Narcissistic Trauma & Marginalized Communities: The Link & Coping Strategies

ed let's get into today's topic with dr romney and dr jamika thanks for both of you for being here what is the link between narcissism and marginalized underserved communities dr romney let's start with you you know what i think that what happens is is that when we look at narcissism we're looking at themes like entitlements you know we're looking at you know there's often a confusion between privilege entitlement and narcissism that people who hold the power in a society can treat those without power quite poorly as a result many members of marginalized groups and those may not just be racial ethnic minorities those because all those could also be lgbtq plus groups those could those could be um people who are who are living with different ability levels like there's only people who are not neurotypical all of these groups face that and so what they face is sort of that when one group holds more power in essence that there's a possibility for the abuse of that power and so to me when you can understand through the lens of narcissism the lack of empathy the entitlement um and the ability to abuse said power it really becomes a very important lens through which to to view standing and existing systemic oppressions which have happened and often keep happening because the perpetrators are given permission to do so by the existing power structures which if let's take that's the big world now let's shrink that to two individuals one person in a power one person a relationship has more power than the other if they abuse that power that's what we consider the narcissistic relationship that can happen at a societal level too that makes perfect sense dr jamica are there misconceptions around narcissism when it comes to which populations it affects for example the focus on narcissism often is with affluent people celebrities ceos but does that actually fall in line with the scientific representation of narcissism oh i can't hear you dr jamika there you go about now okay now okay um i don't think that it does i think the research research out there really says different things i've seen some that says that african americans have higher rates of narcissism higher self-esteem then you see some other ones that say is that it doesn't so it can be really confusing for people who are looking for information but what i see in a clinical setting is that i see a lot more african-americans that show at least traits of narcissism than i think most people would believe dr romney what are your thoughts you know what's interesting about because what uh dr jamaica's bringing up is this idea that we have to think about what the origins of a narcissistic personality style are okay it's so easy to get caught up in how narcissists are bullies and narcissists are difficult narcissists are toxic they're difficult okay they can be bullies but when we when we sort of look at the roots under that tree for many people the origins of narcissistic personality styles narcissistic traits are in trauma in insecurity in inconsistency and so people from racial and ethnic minority groups may actually be living in a greater space of insecurity may have had a greater likelihood of trauma so what that can actually do and and dr jamika brings up such an important point here is that because of that it can result in um us seeing these these traits in racial and ethnic minority groups which becomes an issue because in many ways that could result in um almost in in treating each other poorly within a community and then a reluctance to use that narcissistic framework because now you may be blaming people for things that happen to them and then we leave it unaddressed untalked about and untreated that's really interesting i'm gay and when i started to really involve myself in the gay community i was shocked at how divisive some parts of the gay community are we really say like all right if you're this type of person you belong with those people who are like you and if you're this type of gay man then you belong with those people over here and of course it doesn't represent every game and this is just i was in west hollywood at the time but the is there does that type of divisiveness within a community tend to create narcissistic behavior i think it can because i think why is that divisiveness happening because i think that what ends up happening is that there's a societal construction that you're insecure and more than anything else you're unsafe people are unsafe lash out okay yeah and when things feel unfair inequitable helpless people lash out so any marginalized group is going to be having to fight that fight of of a fight basically they don't they are not as empowered in a given group and they don't have the legitimized powers that they can work their way through in leadership leadership doesn't represent them all of that so that can then seem it's very easy to say well all people from this marginalized group are that marginalized group they act out they're violent they're you know they're corrosive they're all these bad things but it's many times because these are communities without a voice so dr jamica what is then the difference and how do you spot the signs between somebody who has been oppressed and therefore lashing out through perhaps narcissistic behavior and somebody who you just run into and they're just being a jerk no i get that question a lot and i see that a lot especially within the african-american community because what i see is a lot of people who show the traits narcissistic traits but not enough to meet the full criteria to be diagnosed with that so i think people in you know in the communities just don't understand that there has to be a certain amount of these things to warrant a diagnosis people just feel like if he's arrogant he must be narcissistic and if he thinks he's better than me he must be narcissistic and of course that's not enough to make a person narcissistic so i think people have really um not enough information to to know about it so the term is often thrown around a lot people use it a lot you see it everywhere social media i see it clinically friends family everyone says that most people that they know they think that they think that they're narcissistic i mean dr romney is the first person to introduce me to the term narcissism narcissist and narcissistic personality disorder and that was years ago and perhaps it's because of the space i'm in but i feel like that like you said those words are thrown around more than ever is are we throwing those words around because we're seeing more narcissism or are we throwing those words around and we're not educated well i think a big part of this issue here kyle is that it's the the term is not diagnostic right the term is describing a pattern and it's on a continuum right so what we'll see is that you might have someone who's difficult i am a big fan of the term antagonistic okay antagonistic is someone who's prone to conflict who might be prone to manipulation who might be prone to entitlement or grandiosity not maybe not all of them but they definitely kind of get into it with people right and they're a handful and they often don't want to take the other person's point of view and it can be quite divisive so i have to say that sometimes when i use the term antagonistic it takes some of the gas out of it and and then and then it makes me wonder what are you punching against here's where it gets interesting for me i am the first one to recognize that some very very very painful pathways have brought people to either narcissism or antagonism you know whatever we were going to call these difficult patterns what you know me you know my philosophical stance on this i am so sorry for your backstory and you do not get to use another human being as a punching bag that is unacceptable and it is not happening on my watch so i am sorry i don't know what you might have experienced horrific oppressions i get that you do not get to take that out on another person and that's where i step in for people who want to make excuses and say this person's had a rough go of it they'd have a rough i said i am so sorry and i hope they are able to get the help they get but many times antagonistic people are resistant to treatment they're like it's not my problem this is everybody else's fault they blame other people they take a victimized stance and they don't take responsibility so there's no moving the needle on them and yet i think so many people feel like they have to be the one to take the hits because the world hurt that antagonistic person yeah you've mentioned that in one of our series and it's something i have repeated many times to people who are trying to justify being treated poorly uh dr jamica could you speak to the parenting methods in marginalized communities when and and if it and how it contributes to the development of narcissistic personality disorder sure what i see a lot especially with my african-american patients who've been parented by african-american parents i'll say that first this type of parenting that really involves high self-esteem building the person up um letting them know that they're special they're unique um that they're resilient they're strong and uh some of that comes with that what you can see the outcome can be this grandiose thinking if you've been you know filtered through the years from parents that want to build you up because they're trying to make you resilient from the world because this country that we live in is very oppressive to people of color so they're trying to make you stronger and give you a harder outer core and sometimes in the process of doing that it makes a person that can look very narcissistic although like i said before i don't think you would meet all the traits but some of the parenting is directly related to building the person's sense of self up at least from the outward exterior i remember dr romini you said in an interview with me that uh for parents who have whether intentionally or unessentially raised a child who is behaving narcissistically it's kind of like well the chickens have come home to roost uh because you have you have you did not do what you needed to do um what do you see in the parents role in raising a child to become an adult who is empathic rather than narcissistic you gotta nourish their emotional vocabulary you have to nourish their emotional world you know in fact i i it's this idea that the the narcissistic child you know short of it not being trauma and all of that the other pathway to becoming a narcissistic adult i should say is being over and under indulged and by before indulge there as dr jamaica really astutely pointed out you're building up their exterior almost building a warrior in some ways but you also may focus too much on external achievements and things like that and then in so doing there's an impoverishment of their emotional need nobody is sitting with them and saying it's talk about your feelings put name to your feelings identify your feelings be self-reflective on how you impact other people that kind of emotional conversation i think that is a con that's that is something that a mistake that's being made across all groups i don't even think that that's focused solely in in people of color i think everyone's missing the boat on the critical importance of nourishing the emotional worlds of their child being present with their emotional states i actually think some parents are afraid of their children's emotions they can't stand their child's disappointment they feel like they have to save and rescue everything or they themselves are so out of touch with their own emotions that they couldn't possibly be present for their child's emotions the emotional development of a child is everything it doesn't matter if they can't do the multiplication and they can't spell the world word or they can't kick the soccer ball but we make it about the soccer balls and the multiplication and the spelling we don't make it about the emotional development and this is particularly problematic for boys and men when we do not develop that emotional strength that emotional core for boys and men by manhood it's too late it's too late it's too late to build that up it's got to be done in boyhood but we still shame boys for crying for showing emotion and unfortunately it's the parents who are often the ones shaming them telling them them they're weak and to dr um uh jamaica's point there is a there's a risk in some way for marginalized communities to seem vulnerable and weak is literally putting them in the crosshairs so the parents are going to catch 22. how do i especially for african-american parents of boys they live in fear my child is it's siege on them is what they feel i've got to protect my child i've got to make him strong yes respectful and get out of these situations safely so where do you fit the emotional development piece in there you need your child to be strong to be able to flourish in an oppressive system that's the challenge it's very difficult i'll say you know i have two sons and both of them are teenagers and they're relatively tall you know for their age so it is hard because you i have to build them up and make them so strong and able to succeed and be able to be resilient because we know you know at some point they're going to encounter some of the things we see in the news all the time so when that happens are they going to be able to recover from it i have to make sure that they can recover from it so that doesn't leave much time for the emotional development so i think parents are in a catch-22 like dr romini said so it takes a very astute parent and one who's very in touch with their own emotions to be able to parent a child and also include that in the parenting and development especially for boys because you have to give them opportunities that it's okay if you feel bad it's okay you know have your moment we're just not gonna stay in the moment so you have to be able to do that and i think sometimes that's where the parents don't they don't do that i can speak for lots of people in the african-american community they're so hell-bent on making sure that you're strong that they forget that at some point you're going to have to feel something so what happens when that time comes you have to be able to feel it and know how to process that yeah really well said and i love that you brought up the importance of the parents being in touch with their own emotions to begin with because how can you teach something or model something unless you are have done the work on yourself um if you're watching this live on zoom welcome and thank you for being part of med circle uh use the box below to submit questions to either dr tamika or dr romini and we'll get through as many as we can during this live event dr romney let's have this first question go to you my mother is a malignant narcissist who is a pro at gaslighting how do you make peace with everyone else believing the lies they are told about you and how do you get people to hear you well here's the thing if you know if people have their version of events you're not going to be the one to convince them so in in some ways this goes a lot deeper than i'm going to convince them to see my point of view i think it's that you have to live firmly in your reality and not let it be stolen from you but the hard part of this question kyle is that this often brings up the potential of a lot of loss and grief because you may not be able to convert all of them you may not be able to convert the malignant mom you may not be able to convert her her flying monkeys or her followers or her enablers call them what you will and so what ends up happening is at what point do you do you quit at what point do you say okay i am walking i'm going through the looking glass now i'm going into their alternative reality i'm not going to let it seep into me but i'm also not going to waste the energy of trying to convince them and bring them over to my point of view what can get very painful is when these folks particularly the malignant narcissists and their enablers really start pitching an entirely distorted narrative of you yourself and then in this case the woman asking the question because that's hurtful and it does become there is that kind of moment of reckoning when you say i'm just go i might just need to simply switch up my social world like i'm going to have to have that healthy social world that respects my reality that has my back and then when i go into encounters with my mother and her team of enablers i have to have realistic expectations and radical acceptance that this really doesn't feel good it's an empty it's a relationship like a drum there's nothing inside of it and that maybe you keep showing up because you feel a sense of obligation maybe you feel a sense of nostalgia but the best antidote to gaslighting is to hold firmly onto your reality and know that you know you it cannot be taken away and just because someone says something about you it's not true it may be uncomfortable but it's not true and so you can then treat yourself the way you want other people to treat you which is you step out of there and say okay you are i i feel disrespected i'm gonna step out of this they will then call you uppity and you think you're all that and all kinds of names you know they're gonna get get up in your face like that and say you know you do you you see me however it helps you get through the day i'm comfortable with myself i love that dr jamica [Laughter] do you have anything to add to dr romney's points hard to add to it because sometimes you do have to take yourself out of the equation and when i see people in my practice sometimes that's the very thing they don't want to do it's almost like they want to stay i don't want to say and take the abuse because they'll say that they don't but they don't also they don't want to leave because if i leave like if i leave the marriage then what happens if he remarries and then he's fine who cares not gonna happen and yeah okay thank you yeah um dr jamica uh med circle member asks how do we work on emotional development when the child has developmental delays such as with autism or trauma in most cases you have to do what's age appropriate and situation specific to that child and what their needs are like the same way you would with um children without special needs so if you're looking at a child that's five what's emotionally good for them you have to do it to their level and sometimes it's really based on the family and what the family's comfort level is so a lot of times families are not that comfortable with the emotions so it's hard for them to work with the children with special needs with emotions but sometimes you have to call in a specialist for those things as well because if it's not um innate to the family to work with emotions it could be something that's difficult for them understood um let's go to another question anonymous attendee asks for someone who has npd narcissistic personality disorder are they able to compartmentalize their narcissistic abuse to only certain aspects of their life as in a nurse as in uh heaping narcissistic abuse against their loved ones at home but not to co-workers or subordinates at work dr jamica let's start with you that's a good question i would say dr romney is definitely the expert but i would say in my clinical opinion i would think it'd be very difficult for for narcissists to compartmentalize anything they tend to be consistently who they are every day and all day because they don't seem to have the emotional regulation to be able to to see when to do it and when not to do it but i'm guessing there are some types out there i don't know what do you think dr romney are there types that can really manage that yeah yeah they can actually compartmentalize a little better than you think which is why so often their their families will have to live in this sort of nightmare of everyone saying you're so lucky he's such a great guy or she's such a great gal being married to her like ooh you're so lucky to have this person as your parent and like you've got to be kidding me and so what you the way the best way to view it is narcissistic individuals view people through what we call a utilitarian lens what use are you to me so the family not so much use right you know unless they need a little bit of supply but in many ways over time they can often view their own families as a liability as a headache the supply isn't so shiny anymore but when it comes to the workplace i i cannot tell i can't i don't have enough fingers toes and limbs to count the number of people i know who have been in narcissistically abusive relationship with relationship with someone for whom family life was a nightmare but at work everybody worshipped them i mean like this is my savior this is the most brilliant person i've ever met keep in mind getting validation at work for many people especially if it's your own company but getting your getting validation at work is a lot easier than it is at home because at home you know it's like there's life and there's feelings and you know nobody's going to keep praising you they want you to empty the dishwasher but at work they may very well especially if you're the head of the organization or getting high up in the organization you get validation and what you'll also see if a narcissistic person's in the middle of the workplace they may treat the people underneath them not very well but the people above them very well capacity to compartmentalize to meet their utilitarian needs for them life's a big chess game and they move the pieces and kill the pieces as they need with a little feeling for it on a chess board that's fine you're not particularly attached to a pawn but when that's you that's the point in that game it doesn't feel very good i i can see that yeah i've worked with her by the way oh yeah we've all worked with that everybody has yeah uh here's an another question from a live attendee would you say that narcissistic people are not emotionally intelligent if so what is their level of emotional awareness given there should be some sort of understanding of their of people's reactions in order to manipulate them that's a good question it's here's where it's tricky the the research on emotional intelligence and narcissism is actually not always what you think they're actually not emotion they're not they actually are emotionally intelligent because otherwise they wouldn't be such brilliant sales people they can read a situation what they do is i call it you know i call it like a pseudo-empathic theft they steal from people emotionally right so what they do is if i need something from you kyle i'm gonna study you i am going to fluff you i am going to tell you your i'm going to okay figure out what what if i need to sell you something i'm going to figure out your vulnerability so i'm going to study you and this is where narcissistic people are so angering because they have some capacity for empathy because they can study a person and figure out what they need or want get what they need and then discard them it's like peeling a banana you know and so that's what they do to people and so they absolutely do have emotional intelligence and one of my struggles with the emotional intelligence construct is it is it is complicated like part of emotional intelligence is self-reflective capacity how am i affecting you you're my behavior right but part of emotional intelligence is just the ability to read a situation and i think a lot of people who write sales books and coach people to do sales they only work on that part of the equation so you better believe narcissists are emotionally intelligent or they wouldn't be the people who could trick us manipulate us because if they were monsters we wouldn't all be falling in love with them and working with them and praising them and applauding them and giving them 10 gazillion instagram followers people love them there's a reason because they can read the room dr jamika in your private practice do you work with anybody who is narcissistic or has been diagnosed with mpd yes um more than often more than any other time it's more people who meet many of the criteria for it but maybe not all of them and so how do you how do you start to teach somebody who is narcissistic to how do you start to how do you start that dialogue with a patient who you believe are showing narcissistic tendencies well the first thing is awareness and for me the biggest hurdle is getting the person to also believe that they have some of those signs and have some of those traits and that's not always easy for people who've been raised to not feel like they have any deficits so to me that's really the biggest thing to get through once they get through that and can uh recognize that then some of the other things are easier but um like dr romini talked about with empathy empathy is hard to try to get an adult to start to feel it's um now there's this term out there i think it's called lexithymia where people have they don't have the ability to feel or identify emotions that's a real thing there are some people out there because they have not been brought up that way to really recognize and deal with emotions that they really find it very difficult and sometimes impossible to get in contact with those emotions that are inside of them so that's the other piece of it because you do have to have empathy for people and like dr romney said this whole reading the room they do it so well because they don't have the empathy you don't have to worry about feeling anything about the people that you're moving and manipulating so as you develop empathy that's one of the things that has to happen but i find it to be very very difficult in practice i'm going to paraphrase this next uh live attendees question they say they're asking how they can be clear that they themselves are not a narcissist they do not feel like they are a narcissist uh however they are experiencing the people around them abandoning them so as somebody who is clearly attempting to be self-aware and make the good choices what is your advice to them i i i'm gonna like yeah i'm uh jamaica i'm gonna let you take that one and i'll step oh i i don't know if i have a different answer from you but i think that it's a hard question because it depends on who these people are that are around them that are isolating themselves like i don't know these people like if i were to assume these people were bad then maybe it's good that they're isolating themselves from them because they maybe they're the bad ones i don't know in a systemic way but let's just say these people are good people and they find this person is bad and has bad traits then what they could do is to maybe confirm with them first to see like what is it that you are noticing about me that's making you want to put some distance there so to find out if it's going on really because sometimes you know things are going on in our heads and are not real right because it's such a that was such a simple suggestion well go ask them and that's such a great piece of advice but i didn't even think of that excellent keep going so if they ask them and if they say oh yeah well we got away from you because you're always thinking you're better than us and you're putting us down and you say blah blah blah you're entitled to this and i don't like the way you treat uh staff when we go out to eat or things like that if these are real things and this and these people are important to them then i would think they would take a really serious look at it and really consider changing these aspects of themselves if these people are like i said valuable to them dr romney do you have any advice for that i i i totally agree with dr jamica's suggestion ask you know a lot of times we don't ask sometimes we don't want to know the answer you know and so you know but if indeed you know and and listen be self-reflective things don't happen in a vacuum right now whether the whether it's something happening in your life whether it was your behavior one of the most dangerous things that people can do in any human relationship is to make assumptions about another person's motivations fully okay you look for patterns all right so are you know that's why i'm saying that instead of making some ask you know can you tell me why you stepped away now if they say i don't know that definitely speaks to a lack of health on these people who are stepping away from this person who asked the question because there should be some reflection on motivation and and you know when i've had this happen to clients who've had this experience i say i have said ask them and they've often gotten an answer like you know the examples that dr jamica was giving that people will say you are being you are behaving in a manner that feels entitled to me or you're not treating people well you're you're you're hijacking the entire conversation you know and so it is sort of this you know the the deep dive into self will you stop and ask yourself how do i impact other people's from my behavior and then going that goes back to the question you would ask asked dr jamica earlier it's like do you have narcissists in your practice and what do you do with them i don't know if the person writing this question is narcissistic or not and they can certainly go through a mental checklist do you have empathy are you entitled are you grandiose do you need validation and admiration are you arrogant i mean ask those questions of yourself but one of the most important things i have to do when i work with narcissistic clients is really do that kind of process work to say listen right now i'm feeling a little offended here and if i'm feeling this other people are too or you know do you ever stop to reflect on how your words impact other people or i'm hearing you share this situation and the way you spoke to that person i'm finding it hard to hear about how do you think that person felt you almost have to spoon feed them empathy you have to say well how do you think that other person felt and they're like well i didn't think about it at the time or their bed their favorite answer is i don't know i don't know shows a lack of self-reflective capacity i should not you should know why you said something to someone and if you don't it was likely careless and mindless and hurtful well said um i would like to share with everybody watching live that if you uh would like to learn more about narcissism dr romney and med circle have this pre-series right here navigating narcissism and family friends and the workplace each session uh is a different uh focuses on a different narcissistic relationship that you could have in your life if you download the med circle app that series and five other series will be included for free um just go to your app store and download med circle let's go to our other questions if i can find my q a box here um let's go to dr jamica this med circle member asks hi i'm african-american and come from a family where both of my parents were narcissistic and my brother was a sociopath as in he was treated at a young age for anti-social tendencies i'm hoping you can tell me what kind of issues marginalization experienced uh marginal marginalized groups experience and what kind of family background might have on a person as they go through life so i guess what kind of experience they may have considering their upbringing well you know um as african-american um adults we likely have parents grandparents that grew up in a whole different time like my parents grew up in the civil rights area uh era so they remember like sitting in the back of movie theaters sitting in the back of buses they remember all these things going to different schools different water fountains they remember that so sometimes when parents of that era or before have their own experiences so what they do then is bottle up many of these emotions from those experiences and then we see narcissistic parents they've developed based on some of their experiences and you know oppression of discrimination are two very impactful things that can affect you lots of different ways some people come out of it and are more resilient they're strong they're um more focused and then some people come out with like some narcissistic outcomes so when parents are narcissistic because of some of the situations they've been in with discrimination being one they can raise children african-american children who are now struggling with having the parents and maybe having their own traits as well and some of that like i said can come from generations social issues that are going on social processes that have been impactful to the parents so the parents in their minds i just want to create children who are strong and resilient to go out in the world to be able to withstand the oppression that i know that they will um come into and to play with so that happens a lot i see it a lot with african-american families and of course usually they have no idea that that is what happened no empathy is a big part of that though what factors play a role in determining whether somebody comes out of oppression and discrimination more resilient or comes out of oppression and discrimination narcissistic or even you know just feeling defeated um i will say when i think about the people that i've worked with um usually it has to do with the parents dr romney said this earlier she said you can have parents that are negligent so who give nothing um or little and then you can have those that are indulgent and those that are indulgent tend to shield you from the realities of the world so i've seen it happen that way more but i've also seen it occur not just from african-american from low-income lgbtq people who've just been so neglected in their childhood that they've had to develop this sense of who they are and to make a really strong outer core so that they can go out into the world and get what they did not get from their parents so it just kind of depends on a lot of other factors like genetics parents environment is it ever too late to do that and that being going out and developing your outer core i love that phrase that you used i would like to say no um some people feel that they're better equipped to do that like i see some patients and i'll tell them that oh yeah you can do it you can do this and they're like no i can't that's their honest opinion can i try to give that to them yes can i work with that motivation and that sense of self-esteem yes but deep down if they don't want to go through the process of learning that and turning into a new person then there's not a lot that i can do i understand that let's go to another question this med circle member uh asked how can you break the cycle from being the child yourself who needed the help early on in toddler years and to not get help until you're an adult uh adult that then sorry sorry i'm gonna screw up some of these sentences here an adult that then boyfriend finally gets you to get professional help how can you stop making excuses like your parents did how can you break the cycle of this so you don't end up like your parents and that you can be a better parent to your own child um okay i'll start um a lot of it comes from the awareness so i think the fact that the person is aware that there is an issue is a very good step sometimes so i think they said the boyfriend recommended therapy um lots of partners recommend therapy to a lot of people and they don't always agree and they don't always accept that they need the help so i think the awareness is a very good step there's so many other things that have to be dealt with in a case like this though like you know boundaries boundaries have to be learned um that's one of the big things i see from people who have suffered from narcissistic abuse they don't have clear boundaries they don't know what that is um they're sometimes afraid to implement those boundaries so it's a big question i guess that's a part of it i'll let dr romney finish know i think that one of the the biggest struggles of coming from a narcissistic family system is that it has impacted you for your life it's shaped you but our experiences always shape us and you know to me one of the most heartbreaking kind of pieces of the legacy of narcissistic abuse is there's a loss of efficiency you do lose some months or even years really kind of like working around those those negative voices in your head and all of that but there is that point at which once somebody has educated you on this is a thing this really happened to you to bear witness and hold space for someone to share that then there's a point at which we have to elevate ourselves to acceptance this did happen to me this is part of my story and i can take i can going forward can take responsibility for myself my choices and find meaning and purpose and the suffering that i have had to endure maybe it will make me a better listener it will make me open to different kinds of perspectives we all you know as i always say that people have been through narcissistic abuse it's like someone just tossed a 200 pound backpack on your back and said go join the marathon no one else gets a backpack but you do start running and you still got to finish the marathon ultimately when you finish it you're going to feel mighty good about yourself but there is that point where you can no longer blame shift that you can say this happened to me and i in this moment have the power and have the ability to make choices that are mine that i can take responsibility for and the moment we get to that point we have cut ourselves free from those legacies really well said uh dr romney let's stay with you for just a moment this person says my father is a narcissist but he is elderly now with dementia and parkinson's i want to be there for him and i am his legal agent because no one else wants to help him except me but it also leaves me alone dealing with all of the triggers with no support what type of therapy do you recommend for someone in my position i would say at a minimum i would want this person to be working with a therapist who understands narcissistic abuse because what can sometimes happen is without understanding that piece of the legacy issue there's often a real quick silver tendency to diagnose the person who's experiencing narcissistic abuse trying to toss the label on them oh you're depressed you're anxious you have post traumatic stress and like slow down sister like wait a minute like let's sit with this person see what has happened to them and many times what happens is once a person understands that legacy they're like okay at least i this was not my fault the one thing i tell every single person who's had one or two narcissistic parents none of this was your fault this was done to you okay so don't take responsibility for their messed up parenting all you can do is take responsibility going forward for somebody who's going through the very unenviable situation that this person's going through is first of all is very much the radical acceptance piece is that this is the scenario in which i'm in and i cannot think my way different about it it is what it is and i think that when you have those realistic expectations when you have that radical acceptance that the statements that come out of the father's voice are what you'd expect the triggers are definitely there and i think that this is it such times self-compassion becomes so critical the self-kindness means you do what you need to do and i always tell people if you're having to deal with a difficult narcissistic person or a difficult person or a toxic person antagonistic person on a daily basis i always say you got to build in some bookends you need something in the morning whether it's a ritual a routine breathing mindfulness meditation a run go to a boxing gym whatever it is that that's your front-end preparation and it's very intentional like i know that today i'm going to get triggered and this is going to be hard for me and i have to engage in acceptance and all of that then you go through the day and your bandwidth is depleted at the end of that day is the other bookend where you do what you need to do to come down that might mean that you start having an earlier bedtime that you don't take on big work meetings or calls in the evening that you don't talk to a friend who is less than supportive that you take on tasks that are more intellectually demanding like you you definitely wedge yourself into a day that's very intentional very self-protective and to understand that the story you're going through is the story of every survivor of narcissistic abuse but it is very much about each moment in this to be mindful and recognize like i can be very aware of how i feel now like i've got this i can do this but they're going to be days that those triggers feel overwhelming doesn't mean you failed at this it means that some days are harder than others your bandwidth will be more depleted but for someone in the situation too i really think therapy or some other form of support becomes critical as a placed event therapy becomes and this is when i do work with clients who are narcissistically abused as i say this is where you say the forbidden things the things you cannot say in mixed company and it's okay and you have a therapist who is oh god i got you i get this and then you hear it and then sometimes just saying it out loud to another human being just lets it go you can put the weight down i absolutely get that doctor i'm going to stay with you but i'd like both of you to answer this question that circle member watching this live asks how do i explain to my teenage children that their father is a covert narcissist how old are the children um we don't know why don't you well they're teenagers oh the teenager sorry teenage okay i would avoid using the term at every call at any cost okay when you use that word which has so much surplus meaning and it's confusing to people to use it with a child is confusing to the child and at the end of the day while you i mean it's almost like let the difficult parent you know shoot himself in the foot don't do it for him and don't ever confuse your child now what you also never want to do is you never want to guess like your child so you're certainly not going to paint a portrait of him as the father of the year but what you want to do is hold space for your child to be able to talk openly maybe about disappointments with the father concerns about the father be empathic to that and say i hear you it sounds like this is really hard talk to me about how you feel about it and then try to give them very the kinds of things i'm saying here like say listen you know what sometimes adults under pressure they're not on their a game and you've got to have realistic expectations i have no doubt that in his fashion your father loves you however this may not always land in a way that feels right to you and if you talk to him and he cuts you out and doesn't listen to you or cuts you off that doesn't mean your words are invalid that simply means that he can't hear it your words are important so you're really carrying the burden you're carrying the psychological parenting burden for two people but never ever ever use that term with a a teenager now where this gets tricky is when the child comes up to the parent and says mom i think dad's a covert narcissist i still don't think you want to cop to it and say what is making you say that well he's a victim and he's resentful and he's this and he's out and say you know what instead of the label let's stick with the patterns because those must feel really hard and steer it into the path of talking about the pattern say like whatever people want to call those patterns because like i said and i'll tell you if you've got minor children and those words come out of your mouth to a child you could be also painting yourself into a problematic legal corner so i'm just trying to keep people protected so they can get their kids over the over the finish line at 18 and then you know and then everyone's on their own understood dr jamica any thoughts on all that yes i totally agree with everything dr romney said i would also add um so without saying the words you can still walk them through other issues that they will have to deal with that parent such as boundaries you don't have to deal with this like if someone said this to you whether it's a parent or not this isn't right you didn't deserve that and to let them know that they don't have to accept certain behaviors that could be difficult you know depending on the culture because in certain cultures we're taught to respect our elders and not say anything back so but what you can tell them is you don't have to accept this you can leave the room you can minimize your time with this person those type of things and i think also for you said a teenager um there was probably also going to be some aspect of grief involved in that because teenagers want certain things they want to have parents they can talk to and say certain things too and get things back from that parent and there's going to be some loss associated with like i wish i had a parent that could do these things with me or make me feel these ways and they can't right of course i want to take just a moment to uh highlight dr jamika's series she has uh one on community violence and trauma with med circle she also has this great clip on how to avoid the unconscious bias both the signs and the psychology behind it if you're watching this live we're going to share this link in the group chat below but if you're watching this on replay it is included in the med circle library you just go to watch.medcircle.com and you can search dr jamica or community violence and trauma and it will pop up uh dr jamaica thank you for that series we're going to go to our next question let's see if i can find it are certain cultures more likely to allow or enable narcissistic behavior dr jamica certain cultures um from my experience yes because certain cultures are going to be more likely to kind of sweep things under the rug and not deal with certain issues and behaviors head on you're you're a little low dr go there you go now i can hear you oh i said um so yes because certain cultures are going to be more likely to sweep certain behaviors under the rug and not just deal with them head-on um certain cultures feel that this sense of entitlement is okay other cultures feel like this arrogance and this grandiose thinking is okay and it's something that is expected so definitely in those cultures you're gonna find not a lot of um conversation going on about how this is wrong and how it's painful and hurtful to those around them um whereas you're going to find some cultures where it's going to be more devastating too so as a a child growing up in a culture that may promote or enable narcissistic behavior if they were for some reason to become pretty aware of what was going on at an early age what would you recommend they do to put the set themselves up for success even though their environment seems to be setting them up for failure um you said a child child right yeah but i'm assuming this is a teenager 18 19 20 21 something around there i would say that you would have to treat it in the same ways that you would treat um a child or a person that was living with someone with an addiction like alcoholism uh drug use and you would have to teach them ways to separate themselves to be healthy and to still be able to develop um an isolation from that part that is toxic that part that is hurtful and that part that is demeaning to who they are so um sometimes it's more difficult depending on the the house how many people live in the house what the restrictions are where can they go and not go but if it's at all possible for the person to be able to at least get off to themselves and get some support some mental wellness maybe some mindfulness and to really focus on what parts of themselves that is really good and hopeful and to try to eliminate those other pieces again as much as possible dr romney this next question is for you my husband and i are in couples therapy my husband explodes in the sessions if you hear something that he does not like i get really scared and my therapist says it is okay he is only expressing his experience is my therapist right okay i wanna i forgive me for rewinding alex i wanna say something about the gaslighting and culture question too back to this question there's definitely some patterns we see in more narcissistic cultures what we see is we tend to see more authoritarianism we tend to see more patriarchy we tend to see greater inequities between those atop and those at the bottom and we tend to see that certain groups in those cultures are voiceless okay whether it's on the as a function of gender or some some some other function but that that you there are certain groups that are much much more disempowered what's very interesting too is that while we've often talked about how individualistic cultures are more prone to narcissism i think the damages of narcissism are often more felt in collectivistic groups and this is why i say this because in collectivistic cultures the family will often close ranks well what what is collectiveness collectiveness of collectivistic cultures are where you view instead of saying what's good for me you ask the question what's good for my family what's good for my community it sounds really good on paper doesn't it yeah well virtue because what happens in these collectivistic groups is they close ranks around the family and what that means is the person who's behaving in a toxic manner if you speak out against that person the child who gets it the teenager who gets it the young adult who gets it okay they get branded rather harshly and swiftly and then you that person who speaks out against this rather potentially very broken narcissistic entitled whatever it is toxic system that family member who speaks out will often be outed will often be marginalized will often be scapegoated as the bad person who is attempting to put a negative light on the family because you got to protect the family and in that way these so-called collectivistic groups that feel like we got to look out for each other that actually can really give a lot of power to a very toxic person in those systems which is why in cultures that are organized again more more patriarchal more authoritarian and more inequity those are the cultures where we see more of this narcissistic behavior and if you throw in that collectivist piece on top of it people are often silenced and um you know and uh ostracized if they actually talk about the family meaning that you've got to sort of go along to get along and that's a problem so to your other question i completely disagree so the person who is the husband screaming screaming is not an option it is not a way adults get to express feelings i tried to stop that stuff when my kids were three like i'd let you scream in on three let's sort of start turning the volume down on that and you know but for an adult man to be screaming in a professionally curated setting i could tell you now if somebody screamed in a therapy session i was running i'd say you can either stop that or you can step out of this office but yelling in this office is not an option okay and so it is not okay and a therapist who is allowing this person to scream is enabling him just like everyone else has enabled him which is why he thinks he has permission to scream here yeah why would you think any differently if you're him and whether it's that the therapist is unwilling to admit that she's scared of him whether the therapist is sort of cowering under the force and the weight of his privilege that therapist needs to get her house in order because i do not think yelling is ever acceptable i think sharing very strong feelings like i feel so devastated and you i feel like you make me sick even as a therapist i'd say you don't get to say you make me sick you have to say i feel sickened by you like i'm always about the i statements right and so not acceptable no healing in therapy just like there's no crying in baseball there is no yelling in therapy yeah you're individual with me i don't even want you to be yelling at me i've had clients yell at me i'm like you know uh-uh step back volume down we are not yelling in here you've got to find another way to regulate this i i cannot imagine a person on this planet yelling at dr romney that is uh dr damica um let's uh have this next question go to you uh noninstant india asks if you are in a debate or an argument with a narcissist what should you not do before i answer that question i want to go back to something dr ramedy said because what she mentioned something that i get questions about a lot and i actually got this on my facebook page yesterday so my friend my uh friends of color who say like isn't narcissist just a form uh narcissism a form of racism they liken it to the racism that is going on in the country now so they talk about uh when she talks about culture like some of the behaviors that are rooted in culture some of the behaviors rooted in white american culture is patriarchy is uh sexism is racism so we talk about that to people of color it seems a lot like they're one and the same so when we talk about healing and trying to reverse patterns of narcissism people ask i get asked this question a lot about how to reverse that since we live in a society where this is commonplace this happens all of the time so instead of being with a parent that is a narcissist we live in a country that is a narcissistic country and we're treated as the child i would guess yeah i mean even the other day a friend texted me and said this man um is throwing a fit at the airport because uh they had pizza bagels and he didn't know they had pizza bagels and saw somebody near pizza bagel and went up to the person at the front of the of the shop and said why wouldn't you tell me you had pizza bagels if you had pizza bagel it i mean it was it's just it boggles my mind uh thank you for bringing that up so to this question what do you do when you're in an argument with a narcissist or debating a narcissist or and this person's asking what do you not do i don't know i think there are different ways schools of thought to answer you could either not ever argue with the narcissist because you know what the outcome is going to be you just say no or you could just have really clear boundaries give your answer that's my answer don't be allow yourself to be gaslighted by this person um or angered or frustrated because like dr ramedy said they are really really good at knowing how to pick your buttons and tick you off they know what makes you angry they know what to say they know what words to use and what phrases to use so they're going to do that if they're trying to win a debate or an argument so i it depends on your school some some people like a good fight if you like a good fight there are ways to try to fight well with one but it's probably not going to end up well because they don't take loss in the same ways that other people do they don't even perceive loss in the same ways so for me i would just say don't get into one don't try not to debate more dr romney what do you think don't engage don't defend don't explain you know i mean it's i think the mistake that many people make is that they engage they explain let me tell you my point of view no they don't care about your point of view they don't care about you why would they care about your point of view right so a lot of people say you you need to no they don't need to understand they don't want to understand so people really get lost in the weeds of like i've got to explain my point of view i've got to defend myself you're you're defending yourself up against the false charge so why are you wasting your time at this point but i also tell people that you never give up your reality you know like when you are firm in how you feel if they say to you you know what you're being too sensitive you're always too sensitive saying you know i'm good with how i feel you don't get to judge it i'm good however in terms of disengagement one thing you never want to do with a narcissist is storm off you don't storm out the door you don't slam the door you don't make obscene gestures it's all about grace over toxicity yeah you very calmly realize what you're dealing with you grab your items or take your items and you gently walk out and just bid them peace and go now they're going to be screaming after you because narcissistic people do not like to be abandoned it's a big problem for them because it really pings their insecurity but you know not but bottom line the basic thing not to do don't get in the mud with them this is this is a cage fight you cannot win because for them winning is everything for you it almost there is first of all there's really no win is there right for them the win is for them to domineer and dominate there's a win in that because there can only be one king of the hill kind of thing so don't don't don't engage it don't get in the mud don't defend yourself don't explain yourself quietly leave and go and then really really reassess the role of this relationship in your life now i'm going to push you a little bit on this because what if i am at work and i'm pitching this project to my boss and i think my project is better and the narcissist is pitching his product to the boss and he thinks his is better i have to stand up for my project i have to advocate what i think is right i i can't just pick up my things and walk out or just you know how what do i do but kyle you also don't need to argue with the narcissist he or she's a ghost they don't exist your idea look at the idea and is it corrupting you and talking over you saying give me a moment let me just let me just finish okay and then you stick to your presentation the problem is is that many times narcissistic individuals difficult people they create chaos in their environments there's lots of look over here at this meth and look at this and look at this and everyone gets very disorganized you've got to have a true north and in this case in your stories i got to pitch my idea you don't need to argue with them there's no argument to have the only thing you need to do is pitch your life you're so right you're so right this i love psychology so much when it's so simple like that because the next time i'm in a position where i feel like i'm up against somebody who's overbearing dominates the conversation makes it all about them i can go back to what my true north is and if i don't know what it is then that's my first step is to figure out what my true north is going into a dinner going into a meeting going into a relationship i have to figure out those priorities um that's really good this is good thank you okay uh you both are still working psychologists even when covet hit you're still seeing patients um virtually how has covid19 changed the narcissism landscape i think it's worse worse dr romney let's start with you and then we'll go to dr jamica i think in many ways what we're seeing is this you know there's such a polarization i think that you know listen i know maybe not i'm going to say something here and it actually was an article in the washington post i was interviewed before that came out yesterday and i know not everyone's going to like what i have to say because i know there's some different prevailing thoughts on wearing masks right now it's the best we've got okay and here's what's interesting about wearing masks masks do more to protect other people than ourselves okay number one but let's say you really believe the mask does nothing but everyone else thinks they do wearing the mask becomes respect it's almost like if you go into someone's house of worship and they do something cover their heads or take off their shoes you do it do it even because you don't believe in their religion but you do it out of respect that's right and this unwillingness to wear masks and this and this these conspiracy theories and that sort of constant victimize everyone's out a lot of people made corona about them corona came to ruin their lives specifically right seven million people on the planet and this virus came to ruin their lives that economicity we're seeing a lot of upticks in people because remember one of the core issues of difficult toxic antagonistic narcissistic people they are incapable of regulating disappointment and stress so when stress and disappointment are on they blow up okay well this is nothing but stress and disappointment around every time we turn around something else is being canceled something some opening is being delayed we live in disappointment this is the worst thing that could happen to narcissistic people is happening is they're becoming more antagonistic they're screaming at people in the store they're screaming at people on the road they're saying angry things in all kinds of online spaces they're lashing out lashing out lashing out and we have seen major upticks in domestic violence all over the world why because now you have this disappointed antagonistic abusive partner locked at home with this partner what's he gonna do or she gonna do go to town and beat up the other partner so that we are actually in a public health crisis that is in terms of the domestic violence piece the amount of trauma and issues that are going to come up around that if this this virus will be long gone but the traumatic echoes of the amount of abuse people endured it's going to be absolutely heartbreaking i think this has made things much much worse dr jamica what are your thoughts i'd have to agree like some of the behavior and the racial violence that we're seeing now in the country is really a direct result of that it's that whole issue of um what arrogance and entitlement to be able to do or not do certain things that really when i explain this to people i say this is really what the fabric of our country is it's about people who get to say what they want to say that and use the narrative that they want to use that makes them feel better about themselves they don't have to follow the same rules like rules are for those people not for me so um we have definitely seen an increase in that to the point where um it's scary i mean a lot of a lot of places and the election doesn't help we already had racial violence we already had a pandemic now you add that piece so it's very polarizing to the to the community to the country so yes you are seeing these people that like it's almost like dr romini said they're like i have to show you that i don't have to follow your rules right make me and they they'll look at you like make me yeah just be respectful like dr rowney said at the top of that question it's a respect thing i think a lot of people can get around that being respect well hopefully we'll see i suppose yeah um if you're watching this live thank you i'm kyle and i'm here with dr jamica and dr romney talking about narcissism specifically in marginalized communities and also taking your questions live on zoom if you'd like to participate in weekly life classes just like the one you're watching now go to medcircle.com and start a free trial if you're a military member a student a teacher a health care professional i mean we have discounts for almost everybody send me an email kyle at medcircle.com i would love to get you set up with a med circle membership that is discounted to be more affordable for you you get access to our entire live streaming library weekly live classes and all the functions and capabilities of uh our app my dog is winding below me if you can hear any of that uh so thank you for being here with us medcircle.com let's go to another question um dr romini are there any good ways to be an effective anti-narcissist repellent in short how to be the narcissistic people bitter pills after picking up red flags yeah there are definitely i think number number one is hold on to your reality stop giving away your power you know i mean the the only way someone can gaslight you is if you're willing to budge on your reality i can agree to disagree with someone absolutely we can both have different opinions my opinion being different than yours doesn't negate or cancel your opinion we're going to live in a world where we can have all of our differences coexisting rather than i'm right and you're wrong that's number one i think that you know number two is you also have to have in your sense that you are enough like i think that to me it's like a big fish eating a little fish a narcissist is very insecure and we're we all have some insecurities so the big fish eats the little fish right they they play upon our insecurities so it means we got to get our own houses in order and recognize we are more than enough none of us are perfect not even by a long shot but it's the it's about kind of keeping our house like i said keeping our own house tidy then we don't get gobbled up by their playing upon our insecurities they can only be played upon if we're not recognizing like it's fine like i've got him i'm not perfect i'm good and i think our own fears of getting found out for being like less than less than good is it is very destabilizing for us so then they can prey upon us a lot more easily the other is to recognize what it is i think a big piece of it is i am not a big big fan of the benefit of the doubt and second chances you burn me enough once like we're good look we do not need to meet up again and maybe that's a little extreme and i'm not saying literally one time but the first time you're on watch the second time no more you know and you can't say well they're going through a hard time then this is how they handle a hard time it's not acceptable so i think that the i the benefit of the dell might be three of the most dangerous words in the english language and so benefit of the benefit of the depth four dangerous work for most dangerous words in english language and this idea of give people the benefit of the doubt and forgive them no matter what that sets dangerous precedent so i tell people listen goes to maya angelou the you know first time someone shows you who they really are believe them of course she was speaking truth to all of this narcissistic abuse believe them and if they are having a hard time and that's why they're behaving badly i am so sorry for them i really am and i hope they find the help that they deserve yeah dr jamick any thoughts on that she just said a mouthful she's so right and what i see with patients is that it's like proving your point they have to prove their point they have to like you said kyle a minute ago i have to debate i have to show you who i am i have to show you that you're wrong because with people that are not narcissistic that usually works it usually works so it's it's a this idea of knowing your audience and you have to really that's the radical acceptance that dr romney is referring to this is you have to really know this is who they are and it's very static it's not likely ever going to change and i think that's very hard for people to accept it's very hard for people to accept that this person will never be the person that they want them to be so during quarantine well right before covid i started dating okay and i met somebody and i became enamored i mean i just thought this person has hung the moon we're gonna be together like i was in i was already imagining weddings and i could hear dr romini in my ear going look if uh he takes you on a second date in a private plane to san francisco run because that is not a second date and um about four or five months in we he lied about something innocuous not important it was a lie that five years ago i would have said and he just lied about that thing it wasn't a big deal moving on and maybe this was right maybe this was wrong but this time when i discovered this lie i said i can't continue this relationship because if you are willing to lie about nothing then when something matters i'm going to believe that you're going to lie and and i ended the relationship despite feeling like i had found the guy i made a logical choice to end it because i saw a pattern of line do you think that was too abrupt of a decision was it the first time he lied or had this been a pattern of lying about no it was the first time and and everything else was perfect everything else seemed great yeah i don't want to i don't want to probe and ask about what the thing that he had lied about you know i don't want to like leave you feeling bad there kyle hey no no i put myself out there did he lie about like where he parked the car or did he lie about buying skim milk instead of two percent no no he he lied i asked him a direct question and he lied about it and then he doubled downed on the lie later that night and then he called me the next day and said hey actually i lied to you about that that's not true what i told you okay the fact that he called you and came clean i would have said oh sorry i mean kyle i really feel guilty saying this like you know if other things were intact empathy compassion respect reciprocity mutuality all you know all the stuff i think is so important in a relationship that there's solid connective tissue between two people person lies lies and then comes clean because remember what we do see in an antagonistic difficult person is that they often won't take ownership they'll they'll they'll quadruple down on that lie they'll hold that lie when you can give them written documented proof and say you did not telling the truth and say oh you're so petty kyle really you had to go there like it would be that kind of deflection so i i'm i've never lied to you kyle see that's why you keep me around yeah a little bit i'm voting with abrupt okay abrupt dr jamiko what's your what's your opinion on my personal relationship i was i was listening for the other lies yeah but there are none so yeah i mean not that i know all right well hey if you're listening to this guy maybe uh you should uh send me a text message maybe we should make this thing go back into it we'll see uh dr jamika i have another question from a med circle member uh from you i'm an african-american male married to a wife with whom shows traits of what i believe to be covert narcissism she also shows traits of borderline personality disorder my wife's family has a very successful business business with lots of material things and network connections my family lives 2 000 miles away and thus have been isolated i've been contemplating leaving for years but we have a five-year-old daughter and i've been torn whether to stay or leave and the ramifications of each that's a hard question um it really comes down to what's best for the individual so the guy that's asking the question as well as the child um and at this point if he can really think about it as far as being aware that if he's sure that this is what she is or if he needs confirmation then he might need to seek that as well but if let's just say she is if she's a narcissist then at this point it's really about minimizing damage how much damage has been done to him already how much more damage does he want to see done to himself and his child because if he stays the longer he stays the more damage there will be to both him and the child so i know you know it's never an easy question to say about when to leave when not to leave divorce there's so many other issues that will occur as a result of that but i would like to think in the long run it would always be better to have the child grow up in a healthy environment and is that a healthy environment staying with the person that's narcissist because what what is that parent going to do to that child over the next what 10 15 20 years of staying around um so that yeah that's my piece dr romney what are your thoughts on that last member's uh situation you know i i want to actually make a sort of a sort of a teaching moment here on covert narcissism and borderline personality covert narcissism is a personality it's the narcissistic personality style that manifests as more of a vulnerable pattern a a tendency to be less of the extroverted grandiose narcissist but rather more of a victimized sullen resentful petulant narcissist okay so it's a the victimization being a really big piece of it the sense that life was never fair to them woe is me nothing goes my way everyone's out to get me it's often very persecutory there can be some overlap between the borderline personality picture and the covert narcissistic picture especially around that sense of self victimization now what you will not see in covert narcissism in as pronounced a manner as you might see borderline personality is the abandonment fear and you and the instability and emotion that's going to be more pronounced in a more borderline style but the self-victimization is sort of the is the inflection point it's where those two patterns overlap and it can very much often play on a person's own propensity for guilt you know that any kinds of you know that that that that those two styles and relationships do often manifest as the other person in the relationship feeling somewhat guilty and at times even feeling manipulated and so i completely echo what dr jamica says you know at the end of the day everyone has a different endurance for these kinds of patterns it's why i wrote should i stay or should i go i wrote that book because 50 of people stay in these relationships it's not 90 10 it's 50 50. and i refuse to judge someone who makes a choice that feels like this is what they need to make for their child or for themselves it's a very complicated conversation about money about religion about culture about children um all kinds of things you know and so when it comes down to it though i say if you're going to stay now the game changes and you have to have realistic expectations radical acceptance you can't sit around thinking that this is going to change you know that you have to be brutally honest to yourself on what you have chosen to stay in it means you cannot talk about emotionally evocative topics it means that you might have to listen to this person's ongoing victimization you may have to work on amping up the meaning and purpose in other areas of your life focusing a lot on your child um and you never ever want to guilt your child down the road that you stayed in this you'd stayed in this that's your choice this isn't isn't that your choice your child's not asking you to do this so there's a lot there's a lot of um taking responsibility and so that's a big um you know that that's a big big piece of um of how you think about staying and that some people when they say okay and now that i understand those are the ground rules i can do this for a year or two and then after two years of really playing this life of where you're not talking about anything emotional you're not talking about anything sensitive you're not talking about anything that's divisive you start realizing like all i'm doing is talking about the weather and does the car need to be washed you know it starts to not feel like a relationship and that becomes more of sort of a dying on the vine and then it might feel more organic to leave the relationship you have uh two great books on narcissism should i stay or should i go but also don't you know who i am do you think they should read don't you know who i am first and then should i stay or should i go depends on what a person's going to so a person who wrote this particular question i would tell him to read should i stare should i go first because he's in an extra relationship crisis but for people who are dealing with narcissism more broadly in their lives i'd say don't you know who i am sort of takes on not only the societal issues we face but also the the the individual kinds of relationships but it could be a parent it could be the workplace it could be a sibling it could be a partner adult child [Music] um on dr romney's med circle page i just shared the link if you're watching this live in the chat she has all of her books linked there so if you want to check those out you can um dr jamica let's go to you for this next question and we we got about 10 minutes left here this person says i'm a white therapist outside of the u.s how might narcissism look different in a marginalized client i know this is a broad question but are there any principles or things that you've noticed how might it look different some of the symptoms could look um different what i see to be different is sometimes the symptoms about the entitlement can look different sometimes the arrogance and sometimes this whole um this idea of needing to only associate with people that are special i think that idea of special can look different in different marginalized communities like what is special so for instance in the african american community special um could be famous like it could be um a sports star it could be someone who wears certain clothes um so i think when you look at marginalized communities you have to look at what those values are in those communities and they're different things in different marginalized communities all the values are different how important is it and i'd love both of you to answer this question that a therapist truly understand where somebody's coming from and i say that because this is a a white therapist who let's say he has a client who's african-american and they and he has his there his client has one experience and the therapist doesn't have that experience how does that therapist prepare themselves to give proper therapy to that client i i think that you know one thing i'd say is that it is all of us who are therapists have privilege even dr jamika as a as a black woman myself as a brown woman this therapist is a white man or woman it's a we but no matter what we have the we have the education and we're sitting on the side of the room that they've come to see us we have tremendous privilege in that situation okay and we all i think it's really about any of us always owning our privilege and knowing our privilege so we can ensure that we're not cramming our world view down the client's throat is number one number two never gaslight the client so and this is where it becomes a balancing act to build on what dr jamica is saying is that where it gets really dicey when you're working with marginalized communities is they are in fact dealing with discrimination prejudice and oppression however that might become the only lens they view the world through solely a victimized lens with absolutely no sense of agency or taking responsibility even within spaces that they could do so for example in their own family i could understand how it may not work in a non-diverse workplace but that's something that starts to get it's it's a balancing act so for me for example one thing i would do is i would contact someone like dr jamaica for consultation it's my responsibility then to say hey this is what i'm working with i'm working with this client an african-american man and she may do the same with me if she's dealing maybe with the south asian man that part of it is we have to know what we don't know we can't have everyone's experience kyle and it would be arrogant to assume so because then we can potentially gaslight the client if i were to say kyle i completely understand your experience as a white gay man i mean maybe in my other life but certainly not this time right dr romi i think you probably could understand my experiences yeah maybe so but but you know it's like there has to be a moment where we have enough humility to understand that ultimately the client is the expert of the client and their world view and it requires us to step out of our own privilege long enough and say please teach me what it's like to be you [Music] yeah i love that um let's do one more question we'll have you both answer this my brother and i were both in the same abusive house growing up i have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and he's been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder why would there be a different diagnosis is the answer as simple as gender or is there something else more complex the way to view borderline personality and narcissistic personalities i want you to view them on a continuum that's got one of those like volume sliding bars on it okay at the one side we may have what i'd consider pure borderline personality which is a very much a clinical pattern characterized by despair tremendous instability and sense of self instability and emotion instability in relationships okay however people with that pure form of borderline personality they sometimes have too much empathy they are so attuned to other people they are almost over concerned to the point where other people might feel suffocated by them and so it's almost like one more place that a borderline person doesn't has trouble regulating is that empathy piece so they can often get taken advantage of feel very hurt and not feel like they can heal from that the other is the pure narcissist the pure lack of empathy the entitlement the grandiosity less that vulnerability move the slider over now you start getting into the space where the borderline personality and the narcissistic personality style are both found in the same person and i'll be frank with you this is where i think borderline personality got such a stigmatized reputation because it was where those two places met with where there was this paralytic abandonment fear and this dysregulation that meets the lack of empathy and the manipulation that could actually turn into some very problematic relational scenarios but the two pure forms are they're on the same continuum which is why in the same family those kinds of developmental conditions could have resulted in one sibling being borderline style one being a narcissistic style because they're very much variations on a theme wow i so got that i so got that dr jamica any thoughts on that yeah it makes so much sense and when you think about it on the continuum it's like two sides of the same coin a lot of the uh chest moving it's the manipulation and the the the lack of empathy and uh all of that goes together so it makes sense why this person is saying the the sibling had this and the other one had that because you do find that i see it a lot with my patients that they are in the both in the same families kyle they're both attachment issues right so both borderline personality and narcissistic personality are both characterized with by disruptions and attachment narcissistic being more of a disruption you're more of an anxious attachment style in the borderline personality you also see an anxious attachment style but there can also be a disorganized attachment bottom line though was that there was sort of an attempt at attachment issue that came up in the early years that manifested in both of them and so the attachment issues the attachment issue an attachment theorist would say we don't even need to use words like borderline and narcissistic these are attachment issues and they came from the same family yes understood well both of you have shed so much insight to not only narcissism but the mental health landscape as it sits today and what you're seeing in your professional experiences we've gotten lots of questions lots of comments we went through as many as we could and i thank you for sharing so much of your time with our med circle members and viewers you can learn more about dr jamica and dr romini at medcircle.com you can also go to doctordashromany.com uh to learn more about her and dr jamica what is your best website let's see probably instagram at dr underscore jamika or on facebook at dr jamica awesome and uh we should have those listed under their doctor pages at medcircle.com again if this is your first time at med circle hit me up on email kyle at minutecircle.com i love to set you up with a discount for your med circle membership or download the app follow us on youtube and browse all of our free resources again at medcircle.com thank you both for being here so good so so good i appreciate it and thank you our viewer for being here and remember whatever you're going through you got this

Channel: MedCircle

Views: 889,994

Keywords: narcissistic, trauma, narcissist, narcissistic abuse, narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder, emotional abuse, ptsd, cptsd, trauma bonding, complex ptsd, personality disorder, npd, abuse, healing, childhood trauma, toxic relationships, borderline personality disorder, racism, tedxtalks, diversity, systemic racism, racism in america, black lives matter, racist, mental health, depression, anxiety, medcircle, dr. ramani, dr ramani, video, live, interview, youtube, narcissistic mother, minority

Id: esS6BSBIJ1Q

Length: 87min 23sec (5243 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2020