How To Spot a Narcissist and Heal From Them w/ Dr. Ramani Durvasula | The Psychology Podcast

I've said this over and over again broken hearts are easy to heal give me six to eight weeks everyone's going to climb out of a broken heart un craing someone that takes years on this episode of the psychology podcast I had a very enlightening and useful discussion with Dr ramani derua about her latest book it's not you identifying and healing from narcissistic people in this discussion we talk about the warning signs in a partner parent boss or friend such as those who have a quote Powder Keg Vibe I love that phrase as Dr derisa notes the personality pattern was there before you came into the narcissistic person's life and it will be there after you leave we also discussed the Continuum of narcissism and the common myths about narcissism as well as how to heal from these kinds of relationships we also discussed the Continuum of narcissism and the common myths surrounding narcissism Dr Dervis Soul's book is selling like hot cakes and has clearly hit quite the nerve amongst her mostly female audience after listening to this episode let us know in the comments whether it hit a nerve with you as well so without further Ado I bring you Dr ramani derasa Dr Romani it is so great to have you on the psychology podcast thank you so much for having me congratulations first of all congratulations on this wildly successful um book tour and uh you are popping up everywhere and I want to congratulate you I was wondering I want to start off by asking why do you think that this topic of your new book it's not you is uh resonating with so many people because I think that that many people have been struggling with this for the longest time and they're not able to get answers they they get a lot of well the narcissistic person has a perspective too and there's two sides to every story and you shouldn't be using diagnostic terms and maybe you should just forgive so they've been shame blamed and shut down for forever and now we finally have a conversation and people are actually saying oh my goodness I am not out of my mind so I I think that people have been struggling in silence for a very very long time yeah that's that's true um well something I really like about your book um which I read word for word is that you you go through so much you take so much care to before you even get into the relationship stuff you take so much care to to make clear all the caveats this caveat that caveat that there's 50,000 different types of narcissism you know like um it's it's on a Continuum it's not always men etc etc etc um so let's just cover some of those um the first one I think I think it's a really big one is that your book you kind of talk about it's like midlevel narcissism that you're F you're not focusing on pathological or what would be diagnosed by a therapist is that right nope that's not true so this midlevel of narcissism so I think we have to get away from this idea of diagnosed by therapists because the vast majority of narcissistic people are never going to show up into a therapist's office and if they did show up into the therapist the office the mass majority of therapists wouldn't clock it as narcissism so take the diagnosis out diagnosis has nothing to do with severity there are people out there with a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder who are not nearly as severe as people out there who are in someone's life who have never gotten that diagnosis because they never went to see a therapist so we have to get break away from this idea that severity and diagnosis go hand inand diagnosis is merely an indicator that somebody saw a licensed mental health practitioner that issued that diagnosis or in some form of evaluation setting where this got evaluated that so I don't even think we should talk about diagnosis just throw it out so narcissism the personality style is on a Continuum at the mildest side we're talking about people who are very self-centered very almost emotionally stunted and emotionally immature very superficial very little regard for other people they do they're a bit self-important so they've got all the qualities of narcissism but it's really at this milder side which for another person will often be experienced as annoyance unless you're their intimate partner and trying to do something like raise kids with them and their desire to sit around and play video games all day while you're trying to keep a house running it's it feels it can feel quite jarring and and angering if a person was raised by a mildly narcissistic parent a parent that was almost childlike and selfish and expected the child to almost hop to it that's also very destabilizing so it really depends on the nature of the relationship and when we get to the severe end of the narcissistic Spectrum we're talking about more malignant narcissism right P you know things that might look like more exploitative the manipulativeness is heavier there might even be sense of Menace fear greater isolation and so that is for the people those relationships can actually be quite unsettling terrifying and even culminate in things like comp Lex posttrauma but most people are in this moderate spectrum of narcissism where I'm sure a goodly amount of them would actually be diagnosed with NPD but they're probably never going to get into a therapist's office and here's we're talking about yeah there's some good days in there these are people who are often functioning fine in the world but their narcissism shows up most pointedly in close relationships and and because there's enough good days sprinkled in there it gets very confusing for the people in the relationship will say this person does and says these terrible thoughtless abrupt awful manipulative things but then some days it feels like a normal thing and then it doesn't and then it does and over time the bad days become far more numerous and the good ones and and so it's that's why I wrote it for the middle because in the middle we're not talking about usually we're not talking about aggression violence we're not talking about corrosive control we're not talking about the SE more severe stuff in in this at the level I wrote the book and I think as a result people who are in a relationship with a moderate narcissist for example may not feel like a domestic violence agency would be the place they would turn because they don't identify with that and they also find that a lot of therapists don't clock it like well they get up they go to work they're successful you have a nice house and they make that mistake too so I really feel that this group in the middle of this experiencing these moderate narcissistic relationships it's not an annoyance it's not Terror and we don't have a good vocabulary for it so that's why I approached it that way well yeah I agree we don't have a good vocabulary for it and you decide to instead of use the word narcissist ISM you you like the word antagonistic and that really dovetails nicely with our own research work I've done with Keith Campbell who I know you know and uh we we've published uh paper showing that antagonism is the core of all the different types of narcissism so we covered grandiose and vulnerable and but that's the core is that that uh personality source of variation which is basically disagreeableness on steroids yeah and it's hostility and it's um you know it's manipulativeness its arrogance its entitlement and and and that antagonism quality kind of envelops other qualities like psychopathy for example so narcissism and psychopathy are very separate kinds of clinical States but the antagonisms the through line and usually the thing that's causing the most relational disruption um if I may ask uh but you do mention this in the book you say this book is personal um I boy that was really emotionally resonant when you talked about the dress uh situation can you just tell our listeners a little bit about uh what what a young you was like yeah a young me young me was um you know the core of her she was an incredibly bright studious curious child but there was very much the sense you know from family of origin stuff as well as from The World At Large sit down be quiet um don't be your real self you're being selfish why do you need why you know why should we basically the sense of nobody really stopping and ATT tuning it was it was the 70s right the 70s I mean if you think the United States is a racist mess now you should have seen it in the 70s and so a child the only child of color in a school system was going to be chronically invalidated and so it was the you really the messaging from every place I turned around was don't be seen don't exist keep your head down and that got internalized as a place of safety if I kept my head down if I didn't say anything if I didn't need anything if I found a way to be a perfect child then I would be people would actually like me and for a child being liked is everything because that's that that sort of attracts his attachment it attracts as people will have your back but I I mean I I remember very clearly I would be by teachers I would be the one who would be zeroed out even if I made one wrong move where children who did not share my physical characteristics were getting away with stuff because the teacher knew their parents from church and the teacher knew their parents because they grew up with them it's a small town I didn't have that luxury so it created within me a tremendous hypervigilance that I still carry to this day and Trust isn't easy for me and all those things aren't easy and I'm always still grappling with that sense of if I'm perfect enough then this won't happen I've let a lot of that go now I'm 58 years old you let some of that go but I recognize it's a you know what it does though is it creates spaces like Solitude as being really really important spaces for me because it's the one time I can sort of feel fully safe in my body and my nervous system because I'm not having to hop to to please someone else's standard yeah I agree I agree with that um you know it's obvious that this book is uh for survivors um who have faced in very invalidating relationships through their lives I mean by having the book title it's not you that the book title itself feels validating to so many people it's the point yeah I know that was your point I know I know that was your point I know that was your point um uh you know a lot of those ant those uh childhood uh I think the word is antecedence when it comes before did I get that right an a lot of the childhood antients we have found of not grandiose narcissism but vulnerable narcissism is we actually literally have items on our scale like when I was young I always had to substitute my needs for the needs of others that actually is a a precursor to the development of vulnerable narcissism um and and I'm glad that you distinguish between grandio and vulnerable and and rightly so in in in most cases people will fluctuate back and forth so they're not like clear-cut things um it's possible in a relationship for both people to score mid to high in narcissism right it's not always like 100% the one partner's fault and zero zero% the other part you know can't interactions you know like in a physics you know kind of way of where certain or powder kigs are are are you know powder kigs are kind of You can predict it when you have like someone who scores extremely high in grandio narcissism let's say with someone who scores extremely high in vulnerable narcissism can't you see the recipe for disaster well it's an absolute recipe for disaster when two narciss you got to remember too that I think what's challenging is that some of the elements of vulnerable narcissism sort of feeling like Failure to Launch is a great thing we we typ we typically see that in vulnerable narcissism the grandio narcissistic people get stuff done they do they they're definitely more aent and their grandiosity propels them to believe that something that seems completely completely unrealistic they'll sometimes bring it to fruition thus their greater likelihood of success the vulnerable narcissists feeling so victimized get into this sort of why should I bother nothing's ever going to go my way now obviously if those two people got into a relationship a grandiose and a vulnerable narcissist because remember the core is that the vulnerable narcissist isn't just walking around victimized they also don't have empathy they are also entitled they also have that sort of sort of the victimized Grand iosi like I could have been one of the great ones but nobody ever gave me a chance I didn't have a trust fund so it's that kind of like it's it's begrudging they do still have that need for admiration and validation and since they don't get it because they're not doing anything they also feel angry at the world so there's this anger solid it's like it's like they're they're like a powder cake when we're talking about the vulnerable narcissistic folks the grandio narcissistic folks they certainly can snap if things don't go their way but they don't have that Powder Keg Vibe right they don't feel like they're a pressure cooker that are that's boiling up now the grandiose narcissistic person is going to lose patience with the vulnerable narcissistic person for always being so hang dog for always feeling sorry for themselves I've seen this pair up before the grandio narcissist like get up get up and do something you lazy you know whatever and right that that's the backing and for thing and that we see between that you know I've seen it happens I don't think as a rule it last because I think that the vulnerable narcissist isn't shiny enough for the grandio narcissist I think where you might see a little bit more staying power is two grandiose narcissists getting together power couples they're a power coupl power couples yeah exactly I see a lot of that in the wellness space Oh yeah oh come on we know we know what's up um but hold on I I love that you just coin the phrase powder cake Vibe she's got a powder cake vibe's got powder like I'm use that for now on but anyway um no I really I'm glad that you're meeting me at this level of nuance it's very uh refreshing um you know uh to be able to talk to someone who has probably nerd outed at least as much as me for sure uh something that I'm trying to reconcile and just like talk this through with me at a very complex level is how on the one hand do we validate uh because I'm a big believer in validating people too for their their real lived experiences especially people who have gone their whole no I I see you and I I see what you're doing with your book but then on the other hand how we also Empower people to take responsibility and not blame all their problems on oh that narcissist and so that's what I'm trying to reconcile and kind of grapple with as I was reading your book I wonder if you can help me with that yeah yep because I think that one way to do that is by giving people a very clear information base part of the thing that most folks are grappling with is what the hell is this like what am I up against and since very few therapists would tell them about it there's very little content they're getting nonsense messaging like you need to forgive this person everybody's different they don't really mean it they didn't intend to hurt you they're giving such given such M mixed messages that when there's a Clarity of message right so you validate the experience this is not okay and and it's and it's you really have to hold ground on what they're doing is not okay I understand they had an early life characterized by X Y and Z I understand that it's intergenerational trauma I understand I understand I understand they do that and I said you can understand that that's wonderful that's empathy and compassion the buck still stops at the same point which is what they're doing is not okay and I tell people you got to hold there you got to hold there that's it they're not well that's not okay then then when they that the Empower empowering responsibility has to start with very clear messaging on what narcissism is how it works not these mixed messages well there's a therapy and a law and a DA d d da and then they can get better show me the evidence I have never seen a randomized clinical trial in a populationbased sample that has shown sustained outcomes for people with narcissistic personalities you put that study on my desk that is sufficiently powered and has enough replications we'll have a different conversation it ain't happened yet and don't tell me well there was one guy in a study good for him that could afford therapy twice a week for two years and was highly motivated stop putting unicorns in front of people who are suffering because in the vast majority nothing's going to change so when we make it clear nothing's going to change you're not alone this behavior is not okay this is what it's about and you need to stop taking excuses because this fool is able to go to the office and have their big job and get all that valid if they can function so well in the world they could pick up a phone and call a therapist so once you give clients that Clarity they actually do start pulling out of it because one of the things I say is that you've been using them as a point of reference for too long I want you to live your life and not care because they don't care about you so why would you care about what they think and the and so the entire process is one of DEC conecting do some people get lost in that ideation of oh what was me what was me I think we have to call that grief instead of viewing it as self victimhood which I'm I will say happens for some subset of survivors many survivors are going through grief they wonder what would have happened if IID had parents who actually listen to me how would I would I have chosen a better spouse would I have felt deserving of love and I think that the letting go of that is a process of grief and that takes time and the more people are supported in that and not said how could you say such a terrible thing about your mother she's such a good woman and now she's even dead we've St that process of grief for them that's how I push back on on not push back but like say that I understand that we have to empower them and give them a sense of responsibility but the other challenge they have is that they're surrounded by enablers who keep telling extolling the glories of the narcissist and how you're being difficult because your family memb is just a little bit different than you this isn't about being different this is about being shut down and because narcissistic folks are pretty skilled at having multiple behavioral repertoar and being very charming and public and being very cruel behind closed doors nobody is privy in fact I've had clients and I know it's probably illegal they'll record a conversation for no other reason than to bring it into therapy and I'll say holy cow like this is horrific there's nothing they can do with that they can't take it into Family Court they can't play it back to other family members they know they're doing something wrong but they're like I need someone to Bear witness to this mess that I'm in am I losing my mind so I think once we heal the broken heart and once we do what I call crazing people then I think actually most people do take they they do feel the sense of responsibility the problem is the responsibility is trying to happen in a world with very punitive family court systems world that doesn't understand narcissism a world that is that has cultural and Duty and obligation kinds of responsibilities they throw on people so what happens is people get stuck in these relationships there's not always a clear path out which can really be hard for folks who are stuck in the of perpetuity of being in contact with this and part of the book is really on how do you heal even if you have to have an ongoing contact uh yeah yes yes yes yes yes and yes um a lot of what you're describing I think applies to cult uh cult programming as well well for similar reasons because a lot of these cult leaders have similar characteristics it's just it's like it's just like what level is this operating you know oneon-one or one on 50,000 worshippers um something I'm lowkey obsessed with is the idea of the narcissistic spell first time I ever use that phrase but you know exactly what I'm talking and I and you know you watch if you binge watch all these Netflix documentaries about you know the cult cult mind programming and everything they always have the moment where the person's like and then this happened and the spell instantly disappeared but why does it take so long for the spell to disappear and also why why are these people so attractive to so many people have you figured that out doctor yeah they're they're attractive to all of us they're Charming they're Charis not to me anymore not to you but then then that makes you a unicorn right I think that that to the average person right that the the narcissis and again I would tell you to do a deep dive look at the academics you're around do any of them Dazzle you because they have oh so many Publications even though they're a sanctimonious fool go do a deep dive because I don't I think all of us have some vulnerability to these people and we give them a free pass because they're smart right so I think that the the charm the Charisma the confidence the credentials the compelling quality of these narcissistic folks it's a normal thing to be drawn to it really is I mean what I'm trying to do is cultivate a sense of critical analysis when people meet these people I said when you meet people with these characteristics take three steps back because it's I always view it as like it's like cologne like what are they covering up why so so much why so dazzly yes exactly I hate cologne too but it's very dazzly and then many people especially in the cultic space when the P when the thing you're looking for seems to be being delivered and whether it's ideological whether it's self-improvement whether it's someone we feel sees us whether it's a person who's moved to a new town and can't meet someone and this represents a group that these human needs which are healthy human needs I think that the painting of people who get stuck in these situations as sort of broken wied Angels or like broken legged gazel is nonsense I think these are people who just might be having a moment in their lives or may actually be trying to improve themselves so now you got somebody who's saying all the right things and other people are going along too so when how are you gonna now we're in Solomon Ash right like if everyone says this Line's longer than that line well I'm gonna be the one person who says that's that's a lot to be that person and we are a social species so to take a stance that could result in US losing a tribe is not what we're hardwired to do so when people are making these choices they're actually doing things that are actually very species congruent they're attachment oriented they're affiliation oriented and they might even be designed for a person feeling like oh I'm finally choosing a partner or a person in my life that is that is doing well that is succeeding and I'm no longer going for this kind of not as good a partner because they're using these superficial characteristics to say I found some in healthier and now in a cultic space they're selling something that makes sense that makes sense but at the same time they're selling that really like cool message they are destabilizing and undermining the people so the people are not only going for the message they're losing identity they're losing a sense of self they're being fed the the dopamine of a sense of belonging all of that so those two things are happening simultaneously and now a person finds themselves very stuck in that system sometimes collateralized against the cultic system has gotten information on them that they'll have no problem using against them and then yes there's that moment that penny drop moment Dr Yan Lich who's a sociologist who's a cult expert she calls it breaking the shelf and breaking the Shelf is that moment when it could very well be somebody even from your old world says you know it's so funny I remember how much we used to love Go Fish going fishing together you still go fishing and just even that waft from your old life maybe that day you're ask to do something you're like okay no maybe that day you see someone else you love in a system who is suffering and you actually are able to register their suffering more than your own what and maybe it's just accumulation whatever it is that shelf breaks and when the Shelf breaks you see it and once you see it you start that slow path to Healing yeah yeah yeah yeah Keith Campbell has that whole model of like the first nine months you're under the spell and then uh and then uh those that Sol relationships tend to grow more over time um so Dr ramani do nice guys really finish last um the research tends to show that in many cases they do there is actually some empirical literature that says men who are higher and agreeable and tend to let make less money and so I think then that's a statement on society right we're capitalist economy so the the sort of the Zero Sum game of it all is whoever's going to make the money who's going to close the deal who's going to get the thing and there's only one thing to get or there's one you know yeah there's one to get then that that's going to be the person who's willing to be a little bit ethically slippery the person it pays in if in terms of making money it definitely pays to be an but give me an instance in which it pays to be a good human um I think it pay it pays to be a good human when you're doing something that involves building up sustaining systems and that might even be you know what I'm saying like that could be anything if you're if you're teaching people if you're treating people but above all else if you it all comes down to what the outcomes are right if the only outcome is dollars and cents the the the are always going to win about in terms of getting uh sexual partners because that's usually the context in which people say narcissistic people do better they do better yeah they in fact you know they have that early they have that they're able to keep someone in early and then all the research shows that when it falls apart it falls apart hard but if you're looking at a numb game who's and now in the era of online dating narcissistic people kill it in the online dating space because they love the numbers game of it all they love dropping 50 lines in the water and they're basically just sort of like it's like a marketing Blitz right who's going to who's going to bite back and and it might be someone who doesn't know better they have very attractive those grids of pictures they know how to have it's almost like they have a starter kit like here's me holding a puppy here's my abs here's me in front of you know fill in whatever National Monument here's me hiking here's me cooking here's me with an old person that we're assuming is a grandparent like they know exactly how to sell a story because they're selling a story about themselves so yes they're going to get somebody to have sex with them are they going to be able to create a long-term sustained healthy relationship no but unfortunately they if they can as you said as Keith says they're still playing people are still under the spell in nine months in nine months a lot of decisions can be made people can get engaged they can move in together they exactly we said that at the same time yeah um yeah but um I this is on my mind as well because I'm preparing a so episode on the sign of do nice guys really finish last so I'm trying I'm accumulating all the different evidence points uh from research um yeah it's cool um you make it clear in this book you do have a in your myth section that you're not only talking about narcissistic men um but a lot of I would say most of your stories are about narcissistic men is there a particular reason why you made that decision I actually think dig deeply if you really went and had a piece of pen and paper you would see they actually there's there are um B nonbinary non-binary people represented in the book there are women represented in the book or narcissistic and there are men and we actually I went through and I said I need to make sure so that that actually more Bal I'll add it up I'll add it up yeah yeah it's more balanced than you would think um they're not I mean listen a lot of people out in the world complain about having narcissistic mothers because the impact of a mother as a caregiver still to this day they remain to be a more primary and sometimes impactful day-to-day caregiver lots of people have narcissistic mothers a mother can be narcissistic there were at least one maybe two um vignettes in the book about a person who was struggling with a narcissistic mother female narcissist and so the um I think that we know grandiose narcissism is more prevalent in men we know that malignant narcissism is more prevalent in men I have not seen good statistics on communal narcissism but that might be closer to eal and we know gala's research suggests that vulnerable and grandios narcissism are pretty comparable in terms of their um prevalence rates and that makes sense because vulnerable narcissism I would argue this and I think others would too vulnerable narcissism almost feels like a milder variant of borderline personality disorder which is much more common in women we see we see gender difference and vulnerable narcissism um yeah so not the mother example but just like a like a 35-year-old woman example in a relationship can be narcissistic of course absolutely absolutely but but that 35y old woman will become someone's mother so if we WR WR revolve that recording on the person who's talking about a mother their mother was once a 35-year-old narcissistic woman in a relationship yeah no that's a good point that's a good point um yeah so who what have you noticed who is the primary are women your primary base or would you say it's it's more balanced it's women are going to be my more primary base because there are more male narcissists I mean whether we whether it's we're not I'm not saying it's 100 zero like there's not that's not true but it's certainly not 50/50 so obviously women are going to be my base for another reason too is that women hold less IAL power we may have made strides in that but they're still they may not have the same Financial power they may have been they may have stopped working in a relationship with a controlling narcissistic person so they're facing far more far more Peril if they're going through a narcissistic divorce so I think that the people who are gravitating this content but I have worked with many men so we might be closer to a 7525 yeah and I know that you've spent decades uh you know working individually with people on this so really your credit um this book is informed by not just research but also your personal experience for sure um yeah and I think well it's obvious to me why your book would resonate so much and why an awful lot of women reading your book probably feel a sigh of relief you know like I'm that they feel seen maybe for the first time in their life so I totally totally get that I think it's tough sometimes with the whole question of like who is the real victim are you have you become really good at like can you tell like if you have two people on the couch and each and they they both point because what you will find in these kind of relationships the the person that that the woman who loves your book is calling saying my partner is if you interviewed the the other partner I'm sure they would say that the other ones The Narcissist it's not even as always as somebody saying to me my partner's narcissistic my mother's narcissistic they're also saying like I feel like I'm losing my mind in this relationship so they're not even using the narcissism languaging they're the I feel crazy nothing I do is enough this person keeps betraying my trust they're not even using that languaging the languaging of what I'm bringing around narcissistic relationships is sometimes the first time they're saying oh there's is actually a thing this isn't just my messed up situation that this whole constellation of traits and then they kind of work backwards or like check no empathy entitlement check arrogant check excessive need for admiration check lies check needs to control rolling check they're like okay and then they wake up their open their eyes to like this isn't going to change but they didn't even actually come in through the narcissism door they came through the emotional abuse door well that's a good point that's a really good point it's it's it's funny um I don't know funny is the right word but it's interesting uh I've written articles I wrote like a cover Story how to spot a narcissist for psychology today like a long time ago like 10 years ago and um I got a lot of emails from narcissists who were upset by my article saying that saying that I wasn't showing them compassion um and that um and that you know why you know why would I shame them so what what do you say to someone who reads your book and was like you're not showing an awful lot of uh you know it feels like you're shaming those who score high in narcissism what's your response to that first I disagree firmly I actually think that this book is one of the most compassionate takes on narcissism it went through the editorial process so many ways and and to my credit I am very fortunate to have a great editor who said let's soften it here because she said if you deem I and she was right we went we struggle with this it makes it harder for the Survivor so I actually think I'm giving a very compassionate take but that said If a person feels you're not being nice to me the first thing I'm going to say to them is have you looked inward if these are your patterns have you stopped and really taken a census on who you've harmed from your behavior and have you gone and made amends to those people because if you've done that then we can sit down and have a conversation but if you're going to come for me like you've come for everyone else then this conversation over right well well you look at you m healthy assertiveness over here well you know it's not even healthy assertiveness it's online abuse to the point of threats I mean if you think you got it for one article I have been the stuff I haveu to oh my gosh I mean threats and awful and you're a monster and all of that and I'd say okay you so if it's easier for you to say woe is me oh my gosh you're shaming me how could you instead of whoa I just read this piece if somebody's insightful enough to have read a piece and said this could be me that to me is promising now go take the next steps unless you say I can't be bothered why can't people see I'm so great and the people who tend to be more grandiose malignant and more defended vulnerable narcissists they're the ones who come for me I mean it's and again I'm an easy target I'm a woman it's easy to say terrible things that you're going to do to me and how you're going to harm me but that's that's a real occupational risk in this I would P I would push back there a second and say from my perspective you're not an easy target you're pretty badass actually I would fck with you I wouldn't with you I'm actually I get like I will say you know basically my attitude is I I don't like when people come for me say it's it's again it goes back to my own trauma history but I have to say that I um I I it's not okay you know and I and I I because I get emails from narcissistic folks all the time and when they're written well and normally and self-reflect I just answered one the other day and somebody there was just a piece about me in the New York Times yesterday and he's like I read that and now I'm like oh and I can see the mess I've made in my life and I actually rarely respond to emails I said let me respond to this guy he wanted a recommendation of a book and I said you know first of all you know this is amazing it's not easy to push back on these defenses and here's a recommendation for a book that I found useful so I will always meet that where it is but if the attack is how could you make me feel so bad instead of taking a step back and saying I'm doing these things and these things aren't okay it's once again they're not taking responsibility for what they're doing and they're deflecting blame on you or I for writing about it yeah for sure in um in this new book that I'm working on in the intro I say you will probably really love this book until you realize I'm talking about you yes right right right I have that I have that in the intro um yeah no I I I hear I hear you um so let's talk a little bit more about how people can heal if they feel like they're losing their mind right like and that's really kind of like what you're talking about I really like this well okay I'll tell you my favorite chapter in your book was Embrace radical acceptance I've been trying to practice that myself you I'm on my own journey I think I'm growing a lot in that area if I say so myself but can you talk to our audience a little about how people can Embrace radical acceptance so even ahead of the radical acceptance piece is to understand what all of this is I mean to learn about narcissism how the personality shows up how the behaviors associated with it and how it tracks with how it's affecting you get that sort of Under Wraps then it really radical acceptance is integrating all of that and and it's not about signing off on their behavior it's not accepting this is how it is it's that it's understanding this is not going to change and so while you're in this relationship these are the patterns are going to show up and to have realistic expectations for this is how it is by the time somebody's reading my book they have tried 177,000 ways to communicate with this person and so it's no longer about explaining themselves and so radical acceptance is that heavy thud of this is never going to be the parent I wanted this is never going to be the relationship I wanted this person is probably not going to be solicited of us of me as I grow older like it's the aware that you know the infidelity is probably not going to stop whatever it is it's that awareness of like this is how it is now the challenge with radical acceptance of seeing it clearly and recognizing too not only is it not going to change it's still going to hurt you some people say well I radically accept does that mean that now I won't hurt me anymore no they're doing something hurtful if I told you to radically accept someone's going to punch you in the face they punch you in the face it's still going to hurt when they punch you in the face it's just that you might have been a little more prepared for the punch and so I always tell folks I know we've gotten to really deep radical acceptance with you when you're no longer surprised by their behavior so they are going to do their new invalidating thing or manipulative thing or you know whatever thing of the week and you're just like you know you're almost like you know one of those characters in the office like Jim like here we go you know like this is how it is and so you no longer are like I can't believe this is happening you don't whail you don't cry you don't get upset and I like that when that happens for people because when they no longer get into the Wailing and the crying I'm fine with anger anger is great because I think anger is a is a clarifying motivating and mobilizing emotion but the the Wailing and the self-blame that's not good for you the surprise is not good for you even at a sympathetic level but once you get there and realistic expectations are starting kicking you also have a lot of grief I mean people will say I avoided this radical acceptance thing all along because I wanted to think like this this whole family thing was going to work out I didn't want to think about the idea of dismantling this relationship and so the radical acceptance means you're kind of living in cognitive dissonance and that's a super uncomfortable place to live but it is also now you're recognizing that you're also aware of it's not you you know that asking somebody would you empty the dishwasher is not a capital crime you know it is not disrespect it's the normal ation within a relationship that someone might say I can't do it right now but they could say it calmly instead of screaming at you and accusing you of you not being appreciative of everything they've always done for you right so you start to see what is not okay and like I've said this over and over again broken hearts are easy to heal give me six to eight weeks everyone's going to climb out of a broken heart un craing someone that takes years and this is a process of uncrazy people and so that's what I'm trying to bring them out of so they're like I see your game and so even if you don't separate from the narcissistic person or stop talking to them you're like I got I see what's happening here and so and then the healing part becomes about writing it down so you can see the patterns as they exist it's about not feeling compelled to forgive them because really this is not okay and it's about creating other areas of support for yourself people who do see you where it is healthier and is is it not people don't consider it a happy ending that you've like radically accepted that you're married to someone who's just not a nice person and you're going to have to endure it and you have healthy friendships but some people will say this was my path forward I don't come from a culture where I could get divorced or I did not want to go fight this person in family court or we can't afford to pay two rents like there's reality here but that reality when it's steeped in radical acceptance and the person can do other things to substantiate them finding meaning and purpose oriented activities most people turn their damn narcissistic relationship into a full-time job no longer put energy into it it's really doing the minimum in that relationship not defending yourself not engaging with them not explaining yourself and don't personalize it they do this to anyone who's unfortunate enough to be standing where you are that's it wow I see why you're popular wow thank you well you are you are good you are good you you you what's that from it's a quote from something you are good you you I don't know and see that's the great thing about having gone through this like I'm never going to hold on to the I am good you but I'm going to keep trying also the fers the fuers what was maybe he goes Rober Nero Rober goes you we're good you um no I can I I see it I I've see too you can see about yourself no no no I can't see the you are good no not about myself I can see the line in the movie oh Goa Goa no oh I was like oh I was like that's some confidence that's G get no no no no no I definitely don't see it in me but I see it in clients I never am ever going to doubt another human being saying this has helped me and I get to hear that that's a blessing but I also it also kind of angers me because they should have gotten it a long time ago and we held this information back I sometimes feel the field of psychology betrayed Everyone by not sharing what we knew and we were more interested in defending the narcissistic people than we were in protecting people from what was happening in these relationships yeah I get that and I I get that that's a major impetus for this book that you wrote U my my producer just texted me it's from Analyze This analyze this that's what that's what it was go um I there's a particular combination within a relationship that is so I I don't want to use the toxic I'm I'm trying to go this whole episode without using the word toxic but there's a partic it is kind of toxic and that's the caretaker people pleaser person archetype with the and it could be male female whatever with the uh Perpetual victim mindset person now I've seen this and I'm sure you've seen this over and over that Dynamic holy cow it it's like so the the forance the victim mindset person perpetually and I'm saying on a daily basis is like oh my God you know like how could you not call me today how could you I'm I'm suffering so much because you didn't call me today and then the people pleasing caretaker person is constantly perpetually in the I'm sorry stance oh my God I mean I I just feel like that's such a prominent sort of combination in our society and it's like how how can you help people like like like look at the red flags like way ahead of time if you can yeah no it's it's the what we got to remember too is that with people pleasing them we've got to take a step back because one of the first things I try to do to analyze people pleasing it's not like you're a people pleaser but what are the what are the origins of this is this is this a tra is this a trauma informed Behavior was this a way a person maintained attachments if a person has a narcissistic parent being a people pleaser was the only way they were going to get any form of Attunement from that parent so that people pleasing might have literally be now a psychological safety Behavior you know and so I think that that's one piece of the analysis of sort of doing the Deep dive of what's the function of people pleasing because usually it reflects this idea of only by doing am I going to be safe right so that that becomes a big big part of this this conversation dietic and for many many people Pleasers it has that origin it was the only way to get attachment the only way to get Attunement it was the only way to feel safe right and so the people pleasing almost becomes a sympathetic nervous system response it's not even something that's manufactured it's I've got to make sure everyone's okay because if they're not a person doesn't feel good in their body now you throw into this the victim mindset person and they're in an empty well you're constantly having to fix and and so fixing becomes love solving becomes love you know um telling them reassurance becomes love and narcissistic people need a lot of reassurance you forid they are they a lot of reassurance because remember that that insecurity kind of Shame cauldron within them is always bubbling up so they always need to be told it's going to be okay but you have to tell them it's going to be okay not in a way that shames them but in a way like you're the best how could this not be okay it can't be like it's GNA be okay hun it's G to be okay then they'll get mad at you so you can't even reassure them unless you do it in a way that is propping up their ego so the people Pleasers really need to almost work backwards to recognize the psychological safety function and then really do the work on that's no longer a function that's needed in adult relationships you're no longer the child trying to get an attachment you can go and find people where relationships are mutual and reciprocal again that takes time it does take time one of my favorite books I don't know if you've read it is by Harriet brocker um called the disease to please curing the people pleasing oh interesting interesting have you have you no I think it might be pronounced breaker but uh be a i k r is her last name and uh she's no longer alive because I was trying to contact her when I was writing my book and thank her for writing her book but yeah it's just a super um super interesting uh book on overcoming the people pleasing tendency I think it's possible to like like anything to overcompensate and be like No More Mr Nice Guy and then you become an you know um so you can go you can go from people pleaser to I don't think I see I did here where I disagree I don't think you can go from people to pleaser to I don't I I mean obviously you can if you tried but inherently because the people pleasing is so semantically held it is so relationally held that it is it is taking all of that per I mean the person literally when I'm breaking people out these Cycles they have to literally sit on their hands and not do the dishes after the dinner party I'm like I don't care what you need to tell yourself but you helped set up you brought the food you did all the things and now you're not doing the damn dishes that doesn't make them an that means they're actually engaging in a small bit of self-care and I think one of the tricky bits is that the the not the PE the person who's no longer engaging in all the people pleasing does think of themselves as an that's where they go too that very self-harming language of well I didn't help the with the dishes and I didn't I didn't do all the things and I didn't wake up at three in the morning and pick them up from an airport they think they're an but they're not an they're saying well no I woke worked until 10:00 last night they can take a taxi I can't get up at 3:00 in the morning to do this airport run I'm going to make myself sick it's and and least of all for a person who's not going to appreciate it you might do it if it's your kid you might but to give yourself that opportunity for discernment but is that the people Pleasers feel like I'm just going to keep doing this because it is such a trauma kind of based Behavior so I've not yet seen a people pleas turn into an I've never seen that happen I've seen it um in the like uh in what was the community like 10 years ago the uh pickup artist men Community uh where you had a bunch of you know like I'm tired of being Mr Nice Guy yeah but they're they're vulnerable narcissists they're not people Pleasers right they're not people Pleasers they're manipulative victimized community of vulnerable narcissists who have as their gurus grandiose narcissists correct this is what I told yeah this this is what Mark Manson and I talked about in the podcast that's the dynamic of a lot of yeah no no no no these are all vulnerable narcissists like every one of these guys every Internet troll so they're not people Pleasers not they don't get to be in Club of people interesting okay interesting okay okay um well cool I'm glad we're having such a raw honest conversation um hey look I want to end this conversation with you talking about how people can rewrite their story this is maybe my it was I was struggling to figure out which was my favorite chapter of yours whether not not the radical acceptance one or the rewrite your story one but uh they're both they're both up there for me so can you tell tell people how they can really um you know emerge from this feeling like that you're crazy you know and emerging from it and then how can you just truly move forward yeah you got to remov the narcissistic person from such a central role in the story because I even will have people say I'm going to go out and I'm going to go back to school and finish my degree and do the this and do the that very important things to them and I'm GNA show my dad I'm like stop edit I'm going to go back and I'm going to go back to school and I'm going to get my degree because it's something that got thwarted and I understand understand why but this is important to me end of sentence we've got to stop using them as our counterweight I'll show them I'll prove it to them um they'll be so proud of me they don't care so pull number one sweep them out of the narrative Arc this character is gone we're not writing the story with them in it that much other than maybe a developmental influence but then it's sort of backplot feature right it's not a it's they don't get a role they're just sort of a a sort of a app plud Feature that sort of shaped you to this point and yet despite that and and that's why I use that model of the hero's journey because it really applies here is that the person who is trying to do this is walking away from everything they were told like please your family be what everyone wants go along make compromises be self-sacrificing forgive forgive you know go along to get along that's where a lot of people find themselves in the story and I'm a bad person if I'm not going to do that so now it's about even as I said about the people pleasing when you rewrite your story instead of like oh I'm such a doormat no I'm not a doormat I was engaging in a behavior that helped me make help make me feel safe and I actually am safe I'm no longer the kid and I can protect my inner child and hear them when they're like this doesn't feel safe and I say I get it but I got this and you can care for yourself instead of I've got to I've I I'm I'm always going to be the person who has got that Fawn response or the you know I'm going to be the freeze response person who doesn't know what to say and then as you go through this process the the the rest of rewriting your narrative is you recognize that woo everything I thought was going to happen kind of did I did see it clearly and I did disengage and I did become the bad one and my family did tell me I was greedy and selfish and there's something reassuring and that that's actually how it went down because it only confirms what I thought to be true so now I can give more permission to my voice because as long as I stayed in that system I was going to have to live to do things the way they wanted the story that gets informed by the data sometimes you have to take the risk and that's where the grief comes from when you finally do do the thing you know would was resulted in the loss of love you do the thing and it results in the loss of Love exactly as we thought it would that becomes part of the story wow um yeah I I think we're uh we're we're on a similar page here um in my in my my new book I'm trying to get people from a victim mindset to what I call an empowerment mindset um what I like is how you don't just keep people in the phase where they're just um uh talking and ruminating I use the word ruminating but you're actually helping them move forward and I think that's so important because I think um we kind of live in this culture right now where I think it can you can be rewarded for just ruminating about it and getting likes and social media for talking about what has been bad which can be beneficial for sure I'm not completely invalidating that but I do think that shouldn't be all there is to the story to use the word story there right right and there's a point where you can you know you but the the rumination is part of the grief it's a part of the letting go it's a part of the off-gassing and I do think it's an important part of it because many times people haven't had safe places to do that but then it's also like the rumination can be happening and then there can still be slowly a pivot into like I said making friendships and relationships where you feel seen and heard take and the big key piece here though is the mistake people make is they start launching into a new Direction whether it's going back to school launching project whatever it is but then they make the mistake of telling the narcissistic person about it it's almost like making a very precious little sculpture and saying look what I made they're just going to knock it out of your hands and it's going to break don't tell them they can't know you're doing this they can't know you're healing they're going to try to stop you so you just go do your thing and you don't let them know and one day you'll be the balloon that just sort of flies off and that'll be that but don't tell them they're going to tie a rock to your balloon you'll be the red balloon off off on on your authentic way you remember that movie do you remember that movie um hey Dr ramani thank you so much for being on my podcast and uh for the work you're putting out there thank you so much and thank you for the work you're doing and then the work you've done with folks like Keith and everything that theoretical Foundation is what allowed me to jump off and to really do this work so thank you

Channel: The Psychology Podcast

Views: 15,419

Keywords: psychology, podcast, Scott Barry Kaufman, The Psychology Podcast, Shane Parrish, The Psychology, Psychology podcast, psychology pod, psychology video, Scott Barry Kaufman Podcast

Id: K0I2UV_ANZU

Length: 52min 24sec (3144 seconds)

Published: Thu May 30 2024