really kind of like fumbled me. And that
Speaker 1: was the first moment of like what am I dealing
Speaker 1: with here? Because this isn't this isn't normal, it's not normal,
Speaker 1: it's not healthy. And you were dealing with two things.
Speaker 1: You were dealing with deceit and gas lighting, you know,
Speaker 1: so lying would have been him saying I'm not cheating
Speaker 1: or I didn't never talk to that person. That's lying, right.
Speaker 1: The turning around and blaming you and painting you as
Speaker 1: someone who is something wrong with her, and accusation and
Speaker 1: all of that, that's the gaslighting. Right. You can show
Speaker 1: a liar evidence and say yo, here's the text message,
Speaker 1: but your garden variety average liar will say, okay, yep,
Speaker 1: got it. I didn't want to lose you. They might
Speaker 1: come up with an excuse, but then they'll cop to it.
Speaker 1: He didn't never cop to it and blamed you. That
Speaker 1: mixture that makes a gas lighting, And you can see
Speaker 1: there's a difference. Like you said, being lied to, even
Speaker 1: about a one night stand wouldn't feel good, but it
Speaker 1: wouldn't feel like this. This is the stuff that tears
Speaker 1: out of your soul. My session will continue after this break.
Speaker 1: Was there ever a genuine apology, of genuine awareness, of
Speaker 1: genuine empathy. I mean, now I know that there wasn't
Speaker 1: because he had no intention of stopping. I hear that, obviously,
Speaker 1: and that tells you there was zero self awareness, zero
Speaker 1: recognition of the harm. But at the time you confront
Speaker 1: someone with something like that, I mean terrible betrayal within
Speaker 1: a relationship, and not like you said, not just something mild.
Speaker 1: I mean it was intense. Was he ever able to
Speaker 1: say I'm sorry, I hurt you, I did do this again,
Speaker 1: that genuine accountability, genuine apology, all of that. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems like it. He was saying, you know, he's so
Speaker 1: disgusted with himself. He can't sleep, he can't eat, he
Speaker 1: can live with himself. I can't believe he'd done this
Speaker 1: for the woman of his dreams. He's going to do
Speaker 1: everything he can to fix it and prepare it, and
Speaker 1: I need to come back. I didn't end up packing
Speaker 1: a bag and leaving, and I think me leaving made
Speaker 1: him want me back more. But you see, though, how
Speaker 1: he's focusing. I'm so disgusted. I I me, me, me,
Speaker 1: I feel so bad. I feel so bad. Right, you
Speaker 1: see what I'm saying. It was all likes his awfulness,
Speaker 1: And then is I can't believe I've done this to you?
Speaker 1: Is very different than identifying your emotions. I hurt you,
Speaker 1: I betrayed you, I traumatized you, I broke trust in you.
Speaker 1: Identifying your experience where I can't believe I did this
Speaker 1: to you. It's sort of almost like the afterthought after
Speaker 1: him going after his litany of being disgusted with himself,
Speaker 1: but he still wasn't taking responsibility. He was just basically
Speaker 1: doing a sort of a soliloquy about his shame. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I remember a huge red flag moment in that
Speaker 1: cheating confrontation, the first cheating confrontation. I said, how many
Speaker 1: times has this happened? And he said, would it make
Speaker 1: a difference in what you thought of me? And I said, yes,
Speaker 1: it actually would, And he said then once And I
Speaker 1: knew in a moment it was a lie because of
Speaker 1: how he said. I knew it was a lie, But
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, you're concerned with what I think of you.
Speaker 1: And that's such a key issue in these relationships and
Speaker 1: those moments when the the betraying behavior gets uncovered. Their
Speaker 1: immediate pivot is not too I have done so much harm.
Speaker 1: I need to get so much help. I need to
Speaker 1: make amends to this person. I need to take responsibility.
Speaker 1: It's how do I preserve how I look to her
Speaker 1: into the world. That's the immediate go to, because that's
Speaker 1: the preservation of the self kind of thing. That's that's
Speaker 1: how they're going to preserve themselves with no regard for
Speaker 1: what this did to you. But the experience you had,
Speaker 1: which I think is more important to sort of focus on,
Speaker 1: is such a universal experience. Even when, like you said,
Speaker 1: my organs all dropped, even when that rush of air
Speaker 1: coming through your ears, where you feel like I can't
Speaker 1: even see my future anymore, people want to keep their
Speaker 1: life going. It's almost like a tornado coming through your house.
Speaker 1: It's not what you want. You don't want your house
Speaker 1: to be blown up by a tornado, and that's what happened.
Speaker 1: And if it could be in another way, you just
Speaker 1: would have done anything to just keep your house intact,
Speaker 1: keep your life in tact. So in those moments, while
Speaker 1: many of us would like to think we just grab
Speaker 1: a bag and run away, there's a part of us
Speaker 1: that still crave having our life. I just wanted everything
Speaker 1: to work out for me. I wanted the happily ever
Speaker 1: after that. I was promised that I had put all
Speaker 1: this this energy into and I was working on myself,
Speaker 1: you know, slowly changing myself here and there, slowly adapting
Speaker 1: my wants and my needs to fit him in this
Speaker 1: life that I was told was going to be my
Speaker 1: happily ever after. I wanted it. At that point, I
Speaker 1: I was invested. How many months in did this happen?
Speaker 1: Did you learn about this betrayal? About six? Okay, so
Speaker 1: six months. In six months is not a short period
Speaker 1: of time. It is especially how much time the two
Speaker 1: of you were spending with each other. I mean, when
Speaker 1: you think about it in that way, the intensity of
Speaker 1: the contact you were with each other all the time,
Speaker 1: and six months in you're actually really considering constructing a
Speaker 1: future with this person. So there was a lot of
Speaker 1: future talk. A lot it was always talking about my
Speaker 1: engagement ring, talking about who we'd invite to our wedding
Speaker 1: you know, should be by a second property on the
Speaker 1: West coast. Should be. It was always talking about our
Speaker 1: future all the time. What what kind of cat would
Speaker 1: we get? What? You know, we want to have a daughter.
Speaker 1: Now that I look back, we barely talked about anything,
Speaker 1: actually real life things, but so much of it was
Speaker 1: talking about the future and what we would do, or
Speaker 1: how obsessed he was with me, or how funny things are,
Speaker 1: or jokes like I don't know what his dreams and
Speaker 1: aspirations are apart from to get famous. He doesn't know
Speaker 1: what mine are. Now that I look back, there was
Speaker 1: barely any conversation. It was just so much about the future.
Speaker 1: Lots of future orientation can be a red flag and
Speaker 1: a part of love bombing when the conversation is consistently
Speaker 1: veering to someday this and someday that, especially if it's
Speaker 1: grandiose or exciting. This does what lots of love bombing does.
Speaker 1: It distracts you from what is happening right in front
Speaker 1: of you. It also builds in the nefarious impacts of
Speaker 1: future faking. So what starts to happen with all of
Speaker 1: this future focus is that a person starts getting so
Speaker 1: invested in a future narrative that they may be more
Speaker 1: reluctant to leave a relationship that is showing lots of
Speaker 1: problematic patterns. It's sort of a personal Ponzi scheme where
Speaker 1: you're holding out for some big payout that is never
Speaker 1: going to come. Another red flag was I had a
Speaker 1: moment where I hadn't spoken to a family member of
Speaker 1: very long time, and they sent me an email out
Speaker 1: of the blue, and I sat on the bed and
Speaker 1: I open the email and I looked at it and
Speaker 1: I started crying. And he walked in the room and
Speaker 1: he said, are what are you doing? And I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I got a I got an email from
Speaker 1: that person and you said, you're making me very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: And I said, I'm I'm making you very comfous that
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do when people cry. I mean,
Speaker 1: I see on movies that people hug people, And what
Speaker 1: do you want me to say? You're making me very
Speaker 1: uncomfortable right now. That was also something that cracked the
Speaker 1: perfect picture because for something that was so important to
Speaker 1: me emotionally, that they could not figure out how to
Speaker 1: have any empathy and be comforting or in any way
Speaker 1: that that was something that really really hurt me. Actually,
Speaker 1: I won't say it hurt me. Some people characterize people
Speaker 1: who have narcissistic personalities as being allergic to other people's emotion,
Speaker 1: whether it is the vulnerability rendered from not knowing what
Speaker 1: to do, the contempt for emotion, or the shame evoked
Speaker 1: by witnessing other people's emotions and which may ping the
Speaker 1: narcissistic person's own unprocessed insecurity. Many people in narcissistic relationships
Speaker 1: have described that moment when their sadness or other vulnerable
Speaker 1: emotion was met with coldness and even disgusted, because when
Speaker 1: you love someone, you would be there for them, and
Speaker 1: when they're not there for you, it's hurtful. That's the
Speaker 1: lack of empathy piece, But it also speaks to that
Speaker 1: lack of intimacy, right talking about shared aspirations or aspirations goals,
Speaker 1: that's kind of sharing versus just talking about like the
Speaker 1: future and a wedding and a ring, but instead like
Speaker 1: really focusing on what the two of you are about.
Speaker 1: That's intimacy. And whether it was sexually you said, intimacy
Speaker 1: was Lacking the ability to be present with someone else's
Speaker 1: feelings is not only empathy, but it's also intimacy that
Speaker 1: inability to talk about real things other than the sort
Speaker 1: of persona he had constructed. There was just no intimacy
Speaker 1: in this relationship. And and in a way then that
Speaker 1: got played out is where set became this sort of
Speaker 1: sort of strange, predatory place for him. And that's one
Speaker 1: more example. Infidelity in any ways is an outsourcing of
Speaker 1: the intimacy in a relationship. Right, so now you're taking
Speaker 1: what should be a connected space and breaking it up
Speaker 1: into other people other spaces, all of that, and I
Speaker 1: just don't think there was any capability for intimacy. So
Speaker 1: having this kind of predatory sexual relationships tracked with that.
Speaker 1: And you know, people might say, how the heck would
Speaker 1: somebody always be in a bad relationship? I don't know.
Speaker 1: An arranged marriage, uh, a person who doesn't have financial options,
Speaker 1: a person who married quickly but they're in a culture
Speaker 1: or religion or something like that. Word. I think it's
Speaker 1: not an option, and it's always bad. It's just an
Speaker 1: always bad relationship. That's very different then a person that's
Speaker 1: in a relationship that goes between euphoria, passive aggression, sometimes rage,
Speaker 1: a lack of empathy, deceit. But that euphoria is always
Speaker 1: the carrot on the stick. And so people in these
Speaker 1: relationships they want to go to those days, and if
Speaker 1: you push a fast forward button, even euphorious not the
Speaker 1: right word. Sometimes people are married and they have a home,
Speaker 1: and they have children, and they go on vacations and
Speaker 1: they go to school plays, and they like all of that,
Speaker 1: and they have enough of those really good days that
Speaker 1: the other stuff that feels so psychologically uncomfortable almost feels
Speaker 1: like an opportunity cost something they have to endure to
Speaker 1: have those good days, right to pay the price. And
Speaker 1: that idea of paying the price is the court of
Speaker 1: the narcissistic relationship. No healthy relationships like that. And I
Speaker 1: think what's so sad is we we frame that as compromise.
Speaker 1: Oh well, you get those good days, but all those
Speaker 1: those bad moments, that's just compromise. That's not compromise. That
Speaker 1: psychological servitude. So you can have some good moments, that's
Speaker 1: not compromise. Compromise is we will have pepperoni pizza tonight,
Speaker 1: even though I want sausage. That's compromise. But I am
Speaker 1: going to endure abuse as a pathway to get to
Speaker 1: a good day. That's this, that's this thing we call
Speaker 1: narcissistic abuse. Absolutely, it's a different game. Absolutely, my session
Speaker 1: will continue after this break. I wish i'd known this.
Speaker 1: This is where I think the conversations like this your
Speaker 1: your podcast. But it's so important because I had, if
Speaker 1: I'm going to be honest, no idea about what emotional
Speaker 1: abuse was at all. I thought that abuse came in
Speaker 1: one form, and that was physical. I had absolutely no
Speaker 1: idea because I wasn't educated. And I think that if
Speaker 1: I had been, how can you look out for flags
Speaker 1: when you don't know what you're looking for, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? I just wish that I knew this before.
Speaker 1: Thank you, And the challenge has been though honestly, the
Speaker 1: systems aren't willing to recognize emotional abuse. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: I think that. Listen, somebody's physical abuse isbody punches someone.
Speaker 1: They've broken the law. It's a criminal offense, right, that's
Speaker 1: physical assault. So all the systems can mobilize because a
Speaker 1: law has been broken. Once we get into the area
Speaker 1: of emotional abuse that does the same harm to somebody
Speaker 1: as physical abuse would in a relationship, there are no
Speaker 1: mechanisms available and in the absence of those mechanisms, most people,
Speaker 1: law enforcement, courts, employers, you name it, will say, ah,
Speaker 1: sometimes things are difficult, or oh, you know how it
Speaker 1: is oil and water. They'll minimize it. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a gas lighting of the experience, whereas a person just
Speaker 1: doesn't understand that that what you're describing, the I will
Speaker 1: endure what I need to endure to get to the
Speaker 1: next good day is actually abuse, and it's manipulative, and
Speaker 1: it is cruel, and it does damage to people's mental health.
Speaker 1: But even to this day, frankly, mental health practitioners still
Speaker 1: struggle with this, like this just a relationship. They don't
Speaker 1: even understand what's happening to them. Give them a roadmap.
Speaker 1: But if they say, oh, okay, I get it, but
Speaker 1: I like the good day so much so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: enjoy the abusive days, then that's them thing. But we're
Speaker 1: not giving them a roadmap, we are not teaching them
Speaker 1: that this is not what it's supposed to be. So
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, it is about knowledge getting out there,
Speaker 1: But it's also a whole world that needs to take responsibility.
Speaker 1: Movies and TV shows that in some ways glamorized roller
Speaker 1: coaster relationships that's got to enter absolutely absolutely. I've been
Speaker 1: talking about this a lot recently that in the mainstream
Speaker 1: media there seems to be this almost obsession of the
Speaker 1: entertainment of these narcissistic characters and these roller coaster relationships
Speaker 1: and and things like that. Nobody's you, nobody's using the
Speaker 1: word narcissist, nobody is calling it what it is, And
Speaker 1: I feel like we're all missing out on this major
Speaker 1: teachable moment here that we could help people with. But instead,
Speaker 1: where you seeing it as entertainment, we're not only using
Speaker 1: it as entertainment, we're soft pedaling it. You know, he's intense,
Speaker 1: he's demanding, she's difficult. What are the challenges is? And again,
Speaker 1: this is going to be my nut to crack. It's
Speaker 1: my problem, I feel is that people don't want to
Speaker 1: use the word narcissism because they don't want to get
Speaker 1: dinged for diagnosing someone. And I've said this a thousand
Speaker 1: times everywhere I speak. Narcissism is not a diagnosis. It's
Speaker 1: a description of a personality style. But in the litigious
Speaker 1: culture we work in, people are afraid that the person
Speaker 1: who has that personality is going to jump down their throat,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna have to be higher an attorney to
Speaker 1: push back on it. Okay, then if you don't want
Speaker 1: to use the word, let me give you a narcissism
Speaker 1: decoder ring. So when someone tells you someone's really intense,
Speaker 1: they're saying narcissistic. When someone saying someone's really demanding, they're
Speaker 1: saying narcissistic. Like all these things are code so they
Speaker 1: can avoid saying this other thing. And you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1: We glamorize. So I think of all the movies out there,
Speaker 1: the finance guy who swaggers in and does a bunch
Speaker 1: of cocaine, and we're watching them with almost this sort
Speaker 1: of sick delight, like, oh, this is entertaining. This is
Speaker 1: not entertaining, especially when it's a true story. Somebody was
Speaker 1: harmed by this person, and even the idea of a
Speaker 1: relationship can go up and down. And that a guy
Speaker 1: is really charming and charismatic and breaks you know, it
Speaker 1: was like breaks through the defenses of a really sane,
Speaker 1: well put together woman and winter over with his charm
Speaker 1: and charisma. That is the foundation of so many romcomps.
Speaker 1: And I'm I great, we just we we just glorified
Speaker 1: love bombing, and we just glorified that whole mess instead
Speaker 1: of if this is how somebody's acting like a fool
Speaker 1: run away and when you think about a seventeen eighty
Speaker 1: one year old watching that, and that's the template they're
Speaker 1: getting at the time they're dating. I'm trying to be
Speaker 1: the counterweight to all of that. Everyone wants to think
Speaker 1: they're also the exception. And then added to this mix
Speaker 1: is people bring their own histories in. So if a
Speaker 1: person had a parent like this who was negating or
Speaker 1: ran hot and old, or gave them a silent treatment,
Speaker 1: that child goes into an adult that's still trying to
Speaker 1: work through that conflict. And so when somebody rolls up
Speaker 1: an adulthood, then they you know, they repeat those those patterns.
Speaker 1: And so the media is obsessed with narcissism. They don't
Speaker 1: want to call it what it is. The other day,
Speaker 1: I must have read four news stories, not even like movies,
Speaker 1: like news stories. Every single one of the articles was
Speaker 1: about a narcissistic person. Not one of the articles used
Speaker 1: the word. And they were just trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to explain this person's behavior. Said the explanation simple,
Speaker 1: it's their personality and it's not going to change. That's
Speaker 1: really interesting. How you say about narcissism is a description
Speaker 1: of a person at a diagnosis. No, it's not a
Speaker 1: diagnosis at all. Listen, there are other personality words out there,
Speaker 1: are words like agreeable, introverted, extroverted, neurotic. Those are all
Speaker 1: personality staffs, right, So I I could say you seem
Speaker 1: like a very agreeable person. Don't diagnosed me. You're not
Speaker 1: saying that narcissism is in that same bucket. In fact,
Speaker 1: the counter right to agreeable nous is disagreeableness, which the
Speaker 1: clinical word for that is antagonism, which take that one
Speaker 1: step further is narcissism. And so we're just playing like
Speaker 1: a little sort of semantic labyrinth here. But that's all
Speaker 1: it is. Nobody's getting I mean, I think sometimes we
Speaker 1: might shame an agreeable man off he lets people walk
Speaker 1: all over him because he's so agreeable. And I know
Speaker 1: nobody's telling how dare you call me an introvert? How
Speaker 1: dare you call me an extrovert? It's the same thing
Speaker 1: with narcissism. It's it's not a diagnosis when you put
Speaker 1: it with the words narcissistic personality disorder, that's a diagnosis.
Speaker 1: That's not what we're talking about here. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they have a disorder. I don't care if they
Speaker 1: have a disorder. The personality style in and of itself
Speaker 1: is not good for other people, that's a fact. And
Speaker 1: I'm actually a big proponent that they should get rid
Speaker 1: of the diagnosis altogether. It's doing more harm than good.
Speaker 1: And those folks aren't getting into therapy anyhow. That's so interesting.
Speaker 1: I was thinking the same thing. And I was also
Speaker 1: thinking about, how is it hard for mental health professionals
Speaker 1: to even diagnose this, given that they're such talented liars
Speaker 1: and lying is so so easy, And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was just wondering about that, whether is the diagnosis
Speaker 1: even helping in any way, because it is such a
Speaker 1: difficult thing to diagnose. It's a very difficult thing to diagnose.
Speaker 1: You need to spend four or six, sometimes even eight
Speaker 1: sessions with a client before you can really start ruling
Speaker 1: out that it's not this. It's not this. Remember, people
Speaker 1: with this personality style aren't that likely to get into therapy,
Speaker 1: you know, if they're, for example, vulnerable narcissists, the ones
Speaker 1: that are more sort of resentful and sullen and angry
Speaker 1: that life doesn't go their way and victimize those folks
Speaker 1: might show up looking a little depressed and anxious. But
Speaker 1: by and large, if a narcissistic person gets into therapy
Speaker 1: is because their life is falling apart. A spouse tells
Speaker 1: them they have to get into therapy, a workplace requires
Speaker 1: them to, or it's court ordered, or a publicist tells
Speaker 1: them to. Those are the reasons and narcissistic people get
Speaker 1: into therapy. Now, sometimes it was clear. They'd come in
Speaker 1: the first minute and they'd say, oh yeah, nice diploma
Speaker 1: is doc. What do you think with your fancy U
Speaker 1: c l A degree, you really think you're gonna be
Speaker 1: able to help me. Let's say, I bet I'm going
Speaker 1: to be the most interesting patient you had all day.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I'm clear on what I'm dealing with.
Speaker 1: And then the lack of empathy and the other stuff
Speaker 1: would show. But that other stuff, you know, for people
Speaker 1: who aren't that in your face, it takes a minute.
Speaker 1: And let's say a person comes into therapy and they're depressed.
Speaker 1: They're gonna say, I've been really sad, I can't sleep,
Speaker 1: I can't pay attention, I hate my life inside of
Speaker 1: the first fifteen minutes, we're gonna have a pretty good
Speaker 1: working model that this person is struggling with depression. If
Speaker 1: I ask a client like, do you have empathy? They
Speaker 1: think they're the most empathic person. They are not going
Speaker 1: to answer that question accurately, and so we are having
Speaker 1: to look for the way they tell stories, and so
Speaker 1: it takes a while to glue all of that together.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying, And so that takes a minute,
Speaker 1: and I have to say that by the time I'd
Speaker 1: figured that patterns. Some clients it took me six months.
Speaker 1: Some clients I figured it out in the first hour,
Speaker 1: and most people it would take me twelve sessions before
Speaker 1: I was confident. But then we have a sort of
Speaker 1: a This is more of a technical issue. If you
Speaker 1: put that down as a diagnosis and a person's chart,
Speaker 1: especially if they're using insurance, the insurance companies push back
Speaker 1: because it feels like an untreatable pattern, so they don't
Speaker 1: want to They're like, Okay, this is not gonna work again.
Speaker 1: It needs to be in therapy forever, so we don't
Speaker 1: want to pay for that. So the therapists will often
Speaker 1: use a diagnosis that sort of suits what the insurance
Speaker 1: company wants, and the therapist has in their back pocket
Speaker 1: that they know that this person has narcissistic personality disorder.
Speaker 1: And finally, clients are entitled to their clinical records. So
Speaker 1: the person says, show me, and I've had this experience
Speaker 1: of telling folks, I think give narcissistic personality disorder, I
Speaker 1: am glad that I was sitting closer to the door
Speaker 1: than they were. Let's just put it that way, because
Speaker 1: they were insensed. They were incensed, you know, and called
Speaker 1: me obscenities and this and that. So it's a it's
Speaker 1: a very uncomfortable thing to communicate about. So narcissistic personality
Speaker 1: disorder maybe the one diagnosis other than psychopathy or anti
Speaker 1: anti social personality disorder. Those may be the only diagnoses
Speaker 1: where they do more harm to other people than to
Speaker 1: the person who has it. And that's not what these
Speaker 1: diagnoses are designed to do. They're not designed to put
Speaker 1: a name to something that harms other people. And since
Speaker 1: the treatment outcomes with these clients are not traditionally good,
Speaker 1: it takes a very long time, skilled therapists, years and therapy,
Speaker 1: a real commitment to change. It's a unicorn. So narcissistic
Speaker 1: personality disorder needs to go out the window. Narcissism is
Speaker 1: a personality style like any other. If people say, well,
Speaker 1: I don't like that personality, so I'm like, that's on you.
Speaker 1: I mean, but it's just personality style. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's no different than extra version or agreeableness or anything
Speaker 1: like that. So that's the real issue, and that's why
Speaker 1: nobody's talking about it. And for whatever reason, people just
Speaker 1: don't want to step up and understand it. And it's
Speaker 1: it's a lot of awareness building, but it's a it's
Speaker 1: a sort of also mental health. People don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about it either, which is what often stops the conversation.
Speaker 1: So interesting, Well, thank you for being the one that
Speaker 1: is talking about it. Talk about personality styles. That officially
Speaker 1: makes me a massochist, because I have to tell I
Speaker 1: agreeable massacists, But I um, it's it's a tough mountain
Speaker 1: to climb. But if you had had this roadmap, if
Speaker 1: you had had this blueprint to understand this is what
Speaker 1: this was, you may have very well gotten out earlier.
Speaker 1: You may have not put yourself in positions that felt
Speaker 1: so uncomfortable. You may not have tried to change yourself.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many other choices you would have
Speaker 1: made if it was made clear to you that this
Speaker 1: is what you were dealing with. So it's it. It's
Speaker 1: just a blueprint. So you're like, this is about So
Speaker 1: I didn't know about narcissism at all until I came
Speaker 1: out of the relationship and I was talking to somebody
Speaker 1: and they said, you know, this sounds to me like
Speaker 1: like a narcissist. You read this article, and I can't
Speaker 1: remember what the article was, but it's a very basic
Speaker 1: article that kind of had like a checklist, and I
Speaker 1: felt like the article was written about my relationship. I
Speaker 1: felt like every single box was checked off the list,
Speaker 1: and in my experience, it can be very textbook. And
Speaker 1: if I had known that, and if I had at
Speaker 1: least known the things to look out for, if I
Speaker 1: at least known what love bombing was, for example, then
Speaker 1: when it was happening to me, I could have at
Speaker 1: least been referring to that mental checklist. And maybe maybe not,
Speaker 1: but maybe I would have made some different choices and
Speaker 1: looked after myself a little bit more and saved myself
Speaker 1: a lot of trump. I couldn't agree more. And I
Speaker 1: think it is hard because what I always say, it's
Speaker 1: very hard to tell people to walk away from something
Speaker 1: that initially feels good. You know, that's a tough sell.
Speaker 1: It's a tough sell. So you then got out after
Speaker 1: nine months, you got out of this relationship. Can I
Speaker 1: ask you what was your process of healing like after
Speaker 1: you got out of the relationship. I was totally confused,
Speaker 1: totally confused because he begged me to come back after
Speaker 1: the cheating, told me that he do therapy, he would
Speaker 1: do absolutely whatever it takes, go to the ends of
Speaker 1: the earth to have me back. I'm a woman of
Speaker 1: his dreams. And then out of the blue, one day
Speaker 1: he broke up with me. That's interesting, And I was
Speaker 1: so confused. I was just in this total state of
Speaker 1: shock and confusion. Literally like someone had pulled a carpet
Speaker 1: from under me, and I just didn't know what was happening.
Speaker 1: And I was just left in this cloud of Okay,
Speaker 1: So the world as I know it is completely not
Speaker 1: here anymore. You know. The day that we that he
Speaker 1: broke up with me, we were shopping for an event
Speaker 1: we were going to later that week. We were talking
Speaker 1: about getting a house in l a. We were talking
Speaker 1: about the wedding. I didn't understand how you could go
Speaker 1: from doing all of that and kind of seeing everything
Speaker 1: was about the future of the future, and then he
Speaker 1: discarded me, and it was in that state of confusion
Speaker 1: and shock. I think it really was shock that somebody
Speaker 1: threw narcissism at me, and I couldn't believe that was
Speaker 1: kind of what was making sense of this whole scenario.
Speaker 1: But initially it was shock and deceit because I felt like,
Speaker 1: more so than than anything else, I felt like I
Speaker 1: had been lied to. I had been sold this future,
Speaker 1: this talking about constantly talking about the engagement, the wedding,
Speaker 1: the children, the house in l A, all the all
Speaker 1: these things, talking about all of this, and then I
Speaker 1: was thrown away and I felt like this wasn't normal.
Speaker 1: I've been in many long term, committed relationships with people
Speaker 1: that I have loved and that have loved me before,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't just end suddenly when everything is heading
Speaker 1: in one direction and they just suddenly break it off
Speaker 1: and abandoned ship that had never happened to me before.
Speaker 1: And I felt like, this doesn't make sense, and I
Speaker 1: need to kind of make sense of it. Before I
Speaker 1: can turn the next page and move on to the
Speaker 1: next chapter of my life. And in that process and
Speaker 1: learning about narcissism, I really had to grieve everything that
Speaker 1: I thought was real in that relationship. The person that
Speaker 1: I loved wasn't the person that I loved. They put
Speaker 1: on a damn good show for me, and I was
Speaker 1: a part of that show, and I fell for that show,
Speaker 1: and I fell in love with the person that I
Speaker 1: was watching and that he was portraying to me. They
Speaker 1: never loved me. And that moment hit me actually because
Speaker 1: he'd tried to be my friend. So he did this
Speaker 1: incredibly abrupt and drastic breakup, but then continue to write
Speaker 1: to me saying, you're my best friend. I'm going to
Speaker 1: love you forever. He also has a history of going
Speaker 1: back to women that he had been with, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not going to be I'm not going
Speaker 1: to do that. I don't believe and break up, makeup,
Speaker 1: break up, makeup that never works out. I'm not doing that.
Speaker 1: And I was with my actual best friend and I said,
Speaker 1: read this message that he sent me, and she just
Speaker 1: gave me the phone back and she said, that's not
Speaker 1: your best friend. I'm your best friend. And I would
Speaker 1: never do that to you. I would never hurt you
Speaker 1: and deceive you. That's not what love is. I would
Speaker 1: never do this to you. And that's when it kind
Speaker 1: of hit me that he never loved me, that the
Speaker 1: entire relationship was a facade, it was this public image
Speaker 1: when he was living a completely other life. That there's
Speaker 1: a huge difference with telling someone you love them and
Speaker 1: you want to commit to them and you make a
Speaker 1: mistake and telling someone you love them and you're committing
Speaker 1: to them but you have absolutely no intention of committing
Speaker 1: to them. That's deceit. And that's what I had been
Speaker 1: dealing with and kind of understanding that and going through
Speaker 1: that grieving process of accepting that that person that I
Speaker 1: love never existed, that relationship that I that I was
Speaker 1: in never existed, There was never any love for me.
Speaker 1: That was a really tough process. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of shame and blaming myself for things and I'm so
Speaker 1: stupid for not seeing things, And I mean, if I'm
Speaker 1: going to be honest, I still go through it. I
Speaker 1: struggle with this word recovery because I don't know that
Speaker 1: if this is something that I'm ever going to recover
Speaker 1: from I'm a different person now, and I feel like
Speaker 1: I experienced a trauma that changed me, and I think
Speaker 1: I will carry part of it forever. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you said that piece about recovery, because I think that
Speaker 1: healing recovery from narcissistic abuse isn't about going back to
Speaker 1: how you or you evolve from this and you change.
Speaker 1: I actually do believe that there's a unique strength that
Speaker 1: emerges from people. I do think it it's a loss
Speaker 1: of innocence. Will never view love stories the same way again.
Speaker 1: I think it definitely changes our capacity for trust in
Speaker 1: many ways. I think most of us who are survivors
Speaker 1: will say, I don't know that I'm never going to
Speaker 1: get to one percent trust again. I think everyone then
Speaker 1: the best cases, it will be somewhere in that plus,
Speaker 1: but has been taken away right. We now forever see
Speaker 1: the crack in the sculpture. I refuse to see it
Speaker 1: as a bad thing. I think that in many ways,
Speaker 1: survivors of is narcissistically abusive relationships have the capacity to
Speaker 1: become incredibly discerning. There's a wisdom they learn not to
Speaker 1: suffer fools, and that can have tremendous value in their careers,
Speaker 1: when they meet new people, the invitations they accept. You know,
Speaker 1: you you start to learn like, yeah, now I'm good,
Speaker 1: I'm staying home, and people like, what do you mean
Speaker 1: I'm thinking now I'm good? You know, you really really learn,
Speaker 1: You learn your your firm hand. Chicken, say, I gotta
Speaker 1: jump in a way that many of us never believed
Speaker 1: we could set boundaries. You just learned to not suffer
Speaker 1: fools in a really unique way, you know. So that's
Speaker 1: its own kind of recovery. But I do think, you know,
Speaker 1: what gets lost is innocence. So it's I do believe
Speaker 1: these relationships are coming of age in a way, and
Speaker 1: what emerges is something quite warrior like, you know. And
Speaker 1: I think people break out of a sort of a
Speaker 1: princess fantasy and move into more of a warrior fantasy,
Speaker 1: which is something I want for all people, and certainly
Speaker 1: all women, because I think that we forget that we
Speaker 1: have that that strength, and I think strength and women
Speaker 1: is often pathologized. I think survivors of narcissistic abuse have
Speaker 1: the real opportunity to say, actually, strength is my forward
Speaker 1: facing characteristic now, but it takes a long time to
Speaker 1: get there. And the things you describe the self blame,
Speaker 1: the self doubt, the ruminating. That's all classical fallout of
Speaker 1: having been in one of these relationships. Well, now I
Speaker 1: know that the next girlfriend was already prepped. There was
Speaker 1: an overlap, obviously, and she and I. After her relationship
Speaker 1: with him ended, she actually reached out to me and
Speaker 1: we had the same relationship. We had the same nickname,
Speaker 1: we had the same sex position. We compared screenshots of
Speaker 1: text messages, the same text messages, the same emojis during
Speaker 1: the love bombing, the same shopping spreeze, the same jewelry.
Speaker 1: It was just copy and pasted, and she was already
Speaker 1: prepped and ready to go. After that crack in the image,
Speaker 1: I didn't admire him anymore. I was doubting him. The
Speaker 1: trust was broken. He wasn't Mr knighton Shining Armor coming
Speaker 1: in on a white horse anymore. He was mediocre guy
Speaker 1: on a donkey and I was trying to build him
Speaker 1: back up, but that image was tainted, and I think
Speaker 1: that it was easier to get someone new than to
Speaker 1: rebuild with me. That's what I think, and I think
Speaker 1: that's all it was. Were also no longer a source
Speaker 1: of supply. You know, once your supply gets stale. They
Speaker 1: want fresh groceries. And but the other dynamic I saw
Speaker 1: happening there was he hoovered you. You said I'm out,
Speaker 1: I'm leaving. He whoevered you. He pulled you back in,
Speaker 1: and I'll change, I'll therapy all this the future, fake future,
Speaker 1: fake all the things he did. You went back. That
Speaker 1: gamesmanship and that dominance, that's a part of every narcissistic relationship.
Speaker 1: In a way, it's like when the when the spoiled
Speaker 1: child managed to wangle away the toy from their sibling,
Speaker 1: not because they want the toy, but because they just
Speaker 1: wanted to get it away from the sibling, and then
Speaker 1: they toss it aside. But that dominance move is why
Speaker 1: once the hoover works, that's exactly when they get disinterested.
Speaker 1: It was almost like a game, can I get her back?
Speaker 1: I got her back? Okay, And on top of that,
Speaker 1: he had already set up new supply, so he got
Speaker 1: the gratification of the checkmate, got her back. Games done,
Speaker 1: and I can start a new game. But that discard
Speaker 1: of like I was able to do it. They do
Speaker 1: it because they can. It's also very consistent with that
Speaker 1: because that's the dynamic it's it's the dominance in these
Speaker 1: in these relationships and the false self, the false facade,
Speaker 1: and many people will they'll leave those relationships in a
Speaker 1: state of shock. What was I just in And I
Speaker 1: tell all survivors, I know you feel you were in
Speaker 1: a falsehood because it was a fiction on their side,
Speaker 1: but your feelings were real, and to never write off
Speaker 1: a section of your life is so it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: It did happen. You went in with an open heart
Speaker 1: and an open mind and you felt real things, but
Speaker 1: the other person was the one who's wearing a mask.
Speaker 1: You weren't. I felt like I've been scammed. Like everything
Speaker 1: I did on my part, I was a great girlfriend, everything,
Speaker 1: everything on my part was real. It was an authentic
Speaker 1: it was legitimate. It was just the wrong person. And
Speaker 1: I had come across a con artist and that's just
Speaker 1: really unfortunate. And finally got out of a place where
Speaker 1: I would stopped blaming myself and kind of just see
Speaker 1: it as like an unfortunate thing that happened, and it
Speaker 1: is an unfortunate thing that happened. But like I said,
Speaker 1: it's also a place you someday as part of the
Speaker 1: growth in the healing is that I did learn something
Speaker 1: about myself in the most painful way, and you're trying
Speaker 1: to pay it forward. So thank you again. I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful for your time, for your sharing your story so
Speaker 1: openly with us. No, thank you, thank you for even
Speaker 1: having this show. I think it impacts so many people
Speaker 1: in all the right ways. So thank you so much,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you so much. Here are my takeaways
Speaker 1: from our conversation. So many survivors walk away from these
Speaker 1: relationships wondering was any of this real? Was this whole
Speaker 1: thing just a big lie? And then from that emanates
Speaker 1: a doubting of your own emotion? Did I even feel that?
Speaker 1: Can I even trust my feelings? You can trust your
Speaker 1: part of the story, because when we love someone, we
Speaker 1: believe them they're being deceitful or unempathic or manipul relative.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean that your process was false. However, it can
Speaker 1: feel like the entire thing wasn't real, and so people
Speaker 1: struggle with grief as though they are grieving something that
Speaker 1: wasn't real. Grief is about loss, and loss needs to
Speaker 1: be processed. People in narcissistic relationships are grieving what they
Speaker 1: believed to be true, what they hoped to be true
Speaker 1: their vision of the potential they saw in another person
Speaker 1: and in a life together. This is ephemeral stuff and
Speaker 1: can often be hard to articulate to other people or
Speaker 1: even in therapy, where people may just say, hey, you're lucky,
Speaker 1: you dodge that mess. However, when these relationships end, you
Speaker 1: don't feel lucky. You feel lost. Grief must be processed,
Speaker 1: and even if you can't articulate what the loss is,
Speaker 1: you did lose something. In my next takeaway, is social
Speaker 1: media always a bad thing in a relationship, No, but
Speaker 1: when it is a preoccupation, when posting about the relationship
Speaker 1: is more important than the relationship itself, When the validation
Speaker 1: of strangers matters more than the partner in front of them,
Speaker 1: When they are so enamored of their image, their life,
Speaker 1: and their posts that they can spend hours staring at
Speaker 1: themselves and the feedback of their adoring followers, that's a problem.
Speaker 1: Social media can be a real playground for narcissistic people.
Speaker 1: In my next takeaway, one way a red flag can
Speaker 1: sneak in is when it is a correction, as she
Speaker 1: shared after a line of partners that disappeared, didn't follow
Speaker 1: up or were disconnected and detached. A partner who came
Speaker 1: along and was intense and obsessive and spoke about a
Speaker 1: future and wanted to spend every waking moment together was
Speaker 1: an antidote to the other people she had met. This
Speaker 1: swinging pendulum can mean that even when their behavior is
Speaker 1: too much and concerning, it can feel like a counterweight
Speaker 1: and a relief to past relationships and past partners. This
Speaker 1: means that obsession, instead of being seen as a problematic pattern,
Speaker 1: which it is, may be experienced. As she called it,
Speaker 1: maybe this is what love feels like. Unfortunately, too many
Speaker 1: people have been exposed to a steady stream of princess
Speaker 1: movies and rom coms that romanticize obsession and intensity, which
Speaker 1: means these patterns get missed as the red flags that
Speaker 1: they so often are. In this next takeaway, narcissistic relationships
Speaker 1: represent a loss of innocence. When they happen in childhood,
Speaker 1: they qualify more as developmental trauma, and when they have
Speaker 1: been in adulthood, it's a puncturing of a balloon around love, relationships, family, trust,
Speaker 1: and hope. It's going from a starry eyed view to
Speaker 1: a more circumspect one after you experience a narcissistic relationship
Speaker 1: and you really get it and process it, your worldview shifts,
Speaker 1: trust erodes, you start feeling like you are always wondering
Speaker 1: if someone is working the angles with you. You may
Speaker 1: feel jaded or cynical. I will keep coming back to
Speaker 1: this point. I think cynicism after you have been through
Speaker 1: a narcissistic relationship, cynicism is actually wisdom and may speak
Speaker 1: to the beginning of the process of seeing things clearly
Speaker 1: and no longer making justifications for entitled toxic manipulative behavior
Speaker 1: until it happens to you. Most people don't understand how
Speaker 1: being in a narcissistic relationship reshapes our psychological bedrock. In
Speaker 1: this next takeaway, many people feel a double shame when
Speaker 1: they relent to being hoovered and are then promptly discarded.
Speaker 1: This is a sort of classical gambit in narcissistic relationships.
Speaker 1: The hoover is about control, and if they already sorted
Speaker 1: out a plan B, it became more of a showing
Speaker 1: to themselves that they could do it and then jumping
Speaker 1: to a new source of narcissistic supply where they will
Speaker 1: do the same thing again. By the way, as her
Speaker 1: story shows us, remember you actually approached a rigged card
Speaker 1: game as though it was being played honestly, you couldn't win,
Speaker 1: and there's no shame in that when the game is fixed.
Speaker 1: It is for this reason that giving yourself time after
Speaker 1: an our scissistic relationship ends is so crucial. These wounds
Speaker 1: are beyond the hurts of an ordinary breakup. These are
Speaker 1: complicated breakups after which people need a minute to get
Speaker 1: back to themselves, figure out up from down, grieve the
Speaker 1: loss of what you had hoped for, and recognize that
Speaker 1: there is no shame in believing in love even when
Speaker 1: the other person was deceptive and wanting something that is
Speaker 1: so fundamental to the human experience. A big thank you
Speaker 1: to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valen Jethrow, Ellen Rakaton,
Speaker 1: and Dr Rominey de Vassola. And thank you to our
Speaker 1: producer Matthew Jones, associate producer Mara Dela Rosa, and consultant
Speaker 1: Kelly Ebling. And finally, thank you to our editors and
Speaker 1: sound engineers Devin Donnaghe and Calvin Bailiff.