INSIGHT 102223 NARCISSIST SLAYER PART 1

"No more walking through life, feeling controlled and unable to do anything about it. Local Author, Therapeutic Consultant, and "Narcissist Slayer", Michelle Williard Hoffer gives you the tools to empower your life and bring peace to your soul."

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi, I'm Sylvia Austin. Thisis Insight, a presentation of iHeartMedia where
we really do care about our localcommunities and all our listeners who live here.
If you're a person who feels trappedby feelings and beliefs that have held
you hostage most of your life andyou just can't move on from them,
the chances are that you're feeling stuckhas had a serious and depressing impact on

(00:22):
many facets of your life. Couldit be that all this comes from the
way you were raised. Maybe itcould be that you've been surrounded by negative
people, or even perhaps you've beenin a relationship that has brought you down
and you just can't find your wayout of it. With us today is
local author, therapist and narcissist slayerthat blows me away Michelle william Offer Willard

(00:44):
Hoffer. One of the things thatimpresses me the most about Michelle. She's
willing to share some of the verypersonal details of her life with us today
and how it left her feeling controlledand unable to do anything about it.
According to Michelle, this can allbe turned around because it all goes back
to your brain. Anybody can doit and it all rerounds that revolves,

(01:06):
excuse me, around reprogramming your brain. Michelle. I'm so excited that you're
been thinking. I couldn't sleep lastnight because my mind there's so many questions.
I hope you don't run out oftime. Hello, I'm so excited
too. I want to ask you, first of all, in your experience,
are there a lot of people likethis walking around out there? It's
like carrying something on your back constantly, right, Well, everybody has something,

(01:27):
yeah, you know that is pullingthem down, and their trauma is
not any less important or valid thansomeone else's trauma. That's one of the
big myths that people who are lookingat someone else going well, it's not
that bad. Ye, it's notthat bad. I can handle that.

(01:49):
Well, maybe that person can handleit, but someone else can't. That's
rights, and that trauma is asimportant to them as someone else's. It's
just like we look at these walkinginto our drive past a real ritzy neighborhood
and the family the perfect family listener. That's a crock of baloney, right,
because you know, we all havecover ups. I mentioned at the

(02:13):
top of the program that you notonly have you're here to talk to the
talk. But you have walked thewalk. You know what this is all
about. Tell us a little bitif you don't mind your story. Oh
sure, I was married for nearlythirty years, and unfortunately I didn't know
what I didn't know. Let's startthere. I didn't know what I didn't

(02:37):
know. When I was a younggirl. My grandparents, my great grandparents,
my parents, we all were taughtyou find that one person the fairy
tale, the fairy tale and Disneytaught us. Oh. Absolutely, you
find that one person, your princecharming or the princess in your life,

(02:58):
and you marry them. You makework and everything works out. As long
as you are good and your personis good, then yes, everything is
peachy keen, and you are good. It all centers around being good and
nice, good and nice. SoI was a good person in high school.
I was good, I was nice. I would come home and if

(03:20):
someone was mean, I would cry, and well, what do you have
to do? You have to benice. You have to be go back
to school and be nice. Eventhough you know this other person may have
been horrific or horrible. You haveto be nice, you know. So
that was ingrained in us at thattime that at that time, that's what

(03:40):
people believed because that's what their parentstold them, right, their parents taught
them. My grandmother came to thiscountry from Italy, and you know,
she was taught to mix in,don't be seen, be good, don't
make waves, don't make waves,and she taught that to her children and

(04:06):
their children. My parents taught thatto me. Don't make waves, don't
make waves. You want to beliked. So they didn't know what they
didn't know, and now we know. In the eighties, when I was
in high school, there was nothingaddressed with mental health or even bullying for

(04:30):
that matter. It was mother children. Don't grow out of it their kids,
they're teenagers. This is a phase, and it's not a phase.
It is someone setting their personality atthat moment, at that moment, so
then you fast forward to meeting thatperson that you think you want to spend

(04:56):
more time with and fall in lovewith. And Mary and in my case,
my former husband was from a bigfamily, but they weren't the nicest.
They were believed in hitting with astick. They'd have to go out
and get their own stick off atree and then bring it back in and

(05:17):
get hit or beat with it,and so I believed in my seventeen year
old time on the planet that mylove was so I will show them the
lite exactly. But no, actuallyit made me more vulnerable to being conditioned,

(05:43):
especially at that age, to beingconditioned and being obedient because I was
also raised in the man rules thehouse. He who makes the gold makes
the rules, right, right,Yes, so you were married for thirty
years. Typically in abusive situations,people will say to you, well you

(06:06):
knew that before you get married,or well, why don't you leave?
Oh my god, there is pleaseexplain that, right. That is one
of the words things that anyone canask is why did you stay? That
is putting the person the victim ondefense again. Now they're questioning, oh

(06:29):
my gosh, you know, amI this terrible person? Am I using
former husband former wife for money?Did I just say because it was convenient?
Or did I stay because I wasscared? Did I stay because I
was afraid? And I and heor she said I wouldn't make it and
no one will love me. DidI stay? Yes? You know,

(06:50):
So there's your Your self esteem isin the tall self esteem time, right,
So it is a lot of victimshaming and people, well meaning people
and nosy people will ask that question, why did you stay? And really
it is victim shaming. Of coursethey want to know, but it's the

(07:15):
victim stayed because they were conditioned tostay. They stayed because they were afraid
for a lot of different reasons.And when there are children involved, you're
already raised that way. You're alreadya caretaker, taking care of your children,
your husband, your parents, beinga good little girl, and a
lot of women are at home allthe time, and they it's only in

(07:39):
recent years that women have taken holdof what's going on in society as far
as representing themselves. But you're trappedfinancially, you're worried about worm is it
going to be worse for my kids? And unless you're in that position,
you don't know right, you don'tknow how it feels right right, and
you don't know what you don't know. And in that time, you're also

(08:00):
so conditioned to keep it quiet,keep it in that bubble, keep it
in that house. When I leftto be married, and my parents also
like many others at that time,said you know you're you're now leaving our
house. Make it work, Makeit work in your house type of thing,

(08:22):
lovingly thinking that you know, thisis how we build good families.
And I kept trying to make itwork, thinking that if I didn't,
there was something wrong with me.Yes, and so that is easily taken
advantage of and used against you.So you are further conditioned into staying into

(08:48):
you're not making it work, You'renot being the good spouse, wife or
husband, You're not doing all thatyou can be your bad And one of
the threats that was held over myhead was because I didn't want to be
bad, Oh, I didn't wantto be bad, was that no one
would believe me. He would telleverybody how I was really like, and

(09:13):
I built him up to family membersthat he's a saying oh, because you
didn't want anybody to know, humiliatingno, And I would be the funny
one at the gatherings of family andfriend gatherings because I needed to beat him
to the punch so that I wasn'tbeing humiliated, but I could do it

(09:35):
myself and make fun of myself andhaha, let's all have fun and keep
moving on. When did the lightfinally go along with you? Thought,
oh my god, I gotta getout of this I didn't. It didn't.
It never did. He left me, and I was devastated. He
emptied the bank account he had,you know, several other people, and

(09:58):
I kept wanting him to pick me, you know, pick me, pick
pick me. During you felt youdidn't measure like you were constantly selling yourself
to everybody. Right, that isvery insightful, Thank you, thank you,
Yes, very insightful. No.I mean, I've heard this so

(10:18):
many times. I've gone through someof this myself, so I haven't totally
understand where you're coming from. Soat one point you had cancer too,
Oh yes, during the marriage itwas uterine and uh, cervical, and
my uter is sort of exploded.And thank Heaven, so for doctor Piece.

(10:43):
He's no longer with us at theHershey Med Center, who saved me.
I just love him. But thatalso took a toll on being even
more dependent on the relationship. Youknow, I didn't think I was being
dependent because I thought I was ina partnership. I thought I was in

(11:07):
a relationship, in a marriage forlife. But it was taken advantage of
it. You know. It's funnybecause I remember telling even my son and
young people. I don't know whythey spilled their guts to me. But
when they talk about relationships, Iused to say, when you think you're

(11:28):
falling for some or getting involved uson someone, make sure you see how
their family lives, how the fathertreats the mother and vice versa. Because
typically unless you recognize that there's alot of dysfunction in your family and try
to straighten it out, it's goingto be repeated. So if you see

(11:48):
a girl that her mother is constantlybeing put down by her father, or
they make fun of her, oryou know she's there to serve everybody,
you know, that's what your wifeis going to be like. And if
you see if a boy sees hisfather, you know, like it's kind
of like we go back to thefifties, you know, when everything was

(12:09):
perfect and mother did this and likeJune Cleaverer mopping the floor with buy eels
and pearls. Forget it. Nobodydoes that. But the media has a
lot to do with that too.But we're so programmed when we're little.
But the great news and why Iwanted to talk to you and bring you
in here so badly is because youturned everything around and you figured out that

(12:33):
it all, it all has todo with the messages that we send to
our brains, and at some point, with some work, you can reverse
that and come out of that darkness. Right. Oh, yes, yes,
yes, I believe. One ofthe things that my family doctor told
me sitting in his office, hesaid, you have to tell your story.

(12:58):
And I was like, but thatwas the thought in my head.
However, he had a chart,and being a former first grade teacher and
a rule follower and obedient, Iwas afraid he would mark it down that
I'm not following his guide in directions. So I had another follow up a
week later and I put it onFacebook. I wrote what I needed to

(13:26):
write, share my story quote unquote, and just put it on there hits.
And because my appointment was on Monday, this was a Saturday, and
I thought, no one's going tocare, no one's going to care,
and so I thought I was doingwhat he instructed me to do, and
I did that. I went outto the kitchen, had breakfast, came
back, as they say, myphone had blown up and with messages and

(13:54):
people in the private messages saying thisis what's happening to me too. This
is men and women saying thank youfor sharing you know, you're brave,
and I'm thinking I'm not brave.My doctor tald I completed an assignment.
This was an assignment and I didit and they were giving lots of positive

(14:16):
feedback, and even then I waslike, this is not real. This
is not real. And I wentto the doctor and told him and he
was like, good job. Now, you know, take this next step.
And I was seeing a wonderful therapistlocally in Hershey, and I also

(14:37):
had a specialist for PTSD in reading, and they were trying their best to
open my eyes that you're a victimof violence, you're a victory. Yes
I had been hit, Yes Ihad been abused. Yes there were black
and blue marks covering my body.But no, I'm uh no, I

(15:03):
would not because that was also equalto being bad, or it was my
fault, your fault. It's alwaysyour fault. You're lacking in something that
you're not worth loving, or hewould have been showing this fairy tale love
right, And it was a brainwashing. I mean, I had bruises all
over me and I wouldn't believe itbecause there was always an apology and gifts,

(15:26):
and that was again, why didyou stay well? Was it for
the gifts? And you know,these thoughts went through my head, but
it was the gifts to keep me, you know, teathered in wine.
That he said he was sorry,and I believed him because he said those
words. And I was also youknow, raised that as if someone apologizes,

(15:52):
then you accept, and I did. Oh my gosh, my gosh.
Well, you know, there's thereare a lot of people that are
walking around and I don't think youmentioned post traumatic stress disorder. And when
we think about that, we thinkabout people military. But could you explain

(16:14):
how that fits into what you wentthrough. Oh? Sure, it is
PTSD. It is a severe something, a severe action. That is you've
witnessed or is you've seen or heard, or it's happened to you, or
it's happened to someone else. Themilitary. That's an awesome example. They

(16:37):
are living in and have seen horrificthings. Again, their trauma is different
than someone who is in a homein Dauphin County getting screamed at, violently
and threatened, pushed against the wall, beaten, hurt. That is also

(17:00):
traumatic. Seeing your parent, eitheryour mother or father getting hit or screamed
at is traumatic for a child.They also experience PTSD, and you see
it in the elementary schools and itgoes through all the grades. But that

(17:21):
goes with everyone's trauma is different.Someone might you know, military there trained
to run into danger when everyone isrunning out, so they're going to have
PTSD because also their brains are notused to seeing it even though they're trained.
We civilians are not trained for anytype of danger. You know,

(17:45):
we are trained to look for itto protect ourselves from it. But when
we're living with it and we've madea vow to that person that we'll do
better, we'll do good. Youknow, PTSD is there in victims and
it will surface sometimes. I personallyuse techniques and meditation and hypnosis to keep

(18:17):
the triggers down, to keep themaway, but they're going to pop up
when you least expect it. Ihad my brand identity attacked and the narcissist
layer attacked and vandalized, destroyed,deleted. It was turned into a Portuguese

(18:45):
speaking restaurant in Mexico that's closed andall my content was gone. And I
felt it just took the air outof me because I had built this up.
I felt it took me right backto being attacked blind sided, not
expecting the attack, not expecting thehit to come from behind or from the

(19:10):
side, and I felt it harshlythat I call it. Take to the
bed. I took to the bedfor a day or two because I was
like, what just happened? AndI knew my techniques would work to get
me out of it. But itwas such a blind side that it took
me. That event took me tothe abuse in the home long ago,

(19:38):
you know, because at that pointyou were it was it was something you
were very familiar with, right,right, and you went right back to
that. But at one point youdecided that you how did you your doctor
referred to another doctor who taught youthe type of training you do now.
Yes, well, I was seeinga specialist in her. She and actually

(20:04):
so I was referred to her bythe doctors. And then during the divorce,
my the judge who was overseeing ourcase, said to both our attorneys
privately in her chambers, we needto said specifically to the other attorney,

(20:27):
you need to stop beating up onher. We're not going to have this.
This is not that kind of divorce, and we're going to get someone
who's a specialist for PTSD and toldthat to my attorney, and his attorney
gave my attorney her personal email address, and my attorney came out and said,

(20:51):
this has never happened in all herpractice, this has never happened,
and you will do what she saysto do. And I'm like, okay,
again, I'm used to following rules. So she found a doctor who
specialized in this in Reading, andI thought, okay, I'm going to
go. It's not going to workbecause nothing works. I'm just going to

(21:15):
go check it off the list anddo it. He is a hypnotist,
okay, so he's going to tryand hypnotize me whatever. And I'm driving
to Reading. I had to askmy father for money because I had no
access to money at that time.He had cleaned out the account in nineteen
cents and then it just I didn'thave the money, so I had to

(21:37):
ask for money. Driving to Redding, went there, filled out a form,
sat in a room talking to thisman, doctor Curtis, and I
told him my whole story. I'mcrying, I'm doing everything, and he
even asked, how did you getthe money to pay for this? And
I told him and he said okay, and then he said, would you

(21:59):
like some hypnosis? And I thought, well, sure, I guess and
I said okay, and I closedmy eyes. I opened my eyes and
it was over, and I said, wow, this feels great, you
know, And I felt like Iwas in bliss and I had never felt
bliss before. I had never usedthat word. And he was kind of

(22:22):
smiling because he had implanted that intomy brain. I didn't know that,
but that's what he had done.And I jokingly said, you know,
I never used drugs in my life, and I think this is what HI
would feel like. And I thinkI missed out in junior high in high
school. And I was laughing withhim, and he went, no,
no, not drugs, life.This is what life is supposed to feel

(22:45):
like. Wow. Wow, soyou're doing it. You've been doing that's
been a while and you've been doingit. I want to talk to people,
because boy boy, this I couldgo on further with you right out
of time already. Tell what youdo in your practice and how you help
people and the number one thing I'veand I think I talked to you about
this when we chatted a little whileago, that I'm not able to be

(23:07):
hypnotized and you said, oh,yes, yes, the mind never shuts
down. Yes, And that's okay. No one's mind shuts down, No
one's. Our minds are constantly andactively in pursuit of finding whatever it is
we want, so it is alwaysworking for us. So everyone is hypnotize

(23:30):
a ball as long as they wantto be. Some people are afraid or
are on guard, or what ifI say something I that don't want anybody
to Yeah, well that's a differenttype of hypnosis that that would be a
different type my type of hypnosis,which I'm trained in the other way also,
I'm trained, But the way Ido hypnosis is they tell me what

(23:53):
they want. We have a longconversation, and then I close your eyes.
Would you like some hypnosis? Theanswer is yes, and then I
start programming their mind with what theywant. They don't say a word.
I'm not getting any secrets out ofthem. They're not going to tell me
any deep, dark secrets they likelyalready have. And that's okay because I'm

(24:15):
you know, that's what they're therefor, for relief and sometimes just speaking
it is a relief. But thenwe have to build in. Now that
we've removed the toxicity, we haveto build in the support of things.
So we do that in hypnosis,so everyone is hypnotizable the people who probably

(24:40):
aren't. And and this this issomething that we talk about in my profession,
are people with borderline personality disorders andnarcissists and likely likely but not proven
bipolar. Well, let me andyou use it a couple of different methods,

(25:02):
and we have time to talk aboutthat. But here's what I wanted
to ask you to. You talkabout narcissists when you're around people, whether
it's a group of people. Hey, the worst people in the world are
family, the more damage than anybody, even though you love them, maybe
think I love them, I don'tknow. But how do you recognize the
narcissist almost immediately? Are there redflag? Oh? Yes, for me,

(25:26):
I see it right away, andI can't not see it. But
someone who is the smartest person inthe room, not just you know,
the the loud, boastful one,but the one who is really taking all
the attention, the one who's poudingalso about who knows what, because they

(25:52):
cannot stand to see anyone else happy. They cannot stand even at a holiday
gathering or a festive wedding. Theyhave to find some reason to start an
argument with someone, whether it's theirpartner or someone else there so that they
can blame their partner later. Yourfamily did this, your friends did that.

(26:18):
What about it works because I knowyou work with companies too, and
employees that companies to make people healthierthere too. But what about people that
are like micromanagers? Would they beconsidered a narcissist? They may or may
not. They're definitely jerks. Butyou know, I can't diagnose anyone and

(26:41):
they but they're not that is there. That's a reflection of them not trusting
their own work. And okay,that's a reflection car them not trusting their
people. It's it typical that whenpeople say things to you to put you
down because they want to control you, they are it's mirroring. It's how

(27:03):
they feel about themselves. So that'sa good sign. That's something you can
recognize about someone. Yes, okay, now I want to talk as I
mentioned you also, you do thischildren of all ages people, I mean
people, children and those men,women, businesses. A lot of You're
not saying that you're not opposed toregular therapy, you're not opposed to medications

(27:26):
when necessary, but this has beenso successful and in some cases you've even
seen where know of places where peoplehad terrible diseases and by changing the thoughts
in their mind they were it waslike a miracle. It is like a
miracle. And I mean they arestill in using their medicine and their definite

(27:53):
chemotherapy medicines or whatever medicine it isthat they're using in conjunction with hypnosis and
meditation and tapping and other things likethat that do change the thoughts in their
head and change how their nervous systemis responding. That's amazing. And you

(28:15):
know there's I remember reading years agoa woman named Louise Hay talked about we'll
talk about her. This was supposedto be a thirty minute program. I
can't let it go, so I'lltell you what we're going to do.
To my listeners, please check inwith us next week on Insight because Michelle
will be back with us. Anddon't forget to catch us on any of
the iheartstations or in your favorite podcastapp. I'm Sylvia most. This has

(28:37):
been Insight. Thank you for listening. To see you next week.