how does somebody spot a narcissist so it's a it's easier said than done right it's so easier to sort of get the long lens and view them as a lab specimen a person who has this personality of but there's signs we look for right and they take a minute to show up that's why I tell people don't be mad at yourself if you're in a relationship for a year before it dawns on you like might be this person seems really narcissistic and it took me a long time to see it so a person who's narcissistic has variable inconsistent and shallow empathy and sometimes very little empathy the entitled they're grandiose they're arrogant they're selfish they are disregulated they they they can't manage things like their anger um they are they're constantly in validation and admiration seeking they take advantage of other people they envy other people they can be quite manipulative they are um they they're motivated by power dominance and control that's really what a narcissistic person is so how do you spot that it's one thing to give you a laundry list it's quite another to say how does this show up there's different ways that it shows up one way is that it is that the narcissistic person will be even in the early what we call the lovebombing phase where it's it's on like they're often at their best they're trying to win you over it feels like they hung the moon you'll still see that they get impatient um they could be quite contemptuous or dismissive of a person who works like in a bar or the restaurant you go on a date they might get really really um agitated if the reservation's not ready on time or they're being made to sit in a line or there's some kind of mistake uh they get really reactive if you make even a small critique or even a piece of feedback they'll just lose it and you'll say "Oh okay that's not the charmer I was talking to even an hour ago they'll often interrupt you while you're talking or not really listen to you there'll be a sense that even if they're looking at you it feels like almost like they're looking through you rather than looking at you they're not sort of like attuned is the word that we would use there are other sort of other interesting soft signs if you live in a city I live in LA um where people drive narcissistic people drive very dangerously there's actually research that shows an association there they'll drive really fast faster than the conditions would warrant they'll drive up up on someone's bumper they'll honk they'll cut people off they'll give people the finger so it has like a road ragy vibe pay attention to that that's not just someone's like who has a fast car and they're just like boys in their toys it ain't that pay it's it's a a pretty it's a it's a surefire sense that this is a person who might be narcissistic it's all of these things that these little signs they're looking you're looking to see that they compare you to other people a lot maybe they compare you to an ex or even someone they work with they may be dismissive of something you do so you'll be telling them something you're excited about like "Hey babe that's great yeah that I mean I don't get it like doesn't sound like that that would be hard that hard but sure." So they they get their dig in so there's these signs that get sprinkled early on but no one's going to walk up it's never going to be that the most toxic stuff the stuff that really shows us that someone's narcissistic isn't going to show up early on it takes a minute like I said that's why a lot of people need 6 to 12 months to figure out that this is the situation in their relationship wow 6 to 12 months that's a lot longer than than I would have thought and I think one of the the the adversities I should say in the subject of narcissism we were talking about this a little bit before we recorded is that the word has become used so much that I think it's become desensitized a little bit in that everybody is now a quote unquote narcissist if somebody's not interested in them they're a narcissist if somebody doesn't answer their phone they're a narcissist if somebody fill in the blank they're a narcissist you put out a lot of content online on the subject i'm sure you're observing stuff and just shaking your head at times what are some of the biggest misconceptions you see out there regarding the subject of narcissism yeah D I'm so glad you brought that up because it's actually disconcerting to me because people who actually are in narcissistic relationships are now who already prone to self-doubt are now doubting themselves more saying I don't know like that's my relationship is this and it's not that it's a lot worse than this maybe I'm calling it the wrong thing or people are just sort of also being judgmental so when somebody's genuinely in a narcissistic relationship it's saying gh everyone's saying everyone's narcissistic so some of the misconceptions are that you know that long Drew list I gave you of all the things that make up a narcissist that any one of those things would make someone narcissistic right just being entitled doesn't mean someone's narcissistic just being validation seeking doesn't mean someone's narcissistic so any one of these things and even like you had said I thought just thought a person who's narcissistic is sort of full of themselves just being full of yourself does not make someone narcissistic cheating does not make someone narcissistic that's a popular one I see online this fool cheated on me he's a narcissist i'm like this fool cheated on you i get that we're going to need to a little bit of a deeper dive for me to figure out if this person's narcissistic the other thing is that we assume that it's always going to be men no there's a lot of narcissistic women out there there's enough people out there who have narcissistic mothers that I can tell you now there's obviously narcissistic women out there so we make this misconception it's always a guy now it's it's more often a guy i will say it's definitely much more prevalent in men but it's definitely not the only game in town and when we talk about the more vulnerable victimized resentful sullen anxious self-monitoring kind of form of narcissism like everyone's out to get me that we see that is equal in men and women so it's not just um it's not ju it's not just men it is not again it's not always just the I'm full of myself like I said there's different subtypes of narcissism and it doesn't always look like the person who's sort of got that kind of salesperson vibe who's walking in and is sort of holding court that's a very common and almost a very sort of baseline form of narcissism but there's many forms of it including malignant narcissism which can actually almost feel like psychopathy light there is communal narcissism which is very much the people who are out there on Instagram aren't I the best i saved a thousand ducks this weekend but they're actually really a awful narcissistic person but they get validation by do all their doggooding so there's all these subtypes too so it's not just the braggy kind of arrogant kind of person so these misconceptions kind of lead people to bandandy about this term to use it as an insult which is really dangerous because it's a good word it captures some really important territory in terms of relationship behaviors and patterns but I mean the internet's the internet you don't need to be smart to drive it so anybody can get in there and say whatever the heck they want why do you think there's more male narcissists than female narcissists i think part of it a lot of it probably has to do with socialization so if a girl child little girl shows up with some of the qualities that a boy narcissistic child was showing up with she'd be more likely to be shut down i think that peer relationships are different for girls but I think a big difference is boys are shamed for emotion especially negative emotion crying anxiety fear that we we still I still was recently somewhere like it was recently a few days ago and someone's little boy it's a little kid like he's probably four or five six years old and he got hurt and the dad's like come on dust off that's enough of that and I was like oh man you've got to be kidding me like let the poor kid cry it out so we we still we shame emotion in boys we shame emotion in men and as a result there's a real constriction around that emotional expression that can really build up that sense of shame and insecurity in men because there's really no way to express vulnerability and and if in through that vulnerability comes strength for men but that's not how we're socializing them and we humiliate men who who show emotion so as long as that that's the game and we actually do also socialize men to be more assertive to be more aggressive to be strong to play sports in a certain way stand up be a man and be a man is is sort of a the meta meaning there is sort of be gruff be up in someone's face none of this all this silly feeling stuff um so all of that combines that I think that the socialization narrative for men cis men heterero men is very very different than it is for girls that said since there's more than enough narcissistic women out there that there still that socialization is not going to stop that track for girls but I think for a girl that's almost like if a boy and a girl were teetering the girl may actually because she might have different kinds of emotionally held peer relationships her father who might have yelled at the son for crying might actually hold her and hug her so she might learn a different kind of an emotional regulation and vocabulary do you think there's any correlation between being self-absorbed and being a narcissist like somebody who posts a bunch of selfies for instance like do you think that they're more likely to be a narcissist the research is interesting there's many research studies that have been done that look at the association between the posting of selfies and narcissism and not surprisingly there's a strong association right and so but here's where we have to be careful just because the two are correlated doesn't mean they're the same thing and doesn't even mean that one causes the other right what it means is that one might be a little bit of a marker for another show me a narcissist and I'll show you a bunch of selfies or a lot of self-referential self-absorbed internet content but not always and you can also show me someone who posts selfies and I'll say I don't know this is a person who loves posting cupcakes or adores their dog or cat you know you can look at the nature of the content and all that but at some level we have to be very careful just because a person posts a selfie it doesn't make them narcissistic even if they post a lot of selfies and they're annoying selfies but if when they show up as a person they're well regulated they're kind they're um empathic they're self-aware they're not narcissistic they just like posting selfies yeah because I've often heard that narcissism can be a spectrum as well i would love to know your thoughts on this in the difference between somebody who's like narcissistic like you know maybe somebody who likes to take a lot of selfies excessive self selfies very self-absorbed very like all about me me that doesn't necessarily make them a narcissist what signs do you look for to tell the difference between somebody who's narcissistic versus like has a has the personality disorder so the narcissism is on a spectrum right and I'll get to the personality disorder issue in a minute at the mild end of the narcissist ism spectrum you have people who are what you just call it self-absorbed they're emotionally immature they are attention seeking they're sort of Instagram narcissisticy you know they're kind of harmless they're annoying and there's probably no likelihood of a deep enduring healthy mutual relationship with them it would be a sort of vapid childish relationship right are they mean probably not at the far end the severe end of the narcissism spectrum that's where we see more of the malignant narcissistic patterns coercion exploitation meaning taking advantage of other people manipuliveness isolation are really the menace power domination control are the key dynamics in the relationships now those people at that end you're looking at patterns that look more like domestic violence domestic abuse um it can be it can almost be dangerous most people are dealing with folks in the middle it's not quite the cotton candy of the mild narcissist it's definitely enough to really sort of for these relationships to be psychologically exhausting and destabilizing and uncomfortable but it's people in the moderate narcissistic relationships won't say "I'm scared of this person." They're like "I do get sometimes afraid of what their reaction will be if I'm going to disappoint them but it's not like it is in the really severe relationships." But then there's the issue of narcissistic personality disorder and that's what's causing also a lot of the mess in the internet conversation narcissistic personality disorder like all personality disorders takes a minute to diagnose because a personality disorder is a stable pervasive uh persistent pattern over a long period of time that colors most of a person's interactions with the world and it tends to be maladaptive by definition narcissistic personality disorder probably only affects one to six% of people in the population depending on the research study you look at it is a relatively new diagnosis and when I say new it came only came into the DSM in 1980 and the problem is is that in order for that diagnosis to be delivered a clinician has to have spent time with this person and has to evaluated them and we need enough time with the person i this is what I do for a living and it would take me a minute and I'm like I'm not this is certainly not a diagnosis I'd generate in the first session but to be frank with you I may never generate it because it's also a stigmatizing diagnosis and not even just because we think that they're not nice people but it's it and rightfully so the literature suggests it can't really change so insurance companies don't like it that that record can follow people through systems who are like "Woo that makes me uncomfortable." I have to be mindful of that as a clinician so I think there's a lot of people out there walking around with NPD and it doesn't gets called something else so to me there's not we don't even use it well and I've done research studies where we've used diagnostic instruments and even then I'm scratching my head when I look at the results I'm like I'm not sure you know and so it's a um but so I think that this idea I think personally if I ran the world and I absolutely don't and never will I'd get rid of the NPD diagnosis i don't think it works i don't think it helps i don't think it tells us anything and nobody really uses it right in the first place we talked about at the beginning how to spot a narcissist and we've spent the last few minutes talking about a lot of the nuance in that conversation and how you know it's not it's not necessarily you know black or white and you also mentioned that it can take like 6 to 12 months for somebody to fully realize they're in a relationship with a narcissist other than like spotting some of these tendencies that you said to look out for with people like what are some of the symptoms of the relationship if somebody's in a narcissistic dynamic within the context of that well something that's going to show up relatively early in the game and love bombing can last anywhere from 6 to 8 months but even during the love bombing phase you're going to see the slipping in of gaslighting right because ultimately a narcissistic relationship is a power play that's what it is and they their motivation in a relationship is power dominance and control your motivation in a relationship may be love affection and closeness you ain't playing the same game so they're trying to dominate you and gaslighting is one of the best ways to do that with someone right you destabilize their reality then you destabilize them by telling them there's something wrong with them rinse lather repeat you do that enough times a person completely loses they completely doubt themselves why because they love the person if you started to gaslight me I don't know you well enough i'd be like I'll just turn off my computer i'm like I'm out but if we were close to each other if you were a family member if you're a partner if you're a good friend I would have a connection i'd have an attachment and I'd want to continue maintaining that right so to maintain that I'm going to make allowances and what might I do maybe they didn't mean that maybe I did put the keys in the wrong place maybe I did never say that maybe I'm just being too suspicious and slowly but surely the person being gaslighted starts to internalize responsibility for anything that's going wrong in the relationship so that's probably one of the most insidious dynamics and it shows up early a gaslighter is testing the water if you know what gaslighting is and you kind of start stepping away at the relatively early signs of it the relationship isn't going to last long but because people are often enjoying the the lovebombing phase they're enjoying getting to know someone who's charming charismatic attractive confident like that's not bad stuff so you a person who has all these goodies and then they start doing this gaslighty stuff we sometimes make excuses to keep the good stuff rolling right so that's one pattern that'll show up you'll also see other kinds of these power plays and sort of you know unhealthy patterns there'll be invalidation they'll make you small so they can be big right oh like yeah yeah yeah no I I I yeah you went to that school no I it sounds like it was cool like you know my school we in my job we in this I did you know so it's always sort of yeah I'll acknowledge that but let me tell you what I did and so there's a lot of invalidation even a sense of dismissiveness or minimization your problems aren't that big a deal you think you have problems let me tell you about this you often feel in these relationships either you're trying to measure up to some weird standard they have or you're trying to win them over you're trying to earn them and so like earn their love and that gets tricky for people who might have an early history of these kinds of relationships so if a person grew up with a narcissistic or invalidating or antagonistic or kind of toxic parent these patterns are kind of not only sort of very much in your nervous system and in your body when they start happening again this is old school for you and so it's easy to fall into those patterns again um it's not unusual for narcissistic people to betray your trust they It might not be as much as that they're cheating on you early in the relationship but they might still be being shady on social media and they'll come up with all kinds of brilliant or gaslighty excuses and so you start feeling like you're the one who's paranoid and weird and they continue doing shady stuff and so you're forever sort of in this haze and never quite able to exhale sort of in the relationship they're argumentative and they're really good at arguing it's back to the power play so some people will say you know I used to like getting into a healthy argument but this isn't that this is sort of being overwhelmed and someone feeling like they're coming at me like a tidal wave there's a lot of dysregulation in these relationships so they narcissistic folks go from 0 to 60 in one second they're very disregulated with their anger and that anger comes about when they have an ego injury and an ego injury can be caused when they don't feel special so that might be that somebody disrespected them at work that day and you had nothing to do with it it could be that they didn't get the parking spot they wanted it could be that there was traffic it could be that their friend got to go on a really cool vacation and they didn't you don't know what's going to set off that ego injury but what we do know is that it returns into rage and a rage that might come at you even if you're not responsible you're not the one you're not the reason they had the bad day at work and a lot of people like what is happening so now you're living in a minefield you don't know what's going to set them off you're tiptoeing and you're doing the proverbial walking on eggshells that was the name of the book actually walking on eggshells is a great book it's written by um a woman named Randy Kger she she's been writing the space for she talks more specifically about borderline personality styles and she she I mean it's it's it really was a seinal book in the field because you know what Randy Kger did she was one of the first ones especially with borderline where it's harder to do it to say whoa whoa whoa whoa you realize everyone else is adjusting their behavior for these folks and that's not cool was it was a courageous leap in and people like me were able to come in afterwards and talk about these other personality styles so do you think there's any hope for somebody who's in a relationship with a narcissist let's say somebody's listening to this or they're watching this and they're like "Oh my gosh like I think I honestly think I might be in a relationship with a narcissist." Is there any conversation that can be had with with this person can a narcissist change or is the best way of survival to get out so it depends on the person doug this is where it gets really complicated and my approach to this has always been to have no agenda to say "Well if you don't get out then it's really going to always be a nightmare for you." It's not true right healing is an inside game right it's something we can take responsibility for in ourselves even if we're in a mess that you know healing is possible even when getting out is not is what I tell folks there's a lot of people reasons people feel they can't get out of these relationships there's the complex trauma bonded dynamics but there's also they still love the person for how difficult it's been they still feel a sense of love they feel a sense of loyalty they have a sense of fear of if I leave this what if they turn around and become a nice person for the next person or there's still some stuff I like here i don't want to be alone there is practical factors uh practical factors could be money a shared home you might have kids together and then there's cultural and religious factors people feeling like I especially if it's they're married they be like "Okay I can't split up with this person i'm in it with them." Whatever it may be no reason is a wrong reason there's no judgment or shame around the reasons your reasons are yours and they're real and I think this idea like gh that's just because you're lame and you're a doormat there are no doormats these things do such a number on you and if you still feel love for a person you still feel love for a person no one else gets to tell you you don't so what the hope then becomes and it's all to me predicated on radical acceptance you got to see this thing for what it is and no it's not going to change and what tiny bit it changes it ain't going to be enough to make this a healthy relationship right and so I can put you know listen I could put crown molding in my house don't make it a mansion all right makes it a house with crown molding and you they might change a little bit it doesn't make them into an empathic warm loving kind of a person and so not the way somebody needs now some people will say "Listen this fool went to therapy and they don't scream as much and it's still not deep and I have to radically accept that's not what I'm getting in my life." But radical acceptance is that this person's not going to change or it's not going to change enough the relationship's not going to change the patterns in the relationship aren't going to change and that this is going to be hard and it will still hurt even if they say things to you so but over time some people say "You know what we live in parallel here you know we just shot a video today about this idea that some people are fully mentally out but they're physically in is it optimal i mean who's to argue right they'll say "There's reasons I'm staying in this if they left tomorrow I'd be thrilled but I can't I can't be the one who pushes the accelerator on that." And I'll tell you there's people who quote unquote get out of narcissistic relationships but they're mentally still in it's almost like being a dry drunk right they're still mentally in the game and so they're scanning and social media and who are they with and what are they up to some people are in the relationship like I don't give a damn what happens to this person i'm out so radical acceptance is really a key but it's also fills people with grief like I love this person i thought we were going to grow old together i thought this i thought that having to give up on all that is hard now for the people who leave it's a different path forward and it ain't all rainbows and and moon beams in some cases narcissistic people don't like to be left let's call it that straight they do not they have high rejection sensitivity so somebody leaves them there will be hell to pay so there might be what we call post-seeparation abuse the narcissistic person may stalk them on social media or even literally the narcissistic person may pass rumors about them they might do a what we call a smear campaign they may enlist what are called flying monkeys they talk smack about the person who broke up with them to anyone who will listen and some of those people will start to believe it so you'll feel like your entire support system crumbled overnight so that's so these things happen where you think like I was just trying to break up for them but now my whole life is kind of a mess and so people will sometimes feel as though what have I done this is this is worse now some people will break up and feel a sense of regret so when the narcissistic person hoovers them back in they're vulnerable to it and so there it's a complex landscape even if people leave in the grand scheme of things Doug if someone could leave and be narcissist free or get rid of this person and really work do the work of themselves they will feel better but people can heal while they're in these relationships i've seen it happen it happens all the time i always say it's like you're still walking but now there's a bit of a slope on the walk but it can be done it's not the same but there's similarities between this type of relationship dynamic and then being in a relationship with somebody who's an addict right where you have to gain this radical obs acceptance like you said you have to take care of yourself you can't let the relationship destroy you you can't create this you know false idea of what the relationship could be like you have to accept it for what it is and if things get better awesome but if not like you have to accept like it's not your fault and I've seen people completely self-sabotage in when they're in relationships with somebody who's an addict and and it ends up impacting their own mental health their own life and the same thing I would imagine happens in a narcissistic relationship and probably it's it's I would imagine it's more severe how can somebody prevent that like if if they're if they've gained radical accept acceptance of the situation what are some things that they should be doing on a daily basis weekly basis again I know you're not about like this oneizefits-all approach but generally speaking what can people do to make sure that they're not sacrificing their mental health so once a person hits radical acceptance and listen not everyone has access to therapy but if you do be in it and ideally with a therapist who gets this stuff because just simply having that that validating space with somebody who's a trained ear can make a huge difference and you also want to be shoring up your other social supports something that makes us very gaslightable is if in all the relationships we're in our reality is being denied or twisted and we're being told there's something wrong it's all our relationships are destabilizing that makes it tricky but if you have validating spaces in your life for example a strong friendship network or trusted colleagues just continuing to cultivate that because a narcissistic relationship is like a black hole it sucks all of you into it all your resource all your bandwidth all your all your thoughts feelings everything if you can radical acceptance means thinking I am not I'm no longer bringing my agame to this relationship right i'm going to have to cultivate these other spaces in my life because these people see me i see them it's a mutual and reciprocal relationship you get to experience that two-way road that is a relationship you know again like I said being in in therapy is also a big one the other thing is is practicing realistic expectations radical acceptance and realistic expectations sort of go together hand in hand in the sense that the radical acceptance sort of navigates the realistic expectations where it's sort of things like the person who is about to have their birthday and things they know that the narcissistic person it's hit or miss if they're going to celebrate it right if this matters to you that much set something up with your friends it could be a lunch it could be a dinner like you need to do you I I I say to people I'm never going to be able to take away the hurt while you're in this relationship but I would like to take away the surprise and I have clients who week over week say you're not going to believe what he did and I look at them I'm like I absolutely believe what he did this I would have set a clock that this is what he would have done and we'll even play a game because they'll say I'm going to be doing this and this when I see my mother or narcissistic mother narcissistic partner i say here's how it's going to go down i'll make a bet with you we'll bet stuff like a coffee or like Starbucks or something i'll say I'm right you buy me Starbucks i'm wrong i buy it for you i got nothing but Starbucks gift cards in my house because I am always right about this and it's not that I'm some kind of damn genius it's that's that and I want to lift the surprise but the more we play that game they're like I saw it and I didn't react to it this time because the surprise leaves you feeling worn down and let down you're like I can't believe he did it versus it's more of like here we go you know that's a very different nervous system stance another other thing is also to learn your nervous system we might be fighters we might be fighters we might be freezers we might be submitters we might be fauners know your your sort of nervous system repertoire how do you respond to those threats because those often predominate some people feel shame like why didn't I say something their freeze response kicked in and it's learning that self-compassion of you were trying to keep yourself safe in what felt like a threat it is about bringing self-compassion to yourself doing these things sort of all together engaging differently you might say "Well that's not a relationship anymore." I don't disagree but some people don't have a choice but now it clears out a space for them to at least not be pummeled all the time psychologically i imagine like one of the other challenges of staying in a relationship with a narcissist is dealing with conflict and like you can do the nervous system work you can talk to a therapist and that all I'm sure helps tremendously but how does somebody deal with like conflict when you're saying like a big part of how the relationships erupt with the narcissist is how the narcissist responds to stress and turmoil in their life what what what advice do you have there it's it's a tough one right because you're never going to be able to have any reasonable conflict with them right there's no such thing as having an argument with a narcissistic person you're either going to be gaslighted you're going to be overwhelmed you're going to be bulldozed or you're going to be left that's the entire vocabulary of conflict so it is really about a disengagement you know as they go on and on it's almost like you you you there's a concept I have in my new book i call it soul distancing so while they're yammering on you're almost like envisioning like "Okay my body is present my soul is over here i got it protected i'm not engaging with this and they're going to yell and scream and yell and scream listen listen listen different people's nervous systems can put up with this in different ways and um but there's no when a person's gaslighting you the best you can say is like listen we're having different experiences here i I mean that's all I got it's going to make them more frothed up but that's much better than you doubting yourself just you are having a different experience i thought you remembered it this way you I remembered it that way that's it that's a different experience and so there are phrases you can have that can help sort of at least on your side put your punctuation mark on it they're not going to let it go though they're fighters they're built for the fight and if you're not a fighter this is a really really bumpy road the other thing though is they don't just fight the other thing narcissistic people do is they withhold and they withdraw and for people who have abandonment fears that can be really really hard when this silent treatment is a very very common tactic in narcissistic relationships i would love to know like your definition of gaslighting because I think much like narcissism gaslighting is used often right it's like you're gaslighting me and it's like no I'm just holding you accountable you know so what what is the true definition of gaslighting how does somebody know that they're being quote unquote gas lit right so gaslightsed is a tactic okay and it's a tactic that's used to maintain power dominance and control in a relationship by destabilizing the other person and this destabilization happens by denying the reality perceptions experiences memories or even knowledge of the other person and then doubling down and telling that person there's something wrong with you i never said that what's wrong with you do you have some sort of mental problem that you make some stuff up so you see it's not just that I never said that it doesn't stop there it's you have a problem you got to have both pieces and this is where people sometimes confuse lying and gaslighting they're not the same thing lying is lying right lying is I wasn't there and you were there okay a gaslighter will take that say "I wasn't there." And you know what i feel like I'm in the relationship with the CIA you are the most paranoid weird needy girl like I'm over this that's a whole different game right the liar is like "I wasn't there." They don't go on to that second step gaslighting is a repetitive kind of emotion they do it over and over again with a with a goal of completely dominating someone so they're fully almost on board with their with the narcissistic person's point of view that's what it looks like it's not these It's not these other things it's not a difference of opinion it's not holding someone It is It is attempting to hold someone accountable for something they didn't do though that would be gaslighting it's a it's a it's a very very problematic tactic and not just because someone gaslights doesn't make them a narcissist by the way all narcissistic people gaslight not all gaslighters are narcissistic you know they may just be people who are just obsessed with power and that's their thing which probably makes them narcissistic but we wouldn't know until we sort of peered under the hood so um that's what gaslighting is and many times as gaslighting proceeds many proceeds many times the gaslighter will literally twist it to a place where they're the victim and you're the perpetrator and you're thinking and people believe it like I'm a bad person and that's why many people in narcissistic relationships feel like they're bad people like how can somebody like help take the power away from a narcissist i've often heard that narcissists are addicted to validation whether it's positive or negative what what tactics can somebody use to not give the person they're in a relationship with if they're a narcissist that much power over them don't engage it's that simple don't engage so when they're yammering on about something sometimes what we'll do is we'll engage in fact I have an acronym i tell people when you're with a narcissistic person don't go deep don't defend don't engage don't explain and don't personalize this so when they're telling you something we'll sometimes want to say "No that's ridiculous." Like And then you're like "Okay okay cool." Yeah and then you sort of you really learn these techniques for disengagement because like I said there's not a lot of there or there in these relationships you're basically they're holding court i always say like a relationship with a podcast a relationship with a narcissist is like listening to a podcast it's like you know they're just blah blah blah blah blah blah blah the difference is you can't change to another show and so it's just you're sitting there you're holding court and if you view it that way you can I mean you can do mindfulness work you can I sometimes when I'm with a narcissistic person and they're yammering on around me I will listen to part of what they're saying and then I'll just sort of if I'm not in a position to be able to do something else I'll I'll sort of do a mindful kind of what I call a sweep of the room i'll describe the room to myself i'll do a 5 4 3 2 1 mind I'll do something to sort of ground myself i just stop listening to them it's just noise at that point but that's really the main way you can take away their power there's no direct route in it's taking away the you if you want to stop a fire take away the oxygen and so if part of the the game here in surviving this relationship is radical acceptance of the situation I would imagine part of that is having compassion for the narcissist as hard as it is like being able to understand like that this person is really struggling and this person is not as confident as they appear how can somebody get to a place where they're having compassion for a person that treats them like garbage you got to go through the whole healing process first this is very much of make sure you've fully gotten your seat on that lifeboat and your stuff put away and then you can work on and make sure you're also off the mother ship and then and only then because most people who've been in narcissistic relationship have heaps and gobs and mountains of compassion for this person far more than they had for themselves and it got tested time and time and time and time again and even when the whole thing falls apart many people still will be having compassion like well they had a tough childhood or you know things haven't gone their way or they feel hollow inside or some terrible things have happened to them or whatever it may be okay there's an exercise I also talk about in my book which is called the exercise of multiple truths i say okay and I'll do this with clients let's get out a piece of paper and I said I want you to write down everything that's true about this relationship and as you write all that down it goes from everything from I love this person i'm scared of this person this person makes me anxious i love spending time with them i'm really attracted to them we have so much fun together they're so mean to me when you start stacking it all up you start to see how messy this is just because you have compassion with someone see the way the narcissistic person is like "Oh yeah you care about me so much then stop doing what you're doing right they'll twist it you don't need to share the compassion out loud with them we can have compassion for people and leave them we can have compassion for people and disengage from them we really can because it is it what what it it ends up being is that either you're signing up to be a source of supply for them forever you know which is in essence you're sort of giving up on yourself or you're saying I hope this person gets the help they need or pursue or gets it together but I am no longer going to be an audience to this and because the narcissistic people throw such tantrums when they're being rejected or perceive they're being abandoned a lot of people say "Well that was mean of me to leave them." I'm like "What's your option?" You door number two is you forever sort of stay in psychological servitude i'm like "I don't want that." But there's no version of this where the narcissistic person's not upset and so I do truly I think having compassion and empathy in all of our interactions is absolutely central to making this world a better place and not the mess that it is right now but being compassionate and empathic doesn't mean giving in to what they want it means knowing that I that being abused is not a way of showing empathy right continuing to to engage in the relationship knowing that that's what they're capable of and when they say things like "But give me six months i'll go in therapy." I'm going to go do me for 6 months you go into therapy no matter what it's going to be good for you and and then if you want to talk to them in 6 months that's on you but waiting around and holding space for them while they're doing the change never a good idea you you talked about that um there's a lot of people that can't leave a narcissistic relationship they're just unfortunately they're stuck in it and they have to make the most of it have this acceptance that we've been talking about but then there's there's also a percentage of people that I think could likely just leave you know if they just knew what to do like what's the blueprint if somebody's like you know what I think I can leave like what should I try and do so here's the thing i I'm going to leave the malignant severe narcissism off the off this conversation because I think that raises a whole set of spectre of issues around stalking and maybe even escalation of abuse let's take them out let's stick with the moderate to mild one thing you got to remind yourself is there's no version of me leaving this where they're okay with it right so I think what people once like I want to do this so they'll like it won't be crazy it's going to be crazy okay so you're going to have to that's another thing you got to radically accept this is not going to be a calm one of those romcom move moments where like yes well sometimes we have to go our separate pathways is never going to happen here okay so that's number one and you almost have to gird yourself for the terrible things they're going to say to you because they're going to say terrible things to you and that might mean that you go to therapy first it might mean that you as soon as this is done you block them on your phone for a while whatever it is so you don't have to get that incoming messaging is is is a big one you want to have your ducks in line so let's say you live with this person you don't want this to be like "And we can sort of let's talk this out and then we can stay in the same place for a while." No you can't that might be a friend's house family member's house you've got to have you got to have the exit strategy all sorted out before you have this conversation if the relationship has lasted long enough some people have the the they take the stance of maybe I need to give this I need to throw the Hail Mary pass maybe we need to um go to couples therapy it's tricky if you do not have a good couples therapist and I would say you need someone who's been doing this for a while and who gets narcissism which is not a lot of couples therapists like to think both people are 50% complicit it's not true in these relationships so a bad couple's therapist or one who doesn't get narcissism could make this into a bigger mess if you have a great referral or you know someone this could actually be an exit some people will say "At least I know I tried this it's probably not going to make a difference." But I do think that making sure you have supports whether that's through therapy whether that's through friends having some sort if you live with this person you have some sort of exit strategy in place being prepared for the onslaught because I think people I want I I was working clinically with a woman and she's like at the time I leave I just don't want it to be that bad i'm like it's going to be that bad so if that's what you're waiting for you're going to be in this relationship for 60 more years and so you've got to understand that there's no it's like trying to merge onto a really messed up freeway at some point you're just going to have to be like I hope someone lets me in that's the situation that's the blueprint and it's it is having support and it's being realistic and it's um and then understanding it's just simply not going to be easy and how does somebody rebuild their self-esteem after it's been crushed in a narcissistic relationship after they exit it i think that that that there's multiple things that can happen i think first of all is actually to reacquaint yourself with yourself i tell people if you've been in a narcissistic relationship if it's been a year or longer if your relationship has lasted whether it's 12 months 12 years you know 60 years give yourself a year off from all relationships nothing no sex no dating no nothing a year by yourself and the reason for that is this whatever patterns got set in that relationship or maybe that existed from childhood they're still raw and the self gets lost and you're not going to find yourself on someone else's time that's that's a solo journey and so it is a chance to sort of cut to the heart of any trauma bonded patterns you know to to go through a year of anniversary dates and all of that and come up you know establish new rituals and routines it's about figuring out what it is you like i always say people who come out of narcissistic relationships don't even know what temperature they want the thermostat at or don't even know what they want on their pizza because every decision was kind of taken away figure that out what do you want on your pizza it could be the most weird jacked up thing you've ever eaten that's your pizza because what happens after a year of doing that you're a little bit more in your body and you're a little bit more in your feelings so when someone new comes around you're in a better position to be discerning so when that year turns off it's almost like okay I'm not all the dating apps are being deleted no no no no and let's say you do meet someone worthy you say to them listen I'm coming off of something and I'm taking a year we can be friends whatever and that person's like well hell I'm not waiting on you this wasn't your person this year is essential now people might say "I was only with the narcissist for 3 months." Then you got to take three months off under a year it's the number of months in the relationship over a year and longer you got to take the year you need that much time i call it a cleanse it takes that time to get their voice kind of out of your head and some people will say it takes longer than a year many clients once they start a year in they're two three years in a big part from what I understand of of healing from past relationships and healing in general is finding a healthy relationship and changing patterns and and and just changing how you view the relationship dynamic let's just say they've done the work from and they're they've moved on from their ex who was a narcissist and they're looking to re-engage in the dating world looking to find a a new healthy relationship what's the best approach for that to make sure that they're doing it effectively so you know in that let's say they took the year six months however long they had to take right in that process they've figured out who they are you know they they learned like what are their what are their no-fly zones what are the things that are uncomfortable like you you have to we are not taught to do that i always call it an excavation you know when we think about how an anthropologist does an ex or an archaeologist I should say does an excavation they don't just take a backhoe in and just sort of dig a ditch take tiny little shovels and tiny little brushes and tiny little tools and delicately and that's kind of what you're doing you're kind of excavating all these pieces of yourself and putting it together sometimes for the first time once you're back out there again it's a lot of it is moving slowly it's even after the day instead of just coming home and flopping in bed it's like sitting with it how do I feel this in my body how do I emotionally feel what are my thoughts about this like really really be with it and I you know listen that the thing I say is folks who are coming out of narcissistic relationships who give themselves the break who sort of start to reindividuate again are more likely to throw away fish that are big enough to keep right so they might sort of overcorrect a little i'd rather that than the other direction and then I think people slowly start to learn the fine art of compromise they'll realize like somebody saying that they don't want to have Mexican food for dinner doesn't mean they're dominating it means like they may just simply not want Mexican food and you can come to a compromise right so it's the you know that's why those sounding boards you've cultivated become an important space as well therapy becomes a great space for that too but it it is it's about moving slowly and letting people know one of the tricks of the narcissistic relationships is they move fast narcissistic people will meet someone and be engaged in three months like that's a signature move right it's too fast and that speed means that the other person in the relationship cannot process what's happening in real time so bad decisions are just being made it's like if somebody tried to pressure sell you something right you tend not to make the best decision so in this case if if person's like I just you know want to let this unfold and they and the person's like why can't we do this why can't we do this say I just want to take this at my time and the person's like that's not working for me again not your person you know if they can't hear that need for like say I want to keep spending time with you i really do but I really want to keep living in my own spot i need that for a while and they're like "Nope not your person." Because if they're going to dominate about that then you have now set the tone and some people feel bad that they're going to lose someone over that but I'm like "Nah you knew where this was going to go." Let's go to the other side of this and talk about early stages when they're dating somebody and where it's I would imagine much easier to walk away from somebody that could potentially be a narcissist is there certain things that somebody says to somebody early on in dating that they're like if you're telling them like if if somebody says this to you like they should run like what would that be i don't I mean I think it's actually what might matter more than what they say is how they say it looking for a patterns like contempt dismissiveness snobbery if they're saying a lot of dismissive things about other people if they make barbs about groups of like you know they say things ideologically racist racially or social classwise or anything something that's not aligned with your values that's often the that that that's a big one and people say "Well maybe we just have different values." Like can you live with that because there's some Yes i mean it could be the kind of thing where you might have opposing views on something that's not core to you right like they might have a belief of a social policy like I don't know that I agree with that but I whatever like it is what it is but then there's things that are core issues to you and if that's a core issue that's coming up a core value difference they may be poking and testing because remember these relationships are about indoctrination so they'll sometimes deliberately offend to see if you step back or if you kind of haha and kind of awkwardly laugh because what they're realizing is you're a ripe target so when somebody's really saying something that puts you on your back foot like no that's not cool the the the good money would step away at that point honestly and um but you are looking for those kinds of patterns and you're looking for things like comparison you're looking for somebody who critiques everyone they meet they may they make fun of somebody's appearance they make fun of they make a a rude comment about a family in the restaurant they're always criticizing everyone they work with that kind of stuff's a problem they keep comparing you to people that's a problem those are the things you're sort of looking for if they want too much time with you too that in that kind of the love bomb especially actually in the more severe relationships is it's that whole romcom like let's spend every day together for a week hell to the no that is a huge mistake so if somebody's saying "Let's spend all this time together." Say "I love spending time with you i really look forward to the next time but you know I got I got stuff to do." That sort of stealing of the individuation a lot of people romanticize that as like they think I'm so cool like we're just going to spend 72 consecutive hours together i'm like this is not this is not a good idea and so that breathing space lets us individuate it becomes really really important and narcissistic people will really want to often get in there and if you say you know I need to I kind of need to do my own thing oh I guess you're I guess you're not feeling this and your your your best player would be like "I'm feeling this just fine but I'm not a I'm not your 24/7 person." That might get away that might be a way to get rid of the lowhanging fruit early in the game so you hear a lot also about attachment styles and a lot of times when people are quote unquote anxiously attached they want the relationship quickly they want to get in like super quick so maybe they get overly excited about meeting somebody so they can get into this relationship quickly what's the difference between somebody who's just truly excited about the person or anxiously attached or fill in the blank versus somebody who's like a a narcissist that's lovebombing somebody a anxiously attached person would hear your feedback about slowing down and wouldn't rage at you if anything they might get a little bit sad or like I'm sorry this is just my like you know and there would probably be a vulnerable share a narcissistic person would get mad and they would immediately threaten abandonment they're like I guess this isn't working for you bye it would be that it would be much more abrupt it would be much more controlling it would be much more cold and callous an anxiously attached person would actually become quite vulnerable under that same kind of um challenge what do you think about some of the people that have gotten called you know narcissists over the last few years whether it be somebody like Donald Trump or Sam Bankman Freed like do you think that these people are truly narcissists or do you think that people just think that because they're excessively grandiose they're not just excessively grandiose you know that look what the things that they've done i mean it's they're they're so narcissistic that it's sort of like I mean it's like the perfect lab specimen right and but that brings up the bigger issue you're naming two and I can think of hundreds of names off the top of my head it's not as simple as grandiose by a long shot but the fact is though when we keep electing people to office and entrusting them with all this money and admitting them to their fancy universities and all the things that these people get which only prop up their egos more and we literally celebrate them we've got a problem so this thing that's going to do so much harm to people in relationships is something that's being vaunted as a good thing that's a problem so you're really trying to warn people off of something that actually looks great it's like the most festoned bird in the jungle and we're like stay away from that one it's poisonous but it's the prettiest bird in the jungle don't look at it it's a tough cell it's a tough cell but all of these celebs I mean and politicians and business jerks and tech bro you know types so many of them are patently it's not like they're just grandiose they're jerks you tell me Sam Banken Freed has an ounce of empathy zero none zip to me the empathy the lack of empathy is probably more of the ringer than the um the grandiosity because a manic person could be grandiose and that was something that I' I've heard is like the common thread amongst people who are truly narcissist they they they lack the ability to have empathy i mean do you find that to be the the through line actually when we look at um some re the research I think that researcher's name is Kison and I don't remember the co-author Herl latch in their paper 2017 they say that entitlement is the is entitlement is the the the middle pole in the tent all narcissistic people are entitled that's the universal feature then the lack of empathy goes with the entitlement because an entitled person thinks they're more special than anyone else so I think those two are sort of in bed together but the entitlement is the defining characteristic and so the last question I want to ask you is like let's just say somebody's listening to this or they're watching this and they're they're just hopeless they're in the depths of despair they're either in a relationship with a narcissist or they've just left one and they're just completely broken what kind of advice would you give them if they ran into you let's just say they came up to you at a at a book signing or in a coffee shop what would you say to them so assuming that there's somebody who's left the relationship I would say that this is a grief like no other and like any form of grief you got to let it run through you there is you know g we all think we're sort of bigger than our emotions and one emotion we're never going to be bigger than is grief you've lost something and what you've lost may not be this really unhealthy relationship but you've lost the narrative you had around it the hopes you had for it the good moments that were in it grieve those moments because I mean listen the reason the one friend we have in on all of these experiences is time right the human the human soul the human heart are very resilient little organs and they do come back but you do need time and so there is a period of grief but I do also tell people don't be shy write down every terrible thing that happened in the relationship write it down because when you feel like what have I done or how can this happen look at the list and say maybe I dodged something here and I've had clients where they said writing that list was actually a bit overwhelming for them say if it's overwhelming you put it down but if you can write all that down it makes a huge difference to say "Okay this was the right call." Or even if it happened to you this was the right call make that list with friends too if you need to because they probably observed a lot of this stuff too if you can get into therapy get into therapy because there's more stuff to be dug up here there's a reason maybe this lasted so long or got so um toxic what were the stories you told yourself i mean we have to we have to look back and say "How what didn't we know?" Some people say "You know what wasn't even what I told myself i didn't know this was a thing i didn't know this narcissism thing was real and I had no idea what this was about i had no idea someone who claimed to love me could do this to me love means different things to different people." And so I think that when you again it's it's grief it is radical acceptance it's recognizing this is going to take a minute it's writing down the bad stuff and recognizing there's a reason I left and the other tell thing I tell people to write down again it's also in the book is not just the bad stuff but write down those little things that you loved but you gave up for the relationship it might have been keeping Oreos in the house it might have been watching films with subtitles it might have been a Thursday night thing with you did with your friends whatever it was there's some things are going to come back into your life and people say "Oh my gosh I can actually do this now and I can do that now." And and lean into that say "I couldn't do this before." I remember one person I worked with she was very she a malignant narcissistic um partner long time they were together and she was getting ready to go on vacation she was like "I don't know i kind of feel sad like here I am this older person traveling alone." I said "Let's do a little game here i want you to reflect on what it was like to travel with him how he'd scream at you scream at the gate agent be angry about how crowded the airport was like look at all these disgusting people traveling in their sweatpants." Like he was horrible he'd be angry if he didn't get the seat he wanted he'd be angry if there wasn't enough space in the luggage bin i want you now when you go on this trip to pay attention to how different it feels just going through the airport she texted me when she got to the other side of her trip she said game changer she said I was so aware of what it was like like I was nice to the TSA guy and it was I kind of enjoyed getting my little coffee and sitting at the gate and and she said I finally got to have the aisle seat which he always took for himself and I was able to go to the bathroom she said they were all these little blessings and all of a sudden I was she was like this is good we find it where we find it final thing do you think that people uh there's certain people that just tend to be attracted or attract narcissists based on their past relationship history maybe based on their childhood or do you think once you you know do the work really work on heal healing yourself and understanding yourself that you start to attract less and less of people like that of people like that everybody's attracted to narcissistic people i do and I think the people because charm charisma attractiveness confidence like you really would be going off script to be like no I'm looking for someone who is socially awkward and uninteresting and really lacks confidence which actually is what I look for and so I'm like you're my person i'm I'm loving you right but that's not what people look for they look for that other stuff so we're all attracted what are they attracted to they're attracted to supply so how whatever you and supply can be how you look it could be your status like if you let's say you have a drive a nice car or you have a big job or you're famous or you come from a fancy family or you live in a great place status means different things to different people but if you're going to bring supply and that like I said might be status it might be attractiveness it might be that you're you laugh at their jokes whatever it might be that you tell them they're great whatever it is if you're a supply they're attracted to you the the the challenge is is supply looks different for every narcissistic person so you might just be a super warm sweetie pie who just is like "Tell me everything about you that's so cool you're so amazing." When I hear a person super enthusiastic I'm like "This is person's narcissism they're they're going to be very attractive to a narcissistic person that person though doesn't have to give up on being themselves they just might be enthusiastic about people it's recognizing the signs so when they feel like that you know they might attract them but they can also if you catch it early enough it's pretty easy to walk away it's like canceling an airplane ticket you do it in the first 24 hours you get your money back dr romani this has been awesome um I wanted to thank you so much for your