The TOP QUESTIONS A Narcissist CAN’T ANSWER! (Spot The Narcissist) | Dr. Ramani

evil enters like a needle and spreads like an oak tree so where i want to start is how on earth do we start to identify the needle so it doesn't penetrate so what are the top five questions we can ask someone to figure out whether they are a narcissist if they can answer the question or not yeah so everyone wants this the magic questions i can ask like you know if they listen if those five questions existed therapists would be using them all the time you know i i tell people a couple of things when it comes to how do i figure out like again that idea of evil entering like a needle is that it is so subtle right but part of it though it's almost less of what the narcissist is doing and more of the story we're telling ourselves about what they are doing so what i mean by that is this if you let's say you meet a new person okay i have to be honest with you something i often ask people as i say tell me the story of you that's my that's my opener the other thing i ask people is how do you spend your days i do that for a couple of reasons number one not everyone is sort of traditionally employed and when we say what do you do can feel shaming so tell me how you spend your days and then they'll tell me well how they spend their days because they're often thrown off they're expecting me to ask them the job so two questions tell me the story of you tell me how you spend your days okay you ask those two questions you're going to get a lot of data pay attention the other thing you need to pay attention to this third thing is not a question it's how do you how are you feeling in your body without exception and you know at this point i've talked to thousands of people who've been through narcissistic relationships every single one of them has said to me it felt off to me i just felt like a little uncomfortable whatever it was and i tried to talk myself out of that feeling so it's that in a way it's almost an instinct we had someone recently on my podcast um who was talking about her meeting her deeply malignantly narcissistic husband and she wasn't attracted to him and she thought the idea of kissing him in her words repulsed her her body was telling her something but her therapist said however this guy actually is paying attention to you and he seems really nice but there was something her body was saying no no no and then she listened to her therapist and sort of tried to quiet those voices and it ended up being quite a life-changing disaster for her but our bodies do tell us something and paying attention to that is really really hard because we're kind of told get along with everybody but in asking those other questions tell me the story of you tell me how you spend your days it's there there are different ways of answering that look for contempt so if i were to turn up to someone and say tell me the story of you they'd be like ugh what do you mean all right all right for me that's ten red flags popping up always boom you know because usually people will say tell me about you or what do you do those are the questions people are used to having and narcissistic people love saying what they do because they're all that even if they're lying about what they do but when you put the questions in those sort of non-traditional ways it's sort of interesting to see what kind of response you get back and so they're giving you data not so much in their answers but in almost their process and in their approach so but i'll be frank with you lisa as a therapist we may have to spend three four five six sessions with a person before we're like wait a minute this is a narcissistic personality and in theory most therapists are trained to detect this so i think when we make it like what are those questions i can ask i think we set a unrealistic bar for people and then they say oh my gosh i guess you know i'm the fool who couldn't figure this out but i'm like no you're not the fool it takes trained people a minute but the final piece is catch yourself in the story you're telling about this person right so a person can give you their story beats even if they answer the the story of them and the um the uh how they spend their days and there's facts in there i have my own business i grew up in michigan whatever those are facts and then there's the story you're starting to tell yourself oh this person's really cool and you know the um i wonder like it sounds like they have a lot of possibility in their life and i have those shared interests once you start putting your narrative over theirs that's the other place where you might start making mistakes because then you're starting to try to make pieces fit so we almost have to take a little bit of responsibility to say what kind of story am i telling myself about this person oh my god that was so good okay i don't want to interrupt you but you said so many things i'd really love to touch on okay so the first one i was really surprised when you said about the like to ask them about this story because i thought that i have the understanding that narcissists love to talk about themselves so how is that actually a sign like i was surprised that you said they'd get frustrated they would get frustrated because they may not like the way that question is like tell me the story of you and that sort of they may roll their eyes at that in a way they should love that question because they're the ones who are always making up a story about themselves i would say now you were asking me what are the questions you asked someone right yeah there's no you're not going to ask them like do you talk about yourself a lot you've got to pay attention okay and so in paying attention to what they have to say you may notice like oh they're kind of going on and on and on but it's i wish it was that simple is that they only talk about themselves because another thing that they may do is ask you very intrusive questions about you very early on maybe not a first date but early texting early phone calls something like that they may say things like what's your worst fear and i i'm always a little chilled when people say we sat on the phone for 10 hours the first time we met and i'm like what did you tell them about yourself because what narcissistic people are really skilled at is learning everything about you so they can outplay you so if i sit here and i really want to outplay i'm i would never be able to do this because i'm not wired for that but if i real if i really let's say something tactically you know i'm clever enough to say okay i'm going to sit here i'm going to learn this person's vulnerabilities i'm going to learn their weaknesses i'm going to learn what matters to them i'm going to learn what they feel insecure about and now i have the keys to the kingdom i can make this person do whatever the heck i want but we read that as oh they're so interested and curious about me so how do we when this is a discussion we have a lot like where's that fine line between someone who really is interested in you and because the last thing you want is for someone to dismiss them when someone's actually being sweet and kind and generous and like really curious about someone like oh i really want to know about you um i wouldn't want to dismiss that but to your point if they're too curious now does that become something that they trying to get out of me where's that fine line how do you assess that i sort of feel like it's when they're being intrusive right so they may ask a question and because of their let's say lack of empathy they may push because they want to know more i don't know let's say there's something about your um family history you don't want someone to know tell me about your family ah you know what like suffice it to say i got a family no no tell me tell me come on you know i'm getting to know you you've said i don't want to talk about my family you know and then they're pushing i would say early in a relationship if so you ask someone a question and they say you know i'm going to let that go a healthy person would say completely understand right but if a person keeps pushing what they're doing is they want to see how far they can push your boundaries they're learning how elastic that this is whereas if a person says no i really don't want to talk about that i'll be frank with you if you say lay down that kind of gauntlet that kind of boundary on a first date a narcissist you're not going to get a second date and that's the best thing that could have happened to you so yeah they're not going to be interested because they're starting to see your boundaries can't be messed with and so you know when you say no i'm actually not going to talk about that they might even on when they don't see you again and you're like i wonder why they don't want to see me again they may consider you cold dismissive you you're not open so things that you actually think of yourself as a very open person but you have appropriate boundaries narcissistic people fool with those qualities we want to have we want to be open we want to be willing to exchange ideas but when they pathologize you and say oh i guess you're not that open you're thinking i'm open oh you want to know about my family and now you've put your cards out there and that's going to come back and haunt you oh god and so now they're literally like oh okay i've just tested it i see that i can push them and so for them it's like a check yep yep exactly and so and but they'll keep they'll they'll keep using new and newer and newer tactics like well i guess you know i guess you're maybe you're not really looking for a relationship now since you don't want to be open you actually are looking for a relationship so now you're confusing two things listen for all the damn time people spend in gyms i would love it if people would actually spend time strengthening their boundaries and really saying these are my boundaries and no one's gonna mess with them and i am very open but i i've got like it's going to take a minute to get to know me and that's okay and if someone's not willing to do that bye i love that um so would you then at this point talk um really assess your personal red flags because i've heard you talk about look if it was just general if it reflects back to what you just said about the question it's like oh we would be obsolete we wouldn't need therapists like here are the five things to do and you're good to go but even talking about red flags like they're not always general they have to be personal to you can you talk to me about that because i thought that was so powerful especially when we're talking if you're just meeting someone and you're starting today like assessing what your personal red flags are almost before you go on that date yeah absolutely so those personal red flags we we often think of red flags as being sort of universal things the person who flirts with the with the server who screams at the people in the restaurant who shouts at the valet parker who demands the table right away like entitled rude boorish inappropriate stuff those red flags are they're beyond red flags they're just red alarms but the some red flags might affect you and not me and vice versa those are based on our histories it could be our own histories of for example somebody's been cheated on right so they're very very very leery of anything that feels like shady secretive behavior so that kind of behavior someone who's doing a lot of texting taking their phone into the bathroom never lets it leave their side could very well be the nature of that person's work but the fact is that the person's reading that as i'm not comfortable with this that becomes a personal red flag that for example that behavior with a phone where somebody else would be like i'm like that too i take my phone to the bathroom just because i have my credit cards on my phone or something they're they have they they get that someone might feel as though um they're they're afraid of rage so somebody has a really loud you know voice and i i think i said this even maybe even in that video on personal red flags i had known a woman who had a really rageful new boyfriend and i said whoa what is happening this is this is making me uncomfortable how sort of rage he is i could hear his voice over the phone he called her during dinner and she said oh my dad my dad was a rager so it doesn't really bother me so she was having almost an opposite reaction having had a rageful father it was almost normal to her in a way she or or trauma bonded for her one or the other so she was giving him a free pass on the rage if somebody talked to me the way that person i would end the relationship on the spot because rage actually is also an issue for me and it's unsettling for me so these personal red flags can either lead us to put up a boundary a lot earlier or we may miss them because we had a previous experience so that's why i'm saying red flags aren't always created alike and where you know somebody else might say like for me if somebody was sort of driving too fancy a car and wearing fancy clothes that's red flags going off like nobody's business that stuff really makes me i will i will actually not talk to someone like that because of experiences i've had and what i know about that stuff where someone else is like wow that person is so chic they have such a great sense of style so we're going to approach that person differently charisma makes me uncomfortable most people are drawn to charisma so personal red flags come from what we know what we've experienced how we view ourselves our core wounds and that's why it's hard to talk about red flags because my red flags aren't always someone else's sure there's the universal ones but beyond that they tend to be really personal what up homie i've got something free and new to share with you right now how often are you visited by that negative voice in your head telling you that you're not smart enough that you're not good enough experience enough not fill in the blanket one of the most powerful things you can learn to do in life is to turn that negative voice into your bestie and i want to teach you how to do that and so much more in my four steps to becoming confident workshop and guys the most amazing thing is you can actually register for completely free for this workshop so click the link on your screen and see you on the inside so how do you assess um the accuracy quote-unquote of those flags because if you're bringing a lot of emotion a lot of history into it to your point you can either a put up the boundary too early or b not put the boundary up at all right i would say that that the challenge becomes this for people who've already been through narcissistic relationships and have been hurt and in some cases really felt traumatized by those relationships or just deeply wounded and hurt i say i'm okay with you having too many red flags it's almost like having an overly sensitive alarm on your house the person like well this thing goes off when the cat walks across the floor i'm like okay you may want to adjust that a little but you know what right now your house has been burglarized 10 times maybe a more sensitive alarm isn't a bad thing so it's about it's almost viewed as a security system if you've been harmed i'm actually glad that your gates are so high and so wide and so thick and have a 70 digit passcode like i'm good with that with time as you feel more authentic more strong more safe in your skin have more success experiences even in non-intimate relationships just friendships you may start trusting your instincts more and maybe you can sort of bring down the security level a little bit but some people say i'm over correcting like this person was um they talked about their ex-wife twice during dinner i didn't want to see them again i said okay so you're over correcting it beats the it beats the alternative for starters okay of letting someone in who's really bad for you i don't even think people have conversations with themselves about what their personal red flags are i think everybody tries to go on these first dates and these early dates on the fly like they're doing they're building the airplane in the sky and i think that's a bad idea i actually think you need to sit down with yourself really just like you prepare for an interview or a meeting or a presentation that before you go on that date and say okay what are the things what are my personal red flags what are things that are going to make me uncomfortable what's my exit strategy if i don't like this um how do i check in with myself you need to prepare for that and part of that is knowing what those personal red flags are that's so strong because i heard you also say you know narcissists kind of know and they kind of spot who is like the easy target um and so doing all that pre-work i think helps build your um your strengths that when you're there like if someone's pushing your boundaries that you have clarity on the fact that they're actually trying to cross your boundary um so what are the things that you even said boundary pushing they're going to test you what other things um do narcissistic people typically do in order to see who is the easy target or not well it's that it's it's the testing the testing is the main way they do that right so they may do something outlandish and they look to see if the person's going to call them out they will push and push and have that be intrusive ask questions and the person may not answer them and they'll see if they can extract the information from them um they may try to push other boundaries they may be really late they may want to sort of keep pushing and keep pushing on things that you know you're already uncomfortable with but you don't want to be that person a lot of people have been socialized to go along to get along to just kind of go along with what's happening oh come on it's early give the person a chance they're looking to see how much they can they can do this and then the other narcissistic game and this takes a little while to unfold is they bring this wonderful front game they're attentive they're interested they're fun and just as the person's getting into it they withdraw they don't text back you can't get a response they kind of cancel a few dates now the person's on the hook they've taken a few hits off that pipe basically and they're saying what wait we're having such a good time what's going on they ruminate they stare should i text him back should i should should i call her back what do i do what i do ruminate ruminate ruminate okay then the narcissist responds after maybe several hours or a day or two oh my god they're into me now you're willing to do anything they ask it's a very clever gambit it's a it's a sort of a hard to get kind of a game but so the idealized seductive presentation they get the person in they get the person in if the person is being strong and having their boundaries and being very clear right now the narcissist is giving you two faces fun fun fun intrusive intrusive you're like fun intrusive the narcissist may not push the skilled ones won't push what they do is they pull back just as they sense that interest and by pulling back there's where the trauma bond begins now you're desperate for them so when they wait one day two days whatever and get back to you all that tension relieves and your putty in their hands you will you will allow your boundaries to be railroaded you'll let them do anything because you don't want to go through another one of those eight hour 12 hour 36 hour times that you couldn't reach them and so and in many ways it's a very infantile kind of a paradigm it's like the child who wants to please the parent so the parent is always there but it's and it's also it almost feels a little addictive right that i don't i don't ever i'm gonna i'm gonna keep all this i'm gonna do whatever i need to do so they never go quiet on me again which often means letting go of all those boundaries and letting the narcissistic person dominate now you're all in and you're and now you're in trouble who can you then trust if they tell you that they love you or not love is the trickiest word in the english language i don't think there's a trickier one it means something different to everyone it means something different to you it means something different to me it means something different to everyone you're going to meet today i think we have some universal agreed-upon stuff around love but for a narcissistic person it's a very shallow experience it's about validation it's about attention it's about admiration it's about short-term pleasure it's about what works for them it's about getting their them getting their needs gratified it's about you making them look good that's what they mean by love for the other person in the relationship love may mean empathy compassion depth sticking through good times and bad loving a person unconditionally whether they're attractive whether they're unattractive they put on weight if they get pregnant if they're not as sexy anymore it's it's a longer term mutual i love you you love me i support your growth you support my growth those are two very different definitions right so can you trust them when they say i love you they love you but the problem is you don't know what their definition of love is if i go to someone someone's house they say we're having cake for dessert and they pull out some i was like i was thinking about like chocolate frosting and stuff like that okay i guess this is a cake but to them it's still a cake that's amazing so would you then let's say for instance someone says they love you um and you're not quite sure what that means to them would you just ask them and then how what would be the difference between your normal person answering and the narcissist actually answered so here's where it's tricky right i think that what happens is is that it's not as simple as we pull out contracts and say so you know that here's my contract and these are the terms of love for me you can see item two clause c is spelling it out this way and if you agree please initial and sign that's not i kind of wish we did it i think that way like i know what my love contract would look like and so someone else might be like i'm sort of not feeling the unconditional love piece so can we just sort of take that clause out kind of thing but if you were to go to a narcissist and say what does love mean to you a narcissistic person is not psychotic they're not delusional well they're moderately douche and about fully delusional they know what the right answer to the test is okay so they'll say well love is like basking in your glow and and like respect and being there with you all the time and just loving on you and they might give you a vague answer right they and i think that one of the hard parts of of love and this is something i've said over and over again and it's a big part of the trauma bond if you ask people in a trauma-bonded relationship so not the narcissist but the other person okay and you say to them why do you love this narcissist can you tell me and it happens with me clients all the time and the answer invariably is i don't know it's like ah it's something it's like magical and we sort of have this like with this connection like this deep connection and like i just feel them and they feel me and i'm like okay uh the second you can't articulate they can't articulate it but when you ask a person in a healthy relationship i would ask you that question about tom and i have asked you that question about tom the answers end up becoming very much like i respect him and he respects me and we have a wonderful time together and we have shared values and i feel safe with this person like they give you concrete stuff right so i'm thinking we laugh together whatever it may be i um at the end of the day this is the only person i want to talk to they hear me what whatever the list is i'm like oh i get it but when someone's like magical can't describe you can't describe it because it's a trauma-bonded sort of confused space the challenge then becomes in a narcissistic relationship the person will turn around and say you say you love me but you do this and you do this and you do this and you do this and that's not love well maybe it's love to them you never ask them god that's so true because you talk about how confusing it can be for people so confusing because you know you're with someone and they tell you they love you and maybe they're saying it in the way that like all your instincts are like okay it feels right it's matching everything that i've learned about love um and then before you know it within an hour or something they're devaluing you they're gaslighting you and then they flip again and then they show you the love um and it can be so confusing for people to be able to assess how they feel about themselves or how their partner feels about them but then also you start to question yourself i tell people do you feel safe do you feel safe we often when we talk about love you talk about romance we talk about fun we talk about sex what we don't talk about enough is safety and to me that might be actually top of the list when we're talking about love because true love healthy love is safe and when i say predictable i don't mean boring but that you feel that you can roll up to this person and be yourself doesn't mean they're always going to agree with you doesn't even mean they're not going to be angry at you but their anger will be expressed in a way where you still feel safe you may not agree you might even get to a big argument all that's fine but you feel safe why because you can say i see why they're angry i get it i don't agree we're gonna go go go but at no point did you feel like you knew he was almost predictable there was there was a predictability to it right in narcissistic relationships people don't feel safe because they don't know what's going to set the narcissist off it's like living in a mindfulness right and that inconsistency that backing and forthing really comes down interesting i'm using this word safe does the narcissist feel safe it's not with you it's in the world so if the narcissistic person has a good day they get a promotion at work they get a lot of likes on social media somebody tells them they're hot in the gym they're feeling good that's their idea of safety they feel really validated so that's when they're going to come home and sweep you off your feet and say babe let's go out to dinner you're my girl i love you blah blah blah and you're like oops love okay if that day they didn't get the promotion someone else did they didn't make their meet their quota people didn't like them on social media they somebody got into a fight with them at the gym they're gonna come home and start screaming at you you're thinking i don't get it like i and everything could be the same because they're so driven solely by their internal world with no regard for how their behavior hurts or affects other people you never know what you're going to get that's not safe it's like not knowing if you walk into your house if there's going to be someone in your house that's going to be a danger to you that's terrifying if you think of it that way and so i unfortunately have to take this really cynical position where i say if you feel if this person is able to do these cruel things i'm not saying anger i'm not saying arguments i'm saying just downright cruel and unpredictable and not be accountable for that behavior you got to judge this relationship on those bad days not the good days and too many people judge narcissistic relationship on the good days wow oh my god you're so so right and it gives us a certain feeling right so it's like oh but i felt great on this day with them it obviously was because they were having a good day um and had nothing to do with me um that was so freaking strong and especially when you even said it's not actually you know are they feeling safe that becomes a helpful predictor if you will because that book like not knowing um how someone's going to react to you how someone's going to respond to you whether they're loving on you or whether they're just downright abusive to you um isn't a way to live and it's heartbreaking yeah so having these understandings because now at least i can take this information and then put in a plan for myself and so people listening instead of feeling like they're on edge like you're not sure what to get to have these moments where they can step back and look at the situation okay how am i gonna respond if they're like this how am i gonna respond if they're like this um that becomes beautiful um now what do you do though let's say you're working on yourself and let's say you recognize that you're in this relationship that isn't healthy and so you recognize these turbulent moments and so now you start to work on yourself how do i show up what is the pre-work that i can do um and the narcissist partner spots it they start to see that you are now becoming stepping into your own you're now being becoming independent you are now taking ownership over how you show up i mean you're you're shaking your head like that they don't want you to be strong they don't want you to succeed they don't want you to get away and they sure as heck don't want you to be independent narcissism is about dominance power and control so this idea that they want you to fly off and achieve your potential not so much because that's a threat to them you will never be able to soar higher than the narcissist can right in fact there's an old um an old children's fable it's called the eagle and the ren and the eagles obviously could fly much higher than all the other birds and so they decide to have a big contest to see which bird could fly the highest well the ren is a small bird so the wren talked into the eagles feathers and then at the very top of the race it went over the eagle you would think like go wren but actually in the story that all the other birds like kind of kill the ren they peck the wren to death how dare you do this to the eagle right so it was like the fairy tales even sort of enable the the i guess in this case the eagle is the narcissist but the narcissist sets up the game that nobody gets higher than them so let's say you're with a narcissist who's killing it like they're doing great right they may actually be able to tolerate a partner getting up to a certain level but never exceeding them right so that's why some people say no there's this person and they're yeah they're narcissistic but their partner is doing well i'm like are is a partner doing better and they're like no but they're doing well i said it's not it may be well compared to you sure as hell isn't better than the narcissist so narcissistic people when they sense and in fact when you even get out of a relationship with them they will and they see you getting happy they'll ruin that happiness they can't the to the to the narcissistic person the only frame of reference is theirs how dare you you go succeed and be happy i'm going to wreck this for you and so if you're in the relationship with them and i think a lot of people are thrown by this in narcissistic relationships because early on they'll make oh that's cool and i'm that's like they'll almost think that this new person's success will reflect well on them but over time if they sense that that person's success is going to eclipse theirs or things aren't going well for the narcissist and the person with them is actually doing better the narcissist will shut that down they will and that that right there in a healthy relationship both partners support the success of the other that's how we know it's a healthy relationship so it's not a person saying they're getting successful i better knock them few down a few notches so they don't they don't get uppity or they don't leave me right that's the insecurity and there is that insecurity for narcissistic folks despite the power the dominance the control which makes them look like a bully they're actually also afraid of being abandoned and left behind because at the core of them is very they're very fragile so when we feel when you feel that fragile and you're not in touch with that fragility you're going to dominate a person who's in touch with their fragility may say gosh my partner is really succeeding and i i'm a little worried like am i going to you know i i sometimes wonder if i can keep pace or they're going to want to keep me around and then that becomes a conversation saying i am so happy for you and yet i'm having this this sort of neurotic fear and a healthy partner would say hey uh you know this is us together and they'll they'll be a soothing and then that other person will hear that and won't stay as much in that neurotic space and we'll actually and then the succeeding part will say hey i see this potential in you like let's use the success i'm having to uplift you and then both boats rise but that's only in a healthy relationship in a narcissistic relationship no and i think people get thrown by the narcissist not being happy for them and then i've seen a lot of people blame themselves saying ah what was i thinking telling them my good news when they weren't having a good day you should it's a relationship you should always be able to share you shouldn't have to think like oh let me assess what kind of day they've had before i tell the fragile narcissist my good news so they don't go crying and yelling and screaming that's not a relationship that's really toxic babysitting so if you're in this relationship then and you're starting to see all this and you try to put up boundaries like you know look don't let some you know this person's a narcissist don't let them cross you so you're starting to work on yourself you're starting to put up these boundaries you're starting to try and gain more confidence and you know that the narcissist is never going to like that to your point and so i've heard you talk about they'll try and punish you yeah so where is that right so hey i'd love to talk about the types of punishments that people can recognize that behavior and then b so where is they're left to go like are you able to still put up boundaries in a narcissistic relationship or is that always going to be met with a narcissist coming with a sledgehammer to try and break them your boundaries are never going to work in a narcissistic relationship because when you set boundaries you're exerting an equal amount of power you're saying we're not we're not doing this you're saying you're basically saying i have power and worth in this relationship too and there's no room for that in a narcissistic relationship they're not going to hold space for someone exerting their own sense of self so you don't get to have boundaries in that relationship so that's not even an option how there's a lot of different ways that narcissistic people punish people they abandon people they withhold from people they uh humiliate people they embarrass people publicly they um they find a little mistake someone makes so let's say a person is um succeeding they're in a narcissistic relationship but things are going well but then one day something doesn't go well then you're building and there's a bad meeting or someone turns you down the narcissist will say oh well someone was getting ahead of themselves so they'll mock you and they'll passive agree passive aggressively bait you but it's all punitive you know whether it's in your face whether it's passive aggressive or whether it's them withdrawing and for some people they'll say oh if i succeed i'm going to lose my partner to which i say then what the hell kind of relationship is this does that come back to the fear then it's like you know yes it doesn't feel like a great relationship but you know i assume narcissists very much will use like well you're going to be all alone what are you going to do without me i think i've told you in the past episode that i had an ex-boyfriend that said to me no one's going to love you as much as i love you like they start to use that language to press on the fear buttons that you have so that the idea of fear at its most extreme is what we see in sort of coercive or coercively controlling relationships where everything is governed by fear but i'd argue that fear is the heart of the narcissistic relationship right it's fear that they're going to leave you it's fear that you're going to say the wrong thing it's fear of their rage it's a fear of saying the wrong thing you're constantly afraid of doing or saying or being the wrong thing so as a person is in a narcissistic relationship they shrink they shrink to something that can never offend or get attention away from or bother the narcissistic person and they also become quite isolated so because there's a lot of shame now that you shrink you don't even want people to see your shrunken self so you withdraw and you lose that support and that support is essential if you're going to un-gaslight yourself the only way to un-gaslight yourself is to have people supporting the reality that you witness and see so that the fear governs everything in a narcissistic relationship but also lisa there's societal fears people are afraid of being single people are afraid of being alone people are afraid they're getting older if they want children they can't have children um these kinds of these kinds of fears that might even be independent of the narcissistic relationship but yet the person stays in it because they might say well this person does make money and and like there's these these sort of those societal check boxes like successful or attractive or whatever they may be and i want to say the check boxes need to be respect compassion kindness safety new check boxes new checklist but it's that idea too of how people will pathologize people for leaving what looks at least on paper like a good relationship and then the fear people have of am i going to always live alone am i going to grow old alone to which my response is usually i don't think you're going to grow old alone but alone is better than this at least you can cultivate friendships and go on a vacation without being screamed at and purchase non-generic food without being yelled at whatever it is that's getting the narcissist's goat like you can do these things without constantly living in fear but lisa i gotta be frank with you because i work with people of all ages from as young as like late teens all the way to their 70s and 80s and as people get older that does become a fear they'll say it's hard to date when you're in your 60s or 70s and people say it feels more unsettling to be alone when i'm older but there's a real tragedy in the sense of i said you're nuts if you think this narcissistic person is going to take care of you as you get older and more infirm and in fact the heartbreak for some people is they endure years decades of a toxic abusive fear-inducing narcissistic relationship well at least i won't be old alone when i'm old they do get sick break a hip whatever and they're older that narcissist doesn't want to take care of them and after all those years they recognized they actually were alone all along wow so i know i'm telling you the story on the back end and we're talking about first dates but i got to tell you folks that first date as nuts is what i'm going to say is going to sound you're 28 you're a beautiful young thing the world is your oyster someday someone else may be wiping your ass you better be sure that they're off to the job [Music] it never dawned on me it never dawned on me that you're hoping because you don't want to feel alone so you think that you're acting um to protect yourself and then when you get there it never dawned on me that there's no way they're even going to be there to take care of you so that was so freaking fun um okay there was so much there i really want to touch on when you were saying about how you shrink when a narcissist is really trying to pull you down in those moments of shrinking i would assume things like your self-esteem how you see yourself all go down with it like you don't think of yourself very highly um maybe the your view on the world changes maybe your own morals may change i'm not quite sure what words to use there um and i've seen people who've done that and it leads to them now not acting in accordance with who they want to be so they basically sink to the narcissist level because they're getting hurt the narcissist is throwing words at them it hurts it stings over time they shrink lower and lower they feel worse about themselves and now they're in a position where in those moments where the narcissist is making them feel very very small the only defense mechanism they have is to throw hate back at them to throw words at them and maybe the narcissist is used to them that also breaks my heart because now you're becoming a person that you don't want to be right how do we prevent that or not all but and if you find yourself doing that how do you get yourself back out so that you don't see yourself as being a cruel person a mean person so anyone who's tuning in today can actually circumvent all of that i mean i'm going to tell you what i tell people on my youtube all the time people i work with all that which is don't go deep what do i mean by don't go deep and i've said that here on on women of impact before don't defend don't engage don't explain and don't personalize the don't engage is a big piece okay you're going to shout back you're going to attack back because you still think there's hope here if you've ended all hope then you're not going to engage with the person right so i am not going to start having an argument with somebody i don't know there's no there's no point i don't know this person there's no stakes but the the getting into it with a narcissistic person using their language against them they're not listening to you if i can only reiterate something they are not listening to you they don't care what you have to say they don't view you as a separate human being with separate needs and wants they don't care so that can help you hold back from the edge of no matter what i say to this person it doesn't matter so i'm just not going to say anything and you can because i agree with you what some happens for some people is after spending enough time in the abyss they after peering into the abyss they fall into the abyss right they become the monster and that is not unusual because you're engaging with this this this difficult cruel person so much and then then it does really feel like the narcissistic person's winning but in a way what we do is we acculturate to our circumstances right so if i move to another country right now i would start learning the language i would dress the same way i'd learn their food and their customs right i'd acculturate now it's healthy acculturation right but there can be unhealthy acculturation so you may move to a place where actually you're having to become a lot more i don't know defensive or have to live in a way that's much more edgy because it's not as safe and then you try to bring that back to your life that was saving people what are you doing you know and it's the same thing in a narcissistic relationship you acculturate and you acclimatize and you assimilate to the culture of the narcissist and you become something you don't like so how do you start recognizing that behavior because it becomes a pattern right so it's like especially if you've been with someone for a while it's become so habitual you're just used to it you're now lashing back out at them right um i assume the more you start to act like that the more it will become a part of you or like it'll be harder to kind of maybe pivot um it may be i i don't know that if it's not inherently your nature then maybe not as much i guess the piece we always have to go back to is the radical acceptance piece they're not going to change so nothing you do so if i scream at the sun and say son i'd much prefer a few rows in the west i'd love that morning sun on my face my morning my bedroom window faces west and so i'd love to wake up to the sun scream at the sun tell the sun to go f off sun's not going to start rising in the west same thing with a narcissistic person there's nothing you're going to say to them that's going to change it and i think that if a person's really getting into it with them there must be some belief that things can be different and i'm here to tell you things can't be different this is it and part of it is understanding what it is i will tell you this though lisa for a lot of people most people not all but most once they get out of the primary toxic or narcissistic antagonistic relationship they start popping back to not being so combative not you know what i'm saying they come back to themselves if that's not who they were in the first place and frankly the vast majority of people and narcissistic people aren't yelling and screaming they're becoming smaller and smaller and shrinking and silenced not getting into it with them and not getting you know not screaming and yelling it's just not enormous it's quite different yeah most people get quite silenced yeah wow um so if you're being silenced and you're over time really trying to build yourself back you see everything that's happening you you know you've maybe missed the flags but now you're seeing them you'll understand the relationship you've gotten into and you're starting to notice and then i think you call it the army of the flying monkeys come at you how on earth do you defend against the army of the flying man because you don't want to explain what that is right so the flying monkeys are the enablers around the narcissist the person the people i should say who don't either get it who are benefiting from the narcissistic person who may even have some slight characteristics themselves but they they're they're still not aware you know and awakened to what all of this is so they fall for the narcissistic person's manipulation and smear campaign if a narcissist perceives that you've done them wrong they're going to tell anyone who will stand still long enough they'll do it on social media they'll do it to people who talk they talk to and they're going to get ahead of you on that listen if anyone's in a relationship and their partner went around and said hey i just want to tell you my part my girlfriend or wife was behaving in a really shady way she was texting these guys she was doing this none of it's true you don't even know what's being said and everyone starts giving you the cold shoulder or is talking badly or rudely to like what you're you're as confused as can be because a narcissistic person will have no problem actually spreading lies about you and you that that's just if someone's doing that you can't sort of win at that game so when that happens i tell people those smear campaigns and that post-separation period especially if you've ended the relationship or somehow you've angered the narcissistic person and the smear campaign become begins and the flying monkeys are these people that the narcissist was able to manipulate and mobilize you can't win if you try to take it on head-on you won't stop it and this is not i mean this is not going to be that soothing for people i say but you just learned who your people are because somebody who knows you could have been turned and manipulated that easily they weren't yours in the first place it's a way to clean house now that's destabilizing if that's a lot of people in your world but wouldn't you want to know that now than just walk around in a fantasy for another 10 20 30 40 years believing that these are your people but they could have turned on a dime i view it as like i don't know um somebody coming and stealing all your stuff out of your closet i'm like yeah thanks for getting rid of these clothes they don't fit me anyhow bye you know it's a it's just a it's a cleaning out it doesn't feel that way initially there's grief there is trauma again i'm talking to someone recently who'd gone through a cult where there had been smear campaigns and all of that he said actually more painful than going through the narcissistic abuse were the flying monkey friends and the smear campaign and losing these people i thought were friends because you may not have had a toxic thing with that friend until the narcissist got to them and that's when the friend turns on you right so you were friends you were doing your thing you were hanging and then one day your friend is called to you and you're saying what and it's because the narcissist manipulated them it's a grief like no other because it wasn't about what happened between you and the friend is that the narcissist was able to get in there but it does bring me back to that point how could the friend have been turned so closely i want you to reflect on some of your closest friendships i'm sitting here and reflecting on that now and my closest people and it's not a long list i'm very discerning about who's on my list of my closest friends i couldn't be turned and if somebody came to me and said something like that the first thing i would do is said call my friend and say yo such and such just told me this and this talk to me what's happening i wouldn't turn on the friend and say how could you and believe some manipulative person and so it becomes this taking stock of this friend then thought i was capable of this so it does become a new way of viewing it i'm not saying you're not full of grief i'm not saying you're not full of loss but you've just learned something that you can never unsee ladies ladies i know sometimes you worry that you're not good enough trust me nobody knows that better than me i spent almost a freaking decade having my soul sucked out of my body doing something that i didn't love finally even though i was scared too freaking dead i decided i was going to go for it and i've ended up building the life of my dreams a life i couldn't have imagined because i realized that radical confidence is being afraid and doing it anyway i wrote this book for you with 10 no bs lessons that you need to go from feeling stuck and frustrated to doing anything that you set your mind to oh okay well i've got a question for you would you not at all even look at the friend and say maybe um almost having grace for your friend and saying wow there they either were conned by the narcissist they got tricked by the narcissist they're weak and i don't actually mean that as an insult i actually mean that they've got some past traumas that they've brought in and so this narcissist comes in has told them something and because of their belief of maybe because of the narcissist because of the influence it has they've believed the narcissist but it actually isn't about you right well it means the friend got played the way frankly you got played right but that requires the friend talking to you so the friend just shuts you down which is a lot of what more than a few flying monkeys have done right so i'll push back on you there a little bit lisa i agree with you because now you're like oh they were just played like i was yeah so let's say you go to said friend and said hey you just got played by them too yeah and your friend says no i wasn't and and then they they're doubling down on the narcissist narrative how long do you now try to enable the friend the friends got to go do their work you have already been embattled by this relationship you can't go out there and run narcissist victim survivor camp like you've got to you can you can go in there once and say hey they got to you the way they got to me and then the friend says to you i i actually i believe them now you're no i'd i think at that point going back in there more is not good for you but having that initial having that initial discussion yes unless the friend has stonewalled you then you're sunk right so the stonewalling is a big sign of they've really they it's almost like a cult they're all in on the cult and i think that you're absolutely right we can have and i do think we do need to have compassion for people who are getting sucked in by the narcissist them themselves the difference here is that this person knows you right and so they still and i guess you're right there's the heartbreak around wow like because many people will say you know i got played too because that smear campaign the flying monkeys they'll do it to you while you're in the relationship so you're in a relationship with them and they'll say hey you know your sister's been saying this about you or your friends are really rude to me or they'll start speaking badly about family members friends colleagues now that's the narcissistic game of isolation the more they isolate you the more they can gaslight you the less support you have the less because you have less support you have less i don't power is the right word but less strength in the relationship do we tend to see that in more severe and narcissistic relationships but going back to the original premise of what we've been talking about in terms of dating it's early in the relationship and the narcissist is questioning you wait why are you going out with your friends tonight like why aren't you going out with me if a person early in the relationship is trying to snap you out of spending time with your friends and the relationship because that if they cannot see that you have a life separate from theirs and they're and they're manipulating and guilting you and saying well aren't you that into me if you're choosing your friends over me friends and other social relationships are an essential part of a healthy human being and if somebody rolls up and says no it's all me it's all me cancel those plans can't i come along and it's early no it's the early it's the early even later i have to be frank with you yes obviously you're 10 years into a relationship and there's a family matter that's urgent and you have to say to your friends listen i gotta bail out today because we're having this problem at home sure but you're on your third date and it's uh you have plans with a bunch of friends on a thursday night standing plans you have and they say oh come on like why don't you want to spend time with me i guess you're not that into me say no my friends are really important to me and they say well i guess you're not that into me and say if that's how you're going to assess it then okay then i think we're going to have to part ways because my friends are really important to me do not your friends become a lifeline so early on they can manipulate you and to try to pull you away from your friends so yeah your friends could be vulnerable to a narcissist and be turned against you as well and we tend to see that down the line let's say a person gets married to a narcissist and they're in a 10 15 year marriage that narcissistic person can definitely get into the ears of in-laws and all of that because there's these longs there might be long-standing connections but if they early on try to say choose me why them i don't understand why you spend time with your friends you have to be able to say because they matter to me people say wow i just met this person i like them maybe i could put my friends on ice so i can spend time with this new person and i'm not meaning lisa if a person meets someone and you say i'm gonna i'm seeing my friends saying they're like oh that's totally cool i get it you know i love spending time with you um and then they say you know i'm going to be with a bunch of friends myself in that part of town hit me up and if we can maybe you and your friends are done at 10 30 and you say you know my friends i'm heading home and they're like i'm at this bar near you would you like to get together but they've held space for you to be with your friends that's a different game and is it when you let's say are saying like hey look now i'm gonna spend time with my friends this is really important to me i've heard you say about how narcissists when they don't feel special that's like their big trigger correct and so your friends in essence are more special to them that they feel entitled to all of your time but it's also a control and dominance it's that boundary testing am i going to be able to get them to say no to their friends are they going to pick me and when you do that now they're like there's another place i know that i can control them more if you hold your ground and say no i'm going to choose my friends early on it's conceivable a narcissistic person may end the relationship at that point and actually speaking of ending a relationship so we started this episode with the beginning of relationship and now ending um is there a better way like is it better for you to be the one that is initiating initiating the ending or the narcissist believe it or not even though it may not feel this way the best thing that can happen is if they end the relationship the key is for you to not go chasing after them and nobody ever likes to be broken up with especially if you're sort of feeling it but you've just sort of avoided a whole world of hurt what we know is especially over time not maybe not in the first few days but three months and six months and even a year in the the period when if you end the relationship with the narcissist that what we call that post-separation period can actually be the most risky at times dangerous and definitely the most psychologically difficult time of a narcissistic relationship because they feel abandoned they feel like they've lost control they feel like someone got something over them they will punish you text you obsessively stalk you stalk you on social media smear campaign try to suck you back in they'll have days they say you're the best you're the worst they go back and forth they become really agitated it can actually be terrifying and so when you end it with them you're going to be much more likely to experience that kind of dysregulated agitation if they end it with you you've got to be steadfast and really i always tell people make a list of every terrible thing that happened here you need to look at that list before you go chase this thing down right many times we want the thing we can't have that's human nature but to fight against that human nature and say they just did you a favor by leaving because now you can move on with your life but unfortunately because of how trauma bonding works a lot of people get lost in that love bombing excitement someone else is going to get that now how can that be i want that i don't want someone else to get them and so people will take them back that also lets the narcissist know it's like oh once i step away now i can go back and kind of get away with a lot it's a really dangerous precedent so you're better off i mean better off obviously you can't fool somebody but um better off for them to end the relationship when you want them to end the relationship set boundaries so you're setting boundaries you're not giving in to their stuff you're not playing their ground game early in the relationship early they're not going to like that they can't control you they can't dominate you they're not winning that's not they're probably going to go find someone else they may even overlap nobody likes being cheated on and i know i can sit here and it's easy for me to say well you just dodged a bullet and great nobody thinks of it that way they view that new person as a replacement they think that other person is better than them and and i get that like it's it's it is i'm ridiculous if i think i can sit here oh you're lucky that they found someone else no your heart's broken you feel gross that they went and chose someone else but if you want them to go set boundaries they'll leave do you think that there's a moment though where you're kind you are conflicted because it's like that point of what we were saying earlier about feeling alone especially if they've gone to find somebody else there is that part of it if you're already insecure if the narcissist has already kind of worn you down that that makes you feel not good enough that that is a reflection of who you are yep absolutely because i think that you are again it's a tipping point early on and i i lisa the thing i want to reiterate is i think that the narrative we hold is that people who get into narcissistic relationships are broken people they're they're not they have no self-esteem and they have low self-confidence and they come from really awful toxic families all untrue i cannot tell you the number of people i've talked with who are saying you know when i met this person i was the top of my game i was in the best shape of my life i was loving my career i had friends i had a great place to live like i no wonder i was so attractive because i was in this great place right so this isn't the story of the the sort of the shrinking violet the broken winged bird that the narcissist takes advantage of this isn't the person with daddy issues some of these people say i love my parents have a great marriage i have a close-knit family like it wasn't that so we want these tidy little explanations but no it's actually because narcissistic people are charismatic and charming and compelling and confident all the things we're told are attractive and a partner when you're feeling at the top of your game that person's going to be attractive too they initially mirror back some of the best parts of yourself and then they start cutting those parts off alicia was going to say how do you go from that then because you as you were painting this picture of this person i was like oh well a narcissist wouldn't be able to get through to them because they're already confident [Music] you're you're you're the bomb like look how good we look together you know i'm starting this massive company i'm going to be a trillionaire like i just i've got all these connections i work all the time but like i live big i think big like they're going on in this whole grandiose flight of fancy they're attractive they seem to be driving a nice car like they've got that front game like they look good or lisa or it could be the flip side you're at the top of your game you meet someone you're attracted to and they're kind of down on their luck like you know i have these big dreams but you know things things haven't launched for me they haven't gone the way i wanted i thought i had investors i didn't or i thought you know i got into this school and i had this problem blah blah blah whatever and you may have had your own bumps in the road and now you're doing well and you're thinking oh i want to encourage them because i would have wanted someone to do that for me and from a very empathic place it's not always the flashy person sometimes it's a person who's a little down on their luck an empathic person will identify with that and say things are going well in my life i want to pay that forward and you may get lost in the in the you know the bottomless pit of trying to rescue a more vulnerable narcissist so it can play out both ways what are the acts of a vulnerable narcissist initially they're not going to look resentful and sullen all the things they are they're going to look down on their luck they're going to look a little sad maybe even socially anxious and awkward so if you do have empathy you might say ah this person is just in fact you would never even think narcissist they're not grandiose they're pretentious they're kind of anxious and awkward and and say ah yeah i had all these big dreams but none of it worked out or and you keep hearing that you i see somebody whose dreams were thwarted it might take you a few weeks to recognize everything's always someone else's fault nothing ever works out for them everyone's out to get them you start noticing that but you might have already started buying into their narrative by then wow so is that all applied to if it's like a parent or someone in your family what do you mean by that so for instance like all these things that we're talking about about how a narcissist shows up and so if you've been brought up in a family where you have someone there's a narcissist and you've had the flying monkeys being in your family and you've tried to really build your self-esteem you've really tried to build yourself but you still keep getting your family um who is making gaslighting you who is making you how do you still um suggest the same actions on stepping back putting up those boundaries what's so hard for some people who come from narcissistic family systems where all these dynamics exist right the power the domination the control the manipulation all of that stuff's happening within the family and a person feels they can't grow they're gaslighted they're confused but they managed a distance from the family and they do whatever it is they do and they start to succeed they start feeling more whole and and and separate maybe they move across the country or across the world whatever it may be but then they have contact with that family system again or those people keep reaching in and they'll feel like the family's like kryptonite they'll say as long as i'm away from these folks i'm doing fine but then i talk to my family and they're passive aggressive or they poke fun at me or they um they literally are mean to me to my face or tell me i'm just you know i i don't deserve what i get whatever it is they say or gaslight me or tell me i'm not all that or do i even know what i'm talking about whatever it is it will make a per it'll fill the person with self-doubt right away so yeah the play is disengagement boundaries not always easy with a family of origin depending on culture depending on not wanting to feel alone or isolated saying you know uh this is my family but on my family then what's left but if you keep staying in that dance with them i always view a narcissistic family as like those those big sand those sandbags you put on a hot air balloon to keep it down that they'll keep your balloon down the only way your balloon is going to fly is if you if you throw toss those bags down that means distancing and disengaging from your family wow have you seen any or ever met people who have been brought up in a narcissistic family and then follow that pattern they take it into like their dating world and maybe marriage long-term relationship and they're not actually able to identify that it's been narcissism throughout their entire life all the time all the time i mean the only way i can describe that is indoctrination if you grow up in a cult it's pretty natural to go into another cult or stay in the cult right and so when you grow up with it it's it's your eye it's your version of normal and especially if that narcissistic family isolated you but on top of that the narcissistic you might be ashamed so you're like oh other families seem different than mine but kids don't question the parents in our parents or parents and a narcissistic family system really never allow their children to develop their own sense of self they project a lot of shame on them if you have needs if you have feelings emotions anything the narcissistic parents will shame you for having those how dare you expect something of us you owe us that kind of thing so with that mindset you go into adult relationships feeling like you have to earn love you have to give up your needs your needs are secondary to the other person's so you recreate that cycle and so there are people who stay in that narcissism haze literally for their entire lives from the day they're born until the day they die that's not that's not unusual at all and it's tragic yeah is there any way to um help someone like if you notice that someone in your life is actually with someone um in a narcissistic relationship and maybe you've identified exactly what you just laid out so if you someone dear to you could be a sibling could be a friend anyone it's going through this the last thing you want to do is hit them over the head with it and say your boyfriend's a narcissist right they're gonna make what and they'll actually they might even distance from you especially if they're still very trauma bonded inside the relationship what you may want to start with is say always check in with somebody say hey are you okay like it you you seem it's it seems that things have been a little different and difficult for you i'm just checking in give them the door to share what's happening in their life they may then start sharing patterns in their relationship i don't know it's sort of like i can never get it right with and they'll give you the whole litany of things listen to them and then say you know it's so interesting i'm hearing a pattern here and i'm a little bit worried because they don't really seem to have that much empathy for you and it seems to be their way or the highway you build the pattern out yeah yeah yeah and that at that point you might want to say listen i don't know if this is what's happening but give them a resource that resource could be anything it could be this episode or dr romani's podcast my podcast my my youtube episodes i've done with you a book say listen i don't know if this is what's happening but give this a look if it fits great if it doesn't great right don't shove the agenda meanwhile you're thinking ten alarm flyer fire narcissist and then they may read it they may not um and maybe they will and they might say wow this is my life how did this person read my mind i get this all the time people say do you have a camera in my house are you watching my like sweetie i can't make my own cameras we're capsule time so no i don't have a camera in your house but um in many cases i'd say over half the person will say and maybe they'll get into therapy maybe they'll open up to you more i would say that though as a friend or a supporter you can't have an agenda i know your hope might be they get out of this relationship and you feel disappointed if they don't sometimes the best you're going to be able to do is be a support to this person and say i'm here and if they finally say yeah i agree i read these books this article watch the video whatever i agree i don't know what to do you don't want to say okay all right this is what we're going to do you're going to say i get that this is going to be a step-by-step process i'm here if you want to talk about it be that place where you can be the anti-gas light for them when they say something say this happens say yeah it sounds like he was gaslighting you i you know that you this is a reality check this thing you said happened i was there at that dinner i saw it happen and now little by little millimeter by millimeter that person gets more and more strength they start getting a little more resolved perhaps over time they get into therapy maybe they will leave maybe they won't but maybe you'll still at least see them get a little bit stronger as their friend and supporter you can't get invested in the outcome all you can be invested in is being a good friend to them and i also say that with sort of an asterisk saying that and sometimes you'll feel like you're burning out saying oh my gosh how many times are we going to go on this merry-go-round and to those friends i'll say sometimes forever they may not get out and they have their reasons but you may be that ray of sunlight that's coming in through the crack in the in the prison be that ray of sunlight because different people make different deals with the devil i don't get to sit here and say the only path forward is to get out different people make different deals with the devil that really hit me yeah it's so when i think about the friend who's trying to help their friend and guide them um i think there is always that beauty in the heart of what they're trying to do right so it's like maybe they've gone through it themselves maybe they've gone through the narcissistic relationship they realize how difficult that was and now they see the signs right they maybe see some of the red flags and your friend goes on this first day asks all the questions that we just started this episode with and now your friend actually has a different perspective though so let's say you think you haven't seen any red flags and your friend is highlighting all the red flags because they truly want what's good for you right they've gone narcissistic relationship they really care for you and now at what point can you actually trust yourself versus trusting somebody else who's also been there so it's not even just like you don't know what you're talking about like do you have a way of like is it always a self-assessment first taking what your friend says as um like and just explore and not always take it as potential truth well i think that the best any friend can do is say for example that example i gave you isolating someone they pathologize what do you mean you're gonna spend time with your friends what do you mean you're gonna do your family what do you mean you're going to that work event whatever that is a a pattern you highlight that's always an unhealthy pattern does that make sense are there some things that are absolutes right a person is chronically late you know that you're the you're being left your friend is waiting in the restaurant half an hour 45 minutes an hour that's a sign one time sure we can cut everyone some slack there but that person didn't learn and say okay i am going to allow way much more time than i need to get there even if i that person has to sit there and wait so i'm not late for this person again if they're not learning that those there's some things that are very much absolutes but that point at which people pose you there for a second wouldn't that be just like insensitive like actually in those moments that's how i would have perceived it i wouldn't have perceived it as an absolute trait of a narcissist see i wouldn't i'm not saying it's an absolute trait of narcissism i think that all we can do is cobble together these soft signs and put them together so you may be in a relationship with someone who is sweet as can be warm kind compassionate and they're always late okay great when they get there that then implies to me there's an open door to have the conversation saying just want to ask you something like we keep saying six you keep showing up at seven what is it what's happening can i understand this and they might say ah i'm in this job where it's hard to get out the door say should we start saying seven and then you say seven and they're on time right so all this becomes data now if if the person is narcissistically late as i call it and you say listen you're chronically late and they start coming at you like oh really who made you the time police and aren't you just so much better you know i'm really actually i'm really busy and i have an important job so if you think like getting here for a glass of wine is so important that's narcissistic minimizing your minimizing your need instead of recognizing a person saying i am and and also not getting in touch so that hour late person who's saying once again my my boss is catching me out the door um i am so so sorry i understand if you have to go is there a place i can meet you halfway like there's a very self-aware next time i i am so sorry we can't i won't set such an early time there's a self-awareness and it corrects and you feel like you can communicate but when you communicate and you're met with this anger and this this rage and this defensiveness now this insensitivity has become a problem and i think you say is it threes so it's like three yeah what was that the first time it's it's an incident the second time it's a coincidence and the third time it's a pattern so in things like this it would be notice the patterns notice always the patterns oh because i think a lot of people will say come on when we're first meeting someone there's always things that are a little wonky i don't disagree right we do something awkward maybe that's the day the freeway is closed whatever it may be right and we don't want to text in the car we don't have our phone set up right or our phone's in the backseat or whatever the issue is is that there is some reason we communicate about it and we are aware of it and we ensure it doesn't happen again all of that stuff happens early on so you and then from that after that first time they're oh so late it's not that anymore and they are on time and they're very communicative and they're very warm and respectful and kind you write that off as sort of the first date glitch life happens kind of thing the justification of patterns they're always late they're always talking over you they're always criticizing your friends or your work or making fun of what you do consistently doing that that's a pattern and if it's happening when they're supposed to be on their best behavior then you're in trouble that's so true would you suggest someone starts writing these down because you know like we said earlier you start to kind of think is this just me am i imagining it is it all in my head like um am i gaslighting myself so like would you suggest people start to write that down when you start to get that uncomfortable feeling it's almost like a um i don't want to say like like to show the validity in there but to kind of go back and it's like okay it's not my imagination yes i actually wrote that they are they are late three times they did insult me four times that they were like this like do you suggest something like that yeah so i would journaling is is to me a backbone of a healthy life and there's so many different ways people can journal people can do what i call the dear diary format like dear diary today i got into an argument with my co-worker and the proposal got did end up getting accepted and i went to the this place for restaurant and i had a date in this i think there's the dear diary format there is there there's gratitude journaling there's joy journaling there is but i think if you are starting to date someone and it's new write stuff down patterns good and bad you know really start journaling that because if you're lucky by date three or four the bad stuff is sort of um they ordered their steak well done and that's their great sin or they ordered chicken fingers and listen you might say i can't be with someone order chicken fingers okay then that's on you all right but evie um [Music] but you'll notice that the things you're noticing like wow i'm really grasping at straws i really enjoy this person's company they're lovely they're warm but then you may you know it also though the things you're noticing is that this person isn't consistently available like they they'll respond a lot and then they'll go silent and they'll give an explanation so here's the thing lisa this is where it gets interesting you're with somebody they're communicative they're responsive then a period comes and three days they go radio silent and then they show up again you get really frustrated over those three days on that fourth day they say i'm in this funny job where there are periods of time i can't communicate with anyone they made no effort to say hey i'm going into a three day period where i can't they didn't do that you then get to ask yourself am i comfortable with somebody who's disinconsistently communicative rather than oh well they had a good reason what works for you it's okay to say three days of radio silence doesn't work for me you because i think we don't give ourselves permission to say there are some things that don't work for me we think that that's not nice you don't have to share those with other people some people might say i don't want to date someone with kids that's fine then don't some people might say i don't want to date someone who eats meat that's fine then don't i don't want to date somebody who doesn't communicate for days at a time that's fine then don't be clear on that early on because i think that when it comes to some more obvious things like having kids or something like that that's clear right and it's understandable whatever but the things about like well they have a really demanding job you have to say to yourself are you so besotted with them having this high-powered job that you're willing to squelch whatever discomfort you have with somebody who goes silent and doesn't tell you when that's going to come you have to have that balancing act of what does and what doesn't work for you and i think a lot of us don't feel that we have the right to say there's some things that don't work for us oh my god it's so true and i think if you don't do that you said earlier about like a microscopic thing it's like well it's fine and then you go okay they act like this they're late well it's fine and you end up kind of agreeing to these small things that you think in the moment isn't a big deal but then a year two years three years down the line that's kind of gotten bigger and bigger of the things that you're saying it's fine too and what we can call it justification justification yeah right it's you you start with a little one and literally well they've been out of touch for three days uh they you know they're cancelled plans at the last minute a lot it's okay it's okay where when when when does it stop being okay give you an example two people say well that's rigid is it rigid i've worked with people for example who do have kids and so they'd say well sometimes i have my kids sometimes i don't i'm trying to date so the nights i don't have my kids are the only times i could have dinner with somebody i don't have the seven night free schedule so when they change plans i can't do it okay then that's not gonna work for you done finished and that's the the unwillingness to say well i'm going to make it work and then over time this person's hiring sitters and turning their schedule upside down and getting into arguments with the co-parent and and throwing they're throwing their entire schedule off to suit this person when they recognize somebody who's this flaky with the schedule is just simply not going to work for them you've got to know yourself and i think that too many people in particular women aren't socialized to say there are some things here that are simply not going to work i think too many people are given the discourse of ooh you're just lucky you found someone no you're not you're deserving it's not that you're lucky you found someone you would you deserve to say if i'm going to construct an intimate relationship i need to make sure that there's elements about this that work and in narcissistic relationships we justify and justify and justify a many many different things not even just this practical stuff but abruptness and they'll say they might even apologize and that's why it's so tricky that they'll be really abrupt to you one night really brutal hurt your feelings and the next they'll say i had a really i had a terrible day with my boss oh okay well they didn't mean it they said terrible and that is more of that testing because now you're justifying rather than saying you know if this is how this person behaves when they have a tough day with their boss this may not work for me oh my god so i love that because here's the thing that is one of the most important things why i started this show was why i show up every single day is how as women do we hold our own power do we look at the world and say okay is this something that i want is this something i don't want being able to take action being able to take one friend and put one foot instead in front of the other and say this is the life i want and i have the power to be able to do that and so having you on being able to talk about all these things to me gives the person listening that person right now that feels like a freaking stark with the power back to actually have all the information to then say okay this is how i will approach it if i'm finding myself in the first day this is how i can approach it if it's someone in my life the thought of feeling powerless girl scares the [ __ ] out of me and is exactly why i show up every day right and narcissistic relationships by definition leave a person powerless why because when someone overpowers you something's got to give and we give up our power to me from that perspective is why for women in particular i hate narcissistic relationships because women struggle enough to have their power in society these relationships sap them and society is increasingly narcissistic so just having to be in the world these days means we have to give up a lot of power so when you add that into the mix you add these intimate relationships or even work relationships that are characterized by narcissism what happens is we keep giving over more and more and more of ourselves and then we stop believing in ourself because we cease to believe we have any power in this world why would we why would we believe we have power because the fact of the matter is is that in order to keep that relationship going you had to give all of it away yeah um i mean doing these shows with you has taught me so much and i was telling you before we started rolling how many women come up to me literally go and they just burst into tears when they see me because of these episodes that we do together and they start telling me their story of how they felt powerless and having watched one of these interviews have then allowed them to take their power back to leave that relationship but then it doesn't stop there they then talk about all the ways in which it's changed their lives completely in their business in their relationships with their friends in um in their work relationships with their colleagues and so it is incredible of how much a narcissist a narcissistic person in your life can freaking um splinter so much of the things oh absolutely because we've got to remember is that you end up giving away so much of yourself in the relationship that it is it affects all areas of your life and i it actually sickens me to think of how much lost potential in women in particular there has been because of narcissistic relationships the number of women who have been silenced i got to tell you the number of great ideas we haven't heard because these women didn't feel that they had the right to share them to enact their ideas for businesses for careers for how what what they could bring into the world because they were so silenced so the world has suffered from people being so crushed by these relationships this isn't i mean we started again talking about dating and all the love bombing and all that stuff that happens yeah sure that that's one way to view it but when we take the much bigger wider lens view the drone's eye view on this this is actually a massive tragedy because it's nothing but lost potential of people who have been silenced by these relationships sometimes for lifetimes and i can't tell you how many survivors i have worked with whose lives were thwarted and i don't necessarily mean it's because they wanted to start the next great big company but who just simply felt silence and we just didn't even get to feel their presence in the world because they cut themselves out of the world so much like these are beautiful spirits who got silenced and i personally have had it i am tired of watching this many people's potentials being cut down by a bunch of people insecure and narcissistic people who can't stand that somebody else belongs on that stage amen sister every time i have you on i'm like how can we impact the world and so with this episode it very much was to everything you just said is well where's the starting point like maybe if we can catch people like there's different phases but if we can potentially catch people before they even enter the relate the narcissistic relationship um what are those things so thank you so much for allowing me to start there and then taking us through all these different um situations and um circumstances that people may find themselves in because if you're able to catch them before you start it that can be very powerful because now you're not only helping them in the now you're actually helping the in ten years from now that they're not having to unwind all the ten years of being in a narcissistic relationship um but you even said even people who are in the 60s and the 70s that it's it's never too late it's never too late i got an email from somebody who was 80 years old she said i left this marriage and it is never too late because we don't need to look life is this big totality i've lost these 30 years if you spent 30 days living fully authentic and in your truth and in yourself and and in reality that is yours and not dictated by somebody else that you're that you feel like you can respect your own point of view then that's that's the moment you're in right then and there and everything else has been a teacher and a lesson so i think a lot of people say well it's too late for me now it's never too late if you you would be amazed at how even sharing one story could help somebody else to know that everyone sharing their stories means that people feel less alone because most people who are in these relationships they feel foolish you didn't do anything wrong in fact your big sin was having empathy and trying to understand another person's point of view it's the other person the narcissistic person who took advantage of your empathy and your trust that's actually very powerful like you really saying that because i i wonder how many people beat themselves up for years about wasting or they feel like they've wasted years of their life so now it's almost like you've doubled down in the wasting of your life yep because they said well now it's you you're sorting you know good money after bad at that point or bad money after good whatever whichever order it's in but it's the um but i think that the uh that people do feel that time was wasted and i say you know what we learn our lessons the way we learn our lessons and you can view the experience sadly and unfortunately as a teacher i mean listen lisa a lot of life is luck right some people get lucky they even they come out of these terrible narcissistic families they meet someone kind and they fall in love and they have a nice life some people come out of great families they meet a narcissistic person and make a mess of their lives so there is a piece of luck in there if you will but then above and beyond that when people end up in these spaces to recognize you did learn something and if you really take in the lesson you learn and you really pay attention to it and don't deny it and don't say well that was just an exception and you're willing to be with it you can learn you know your resolute to your why's you see the world more clearly some people feel like oh isn't that more cynical i don't know that it's cynical i mean i think it's actually quite wise you can i think people who want to believe that the world is always this warm fuzzy place listen i'd love to live in that warm fuzzy world i never have so i don't know what that is i think um just having your own back i don't think we're teaching people that enough i think from a very early age like everyone's good and everyone's great and no not now it's not that's not the time of history we're in right now so you need to have your own back and in our and everybody's quest for a love story they're not starting with the fundamental need of loving and respecting themselves with survivors i sit them down and say as hard as this is what did you learn what did you learn and that's not a question i ask for someone in the early phases of survival because i think they're angry they're hurt it's probably not the time to do that but as some of the initial grief dissipates and the person's doing more of the sort of the the work on managing the anxiety and the sadness it is time to then start looking at the meaning and purpose questions right that there is meaning and suffering so what what what was the meaning what did you learn and the answers are things from i'm more resilient than i thought i figured out how to work the family court system i never dreamed i'd be able to do something like that i um i'm more financially savvy than i ever dreamed um i didn't quite even understand what empathy was and apparently i've got a lot of it um i'm now much more comfortable with my solitude because all i craved was that the narcissist wouldn't come home from work and now i'm like oh solitude isn't so bad whereas i used to be afraid to be alone like the list goes on and on of what people actually learn what their capabilities really are because what does a narcissistic person do they really keep reminding a person you're no good without me you're nothing without me i think for some people they'll say i was once i once i was once successful i once did this thing and i can go i'd like to dust that off and go back to that or you know what some people say listen to me there's sometimes the most poignant moments they'll say look at my kids i love my kids these kids came from that not so nice person in me and they don't know that i want another child and this child this child had to be in the world and some people say the world needs my child and that child this is the part of my journey was this child getting to you know me getting to have this journey with them and them getting to have their journey in the world and so people go to this existential place with it i know people who said in order to calm the narcissist down i had to learn to cook like a chef now i'm a really good cook and now i'm going to go back and i'm going to go to culinary school and and firm up my training on this or i'm going to start a catering service um i know people who say i'm teaching survivors of domestic abuse how to cook i'm teaching them financial planning so they give it to women who have been harmed even maybe physically also by these relationships and so people are finding ways to pay it forward to to learn to pay their to pay their lessons to others but also to take back their lives it's it's quite possible but it means you can't get lost in that concept of sort of wasted time i don't know that there's wasted time sometimes you learn resilience because you say if i could have lasted that for 20 years i can do anything homie i freaking adore you you are impacting so many people you were freaking changing lives i love every moment that i spend with you and now i'm so excited for your new podcast that's come out if you can share where people can find the podcast i hope people listen it's called navigating narcissism you can you know i'll make the link available to you but you can find it anywhere you listen it's on iheartradio so go to their platform but you can find it anywhere you get your podcast and subscribe our epis this is very different than my youtube it's me talking with survivors of all kinds of narcissistic relationships some that people are familiar with because they've been in the headlines there have been documentaries about them these are people who have survived everything from uh con men con women um cults uh abusive marriages you name it we are taking on stories where you might say well that's not my story you may think it's not but once you start hearing them sharing those common themes of narcissistic relationships you think holy cow like this is all of these relationships are are this and so um i also for those folks who are interested in healing from narcissistic abuse i have a healing program and you make that link available to you too and um and people can sign up and it's a monthly program and you get workshops and question and answer and journal prompts and guided meditations and all kinds of things to help people dial down into their healing on a monthly basis wow we'll put all the links below honestly i can't get enough of dr romney i'm just saying guys guys go freaking check out this woman if you haven't like seen her before where have you been literally this woman is everywhere she's creating so much freaking impact one person at a time so guys go freaking check her out her stuff is amazing if you're not subscribed what are you doing press the subscribe button because guys you'll get notified of all new episodes just like this and if this episode brought you value please please do share let your homies know that women of impact is here and creating impact alright guys until next time be the hero of your own life peace being vulnerable isn't me telling you the same insecurity 10 times a day that's not vulnerability that's dumping i'm making you responsible for for my emotional state every time i feel it that's not the same thing as vulnerability vulnerability is i'm insecure about this

Channel: Lisa Bilyeu

Views: 1,966,754

Keywords: Dr. Ramani, Dr. Ramani Durvasula, Lisa Bilyeu, Radical Confidence, Women of Impact, Impact Theory, narcissists, narcissistic abuse, what is a narcissist, narcissistic behavior, how to deal with a narcissist, signs of a narcissist, narcissistic relationship, narcissistic people, healthy relationship, unhealthy relationships, feeling safe, surviving narcissist, getting out of narcissistic relationship, trauma, signs of an unhealthy relationship, toxic relationships, dating, love

Id: Al40kQUn9V0

Length: 96min 4sec (5764 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 03 2022