Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
She comes walking out of the other room and had
rubbed her neck red, rubbed it red, and told the
police officer that I had tried to strangle her. That
is serious, right there, that's a feling. I've never touched her.
I've never touched a woman in my life. Welcome to
(00:25):
the Victim to Warrior podcast Warrior Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
We're John and Melissa, and we are survivors of narcissistic
abuse and our mission is to help other survivors reclaim
and rebuild their lives. Have you ever felt like you're
being emotionally manipulated, Something just doesn't feel right in the relationship,
but you just can't put your finger on it. Well,
today we are going to dive into the world of
(00:51):
covert narcissism. It's a subtle but dangerous type of manipulation.
We're also gonna hear firsthand f John, because that's exactly
what he experienced for years. So what does covert narcissism
look like. Well, they can be passive, aggressive, have this
(01:11):
quiet arrogance about them, chronic victim mentality, hyper sensitive to criticism.
You can never even say anything about them without them. Well,
we'll let John tell you, right, manipulation through guilt, social withdrawal,
and introvert resentment, envy and like we said, always playing
(01:34):
the victim, super jealous, insecure, and always seeking attention. So
tell them about our series.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, I can't wait to share this with you. Sometimes
it's better to see what it looks like than hear
what it looks like. So Melissa and I created as
series on what covert narcissism looks like. They can head
on over to our TikTok Channel'm going to put the
link in the description below, and when you go to
our channel, click on playlist and you can just slide
across until you see covert narcissism. And we did a
(02:06):
five part series, so you'll see five different examples of
what covert narcissism looks like. And I think it'll be
really eye opening.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
For you, especially when you know something's wrong in the
relationship and you are just exhausted trying to please this
person but nothing you do seems to be good enough. Now,
you went through some really manipulative and emotional situation source
for a year, so why don't you just kind of
thought I.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Did, And I want to ask the audience if you're
dealing with this right now. If you feel like you're
dealing with it based on what Melissa just read out,
please list in the comments below that you're dealing with
this right now. Tell us what you're dealing with and
while you're there, please subscribe to this channel. We're trying
to grow our audience and spread awareness as best we
can so. But yeah, Melissa's absolutely right. I dealt with
(02:56):
this four years and probably the worst thing for me
was just a manipulation. Not knowing I was being manipulated
as badly as I was until after it was over
and I really started to understand what was going on
in my life for so many years.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Didn't she continuously ruin your events?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Oh gosh, every event that I had was somehow ruined,
and it seemed like it was unintentional, but it was very,
very intentional. One of the biggest events of my life
that she ruined it was my twentieth year high school reunion.
I was so excited about this event, I really because
(03:36):
I loved my friends from high school and I really
was looking so forward to seeing some of these people.
It was a massive event and I ended up being
two hours late, and it was because of her and
ruining the time that I had gotten there, and the
whole time there it was just as all this drama,
all this toxicity. So by the time I actually showed
up at my event, you are probably a mess. I
(03:58):
was a mess, and I should have gone by myself.
I should have just left, knowing that she was purposely
holding me up. I should have just left.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
And they do this because they are secretly very insecure,
but they come off as if they are secure. So
by her manipulating you and making you late for this event,
she did not want one you getting attention from everyone else,
and her feeling insecure and maybe awkward, especially when she
(04:32):
had that superiority attitude about her. What about that time
when you actually met friends after church? It was one
of it was a friend from church that was on
the volunteer committee.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, it was the daughter a girl with a friend
of mine. Right there. We're just friends, we've been friends
for a long long time. And my ex ark had
never met her. So my parents are there, my brother,
my ex and then this girl who was a great
friend of ours. I said, hey, why don't you meet
us for brunch? And the whole time I didn't, I
wasn't aware it, but my ex nark is staring daggers
(05:10):
at this woman the whole time, and she thought her
thought of her as a threat.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
And when she was a family ran from her friend.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
My parents knew her the whole thing. It was, And
so it was so ironic that after the event, this
friend called me and said, don't ever invite me to
any event with with your She was my wife at
the time. She stared dagger sees the whole time. Made
me so uncomfortable. I will never I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Well, it was the first time they met. That wasn't
even like she had heard about this person or there
were any indication that this person meant something to you
other than just running into her us.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Sure, And it wasn't like she was a girlfriend. We
never dated, It wasn't anything like that. It was just
a good friend. So it was just really, really unbelievable.
Let me tell you. The thing that I remember most
is is she could cry at the drop of a hat.
And men, if you're if you're in an argument with
(06:09):
a woman and she starts to cry, what do you do?
You put the brakes on, You put the brakes on? No, no,
what can I do to make you stop crying? So
when you're in kind of a discussion and it gets heated,
which happens or you're making your point, improving your point,
or trying to prove your point, and the person you're
arguing with just starts crying right in front of you.
(06:33):
You immediately stop, so there's no resolution to the issue.
You immediately stop. You try to pacify them, help them
to stop crying, and then that the event or the
issue never gets resolved. And that happened over and over.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And over again, and you felt guilty about pushing her
to that, so, like you said, it got swept under
the rug, and rather than have her become just this
emotional mess, you just ignored things. And that's when things fester,
and that's when relationships end because you can't not to
this person, You can't have that conversation, you can't.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Work through issues. You just can't work through issues.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
No, And then she had this subtle rage about her too,
where she would just absolutely.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Go some of these things were scary, yeah, I mean
breaking furniture, of kicking through doors and just but then
all of a sudden blaming it on something else. The
meds were wrong, or I shouldn't have mixed alcohol with
these meds, I would have never done this, and.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
So always in excuse. We have clients that have gone
through this and just major rage issues out of nowhere,
and it can turn very violent, very fast. But I
want you to tell them about that one time that
she almost got you arrested.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
YEA, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was. I'm so glad you
brought that about, Shure. This is probably the worst thing, unbelievable.
We were having an argument on the way home from
a restaurant and she had had too much to drink,
and she said she was on these meds, so it
was really making her unstable. She was already relatively un sale,
(08:10):
but this was even worse. So we got in a
really big fight, and so I just wanted to Sometimes
when I'm in the middle of an argument like this,
I just want to leave and let things cool down.
So I went into the master bedroom and I actually
locked the door because I wanted some space. And I
locked the door while I was sitting in the master
bedroom and her foot comes through the door. Now this
(08:32):
wasn't a hollow, cold door. This was a hog andy
type door that she kicked through. It repeatedly went through,
and her foot finally came through. That's massive fear. And
these are the in the days of a landline. So
I picked up the phone and I called nine one
one because I'm like, this is I don't know what
this woman's capable of at this point, and I immediately
(08:53):
hung up because I'm like, I don't want the police involved.
But you know what happens when you call nine one
one and you hang up. Yep, they call you right back.
Or they showed up. So I said, listen, you don't
need to go. Well, I tried to tell them that
you don't need to come. It's just a it's just
a dispute, and they came anyway. Well, I knew the
police were coming, which was embarrassing for me in this
(09:15):
really nice neighborhood I lived in and this is never
happened before. The police are in my driveway, so of
course I let them in the house. And I'm sitting
there calmly, and I had invited my brother, who lived
in the neighborhood, to be there when the police showed up,
because I didn't know what she was especially character right, right, right,
but listen to this, So I'm telling him, you know,
(09:35):
we just had an argument. Everything's fine. She comes walking
out of the other room and had rubbed her neck red,
rubbed it red, and told the police officer that I
had tried to strangle her.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
That is serious, right there.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Dude, that's a felling. I mean, that could have been
a lot of huge at audience for ager. I've never
touched her. I've never touched a woman in my life.
I was mortified. And my brother, thank god he was there,
because he went ballistic. He knew that was a lie,
and I think the police officer realized it too, and
so he eventually said, listen, one of you two are
(10:10):
going to have to leave tonight. And so I left.
I went and stayed at my parents' house or they
were also in the community and they were out of
the country.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
So sad that you have to leave.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, I had to leave my own house because it
was your house. Yeah, yeah, and so on. But can
you imagine someone that you're married with trying to have
you arrested for I mean.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Like that is life altering. Yeah, that is life devastation
right now. The yeah, because had you been arrested, you
were in the finance industry, you could have lost your license.
The ramifications of the things that they do, because mine
tried to have me arrested as well, but he was
an overt narc are just unbelievable. It's nothing other than
(10:53):
evil because they're not thinking about any of that. They're
just thinking about not being blame and blaming you and
this victim mentality. She's not even thinking about you could
have been held off to jail and actually charged with.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
That's how bad she wroted to win this disagreement. And
then of course the next day the apologies didn't stop
for hours, Ryan and the apologies please take me back,
you know, the whole thing. So it was really really disturbing.
But but you know, this happened twenty years ago. I
had no idea what I was dealing with. We didn't
know what this was.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
He actually thought it was possibly the alcohol.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And the dream. Yeah, some chemical imbalanced or stumping anything.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Could you could get her help and actually have her
right right zone? How by medical right?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
I wish I had known then what I know now.
But so let's talk about if you're if you're dealing
with this a cobD narcissuit.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, I tell you a couple of ways.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, I'll supposed to talk about how to deal with
that one.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
You have to set boundaries and enforce them firmly, because
when you let them continually step over your boundaries and
then you're the one trying to defend or deflect, it
becomes exhausting, and they will do it if you let them.
Don't engage in their guilt tripping or victim narratives like
(12:15):
she would do with you, ball her eyes out, then
all of a sudden, you're consoling her when she was
the one who did harm to you. It totally shifted
the blame to where she's the victim and now he
is the aggressor when it was exactly the opposite. Stay
away from that trap. Limit emotional exposure because they feed
(12:36):
off of your reactions. Seek external valu validation. Thank goodness
you had your brother there and that you are early
close because he witnessed the interaction between you. He knew
who you were before you met her, and then obviously
what had happened while you guys were together. So and honestly,
if you're dealing with this and you don't know how
to get out, you could be trauma bonded but seeking
(13:00):
professional help or obviously you could even book a call
with either one of us since we've been through it.
But sometimes that's what you have to do to actually
fully understand it and be able to break that bond. Now,
what we did, if you're still unsure, is we create
it a questionnaire are they a narcissist? Please take that.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
It's a great resource. Yeah, I love it because it
asks you questions. You go through it and it totals
up the score and then it lets you know if
you're what threshold and if they're a narcissist, then you
know what you're dealing with.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
And there's no cure for that. There's no way. No
matter what you do to try to make this relationship
work or to compromise or bargain, it will never be enough.
They will always be one step ahead of you. So
if you want to get out of that toxic manipulation,
then analyzing whether or not what they have is curable
(13:56):
because narcissism is not, and then ways to get out
of it, which we can obviously help you with. Tell
them where they can find the other.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, So it's in our link in bio. So I'll
put the I'll put in the description below, but in
our link in bio, you will find that the Are
they a question? Are the narcissist questionnaire? It's right in
on our homepage once you get to our Lincoln Bio
and all our resources. That's right there. It's called are
they a narcissist Questionnaire? And it is. And be honest
(14:24):
with you, yes, be honest, And this is not about
how they make you feel. It's about them completely.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And what they do and don't. So don't interject yourself
into situations where you're taking some of the blame. Just
answer every question. There's fifteen of them perfectly, honestly, and
it will get you your accurate results, because if you're
dealing with a narcissist, it's never going to change. You
(14:49):
can you can almost think about what you've gone through
is the best it's ever going to be. It will
only go worse from there. So being able to analyze it,
understand it, and then work on ways to get out
is really the only way you're going to get your
sanity back, seriously, because it will exhaust you to the
point where you could even become physically ill.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Right now, if you want to talk to somebody, I
can recommend nobody better than Melissa, and I know I'm biased,
but she is amazing. She's a phenomenal coach and she's
a survivor and so she really can understand how to
help you in this situation if you want that handholding.
So I'm going to put her link below as well
with a code Recovery twenty five where you can get
(15:33):
twenty five dollars off your initial call with Melissa. It
can really really help you in this situation because being.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Changed a lot of people's lives and help them get
out of situations that they had absolutely no idea what
they were in or how to get out of it.
So we know what it feels like to feel so
trapped that you think you are just stuck in this life.
You're not stuck in this like and we can help
you get out of it, So definitely take advantage of that.
Put your comments. He we love hearing from you. Like
(16:02):
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trying to help you with situations regarding narcissistic abuse. So
thank you for following us and we'll see you on
the next podcast.