alanis in conversation with dr. ramani durvasala

[Music] welcome Dr Romany I am very excited to speak with you for personal reasons for planetary reasons for Consciousness cultural reasons uh no pressure um but I'm so excited to be back in this this seat really I'm in the hot seat with you um due the due the nature of of this conversation being a conversation um and I'll just go for it with you if you're ready it's an honor to have you here thank you elenice it's so nice to meet you and so I'm so happy to be here with you so great to be with you um so I'm going to touch on some of the personality disorders you're well known for having a deeply profound understanding of it and being a seminal voice um on the topic of narcissism and borderline hisonic an antisocial um personality disorders as well as I've gone down major rabbit holes with you over the years and recently as I prepared to to speak with you and you you know your understanding of this Human Condition and the disorders is so far reaching to the point where you have from what I understand an understanding about empaths and uh temperament which is a topic that wasn't always embraced in the psychological psychotherapeutic circles for a long time I felt like I was the only voice speaking on behalf of taking into consider into consideration temperament um so I'm excited to have found through having researched your work that you've brought it in in a very clear and direct way was so exciting um so I'm going to start with narcissism because not only is that word wildly ubiquitous now um is it true in your opinion that it has become more of a commonplace disorder to the point where it might even even have grown from it having been a certain smaller percentage of people who embodied or evidenced personality disorder of narcissism is it becoming more of a pervasive way of of interacting and I use the term interacting Loosely because in some ways it's it's basically using exploiting talking at there's not a lot of dialogicality or mutuality inside of narcissism so is it something that you see as becoming more rampant than it ever was or is it that our awareness is growing or both so I think I'm going to take a step back because I think one of the big misunderstandings is this idea of narcissism as a disorder right so there's this thing called narcissistic personality disorder you know and and I'm actually a a person who believes that if we ever get rid of it it would not be a problem because I think it's really muddy to the waters you know personality disorders I think always have been sort of a tricky area in the area of mental health and the and the in the understanding diagnosis all of that because because of the overlap or because of why because the group of disorders you had listed narcissistic histrionic borderline antisocial right those four personality disorders used to be called collectively old school they used to be called cluster B disorders okay and it became sort of shorthand within the field if you met if you said cluster B you met someone you meant someone who is very disregulated and manipulated unpredictable hostile unpredictable all those things right now we don't use that cluster terminology anymore but what we do use is a term called antagonistic and antagonistic is an umbrella term that captures something that kind of cuts through all of those that person it disordered Styles now in order for somebody to really definitively for us to definitively know they have a personality disorder they do need to be evaluated right by somebody with a license to practice now here's where It's Tricky these this cluster old school cluster B narcissistic personality disorder even most pointedly isn't always easy to assess because these are people who are really good at putting out this incredibly sort of if they want to be warm and empathic they can be warm and empathic they can fake anything to get what they need they're they're a tough nut to crack and I could tell you as a therapist it has sometimes taken me six to eight weeks with a client on a weekly basis to say oh that's where we got here and sometimes longer exactly years sometimes and I considered myself well well knowledgeable you know and there I was 13 years later going oh my God the empathy was fake you right it was fake and so that this idea of npda always say like you know what let's sort of put that to the side for no other reason that I'll tell you the other thing that happens is there's a lot of push back people say oh you shouldn't be saying someone has a certain disorder if you haven't assessed them if they haven't been to th so it's created all this this shaming of people who've been through these relationships I'm like let's make this simple narcissism is a personality style and it's a personality style like many other personality Styles introver versions of Personality style extr versions of Personality style and antagonism is a personality style agreeableness is a personality style I like it when when you use the word pattern too as opposed to I mean some of some of the introversion and the temperament stuff seems like a trait like it seems innate biochemical neurobiologically predetermined so very kind of you to say style when it's a challenging way of Behaving it is a challenging way of Behaving and a personality is sort of a personality in a is a kind of a predictable road map to how someone is going to behave right so I'll use the example of agreeable somebody is agreeable you can say you can be pretty confident that they're going to be flexible they're going to go with the they're going to be warm they're going to be humble they're just lovely right if you know someone's narcissistic you know in a way what's predictable about them is they can be unpredictable you know that they may be charming and charismatic that they can also get really angry if things don't go their way their empathy at best is going to be inconsistent they're going to be not not um authentic in a way too because no that is one one indication for me of of a sign of you know you mentioned a few of them there's the the entitlement the grandiosity potentially but the lack of empathy is one of the key points that has me become aware immediately of unless they're faking it then I have to discern whether they're Faking It or Not which is an interesting investigation but um but it's the lack of empathy and for me lack of curiosity too because other in in my experience with narcissism other I was the other I was the supply for them I was there as an appendage or a server or a servant to their to their agenda you know and you speak a lot about motivation so the motivation behind narcissism feels like not only are they seeking in this case me as a supply but also a way to control or present well and we can talk about why that is later but um you were saying something I'm I'm sorry if I just stepped on that excitedly so but what I was getting to the point is you're saying how many people are like this right now if we look at the research on narcissistic personality disorder those numbers aren't that high the the prevalence AC if we looked across studies depending on if we think about 20 studies that have been done this one to 6% that's of the personality disorder this required people to go into a research study and be formally avail evaluated by a um by a a group of clinicians with a very structured assessment now they would have had to have been flattered into it though I would imagine maybe or get paid into it or whatever because I've got to tell you when I've done research on this it was a tough again tough not to crack but if we just talk about narcissism the personality style don't we don't know if they have a disorder that's a Continuum right Continuum at the mild end we're talking about instagrammy emotionally stunted look at me how come you don't think I'm great living in a Perpetual adolescence at the severe end you're talking looking at something actually can be quite scary coercive you know exploitative all of that it's hard to capture this this Continuum of narcissism the spitball number and this is a spitball my spitball other people agree with the spitball is about 20% one in five so I tell people count up the number of people are close to you in your life divide by divide by five you got 10 people probably two of them are somewhere in this kind of narcissistic space I think in major metros like La it's numbers higher you know so it really depends on where you are now the um this issue of healthy narcissism I'm not a fan of the term and I'll tell you why by definition narcissism is unhealthy right it's like I don't know what you'd call this like healthy cocaine I don't think there's a thing I think it's is probably not a good thing for you but what would you call it healthy ego structure I would call I would call sense of self I would call it ego strength I would call it accurate self-appraisal I would call it um self- advocacy accurate perception and narcissistic people aren't accurate so I think this idea that there's it's healthy narcissism I do not like when people use that term because I don't think it rings true okay I will stop using it post taste so let's so let's dive in a little bit to some of the signs you've mentioned a few already um the the most sort of well-known narcissist is one who is sort of got that grandiosity entitlement uh seeing others as a as an appendage in a way to exploit to use as a supply to feed um lack of empathy we talked about uh they also very much want to be seen as unique and special and Lord knows all of us to some degree uh love feeling unique and special to our loved ones but but this sounds like a more pronounced version of that right like like wanting to be seen as special specifically around being better than it's special and the rules don't apply to you right right so it is again it's special it is specialer maybe that's the better way to VI instead of just special is specialer yeah yes yes okay um and then the flip side of that because the better than worse than and I think it starts really early in terms of parenting we start saying you know competition is fun to some degree but when it's super extreme I notice in a lot of the The Book Literature any videos that I've seen for children as young as three all the way up maybe especially in the West very maybe the planet at this point but very who's better who's worse who's better and and the lie in the room around that for me is is that we're all of equal value some of us may run more quickly some of us may have Acuity intellectually more so than some you know so they're so we're different and we may be further along but in terms of intrinsic worth and value we're not better than and less than what I see inside of narcissism is it's a pronounced jump from feeling better than everyone that arrogance and then jumping to the flip side of the same coin with feeling less than and shame and and and horror at at at their own lack or inadequacy or felt sense of that so so the jumping back and forth I feel like is born from the original lie which is so taught around culture in movies and shows and and children shows and anything we do who's going to win who's going to lose as though it's so binary and do you notice that sort of entrenched inside of narcissism so you you you did such a beautiful job of of capturing that sense of going from the grandiose to the devastated right and that's sort of the war that's playing out within the narcissistic person but we got to remember that narcissism where it gets to be tricky when we talk about ideology or the origin of narcissism it's not a linear path now there's sort of two school there's sort of two sort of two inherent Pathways pathway one is traum trauma neglect chaos invalidation okay yeah and that results in probably a slightly different kind there's where you see you might form potentially a malignant narcissistic person you might form a vulnerable narcissistic person more victimized more um uh potentially more exploitative any of that so that's that's that pathway the second pathway is one you were talking about the overindulged you're so special spoiled um not taught to emotionally regulate you can make whatever mess you want we're better than everyone else that probably culminates more typically in sort of the grandiose narcissism now the vast majority people raised in under trauma chaos invalidation and other adverse childhood events don't become narcissistic they may experience complex trauma they may experience Frank post-traumatic stress disorder mood disorders anxiety disorders but a subset do go on exactly subset do go on to narcissism I I hear you I'm right here with you but the but that other pathway of the kind of overindulge child and it's very interesting there's a guy in Amsterdam who's done this research and what he's found is that I think his name is last name is bulans and his whole take on it is this idea that the child who's told it's not about telling a child they're special it's about telling a child they're more special than other children the problem yes and so that becomes a different kind of narcissism than the narcissistic people who come out of that invalidating chaos otic adverse childhood environment and that imposing it's really an imposition on the child because it's a lie really I mean if you're telling someone that they're specialer or better than others you're you're setting that child up for isolation because there's no intimacy and connection found with the better than and there is absolutely none found with the worse than so you're basically setting up a relational challenge out of the gate if you if you impose and maybe from a place of narcissism themselves parentally if you're imposing ing the better than and the other side of the coin the worse than you know you're setting them up for non- relationality basically yeah I think it's again beautifully put I love that idea of you're setting them up for non- relationality and it is non- relationality across the board because the N the narcissistic person lacks the capacity to notice the subjective world of the other person so the other person's not recognize as a distinct person with distinct needs distinct wants distinct experiences different than them World person no they view everyone as an object right like I view the pen in the water bottle on my desk they Everyone's an object they serve a function for them the function may be sex the function may be validation the function may be cleaning their house fits their the model of how they want to present status then status status yeah so in some ways we were talking about or I was thinking about the brain aspect of this and the the biochemical predisposition or susceptibility for someone like you said raised in the same family totally different temperaments both maybe both parents are narcissistic one presents as they be go grow into adulthood as you know intense narcissism issues the other U might present as in my case a little bit of I don't know if you use the term co-narcissism or the quality of being a happy Supply as an empath um so if the brain if if and you correct me and and and set me on course here if the brain is predis disposed is there a predisposition genetically neurochemically to narcissism I don't think to narcissism per se but what what the research definitely suggests is that children with certain kinds of temperament if you take that temperament and you put it into either a more overindulge environment or into a traumatizing invalidating environment you are going to then probably pull this narcissism out and this is why in one family you'll see multiple siblings raised under relatively similar conditions good bad or and different and only one of them turns out narcissistic and the temperament that's probably at the core of this is probably what we'd almost call for lack of a better term a difficult temperament these are kids that are difficult to soothe they're easily aroused they're very reactive they're difficult to soothe there's a lot of acting out there's a lot of Need for attention there's a lot of Behavioral agitation so this is a kid who hears a lot of stop that don't do that no and if it's an if it's a traumatizing environment might actually get more physically abused than siblings but when you combine those two things that is really what sort of like is most likely to tilt a person towards narcissism and I have to tell you just anecdotally in my years of doing this and I've worked with a lot of narcissistic clients in therapy you know when we are able to unpack childhood and every so often I'd get the mother load that every therapist dream I would actually get to talk to a parent and it was it was very clear the parent would say that this this this was a handful this was not a sweet kid this was a difficult kid this was in a way I hate to say it they were not as lovable as other children they were just harder they were tougher and it breaks my heart because they're kids and so and they're adorable and pre they're adorable they're kids and so but the thing is this is that I don't think we know we still don't prepare parents to we don't prepare parents to parent children who diver diverge from our sort of our vision kids and especially I'll tell you where it really fails is the Educational Systems is that our educ over terrible are terrible with these kids they kids they get a lot of invalidation it's a lot of you know stop no don't no you're why can't you be more like your sister and again that temperament though is what takes that environmental vulner environmental stress and might til it to that narcissistic style yeah yes yeah the conscientiousness and appeasing approach uh and and empath too so that that empathy so if and narcissist if narcissism if narcissism begins to present as they get older do you think there was maybe a capacity for empathy that was squelched or do you think empathy is something that you learn or teach or is temperamentally innate I think it's a mix of all of the above are are some children born more agreeable than other kids absolutely and have a more inherent natural empathy that comes out of them human beings with rare exceptions I'd say maybe people are psychop AIC do have the capacity for empathy we're social species we needed empathy to be able to survive we needed to live in social groups and so it was it was it was really always a necessity so human beings are also a hierarchical species we're a primate species and so because of that you have the alpha organizations and we so there's always the mean the mean the mean monkey at the top of the chain you know and in this case the mean person exactly so but when you take all that together is that empathy is something that has to be cultivated highest calling of all parenting I'd say I don't care if a kid can't do math I don't care if they don't know their state capitals I don't care if they don't know how to code you've got to teach them empathy and this is something that again that central nervous system is so neuroplastic in those early years you've got to take advantage of that and it is modeled it is how they it's how they watch the parent interact with others how they might watch the parent inter interact with them it is about it's it's about giving your child an emotional vocabulary when the child is crying you don't say don't cry say let's talk about how you're feeling you know and this is where I think boys men often get the short end of the stick on this one because they are don't cry you know suck it up very yeah I think really yeah yeah exactly and so I think that there's where that's been a real failing of our world and continues to be but it's it's it's complicated I mean it but it we are we are wired towards empathy but what happens is that the child growing up with this increasing burgeoning sense of insecurity empathy becomes a an inefficiency because now again they're not regarding the other person outside of them as a subject it's everyone outside of them is an object so why would you why would I empathize with my water bot yeah you're here to serve my mission and Mission is probably pushing it agenda motivation great and so the categories of narcissism I think are valuable just and and you know I think it's important to qualify that understanding these labels and understanding the the subtypes and the categor really it's just to inform and Empower um especially around sort of empathizing with a narcissist just being careful that the orientation that I have and my sense is that you have it as well is the more information you have the better equipped you are to make a decision about what it you know what to do when you're across from one in work in relationships when dating all of it so um these categories aren't to limit or to violently kind of reduce any of these or um keep people stuck in these it's more just to elucidate and allow people the information to have in their back pocket when they're navigating so um the categories of narcissism there are four that I've heard you that I've heard you teach and I've heard you mention um the first one is the grandio sort of classic entitled grandstanding uh the better than arrogance one the second one is the more covert one as I see it which is the vulnerable victim and that's a tougher one to spot a lot of times because their approach can be kind of Meek and victim and blamy um as opposed to sort of the other approach from up top and in grandis um there's a tantruming quality to the vulnerable um victim one for lack of a better term the needy one I know Nina W brown uh mentions needy in her work um the third one is the communal this one was interesting when I did research with you um the communal one the name was interesting to me um I've heard this one called the Martyr the helper The Advocate the I'm wanting to save the world I I cringe when I hear someone saying let's change the planet you know I'm like I'm like that's a little too arrogant for me I think that we can all collectively contribute to the Consciousness evolving and changing on the planet and does one person's contribution to Consciousness raising matter of course it does is it One Singular person that's going to shift the planet on its axis no we have to do it together but this communal one what you mentioned was that the orientation to saving the world is motivated by looking good is that the key piece to get validation to be validated as you know I've seen it a lot in Hollywood you know like making sure that every um sort of charitable or philanthropic moment you know making sure that every one of them is chronicled and shared with the planet versus doing it because you can't not because you know On A Soulful level and this is this is a big underpinning to all of this is the spiritual um connectivity that is how life is as I know it I don't always remember it so The Advocate to to help is doing it for the attention and that's the distinct difference um then the fourth one is the malignants sort super mean sometimes sadistic uh has been called destructive they lie they cheat they steal they're conniving and these are the ones that are a little scarier right these are more dangerous that dangerous subtype yeah I think when we get into the the area of the malignant narcissistic person we get into this really theoretically interesting area called the dark Triad or the dark tetrad the dark tetrad is the newer formulation where it's really comprised of this Crossroads of narcissism psychopathy melanism and sadism so that was old was that old cluster C it's all B it's all be the sociopath and the psychopath yeah all be what we're talking about is is that you know the malignant narcissistic person it's not a psychopath right there's a difference psychopathy is a distinct phenomenon and with a malignant narcissistic person though you're really seeing that you're tting you're twisting more to hostility to um aggressiveness to rage to coercion exploitativeness Menace fear um dece it may not you will still have sometimes the the shallow the shallow charm and Charisma just to get get the foot in the door kind of thing but these are really people who are much more malevolent much more abusive and I always say you know I I have a book coming out soon and in that book I say you know malignant narcissism is sort of the last stop on the train before you get to psychopathy station because this is it like there's one and then and then it changes psychopathy is very different it's there's less remorse No Remorse I should say REM No Remorse and genetic more genetically pre more genetic more cool headed much more cool cool calm collected calculated um there's no guilt you know whereas narcissistic people do feel guilt mostly because then they know sort of The Jig Is up like they're going to be found out and they don't want that the psychopathic person is more indifferent to that and sociopathy is is it kind of like a a between narcissism to the malignant extreme and the psychopathy is sociopathy between those two or more you could say it's between the two I think what it is is a different kind of hybrant so like I was just talking about the psychopathy narcissism melanism sadism when we're talking about sociopathy what we're talking about more now is sort of where vulnerable narcissism meets some of the more malignant narcissistic that mashup it's more of the um it's more of a an it's a disregulated acting out it's I always say the sociopaths are the barf Fighters and the psychopaths are the hired assassins you know sociopathic people tend to be a little bit more reactive um they uh emotionally dis disregulated they tend to be less smooth exactly yeah so if someone's stealing money from you over a period of many many years and very very sort of quiet and deceitful about it presents well I know this such a lack of information for you to give a sense of this but if you were to take a pencil guess would that be more socio or Psychopathic if that person is cool-headed so like in other words they're presenting in the world as like super Charming Charming people really think they have it together there there's no like they're not getting messy ever with their emotions and stuff I'd go with Psychopathic wow okay I have to have a few therapy sessions for that one thank you so you're speaking about cluster a b and c sort of being old school and the new school can you remind me again the term that you use you're using trait models more antagonistic models antagonis so what would cluster a have been if it were paranoid or schizo affect or schizophrenia more psychotic and delusional what categor psychoticism um uh disinhibition SL inhibition negative affectivity so like negative mood states that would be that okay and then the cluster C is the more kind of anxious avoidant major depression negative negative affectivity and inhibition mood disorder uh NE mood disorders are different than um cluster C so disorders are things like depression dymia bipolar disorder so where does OCD fall OCD is its own part of so OCD used to be very used to hang out with anxiety we're realizing that in the brain the obsessive compulsive spectrum disorder do sit in a slightly different um a slightly different area and um so it's in the frontal lobe so they're their own they're their own their own ceg section yeah if you will yeah I love the mo the so-called modern times of us kind of deleting old um categories and just kind of updating them to to allow for the nuance and the complexity of them and the overlap so I think it's great so in terms of empowering insights for those of us who have been on the receiving end of narcissistic behavior in any context professional romantic personal friendship family um I've written down some insights that I've gotten from from your work and from my own direct experience and I thought I'd just go through them and see if any of them spoke to you to the point where inspired you to share more about it um um one thing for me is to watch for false flattery you know and for me being in the public eye I have to quickly discern is this just someone being really generous or is this someone trying to get in so they can continue to manipulate right yeah um one quality to is when things are slower and not as fast um I just I just feel a could be some form of of manipulation but I do notice when there's an when there's a willingness to slow things down that there's more trust that is elicited from me does that have anything to do or is that just you know it's interesting narcissistic people because they are so um impulsive and disinhibited by Nature if anything they're more likely to push the foot on the accelerator right okay yeah so things I tend to go a little bit quicker with that okay um and then there's the for me lack of responsibility or accountability and I I don't always notice that right away because not often in a context immediately where I would notice um but how quick are they to say oh I want to own this part this you know my bad or my this part's my responsibility I'm so sorry in in general in America the planet maybe um this lack of being able to say I apologize you know this Terror of apology is is something that I've seen to be more common than ever before and I think it's because it goes directly to potential shaming and and and there's an equating apology and responsibility taking with then being punished somehow as opposed to what I'm attempting to to show and model and share with my kids is that taking responsibility is super empowering and very relaxing you know and I don't mean apologizing for living I mean apologizing for the fact that yeah I tipped that glass over and it broke and I'm so sorry or I completely forgot to do what you asked me to do yesterday or how empowering that is whereas in some in a lot of cases I've seen the idea of apologizing not only apologizing but apologizing specifically to children somehow has people feel that that puts them in a less than position and I'm such an advocate for the idea of it puts you in agency it puts you in empowerment it puts you in a position to be relational so one thing I do notice with narcissism is that there is almost an entire unwillingness to take responsibility has that been your experience always I mean I think it's it's a defining behavioral characteristic of people who are narcissistic they don't take responsibility for exactly the reason you said it would evoke too much shame because if they took responsibility then that means they're not perfect and if they're not perfect they're flooded with a sense of Shame and if they're flooded with a sense of Shame they're overwhelmed with the sense of rage and then they lash out at other people so that idea of taking responsibility requires a tremendous amount of accountability and self-awareness and the um and and the and you know understanding human beings are not perfect so that when we take that accountability but the narcissistic structure is based on a sort of delusional sense of perfection yes and the bummer about that one for me is that the the awareness of of my or one's fallibility is like a humility portal and it actually gives me direct ACC access to Spirit so for me when I see not only narcissism but this this orientation toward don't take responsibility you're gonna get your ass kicked it Snips the opportunity for this amazing life bow right like this this piece of soulfulness that I see disappearing in popular culture it breaks my soul heart in half is this inability to kneel and bow not debasement but being able to go I'm fallible whatever perfect even means what does that even mean we'd have to have one person decide and we'd all have to agree what perfect is in some ways even perfectionist subjective right so so for me the idea of being able to be humble and know oneself as fallible and take responsibility is is a direct connect to the sweetness of the humility that brings us to God or light or whatever we want to call it so in terms of spirituality within your work is do you have your eye on any prize in this way when you're dealing specifically with narcissism is there something that you notice about narcissistically behaved people um that is an indication specifically around the topic of of a sense of spirit in narcissistic people in terms of creating that connection you know I think that what happens is that the you know really comes down to how much one would ascribe to the idea that within all human beings is a piece of the Divine Right it's it's all about that you know that energy that and in an narcissistic person that is there too but it is so buried under that absolutely um that that overwhelming sense of of insecurity and having to engage in the aggression and all these defensive Maneuvers to be able to hold hold their position that that part of them doesn't get to express and is interesting because when I have had the opportunity to work with narcissistic clients in the long term and really do and approach them from a very compassionate loving place I have to as a therapist right yeah that there will be moments when you will see almost the child in them their face almost look becomes childlike that you really approve of me you know and you see my goodness this person is so vulnerable but inside of 10 minutes they'll be yelling at me mostly because we probably we pulled away the layer so much that it was too far and so I you know there it's it's there in in in just about everyone and so they but that it is so buried under so much stuff and to become so vulnerable as to unearth all of that that motivation isn't there that will isn't there for most narcissistic folks no yeah because of the lack of empathy and remorse and the lack of suffering that that might canote like is that is it because they're not suffering so they don't have an incentive well I mean I think that the interesting thing is that they would say they were they are suffering narcissistic people are very prone to prone to a sense of victimization they believe they suffer more than anybody else they actually believe that they're many ways as kind as everybody else like it's a it's very much a distortion so they actually do think that they're suffering and but they're really not you know they're really not tied into what the true suffering is is to carry this sort of damaged sort of sense of ego with them everywhere they go which is the sort of where the shame is buried and again all these defenses like entitlement andar arrogance and all that grew up around it so they are really actually suffering but what they think they're suffering is not in line with what the true suffering is and I would imagine there is suffering if you're so adhered almost to the point where everything else is erased if you're adhered to the presentational false self that would imply suffering of a different kind like it's just suffering because there's a disconnect from life you know and my personal emerged model for of a of a better term has been you know the suffering is the disconnection from a felt sense of the Oneness interconnectivity with everybody the relational ruptures in here and here with everybody and here so all those ruptures and disconnects that to me is the greatest suffering and my son asked me the other day if I believe in hell and I said that's hell the sense of disconnection and loneliness and self-hate and all that can come from from these false perceptions and I do believe that when one is locked inside of a personality disorder or challenge um that there is a there's a just a large disconnect right it's a misperception of what the truth is and they may or may not have access to it any time in their lifetime which is one of the biggest heartbreaks because my direct experience and you can tell me clinically and as a a teacher and leader my direct experience is I haven't noticed those who were narcissistic across me I don't notice massive changes in them and and it might it might have to do with what we talked about which is Big incentive yeah yeah I mean I think that what we have to remember is that narcissistic narcissism is very resistant to change right it's very very resistant to change and so and I would say and I'd say that the easy you know the kind of the quickest way to view it is it really doesn't change and here's the thing though alenis is that our personalities don't change mine doesn't change your doesn't they don't I am who I am I am a conscientious agreeable introvert proud proud of that till the day I go down and you know what has that always right has that always helped me no I mean I think it's held me back in the sense of I haven't always advocated for myself as well I've probably said no no no let me seed the stage to someone else when in fact I really should have been the one to sort of hold that space for myself so no it hasn't always done me favors my introversion makes it hard for me to network like I'm and people say no you don't seem introverted I'm saying well you have to after I spend time with people I go have to take have to sleep it's a so that and and if tomorrow Alana someone turned to me and said hey Romney you know what we need let let's have you change let's have you not be so agreeable how about you work on dialing down some of that empathy act a little bit more entitled and be really grandio I be like what I can't do that so right when we ask a narcissistic person like hey ho you need to like you're not the most special person you're not you need to like be humble they' like what so why I think that in some ways people what do you mean they can't change I said you can't why would they yeah and I I have some some colleagues friends teachers mentors who who would say that it is possible um my direct experience so far is that it has not been you know Alan there's some argument that you know there's there's a whole there's whole literature on post-traumatic growth okay so we often think about post-traumatic stress post-traumatic you know distress all the bad things that come of trauma but trauma can also result in significant personality change in some cases and that personality change can actually sometimes be in a better Direction but you got to remember there's change small C and there's change Big C and Big C change is the change we can see you know so in other words I'll see a come into therapy not even just behavioral change enough behavioral change I'll have a client come into therapy who will actually remember to tell me they were going to be late or we'll inquire on how I'm doing or say thank you these are quantum leaps from where they came in but for a person in an intimate relationship with them or some other close relationship it's not enough after all the breaches after all the betrayals you said thank you they're like oh you're gonna do a lot more than that for me as a therapist I'm saying this is three more thank yous than we had three months ago but to the person in the relationship who need the Big C change they're not seeing that right Amen to that um more empowering insights on the healing end of this potentially mostly for what do you call those of us you know some people have said we're codependent empaths or targets which I I do believe um to be the case in my experience um what what do you call us what do you call those of us who've been who were easily supplying and now are stopping human beings I mean because I'm going to tell you this right now I know I used a time I believed it and the more research I did and the more clients I saw and the more I dug in while I think that I think that there's two things to keep in mind I think that there's who's vulnerable to like getting pulled in and who's vulnerable to getting stuck okay the whose vulnerability pulled in is everybody how many people out there say you know what if you're charming and charismatic stay away from me I might be the only person who says terrifies there two of us they're terrifying qualities like my gosh what are they hiding but the things that we are told make a person attractive success charm confidence Charisma extroversion attractiveness yes extroversion people we have been told that these are good things that's so when people meet narcissistic people and they even initially seem empathic that and they seem nice and they they they seem like they see us like we've never been seen before that is all but impossible to teach people out of that's going to be what they're drawn in the bigger issue is to getting stuck and there there might be some vulnerability factors that might be like people who are more empathic or more likely to get stuck because they're more likely to make excuses people who have a history of trauma or narcissistic relationships from prior in their life are more likely to get stuck because they're more likely to bring trauma bonded patterns in people who are forgiving are more likely to get stuck because they're going to keep forgiving people who are optimistic are more likely to get stuck because they're going to say oh no everyone has the potential to change pretty much we're we're hitting like a lot of different people here so you were talking about small CA change big sea change so for for personally in my case if I was super susceptible and and almost like a magnet to narcissists over the years history of it continuation of it in almost every context now I'm in a bit of a different place I can notice things you're in a really unique situation you were in an industry where predatory Nar narcissistic people were rewarded so they were climbing to the top of the industry right they were the people run in some cases running the labels and all of that I gave I gave them millions and millions and millions of dollars exactly so you I mean I think that part of this too and listen it it's it's endemic in a lot of Industries but in an industry like yours especially at the at the at the levels you reached in the industry you're going to get actually get more as sort of a the number of narcissist you know how we talk about parts per million the parts per million for you was really con you're going to be running into it much more than your average bear now then that that capacity for discernment is that capacity to be able to say and I tell people you know we we spend a lot of time in conversations about red flags red flags red flags I'm like it's a tricky conversation because it still puts the onus on identifying the toxic behavior on the person who's being harmed by it and you're already off your game and I think if anything we really we hold our identification of these so-called red flags is actually more profound felt in our bodies we these are ancient kinds of things that are often etched on our bodies and we hold them so we might feel the tightening in our throat or the rumbling in our tummy or even the hair is going back up on the back of our neck but we often talk ourselves out of it or we say this is just business or something like that but or this is just how it goes yeah or this is how it goes but then and listen it doesn't mean that a person can't work with someone narcissistic or you do but the thing is to know what you're getting into and cover yourself right that this is and this is the mistake I see hear see people make all the time is they get into business Partnerships with narcissistic people those will always destroy people and they think no no no it's a great deal no no no I'll be able to see and I said no you won't no you won't and I mean and on that one I've have never been wrong never well it's set up to fail miserably oh very much so very much so so one of the things inside of that context of do I partner with this person no um so tricks when I'm across from someone where I feel this immediate sort of crazy made loss of sense of self I feel like I slowly disappear when I'm across from it so one one trick for lack of a better term um I go into what I notice about myself so it's slightly somatic experiencing but it's inner-directed like what do I need right now what do I want what's important to me and sometimes I'll even do it when I'm across from someone who's narcissistic another trick that has worked over the years is I I turn my body away so I don't that's a great one I turn my body and and I also don't hold eye contact so I'll glance at them cursorily and then I look away and then I maybe I look a little distracted you know sorry what oh yeah yeah uhuh you know and then so that's worked for me gray rocking I think you may have mentioned at some point I'm not a I'm not you know gray rocking is a technique I'm not always the biggest fan of it I'll tell you why so gray rocking is exactly what is sounds like you become as inner and uninteresting and boring as a gray rock so it's very it's it's very much yes no sure you know and it's very flat here's the challenge with gray rocking for the vast majority of narcissistic people they view it as antagonistic they don't like it right because they they find it very cold and they find it very distant but they also realize like you're not getting into it with them and they're aware right and it also weirds out the other people around you so for example if is a co-parent a narcissistic co-parent the kids are like what is this if it's if it's a colleague it makes the workplace very tense a a friend of mine and colleague Tina swin who does a lot of advocacy work in this space she coined the term yellow rocking and she and the only reason she shows yellow is because she likes the color yellow and she chose this idea of yellow rocking was this idea that it's it's still giving the very tight responses but with warmth like thanks oh sounds like you guys had a great time sounds really fun exactly and so it doesn't to anyone looking at it they would they would say that that seem normal and but you're not giving you're not giving them anything and in fact a client of mine developed this term called firewalling and I loved it she worked in the tech industry and she said to her the way she manages narcissistic relationships is if you think what a firewall does on your computer right it's the kind of thing that keeps malware from coming in and in a way if you look at the other protection of putting passwords on things so you know you can't give people can't get your information out kind of thing so it's information out information in and to her firewalling is really about just not sharing anything of significance and it's you can't you don't share your feelings you don't share your vulnerabilities you don't share good news you don't share bad news you're really it's really sort of weather it's look a cat just ran down the street yeah can you believe this Wildfire season it's that kind of thing it's small talk and it's a bummer because the degree to which I'm surrounded by narcissists I spent so much time withholding in a way that I don't want to do but I'm doing it for for yellow rocking reasons you know I just I just don't want to engage I don't want to share anything vulnerable because it'll be used against me at some point or it'll you know if I ask for if I ask for discretion or I say you know please keep it won't be um so yeah I mean those are some of the tricks um let's see for me also having a robust Community cultivated around me has been a big one um because friends who I'm really close with who who've known me for many years those who aren't narcissistic um they'll call it they'll just go oo that was really an uncomfortable you know I'll feel validated by their having seen even though a lot of times narcissistic behavior can be so Mercurial and tough to tough to understand or tough to point at um those who are those who are my best friends can can spot it so being in community helps you know I I like getting a witness to the fitness a lot because I've done so many things in a vacuum and I think um narcissism it's almost like it gets away with more when you've isolated your uh your supply you know like if I'm alone with a narcissist person I'm terrified if I'm with a narcissist expert and I have few people around me who who aren't uh I feel emboldened I don't feel as terrified so community community around is great and then the wound itself I don't want to focus too much on the narcissistic wound because those of us who are empaths it might exact might entice us to to make more room for something that ideally we might even have to go as far as to put a full no talking boundary with you know a lot of people feel so sad when they set the boundary or they have an estrangement and when I hear about the context and I see how Brave they're being and having a no contact rule I'm really excited for them because I know how hard that is with flying monkeys and people coming in trying to get them to reinvigorate their empathy for the narcissist or whatever the case may be and I just I just think it's um amazing when people can have no contact if that's the thing that'll work but um the narcissistic wound is spoken about a lot and I've heard you speak about it being a combination of things you know born from adverse child experiences developmental issues immaturity issues neglect abuse PTSD potentially trauma anxious avoidant attachment specifically you had mentioned at some point and tell me what you think about that now um underneath a narcissist narcissistic wound and frankly all wounds I'm such an attachment person um you at one point focused on the anxious and avoidance Styles as being sort of precursors for what potentially could develop into narcissistic personality disorder what about disorganized attachment are they are they too is there too much going on for them to adopt a narcissistic stance or what do you yeah I think that the ego is too fragile at that point you might be maybe have a disorganized attachment might even be more in a full-on pure borderline personality style or something like that yeah so all that to say that yes there is a wound underneath the narcissism and there is an emptiness inside there um but that doesn't mean that the behavior is going to stop or that the abuse is going to stop so the boundary is still best to be kept in place um so I could speak with you for hours about this just as we as we come close to uh the ending our conversation if you're up for it and I know these are huge topics that all warrant you know 16h hour conversations about each but if you don't mind me crassly going through um borderline personality disorder uh with you if you're up for it um I'll name some things again if you're comfortable with this style I'll name some things and then if anything stands out for you to um extrapolate on I am all yours um so what the characteristics of of borderline personality disorder from what I've learned and from what you've taught um unstable emotions of overreactive activy hyperreactive thin skin um and underneath all that uh fear of Abandonment is a big one so in some ways when I heard when I really went down the major Rabbit Hole of borderline personalties sort of over the years and more recently in in a big way I recognize myself quite a bit in this one and there are four Styles or subtypes that you've talked about um Theodor subtypes but then you you extrapolated on them so beautifully um I believe I'm the one um so the fear of Abandonment unstable relationships is something you'll notice identity disturbance I have no sense of who I am some of that for me came from having been in narcissistic environments as a child because there's no mirroring developmentally there's no validation there's no empathy so this sort of amorphous floaty sense of self lack of sense of self really emerged and I've struggled with that my whole life you know people who would look at me they would say wow you really have a very pronounced self and and the sad part for me was that was not that was not how I perceived myself you know I still had I would wake up going who am I what am I doing here sort of depersonalization Vibes um so impulsivity is a sign borderline um suicidal ideation or behavior that is self Haring moods all over the place difficulty regulating um there's an emptiness and a panic Around The Emptiness um inappropriate and intense shows of anger uh and then maybe uh paranoia or or versions of dissociation so uh the four subtypes I think are interesting to to dive into uh the first one being the quiet which was also called that was called discouraged earlier on um the second one being sort of petulant and histrionic which is a name that um from what I've heard from you you've had misgivings about just based on its history of sort of the misogynistic woman in um she's hysterical in in a way to attempt to reduce the emotionality of a woman um in the past but but you've renamed it um not necessarily formally but the superficial Personality Disorder so is there histrionic element in the petulant hyper affect um version so all these sub so here's here's where this all the like and this is why this whole issue of personality disorders is so complex all of these old school clust B patterns all overlap with each other in fact there's a there's a relatively strong argument that could be made is that borderline and vulnerable narcissism might be Varian variations on a theme and that when we see to see pure pure borderline personality which is much more characterized by despair helplessness disregulation self harm that feels like a different typology than narcissism yes but when we're getting more into the sort of manipulative angry hostility um acting out that feels like it has more victimization that has a whole overlap with vulnerable narcissism and you look at the various theoreticians in the field and I would agree with them is that vulnerable narcissism and borderline likely share an overlap which is why vulnerable narcissism is the one subtype of narcissism where we see equal gender distribution as well and so the I think that what happens is that that more that the the quiet borderline as you call it you the terminology was quiet or discouraged that's probably as C close to a pureform borderline where we see so much Despair and a lot of danger in those clients because the borderline personality disorder is the mental illness with the highest rate of um suicidal behavior and it is the in the highest you know the highest rate of of of mortality due to Suicide anorexia is the mental illness with the highest rate of mortality due to the medical complications and that one for quiet for quiet too eating disorder I'd say quiet is the concern quiet the imploding it's the not acting out very very internalized is very very despairing it is not that classical depiction of the manipulative person who has borderline personality the anger is all turned inward there can be self harm Behavior there can be suicidal gestures there's a lot of negative mood symptoms there's a lot of anxiety and so it's that has a very different feel than maybe more of the in disinhibited borderline style where you might see sexual acting out substance use um behavioral acting out of all kinds attention seeking now we see something that looks a little bit more like narcissism when we talk the that's the angry impulsive externalizing subtype yeah exactly the fourth one being depressive internalizing super self-destructive to the point where they can't keep a job um and so do you think that the quiet borderline is that the category also of Love addiction because when you describe that Despair and that and that emptiness maybe not necessarily I I think that it is the I think quiet to me the quiet borderline very much represents a post-traumatic manifestation and I actually think it probably conforms more to a complex post-trauma than it does its own you see what I'm saying all this stuff and this is why all these diagnostic categories are just to me it gets messy what we we're trying to take Soup and we're trying to keep it on separate parts of a plate and it doesn't work it's all going to run into each other yeah and I think those of us who can hold the complexity and just keep the Curiosity alive and then also you're massively and formally contributing to the evolution of clarity around this which is among your many contributions that's a huge contribution to to clarify something this soupy and this prevalent and this dangerous and this potentially despair inducing to clarify it is the Lord's work so histrionic which um I don't know if you still stand by this but you have you have called it superficial personality disorder um histrionic the etymology I love the origin of words and the history of where they came came from so histrio being the Latin word for actor and and sort oh that's so interesting because you know it came it really that that term honic comes from the word hysteria and hysteria means you know the W you know so the wandering uterus the wandering uterus the wandering uterus yes and so that so when Freud came devised the terminology and others not just Freud but all of his contemporaries of Hysteria wandering uterus right so you can tell yeah I'd like I wish yes yes I mean like okay uterus just say where you are but the um but if of course what it meant was this wandering uterus was turning someone into a hot mess so it's a pathologization of of of female gender and anatomy and all of that and so I mean so I think that for it's the the challeng is is that this kind of very um seductive um attention seeking being um emotionally superficial person is immediately conflated with femininity yeah and and weakens the you know what I'm saying so that that's where the and I do think that if we were gonna I think the challenges is much of the histrionic stuff probably gets shoveled into the narcissistic side of the soup bowl right it's it's very much to me that what we us what we've traditionally termed the so-called histrionic personality is probably what we'd call a Milder level narcissism they they sometimes can seem hyper empathic but it's performative it's like it's it's oh my God Hollywood yeah and so you're it's just very it's very shrill and shrieky and insincere but there's a very much theatrical that's why though it's theatrical and it's very and it's very seductive and all of that really does seem to be captured more in the kind of in the narcissistic sweep of what as they you know the decisions are being made slowly I think in the world of the the DSM which is the diagnostic manual is that these separately named personality disorders probably don't serve much of a function that a person might have per personality issues like these long-standing pervasive stable maladaptive patterns that whether they're internalized externalized manipulative whatever they're just not good for anyone and I think that this old school histrionic term probably confirms conforms to more of a milder narcissistic variation yeah with with a little extra um over-the-top emotionality emotionality yeah so would the seductive superficial um focus within this part uh would what do you think when when you look at pop culture and you see videos where I'll just use the example of women in this case women are hypersexualizing themselves would that fall into this category in your opinion it's a very that's actually a really great question um here's what's challenging right because it's a ish I would say ish I mean what you have is that this hypersexualization though if we view it from a straight behavioral perspective it's also being rewarded and monetized right right so if you put right you put the images out there and then people are getting likes and brand endorsements or whatever it is right and they do and so if if I'm looking at it from that point of view and somebody's saying this is an asset I have and I can monetize this I'm work and I'm going to work it I get I mean again for the feminist in me says we have to be very careful before you pathologize that because that is that any different than a person who has great coding skills and they can go hair and does a hair yeah what whatever it is they do or great whatever skills and they turn that into something a commodified asset which just so happens we've we've constructed a a world and an economy where that kind of self- depiction brings in money and if somebody's choosing to get this necessary asset money while they can cash I I again I'm Lo to critique someone where it concerns me though is that that shapes identity these are younger women and so their identity then gets locked into my entire sense of self my entire sense of value is coming from this thing I can sell and let's face it it's a diminishing asset it's like driving a car off the lot it starts losing value real quick and then there's this Con I mean then I worry about vulnerabilities to things like disordered eating and Body Image issues and and dysmorphia and and the excessive Reliance on you know age defying stuff and the excessive spending on that so it's like it becomes this really problematic psychological rabbit hole but it's you know but yes I do think that some of that though is this is how I get attention this is how I get money and you know the problem is if a person remains that kind of emotionally shallow and that's the only way they can do it they're not going to be a healthy relational partner yeah and it also speaks a lie about the multitudinous of a of a woman in this case you know much so I always say like it's fine to you know groom and feel cute and and present in a way that reflects you know what you'd ideally want but it's one1 100th of who you are you know and but culture has a tendency to just zoom in on that and say your only worth is your sexual prowess or your sexual viability and that also contributes I mean it's a whole other conversation to be had about you know women and aging and and objectif sexualization what is healthy sex but um because there is some element tied to the histrionic personality disorder of the physical appearance and and I've heard the word shallow be thrown a lot around it um it sounds like if it's shallow quote unquote to the extreme it sounds like if things are extreme then it might fall into this category versus just someone enjoying putting makeup on or someone enj no yeah I mean listen there are people out there who may actually really love putting on makeup and putting on clothes and caring about that stuff and looking pretty and have a tremendous depth of character and humanity and empathy I mean I think we make the mistake that the one means the other one is not present right it may not it may it may but it also may not okay the seduction disorder as it's sometimes called um so some superficiality susceptible to suggestibility so like a vulnerable childlike quality to them yes very much so influen like oh there's this new powder oh my God I'm going to get it right away correct I'm going to go look I found this new Guru I found this new this I find this very suggestible so they're very vulnerable to for example people who are very predatory to other predatory Cults and on um online scammers and online dating all that stuff and is it because the susceptibility has them be hungry like what what is the motivation around that susceptibility to being I don't think susceptibility is a motivation I think suscep ility is a a vulnerability is a state yeah okay um so a lot of Shifting emotions a speech pattern and this one really stands out for me when I'm interacting with people a vagueness a lack of being very direct why why would someone inside of histrionic personality disorder what is the value or secondary gain of being vague whether they're conscious of it or not again I don't know how much of its value or secondary gain as much as there's no depth it's the dis in in many ways it's the disconnection from motivation that's the issue right so they're not cutting to the chase it's a um there is a uh an ephemeral kind of disconnected childlike one thing that comes to mind a lot when I think of this personality side it's very childlike right so it's this it's and that vague kind of communication can sometimes come off as gradio too that's why I'm saying there's a tremendous overlap with narcissism grandiose because they're sharing something that's not ly clear and the assumption is that everyone understands what they're talking about everyone exactly not only everyone understands it's also sort of a um yeah it's everyone understands it and I don't need to be any more clear like I'm I don't need to expand on this you can see an overlap between the histrionic personality style and the communal narcissistic folks too I mean again you're in that sort of more culty kind of a space yeah yes and also um the Messianic or the Messiah complex is is that inside that too no the Messianic stuff what I put back in the narcissism yeah it's such a for those of us in the public eye it's almost like a right of passage to slip through that Messiah complex moment where you know there's this and I have a direct experience of it you know you're in the white hot heat of the whole planet or the sense of the whole planet staring at you and there's this moment of wait this is an unusual un very sort of socially culturally unusual psychologically unusual circumstance that must mean that I have some answer for the world you know right and every single person I've seen in the public eye at that particular juncture in their career or maybe their model is blowing up maybe their record just blew up maybe a movie came out it's this moment of you know whether it happens for 10 seconds or is protracted for decades it's this Messianic moment so you're saying that it falls into the narcissism more of the grandiosity yeah oh the another one within histrionic is the overestimation of intimacy misreading situations maybe over ascribing more intimacy than that than was there and that is something that overlaps with the whole codependent recovery conversation and developmental immaturity growth is the instant best friends and that's very common in Hollywood right yeah the instant best friends but see but in Hollywood the instant best friends piece is transactional I think in the histrionic instant best friends speaks to an attachment issue like wanting attachment right away just attachment right away a yeah hunger exactly a um a uh a sense of almost Annihilation if they're by themselves got it we're best friends because you can make something happen for me so they're trying to force an intimacy because it could turn into something for them it's a little bit different which of the personality disorders do you see dissociation play a biggest one of the biggest Parts in in borderline personality borderline yeah yeah and that is is it I mean there's relief seeking measures being being uh looked at with dissociation certainly from my personal experience um and is it to assuage and comfort the disregulation and the anxiety and all the activ the affective activity inside the body is that one is it seems like a really brilliant some cases survival strategy yeah it mean it's a post-traumatic protection right so it's it's I mean dissociation at the time of trauma and then ongoing dissociation becomes sort of the the protective that protective um it's not a tactic it's what happens it's what happens the nervous system it's protective process I guess it it continues into a person's life remember dissociations on the Spectrum too at the at the at the mildest sent of of the dissociative spectrum is somebody who kind of gets that hey you there kind of like a che out of the body check out yeah the at the obviously at the most extreme end of dissociation is the person who's who Cleaves into separate into Alters into separate personalities right we see in dissociative disorder depersonalization fug States and all of that and stuff in the middle right so what we're when not when we're talking about the sort of dissociative pattern we'd see in a person with for example maybe a more post- traumatic borderline presentation we're not talking about the cleaving into multiple personalities we're probably talking more of the moderate spectrum of jump of dissociation right exactly just sort of the the the the usually traumatically activated and again this is why I'm saying that that that more traumatically activated borderline personality there's so much overlap with complex trauma that this is actually what has been the people who what I think is that borderline personalities chopped into so many pieces there so many subtypes is that there's a part of it that does overlap with complex post- trauma and I think that and then there's a part of borderline that is its own its own separate phenomenology and there's a part that overlaps with narcissism and because it's such a it's such a messy construct it causes a lot of confusion in the field even among amongst professionals when we talk about it and so but that dissociative piece of it in general is because the individual had a traumatic history or even ongoing trauma and that that the dissociation is part of that that trauma system but in a person with a borderline personality who doesn't have dissociative disorder who doesn't have post-traumatic stress disorder or complex post-traumatic stress disorder it may really be sort of a a a distraction like little swads of time get lost yeah brown brown outs or blackouts yeah brown outs yeah and then alcohol use is that associated with dissociation because whenever I would you know I haven't had alcohol in quite a long time but I know why I would use it you know sometimes it was I would use alcohol as a way to pretend I'm not an introvert and adhere to The extraversion Credo uh way of life that was that has been praised when we get into substance use oh yeah get into and dissociation obviously it is a it's a form of it's It's a dissociation can feel like a sort of a um an alteration of Consciousness right because you're not right you've you've got your your present current state of consciousness within your nervous system there's an alteration in that you're s separated bra changes and in addic in the use of substances it's also an alteration in Consciousness that's it's so and whether it's being done to numb whether it's being done to regulate whether it's done to get high or you to expand whatever context ketamine yeah sure so there's a dissociative element to like for example so G ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic the drug has that design there are dis you know huenicorn folks use stimulants to enhance a grandiosity some use um alcohol to especially vulnerable narcissistic folks to facilitate um uh social anxiety you know to help with that some numb because there is just a lot of negative symptomatology some do it to for a sense of belonging I mean there's a whole a lot of reasons re yes oh my gosh we're talking about these personality issues you know and and so much of my work also focuses on what happens if you're in a relationship with a person with personality issues and it's not easy and my focus is largely on narcissis ISM l so the others and um and it's not it's it's not easy and I think that what is hard is that people like you said get caught in this kind of this empathic um stuck Loop of they did have a tough backstory I feel bad I know they're going through stuff and then you give in and then you're you're you're taken down the rabbit hole more invalidated and now it's doing harm to you and I think that a person can clearly understand these personality Styles and yet that doesn't just because you you understand what it is does it mean you need to sign up to be harmed by it you can I mean it's multiple things can be true at the same time and it could be this person's had a tough life that explains their personality this is harmful for me it's okay for me to step away they're going to get angry at me that's to be expected but I can't live forever in sort of thrall to their anger no and there's this whole other world that opens up in my direct experience after having set you know varying versions of boundaries some of them you know in whatever terms are being used in 20 23 24 you know whole estrangement no contact you know and then some varying versions on that theme on the other side you know when I turn my head away from the narcissistic Dynamic there's mutuality reciprocity support empathy great listening parity uh Joy resonance uh compatibility becomes a conversation again it's a it's I thou I thou I thou at all times versus you know no self eyeball serving you know so so in terms of just ending on a note of healing and and a vision for what's possible um do you want to spitball or popcorn some of the the the examples of of what has worked in terms of healing and and you know I can also add when we're done our conversation I can add some resources at the end of course but are there are there from your experience and I know it's you've had so much experience sitting across from people struggling with narcissism relationally um are there you know a handful of things that off the top of your head that you think of with regards to it you know facilitating healing for people so I would say thing you know with number one is to understand this is not going to change there's nothing you can do to change it you cannot be responsible for another person's behavior and that is part of that radical acceptance that as they continue just because you radically accept doesn't mean it stops hurting that they're going to if they keep going at you because some people say oh I radically accept it how come it still hurts I'm like because they're still hurting you so it's understanding that this is never going to change and each time they do it to you it is going to hurt it's about having realistic expectations for these relationships when people hear no contact they get terrified they're saying wait a minute if this is a narcissist does this mean I have to end the relationship not necessarily but what you do need to understand is its limitations I think that no contact is a tricky kind of prescription and it's one I never give because it's not one again I'm not talking about cases where there's violence involved it's not one of physical violence I'm not talking about that but it it's a psychological violence and in these cases I say listen there's reasons of finances culture religion genuine fear of why people cannot leave these relationships and so valid in those cases it becomes that it's not a simple as no contact that by having realistic expectations of the limitations of this relationship that you'll stop trying drop trying to drop an a bucket into an empty well another thing is like you said is having at least one validating voice in your life having healthy social supports because it reminds you that you are valued for you not the performative version you have to bring into the narcissistic relationship and that doesn't take many it can be one or two people who see you wholly and fully for some people that therapy is part of that space too but definitely bringing up that kind of idea of social support and also working through the grief these relationships bring up mountains of grief and I don't some people will say ah I I should be happy I've I've dodged this terrible relationship no because for a long time for many people narcissistic relationships it was realer than real and big complicated narratives were written around them this could be someone's parent I mean these are not high Ticket big Ticket relationships is that there's a process of grief and the grief confuses people who will say well if I'm so sad does that mean I'm making a mistake no because you're this this is something that you had once convinced yourself was in fact very very real and I also tell people be ready for the setbacks that some people time sometimes people will get pulled back in they'll be hoovering as we call it getting pulled in for an act two an act three and act 10 and a lot of people feel ashamed and I say you will be hoovered and expect it and if if it happens do not shame yourself that this is very human that ultimately and the biggest takeaway I want people to have is that our human desire for love connection and attachment is one of the most profoundly beautiful parts of ourselves and it's that very part of oursel that wanted to make this relationship with a very antagonistic person work and it couldn't but when we get pulled back in it's because this really lovely part of yourself that wants attachment and love unfortunately is getting pulled into a very problematic system but to show yourself compassion and Grace and say it was a healthy part of me that wanted it in a not very healthy space and exploring it whether it's through therapy support groups it this can often be a very challenging road to walk alone I actually have a monthly healing program we can send you that link if people really want to do that work they can certainly enroll in something like that where we take this issue by issue Brick by Brick and create Community because it people who are going through this feel a lot of Shame and feel very alone saying nobody's going to understand this and there are people people who understand it when you're in their midst you feel very seen and hurt yes you don't feel insane basically and and that's particularly tricky in terms of um the being hoovered back in when that person has any kind of Jackal and hide charm punish you know so when you know I used to say with my narcissistic close people wouldn't say it to them but I would say it about them that when they're great they're so great they're so good you know oh so good so resonant so inspiring so hilarious you know and then when they're bad and I never knew when that would come to walking on eggshell style um it was horrifying so for me the the grief is also about throwing the baby out with the bath water apart and I just think grief is just this ongoing ask in my body in my life I'm just constantly being asked to to grieve about everything a pen a human the world um well I thank you so much for your time and your intelligence and your your generosity of spirit and uh thank you for all the people who you're helping and thank you and leading to some Solace and um I appreciate an honor chatting with you and God bless was great I really loved our conversation thank you me too thank you Dr Romy great yeah absolutely well thank you you too blessed all right byebye now bye

Channel: Alanis Morissette

Views: 117,896

Keywords: alanis, morissette

Id: e1OHm0WuwJ4

Length: 79min 17sec (4757 seconds)

Published: Fri May 17 2024