Transcript for:
Coping with Narcissism in Relationships

there is so much content out there about how to spot a narcissist what do you do once you realize you either have a parent who's one or you're in a relationship with somebody people don't like the suggestion I'm about to make and I'm aware they don't like it and I don't care I'm going to make it which is what I call O these Dynamics this relationship is not going to change it's not that you're agreeing with their behavior it's that you're leading into the understanding that this is it what's step two and this is the worst part of this whole process is what we lose in these relationships is ourselves our entire sense of self authenticity you need to be comfortable with yourself it's hard for somebody like me because you know Dr Romney I'm like but anybody can change anyone can change the narcissistic person won't change hey it's Mel I'm so so glad you're here with me today it is such an honor to spend some time with you right now and I just want to acknowledge you for choosing to listen to something that will help you create a better life I think that's super cool and I love spending time with you if you're a new listener to the Mel Robin show Welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast family I'm Mel Robbins I'm on a mission to empower and inspire you with tools and the expert resources that you need to create a better life and one thing that can really trip rip you up is having to deal with a difficult person I mean just think about what a pain in the rear end it is because all it does is take one person who's abrasive or mean or negative or has a short temper to ruin your day I mean don't even get me started about some of the jerks that are on planes these days in fact just a couple days ago I was coming back from a trip with our son Oakley and this guy sitting behind us and a woman standing in the aisle broke out in a screaming match and the woman went and took a swing at the guy and she ended up hitting my son Oakley instead luckily the woman not only missed the guy that she was swinging at but she merely just grazed Oakley and that's when Mama Bear Mel Robbins jumped up and was like all right that's enough you two calm down enough of this and boom they did now the thing about strangers being difficult is that you know when the fight is over and everybody calms down it's easy to shake them off because it's a stranger and you're going to walk off the plane and you're never going to have to see that person again but what if the difficult person is your mother or one of your kids or your boss or H your ex they're long gone but you still have to see them all the time because you guys are co-parenting your kids together oh my God or the difficult person is your part partner I mean cutting this person out of your life isn't an option and when you walk off the plane they're going to follow you so the question is how do you keep your mindset positive how do you keep your goals your priorities your happiness front and center and not let a difficult person in your life rock you well today you're going to learn from a renowned psychologist professor and best-selling author for how to stay in your power and your purpose no matter who you have to deal with in your life or what mood they happen to be in today and boy oh boy are you going to love this and all those difficult people they have no idea what's about to hit them because as much as I hate to admit this you and I both know there's a lot of toxic behavior that we both have to deal with in our day-to-day life whether it's someone who's passive aggressive or they give you the silent treatment or they speak to you in a disrespectful tone of voice or they're constantly erupting because they can't deal with their emotions or someone who makes you feel like a doormat well our expert today is going to teach you how to not only deal with these situations but also how to heal from the damage that they can cause you so whether you're dealing with a friend whose behavior is toxic or you're reeling from the impact of a narcissistic ex you're going to get the tools tactics and Decades of research from the world renowned expert and clinical psychologist Dr Romany dersa the title of her newest best-selling book is it's not you and she's also the host of the hit podcast navigating narcissism now I absolutely love Dr Romany and I want to tell you a little bit about her and the impact that she's made on my life before we hop into the conversation now I first met her years ago when she appeared as an expert on my daytime talk show and she has taught me absolutely everything that I needed to know about narcissism now before I met Dr Romany I didn't know anything about the subject I just knew that I had this person in my life who was extraordinarily difficult because they have a very narcissistic personality Style and what I've learned from Dr Romney has not only helped me heal from this situation it has helped me have extremely healthy boundaries with this person and it has been night and day in this relationship ever since and here are some of the top three things that I have personally learned from Dr Romany that have helped me number one narcissism is a type of Personality that can be especially difficult to deal with because somebody with this personality really does believe that everything is about them the second thing that I learned that helped me a lot is understanding that the person that's like this wasn't born this way see a narcissistic personality is developed because of childhood trauma or because of a parenting style where the parent makes the child believe that they are better than everybody else that they are entitled you know people like this and the third thing that I learned from her is that a narcissist will never ever ever ever change because they don't want to and that's kind of a hard thing to accept and it's why you need to focus on changing how you deal with them and that's the single biggest takeaway that I have learned from Dr Romney which is that for years I felt so much pain around difficult people because I thought I was doing something wrong and I also being a reasonable person couldn't understand why would this person act this way why why wouldn't they change when they can see how much this hurts me when I'm asking them to do things and it wasn't until she taught me that he here I am realizing hoping that a difficult person would change that hope was actually keeping me from changing holy cow Dr Romney flipped the script on me and she's going to do the same thing with you today and she is here with the tools Decades of research and takeaways that have made her one of the leading experts on narcissism and difficult personalities on the planet she is going to tell you exactly what you need to do when you're dealing with somebody that's very difficult and do me do me a favor as you listen will you please be generous in sharing this episode with people that you love anyone in your life that's dealing with a difficult person they've been complaining to you about it or you're seeing it happen and it bothers you whether that's somebody at work or you think they're definitely dating a narcissist send them this episode because it will not only give them the resources and expert counsel that they need but it will wake them up to the reality of the situation that they're in and that is the single greatest gift that you could give them all righty you ready I know I am so let's jump in Dr Romany I'm so excited that you're spending so much time with us because your new book it's not you I feel like this is the book the world needs because there is so much content out there about how to spot a narcissist but not enough information about what do you do once you realize you either have a parent who's one or you're in a relationship with somebody and understand the impact has on you yeah you know it's funny you say that because that even when I think back in the making of the book listen we go online that it's almost like it's more sexy content to talk about the the why why do they do this why do they do that what's this what are the five signs of identifying a narcissist that's the that's sort of the hot content but the problem is is that it keeps digging people into a hole once again we're more fascinated by them than we are with not only how this is affecting us but who are we because we had to hide ourselves in order to stay in these relationships this idea of the tale of the Hunt is always told by the hunter never the lion it is that the hunter always gets to tell the story and it's and the story of narcissism even in the annals of mental health books about narcissism I've always been about the narcissist it's interesting you use the word hunt it feels very deliberate yeah and so as you're listening to Dr Romine in this conversation today I I I would love for you to set the table more about this proverb of the hunter versus the line so that the person listening can locate themselves inside of that Dynamic I think the proverb goes so deep right the tale of the Hunt is always told by the Hunter and never the lion is that there is a there's it can feel at the most extreme like a very predatory relationship predatory in the sense of they're stealing your sense of self they are making you exist for them and it is such a seamless quiet gradual transition that when you finally look up and realize whoa I am entirely living in their Psychological Service and to appease them you're like how the heck did this happen because I was actually a pretty autonomous person before I met this person I knew who I was I'm not even sure who I am anymore that's what I mean by the hunt they in essence are hunting your sense of self they are taking taking it and using it in their service and that's why that that proverb had such meaning and we always talk about it's always the hunter that gets to regil everyone with their tail let me tell you how I did this and let me tell you how I did that and I'm so heroic and I had to do this and this and this but we don't really talk about the experience of what it's like even when we're strong like a lion to be stalked and staked out and cornered and despite all our strength because they're using very different weapons than our Claws and muscles and all the things we've got too because they're using something as focused as a gun they will take us out that's why I'm I'm processing what you're saying and thinking about relationships in my own life where I have someone in my life who has a narcissistic personality style and I think there's a fundamental mistake that I'm sure everybody makes I know I've made it which is presuming that everybody thinks likes you presuming that everybody loves like you do presuming that everybody has the same level of self-awareness or intention and so you can be going about your life thinking that the people in your life are other Lions correct and yet they are viewing you very differently that's right that's exactly right and I love that you're also picking a proverb that represents us as a lion because you're right lions are very strong and the message in your book loud and clear it's not you is also that it is possible to recover and to heal 100% And when you're in the middle of the storm you think it's never going to stop raining this book is really that weather forecast that I promise you it will and even when you're in the middle of it there's things you can do to get yourself to that sunny day to your true sense of self well I really relate to the title it's not you because I think the most predominant thing that I've seen for myself in being in relationships with people with a narcissistic personality style or in listening very closely to a friend or a family member who is in one is that you do think it's you you think you're the problem or at least that's the way that I thought that if only I were a better this or a better that than this person would change and so understanding that it's not you that to me gives me a sense of hope that if it's not me then maybe if I focus on me I can heal from this that's exactly right and I think that too that the the the the mistake is maybe if I'm a better daughter better partner better mother better worker whatever better you know writer whatever that better is one wants to be the error is thinking that it will change them at best what it might do is make you a better source of Supply what do you mean by that I'm going to use the example A lot of people give me okay because we talk a lot about Partners let's talk about parents for a minute because even adult children are very much in the in the thrall of their narcissistic parents if only I did this I visited them more I called them more I did this more I did whatever it may be okay then because you remember you're on a Grail Quest that anyone who's had a narcissistic parent ever has that Grail Quest started in childhood right that's what's so kind of Insidious about people who are still struggling with narcissistic parents when they're adults you're still showing up with the finger painted picture when you were four saying like do you like my picture right now we're doing it with jobs and books and titles and look at my new house and look at my new car and look at this baby I had and you see a grandchilden right and and they're they're still not breaking out of their sort of selfish Haze which we don't equate with parents right so what happens is the child the child of the narcissistic parent modifies and shapes and tries to become what the narcissistic parent wants more quiet more tidy better tennis player better grades um more helpful around the house sometimes they're even the parents therapist they cheer the parent up parents not cheering them up by the way but they are like the parents life coach like you know everything well that's how you became a better source of Supply as a kid and a person has to do this as a kid as a child the child has no choice but to aede and give in the what the narcissistic parent apparently wants and needs basically subjugate themselves to the narcissistic parent because it's the only way that child is going to get the absolute essential attachment needs met that child needs a secure attachment and when that's not happening just because the parent is being a parent and the child has to modify themselves they will modify themselves because the the child doesn't have the luxury of saying oh my parents a narcissist so nothing I'm going to do is going to work they can't divorce the parent so they've got to modify themselves that builds up a muscle in the child and that muscle that gets built up in the child is that capacity to modify oneself to be what the other person needs to create an attachment so not only does that become a bad precedent once you start dating because then you are putty in the narcissistic person's hands you're shaping yourself to suit them you remain again in that way with a parent you continue to say whatever the equivalent of the finger painted picture is in adulthood and maybe I will show up more but it's never enough and if you did live next door to them then they'll have contempt for you of why are you taking so much of my time it's never enough and so what the person's trying to do in any narcissistic relationship including with a parent is we we think we're becoming better to change them when we keep becoming better we're just becoming better Supply we're giving them everything they want and what the narcissistic person wants is that we anticipate their needs read their minds be what they want never be a source of stress prop them up keep our needs and wants quiet and then boom you're the perfect source of Supply if you're raised by a parent that's narcissistic and conditioned in that way MH are you more susceptible to being in narcissistic relationships later in life you are you definitely are for for no other reason that you've built this muscle up that accommodation muscle as I call it right there's a flexibility a person needs to have and develop if they have a narcissistic parent or otherwise they're going to develop pretty severe mental health issues which does happen to a subset of folks but by and large what we see survivors of narcissistic abuse especially from childhood are very fible very accommodating because they had to for survival reasons Once Upon a Time now what I do not buy into is this idea that because a person has narcissistic parent or parents that they're more attracted to narcissistic people that's not the case what they're more likely to get is stuck in that relationship right narcissistic people are attractive to everyone charm Charisma shiny interesting curious confident rescuable whatever we need them to be they often are that thing but once it starts getting darker and there's a lot of devaluation the relationship becomes less healthy healthier people may be able to muster up in themselves like this does not feel good like I don't like this but the people who had the narcissistic parent are much more likely to say well this I I know this game right I you been making excuses for your parent for so long exactly so you the the the slide into the trauma bond is much much more seamless and it it happens automatically because the oh I just have to be more got it of course I have to earn love that makes sense so as an expert on this topic and a practicing clinician what are the signs that you have experienced narcissistic emotional abuse self-blame self-doubt confusion anxiety a sense of helplessness frustration powerlessness problems with sleep problems with concentration decrements or lack of self-care of any kind feeling selfish if you do anything for yourself being on edge being hypervigilant always ready to fix feeling you need to be you have to change yourself to please other people a sense of loneliness a sense of isolation a sense that you're you're weird that's just the short list wow and what is the first step if you're listening to this and you're going yep narcissistic parents or yep I survived a narcissistic spouse or I'm with one or I've been in a relationship with one and you're like I exhibit all those things like what's the first step that somebody needs to take in order to start to heal from that kind of damage you got to see it for what it is and so that takes us to the place of radical acceptance right radical acceptance is the awareness that this is not going to change by this I mean their behavior these Dynamics this relationship is not going to change number one number two part of radical acceptance is these things they do these hurtful things you radically accepting doesn't mean they're not going to hurt when somebody invalidates you that you believe you loved or are supposed to love when they invalidate you when they insult you when they criticize you when they shame you it will hurt so don't think that radical acceptance means that all of that goes away nor is radical acceptance It's not a magic pill doesn't mean it's all going to get better it's not that you're signing off on their behavior it's not that you're agreeing with their behavior it's that you're you're leaning into the understanding that this is it this is not going to change and then the summit of radical acceptance is this is not my fault but I'm great I'm glad when we can at least get the client to say okay this is not going to change why because it takes away one of the biggest barriers to Healing which is Hope hold on let me see if I understand what you're saying hoping that somebody that has a narcissistic personality style hoping that they can change that is the biggest barrier yes to you healing yep why because now your Psychological Resources are still invested in the idea of them changing so until we can get that off the table you are going to still have way too much of you invested in something that's never going to happen which means that there's not enough of you left to work on your healing your process of individuation your process of finally getting to you know live in in yourself rather than in service to them does that make sense it makes a lot of sense because for decades with a particular person in my life I hoped that they would change yes and I would twist myself in knots and show up differently and try a little bit harder and do this and do that and constantly think about it and what was always there in the background was the hope that things could be different correct and it wasn't until I met you three years ago or four years ago now and you said they are not changing period they're not even aware that they have this personality style and they don't care they don't care and there is nothing that you can do to change this and when you said that it was very interesting I could see it for what it was it's almost like you know when somebody says about themselves well I just am in the way that I am mhm and people in my life have always said well that person Mel is just the way that they are that's just who they are I could never accept that that because I wanted it to be different correct and you're right it was the hope that it could be better the hope that this person would change the hope that things could look different that kept me trying so much correct even though I think deep down I knew that it wasn't going to make a difference right mhm that is a sad ass statement yes it is that hope that somebody else will change is what keeps us from healing yeah would you agree with that that once the Hope got lifted for you do you feel like your healing preceded yeah yeah once I understood the situation for what it was like I was so amsh in the situation because it been going on for decades that I just couldn't even see the situation that I was in but when I started to understand more about narcissistic personality Styles based on you and some work with my therapist and I started seeing the behavior patterns and I stopped making it so personal and I extracted what I wanted and all my feelings and just saw it for what it is yep when this happens this person does this like you can start to predict it because you know it in terms of the patterns once I was able as much as I didn't want to and I think that's the other thing that we don't talk about a lot when it comes to narcissism is that you can understand all that but if you still somewhere in the back of your mind go but I don't want it to be that way you will forever be at the whim of that behavior and I wouldn't even say it's so much M that I don't want it to be that way is that I believe it could be different your situation I'm hearing from you is you don't want it to be this way no you don't the the the key the lifting of the hope the radical acceptance is it can't be any other way that's painful because I I I do think that's probably why we do stay in these relationships you think people stay because they think it can change well you're the expert why do people stay I mean I can tell you why I've been in this relationship for a long time but I think that that's part of it and but I I think that even when hope gets lifted or taken out radical acceptance comes people still need to stay and the reasons for that are often things like practical factors money shelter health insurance Family Court co-parenting minor children not wanting to share custody with someone who's not up to it but the courts don't care um it could be Duty and obligation it could be stigmas against divorce in within a cultural system there's so many other factors and the the challenges those factors are very real even when they don't feel real like Duty and obligation are still perceptions and constructs but they are very real it is challenging because to eradicate The Hope and that this is how it's going to be and yet you always have to be in it what happens then and this is the hardest part you say what's step one radical acceptance what's step two and this is the worst part of this whole process is grief because grief we when we think of the word grief we think of someone who's died right someone dies and we have grief they're no longer in our life we can't talk to them in the same way there is a loss they're not part of our routines in the same way that we think of grief as loss sometimes people will extend grief to a breakup or a or like a divorce or something like that but it matters here more than I've ever seen the word matter because not only is there a it's a loss sometimes it's a loss of a relationship some people do walk away from these relationships but what people lose when they give up the hope when they go to radical acceptances they lose a narrative they lose lose a sense of a future they lose a sense of belonging the hope is what was keeping this person going all these years and that's why even as a therapist I don't just go in there and pull the Hope out the goal is to build a huge scaffold around the client before the The Hope gets lifted so that then the person can sit in that because the grief is Monumental if Done Right healing done right means a Cascade of grief the likes of which you can't imagine because it's a grief that never really goes away you don't get a second back at childhood you don't get another parent a lot of these things don't get to happen again and so you're having to live with and these people have not died talk to anyone who's gone through a divorce from a narcissistic person who Until the End will say they're still I'm still attracted to them there's still a part of them I love but this was not good for me and I could see it and I saw it wasn't going to change and the Hope was gone and then that narcissistic person goes and meets someone new inside of the first week that's grief you know in the topic of Hope and radical acceptance um I think there's a bunch of things that you hope for you hope for a behavior change you hope that there's something that you can do that will somehow make things better you hope to feel loved yep and you also hope at times for an apology let's talk about that because that apology there's two things that really make the grief worse and narcissistic abuse the first is the lack of closure closure is that moment when it's the deathbed confession it's the I hurt you it's the I should have treated you better you deserve more whatever it was some awareness that they did wrong by you you're not going to get closure number one in a narcissistic relationship but the second piece and this is what really really harm survivors is the lack of Justice it's not fair these things feel un incredibly unfair the family continues to Rally around the narcissistic person and uphold them and save the best seat for them at the wedding the friends of you as a couple still stay friends with them despite them cheating on you seven times including with someone you knew the workplace just moves the narcissistic emotional abuser to another office and they get promoted the narcissistic uh emotional abuser who left you finds a new person who's 30 years younger than you and gets engaged inside a six months it doesn't feel fair and if you look at Judith Herman's work on her most recent book on trauma and healing she really talks about how Injustice is such an impediment to Healing from trauma we can heal from trauma so much better if the if the story around it feels just I hate to say it but if the narcissistic person fails Takes a Tumble um gets a public humiliation it makes healing so much easier I'm so happy you brought this up because it makes me think of somebody in my life who uh went through a divorce gosh close to a decade ago and she is still mhm hung up on the X yep the X was is moving in a girlfriend to the family house 20 years younger almost immediately lifelong friends now rallying around him she to this day cannot get over it MH and I have always looked at the situation and thought like this was 10 years ago you're not that weak of a human being you understand it you know that this spouse has a narcissistic personality style your kids know that this spouse has a narcissistic personality style you know that nothing is going to change and you just explain why she cannot let it go she can't let it go because it doesn't feel there's no justice no because you see I would argue your friend is fully radical acceptance she knows what he's about nothing he does surprises her correct right but the peace and the cognitive dissonance created by them continually being rewarded and rewarded that is a huge barrier to healing and there's actually no sort of magic piece to that I have said in the past listen the ultimate Justice is that they still have to be them but you know what to them if they're live in large with their much younger spouse in the house and the money's coming in they genuinely believe they've won and because the other person in the relationship had a full compliment of empathy and kindness and goodness and they feel the wounds the person who was harmed by the narcissist is hurt and Carries that as a real thing the narcissistic person just merely found new Supply which is all you were in the first place anyhow and it feels awful and there is no quick fix to that except to identify it as an injustice it's not that you need to get over it oh come on this that and the other it's this is real and it is and part of the radical acceptance process is how unfairly this narcissism thing plays out in the World At Large it's why I do what I do because frankly I'm tired of watching them get away with it and so people say come on Romany you're not going to stop a bunch of tech billionaires and all that from and their narcissistic selves from ruling the world I said that's never my goal I I use the products they they create right so but I'll tell you what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to steer people away from relationships with them they want to go out there and be the the the the Emperors of the universe great thank you for making my life a little bit more more convenient please don't hurt other like please stay away from them they're not relationship material they're make a fabulous app material and let's just keep them there okay because this is they're not made for this and so I think that it's really to keep people from getting in these relationships but the Injustice piece is one of the single greatest but that hope hope and Injustice hold people back and it can really make the grief a stumbling place to which you know again the loss of Hope the experience of grief the Injustice all fuel one of the major fallouts of narcissistic abuse which is rumination it never fails I always learn something from you I'm so grateful that you're here as you're listening to Dr Romney aren't you grateful she's here too and I want to take a short break to hear a word from our sponsors they allow me to bring this amazing information to you at zero cost don't you dare go anywhere we'll be right back welcome back I'm so glad you're here with me today I'm your friend M and I'm here with Dr Romani dersa she is the world's leading expert and researcher on narcissism we are talking about her brand new best-selling book it's not you and we're talking about the new research in that book let's talk a little bit about rumination because I think it's one of the most important things to understand about healing from narcissistic abuse it relates to the friend you just talked about absolutely rumination is can't stop thinking can't stop thinking now here's where rumination gets interesting one thing the research tells us even from the times of Charles Darwin we have argued that rumination has a function right it does what is it rum the function of rumination is a solution think on something long enough and you'll come to the solution right okay oh got it and then you do the thing and the rumination cries and you feel better the problem with narcissistic abuse is ruminate ruminate ruminate ruminate no solution ruminate no solution ruminate no solution so where many other ruminators are getting to Solutions the narcissistically abused ruminator just keeps hitting the same wall which fuels powerlessness and rumination without a solution is depression wow so you see what's happening is that that's why the survivors look they look depressed when they come into a clinician's office rumination is a central part of the depression profile in fact it you know Darwin and others have argued that all that rumination it actually leads the person to almost turn inward and becomes part of sort of the process of trying to find Solutions in depression but it gets the person stuck stuck stuck in the sleep right I I'm thinking about this person and they have isolated themselves exactly they uh are basically this once vibrant like amazing person is literally living a very very small life is stuck in the thinking the last time I saw this person uh she was thinking about what's going to happen at her daughter's wedding when the ex brings a new girl none of by the way the daughter's not even engaged and may never get married right but I'm saying you're exactly right because they're spinning their wheels in isolation on a problem that has no solution so it becomes depression so the the tricky bit is rumination is a key part of almost every mental health issue anxiety depression you name it but is it holds a unique spot for survivors of narcissistic abuse because they're going through something that most people don't understand not even a lot of therapists don't understand it but certainly they're friends a lot of people like come on get over it like he's a terrible guy you should be happy you're out of it but they don't feel happy find someone you can talk about this about so many times until you actually let it out probably the best place to do that is therapy I have clients I mean I think of some of my clients and they'll over and over say I feel like a loser I'm telling you this again I said you think you're telling me the same story but every time you tell it you've actually put another piece of it down I am hearing the difference you're not and it every time they tell the story we're putting another piece of it down to the point where they finally release it friends aren't always the best place to do it right because friends are like how many it I'm literally like I've heard about this crap for 10 years and you're in therapy and this is an issue and it makes me profoundly sad to see that this ex has moved on and it's very happy doesn't think about you at all other than to complain about anytime something with the kids and you are living in a mental hole right and is still living in service to the partner so has still not pulled pulled themselves psychologically out this is really about pull pulling out all the connections do you know how like when you take like um you know like you take wallpaper off a wall you leave all those sticky bits you got to get in there and get all those sticky bits off I want to take a step back and talk a little bit about the definition of being a survivor of narcissistic abuse how would you describe someone or what being a survivor of narcissistic abuse is so a survivor of narcissistic abuse is in essence a survivor of a narcissistic relationship right they've experienced all the patterns we've already talked about in the episode the the devaluing the minimization the gaslighting the manipulation the domination the Betrayal the breadcrumbing all that stuff like being minimized devalued all that that happens those are the behaviors that's what narcissistic abuse is by the way it's the behaviors in the relationship being chronically exposed to that and not understanding what the hell is going on leads to a Fallout in the person we also talked about the anxiety the helplessness the rumination the regret all that stuff okay and so the person's experiencing all these these negative experiences and don't want to keep feeling that way yes it to be a survivor of a narcissistic relationship or narcissistic abuse is to have all these sorts of negative emotional physical cognitive even spiritual people report a loss of Faith a loss of belief in the world a loss of trust all of those things are a byproduct of having gone through one of these relationships and if a person is not taught what narcissism is how it shows up in them what was happening in the relationship and above all else being sort of coaxed into radical acceptance these behaviors are never going to change these patterns are never going to change you can set a clock by this person you know years ago Mel I work with a client who was a tough cell on this and I did something very unorthodox as a therapist the person would come in and say uh I think that this is going to happen I said no actually I think this is what's going to go down she said there's no way that that's what's going to go on down I said you want to make a bet and so I at the time I had a a office that was on top of like a coffee shop and it was a pain in the neck for me it was actually cross the street down and across the street and it's a very busy road it's hard to cross the street so someone would bring me tea would be the greatest thing ever I said I make you a bet and if it goes down the way I say it goes down you buy me a tea and you bring it to your session this is not how we're supposed to do therapy I'm board of psychology please don't listen do it so we did that by the time I was done she probably had brought me 60 Cups of Tea I think only once did I get it wrong and I had to get the coffee once it was a bummer I drove but got it 60 Cups of Tea so is that somebody who is so disconnected with reality like what the heck it was the hope here's where it got interesting and I'll always this is what to me the more important part of it ended therapy and said you know what thank you thank you for the fact that a you this this entire therapeutic experience cost me hundreds more because of the tea but she said it was your conviction she's like you already had the coaster out for the tea like you were ready for that cuz I know she'd come in with the tea she she didn't tell me advance the tea would show up I was like and so she said you were so sure and that assuredness that conviction it showed me this had to be a pattern you weren't you weren't a you didn't have a crystal ball you weren't a future reader right you knew this as a pattern over time she said I kind of knew it could be the other way like it's almost like she said by the 60th cup of tea I got it right I saw it and then was better able to predict what was going to happen so my point in sharing that is that we we know this but the other person needs some they need a minute radical acceptances in like here's what narcissism is and that's them and look at all these things that happen in fact one of the um techniques I talk about in the book is something I affectionately call the ick list and I say to the client need to make no moves in this relationship nothing has to change but I need you to write it all down every time they do something and if you're not writing it down I'm writing it down in here and I'm going to keep it and over time this list gets to the point where you're like this is a pattern and seeing it and writing Mak it more real what you said about Hope is genius because with this particular example that I've just shared with this friend of mine I personally believe if I were to make a bet that she hopes they get back together correct and so if this is resonating with you as you're listening what I want to know Dr Romany is if you're holding out hope that that parent's going to change if you're holding out hope that things could be different if you're holding out hope that this person that is narcissistic in your life that somehow something is going to be different how do you start to dismantle this thing that you've been holding on to Forever that keeps you completely amhed in this relationship and this freaking fantasy in your brain part of it is the writing it down I know I know it sounds like a strange thing to suggest but there's something very different because euphoric recall is a very real phenomenon what is euphoric recall what is that euphoric recall is it's almost like a Twist on what our minds usually don't do but in narcissistic relationships people cherry-pick the good stuff we we did have a really nice time in Miami 10 years ago and they really did like you know we we laughed so much at that TV show like they just we gosh we you know our sex was actually really good like euphoric Reco pick the good things that's why writing it down and writing it down with people who watch the relationship and get the relationship just getting it all down because there's times you're not going to be able to get it down I've helped a lot of clients write these zck lists I'm like well remember that time you told me this and they like and remember that time you told me that and they keep like oh yes I do I I'm so sorry yes I get it and so we pile it all up and you can't unsee it then right it's it's there it's almost like looking at the 5,000 transgressions of somebody like you're going to hire like you do realize if you bring them back these are all the things he did and HR person be like yeah no no we can't we can't bring this person back we can bring that the more we have the data that's one big piece to dismantling the hope there's other thing can talk about this in the book is this idea of going into something I call going into the Tiger's cage okay so when a client's like no no no no no it's going to be different remember M A therap as a therapist my job is never to be dogmatic and say absolutely not if you do I'll say okay you know I'm always going to hold space for the client to feel safe to go try something and that there's no judgment still say no I I I think it's going to be different I'm like okay so I couldn't be a therapist I'd be like you stupid idiot it is not going to be different like I literally want to reach out and grab my friend and strangle some sense in her I know that sounds like a very violent thing but it breaks my heart I know but this Tiger's cage piece I say to them okay so cage cat now we're far enough from that cat you're like is that a cat or is that a Tiger It's only one way to find out and they'll say no I want to find out which one it is I'll say okay go in the cage which means have the interaction think it's going to be different tell them that tell them your good news and think they're going to be happy for you or confront them on something whatever it is and it pains me as a therapist because you know how it's going to go down right and they go in and invariably like if it was a tiger what's a tiger going to do it's going to you know tear off your arms and legs and tear your throat out if it's a kitten well you just got yourself a new little pet sometimes they go in and they have the difficult conversation I'd say one in a thousand times it's a little kitty like they they misjudge the person more often not I get this torn apart person and they're saying it's like a cup of tea right you told me and I went in there and I said but this is material so let's break it down those kinds of in almost real time analyses of these things are how we dismantle the hope I mean it's almost like an addict in that way M how many how many times does it have to pile up before a person hits Rock Bottom the different depends on the person really trying to get the Survivor to their Rock Bottom Rock Bottom is where hope goes away um I love the ick list and one of the reasons why I love this idea of taking and writing down in the physical world y a list of all the things this person said or did or didn't do or whatever it was that gives you the gigantic ick is that it's in black and white correct and I can see in my own life that when I think about another person who got into a relationship where there was a lot of love bombing and the person they were dating came on way too strong and huge red flag for me watching obviously where you're in the middle of it you're enjoying the ride as the person that's getting love bomb but then devaluing started and the lying started and the discarding started and then the love bombing comes back and I remember being in conversations with this person and they had zero recall of the devaluing but you know you're you're only focusing on the good remember the time they disappeared for three days remember the time where they denied doing drugs and now you're learning they're selling them to everybody remember the time you know like I'm all of this stuff and I think having it in black and is a really good strategy because I can even think about my own life dealing with uh somebody close to me with a narcissistic personality style and how often I'm like yeah but five years ago when this was going on they were really great and they had a hard childhood and I want to keep coming back to the Hope piece because I do see how hoping that something's going to change keeps you trapped correct and what other strategies are there for somebody that is listening sees themselves and is like but I do hope they change and and it's hard for somebody like me because you know Dr Romney I'm like but anybody can change anyone can change the narcissistic person won't change oh that's a big difference anybody can change a narcissistic person won't that stings and hoping that they will keeps you trapped right and I think that that can't won't distinction becomes important but they're saying you tell me they can't change they can't change they can't change maybe that's a languaging issue I suppose anyone could but they won't and I guarantee you they won't you just have a way with words and a way of explaining things Dr Romani that I so appreciate so one of the things that I also read about in your new book is this 12-month cleanse and I want to take a short break to hear a word from our sponsors they allow me to bring this amazing information to you at zero cost and when we return we are going to jump into more on how you heal how you thrive and she's going to cover this 12-month cleanse stay with us hey it's your friend Mel I'm so glad that you are still here I'm here with Dr ramani dersa and we are talking all things healing and thriving after being in a relationship with a narcissist so Dr Romani how can you address the kind of wounds that you have personally from surviving narcissistic abuse and still also like keep yourself from falling back into a relationship with somebody new that exhibits these Behavior because I also read in your book that you're sort of more susceptible to this Dynamic once you've been in it if you haven't learned about it right see that's the big if it's like a lot of people might go unseeingly from narcissistic relationship to narcissistic relationship to narcissistic relationship because in all of this they just think I'm just getting into bad relationships or I'm just meeting a lot of bad guys I'm like no no no no no this is about narcissism and and and it's not narcissism isn't just about the personality of that person it's really about the tactics that they employ in a relationship and why they're so appealing and then why they're so destabilizing right it's both of those things happening if anything Mel I have to tell you people who have gone through narcissistic relationships right and then they're going back out there and considering dating again and all of that they overcorrect now here's one thing I what does that mean I'll tell you in a second let me let me lay out some groundwork here because people don't like the suggestion I'm about to make and I'm aware they don't like it and I don't care I'm G to make it I'm G to make it all the days of my life which is what I call the 12-month cleanse and the 12-month cleanse means no nothing no dating no sex no online dating no flirty texting nada nothing one year and people are like are you out of your mind I've been lonely for 10 years in this marriage I haven't even really been touched they've been touching everyone else just not me I want to feel now people say I was only with that narcissistic fool for 6 months you're telling me six I said no but the relationship was under a year year then your cleanse needs to be for as long as a relationship lasted but if it was even if it was 30 years 40 years one year one year off why you ask because people like what is that going to do what we lose in these relationships is ourselves our entire sense of self authenticity who we are what we're about our values our judgment our our everything it's gone it's gone right to to build that back up to figure out do you actually like pepperoni on your pizza where do you want the thermostat set what do you like to watch on TV how many covers do you want in the blanket that takes a year and I'm going for the easy stuff the pizza toppings and the TV shows it's when you're feeling sad where do you want to take that it's a year of figuring yourself out which most people never do in their adult lives by the way and then you throw in their year of anniversary dates your birthday without them their birthday without them holidays summer time whatever it is because every one of those scripts needs to be Rewritten over and you can't do it if there's already someone else in there praying upon and playing upon your tendency to want to please even if it's a healthy person after that year you've grown more accustomed to being with yourself because the reflex of play is listen there's nothing that feels better than a rebound right I'm going to quickly go in there and have someone send me you're my queen nonsense taxt and I'm going to get over this no you're not because to me I understand that's a short-term play and that's going to feel really good for a minutes like the hair of the dog right right but what we need people to do is this is to me is a lifelong play you need to be comfortable with yourself and every client I could get through that year and initially they looked at me incredulously and I said listen I am not the police if you decide to go and have a relationship in these 12 months the only thing I'm going to say is this is going to prolong this process the ones who listened got to the other end of that year and said thank you so much they're like now I'm so much more stable they're still hurting they were still struggling but what they didn't do was succumb and what's happened is they're getting the most essential skill to heal from narcissistic abuse and that's discernment discernment list think of it this way Mel when I look and see I read online I look how people live their lives how careful are I was like I'm using this specially sourced tea from a Mountaintop in Nepal where only virgin goats would ever go to have sex for the first time I'm like you went through that much damn trouble to get those tea leaves and you are not paying attention to someone love bombing you like be as Discerning in your relationships as you are about what you put in your mouth what you put on your body your gym your workouts everyone's like wellness Wellness this is where Wellness begins how you decide who comes into your life that's discernment and that's the skill you need a year off to start building that muscle I could not agree more I could not agree more can we talk about this uh kind of healing process inside a family M because let's just say that it's not somebody that has divorced you or you've broken up with them and you're kind of grappling with the okay I got to dismantle the hope then I got to give up the fact that this just doesn't feel right they've already moved on and now that person's going on the trip and that person is now friends with their friends and and you get through all of that you recognize it's not going to change you've spent your year you've made your ick list you get it you kind of can move on now right what if it's family what if it's family and you are not going to cut the narcissistic family member out of your life whether it's because that's just not the kind of parent you are if it's your child or it's not kind of like daughter or son you are if it's your parent and every year comes around and it is that person's birthday and it and it is the holiday time and that person is still in your life how do you cope with the grief that's the word that you said grief is huge part of this I'm glad you put it the way you did which is how do we cope with the grief because there's no getting rid of the grief right every year when you or every month or however often you have contact with this person even every phone call the disappointment is experienced a new especially when it's a family member because not invariably these are people who have been around since you were a child so the anticipation that this is the time they're going to Care this is the time they're going to be nice it's the it's a constant recalibration that's the only way I can put it is that you because what happens is there might be you have actually lovely people in your life good friends good partner and then you go to this family that is so unkind and then you're that even that vacillation between those two spaces can actually your friends can give you faith in human beings again and then you go back to your family and all that Faith goes away really fast and so part of it is something is is downright it's just preparation in the book it's called the prepare and release method which is you've got to prepare for these encounters you can't go in cold it's like you're stretching for a workout you don't just say well I feel like working I feel like running put on the sneakers in your business clothes go running down the street right there's a process you stretch out your muscles you're going to cramp up it's the same thing when you know you're going to see the narcissistic family member whether you see them every day or once a month or once a year which is you really sit down and say this year is going to be no different this time's going to be no different they have absolutely no interest in what I have to say they're going to to make it all about them and to many of my clients in fact one of my clients she said it beautifully when she said she placed narcissist Bingo and the Bingo is like invalidation ding gas light ding ding and like and she said it's all I can do to not to hold back when I get five five of them in a row to not say bingo like you win and get yourself a present because it's all going to happen so preparing yourself you can almost turn it into a little bit of a chuckle like here we go and I have to I I definitely do a lot of narcissist bingo in family systems and I do have to catch myself from smiling because then people think I'm smirking or I'm lost my mind like why are you smiling right now mostly it's because I got Bingo and I bet myself a Dairy Queen on the way home that I I won but as much as I'm I'm making light of it is the preparation for what this encounter is going to be like right because it will hurt and you will be filled with grief because this person a parent was supposed to be a parent and you recognize in that moment the things that still you struggle with because that parent wasn't those things instead of being supportive they were invalidating and on and on and on right and what that means then is the other bookend to this preparation you go through it but being prepared while it won't eradicate the grief it can sometimes modify it can definitely bring it down a little bit and say like okay that was what I expected it to be which means the other book end the release part is you've got to give yourself downtime afterwards the best self-care you can do is after the conversation not have a meeting booked right in there or take a nap or take a shower or take a walk or whatever it is that you do to feel replenished again these have to be intentional processes and when you treat it like that it it puts the harsh glare on like yeah this is not healthy I however feel whatever Duty bound obligation bound there's other people in this family system I actually really care about you you have to keep plugging back into your intention which is why do I keep interacting with this person and whatever your reason is it's fine as long as your reason's not because this time I think it's going to be different well I love that distinction because you're basically just coming back to the very simple fact that the only option here is radical acceptance which is this is the situation this is the situation there is no changing it and I may hope it's going to change but it's never going to change and that's why I feel grief about this you write about this in your new book and found it fascinating that when there is a narcissistic parent there are typically roles that people tend to fall into in their family that kind of keep this Dynamic propped up can you talk a little bit about that so anytime you have the more dysfunctional the family system the more we get put into these concrete codified roles instead of having the flexibility of being able to be who we are so we're not stuck in a role in a narcissistic family system there's two classical roles one is The Golden Child The Golden Child is the anointed era parent the one who can kind of sort of do no wrong but is sort of the hope of the family in some families that's a first it's a son it's the eldest son because of whatever cultural issues are sometimes it's the child that most physically resembles the parent sometimes it's the child that does the things that the parent wants they succeed at the sport that the parent wants or whatever it may be sometimes it's the kid that's just helpful might even be the kid that mixes mom's Martini whatever it is it's that kid who was the best source of Supply That's The Golden Child okay and all other children will be compared against that child in any home that's not a single sibling home but if it's sometimes there's cousins and others that might be compared to that child the second role that we always see in a narcissistic family system is a scapegoat this is the child that gets the Venom of the narcissistic parent and is really that that sort of more more the punching bag I'd see the golden child's The Pacifier the scapegoat is the punching bag and this is the child who may not look the way the parent wants behave the way the parent wants is not doesn't do the things the way the parent wants them to whatever it may be may actually be mouthy may call the parent out May uh challenge the parent um may say well how come you're not treating us better and that child will get the Wrath of the narcissistic parent or parents the scapegoat role is no joke anyone who's listening to this who was a scapegoat as a child will say the wounds of that role stuck with them until adulthood they never felt safe and it's a horrific role because a scapegoated child will often see that other siblings and other people in the family system are being treated significantly better than them it's not like everyone's being uniformly abused that they are getting the worst of it and that idea that others are that in in real time you can see that you're getting it worse than others can really do can really do a psychological number on a person but the roles aren't just limited to those other roles include The Rescuer the the the sort of The Rescuer sort of fixer if you will this is the kid who's sort of always trying to make things right they clean up after dinner they make sure everything's running well they kind of take away all the stressors That Could set off the narcissistic parent they're the one that almost feels anxiety while they hear the parents car come up the drive like quick quick quick we need to clean up we need to clean up you guys come on come on come on it's a lot of that anxiety Rescuers they tend to be Rescuers well into adulthood like we got to make it better we got to make it better they tend to be appeasers they tend to be those appeasers in the family system through adulthood the the the peacekeepers are sort of the diplomats of the family The Rescuers are often doing things like let's clean up the the Peacekeeper the Diplomat these are the people that are like no no no that's not what Mom meant mom didn't mean that I think Mom you were trying to tell you were trying to tell Billy that you you kind of liked it right and they're constantly trying to get in there like some really Hess un diplomat trying to make peace between countries who don't want it and the Peacekeeper Diplomat child is always on edge like watching for so they never get to relax they're always paying attention then there's the Invisible Child have a big enough narcissistic family system this is a kid that literally gets forgotten they may be very independent they may be very quiet but they're very forgotten and oftentimes their interests aren't cultivated sometimes they're not even picked up from school like we're talking that invisible and the fin I'm laughing because that's my husband and final role is something we either call the truth teller or the truth Seer it depends on how much they're telling the truth Seer truth teller role can overlap with the scapegoat but this is a very interesting role this is the kid who gets it and sees it even as young as five or six they will see a pattern and when they're little little and they don't know to inhibit they'll say how come you said that how come you did that mean thing to Grandma and the that that narcissistic person like like the eye of Sauron and Lord like they'll be like what and that kid can go scapegoat like that some truth Seer kids don't say a word they just watch all of this and they're very aware acutely aware this is almost like a A Gifted feel to them in the sense of they're very aware of who the players are it's so fascinating though because one thing we know about narcissistic people is they're very socially perceptive for how unempathic they are for how selfish they are they can read a room really well in the sense of how it affects them so if they sent someone has their number they're on to them so that truth Seer kid in a way is kind of in a position of risk because the narcissistic person parent can almost feel that child's contempt like that child is almost seeing like this is cool and the kid may not even be saying it it's a very subtle Dynamic but I've worked with a lot of survivors who will say I knew this was a mess and somehow my parent knew I knew and that really put me in their crosshairs is it normal when somebody starts to wake up and see and accept the situation for what it is is anger part of this too oh heck yeah yeah anger is great anger is my favorite emotion let me tell you why please because I I also think a lot about the fact that if there is a spous if there is a parent that's narcissistic and your parents are still together there is also a parent that didn't protect you from that person that's right right so there's and that get that's where we start getting into the weed so why is anger so great for survivors because it's a mobilizing emotion it's an activating emotion right unlike sadness or anxiety that can create a heaviness or even an apathy anger is a let's go emotion right but anger scares us we think of the anger as being a narcissistic emotion but in fact the narcissistic people are rageful not angry anger anger is great and when something is unjust anger is what we should feel like this is not okay right anger is a stage of grief so anger and grief very much go together so let's assume that you've got a narcissistic parent and a non-narcissistic parent right because some people have two narcissistic parents and all I can say is that I promise there's a special corner of Heaven for them but more often than not it's a narcissistic parent and a non-narcissistic parent and this gets complicated at because what many people will say is I'm very aware of the suffering that my non-narcissistic parent did endure at times they were humiliated they were embarrassed they were criticized the real Agony is the sense of Abandonment that the child feels by that non-narcissistic parent thinking like you were the parent it was your job to keep us safe and for an adult in that situation it becomes a very complex set of emotions whatever that case may be sometimes people will say I get why they didn't fight back and I get that they were going through their own thing and then there's often a sense of guilt at being angry at the non-narcissistic parent for not fighting harder for them and then in a sense of anger for feeling abandoned by that per person so when you combine anger and guilt and empathy into a blender it is one of the most difficult to swallow smoothies you are ever going to taste in your life what do you do I may be seeking personal advice here when the narcissistic parent has died and now they are the golden person and the way in which the narrative about that person is being told publicly is just so glowing and so wonderful and you see the surviving parent waxing on and on and on about the narcissistic one and you're sitting there going that's not true right right so you this is an interesting kind of conundrum right in some ways when the narcissistic person is gone systems are often now willing to sort of hold them up because I think everyone's collectively relieved so they get to kind of maintain this false Narrative of you know now I can talk about them glowingly and I get to look good which makes you wonder how much of that narcissism infected the entire system because you get to talk about the dead person like they're cool but because they're dead and they're not going to be able to keep bothering you and you get to seem like a great grieving person and you're sort of filling the grief role as it were of being the GED grieving widow or widower or whatever it may be and different people will approach this differently some people will say well now that that person's gone I'm gonna I'm going to speak my truth and I don't care others will feel as though maybe this isn't the time because this person is gone it's going to be different in every system but that that complicated series of reactions after the death of a narcissistic person who had emotionally or otherwise harmed you is it's not an easy one and a lot of people say oh now they're gone this is going to be easy like no I mean there's going to be some maybe pragmatic relief that you no longer need to deal with them and work around them but now the rest of the system is going to not going to have the same kind of clean series of reactions you do and so it gets messy and I think that it's giving yourself space to have the complex grief that a narcissistic loss brings to be in therapy when people will say do I confront the family it's back to the Tiger's cage okay what may happen is anytime you confront anyone in a narcissistic family system and just because a narcissist is dead doesn't mean this is still not a narcissistic family system the roles are still held all the toxic patterns are in place they don't just disappear with the narcissistic person well that's a huge Point mhm that you think because now the relationship is over or the person is dead that all of the wreckage no now you're just dealing with it the homage to The Narcissist in many ways is that the family system stays exactly the same oh that sucks it really sucks well because I'm also thinking about the example of of that I'm sure so many of you listening can relate to which is you have children with a narcissist yeah the relationship ends and you not only have to deal with that sort of sense of this isn't fair MH this person has moved on everybody's rallied around them All Is Forgiven I'm sitting here holding the bag I you know whether it's the Hope or I won't allow myself to grieve but then your kids have their own relationship with this person right that's right what are strategies that you can use when you are in a system that is still active whether it's because you share children with somebody or because you're part of a family system where there's been narcissistic abuse how do you protect yourself part of it is the radical acceptance that the system is still the system right that the narcissistic person in a way has sort of if you will infected the system in a way and that those roles roles keep us comfortable in a way they keep us safe that's why dysfunctional systems call for roles because they create a sense of of either safety or definition I don't know that the scapegoat role keeps someone safe but it's a very clear role right so it's the radical acceptance that those things are going to persist then there has to be again an intentional self exploration of how do how do I want the people who remain in the system to remain in my life if you are co-parenting and you have adult children uh with a narcissistic person from with whom you're no longer in a relationship don't ever Gaslight your kids but also don't proze them either what does that even mean it's not your job to convince your kids that their other parent is narcissistic it's actually not okay if they come to that awareness themselves they can share it you don't want to jump on it like yeah isn't he the worst but like that's a lot to take in do you want to talk about it this may not feel the safest place like I hope you do get to explore it um you know how can I be a support to you as you figured this out because it's not easy you know though I would imagine in that scenario that if you're somebody who feels like this isn't just and your adult kids come around and they finally come to you and say Mom dad's a narcissist you're right your first reaction is going to be finally you know what I mean like you're going to say something that's not you will because that's the Justice you're looking for correct it is a Justice you're looking for but you want to tread lightly because kids feel loyal to their parents even their narcissistic parents and the they're testing the waters don't think they're coming in here to say you're comrades in arms they're testing the waters and if you're too enthusiastic you may be viewed as a problem but like if they say you know Mom I'm so sorry we never made this easier for you it is so clear he is narcissistic we went on this ski trip with him and his new girlfriend oh my God and then again at the highest highest level of functioning you'd say I mean do you want to talk about it do you not I understand if you don't feel comfortable about it but it's a lot I hear you I get it by saying I get it that's really code for yeah and um and that I'm here but you can have that Justice within yourself Mel it doesn't have to be a Justice parade well I just feel like this is something that's incredibly relatable very relable in the earlier episode even though this is not like validated by a scientific study you basically feel after Decades of doing this that one out of every five or so people display this narcissist style of personality so if I think about the fact that 50% of relationships are more in divorce and I think about the number of people listening that are recognizing that they may have been married to somebody like this once you deal with your own radical acceptance and you give up hope that anything's going to change and you accept the situation for what it is and you stop looking for justice and you are in your own healing and you're using the tools in your new book I would imagine that any parent listening would love to know the best way that they could accelerate the healing of their children from this how do you show up both for yourself and for the kids that are being impacted by that parent so here's one thing to always remember nobody walks away from a narcissistic parent unscathed it's not possible no matter what if a person has had a narcissistic parent it will negatively affect you now in the extreme obviously it'd be things like complex trauma um some people with narcissistic parent become narcissistic themselves we might see things like Addiction in response to that the vast majority of people who had narcissistic parents develop significant anxiety anxiety self-doubt social anxiety um uh you know all and all the stuff that goes with that am I doing enough am I enough that sort of thing right but we we'll put that in the bucket of anxiety so if you are co-parenting into that situation your kids will be anxious that's a fact okay that's number one so let's start there number two is don't try to fix it I think that the big mistake that we make with our kids is we try to solve problems right we are not their life coaches we are not their efficiency coaches we are their parents and sometimes they're mad at us they're mad at us for having found this person and having kids with them and they're never going to be able to put in that many words so there are times we will be these children's punching bags right we have different tolerances for that some behavior is acceptable some is not but it's to be that place where you kids if they start talking about something it's not how can we fix it it's how are you feeling um and then you can say how can I help and it might be just to listen you know every kid's different in these situations and M in the most tragic telling of the story sometimes your kids AE with the narcissistic parent I know many people in the situation where they've lost at least one adult child narcissistic parents love bomb their kids when they're adults and when they come into young adulthood now the narcissistic person has made their own Supply you it's pretty quite remarkable for them and the one thing a narcissistic parent will often do if they've got it is use money I'll pay I'll pay your rent I'll get your apartment I'll get you a car and depending on the kid some kids don't fall for it but some do and they may feel a loyalty to that parent they may feel sorry for that parent but they also may be calculating themselves and if that other if the narcissistic co-parent is somebody who is willing to say terrible things about the other parent then you might have lost this battle I think that's a very unique situation when people because you might have multiple kids and some of your kids still have a relationship with you and some of them have gone over to the narcissistic parent but people who only have one or two kids and they've all allied with that other parent that is something that some people say they they may not ever be able to fully grieve you said that the grieving part of this is the hardest part so what are the tools that you can use to help yourself grieve when you are recovering from a narcissistic relationship number one recognize it as a loss and in fact the person going to this kind of losses I think it's on the level of of more complicated even than the loss of a death so it's the giving yourself grief takes time all when we have a grief laid in loss like a death we mourn you know we think of the the the Tibetan 49 days we think of sitting shiva for loss for people who observe the Jewish faith we we think about the various ways it shows up in different in some um cultures in South Asian culture we can't touch each other in a certain period of time after there's been a loss in the family you don't go to a temple you don't share food together so it's always going to be different right but those rituals ground Us in loss there a time when we're allowed to press the stop button on the clock and attend to ourselves we don't build that time in when it's this kind of grief so a person has to take that for themselves and build in that kind of time you know um as I'm thinking about this the grief has been really helpful as a con concept for moving through a narcissistic relationship because it allows you to engage in radical acceptance give up the hope that it's going to change and to accept it for what it is and to me being able to grieve that either your parent wasn't who you wanted or deserved or your spouse wasn't who you wanted or deserves to me feels like a mentally healthy response to a situation like this versus The Bash of what's wrong with me what's wrong with me which just makes you feel worse correct but what happens when you get stuck in that kind of rumination of why was I so stupid why didn't I see this before why didn't I move on earlier how do you have tools for how you get over that that you know strange way could be a little bit easier is it's almost like somebody saying well why didn't I know the answer to this exam question I'm like well because the it was never taught to you right you never it was never told we don't teach teach us in high school who who was going to teach you this right your parents didn't teach you high school didn't teach you College didn't teach you I mean I guess now with the Advent of things like YouTube and stuff people are you know people might get it that way but some people don't even know what it's called so we're talking about a relatively recent phenomenon that people are understanding what this thing is so how are you to know it if every single person around you is telling you forgive them they didn't mean it this is who they are they didn't mean it when they said it that's what everyone around you is saying and then the narcissistic person themselves is saying I never said that you're crazy there's something wrong with you you make a big deal out of everything you're too sensitive if those are the two sets of voices coming at you how the hell would you have known what this was it's true and I feel like a first class jerk now because I have been in situations where even though I've been the victim of narcissism abuse I've looked at other people though and been like what's wrong with you can't you see this why are you still woring about it so I apologize to those of you listening that I did that to because you're right if you don't know how are you going to know but now you do so let's talk about the grieving process for those of us that choose to stay in a family system or in a relationship with somebody who we are very clear has a narcissistic personality style we have accept it we have given up hope but how do we grieve how do we protect ourselves what are the tools that we need to be able to remain healthy and separate in a situation where we've accepted the reality but I would guess about 50% of people in narcissistic Intimate Relationships stay in them so let's talk about the staying first of all is more common than the leaving so keep that in mind but then so number one people don't think this is grief because you're in it it is grief so treat it as such because what's been taken from you you've lost hope you've lost the idea that there would be a someday better you've you recognize that your childhood was a mess you recognized the Lost potential within yourself I think to me the real tragedy that I see with many clients who go through this is they say had this been different had I had a parent who saw me clearly who actually stepped out of their selfish Haze long enough to sort of see me I would not be 45 and figuring stuff out in life for the first freaking time that at 45 they feel behind all their peers they're like I wouldn't have been in three wrecked marriages it's not that they're saying they weren't and the people were taking responsibility like I made the mess I recognized that but my God if I'd been given the right tools it's like somebody who said oh I tried to build a house and all I had was a glue gun and a stapler I'm like yeah know there's this thing called a drill and all this other stuff like you recognize that holy crap there are all these tools that some people have and I still try to make a horse race of it there is a sadness so I think that people are grieving those the loss of themselves really if you know David Kessler's work loss has to be gone through there's no rushing this what I love about David's work is he talks about the meaning and purpose we derive meaning more than anything from the process of G and the same applies in narcissistic relationships because I say this to every Survivor of narcissistic relationships my God you are tougher than hell so basically everyone else was running a marathon just on the flat ground and they sent you on the wrong path and they put this weird 400 pound backpack on you and said oh that that that the marathon goes uphill and you still finished the marathon no you didn't win or get a medal but my God you finished and that there's a tough a flexibility a resilience a discernment a cleverness a knowing that survivors of narcissistic abuse have unlike any clinical population I have ever worked with in my career they're fantastic I say this as a Survivor myself and I I have so much grief Mel over how late in the game and still struggle with you've said some nice things to me today and more often than not I've put myself down and I made a joke about it but I don't know that I'll ever get to a place where I'll ever fully value myself my G part of my journey of grief is recognizing that that's never going to I'm never going to get there and instead I say every day I'm going to wake up and I'm going to fight the good fight and I feel privileged to get to do what I do but there are holes in me and some days I grieve those holes and some days I embrace those holes I could not do what I do unless I had gone through this that to me feels like a gift from God that that I was given this gift I was given a voice that every generation of women before me in my family never got narcissism is endemic in patriarchal cultures so I think to myself you could have either sat there and felt bad for yourself or say you've been given an opportunity but my God my heart I didn't know the number of ways a heart could be broken but there are you have no idea like there is ways Hearts can be broken that are diabolical and I had experienced a lot of them didn't know how to get into an adult relationship and so and I still show up into a lot of these narcissistic relationships I am tired and that's what a lot of survivors say but what comes out of this grief is that some days are very hard many days are great there are lots of Dark Nights of the soul but I finished the marathon even though someone threw that backpack on my back and set me on the uphill track well here's what I want to tell you that the moment in time that you learn this is the moment in time when you're ready to hear it and do something about it that's exactly right and as much as this is a very dark and heavy topic you have in your new book it's not you practical tools tremendous research and a huge message of hope that first of all it's not you you're not the problem the second that you practice radical acceptance and you accept it for what it is and you allow yourself to grieve which means you were finally giving yourself the validation that you deserve something else I think there's not only a huge opportunity for what comes next for you but I feel very hopeful that the louder that you get and the more people talk about this and share your work the more opportunity there is for people to break the chains of this in their family systems and to do the work to heal from this kind of abuse to recognize it when it is happening in your life to protect yourself from it and to thrive mhm oh I I absolutely believe that and that's what happens in the healing process is that the survivers of narcissistic abuse are transformed you don't allow your sense of self to be stolen the way it had to be this does not mean you cut yourself out from everyone in your life it's that when after you heal as you heal when you show back up into these spaces in your life you show up knowing who you are and through this process all of you will become truth seers and you'll navigate your life in a very different way on behalf of everybody thank you thank you thank you for being here thank you so much Mel thank you you are extraordinary I always learn something from you and I feel hopeful and empowered and equipped to continue on my journey and I want to make sure that um I tell you that in case no one else tells you that I believe in you and I love you and I believe in your ability to take the tools that you've just learned heal yourself and create a better life and thank you thank you thank you to you thank you for being here with me on YouTube I love you I believe in you and please please please take a moment subscribe to this channel it really helps me please share this episode with people that you know it will help and I know that you now are thinking about the relationships in your life based on what you just learned from Dr Romani you're going to want to watch this next repairing a broken relationship it's not too late with an amazing expert by the name of Joshua Coleman