Episode 18 | 1 to 1 cults (Narcassistic Abuse) - Cults and the Culting of America

Episode Transcript
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Scot Loyd (00:26)Daniela, an eventful day for you. I understand that you sold a few books today.

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Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (00:32)Yeah, yeah Scott, it's a wild time to be an expert on the bad guy.
Scot Loyd (00:37)Well, that's, that's, yeah, that's always a good day, right? When you can sell books. And for those of you that are tuning into our podcast, Cults and the Culting of America, if you haven't purchased Daniela's book yet, you need to do so because it is a fantastic book, uncultured. It is also great timing with everything that is happening in the country and in the world. So do yourself a favor and pick up that book and
Danielle, I'm really excited about the guest that we have tonight, and I'll give you the opportunity to introduce her.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (01:13)Hi, welcome. Thank you so much for being here. I'm really excited to hear from you, Dr. McAvoy, about narcissistic abuse. Obviously, as we know, this is one week post the Donald Trump election, and we are all looking at the fact that, almost ironically, right, because we are dedicated to democracy and freedom, we have to hand the country over to someone who is known to be a dictator.
And from the beginning, I have been calling it, he's a cult leader, he is textbook. I would just love for you to tell us a bit about your background and then what you are thinking right now.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (01:58)Okay, so thank you so much, by the way, for having me on. I'm Dr. Carrie Kerr-McEvoy. I'm a licensed psychologist with over 20 years of counseling experience. So primarily up to until I was widowed in 2015, I had just a practice as a private practice, seeing clients at the office. And as a generalist, I was seeing a whole range of things, know, depression, anxiety, but I also had a few, it not, narcissistic personality disorders across my path as clients. And usually because some kind of crisis happened in the life that put them into some
kind of tailspin. But in 2014, late 2014, my husband was diagnosed, we'd been married 30 some years, diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that very rarely is treatable. It's a terminal form of cancer. And of course, in his case, it was found late and he passed away five and a half months, which set my life into a big tailspin being widowed suddenly in my early 50s.
In the, what I hadn't realized was that I had growing up in a home which was extremely conservatively religious and Scott I was listening to your story about your religious background. I grew up in a evangelical church and with a lot of very, very strict moral kind of guidelines. But it was also the home I grew up in was also had a lot of emotional emotional coercive control, abusive control pieces to it.
and so did the extended family. I didn't realize the degree that I had not healed. And maybe even there's a little bit of definitely patriarchy in my first marriage, but that being vulnerable like that led me to end up getting in a very toxic abusive relationship. So I remarried again two years after he passed away and married actually sort of like the worst nightmare. You put all the worst pieces of my childhood together into one person.
and that's who I ended up marrying. And so I was in this relationship for two years. Interestingly enough, I know this shocks people. People don't understand that in psychology, when you're trained, domestic violence, first of all, is optional. So you have to elect to take those courses and there's not a huge track. It's this very, least when I went to school in the eighties, it was a very minimal track. So wasn't like a lot of education occurred in it. Maybe, hopefully it's getting better today, but even personality disorders, you think, well, that's in the DSM-5, it's a...
part of diagnostic criteria that you have to consider when a patient comes in, but because it's not supported by insurance, it's not reimbursed, there's really not much focus on it. It was sort of like, yes, we need to be aware there's people who have these types of personalities that are, it's a character disturbance or disorder of a person, but we focused more on mental health conditions, which are treatable, but which also are reimbursable. So that could get us in a whole discussion of why is the healthcare system in the United States
like that, that then puts all of us at risk because there's massive groups of people who not getting any kind of mental health services. So here I am. I recognize he was a narcissist, but I hadn't heard the word coercive control. it or not, I didn't know what that was. Didn't know what a trauma bond was. Didn't focus on what cults, personalities that happened in cults and stuff. All of that was elective studies that you had to do if you really had a passion about it.
So I ended up in this relationship that was extremely coercive and yet on the outside, there wasn't any physical violence. Never actually even called me a name, never called me a name, but the amount of control that I was under, the lack of privacy that I had, just that I became terrified of him. So getting out and getting away from him was really, really hard. And I now suspect also, and this is something I don't know if that you're aware of, Danielle, is that he probably was also poisoning me.
He had stood to inherit a lot of money. So there was a piece of this that was, I was set up for a scam so that he could take advantage of the position I found myself in because I got widowed. So I got out of that relationship, felt so crazy and discombobulated by it that I, like, I don't know why you wrote your memoir, but I wrote a memoir called Love You More. And just partly for me to make sense of what happened to me.
And then as part of that, then I also really started to do a deep dive into narcissistic abuse, narcissism as a personality disorder, even all cluster B personality disorders, like what are they, what are they about? Cause I very much wanted to understand the mindset, but what I've discovered is that this is a common pattern and it's happening to a lot of people, which I find extremely frightening. So yes, in light of last week's election, which I have, I've been teary. I've actually been teary about it.
I, it's bizarre to see the degree, even within my own context of my own family, that we selectively choose to focus on what we want to choose, focus on, and we ignore the other pieces of it. And how we can have somebody who actually doesn't, you know, if you listen to the rhetoric, it doesn't make sense. The communication style he's got, it doesn't make sense. And yet we're willing, we're willing to overlook all of that in order for it to personally benefit us, which is.
I find it, I would love to know what you guys think and how this maybe America is sliding into a cult itself. We're gonna make a country of a cult. I don't know. So.
Scot Loyd (07:21)Yeah. And I certainly agree with that. And I tell people all the time, talking with friends and relatives, you know, and I've been feeling the same way, despondent since the election. But I tell people all the time, I feel like I've been telling them since 2015, 2016, that, you know, this is behavior, this is rhetoric that we wouldn't tolerate from anyone in our personal lives. We wouldn't tolerate it from our
Our pastor, we wouldn't tolerate it from our school principal. We wouldn't tolerate it from our mayor. We wouldn't tolerate it from our dog catcher. But yet we want to elevate this man to the highest office in the land. it's certainly, I think there's, and we've talked about it, right, Daniela, that there's something in the human nature.
that is often exploited by these cult leaders. And I think we are definitely seeing that in the United States today.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (08:23)I need to pause you guys for a moment.

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So sorry about that, so I'm back. And now I'm getting power, so that's good. I see it starting to build again.
Scot Loyd (08:32)So we'll pick up on that point, Daniella.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (08:32)So.
So one of the things that we are seeing here for sure with Donald Trump, think he is like, it elucidates this point for me, is called the deification of idiosyncrasy, which is our very human desire to make excuses for the inexcusable behaviors of our charismatic leader. And just to pause there, whenever you call Trump a charismatic leader on the left, people are like, Pesha!
he's not charismatic. And it's like, if you're under his spell, he is. Right. And so I have my three rules of rules of cults. The first rule of cults is you're never in a cult. That's the epigraph of my book, Uncultured. Then second rule of cults I put into words watching the Harry Megan saga, which is the cult will forgive any sin except the sin of leaving.
And then third rule of cults, think is Donald Trump and the deification of idiosyncrasy, which is even if he did it, doesn't mean he's guilty. Right. And, and like you said, like he is not even communicating in a manner that makes sense, but he doesn't have to, he can just stand up on that stage and rock to the music and they will fill in the words, right. Because they have like bought into this so hard.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (09:57)Yeah, are you guys familiar with the book Mask of Sanity?
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (10:02)No.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (10:03)It was written in the 1950s, I believe, by a psychiatrist who described the fact that in, I haven't read it, so I'm just referring to what I know about it, but others have referenced it. And that is that I've read their work. And it talks about the degree that we're blind to the darkness or the capacity of evil of some people. Because we believe there's a level of just normal sanity that we all have to some level and we're...
So as a result, we attribute that sanity to insane people. And I feel like that's because, and you see it all the time where somebody will tell you somebody did something to them, something really horrific, like, well, no, they're so nice in public or they helped my dog or they did this really sweet act to my aunt and therefore they can't be this evil person that we disbelieve the potential darkness in people because of what we see. And so we're willing to overlook that.
And that's a common thing. think when we look at, even the things that have come out that Trump has done, that the sexual assaults and whatnot, we give him a pass thinking, no, it just doesn't make sense. How could somebody who does the things that he do and maybe even in the public eye be willing to risk those things? But because we just believe this mask, that it's just, I hope that makes sense what I'm saying.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (11:29)Yeah, you know, this has come up in the actually like the conscious homeschooling movement or responsible homeschooling movement where it's like, most people think that there is a limit to which parents will harm their own children. And so they're making kind of like the laws and the rules and the norms with that in mind. But the reality that some of us know is like, there is no limit, you know, and we need to sort of put more protection.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (11:46)Mm-hmm.
Right.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (12:00)there. But we heard that rhetoric all throughout the 2016 aftermath of the election, right? Like, it's not going to get that bad. People are going to keep him in check. But now, this time, I feel like we knew, we knew who he was, and we put him in anyway.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (12:01)Exactly.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (12:22)And I do feel like you said, like, all live in a cult now, you know? And the reality is, mean...
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (12:23)And you know what happens when we all
Yeah, yeah, and you know what happens when we all get Hoovered, right?
Scot Loyd (12:34)Say that again, Kerry.

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Dr. Kerry McAvoy (12:35)You know what all happens when we all get hoovered back into a relationship, right? Well, when toxic people, so here's the mindset of a narcissist. And this is like, this is nearly universal, really. They, it's, we attribute the laws of a healthy relationship to people and healthy people have these mindsets of we believe in change, we believe in relationship repair, we have faith in communication.
Scot Loyd (12:40)What's that?
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (13:02)We're willing to forgive. We have all these things that we consider just part of a healthy relationship, but that's not the rules that an antagonistic personality follows by. And they actually will exploit those beliefs against a healthier mind. They understand them. They don't comply to them, and they're willing to exploit them. They see the world in a perspective of it's a competition. It's not collaborative, it's a competition. And in their mindset,
you knew what it was like before and you knew the degrees that they betrayed you before, so you agreeing to do it again, it means you're signing on for this and worse. And they also hold you in contempt because they would have never taken the risk with you again, so why would you give them a second chance? That to them is sort of a pathetic kind of weak thing to do. So in a way, it unleashes the worst side because they feel like you've essentially given them permission.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (13:57)Yeah, and just
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (13:57)And our other problem with him is that he doesn't need to be elected again. So there's no no check of, at least I want to appeal to the voters till they vote for me again. No, this is his last final four years. He has no reason, he has no really actually in that sense a check. So, and he's very narcissistic, which I can't diagnose him, but you see a lot of narcissistic traits on him. Yeah, I'm very concerned. I think we're going to see a lot of retaliation, a lot of...
getting even, think that it's a lot more extremism than we saw before in the first four years with him.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (14:34)Yeah. And, I just want to highlight what you said about like the cult leader, right? The narcissist, like they understand the rules of the game that we are playing by and they're willing to exploit them. So this was just coming up on my TikTok. I was talking about Shen Yun, which is a false front or a funding like front group for this cult called Falun Gong, which is a Chinese cult that was kicked out of China for being a cult.
And then they have like used and manipulated American xenophobia and like fear of China to be like, the Chinese think we're bad, so we're okay. But if you Americans criticize, now we're gonna call you racist. And this is like, this is what cults do. Like no matter how well you think you know freedom of religion, cults know it better. No matter how much you think you know equality law.
Cults know it better and they will use that and they will manipulate all of those different things against you.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (15:39)Yeah.
Scot Loyd (15:39)And so that's the conundrum. And I'd like for both of you to speak to this because I know in the lead up to this election, just like in the lead up to past elections, when you try to advocate for a particular side or when you advocate against, when you point out the flaws, when you make the arguments. And again, this is something that I did for a living for close to two decades. I was a debate coach.
And so I know what it means to make a solid logical argument. But what I'm discovering is that when you share information with people, first of all, they become defensive. And they don't answer necessarily in kind with a reasoned argument. But immediately, they go to the ad hominem attacks, things of that nature. But also, it seems that if you
Attempt to advocate with reason and logic and good arguments They they double down on their positions and it just you run the risk of making them even more Radical than persuading them to see the other side. Does that does that make sense? And why does that happen?
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (17:00)So, I mean...
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (17:00)Yeah, you're getting, yeah, that's a good question. Why does that happen?
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (17:05)think that the it's almost like the brainwashed person will double down on their brainwashing in order to prove that they're not brainwashed. Right. So this is why I think one of the big mistakes that the Harris Walls campaign made was that ad, you don't have to tell anyone who you're voting for. Right. Because like now you're telling them like we think you're controlled. And they're like,
we're not controlled by our husbands. So we're going to go vote exactly the way, you know, we're not going to vote the way you want us to, which means we're going to go vote exactly the way they want us to. And they know, right? Like in these very conservative circles, they're talking about repealing the 19th amendment. Like they are not shy about like, they want to take all of the power away from women. And you know what I've just observed with cults, it's like you,
you know that what people are saying is true, but you have all of these arguments for why it's not true and you will double down on those arguments rather than admit like, I am under control.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (18:17)They've done some fascinating studies in psychology looking at how people justify certain decisions. And they found that the more that we spend, in other words, the more costly a decision is, the more that we're going to justify the wisdom of the decision. So say, for example, you spend a lot of, say that they gave you several types of purses. Let's just pretend we're buying purses. One's an inexpensive version. And maybe another is actually no better quality, but you spent top dollar for it.

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you're more likely to defend the purchase of that top dollar one because of the rationale you had to convince yourself that it was a good purchase than you would for the one that you picked up inexpensively. think these relationships, I think there's a couple of things that come into play in our justification for why we want a country that we want and why we have the leader that we want.
is one is because of that. It's going to be costly for all of us. And so we need to get behind it and then convince ourselves that it was a good decision, even when it wasn't a good decision. I think the other thing that happens is what's called cognitive dissonance. Now, normally when you learn a cognitive dissonance is just the challenge that we face when we're faced between two competing beliefs or decisions. And we know one is better than the other. So we justify why we're going to do the wrong one.
despite doing when we should do the good one. For example, I may be in a diet, but somebody brings in donuts to the office and I will justify why I'm gonna eat the donuts and break my diet. And that I have to wrestle with that pain inside me, the conflict between my two competing goals, between wanting what I want when I want it versus sticking to something that I really intend and set as a purpose for my life or a goal for my life.
What happens in these relationships is that we experience cognitive dissonance on another level. The dissonance is we're not for sure who this person really is. They do both things. They are both the good person and the bad person. They're both Mr. Hyde and they're Dr. Jekyll. We keep thinking that we can somehow help this person stay more Dr. Jekyll like the good guy or the wonderful woman. But unfortunately, the truth of the matter is what they do.
that they're Mr. Hyde, that's the real personality. But they keep us confused, they feed us both, we see both sides of this and because we can't compute, make a decision, we then make no decision at all. And I think what I see is that all of us do that, we do that with anybody that we feel conflicted about. And particularly when it comes to our politicians, we really do that, that we will ignore the practical things that prove to us that this is not somebody we can trust.
that this is a person who's really out for themselves, that they are governed by base emotions. We're willing to overlook that because we hope that there's enough good in them that maybe that will override and soften it. it's wild how we're willing to sort of betray ourselves in this process or even how our mind betrays us in this process.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (21:24)Yeah. And this, you know, in cults, we call this come here, go away behavior. And it's like a tool of the cult leader to keep people off their guard. Right. And we've seen Trump doing this just with his use of nicknames, right. For like friends and enemies alike. And it's part of that. You know, one of the reasons I say there was like no spontaneous moments of joy in my childhood, because even if you were told go out, play frolic, like you were never sure.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (21:53)some adult wasn't going to get mad about something. And, you know, I think that we see that going on. And then in cults, just like you said, you know, it starts off with this love bombing. It starts off with however you got hooked in getting hooked in is a positive, enjoyable experience. It's exciting. Everything's perfect.
You know, I use the army as a great example for this. When you're in that recruiter's office, they are selling to you and they are telling you all about everything that the army will do for you and your life. And then the first thing they tell you in basic training is we don't care what they said to you. Like you're ours now, but you know, in cults, as soon as the kind of the facade cracks, when you're inside, we spend all our time trying to get back to that state of perfect.
right? If we just work a little harder, if we just do a little better, if we're just a little more perfect or pure, then like we are going to achieve that state of bliss that we've been promised. Which is always a lie, of course.
Scot Loyd (23:06)Kerry, I want to return to what you said at the top in the context of a relationship, because I think for most of us, when we experience narcissism coming from someone, it's usually in the context of a family dynamic or a family relationship. So first of all, is narcissism, is it a spectrum? Are there people that maybe...
have a more volatile version of that, a more harmful version than others? Or is there anything that is redeemable about narcissism as a personality trait?
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (23:48)This is a point of debate among clinicians and even the terminology of narcissism is under debate. So you'll have different clinicians or different researchers use it differently. I think some people talk about healthy narcissism, what they're really talking about is healthy self-esteem. And I think it's easier for us just to separate that as different than narcissism. I'd like to keep narcissism more as a pathological condition or character disturbance versus it being a, just a self-esteem, good self-esteem.
But there are periods of development in which we do become a little more narcissistic and that partly that is a developmental challenge for a child to learn new skills. So whenever that's happening, you see it in toddlerhood and you see it in adolescence where they become very self-absorbed, very me-focused. Part of that is an acquisition of skills. So it's the brain's development of that process. But again, I see that as very different. I don't think because toddlers and teens are narcissistic.
during those periods that means they have a personality disorder. That's just part of normal maturation. But I do think that narcissism itself, if you think of it as a character disturbance, that there are degrees of pathology. And the way I like to think of it is that we all have ego strengths and skills. Things like how well do you control your emotions? Are you able to regulate them? Do you have the wherewithal to...
get yourself out of a really bad spot. How much good judgment can you show when you're facing a decision? Do you have insight into why you do what you do? Can you resist having temptations and show impulse control? Can you resist wanting something maybe when it's not good? Can you show delayed gratification? You can see some my Christianity showing up there, resist temptation, called delayed gratification in psychology. Are you able to...
Are you able to have a good sense of reality? And how do you relate to other people? Can you appreciate the autonomy and individuality of other people? And so all of us vary on these from really strong to kind of weak or maybe non-existent. What happens with narcissism is there is a group of them that gets impaired. And the impairment we see is there's an excessive focus on self. It's like mentation. It's hard to describe because
It's not something most of us do, but if you could peek into their brain, you would find that everything they think of literally puts them at the center of the world. There is no other person. Everything they reflect on is how will it impact them? What's going to be the consequence to them? So it's not like if I step on your toe, if I had a narcissistic perspective, I wouldn't be worried about how much pain I put you in. I'd be worried about whether or not...
your pain would damage my relationship with you. So it's a successive egocentric focus. They also have an impairment with self-reflection. So they can't really see themselves in a sense that's realistic. It's very grandiose. They kind of see themselves as separate and superior to other people. The rules literally don't apply to them. They're above things. They're better than things. They're just superior to people. And then they have this woundedness to the empathy.

(01:25):
It's not that they're not empathic. That's what we get confused. It's not that they're not recognizing feelings in other people, but they don't have a... Because of the excessive mentation, they don't care about its impact, how it feels to you. Instead, they instrumentalize it. They care about how they can use that to their advantage. you're heartbroken? Okay, so what might be the way in which I could use that to get what I want from you so that maybe you're more, you know, more, more compliable to me? So they're weaponizing or...
Yeah, weaponizing your emotional sense. And then they don't see, and here's where they're really broken, they don't see other people as separate from them with their own life, their own dreams, their own wants and needs. They see them as extensions of themselves. So you're no more significant to them than the car they own or the mobile devices they hold in their hand. They literally, they don't attribute human qualities to you, human needs, and as result, they don't respect you because of that.
So what happens though is based on these qualities, you can be more or less impaired. And the more impaired you are, then the worse it gets, the more malignant. And I think you start to slide towards more psychopathic end. Now some people say narcissism and antisocial personality disorder are really just extensions of each other, that you start narcissistic and the far end, you become a psychopath. I actually think they are two discrete personality types, but I do think that they're...
that there is a group of narcissists who are so conscienceless, they don't have a sense of connectedness to other people, don't respect people, that they do a lot of psychopathic behavior.
Scot Loyd (28:45)What you said about seeing people as an extension of themselves, no different than the car that they drive or the other tools that they might use to elevate themselves. It certainly resonates with me and it resonates with my experience growing up in the United Pentecostal Church, because something that I've written about, something that I continue to think about and continue to unpack is this idea of transactional relationships. And because I was so accustomed
growing up in that system, being treated as a tool with my talents, abilities, leverage for the betterment of the group, according to the leader, right? But it really was just sort of bolstering their influence and their credibility with the group by utilizing what I could bring to the table. What I found myself doing is entering the world, right? Once I left that, being handicapped.
in relationships as well, because I was used to this transactional engagement with others. And I had a hard time overcoming that and understanding that the way that we're wired, it should be that people are accepted and loved for who they are as an end within themselves and not as merely a means to an end.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (30:11)Have you heard of the opposite of narcissism called echoism? you heard of that?
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (30:11)You know, and go ahead.
Scot Loyd (30:19)No, I haven't.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (30:21)So there's a, so it's based on the Greek mythology of Narcissus meets the nymph, Echo, and Echo, because of the, know, Echo loses a voice or loses its voice and becomes only able to say the last few words that Narcissus says. So it becomes a reflection of Narcissus. And the thought is, kind of tying into what you said, Scott, is that some of us have been raised in these systems. And I'd be really curious to think what you think of this, Daniella, because
I wonder if this is a problem people have when they get raised in a cult. It is that you've learned that the way to be seen is by elevating, promoting, and hiding behind the personality of the cult person, the dynamic personality, so that you submerge, you're willingly submerge yourself and then elevate them as a way to exist, as having a self that exists. And there's a whole sort of problems that develop in that because like you just said, Scott, then you don't know how to
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (31:14)Yes.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (31:20)You don't know to stand on your own because you expect to be invisible. And actually being invisible is the safest position in these toxic, dangerous situations because being seen means then you are likely to get attacked or assaulted or misused or even just used. So it's better to keep under, hidden in the sidelines in these relationships. But your personality then doesn't have a chance to really grow and become full, know, full bloom.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (31:49)Yeah, so, you know, everything you said sounds like the fancy version of what I was gonna say, which, you know, when Scott was talking about, and I don't know if you'll like my use of the term narcissism here, but I always say that when we're deprogramming from cults, we have to get more narcissistic and less selfish, where it's like, but it is that echo-ism thing, right? Like we were taught, it's like you never stand out, and if you do,
It is like you said, it's to self-sacrifice to help the group, right? It's to use your talents for the group. Even when the army was like this, it was like, you don't wanna stand out unless you're standing out for something really good, like running fast. And so I of course was the fastest runner, right? But you never actually...
And when I say you've got to get more selfish, it's like you're breaking yourself for the cult. You're breaking yourself, you're tamping down your personality, you're harming yourself in all of these ways. We don't know anything about self-care when we get out of these high demand groups. And it's like, we actually do have to learn to love ourselves more instead of sacrificing for the group.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (33:01)Which also leads me to just kind of a, maybe a lighter question for you is like, so when you explain narcissism, sounds like a disorder and it sounds like easy to understand. So then what is it with those of us that just love performing?
Like people colloquially call that narcissism, right? Like just like, I have always been in front of a microphone singing and dancing and I love it. And so does my child and like the Taylor Swift's of us. It's like, we enjoy performing. We enjoy having everyone's eyes on us, but it's not malicious.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (33:43)Mm-hmm. Yeah, so the developmental psychology would say there's a normal maturation process in which the self gets developed in a couple ways. There's two of many several critical pieces, but really in infancy, a child's born not recognizing its separateness as an individual. It sees itself as part of what's called the mother-baby diet. So it's extension of the mother, because it literally was once an extension of the mother with the umbilical cord.

(01:46):
So one of the first steps that infant has to have is a sense of, I'm my own person. And that's when separation anxiety pops up. Like, my goodness, if this person leaves the room and was to abandon me, I need them. I need my very survival, it depends on them. But the next stage that happens, or they sometimes debate which stage comes first, but there's also in that same realm, that same period of time, is two other twin needs that pop up. One is you need to have what's called
We talk about mirroring of psych, like narcissists are very good at mirroring. is, psychology uses it in a different way. We need to have an experience of being mirrored. And this is coming out of Haydn's cohuts work in 1940s, working with residents. He saw a whole bunch of like Chicago residents and realized, wow, we have this need to be very understood, to have somebody reflect back to us what we experienced. So for example, if your child skins their knee,
Part of what, this actually is, the child doesn't actually know fully what that experience means. It's the reflection you give to the child that helps interpret that experience. Like, did that really hurt? let me blow on it. I think I can make it feel better. here, see what we did. We just made it feel better. And in that process, you actually made the child feel better. It almost was a little bit like magic, but you being able to enter into that experience gave them a sense of themselves and helped them put words to it and help them have a sense of what's happening. But so,
In addition to that, the mirroring needs to occur, he talked about that we need to have what's called be the apple of the eye. We need to feel like people see us and think that we're the most precious special person in the whole world. And that's what parents do with infants. We know that.
You know, we see other people's babies and they're like, they're cute, they're a baby, but they're not mine. I'm glad they're not mine. But when we see our own, there's something uniquely different about that infant. I mean, it's like even their poop doesn't stink. Everything's precious. And we just think that they are the center of the world. Each of us need to have that kind of experience of feeling like there's no one else like us and that that's important, that we have value because of that. So I think that's what's different is that that's part of being a person.
But what's different with narcissism is that actually their sense of uniqueness isn't that they see themselves as worthy among other worthy people. They seem to see themselves as different, as unique and therefore outside of humanity. That they're not like you. Whereas we're looking just to have this wonderful reflective experience where we can celebrate together. They're looking for us to serve them.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (36:46)Yeah.
Yeah. And you know, one of my top red flags for both cults and groups or leaders and groups is a focus on your own uniqueness, right? And like, that's even what cults give to the cult survive to the cult member is like, you've chosen the right path, right? You're in the top 10%. Like you've, you're doing life right. And one of the things it's actually in my book, or someone tells me to get over myself, because I'm not as different as I think I am.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (37:00)Mmm.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (37:19)And I'm always like pushing that back on people now, you know, like nobody is unique. Like we all are unique, but nobody is like that unique to the point that it makes them more special than somebody else.
Yeah, to where the rules don't apply to them. Yeah, you got me thinking today, because I was listening to one of your earlier podcasts about charisma. any of us who have influence, and social media certainly gives some of us that capacity, is vulnerable to that. But for us to remember that we're one of a greater context, that we're part of humanity, doesn't separate us from humanity. It just that we get to speak. I don't know, maybe even saying speak for humanity sounds very arrogant, but.
Yeah, it's not our uniqueness. Here's the thing that I learned when I was writing the memoir, and I really found this powerful, is that the more vulnerable you go, the deeper that you go into yourself and where you feel the most shame is where the most universal truths are. It's where we're broken that we then speak to everyone. So to me, it's not like emphasizing my uniqueness. It's rather emphasizing my pain so that others can know that they're not alone in that.
that they can join me in that. Yeah.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (38:30)Exactly.
Scot Loyd (38:30)Yeah, and I think this is what separates it, at least in my mind, right? What separates people that are having influence or artists or composers or poets or writers from the narcissistic cult leaders. That's not to say that those other people can't be narcissistic and cult leaders, but the difference is, right, is that they're willing to open up and show you their weakness, show you their vulnerability, show you their mistakes.
And they're attempting to build a bridge that relates to the rest of humanity instead of building that wall that separates them from the rest of humanity.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (39:11)Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (39:14)Yeah, so good. And you know, I just wanted to call out this deconstruction tip here because we like to give those to people. If you grew up as a cult baby, if you grew up in a cult, most likely you did not get that developmental stage that Dr. McAvoy was talking about. I mean, this is one of those flashbulb moments for me where I've already written my memoir. I'm graduating with a Harvard from master's at
math was from Harvard, I've just like taken a whole semester on group identity, situational identity. And all of a sudden I was like, I didn't get to form a personal identity. You know, and as soon as I understood that, it was like, cool. Now I can go figure out like who I am.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (39:57)Mmm.

(02:07):
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (40:06)And it's so funny, because I was just looking at pictures of me like a year or two ago, and I'm blonde. I look very different. And I'm like, that doesn't look like me. And then I look at me now and I'm like, yep, this looks like me. So I just want to give that to people that it's like, that's the thing that we didn't get to do. And that's why we sometimes struggle to not have to just stand out and be perfect and be like before. I had to be the best at everything.
because that was the only sort of way I'd ever been allowed to have any sort of value in myself is if I was just giving 110 % and being perfect all of the time.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (40:47)Yeah, yeah, I had, when I got out of the relationship, I realized that what I had done was, because I very much submerged my identity, because I have a lot of echoistic tendencies in me that I'm really trying to expunge. But I realized that I used to think that I was safe if we were safe. So I devoted all of my energy into making the we as healthy as it could, which it really couldn't be because he's not healthy. But now I'm realizing that I had to.
I had to find me, make me healthy and then we'll be healthy because I'm healthy. So that's been a real big process for me. And it is because one of the things that just recently happened, I was sick over Christmas and with something kind of serious, it was quite ill. And I live with my middle son who happened to be out for the night. So I was gonna be alone and it was sort of the critical spot where it could either get better or it gonna get worse. So I called my oldest son, they're all adults and said, hey, would you come over? Cause I'm kind of scared.
I feel very sick. And he said when he got over, he said, not only did he come, but my other son, my youngest son came too. And he said, when you were on that phone call, I could tell you believed that I was going to tell you no. That sees that I was so invisible that people would turn me down. And he said, I want, he said, that made me sad because I want you to also know that not only was I more than happy to come that my, your other son wanted to come on his own.
We see you. And I think I agree with you, Daniela, that I think part of our healing process is to find relationships that help us be able to flourish and take those risks again, all the risks that we've been afraid to take because it's been too dangerous to take. One of the parts of the family system I grew up in was my grandmother was sort of set the tone. I would say if there was a cult leader in my family system, was my grandmother. And she was psychopathic. So she was a psychopath.
and very scary, had relationship cutoffs. For whatever reason, I got to be her favorite. I was the golden child for her, but it wasn't because I earned it or deserved her or even was the kind of person she would like. Actually, if I had not happened to just fall into the role of being the first grandchild, she would have not have liked me and I knew that. everybody ran around her and trying to keep her happy. And you really learned.
the rules, to follow the rules and not to break the rules. And so part of my healing, especially since this last relationship has been to, like you said, deconstruct, deconstruct on a lot of levels, deconstruct spiritually, deconstruct relationship wise, everything.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (43:19)Yeah. You know, and when you said that was so powerful that like you had to
Scot Loyd (43:22)I wanted to follow up on the... Go ahead.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (43:26)It was so powerful to me when you said you had to focus on healing me, you know, cause that's what I realized. Like I, you know, I was very lucky, lucky that I kind of like tripped and fell into a healthy relationship finally. But still I was so focused on like us being good. And then that just came like for like a good seven years that I just had to be like, I need to focus on who I am.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (43:53)And of course, during this time, like I'm still a mom and I'm still a wife, but who I wanna be needs to come first. And I'm really, really lucky that I had a partner that was just decided to be along for the ride, right? Like that was a healthy person. And so now that I am much more healed, it's like now here is this partnership. It's the same partnership, but it's so much stronger.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (44:22)And I have to say, this is what alarms me that I really don't like that whenever I get into any kind of a romantic relationship, I immediately start submerging. I can actively feel myself take in a way, camouflaging, like submerging myself into the identity of the person. So that's like, then I can tell that I'm not ready. That's why I love the fact that I'm getting to practice with my sons, where they can do it.
So then I'm hopeful that maybe eventually I can do it elsewhere. And I'm also doing it with my friendships too. So I see myself expanding, but I have to say, it's a process. This is a lot of work to really break out of this role that we find ourselves cast in.
Scot Loyd (45:02)And following up on that, in addition to going through that process of rediscovering who you are or maybe discovering who you are for the first time, what are some additional obstacles that you had to overcome emerging from that toxic relationship? And certainly, there are applications for emerging from toxic group relationships as well. So what were some of the obstacles, additional obstacles?
that you had to overcome and what were some of the tools that helped you do that.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (45:35)Yeah, I think we get out of these relationships and I have a feeling that, Daniella, you were a lot the same. You don't know what you feel. I I was shocked to find out. Here I am talking with clients all the time about feelings. And I used to give particularly the men this little, this challenge. I'd say, set your alarm multiple times a day, use a feeling list, and then find two, three feelings. You should be able to list two, three feelings of what you're having at every given moment, whenever that alarm goes off. I did the challenge myself and found out that I couldn't.
because I had been so submerged and also doing too much dissociating or numbing that I actually didn't know how I felt anymore. So that's been a part of it is to give myself space to feel. And here's the other thing, I learned to cry silently. So I'm one of these people that no matter how much pain you put me in or how much stress you put me in, I'm silent because being a vocal or that was dangerous again in this extended family. It was seen as a weakness.
So I learned to never make a noise whenever I'm in any kind of distress. I've actually had to say to myself, it's okay to be noisy. It's really okay to cry loudly. You're allowed to do that. So recognizing that this was not a healthy thing, it was a pathological thing and actually breaking out of it. I think the other thing I've had to do is work on boundaries.
We think that we know what they are and we kind of almost externalize boundaries, but I found that it really helps me to view it differently. Boundaries actually, I'll go back to that developmental process I talked about where a baby realizes it's separate from the mother. One of the first things it realizes it has skin on, that where the skin is, is where the baby ends and the mother begins. So yeah, this is my body and I'm contained inside this body, this vehicle.

(02:28):
And that's simply boundaries or extension of that. It's a description or it's a, it's an expression of you. It says what you like, what you need, what you want, who you are. So for example, I don't like peas. I hate peas. And if I say to please don't put in the fried rice peas and you don't hear me and care about that, you're breaching a boundary. And when you breach a boundary, you're breaching an expression of me. And for me, humanizing that has made it way easier.
for me to understand the importance and necessariness of even what they are, what my boundaries are.
Scot Loyd (47:55)Yeah, and that's helpful. Haley, our producer, has a question here. And I think this would really be beneficial. And I'll just put it in my own words. She's asking about the fact that a lot of us, when we talk about narcissistic traits, we see those traits in ourselves. And I'll be completely vulnerable here, right? In my therapy sessions, when they do that, they do that little test there at the beginning. And they always come back and they say, well, you
You're on the spectrum here and you're leaning towards this narcissistic personality. And when I hear that, I'm like aghast, right? Because everything that you see on the internet when it has to do with narcissism is, this is horrible. Avoid these people. They'll destroy you. I don't want to be that person. But at the same time, I recognize that either it's developed in me naturally or it's a result of all that I've been through in my childhood.
I have some of these traits. So what should I do?
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (49:02)Well, the fact that you're self-reflective is a really big, huge benefit because real active narcissists are not self-reflective. They don't really care. And in fact, it's one of the disorders that the person with it doesn't suffer and everyone around them does suffer. So the fact that you feel some suffering suggests to me that you're not that narcissistic. But I do understand that we don't want to be like that. I think the biggest thing we can do is recognize to the degree that we are allowing other people to be themselves.
It's something you said, Danielle, and back in that podcast I was listening today about how cults have scripts, how you're to dress your dress, the clothes you're to wear, the kind of haircut you're to have, the role that you play. The more we constrict people to a role and we dehumanize them as a separate individual is toxic. And I think that if we can see where we...
We're doing that where people make us uncomfortable and challenge why we get uncomfortable about differences. I'm just gonna be ridiculous for a moment. Say you're somebody who has a strong feeling about tattoos. You don't like them. Why? Why do you care about what somebody else does with their body? It's their body. When we see that kind of myoptic-ness in ourselves, just challenging it so that we can then stretch and...
respect other people. I think that's the best way to sort of break out it is learn to really respect everybody's right to choose to be different from you or to make you uncomfortable.
Scot Loyd (50:33)So to the extent that you may think you're a narcissist, it's probably a good indication that you're not one, right? If you're being reflective. Okay, thank you.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (50:40)Yeah, that's the rule of thumb. Yeah, the more you're worried about it, then that's likely you should worry about it. Narcissists don't worry about being... I used to joke with my ex. I'd say, it's all the world according to Garp. There was a movie and he'd let you laugh and say, yep, it is. And he meant it. Yep, it is. It was all according to him. So there wasn't any capacity to care about how I felt.
Scot Loyd (51:01)Wow, yeah.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (51:06)That was a nuisance to him. So I think the degree that we do care, we care about how we're impacting others, to me puts you much lower on that list.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (51:16)Yeah, you sometimes I feel like growing up in a cult, were raised inside of narcissistic personality disorder. And one of the things that really speaks to me, this was in a parenting book, but it said, you know, we learn both sides of every relationship that we're in. And so just the same way I learned to perform charisma, I think you and I both, learned to perform narcissism kind of like as needed.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (51:46)to survive in this way. And then we, you I know that I went into perfectionism and superiority and a lot of stuff that comes off as very narcissistic. wasn't malignant ever, but it was, think, like I really had to unlearn a lot of those things.
You're describing a defensive structure. learn to be, that was your way of protecting yourself to survive that. See, in my family, the way to survive it was I had to learn to be extremely compliant in almost nonexistent. So my tendency is first fawn and then I'll ultimately freeze. Where others of us learn, no, we need to attack.
or become increasingly defensive. I think when we recognize how this isn't a healthy style, we actually, healthiness is never needing to be defensive in any level. It's really allowing other people to be different than yourself and not needing to justify why you do what you do. Just be okay in yourself and let them be okay in themselves and coexist peacefully alongside of each other. But boy, most of us don't know how to do that at any level.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (52:52)Yeah, and this is where I'm gonna throw in my reminder to people that when you're on this process, wear wacky outfits. Because if you've ever been under any kind of coercive control before, you have probably been under appearance control. And appearance control is always part of behavior control. And so reminding yourself that you can literally put on a princess dress and go walk to the mail.
and not have to explain, like you just said, like you don't have to justify it. You're the adult in your life, you're the captain of this ship, and you can do what you want. I know it sounds frivolous, but I find it to be this really important step in like telling yourself that you're your own person and like really learning that. The same way like a toddler, when kids learn to just put on whatever they want, you know.

(02:49):
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (53:40)Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I just recently did a Mind Bloom, Ketamine therapy, six session experience. And my first experience was really mind blowing. And one of the things I realized I had, had absorbed as a philosophy and I didn't know that I had was that being healthy risk being rejected. And that even, that even my perspective of God, that if I somehow I was to be more autonomously, more myself, more fully myself that
that would lead to rejection. And I thought, that's bizarre, because actually if you analyze it, it doesn't work that way. That actually healthiness means we're more collaborative, there's better reciprocity, there's more equality, there should be increased trust, increased respect. It doesn't mean alienation, it means greater permission. But somehow, because of, that's the mindset I'd gotten, because of the...
that the control, the course of control level was so high.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (54:47)That's the control because that's what a cult is teaching you, right? So Scott and I from birth were being taught you're never supposed to be yourself, right? Like you're always supposed to be tamping that down and being this perfect, you know, they call it a pseudo personality in a cult, this like simulacrum of who you're supposed to be. This is why we have the stereotypes of your preacher's kids growing crazy.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (54:50)Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Right, right. Yeah, and I got the same messages.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (55:15)Right? Because it's like you, the preacher's kids going crazy. Like this is why we have this stereotype because like you had to have your individuality tamped down the whole time you were growing up. And so now you have to go out and like, I always say, you know, you have to have practice at life to be good at it. And some of us like didn't get to like be teenagers and be adolescents and learn all of that stuff you mentioned, like learn to be individuals and develop. So now we have to go through.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (55:35)Right.
Right.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (55:44)delayed adolescence period where we're being narcissistic again and like learning to be ourselves.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (55:47)Exactly.
Yeah, learning to fail, learning to rebel. mean, all of those things I'm having to experience now, which for me as a compliant person, that's really scary.
Scot Loyd (56:03)Dr. McEvoy, tell us a little bit about the resources that you've developed, your books, your work, and how you're working actively to help people survive as you have.
Dr. Kerry McAvoy (56:17)thank you so much for that. First of all, my favorite resource is my podcast, Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse. It's everywhere that you find podcasts. You can find that as well. And every week we take on just very human examples of what healing and recovery looks like, or even deconstructing a toxic relationship. I've also have a memoir called Love You More. It's a very personal look at what a toxic relationship looks like.
and kind of gives you in a way sort of by my story, a script of what happens inside these relationships and what it took for me to be able to get out. I also have two other workbooks. One's called First Duff's To Leaving a Narcissist, which helps people understand what cognitive dissonance is and then challenge their own confusion and break out of the fog, as well as Surviving to Thriving, which is a workbook to help those who are out of these relationships to heal. But I also have a lot of group coaching that I offer in an exclusive membership club where we meet weekly to just
encourage each other, talk through issues and heal in new ways as we sort of like rebuild our lives as a group. So you can find me on social media at at Carrie McEvoy PhD.com. It's also my website's by the same name. And like I said, my podcast called Breaking Free from narcissistic abuse.
Scot Loyd (57:36)Well, thank you so much for being with us. This is a fantastic conversation and I feel like we just scratched the surface. There's so much here and it's timely, right? With everything that we're going through as a nation. Yeah, you're certainly welcome. Be sure and like and subscribe and share our podcast, Culting of America with Daniela and myself. And Daniela.

(03:10):
Thank you.
Scot Loyd (58:04)Folks, I opened the program today talking about the fact that you were signing and selling books. And if someone wants to get an autographed copy of your book, how would they do that?
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (58:17)link will be in the show notes. So, but I do invite people to come join me on TikTok. This is where it's the most fun because I'm like writing my new book in public crowdsourcing it. We're talking all about the culting of America. And as I said, it's it's we're in for a wild ride right now evaluating cults. So please come find me at knitting cult lady on basically any platform.
Scot Loyd (58:43)Absolutely. And I'm on those platforms as well. Feel free to follow me as well. And thank you all for tuning into this edition of Cults and the Culting of America. We'll see you on the next episode.

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Episode 18 | 1 to 1 cults (Narcassistic Abuse)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 18 | 1 to 1 cults (Narcassistic Abuse)