December 8, 2022 • 59 mins
The word “narcissist” is thrown around so much these days, but do we know exactly what the term means? What exactly makes someone a narcissist vs someone who is just reacting from trauma patterns or emotional immaturity, We explore this word in depth with Shirin Peykar.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
H m hm, Hot Happy Mess, Celebrate your magic in
the middle of life's messes. Hot Happy Mess. I'm Seri
Hall and this is hot Happy may Cute. What's up?
(00:25):
Welcome back to another episode of Hot Happy Mess. I
am your host, Zeri Hall, and today we are talking
about um technically a diagnosis uh that oftentimes in this
day and age, is misdiagnosed or inaccurately slapped on people
who we don't understand or who are complicated or um,
(00:47):
you know, who may have some problematic tendencies but may
not necessarily be a narcissist. Uh. We hear the word
thrown around all the time. I think a lot of
us have I've experienced, or had interaction or had interactions
with legitimate narcissists. And then I think also a lot
(01:07):
of us have just had interactions with people who we're
slightly problematic or who you know, displayed self centered qualities
or maybe came across as arrogant or selfish for whatever reason. Um.
And then if you ask them, maybe they have an
explanation for that. Maybe they feel the same in the
(01:28):
reverse about the person who's who's calling them a narcissist. Right, um,
and as we have heard this word sort of thrown
around more and more. I've become increasingly um interested in
what actually makes a narcissist, what actually qualifies who actually
qualifies as a narcissist. Can you exhibit narcissistic behavior without
(01:51):
technically being a narcissist? Or is it kind of an
all or nothing deal? Um. A friend of the show,
Nedra Glover to Wam, actually posted something recently that was
just so spot on and kind of gave words to
this feeling that I've had that you know a few
of my friends have had when we talk about this stuff.
(02:13):
And she recently posted and said, narcissism is now a
buzzword to describe a complicated person. It's rare for someone
to be clinically diagnosed with narcissism, and yet so many
people are labeled by non mental health professionals as a
narcissist in a one on one relationship and without the
proper assessment tools. People are misdiagnosed as narcissists when they
(02:35):
demonstrate problematic behaviors. Diagnosing people without a professional is a
breeding ground for misinformation. Let's go back to describing behavior
as mean, self centered, deceitful, or suspicious without labeling a
person a narcissist. I think those are really wise words.
I couldn't agree more UM. And then also on rare occasion,
(02:59):
you're dealing with a scissist. So that's what this episode
is for UM to hopefully get some clarity around what
is or isn't narcissistic behavior when and how to know
that you may have a problem on your hands, UM,
and also what to do about it. Uh. This episode
is really interesting because it is a real woman, real
(03:23):
story combined with UM some really impactful and helpful words
of wisdom and education from a licensed marriage and family therapist.
And what I find so interesting about you know, our
conversation and about her story, which she was so vulnerable
and open and sharing and I'm really grateful for that,
(03:45):
is that she is a licensed marriage and family therapist
and was also married to a narcissist. You know, I
think that's a really um, a really prime exam bowl
of you know, sometimes you just don't know or you
don't realize until it's too late, even when you might
(04:07):
have the training, the education and your tools to identify
problematic behavior like this. I hope that through listening you
have a little more compassion for yourself if you feel
like you're going through a similar situation or concerned that
you might be UM and that you have some takeaways.
So we're going to dive right in. Shrine pay Car
(04:27):
is a licensed marriage and family therapist in California and Florida.
She's been practicing psychotherapy for over ten years. Shrine brings
a unique sense of warmth, optimism, awareness, and collaboration to
her work with clients, and her areas of specialty include
complex PTSD, divorce, and mindful parenting. Here we go. Sharine
(04:48):
pay Car is a licensed marriage and family therapist in
California and Florida. She's been practicing psychotherapy for over ten
years and Sharne brings a unique sense of warmth, optimism, awareness,
and collaboration to her work with clients in Her areas
of specialty include complex PTSD, divorce, and mindful parenting. Welcome, hurting,
(05:09):
how are you? I well? Thank you so much. It's
such a pleasure to be here with you, zury Um Yeah,
same here. Thank you so much for for joining us. Um.
You know, to just dive right into the obvious with
today's episode, Narcissism Narcissists I think in this day and age,
just speaking from my own perspective, the term gets thrown
(05:32):
around so wildly, so loosely these days. If an X
breaks up with you, they're a narcissist. If you if
they're just like annoying or a little bit self centered,
they're a narcissist. If if they're enforcing boundaries. Sometimes sometimes
they're healthy behaviors, and there are narcissist because they're not giving,
you know. So it's just one of those things where
I was like, I would love to sit down with
a licensed therapist, a trained professional to help us figure out, um,
(05:58):
what a narcissist actually is, what the red lags are, um,
and when we should also maybe be extending grace to
the people in our lives or considering that something else
might be going on. So I'm almost just as interested
in figuring out who isn't a narcissist as fully understanding
who is. Yes, Yes, it's such a good question because
it's so true that it's now the the word narcissist
(06:22):
is being thrown out so much, and it's like the
modern day, oh my ex was crazy kind of thing,
you know, in those times when they just relate on
my ex was crazy, Now it's my ex as a narcissist. Um.
So essentially, you know, narcissists, they there are many traits
that go into this personality, and um, just that that
(06:43):
self absorption or that selfishness is not exactly the only
trait that we need to have in order to be
able to call it clinically narcissistic personality disorder. So usually
narcissists will have, UM, definitely this sense of difficulty or
underdeveloped empathy, difficulty really truly empathizing with people being able
(07:05):
to put themselves in someone else's shoes, to really feel
what that person feels, or to even experience to even
understand how their behavior is being experienced by someone else.
That's one of the key ones. Um, there's entitlement. That's
a big one. You know, I'm special, I'm sort of
(07:26):
God's gift to the earth. I'm so great, that's all
that grand Yes, yes, yes, definitely, And that could be
kind of overt or covert. It could be, um, you know,
an outward kind of grandiose presentation with I'm so great,
I'm so special, or it could be I'm so special
that nobody sees it, nobody knows you know, yeah, yeah,
(07:49):
oh okay. Now I'm so excited because you know, we've
all had our I won't say we all, but many
of us have had experiences with narcissistic behavior, maybe at
times displayed narcissistic behavior. UM. But what is really interesting
to me about what you just said at the end,
there is UM. Sometimes the god complex with these ideas
(08:14):
of grandeur aren't necessarily displayed to the outside world. It's
UM an internal monologue. It's something that they're closest, closest
And I use that term very loosely. UM loved ones.
I kind of use that term very loosely. Do hear
the most about No one understands me, No one sees
how great I am. The world is against me if
(08:35):
only they knew UM. And so when I I started
experiencing that once in a very casual dating situation, and
I was so confused because I thought, Okay, this guy
is extremely handsome, he's very charming, he seems so emotionally intelligent.
Our conversations are so deep, he's so smart, he's so UM.
(08:56):
He's on it, like he sees me. He's very quick
to dissect UM. He can read people very well. And
then as we continued to get to know each other,
these tiny little red flak started popping up where you know,
if there was an ex he had, it was their
fault that things fell apart, even though and I won't
(09:16):
get specific about the things, but everything he told me
made it sound like it was very much his fault
that that relationship ended. There was some bad behavior on
his end, but it was her fault because because and
it was the the other lady's fault because she knew
he was vulnerable at that time, and so all of
these things, I'm just like, that's so bizarre. And then um,
(09:36):
he started to, Um, I felt like, maybe test me
a little bit, like in very subtle way, start to
push boundaries. And that started to feel like more familiar
in narcissistic behavior, to see how far he could go.
And um, it never was overt or over the top
or loud. We'd go out, though, and as soon as
(09:59):
we walked in he had to find someone to to
insult to me under his breath and it was such
a turn off or oh god, that person, like how
unattractive are they? And I'm just like, this is so bizarre,
Like that person is minding their business, eating lunch, and
you just feel the need to quietly tear down people
in any space you're and to sort of build yourself up.
So I started talking to my therapist about it, and
(10:20):
she's like, have you heard of covert narcissism? I have not,
So can you please herine just go into a little
bit of what covert narcissists. So you described in just
two minutes, not even two minutes, the other pieces of
the components of that narcissistic personality. And so there's a
(10:40):
big umbrella right of like lack of empathy and you know,
entitlement and grandiosity and lack of accountability, and so there's
a big umbrella. But beneath that are those kinds of
types personality and narcissistic personality types. And um, we can
totally go into that that that that's a great idea
actually be because we're kind of moving into this different
(11:02):
type of narcissist, which is again like the low key
narcissist or the vulnerable, it's more the victimized kind of complaining, umm, arrogant,
but more like again victimized. Right, Like what you describe
was this I'm better in a way, you know, I'm better.
But I'm but I'm I'm victimized. Nobody sees you know
(11:24):
how great I am. Um kind of place. And then
even that what you described to me to go about
beneath his breath, needing to devalue and kind of put
down and sort of criticized people, that is again a
very common narcissistic trait as well. You know where it's
like others are beneath me. So there's a quiet rage
(11:46):
with the covert. There's a quiet anger. Um, there's more
of like a judgmental kind of personality rather than this
outward criticism. Um. So the covert is I have a
lot of experience, unfortunately for only as well with the covert.
So I you, to the extent that you are willing
to share, I would love for you to sort of
(12:06):
contextualize that from your own personal perspective. Sure, So I
was actually married to someone who I learned later unfortunately
during the divorces, is a covert narcissist. And these are
the ones that are very hard to see. Like you said,
it comes off initially very um normal, right like healthy,
(12:29):
there's no real love bombing. I don't know about you,
did you experience it present charming in a very non
suspicious way, just totally at yes, absolutely, um. But then
things start to kind of creep in, and the deeper
you get, as you experienced as well, the deeper you
(12:50):
get into these relationships, the more those sort of low
key maybe pink flags become red flags, like you also
mentioned a lack of accountability there. Everything is everybody else's fault, yeah,
and then it's over time, then it becomes you. Everything
is now your fault as we're in this kind of
relationally and that yes, that's exactly when I was like, Okay,
(13:12):
I think it's not for a conversation with my therapist
because it got to the point where it was my
fault for his bad behaviors. Like suddenly I became what
everyone else in his life he had explained how they
were to him, right, like, oh, this person let me down.
This person just let me down. My my family member,
(13:32):
they just let me down. And I started to sense
this theme. I'm like, every you must either pick really
bad people to be in your life or everyone can't
be disappointing and letting you down. And I started to
think I would love to talk to these people and
hear their sides of the story because my gut told
me there was another side. Once I also became one
of the people like he would show up late somewhere
(13:54):
and then be frustrated that I was even holding him
accountable for being late instead of just being like, I'm sorry,
it's totally my bad, and it was. It was such
a subtle pivot, and he was never angry or sort
of boisterous about it. Um, it was almost like I
let him down or disappointed him for not buying into
(14:16):
his bullshit, quite frankly, and I'm like, this is I
don't know, maybe all that totally totally. I mean, I
love the way that you're describing it, because what you're
explaining is the exact experience that people in these relationships have.
But when you don't have, um, maybe a super strong
(14:39):
intuition and or narcissist is really good at what they do.
You know, I was a therapist tonight. Didn't know I
was a therapist. You know, I didn't learn this in school.
You know, we really not the covert, the over grandiose
is like the textbook one. That's the textbook, um, narciss
(15:00):
this that we learned about, and that's like the one
that you could see in the room, right, like the
one that you could pick up on, because they're taking
all that energy in the room. But the covert, like
you say, is really good at appearing empathic or maybe
even like mirroring your empathy. Yes, doing the things that
they know they should do, and watching other people's kind
(15:22):
of empathy and sort of mirroring that to get you
to feel like you're being heard and seen. But usually
it's more like, all right, this is my hook. This
is how I'm going to get her to trust me.
This is how I'm to get her to be vulnerable
with me. Um. But you have a very strong intuition,
and I love that you recognize those internal weird feelings
(15:45):
about this person, and you checked in. For some people,
that may happen, but we excuse it, We excuse the behavior.
Oh he's stressed, Oh he's in grad school. Oh this,
oh that, Oh this person just died. Oh any excuse
we could find, we excuse it. And this victimized covert
(16:09):
kind of pulls on our heart streams. You said you
could have easily been feeling for him and really supplying
him through your Oh oh my gosh, how horrible of
your ex to do that to you, right, that's the
supply of the covert kits. Yeah. Yeah, and that's what I. Um.
I was starting to just recently in this past year
(16:30):
learn about some of the terminology around narcissism, and that
narcissistic supply is something that I learned about. What I
realized in my situation was I am an EmPATH, and
I can be very empathic. Sometimes I almost feel like
I pull away or just like disappear because it becomes
overwhelming for me sometimes the things that I feel. So
that's like a whole different conversation. Um. But I realized
(16:51):
that he was mirroring me. Was so when you said mirror,
it's just like the lights go off. Because he was
really good at adapting and sort of shape shifting in
real time, which can be a superpower that you used
for good or for bad, you know. Um. And so
I thought, oh, this guy really he gets me, he
sees it. He's so considerate. Um. But then when he
(17:12):
started showing all these red flags, I thought, something can't
be adding up. How can you be so empathic and
yet suddenly be completely oblivious to his behaviors or how
it might be making me feel? And um, when I
started to push back. That's when the masks lived, when
I stopped politely chuckling and just letting things go, when
I stopped excusing small, problematic behaviors and sort of asked him, Okay,
(17:38):
so what was this about? And he'd say blah blah
blah inserta BS here, and I'd go, well, that doesn't
really add up because you just said this yesterday, So like,
how do we bridge the gap? Not accusing him, just
like how do we make that make sense? Because what
you're saying today is not in alignment with what you
said yesterday. And I noticed he would get more frustrated
and um just shorter and like there were no more explanations.
(18:02):
And I realized I was cutting off his supply, or
at least the supply that he was getting from me,
because where I used to be this listening, empathic ear
and I heard his sob stories and I tried to
provide support and make him feel better about the people
in his life who were just causing him so much pain.
Once that stopped, I was really of no use to
him in that way, which is, you know, a bummer
(18:25):
to realize that that might have been what it was
all about. But good God better sooner than later. Absolutely, yes, yes,
And for every narcissist, supply can look differently. You know.
It could be like for the grandiose, it's it's look
how great I am? Give me that praise and recognition,
you know, notice me, tell me, give me those awards
and accolades, you know, or compliment my outfit and tell
(18:48):
me how beautiful I am. You know. So for that grandiose,
it's that way, but you're right. For the covert, it
can commonly be feed me when I'm giving you that
victimized bullshit, you know, take you take accountability. Take that.
You know it's it's your fault that I'm late, right like,
(19:08):
you need to roll with it. Don't hold up that
kind of accountability mirror for me, because they don't. They
don't like that kind of accountability is another hallmark like
that doesn't Authentic accountability doesn't exist really in this kind
of narcissistic personality disorder picture because that triggers shame. That
(19:30):
could be a very big trigger of shame. And is
that just something that a true narcissist just doesn't like
to feel, doesn't want to feel, doesn't know what to
do with those emotions. All of it, all of it. Yeah, yeah,
it's so if you look at the core of a narcissist,
one of the core things is insecurity and deep deep
(19:50):
like I'm flawed from my core kind of thing. But
everything they do is to overcompensate for that core sense
of defect, ipness and unworthiness. And so the presentation to
the world could be eire a grandiose and I'm so
wonderful and look at my career and look at all
that I have, or it could sort of be covert
(20:12):
for me, but at the end of the day, they don't.
They don't want to feel that deep insecurity. And if
you point out things that may trigger that for them,
and it's very very not not not even intentionally point
out those things right mistakes or you were late, right,
it triggers a sense of shame. And when they feel shame,
(20:33):
they feel angry. It's not like the healthy ability to
hold doing things wrong, right, mistakes or clause, you know,
the healthy kind of character can hold. Our egos can
hold when we make mistakes or when we do things wrong,
or when we're not perfect. But for a narcissist, that's
(20:54):
a really that's a core wound that they're trying to
kind of conceal through other or over compensation kind of
things that they overcompensate through. That makes sense absolutely. What
really stuck out was when you said when a narcissist
feels shame, they feel anger, it's like they just have
to rebuke it. They can't sit with it except it
(21:16):
say i'm sorry. Exactly exactly. But sometimes it's tricky because
we'll see I have clients that I'll see and I'll say, well,
but this person apologizes, And that's where it gets a
little bit confusing for people because then they're like, well,
they can apologize, they can say I'm sorry for doing this,
(21:37):
or I'm sorry for being late, but then i'm sorry
is more. Hey, let's just move on from this, or
it's shut up already, like stop complaining, or it's i'm sorry,
but guess what I want this in half an hour,
and if I want this, and I'm willing to do
whatever it takes, and that's fine, I'll apologize to you
right now because I know in half an hour i'm
(21:58):
gonna ask you for that. Wow. So the apiology is
really just a trade. They're purchasing what they want with
it exactly it's self serving. M hmm, Okay, it's not really,
it's not. It's not a real A real apology is
like I'm sorry I did this. I want to hear
about your experience of how my behavior affected you, right once,
(22:21):
That's one thing narcissists can't hold. Um, let's talk about
how we can make amends, and how I can make
amends and change my behavior. Here's what I'm doing, and ultimately,
it's not doing it over and over like the narcissistic person.
It's just apology. Okay, five minutes, I'm going to do
that again to you. Right. Is it possible for us
(22:43):
as humans, as people to display narcissistic behaviors every now
and then have a narcissistic moment without being labeled or
defined as a narcissist like a card carrying member membership
no one wants to have. Yes, Um, I'd say that
(23:03):
narcissistic personality again, is a compilation of many, many traits,
and it's on a spectrum, and we can show up.
For example, if someone criticizes you, you're going to kind
of get defensive, right, And that is a common narcissistic
behavior as well, to get defensive. But we can you know,
(23:25):
first of all, we don't have all of those characteristics
or majority of them. Narcissists need to have like ten
of thirteen traits. Okay, oh okay, so that's interesting. There
is truly like a scale or a sort of a
system too. And if you have enough identifying markers, that's
exactly And the thing is too diagnostically as a therapist,
(23:49):
the issue is that we can't really diagnose someone with
mp D unless they show up and they're like, here
are here's the issues in my life as a result
of my behaviors, for example, or as a result of
my characteristics. And narcissists don't do that, you know. There
wouldn't a narcissist not even be able to show up
(24:11):
and say that most of the time, you know, But
sometimes we'll find people who maybe can can say, oh, yeah,
I am kind of self absorbed, and I do I
can kind of show up entitled and and um, I'm
kind of perfectionistic and maybe a little controlling, and I
do need a lot of approval. I do seek a
(24:31):
lot of approval and praise and recognition on a regular basis.
And but maybe they have empathy, right, So it's it's
the first. Again, it's a spectrum, and it's the number
of traits and the intensity of those traits. Right, the
super intense is more like even on the border of
(24:53):
a antisocial kind of sociopath. So it starts with sort
of like general maybe traits you're in there. Maybe there's
a there's a bit of a doctor omni calls the
benign narcissists, the one that just kind of needs the attention.
But they're not going to abuse you or get reached
full maybe at you, or you know, do any of that.
(25:13):
They just need that attention. And so there are more
like benign types, and then there are more like malignant
really sociopathic, harmful, malicious types. And so it's on that
spectrum where we fall. But usually, um, I have to
add to that, when we have been in a narcissistic
abuse relationship, especially long term, we can kind of look
(25:37):
and act like narcissists do, and that that's a kind
of a trauma response. Wow, So start to really emulate
some of the behaviors that we've been seeing and or
experiencing for however many months or years or decades. Sure,
sure it affects us, you know, being in these relationships
they really they cut us off from our true selves
(25:58):
and our true ability to be empathic, because if you've
been in this relationship for years and years, it's like
you run out of that energy. You go into kind
of more of a self preservation mode, and that can
totally look selfish and you know, not caring about others
needs or maybe even in your fight response, you know,
(26:22):
can be kind of mean, you know, and maybe critical.
So we can kind of look like that when we've
been in this kind of PTSD state for a long time.
And again, it's self preservation. It's not a core kind
of dynamic internally for us. It's just how we've learned
(26:44):
to survive in the relationships. Yeah, wow, okay, okay, I
want to talk a little bit more if you're okay
with it in just a second, about your sort of
personal experience and particularly because you said you only realize
during the divorce, which is so fascinating to me because
it means that you shared a home with your your partner,
your spouse for however many years I would assume, and
(27:06):
only saw this mask lip once, you know, the undoing began,
um before we dive into that really quickly. Just so
that people can kind of understand the two buckets, can
you really briefly or succinctfullly just define the textbook narcissist
and three traits that we might see there, and a
covert narcissist and three traits we may see there. Sure,
(27:31):
So with the grandiose there's um, there's more. Okay, So
the general as well, are just the grandiose and coverts
four traits? Ull? Okay? Well yeah, no, no, Um, the
general umbrella of narcissistic core traits is real quick, um,
(27:56):
self absorbed, entitled, demeaning, demand, being, distrustful, perfectionistic, um, kind
of snobbish, special right needs recognition and approval, constantly, unempathic, unremorseful, compulsive,
maybe even sort of emotionally detached. Right, that's common. So
(28:19):
that's kind of like big umbrella. But then when we
look at grandios we have to hone in more on
that um kind of grandiosity. Right, I'm so great, I'm
so wonderful, super successful. They usually look like presented beautifully, perfectly,
very superficial. Um, everything is sort of perfect. I think
(28:44):
Meryl Streep in the Devilwares product, right, that kind of
I'm so wonderful and great don't you know who I
am kind of thing. The covert is more like the victimized, anxious,
depressed um, not grandiosity at all. More again like a
hyper sensitive um complaining. There's more like a quiet, passive aggressiveness,
(29:10):
silent treatments very popular with this kind of type, resentful,
poor me kind of thing. So that's that, yeah, exactly,
And then there are there are many more, and then
there's that mixed bag that has maybe a component of
the covert and maybe a bit of the grandiose at times,
(29:33):
depending on how well, like you know, how their life
is going, how much things are going their way. Okay,
So if you'd like, we can go into each type
or we can just get yeah, absolutely that that's what
we're here for. I would love to put that breakdown, okay,
all right. So the next type that's at the um
(29:53):
the end of the spectrum is the malignant, and that
is where it can start to kind of look like
a sociopathic, very manipulative, malicious, power driven kind of person.
They have more of that, like wilful disregard for people.
Empathy can be turned on or turned off, right, So
(30:15):
it's very it's conscious, a little more conscious, right, there's
a callousness to them. There's a real lack of guilt,
and there may be more awareness to their behaviors than
the other kind of narcissists. Um, these are more like aggressive, abusive, rageful, vindictive, punitive.
They're very very controlling and bully. Um. These are the
(30:41):
bad guys. These are the villains. But there, but but see,
initially they're not you know, initially, this one's the kind
that could really turn on the charm and the charisma
and the confidence, and they're very strong and like kind
of intent that you'll get intense love bombing. Um typically
with this type. And but then it turns into real control.
(31:04):
It isn't like typically in those movies right where the
person becomes super abusive. But initially it was like this fantasy, romantic,
beautiful relationship. Yeah, they're the ugly, ugly types and malignant. Yes.
And then we have somewhere in the middle of the
communal which is usually the kind of do good or
(31:26):
the one that kind of goes and feeds the homeless
and um, volunteers places and maybe is religious or you know,
very very beautiful appearance in public and very masterful at
looking good in the front of the public, but when
you get home, it's sort of the same dynamics of
(31:49):
you know, anger, grandiosity, entitlement, lack of empathy, um, that
kind of thing. But these are the tough ones because
they people really us like you when they know, you know,
this person out in public is a certain way, and
then you know at home, they don't know what it
really looks like when you go. So they're they're saying,
(32:10):
like saving totally should be so and yes, yes, um,
and their supply is more like, you know, look all,
look at all the things I'm doing. Give me that
kind of praise and recognition for all the good things
that I do for the world. And then we have
(32:30):
the benign, which is more the like um, right, the
l a kind of um immature basically you'll stumble into
a given day. Absolutely, yes, yes, this is more like
the shallows though needs to be out the photos the
(32:51):
Instagram that you know, like the kind of reality star
dynamic and um, these are more like emotionally stunted to
kind of immature. Um. You know, we call them like
benign because they're pretty hardard yeah, maybe obnoxious than you totally. Yeah, Okay,
(33:12):
I got it. Is it safe to say then that
the world we live in today, particularly with so when
people say social media is just creating a world full
of narcissists, that obviously is an overexaggeration. But if it
were to be true, would it be benign narcissists more
than anything? So, you know, that's a good question. I
don't know if it's that social media is creating narcissists
(33:35):
or if the narcissists now have a really easy playground
to get their supply from. Right, It's like, this is
easier place. I don't even have to do anything. I
could just post a photo and look at all my
likes and comments and stuff, you know, and there's my
little bit of supply for the day. God, So you
(33:56):
really know, yeah, yeah, I'm inclined to a agree with
you there, um with with the social media stuff and
the benign narcissists and all of all of these things.
Maybe look up one day and realize, oh my god,
like I'm checking some of these boxes. I don't think
I want to be this way, Like, I don't. I
(34:16):
didn't realize I was coming across this way. Is there
such a thing as a reformed narcissist? Is that a
possible thing? Or Is this one of those things where
once you get slapped with that label, it's like, I'm
I'm an addict all my life. Once I've I've realized
I have this strgg this struggle, I'll always be an addict,
but I can be one sober. Is that how it
is with narcissism? This is a really tough question to answer,
(34:39):
and and I hear and from a variety of places.
This is why it kind of gets a little tough
for me, because I have my mind goes in different areas. Right.
My my mind initially goes to, well, here's a very
dangerous area to say yes to or no two Right,
because if I say yes, a lot of those drivers
out there who are dealing with narcissists then have a
(35:00):
little hope that if I just get this person into therapy,
or if I just tell them about how their behavior
affects me, they'll they can change. Right. And sometimes the
answer is yes and sometimes it's no. So that's sort
of my first reservation to say yes because we have
to be very careful people in these relationships. They already
(35:23):
have hope that maybe we can have those really great
moments again. Right, Because when you when you think about
relationships with narcissists. Typically, it's really what it's good, it's
really really good, and when it's bad, it's really really bad.
And having said that myself to people when I was
in it and I hear it now, I'm like, oh
my gosh, this is what we're dealing with. Right, So
(35:46):
in those moments when things are good, you have hope
that it could always be this way, and you just
really desperately want it to be that way because you
have evidence it's that way, Like what do you mean, Like,
it's not that it's potential, Like I see it, I
experience it, and it's really good. So not only that,
but also the narcissist gives you that hope that if
(36:06):
you didn't just blah blah blah, I wouldn't yell at
you like this, if you were just more grateful, you know,
I would. I would stay. It's your fault that I'm
leaving you know that kind of I don't know those
are the exact words, but they make you feel like
if you were just different, then everything would be okay,
things would be good all the time. So that's why
(36:29):
I'm hesitant to say yes, because there's a there's a
dangerous nous to saying yes. For survivors, it's really a
case by case basis um but too. You know, I
have colleagues like in our world that I work with
and consult with, and some of them say absolutely not,
no hope, you know, when some of them say, well, maybe,
(36:51):
you know, if we have enough leverage. So if the
narcissistic person doesn't want to get divorced because it makes
them bad to the public, well we could say, you know,
we could kind of work on that, and there's there
may be more to work through here because they don't
want to lose this other thing, you know. So it's
not that they don't want to lose the partner per se,
(37:13):
they don't want to lose face in front of so exactly.
And so we can kind of work and play on that.
If there is still leverage, then maybe. But if there
isn't leverage and the narcissist has like discarded you and
de valued you, we can't create any kind of change
because they don't care to change. At this point, I'd
(37:38):
love to talk a little bit more about your personal experience.
As you mentioned you were married and only realized during
the divorce that you were married. That entire time to
a covert narcissist. What did the marriage look like? I'm
also curious what do the courtship look like and at
what point did things go wrong? Yeah? So, um, like
(37:59):
you said, initially, when I met this person, it was
really simple and easy and fun. It was a lot
of fun. Actually, I think that was one of the
biggest things that kind of drew me into this person.
But it wasn't an over the top fun. It was
just a simple, young fun. You know. I was twenty six, No,
(38:19):
I was twenty three when we met married at seven. Um,
so I had plenty of years to get to know
this person and it sort of just was a good time.
There wasn't any kind of love bombing or anything over
the top. Um. I was experienced and learned in school
what grandiose narcissists was, and I did not pick up
(38:39):
on any of those kinds of big signs. Um. But
I did. I do remember, looking back now that I
made a mental note that this person one of his
parents is a grandios and that was just It's funny
because I would remember as I was studying for my exams,
I would have remember people associated with certain diagnosis diagnoses,
(39:02):
and this person's parents came to mind when I was
linking a person to that criteria. So I was well
aware of what a grandiose looked like, but he wasn't
that way, and I thought, wow, that's that's pretty amazing.
Person is very humble and very down to earth and
a lot of fun and a lot of the friends
his friends would say how great he is and how
(39:25):
wonderful a friend he is, and how funny and how
lucky I was to be with this person. And so
I thought, okay, good, relax, you know, and like you said,
you know, um my needs felt like they were important
to this person. But over time the self absorption in
this entitlement kind of showed up more in well, he
(39:48):
wants to do what he wants to do, and he
doesn't care about what I want or how I feel
when he does those things. Empathy wasn't entirely a strong
area for this person, but I to chuck that up
to culture. Men in my culture tend to not have
a lot of deep empathy or emotional kind of juice
(40:09):
to them. It's very more like rational thinking and very
culture that specifically just for the Middle Eastern Middle Eastern, Yes, yes, so,
and that's also a type of you know, narcissism as well,
the one that kind of culturally has these traits passed down.
So I kind of excused it. And there's that's where
(40:31):
the excusing started to come up. And I didn't experience
any kind of rage or real big anger with me,
but I saw one really big experience with him and
someone else, and again I excused it. And the deeper
year in it, you know, years and years in it,
the more you tend to excuse, right, because you've invested.
(40:53):
And and that's kind of where I was. I was
engaged at that point and saw that and was like, well, yeah,
I mean I would be mad too, and I'm gonna
maybe I wouldn't kick the person's car in, but I would.
I would kind of you know, i'd be mad if
this happen. Yes, it did, Oh my god, kicked car in? Yep. Yeah,
(41:15):
And that is the quiet rage. I was invested, Yeah,
and I excused it, and it was never directly with me, right,
So I was like, oh, I just like that with
other people maybe, or maybe it was just this one time,
And we find ourselves kind of doing that more and
more and more, right, And so I was still all
(41:36):
about marriage. And we got married, and um again nothing huge,
nothing really big as far as like abusiveness. But fights
got uglier and uglier, arguments got uglier and more below
the belt, right, the devaluing started to come in. And
once I had a child, it was like all on,
(41:57):
laid it on thick, right, because I'm trapped. Yeah, oh
my gosh, what an interesting point though. The children come
in the picture. Now you're definitely not going anywhere, so
that mask and just come all the way off. It's
sure can, It's sure can. And so I got it
then from this person as well as the grandiose mother, right,
(42:18):
grandios mother would call me and say, you have a child.
Now you can't go anywhere. Ah, straight up, you know, Sharine,
what did that feel like to you? Like, at what
point did you realize, holy crap, I'm screed, Like I've
got a problem on my hand. When that, like, as
soon as the baby came and that the conflict became
(42:41):
bigger and bigger, and it was like, wow, this isn't
just with me now, you know. During the marriage, maybe
here and there it would show up, but it was
less and less because I was supplying him. I was
down to go out and have fun. I was down
to drink. I was down to go clubbing. I was
I wasn't getting in the way of his party life.
But when we have a child and I say no, right,
(43:02):
when I have a need and I say no, I
would like to stay home with this infant, right, and
not leave this infant with this person and that person,
it was, well, I'm out of here. I don't give
a ship what you want. I'm a door slam. I'm
at it right. And that's when I started realizing, Wow,
this isn't just going to affect me. This is now
affecting a young child, and I can't have this child
(43:26):
to see this. Yeah, And so that's when I started
to go, Okay, well maybe you know, like every other survivor,
I first said, all right, well, maybe it's me. Maybe
I need to change, maybe I need to look better,
or maybe I need to give more attention to him,
or maybe right, So you go in word and you
think it's you, and then you go wow, well, even
(43:47):
if it is me on some level, and I am
contributing to this issue, which the likelihood is, I was right.
It was a new mom. My attention was all on
this child, and I wasn't really feeding my marriage. But
the issue is that with narcissists, often when you have
a child, your attention is on the child, and the narcissist,
(44:08):
who was very used to getting that all the time
now is like, well, I'm gonna go get this elsewhere,
even when it's their child that the attention is being. Yeah,
that's a whole other topic, you know, it's a whole
other conversation that we could have on what happens to
narcissists when you have kids. But um, ultimately I realized
(44:30):
when things just got uglier and uglier and I had
to get out for the sake of the well being
of the child, and and so it wasn't easy. But
I think for me, I was lucky at having support.
Because if you're in that position and you're not working
and you are very vulnerable, when you've just had a
child there and you need help, a lot of help,
(44:53):
and you're on no sleep and you're just kind of
a mess, Um, it's easier to stay then to leave. Yeah, sometimes,
you know. So I was lucky that I had the
support to to be able to reach out to and say, hey,
this is what's happening like I can't do this anymore.
And I was able to get that support to to
get out, but it wasn't at all easy. It was
(45:17):
very The thing then becomes abuse post separation, which is
its own thing. A colleague has kind of turned that
post separation abuse um terminology, which is very real. Then
the abuse comes out in other ways, financially not paying,
not paying support, um, getting the meanest, the biggest, most
(45:40):
expensive attorney to just like tear you apart um, you know, anything, everything,
you know, wanting to kind of take the child because
they know that the child means a lot to you,
like finding the things that you care about then and
you know, taking that from you as much as they
can't even though they don't they never maybe were invested
(46:02):
in the child. You're cared about taking care of a child.
Now all of a sudden they want fifty percent. For example,
you know you didn't have right about punishing you It
is actually doing a thing that means something to them. Yes, yes,
And the punishment is you know, I think in my
(46:23):
situation was well, how dare you leave me? M? How
dare you leave me? Um? How dare you not listen
to what I told you to do how dare you
do this? You're so ungrateful, you're so blah blah blah,
you know, And then the covert can go to the
world and say, oh, poor me, she left me, she
(46:44):
didn't let me see my child, she didn't do this
and do the right. So it's like everything gets kind
of spun around where the coverts now the victim and
all the things they did to you, we're just not discussed,
not talked about, or they were your fault. How do
you know if you're dealing with a narcissist or someone
(47:05):
who's just angry and hurt and you know you're both
just not fighting fair and the gloves are off. I
guess sure. I think for a narcissist there's more of
a there's less of an ability to come back and repair,
you know, and the the anger is very like blaming.
(47:27):
There's a blame thing that happens, like you go and
you'll say here's what I'm upset about, and then they
get angry that oh my god, you turn you know,
you're making me out to be this like horrible person.
You know, you find it turned around on you all
the time. And narcissists they behave in very cyclical kind
of ways you'll find yourself, you know, maybe love bombed
(47:48):
or kind of put on a pedestal, devalued and then
kind of discarded. So it's very common that it it
becomes this theme that if you watch, it's a cycle
and it's the same thing, keeps happening, things different topics,
different contexts, but same thing. And a big way to know,
you know, if you're dealing with a narcissist commonly is
(48:11):
to check in and see if you have a lot
of the symptoms of somebody who's dealing with one, and
you know, like confusion, a lot of confusion about weight
with the hell, who's who? But this person is abusive
to me, I know they are. They do these things
that are really mean and rageful. But maybe I'm making
a bigger deal. Maybe he was just this or maybe
(48:33):
she was this just having a bad day. Right, So
you when you're excusing really abusive bad behavior, when you're
finding that things are always kind of your fault. When
you're feeling really disconnected and detached, like very alone, very sad, pressed, helpless, hopeless,
(48:53):
um but then at times hopeful, like there's kind of
this emotional mood swingy thing that happens to one of
our theism isn't a good place and things are going well,
you're happy, things are good, and then when again it's bad,
you find yourself feeling like, I don't what do I
even do here? I need? This is bad, I can't
(49:14):
do this anymore. So what you could from your own
you said, your own from your own kind of experience.
You know, if if you're dealing with someone who's kind
of got this high level of narcissistic personality or narcissism here,
you can tell from your own kind of experience. Um,
(49:36):
I think more then saying hey, is this person a
narcissist or not? And at the end of the day,
I mean, I think that label isn't really that important
if we think about it, abuse is just abuse. You know,
we get kind of caught up with a label sometimes
and I think, you know, if we think about how
(49:59):
we're feel and how we're experiencing ourselves in a relationship,
if you're feeling devalued all the time, or you're feeling
like super anxious and on eggshells, or you're feeling like
really depressed, or you're feeling scared to assert yourself after
a period of time. You know, it's important to then
(50:21):
take a look at yourself and see, you know, how
can I take myself maybe out of this, or how
can I manage this relationship if it's a relationship that
I'm not ready to let go of or that I
can't let go of. You know, so you can't always
look at themselves. If someone looks at his or herself
(50:41):
and thinks, oh, yeah, I'm feeling all of these things
that she's talking about, I don't know, and you realize
I think I am with a narcissistic partner. What advice
do you give? Like, is it always leave no matter what?
Is there even a world in which conversations can be
had to remedy the situation and stay in the relationship,
(51:04):
Like what should we do if we feel like we're
in a relationship with a narcissist? The first thing is
to not call them out as that, you know, to
not say, hey, I've did my research and I realized
you're a narcissist. Like that's that's never gonna go well evererever,
You're gonna find him switching around on you real quick.
So um, I'd say educate yourself A very key component
(51:27):
of the healing that we do with clients who come
to us is to educate them on narcissistic personalities and um,
you know, behaviors, so that you can kind of catch
it in real time and not engage in it, right,
not explain or defend yourself when they're in that kind
of place of blame, right, or if they're blame shifted
(51:50):
you kind of it's a natural response to go, well, no,
I didn't mean that. What I said. What I was
trying to say was this that again? And then you
find yourself explaining m And that's not something we want
to really do. We don't want to get engaged in
the opportunity. Don't even because they'll bait you, they'll pull you,
(52:10):
they'll pull you in real quick. It's really slippery to
get slippery slope your conversation. Um. The other thing is
to really accept, radically accept what you have. What you
have is someone who maybe at times is going to
be really nice and really kind and maybe really sweet,
and it's going to be exactly what you want, and
other times it's going to be really horrible. And so
(52:33):
if you can just accept that this is what it
is and that there's nothing you can do to change that.
Then grief is going to come up. Of course, naturally
you're gonna start to feel really sad and really upset. Yeah,
because the vision of what you thought is not what
it is. So radically accept what you have. Right, this
(52:56):
is what it is. Um. If there's kind of this
opponent of hope or fear, that's what tends to keep
us in these relationships, right, hope or fear um, And
you know, you want to take a look at that.
You know, what what am I hoping for here? I
can't hope anymore? Okay, I gotta let go of that hope.
(53:18):
So again, the first step is education. Another big thing
is to have support, to have people who hear you,
who understand you, who validate you. Validation is really big,
really really big. And people whose gas like you feel
like you're losing your mind exactly, yes, exactly, And people
(53:39):
who don't say, well maybe if you did go you know,
say this nice search to this person that they wouldn't do.
I mean that really feeds the self blame that we
already feel in these relationships. So I'd say, you know,
educate yourself, get support if you can. Therapy is really
really helpful managing these relationships. And again, no, we can't
(54:03):
always leave them. These are not always you know. It
might be your boss, it might be your colleague, it
might be siblings, parents, you know, people. We may not
be ready to leave and we may never and you
don't always have to. So this is all really great information.
You know you kind of touched on this, uh, some
of the things that you could consider doing if you
(54:25):
realize you're dating or married to a narcissist. For this
week's party trick, can you give us three things to
accept about the narcissist in your life, whether it's you know,
a lover, a friend, you know, potential partner. What do
we have to accept? Nothing you do can change them. Okay,
(54:48):
it's not your fault, and you can still find happiness
and connection through other relationships. All of your efforts need
not be poured into trying to get it here. M hmm. Okay,
(55:09):
really great. Is closure important when dealing with the narcissist
when it's time to walk away? We have the Letter
to my Narcissistic X as sort of an an outlet
of therapeutic outlet. Sure it is, but we have to
be careful to not send it because just not gonna
We're not going to get what we want or need.
I know, I know. Send it to a friend, send
(55:30):
it to yourself. Um, you know processing in your therapy.
But no, well I wanna don't. The closure is not
going to come from them, and it never really needs to.
It's enough to come from yourself, to give yourself that
validation and that what your your truth is real, what
you experienced is real, and you can validate that with
(55:52):
yourself and or with the people in your life who
will believe you, who are on your side. The narcissist
is a me on their own side. Okay, so one
man team there, one man team, one man band, very TOXICUM.
If if people are looking for more resources, uh, if
they want to learn, if they want to work on themselves,
(56:13):
if if they want to figure out how to navigate
UM potentially a narcissistic partner or relationship, where can they go?
What sh What first steps would you recommend we take?
I would recommend Dr Romney's YouTube channel. It is wonderful
and it's a really great place to educate yourself. Of
a lot of clients that will I'll redirect to her
(56:36):
YouTube for education and for some knowledge and good tips too.
She offers it's like the next best thing to therapy.
I'd say, okay, Romany Dr Romany r A M A
N I okay, and she's an expert if they want
to follow you or or maybe in California or Florida. Yeah, absolutely,
(57:01):
So we do see clients in California or Florida UM
for therapy, but we offer international coaching. So narcissistic abuse
coaching is also something we can do, and we tend
to stay present focused with coaching more like, here's what
you can do. Here's where maybe you're supplying the person
and maybe we could kind of pull back on that.
(57:22):
So getting support is really important here because you're kind
of caught in the weeds when you're on your own.
But if you have this person from the outside who
gets it and is experienced in this kind of personality, UM,
then I think you'll feel much more supported and clear
and clarity is really important big part of the healing
(57:43):
process of gaining that clarity. So Dr Army's YouTube reach
out to someone if possible who understands and really gets
the dynamics and narcissistic abuse recovery UM and read there
are some really wonderful books out there. My website has
a portion on resources and books, so that's also a
(58:05):
great space and just educate yourself. Yeah. Well, Sharine, thank
you so much for all of your information, your wisdom,
your knowledge and expertise. Today. UM, I think it's gonna
help a lot of people. I've learned so much. Uh,
and I really appreciate your time. So thank you again. You,
thank you for holding the space. I think it's really wonderful. Happy,
(58:28):
But thank you again to Sharine for having that incredible conversation,
for being so open, so vulnerable with some of you know,
the most painful and delicate chapters of her life, and
for sharing so much incredible expertise and knowledge with us.
So I know I've certainly got some some takeaways, some
identifying markers to keep in the back of my mind
(58:50):
as I move forward interacting with and getting to know people.
And also, um, some grace for people who may be
exhibiting prop alematic behavior without mislabeling them or just diagnosing
them on our own UM as a narcissist. So I
hope you got something from this one. If you did,
(59:12):
if there was anything that stood out to you, or
if you have your own story that you'd like to share,
feel free to shoot me an email hello at Hot
Happy mess dot com, slide in our d n s
at Hot Happy Mess, or or my personal Instagram at
Zuri Hall z U R I H A L L.
And I will talk to you next week. Have a
good one.
H m hm, Hot Happy Mess, Celebrate your magic in
the middle of life's messes. Hot Happy Mess. I'm Seri
Hall and this is hot Happy may Cute. What's up?
(00:25):
Welcome back to another episode of Hot Happy Mess. I
am your host, Zeri Hall, and today we are talking
about um technically a diagnosis uh that oftentimes in this
day and age, is misdiagnosed or inaccurately slapped on people
who we don't understand or who are complicated or um,
(00:47):
you know, who may have some problematic tendencies but may
not necessarily be a narcissist. Uh. We hear the word
thrown around all the time. I think a lot of
us have I've experienced, or had interaction or had interactions
with legitimate narcissists. And then I think also a lot
(01:07):
of us have just had interactions with people who we're
slightly problematic or who you know, displayed self centered qualities
or maybe came across as arrogant or selfish for whatever reason. Um.
And then if you ask them, maybe they have an
explanation for that. Maybe they feel the same in the
(01:28):
reverse about the person who's who's calling them a narcissist. Right, um,
and as we have heard this word sort of thrown
around more and more. I've become increasingly um interested in
what actually makes a narcissist, what actually qualifies who actually
qualifies as a narcissist. Can you exhibit narcissistic behavior without
(01:51):
technically being a narcissist? Or is it kind of an
all or nothing deal? Um. A friend of the show,
Nedra Glover to Wam, actually posted something recently that was
just so spot on and kind of gave words to
this feeling that I've had that you know a few
of my friends have had when we talk about this stuff.
(02:13):
And she recently posted and said, narcissism is now a
buzzword to describe a complicated person. It's rare for someone
to be clinically diagnosed with narcissism, and yet so many
people are labeled by non mental health professionals as a
narcissist in a one on one relationship and without the
proper assessment tools. People are misdiagnosed as narcissists when they
(02:35):
demonstrate problematic behaviors. Diagnosing people without a professional is a
breeding ground for misinformation. Let's go back to describing behavior
as mean, self centered, deceitful, or suspicious without labeling a
person a narcissist. I think those are really wise words.
I couldn't agree more UM. And then also on rare occasion,
(02:59):
you're dealing with a scissist. So that's what this episode
is for UM to hopefully get some clarity around what
is or isn't narcissistic behavior when and how to know
that you may have a problem on your hands, UM,
and also what to do about it. Uh. This episode
is really interesting because it is a real woman, real
(03:23):
story combined with UM some really impactful and helpful words
of wisdom and education from a licensed marriage and family therapist.
And what I find so interesting about you know, our
conversation and about her story, which she was so vulnerable
and open and sharing and I'm really grateful for that,
(03:45):
is that she is a licensed marriage and family therapist
and was also married to a narcissist. You know, I
think that's a really um, a really prime exam bowl
of you know, sometimes you just don't know or you
don't realize until it's too late, even when you might
(04:07):
have the training, the education and your tools to identify
problematic behavior like this. I hope that through listening you
have a little more compassion for yourself if you feel
like you're going through a similar situation or concerned that
you might be UM and that you have some takeaways.
So we're going to dive right in. Shrine pay Car
(04:27):
is a licensed marriage and family therapist in California and Florida.
She's been practicing psychotherapy for over ten years. Shrine brings
a unique sense of warmth, optimism, awareness, and collaboration to
her work with clients, and her areas of specialty include
complex PTSD, divorce, and mindful parenting. Here we go. Sharine
(04:48):
pay Car is a licensed marriage and family therapist in
California and Florida. She's been practicing psychotherapy for over ten
years and Sharne brings a unique sense of warmth, optimism, awareness,
and collaboration to her work with clients in Her areas
of specialty include complex PTSD, divorce, and mindful parenting. Welcome, hurting,
(05:09):
how are you? I well? Thank you so much. It's
such a pleasure to be here with you, zury Um Yeah,
same here. Thank you so much for for joining us. Um.
You know, to just dive right into the obvious with
today's episode, Narcissism Narcissists I think in this day and age,
just speaking from my own perspective, the term gets thrown
(05:32):
around so wildly, so loosely these days. If an X
breaks up with you, they're a narcissist. If you if
they're just like annoying or a little bit self centered,
they're a narcissist. If if they're enforcing boundaries. Sometimes sometimes
they're healthy behaviors, and there are narcissist because they're not giving,
you know. So it's just one of those things where
I was like, I would love to sit down with
a licensed therapist, a trained professional to help us figure out, um,
(05:58):
what a narcissist actually is, what the red lags are, um,
and when we should also maybe be extending grace to
the people in our lives or considering that something else
might be going on. So I'm almost just as interested
in figuring out who isn't a narcissist as fully understanding
who is. Yes, Yes, it's such a good question because
it's so true that it's now the the word narcissist
(06:22):
is being thrown out so much, and it's like the
modern day, oh my ex was crazy kind of thing,
you know, in those times when they just relate on
my ex was crazy, Now it's my ex as a narcissist. Um.
So essentially, you know, narcissists, they there are many traits
that go into this personality, and um, just that that
(06:43):
self absorption or that selfishness is not exactly the only
trait that we need to have in order to be
able to call it clinically narcissistic personality disorder. So usually
narcissists will have, UM, definitely this sense of difficulty or
underdeveloped empathy, difficulty really truly empathizing with people being able
(07:05):
to put themselves in someone else's shoes, to really feel
what that person feels, or to even experience to even
understand how their behavior is being experienced by someone else.
That's one of the key ones. Um, there's entitlement. That's
a big one. You know, I'm special, I'm sort of
(07:26):
God's gift to the earth. I'm so great, that's all
that grand Yes, yes, yes, definitely, And that could be
kind of overt or covert. It could be, um, you know,
an outward kind of grandiose presentation with I'm so great,
I'm so special, or it could be I'm so special
that nobody sees it, nobody knows you know, yeah, yeah,
(07:49):
oh okay. Now I'm so excited because you know, we've
all had our I won't say we all, but many
of us have had experiences with narcissistic behavior, maybe at
times displayed narcissistic behavior. UM. But what is really interesting
to me about what you just said at the end,
there is UM. Sometimes the god complex with these ideas
(08:14):
of grandeur aren't necessarily displayed to the outside world. It's
UM an internal monologue. It's something that they're closest, closest
And I use that term very loosely. UM loved ones.
I kind of use that term very loosely. Do hear
the most about No one understands me, No one sees
how great I am. The world is against me if
(08:35):
only they knew UM. And so when I I started
experiencing that once in a very casual dating situation, and
I was so confused because I thought, Okay, this guy
is extremely handsome, he's very charming, he seems so emotionally intelligent.
Our conversations are so deep, he's so smart, he's so UM.
(08:56):
He's on it, like he sees me. He's very quick
to dissect UM. He can read people very well. And
then as we continued to get to know each other,
these tiny little red flak started popping up where you know,
if there was an ex he had, it was their
fault that things fell apart, even though and I won't
(09:16):
get specific about the things, but everything he told me
made it sound like it was very much his fault
that that relationship ended. There was some bad behavior on
his end, but it was her fault because because and
it was the the other lady's fault because she knew
he was vulnerable at that time, and so all of
these things, I'm just like, that's so bizarre. And then um,
(09:36):
he started to, Um, I felt like, maybe test me
a little bit, like in very subtle way, start to
push boundaries. And that started to feel like more familiar
in narcissistic behavior, to see how far he could go.
And um, it never was overt or over the top
or loud. We'd go out, though, and as soon as
(09:59):
we walked in he had to find someone to to
insult to me under his breath and it was such
a turn off or oh god, that person, like how
unattractive are they? And I'm just like, this is so bizarre,
Like that person is minding their business, eating lunch, and
you just feel the need to quietly tear down people
in any space you're and to sort of build yourself up.
So I started talking to my therapist about it, and
(10:20):
she's like, have you heard of covert narcissism? I have not,
So can you please herine just go into a little
bit of what covert narcissists. So you described in just
two minutes, not even two minutes, the other pieces of
the components of that narcissistic personality. And so there's a
(10:40):
big umbrella right of like lack of empathy and you know,
entitlement and grandiosity and lack of accountability, and so there's
a big umbrella. But beneath that are those kinds of
types personality and narcissistic personality types. And um, we can
totally go into that that that that's a great idea
actually be because we're kind of moving into this different
(11:02):
type of narcissist, which is again like the low key
narcissist or the vulnerable, it's more the victimized kind of complaining, umm, arrogant,
but more like again victimized. Right, Like what you describe
was this I'm better in a way, you know, I'm better.
But I'm but I'm I'm victimized. Nobody sees you know
(11:24):
how great I am. Um kind of place. And then
even that what you described to me to go about
beneath his breath, needing to devalue and kind of put
down and sort of criticized people, that is again a
very common narcissistic trait as well. You know where it's
like others are beneath me. So there's a quiet rage
(11:46):
with the covert. There's a quiet anger. Um, there's more
of like a judgmental kind of personality rather than this
outward criticism. Um. So the covert is I have a
lot of experience, unfortunately for only as well with the covert.
So I you, to the extent that you are willing
to share, I would love for you to sort of
(12:06):
contextualize that from your own personal perspective. Sure, So I
was actually married to someone who I learned later unfortunately
during the divorces, is a covert narcissist. And these are
the ones that are very hard to see. Like you said,
it comes off initially very um normal, right like healthy,
(12:29):
there's no real love bombing. I don't know about you,
did you experience it present charming in a very non
suspicious way, just totally at yes, absolutely, um. But then
things start to kind of creep in, and the deeper
you get, as you experienced as well, the deeper you
(12:50):
get into these relationships, the more those sort of low
key maybe pink flags become red flags, like you also
mentioned a lack of accountability there. Everything is everybody else's fault, yeah,
and then it's over time, then it becomes you. Everything
is now your fault as we're in this kind of
relationally and that yes, that's exactly when I was like, Okay,
(13:12):
I think it's not for a conversation with my therapist
because it got to the point where it was my
fault for his bad behaviors. Like suddenly I became what
everyone else in his life he had explained how they
were to him, right, like, oh, this person let me down.
This person just let me down. My my family member,
(13:32):
they just let me down. And I started to sense
this theme. I'm like, every you must either pick really
bad people to be in your life or everyone can't
be disappointing and letting you down. And I started to
think I would love to talk to these people and
hear their sides of the story because my gut told
me there was another side. Once I also became one
of the people like he would show up late somewhere
(13:54):
and then be frustrated that I was even holding him
accountable for being late instead of just being like, I'm sorry,
it's totally my bad, and it was. It was such
a subtle pivot, and he was never angry or sort
of boisterous about it. Um, it was almost like I
let him down or disappointed him for not buying into
(14:16):
his bullshit, quite frankly, and I'm like, this is I
don't know, maybe all that totally totally. I mean, I
love the way that you're describing it, because what you're
explaining is the exact experience that people in these relationships have.
But when you don't have, um, maybe a super strong
(14:39):
intuition and or narcissist is really good at what they do.
You know, I was a therapist tonight. Didn't know I
was a therapist. You know, I didn't learn this in school.
You know, we really not the covert, the over grandiose
is like the textbook one. That's the textbook, um, narciss
(15:00):
this that we learned about, and that's like the one
that you could see in the room, right, like the
one that you could pick up on, because they're taking
all that energy in the room. But the covert, like
you say, is really good at appearing empathic or maybe
even like mirroring your empathy. Yes, doing the things that
they know they should do, and watching other people's kind
(15:22):
of empathy and sort of mirroring that to get you
to feel like you're being heard and seen. But usually
it's more like, all right, this is my hook. This
is how I'm going to get her to trust me.
This is how I'm to get her to be vulnerable
with me. Um. But you have a very strong intuition,
and I love that you recognize those internal weird feelings
(15:45):
about this person, and you checked in. For some people,
that may happen, but we excuse it, We excuse the behavior.
Oh he's stressed, Oh he's in grad school. Oh this,
oh that, Oh this person just died. Oh any excuse
we could find, we excuse it. And this victimized covert
(16:09):
kind of pulls on our heart streams. You said you
could have easily been feeling for him and really supplying
him through your Oh oh my gosh, how horrible of
your ex to do that to you, right, that's the
supply of the covert kits. Yeah. Yeah, and that's what I. Um.
I was starting to just recently in this past year
(16:30):
learn about some of the terminology around narcissism, and that
narcissistic supply is something that I learned about. What I
realized in my situation was I am an EmPATH, and
I can be very empathic. Sometimes I almost feel like
I pull away or just like disappear because it becomes
overwhelming for me sometimes the things that I feel. So
that's like a whole different conversation. Um. But I realized
(16:51):
that he was mirroring me. Was so when you said mirror,
it's just like the lights go off. Because he was
really good at adapting and sort of shape shifting in
real time, which can be a superpower that you used
for good or for bad, you know. Um. And so
I thought, oh, this guy really he gets me, he
sees it. He's so considerate. Um. But then when he
(17:12):
started showing all these red flags, I thought, something can't
be adding up. How can you be so empathic and
yet suddenly be completely oblivious to his behaviors or how
it might be making me feel? And um, when I
started to push back. That's when the masks lived, when
I stopped politely chuckling and just letting things go, when
I stopped excusing small, problematic behaviors and sort of asked him, Okay,
(17:38):
so what was this about? And he'd say blah blah
blah inserta BS here, and I'd go, well, that doesn't
really add up because you just said this yesterday, So like,
how do we bridge the gap? Not accusing him, just
like how do we make that make sense? Because what
you're saying today is not in alignment with what you
said yesterday. And I noticed he would get more frustrated
and um just shorter and like there were no more explanations.
(18:02):
And I realized I was cutting off his supply, or
at least the supply that he was getting from me,
because where I used to be this listening, empathic ear
and I heard his sob stories and I tried to
provide support and make him feel better about the people
in his life who were just causing him so much pain.
Once that stopped, I was really of no use to
him in that way, which is, you know, a bummer
(18:25):
to realize that that might have been what it was
all about. But good God better sooner than later. Absolutely, yes, yes,
And for every narcissist, supply can look differently. You know.
It could be like for the grandiose, it's it's look
how great I am? Give me that praise and recognition,
you know, notice me, tell me, give me those awards
and accolades, you know, or compliment my outfit and tell
(18:48):
me how beautiful I am. You know. So for that grandiose,
it's that way, but you're right. For the covert, it
can commonly be feed me when I'm giving you that
victimized bullshit, you know, take you take accountability. Take that.
You know it's it's your fault that I'm late, right like,
(19:08):
you need to roll with it. Don't hold up that
kind of accountability mirror for me, because they don't. They
don't like that kind of accountability is another hallmark like
that doesn't Authentic accountability doesn't exist really in this kind
of narcissistic personality disorder picture because that triggers shame. That
(19:30):
could be a very big trigger of shame. And is
that just something that a true narcissist just doesn't like
to feel, doesn't want to feel, doesn't know what to
do with those emotions. All of it, all of it. Yeah, yeah,
it's so if you look at the core of a narcissist,
one of the core things is insecurity and deep deep
(19:50):
like I'm flawed from my core kind of thing. But
everything they do is to overcompensate for that core sense
of defect, ipness and unworthiness. And so the presentation to
the world could be eire a grandiose and I'm so
wonderful and look at my career and look at all
that I have, or it could sort of be covert
(20:12):
for me, but at the end of the day, they don't.
They don't want to feel that deep insecurity. And if
you point out things that may trigger that for them,
and it's very very not not not even intentionally point
out those things right mistakes or you were late, right,
it triggers a sense of shame. And when they feel shame,
(20:33):
they feel angry. It's not like the healthy ability to
hold doing things wrong, right, mistakes or clause, you know,
the healthy kind of character can hold. Our egos can
hold when we make mistakes or when we do things wrong,
or when we're not perfect. But for a narcissist, that's
(20:54):
a really that's a core wound that they're trying to
kind of conceal through other or over compensation kind of
things that they overcompensate through. That makes sense absolutely. What
really stuck out was when you said when a narcissist
feels shame, they feel anger, it's like they just have
to rebuke it. They can't sit with it except it
(21:16):
say i'm sorry. Exactly exactly. But sometimes it's tricky because
we'll see I have clients that I'll see and I'll say, well,
but this person apologizes, And that's where it gets a
little bit confusing for people because then they're like, well,
they can apologize, they can say I'm sorry for doing this,
(21:37):
or I'm sorry for being late, but then i'm sorry
is more. Hey, let's just move on from this, or
it's shut up already, like stop complaining, or it's i'm sorry,
but guess what I want this in half an hour,
and if I want this, and I'm willing to do
whatever it takes, and that's fine, I'll apologize to you
right now because I know in half an hour i'm
(21:58):
gonna ask you for that. Wow. So the apiology is
really just a trade. They're purchasing what they want with
it exactly it's self serving. M hmm, Okay, it's not really,
it's not. It's not a real A real apology is
like I'm sorry I did this. I want to hear
about your experience of how my behavior affected you, right once,
(22:21):
That's one thing narcissists can't hold. Um, let's talk about
how we can make amends, and how I can make
amends and change my behavior. Here's what I'm doing, and ultimately,
it's not doing it over and over like the narcissistic person.
It's just apology. Okay, five minutes, I'm going to do
that again to you. Right. Is it possible for us
(22:43):
as humans, as people to display narcissistic behaviors every now
and then have a narcissistic moment without being labeled or
defined as a narcissist like a card carrying member membership
no one wants to have. Yes, Um, I'd say that
(23:03):
narcissistic personality again, is a compilation of many, many traits,
and it's on a spectrum, and we can show up.
For example, if someone criticizes you, you're going to kind
of get defensive, right, And that is a common narcissistic
behavior as well, to get defensive. But we can you know,
(23:25):
first of all, we don't have all of those characteristics
or majority of them. Narcissists need to have like ten
of thirteen traits. Okay, oh okay, so that's interesting. There
is truly like a scale or a sort of a
system too. And if you have enough identifying markers, that's
exactly And the thing is too diagnostically as a therapist,
(23:49):
the issue is that we can't really diagnose someone with
mp D unless they show up and they're like, here
are here's the issues in my life as a result
of my behaviors, for example, or as a result of
my characteristics. And narcissists don't do that, you know. There
wouldn't a narcissist not even be able to show up
(24:11):
and say that most of the time, you know, But
sometimes we'll find people who maybe can can say, oh, yeah,
I am kind of self absorbed, and I do I
can kind of show up entitled and and um, I'm
kind of perfectionistic and maybe a little controlling, and I
do need a lot of approval. I do seek a
(24:31):
lot of approval and praise and recognition on a regular basis.
And but maybe they have empathy, right, So it's it's
the first. Again, it's a spectrum, and it's the number
of traits and the intensity of those traits. Right, the
super intense is more like even on the border of
(24:53):
a antisocial kind of sociopath. So it starts with sort
of like general maybe traits you're in there. Maybe there's
a there's a bit of a doctor omni calls the
benign narcissists, the one that just kind of needs the attention.
But they're not going to abuse you or get reached
full maybe at you, or you know, do any of that.
(25:13):
They just need that attention. And so there are more
like benign types, and then there are more like malignant
really sociopathic, harmful, malicious types. And so it's on that
spectrum where we fall. But usually, um, I have to
add to that, when we have been in a narcissistic
abuse relationship, especially long term, we can kind of look
(25:37):
and act like narcissists do, and that that's a kind
of a trauma response. Wow, So start to really emulate
some of the behaviors that we've been seeing and or
experiencing for however many months or years or decades. Sure,
sure it affects us, you know, being in these relationships
they really they cut us off from our true selves
(25:58):
and our true ability to be empathic, because if you've
been in this relationship for years and years, it's like
you run out of that energy. You go into kind
of more of a self preservation mode, and that can
totally look selfish and you know, not caring about others
needs or maybe even in your fight response, you know,
(26:22):
can be kind of mean, you know, and maybe critical.
So we can kind of look like that when we've
been in this kind of PTSD state for a long time.
And again, it's self preservation. It's not a core kind
of dynamic internally for us. It's just how we've learned
(26:44):
to survive in the relationships. Yeah, wow, okay, okay, I
want to talk a little bit more if you're okay
with it in just a second, about your sort of
personal experience and particularly because you said you only realize
during the divorce, which is so fascinating to me because
it means that you shared a home with your your partner,
your spouse for however many years I would assume, and
(27:06):
only saw this mask lip once, you know, the undoing began,
um before we dive into that really quickly. Just so
that people can kind of understand the two buckets, can
you really briefly or succinctfullly just define the textbook narcissist
and three traits that we might see there, and a
covert narcissist and three traits we may see there. Sure,
(27:31):
So with the grandiose there's um, there's more. Okay, So
the general as well, are just the grandiose and coverts
four traits? Ull? Okay? Well yeah, no, no, Um, the
general umbrella of narcissistic core traits is real quick, um,
(27:56):
self absorbed, entitled, demeaning, demand, being, distrustful, perfectionistic, um, kind
of snobbish, special right needs recognition and approval, constantly, unempathic, unremorseful, compulsive,
maybe even sort of emotionally detached. Right, that's common. So
(28:19):
that's kind of like big umbrella. But then when we
look at grandios we have to hone in more on
that um kind of grandiosity. Right, I'm so great, I'm
so wonderful, super successful. They usually look like presented beautifully, perfectly,
very superficial. Um, everything is sort of perfect. I think
(28:44):
Meryl Streep in the Devilwares product, right, that kind of
I'm so wonderful and great don't you know who I
am kind of thing. The covert is more like the victimized, anxious,
depressed um, not grandiosity at all. More again like a
hyper sensitive um complaining. There's more like a quiet, passive aggressiveness,
(29:10):
silent treatments very popular with this kind of type, resentful,
poor me kind of thing. So that's that, yeah, exactly,
And then there are there are many more, and then
there's that mixed bag that has maybe a component of
the covert and maybe a bit of the grandiose at times,
(29:33):
depending on how well, like you know, how their life
is going, how much things are going their way. Okay,
So if you'd like, we can go into each type
or we can just get yeah, absolutely that that's what
we're here for. I would love to put that breakdown, okay,
all right. So the next type that's at the um
(29:53):
the end of the spectrum is the malignant, and that
is where it can start to kind of look like
a sociopathic, very manipulative, malicious, power driven kind of person.
They have more of that, like wilful disregard for people.
Empathy can be turned on or turned off, right, So
(30:15):
it's very it's conscious, a little more conscious, right, there's
a callousness to them. There's a real lack of guilt,
and there may be more awareness to their behaviors than
the other kind of narcissists. Um, these are more like aggressive, abusive, rageful, vindictive, punitive.
They're very very controlling and bully. Um. These are the
(30:41):
bad guys. These are the villains. But there, but but see,
initially they're not you know, initially, this one's the kind
that could really turn on the charm and the charisma
and the confidence, and they're very strong and like kind
of intent that you'll get intense love bombing. Um typically
with this type. And but then it turns into real control.
(31:04):
It isn't like typically in those movies right where the
person becomes super abusive. But initially it was like this fantasy, romantic,
beautiful relationship. Yeah, they're the ugly, ugly types and malignant. Yes.
And then we have somewhere in the middle of the
communal which is usually the kind of do good or
(31:26):
the one that kind of goes and feeds the homeless
and um, volunteers places and maybe is religious or you know,
very very beautiful appearance in public and very masterful at
looking good in the front of the public, but when
you get home, it's sort of the same dynamics of
(31:49):
you know, anger, grandiosity, entitlement, lack of empathy, um, that
kind of thing. But these are the tough ones because
they people really us like you when they know, you know,
this person out in public is a certain way, and
then you know at home, they don't know what it
really looks like when you go. So they're they're saying,
(32:10):
like saving totally should be so and yes, yes, um,
and their supply is more like, you know, look all,
look at all the things I'm doing. Give me that
kind of praise and recognition for all the good things
that I do for the world. And then we have
(32:30):
the benign, which is more the like um, right, the
l a kind of um immature basically you'll stumble into
a given day. Absolutely, yes, yes, this is more like
the shallows though needs to be out the photos the
(32:51):
Instagram that you know, like the kind of reality star
dynamic and um, these are more like emotionally stunted to
kind of immature. Um. You know, we call them like
benign because they're pretty hardard yeah, maybe obnoxious than you totally. Yeah, Okay,
(33:12):
I got it. Is it safe to say then that
the world we live in today, particularly with so when
people say social media is just creating a world full
of narcissists, that obviously is an overexaggeration. But if it
were to be true, would it be benign narcissists more
than anything? So, you know, that's a good question. I
don't know if it's that social media is creating narcissists
(33:35):
or if the narcissists now have a really easy playground
to get their supply from. Right, It's like, this is
easier place. I don't even have to do anything. I
could just post a photo and look at all my
likes and comments and stuff, you know, and there's my
little bit of supply for the day. God, So you
(33:56):
really know, yeah, yeah, I'm inclined to a agree with
you there, um with with the social media stuff and
the benign narcissists and all of all of these things.
Maybe look up one day and realize, oh my god,
like I'm checking some of these boxes. I don't think
I want to be this way, Like, I don't. I
(34:16):
didn't realize I was coming across this way. Is there
such a thing as a reformed narcissist? Is that a
possible thing? Or Is this one of those things where
once you get slapped with that label, it's like, I'm
I'm an addict all my life. Once I've I've realized
I have this strgg this struggle, I'll always be an addict,
but I can be one sober. Is that how it
is with narcissism? This is a really tough question to answer,
(34:39):
and and I hear and from a variety of places.
This is why it kind of gets a little tough
for me, because I have my mind goes in different areas. Right.
My my mind initially goes to, well, here's a very
dangerous area to say yes to or no two Right,
because if I say yes, a lot of those drivers
out there who are dealing with narcissists then have a
(35:00):
little hope that if I just get this person into therapy,
or if I just tell them about how their behavior
affects me, they'll they can change. Right. And sometimes the
answer is yes and sometimes it's no. So that's sort
of my first reservation to say yes because we have
to be very careful people in these relationships. They already
(35:23):
have hope that maybe we can have those really great
moments again. Right, Because when you when you think about
relationships with narcissists. Typically, it's really what it's good, it's
really really good, and when it's bad, it's really really bad.
And having said that myself to people when I was
in it and I hear it now, I'm like, oh
my gosh, this is what we're dealing with. Right, So
(35:46):
in those moments when things are good, you have hope
that it could always be this way, and you just
really desperately want it to be that way because you
have evidence it's that way, Like what do you mean, Like,
it's not that it's potential, Like I see it, I
experience it, and it's really good. So not only that,
but also the narcissist gives you that hope that if
(36:06):
you didn't just blah blah blah, I wouldn't yell at
you like this, if you were just more grateful, you know,
I would. I would stay. It's your fault that I'm
leaving you know that kind of I don't know those
are the exact words, but they make you feel like
if you were just different, then everything would be okay,
things would be good all the time. So that's why
(36:29):
I'm hesitant to say yes, because there's a there's a
dangerous nous to saying yes. For survivors, it's really a
case by case basis um but too. You know, I
have colleagues like in our world that I work with
and consult with, and some of them say absolutely not,
no hope, you know, when some of them say, well, maybe,
(36:51):
you know, if we have enough leverage. So if the
narcissistic person doesn't want to get divorced because it makes
them bad to the public, well we could say, you know,
we could kind of work on that, and there's there
may be more to work through here because they don't
want to lose this other thing, you know. So it's
not that they don't want to lose the partner per se,
(37:13):
they don't want to lose face in front of so exactly.
And so we can kind of work and play on that.
If there is still leverage, then maybe. But if there
isn't leverage and the narcissist has like discarded you and
de valued you, we can't create any kind of change
because they don't care to change. At this point, I'd
(37:38):
love to talk a little bit more about your personal experience.
As you mentioned you were married and only realized during
the divorce that you were married. That entire time to
a covert narcissist. What did the marriage look like? I'm
also curious what do the courtship look like and at
what point did things go wrong? Yeah? So, um, like
(37:59):
you said, initially, when I met this person, it was
really simple and easy and fun. It was a lot
of fun. Actually, I think that was one of the
biggest things that kind of drew me into this person.
But it wasn't an over the top fun. It was
just a simple, young fun. You know. I was twenty six, No,
(38:19):
I was twenty three when we met married at seven. Um,
so I had plenty of years to get to know
this person and it sort of just was a good time.
There wasn't any kind of love bombing or anything over
the top. Um. I was experienced and learned in school
what grandiose narcissists was, and I did not pick up
(38:39):
on any of those kinds of big signs. Um. But
I did. I do remember, looking back now that I
made a mental note that this person one of his
parents is a grandios and that was just It's funny
because I would remember as I was studying for my exams,
I would have remember people associated with certain diagnosis diagnoses,
(39:02):
and this person's parents came to mind when I was
linking a person to that criteria. So I was well
aware of what a grandiose looked like, but he wasn't
that way, and I thought, wow, that's that's pretty amazing.
Person is very humble and very down to earth and
a lot of fun and a lot of the friends
his friends would say how great he is and how
(39:25):
wonderful a friend he is, and how funny and how
lucky I was to be with this person. And so
I thought, okay, good, relax, you know, and like you said,
you know, um my needs felt like they were important
to this person. But over time the self absorption in
this entitlement kind of showed up more in well, he
(39:48):
wants to do what he wants to do, and he
doesn't care about what I want or how I feel
when he does those things. Empathy wasn't entirely a strong
area for this person, but I to chuck that up
to culture. Men in my culture tend to not have
a lot of deep empathy or emotional kind of juice
(40:09):
to them. It's very more like rational thinking and very
culture that specifically just for the Middle Eastern Middle Eastern, Yes, yes, so,
and that's also a type of you know, narcissism as well,
the one that kind of culturally has these traits passed down.
So I kind of excused it. And there's that's where
(40:31):
the excusing started to come up. And I didn't experience
any kind of rage or real big anger with me,
but I saw one really big experience with him and
someone else, and again I excused it. And the deeper
year in it, you know, years and years in it,
the more you tend to excuse, right, because you've invested.
(40:53):
And and that's kind of where I was. I was
engaged at that point and saw that and was like, well, yeah,
I mean I would be mad too, and I'm gonna
maybe I wouldn't kick the person's car in, but I would.
I would kind of you know, i'd be mad if
this happen. Yes, it did, Oh my god, kicked car in? Yep. Yeah,
(41:15):
And that is the quiet rage. I was invested, Yeah,
and I excused it, and it was never directly with me, right,
So I was like, oh, I just like that with
other people maybe, or maybe it was just this one time,
And we find ourselves kind of doing that more and
more and more, right, And so I was still all
(41:36):
about marriage. And we got married, and um again nothing huge,
nothing really big as far as like abusiveness. But fights
got uglier and uglier, arguments got uglier and more below
the belt, right, the devaluing started to come in. And
once I had a child, it was like all on,
(41:57):
laid it on thick, right, because I'm trapped. Yeah, oh
my gosh, what an interesting point though. The children come
in the picture. Now you're definitely not going anywhere, so
that mask and just come all the way off. It's
sure can, It's sure can. And so I got it
then from this person as well as the grandiose mother, right,
(42:18):
grandios mother would call me and say, you have a child.
Now you can't go anywhere. Ah, straight up, you know, Sharine,
what did that feel like to you? Like, at what
point did you realize, holy crap, I'm screed, Like I've
got a problem on my hand. When that, like, as
soon as the baby came and that the conflict became
(42:41):
bigger and bigger, and it was like, wow, this isn't
just with me now, you know. During the marriage, maybe
here and there it would show up, but it was
less and less because I was supplying him. I was
down to go out and have fun. I was down
to drink. I was down to go clubbing. I was
I wasn't getting in the way of his party life.
But when we have a child and I say no, right,
(43:02):
when I have a need and I say no, I
would like to stay home with this infant, right, and
not leave this infant with this person and that person,
it was, well, I'm out of here. I don't give
a ship what you want. I'm a door slam. I'm
at it right. And that's when I started realizing, Wow,
this isn't just going to affect me. This is now
affecting a young child, and I can't have this child
(43:26):
to see this. Yeah, And so that's when I started
to go, Okay, well maybe you know, like every other survivor,
I first said, all right, well, maybe it's me. Maybe
I need to change, maybe I need to look better,
or maybe I need to give more attention to him,
or maybe right, So you go in word and you
think it's you, and then you go wow, well, even
(43:47):
if it is me on some level, and I am
contributing to this issue, which the likelihood is, I was right.
It was a new mom. My attention was all on
this child, and I wasn't really feeding my marriage. But
the issue is that with narcissists, often when you have
a child, your attention is on the child, and the narcissist,
(44:08):
who was very used to getting that all the time
now is like, well, I'm gonna go get this elsewhere,
even when it's their child that the attention is being. Yeah,
that's a whole other topic, you know, it's a whole
other conversation that we could have on what happens to
narcissists when you have kids. But um, ultimately I realized
(44:30):
when things just got uglier and uglier and I had
to get out for the sake of the well being
of the child, and and so it wasn't easy. But
I think for me, I was lucky at having support.
Because if you're in that position and you're not working
and you are very vulnerable, when you've just had a
child there and you need help, a lot of help,
(44:53):
and you're on no sleep and you're just kind of
a mess, Um, it's easier to stay then to leave. Yeah, sometimes,
you know. So I was lucky that I had the
support to to be able to reach out to and say, hey,
this is what's happening like I can't do this anymore.
And I was able to get that support to to
get out, but it wasn't at all easy. It was
(45:17):
very The thing then becomes abuse post separation, which is
its own thing. A colleague has kind of turned that
post separation abuse um terminology, which is very real. Then
the abuse comes out in other ways, financially not paying,
not paying support, um, getting the meanest, the biggest, most
(45:40):
expensive attorney to just like tear you apart um, you know, anything, everything,
you know, wanting to kind of take the child because
they know that the child means a lot to you,
like finding the things that you care about then and
you know, taking that from you as much as they
can't even though they don't they never maybe were invested
(46:02):
in the child. You're cared about taking care of a child.
Now all of a sudden they want fifty percent. For example,
you know you didn't have right about punishing you It
is actually doing a thing that means something to them. Yes, yes,
And the punishment is you know, I think in my
(46:23):
situation was well, how dare you leave me? M? How
dare you leave me? Um? How dare you not listen
to what I told you to do how dare you
do this? You're so ungrateful, you're so blah blah blah,
you know, And then the covert can go to the
world and say, oh, poor me, she left me, she
(46:44):
didn't let me see my child, she didn't do this
and do the right. So it's like everything gets kind
of spun around where the coverts now the victim and
all the things they did to you, we're just not discussed,
not talked about, or they were your fault. How do
you know if you're dealing with a narcissist or someone
(47:05):
who's just angry and hurt and you know you're both
just not fighting fair and the gloves are off. I
guess sure. I think for a narcissist there's more of
a there's less of an ability to come back and repair,
you know, and the the anger is very like blaming.
(47:27):
There's a blame thing that happens, like you go and
you'll say here's what I'm upset about, and then they
get angry that oh my god, you turn you know,
you're making me out to be this like horrible person.
You know, you find it turned around on you all
the time. And narcissists they behave in very cyclical kind
of ways you'll find yourself, you know, maybe love bombed
(47:48):
or kind of put on a pedestal, devalued and then
kind of discarded. So it's very common that it it
becomes this theme that if you watch, it's a cycle
and it's the same thing, keeps happening, things different topics,
different contexts, but same thing. And a big way to know,
you know, if you're dealing with a narcissist commonly is
(48:11):
to check in and see if you have a lot
of the symptoms of somebody who's dealing with one, and
you know, like confusion, a lot of confusion about weight
with the hell, who's who? But this person is abusive
to me, I know they are. They do these things
that are really mean and rageful. But maybe I'm making
a bigger deal. Maybe he was just this or maybe
(48:33):
she was this just having a bad day. Right, So
you when you're excusing really abusive bad behavior, when you're
finding that things are always kind of your fault. When
you're feeling really disconnected and detached, like very alone, very sad, pressed, helpless, hopeless,
(48:53):
um but then at times hopeful, like there's kind of
this emotional mood swingy thing that happens to one of
our theism isn't a good place and things are going well,
you're happy, things are good, and then when again it's bad,
you find yourself feeling like, I don't what do I
even do here? I need? This is bad, I can't
(49:14):
do this anymore. So what you could from your own
you said, your own from your own kind of experience.
You know, if if you're dealing with someone who's kind
of got this high level of narcissistic personality or narcissism here,
you can tell from your own kind of experience. Um,
(49:36):
I think more then saying hey, is this person a
narcissist or not? And at the end of the day,
I mean, I think that label isn't really that important
if we think about it, abuse is just abuse. You know,
we get kind of caught up with a label sometimes
and I think, you know, if we think about how
(49:59):
we're feel and how we're experiencing ourselves in a relationship,
if you're feeling devalued all the time, or you're feeling
like super anxious and on eggshells, or you're feeling like
really depressed, or you're feeling scared to assert yourself after
a period of time. You know, it's important to then
(50:21):
take a look at yourself and see, you know, how
can I take myself maybe out of this, or how
can I manage this relationship if it's a relationship that
I'm not ready to let go of or that I
can't let go of. You know, so you can't always
look at themselves. If someone looks at his or herself
(50:41):
and thinks, oh, yeah, I'm feeling all of these things
that she's talking about, I don't know, and you realize
I think I am with a narcissistic partner. What advice
do you give? Like, is it always leave no matter what?
Is there even a world in which conversations can be
had to remedy the situation and stay in the relationship,
(51:04):
Like what should we do if we feel like we're
in a relationship with a narcissist? The first thing is
to not call them out as that, you know, to
not say, hey, I've did my research and I realized
you're a narcissist. Like that's that's never gonna go well evererever,
You're gonna find him switching around on you real quick.
So um, I'd say educate yourself A very key component
(51:27):
of the healing that we do with clients who come
to us is to educate them on narcissistic personalities and um,
you know, behaviors, so that you can kind of catch
it in real time and not engage in it, right,
not explain or defend yourself when they're in that kind
of place of blame, right, or if they're blame shifted
(51:50):
you kind of it's a natural response to go, well, no,
I didn't mean that. What I said. What I was
trying to say was this that again? And then you
find yourself explaining m And that's not something we want
to really do. We don't want to get engaged in
the opportunity. Don't even because they'll bait you, they'll pull you,
(52:10):
they'll pull you in real quick. It's really slippery to
get slippery slope your conversation. Um. The other thing is
to really accept, radically accept what you have. What you
have is someone who maybe at times is going to
be really nice and really kind and maybe really sweet,
and it's going to be exactly what you want, and
other times it's going to be really horrible. And so
(52:33):
if you can just accept that this is what it
is and that there's nothing you can do to change that.
Then grief is going to come up. Of course, naturally
you're gonna start to feel really sad and really upset. Yeah,
because the vision of what you thought is not what
it is. So radically accept what you have. Right, this
(52:56):
is what it is. Um. If there's kind of this
opponent of hope or fear, that's what tends to keep
us in these relationships, right, hope or fear um, And
you know, you want to take a look at that.
You know, what what am I hoping for here? I
can't hope anymore? Okay, I gotta let go of that hope.
(53:18):
So again, the first step is education. Another big thing
is to have support, to have people who hear you,
who understand you, who validate you. Validation is really big,
really really big. And people whose gas like you feel
like you're losing your mind exactly, yes, exactly, And people
(53:39):
who don't say, well maybe if you did go you know,
say this nice search to this person that they wouldn't do.
I mean that really feeds the self blame that we
already feel in these relationships. So I'd say, you know,
educate yourself, get support if you can. Therapy is really
really helpful managing these relationships. And again, no, we can't
(54:03):
always leave them. These are not always you know. It
might be your boss, it might be your colleague, it
might be siblings, parents, you know, people. We may not
be ready to leave and we may never and you
don't always have to. So this is all really great information.
You know you kind of touched on this, uh, some
of the things that you could consider doing if you
(54:25):
realize you're dating or married to a narcissist. For this
week's party trick, can you give us three things to
accept about the narcissist in your life, whether it's you know,
a lover, a friend, you know, potential partner. What do
we have to accept? Nothing you do can change them. Okay,
(54:48):
it's not your fault, and you can still find happiness
and connection through other relationships. All of your efforts need
not be poured into trying to get it here. M hmm. Okay,
(55:09):
really great. Is closure important when dealing with the narcissist
when it's time to walk away? We have the Letter
to my Narcissistic X as sort of an an outlet
of therapeutic outlet. Sure it is, but we have to
be careful to not send it because just not gonna
We're not going to get what we want or need.
I know, I know. Send it to a friend, send
(55:30):
it to yourself. Um, you know processing in your therapy.
But no, well I wanna don't. The closure is not
going to come from them, and it never really needs to.
It's enough to come from yourself, to give yourself that
validation and that what your your truth is real, what
you experienced is real, and you can validate that with
(55:52):
yourself and or with the people in your life who
will believe you, who are on your side. The narcissist
is a me on their own side. Okay, so one
man team there, one man team, one man band, very TOXICUM.
If if people are looking for more resources, uh, if
they want to learn, if they want to work on themselves,
(56:13):
if if they want to figure out how to navigate
UM potentially a narcissistic partner or relationship, where can they go?
What sh What first steps would you recommend we take?
I would recommend Dr Romney's YouTube channel. It is wonderful
and it's a really great place to educate yourself. Of
a lot of clients that will I'll redirect to her
(56:36):
YouTube for education and for some knowledge and good tips too.
She offers it's like the next best thing to therapy.
I'd say, okay, Romany Dr Romany r A M A
N I okay, and she's an expert if they want
to follow you or or maybe in California or Florida. Yeah, absolutely,
(57:01):
So we do see clients in California or Florida UM
for therapy, but we offer international coaching. So narcissistic abuse
coaching is also something we can do, and we tend
to stay present focused with coaching more like, here's what
you can do. Here's where maybe you're supplying the person
and maybe we could kind of pull back on that.
(57:22):
So getting support is really important here because you're kind
of caught in the weeds when you're on your own.
But if you have this person from the outside who
gets it and is experienced in this kind of personality, UM,
then I think you'll feel much more supported and clear
and clarity is really important big part of the healing
(57:43):
process of gaining that clarity. So Dr Army's YouTube reach
out to someone if possible who understands and really gets
the dynamics and narcissistic abuse recovery UM and read there
are some really wonderful books out there. My website has
a portion on resources and books, so that's also a
(58:05):
great space and just educate yourself. Yeah. Well, Sharine, thank
you so much for all of your information, your wisdom,
your knowledge and expertise. Today. UM, I think it's gonna
help a lot of people. I've learned so much. Uh,
and I really appreciate your time. So thank you again. You,
thank you for holding the space. I think it's really wonderful. Happy,
(58:28):
But thank you again to Sharine for having that incredible conversation,
for being so open, so vulnerable with some of you know,
the most painful and delicate chapters of her life, and
for sharing so much incredible expertise and knowledge with us.
So I know I've certainly got some some takeaways, some
identifying markers to keep in the back of my mind
(58:50):
as I move forward interacting with and getting to know people.
And also, um, some grace for people who may be
exhibiting prop alematic behavior without mislabeling them or just diagnosing
them on our own UM as a narcissist. So I
hope you got something from this one. If you did,
(59:12):
if there was anything that stood out to you, or
if you have your own story that you'd like to share,
feel free to shoot me an email hello at Hot
Happy mess dot com, slide in our d n s
at Hot Happy Mess, or or my personal Instagram at
Zuri Hall z U R I H A L L.
And I will talk to you next week. Have a
good one.
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