Narcissism: Your Ultimate Toolkit

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25:30You don't need special gadgets to be a hero. With unlimited 1.5 % cash back on every purchase, everywhere, the Capital One Quicksilver card makes you the hero of every purchase. Whether it's headphones, a lounge chair, or even a well-deserved massage, whatever the Quicksilver purchase, you're the hero. No fighting bad guys, getting in epic car chases, or parachuting out of buildings required. Simple, isn't it? The Capital One Quicksilver card. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com for details. You can be curious. When you can find an empathic, charismatic person behold them they are the unicorns of the human being like you really are like when i meet that when i meet the confident charismatic empathic kind respectful humble person i do i literally i'm like okay everyone and i can tell you it doesn't happen often and i'm usually like i look goo goo eyes because i'm thinking and then of course i'm poking at it i'm like no no no i'm gonna find i'm fine what's wrong with it every so often i find it and i'm I'm like, it hasn't happened often.

26:35It hasn't happened often. But here's the thing. The charm, the charisma, the confidence, the curiosity. There's also comfort that they also offer. It's like they'll often feel like they're rescuers. I can take care of it all. They'll be very generous. Up front. It's all a front game, right? So what happens then? The curtain comes down across all your common sense. And you miss the little things. Yeah. And people, and if you, either you miss the lack of empathy and the anger and the rage and all the other stuff, or you justify it. You justify, well, yeah. You know, he's got a big job, or she's really stressed, or she doesn't mean that, or that's just their culture.

27:17I was listening, I was reading an article by a linguist recently, and the linguist was talking about how people talk over each other in certain cultures, right? and they were using that as a way to rationalize interrupting and there's interrupting and there's interrupting narcissistic interrupting is not only it's it's contemptuous interrupting what's i mean like dismissive interrupting it's dismissive like um okay all right you know you're talking and then i i not only cut in but it's basically like your point of view doesn't matter or yeah you're you're an idiot you're an idiot i know what's really yeah yeah okay so you you share some of these signs of malignant narcissism.

27:57No, that's okay. So let's go back to the core. So we got the core of lack of empathy, all that stuff I talked about. Entitlement, yes. Yes. Now the problem with narcissism is there's subtypes. Oh my gosh. Not all narcissists are created. We really do need a whiteboard. Wow, that's crazy. I'd be writing notes up there because what we have then is the classical narcissist, the sort of 57 Chevy of narcissism is the grandiose narcissist. It is the big, charming, confident, I'm the one, I'm the best, no insight, very little empathy, kind of, but very like big salesperson-y. That's the grandiose narcissist.

28:36But then when we talk about the malignant narcissist, again, we have all that stuff, lack of empathy and all that other stuff, but they are more menacing. They are more controlling. They're a little bit more scary. They're sadistic. They're paranoid. What if they have both of those things? Usually they can. They can. That's a horrific combination. Because then that person's real charming on the front end. And then once you cross the threshold and walk all the way in with them, now you're dealing with their malignant, manipulative, scary. And when we see manipulative narcissists, manipulative, I'm sorry, malignant narcissism, we're seeing people who are often, they're more likely to be aggressive, to be violent, to be abusive, to isolate people from ever being able to get help, from being abusive in the workplace.

29:33We hear these big, awful workplace abuse stories, especially a lot in the Me Too era. A lot of those folks are malignant narcissists. Right. So what happens if you're with a narcissist? Maybe it's been a year, you've been dating someone or your boss didn't seem like it at the beginning, but then you're figuring out, oh, check, check, check. They've got a lot of these things. But the first six months seemed great or it seemed like it was amazing. But now we're seeing the curtain pull back and some of these things are coming out and we're not feeling good about the relationship we're in, whether it's a working relationship, a friendship, an intimate relationship.

30:12We've spotted it. What I'm hearing you say is there's really no way to change a narcissist. So trying to change them is not going to happen. It's a fool's theory. So does it mean we just pretty much have to rip the cord and rip the band-aid and get out? Or how does it... So life's not that simple, right? We can't walk away from all relationships. People can't just quit their jobs. Let's say a person starts figuring this out five years in a relationship and they're married and they have children. What if it's their family of origin and they're like, I've done my homework and this is actually my parent or my sibling.

30:44People say, well, I don't know that I'm willing to cut off from my entire family. So I'm not going to sit here and tell people that, oh, you just got to always go. In fact, my first book on the topic of narcissism is called Should I Stay or Should I Go? Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist. And I wrote it from that point of view because it's too simplistic to say, well, get up and go. Like you said, rip off the Band-Aid. And neither path is easy. But in an ideal world, I will be frank with you. And there's actually an interesting group in Israel that's gathering, has gathered some data on this, on narcissistic abuse.

31:17And they've found that the thing that works best in dealing with a narcissistic relationship that resulted in the best outcomes was going no contact, like having no contact with them. Completely blocking, cutting off. Completely done. And because it's almost like a toxin, right? If there's a toxic gas, the best way to feel better is to have no more toxic gas. If you have a little bit, You're just going to be feeling a little bit of pain consistently. It's going to be holding on to it. Correct. But a lot of people don't have that. So the biggest, if you're going to have to stay in this relationship, you have to engage in something that I and others have called radical acceptance.

31:51This is never going to change. This is who they are. This is who they are. This is it. So, and then I tell people, I have something called the deep technique that I talk about. The deep technique is when I tell people, if you're dealing with a narcissist, don't defend, don't engage, don't explain. don't personalize. So deep, don't defend, don't engage, don't explain, don't personalize. And so when they're coming at you, and if you can remember, you really are keeping it tight. It's a lot of, it's like you're in a deposition. Yes, no, okay, sounds good, sure. Now, narcissists don't like that. Because they love the fight.

32:33They're gonna bait you, they're gonna bait you. And they, when I tell you when they bait you, They don't play. They go for everything that's going to get there. They make something else. They start making stuff up. They go after your kids. They start making stuff up. They go after your friends. They draw your friends in it. Threatening to shame you publicly, whatever it is, right? And so then at some people, people take that bait, and then the narcissist is like, game on. You know, and they're all in. I got you. I got you. Because when you're fighting, they're fighters. That's what they do. In fact, there was a great research study that came out from Ohio State University, Ohio boy.

33:03And phenomenal study that came out this year. and over 450 studies they examined and found really strong effects that narcissism is consistently associated with aggression. There's nothing soft about this. This is about aggression. They want the fight. They are always a better fighter. Oh my gosh. And they want the fight. So they bait you. You've got to be made a steal. Don't defend, don't engage, don't exclaim. This is crazy. To not get into the fight. Every relationship with a narcissist is a threesome. You just don't know it Because they always need that third person in the relationship, whether it's someone gave me the number or someone's noticing me.

33:43This person DM me or this person's hitting on me. They're always trying to create that sense of intrigue or the idea that somebody is more into them. Again, it's often them creating the jealousy or they'd be incredibly jealous of their partners. There's a difference between jealousy and pathological jealousy. There's two different things. So jealousy is normal. We are a pair-bonded species, we human beings. We pretty much are about generally, normatively, have sex with one person. People are like, no, that person cheated on me. He said, yeah, they were only having sex with them. They weren't having sex with you.

34:23They were still sexually monogamous. They weren't banging you. They were banging someone else. You were on paper in a relationship with them. You went to the same home, but their sex was with someone else. Okay? But we tend to be pair-bonded. We tend to be monogamous. All right? So jealousy is a threat to that. Think of it Darwinianly, right? If I'm in a relationship and a threat comes in, right, normal jealousy is that sort of evolutionary jealousy, right? I'm with a person. If somebody comes in as a threat to that relationship, I've lost the resources and support for our offspring, right? That's all the Darwinian stuff, movie production.

35:03Pathological jealousy. Pathological jealousy, though, that starts getting into the realm of things like paranoia and negative mood states and all that. Jealousy doesn't feel good, but when I've worked with couples, they're like, I'm jealous. I'm like, that's good. That means you've still got skin in the game. I've been with people, worked with couples, or worked with individuals, and they'll say, I'm not even jealous when people notice my husband. I kind of feel sad because I'm like, yeah, this thing's kind of. Oh, gotcha. Kind of done. I feel like, yeah, I don't feel jealous. I feel like I trust the person I'm with.

35:36Yeah, but that's what we're talking about, pathological jealousy, right? So I think of my partner. Ironically, on my drive here, he was talking about something and about this woman who I knew we were going to see who had hit on him. And this dude is so loyal, it levels it to a whole new level. And I remember thinking in the drive, I'm like, I got that little funny thing in my tummy. And I'm like, huh? He doesn't even live in this country. And so I'm thinking, and I was like, that's good. That's good that I'm still feeling like that. I still got a dog in the fight. I care. But it doesn't mean you're like for days letting it stress you out and like talking to him about it.

36:09Only because we're talking about it here. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And so the path, what did you say? Paranoid. The pathological jealousy. Pathological jealousy. Yeah. That's a narcissistic thing. That's more of an, it's more paranoid. It's more antagonistic. It's more about. You must be doing something. You're doing such accusatory. It's almost delusional. Oh my gosh. Okay. What would you say, again, are the main causes? What are the main things that happen to cause someone to become a narcissist? Is it all trauma-based? No, it's partly trauma. It's also that temperament. It is chaos in the early environment.

36:44It's lack of secure attachment. It's overvaluation of the child. Basically, the child can do no wrong, and they're so wonderful. I mean, it's interesting. We're about to see something fascinating happen, and I don't know how it's going to go down. We're about to see, because Facebook's coming up on 20 years soon, right? We're about to see the first generation of kids who are born into the Facebook world, where every moment being documented and shared. Since they were born. Since they were born. This is the first time we're going to be seeing this. So I bless the people out there who are going to start collecting this data, because we now have, you know, you're going to see what happens if you were, because I had kids way before this, so I did not.

37:21The only people who saw their pictures were the people I actually put them in an envelope, mailed a picture kind of thing. Came over to the house and looked at the actual baby. But this is a whole new game for kids who basically were accessories to their parents' lives. Like, look at my child this, look at my child this, look at my child this. Every day there's a new picture. So do you think it's okay to share some of your family life on social media and some of your children's special moments? Or do you think we should be protecting our kids at all costs and never show their face, never show anything until they're 10 or 12?

37:54It's a super interesting area. there's some actually really interesting thinking and writing about this, which is these children aren't consenting to this. Are these children consenting to you showing them have a meltdown? Or, you know, we see all these silly child videos and sometimes I kind of feel a little sadness because these things stay evergreen. They didn't agree to that. And as much as we say, oh no, it's so cute. They didn't consent. It's a vulnerability, right? So there's some, I know some folks in the developmental sphere of psychology saying, oh, this may not be entirely cool. Yeah.

38:24What happens when the kid's 23 and they start going back and seeing all these like things that their mom or dad posted and they're like, huh, that's not really cool. I wish you wouldn't have done that to me. But it goes beyond that because even when the child is young, there's this sense of things are constantly being done to them without them agreeing to it. Posing and put these clothes on and do this and let's post you. Yeah, in a public way. And then And the child also gets this sense of their utility, their importance to their parents is their social media persona. You look so pretty in your dress.

38:57You look so cute in your costume. Like you're wondering, are you costuming your child for Halloween for you or for them?

39:06What would you say is the main traits of a narcissist?

39:13Grandiosity, really wanting to be the center of attention. this veneer of confidence, being very easily wounded. Oh, wait a minute. You complimented this other person's whatever it is. They get so wounded. Like, well, why didn't you compliment mine? Right? Oh, you think that person's attractive? They'll like ice you out. Wow. So super jealous too or no? Very, very. But they act like they don't care. Oh, you want to do it? Go ahead. I don't care. Like passive aggressive jealous or something, right yeah very passive aggressive yeah huh any other signs that people should look out for if they're like starting to date someone they're like huh this seems very narcissistic i think that jekyll and hyde quality that you know one minute you're like this and the next minute you're incredibly cruel you can be incredibly warm and loving right and incredibly cruel and the two you toggle between the two in a way that is frightening it's like a split personality huh yeah yeah but And it's not because the narcissist is doing the thing.

40:13You reel them in. The narcissist reels the person in with the charm. With the charm. With the seduction. And then flips it. You are the center of the universe. And then, uh-oh, you're getting too close to me. So I'm going to be cruel. So it's interesting. So it's like if you're with someone who's showing these traits and they're just wowing you and they're so nice and loving and grandiose. But then if you truly open up and you want to get to know their heart, that's when they start to do other things? or what happens then? Yeah, yeah. If you get too close, if you get too intimate. If you get too close to them, right, either you're being too intimate with them, although they want you to be somewhat intimate with them so they know how to use it against you.

40:51Right. Tell me your deepest darkest secrets that I can use it against you later. Then I will use it against you in the moment when you are most vulnerable. Wow. Or they don't want you to know too much about them, right? They hide certain things. Well, they hide their vulnerabilities. They don't know how to get authentically close to another person. why does someone become a narcissist? Oh, that's, you know, I think so many people, anybody who's had experience with someone like that wants to know that. And you'll see that, you know, this is when we talk about we marry our unfinished business, right?

41:25So it's the person who grew up feeling very, they didn't get their needs met. They didn't get, you know, they were either neglected or they grew up with a narcissistic parent. So what do we do with parents who don't meet our needs? On the one hand, we rebel against them. We say, I'm not going to be like that. I'm not going to choose someone like that. So the narcissist doesn't choose another narcissist. If the narcissist grew up with a narcissistic parent, they don't choose another narcissist. They choose someone like the other parent who was with the narcissistic parent. And then what they do is they take on the traits of the narcissistic parent.

42:02Now, why do they do that? Even though they were so injured by that kind of parent. It's like the person who grew up with an alcoholic parent or a person who couldn't self-regulate. Why did they become the angry yeller even though their parent was the angry yeller and they said, I would never do that? How do you get close to a parent who couldn't get close to you? You become like them. That's your connection to them. This is completely outside of your awareness. You don't realize that. But we still, the wish never dies that we can be close to our parents. The wish never dies. So what do we do if we don't process this?

42:37So if we process it, then we... If we process it, then we know, okay, I have to watch out for that. I have to find another way to grieve what I didn't get growing up. I have to really go through that grief process. And I'm going to have that loss is going to live with me, but it's going to live with me in a way that isn't so sharp. So you really have to grieve it. But if you don't grieve it, you repeat it. You take on the trait of one of your parents or something. You take on their traits because that helps you feel close to them. Oh, I'm going to feel close to you in this way. This is not in your conscious awareness.

43:11Wow. And then people don't realize it. They think, oh my gosh, one day someone says to them, you are exactly like your mom, your dad. And they go, oh my God, I am. Right? If they can get past sort of like the narcissistic protection. Yeah, of course. Which would be what? If they can hear it. I'm not like my parents. No, I'm not like them at all. I'm not like them at all. Like if you could take a videotape of a scene from your childhood and you take a videotape of how you're acting now with your own child, you would be stunned. Wow. So how does someone, if they're, okay, they've realized maybe there's narcissistic traits or it's a full-on narcissist that they're in a relationship with.

43:50What are the next steps they should take? Is there a way to actually, I mean, you can't really change someone in a relationship when I'm hearing you say. No matter what you do, the person's not going to change. Right. So do you need to change in order for them to change? Or is it just if you're someone who's diagnosed narcissist, there's no hope for actually healthy growth in the relationship? Well, someone who has narcissistic traits generally doesn't come to therapy because they don't think they have a problem. Right. They're like, no, I'm good. Right. So how they come in is they're having some relational difficulty.

44:23Right. And the relational difficulty is either they're coming in for couples therapy because the other person dragged them there. Yeah. You know, so often we say that, you know, the reason that people come to therapy is to deal with the people who won't go to therapy. Right. You know, you're coming to therapy to deal with the person in your life who won't come to therapy. It's funny. Yeah. Isn't it obnoxious when companies have those sneaky gotchas hiding deep in the fine print or bills that seem to go up for no dang reason? Like when budget airlines promise a cheap fare, but then charge you for every little thing until you realize you're paying even more than you would have elsewhere?

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47:03None of my partners wanted to go to therapy. They resisted, resisted, resisted. And I was like, what? We're not figuring it out on our own. Like, I'm trying, you're trying. It's not working. Let's go. Let's have someone look at. No, it's like so much resistance. I was just like. Right. And so in that case. I'm not saying they're all narcissists, but it was definitely the same. No, no, no. So I'm not even talking about. So let me differentiate. So there's, you know, a narcissistic person, meaning diagnosed narcissistic, or even people with narcissistic traits, they tend not to come on their own to therapy unless they actually agree to come in couples and they're coming because their partner is making them come.

47:39Yes. That's the only reason. Or, and then you kind of see like how flexible are they with their story, right? Because everybody's coming in with their story. Both Both people, both people. Their perspective, yeah. Right. The other reason, like, and maybe you should talk to someone, John, right? When I talk about him, he's this guy who's in his 40s. He's married. He has some kids. And he is incredibly insulting to me from the minute, you know, he walks in the door. Everybody else is the problem. You know, in fact, the chapter is called Idiots because he says everybody else is an idiot, right? Why can't people, why aren't people as smart as he is?

48:14Why aren't people as competent as he is? Why can't people do things right? Why does he, and he's like the beleaguered victim. You see that sometimes, right? I'm so talented and smart. I'm the victim because no one else. I'm the victim of all these other people are causing so much anxiety in my life. Like, why are they doing things the way that they should be done? Why are they complaining about all these things? Not realizing that he's the one doing the complaining. About every day, yeah. Right, right. You know, and we call it complaining from the victim position. You know, or being offended from the victim position.

48:46Sure. everybody else is the problem. Or the reason that people are cruel to another person is they say, you know, like, I was the victim so I can hurt you twice as much. So if you hurt me, I have a right to hurt you. No. Right. Right. I'm doing this to protect myself. Right. No. So when John came in, he was, you know, you very much say, a lot of people would say, I don't want to treat somebody like that because I don't know how much progress they're going to make because if they can't self-reflect, well, you have to be able to see yourself. In the book, I talk about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion.

49:24So idiot compassion is what we do with our friends. So your friends say like, listen to what my partner did or my mom or my kid or my sibling or whatever it is. And we say, yeah, that's terrible. You're right. How dare they? You're right. They're wrong. We just back them up blindly because we think we're being supportive. But if you actually listen to your friends over time, you might hear that there's a pattern that they are kind of complaining about similar types of things. It's kind of like if a fight breaks out in every bar you're going to, maybe it's you. We don't say that in any of your compassion.

49:55So in therapy, what we offer is we offer wise compassion. And in wise compassion, we hold up a mirror to you to help you to see yourself in ways that maybe you haven't been willing or able to do. And And compassion is the key word here because we're doing it compassionately. So someone who comes in and they're not able to self-reflect, they're not able to see their reflection in the mirror and say, yes, oh, I have a role in this too. Yes, it's true the other person does this, but I have a role in this too. So when you are asking about change, when people come in for couples therapy, I always give them an assignment before they come in.

50:29And the assignment is this, because normally the first thing that will happen if I don't is they're going to come in and they're going to name all the ways that their partner needs to change. and then we get nowhere. So I say to them, I want you to come up with how you can make this relationship better. I want you to come up with what you're going to do. What are you going to be working on to make this relationship better, even if your partner never changes? And they each have this assignment. So from day one, they come in and even though they might have a lot of reasons that things aren't working out that they think are their partner's issue, their goal in therapy is to work on the one thing or the two things or the three things that they think they can do to make the relationship better.

51:14And it changes the whole course of the couple's therapy because it's not about changing the other person. The magic of this is that they say, well, what's the point of doing it if they're not going to change? Well, first of all, again, going from the me and the you to the us is things are going to go more smoothly because you're going to be doing something to improve the relationship. But the other part of it is, and where the magic comes in is you can't change another person, but you can influence change in another person. So when you do something differently, you are helping the other person to change.

51:46No one changes because you say, I want you to change in this way. That doesn't really happen. They might do it. They might pay lip service to it. It doesn't really last. But if you start changing, if you make it easier, you help them to change by making it easier for them to change. So let's say they really need space. Give them some space. Let's say you try to control them less. Let's say that you don't engage in the same familiar argument over and over and over. Maybe you do something kind for them. And then people say about that, they say, well, why should I do something kind? Why should I go first?

52:20If they would be nice to me, I'll be nice to them. It doesn't matter. You need to go first because someone needs to do something. Someone needs to change the dynamic. It's like a dance. And so if you do something nice for them, you might notice that they, not because it's a tit for tat, not because they're doing it because you, it's because they feel safer. They feel more loving toward you. They feel like, oh, that was really nice. I really liked that. Now I actually want to, on my own volition, want to do something nice. for you. Yeah. And what if, what if someone says, I'm going to, I'm going to improve all the, you know, three, five, 10 areas that I know can improve.

52:59And after six months, the other person's like, yeah, I deserve all these things. And I'm not going to give any more than what you keep coming back. Have you seen that where people come back to every, it's like, okay, I've done this. I did this. I did this. And they're still not happy. And they're still upset. And they're still not shifting in certain ways. Well, first of all, I think that what they engage in then is what I call the pain olympics which is like whose pain is greater yeah you know like i'm working so hard i'm working 12 hour days well i'm taking care of the kids or i'm doing this or you know like i'm doing all of this kind of labor in the relationship and you're doing all it's there's no there's no winning the pain olympics like let's just say that you're both at a 10 okay you both win you both lose like you both but you both lose if you keep trying to compare it the point is you're both you're both struggling and what's really interesting about couples is that couples don't tend to tell the other person exactly how they're struggling in a relationship instead they act it out they act out their fears or their disappointment or their hurt in other ways but they don't directly say this is how I'm struggling and so if you're in couples therapy you're going to start talking about those things and if you're you know if you're not then then you're not really doing couples therapy.

54:16So, you know, I mean, I think that your therapist will tell you very early on, like, this is the work that we're doing. And this is, I think some people think that couples therapy, as you come in, you download the argument of the week or the struggle of the week, you leave, you come back the next week and you download the new thing. No, that's like talking to a friend. There's no point to that. What should the point of therapy be? The point is that you want to be doing, most of the therapy of couples therapy takes place outside of the therapy room, meaning what happens in between sessions. So we came in, we talked about this.

54:49You learn something new about yourself. You learn something new about your partner. And then we always say insight is the booby prize of therapy, that you can have all the insight in the world. But if you don't make changes out in the world between sessions, the insight is useless. So then, okay, you have this insight, you learn something. What are you going to do with that knowledge? Use it. Like, why are you wasting your time and your money coming in here every week if you're not going to use it. What's been the thing that you've seen as a therapist where you realized, oh, this is something that I have done in my relationships or, oh, actually, this is a really good lesson for me because I used to do that and I don't want to do that anymore or something like that.

55:29Has there been anything? I would say all of it. Really? I mean, I think that that's what makes relationships so interesting and people think that it's only happening to them. They're like, you only do this. You know, it's really interesting that they think, they're like, you're the only one, my friends don't do this. Nobody does this, their partners don't do this. Or I only act this crazy around you, right? Like, I don't do this. Nobody else elicits this kind of response to me. Well, of course they don't elicit that kind of response in you because you're not in an intimate relationship with them.

55:59They're not bringing up all that unconscious stuff that comes up when you're in that intimate relationship. So I think that the good news for couples is that anything they bring in, I've seen it before. I've experienced probably some of it before. And it's so universal. And if people could stop, people can blame and shame. They blame the other person. They feel shame themselves. And then they don't really make progress because they're afraid to really look at these things because they're really uncomfortable talking about them. But when they find that, oh, this is just the human condition. And this is what happens when we get scared.

56:37This is what happens when we feel threatened. And maybe it's not even your partner who's threatening, but it's something about being this close to someone. Or there's something your partner does that reminds your nervous system of something that happened earlier. In the past. Like, who am I talking to right now? Am I talking to the child who had to come up with a way to protect yourself from whatever was happening? And it was very effective. It was ingenious as a child because you had to. You didn't have agency. Or am I talking to the adult who has agency and doesn't need to use that way of protecting yourself that is actually creating some conflict in your relationship?

57:12Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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