Red Flags in Social Media and Relationships

Our Guest's ex came on so strong and in a way that showed her love and attention unlike any she had seen before. As things between the couple began to deteriorate, our Guest received a message from another person who was having an affair with our Guest's partner. Turns out their partner had a long history of narcissistic behavior and cheating in relationships. Listen to this episode and find out some big red flags when the person is addicted to social media, and what our Guest did to get out of such a toxic relationship.

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This podcast should not be used as a substitute for medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek independent medical advice, counseling, and/or therapy from a health care professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue, or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast.

Navigating Narcissism is produced by Red Table Talk Podcasts. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Jada Pinkett-Smith, Fallon Jethroe, Ellen Rakieten, and Dr. Ramani Durvasula. Also, PRODUCER: Matthew Jones, ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Mara De La Rosa. EDITORS AND AUDIO MIXERS: Devin Donaghy and Calvin Bailiff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast should not be used as a substitute for
medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek
independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare
professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This

(00:24):
episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people.
The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the
podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do
not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, I
Heart Media, or their employees. The first major argument and

(00:47):
the most consistent issue in the relationship was his addiction
to social media. He would constantly be on his phone,
to the point where I said, you don't even have
a hobby. Social media is your hobby. You don't watch
TV shows, you don't read, you don't do anything. You
just sit on your phone. And he would just watch
his own stories over and over again and smile to himself.

(01:07):
He'd watch himself and be smiling to himself. He'd look
at every every single like, every single comment he just
read how much people adore him. And that was a
huge red flag for me. He was in love with
his own show, and as I as the relationship went on,
and I really got to understand that it is a show.
He was so in love with this production that he

(01:28):
was putting on. Social Media is the playground of the
narcissistic person. A mirror that actually talks back and through
likes and comments is even a mirror that validates you.
We are going to hear the story of one woman's
love story gone wrong and how social media was a
big red flag that she didn't initially register but ended

(01:52):
up being one of many. Her story is the reminder
that anything that starts by feeling like a grandiose very
tale rarely ends well. That you can't dress up obsession
is just intense interest or a grown up crush. It's obsession,
and that's never a good thing. That our own narratives

(02:12):
can allow us to sculpt red flags into a love
story instead of a cautionary tale. I have no doubt
that many people will hear parts of their story in hers,
and a reminder that all of us, even myself, have
been duped in these relationships that feel more like con
games than connection. Ultimately, these fairy tales turned fables end

(02:37):
up teaching us some really important life lessons. Thank you
so much for being with us. I am just so
grateful to hear your story somebody who is as strong
and a power in your own right to share your story,
because I think what it does is it really pushes
back on the tropes and even this word victim, which

(02:59):
I ever like to use. And you know, given your backstory,
you were whatever the opposite of a victim is so
But yet you've gone through one of these relationships. So
can you tell us about your your relationship with your ex?
What drew you into this relationship? So Funnily enough, when
I first met him, I despised him. I thought he

(03:20):
was so attention seeking. He was that person in the
room that needed everybody in the room to look at them,
constant jokes. It just seemed like he was trying so hard,
and and I remember thinking to myself, there's no way
that I would ever I could ever or I would
ever be attracted to this guy. But really what it

(03:41):
was was this NonStop obsession with me. It felt like
he came at me at a million miles per hour
and there was absolutely nothing I could do. If I
took a step back, he'd take ten steps forward, and
he was so funny, so charming, and really, when I

(04:02):
say obsessed with me, he would tell me to say,
I'm obsessed with you. I mean, there was one day
where part of the day he called me. Every seven minutes,
he would say he wanted to wait outside my door
of my apartment. He he made me feel like I
was his perfect woman, and he had finally met his

(04:24):
perfect woman, and he'd been searching all his life and
no girl was ever quite right. But then he found me,
and now he's obsessed with me. And I thought, maybe
this is what love is. Maybe this is what happens
when you meet the one, is that they are obsessed
with you, and you are all they can see, and

(04:44):
it does come at you in a million miles per hour.
So I just kind of went with it. Where do
you think that message came from? That possibly this level
of sort of obsessiveness could be love that comes from
a deep desire to be and from childhood trauma, and
from my own insecurities and my own personal issues and

(05:08):
my desire to be loved. And that idea that the
obsession that calls every seven minutes, the I just want
to wait outside your door. Did any of that ever
give you concern, and if so, how did you push
that concern out. I know it sounds nuts, but I
was never concerned because it was masked in this like
super charming humor. Everything was funny and he was kind

(05:31):
of making fun of himself of how obsessed he was
with me. It was just so entertaining and funny. It
was like I was watching a show and I was
the star of the show, and I felt so special.
It's so interesting you say that, because when we pull
the behavior out right called me every seven minutes, that

(05:51):
behavior by itself without the context, I mean, it literally
feels like so many red flags that we can't even see,
Like it just too much. It's overwhelming, right, But I
think that what you've pointed out here is so wise that,
you know, calling every seven minutes in the absolute obsession,
if it is embedded in this structure, like you said,

(06:11):
of almost humor of charm, when it's in that context,
all of a sudden, it doesn't feel as red flaggy.
And I think that what's so hard is so many
survivors of these relationships afterwards will say, hey, called me
every seven minutes, How did I not see that? It's
almost like one of those like find the Shape games,
When the shape is embedded in a hundred other shapes,

(06:32):
it's hard to find. But if it's the only thing
on the page, obviously it would pop out. And I
think that when we pull out red flags, we tend
to pull them out without context. I'm so glad you
framed it that way, because this obsessive stuff it almost
feels like stalking one oh one. But in that context,
it really feels almost like intense rom com, you know,

(06:53):
kind of crazy love. So I just think that that's
really interesting observation how that happened. Absolutely. I also think
that I had a history of choosing bad partners. I
was pursuing guys that would ghost me or treat me badly,
or you know. I've been in relationships where men had cheated,

(07:14):
and so to have someone coming at me and obsessed
with me, given my past and given the traumas and
issues that I have, I looked at that as Wow, finally, Wow,
maybe maybe this is what it's supposed to be, and
maybe I should give this a shot because what I
was doing before wasn't really working for me, so maybe
I'll just let it happen. That, too, is like we

(07:37):
sort of called this pendulum NG and it's how a
lot of people sometimes get themselves stuck in a new
sort of toxic situation because having had the experiences you
had with partners that were almost dismissive or disconnected or
or unavailable or unfaithful, the offset of this absolute obsession

(07:59):
means that the session that obsessiveness is not only a
red flag, it's a comfort because the pendulum has now
swung this entire other way that it's almost feeding and
nourishing a need that wasn't met before. And very very
common and many, many people who found themselves in these
kinds of toxic relationships will say it was so different
than the other relationships, and those relationships weren't good, that

(08:22):
I had to believe that this one might be going
in in a healthier direction. And so that that balancing
act is really challenging. And and I'm glad you bring
it up that because I think a lot of people
will relate to I finally met this person who was
totally obsessed with me, and this is this is so
different than the person who wouldn't answer my calls or
ghost me or cheat on me. It totally makes sense

(08:42):
and I think that humanizes that constant pattern that people
feel like, oh, I'm so silly. I did see the
red flags, and I'll say, no, I don't know that
you're silly. If when you think of what it was
against and all the other stuff, it was happening within relative.
It's all relative. So he was really funny. What did
any do for you? When you ask generally women, you

(09:02):
say what do you look for in a man? And
of the time she will say, I want someone who
makes me laugh. I used to say that, and I
thought that that's what I had. I had someone who
was making me laugh all the time. And when you
are constantly on a high, constantly, everything is just like
euphoric when you're laughing all the time, and I'm sure

(09:25):
there's like chemistry going on in your brain that makes
it so. But in hindsight, that was definitely used because
it was taken away when he wanted, and it was
brought back when he wanted. But in the beginning it
was just pure euphoria, just laughter. And I really again,
I really thought, like I've always wanted someone that made
me laugh. Here we are that idea of you know,

(09:48):
laughter as love bombing is so you know, I've never
had heard someone sort of put it in such a
clear way. We know, like people look for humor, but
in essence, the laughter was a key element of this
love bombing experience. Absolutely, now that I'm out of it,
I feel like it was intentionally used to pull me
up onto this high. Given that laughter, it's such a

(10:10):
big part of the love bomby. Can you talk about
the other sort of love bomby elements of the early
part of this relationship. In the beginning of the relationship,
it was NonStop calls, texts, dates every day or multiple
times a day. Didn't want me to leave his site.
He wanted me in the office with him. I slept
at his house every night. I was inserted into his life.

(10:32):
From zero to a hundred. It was shopping, sprays by me,
anything I want. I felt like Julia robertson Pretty Woman,
like you know again, it's these things that women dream of,
You dream of the laughter and Richard gear and the restaurants.
He lives a life of extreme glitz and glamour, his

(10:52):
luxury cars, eats in the finest restaurants, walk into any store,
get whatever you want, I'll pay for it. Again. It
was just this constant high. The early part of a
relationship with a narcissistic person is either too much or
not enough. Either it is what she is describing, which
is obsessive and exciting and intense. Or it can be

(11:14):
about waiting by the phone, wondering if they are thinking
about you, wondering how soon is too soon to text back,
and trying to figure out if they are even interested.
And then when they show up it can be fun
and exciting, and then they disappear again. In healthy relationships,
that communication, rhythms and expectations are more clear and less chaotic.

(11:38):
Even in the beginning, like everything was so euphoric and high,
and we were laughing all the time. It was like
a dream, a dream come true. You say it's high,
it actually is high like that much like we can
go anywhere we want, We could do whatever we want.
You can have anything you want. That's dopamine, dopamine, dopamine.
I mean, it's it's really no different than I hate

(11:59):
to say it, but doing a line of cocaine and
it's a very it's it's hits the same brain areas.
Make no mistake. It's an interesting one to punch because
you have the dopamine of this is so fun. I
feel I literally feel high. Then you have this oxytocin,
which is sort of the huggy hormone, like you feel
surrounded and you feel loved, and you're in You're with
someone who wants to be with you all the time.

(12:20):
When you have those two neurotransmitters of neuro hormones work
and forget about it, nobody has a chance to be
frank with you. When you were in these early weeks
and months, and it was let's spend all our time together,
that's the keys, Let's spend all our time together and
doing this really really fun stuff. What would happen if
you wanted a minute to yourself, I don't know, see
a friend, or go to the gym on your own,

(12:41):
or whatever it is you wanted to do on your own,
or just do something you typically would have done before
you met him. That did actually happen, and I completely
stopped working out, and I remember saying to him, you know,
I've been living your life and I'm kind of sick
of just living out of the back pack and I
don't have my routine anymore. I'd love to to get
back to that. And he got upset, but it was

(13:03):
more of a no, no, don't no. I want to
see you, I want to spend time with you. You're perfect,
it was. It wasn't an angry upset. It was making
me feel bad for wanting to kind of like break
this momentum, and why would I want to get off
the train. Let's keep going on the train. Did it work?
Did you feel bad? I felt bad and I didn't
go m okay as time went on. Did you feel

(13:27):
like you used to put it beautifully? I'm living out
of a backpack. I've lost my routine. And when we
lose our routines, we kind of lose our sort of
our true north, We lose the things that kind of
keep us oriented, and we kind of get caught in
this new thing. It's it's like living on vacation, which
obviously it's not going to work in the long term.
He said, please don't leave me. I need to be
with you all the time, and he wasn't angry. He

(13:48):
was more sad. You felt bad, so you canceled whatever
those other plans would be. But you were still living
out of a backpack that wasn't going to be sustainable
for a really long time. So how did you figure
out that impast? Did you just keep living out of
a backpack and going back and forth between your residents
and his. Yeah, I just kept doing it until he

(14:09):
said move in with me. He bought an apartment and
he said, I'm closing on this date, so we just
need to suck it up for a little bit longer
and then we're going to live together. And I mean,
it all happened so fast, I would say the day
I met him, he was saying, I'm obsessed with you.
I love you. You're perfect. You're a woman that I've
always wanted. Two weeks later he said he really loves me.

(14:34):
And this is probably three or four weeks, and he said,
we're going to move in together. Fast. Yeah, very very fast.
I was with this person for nine or ten months,
and I try to explain to people that nine or
ten months in the world of a narcissist feels like

(14:54):
a lifetime. It was like dog years. Yeah, it's like
it's like dog years, exactly right, because even three weeks
you're moving in and it's I love you and all that.
In a way, in three weeks you've kind of compressed
a year to two years. So if you do the
math on that. So three weeks equals two years and
you were together? Did you say nine months? Ten months?

(15:18):
So what is that that? How many weeks is that?
That's like forty weeks, let's call that. Let's call it.
Just give my numbers. Even thirty nine weeks and three
weeks this year, that's thirteen years, right, That's what it
felt like. Yeah, I bet, and that's what a lot
of people will say. But you know what I wonder
about is here, you're going through this intense experience. You're
meeting this person. It's a whirlwind romance. It's it's almost

(15:40):
like a fairy tale. Were you sharing this with your friends?
And what were your friends saying to you? My friends
were telling me that they were happy, that I'm happy,
but it's very fast. There were remarks about it's very fast.
It's very fast. But the other thing is is this
person as a public figure, this person has a blue

(16:01):
check on their next to their name on Instagram, this
person must be a legitimate, trusted person. Because I hate
to say it, but a huge part of it was
like the level of trust that social media gave. He
was also very open about his life on social media.
You could click on his Instagram and see what he
was up to at any time of the day. Like

(16:22):
it also gave me a very weird and false sense
of trust for this project. Was it as though you
felt like you were you were actually seeing the real
person because you were literally seeing what he was up
to all the time. Literally, maybe even millions of people
were kind of buying into who he was. So it's
an interesting form of gas lighting because you were doubting

(16:46):
your reality. Like, even if you did experience something like
this is too much or I don't feel comfortable, millions
of people think this is cool, so I would have
to be wrong. How could millions of people be wrong exactly.
I've never quite articular it. Did it just like that?
But it has throughout this process and even through the
process of coming out of this and healing from this

(17:07):
of was I crazy? Was I wrong? In my experience?
Because there are a lot of people out there that
that love him. In this situation, the legitimacy of her
partner was created by his status and his believability on
social media. It in a sense legitimized him and millions

(17:28):
of people can't be wrong, right. However, this also happens
when a person gets into a relationship with someone who
may be legitimized because of their profession. Doctor, attorney, professor,
corporate executive, to name a few jobs where people may
believe but they are in a professional position and if

(17:49):
I have an issue, it must be me because they
seem legit. People need to trust their intuition, their gut.
It doesn't matter how many letters someone has after their
name or how prestigious their job is. Emotional abuse and
manipulation can be perpetrated by anyone. They would say they
loved him on social media in your life together in

(18:11):
the nine months, like the nine months, which is again
thirteen narcissist dog years, I guess whatever that was. But
the nine months isn't a short period of time. Nine
months is in a long period of times. It is interesting, though,
a lot of folks we talked to on this podcast,
nine months to a year was really where it all.
It became so clear some folks were lucky and got out.
For some people they stayed in. But they're like, at

(18:33):
that point, okay, I see this clear, no doubt, And
I understand that a lot of folks on social media,
we're sort of propping up this image of him as
being all that. As you look back on the relationship,
the nine months of the relationship, and obviously, you know,
we understand why some of those early red flags weren't
perceived as such, But as you look back, what were
some of the other red flags that jumped out at

(18:55):
you that now you're like, oh, absolutely, this was a
red flag. And I'm very clear on that now that
I'm out of it. There's so many. I remember the
first time he completely snapped at me, and it was
over something so small, whether we can we're going to
check in the luggage or take it on board, and
he just completely snapped at me. I sat there in

(19:15):
silence for about thirty seconds, and then he went back
and it was immediately back to funny, charming. I'm so
sorry I did that, And I remember thinking, wow, there's
a whole other side that I haven't seen. And then
it started happening more frequently. He snapped a couple of
times in front of his brother. I remember definitely red
flagging that at the time, but he always had an
excuse and he always covered it with more humor and charm.

(19:39):
It was always so sorry, I had a tough day,
You're the most amazing woman in the world. You know,
it went back to more dopamine, more dopamine. I went
back on that high. I remember he would drive these
insanely expensive luxury cars and spent so much money, but
was struggling with money, and I used to questioned him

(20:00):
a lot about it. To keep up in appearance. Was
a huge red flag for me. Another one was his
addiction to social media, complete addiction. If you get every
every single like, every single comment, he just read how
much people adore him, and that was a huge red
flag for me. He was in love with his own show,

(20:22):
and as I as the relationship went on, and I
really got to understand that it is a show, it
was a production that he was putting on. He was
so in love with this production that he was putting on.
What was the goal of doing all that? He really
wants to be famous, to be fame, just famous for
the sake of fame. Famous, And I used to say
to him, for what you need? You know, normal famous

(20:44):
people are they saying or they act or they have
a church tour, like what what? What is it? And
he used to just say, just I want to be famous.
But he didn't tell you why he made it seem
like work. I was the one that was pestering him
to get off the phone, but he's working. This is
but never clear on the why of the famous. The
reason I say that is I remember many years ago

(21:05):
I was consulting with someone to the team. Now. Somebody
was very very narcissistic as part of this group, young
man probably in his twenties or so, made late twenties,
and his goal singularly is I want to be famous.
I want to be famous. And I kept pushing tell
me the why of this, like, what's the I could understand,
for example, why a singer would want to be famous

(21:25):
because they want to sell albums, you know. I could
understand why the actor would want to be famous so
people would come see the shows or films they were in.
But same thing didn't really have any famousness. I think
actually though that he was might have even been trying
to become an actor, but really just wanted to be famous.
And finally cracked him on. What this person said was

(21:47):
I want to be famous so I never have to
be alone. And I had similar reaction. I said, oh,
that's interesting, and we could work with that, and then
we continue that what does it mean to be alone,
and and and there was this deep, deep loneliness. But
the ideas if you're famous, you were always stuck in
people's minds. People would always want to be with you

(22:09):
because you're famous. And it cut down to that deep
insecurity of well, otherwise, why would someone want to be
with me? But nobody with that kind of personality would
ever be able to articulate that. Right, But the fame
then becomes its own form of defense. In essence, wanting
to be famous is just a manifestation of grandiosity. Yeah. Yeah,
that's so interesting that you say that, because another red

(22:29):
flag that I had was he was never alone. It
was even if I needed to go out of the
house to run to CVS to go get something, he'd
be like, no, stay, he could not did not ever
want to be alone. And if he was alone, he
would pick up the phone and call someone, anyone to
come and meet him. Can never ever be alone. That's
so interesting that the two go very much together when

(22:52):
you think about it. Our depiction of famous people in
our culture, as they always have like these groups of
people around them, these hangers on, these helpers, these as
just dencies. You know, again, you famous people always seem
to be sitting in a group, and I think that's
just because that's what we see. Maybe famous people spend
time alone. I don't know when a famous people to
know that, but I think that there is this idea
that to be famous for the sake of being famous

(23:14):
is definitely a grandiose defense without it being a means
to an end of person. I want to be famous
how I can, everyone will buy my clothes, So that
kind of thing is just I simply want to be famous.
It's really really fascinating. So there's a lot a lot
of red flags. Some of them you describe, like, for example,
the snapping, then the quietness, and then the going back.

(23:35):
That sequence is really really interesting to me because it's
so confusing. If all he had done was snapped and
didn't course correct in a way, you'd almost be like, Okay,
this is just not a nice person. They're ray g
they're snappy. But the snap in the correction is so confusing,
and it really drives that cognitive dissonance and that trauma

(23:58):
bond of oh, they didn't mean it, they caught it
right away, they know what they're doing because they immediately apologized.
That's a really tough one. In some ways, it's almost
worse than a person who snaps and then just keep snapping,
because that just feels bad. But the snap and the
correct that's tough. Yeah, it makes me feel like he
was working on himself, maybe even like he knew it

(24:19):
was wrong, and it was very much let's just forget
about that and forget that happened. So I felt I
felt almost pressured to Okay, we're having fun, we're laughing,
we're on the train, we're on the happy train. Let's
let's come on, get back on. Yeah, exactly. And he
was setting it up that way because if he kept
saying rag d and snappy about the luggage or whatever else,

(24:40):
your mood would have changed too. And he wasn't very
he was very invested in your mood being up. If
your mood was up, then it was a mirror of
his mood being up. And so it was a really
challenging dance. But yeah, and then this idea that you said,
I want to change myself to make this work. It's
so interesting you went there too, because that's a to
trauma bonded pattern. I'm going to change myself and then

(25:03):
this will be fine. Is that a pattern you've had
all your life or is that something that was new
to this relationship. I would say that that's a quality
that I've had in romantic relationships. Yeah, I would say
so right. And it's one of the hardest things for
survivors to work on because we can't be completely stubborn origins.
I'm not going to change one thing about me. But
then it's how much do we relent and change everything

(25:24):
about us? Like how to hit that gray in the middle.
It's really really hard, you know, I think, especially for
women in our society. So I also think that I
was so convinced, meaning that he had convinced me. I
was so convinced that this was my person. But I
felt like I had to sacrifice things that were on

(25:45):
my supposed checklist because he told me that this is
my person. He told me that he is my person.
And this is what love is like it is a
million miles per hour, and it is euphoric, and this
is this is what you've been waiting for, what he's
been waiting for, and and whatever idea you had in
your mind of what love is, throw that away because

(26:06):
this is it, which makes sense because how many people
walk away from euphoria? Right, Why would I? Why would anyone?
You know, It's it's almost someone saying, Hey, you're here
in this place and there's plenty to eat, and the
weather is perfect, and there's a big, beautiful everything you've
ever wanted. So you want to walk over to this
other place that's more uncomfortable? People like, no, I'm good.

(26:28):
So that's the challenge. So the last question I want
to ask you is, again, it was a euphoric start.
And while we could sit here all this time later
and look back and say this was a red flag
and that was a red flag, but now we recognize
it's really hard to just pull these strands out of
something that's so complex. It was euphoric. It was euphoric.

(26:49):
Nobody ever wants again, nobody walks away from euphoria. But
what was the first thing, What was the first behavior
that punctured that sense of euphoria and made you say, whoa,
even though it was euphoric, and even though it would
go back to euphoric, what was the first time in
behavior that came through that made you sort of doubt

(27:09):
the whole enterprise. This would have to be when I
first found out that he cheated. Okay, that'll do it.
That was the first time where the the image cracked
and there was a permanent crack there, and I realized,
I'm part of a show. I've been lied to, and

(27:33):
I can't unsee it. I can't go back now. I
mean I went back, but but I I couldn't unsee that.
I think that the not being able to unsee it,
That's what I was getting at, is that the I
can't unsee it and this wasn't good even though you
physically psychologically go back to the relationship. It's not that
there's a penny drop moment and it's done. It's that

(27:53):
there's this moment of like, oh I saw this. I
can't unsee this. You say, I was in a show,
so it was all this, But there was actually this
other side to the story. It's like somebody has a
favorite author or something and then they come to find
out they did terrible things, and you're sort of like,
can I read their books anymore? And I, what's this
real story here? Is that you see? That's right? So

(28:16):
it actually wasn't even the cheating that I couldn't unsee
because I think I had invested so much into the
relationship that I would have overlooked the cheating no matter
what it was what I had seen, yea. And what
makes so much sense about that too, is that, as
you said, the betrayal the cheating, and that would be
a probably a deal breaker for most people. However, adding
to that, it was multiple people. But like you said,

(28:38):
the disgust over everything this person portrayed themselves to be
was absolutely a lie. And there was so much reinforcement
in the relationship, especially in the beginning of the low
bombing stage. He'd always say, I'm solid, I'm never going
to embarrass you, I'm never going to cheat on you.
It would be my worst nightmare if you cheated on me.
There was so much reinforcement of his hatred towards and

(29:00):
ideality and how that would be his ultimate nightmare. The
old Shakespeare line goes, the lady doth protests too much.
Methinks we can take some liberties with Shakespeare here and
say the dude doth protests too much. Shakespeare understood reaction
formation hundreds of years before Freud wrote about it, which

(29:22):
is this idea that the thing a person protests so
vigorously or as a holy roller about is actually the
very sin that they are likely to be committing, and
narcissistic folks are notorious for their reliance on reaction formation.
Simply put, it's the narcissistic shame, losing out like slime

(29:45):
and coming out as bizarrely self righteous pronouncements. Told me
a story about how he'd been cheated on when he
was sixteen, and it traumatized him. He never wants to
feel like that. This is you never need to worry
about that with him. And any time I would question
it or you know, he was on his phone a lot,
so if I wouldn't question it, if I would doubt him,
he would be like, you need to sort yourself out,

(30:06):
because I've already told you that I don't do that.
If you look hard enough, I'm sure you'll find you're
torturing yourself. How easy the lies came off, how natural
it was to him. That was something that I couldn't
ever unsee either. Chilling. It's chilling when somebody can lie
so easily. Yeah, I think there's a real difference when
you're in a relationship and someone cheats on you, and

(30:28):
I don't know, there's this isolated incident, but when there's
a cheating that has this extreme level of deceit. They
intentionally purposefully went out and cheated and then lied to
you about everything they were doing and then blamed you
for even thinking that. It's just layers and layers of

(30:49):
deceit that really kind of like fumbled me. And that
was the first moment of like what am I dealing
with here? Because this isn't this isn't normal, it's not normal,
it's not healthy. And you were dealing with two things.
You were dealing with deceit and gas lighting, you know,
so lying would have been him saying I'm not cheating

(31:09):
or I didn't never talk to that person. That's lying, right.
The turning around and blaming you and painting you as
someone who is something wrong with her, and accusation and
all of that, that's the gaslighting. Right. You can show
a liar evidence and say yo, here's the text message,

(31:30):
but your garden variety average liar will say, okay, yep,
got it. I didn't want to lose you. They might
come up with an excuse, but then they'll cop to it.
He didn't never cop to it and blamed you. That
mixture that makes a gas lighting, And you can see
there's a difference. Like you said, being lied to, even
about a one night stand wouldn't feel good, but it

(31:50):
wouldn't feel like this. This is the stuff that tears
out of your soul. My session will continue after this break.
Was there ever a genuine apology, of genuine awareness, of
genuine empathy. I mean, now I know that there wasn't

(32:10):
because he had no intention of stopping. I hear that, obviously,
and that tells you there was zero self awareness, zero
recognition of the harm. But at the time you confront
someone with something like that, I mean terrible betrayal within
a relationship, and not like you said, not just something mild.
I mean it was intense. Was he ever able to
say I'm sorry, I hurt you, I did do this again,

(32:33):
that genuine accountability, genuine apology, all of that. Yeah, it
seems like it. He was saying, you know, he's so
disgusted with himself. He can't sleep, he can't eat, he
can live with himself. I can't believe he'd done this
for the woman of his dreams. He's going to do
everything he can to fix it and prepare it, and
I need to come back. I didn't end up packing

(32:55):
a bag and leaving, and I think me leaving made
him want me back more. But you see, though, how
he's focusing. I'm so disgusted. I I me, me, me,
I feel so bad. I feel so bad. Right, you
see what I'm saying. It was all likes his awfulness,
And then is I can't believe I've done this to you?
Is very different than identifying your emotions. I hurt you,

(33:20):
I betrayed you, I traumatized you, I broke trust in you.
Identifying your experience where I can't believe I did this
to you. It's sort of almost like the afterthought after
him going after his litany of being disgusted with himself,
but he still wasn't taking responsibility. He was just basically
doing a sort of a soliloquy about his shame. Yeah,

(33:43):
and I remember a huge red flag moment in that
cheating confrontation, the first cheating confrontation. I said, how many
times has this happened? And he said, would it make
a difference in what you thought of me? And I said, yes,
it actually would, And he said then once And I
knew in a moment it was a lie because of
how he said. I knew it was a lie, But
I remember thinking, you're concerned with what I think of you.

(34:07):
And that's such a key issue in these relationships and
those moments when the the betraying behavior gets uncovered. Their
immediate pivot is not too I have done so much harm.
I need to get so much help. I need to
make amends to this person. I need to take responsibility.
It's how do I preserve how I look to her

(34:28):
into the world. That's the immediate go to, because that's
the preservation of the self kind of thing. That's that's
how they're going to preserve themselves with no regard for
what this did to you. But the experience you had,
which I think is more important to sort of focus on,
is such a universal experience. Even when, like you said,

(34:49):
my organs all dropped, even when that rush of air
coming through your ears, where you feel like I can't
even see my future anymore, people want to keep their
life going. It's almost like a tornado coming through your house.
It's not what you want. You don't want your house
to be blown up by a tornado, and that's what happened.
And if it could be in another way, you just
would have done anything to just keep your house intact,

(35:09):
keep your life in tact. So in those moments, while
many of us would like to think we just grab
a bag and run away, there's a part of us
that still crave having our life. I just wanted everything
to work out for me. I wanted the happily ever
after that. I was promised that I had put all
this this energy into and I was working on myself,

(35:30):
you know, slowly changing myself here and there, slowly adapting
my wants and my needs to fit him in this
life that I was told was going to be my
happily ever after. I wanted it. At that point, I
I was invested. How many months in did this happen?
Did you learn about this betrayal? About six? Okay, so

(35:51):
six months. In six months is not a short period
of time. It is especially how much time the two
of you were spending with each other. I mean, when
you think about it in that way, the intensity of
the contact you were with each other all the time,
and six months in you're actually really considering constructing a
future with this person. So there was a lot of
future talk. A lot it was always talking about my

(36:12):
engagement ring, talking about who we'd invite to our wedding
you know, should be by a second property on the
West coast. Should be. It was always talking about our
future all the time. What what kind of cat would
we get? What? You know, we want to have a daughter.
Now that I look back, we barely talked about anything,
actually real life things, but so much of it was

(36:34):
talking about the future and what we would do, or
how obsessed he was with me, or how funny things are,
or jokes like I don't know what his dreams and
aspirations are apart from to get famous. He doesn't know
what mine are. Now that I look back, there was
barely any conversation. It was just so much about the future.

(36:57):
Lots of future orientation can be a red flag and
a part of love bombing when the conversation is consistently
veering to someday this and someday that, especially if it's
grandiose or exciting. This does what lots of love bombing does.
It distracts you from what is happening right in front

(37:17):
of you. It also builds in the nefarious impacts of
future faking. So what starts to happen with all of
this future focus is that a person starts getting so
invested in a future narrative that they may be more
reluctant to leave a relationship that is showing lots of
problematic patterns. It's sort of a personal Ponzi scheme where

(37:41):
you're holding out for some big payout that is never
going to come. Another red flag was I had a
moment where I hadn't spoken to a family member of
very long time, and they sent me an email out
of the blue, and I sat on the bed and
I open the email and I looked at it and
I started crying. And he walked in the room and
he said, are what are you doing? And I was like,

(38:02):
you know, I got a I got an email from
that person and you said, you're making me very uncomfortable.
And I said, I'm I'm making you very comfous that
I don't know what to do when people cry. I mean,
I see on movies that people hug people, And what
do you want me to say? You're making me very
uncomfortable right now. That was also something that cracked the

(38:23):
perfect picture because for something that was so important to
me emotionally, that they could not figure out how to
have any empathy and be comforting or in any way
that that was something that really really hurt me. Actually,
I won't say it hurt me. Some people characterize people
who have narcissistic personalities as being allergic to other people's emotion,

(38:49):
whether it is the vulnerability rendered from not knowing what
to do, the contempt for emotion, or the shame evoked
by witnessing other people's emotions and which may ping the
narcissistic person's own unprocessed insecurity. Many people in narcissistic relationships
have described that moment when their sadness or other vulnerable

(39:12):
emotion was met with coldness and even disgusted, because when
you love someone, you would be there for them, and
when they're not there for you, it's hurtful. That's the
lack of empathy piece, But it also speaks to that
lack of intimacy, right talking about shared aspirations or aspirations goals,
that's kind of sharing versus just talking about like the

(39:32):
future and a wedding and a ring, but instead like
really focusing on what the two of you are about.
That's intimacy. And whether it was sexually you said, intimacy
was Lacking the ability to be present with someone else's
feelings is not only empathy, but it's also intimacy that
inability to talk about real things other than the sort
of persona he had constructed. There was just no intimacy

(39:55):
in this relationship. And and in a way then that
got played out is where set became this sort of
sort of strange, predatory place for him. And that's one
more example. Infidelity in any ways is an outsourcing of
the intimacy in a relationship. Right, so now you're taking
what should be a connected space and breaking it up
into other people other spaces, all of that, and I

(40:16):
just don't think there was any capability for intimacy. So
having this kind of predatory sexual relationships tracked with that.
And you know, people might say, how the heck would
somebody always be in a bad relationship? I don't know.
An arranged marriage, uh, a person who doesn't have financial options,
a person who married quickly but they're in a culture
or religion or something like that. Word. I think it's
not an option, and it's always bad. It's just an

(40:38):
always bad relationship. That's very different then a person that's
in a relationship that goes between euphoria, passive aggression, sometimes rage,
a lack of empathy, deceit. But that euphoria is always
the carrot on the stick. And so people in these
relationships they want to go to those days, and if

(41:00):
you push a fast forward button, even euphorious not the
right word. Sometimes people are married and they have a home,
and they have children, and they go on vacations and
they go to school plays, and they like all of that,
and they have enough of those really good days that
the other stuff that feels so psychologically uncomfortable almost feels
like an opportunity cost something they have to endure to

(41:23):
have those good days, right to pay the price. And
that idea of paying the price is the court of
the narcissistic relationship. No healthy relationships like that. And I
think what's so sad is we we frame that as compromise.
Oh well, you get those good days, but all those
those bad moments, that's just compromise. That's not compromise. That
psychological servitude. So you can have some good moments, that's

(41:47):
not compromise. Compromise is we will have pepperoni pizza tonight,
even though I want sausage. That's compromise. But I am
going to endure abuse as a pathway to get to
a good day. That's this, that's this thing we call
narcissistic abuse. Absolutely, it's a different game. Absolutely, my session

(42:10):
will continue after this break. I wish i'd known this.
This is where I think the conversations like this your
your podcast. But it's so important because I had, if
I'm going to be honest, no idea about what emotional

(42:30):
abuse was at all. I thought that abuse came in
one form, and that was physical. I had absolutely no
idea because I wasn't educated. And I think that if
I had been, how can you look out for flags
when you don't know what you're looking for, you know
what I mean? I just wish that I knew this before.
Thank you, And the challenge has been though honestly, the

(42:53):
systems aren't willing to recognize emotional abuse. Does that make sense?
I think that. Listen, somebody's physical abuse isbody punches someone.
They've broken the law. It's a criminal offense, right, that's
physical assault. So all the systems can mobilize because a
law has been broken. Once we get into the area

(43:14):
of emotional abuse that does the same harm to somebody
as physical abuse would in a relationship, there are no
mechanisms available and in the absence of those mechanisms, most people,
law enforcement, courts, employers, you name it, will say, ah,
sometimes things are difficult, or oh, you know how it

(43:35):
is oil and water. They'll minimize it. I mean, it's
a gas lighting of the experience, whereas a person just
doesn't understand that that what you're describing, the I will
endure what I need to endure to get to the
next good day is actually abuse, and it's manipulative, and
it is cruel, and it does damage to people's mental health.
But even to this day, frankly, mental health practitioners still

(43:58):
struggle with this, like this just a relationship. They don't
even understand what's happening to them. Give them a roadmap.
But if they say, oh, okay, I get it, but
I like the good day so much so I'm gonna
enjoy the abusive days, then that's them thing. But we're
not giving them a roadmap, we are not teaching them
that this is not what it's supposed to be. So
you're absolutely right, it is about knowledge getting out there,
But it's also a whole world that needs to take responsibility.

(44:21):
Movies and TV shows that in some ways glamorized roller
coaster relationships that's got to enter absolutely absolutely. I've been
talking about this a lot recently that in the mainstream
media there seems to be this almost obsession of the
entertainment of these narcissistic characters and these roller coaster relationships

(44:44):
and and things like that. Nobody's you, nobody's using the
word narcissist, nobody is calling it what it is, And
I feel like we're all missing out on this major
teachable moment here that we could help people with. But instead,
where you seeing it as entertainment, we're not only using
it as entertainment, we're soft pedaling it. You know, he's intense,

(45:06):
he's demanding, she's difficult. What are the challenges is? And again,
this is going to be my nut to crack. It's
my problem, I feel is that people don't want to
use the word narcissism because they don't want to get
dinged for diagnosing someone. And I've said this a thousand
times everywhere I speak. Narcissism is not a diagnosis. It's
a description of a personality style. But in the litigious

(45:26):
culture we work in, people are afraid that the person
who has that personality is going to jump down their throat,
and they're gonna have to be higher an attorney to
push back on it. Okay, then if you don't want
to use the word, let me give you a narcissism
decoder ring. So when someone tells you someone's really intense,
they're saying narcissistic. When someone saying someone's really demanding, they're

(45:47):
saying narcissistic. Like all these things are code so they
can avoid saying this other thing. And you're absolutely right.
We glamorize. So I think of all the movies out there,
the finance guy who swaggers in and does a bunch
of cocaine, and we're watching them with almost this sort
of sick delight, like, oh, this is entertaining. This is
not entertaining, especially when it's a true story. Somebody was

(46:09):
harmed by this person, and even the idea of a
relationship can go up and down. And that a guy
is really charming and charismatic and breaks you know, it
was like breaks through the defenses of a really sane,
well put together woman and winter over with his charm
and charisma. That is the foundation of so many romcomps.
And I'm I great, we just we we just glorified

(46:32):
love bombing, and we just glorified that whole mess instead
of if this is how somebody's acting like a fool
run away and when you think about a seventeen eighty
one year old watching that, and that's the template they're
getting at the time they're dating. I'm trying to be
the counterweight to all of that. Everyone wants to think
they're also the exception. And then added to this mix

(46:53):
is people bring their own histories in. So if a
person had a parent like this who was negating or
ran hot and old, or gave them a silent treatment,
that child goes into an adult that's still trying to
work through that conflict. And so when somebody rolls up
an adulthood, then they you know, they repeat those those patterns.
And so the media is obsessed with narcissism. They don't

(47:15):
want to call it what it is. The other day,
I must have read four news stories, not even like movies,
like news stories. Every single one of the articles was
about a narcissistic person. Not one of the articles used
the word. And they were just trying to figure out
how to explain this person's behavior. Said the explanation simple,
it's their personality and it's not going to change. That's

(47:36):
really interesting. How you say about narcissism is a description
of a person at a diagnosis. No, it's not a
diagnosis at all. Listen, there are other personality words out there,
are words like agreeable, introverted, extroverted, neurotic. Those are all
personality staffs, right, So I I could say you seem

(47:57):
like a very agreeable person. Don't diagnosed me. You're not
saying that narcissism is in that same bucket. In fact,
the counter right to agreeable nous is disagreeableness, which the
clinical word for that is antagonism, which take that one
step further is narcissism. And so we're just playing like
a little sort of semantic labyrinth here. But that's all

(48:20):
it is. Nobody's getting I mean, I think sometimes we
might shame an agreeable man off he lets people walk
all over him because he's so agreeable. And I know
nobody's telling how dare you call me an introvert? How
dare you call me an extrovert? It's the same thing
with narcissism. It's it's not a diagnosis when you put
it with the words narcissistic personality disorder, that's a diagnosis.

(48:42):
That's not what we're talking about here. I don't know
if they have a disorder. I don't care if they
have a disorder. The personality style in and of itself
is not good for other people, that's a fact. And
I'm actually a big proponent that they should get rid
of the diagnosis altogether. It's doing more harm than good.
And those folks aren't getting into therapy anyhow. That's so interesting.
I was thinking the same thing. And I was also

(49:04):
thinking about, how is it hard for mental health professionals
to even diagnose this, given that they're such talented liars
and lying is so so easy, And I don't know.
I was just wondering about that, whether is the diagnosis
even helping in any way, because it is such a

(49:28):
difficult thing to diagnose. It's a very difficult thing to diagnose.
You need to spend four or six, sometimes even eight
sessions with a client before you can really start ruling
out that it's not this. It's not this. Remember, people
with this personality style aren't that likely to get into therapy,
you know, if they're, for example, vulnerable narcissists, the ones
that are more sort of resentful and sullen and angry

(49:51):
that life doesn't go their way and victimize those folks
might show up looking a little depressed and anxious. But
by and large, if a narcissistic person gets into therapy
is because their life is falling apart. A spouse tells
them they have to get into therapy, a workplace requires
them to, or it's court ordered, or a publicist tells
them to. Those are the reasons and narcissistic people get

(50:13):
into therapy. Now, sometimes it was clear. They'd come in
the first minute and they'd say, oh yeah, nice diploma
is doc. What do you think with your fancy U
c l A degree, you really think you're gonna be
able to help me. Let's say, I bet I'm going
to be the most interesting patient you had all day.
I'm like, okay, I'm clear on what I'm dealing with.
And then the lack of empathy and the other stuff
would show. But that other stuff, you know, for people
who aren't that in your face, it takes a minute.

(50:36):
And let's say a person comes into therapy and they're depressed.
They're gonna say, I've been really sad, I can't sleep,
I can't pay attention, I hate my life inside of
the first fifteen minutes, we're gonna have a pretty good
working model that this person is struggling with depression. If
I ask a client like, do you have empathy? They
think they're the most empathic person. They are not going

(50:57):
to answer that question accurately, and so we are having
to look for the way they tell stories, and so
it takes a while to glue all of that together.
You see what I'm saying, And so that takes a minute,
and I have to say that by the time I'd
figured that patterns. Some clients it took me six months.
Some clients I figured it out in the first hour,

(51:19):
and most people it would take me twelve sessions before
I was confident. But then we have a sort of
a This is more of a technical issue. If you
put that down as a diagnosis and a person's chart,
especially if they're using insurance, the insurance companies push back
because it feels like an untreatable pattern, so they don't
want to They're like, Okay, this is not gonna work again.
It needs to be in therapy forever, so we don't

(51:40):
want to pay for that. So the therapists will often
use a diagnosis that sort of suits what the insurance
company wants, and the therapist has in their back pocket
that they know that this person has narcissistic personality disorder.
And finally, clients are entitled to their clinical records. So
the person says, show me, and I've had this experience

(52:00):
of telling folks, I think give narcissistic personality disorder, I
am glad that I was sitting closer to the door
than they were. Let's just put it that way, because
they were insensed. They were incensed, you know, and called
me obscenities and this and that. So it's a it's
a very uncomfortable thing to communicate about. So narcissistic personality
disorder maybe the one diagnosis other than psychopathy or anti

(52:23):
anti social personality disorder. Those may be the only diagnoses
where they do more harm to other people than to
the person who has it. And that's not what these
diagnoses are designed to do. They're not designed to put
a name to something that harms other people. And since
the treatment outcomes with these clients are not traditionally good,
it takes a very long time, skilled therapists, years and therapy,

(52:46):
a real commitment to change. It's a unicorn. So narcissistic
personality disorder needs to go out the window. Narcissism is
a personality style like any other. If people say, well,
I don't like that personality, so I'm like, that's on you.
I mean, but it's just personality style. Like I said,
it's no different than extra version or agreeableness or anything
like that. So that's the real issue, and that's why

(53:07):
nobody's talking about it. And for whatever reason, people just
don't want to step up and understand it. And it's
it's a lot of awareness building, but it's a it's
a sort of also mental health. People don't want to
talk about it either, which is what often stops the conversation.
So interesting, Well, thank you for being the one that
is talking about it. Talk about personality styles. That officially

(53:28):
makes me a massochist, because I have to tell I
agreeable massacists, But I um, it's it's a tough mountain
to climb. But if you had had this roadmap, if
you had had this blueprint to understand this is what
this was, you may have very well gotten out earlier.
You may have not put yourself in positions that felt

(53:49):
so uncomfortable. You may not have tried to change yourself.
I mean, there's so many other choices you would have
made if it was made clear to you that this
is what you were dealing with. So it's it. It's
just a blueprint. So you're like, this is about So
I didn't know about narcissism at all until I came

(54:10):
out of the relationship and I was talking to somebody
and they said, you know, this sounds to me like
like a narcissist. You read this article, and I can't
remember what the article was, but it's a very basic
article that kind of had like a checklist, and I
felt like the article was written about my relationship. I
felt like every single box was checked off the list,

(54:31):
and in my experience, it can be very textbook. And
if I had known that, and if I had at
least known the things to look out for, if I
at least known what love bombing was, for example, then
when it was happening to me, I could have at
least been referring to that mental checklist. And maybe maybe not,

(54:52):
but maybe I would have made some different choices and
looked after myself a little bit more and saved myself
a lot of trump. I couldn't agree more. And I
think it is hard because what I always say, it's
very hard to tell people to walk away from something
that initially feels good. You know, that's a tough sell.
It's a tough sell. So you then got out after

(55:13):
nine months, you got out of this relationship. Can I
ask you what was your process of healing like after
you got out of the relationship. I was totally confused,
totally confused because he begged me to come back after
the cheating, told me that he do therapy, he would
do absolutely whatever it takes, go to the ends of
the earth to have me back. I'm a woman of

(55:35):
his dreams. And then out of the blue, one day
he broke up with me. That's interesting, And I was
so confused. I was just in this total state of
shock and confusion. Literally like someone had pulled a carpet
from under me, and I just didn't know what was happening.
And I was just left in this cloud of Okay,

(55:55):
So the world as I know it is completely not
here anymore. You know. The day that we that he
broke up with me, we were shopping for an event
we were going to later that week. We were talking
about getting a house in l a. We were talking
about the wedding. I didn't understand how you could go

(56:15):
from doing all of that and kind of seeing everything
was about the future of the future, and then he
discarded me, and it was in that state of confusion
and shock. I think it really was shock that somebody
threw narcissism at me, and I couldn't believe that was
kind of what was making sense of this whole scenario.

(56:38):
But initially it was shock and deceit because I felt like,
more so than than anything else, I felt like I
had been lied to. I had been sold this future,
this talking about constantly talking about the engagement, the wedding,
the children, the house in l A, all the all
these things, talking about all of this, and then I

(56:59):
was thrown away and I felt like this wasn't normal.
I've been in many long term, committed relationships with people
that I have loved and that have loved me before,
and it doesn't just end suddenly when everything is heading
in one direction and they just suddenly break it off
and abandoned ship that had never happened to me before.

(57:19):
And I felt like, this doesn't make sense, and I
need to kind of make sense of it. Before I
can turn the next page and move on to the
next chapter of my life. And in that process and
learning about narcissism, I really had to grieve everything that
I thought was real in that relationship. The person that

(57:40):
I loved wasn't the person that I loved. They put
on a damn good show for me, and I was
a part of that show, and I fell for that show,
and I fell in love with the person that I
was watching and that he was portraying to me. They
never loved me. And that moment hit me actually because
he'd tried to be my friend. So he did this

(58:04):
incredibly abrupt and drastic breakup, but then continue to write
to me saying, you're my best friend. I'm going to
love you forever. He also has a history of going
back to women that he had been with, and I
was like, I'm not going to be I'm not going
to do that. I don't believe and break up, makeup,
break up, makeup that never works out. I'm not doing that.
And I was with my actual best friend and I said,

(58:26):
read this message that he sent me, and she just
gave me the phone back and she said, that's not
your best friend. I'm your best friend. And I would
never do that to you. I would never hurt you
and deceive you. That's not what love is. I would
never do this to you. And that's when it kind
of hit me that he never loved me, that the

(58:46):
entire relationship was a facade, it was this public image
when he was living a completely other life. That there's
a huge difference with telling someone you love them and
you want to commit to them and you make a
mistake and telling someone you love them and you're committing
to them but you have absolutely no intention of committing

(59:06):
to them. That's deceit. And that's what I had been
dealing with and kind of understanding that and going through
that grieving process of accepting that that person that I
love never existed, that relationship that I that I was
in never existed, There was never any love for me.
That was a really tough process. There was a lot
of shame and blaming myself for things and I'm so

(59:29):
stupid for not seeing things, And I mean, if I'm
going to be honest, I still go through it. I
struggle with this word recovery because I don't know that
if this is something that I'm ever going to recover
from I'm a different person now, and I feel like
I experienced a trauma that changed me, and I think
I will carry part of it forever. I'm so glad

(59:51):
you said that piece about recovery, because I think that
healing recovery from narcissistic abuse isn't about going back to
how you or you evolve from this and you change.
I actually do believe that there's a unique strength that
emerges from people. I do think it it's a loss
of innocence. Will never view love stories the same way again.

(01:00:13):
I think it definitely changes our capacity for trust in
many ways. I think most of us who are survivors
will say, I don't know that I'm never going to
get to one percent trust again. I think everyone then
the best cases, it will be somewhere in that plus,
but has been taken away right. We now forever see

(01:00:33):
the crack in the sculpture. I refuse to see it
as a bad thing. I think that in many ways,
survivors of is narcissistically abusive relationships have the capacity to
become incredibly discerning. There's a wisdom they learn not to
suffer fools, and that can have tremendous value in their careers,
when they meet new people, the invitations they accept. You know,

(01:00:54):
you you start to learn like, yeah, now I'm good,
I'm staying home, and people like, what do you mean
I'm thinking now I'm good? You know, you really really learn,
You learn your your firm hand. Chicken, say, I gotta
jump in a way that many of us never believed
we could set boundaries. You just learned to not suffer
fools in a really unique way, you know. So that's

(01:01:14):
its own kind of recovery. But I do think, you know,
what gets lost is innocence. So it's I do believe
these relationships are coming of age in a way, and
what emerges is something quite warrior like, you know. And
I think people break out of a sort of a
princess fantasy and move into more of a warrior fantasy,
which is something I want for all people, and certainly
all women, because I think that we forget that we

(01:01:36):
have that that strength, and I think strength and women
is often pathologized. I think survivors of narcissistic abuse have
the real opportunity to say, actually, strength is my forward
facing characteristic now, but it takes a long time to
get there. And the things you describe the self blame,
the self doubt, the ruminating. That's all classical fallout of
having been in one of these relationships. Well, now I

(01:01:57):
know that the next girlfriend was already prepped. There was
an overlap, obviously, and she and I. After her relationship
with him ended, she actually reached out to me and
we had the same relationship. We had the same nickname,
we had the same sex position. We compared screenshots of

(01:02:18):
text messages, the same text messages, the same emojis during
the love bombing, the same shopping spreeze, the same jewelry.
It was just copy and pasted, and she was already
prepped and ready to go. After that crack in the image,
I didn't admire him anymore. I was doubting him. The

(01:02:39):
trust was broken. He wasn't Mr knighton Shining Armor coming
in on a white horse anymore. He was mediocre guy
on a donkey and I was trying to build him
back up, but that image was tainted, and I think
that it was easier to get someone new than to
rebuild with me. That's what I think, and I think
that's all it was. Were also no longer a source

(01:03:01):
of supply. You know, once your supply gets stale. They
want fresh groceries. And but the other dynamic I saw
happening there was he hoovered you. You said I'm out,
I'm leaving. He whoevered you. He pulled you back in,
and I'll change, I'll therapy all this the future, fake future,
fake all the things he did. You went back. That
gamesmanship and that dominance, that's a part of every narcissistic relationship.

(01:03:22):
In a way, it's like when the when the spoiled
child managed to wangle away the toy from their sibling,
not because they want the toy, but because they just
wanted to get it away from the sibling, and then
they toss it aside. But that dominance move is why
once the hoover works, that's exactly when they get disinterested.
It was almost like a game, can I get her back?
I got her back? Okay, And on top of that,

(01:03:43):
he had already set up new supply, so he got
the gratification of the checkmate, got her back. Games done,
and I can start a new game. But that discard
of like I was able to do it. They do
it because they can. It's also very consistent with that
because that's the dynamic it's it's the dominance in these
in these relationships and the false self, the false facade,

(01:04:05):
and many people will they'll leave those relationships in a
state of shock. What was I just in And I
tell all survivors, I know you feel you were in
a falsehood because it was a fiction on their side,
but your feelings were real, and to never write off
a section of your life is so it didn't happen.
It did happen. You went in with an open heart
and an open mind and you felt real things, but

(01:04:27):
the other person was the one who's wearing a mask.
You weren't. I felt like I've been scammed. Like everything
I did on my part, I was a great girlfriend, everything,
everything on my part was real. It was an authentic
it was legitimate. It was just the wrong person. And
I had come across a con artist and that's just

(01:04:50):
really unfortunate. And finally got out of a place where
I would stopped blaming myself and kind of just see
it as like an unfortunate thing that happened, and it
is an unfortunate thing that happened. But like I said,
it's also a place you someday as part of the
growth in the healing is that I did learn something
about myself in the most painful way, and you're trying

(01:05:11):
to pay it forward. So thank you again. I'm so
grateful for your time, for your sharing your story so
openly with us. No, thank you, thank you for even
having this show. I think it impacts so many people
in all the right ways. So thank you so much,
thank you, thank you so much. Here are my takeaways
from our conversation. So many survivors walk away from these

(01:05:35):
relationships wondering was any of this real? Was this whole
thing just a big lie? And then from that emanates
a doubting of your own emotion? Did I even feel that?
Can I even trust my feelings? You can trust your
part of the story, because when we love someone, we
believe them they're being deceitful or unempathic or manipul relative.

(01:06:00):
Doesn't mean that your process was false. However, it can
feel like the entire thing wasn't real, and so people
struggle with grief as though they are grieving something that
wasn't real. Grief is about loss, and loss needs to
be processed. People in narcissistic relationships are grieving what they

(01:06:23):
believed to be true, what they hoped to be true
their vision of the potential they saw in another person
and in a life together. This is ephemeral stuff and
can often be hard to articulate to other people or
even in therapy, where people may just say, hey, you're lucky,
you dodge that mess. However, when these relationships end, you

(01:06:48):
don't feel lucky. You feel lost. Grief must be processed,
and even if you can't articulate what the loss is,
you did lose something. In my next takeaway, is social
media always a bad thing in a relationship, No, but
when it is a preoccupation, when posting about the relationship

(01:07:09):
is more important than the relationship itself, When the validation
of strangers matters more than the partner in front of them,
When they are so enamored of their image, their life,
and their posts that they can spend hours staring at
themselves and the feedback of their adoring followers, that's a problem.
Social media can be a real playground for narcissistic people.

(01:07:34):
In my next takeaway, one way a red flag can
sneak in is when it is a correction, as she
shared after a line of partners that disappeared, didn't follow
up or were disconnected and detached. A partner who came
along and was intense and obsessive and spoke about a

(01:07:55):
future and wanted to spend every waking moment together was
an antidote to the other people she had met. This
swinging pendulum can mean that even when their behavior is
too much and concerning, it can feel like a counterweight
and a relief to past relationships and past partners. This

(01:08:17):
means that obsession, instead of being seen as a problematic pattern,
which it is, may be experienced. As she called it,
maybe this is what love feels like. Unfortunately, too many
people have been exposed to a steady stream of princess
movies and rom coms that romanticize obsession and intensity, which

(01:08:40):
means these patterns get missed as the red flags that
they so often are. In this next takeaway, narcissistic relationships
represent a loss of innocence. When they happen in childhood,
they qualify more as developmental trauma, and when they have
been in adulthood, it's a puncturing of a balloon around love, relationships, family, trust,

(01:09:07):
and hope. It's going from a starry eyed view to
a more circumspect one after you experience a narcissistic relationship
and you really get it and process it, your worldview shifts,
trust erodes, you start feeling like you are always wondering
if someone is working the angles with you. You may

(01:09:30):
feel jaded or cynical. I will keep coming back to
this point. I think cynicism after you have been through
a narcissistic relationship, cynicism is actually wisdom and may speak
to the beginning of the process of seeing things clearly

(01:09:52):
and no longer making justifications for entitled toxic manipulative behavior
until it happens to you. Most people don't understand how
being in a narcissistic relationship reshapes our psychological bedrock. In
this next takeaway, many people feel a double shame when

(01:10:14):
they relent to being hoovered and are then promptly discarded.
This is a sort of classical gambit in narcissistic relationships.
The hoover is about control, and if they already sorted
out a plan B, it became more of a showing
to themselves that they could do it and then jumping

(01:10:34):
to a new source of narcissistic supply where they will
do the same thing again. By the way, as her
story shows us, remember you actually approached a rigged card
game as though it was being played honestly, you couldn't win,
and there's no shame in that when the game is fixed.

(01:10:55):
It is for this reason that giving yourself time after
an our scissistic relationship ends is so crucial. These wounds
are beyond the hurts of an ordinary breakup. These are
complicated breakups after which people need a minute to get
back to themselves, figure out up from down, grieve the

(01:11:17):
loss of what you had hoped for, and recognize that
there is no shame in believing in love even when
the other person was deceptive and wanting something that is
so fundamental to the human experience. A big thank you
to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valen Jethrow, Ellen Rakaton,

(01:11:43):
and Dr Rominey de Vassola. And thank you to our
producer Matthew Jones, associate producer Mara Dela Rosa, and consultant
Kelly Ebling. And finally, thank you to our editors and
sound engineers Devin Donnaghe and Calvin Bailiff.