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Speaker 2: Narcissistic people are attracted to people who will give them
Speaker 2: supply physical attractiveness, status, praise. So you just being a
Speaker 2: nice person and praising someone could actually be what makes
Speaker 2: you attractive to them. So people may think, well, those
Speaker 2: I mean I have to start being me. I'd say no.
Speaker 2: They may be attracted to you, and you may be
Speaker 2: compelled for a minute, but the key is then to
Speaker 2: know how to get off the carousel before it starts
Speaker 2: going too fast.
Speaker 1: Before we jump into this episode, I'd like to invite
Speaker 1: you to join this community to hear more interviews that
Speaker 1: will help you become happier, health and more healed. All
Speaker 1: I want you to do is click on the subscribe button.
Speaker 1: I love your support. It's incredible to see all your
Speaker 1: comments and we're just getting started. I can't wait to
Speaker 1: go on this journey with you. Thank you so much
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Speaker 1: one health and wellness podcast, Jay Sheety Jay Shetty Sadly. Hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome back to on Purpose, the place that makes you happier, healthier,
Speaker 1: and more healed. Today's guest is one of your favorites,
Speaker 1: someone that you've been wanting to have back on and
Speaker 1: a dear friend of mine, So I always get really
Speaker 1: excited when she's in the chair opposite me. Someone who's
Speaker 1: great at defining terms that we throw around in culture,
Speaker 1: defining those buzzwords, really understanding deeply how they impact our
Speaker 1: lives and how we can navigate the challenges that come
Speaker 1: with them. I'm talking about the one and only Dr Rahmany,
Speaker 1: a licensed clinical psychologist, Professor of Psychology at California State
Speaker 1: University of Los Angeles, and the founder and CEO of
Speaker 1: Lunar Education, Training and Consulting. Dr Romaney discusses narcissism on
Speaker 1: her popular YouTube channel on social media as at Dr Romie.
Speaker 1: If you don't follow her already, make sure you go
Speaker 1: and do that. Her popular online program on healing from
Speaker 1: narcissistic abuse, and as the host of the podcast Navigating Narcissism.
Speaker 1: Her new book is called It's Not You, Identifying and
Speaker 1: healing from narcissistic people. Go and grab a copy of
Speaker 1: this book right now. If this is something that you've
Speaker 1: been dealing with, if you have a friend or a
Speaker 1: family member, this is the book to give them for
Speaker 1: that healing journey. Please welcome back to On Purpose, Dr Romney.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much as a absolutely astounding introduction, So
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Well, No, I'm so happy to have you back because
Speaker 1: last time we were together, you just crushed it and
Speaker 1: everyone was so happy and grateful for our conversation. You
Speaker 1: have a new book out right now as we speaking.
Speaker 1: As I said to everyone, it's called It's Not You.
Speaker 1: I was so excited to dive into this and I
Speaker 1: can't wait to talk to you about it now. And
Speaker 1: as I said, tom on, please do get the book.
Speaker 1: We'll be diving in a couple of topics here today,
Speaker 1: but to get the depth of the book, make sure
Speaker 1: you grab a copy of it. I want to start
Speaker 1: off d Rominy by again clarifying terms, because I think
Speaker 1: we're living at a time where there's so many terms
Speaker 1: on TikTok and YouTube and social media, and often they
Speaker 1: transpire into how we talk to our family members, friends. Yes,
Speaker 1: What is the difference between a narcissist and narcissistic personality disorder?
Speaker 2: So let's start there because this is already muddying the
Speaker 2: water so much. Right, So, narcissism is a personality style, right,
Speaker 2: There's lots of different personality styles out there. Certainly narcissisms
Speaker 2: are more maladaptive personality style because it puts people at
Speaker 2: odds with other people's not good for their relationships. But
Speaker 2: it is a personality style in and of itself. It's
Speaker 2: not a disorder. There is something called narcissistic personality disorder,
Speaker 2: which is when a person is presenting with the various
Speaker 2: narcissistic patterns we've talked about, the low and variable empathy,
Speaker 2: the entitlement, the grandiosity, the arrogance, the envy, the admiration
Speaker 2: and validation seeking, that whole laundry list, the egocentricity, all
Speaker 2: the selfishness, all that stuff. Right, So all of that
Speaker 2: is happening. It's chronic, it's pervasive, It shows up in
Speaker 2: their life and whole bunch of different relationships. The difference
Speaker 2: is they actually go to a therapist's office who's licensed
Speaker 2: and trained to issue a diagnosis, and that therapist determines
Speaker 2: like yep, I'm seeing these patterns. They're consistent, they're across situations,
Speaker 2: and they may assign them that diagnosis. The vast majority
Speaker 2: of people who have this personality style are never going
Speaker 2: to be in a practitioner's office who's going to make
Speaker 2: that determination. And it gets tricky, right, because to call
Speaker 2: something a disorder raises a whole bunch of issues. Personally, Jay,
Speaker 2: if I ran the world, I think we'd get rid
Speaker 2: of this diagnosis. I think we get nothing out of it.
Speaker 2: It doesn't I don't even think it helps the clients.
Speaker 2: A lot of clinicians don't issue it because it feels stigmatizing.
Speaker 2: There's a whole host of reasons I think it shouldn't be,
Speaker 2: but it is. Right Now, here's what you've got to
Speaker 2: remember when we look at narcissism in the world. Right, So,
Speaker 2: there's people out there who are narcissistic. They might be
Speaker 2: mildly narcissistic and a little bit more emotionally immature and
Speaker 2: just sort of selfish and shallow all the way up
Speaker 2: to severe where it can be malignant and it can
Speaker 2: be coercive and manipulative and all of that. And there's
Speaker 2: all the stuff in between. This book is really focused
Speaker 2: on the in between. Right, So, most people aren't dealing
Speaker 2: with someone coercive. That's and many are, and that's a
Speaker 2: much more severe issue that is probably beyond the scope
Speaker 2: of the book. But most people who are dealing with
Speaker 2: the mild narcissism, they're frustrated and annoyed, but they're not
Speaker 2: devastated and hurt like we see in that sort of
Speaker 2: middle level of narcissism. Right, So the difference is literally
Speaker 2: that sort of mechanical point they weren't seen by someone.
Speaker 2: And I don't know that any but listen, I'll be
Speaker 2: honest with you. If I met someone at a dinner
Speaker 2: party and they start telling me their life, I might
Speaker 2: even think in my head, I've got a hypothesis clinically,
Speaker 2: what's happening in no universe we occupy. Would I ever
Speaker 2: say to that person, even if I talk to them
Speaker 2: for two hours, I think you have generalized anxiety disorder.
Speaker 2: I think you have bipolar two. I just wouldn't say it, right,
Speaker 2: it's not the setting, it's not the situation. I might
Speaker 2: strongly sugges say, hey, you should talk to someone right
Speaker 2: where it gets interesting is the mistake a lot of
Speaker 2: people make is Number one. They assume that if a
Speaker 2: person has narcissistic personality disorder, that their narcissism is more severe.
Speaker 2: Not necessarily, there are people out there with NPD narcissistic
Speaker 2: personality disorder whose narcissism actually is not as severe as
Speaker 2: people who were never diagnosed because they never went into
Speaker 2: that situation. So you see what I'm saying. So there's
Speaker 2: people out there who are malignant narcissistic people. They're never
Speaker 2: seen by anyone. We can speculate, we could spitball wed
Speaker 2: say yeah, it's probably the case, but that person with
Speaker 2: NPD may simply seem a clinician. The other piece though
Speaker 2: here too, is that what it's doing is it's creating
Speaker 2: this very sort of strange space where people are saying,
Speaker 2: these are the patterns I'm seeing in a partner, parent, whomever,
Speaker 2: I think they might be narcissistic, and the Internet, as
Speaker 2: it does, is very quick to shame that person. Who
Speaker 2: do you think you are? How could you think this
Speaker 2: about someone? And this person is probably already been really hurt,
Speaker 2: really devastated by this relationship, is now being shamed for sharing,
Speaker 2: Like I think this might be what's happening, it's also
Speaker 2: creating this ord really painful space. So suffice it to say,
Speaker 2: I think in the public conversation about narcissism, we should
Speaker 2: only call it narcissism. Getting into the weeds on NPD
Speaker 2: is really getting on this sort of subtle clinical point
Speaker 2: and it just creates It makes a lot of noise here,
Speaker 2: so we're not able to have the clear conversation that
Speaker 2: these personality styles are harming the people who are in
Speaker 2: these relationships.
Speaker 1: Make sense, Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Why
Speaker 1: do you think it is that all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it seems, at least culturally, that more people are interacting
Speaker 1: with narcissists. Like you'll be talking to a friend and
Speaker 1: they'll be like, oh God, I'm so glad I just
Speaker 1: got our relationship with the narcissist. Or I'm struggling. I'm
Speaker 1: healing as your book teaches you how to, Like I'm
Speaker 1: healing from this relationship I had. I think they were narcissistic. Like,
Speaker 1: why is it all of a sudden we're feeling this
Speaker 1: kind of awareness and culture? Has it always been there?
Speaker 1: Has it increased? What's happened?
Speaker 2: It's always been there. I think as long as there
Speaker 2: were people. It has been there, and I always say
Speaker 2: to people, open up a history book. I'd say about
Speaker 2: seventy five percent of the people they've written about that
Speaker 2: history book, we're probably quite narcissistic. Narcissistic people make history.
Speaker 2: They and in fact, honestly, they often are responsible for
Speaker 2: some of the greatest innovations we've ever known. Doesn't make
Speaker 2: them nice people. I'd say, let them innovate, just don't
Speaker 2: go on a date with them, you know, that's really
Speaker 2: what we're talking about here. So there is an out
Speaker 2: of the box nest to them, and there's a fantasy
Speaker 2: that they live in that they often feel compelled to create.
Speaker 2: So you better believe that they've always been there. I
Speaker 2: don't know that we would have had the leaps and
Speaker 2: boutance we've had in some ways without that, right, So
Speaker 2: that said, it's always been there, but we never had
Speaker 2: a name for it. Remember, psychology is a field in
Speaker 2: its infancy. What's it been around one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy five years, So it's evolving. And
Speaker 2: so this concept of talking about someone's personality in this way,
Speaker 2: maybe since the late eighteen hundreds, we've even been having
Speaker 2: that conversation. People have been doing narcissistic stuff to partners, children,
Speaker 2: family members since time immemorial. We just didn't have a
Speaker 2: name for it. I think at some level because until recently,
Speaker 2: I think almost all cultures were probably much more authoritarianly
Speaker 2: patriarchally patriarchically organized. I think we're seeing sort of bigger
Speaker 2: conversations around that. So I think there was almost a
Speaker 2: strange sort of universal radical ecceps and said, some people
Speaker 2: are just really jerky, and let's just follow what they're saying.
Speaker 2: And so we didn't. We just didn't even think.
Speaker 1: Of it that way.
Speaker 2: But we see history books of kings who were ogres
Speaker 2: and invaders who were horrific, and these were not nice people.
Speaker 2: They were the narcissists of their time. Now to your
Speaker 2: other question, why are we talking about it? Like even
Speaker 2: ten years ago, a person wouldn't have said my partner.
Speaker 1: My boyfriend, that's what I mean.
Speaker 2: But they would have said, First of all, we didn't
Speaker 2: have the platforms. What if they did talk about there's
Speaker 2: such a jerk. Why do they keep doing this to me?
Speaker 2: I can't figure this out. Everyone has always been having
Speaker 2: the conversations. We're using different languaging now and if anything,
Speaker 2: we now have a construct and we now understand this
Speaker 2: hangs together. The point of this book was really to say,
Speaker 2: there are people with these personalities. They're out there. The
Speaker 2: way they show up in relationships is pretty consistently the same.
Speaker 2: And instead of blaming yourself and wondering what you could do,
Speaker 2: it's not you. It's really them, and they're having their
Speaker 2: process and their journey and probably not going to get
Speaker 2: the help they need to defend it against it, but
Speaker 2: rolling up and turning your life into a human sacrifice
Speaker 2: to please or win over or prove something to an
Speaker 2: unwinnable over person. I have watched people waste lifetimes doing this,
Speaker 2: you know. And it's even particularly compelling if it's their parent,
Speaker 2: but even if it's a long term intimate relationship with
Speaker 2: some especially if they've got into the relationship young. So
Speaker 2: this has always been a thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that makes a lot of sense. And I
Speaker 1: appreciate how our vocabulary evolves your time, and as that
Speaker 1: expands and extends, it allows us to better label and
Speaker 1: understand things. And I know that this book is primarily
Speaker 1: about the relationship, a narcissistic relationship, and then the healing journey.
Speaker 1: But before we dive into that, I want to ask
Speaker 1: you a question, how do you stop attracting a narcissist? Like,
Speaker 1: is there a way to not attract a narcissist? Jay?
Speaker 2: I wish I could say yes. And here's where I
Speaker 2: want to actually give my props to everyone's listening out
Speaker 2: there who has attracted a narcissist. You know why you
Speaker 2: attracted a narcissist because you're attractive. And what I mean
Speaker 2: by attractive is you may be physically beautiful. It may
Speaker 2: be your physique, it may be your something you know,
Speaker 2: it may be your social status. It may be that
Speaker 2: you could do something for them. What's attractive to them
Speaker 2: may not be attractive to the rest of us. You're
Speaker 2: attractive to them because you're attractive because you may have
Speaker 2: power of some kind of world. When I say power,
Speaker 2: I don't mean like you're a leader. I mean you're
Speaker 2: self possessed. Many people who get into these relationships, we
Speaker 2: have this mistaken assumption that the people who get into
Speaker 2: these relationships are shrinking violets who have low self esteem.
Speaker 2: Absolutely not. I got to tell you some of the
Speaker 2: people I've seen get into these relationships. I'm like, who
Speaker 2: I should have your self esteem. There they're strong and
Speaker 2: they know who they are, and they're saying this thing
Speaker 2: dismantled me. Brick by brick, I was really well but
Speaker 2: together when I met this person. Right, So this isn't
Speaker 2: about a person who doesn't have self esteem. It can be,
Speaker 2: but it's definitely not an absolute. Narcissistic people are attracted
Speaker 2: to people who will give them supply. What is supply
Speaker 2: for every narcissistic person might be a little different, but
Speaker 2: it's usually physical attractiveness, status, praise. So you just being
Speaker 2: a nice person and praising someone could actually be what
Speaker 2: makes you attractive to them. So people may think, well,
Speaker 2: those I mean, I have to stop being me. I'd
Speaker 2: say no. They may be attracted to you, and you
Speaker 2: may be compelled for a minute, but the key is
Speaker 2: then to know how to get off the carousel before
Speaker 2: it starts going too fast.
Speaker 1: Good answer, good answer, It makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: And again it's not you. It comes back to that
Speaker 1: which I like, which walk me through the consistent You
Speaker 1: talk about narcissism being consistent. Walk me through the consistent
Speaker 1: pattern of a narcissistic relationship, so that anyone who's listening
Speaker 1: can because I think, like you're saying, a lot of
Speaker 1: us sometimes feel scared to admit that we might even
Speaker 1: be within us because it's it's scary to accept that
Speaker 1: and admit that and have that realization because we think
Speaker 1: it's something to do with us. We think we've wasted time.
Speaker 1: There can be a sunk cost bias of I thought
Speaker 1: I had a future with this person. So walk me
Speaker 1: through the pattern of a narcissistic relationship.
Speaker 2: Let's just talk briefly about their piece first, because it
Speaker 2: helps us understand the pattern. They have traits things like
Speaker 2: I talked about, the entitlement, the lack of empathy, the grandiosity,
Speaker 2: the arrogance, the selfishness. I want you to think of
Speaker 2: a narcissistic person as a volcano, and that volcano has
Speaker 2: got this bubbling lava, and the lava for the narcissistic
Speaker 2: person is shame and insecurity. So they want to be
Speaker 2: able to plug the top of that volcano, right, and
Speaker 2: that plug is all this stuff, the entitlement, the grandiosity,
Speaker 2: I'm perfect, I'm great, it's this so it keeps all
Speaker 2: that stuff under wraps. That's not a conscious process, right. So,
Speaker 2: but every so often in life something's gonna push that
Speaker 2: lid off to the side, which might be feedback a criticism.
Speaker 2: Somebody ends a relationship with them. Whatever it is, their
Speaker 2: day doesn't go the way they want. They get stuck
Speaker 2: in traffic and they're late to something, they don't get
Speaker 2: the table they want in a restaurant, whatever it may be.
Speaker 2: That nudges that manhole cover over and the lava starts
Speaker 2: billing out, and that lava is their rage and their
Speaker 2: anger because their shame has been shown. All of this
Speaker 2: is unconscious, So all these patterns in their relationship, the
Speaker 2: way they show up in the narcissistic person is manipulation,
Speaker 2: invalidation of the other person, minimization of what another person
Speaker 2: is going through, gas lighting, rage and reactivity, future faking,
Speaker 2: which means promises are made and broken just to keep
Speaker 2: a person sort of on the hook. There will be
Speaker 2: blame shifting. They won't take responsibility. They'll always blame the
Speaker 2: other person, which is why people in these relationships always
Speaker 2: tend to blame themselves. There's a lot of deceit, betrayal, lying, infidelity,
Speaker 2: there is neglect. Over time, they just give less and
Speaker 2: less and less to the relationship, and the person in
Speaker 2: the relationship is trying to make do on the tiniest,
Speaker 2: tiniest bits of being noticed. That's how they show up
Speaker 2: in the relationship. Everything in the relationship is about them
Speaker 2: getting supply in validation. They have absolutely no interest in
Speaker 2: the needs, wants, and honestly the subjective reality of the
Speaker 2: other person in the relationship. Over time, the other person
Speaker 2: gets almost as considered an inconvenience. If you want something,
Speaker 2: you're an inconvenience, much like this cup. CoP's convenient when
Speaker 2: I want to drink from it, But the cup all
Speaker 2: of a sudden said, hey, can you take me to
Speaker 2: CVS on the way home? Like what cup? You're a cup?
Speaker 1: Don't tell me that.
Speaker 2: So they view us in that sort of objectified lens.
Speaker 2: All of these dynamics mean that over time, in order
Speaker 2: for the relationship to work, the other person has to
Speaker 2: entirely sacrifice themselves and buy into the reality system of
Speaker 2: the narcissistic person. But that doesn't all happen overnight. Oftentimes,
Speaker 2: at least in an adult sissistic relationship, whether it's an
Speaker 2: intimate relationship or friendship, that early phase is very idealized
Speaker 2: and seductive. It's called love bombing. But it's really this
Speaker 2: phase where they're winning, not only winning you over with
Speaker 2: gestures and tactics, but with attunement and attention, or seeming
Speaker 2: attunement and attention. They pay intense attention to you. What
Speaker 2: you realize afterwards is some of that intense attention was
Speaker 2: them learning things about you that were going to be
Speaker 2: turned around and used against you down the road. That's
Speaker 2: often a point of devastation for a person who says
Speaker 2: I was vulnerable with this person. I told them things
Speaker 2: that I'd never told anyone before, and then six months
Speaker 2: in I was being shamed and humiliated, and you know,
Speaker 2: it was being used to sort of destabilize me. There
Speaker 2: is a point where that love bombing phase then starts
Speaker 2: heading into a place where there's ten good things, one
Speaker 2: bad thing, ah, one bad thing. Everyone has a bad day,
Speaker 2: nine bad thing, nine good things, one bad thing. Over time, though,
Speaker 2: that ratio pretty much comes to like maybe one to one,
Speaker 2: So now you're having as much difficult, challenging stuff, and
Speaker 2: then these little sprinklings of good things happening. That's the
Speaker 2: origin of the trauma bond. That back and forth good bad, hot, cold,
Speaker 2: I'm here, I'm not here is where people will often
Speaker 2: find themselves falling into a cycle of justifying blaming themselves
Speaker 2: because it was so great. It was great for two
Speaker 2: or three months, so how did it not become great?
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm doing something, so the person will literally it's
Speaker 2: almost like you know when you open a bag, you know,
Speaker 2: you're trying to find something in a bag, and you
Speaker 2: take everything out of the bag chaotically, and it's all
Speaker 2: in the airport on the ground, and it was like
Speaker 2: one little like your headphones. That's what people in narcissistic
Speaker 2: relationships do. They open the bag that is themselves and
Speaker 2: pull everything out, trying to figure out what is wrong
Speaker 2: with me? Why did we go from babe, where can
Speaker 2: I take you to dinner? I'll take you anywhere?
Speaker 1: To what?
Speaker 2: Like, please stop interrupting me? And you're you're thinking what
Speaker 2: just happened? And so basically, once in narcissistic person almost
Speaker 2: feels kind of confident they've got your supply, whether it's
Speaker 2: a promise, maybe you live with them, maybe you've really
Speaker 2: committed into long term relationships you said I love yous
Speaker 2: or whatever, that they've got you where they want you.
Speaker 2: Then they're sort of almost not narcissistic folks are also
Speaker 2: very novelty seeking. They kind of get bored easily, so
Speaker 2: you being around from time to time they'll be into you,
Speaker 2: but then from other times they won't. They do like
Speaker 2: they do like the idea that someone's a constant sour
Speaker 2: as a supply, and over time there can be a
Speaker 2: real process of discard. They just really it can feel
Speaker 2: like they just don't care at all anymore. Basically, what
Speaker 2: they do is they no longer fulfill the roles and
Speaker 2: responsibilities of what it means to be in a close relationship,
Speaker 2: which is empathy, compassion, kindness, attunement, self awareness. These are
Speaker 2: the responsibilities we have in a human relationship, and they
Speaker 2: do not fulfill them. I even hate putting them as responsibilities.
Speaker 2: I think that they come automatically for a healthy person.
Speaker 2: And then if you do decide to leave, or even
Speaker 2: if they decide to leave, you start to enter potentially
Speaker 2: a cat and mouse game of hoovering where they'll pull
Speaker 2: you back, see how you're doing. Sometimes they'll even figure out,
Speaker 2: oh they're happy, now let me go see if I
Speaker 2: can spin that around a little bit.
Speaker 1: Wow wow, I mean, those patterns sound so painful, and
Speaker 1: they found They sound so strenuous and stressful and heartbreaking
Speaker 1: in so many ways. Why what are the excuses that
Speaker 1: people keep telling themselves and what justifications stop us from healing?
Speaker 2: I mean to go even more foundationally on that. Why
Speaker 2: do we justify right when you think about one of
Speaker 2: the most primal human needs, it's attachment. We need other people.
Speaker 2: We are not meant to be solo acts. Human beings
Speaker 2: are tribal. We evolved in social groups. Our brains didn't
Speaker 2: change that much. We still need our people, We need love,
Speaker 2: we do we need connection. And people say, what about
Speaker 2: the narcissis. I said, they need it more than anyone.
Speaker 2: They want all the supply, right, so we need to
Speaker 2: be together. But that, especially in a child, that need
Speaker 2: for attachment is everything. And if a child has an
Speaker 2: unattuned parent, or even an abusive parent, the child doesn't
Speaker 2: have the option to say, I think I'm gonna split
Speaker 2: up with them and see what I'm gonna go on
Speaker 2: parent hinge and see if I can find someone new.
Speaker 2: Right doesn't work like that. The child has to hold
Speaker 2: this parent in esteem, which means a child that needs
Speaker 2: to devalue themselves. What am I doing wrong? How could
Speaker 2: I be more? And the child really learns how to
Speaker 2: be everything that parent wants and needs to the detriment
Speaker 2: of their own needs, right exactly. So now let's just
Speaker 2: jump that to adulthood. Right, So the child comes up
Speaker 2: with all kinds of fantasies, but in adulthood they may
Speaker 2: be things like, everyone has a bad day, relationships are tough.
Speaker 2: I'm no picnic myself, They've been working really hard, we
Speaker 2: did have a good weekend. They did tell me I
Speaker 2: love you. I mean, I could go on for the
Speaker 2: next two hours about all the justifications I've heard. Right,
Speaker 2: So the justifications are not only proliferate, they come easily
Speaker 2: and jay, they're reinforced by the world, right because the
Speaker 2: world will say, oh, relationships are tough. Maybe they're just
Speaker 2: having a bad day. So now what you're saying is
Speaker 2: completely in line with sort of what the prevailing wisdom
Speaker 2: would be. And you do that enough every time these
Speaker 2: really invalidating, destabilizing things that cut to the core of
Speaker 2: your identity happen. The people who tend to get more
Speaker 2: stuck in these relationships, quite frankly, are the more empathic people,
Speaker 2: while narcissistic people are attracted to people who are whatever
Speaker 2: supply attractive they are to them. The people who get
Speaker 2: stuck are the people who are more vulnerable to trauma
Speaker 2: bonding and who have more empathy, and as a result,
Speaker 2: are more likely to make those excuses and justifications right.
Speaker 2: They're going to be more open to the idea that
Speaker 2: there's always different ways too. There's another point of view.
Speaker 2: That's what empathic people do, and that's how it happens,
Speaker 2: but in a trauma bonded relationship. And it's also about
Speaker 2: cognitive dissonance, right, that we don't like. We don't like
Speaker 2: the tension of inconsistency within ourselves, so we're always trying
Speaker 2: to make it fit. And how do we relieve that
Speaker 2: tension and make it fit We justify, then we can
Speaker 2: maintain the status quo. And human beings are also homeostatic creatures.
Speaker 2: We like the status. I want to keep living here,
Speaker 2: I want to keep having this routine. I don't want
Speaker 2: to find a new place to put my toothbrush. I
Speaker 2: don't want to wake up in a new place, even
Speaker 2: if you kind of might want to. Over time, many
Speaker 2: survivors will say, I don't even care if I wake
Speaker 2: up in a random place, as long as I'm not
Speaker 2: waking up here, but how much terribleness had to happen
Speaker 2: to the person in that period of time, And so
Speaker 2: it's a person is just getting sort of slowly distanced
Speaker 2: from their true nature. The longer a person is in
Speaker 2: a narcissistic relationship, the more they literally have to abandon themselves.
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted to touch on. Actually, where you
Speaker 1: got to is, you know, what is the impact of
Speaker 1: narcissistic abuse, like how because I think often we also
Speaker 1: think like, oh, yeah, well you should know that you know,
Speaker 1: he was a waste of time, or well look what
Speaker 1: she did to you, like you should be aware, like
Speaker 1: you know, it's almost like we assume that it should
Speaker 1: logically make sense to someone that they should be happy
Speaker 1: that they're now away from this person. But often with
Speaker 1: people who've been with narcissistic people, especially empathetic people, they're
Speaker 1: still saying, well, I hope they're okay. I hope that
Speaker 1: person's okay, Like I know they're struggling. What is the
Speaker 1: impact of someone who's experienced narcissistic abuse on a deep
Speaker 1: scientific psychological level, What is actually going on for them?
Speaker 2: So what we're seeing pretty consistently across and now I
Speaker 2: can say now thousands of people we've looked at who've
Speaker 2: experienced these relationships, is consistently we see a problematic level
Speaker 2: of rumination, regret, anxiety, sadness, self blame, self doubt, a
Speaker 2: sense of hypervigilance, a social anxiety that comes from it.
Speaker 2: And I want to put a pin in that hypervigilant
Speaker 2: piece because I want to come back to.
Speaker 1: That in a moment.
Speaker 2: An interesting sort of mild association where a person has
Speaker 2: become dissociated from their needs, their wants, and their true
Speaker 2: nature because that has been so consistently invalidated in this relationship.
Speaker 2: You see problems with sleep, You see the neuro vegetative
Speaker 2: stuff we see in depression, like the change is an appetite.
Speaker 2: You see problems with concentration. What's interesting, though about survivors
Speaker 2: of narcissistic abuse is that some of them may actually
Speaker 2: develop clinical depression, but most don't. And what I'll see
Speaker 2: is these are folks when they are surrounded by healthy supports,
Speaker 2: therapist friends, they're animated, they're lovely, they don't seem like
Speaker 2: a person who's under that heavy weight of depression.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So it is really when the relationship is present, it's
Speaker 2: taking its toll, and it is why so many survivors
Speaker 2: of narcissistic abuse are able to roll up and be
Speaker 2: terrific parents despite what's happening. You see what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: because it's not it's not a mental illness. It's a
Speaker 2: normative reaction to this. But even with that hypervigilance, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of talk about how nice survivors of narcissistic
Speaker 2: abuse are. We recently did an Instagram live about this
Speaker 2: and it was just me sort of yammering on about
Speaker 2: something I'd heard that day. It was really struck by
Speaker 2: the strength it had in our community because we talk
Speaker 2: about empathy, empathy, empathy and survivors. But one thing I'm
Speaker 2: really seeing in my again so many clients now at
Speaker 2: this point, and other people telling their stories, is that
Speaker 2: the empathy is almost functioning as a bit of a
Speaker 2: trauma response, like let me be as kind as possible,
Speaker 2: let me be as good as possible. And so it
Speaker 2: gets very confusing for you, like am I empathic? Am
Speaker 2: I trying to survive? And is my empathy literally like
Speaker 2: this this trauma is a survival response to try to
Speaker 2: like it's almost like that fawn response we talk about
Speaker 2: that trauma response where I am going to be what
Speaker 2: this harmful person needs me to be so I can
Speaker 2: win them over and I will be okay, right so,
Speaker 2: and then after that, though they're shame. Why was I
Speaker 2: so nice to this person? They were terrible to me?
Speaker 2: Like what's wrong with me? And something I really try
Speaker 2: to focus on with survivors is to say, this empathic, responsive,
Speaker 2: compassionate part of you is beautiful. We've got to heal
Speaker 2: you and not lose that. Does that make sense? So
Speaker 2: this isn't an amputation. This is very much about we've
Speaker 2: got to keep this here, pull the shame off of it,
Speaker 2: but allow you to become more discerning.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And that's the trick in doing this work with clients
Speaker 2: and for an individual who's healing themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah wow, I mean that analogy you just gave of
Speaker 1: it's not an amputation. That's really interesting because I think
Speaker 1: we would think that when something's that toxic and abusive,
Speaker 1: you just want to cut it out, get rid of
Speaker 1: it it, move it away. But that's not what you're saying.
Speaker 2: No, And in fact, you know this is one of
Speaker 2: the things I really take umbrage and I'm frustrated with
Speaker 2: TikTok and places where people are giving quickie advice is
Speaker 2: it's almost as though if you have empathy for the
Speaker 2: narcissistic person, you're foolish and absolutely not. They are in
Speaker 2: their fashion, there's something not quite right there and they're
Speaker 2: not even anywhere close to addressing it. My goal for
Speaker 2: folks is you want to have empathy for them. And
Speaker 2: I mean, if you don't want to, I get that
Speaker 2: too to what you've been through. But if that empathy
Speaker 2: for you them is something you want to maintain, yes,
Speaker 2: I still need you to disengage. Can you disengage from
Speaker 2: someone and still empathize with them? I believe absolutely yes.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and that's a hard balance for the people
Speaker 1: in your life that love you to see that, because
Speaker 1: it can be really really challenging to see someone you
Speaker 1: love feel empathy to someone who's hurt them really badly.
Speaker 2: Correct, And it's also even for yourself. And this is
Speaker 2: where it can bring up a complim emotions like pity
Speaker 2: and guilt. Right, and I try and again. The work
Speaker 2: of healing is that pity is that these mechanisms inside
Speaker 2: of you that attend and attune and care about other
Speaker 2: human beings are still working, which we want those to
Speaker 2: always remain online, but that you ensuring that you pull
Speaker 2: yourself back from a harmful situation. The world needs you,
Speaker 2: We need your hold you, not the version that you
Speaker 2: had to create to remain in this toxic relationship. And
Speaker 2: that balancing act of retaining empathy when you've been so
Speaker 2: hurt by someone, that's some of the hardest work of healing.
Speaker 2: I see people do it every day and it's really
Speaker 2: quite beautiful. But a lot of them think, have I
Speaker 2: become a bad person because I'm so angry at this person?
Speaker 2: And in fact, a big point I bring up in
Speaker 2: the book, and I'm going to sort of jump ahead here,
Speaker 2: is I actually don't know that forgiveness always has a
Speaker 2: place in these relationships. And this is a complicated conversation.
Speaker 2: A lot of people say forgiveness is all good, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, slow, no, no, stop the presses. It's absolutely not.
Speaker 2: And there's a whole body of scientific research that suggests
Speaker 2: that repeatedly forgiving a repeat perpetrator actually harms the forgiver.
Speaker 2: There's no win in that, and so what way it
Speaker 2: lowers their well being? It can result in negative mood symptoms.
Speaker 2: I mean, of course, you keep doing you keep doing
Speaker 2: this because I think forgiveness is a very personal decision,
Speaker 2: but it's also not a necessary one to heal. And
Speaker 2: I think that the message a lot of people get is, well,
Speaker 2: if you're gonna if you don't forgive them, you're never
Speaker 2: gonna heal. The hell you're not. And I'm gonna be
Speaker 2: very frank with you, Jay, there's some narcissistic people who
Speaker 2: harmed me immeasurably. I don't forgive them, and I he'll
Speaker 2: just fine.
Speaker 1: It comes back to the you can't just say the
Speaker 1: cliches to people and hope they'll move on and be
Speaker 1: okay with it, and it can be really hard for
Speaker 1: that individual to again either rise or lower themselves down
Speaker 1: to either of those. Like I know someone who's been
Speaker 1: through something recently who's dealing with it with empathy, and
Speaker 1: I know for them, their friends and family are like,
Speaker 1: how can you be empathetic to this person? And so
Speaker 1: they're dealing with it that way. Or you'd have the
Speaker 1: opposite in your case, where you're saying I actually don't
Speaker 1: want to be empathetic towards them, I don't want to
Speaker 1: forgive them, when your family is saying, well, you should be,
Speaker 1: but I do.
Speaker 2: I here's where it gets interesting. I empathize with them.
Speaker 2: I don't forgive them, right, Okay, So you can those
Speaker 2: two states simultaneously. And I think that again. One of
Speaker 2: the big exercises in the book, and I think it
Speaker 2: might be one of the most important ones, is something
Speaker 2: I have been doing with clients for a long time,
Speaker 2: which is a multiple truths exercise. Because it's so easy
Speaker 2: to say, write all the terrible stuff. And I do
Speaker 2: tell people to record all the terrible stuff, but I said, like,
Speaker 2: let's just be. I want you to write everything you
Speaker 2: feel for this person. And a person might write, this
Speaker 2: is my mother. I hate her. She had a tough backstory,
Speaker 2: she was terrible to us as children. She lives alone.
Speaker 2: I feel sorry for her. I wish you would change.
Speaker 2: I know she won't change. This is literally the stream
Speaker 2: of consciousness for a survivor. You look at that, and
Speaker 2: right there, it's manifest why survivors are so confused. But
Speaker 2: I absolutely believe, and not everyone does. Some people have
Speaker 2: no empathy for this person, but I think it's quite possible.
Speaker 2: And this is where everyone say, no, that's not possible.
Speaker 2: If you empathize with them. You'd forgive them, I say,
Speaker 2: I understand why they are the way they are. I
Speaker 2: even kind of understand why they did what they did.
Speaker 2: What they did was unforgivable, and so I wish them
Speaker 2: no ill will. In fact, if good things happen to them,
Speaker 2: so be it. If bad things happen to them, so
Speaker 2: be it. So there's a mild indifference to it, but
Speaker 2: it wouldn't be a loss. I mean, I don't think. Again,
Speaker 2: there's so many forms of empathy, and empathy is it's
Speaker 2: own complicated conversation. But I don't think that the not
Speaker 2: forgiving is a lack of empathy, because forgiveness really reflects
Speaker 2: the harm it's done to us. And people say, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's a gift for you too.
Speaker 1: Mi.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm not giving them this gift because I
Speaker 2: know they would do it again. If I let this
Speaker 2: person back in, they would do it again.
Speaker 1: I love that distinction between empathy and forgiveness really important
Speaker 1: to understand. Another word, that a whole chapter is dedicated
Speaker 1: to radical acceptance. Define that for us so that we
Speaker 1: can understand how that's used. Because again, even looking at
Speaker 1: the difference between empathy and forgiveness, it's so interesting to
Speaker 1: me just how subtle and specific healing looks like as
Speaker 1: opposed to this almost abstract journey that's often painted of healing,
Speaker 1: being like you move from this stage to here where
Speaker 1: it's you know right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So radical acceptance is it's I have to say, there's one,
Speaker 2: there's two, probably two essential ingredients to healing. You're going
Speaker 2: to go through radical acceptance. You're going to go through grief,
Speaker 2: and then it's sort of people are going to go
Speaker 2: on different paths. But radical acceptance is the absolute acceptance
Speaker 2: that these patterns are not this person's behavior is not
Speaker 2: going to change, at least not significantly enough to make
Speaker 2: this into healthy relationship. That this behavior affected you, and
Speaker 2: as long as you're in the purview of this behavior,
Speaker 2: as long as they keep doing this to you, it
Speaker 2: will keep hurting you. Because some people have said to me,
Speaker 2: they say, I radically accept it. They're not going to change.
Speaker 2: How come when they say these things to me, it
Speaker 2: still bothers me. I'm like, Gods, it's hurting you. It's
Speaker 2: still hurtful just because you understand why it's coming out
Speaker 2: of them. You didn't just become a piece of concrete,
Speaker 2: like you still have a soul and a heart and
Speaker 2: a psyche that can be hurt. So some people, I think,
Speaker 2: thought radical acceptance was like a magic pill that if
Speaker 2: I take this, then the narcissistic person will never bother
Speaker 2: me again, and so all of that particularly, but the
Speaker 2: key element of it is this is not going to change,
Speaker 2: and all decisions from that point forward have to be
Speaker 2: made on that basis. By definition, narcissism is, like I said,
Speaker 2: a maladaptive personality style. But it's also a rigid personality style.
Speaker 2: The less healthy the personality, the less flexible that it is.
Speaker 2: So very healthy people have extraordinarily flexible personality. So the
Speaker 2: core of mental health is flexibility. It's almost like physical health, right.
Speaker 2: A person who's physically healthy has a lot of flexibility
Speaker 2: in their muscles and joints. A mentally healthy person has
Speaker 2: a lot of flexibility in their psyche.
Speaker 1: How do we find flexibility in ours?
Speaker 2: H I I would say it's an adaptability. It is
Speaker 2: a self awareness and awareness of others. It's the ability
Speaker 2: to engage in novel problem solving and not get stuck
Speaker 2: on a singular solution. It's the capacity to be able
Speaker 2: to self regulate and to self soothe those are some
Speaker 2: of the things I'd file into that sort of that flexibility.
Speaker 2: And I'm not just saying it's like sure, I'll go
Speaker 2: anywhere you want. I'm not saying it's the it's the
Speaker 2: I'm game for anything. But when things when there's disappointment,
Speaker 2: there's the capacity to cope with it. It's a lot
Speaker 2: of coping, a lot of resilience is in that flexibility piece, right,
Speaker 2: That is the core of health. I've worked with people
Speaker 2: who have survived severe trauma. It's ice, but the ones
Speaker 2: who really are standing in a different way, it's that flexibility, right.
Speaker 2: And you think about it. If a tree is flexible,
Speaker 2: it'll bend with the wind. If it's not, it's going
Speaker 2: to snap if the wind is too hard. That would
Speaker 2: really be the best sort of an analogy. So narcissism
Speaker 2: is this sort of maladaptive, rigid style. There's very little
Speaker 2: self reflective capacity for the narcissistic person, very little self
Speaker 2: awareness for the narcissistic person, and very little awareness of
Speaker 2: the people around them. There is little motivation to change.
Speaker 2: Most grandiose narcissists subjectively think of themselves as great people.
Speaker 2: If you ask them, let's say, I'm a great guy
Speaker 2: like I'll help anyone, I'll do anything for anyone. I'm
Speaker 2: just a cool person. They believe it, having just cheated
Speaker 2: on their girlfriend two nights before that, they're able to
Speaker 2: maintain what almost feels like a delusional self schema. Those
Speaker 2: things are not amenable to change. And again, the nice
Speaker 2: thing about being an old lady is I've been doing
Speaker 2: this so long that I've seen cases fifteen, twenty years.
Speaker 2: And when I tell you that, there's been some interesting
Speaker 2: things they've learned about themselves. In some cases they had
Speaker 2: co occurring conditions. Addiction is a great example. The addiction
Speaker 2: is managed like they've been sober for many years, but
Speaker 2: that core personnalit. They are definitely not fit for an
Speaker 2: intimate relationship, at least not one where someone's not going
Speaker 2: to get hurt. So that radical acceptance of the all
Speaker 2: of it, that moment is the penny drop moment, because
Speaker 2: now people see the path forward very differently. This is
Speaker 2: no longer once the kids grow up, it's going to
Speaker 2: get easier. This is no longer when he gets the promotion,
Speaker 2: things are going to get better. This is no longer
Speaker 2: when the grandkids come my parents is going to calm
Speaker 2: down this is this is it. And I've sat with
Speaker 2: many clients and said, I'm going to put something to you,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to say, if I were to tell
Speaker 2: you this is it, this is never going to change,
Speaker 2: how would that affect the decisions you make? Most clients
Speaker 2: will say, can I tell you next week? Because that
Speaker 2: has a lot to take in. But the challenge with
Speaker 2: radical acceptance, Jay, is that I wish I could say
Speaker 2: it's on and the light comes in the window. You
Speaker 2: know a couple things is that radical acceptance doesn't mean
Speaker 2: you're signing off on this. It doesn't mean you're giving
Speaker 2: into it. It doesn't mean you're agreeing with it. It's
Speaker 2: not that it is. You're seeing it absolutely and painfully clear.
Speaker 2: And you know what happens if you painfully and radically
Speaker 2: see something, The grief comes over you like a tsunami,
Speaker 2: because this is your mom, the mom you always thought
Speaker 2: one day we're going to have the moment, or your
Speaker 2: dad where you're like, one day they're gonna get me,
Speaker 2: or the partner where're like, we are going to grow
Speaker 2: old together and it's gonna be okay. You're giving up
Speaker 2: a narrative, you're giving up a hope. You're giving up
Speaker 2: a life story, You're giving up things you held on
Speaker 2: to since you were a child. That's devastation. And I
Speaker 2: tell folks, now we're going to hold on tight because
Speaker 2: grief is the most human of experiences. It's one of
Speaker 2: the other than life, other than being born and dying.
Speaker 2: I don't know of any other universal human experience other
Speaker 2: than grief. All human beings lose, right, we lose something
Speaker 2: or someone, and we all have a very similar experience. Internally,
Speaker 2: we grief, and that's why we have rituals. Right, But
Speaker 2: ultimately we go through a period of grief. And I
Speaker 2: think in this moder age, we think we're better than grief.
Speaker 2: We think we can soldier throat. I can make my
Speaker 2: grief go like this. Nobody gets to make their grief
Speaker 2: go quicker.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Grief is grief, and that grief actually leads people ja
Speaker 2: to say, Okay, this feels terrible. Maybe I should go
Speaker 2: back into the relationship. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe
Speaker 2: I'm not seeing this clearly. Maybe I'm the problem, Maybe
Speaker 2: I'm the narcissist. And so the holding on during the grief,
Speaker 2: understanding what's happening within you that the loss isn't just
Speaker 2: I'm not talking to my partner anymore, or I'm distanced
Speaker 2: from my mother or I'm getting a divorce. But the
Speaker 2: grief is how much of yourself you lost in this
Speaker 2: relationship when people have to dive into that, And sometimes
Speaker 2: I'll say, I'm kind of glad they're gone, but oh,
Speaker 2: what what just happened to me?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, it's the grief of the life you once had.
Speaker 1: You're going to have what you could have, the grief
Speaker 1: of the loss of the person that you lost while
Speaker 1: you dissolved into this relationship. And and I've seen that
Speaker 1: from the people I know, not people I would say,
Speaker 1: these are people that I know in my life, but
Speaker 1: I've seen just that dissolving of one's identity, like completely clueless,
Speaker 1: even if they've disengaged. Two, I don't know who I
Speaker 1: am anymore, and I don't know what to do anymore.
Speaker 1: And I don't know whether I was confident, or whether
Speaker 1: I was bubbly, or whether I was extra or intro like.
Speaker 1: I just don't know, yep. And what's the first step
Speaker 1: when you're feeling I don't know what? Where do you?
Speaker 1: Where's the starting point?
Speaker 2: I tell folks, we're taking you back to basics. And
Speaker 2: it's little things like I'll say, three times a day,
Speaker 2: set a little timer if you want. I want you
Speaker 2: to just when that little notification comes up, I want
Speaker 2: you to stop and say, how do I feel right now?
Speaker 1: Am I cool?
Speaker 2: Am I hungry? My thirsty? Like physiological functions, figure out
Speaker 2: where you want your thermostat and move it and see
Speaker 2: like I'm filing sixteen sixty eight, this is nice. People
Speaker 2: don't even know that. I'll say, what do you want
Speaker 2: on your pizza? You'd be amazed how many people are
Speaker 2: flum mixed by that question and say, well, he always
Speaker 2: wanted what do you want on your pizza? And they'll
Speaker 2: say and they'll catch themselves. This isn't meant to be silly.
Speaker 2: This is how even these sort of low hanging questions
Speaker 2: become a place where a person is now being able
Speaker 2: to recreate a subjective focus. They were told for years
Speaker 2: you can't be hungry, you just ate. You can't be cold,
Speaker 2: I am warm, You're not tired, you got plenty of sleep.
Speaker 2: That's what they were told. So when that's done to you,
Speaker 2: not just once, but hundreds, if not thousands of times,
Speaker 2: just that initial process and part of what I write
Speaker 2: about in the book is just you keep reorienting to
Speaker 2: yourself and you ask yourself a few times a day,
Speaker 2: like what's the temperature? I'm actually feeling a little bit cold,
Speaker 2: and that's okay, even if everyone else has a bathing
Speaker 2: suit on, it's okay.
Speaker 1: Wow. It's just bringing that person back into body, into
Speaker 1: their body, because that's our most physical, tangible way of
Speaker 1: knowing how we feel. And because we've gone so far
Speaker 1: away from understanding how we feel, that's going to be
Speaker 1: the easy way. Same with what do you want on
Speaker 1: your pizza? It sounds silly, but it's not.
Speaker 2: Because it's silly at all.
Speaker 1: Let's get these basic decisions right. Let's get these really
Speaker 1: amateur decisions right, rather than thinking who am I? What
Speaker 1: is the goal of my life? Like?
Speaker 2: But you work up to that and when you ask
Speaker 2: people whome and I don't know, and I'll say what
Speaker 2: do you stand for? Tell me something that's important to you,
Speaker 2: and they will really say, no, I've never thought in
Speaker 2: these levels. I mean, your focus for so many people's
Speaker 2: meaning and purpose right to me. That's when we're getting
Speaker 2: into the latter stages of really this, you know, this
Speaker 2: individuation and this autonomy of what is meaningful to you,
Speaker 2: what is purposeful. I remember a client when saying to me,
Speaker 2: we're talking about meaning a purpose, and she said, are
Speaker 2: you kidding me? What's meaningful and purposeful? She said, I
Speaker 2: just want to get to a day where I don't
Speaker 2: think about them. And I said, great, then that's that's
Speaker 2: where it is right now, and over time we're going
Speaker 2: to build on that. But that can feel very out
Speaker 2: of for people, like in fact, in my healing program
Speaker 2: this month, it's going to be meeting in purpose this month,
Speaker 2: and even I as I construct that curriculum, I'm realizing,
Speaker 2: like I want a lot of the usual conversation about
Speaker 2: meaning a purpose. I'm almost having to have the conversation,
Speaker 2: you know, point two of what it means when you
Speaker 2: were going through this and someone who's the survivor of
Speaker 2: narcissistic abuse. But then it's also the willingness to turn
Speaker 2: to trust it do us. I'm going to give you
Speaker 2: a silly example of something that happened today. I had
Speaker 2: a very problematic call today right with someone and I
Speaker 2: had to put the call on speaker because someone was
Speaker 2: helping me something in the house and I had to
Speaker 2: be she was doing her work quietly, but it wasn't
Speaker 2: a confidential call. It it was a business thing. And
Speaker 2: the call went terribly. The person was very disrespectful, very dismissive.
Speaker 2: And I've been through narcissistic abuse in many ways and
Speaker 2: shapes and forms in my life. So my first tendency
Speaker 2: was am I being too sensitive? Am I being too demanding?
Speaker 2: Am I being Ridiculous's what I was thinking. And at
Speaker 2: one point, the lady who was helping me out, she
Speaker 2: kind of looked at me, rolled her eye. I rolled
Speaker 2: my eyes and she looked back at me and she
Speaker 2: said yeah. And I got off the phone and the
Speaker 2: person who was helping with something else, she had nothing
Speaker 2: to do with this is call. And I closed my
Speaker 2: eyes and the person said. The person in the room
Speaker 2: with me said, yeesh, that was absolutely ridiculous. And I
Speaker 2: looked at it and I said, say more, and she said,
Speaker 2: I can't believe how dismissed of that person. She didn't
Speaker 2: even do the basic and jay I fell whole because
Speaker 2: my inner experience, which I still doubt after all these
Speaker 2: years and I've come a long way, but my inner experience,
Speaker 2: this person outside of me, who I know cares about me,
Speaker 2: said it wasn't okay how she talked to you, And
Speaker 2: each time that happens, we have a micro adjustment of
Speaker 2: that was on point. I read that situation correctly, and
Speaker 2: then I was emboldened to make a stronger decision and
Speaker 2: decide not to go into to do what this person
Speaker 2: was asking me to do was like a speaking thing,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, no, I don't want to do that,
Speaker 2: but that other person's presence, having that safe space, and
Speaker 2: this is so a big part of the healing then
Speaker 2: becomes building up safe validating anti gaslights as I call
Speaker 2: them in your life, people who see you and say
Speaker 2: that wasn't okay, or are you okay? Or that was disrespectful,
Speaker 2: they did not speak nicely to you, whatever it is.
Speaker 2: Most survivors are so used to being spoken too badly.
Speaker 2: They're like, well, so business as usual. But to have
Speaker 2: that this is why people go into therapy. And so
Speaker 2: then I was able to take the much bolder leap
Speaker 2: of no, I'm actually gonna end up going to the
Speaker 2: other meeting. But thanks, I don't know that I would
Speaker 2: have had that kind of courage. This is what healing is.
Speaker 2: You build up those people even if it's one or
Speaker 2: two people giving yourself permission to put I call it
Speaker 2: the ninety ten in version. Most of us put ninety
Speaker 2: percent of ourselves into our most toxic relationships and ten
Speaker 2: percent into the giving, reciprocal, loving ones that run easily.
Speaker 2: I said, flip the math. I want ninety one present
Speaker 2: into those good relationships and phone it into the toxic ones. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's so true, and it's it's interesting because I think
Speaker 2: that kind of answers the next question I was gonna ask,
Speaker 2: but this idea of I think when someone's going through
Speaker 2: that healing journey, they're almost oscillating between like or do
Speaker 2: I know myself again?
Speaker 1: Oh? I don't know who I am anymore. I feel
Speaker 1: like I know what I want on pizza. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I have no idea, you know. So I feel like
Speaker 1: they go through this what I think that partly answers
Speaker 1: that you need. These people in your life are constantly
Speaker 1: reminding you, and as you said, anti gaslighting you. What
Speaker 1: else can someone do when they're kind of oscillating between that.
Speaker 1: I think I'm making progress. I'm not sure anymore. I
Speaker 1: think I'm making progress. I'm lost again. How do you?
Speaker 1: What do you find in that period.
Speaker 2: Embrace the oscillation, right, because it is it's calibration, right,
Speaker 2: You're you're sort of it's like a child wobbly on
Speaker 2: their feet when they're learning to walk. You're you're learning
Speaker 2: this again, and so that warbliness is it's the it's
Speaker 2: their internalized voice and your individuated self kind of having
Speaker 2: a little bit of an argument and sort of view
Speaker 2: that part of you that's trying to individuate, like say
Speaker 2: you got this, and that's an old voice, and that
Speaker 2: old we can just sort of say, you know, you're
Speaker 2: you're actually not welcome here anymore, like you could just
Speaker 2: step out, thank you, and the But it's the individuated
Speaker 2: voice and the internalized, the narcissistic, internalized, the gaslighted and
Speaker 2: internalized voice. And they're they're going, they're still fighting it out,
Speaker 2: and we feel as though, am I aren't I just
Speaker 2: like today anyone watching that call? I mean, but it
Speaker 2: said this was not okay, and the person was almost
Speaker 2: like the Emperor's not bring any clothes, right that this
Speaker 2: person was saying, this emperor is naked, go away, rom Andy,
Speaker 2: go away. And so I think that that initially we
Speaker 2: need those voices a lot more, and there will still
Speaker 2: be times when we we will tell because I think
Speaker 2: there's certain trigger situations that kind of remain pretty consistent
Speaker 2: for survivors for a long long time. We do hold
Speaker 2: it internally, and we were told too, Jay. Many serve
Speaker 2: diverse are told they're upity if they want to achieve
Speaker 2: a goal, do you really think you're going to pull
Speaker 2: that off? Like I think you're reaching a little too high.
Speaker 2: So they were minimized and trivialized for wanting to do
Speaker 2: something that they still hear that inner voice of don't
Speaker 2: be ridiculous, You're never going to be able to do that,
Speaker 2: and they make that voice their own instead of trying
Speaker 2: to learn like that kind of that was an unwanted visitor.
Speaker 2: So let's see if you can sort of treat it
Speaker 2: that way, and we can even think about it. If
Speaker 2: you look at trauma theory, we talk about the protector
Speaker 2: persecutor kind of a model that the persecuting voice, in
Speaker 2: a strange way is doing this really messed up way
Speaker 2: of keeping you safe because it's telling you, like in essence,
Speaker 2: it's that persecuting voices. That voice is telling you you're
Speaker 2: going to fail, So you don't try, and when you
Speaker 2: were in the narcissistic relationship and you failed, they would
Speaker 2: humiliate and shame you right or tell you it was
Speaker 2: going to happen. But if you can say that, okay,
Speaker 2: I see what you're trying to do a persecuting voice,
Speaker 2: I'll be fine if this doesn't go well because it'll
Speaker 2: be on my terms. And if you really have done
Speaker 2: radical acceptance, even when the narcissistic person rolls their eyes
Speaker 2: and it's a little big surprise, you have to keep
Speaker 2: coming back to this is a them thing. This is
Speaker 2: not a me thing. Not saying it doesn't hurt. This
Speaker 2: is a carousel that really takes a toll on people,
Speaker 2: but it can be done. But that oscillation starts to
Speaker 2: become a little less oscillate tea. The more people have
Speaker 2: these validating voices, people build up what we call efficacy,
Speaker 2: the idea that they're able to do something right. So
Speaker 2: the first time we're able to do something successfully from
Speaker 2: make up a cake or change the oil in our car,
Speaker 2: use a drill and put something in the wall, that
Speaker 2: what it does to the psyche is remarkable. So I
Speaker 2: tell survivors keep trying new things, because the more efficacy
Speaker 2: you build that also helps foster individuation. So I'm like,
Speaker 2: grab the drill. If you put a few holes in
Speaker 2: the wall, but the picture goes up, you're going to
Speaker 2: feel really good about the picture going up. Try to
Speaker 2: make the difficult called soufle You may burn a few,
Speaker 2: but when it's made great. I did try to do
Speaker 2: this with bread. I still have not successfully raised the
Speaker 2: love for bread. So it's my last neurotic wound. But
Speaker 2: I think that when we find that some people and
Speaker 2: other people do all kinds of interesting things. I see,
Speaker 2: like some folks I've worked with learned languages and they
Speaker 2: learn how to play a musical instrument, and they'll say,
Speaker 2: this feels so good because back in the day I
Speaker 2: would have been made fun of for this. Those who
Speaker 2: are able to get out will say it's so interesting
Speaker 2: to do this, and that confidence starts jumping into other
Speaker 2: areas of their life.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's really a rehabilitation ectly right, self identity,
Speaker 1: self worth, self confidence, self acceptance. You're almost teaching yourself
Speaker 1: to do things again in order to feel whole right.
Speaker 2: Well, absolutely, but you know what you say, it's interesting,
Speaker 2: so you rebuild. For a lot of people to build
Speaker 2: because if this happened to them in childhood, their individuated
Speaker 2: identity never got to form at all.
Speaker 1: Wow, So this is a built yeah to build, it's
Speaker 1: from scratch, doctor Romedey. This is, you know, so informative.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of so many people right now who I
Speaker 1: know are going to benefit from our conversation today, because
Speaker 1: it's almost like I feel like the more and more
Speaker 1: I'm speaking to people, the more and more I hear
Speaker 1: about people dealing with this in their lives. But I
Speaker 1: want to ask you one last question, and it's this
Speaker 1: idea of can going back to the empathy point, that
Speaker 1: forgiveness point for the person who's healing from the narcissistic
Speaker 1: person for them, can the narcissistic person ever heal?
Speaker 2: So it's a listen. I do believe in human potentiality.
Speaker 2: I'm probably never going to bet on the psychopathic of
Speaker 2: narcissistic course in the race, but might they at least
Speaker 2: come in the top five maybe? And what I mean
Speaker 2: by that is part of this isn't understanding the origins
Speaker 2: of narcissism. Right, some narcissistic folks, their personality development was
Speaker 2: very much shaped by adversity, trauma, neglect, loss, chaos attachment
Speaker 2: modes right that subgroup. If they are willing humbly to
Speaker 2: engage into the work of growth, they do excellent trauma
Speaker 2: informed work with a therapist and then get beyond the
Speaker 2: trauma informed work and are able to reflect on how
Speaker 2: they're able to create that schema of how they affect others.
Speaker 2: Right to pull, it's almost like you're pulling away that
Speaker 2: you're pulling open gates and say, there's people out there
Speaker 2: see this thing you're doing. They're being affected, and it's
Speaker 2: really opening the schema out of how they're desperately trying
Speaker 2: to protect themselves to how other people are getting hurt.
Speaker 2: And I have It's interesting. I work with a narcissistic
Speaker 2: client once for many, many years and I sort of
Speaker 2: cut back my practice and I've had one or two
Speaker 2: of them reach back, Can I work with you? I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know, I've really kind of shut up shop. But
Speaker 2: they you know what they said, though, one in particular said,
Speaker 2: I am I'm screen me get my girlfriend and I
Speaker 2: know it's not okay. Now he's still screaming at her
Speaker 2: not so good, but he does know. He's like, I
Speaker 2: know it's not okay, and she may leave me and
Speaker 2: I probably deserve it. And he's like you taught me that,
Speaker 2: he's still screaming on that part. But humility is such
Speaker 2: a big part of this, right, and and the I
Speaker 2: honestly think the antidote to narcissism is humility. And humility
Speaker 2: means we're not perfect, we have flaws and it and
Speaker 2: we are and it's not all a fantasy and that
Speaker 2: we're And honestly, the hardest thing for a narcissistic person
Speaker 2: to accept is that they're ordinary. We're your ordinary. I'm ordinary.
Speaker 2: Everyone in this room is ordinary, and we're simultaneously special,
Speaker 2: but we're just people, right And so if that for
Speaker 2: them not to be the most special person means removing
Speaker 2: the camp off the volcano, which is terrifying for them.
Speaker 2: And if in a way they're almost terrified by their
Speaker 2: own rage, you need one very skilled therapist to guide
Speaker 2: someone through that journey, you know, And so and they
Speaker 2: have to keep showing up. And for about almost sixty
Speaker 2: to seventy percent of narcissistic folks drop out of therapy prematurely.
Speaker 2: And it usually happens when the rubber meets the road
Speaker 2: and the work starts to getting really vulnerable. That's when
Speaker 2: I've lost clients, and so we have to go very
Speaker 2: very gently into that forest with them. But unfortunately, if
Speaker 2: we go too gently and we never get there, then
Speaker 2: we're sort of doing a lot of navel gazing. So
Speaker 2: it's just finding that kind of balance, and you know,
Speaker 2: they can do a lot of spiritual bypassing that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff, Like you can't just you can't aphorism your
Speaker 2: way through this. You're going to have to do this
Speaker 2: painful work face up to that vulnerability. That's I've seen
Speaker 2: some narcissistic people make a little bit of progress, But
Speaker 2: the way I put it is this, there's hope for
Speaker 2: them to make some progress, but the harm they've usually
Speaker 2: done to another person usually it's not super it's not
Speaker 2: really that fixable. And so many people will say, in
Speaker 2: a fear of a lot of people narcissistic relationships, is
Speaker 2: what if they change for the next person. They're not
Speaker 2: going to change for the next person, right, what if
Speaker 2: it all changes overnight? This is not an overnight This
Speaker 2: is years and years and years of committed work to this.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I've seen micro changes and not enough
Speaker 2: to have probably consistently affected other people's relationships and they
Speaker 2: still personality is like a rubber band. We can pull
Speaker 2: it out, so all of a sudden, Romney the introvert
Speaker 2: could become Romney the extrovert for one night only, and
Speaker 2: then when we get home, the rubber band will go
Speaker 2: back to It's like the narcissistic person on a good
Speaker 2: day with a good therapist might get stretched out a
Speaker 2: little bit, seem a little bit more tuned aware, do
Speaker 2: some empathic adjacent things, but as soon as the first
Speaker 2: time stress comes into the picture, rubber band goes back
Speaker 2: to its original size.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. As
Speaker 1: the last question that came from that was what would
Speaker 1: you say to someone who says, I'll wait for them
Speaker 1: to change.
Speaker 2: Then you're waiting for a bus that's never going to come.
Speaker 2: You're waiting for a submarine to show up at a
Speaker 2: bus stop, basically, and in the process, it's not even
Speaker 2: just as that may not come, you will lose yourself
Speaker 2: in the process, And to me, that sort of soul death,
Speaker 2: that sort of loss of self is it's just not okay.
Speaker 2: And listen, you and I both know this cultural We
Speaker 2: both come from a culture where remaining in a marriage
Speaker 2: no matter what the conditions are, is very much a
Speaker 2: sort of a symptom of the culture. And this is
Speaker 2: where I've probably seen it most pointedly of people who
Speaker 2: really some folks would find a way, whether their spirituality
Speaker 2: or other relationships with their children or others in their
Speaker 2: community to sort of create a meaningful space outside of
Speaker 2: that problematic relationship. But others it was like watching a
Speaker 2: fruit die on the vine. And it's to me one
Speaker 2: of the most horrific things to witness is the potential
Speaker 2: of a human being being lost to this kind of invalidation.
Speaker 2: And I shudder to think how much potential, creative, potential, knowledge,
Speaker 2: wisdom that people have held back because of invalidated. This
Speaker 2: book is a love story to every survivor and saying
Speaker 2: to them, please bring We need you. We need all
Speaker 2: of your gifts in this world because you have so many. Listen,
Speaker 2: the fact that you endured this relationship is already a gift,
Speaker 2: but so all the stuff you kept behind the gate.
Speaker 2: Open those gates so we can see all this beautiful
Speaker 2: stuff that you could bring into the world.
Speaker 1: Doctor Romany, Thank you so much. The book is called
Speaker 1: It's Not You, Identifying and Healing from narcissistic people. It's
Speaker 1: available right now, go and grab your copy today. We
Speaker 1: have just touched on the tip of the iceberg of
Speaker 1: the insights and the knowledge that's within this book. Please
Speaker 1: go grab your copy, and if you don't already follow
Speaker 1: Dr Romney on Instagram and YouTube, make sure you go
Speaker 1: and subscribe and follow. And I want to see what
Speaker 1: resonates with you from this conversation, so tag both of us.
Speaker 1: I'd love to see if you've been affected by any
Speaker 1: of this, if you're a friend or family members benefiting
Speaker 1: from the book, I'd love to see your takeaways. Dr Rominey,
Speaker 1: thank you so much again for this very thoughtful, very
Speaker 1: very insightful conversation. And I love your step by step
Speaker 1: approach and also the ability to define and clarify things
Speaker 1: so well for us, so I always feel better prepared
Speaker 1: to talk to people even who may mention it to me, friends,
Speaker 1: family members, whatever may happen, and kind of guide them
Speaker 1: in the right direction towards a therapist or the support
Speaker 1: that they need.
Speaker 2: So thank you so much, Thank you, j thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you.
Speaker 1: If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with
Speaker 1: Dr Julie Smith on unblocking negative emotions and how to
Speaker 1: embrace difficult feelings.
Speaker 2: You've just got to be motivated every day, and if
Speaker 2: you're not, then what are you doing?
Speaker 1: And actually humans don't work that way.
Speaker 2: Motivation, you have to treat it like any other emotion.
Speaker 2: Some days it will be there, some days it won't