Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - How To Spot A Narcissist, The Impact of Toxic Relationships & Building Healthy Boundaries with Dr Ramani Durvasula #428

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

Whether it’s on the political stage, in the world of celebrity, or across social media, the word narcissist is used a lot these days. The same goes for terms like ‘gaslighting’. But do we really understand what they mean? Is their increased use a good thing, shining a light on toxic behaviours to beware of? Or do we risk diluting their impact – undermining what it really means to be stuck in a narcissistic relationship? This episode takes a frank look at all these questions and more, with licensed clinical psychologist Dr Ramani Durvasula. She’s Professor of Psychology at California State University, a world-renowned expert on the impact of personality and personality disorders on health and behaviour and someone who is extremely passionate about the impact that narcissism can have on physical health, mental health and relationships. She has written several books, including the latest, It’s Not You: How to Identify and Heal from Narcissistic People. We begin by exploring the true meaning of narcissism, its prevalence within society, the evolutionary explanation for narcissistic traits, the impact that narcissistic behaviours can have on our relationships and why it is that society seems to reward these traits, making them synonymous with success and fame. Dr Ramani believes too many people are harmed by narcissists. As a survivor herself, she’s made it her life’s work to raise awareness of how they can wreak havoc in relationships, families, workplaces and more. By exposing the traits and refusing to celebrate them, she wants to empower and protect people’s health. It’s Not You is the title of her book because Dr Ramani wants survivors of narcissism to know they’re not at fault. She believes you can get to a place of ‘radical acceptance’ where, even if you can’t leave, you can acknowledge a person’s behaviour is not OK and you’re not at fault. And during this conversation she outlines some of the ways you can get there, how you can protect yourself in future, and how to start healing if you have been hurt. This conversation is slightly different in topic and tone from what you may be used to on this podcast. But I do think that this is an important topic that is probably not spoken about enough. For me, it really was an honour to have such a deep and honest conversation about this topic with someone as passionate and articulate as Dr Ramani. I hope you enjoy listening. Find out more about my NEW Journal here https://drchatterjee.com/journal Thanks to our sponsors: https://shopify.com/livemore https://zoe.com https://calm.com/livemore https://drinkag1.com/livemore Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/428 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

This is harming people and there's an absolute unwillingness of the mental health profession to recognize this, of families to recognize this. And so I feel like clinically people who have been affected by these relationships have been woefully undertreated and underserved. Hey guys, how you doing? Hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More. Whether it's on the political stage, in the world of celebrity, or across social media, the word narcissist is used a lot these days. The same goes for terms like gaslighting.

But do we really understand what they mean? Is their increased use a good thing, shining a light on toxic behaviours that we need to be aware of? Or do we risk diluting their impact, undermining what it really means to be stuck in a narcissistic relationship? Well, today's guest is here to reveal all. Dr. Romani is a licensed clinical psychologist, a professor of psychology at California State University, a world-renowned expert on the impact of personality and personality disorders on health and behavior, and someone who is extremely passionate about the impact that narcissism can have on physical health, mental health, and relationships. She's also the author of several

books, including her latest, It's Not You, How to Identify and Heal from Narcissistic People. In our conversation, we explore the true meaning of narcissism, its prevalence within society, the evolutionary explanation for narcissistic traits, the impact that narcissistic behaviors can have on our relationships, and why it is that society seems to reward these traits, making them synonymous with success and fame. Dr. Armani believes that too many people are harmed by narcissists, and as a survivor herself, she's made it her life's work to raise awareness of how they can wreak havoc in relationships, families, and workplaces. And by exposing the traits and refusing to celebrate them, she wants to empower and protect people's health.

It's Not You is the title of her new book because Dr. Romani wants survivors of narcissism to know they're not at fault. She believes you can get to a place of radical acceptance where even if you cannot leave, you can acknowledge that a person's behavior is not okay and that you are not at fault. And during our conversation, she outlined some of the ways you can get there, how you can protect yourself in the future, and how to start healing if you have been hurt. Now this conversation, I would say, is slightly different in topic and tone

from what you may be used to on my podcast, but I do think that this is an important topic that is probably not spoken about enough. For me, it really was an honour to have such a deep and honest conversation about this topic with someone as esteemed, passionate and articulate as Dr. Romani. I hope you enjoy listening. Right at the top of this conversation, Dr. Romani, I thought it would be good to get an overview. Why is it that you are so passionate about the topic of narcissism? I am passionate about the topic of narcissism for a couple of reasons. I wish I could say it was one why. I think one is a concern maybe is that this is harming people and there's an absolute

unwillingness of the mental health profession to recognize this, of families to recognize this. It's as though that's just how they are. They just speak their mind. And I'm thinking that's not what this is. And so I feel like clinically, people who have been affected by these relationships have been woefully undertreated and underserved. That's number one. But the number two reason is why are we so fascinated? Why do we reward them so much? They make more money. They just do better by societal metrics. I don't know that they're doing better in existential metrics, but then it's the harm they do and how little we have really talked about this. And I think that's really where my fascination comes from.

If we just take it from the top then, what is narcissism? What's the definition and how do we know if we're dealing with a narcissist somewhere in our lives? So there's sort of two ways to approach this. And I think that because your second question, you know, raises already some difficulties with that first part of the question. So let's talk about what narcissism is. Narcissism is a personality style. And we have to remember, we all have personalities, right? Just people who are difficult don't have personalities. You have one, I have one, everyone has one, right? And it gives us almost a blueprint and a way to predict how we're going to go through the world. We know how by knowing someone's personality, we have a good working model of how they're going to respond

to stress, how they're going to respond to joy, how they're going to be in relationships, how they're going to approach many areas of their life. It's a decent predictive model. It's not absolute, but it's pretty good. So that's what personality is, right? We, again, all have one. Narcissism is a personality style. Now, it's in a sort of a specific area of personality styles that are more maladaptive and rigid and put them at odds with other people, but it's just one more style. And it's a style that's characterized by a series of patterns that hang together, variable and low empathy, entitlement, grandiosity, arrogance, envy of other people, or they think other people envy them. They often live in sort of a fantasy world. They're very selfish. They can be very controlling. They don't handle

disappointment and stress well. And at those times, they'll often rage at other people, blame them, not take responsibility or accountability. They're very superficial. They're vain. They're shallow, they're very focused on status and appearance and sort of external characteristics. Many narcissistic people also have the personality quality of extroversion, though there's a subset that are a little bit more introverted. But all of that together, all this grandiosity and arrogance and entitlement, all this stuff I'm talking about, it's like a suit of armor around a deep-seated insecurity.

Narcissistic people sort of are a cauldron of shame. So when they do get criticized, where the rest of us might, we may not like it, we might say, but they've got a point. If you've got this deep, fragile ego and an insecurity and the shame. When somebody gives you feedback on your behavior, it becomes explosive and that gets lashed out at other people. So that chronic insecurity is kept at bay by them sort of bejeweling themselves with all of these defenses.

And that's how that shows up. So to your next question, and this is where it gets tricky, how do we know someone in our life is narcissistic? I almost think coming to that next question, and this is where it gets tricky. How do we know someone in our life is narcissistic? I almost think coming to that sense of are they narcissistic is less important than giving yourself permission to look at the patterns, patterns being the key word here, that of behavior that someone around you is showing. The fact is somebody listening to this is not saying, well, yesterday, someone I know for the first time got mad at me. You don't know that they're

narcissistic. This is usually months, years, lifetimes of observing someone, observing how they are under stress, observing how they are in terms of equity and shared responsibility, observing how they are in terms of empathy, observing how they are in terms of whether or not they think they're more special than other people. It's a pattern. It hangs together. That's the nature of personality. The stuff goes together. So people, and I tell folks, don't get lost in the weeds of wanting to precisely figure out if this is a narcissist. You're giving me a laundry list of behavior this person engages in regularly, and it's not good for you. And I can promise you, the more problematic the behavior and the more consistent it is, the less likely it is to change. So by the time I'm done with a conversation with

somebody, give me a couple of hours, I'll be like, yeah, no, this is probably narcissism. But I think in our lives, I think we have to get away from that. Are they narcissistic? Are these patterns consistent? Yeah, they probably are. And the more consistent the patterns, the less likely to change. The less likely to change, the more our decisions about this relationship have to come from that. They're not going to change. So what am I going to do? So much there to unpick, right? If we go through that list of behaviors, traits that you just outlined, I would say many people, if not all people, can exhibit some of those traits from time to time. Superficiality, a lack of empathy, envy, being vain, an over-focus on external validation. And I would say a lot of people, I think, exhibit certain,

what you could call negative traits of their personality when they're under high degrees of stress. And many people in society across the world these days are feeding under a huge amount of stress. So I'm guessing this is a continuum and it's not the odd time where you're showing up to some of these behaviors. It's more, is this the pattern of your behavior? Yeah. So I'm glad you framed it that way because one of the things that many people grapple with is this idea of, am I the narcissist? Because I've been entitled. I'm the one who said, hey, wait a minute, I'm the first one in line or that I haven't listened to my friend's problem the way I should have and didn't have empathy for her problem. Or I blew up at someone because I was having a bad day.

What we also have to look at is how a person takes responsibility. We may do those things, blow up at the person when we're having a bad day. But in a healthy person, you see some attempt at making amends pretty quickly thereafter, and a willingness to take responsibility. So a sense of, I am so sorry. I had no right to yell at you like that. I just had no right. I'm sorry I hurt you. Are you okay? So if a person, now they can't do that every day. Like they can't scream at you and apologize, scream at you, apologize. But when a person has a fall from grace and there is that attempt to take, again, make amends, take accountability, show self-awareness and not blame other people or give flimsy excuses. I don't consider that narcissism. I consider that being a human being.

The narcissism piece is the consistency, as you said, but it's also the unwillingness to ever take responsibility, right? And so you bring up the issue, which is a very important one, that narcissism isn't an either or, yes, no, black, white. It's very much on a continuum. And I think that's why, and not only is it on a continuum, there are several subtypes, which is why two people in narcissistic relationships may be having very different experiences from each other. On the severity side, on the lowest ends of narcissism, sort of what we could call it mild narcissism, you have people who are superficial, vapid, call it mild narcissism. You have people who are superficial, vapid, vain, attention-seeking,

emotionally immature, and stunted. I honestly have to say they're a little bit harmless. Their lack of empathy really comes from this idea that they're almost more caught up in childlike or adolescent concerns, even though they're an adult, and they're not able to attend with the proper attention to grown-up problems, as it were. So while they may be sort of charming as a friend, they may not be good people to be long-term partners. It would not make good parents, that kind of thing, right? But not as sort of psychologically harmful as we'd see at the severe end of the spectrum, which is things like malignant narcissism, what we call the dark tetrad, where psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism, which is sort of the willingness to take advantage of other people, and sadism all come together.

That's a whole other game. These are people who are coercive, exploitative, manipulative, isolating, menacing. That's almost terrifying, right? Tremendous harm to people who are in those relationships. Most of us who encounter narcissistic people are catching people in the middle. A moderate narcissism, that's not just that sort of mild, silly, attention-seeking, aren't I cute on Instagram narcissism, but certainly not that menace. But the moderate narcissism can do a number on us because there are enough good days to keep you hooked, but the bad days leave you questioning yourself.

And after enough time, people in these relationships start to feel like they're a bad person, that they lack capability, that there's something wrong with them. That's not a good feeling. So that continuum can give us a sense of why it can look so different. Not everyone who posts a selfie is narcissistic, but a person who, where that becomes their reason for living, they will get irritable with other people who won't take the picture of them, won't like the picture of them. It's all they talk about. They talk about that over being there for other people. Now we're in narcissism, right? A person who takes a selfie is a person who's taken a selfie. So I think it's making those sorts of discernments really, really matters. But I also think that we all have our ungraceful days.

Healthy people take accountability for those days and they apologize properly so that the other person feels whole and there's a place to grow from. Yeah, really helpful. Thank you. Another thought I had when reading your latest book, and also when you were just going through that list of behaviors, is that some of those patterns or some of those traits, at least, like a need for external validation, are often adaptive traits to how we were brought up. adaptive traits to how we were brought up, right? So let's say we didn't feel we were unconditionally loved by our parents. Well, we develop all kinds of compensatory patterns

for that which serve us in childhoods and often don't serve us when we become adults. Mm-hmm. Where does narcissism fit into that framework? Is it something you're born with or can it be an adaptive pattern to trauma or parenting styles, for example? So again, there's a couple of things sort of there, which is that need for external validation being a human one. That's absolutely the case. In fact, human beings who don't need external validation are the ones who are non-normative because we are a social species. We want to be noticed.

We feel good when people think we did good. That's normal. And so the problem becomes when that becomes the only motivator, right? So there's no internal goal-driven system. So the narcissistic person will set their goals not on what internally matters to them, but to what they think the world wants them to be, right? That's where the grandiosity comes. I'm going to have a billion dollars, and I'm going to have a yacht, and I'm going to have this, and I'm going to have that.

But it's all sort of ephemeral, and it's all sort of like, I'm going to deliver the world what it wants, so it thinks I'm great. But really, we have no idea what gives a narcissistic person meaning or purpose because they don't know. So there's a lot of internal sort of emptiness as a result of that. Right. So it's not the need. So again, need for external validation is just one of the many things that comprises narcissism, right? If a person has a fever, we don't automatically assume they have bronchitis. There's a whole list of things they could have. That's one thing is a fever. So I'm like, now we're going to do more tests. The same thing with need for external validation. We all have it

to greater or lesser degrees, but when that becomes a singular motivating space, that's a concern. Now, like you said, that need for external validation may be a compensatory mechanism for childhood. Here's the thing. Most of us did not grow up with unconditional love. Most people, they did not. They grew up with parents who were, it was very clear, if you do well in school, you will be loved more. If you help around the house, you will be loved more. If you do the things the parent wants, you get more of their regard. It's very rare for people who have gotten truly unconditional love. So every kid has gone through this, but it is certainly part of what could have been the entire sort of sequelae of what are the constellation of stuff that contributes to why someone becomes narcissistic, which takes us to that question, right? How do people become narcissistic? And so it's multi-determined. And the pathways that make people narcissistic, just as often, more often, I would say, don't result in narcissism. So that's part of the

trick here. We can tell the story backwards. Now the pathway of adversity. Okay. So these are kids who are grown up in adversity, neglect, abuse, lots of conditional love, do what I tell you to do, serve my needs, be what I want you to be. And that's the only way you're going to get love kind of thing. That's certainly a vulnerability pathway for narcissism. But even that said, a vulnerability pathway for narcissism. But even that said, most kids who grow up under conditions of adversity, neglect, trauma, abuse, conditionality, all of that attachment disruptions don't go on to develop narcissism. They may go on to develop many other things, complex trauma, severe anxiety, all of that addiction, but not necessarily narcissism. There's another pathway though. And the other pathway to develop narcissism is one of over-specialness. This is really interesting research that's been

coming out of the Netherlands from people like Eddie Brohmans and others who are suggesting that telling the child that they're more special than any other child, not just that they're special. All kids are special and all kids should know they're special. But kids who are told you're more special than that kid, you shouldn't have to wait in line the same way. You should get more time playing soccer. You should get the better teacher. You're more special. So in essence, they're indoctrinated into a sense of entitlement. That is also considered a risk factor for narcissism. These are kids who may not learn to regulate. These are kids who might get a lot of material needs met, fabulous vacations and theme parks

and stuff and the newest gadget, but parents may not be emotionally available. The parents themselves may be narcissistic. That is also a pathway to developing narcissism. But in the same breath, the majority of kids raised that way don't become narcissistic. So the pathways are clear. And I've worked with many narcissistic clients in my practice. And when we work backwards, I've always seen in therapy more of the adversity path than the spoiled child path, but I've seen both. And that's where it comes from. And it's not just compensatory. So the defenses certainly come out to protect the child, but there are many people out there who were raised very

conditionally, right? You need to perform for us. You need to be the perfect student or the perfect ballet dancer or piano player, whatever the heck the parents wanted. And those people may grow up not sort of living and dying by external validation, but sort of feeling they're not good enough. You know, like, I don't think I'm smart, or I don't think I'm talented. And so they may continually have an internal dialogue where they're putting themselves down, but they retain empathy. They're not entitled.

They're kind, well-regulated, compassionate people. They're just not kind to themselves. That's not narcissism. Now, if some of narcissism is adaptive, if some of it is, then do you think that rates of narcissism are going up? I mean, we know rates of perfectionism, for example, have been going up dramatically since the 1980s. And perfectionism is associated with all kinds of negative problems. Is narcissism also going up? And I guess the wider point is, how long has narcissism been present in humanity? I mean, do we know that? Because it's interesting, you know, why would we have

this trait? What's the point of narcissism in the first place if it wreaks havoc on so many people in its wake? Right. So it depends on how you're using the term adaptive, right? Is it adaptive for reproductive fitness using an evolutionary Darwinian model? Is it adaptive for reproductive fitness using an evolutionary Darwinian model? Is it adaptive for human relationships? Is it adaptive in the workplace? The answer to those questions is yes to some of them and no to others. I think that there are certain things that are something that's adaptive in the workplace is not adaptive in an intimate relationship. Okay. So there's a, to the orthogonal going in the opposite direction. And I think what we often think is, well, they're successful at work, so they must be what we often think is, well, they're successful at work.

So they must be successful. I'm like, no, they're successful at work. They're a terrible partner. They're a terrible parent, but good God, they're blowing it up at work. Okay. So adaptability is going to vary on that basis. So let's go down to brass tacks and let's talk about evolution, right? So that brings us down to its basic nature.

There has always been narcissism in human beings. We're a hominid species, one step away from a primate species, and we're hierarchical as a result. We're hierarchical and we're social. We live in social groups and we do have hierarchies. Guess who's at the top of the hierarchy? The human alpha is a narcissist, okay? So it's not just adaptive in the 21st century. It's been adaptive since there have been human beings, since there was a bigger cave to have, since there was a better fire to have, since there was a bigger bison to kill.

There's always been narcissism, right? And these people have been at the top of the food chain. I'm gonna give you an interesting example. It's an example I've used with my undergraduate students for years when I was teaching at the university. It comes from Dr. Robert Sapolsky's research, and I'm sure you're very familiar with Robert Sapolsky, who I think is literally one of the greatest thinkers of our time. And his research, he's a neuroimmunologist, I believe, has been primate-based. And I'm going to simplify his research, but it gives us insight

to how this sort of so-called adaptability and how it affects other people. So in this, he followed various sort of troops of baboons, right? And baboons are relatively aggressive. I think primates in general are not a nice species and hominids aren't much better to be honest with you. But so what he found was that he followed these various tribes. He was able to get blood samples for them. He could look at cortisol. It was usually the marker that he was looking at, higher cortisol, higher stress. He already noticed that there was a hierarchy in the troops. There were alphas that would take all the goodies for them and make life miserable for everyone, including the females, the juveniles, and the non-dominant males. The non-dominant males and the females got along fine. There was a lot of mutual grooming,

but when the alphas were around, again, they made everyone's life miserable. Okay. So the alphas were in essence, narcissistic baboons. And in one of the troops he was studying, the alphas all got, there was like a safari park, like is where human beings would be. And they got their hand in the garbage can, they found tainted food and all the alphas died. No alphas just juveniles females and non-dominant males and i'd always ask my students so what happened what happened in that troop a lot of the students assumed that the non-dominant males would have stepped up to position and taken that alpha position that's not what happened what happened in Sapolsky's research was in that alpha-less

tribe, in essence, all the narcissistic baboons died, the tribe got healthier. Their cortisol levels dropped, there was more cooperative grooming, and the tribe functioned better. He figured over time it was going to change because juveniles swap tribes when they get to adolescence in baboons, so new crop of alphas would have come in. But I found that research so compelling because if you talk to anybody who has to interact with narcissistic people, workplace, family, and they say, ooh, those family members didn't come to this dinner. It was so much nicer. Those people were moved to another office. It's so much more peaceful. So the adaptability is for the narcissistic people. They've adapted beautifully.

They are the alphas. They've always been at the top of the hierarchy. Our history books are written about them. They have been the kings. They have been the leaders. They have been the warriors. Frankly, they've been the innovators, right? So they've always been the ones we paid attention to. They always had more money. They always had more resource. They took what they wanted. And so if you're going to argue adaptability, I'd say, heck yeah, they were adaptable. That doesn't mean you want to be in a relationship with them. Yeah. So interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I wasn't aware of that. That is really, really interesting. In particular, that in the alpha-less group, everyone gets healthier.

Yes, everyone gets healthier. That's the key. That's the key. I mean, there's a couple of ways to really think about that. Initially, I think, well, a world without narcissists would probably be calmer, more compassionate, full of empathy, and everyone gets healthier. But of course, narcissism is very common. So I'm not advocating for a world without narcissists, just to be clear in that sense, because they're everywhere. In fact, do you know how common it is? Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show. Now, if you're looking for something at this time of year to kickstart your health, I'd highly recommend that you consider AG1. AG1 has been in my own life for over five years now. It's a science-driven

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That's what I would advocate for. Or a world without rewarded narcissism, if that makes sense, you know. To your other point, though, which is the frequency, this is the question we're grappling with, right? Because there's lots of research out there that looks at the prevalence of narcissistic personality disorder. It's epidemiologic research where people have done structured clinical interviews, usually in clinical settings. And it's complicated to get this data because if you look at like a standard outpatient, like a person's private practice, the rates aren't going to be that high because these are not people who voluntarily seek out therapy. If you go to inpatient settings, you might see it more because there'd be more involuntary

patients. If you go to prisons, you see a lot more prison mental health statistics are higher. But the on average narcissistic personality disorder, depending on the research study you're looking at, is somewhere between one and 6%. But the real question is, what is the prevalence of clinically significant narcissistic personality, not disorder personality, enough that other people would notice it, enough that it impacts their behavior, enough that it would cause, I would say, significant impacts in the relationships, workplaces, whatever places that these people are navigating. And that's the question, right? And I've seen sort of spitball

numbers floating out there of anywhere from like one in six, one in five. So somewhere between 15, 18, 19%. So about, you know, somewhere between like one in six, one in five. Some of this is going to have to do with geography. You're going to see this personality trait probably more prevalent in major metropolitan areas where the employment is going to pull for it more. But that's probably a good guess. So if you know six people, odds are that one of them is narcissistic,

if you want to look at it that way. Yeah, and also it's really hard because the point you made right at the start of this conversation is that this is a topic that needs more awareness, right? People aren't talking about it enough, the medical profession probably not recognizing it enough, and therefore, how do you get good research on this? How do we get those numbers when it could be heavily, heavily skewed because of this lack of awareness? And could you just briefly clarify the difference that you mentioned narcissistic personality disorder, a diagnosis made by a healthcare

professional and clinically noticeable... Narcissism, yeah. Enough narcissism that other people notice it. Just briefly explain the difference, because I think that often gets confusing for people as well. So let's talk about that. I'm going to talk about that research piece first. You know, how do we study this? How do we even figure out how many people are narcissistic?

I'm going to tell you the answer to that. I really don't know, because we don't have any good measurement scales. The problem is narcissism is so multifaceted. The most widely used narcissism scale, I don't think it does the trick because it gets a lot at things like assertiveness and leadership. So it gets at all the sort of forward-facing, grandiose kind of qualities, but not at the stuff that really does the harm. A little bit, it gets at entitlement. It's hard to get people to fess up to their narcissism. The research shows

very clearly narcissistic people actually judge themselves as being very empathic, very nice entitlement. It's hard to get people to fess up to their narcissism. The research shows very clearly narcissistic people actually judge themselves as being very empathic, very nice people. So they're not going to answer these questions honestly. So it's a really difficult quality to assess. We'd almost do better asking other people what the people in their lives are, but then there's a bias there too. So it's very difficult to study this. But then again, to this difference, right? The reason we're able to do more research on narcissistic personality disorder is that there are structured interviews for that. But I have to be frank with you. I've used these structured interviews with hundreds of research patients in the past. And even then,

I have to tell you, the rates we were getting were low because people weren't copying to this, or they were copying to much more severe things. So we weren't capturing them because the nature of the populations we were working with. So the difference between narcissistic personality disorder and narcissism really comes down to some technical issues is A, this person has been seen by a licensed mental health professional who has the capacity to actually make this diagnosis. And that would mean they know enough about NPD to do it. They've spent enough time with the client to be able to do it.

I'm not even convinced I could spend an hour with a client and confidently be able to issue that diagnosis. I'd have to say when I've seen this in outpatient settings, somewhere around session four, session five, so hour four or hour five, it would come out. When I worked in inpatient settings, maybe after the first couple of days, because you'd have more time with them. It's a more intensive kind of an exposure. So what we're looking for when we give the diagnosis of a

personality disorder is that laundry list of qualities. I gave you the lack of empathy and the entitlement, the grandiosity, on and on. We have to establish that it's consistent, on and on. We have to establish that it's consistent, that it shows up in a variety of situations, and also that these patterns are causing the patient clinically significant relationship impairment, occupational impairment, or distress. And this is where narcissistic personality disorder gets tricky. The vast majority of people who are narcissistic don't show up to therapy. They don't think there's anything wrong with them. They think they're better than everybody else. When they finally do come into therapy, they're coming in for another issue. Their spouse has given them an ultimatum. They're struggling with addiction. They may be having an irritable

depression. They are anxious. They're having an existential crisis. They're upset about growing old. Their workplace is demanding they go into therapy for optics reasons. They're court ordered. So they get into therapy through a back door that's not necessarily related to narcissism. So it's not like a depressed patient where that's the presenting issue, right? They're coming in with something else. It's the therapist's job. It's to sort through all that. And most therapists, unfortunately,

get caught in on the presenting diagnosis. We think about this too medically versus what else is going on here. It's a big problem in addiction research and addiction treatment, 60% overlap between narcissism and addiction, which is why there's so much revolving door stuff and there's so much relapse because the narcissism doesn't get addressed. So these are the things that bring folks in. And because of that, we're not seeing them in clinical situations. And even when we do, something else is grabbing our attention. But that's the difference is most people who are narcissistic, not only is this trait not causing them impairment, they seem to be doing better for it. They make aggressive business deals. They're willing to step over other people to get to the

head of the line. They're really attractive and they put themselves out there and they're suave and charismatic and charming. So they're successful in at least getting partners, not keeping partners, but getting partners. But they're just, they don't think of themselves as impaired, so they're not distressed. When they finally get distressed, though, it's not the narcissism that's distressing them. It's some problem. My wife is leaving me. I got caught in my affair. I got caught harassing people in the workplace.

I didn't get the promotion I thought I would. My startup failed. That's the stuff that makes narcissistic people get into therapy. And then they go into therapy and they blame everyone else. And they want the therapist to climb on the bandwagon and sort of say, yeah, everyone's out to get you. And when the therapist doesn't do that, they often drop out of therapy. And I guess for practical purposes, whether someone has the actual disorder or not, really, I think the message you're trying to put out

is that the impact of narcissistic behavior is profound. It is causing such carnage, basically, in people's lives. They feel invalidated. They feel guilty. They feel that they're the problem. And you're trying to say, no, no, no, the problem isn't you. You're a recipient of narcissistic behavior. And I want to help you feel seen and heard. That seems to be the central message I get when I'm reading your work is that, well, one of the messages I should say, is that you want to feel validated. And if you look at the comments on the numerous videos

you have made on YouTube on this topic, there's a really common theme, Dr. Romani, which is people say, thank you. Thank you. Oh my God. Now I have a name for what I've been putting up with. Now I have a name for what I've been putting up with. That's why you do it, isn't it? It is. Yeah, it is. Because I think for the longest time, because of the way narcissism shows up in relationships,

people, in a relatively short period of time, blame themselves. This is my fault. Maybe I could be better. Maybe I could try harder. What's wrong with me? Because the narcissistic person, through all the gaslighting has convinced the other person

there's something wrong with them. That's why the book is called It's Not You. Because people have, because over and over again, they're saying, okay, maybe I said that wrong. Maybe I could say that better. They're always trying to find a way to get it righter. And by giving it a name, it's not meant to be dismissive. It's not even meant to say, walk away from this.

I recognize that's not an to be dismissive. It's not even meant to say, walk away from this. I recognize that's not an option that's available to everyone, but it's really meant to say that this is a pattern. You're not losing your mind for saying something is not right here. And because it's a pattern, you can get to this place of radical acceptance. These sorts of entrenched, rigid behavioral patterns that that other person has no insight into are not going to change and you can make your decisions accordingly. And so that's really what it is. I'm telling people, you're not losing your mind, that this is actually a pattern. And because many over the years, many therapists have been reluctant to call

this out. They'll say, well, they're not in this room. So I really can't comment on their behavior. The hell you can't. If you don't, this client is just wandering around the world, wondering what's wrong with them. So it's about giving people education. It's about giving them validation. And above all else, it's about telling them that this kind of behavior is not okay. It's not okay for someone to abruptly say, well, I just say what's on my mind. I can't worry about how it affects other people. That's not okay. It doesn't mean that person's going to stop saying it, but it's giving a person permission for saying that behavior is not okay. And it means that when I'm in the presence of it, it's okay to not feel okay. It's okay to disengage from it. It's probably not okay to engage with

that person about the behavior, not because you don't have the right to, but because it's going to get you nowhere and then they're going to rage at you and what's the point. But it's to get people to the point of saying like, yeah, there's certain behaviors that are just not acceptable and I can make decisions on that basis versus what we've always been taught of like, well, there's always a way to connect with everyone. No, there's not. It's part of the problem here when there's a reluctance to label things narcissism. It's part of the problem that it's a word that has some quite serious negative connotations, right? People often, I would say, misuse the term and will, you know, as the term becomes more and more common,

people are calling all kinds of people narcissists. You know, people will say, oh, my partner cheated on me. That's such a narcissist. Well, I don't think we can necessarily say that because they cheated, they're a narcissist. They might be, but they might not. So I wonder, I don't know, do you like the words? Has it got too much negative baggage associated with it? Or do you still think it's a useful word for us to be using? Isn't it a funny word, right? For a word that has so much negative baggage associated with it, the qualities that are encompassed within it are associated with success, right? So we will say, just this morning, I was reading an article

about someone, straight talker, speaks his mind, calls it out. He's so successful, billionaire, clear thinker. No, he's an unempathic, entitled bully. And those words showed up in the article too, but never did the word narcissist, right? The guy was clearly a narcissist that they were writing about, right? But the very qualities you need to succeed in capitalism are narcissism. So that's where everyone wants to be a narcissist. Then you've got the big house, your parents are so proud of you, isn't that great? But then we don't like the word. It's like, pick a lane, people, right? And so the word though does carry negative connotations. From the beginning, it's really only been showing up in the psychological literature. Probably late 1800s

was the first time we saw Otto Rank, Sigmund Freud, even Havelock Ellis. These folks wrote about it. And it was never a good thing. It's never been a word that was good in psychology. I mean, we would say that the primary narcissism of the infant is normal, that the infant is entirely self-serving because it serves a survival capacity. But beyond that, we don't think of it as good. And so although we reward egocentricity, right? When we look at our economy, influencers and people who draw attention to themselves, do good or bad ways, are the ones who are making money, who holds power in society. That gets concerning, right? Because the bad word is resulting in good things. And yet people don't

want to be called it, but they have those qualities and they succeed. So I think we're sort of in this kind of really recursive loop, but you're absolutely right. I don't know a single person out there, if you called them a narcissist would be okay with it. Maybe a handful of people who are just sort of being snarky, but by and large, people don't like the word, right? And the other problem is, is the word is now being misused because it's a heavy word, because it's considered an unpleasant quality. You're right. The person who will go on TikTok and say, my boyfriend cheated on me. He's a narcissist. He may not be a narcissist. I mean, he was obviously not a very good boyfriend, but he may not be a narcissist. I'll say, you'll have to show me more.

And, or the, you know, anything that people might say, people will say, this person yelled at a flight attendant. I'm like, that's not okay. Tell me more. Right? So I think that we want to go right in there and assume this person's narcissistic because they did a bad thing that hurt you. And what's then happened is it's the word has lost some of its potency, which is concerning to me because it's a powerful and it's a meaningful word. And it describes a lot of things that go together. Instead of having to list all the ingredients that make the soup, I can just say soup and you know what I'm talking about. But unfortunately, the word has been really co-opted. We didn't use the word. I mean,

I have to tell you, this is very much a mental health word. When I first started doing this work in the early 2000s, I mean, only people use the word, where the mental health profession. I mean, there was books in the 70s, like The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lash's book. Those came out and they had some popular reach, but it's not a word we used a lot. So this is really something that's come up a lot in the last 20, 25 years. It's changed in the world of politics,

certainly since 2016 in the United States, even similarly in the UK. You know, you have these very narcissistic politicians out there. That entire enterprise has become more like that. So we're seeing that the word is circulating more because those qualities are getting more and more rewarded in more and more public people.

But I don't like how I'm seeing the word co-opted. It is a good word. People don't think of it as a nice word, but yet we still reward the behavior. So it's confusing. Yeah. Once you're aware of this, you can see those patterns sometimes quite clearly in the way people speak and how they interact or when they get

challenged. And I also think, you know, about the misuse of the word. It's almost an inevitable consequence, isn't it? It's a bit like trauma. You know, it's not been spoken about enough. Now it's been spoken about, which is great. But by amplifying the reach of these words, well, they are going to get misused a little bit. I'm not sure what you do about that apart from keep trying to educate people. Do you know what I mean? 100%.

I mean, I'm glad you brought up the example of trauma because even within the field of people who study and treat trauma, there's a lot of controversy. Because if you talk to the old school folks, the folks who've been doing the trauma work since the 70s, that, I mean, back in those days, it was really like they had to fight to get, for example, even the people who were victimized by sexual assault to have that recognized as trauma, right? So they had to fight the fight for what we now know as trauma to even get that recognized.

So then as time went on and other forms of trauma were recognized, betrayal trauma, relational trauma, there was now fight within the field. Like what's big T trauma? What's small T trauma? And now fast forward to now and people will say, oh, someone was wearing the same dress as me at a party. It was such a trauma. I'm like, no, no, no, no, that's not a trauma, right? So we see these kinds of uses of these terms. And I think what happens is people then feel invalidated because my biggest concern, frankly, is that when people are going genuinely through narcissistic relationships, like genuinely all of it is there, the harms are very, very clear. And when the word is misused and bandied about

in these online spaces, it not only loses its potency, there's then a doubting of the experience of people who've been through these relationships. Oh, maybe we're just through a tough relationships, or maybe there was a problem with just you, thus re-harming the people in these relationships. So I think to me, the concern is that there is harm that comes to people who have been really through narcissistic relationships at any point in their lives, and that other people weaken the word. And then they are then doubted once again, because the experience of the survivor of the narcissistic relationship is to chronically be doubted by everyone, including their own selves. So that's my concern. And you're absolutely right. All we can do is keep educating, keep calibrating people to what the right answer is, educate mental

health professionals so they know it. So at least when somebody enters that space, the person they're talking to has a better working model because genuinely this is not taught in graduate school. We do not teach clinicians about narcissism. We don't talk about it. We don't talk about what it does. And it's not even considered important enough to teach. So if we can at least do that, then the people who are getting the information can support folks who are going through it. So the subtitle on your new book is identifying and healing from narcissistic people. Okay, let's take that in two parts. Identifying. So you have mentioned some of these traits and behaviours. What else do people need to know, perhaps, to identify that someone in their life is exhibiting narcissistic behaviours? Is just knowing that list enough or do they need to know

other things? You mentioned before a term gaslighting. You've written about love bombing. I mean, maybe we need to speak to some of these other terms to really help people understand that yes, this is or this might be going on in my life. Yeah. Understanding the laundry list of how it shows up in a person, like the traits, if you will, that's step one. Step two is understanding the relationship dynamics that accompany those traits. It's almost like view the traits. And then you want, I mean, step one is understanding the traits. Step two is understanding what motivates the narcissistic person.

And that's simple. me a second, which is they're motivated by power, control, dominance, and getting narcissistic supply, which is getting admired and revered and validated. And then power and dominance obviously give that to them all the time. So they want asymmetric relationships. They want relationships where they're in the power position, where it's all about them, where they're constantly getting validated. So that's what's motivating them. So in a way, it's like now you know how they're playing the chess game. It's always going to be a power move. Everything they're doing is to overpower and dominate so they help hold the upper hand. That then takes us to the dynamics, how it shows up in a relationship. So the patterns you see in

narcissistic relationships are, first of all, there's a cycle to these relationships. They often start off, and now right now I'm talking more about adult relationships, relationships we sort of choose. People we date, people we work with, people we're friends with. Talk about families and parents, it's a little bit different, right? Because we don't choose them. But in the relationships we choose, narcissistic people are very charming, charismatic, Relationships we choose, narcissistic people are very charming, charismatic, confident, in a strange way can even be very comforting. They are well put together. They're attractive. This is exactly what we're told we're supposed to look for in a person. So we were talking about all this lack of empathy, entitlement, arrogance, not so nice. Charm, charisma, confidence,

it's hard to undersell those, right? We're told those are good qualities. Attractiveness. So they have all this stuff we're told is good. People get drawn in. And early in the relationship, it can feel otherworldly. It can feel fairytale. People will say, I felt understood like I've never felt before. I felt seen. I felt heard. The narcissistic person's a sprinter. They can give anywhere from four to 12 good, really good weeks. Four to 12 weeks is a long time when you're caught in some sort of love story or intense friendship story, but it's usually a love story. Then the devalue phase starts. And in the devaluing phase is where we see sort of the more classical narcissistic

relationship behaviors kick in. The dismissiveness, the invalidation, minimization, gaslighting, manipulation, rage. You might see betrayal. You'll see deceit. It runs hot and cold. And that's why the narcissistic relationship is so confusing. There'll be a couple of good days. You'll have some good sex. You'll have a fun weekend. And then boom. And you'll have no idea what's setting them off at first. So you blame yourself. You're like, how is it we had such a good time last night? And they go to work and they come home and they're raging at me. So people are like, what did I do? Did I leave something out? Did I say something? And then the narcissistic person might even, like I said, double down on

that. If only this house was a little cleaner or only a few. How come you don't ask me about my day? Or how come you don't tell me I'm great? And then you start to have to tell them they're great. So you can see how this starts getting to be a really confusing cycle. Because then there's another good day. And you're like, oh, I must have just been misperceiving that.

That's me. God, they had a tough day at work. I must've just been misperceiving that. That's me. God, they had a tough day at work. And that cycle of hot, cold, good, bad, on, off, creates something called the trauma bond, where a person engages in a lot of justification. They're very confused. They blame themselves. They doubt themselves. They start to justify the relationship because there's enough good days to keep them in. It's not always bad. And then there's what we call more of a discard cycle, which is when the narcissistic person may withhold or withdraw, maybe cheat on you, lie to you, or a person tries to get out of the relationship because they're getting burned out on it. And the final cycle, which doesn't always

happen, is something called hoovering. Word makes more sense to you in the UK, vacuuming, right? Hoovering, sucking a person back in. Narcissistic people are about control and dominance. So when you get out and or it ends or they leave you and their life doesn't go the way they want or they just want your supply back, your admiration and validation, or it's a cat and mouse game, can I get them back?

They will then try to suck you back in. That doesn't always happen. But this sort of idealization devaluation cycle is classical in these relationships. And it is cloaked in all this manipulation and confusion, but it's peppered with those good days. And that right there is the narcissistic relationship. You know, Dr. Armani, one of the most striking things for me as I was reading your latest book was that term you just mentioned, supply, narcissistic supply. It really got me to pause and reflect because we normally think of that term supply in the context of drugs, don't we? Yeah, yeah.

You know, not in the context of human behavior, but I thought it was really interesting. Why did you feel that was the word that described so well what a narcissist needs? Well, you know what's so interesting about the world of narcissistic relationships is this really interesting vocabulary has developed around it that survivors use flying monkeys and love bombing and narcissistic supply and breadcrumbing and all these other words that are very descriptive. So this concept of narcissistic supply, I did not come up with this term. It's been around for a while. It is this idea of the, it's the one-sided one-way admiration and validation. And that doesn't just come from people saying such as praise, right? It can be money. It can be status.

It can be proximity to famous or notorious or wealthy people. It can be having a very attractive partner. It can be, you know, again, so in other words, your attractiveness in their presence is supply. It can be flirtation. It can be sex. All of these things can be supply. It's anything that feeds that need for admiration and soothes the narcissistic person's fragile ego. Yeah. Interesting. Gaslighting. That, I think, is another term that is growing in popularity, or certainly growing in its use. Could you explain what gaslighting actually is? Before we get back to this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know that I am doing my very first national UK theatre tour. I am planning a really special evening where I share how you can

break free from the habits that are holding you back and make meaningful changes in your life that truly last. It is called the Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. It is called The Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. So many people tell me that health feels really complicated, but it really doesn't need to be. In my live event, I'm going to simplify health. And together, we're going to learn the skill of happiness, the secrets to optimal health,

how to break free from the habits that are holding you back in your life. And I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? All you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour, and I can't wait to see you there. This episode is also brought to you by the Three Question Journal, the journal that I designed and created in partnership with Intelligent Change. Now journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision making and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours into long-term habits and improve our relationships. There are,

of course, many different ways to journal. And as with most things, it's important that you find the method that works best for you. One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three-question journal. In it, you will find a really simple and structured way of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening Answering these questions will take you less than five minutes But the practice of answering them regularly will be transformative Since the journal was published in January I have received hundreds of messages from people telling me how much it has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel.

Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions within the three question journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal or click on the link in your podcast app. So gaslighting is a tool of psychological manipulation that involves dismantling the reality of the other person to destabilize them and then to double down on that destabilization by confirming that there's something wrong with the person being gaslighted. That's a long way of saying that you doubt the memories, experiences, perceptions, physical environment of a person. Okay. So that's

one step of gaslighting. In order for gaslighting to happen, there has to be some trust in the relationship, right? You have to, it could be a family member. It could be a partner. It could even be a friend. It could even be an expert, like a physician. All of these people are in a position. There's some level of trust. So they're in a position to be able to gaslight, right? Because even if it's a trust you have of, like I said, a parent or a sibling or something like that. Then they, again, doubt reality, experience, perception. I never said that. You're remembering that wrong. I didn't put the keys there, that kind of thing. They then tell the person there's something wrong with them. Okay. I don't know. I'm a little worried about you. You're getting

really paranoid. Like I don't, I don't, you didn't see that text. I didn't send that text. And I've been noticing like you're, you're getting weirder. Like, have you seen a doctor? So it's a real, like, I'm worried about you. They'll even say, I'm worried about you. So there's now this sense of there's something wrong with the person who's now already been told you've remembered something wrong, right? Do you need both of those for this to be gaslighting? Because the first example that maybe you could take the perspective that two people have a difference in opinion over a certain event or people are recalling an event differently. But that's not gaslighting. That's not gaslighting.

So if the person says, you said da da da, and the person says, I don't remember saying that. And the other person says, yes, you did. Here's the text. And the other person's like, okay, I said it. You're right. I don't remember saying that. And the other person says, yes, you did. Here's the text. And the other person's like, okay, I said it. You're right. I don't remember saying it. That's not gaslighting. They genuinely don't remember. But when the person showed them evidence, they're like, okay, clearly I said it. If a person does that with a gaslighter, so if you show the gaslighter evidence, right? Because you think like, done, I've won, right? The gaslighter will say, what kind of sick person walks around showing text messages to people like, oh, I guess our relationship's a court of law now. Is that what this is? I don't know that I want to be in a

relationship like this because the ultimate, ultimate play the gaslighter has is to threaten abandonment. So if you push them too hard, especially with the evidence base, that's when they'll say, you know what? I don't think I want to be in a relationship with a crazy person. I'm not interested in this. I'm not interested in living in a tribunal. So sure. Gotcha. I hope you feel better about yourself that you had the text. You feel good now? You showed me who's boss. Yeah, I'm not interested in this. Now that other person, they didn't want to end the relationship. They just wanted to say, this is what you said. And so now that other person puts that phone down and says, no, no,

no, that's not what this is about. No, no, no. Come on, back up, back up. And boom, gaslighter's back in power. You said earlier that ultimately all of these traits, all of these narcissistic traits are on some level covering up for a deep, deep insecurity. So it sounds to me as though when that person gets shown the evidence that they were wrong or they actually did say that thing, evidence that they were wrong or they actually did say that thing, you're getting so, so close to the bone of exposing that, that there's almost like an equal or even more vicious response than had you never shown them the evidence in the first place. Because the evidence, you're getting too close to the truth and they can't afford for that truth to be exposed. They have to, you know, go out full out attack basically. Is that a fair description?

It's a very fair description. And because like I said, most people just want to create a space of transparency and equity and accountability in their relationship. They don't want to end the relationship. That the gas lighter then is not only has, further destabilizing the other person, but then they threaten the thing that the other person doesn't want. And if the other person really doesn't want that, they're going to take action, if you will. They don't want to end it. They don't want it to be that.

And then that might put the brakes on the gaslighters now in that position of power. So that's, and remember, gaslighting doesn't happen once. It happens day after day after day. So over time, a person in a gaslighted relationship feels very silenced because now they know there's no point in showing the evidence. There's no point in calling them out. And there might be enough times where there is no evidence, right?

There's none of that, that a person's like, did I remember that wrong? Or I thought I had the right date. So we're all very busy people. So it's plausible. Many times the thing that the gas lighter gaslights about is plausible. But the challenge is that many people are using gaslighting to say it's just a disagreement. It's not a disagreement. It's not a difference of opinion. It's none of those things. So if a person says, I like pepperoni pizza, and the other person says, no, no, no, I like cheese pizza, and the other person says pepperoni pizza is better,

that's not gaslighting. That's just a difference of opinion. So I think people are using the word, or even just saying things like, a person might have moved the remote control for the TV and not remember they moved it. And that's not gaslighting, right? Moving the remote control, somebody moving the remote control and then lying about moving it to drive another person crazy,

that's gaslighting. What's love bombing? So love bombing is that intense indoctrination into a new narcissistic relationship. Traditionally, we think of love bombing as the sort of fairy tale, full court press, texts in the morning, afternoon, and evening, fancy dates, picnics on the beach, great sex. You take a big, fabulous vacation on your fourth date. It's everything. It's many times love bombing happens very quickly. And during the love bomb phase, a person feels overwhelmed, but it's not always that. Sometimes love bombing can show up as, let's say somebody is, they're very open with the things that have gone wrong for them. So the narcissistic person is more of a, my life has just been so hard.

I'm so lucky I've met someone like you who gets it. You're so warm. You're so empathic. You're amazing. That's love bombing too, right? So it's not a lot of bells and whistles. It's just hitting someone and giving them the thing. The other person, the narcissistic person is giving that other person exactly the experience they want. During the love bombing phase, the narcissistic person is very attentive. Narcissistic people are very, very socially perceptive. They're in a strange way, in a twisted, dark, bleak way, they can actually be quite emotionally intelligent. They can read

the room beautifully in a strange, again, in a very self-serving way, but they can. And because of that, they're very skilled in the first few weeks and months of knowing someone at tapping into their vulnerabilities, getting them to fess up to their greatest fears, their greatest concerns. They listen to the conversation. They realize where the pressure points are and they file them away because they're going to use them against that person later. So what feels like intense attentiveness, sort of everyone's fantasy, especially if a person had emotionally unavailable parents, it really feels like a love story. So there's an intensity to love bombing. In some cases, love bombing may simply be someone who spends 24-7 with you. People will say, well, our first date lasted four days kind of thing. I'm always like, that's a red flag right

off the bat to me because it overwhelms. And Pearson will say, oh my gosh, we spent like two weeks together every single day before, you know, moving, we moved in together. Intensity of contact, frequent contact quickly, like it overtakes a person's life. Isolation could also sort of quietly happen during the love bombing phase. You spend all your time with this person. You're not spending time with your friends or family. You may even sort of change out your work schedule. So you get pulled away from your sort of touchstones and landmarks, as it were. So over that time in the love bombing phase, you're getting indoctrinated into something, believing that this person hung the moon. This is your love story. This is the greatest love story ever. There's a lot of that flowery language, a lot of soulmate talk, a lot of magical connection talk. It's that, it's the sort of metaphysical stuff that in fact,

this person at this point, you're so kind of dazzled by this bright light in your face that you're not really able to see what's happening. I use this example with someone once like, you know, when you're, when you're driving into the setting sun and it's so bright, you really can't see the other cars. It's actually a little bit dangerous, but it's pretty. It's a sunset. It's dangerous because you can't see the other stuff that's going on. And during that love bombing phase, you start to feel so like, I have to make this work. I want to make this work. And then it forms a lot of the foundation of this trauma bond of this justification material. We had such a good time. I've never been treated so well. They're everything I want. And you keep going back to that, even when the relationship starts turning bad, which it will turn bad in anywhere from like four weeks to about three to six months.

Let's be really clear on something there, because a lot of what you just described, it sounds very much from the picture you painted, at least initially, it sounds like someone's falling head over heels. Yep. And of course, for anyone who has been in that situation, it feels incredible. So it doesn't mean that every relationship where there is this intense phase where people are getting to know each other, they feel passionate about each other, they're having those kind of romantic first few weeks and months, that doesn't necessarily mean that that's a narcissistic

relationship. No, it does not. That's where sometimes this conversation gets tricky. It's like, well, some of that sounds pretty nice, actually. Do you know what I mean? A hundred percent. And it is nice. I mean, but it is a tactic. And the challenges though, right, is that it's the too good to be true part, right? And even in the love bombing phase, the warning signs, the little red flags are starting to show up person might be chronically late or be late to something that matters to you or what will

or blow off the things that matter to you but then take you on spectacular dates that they organize so a person then is like oh they are planning all these amazing dinners so what if they didn't come to this you know this this because it's all about them all about them. It's all about them. It's a show they're throwing for them to feel good. And, and you start to feel beholden sometimes during the love bombing phase. So it's subtle stuff though. You can see how a person's taking on these fabulous dates and so attentive, but they don't show up to things that matter to you. It's very easy to sort of say like, oh, whatever they don't want. It's going to be so annoying for them to have to be introduced to everyone. And it's my thing anyhow, but it is important to you. And you

ask them to come and they didn't. And in what will happen. And again, I've worked with people who've been in narcissistic relationships that lasted 50 years. They'll say, I still remember that we were four months in and I got this big promotion and they threw this big celebration for me at work and they didn't come to that. And they said it's stuck in my craw for the remainder of the relationship, but I didn't think anything of it at the time because other things were so great. So here's the thing. If you are in a relationship where you're falling in love and it's idealized and they're doing all these idealized things and the other stuff never, the other shoe never falls. There is no manipulation.

There is no invalidation. There's none of that stuff. You won the romance lottery. No, we're all jealous of you. Go have your happy, happy life and don't tell the rest of us about it. So that's really what that is. I mean, remember, one thing that happens in narcissistic relationships is that they sort of, they steal our identity in a way, right? They take us over. We end up being in service to the narcissistic person. And that theft of individuation and identity of like, no, no, no, you don't, your friends, blah, blah, blah.

I'm going to take you to the best restaurant in town. You know, so, or gosh, you know, your family, it seems like last time they were not very polite to me. So they start kind of burning some of your bridges for you. If you feel like you can't fully be you, that you're censoring more and more of yourself to keep this kind of exciting thing going, that's a warning sign. But we're like romance in a world where dating apps are the seventh circle of hell. People are thinking, I've won. I'm not going to question this. And so that's why this love bombing thing works so well.

And why people look back and say, oh my gosh, I was just love bombed. You know what I tell people? I said, if you can pull it off, it's all about like knowing when to leave the casino, right? At what point are you up enough to say, I think it may be time to go home. a casino, right? At what point are you up enough to say, I think it may be time to go home. And so that's what happens is you're having a nice love bombing time, ride it out, have some of the fun, but then give yourself three red flags. Three red flags turn up, cut bait early. The earlier you get out of a narcissistic relationship, the less the negative fallout. Have some fun, but recognize that, you know, that love bomber, you got to ask,

are they going to be the one who takes care of you when you're sick? Are they going to listen to your problems again and again, you're having at work? The answer to that is no. And I think that sadly, even though we're grownups, we've were so heavily indoctrinated into a world of fairy tales and blissed out romances, social media has made it a lot worse. Everybody is sort of putting their weird romantic stories on the internet. And I think a lot of people feel like they need to keep pace. And so these, I mean, as long as people are in pursuit of a fairy tale, the narcissistic people, it's for them, it's just, you know, shooting fish in a barrel. Okay, Dr. Romani, someone's listening or watching this, and they've heard enough to go,

yeah, okay, you've helped me identify this. How do I start healing from this? So much of it relates to how long this relationship is going on. And don't make no mistake, there are people who have been through two-year narcissistic relationships who are almost as wrecked as people who've been through 20-year narcissistic relationship. So it's not meant to say it's fully a dose response, that the less time, the easier it is. The only thing that makes it easier when there's less time is your life might be a little less intertwined, but within two years, you might've gotten married, you might've had kids. So things can happen in a short period of time, but time and exposure intensity of the relationship

all matters. But when it comes down to it, it is the moment when a person, that moment, the person recognizes something's not right here and they start getting the roadmap as it were, like, ah, this might qualify as this sort of narcissistic, antagonistic, toxic, call it what you will, relationship, that awareness is really step one. Because now you're saying like, no, this is not normal. And I'm the problem. Like slowly getting this, like their pattern, this is not okay. The next piece is radical acceptance. And to me, radical acceptance means a person is really starting the healing process in earnest.

And radical acceptance is the acceptance that these patterns, these behaviors, these dynamics are not going to change, not ever, and certainly not on your watch. And so the reason many narcissistic relationships last as long as they do is people keep getting lost in a cycle called future faking. Now, more often than not, they're future faked by the narcissist. Okay. Okay. It's good. Listen, listen, things are going to quiet down after I get the promotion. No, no, no. We're going to move out of here in about six months or I'm going to get therapy. So everything's based on a someday when, someday when, someday

when, and they make these promises, no matter how badly and how abusive the relationship is, people are saying, okay, I've invested so much into this. We have kids, we have a home, we have whatever. Let me give it another six months or a year. Because it's hard to change the status quo, especially if you still care about the person. Because some people might even say, this is abusive. I still love this person, strangely enough. And a lot of people will feel shame about that.

And there's no shame in that because you do have a history with them. You did build things with them and there's some things about them you still care about. This isn't about like, well, they're a narcissist. This is a person you had a life with and a history with. And so you do love them, but it's also not good for you. But the radical acceptance is that slow understanding that this is not going to change. I can promise you that. I've been doing this too long. That's a good thing about being old. I'm like, I can really say this definitively

in a way I couldn't have done early in my career. And so as people get into radical acceptance, it's not just a radical acceptance that they're not going to change because radical acceptance doesn't mean that you're signing off on what they're doing. You're not giving into it. You're seeing it clearly. And radical acceptance is also, especially for people who can't leave these relationships. It's the acceptance that even if you get it,

it doesn't mean that their hurtful words won't hurt you, right? So it's also the awareness that this was hurtful. After a person gets to genuine radical acceptance, they are hit by a tidal wave of grief, a grief like no other, because you're like, okay, I really was living on the assumption that this was going to get better. I was living with hope, right? And sadly, this healing process, there's a little bit of a dismantling of hope in that relationship. Plenty of hope for you, but not for that. And so for people who have built their entire life on a foundation or their future or their hope on the idea that this thing was ultimately going to work its way out, and it's not, that's grief. It's like a death. It's a loss of the idea that you'd have an intact family. It's

a loss of the idea that you have a love story. It's a loss of the idea that your kids would grow up with two parents if you decide to leave the relationship or that your kids would even grow up seeing a healthy marriage. All these things that you hope for are now having to be put aside. That's loss. And there's grief. And that grief is real. Most people who go through narcissistic abuse and are healing from it will say, while the grief part was a nightmare, it helped so much to see it as grief because we usually sort of use the term grief only to talk about death. But as that time goes on, and a person is able to get more in touch with that grief, with the radical acceptance,

then they're making choices. Am I going to stay? Am I going to keep engaging in this relationship? Am I going to stay in this relationship? Am I going to leave this relationship? And I know you can heal either way. It's a little bit harder when you stay. I will say that because it's almost like secondhand smoke, right? I mean, for lack of a better example, if you're still living with the smoker, no matter what you do, air filters, open windows, it's going to, you're still going to, it's going to affect you a little. Whereas if you get to move out on your own and have a house where that smoke doesn't exist, you'll feel a little better. But that's not to say that there isn't a sort of proverbial system of air filters you can create and workarounds and awareness of the limitations of this relationship. And then it really, the healing process is a lot of infrastructure

building. It might be therapy. It might be support groups. It's definitely building up social supports. A lot of people put probably 90% of their psychological bandwidth into the impossibility of making their narcissistic relationship work. I always say you got to do a reversal. Just give the bare minimum to the narcissistic relationship because no matter what, it's just applied to them and really take the rest of that bandwidth. Start building up mutual, healthy, empathic, respectful, compassionate relationships. Create that space in your life. Have those places, those soft places to land.

And then it really does become about the next part of the journey, which is really where surviving starts to evolve more into thriving, which is individuation. Actually allowing yourself to even acknowledge as an authentic self of you separate from this relationship. Give voice to the things you care about, your interests, who you are, what you stand for, what your values are. Narcissistic people, in a way, they just sort of block the sun. You don't get to see these things in yourself. get to see these things in yourself. And even if you don't leave the relationship, as you disengage, as you no longer get sort of psychological, any kind of, you know, sort of psychological meaning from that relationship, because there really wasn't any, you can start saying, who am I separate from

this relationship? And that becomes a very revelatory moment. And then over time, you really are able to recraft your narrative as one where you're not in service to the narcissistic person, but rather I'm a whole person separate from them with dreams and wants and needs. And you learn to voice those needs and you start to feel more whole and strong again. And I say this not from a naive place. I've seen many survivors do this. And most of the survivors I work with are in process. This isn't easy. Narcissistic abuse changes a person. You don't ever come back holy. People will, you become a little less trusting. I think outside observers would say survivors might be a little bit cynical. I don't like them being called. I don't mind the word cynical.

You want to call me cynical, call me cynical. I think they're more discerning. I think people are a little bit more aware. They see red flags. They distance a bit more. It's about allowing yourself to disengage from people who invalidate you. So it's really an overhaul of a human being. This doesn't happen quickly. For some people, it can take decades. And like I said, as a survivor myself, I can tell you, I carry some of these wounds to this day, and I'm never going to not have them. There are holes in me. There are neuroses in me. There's self-doubt in me, self-blame in me. That all comes from that origin. That was my story. I'm lucky that I got to turn it into working with people on it, but it's always a burden I'm going to have to carry. And instead of believing I can fully lighten it, I almost embrace it as part of who I am.

I think that comes across in your writing, actually, particularly in this latest book. It does feel, dare I say it, personal. It feels that you are on this mission. At times, there's real emotion in the book about how strongly you feel about these concepts. And, you know, it was really, it was one of those things I took away. I was like, wow, Dr. Romani really, really is doing this from a place of passion to get this message out there so that these people who are suffering feel seen and feel hurt. It's, you know, that bit about grief is interesting because it's not just grief for the relationship. I guess it's also a grief for the person they used to be.

Sounds like they lose something of themselves when they're in these relationships. So you're grieving on multiple levels, aren't you? You're grieving also, it's a loss of innocence, right? Because when people have gone through this, it's almost as though you've seen something of human nature you wish you didn't have to see, right? Like I said, that's why many survivors, I've heard them being critiqued for being cynical, for being closed off. It's not true at all. They're actually, they're not being sort of like a big friendly puppy dog anymore. They're sort of moving much more cautiously, right? I mean, if you look at people who've been through trauma, there's very similar cautiousness that often accompanies

trauma survivors. They're very tentative about like making sure that the ice is thick enough to watch on. If you watch how a cat walks, very tentative, like, is this a safe surface? That tentativeness is definitely something you see in folks who've been through narcissistic relationships. I actually don't think that's a bad thing. I think slowing down, paying attention, how does this feel in my body to be around this person? If this doesn't feel good, I know how bad this can get. Maybe I'm not going to do this again. And so I think that there is an awareness, but it is a loss. It's a loss of this. I will tell you this again, from a very personal standpoint is that I envy people who can have this really kind of almost youthful, bright, bubbly take on love stories. And I mean, I get a little tense when someone talks about a new relationship in the sense of like, I really look heavenward and I'm like,

please let this be okay for them. That's not an easy way to live. Like, I want to just be like, yeah, it's your wedding and you're going to be happy forever. Instead of this kind of like, please, please let it be okay for them. Creates this kind of anxiety, right? And you want to be the kind of, yay, rah, rah, happy, happy. It takes a little of that away. And I think there's sort of a little bit of an edge to survivors. I don't think it's a bad thing, but it's a loss of innocence, right? It's a coming of age, which a lot of us didn't necessarily sign up for. Some of the principles there for healing,

starting, of course, with that radical acceptance, those are just good core principles for anyone to apply in a relationship. Whether it technically qualifies as narcissistic or not, if we're in any kind of toxic relationship, those principles seem pretty good ones for us all to apply, right? They seem pretty universal. When it comes though to narcissistic relationships, I thought about this in three ways, right? At work, let's say your boss is narcissistic. You know, maybe you're choosing to be at that job. Of course, if you can leave and get another job, okay, great. That could be a fantastic way to move on from it. Of course, not everyone can. So I thought about work. Then I thought about intimate relationships when it's your boyfriend

or your girlfriend or your wife or your husband, whoever it might be, because you've chosen on some level that partner, not always, but I guess let's say you've chosen that partner and you've invested a lot of yourself in that relationship. Of course you could leave, but there may be children, there may be financial constraints and all kinds of things which make that dynamic particularly challenging yeah but then you've also got potentially a narcissistic relationship with a parent let's say your mother or your father had narcissistic traits these three situations strike me as being quite different and maybe that they need a different strategy to help people move through them. They're very different. Yeah. So, you know, there's sort of this, they're the narcissistic relationships we quote unquote

choose, if you will. Right. Because we, you know, other than, you know, there's obviously some people who are arranged into marriage, forced into marriage. And I'm aware of that. And that narcissism, the real problem there, but it's, but relation, you know, relationships like a boss, even a friend, certainly a partner. And then there's a relationships we didn't choose the narcissistic parents we were born to, or the siblings we, we, we grew up with who as children, they may not have been narcissistic per se, but that definitely evolves and becomes an issue in our adult relationship with them. A narcissistic parental relationship is very harmful. It has negative psychological harm on people for a lifetime. There's no two ways about it because the narcissistic parent is deeply selfish, entitled,

all the stuff we've talked about, and basically views the child as existing for their needs. The child's needs and wants are shamed, devalued. The child then gets indoctrinated to believe that their wants, their needs, even their individual sense of self is not allowed to exist because it's actually almost a, it's hubris to exist outside of their parent. You do, you choose the career path that parent wanted. You do the things that they want. And I don't mean in the mentor-y way. I understand that some parents can be heavy-handed, like, you're going to study biology, or you're going to do this, or you're going to go in the family business, and blah, blah, blah. I mean, that's just a little bit domineering and authoritarian and

probably annoying. But they may be very present with their child. They may be emotionally present. They may pay attention to them. They may check in with them, even if they sort of have this agenda for the child. I'm talking about a parent who just says, these are the edicts. I don't care how you feel. These are parents who do not hold any space for their child's emotion, who might shame their child's emotion. So it shapes the identity of a child. And the main things that come out for somebody who has a narcissistic parent or parents or caregiver is that I am not enough. I am not good enough. And the only way I'm going to be loved is if I find a way to serve this other person and be everything

they want me to be. So you can see that's one hell of a setup going into an adult relationship. So that can create a much more problematic trauma-bonded structure. It can create disruptions in attachment. Now, people who have one healthy parent, healthy-ish parent, and one narcissistic parent might still be able to securely attach to that more present parent. But you still see, though, many people will say when they get to adulthood, they felt unprotected by the other parent who was also being abused. They were able to say, yeah, I could see how parent A, the narcissistic parent, was also harming my non-narcissistic parent. But as a child, it's very clear I must have also felt quite abandoned by that whole

dynamic. So this creates a much more difficult kind of psychological foundation for people to work through in adulthood. It definitely sets up a vulnerability to get stuck if you get into a narcissistic relationship in adulthood. It's harder to exit, for example, from a narcissistic intimate partnership or even in a narcissistic workplace because it creates almost a template that normalizes what these, the sort of the toxic structures of these relationships. So that's that. When we're talking about the adult relationships, there can be some shame and self-blame. I'm the one who chose this person. You know, as adults, we feel like, because as kids too, kids will always blame

themselves for their parents' bad behavior, no matter how abusive it is. They'll wonder if they're complicit, if they're to blame, if they're the one who caused it, because the child can't afford to see their parent as a terrible person. It's too dangerous. Their survival needs won't get met, right? So the child has to make accommodations internally to see the parent as a decent person. And that can result in straight up dissociation and fragmentation because the parent is sometimes horrifically abusive. This is why you can see severe complex trauma and everything coming out of childhood because that child has to fragment to exist with that abusive parent. Now, when we jump into adulthood, those

same kinds of rationalizations and justifications have to happen. We blame ourselves so we can maintain the status quo of the relationship. Now, for some people, their first time in a narcissistic relationship is adulthood. They might have actually grown up with happy, healthy, happily married parents, healthy parents, parents who are not antagonistic or narcissistic who are present and all of that. But because narcissistic people are charming and charismatic and attractive and successful, you meet them in adulthood, you're just as likely to get pulled into them as a person who did have

a narcissistic parent. The difference is if you did not have narcissistic parents, you might be a little less likely to get stuck because you will have a sense of like, wait a minute, this person's really treating me badly and this isn't okay. So what happens in adulthood is that we might feel responsible, we might feel complicit, like I chose this person. And the level of confusion will in part be moderated by whether or not you came from a traumatizing, adverse adverse or narcissistic early family environment. You mentioned abusive parents. I still think when people hear the word abuse, their default is to think about physical abuse. Yeah, correct.

And a lot of the time here, we're talking about emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is pretty toxic, isn't it? Yes. Well, let's put it this way. Every child who's physically abused is simultaneously emotionally abused. The two go together, right? So there's no child who's being physically abused in the absence of emotional abuse. There are many children, though, who are emotionally abused who are not physically abused, okay? So the emotional abuse is the constant, whether there's physical abuse on top of that sexual abuse, other forms of abuse on top of that, that's the piece that may vary. But it was only recently, it's only recently that we're giving credence for the amount of damage that emotional abuse does to children in every way. I mean, it can, it picks something, it predicts it.

I mean, there's nothing it doesn't predict. It predicts everything. I mean, there's nothing it doesn't predict. It predicts everything. Adult physical health outcomes, addiction, mental illness, sense of self, life, all kinds of self. Doesn't mean someone's not going to be successful occupationally. I've seen many very occupationally successful people who came from very adverse, emotionally abusive childhood situations.

In fact, in some ways, I think that the success was a defense, a protection, sort of taking oneself back in a way, but not the psychological self, almost like, I'll be damned, I'm going to be successful. But they're psychologically still feel very fragile. So emotional abuse in childhood, which is guaranteed if a person has a narcissistic parent, guaranteed. If you have a narcissistic parent, you will be emotionally abused in childhood. It's really that simple. You've obviously worked over many decades now with many, many people who have been suffering within narcissistic relationships. I'm absolutely not putting any blame here on anyone, to be really clear. My question is,

are there certain patterns that you have observed that make it more likely that you're going to end up in a narcissistic relationship? Are there some traits that make it more likely? So let's divide it up, right? Because there's two processes here. There's the getting into a relationship and there's the getting stuck in a relationship, right? Because getting in, everyone is vulnerable to narcissistic folks, right? Attractive, charming, charismatic, confident, successful. Come on. I mean, it's, you know, really, unless you're really like, I'm going to really try to find the least successful, unattractive, but really sweet person. It's usually not what most of us are doing. So somebody comes along with those qualities,

charm, charisma, all the rest of it. Most people are going to pay attention to that. So I'm saying everyone is universally vulnerable to getting in. The difference is getting stuck, right? And that's where we see a difference. So this is where I tell folks, I was like, how could I have been so dumb to get in? I said, you weren't dumb to get in. All of us get in. Once you're in, and especially once the love bombing is passed and you're getting into the devaluing phase, we're at the early stages of trauma bonding, then there are vulnerabilities to getting stuck. And some of the vulnerabilities to getting stuck are quite variable. Some of the ones you'd expect, people who had very adverse,

traumatizing early childhood environments, they're more vulnerable to getting stuck. People who had narcissistic parents where these kinds of toxic patterns were normalized, definitely vulnerable to getting stuck. People who are rescuers and fixers, people who feel like I can do more, I can be a doer, I can be a caregiver, I can make this better. That might be a role somebody carried early in life, almost as a attachment response or a trauma response to fix things so they could maintain closeness and a sense of safety. So those folks are often vulnerable. Believe it or not, the one group that's actually vulnerable to getting into these relationships, but probably a little less maybe stuck, but I think they also do get stuck, are people

who come from very happy families. So these are families where parents were happily married and we believe in you and we believe in love and love, love and togetherness, love. Those folks believe that love solves everything. And they'll often have families like, we can figure this out for you and just love them more. And so there can be almost this sort of optimistic bias that folks who come from these really happy, happy places will say, okay, like I can make this work and we've had some good times and they might get into this really sort of incredibly fixer mode.

I call it the happy family paradox. The one advantage that group has is because one thing that happens to a lot of folks who go through narcissistic relationships is they can get quite isolated and feel unsupported. Those folks who come from strong social networks, even if they got isolated from those networks for a minute, when they get out,

they have a soft place to land, which can really facilitate their healing. But also there are qualities of the relationship that can make it more possible for people to maybe get in much more quickly. Like people who are in a rush to get into a relationship, people might say, all my friends are getting married. I want to have a kid, whatever it may be. They might say, I'm 38. This is who's in front of me. And they might feel like, I got to keep going. I'm not going to go back out there and start dating again.

People who are going through transitions in their life. So they've moved to a new city. They've come out of a relationship. They've just left a job, are going through grief over another major loss. Those folks are also very vulnerable to getting into these relationships. So there's these things that are happening in our life that sometimes sort of pull us off our mindfulness. And you're right. Exactly. I gave this lecture to an audience. And after I went through the list of what keeps us stuck, they're like,

you just listed just about everybody. And I'm like, kind of, yeah, because the trauma bond is a sort of universal phenomenon in many ways. And so, but if you're not in as much of a rush and I will tell you that will help, but I'll tell you this, the thing that is, that can help people in addition to sort of knowledge, sort of protect themselves in these relationships is to develop a fully formed sense of self. We don't do that enough. We're a very other reference. Like I should be going to this university. I should be having this kind of job. I should be living in this neighborhood. I should be doing this. I should be making this money by this age. And I should be, you know, we are very externally

referenced versus who are you? What are you about? What do you stand for? We don't have folks grapple with those questions. It's a shame because we have such a rich opportunity to do this with kids, particularly in middle school and high school, and we don't do it. I think we could really lose some of the classical school curriculum and just do this work because it can't happen in a lot of families. I think the error has always been like, well, this is the stuff that should be happening at home. Well, it's not happening at home for 80% of people. This is such a key point, isn't it? This whole idea of where does your sense of self come from? Have you spent time on that? Do you know who you are? Because here's the thing, a lot of us do this in adulthood because of conflicts or

whatever. We end up there because we realize that that's going to help us move forward. But it completely stands to reason that if you do this at a young age and you enter adulthood, as much as possible with that strong sense of self, you know who you are, you're probably going to be much more aware when boundaries get crossed, when things go, well, this doesn't feel right. This is not who I am. Because you know who you are, how can people who don't know who they are, and I recognize that if you've been in a narcissistic relationship for many years, you forget who you are. How does one go about finding that sense of self discovering who they are i mean it's it's a it's a very it's a lifelong process it's not like i'm going to do that this month and i'll have it sorted right i always think of it as an archaeological dig you know how you see people in the dinosaur movies and

they've got those tiny little brushes and they're brushing away all this stuff to kind of look there's a tooth there's a bone in some, it is an archaeological dig. Like we're digging through these layers of ourselves. And part of this is mindful awareness. It can be bringing in practices like meditation and mindfulness, which can really help a person engage in sort of the process of non-judgment. Because judgment is what stops people from this process. Like, this is ridiculous. I want to be an artist. Ah, I got to shut that down. That judgment is what doesn't, just because you love art doesn't necessarily even mean

that's going to be your career. But to acknowledge how that creative pursuit may be a part of who you are, to really have those hard sort of explorations within yourself of like, do I want to be a parent? Like, where do I want to live? It's creating time in your life where you have those conversations within yourself of like, do I want to be a parent? Like, where do I want to live? It's, it's have, it's creating time in your life where you have those conversations within yourself.

Therapy can be a very useful tool here. If you're working, you know, again, unfortunately, therapy is sort of two different things, right? It's not unfortunate. Therapy is two different things. There's therapy that is designed to address an acute mental health crisis, like person's depressed, severely anxious, managing addiction, any number of things. And it's almost a medical model. But there's sort of a second stream of therapy, maybe a more privileged form of therapy, if you will, where one is doing that kind of self-exploration of talking about those sort of things that they almost feel, I feel I don't even have a right to explore this, but exploring it with somebody who's able to, in a skilled way, help them also understand the barriers to that expression of the true self.

Right. So I think therapy can be a useful place for that, but a lot of people don't have the funds to do that. So I very much understand that, but it can be journaling. It can be, it can be honestly, in some cases with healing from narcissistic relationships, three, four times a day, I tell people just put a notification on your phone and touch in with yourself. How do I feel now? Am I hot? Am I cold? Am I hungry?

That might seem silly to you, but it's actually not. Because if you've been in unhealthy, controlled spaces for too long, someone else told you if you were hungry or hot or tired. They did. They're like, you're not tired. You're not hungry. It's not too warm in here. So it's giving yourself even an opportunity to tune into your own physiology. How does my body feel right now? How do I, am I comfortable right now? Like, where do I feel things in my body right now? Those kinds of like body scan, mind awareness, things are little things we can build into a day to connect with our body. And that

might seem like, how is that connected to what I want to do? It's not about what I want to do. It's who am I? And it's even giving permission to, again, I'm going to just put myself out there as an example, is that I'm a deeply introverted person. So even though you and I have been talking here for hours and I've loved it, right? You're not going to throw me into parties and social gatherings. But for years, I tried to fight that nature in me because young people were not young anymore. But back in the day, I was supposed to socialize and you're supposed to want to go to parties. And come on, Romani, you're such a party pooper, right?

And I'm thinking, no, actually, I'm not a party pooper. I'm an introverted person. I prefer to be in my own head and read and that's where I'm happy. And donoper. I'm an introverted person. I prefer to be in my own head and read and that's where I'm happy. And don't get me wrong, I love people, but in small groups. And if I do go to a large event, I'm very tired afterwards. That exploration of self allowed me to give permission to that part of myself to say, it's okay to say, I want to see you. This is going to be too much for me to come to a big event, but can we put a dinner in the books next week?

That was allowing that to happen. But we're breaking through programming and that's hard work. It's also saying like, I recognize for me as a South Asian woman with immigrant parents who went through all the rigors they went to to immigrate and the pressures that came for that, they had an agenda for me. And I kind of fell into that agenda out of duty and obligation, but it's not who I was. It was decades of work, of feeling guilty that I saw the sacrifices that prior generations made, but that wasn't who I was to finally give permission to what I wanted. I made so many mistakes along the way because I was trying to

live into an identity that was really locked into loyalty, duty, obligation, recognizing the sacrifices of others. This is not easy work. No. Of course, putting in place the right boundaries is really important for all of us, whether we are in narcissistic relationships or not. People often struggle with this, especially when they've never used boundaries. It can feel very foreign and you don't quite know what you're doing because you're not used to doing it. It's a tricky conversation. Boundaries, I think that what's so difficult is I've worked with so many hundreds, thousands of people who have gone through narcissistic relationships. The boundaries conversation is a thorny one

because you got to remember, boundaries don't work in a narcissistic relationship. And when we tell people to make boundaries in those relationships, we're sending them in to get hurt. There's no point. The boundary has to be very interior. So it's an internal boundary. The internal boundary might be, I'm not taking the bait. I am not going to engage with them on this point. The boundary has to be very interior. So it's an internal boundary. The internal boundary

might be, I'm not taking the bait. I am not going to engage with them on this point. It might even be a boundary, honestly, of I'm not going to share with them the good news I got because they're just going to make fun of me. That's the boundary. So I think that the mistake we make is that we think that boundaries are things we communicate to someone else about their behavior. Good for you if you've got people in your life where that works, okay? But that's so rarely the case for people who are in the place I am. And so when you're like, boundaries, boundaries, boundaries, people are like, what's wrong with me? Maybe I'm the problem because I can't set a boundary. I'm like, there's no setting a boundary here. The boundary is within you. And I'm going to give you that classical

example. The mistake people will make is that I'm going to tell the narcissistic person this cool thing happened, or I have this good news. And then they say terrible things and they mock you. So don't do it anymore. A boundary is when something good happens to me, they're not going to know about it, not from me. And if something bad happens to me, I'm going to have to find a different place to share it, not with them. That's a boundary. You see what I'm saying? And so I think we have so much of our conversation of boundary is I'm going to tell them I don't want to, that they can't do that. They shouldn't say that. Not only are they not going to listen, they're going to gaslight and humiliate and shame you into oblivion. Save yourself the trouble, set the boundaries within you, engage in radical acceptance, and disengage. Disengagement is a boundary. Yeah, super useful. I don't feel we've even scratched the surface of the content that's within your new book. It's not you identifying and healing from narcissistic people. So for anyone who's interested in this topic it really is a fabulous read that's going to help

people you know identify and then go on to heal to finish off our conversation today dr ronnie i have i guess two final questions to ask you two quite different questions the first question is if someone has been listening to this conversation and thinks, you know what, I think I may be a narcissist. I think I have got a lot of those traits and I'm harming the people around me. What advice would you give to that person? First of all, good for you. If you're having that kind of insight and self-reflective process, you may not be a narcissistic person. But if indeed really you're like, okay, I'm listening to this and I'm going to have a painful realization, or you look around, you see a lot of

burned bridges. I think that armed with that kind of insight, while in general, narcissistic people don't make significant changes in their personality. In fact, most of us don't make significant changes in our personality. We can change behavior. It's hard. It's hard because these behaviors are often very reactive and automatic. And therapy for people who are narcissistic often is a very, very long-term process, especially for a person. And a person might look back and say, I get where this came from. It was a lot of adversity. These are survival patterns. I'm like this because it because the only way I can feel safe. Those are incredibly important insights and good trauma-informed therapy for somebody who's had

that kind of origin story can actually go a long way. Finding that therapist you feel comfortable with, but recognizing this is hard work. And almost like anyone with a chronic health condition where every single day they might have to adhere to medication or do physical therapy or do something for their chronic health condition, a person who's narcissistic, who doesn't want to do this harm anymore, who doesn't want to live in this space anymore, has to be mindful all the time,

has to think about how can I take responsibility and accountability here? How can I show up and be aware of the other person's needs and wants and not minimize them? How can I do the work internally to manage this sense of internal shame and vulnerability and all of that? It is a lot of work and it is a commitment and it is a lifelong commitment. So somebody wants to do that, there are good folks out there who can do that work, but it is a lifelong commitment.

Okay, great. Because I do want to make sure there's hope for people who, you know, as I say, feel that they may be, you know, giving out this behavior. And I think it's important that we also speak to them so that maybe it is a small percentage, but we can still make a huge impact if that small percentage goes, right, I'm going to take responsibility now.

The second and final question is, for that person who thinks, yeah, you know what? I didn't quite realize that. I kind of knew there was some issues in some of my relationships, but now I'm pretty clear that my partner or my parents or my boss is a narcissist and I am on the receiving end of that behavior for that person. What are some of your final words for them? I would say knowing is like a first step in a long journey. Okay. So just sit with that for a minute and look at how the patterns have shown up. You might even do a little bit, become a little bit of a researcher, an experimentalist. If you really are like, am I right or am I wrong about this? Try a couple of things.

Express a need. See how that works out for you. Express a want. Contradict them. If indeed you feel like you don't agree with them try those things out and see how they react because that's really going to be the places you're going to see the pressure points come out right and that might give you the confirmatory evidence you're like okay i am definitely seeing this right i didn't want to but i am and i think from that point forward is that as

you see that these are consistent sorts of patterns, is figuring out sort of how you can find different ways of engaging so you don't get hurt in the same way, so you don't keep repeating the same toxic cycle. I'll just sort of leave you with a very simple mnemonic device from the book, which is don't go deep. And don't go deep, deep stands for don't do these things, don't defend, don't engage, don't explain, and don't go deep. Deep stands for don't do these things. Don't defend, don't engage, don't explain, and don't personalize. And if you can just hold on to that, which is

don't keep explaining yourself. They're not listening. Don't defend yourself. They're just going to gaslight you. Don't engage. It's going to get worse. And honestly, don't personalize is the hardest because this is actually not you. It's not about you. This is their insecurity. This is their inner battle. This is their need to dominate. But it's just that you had the bad luck of being in this position. Anyone else, anyone else that was their partner or their employee or their child would be enduring a lot of this, if that makes sense. So it's just bad luck that you're in this position with them because this is the role you had in their lives.

But it's not about something in you. It's not because you're weak or you're flawed or you're foolish or anything like that. It's how they go through the world and that it's not you. That's the core of this book is that don't go deep. Don't defend. Don't engage. Don't explain. Don't personalize.

Just starting that process of disengagement and seeing it clearly can start helping you sort of lift part of the weight. Yeah, the grief is coming. It's like a storm cloud on the horizon. I promise you that. But just interacting with it differently might actually, you might say like, well, this is actually already lifting some of this. I'm no longer having the same ridiculous arguments or basically waiting for a bus that's never going to come to this stop. Really, really helpful. Dr. Romani, I honestly think

you're doing some incredible work. You're shedding light on a really important topic, YouTube videos, your podcast, and now this latest book, It's Not You. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me. I always love talking with you. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation.

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