Friday Q&A on Surviving Life with a Narcissist with Kathleen Saxton

0:28Zoe and Georgia will be here in just a moment with Made by Mummers. know you're born on your podcast app and hit follow so new episodes land straight in your feed. Hello and welcome to Made by Mamas the podcast. I'm Zoe Hardman and I'm Georgia Dayton and this is your parenting safe space where no conversation is off limits. With five kids between G and I, we have seen a lot. We really have. Each week we'll be joined by some famous faces and experts and we'll chat about the brands and products that have saved us along the way. In short, We're the parenting podcast for you. Before we get started, hit subscribe or follow so you're the first to know when each episode lands.

1:05And they're on Tuesdays and Fridays. And it really helps if you leave a rating and a review. You can also find us on Instagram. We're on at made by mummers. But for now, George, should we get into it? Hello and welcome to Friday's episode of the podcast. Now, I'm sure that we have all known a narcissist, but what exactly are they? How do they impact us? What if we had a narcissistic parent or a partner? And do we actually even know if someone that we love is one? Today, an expert on the subject to answer all of your questions, a psychotherapist and author is Kathleen Saxton. Hello. Thank you for having me.

1:41This subject has gone down really well on our Instagram. We put questions out to our listeners to send in and I mean I thought it was quite niche but it's definitely not. I think my publishers thought it was quite niche until we actually released it yeah. Yeah so just before we get into the chat do you want to just give the listeners a little bit of background on you and also like why you came to write a book like this? Of course thank you for asking. So I actually originally had a 30-year career in media. I worked on the media side of the business for many many years at Sky and Capital and various places but I had a very very difficult childhood and so in my mid-twenties I went to therapy for the first time not really knowing much about it and thankfully landed with an incredible therapist who really really helped me so for two or three years I was in therapy I definitely kind of addressed and handled some of the things that happened to me in my childhood I was homeless at 11 for example my dad was married multiple times all sorts of things and I think at that moment it sort of ignited in me a desire to maybe at some point think about becoming a therapist but it felt like a long way off.

2:45I had a full-time job, I had two children myself and so I thought maybe it's something I'll come back to and I did. And what happened was I trained, I qualified as a therapist, I've been practicing now for about 12 years but a number of years ago I unfortunately ended up in a relationship with someone who I absolutely believe was narcissistic and although we studied personality disorders when I was training we didn't spend a lot of time on narcissism per se it's a cluster b personality type I was aware of it but it was only actually really experiencing the devastation of being around one that I started to study even further so although I was qualified I went off to California I went off to Eastern Europe I went to all sorts of places and found the experts in it and really made sure that I fully understood what it was and equally important what it wasn't and how that had affected me and then was determined to sort of figure out if I couldn't find the help I needed when I was in it how do I make sure I create some stuff that will help people that might find themselves experiencing a narcissist.

3:47So let's start off by asking the question what is a narcissist and what isn't a narcissist? So I think a lot of people come that feel that they might have experienced narcissism from somebody and they might have done but fundamentally we sort of say there's three layers in narcissism those that have narcissistic traits which we all probably have a little bit of a touch of it which is why we're so interested in it those that have a narcissistic personality so more pervasive you know you are just the slightly irritating friend the one that talks over you all the time the one that makes everything about them turns every dialogue back to them in some form and maybe really lacks empathy when you've got something going on for you they're not really empathetic towards how you're feeling so you'll notice that and that's a personality but the narcissistic personality disorder that is actually diagnosable um we think is around two to three percent of the population so actually that's quite a lot of people when you really think about the quantum of that but we believe those people are not treatable either by medication or by therapeutic means so if they are we feel right now the research that we have they will be for life and if you are around one my goodness you'll know about it but the other two segments You will have those around you and they may well get better, get worse.

5:00They may be workable on in some form. But the disordered type, unfortunately, they're for life. What would those traits be in the disordered type? So if you've got, I don't know, you're in a relationship with one or like friendship or whatever. What are those absolute traits? So the real lack of empathy is really stark. They'll be incredibly cold. So rather than just unfeeling, they'll be quite cruel and quite cold. very very difficult for criticism any sort of feedback you might give them even to let them know that they've hurt you in some way will be met with either rage or a victimhood they'll often go into victimhood and want pity instead for themselves certainly something around grandiosity or a sense of self-importance but we understand grandiose narcissists to be show-offs the coverts will do it via victim means so they'll always be the one that's the victim in some form and they draw your attention in that way rather than necessarily being super super loud.

6:00We also find lots of entitlement so they'll believe that they should get different better treatment than you in some form whether that's being bumped up the doctor's surgery list or whether or not it's being the one that sits at the place they want to sit at at someone else's dinner party. There'll be something about entitlement in some form but fundamentally there's nine traits that we talk about in the DSM-5 is the manual we use to diagnose there are nine traits but we feel that if there are five that are constantly on display you may well have a disordered type in your midst but they're the ones that people feel the most incredibly selfish as well so really won't think about what's important for other people will only think about what's important to them and looking good in whatever form looking good means whether that's academically whether it's through beauty whether it's you how their children are being presented etc everything's about making them look good so what's I mean it's that's so interesting isn't it and I'm sure people listening are going ding ding ding ding ding um the criticism side of things is quite interesting so uh coercive control and narcissism are they closely linked because sometimes when you try to speak to somebody about something you can feel like you're we hear that word gaslighting don't we which is banded around quite a lot can you explain the difference between you know someone who's you feel like you're being coercive coercively controlled by somebody who's gaslighting you a narcissist are they all linked we feel all those traits are linked you'll see them all very present if you are in a relationship in some form with a narcissist and my personal view which i know is a strong one but is that we really now understand domestic abuse as in domestic violence in a way we didn't in the 1960s for example we now legislate against it.

7:43We then began to understand sexual abuse, even in marriage, and understood what that really meant. And we now legislate for that. I think psychological abuse is the final frontier. And I think narcissism sits within that and coercive controls are absolutely right in the centre of it. So anything whereby you feel under threat or undermined by this individual, if you dare to speak up or to actually have a personal preference on anything, they'll persuade you that you've got it wrong, or you misunderstand, or you're asking too much or you're the difficult one all of those pieces will come into play because fundamentally for a narcissist and I think often people that have this sort of psychological abuse type in them they are defending this image of themselves that they have inside themselves we think narcissists have got a big ego the truth is they have a really really fragile ego so they've created this persona which is the one that's acceptable to them and all of you have got to adhere to that so if you begin to pick at it or to question it or to give some sort of feedback in some way they will be a threat that that mask is going to get taken off or taken down so they will come at you in a form of defense to make sure that their idealized world remains intact you are a threat to it if you say something to them that in any way doesn't add up to what they're wanting to be perceived as so you've said that that third type will probably won't be changed like the two percent of the pop won't be changed But how would you, can a narcissist that's in those one or, you know, number one or two be changed, be helped?

9:18We think and we hope so. There's certain therapies that really help it. So DBT, we think, is very helpful. Often being brought to attention of it. I mean, those of us that have some traits probably guiltily know that we do and we'll make an effort to try and make sure that we are amending our behaviour in some form. those that have the personality often it's only in our intimate relationships that it really gets discussed so the children could be the partner could be even parents or grandparents but often it's the relationships behind closed doors that are the ones that a is going to show the most yeah and b are the ones that might actually give some level of feedback and if someone really has something to lose so if a relationship is really on the brink if somebody's health gets in some way tampered with if there's something that is really at jeopardy for them it may force them to finally confront the fact that there's something going on for them that they need to look at a little bit like if someone's got really severe OCD you know if someone really has OCD then actually that can have a detrimental effect on their relationships and it's only when that's at risk that someone finally says maybe I need to go and get some help with this.

10:23Would a narcissist use past trauma to keep a person close to them, i.e. if they've experienced childhood trauma or something that they're still trying to process and they're in a relationship, would they then use that against their partner in that sort of, you know, this is why I'm behaving like this because of my childhood trauma? Yeah, there's a double bond going on here as well. So often a narcissist will be in a relationship with an empath. If you are an empath and you understand your partner or your parent or whoever had past trauma, you often all lean a bit more into it because you genuinely want to help and understand what's going on.

10:57So you come into that story with them. often when they're caught out they therefore might use that as a defense this is why I'm behaving the way that I am and as an empath we can get even more entangled and meshed with that story because we feel we can't leave them or we can't scold them because they've had a difficulty in their backstory now many of us have had trauma in our backstories I know that I have my view is our job is to work on that ourselves and do the very best to become something more than from it those that a narcissistic will absolutely lean on it a thousand times over as an excuse as to why they're behaving the way that they are but the double bond with the empath is where it gets really tricky yes because that's that's kind of um the perfect storm in a way isn't it or like toast and butter where one person feels they can't operate without the other person but and it's really confusing isn't it because you keep showing up for that person and you keep being there for them and then they keep using all of that past stuff to almost beat you with it but then draw you back into it Totally so.

11:55We hear that a lot. People message us a lot about this. We'll be right back after this short break.

12:03Welcome back to this episode of Made by Mamas. Now, where were we? I mean, there are so many questions as we touched on, but I think we will get into one that seems to be a really common theme. My mum makes me feel guilty as I don't want to holiday with her this year. would rather it just be me my husband and my little boy we've holidayed with her for the last three years how to deal with emotional blackmail if my mum doesn't get away on her own this is really doesn't get it her own way yeah doesn't sorry yeah it doesn't get yeah yeah absolutely understood and I think what this is also when we start to really break away into our own families isn't it and decide that we want to have time on our own so you might decide that really it is the first year that you want to really go with your family so it's acknowledging her request as she feels heard but to be very firm in boundary which is it's really important that we get to go on our own this year we will see you at Easter at Diwali at you know Yom Kippur whatever it may be we'll find time to see you but we need to form our own family this year and mum you must understand that because you'd have done that yourself when you were my age so an acknowledgement but a firm boundary and a pushback we are going on holiday on our own there's no maybe if don't let any any wet get in very firm boundary yeah I think that's quite common isn't it like with um grandparents that they almost put it back on like you're someone to feel like they have to include them as well in their family and they don't want them to like break away on their own yes um and often you'll find that if there has been a narcissistic flavor in the parenting of the actual main parent themselves we have what we call enmeshment quite a bit so they will enmesh themselves in your life and yours in them and often it's not until we have a grown-up relationship of our own that we start to realise that maybe that wasn't the healthiest thing.

13:47So the minute someone says, oh, my daughter or my son is my best friend, slightly come out in hives. We are a parent and a child and we can be super close and super friendly and loving, but the enmeshment is difficult. That's when we start to feel each other's feelings too much and we can't appreciate that our own feelings are our own and the other person doesn't have to completely mirror what we're feeling. That's so interesting. interesting because at the time when you're growing up and you get to you know you get out all the sort of sticking points you know when you're going through puberty and everything else and you have that relationship with your mum sometimes that's when you can be like oh right how we've been operating all these years doesn't necessarily sit right with me and i need to try and reframe that and you do get can get quite a lot of kickback from the parent can't you because it's all been on their terms how they've wanted it and because you're a child you kind of just go along with it go along with it normal yeah so in often the therapy we use an alchemical process We think about the standard alchemical process of sort of dirt to gold.

14:42But we often talk about an important part of that being called separatio. At what point do you begin to separate from your parent, which is a really healthy process. And yes, it can happen in teenage years when you're sort of slightly kicking and screaming and wearing a miniskirt down the disco. But actually, there's a serious part of it where psychologically and disbelief set, you begin to realise that you are you and I am I and we are separate from each other. that doesn't mean that we can't get on brilliantly but we we are separate in the way we feel about certain things and that's healthy and that's okay okay keeping a relationship going for my mum but no one wants to spend time with my dad yeah this happens a lot of the time this happens often where there is co-parenting going on where there might be a narcissist in play and maybe what we call an apparently normal person which we hope that we might be on the other side often that other parent has been covering for or coping with that narcissist for a long time either protecting them from the children or the grandchildren but actually has been probably taking it full force so if you are the child the adult child you want to protect that parent because you know they've been really going through it so often you start to fabricate ways of having time alone with that parent with your family by and somehow sort of cutting off the other parent the difficulty is for the two adult parents, the narcissist and the co-parent, she or he still has to go home to this at the end of the day.

16:04So when you've got a narcissist and maybe the co-parent, what you really need to think about is educating the healthy parent to say, listen, I've been wondering, I've been reading something, I've just been wondering what's it really like for you is a wonderful question because the really allows that other parent to say, well, actually it is quite difficult or it has been quite tough so I often find giving them gentle things to read giving them a little bit of education allows the healthy parent to start to just consider whether maybe there's something they might want to start to do some work on for them if we know the narcissist might not change what we do know is that you can do the work on you to help you get stronger yeah yeah how to co-parent with one they mean narcissist ex-mother-in-law is one too can I cut her out he left me and I'm an empath okay so again we do say if you've grown up with a narcissist or you've been around one you can be more likely to be susceptible to getting into a relationship with one that is there's data in science that that currently shows that but my view is we have great difficulty in life by being up sort of unsettled by cutting off from someone and it's not something that I advocate wildly that sometimes it is the best thing you can do for you but often people will come at you and say you've only got one parent you've only got one family they're a blood relative you must do this my view is you must take your own personal view if there are more negative incidents than positive you've got to take a view if it was a friend if it was a boss what would you do you'd probably make a choice to say I don't want to be around that person so much anymore so boundaries come back in limit the amount of time you spend with them and absolutely have an escape route an exit plan a timing plan of I might spend half an hour them over coffee I might go to their house and see them knowing that I can leave whenever I want to.

17:52But there's something about taking back agency and control about I spend time with only those that I truly wish to. Do the narcissists know that they're a narcissist? My belief is that they absolutely do know Zoe. And the reason I say that is if someone else comes into the room that they're trying to impress, they'll switch behavior on a dime. Yes. So my experience was, you know, somebody would be very, very aggressive in the house, for example. but the minute someone else in the family or someone came to visit for dinner oh my goodness they were the nicest most gorgeous person you've ever met so in knowing that it makes me know they're conscious of their behavior because they can change it but they might not necessarily have named it might not have named it and would certainly have many excuses as to why they're having to behave the way that they're behaving because again that comes back to their protection of this idealized world but do I think they're aware that something is not quite as it should be within them absolutely I do you do some that this person's saying about how do you co-parent with one because you've just said you know like you limit your time but ultimately if you're co-parenting with one you do have to see them and would there be something in there that you want you to protect your children from them as well like how is the best way to deal with that I mean that must be so common it's very common and it's the oxygen mask analogy so first and foremost as the parent you need to make sure you've got somewhere and some people to go to that you can talk about this freely and openly and safely yes and they will they will accept that you're in that marriage or that relationship and you're going to be so there's no judgment on you but you have places to go to discuss it could even be a therapist but certainly some best friends that actually really get it this is important lots of people don't truly understand this and will say well why don't you just leave him or her why don't you just walk out it's not as simple as that when you're co-parenting as you two obviously both know just and I do as a mother as well but of course there's a protection element so educating yourself as the parent to think about how could this be affecting my or our children and what do I need to do to protect them now you are in the firing line as that parent unfortunately but you have got a duty of care to try and protect these children so what is it this narcissist is doing to either critique or frighten your children what are they doing to try and enmesh your children with them what are they doing to try and gaslight them what are they doing to try and get perfection out of them all the things that a narcissist can do your children could be susceptible to so you do have the duty of care to try and protect them as best that you can education again is the answer and um with the sort of i guess that when you bring the kids into it as well that's another added layer isn't it big and it's the most complicated layer because you want to keep the family unit together and all of that sort of stuff comes out but i guess is there a way if you're sort of determined to stay in the relationship because you love this person and you want to be there for the kids of protecting in the home environment?

20:42Because I think maybe co-parenting means when you're not together and you're co-parenting. But what if you decide to stay? So if you decide to stay, you have to be becoming really conscious of what are the common incidents that come up regularly in the home that you know your children may be affected by. Whether that's silent treatment, which is deathly, whether it's straight out arguments, whether it's some sort of coercion of the children in some form. So it could be that your child is really into ballet, but the narcissistic parent really wants them to be into maths, and they're going to absolutely push maths all the way with a kid that actually is really good at ballet and not so good at maths.

21:20What's going on there? How do you support the child to follow the path that they're meant to follow, not the path the narcissist needs them to follow to keep them looking good? Even simple things like social media. you know many many children are very have grown up with social media but lots of kids don't want themselves plastered all over it and certainly in that kind of look at them winning a football award aren't they amazing whereas actually when they're naughty or they're doing something difficult as kids do because that's part of what they do to grow up is somehow um shamed or made an example of in some form what we want is kids that know that they can be good they can be naughty we're accepted whatever's happening a narcissistic parent will put a lot of pressure on the child to perform in a way that they need them to, to make them look like they're a good parent.

22:04Right. So if you're the other parent, co-parent, not co-parenting, but co-parenting in a relationship, you've got to bring as much balance as you can to that child, that they are welcome in whatever form they turn up. Even if it's a screaming abdabs, you are still loved and you're still welcome to be exactly the child you're meant to be. In my book, I talk about the true self. You've got to help this child be the truest self that they possibly can be. we've often grown up to adapt ourselves to be something or idealize ourselves that's where it starts to go wrong when you've got a narcissistic parent at play true self is the answer we'll be right back after this short break welcome back to this episode of made by mommas now where were we what sort of traits might you carry if you've been brought up with narcissistic parents or a parent who is a narcissist okay how does that so we talk a lot about three different types of children there are many different ones but these are the three categories so we have the golden child so you will be perfect to everything best grades good at all the sports good at everything and feel that life is only okay for you when you know you are performing the flip of that is high anxiety high performance issues a real sense of not being accepted unless you are top of the class top of the friend group top of the food chain looking absolutely amazing even though clothing is perfect.

23:28Now to live like that all the time is unbelievably difficult for a child but they've learned to be the golden child means they get the affection of that narcissistic parent. The scapegoat child is obviously the opposite. You are the stupid one, the ugly one, the ridiculous one, the one that causes all the problems in the family. You're told you're too angry, you're too untidy, you're late for everything and what happens to a child is when you're told that over and over again you start to believe it and then you start to act into it so many people I talk to as adults now recognize that they were one of these two children and of course if you're the scapegoat child your self-belief and your self-esteem is on the floor so you begin to grow up quite depressed often we find addiction creeps in those sorts of things for that kind of child and the third is the lost child so the lost child is the kid that saw the golden child getting the accolades but also the pressure and thought don't fancy that much saw the scapegoated child getting into trouble all the time or indeed ostracized and ignored and thought I don't fancy that so this kid just withdraws to their room reading books playing games not going out much just not getting into the kind of spotlight of this narcissist parent at all but then obviously struggles often later in life to form relationships because they haven't learned how to do that healthily they've just internalize their own story and become incredibly shut down so there are other types there's comedic types there's lots of different levels but the scapegoat and the golden are the two that come up most in therapy wow so interesting isn't it because it one person's behavior can impact so many people we have such a duty as a parent and i you know we all are here i know when i was training to be a therapist i didn't train till i was later i was sort of in my mid-30s and i'd had my kids by then and I remember us sort of having lessons in certain things that are not good for kids and me thinking oh my god I've definitely done some of these things myself like none of us get it perfectly right and we do our very best but always learning is great but these narcissists don't care they don't care because what's important to them is what they look like not what's happening for their children yeah because you just mentioned there like the child the golden child right my son is like that okay yeah he oh yeah wants to be head boy he has done since he was in reception he wants to be the best at maths he wants to be the best at football he wants to but he has full-blown panic attacks but I genuinely I mean my husband is quite um he's an ex-professional sportsman so he's when it comes in fact it's not just in sport it's in like everything he has very high standards yeah but then not with everything you know like he doesn't care if his room's messy he doesn't care if he's not present he doesn't you know there's certain things but the thing that you just mentioned about not caring like we're going to like we're like do we need to get him a therapist do we need to do this because we don't want him to carry that and I think that that really made me feel relief then when you said narcissists wouldn't care because I'm like, oh my God, are we doing that to him?

26:29Oh, God. What's interesting for him is obviously he's probably been very inspired by you and your husband, which is a wonderful thing, so not to be discouraged. But it's just keeping an eye on the bits that, there must be something is a bit useless at that. I hope so. Oh, he's absolutely incredible. And whatever that is, encourage that too. Make it great, wonderful, fun and lovingness that make it up. He's rubbish at making cakes, whatever it is. Yeah, no, no. When we get that balance in, that's the beauty, which is you are as loved on a good day as you are on a bad day. That's the most important thing.

26:59Okay, fine. Because that's like, you know, you just said, oh, you start thinking, oh my God, I do those things. Oh God, oh God. Luna, we're actually identical in that respect. My middle daughter, that's how we know each other because our babies were born like two weeks apart. Ah, I see. And they're very similar in their character traits with being like absolute perfectionist. And if things aren't going their way, they can get very, very panicky. You never want to get anything wrong. Yeah, never want to get anything wrong. I think our fear of shame is so central to the way we live these days because so much of what we do do is in the public domain in some form can be.

27:30But I think shame is very, very difficult. And in therapy, as a therapist working often with families or with individuals, when someone has been made to feel shame when they're younger, it's quite hard to budget. You know, we can work with anger and sadness. Those are movable emotions that we can work really well with. But actually, shame is very difficult. It sits right in the core of us. So trying to unpick some of that is important, which is why I'm always like, encourage your kids, even on a difficult day. What we don't want is shaming. Shaming is not good. Can a narcissist ever change? I don't bother putting boundaries in place with my mum as it's easier to just put up and shut up.

28:06However, this isn't helpful and her behaviour is is getting worse. OK, so there's a chapter in my book on this, which is all about what can you do and what can't you do? and often we find that we kind of work in a slight defended denial position ourselves so when we really think well what's the point they're never going to change so I just might as well carry on taking it that is our way of denying the fact that we could get to work here if we wanted to and again I'd say recruit some people around you that are going to know that you're going to go for it because if you start to work on them you're going to get lots of pushbacks you've got to be ready to push all the way through once you're doing it there's something very very strong in that but actually you know sort of feeling that it's a bit like if you're trying to lose weight or it's a bit like if you're trying to give up something and thinking what's the point I'm bound to have a biscuit in the end actually you're not you've got a great sense of being able to push through if you want to and don't give up on yourself because that's what you're doing you're giving up on your true self by saying well what's the point they're always going to beat me they're always going to get the better of me they're always going to behave like this they might always behave like that you don't have to respond in the same way so again it's unfair that it comes back to us but if you want freedom in your life and you want to live your true self it's honestly waiting for you and your pilot light has known it all along it knows it it's just whether or not you're ready to go do you know what enough i am pushing all the way through this now you were talking earlier on about narcissists and empaths do you think there's a reason the narcissist has chosen the empath as well and do you think they will do you think they inherently know that it doesn't really matter how hard they push they'll always come back because that's that's that's definitely faults in empaths as well right that they can't see what's going on and just go stop doing that stop doing that to me it's interesting isn't it that that's the bond it is i think they can feel an empath in a room so they will scan a room in this in the test and science that we've done they'll scan a room and they will feel the warmth and the welcome of an empath and if an empath doesn't question too much but is actually very empathetic towards them they know that they're on to getting some what we call narcissistic supply they're after the supply so they can feel it in you this is a great one to be with someone that questions them is a bit circumspect about them they already feel they're a bit in danger because their mask is being questioned so of course they do but as empaths we also have to be boundaried enough we've just got to have I always think of it like a smarty you know it's soft inside but we've got a bit of a shell on the our shell needs to be a little bit firmer which is I only have so much love and gorgeousness in me who am I going to give it to and I kind of give it to the right people and not the wrong people and if I do start to feel there's something going on here I don't need to go in and try and fix it I can just accept that something's not right here and I'm going to move away I think you know as we get older I mean you're both you know in happy relationships when I've dated as I've got older I've definitely learned that I might have met someone on first, second, third dates and noticed something's not quite right in the olden days.

31:00I'd have been all over that. I can help them. I can be the one that makes it better for them. Now I'm just like, whatever it is, I'm not sure what it is, but it's not for me. Thank you. I'm moving on. It's a no from me. Exactly. There's quite a long message here. And I think I'll read it out because it's quite a lot here. everyone keeps telling me let them keep in touch with their grandma and see for themselves what she's like let them make an option for themselves about her otherwise they'll resent you for not letting them spend time with her I completely get that however all the comments she makes around children and me big moments she uses like my wedding and Christmas and baby shower to manipulate me and get her own way and put me down so she can be the star of the moment you won't cause drama and an argument on Christmas or a wedding because it will ruin everyone's day.

31:48She forces me to go with what she wants and secretly hurts me and manipulates me. As a mum, my number one priority is to protect my children. There is too much at risk for them to see it all and make their mind up about her. She's too good of a manipulator and children are so vulnerable at such a young age. I still have so much trauma from my childhood and still by what she does when I try to have any contact with her. So is it really worth it all? sorry is it what really worth all the damage that can be done by letting them figure it out for themselves great question and a very common question georgia so my first point would be how old are the children i'm guessing we might not know no my view is that you are there to protect your children and i really do feel strongly that if you have genuinely experienced the damage of that parent towards you and you know what it's done to you why would you put your own children the firing line of that.

32:40My view is as they get to sort of middle to late teenage years you may sit and discuss it with them a little more and say this is why I've done this you have every right if you want to form a relationship with her but this was my experience and this is what I was concerned about and of course you can go and make up your own mind but this is why I did what I did at the time. I think describing that to younger children puts untold concern onto them. I don't think you need to share the whole story with them I think you might need to just gently find a way that you know grandma or granddad's not around at the moment you know they're just not here so they're not visiting they're somewhere else but I think as they get into the years where they can begin to understand 15 16 17 I think then a child can make up their own mind they might be curious and they might go and go and find them and I'm sure if they're a true narcissist they'll be glorious to them for the first two or three meetings and then it'll start to come and if you've brought your children up with some sort of self-awareness they'll figure it out so trust your children will figure it out for themselves but I think when they're younger my personal view as a mother and as the therapist protect your children yes yeah yeah great and also if i guess if they ask questions like say i don't know they're five four five six whatever and they say like why don't i see grandma anymore or why don't i see you know granddad anymore what what what do you say how do you explain it to like a really young child i think you've got to make a decision for yourself about what you're comfortable saying because none of us want to lie to our children so there's something about how can we give them enough of the truth without giving them chapter and verse and you either can say my view would be to say something around you know my relationship with mum's a bit difficult at the moment or I'm finding that my mum's a bit difficult or dad whoever it might be that's the narcissist and so I'm not going to visit them for a while so you just give them something a bit generic a bit vague and a bit generic if you really feel it's very difficult and you've got to give them something stronger you might say they've moved away now they've moved away emotionally they've not moved away physically there could be something where there's some level of truth in what you're saying but my view is if you knew somebody was physically abusive to you would you put your children in their care absolutely and my view is that emotional abuse and physical abuse they are very different things absolutely but my sense is they're just as damaging and they're just as pervasive that is such a good point and that's such a good way this one is really interesting and and definitely rings a little bit true with me therapist says mum's behavior is jealousy but how can a mum really be jealous of her daughter and can and is that true yeah can that happen it can happen especially with narcissistic parents right because don't forget you are the younger maybe prettier you've got your life ahead of you there's so much more they're becoming older they're changing physique they're changing possibility they're not seen the same way that they were so we say with narcissists they struggle as they get older because they lose a lot of the things that they had that made them feel so special so jealousy is rife and often there will be a sense that actually they want your life in some way so they'll try and get themselves in your life in some form or take credit for the things that you are now being very successful at it's fascinating isn't it yes yeah so again there's something for them about they have huge death anxiety narcissists because the idea that they might shrivel up and die one day is completely unacceptable to them even though sadly it's going to happen to all of us so again there's something about keeping young keeping in the spotlight keeping in the the years that are very um i guess fertile for us you know you are both in very fertile years of your life right now you are living dried up old prune don't feel that fertile i look like one as well some sort of burgundy prune very far from the truth oh right yes so jealousy is very common when you've got a narcissistic parent knocking around for sure because often their days in the sun if you like are beginning to pass and yours are here yeah and so they could they and also harping on about their past as well about how amazing they were and what they did in there it's that whole like i used to be thing isn't it when you hear so i used to work i used to i used to and they're just constantly wanging on about what they used to do yeah well than what's happening now in the present absolutely so and if there's a parent situation involved often if you're very good at something they will claim that you're good at it because of them so this is very common as well oh right yeah as in you only got there because remember when I set you up with that interview with that put exactly that yeah or you've got my writing skills or you've got my football skills or you've got my whatever skills it's because of me yeah or the best one of all i sacrificed my desire to do that when i had you oh god the ultimate life put down yeah that is that's your fault that i haven't done what i've done absolutely imagine what that does to a child or a young person yeah it's that constant feeling should be criminal in my view maybe yeah it will be yeah yeah i'm gosh gosh it will be you know george we've got to say goodbye i know i know i'm looking at the questions and i'm like oh my god Is there anything that you would like to leave our listeners with?

37:45Because the way that you speak about it is so brilliant. I think it's going to help so many people. But are there any things? I've got to leave you with hope because I think it's so important. You know, I recovered from a situation that I had. I work with many people that do. The wonderful truth is the answer and the escape and the life that's much happier is already in you. It's just that all these blankets of nonsense have been put on top of you. And you've got to slowly take them all off and find this real you. So it's really important that you begin to tune back into what do I believe? What do I believe in?

38:17What is true about my character? And can I live the life that I want rather than the life that they wish me to live in whatever form that be? The answer is you don't need to look outside. It's all in here. You've just got to find the ways of beginning to uncover the true self that got kind of covered over by these dastardly parents. And it is totally possible. So, you know, there's stuff on my website that's completely free that you can read. you don't have to buy the book the website's called psychedventures.com and there's actually a specific piece on narcissism in there I've put five pages worth of links and books and YouTubes and all sorts of stuff from other people that I think is really really useful and it's all free so you can go and find it but I promise you if you are determined to get through and get out of these relationships you absolutely can you can be happy and everybody needs to go out and buy your mate I'm going to not put those fingers up because I've got the nerve on it.

39:10Here we go. I know, me too. I'm like that. My Parent the Peacock. Everyone, it's out now? It's out now. It came out a couple of weeks ago. It's sold out straight away and it's just gone back into reprint. So it seems to have been, as it has with your listeners, a really, really popular topic. I think it's much bigger than we originally thought. Definitely. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thank you.