Girls Gotta Eat - How to Heal From a Narcissist with Dr. Ramani Durvasula

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

We are overjoyed to welcome back Dr. Ramani Durvasula to talk about healing from narcissists in your life – whether it be a parent, friend, or romantic partner. She briefs us on what narcissists actually are and what motivates them, then we dive into the healing process, everything from recognizing to acceptance to how to communicate with them and finally, moving past the trauma and self-actualization. We also play a game with her – Narcissist or Not – crowd-sourced from our listeners. Before Dr. Ramani joins us, we're talking about the something men love to mansplain (that dries us right up), and the "dressing down theory" of having better luck on the dating scene when you're in casual, comfy clothes. Enjoy! Check out Dr. Ramani on YouTube at youtube.com/doctorramani, pre-order her new book It's Not You, find her on instagram @doctorramani, and visit her website. Follow us on Instagram @girlsgottaeatpodcast, Ashley @ashhess, and Rayna @rayna.greenberg. Visit our website for more info and shop Vibes Only. Thank you to our partners this week: Beis: Get 15% off your first purchase at beistravel.com/gge. ZocDoc: Get a top-rated doctor for free when you download the app for free at zocdoc.com/gge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's the thing with healing. Number one, you've got to be able to call it what it is. You're certainly not going to pick up the phone and say, hey, mom, you're narcissistic, and I got this all figured out. You're never going to do that, right? Listen to this podcast. No. Girls got to eat.

Welcome back. Coming to you again from Spotify. We just figured out how to do the lighting in here to be pink. It's so cute, isn't it? Love pink. It's great. Basic ass bitches. Love pink.

I miss our palm tree wallpaper. But if we can't have that, pink. Yeah, I've been being traumatized by the studio rebuild all week. I'm really doing it. It's so funny because I popped in last night. It ran out a little Super Bowl party and it was so much fun and I popped in there and there's all these crazy generators and like dryers and whatever the fuck running. And you were like, this is my nightmare because it's right under your bedroom essentially like the way your house is set up. And I was like, this is my dream.

This is the noise I fall asleep too. It's like white noise. That hum. Yes, just a loud, steady hum. It makes me. Because I can't fall asleep to rain anymore because we were too traumatized for rain. The way that the weather has ruined my nighttime routine. I can't listen to rain.

I'm triggered by it. I know. That noise, it's not only that I can't fall asleep. It makes me feel sick. I don't not explain. That hum? The white noise makes me feel nauseous. I can't.

Like, I'll never fall asleep. What? I'm so on edge. Okay. So do you like pin drop quiet? Like, not a sound. Except your own snoring. Well, I don't have to hear my own.

But then what if you hear a sound? It scares the shit out of me. That's my whole thing, because it's never going to be completely quiet. We've chosen to live in, like, cities our whole lives. So one sound in silence is just, like, a jolt to the system. So I, like, a steady... It's terrifying when I hear a noise. I hate it.

I want no sound, no light, no breathing. It's hard for me to sleep next to another person. Like, I hate it so much. It's really stressful for me. Have you ever woken up from your own snoring? No, but my own fart has woke me up before. Raina, you stop it right now. You have not farted and woke yourself up.

Yes, because you do it. Like you're 80 years old. You do it and you're like, oh my God, is someone else in bed with me and heard that? It's a terrifying thing. Don't talk to me like we all do that. People, it's like, oh my God, if I fart in bed, like you, listen, I don't have like a long-term partner right now. So I'm normally seeming by myself. So I'm just living free.

I can fart when I want. But sometimes I fart and I'm like, oh, my God, is somebody around? And it's like terrifying to wake up to it. That's crazy. I mean, listen, don't get a twisted. I fart in bed, like every other human on the planet, but I've never fart in my sleep where it woke me up. That's crazy.

Good for you. Let it rip. It doesn't happen a lot. It's like once every other year. I'm just saying it could have it. That's the sketch. Rain is like, the last time it happened was 2020. I remember.

I forget why you're making it funny. We were talking about like, you can't be around a person for two hours and not fart. And I was like, can you? Can you? That's great. We were talking about our live shows. Oh, that's right. I can't believe that I do a two-hour show and don't fart up there.

I'm like, you can't go two hours without ripping a fart? I just, I think for someone like me that overproduces. Like, I poop what? I poop a lot. You're gassy. So I guess I'm gassy. People that are constipated can't relate, you know? Okay.

Let's talk through a few partners and we'll get into it. Thanks to Bace for supporting girls got to eat. Now we don't have to choose between beautiful pieces and functional luggage. Base luggage makes travel a breeze. Get 15% off your first purchase at basetravel.com slash gg. Yes, and thanks to Zocdoc for supporting Girls Got to eat. ZockDuck is the only free app that lets you find and book doctors who are patient reviewed. Take your insurance and are available when you need them and treat almost every condition under the sun.

Go to Zocdoc.com slash GGE and download the Zocdoc app to sign up for free and book a top rated doctor. You know what? I'm just going to give a wreck while we're here, a therapist's rec. Oh, yeah. A therapist track. And we have a wonderful therapist today. We have Dr. Romney back. And I've been wanting to talk about a friend of mine who had cancer and she went through two full rounds of chemo. And she is essentially cancer-free. I think we did mention that on the podcast. And that was like such an emotional moment for her to get that diagnosis and for her to tell us. On your birthday. On my birthday, yeah, she did. And then she really went through it. She went to those first three months and then they had her still do more. And she just kept such a positive outlook the whole time. And I went and sat with her through one of them. But she is a therapist and we were just chatting and, you know, she's been so wonderful to me and just, you know, conversations. You've had so many, like, car rides with her. She's like, therapist. She's like, therapist. She's like, therapist. She's like, therapist. And so I just wanted to spread the word about her. Her name is Louisa Glechman.

And she is available as a therapist. So if you're looking for a therapist, she especially as an art therapy, but that can be incorporated. However, it's not that you need to go in there and start painting or whatever. And she's the traditional therapist as well. And she's just been so helpful to me. You know, I think of this one moment where I was sitting in the room with her as she's going through chemo and she had told me, you know, they give everybody a little bit of Benadryl, essentially because of potential allergy and it makes you drowsy. And she's like, my vision might get a little blurred. I might be a little drowsy. And she just was clear the whole time giving me like therapy. You know, she was like, tell me what's going to your life, you know, whatever.

And I was like telling her some things. And she just helped me through it. And I'm like, this bitch is over here sitting in chemo, you know, telling me she's going to be all fucked up, just giving me the It was clear advice, you know, so it was really helpful to me, and I just wanted to spread the word. And so I told people, like, how can they reach out to you? And you can find her in psychology today or contact her Union Square Practice. So if you're in New York, of course, which she may do virtual, but she's the therapist in New York and Union Square Practice.com. And again, her name is Louisa Kleishman. And I wanted to plug her here on the podcast.

She never stopped working when she was going through all this. And she just had such an amazing outlook. And she was, I feel like all her doctors were so impressed with her. her and the way she like handled the whole thing and she's on the other side of it and I you know if you're in New York and looking for a therapist I love you guys to meet her and see her and experience her she's our therapist I mean she's tremendously empathetic she asks so many questions this was long before she ever went to school for this I'm laughing thinking about people going to therapy with her and being like just listen what's actually really like honestly why she that drunk of a slut be honest there is no one

I would rather speak on my behalf she loves me so much I mean we're like family like if I were to death. Not me. It would be her. No, it would be her. If someone asked you, you'd be like, she is kind of a bitch sometimes. Yeah, I was like, the first hand of my mouth would be like, she is kind of a bitch sometimes. But, like, Louise would be like, Ashley is an angel walking this earth. She is. She sees the good in everybody. She does. She truly does. And she just, be honest, what she really like. But they'd ask about you too. I'm okay with that. I know. That's what I'm saying. She'd say the same for you because she knows you really well now. too. We've gotten to know each other very well over the years. So funny. Someone goes and pays her however the fuck much just to talk about us. She's like, I can't talk about this. Someone's like, I'm actually fine. I don't have any issues, but I'd love to talk about Ashley. That is the top tier of trolling somebody. That is so funny. They paid money just to talk shit on you. That's like people to listen to our podcast and are like, I fucking hate them. It's like, no one made you listen to this. Okay. What if someone went in and they were like, I just, I'm having a really hard time. I've been traumatized by this podcast. And.

Like, I really need to talk about it. It's about us. Someone goes in because they hate us so much. Like, I need you to talk me through this. She's like, this is a conflict of interest. Louise is like, I love them, actually. So let's unpack what your problem is. Oh, my God.

I hope somebody does this. Like, we used you. I'm making space for you. But this is a conflict of interest. So anyway, that's my wreck for today. Okay. Do you have other, like, wrecks later? Yes.

I have more. I racks. Up top? Okay. Do it any time. Top gun maverick. We were sitting. We're watching the super.

Bowl last night and the way actually was talking about Top Guns. I mean, this is not... And Tom Cruise. This is, well, I'm not a fan of Tom Cruise. I still think he's one of the goats of acting. Yeah, before he started acting psychotic in his real life. He's still a great actor, I guess. He's great at acting psychotic. So this is not new. This was what, mid-20203. I don't remember when it came out. And I don't know why I didn't see it. I wanted to. And everybody was talking about, I think we were just super busy. And so I've been wanting to see it. And then I just decided to watch it on a plane when we were coming back from Miami. And I love the original Top Gun. One of my good friends in college, Bridget, it was her favorite movie. We watched it all the time. And, you know, my dad's a pilot, my uncle's a pilot.

My other uncle's a pilot, you know, a lot of pilots in my life. They're not fighter pilots. My Uncle Actually was Navy Pilot. But yeah, I'm just, I'm into it. You know, I'm not such a big action movie girly, but I've always really loved like Top Gun. I was surprised when you said that, that you loved it so much. I don't think of you as that. I love it so much. Do you think people are surprised when you say that you love Top Gun so much? I don't know. But then if you really think about the one actiony thing in my life, it's planes. I mean, it's really my whole family. So I'm really into that part of it.

And I love the tie-in of, like, I didn't realize who Miles Teller was playing. I'm not going to tell you, but... You could tell me it wouldn't mean anything to me. I've never seen this movie. You never seen the first one? No. So Tom Cruise is Maverick, his partner.

I thought Miles Taylor was a young Tom Cruise. No. And then Tom Cruise is in it? What do you mean? Oh, he's in. I thought he was playing his adult self. Tom Cruise is the star of the show. I thought it was like,

Different time periods. Tom Cruise is Maverick. Okay. Anyway, I thought Miles Teller was also Maverick. I thought it was like Miles Teller is like a young Tom Cruise and it's like different time periods. He's rooster. Okay. Listen, all I have to say is I absolutely loved it and I loved everyone in it.

Like I loved John Hamm played just this asshole self. I love it so much. Jennifer Connolly was so stunning. And there was a point where at the end where I was like, oh no, now it's going to go off the rails and be too unrealistic and too crazy. And it wasn't and it was crazy and unrealistic. but still was just one of the best action movies I've seen in so long. And I mean, you know, I'm a plane girly. I consider myself, you know, an enthusiast.

So I loved it so much. It was fun to watch it on a plane. I was crying. I was riveted the whole entire time. I didn't even look at my phone. It surprises me to you like this movie because I don't know you're an action girlie. But I said to somebody the other day, I said I like X-Men. And they were like, are you fucking with me?

Like, I don't think people expect it. I've seen every X-Men movie. I'm obsessed with it. Just because of your ex? No. Or outside of him. So I actually don't love. of Marvel. I was like, what is she talking about? It took me a second to process that. Well, you had to go to

all those Marvel movies with your ex. Yeah. Yeah. I would never. You're a better woman than me. Okay. I actually, I don't even know this. I don't think X-Men is Marvel. It's not the Marvel universe. It is? It is. Okay. I just don't, I don't care about it. I think that they're like, a ton of money is spent on these things. I like, no, I can't even really appreciate it. It was like torture. I understand why people like it, I guess. It's such, it's so embarrassing. It's so, like, boys. Like, he was like, boys like superhero movies. That's so embarrassing. When we broke up. I'm not trying to make fun, like even my boyfriend, like this, I'm not really trying to just, like, shit all over men, but like grown-ass men are watching superhero movies?

Yeah, when we broke up, he was like, I feel like you don't even like any of this stuff and we like, like, I like all these movies and I'm like, yeah, you're right, you got me. I don't like all this dumb fucking comic book little kid shit. Like, you got me. Listen, no offense, you like what you like. Traditional stuff that women may like, I know plenty of guys think it's fucking stupid. Who cares? Like, you like what you like.

But when I see, like, a grown man on a plane watching a superhero movie. That was so embarrassing. What if it was like Black Widow? What if it was like Scarlett Johansson? I don't know what you're saying. What is that? It was when the Marvel movies he dragged me to. It was like torture.

So Sparkleyes made me watch Deadpool or he made me like started. It's like his favorite, which I appreciate that because Ryan Reynolds is then he's funny and whatever. I could not watch it. I was like, babe, we're just going to disagree on some things. Like my brother and I, like, we have so many of the same interests, but we really differ on some like movies and TV. Sometimes like girls and boys just aren't going to like the same. And like we watched 15 minutes and he could feel me being like, I was just like, I hate this. Men will talk to you really high level about like why Marvel is so fascinating and how like

every character is woven into the next series and it's really fascinating. It's never been done before in the history. They'll talk to you about it like it's like a really serious thing. Yonatan did this to me. We drove somewhere for like 20 minutes. The whole ride, he, man's funny to me why Marvel is so amazing. And I was like, I don't give a fuck about any of the, nothing you're going to say to me about how amazing this is, production-wise, is going to make me be like, you're right. I'm going to say it right now.

Nothing will dry my pussy up faster than mansplaining Marvel to me. I've tons of men that like to do this to me. They love it. They love it. They love it. They love it. They think that there are cinematic geniuses explaining this to you why the, I don't know, Spider-Man and the Batman and all these fucking things weave in together. Somebody's probably going to be like, Batman's not Marvel. I don't care? I don't know and I don't care. And we'll have mansplained marveled you and then throw a towel up on a doorframe and be done with it. When you're not to live in a home, you can teach me what movies are good, okay? This is going to make so many men upset. I don't care. Okay, so I will say, I think there are these vast differences sometimes between some of the stuff that like a man might

like and a woman might like and whatever. But the one thing I will tie it back in because the show that Sparkleyes and I have both loved and I just finished it is Mr. Mrs. Smith on Amazon and it's Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, who I love Donald Glover, Maya Erskine was in Penn 15. She was so funny. So there, I didn't see the movie. So I don't know. I think it is a little bit different, but I'm obsessed with it. And they're, you know, they play these spies. They actually are put together by like the company they work for. Their meaning for the first time is they're already like married technically. Yeah. And then they go on all these missions. It's only six episodes. Every episode's about an hour. And I'm just obsessed with it. I really am on the edge of my seat, but also like laughing.

There's these moments where I just feel like they're not even acting. They're just riffing. And there's a few parts I've laughed hard and I just love the show it takes place in New York and I love both them as actors and it's an easy watch and it's fun so that's one thing that he and I are like coming together on where we're like watching it and like discussing it and that's fun he surprises me with what he likes because he loves normal people so much and that really shocked me that we love it he has that like you know emotional side of him but he loves normal people and then curb is back so curb your enthusiasm we love it's back for the final season and I was deep diving on old seasons like it is the best show if you consider yourself a person with a sense of humor that appreciates sarcasm, like,

and that area of comedy, like, not like, you know, slapsticky, whatever, like, Larry David, of course, like, and you haven't binged, like, old episodes. I mean, you've 12 seasons. What a trait. I feel like I'm struggling to find stuff that I really like on TV. Love is Blind starting. Yeah, Love is Blind. We had a big month coming up because.

What's happening? Summer House. Oh, thank God. Love is blind. Life and Ben. I loved that. I can't wait. I'm so excited.

Yeah. And there was like one other thing. I just, February was like, in my head is like a lot of stuff's going to be coming back out. I'm liking new Vanderpump. Part of me doesn't care. And part of me is listening to all their podcasts unpacking what is happening on Vanderpom. I'm like, are you really doing this right now, bitch? Okay.

Here's my rack. Right now feud Capote versus the swans on FX. I'm loving it. I think there's about three episodes out. It's about Truman Capote and these women who were like New York society women that he had incredibly close relationships with and then basically rober. about them in either of the New York Times, New York Post or something, under pseudonyms, but they were all really, really high society married to all these, like, really powerful

rich men. Ryan Murphy made the show. It's fantastic. I'm two episodes in. I love it. And then I just wanted to plug two other things, because last week we talked to everything I know about love with Dolly Alderton. Somebody recommended a book, and it reminded me.

So I want to recommend two books if you guys like that book. These sort of like coming of age, women choosing different paths type of books. So what I was doing while you were breeding is a fantastic book by Kristen New. She basically talks about all of her friends around her getting married, having kids, and she's not, as the title, implies. And then the other book, I feel like it doesn't get as much love, but it's one of my favorite books of all time. It's called Straight Up and Dirty. It's by Stephanie Klein. What? I don't know this. It's phenomenal. And she's like in her 20s and she works either like marketing PR in New York City and she's this husband. And it should be like this perfect relationship and it's really terrible.

And she gets pregnant and minds out he's having an affair. So it's a fantastic book. These are all like memoirs of women sort of choosing different paths in the 20s and 30s. So those are my wrecks for books that I love. I love that. I'll pick that up. I just went and bought Dolly Alderton's new book. Good material, I believe.

I walked up to my little bookstore and bought it. And then I got you guys this little key chains. You want to see these little boot key chains. So my whole keychain ring is sponsored by Girls Got to Eat Now. Tessa got us the photo of us on stage with the stripper. In Dallas. And in Dallas. And you got me the boob keychain.

And I'm going to watch one day on Netflix. Everyone is talking about it. My mom texted me the same day that Sparkle-I said to watch this. And people are saying that they, like, cannot not binge it. Yeah. That's on my list. And then Beyonce going country. I cannot sub-listen to Texas Hold'em.

It is like my favorite song I've heard in so long. so Beyonce basically announced at the Super Bowl via a commercial with Verizon that I heard she got 30 million for that she is doing a country album which I feel like I knew that was coming like she did a hat. Well the hat she wore to the Grammys. Right but like what a series? Yes, her whole vibe. But also like Renaissance the first one had a little country flare to it,

the horse and all that shit. So it's like I just feel like Beyonce really is out here like I'm going to dominate every genre or watch me like watch Beyonce win a CMA. Watch her win a CMA. This song I'm just like take me out countryline dancing and on a mechanical bowl. love it so much. I've been listening to it. I've got it on repeat. I've released two tracks. And this will be Renaissance, the second album. And then I'm like, what's the fucking third? What's you going to? Rock? Heavy metal. I'll die. I'll actually cancel.

I love for Beyonce. I really love country music. I'm crazy. I went to college in Indiana. I grew up in Midwest. I love it so much. But like I didn't really think that she could take on the category. I'm so excited to hear this. That it's like hip-hop country? It's not. Hip hop. Okay. No. Like I love like hip hop country collabs. I get it.

Yeah. I mean, Texas Hold'em, but it is. I can't wait. It's country country country. Like I started doing the boots, get and boogie around my kitchen. I was just country line dancing. We haven't talked about this.

It works with the song. Works. This ain't Texas. Ain't no hold on. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's so good. It's so excited. Okay.

I have a couple things to talk to you about. I can't wait. I have nothing to talk about. I have said to have. I was like, did I do anything this week? This has been something I wanted to talk to you about for a while. It's like a broader topic. I don't know if any of the girlies out there have been traumatized by putting on your boyfriend's clothes and thinking they're going to be like so big and baggy and like so oversized.

What did you want to talk to me about that moment of like, oh no. What did you put on? So he is tall. He's six three and he's like broader than me up top, but not on the bottom. So I have worn his hoodies. I've stolen so many of his clothes. he's giving me some. I have his hoodies, his long-sleeve t-shirts. They're nice and oversized. They're a nice vibe. Yeah, he's not, it's not skinny on, I mean, he's skinny, but he's still broad. He doesn't

Yeah, of course, but he is slimmy. And I have a larger, you know, waist and hips. So I am like, you're womanly, yeah. He's like, slimmer. You know, like every man, he has a little butt. Every man is a little butt, except from Bob West Side, I guess. He's all kicked up. And he has, I was at his apartment in Boston, and he had these jeans, and he wears, like, slim-fitting pants. He hates, like, baggy pants. Like, he wears, like, slim-fit pants. He looks great. He has great style.

And he had bought in some, like, more relaxed-fit jeans. And he was like, I just hate these. I feel like a dad, like, whatever. And I see them, and they are so baggy on him. They're like, these are going to fit me and be so baggy and so boyfriend fit. And I'm going to wear these, right? The way they zipped up so snug. The way my thighs were stuffed into them.

And then he goes, come out and show me. I was like, no, I can't show me this. Right now. The way they fit him versus me, I was like traumatized. And like in the same weekend, I don't know what at one point, we were just going to take an app and I like had on a t-shirt and I threw on a pair of his boxer briefs. I was like, are these spanks? You can't be wearing his bottoms.

You should ask me first. The way his boxer briefs were like cutting off my circulation. You know a muffin top. Yes. Baggy boxers. I was like, are these shapewear? Like these are so tight. My thighs are bulging out.

And like he loves my like butt and thighs and like. Like, I do have, like, a larger, I am a little bit of more of a pair of the airy. But I'm, I am, like, thin up top. I'm a narrow shoulders, so his top, his tops fit me great. But to put on his jeans... You should have asked me before doing this. Honestly, it's... It's stuck with me.

I look at his legs, and I'm like, damn, I wish I had those legs. I love his body and his legs are all tattooed, and they're super hot. But, yeah, he is a slimmer waist and legs, and I should have known... Yeah. Sometimes I look at him across the room. I'm like, why are your legs nicer than mine? Because I knew what size he wears, and technically. he's two sizes bigger than me

like waist size you know what I mean like we're talking like a 28 and 30 like men's clothes are different so I put him on the way I thought they were going to be a baggy boyfriend fit it's really demoralizing and the way they were and I've seen like I've seen memes like that before where you put on your boyfriend's hoodie and you're like why does this fit me like I'd buy it myself like you

you think you're going to be like it's so small oh my god look at these huge baggy pants it's so funny so then this brought me into this other thing on TikTok also clothes related that I saw trending like at this point maybe a couple weeks ago, but it was about wearing like comfy clothes out at bars to like get dates like sweats, sweatshirts. Every time I go out to a bar looking the shittier that I look because it's like not a purpose.

You're just like, I'm coming from the gym and a friend said, do you want to meet me for a drink? And you just think like, fuck it, what do I care? Yeah. And that is when you meet 100. I get laid so hard when that happens. I mean, there's psychological stuff going on, right? Right. You're the pressure's off.

You're like, I look like shit. I'm just going to go out and who cares. Like, no expectations. I mean, when you go out single trying to meet somebody, you did your full glam. You did your look. You're doing your heels. Like, you're in your head about it. The pheromones also say, like, I want this too much.

Right. A guy sees you across a room looking like shit. And it's like, she doesn't care at all. The other night. Okay, so I landed in Miami and I went to meet our friends for dinner. She's more your friend, but she's my friend now. And her husband. Real friends.

Yeah. I love her. So I went to meet our friends in Miami and it was taking me forever to get to the hotel. And so I was like, you know, I'm just going to drop my bag at the hotel and just run over. I'm not going to change whatever. And I like just dropped it to the front desk, went to meet her. I was wearing like, my, I've been on a plane all day clothing. I was like, shit.

The waiter was trying to fuck me so bad. The way this guy was just flooring with me like crazy and just like I could feel it. And I was just like, I look so bad. But you're like guards down. Your guard is down. I think you're giving off a confident energy. You're giving, I don't give a fuck energy. Yes.

I remember, I've talked about this guy, we did date for a little bit, we did meet at DUI school, and we'd been flirting, and then on like the last day he got my number or whatever, this was back in Atlanta. And then after it happened, I was so excited he got my number and like, we went out or whatever. And I met up with a friend and her husband after that. And I was telling them. And I'm like, this guy and I've been flirting and he finally did get my number. And he goes, were you wearing that?

And I had a baseball hat on and a t-shirt. He was like, the hat. This is the day he got your number. looking like this? And I was like, yeah, I think there's something to this. There is. I feel like you're just, you're not putting out into the world like I need attention. And so that's like sexy. And you get the attention. And then you get to show up on the date looking like a totally different person, which is crazy. And also, let's talk about your physical comfort level. Totally. You know what I mean? Like, you cannot be your full self if you were physically

uncomfortable. Well, we talk about all the time for live shows. Like, I started buying clothing that like, I'll sit in it first. And I'm like, in my, going to be thinking is, do I have like a fat roll sticking out? Also, who cares? But yes, I'm a normal person thinks about how my body looks day to day. It's so much matters at live shows. I mean, and we went through such our jumpsuit era. That was out of comfort, truly. Like, those just one piece of clothing that I felt like I could move in as opposed to like a top and a pant and things are cutting in and you're like worried about how your body looks. And I mean, it's, there's really something to it. So it was trending and I saw these girls just all like big hoodies and jeans,

like getting ready to go out and like, let's see if this works. And I was like, it probably we fucking will. It's a great comparison that. The live show stuff, like, especially when I've worn to our holiday shows, I've worn like a body stocking. Like, I'm butt-naked. And I'm in my head about it. And I feel like I'm not being as funny and you watch videos. I mean, listen, I'm always funny. But like, and I was very funny at those shows. But, like, I will watch videos of it and I'm touching myself. I'm readjusting my hair and I'm fidgeting a lot because I'm not physically that comfortable. But, like, put me in a sweatshirt and sneaks on stage. And, like, a ponytail. And, like, either no makeup or low makeup. And you're not worried about.

your contoured looks or your lip liner like I don't know there's really something to it we would do that sometime in college like on a Tuesday night you know what I mean like Thursday night that was our night so we would go all out but like if we were just going to go out in Clemson there was pizza night it was on Tuesdays they had $5 pizzas $3 liquor pitchers what did you say three dollar pitchers Long Island not think you're going to say that they're going to say three dollar beers liquor pitchers that is so college should be illegal illegal and so we would obviously just go out and wore in, like, t-shirts, like, the darts in there. And I just feel like that's the attention you're attracting. Also, speaking of the attention you're attracting, like, I do think there's

somebody to say for, like, looking nice. And I think that we all want a partner that, like, cares how they appear into the world, I guess. But like, I don't know, you're just casual and a guy's like, she's not that high maintenance. Okay. Also, just you're approachable. Your approach. Yeah. Like, yes, like you said, everybody likes to me like looks nice and looks put together, but you can get to a point where you look intimidating. Yeah. And also, that's great, too. Do you go all the way out who gives a fuck? Someone shouldn't be intimidated. to talk to you, you know, but you can be. I mean, I think it goes both ways for me. If I see somebody that's just a man, I'm heterosexual, I'm looking for men, somebody who's like ultra-polished.

I'm just like, it's a little much for me. Yeah. Like how much of our life if we date is going to be revolving around like your skin care, you're working out, schedule, all that. And again, you could be coming from work, you got a suit on, whatever, but I really think a lot of is the approachableness, you know, like, you cannot tell me that if you are a woman and you're out and you're like in a sweatshirt and jeans and you're just like having fun your hair is in a pony like you look so much more approachable than if you were in a mini skirt sky high heel hair done face done all the things but still do you or do both or do whatever you want but I think that's part of it too best days of my life in New York were just like I'm just looking like shit I think it's funny to

like show up at like a really nice restaurant or bar just looking like shit I know like I remember one night Rob had a party and we were all out and I think it was like basketball was on so we I went over there in leggings and then we all just decided to go out. I was like, damn, it feels so good to be out in leggings and sneakers. I know. I danced all night. That sounds so fun. And you're on the dance floor in sneakers.

You're like, I'm going all the way off. Somebody will step on me if I go on a dance floor at sneakers. Like you're at least a normal size. People can't see me that. I'm a normal size. Yeah, I'm like not towering over everybody. So and the other thing I said I was going to share this prom dress story. I promise I am.

I really want all the assets. I'm having my mom like find the article. Like, it's about an article in the school newspaper. So I just want to have. have you got I'm teasing it way too much. People would be like if that does not live up to expectations, but I just am going to tell it next week. Promise next week. It's a solo episode next week. Yes. Cindy is, I have the photos for everybody, but then I was like, wait, I think the article that I wrote is actually in my scrapbook. And so my mom today, she was down at the beach with Jay,

so she's going to get it. And then we'll have like excerpts to read of when I was the editor of the school newspaper. I'm excited. Next week I'll have some stuff going on. This week I've have nothing going on. I had some dates that were a little traumatizing. So I just need to take a little break. But maybe next week I'll talk about my trauma. This whole episode's about it's about. my trauma. So we'll talk about other trauma next week. But I took a little, I put a little pause in a dating for a minute because of a narcissist that I wanted to date with. And so, yeah, the studio flooded. You've been dealing with that. Yeah, that's been a lot for me. And the car engines that are in the studio drawing it out. But we're really excited. So we decided to keep it in my house instead

of pivoting. And so we're going to rebuild. And I'm excited. We're going to build that better. We will rebuild. Yeah. Did you ever see those memes? And it would be like, this would happen sometimes in Atlanta. Like this huge storm was expected and, you know, everyone's like, hunker down, stock up on bread and milk. In Atlanta, yeah. It would be like a breeze. Actually, sometimes the bad should happen. Like snowpocalypse, that was bad. But like, and then nothing would really happen. And then that meme would be like this like plastic patio chair that fell over on like a half inch of snow. And it said, we will rebuild. I just like would love that meme. Yeah, we're going to rebuild. It was a little worse than a patio chair in the studio for us. Oh, no, we, yeah, it's totally

gutted. It's like, it's crazy. The whole ceiling. It's a sight to see. It's crazy. This whole ceiling and all the walls, everything, totally gutted. But I think we needed that. You know, it was falling apart from the inside. We didn't know. It took this thing to realize that it really needs to be redone. It's not on your dime. Great part about running. It really is. And really, I can't recommend renter's insurance enough. Yeah. I cannot. Like, our business managers who help us to stuff like that, this. They were like, do you haven't had receipts for anything? And I was like, do I? I had every single receipt. I had every single video, photo. And we're lucky we bought all the stuff in the last three to four years, so they're easy to recall the receipts. But I submitted a receipt for everything and we submitted an

insurance claim where we're going to build it back. Yeah. I mean, life hack, runners insurance, you can't. I didn't know about it. But you in New York, when I lived in that like trap house of an apartment, I don't think anyone forced me to get it. But you can't rent here like certain places. I mean, you know, at the price point, at least that we're running without it. Like, I might be moving. I'll give you guys a full update next week. I just want to get this lease signed. It's in my inbox.

But I'll tell you everything next week. But I think I need a like million dollar renters insurance to get the place. I needed it. I had to have it to sign my policy. So if they are not requiring you to just get it. It's like a couple hundred bucks a year. It was the, it's not expensive. One of my girlfriend said to me like, how did you even think to get it?

I was like, I didn't. Our business managers told us that you have to do with the leases that we're on. And thank God. Because like the way I was able to submit a claim for, all the stuff that had water on all over it. I was like panicked that our equipment got ruined and I was like, oh, I'm just going to submit a claim. Yeah. And so like what a gift to renters insurance.

That's my wreck this week. Also pet insurance, but we'll talk about that at a different time. Yeah. Okay. All right. I'm going to tell you guys about Zoc Doc. We can't recommend this enough. This is how I found like so many of my doctors.

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They say dirt bag, which I love. And I always, like, my tip was always, like, dirty clothing bags in your luggage. They just provide them. Well, so I have the Weekender, of course. I post this recently because this past trip, I got so many compliments and inquiries about it. Like, a normal amount. People always ask about it. And then the Weekender, the main one, the bigger one, has this, like, zipper compartment in the bottom for shoes or whatever.

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I do and you can like match it. Like you can do like the same color weekender with your luggage. So we bought Tessa the Atlas Pink and she wanted a suitcase and the weekenders. We got her to the Atlas Pink. I love the olive color they have. I just have like traditional black. I didn't even say this. What happened? I can say it now.

But I sent Sparkalize a suitcase for Valentine's Day. Oh, you did? Yeah. I didn't know that. Because he's traveling so much. Because he's traveling so much and he has like a big duffel and I'm like, that's not good for your back. You know, like. And he doesn't have that perfect size of like the carry on.

Uh-huh. That's what's gift. I just got the black with the tan. No, I have the black one with the tan handle. With the tan handle. That's what I love. Yeah. Oh, that's so sweet. Okay, anyway. All right, well, you guys check it out. It's perfect for a gift. Or if you travel a lot, gift it to yourself. Right now, BAS is offering our listeners 15% off your first purchase by visiting a base travel.com slash GGEE. That's B-EI-S travel.com. And if you guys, we are newer here, our website is all of our partners, all the codes, all the past episodes, everything that you'll need is at Girls Gotta Eat.com. Okay, let's get into it. Yes. Okay, guys, we are very excited to welcome back our guest today. She is a speaker writer. a licensed clinical psychologist who has dedicated her career to, among other things,

researching the impacts of narcissism on human relationships. She is the author of Don't You Know Who I Am? And should I stay or should I go? Surviving a relationship with a narcissist. Her work has been featured at South by Southwest, TEDx, Red Table Talk, and the Today Show to name of a few. Her newest book, It's Not You, Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People is out tomorrow. Please welcome back to the show, Dr. Romney Darvassel. Thank you so much for having me.

We're so glad to have you and meet you in person. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. We're virtual before. It's better. It's better. It's better.

It's really exciting for us to have you in person. I met you in the bathroom. I was like so awkward. Well, we are obviously talking about narcissists, narcissism today. And we had you on before. We don't want to be too repetitive, but we'll recover a few things. But just a little background on you again and why this is your specialty. And it's really so wonderful that it is.

I mean, you chose Elaine and you're like, this is what I'm going to do. Yeah. I'm still a generalist, but this is what I do. I am Dr. Romney-Dervostle. People know me as Dr. Romney. I was a psychology professor for 22 years, actually just close to here at Cal State, L.A. I am a licensed clinical psychologist, and I've been practicing for a very long time for decades. And I got into this area of narcissism through so many different multiple pathways.

It's so interesting. I think that if you're meant to go somewhere, you look at your life, you're like, every pathway was ultimately going to get me here. I got interested in research, and so I did research, and I published and talking about these sorts of personality styles and how they show up in people's health. Basically, it was that people who have these antagonistic, narcissistic personalities were making life miserable for the healthcare professionals who were taking care of them, and that's what got me intrigued in the topic and how does that show up. But at the same time, I also had a private

practice, and person after person after person was sharing a very similar relationship architecture. I'm thinking, why isn't anyone talking to them about narcissism? Not as simple as like, yo, your father's a narcissist, that's the issue. But educating them about these patterns and in effect, nothing else, teaching people that certain behavioral patterns are unacceptable in a relationship. I think we make so many allowances for behaviors because it's your mother, it's your partner, relationships are hard. But I think if we could just sort of put that line in the sand and say, this behavior, not okay.

I don't care what their day was like. I don't care what the child was like. This behavior is not okay. and it doesn't mean you have to turn a cold eye to them. It doesn't mean you have to do it about face and leave, but rather that you need to understand this because then you understand why you don't feel well. It's almost like there's a noxious, odorless gas in your house

and you can't understand why you keep getting sick. And I'm like, well, this is why you keep getting sick, so let's sort of deal with this, right? And then the thing that really caught me was how much the mental health profession was unwilling to recognize this. And still, and still, and this is a real sort of thorn in my side because now we're having a moment. In fact, I feel very privileged to have developed a 36-hour training for therapists.

So we have more therapists who are equipped to deal with clients or going through narcissistic abuse. No one learns this in graduate school. We don't even learn about narcissism in graduate school. You learn on TikTok. You learn it on TikTok, which is really, really concerning to me. Little concerning. Yeah, yeah, little concerning. Now everything is narcissism.

He goes to me, he's a narcissist. Exactly. He yells at me. He's a narcissist. Right, he doesn't like you. That's all it is. Or he yells. I mean, that's what I'm saying.

And yelling is not an okay behavior, but then it's, can you tell them about this yelling? Can you, if you're able to have a conversation about the yelling and the person takes accountability and says, I am so sorry, this is my go to and it's not okay. And I'm going to change it. And I apologize for hurting you. That's not a narcissist. Does that make sense? So it's really the accountability. If we point something out, it's the accountability on the other side. But if that person attacks you, like, what's your problem? I'm not yelling is my favorite. Yes, you are. I'm not yelling. You're too sensitive. Don't be ridiculous. whatever thing they come up with, which makes you feel like there's something wrong with you,

but the unwillingness of the field to attend to this. And in fact, when people are taught about narcissism, I asked someone who's in graduate school, I said, show me. They said, we learned something. I said, show me your notes. And while it was important stuff like the neurobiology of narcissism, there wasn't one lick of information in there about how this personality style shows up in relationship. So I'm thinking, well, this got you nowhere.

I don't care about their nucleus accumbens. When somebody is gaslighting me, I don't care. Right. And that's what that piece is still missing. And I think it's this sort of, it's a really uncomfortable truth. And in a way, by not having to address this, because there's nothing to do. Everyone's like, well, tell us what to do. I said, we, for the longest time, we thought, oh, let's work with the narcissistic folks.

Well, that went nowhere fast. So it's really about helping the people in these relationships and giving them the information they need so they can make a decision that works for them, whether they stay or they go. So that's the very long answer to how I got into this. And then when you're an academic psychologist, you write these manuscripts, spend years and years writing a paper. You need it to give your job. And like nine people read it.

After all that work, nine people read, 20, if you're lucky, 30. And I thought for heaven's sake, there's all this amazing science and clinical theory. This needs to be getting to people because the vast majority of people may not end up in a therapist's office. But if we could take what we know and make it available to people, To me, that felt like a more meaningful mission than writing articles that nine people reading. Don't get me wrong. I still do the nine people stuff. But it has to be met with something that gives back to the world so that people can actually benefit from it. Totally. You said personality style. So that's like I wanted to start there. And again,

I think we talked about this with you before, but this misconception that it's a disorder. And so I thought that would be a good place to start in terms of just like defining it. Well, I wanted to point people back to your episode before. So it was February 19th, 2020, if you guys want to go back. February 19th, 2020. was our last sign. Literally two years to the day. We actually, this happens us a lot. That's amazing. This really happens us a lot where we have people on like exactly two years.

That's a sign. I like that wild. Every two years we have Dr. Romney. But we did. Should I say or should I go? We define narcissism a lot. And I thought like how is this book going to be different? And you talk about how like there's so much work done to like define narcissism and

identify these people in the culture and then it's like, well, so what? So how do we heal from them? So I want to point people to that episode and it's a great deep dive. But yeah, we should start with the personality and like what is a narcissist. So a narcissistic person is a person who has traits and patterns including low or variable empathy, entitlement, grandiosity, arrogance. They have an excessive need for admiration and validation. And so they spend a lot of time seeking it out. They can be very superficial, very self-centered, very preoccupied with themselves and their own lives and their own problems.

It was very little regard for other people. That's the lack of empathy. They're very superficial, very status-focused. envy other people. But all of those things I've just described, all those traits, all those patterns, they cloak this sort of inner sense of insecurity and shame. That's really sort of, think of it as a volcano that's in them, but they don't know there's a volcano. And I'm saying they don't know. This isn't unconscious awareness. But that volcano leads to this chronic sense of discomfort in them, but they don't know what it is. For the narcissistic person, the idea that they could be ordinary

or not perfect. Think of the volcano in them actually has like a manhole cover over it, right? So as long as it's capped, all that gassy shame and stuff isn't coming out. But anything that nudges it, for example, somebody breaks up with you, you don't get your way, you don't get the promotion, your friend gets a better car, somebody says no to your thing, whatever it is, that nudges that manhole cover. And that's why we see these strong shows of rage or passive aggression because that's all unprocessed. They're not aware that this thing pinged in insecurity and manage it from the vulnerability place. instead they lash out at other people, but all of that, like I said, is really unprocessed for them. And so the problem is all of those traits and patterns, there's also a series of motivations we see in narcissistic people.

And those motivations are meant to keep that insecurity at bay, which is power, control, dominance, and supply. Supply, meaning the praise and everything they get from the world. That's what motivates them. That's it. It's actually almost like what motivates like an animal often as food. This is what motivates them, right? So what do they do to get it? manipulation, gaslighting, invalidation, minimizing other people, rage, whether it's passive-aggressive

rage or in-your-face rage, breadcrumbing, future faking, betrayal, lying, constant criticism. I mean, so that's how the relationship works, but it's still not that simple. They got to get that validation in the first place. They can't walk around gaslighting people the first time they meet them. That's not going to get them a lot of validation. Narcissistic people then have very superficially charming, charismatic. They are very confident. So you meet this person who seems to have it all together, often quite attractive. In fact, in the research, people are narcissistic at the sort of sample level to group level are judged as more attractive in their photos. They do better at dating. They're more likely to be

in leadership. They make more money. And so when you take all that together, this is exactly what we were told to value in a partner, value in a friend, value in an employee, all those things. So now let's go to your point. That's narcissism. It's a personality. You've got a personality, you've got a personality, I've got a personality. That may not be a disorder. Now, narcissism's not the healthiest personality style. It's actually quite rigid and maladaptive. It's not amenable to change.

It causes problems and relationships. But because of how our society is set up, it also leads to a lot of success. So it's a little funky place in mental health. Now, for something to be a disorder, the person has to have presented with those patterns in a therapist's office, right? The therapist to have evaluated them and come to that conclusion. There's a lot of reasons that doesn't happen. Number one, narcissistic people often don't go to therapy. Right. Good like getting them in there. So when they do, it's for optics. It's because someone gave them an ultimatum. Or more often than not, it's because something else is going on.

Addiction, depression, anxiety. These other things are happening. So what is the therapist focus on? The other things. You see what I'm saying? So then the narcissism gets lost because they're like, the primary thing is, I'm socially anxious or I'm irritably depressed or I'm struggling. with alcohol addiction or something like that, right? So that's where the clinician's eyes go to. It could take months before the clinician's like, why are we making zero progress? Okay, it's the irritability of depression. It's the irritability of depression. It's an irritability of depression four months and they're like, they're on meds or this, this, this is not still be happening. And that's one of the ways it shows up. Or the therapist is looking for that, which most therapists aren't. So the problem becomes people think that people who have narcissistic personality disorder

are more severely narcissistic than people who don't. It's not true at all. There are people out there who are diagnosed with NPD, and they're probably not as narcissistic as someone who might be in your life because a person in your life never saw a therapist. That's the difference. So when all these people on TikTok are talking NPD, NPD, they don't quite understand how this works. So these kind of people really understand.

Yeah, you think they don't happen to have like years of education surrounding it, you know. That's an understatement. But yeah. These people can't really hear about their own behavior, digest it, and make a healthy, observation on how to change. So that what you're talking about, it was called an internal working model and a self-schema and self-reflective capacity, all fancy words for exactly what you just said. Well, the yelling was the perfect example of like, I'm not yelling. I'm sorry you're digesting it as yelling, but you know. Yes. I'm not yelling, you're yelling. Well, I love this visual.

I'm big on visuals and metaphors of the manhole cover and the volcano and all the things, because you could be with somebody narcissistic for a while if you never really poke the bear. Like if you're really amenable and submissive and complementary and, you know, if your personality is that type of person, it's not going to be me. It could be me. But I mean, even a child parent, like there's probably people that fit really well with them for a longer amount of time. Well, for conditional love time. Because they never really nudge the cover. But you got to grab this other piece up too, which is narcissistic people, as long as things are going really well for them.

Yes. They're the center of attention. They're winning. Like their life's going well, right? And so it's easier to interact with them, right? So you're having a perfectly fine time interacting with them. You're new, right? But over time, you also learn that as long as you go along, you don't speak back.

Because even if everything in their life's going well, the first time you contradict them, the first time you give them criticism, the first time you give them feedback that they don't want, the first time you make a need known that they are not able to meet, forget about it. Well, and on a deeper example, you post this was on your Instagram recently of you might stay with somebody just because you've been with them for a long time. You have a lot of stock in the relationship or you're waiting for them to change. And then something catastrophic happens in your life. You get cancer or whatever it may be. And then it's an inconvenience to them. They are not trying to obviously like take care of you and be there for you. And so it's like that's such a extreme example,

but that to think about it's like you have to think about the long term of wanting someone who's going to be able to care for you when the going gets tough for you. Errors and decision making people make here. Number one, we love each other and people who love each other, always care for each other. It's a great assumption when there's two healthy people, but it's never going to work with a narcissistic partner. Number two, a lot of people meet their partners young. Nobody's fast forwarding to 50, 60, 70 when the body starts saying like, yeah, now it's like a car that you're like, well, do I trade this one in or not? And so it's sort of the, as health issues come up, or even like you have kids or stuff comes up. Family members get sick.

Older family members need to be cared for. That's also a lot of people, because you meet someone young, you haven't sort of seen what they're capable of in that way as well. But I think a lot of people also think that, okay, this is just day-to-day nonsense. It's just a dishwasher. It's just that, sure, they wanted to go out with their friends tonight. I was just being a little bit difficult or whatever. That's how a person will internalize that. They don't think that that's going to jump the rails up. But if something really bad happened to me, I think they think it's going to be a soap opera moment and this person's going to run to their bedside and love them. And it's not that at all. Sure. They're going to perceive it as an inconvenience.

But I'll tell you this, and this is what really messes with people's heads when they're in these relationships. Let's say a person gets sick. Someone was recently telling me this. And the person telling me this was in the hospital. And when other people around are coming to visit the hospital, the narcissistic person looked like the most solicitous, aware. Can I get anyone every, honey, can I get you something? It makes them all good. And when there's no audience there, that ended. Absolutely. So I want to talk about the motivation for writing. It's not you. Because I loved why you wrote this book. Something you said the last time you're on the show is, you know, you're not going to fix a narcissist. You have to sort of fix how you relate to the narcissist because they're not necessarily going to change. And you talked about how like that's sort of the path forward is like, how can I have a different relationship with this person? Because they're probably not going to be different.

And I like how you talk about this book. And I think it's really validating to people about like, well, let's talk about how to heal. And why don't we talk about it as much? Because we talk a lot about what are narcissists and how do we identify them. But like, then why? I mean, and just to piggyback on that and then we'll obviously give you the floor. but it's like romantic relationships, you can break up. But if you don't have children together, you can separate. It's not always that easy, but we wanted to talk a little bit more about

like family and things like that on this episode today where it's not so easy. But anyway, so. So I wrote the book because even I've written some of the books about the what and the why of narcissism, right? Or even like the what you should do. But what we haven't really talked enough about is how you can heal and that you in fact can heal. And healing is an apt word here because it's not just a tactics thing because I can teach anyone the tactics of how to deal with a narcissist. It's strategy, it's tactics, it shifts in expectations. That's a lot of what should I stare or should I goes about. This levels this up to healing, to taking even what we know about trauma to some level and bringing it to bear on how these relationships affect us, why we get stuck, how we talk to ourselves,

how we often feel we're the problem. After years of indoctrination telling us we were the bad one, We're the selfish one. We're greedy, right? We're just bad. That becomes part of our identity. That doesn't just go away. And I think that many people feel like they can't give themselves permission to heal because they're bad. I mean, it's literally a reversal of betrayal.

You've been harmed by this person. And now you've internalized it because many people will say, oh, come on, it's your parent, it's your mom, it's your sister. Really, one more second chance. So now you're the person saying, I'm not giving one more second chance. And now you're the bad person for not giving a second chance. chance. And now the narcissistic person smells like a rose, like, oh, well, she's the one like a gosh, so difficult, won't give you a second chance, not accounting for the fact that you've given about 10,000 second chances up until that point. And so I wrote this book to open up possibility

for people to show that this doesn't define you forever. But you do carry some of these wounds. And I think these wounds can actually really foster empathy and compassion. We just got to put it in the right direction. That's why I wrote it. And I think that a lot of people, especially if coming from a parent, your whole life, you're being told that you are bad, you are wrong, everything is invalidated, you have to really unlearn a lot of things. Or if you start dating somebody and they're your romantic partner through your 20s when we're really developing as romantic partners, to be told for five years, all these things, you really have to unlearn all these behaviors and things that you've known to be quote unquote true about yourself that aren't really

true because somebody's told you them. Yeah. It's tough. It's really tough. Because that's it. It's an indoctrination process. Right. And like the formative years, I guess is what I'm getting. 100%. And it is very much formative because where do we shape our identities? We shape our identities with our parents. That's where we form them. And if you're lucky, you have other people in your life, other significant caregivers.

But at the end of the day, the primary attachment is usually to a primary caregiver who is more often than not a parent, right? And so the child who's mobilized by one thing and one thing only, which is attachment, right? Because they need that for survival. They better create a narrative of this parent as deep. decent or there's nothing they can do, right? It's not like an adult. You're like, this is not working. I'm going to leave. Like you said, there's no such thing as hinge for parents. You can't be like,

I don't like you. I'm not feeling y'all. Right. Right. Swipe. Yeah, I'm liking you. You look friendly. Kids don't have that option. And so what does the child do? The child turns themselves into the bad one in terms of their self schema. They learn to silence their needs. They learn to silence their true selves. They try to learn ways to show up that the parent will approve of and actually love them. This is why kids give up on their interests. They don't learn to express emotion in the safe way because they don't know how to. When they cry, stop crying. There's nothing to cry about it.

Or it's better yet is, stop crying. You're really going to do this to me now? So the parent will literally make the child's emotion about their inconvenience. That's a very classic narcissistic relationship play. And I think society reinforces this of like, this is your mother or this is your father. You have to have a relationship with that person. And I like what you said, which is like you're re-victimized. when you're like, I don't want to have this relationship

because everybody else is like, but it's your parent. How could you not? Right. And I think that this is another reason I wrote this book is that keep in mind, very rarely a person has one of these relationships. Parental relationships can create risks for intimate relationships in adulthood, can create risks for getting into these relationships with bosses, friends. It's not just one.

But it is that sense of this is where we also see that pressure to forgive. Come on, they're your parents. Oh, they had a tough backstory. You know, I knew their mom. That was tough too. or the narcissistic parent will say, you know, I had it rougher than you. And or they'll even literally tell the stories of abuse. A child should not be hearing their parent's story of abuse, not as a child.

Now, it may be as they come up into adolescence, another family member at a developmentally appropriate time might tell them, but more often than not with a narcissistic parent, the child internalizes that is, I can't also be bad to this parent. Someone else always will, I have to be more perfect. Yes, to your point, like, they're using it as a weapon. It's not like let me sit down and tell you our family history when you're ready and prepared. When you're ready and prepared. No, no, no.

It's like, how can I weaponize this and use this as one more place to make you fall into line? Well, can we talk about how we heal? Or is that too much of a load of, can you just explain the book? Yeah, right. I'll read it to you. Let's go. There we go. Yeah.

So here's the thing with healing. Number one, you've got to be able to call it what it is. You're certainly not going to pick up the phone and say, hey, mom, you're narcissistic. And I got this all figured out. You're never going to do that. Right? Listen to this podcast. If I were to say like there's sort of certain absolute laws of this, one is don't tell the narcissistic person you think they're narcissistic.

It's the biggest mistake you can make. Mistake number two is to tell a gaslighter. They're gaslighting you. So those two things are often mistakes people will make almost as though you're trying to say, I got your number, right? Well, there's better ways to not let them know, but live in the reality that now you have their number. So it's knowing it. And that's why the first few chapters of the book get at the what is it, you know, but the rest of it is really. about this idea of, so how do I heal from this?

First step is seeing it and seeing it absolutely clearly, and that's radical acceptance. And radical acceptance is, this is not going to change. Their behavior was never your responsibility. You have tried everything, and it's not going to change. And people say, well, that seems like a dire, their behaviors. I didn't say they're not going to change. People don't like to hear that. That's sort of what shut people.

What do you mean they're not going to? Everyone could change. Fine. Their behavior is not going to. to change, right? So maybe they'll do some little bits of pieces, but their behavior is not going to change. Like a rubber band always goes back to its original size, right? When the stress is on, they're going to go back to that. And why is that so important? Because otherwise, you're going to keep putting psychological resources into this relationship, and it's never going to work. We have limits,

right? There's only so many hours in a day. There's lots of people who need us. Our families, our friends, our other relationships, our careers, our pets, you know, things that matter to us, other community groups or organizations or whatever we're part of. We all have demands on us. And I always say there's sort of a 90-10 inversion for people who are narcissistic relationships. We tend to give 90% of ourselves to the most toxic people in our lives and 10% for all the healthy people. Like, I got to get back to them. I have to remember this. Because they require so much. Exactly. Whereas with the kind, good, empathic people, You don't call them back for two weeks.

They're like, sweetie, I get it. You're busy. Life happens. My friend Jill calls them cactus friends. You just don't have to water them and they're still staying green, you know? And so if we flipped it, imagine you put 90% of yourself into the healthiest relationships, only 10% into the toxic ones. Because whether you put in 10% or 90% into the toxic relationship, it's still never going to go well. So you might as well not put as much of yourself in it.

But radical acceptance is seeing that. And it doesn't mean their behavior will stop hurting because radical. radical acceptance also people push back on it because if they see it clearly for a lot of people it feels like now this is a call to action does that mean I have to leave what does that say about me if I'm staying in a relationship with someone that treats me like this well all it tells me is that be clear on your reasons and so if you're staying because you think maybe they'll change that's not going to work we got to keep working on the radical acceptance but sometimes people stay because they have kids it's about money it's about culture about religion it's about safety

It's about love. I mean, let's bring it down to it. It's brass tacks. Some people are like, I do love this person. I see what they've been through. Like, I see how hard their lives are. I see how this all relates. My point on radical acceptance is wonderful.

I'm so glad you don't lose your compassion and their behavior is unacceptable. They cannot use their backstory as a get out of jail-free card for the rest of their lives and as an excuse to abuse other people. I love this. This is like wonderful to hear. But I feel like it's normal. and healthy to look at a relationship and say there's a problem here and I can ration I can talk to you about it like Ashley and I always with our friends we're always like what did you try did you try this

what about this what about I statements and saying this is how this is affecting me and I think it's normal and healthy to want to say to a person this is how your behavior is affecting me I heard on this podcast this woman said like with a narcissist it's like asking to be ripped to shreds doing that yeah it is I feel like this and you wrote this thing in your book I wrote it down you said become aware that instead of thinking differently about yourself it's time to start thinking differently about someone who you love and respect that is also hurting you. So instead of trying to barter with them and explain things and maybe change how you are, you just have to change the relationship and how you relate to the relationship. Well, that's why I have this sort of one of the hacks in the book

is what I call don't go deep. And that's don't defend, don't engage, don't explain, and don't personalize. Because with the mistakes we make in narcissistic relationships is we defend ourselves. I didn't say that. I didn't do. They are not interested in reality. They are not listening to you. Do you know, you know that you didn't do it, right? It's hard. It's hard. Right, you have to listen. Or we explain ourselves.

No, no, no, no. Let me tell you what I'm thinking. It doesn't even matter if the language is like, okay, it's the way I experienced this. No. It doesn't matter. No. So you're not engaging. And really strangely, when I tell people to not personalize it, what are you nuts?

Like, this is personal. I said, the reason I say don't personalize is they're equal opportunity offenders. Anyone who is putting a need or something in front of them that they don't like, they're going to go. it then the same way. So it's hurting you right now, but it's who they are. So after our radical acceptance, then what? Now comes the rough part of the ride. Okay. Everybody brace. All right. So this is the worst part of the ride and it's grief. Okay. Because what happens with radical acceptance is once you really let yourself see it, very clear, like, oh my gosh, my parent is narcissistic. Oh my gosh, my partner is narcissistic. And you really see it and you've allowed yourself to see the patterns,

the grief that overwhelms people because it's the sense of I believe we would grow old together in a healthy relationship. I wanted to have a mom who was a friend to me when I was older. A grandparent to share my kids.

Exactly. Exactly. We talked with someone about that recently and she had to give up that dream. And it's for some people they're saying you know it's not the giving up of the relationship that was so hard because honestly it was stressful

but you built a whole narrative around this and the idea that even the sense that you look back and you grieve your own child childhood. There's so much grief that comes that this person you genuinely tried everything with to have that moment when you recognize this isn't going to work. Because what keeps people going in a narcissistic relationship is sort of this when we future fake ourselves. Maybe it's going to be better when they retire. Maybe it's going to be better when they move to the smaller house. Maybe it's going to be better when the kids get a little bit older. Maybe, maybe, maybe. And that's what

keeps you going. The goalposts keep moving, right? Well, then that maybe comes. and their behavior doesn't change. And then maybe it comes again, and their behavior doesn't change. And so you realize, like, this is who they are, but you wanted them to be someone different. So the grief of that recognition

actually really destabilizes people. And it sometimes makes people wonder, are they doing the wrong thing? Does that make sense? Like, am I wrong to see? Maybe this radical acceptance thing is no good because I feel terrible. But if you can get through what I call the grief tunnel,

now you're coming out to a place where you're actually starting to come into your own, that you realize, like, oh, I do have a need. And it's the littlest things. Like, in some cases, and I always use this example, but it matters. People will say, I was told for so long what I want on my pizza, when I'm hungry, whether or not I'm cold. Like, they'll say that it's actually interesting. I don't even know what I want the thermostat at, because I was always told, you can't be cold. You can't be warm. You can't be hungry. And when it came time to ordering food, like, you don't like that.

And you're like, do I? Don't I? And if you're in it long enough, just figuring out, what do I like on my pizza? What temperature do I want their bedroom to be when I go to sleep? These sorts of awareness of allowing your true self to sort of emerge. That was absolutely impossible when you were in this relationship. And it takes a minute to actually come into yourself because that could not have existed while you're in the narcissistic relationship.

But what about people who can't leave? People who say, you know, I don't feel. like I can step away from my parents, that kind of thing, right? In those cases, it simply means that now you've trained yourself to know, I'm not showing up like that to my parents. So we sort of one of the hacks is the good, bad and the indifferent hack, which is don't share good news with the narcissistic person first. Don't share bad news with the narcissistic person first. Stick to indifferent topics. In order to heal, you need supportive people in your life. You need to build a support network. even if it's one or two.

People are thinking like, where am I supposed to find 20 people? I said, you don't need 20 people. You need two or three good people where you show up for them the same way. Relationships where you learn that there is a back and forth that a person does want to listen to you.

A person might step in and say, no, no, no, how can I help? How can I step in here? It takes one. For some people, initially, that's a therapist and it builds out and it builds out. And in that place,

you realize, actually, I was here showing up as my true self. And then you pay attention to what that is. and it wasn't knocked down and invalidated, right? But we give too much heaviness to parents and partners and all of that. And everyone will give the excuse. I hate when people say this. Friends are different than intimate relationships.

No, they're not. They're effing relationships. Why are they different? The only difference is you're not banging them, but that's it. You're probably, if you're with a narcissist, you may not even be doing that anymore. Right. But seriously, that's the only thing that's lifted. Oh, friendships aren't.

It's not about monogamy. We get lost. No, they're very similar. And if you're capable of having a healthy friendship, you're capable of having a healthy relationship. And I've heard survivors be shamed about this repeatedly. Well, don't compare your friendships to your relationship. Do compare your friendships to your relationship because what it shows is when there are people who see your true self, you see how healthy that this can be. Sure, there's different stipulations on an intimate relationship. Like when you're But there's stipulations on a friendship like showing up to me those seem similar. But I think that whoever those people are, whether they're friends, whether they're family members who are actually cool and good, whether it's a shrink, those people you're your go-to's. That's a huge part of healing. Then when something good happens, you know, the first thing you do, you call them. You do not tell the narcissist. But sometimes we trot up with our good news like, hey, look, I wrote a book. And they're like, oh, God, haven't you been doing this forever? Like, really? Like, that's what you'll get, right? versus you tell that friend, my cactus friend, Jill, Jill, the book's out. Oh my gosh. Oh, take a million pictures. Take a million pictures.

Send them all to me. I'm so happy. I love you. You're the best. Right? Now I'm like, oh, gosh, I feel so good. At some point you're going to tell the narcissist and when they're like, you got the love. It's in you.

But when you take it to the narcissistic person first, you don't get to celebrate your good moments. Bad news is even more important because a narcissistic person doesn't want to, they don't want inconvenience. They don't want problems. They don't want frustration. And they sure as hell don't want to deal with your problems. Right. So the other mistake people do is, well, they're my partner. I should tell them first. I'm like, your bad luck is that they are your partner. So don't tell them first. So I would say then, like sometimes solve the problem yourself. Like the dishwasher busted, right? Some people have said to me, gosh, it feels so unfair. I'm having to deal with everything. I said, you've always been dealing with everything. The difference is you made the mistake of telling them

and then they would rage at you. So let's pull the rage out. Let's just take that step out. You were going to get the dishwasher fixed anyhow. You were going to go and call the guy and he's going to come do it. So just go right to that. You might have to say, hey, listen, this is going to cost $200 and the narcissist will scream, but you'd have already made the arrangements or you'll go ahead and get it fixed and say, yeah, that costs $200 and they're still going to scream, but now the dishwasher works.

But we're the bad news when it's a bigger ticket, bad news. You got a health diagnosis that's scary. Someone close to you is very sick or might need care or might be dying or died or something like that. Big, big news, right? Never take that to the narcissist first. It's absolutely essential. You take that to the safe people in your life who can hold you, hug you, love you, reassure you, give you empathy, saying, how can I support you, right? I had a person tell me this, that they told the narcissistic person, they'd actually gotten a pretty severe cancer diagnosis between stage two and three, and how the narcissist's first thing was like, oh my gosh, I hate hospitals. And so, like,

oh god how many three days a week like you know i work yes we all in hospitals first thing out of their mouth it's not my dream to be there i would love to be there first thing out of their mouth is like oh my gosh it's inconvenient your emotions inconveniencing is like this top thing you've we've throughout of like a tell all sign i love that you talk about mourning what could have been like you mourn like everybody around me is best friends with their mom and i'm not and i don't get to have that. And you mourn like everybody around me has this partner that they get to co-parent with. And I don't get that. And, you know, maybe we split up and my kids don't have to do parents

at home. And you really have to like mourn that really deeply. You do. And I think it's a real watershed moment though when you say, okay, this is how it's going to be. So I can pivot now. Like the morning is so sad. But then you can say to yourself, well, then I'll have relationships with my aunts or my friend's mothers. And those are the people I'll share great stuff with. Yeah, we've been talking about this a lot of like where you get your needs met in terms of the other relationships. And it doesn't have to be the one that everybody else might have or that you dreamed of, you know. So I love talking about this. Even that idea of expressing needs for a person who had a narcissistic parent, the idea of expressing a need is almost like a vocabulary.

You never learn. It's like a part of the language. It's like you never learn how to say colors. So someone says like, what colors that sign? You know, you don't know how to do it because it was fraught. it would make you be unloved. If you're there to need, it would mean that the parent would get angry or they would withdraw or they would withhold or they would rage at you or they'd call you selfish.

Well, nobody wants that, especially a child. So the child learns to not express their needs, right? Or their needs are shamed. So that idea of expressing needs is already a big fraud enough issue for people. For people with narcissistic parents forget it. And even people who've been in long-term sort of adult intimate relationships. It really gets challenging there. And so what you get, I'll see this.

all the time and survivors, like, I am so, so sorry to ask us. I'm so so sorry. You think they're going to ask you to loan them $100,000. And then they're like, do you mind if like I parked my car in front of your house? I'm like, why are we having this conversation? Right. And it's like this whole thing. But then your heart breaks because you recognize that any ask of any kind like, oh my gosh, do you mind if I have some of this ice cream? It's in the fridge. It's food. Anyone who comes in the house can eat it. And so there is that tentativeness, that apology for having a need. And it's heartbreaking, right? So can that be rewritten over if a person has healthy relationships? Absolutely. But I still think that there's a what we call a vestigial sort of a left over part for your race like this,

that asking for a need probably never gets fully comfortable for someone who has survived a long-term narcissistic relationship. I think of it as an opportunity, though, and a long-term romantic partnership, like you can end that and then you get to look for something else. And maybe your children can see somebody in a relationship with you that's healthy. and better. I mean, it's not great. None of this is great. But as long as you identify the behavior and at least start to mourn it, we can make different decisions. We can make different decisions and that there are those opportunities to make those different decisions. And the morning again might happen even if you stay in the relationship. That's my point is that it's not just about leaving in a morning

relationship, but you're mourning what the relationship could be. Your morning with the model of relationships your kid is seeing. But then you say they're healthier things they can see. They can see how I interact with friends. They can see how I'm doing at work. they can see how I interact with the person in a shop or something like that. You know, they can see that. And you're right. And if people do, if a relationship does end and the person does the hard work on themselves after a narcissistic relationship and they go out there and they meet someone else,

there's also the possibility of them seeing that new relationship. But the problem is that narcissistic co-parent will still be taking a toll on your child. And there's a lot of grief around that. Yeah. When we talk about these relationships, like, I just want everybody to find someone that is like empathetic and caring. It's crazy to think that like you could be going through a hard time and like you can't share it with your partner. A lot of people in that situation.

You know, a lot. Yeah. Anyone in a narcissistic relationship is in that situation. And you can imagine then they look to the world and they see that their friends' partners were at their side all the way through chemo. Or that they see other people in the chemo center with partners next to them. So that grief gets reinvigorated, even if you're going through your process of it, there's nothing more painful for some survivors of narcissistic abuse. said this, for example, having to accept maybe having a different relationship of the family member, people will say, okay, I've radically accepted, yeah, they're not going to change. And then I went to

someone's family party and I saw how loving they were. And they said, and while it was fun to be there, I felt like I got punched in the chest and they'll say, I went home from that party and I felt an overwhelming sense of grief for days, even though they were something happy. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to accept all. So there's also a funny thing that happens in narcissistic relationships where people start doing this. They radically accept and they disengage and they stop sharing. They're like, okay, I'm disengaging, I'm not doing this, I'm not going to share. A narcissistic

person is not going to let you get away with that. Then they're going to say, oh boy, look, oh, so you're not telling me anything anymore? Either they're going to accuse you if it's an intimate partner or they're going to say, oh, what does your therapist teach you that? Is this what your therapist told you? Or they'll tell you you withhold. And so you're now

on your back foot saying, okay, you can't And that, I say, is literally the mantra of these relationships. You cannot win. Even with these hacks, and it's not you. But, yeah, that's number one, number two is you can't win because I think people think that they're, okay, I've learned it all, I've radically accepted, I've gone through the grief, I get how it works, now I'm going to communicate like this and it's going to be fine. I said, oh, it's never going to be fine if you're communicating with them.

You're going to still be hurt if they say things like, oh, you think you're so great. Oh, I get it. Like you're not going to get into this conversation with me. Are you? Oh, well, mm. And so you're still being treated with this sort of mockery and this contempt. It doesn't feel good. There's no version of this where this feels good.

What I tell people, though, is what I'm trying to get you to the place of is where you're not surprised. Being surprised is not good, because that means you haven't radically accepted. So when they say something like, oh, well, why aren't you telling me what's going on your life? I have to learn it from Instagram. I have to learn about your life from there. and so then you're hurt by that. You're also befuddled by that. And then sometimes people say, yep, that's where I feel more comfortable sharing it. The thing is at some point, if you're still having to have contact with a narcissistic person, you're not a robot, right? You're not some sort of AI creation. You're a human being.

And there are times you're going to sort of breach the wall. And there's a part in the book called Finding Your True North. So as much as you disengage from the narcissist, as much as you distance yourself from them, there are going to be times they go at things that matter to you. So I remember one person saying, I'd totally disengaged from a particular family member. And she said, but that particular family member started making jabs at my kids' way. And I was like, oh, hell no. They'll find a way to get under your skin. And you know what?

She went in. And she said it was everything you'd expect. It was a big gaslighted drama, screaming, victimized mess. But she said, I would not have been able to live with myself if I didn't. But she said, but I don't get into it all the time. just when it hits those points. I like that you said that this will happen because, like, at no point will a narcissisticate themselves. Like, the behavior has shifted.

And I wonder what about me has made the behavior shift. And they're never going to say, like, this person seems to disengage with me. And I don't really know why. Maybe I've done something to cause that. Totally, like a normal person. Yeah, like a normal person. I like that you took it that far because it's important to be like, okay, you can change the behavior and they're still going to gaslight you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Instead of saying maybe I did something to make them stop. Right. But is there like a top level of heels? where you were able to engage with this person, not be surprised anymore, and feel sympathy for them because they have to move through the world this way. There is. And you don't. You know, like, I saw this meme recently that was just like when someone attacks me or whatever,

even something simple is like trolling you on social media. You're like, thank God I'm not like that. You know, and thank God I have people in my life who aren't like that. And I truly feel, you know, for people who have this and have to move through the world this way. They must be tortured. They are tortured. It's a terror. I can't imagine. I cannot think of a greater cruelty than have to go through life that way where you can't enjoy every moment of a simple interaction. Because narcissistic people often have this sort of victimized sense that people are out to get them. Right. So they're always on edge. They're always looking like, you know, looking for the fight. They're always kind of like this edgy. That's the only word I can use. There's not settling down. They're not at peace, right? Which is exhausting. Which is interesting because I think you might think like these people move through the world. What a gift. to think that nothing is your fault ever. That sounds amazing.

In some ways, yeah. So here's where I'll tell you it helps them a lot, in work and in business. Okay, sure. So it works great at work, especially if they're in an industry where that kind of nimbleness and if you throw people under the bus, you'll get ahead works well. You know, there's certain fields where that is the thing. And so because of that, they actually, and this is why we see narcissistic people overrepresented as business heads, because they're often able to make very uncomfortable

decisions very quickly without much regard for how it's affecting other people. It certainly makes them look efficient and it could make shareholders real happy. Charming, confidence. The stuff you said in the beginning, I was like, this does make a lot of people great at business. And they're able to rationalize, like, well, there's no reason someone as smart as me shouldn't be making $10 billion. And you know what? Like, what? Like minimum, why should I be paying them more than minimum wage? Like, they're just doing this. They believe it. They believe it. But like, you know, people like us, healthy enough. people like us know they're miserable. We do.

On the inside. But before you get to miserable, because you're saying what's this highest level of healing, right? This highest level of healing is really authenticity, right? You now are giving permission to your true self showing up. However, you have the capacity to know that that authentic self almost needs to be a little shrouded from the narcissistic person. They don't get to see your authentic self. But healing means you've gotten to it.

Like you know who you are. You know what you're about. You know what you stand for. You do. It doesn't mean there's not going to be dark nights of the soul. Anyone who's gone through this will have those moments. They go to the family event and they come, they literally feel like someone bled them out. And they said, and what kind of monster am I that a family was happy and I'm sad right now, to which I want to say that if you were not having that reaction, I would be shocked. And the courage was actually showing up to that event and being happy for your friends. I went to a wedding once where, and I had some bumpy roads in my life for a narcissistic relationships. And the family and this couple, they were just so connected, and the family was so connected. And I left it sort of feeling like, ooh, God, more than anything, what would my life have been like if? And I think that's a big driver of the grief and the regret. I think an authentic person can do that, but as you get more and more into your true sense of self, it's in essence, you've been wearing clothes that don't fit

when you're a narcissistic relationship. They're too tight. They're too big. But as you come into yourself, I have to tell you, authentic people have much smaller social networks. They don't suffer fools. So you're more in yourself, but you're also self-compassionate. You're saying, I've been through something. So maybe I'm only going to go to that family party of someone else for a couple of hours and I'm going to build in some rest time on the back end. I'm going to figure out what it is I need.

I'm going to get it. I'm going to attend to my nervous system, right? So narcissistic relationships build in us this chronic sense of fear of unsettled dis. And we learn to ground ourselves and breathe. and sort of bring ourselves back into the present moment. Instead of that kind of like, how can I please this other person? It's to take a breath and say, I'm going to talk to them like equals, rather than that subordinate position, that trauma brain talking.

Like, I have to be safe with this person? It's like, nope, you slowly elevate and say, let's say you're late, 15 minutes late to something. You say, I am so sorry. I underestimated the traffic today and I am late and I'm so sorry. You can take accountability versus like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I've ruined everything. That kind of response can take you down a rabbit hole. So you learn to be fully in yourself, but in a way that fully recognizes too that these

relationships do changes. I think some people want the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, right? They want like, none of this never happened to me. And I'm just cheerful and positive all the time. It's never going to happen. So I think there's a tremendous amount of wisdom that comes for people who have been through these relationships. They become a lot more discerning.

Actually, there's a richer kind of empathy that comes out of it, an empathy for people who are going through something like this. You learn the rough, jagged edges of forgiveness and that you give yourself permission to not forgive if it doesn't work for you, which is a big one for people. There's an entire section in the book on the, I think I call it, the treachery of forgiveness, because I'm not a big fan of forgiveness in these relationships,

at least not in early days. And you may get yourself to that point, and sometimes it takes time. For some people, they'll say it helped that I didn't have to talk to this person for a few years. It's harder to get there if you're in the relationship, but I've seen people do it. They say, I cultivated meaningful stuff in my life. I realize that this relationship is something culturally I can't step away from, but they found comfort in faith, in spirituality, in their careers, in volunteering,

in other healthy members of their social network. And there's that grief of, I didn't get the dealt the hand of the happy long-term marriage. but they are able to also cultivate the other areas of their lives that are meaningful. And so that's another place that I see that survivors are able to do that and really create some amazing lives. I've had many therapists come up to me at conferences where I speak. And they said, thanks for this work, because I really listen to it. And now I'm eight years out of a relationship, and I'm thriving and my practice is growing. And so I've seen it. I've seen it. And people have said, I've gone to school to become a therapist.

I'm going to learn how to become a divorce coach. I am finally going to finish that degree that my ex told me I was an fool, you know. And so I've seen many lives come back. I had a person tell me that they were told over and over again, what kind of, you can't make a movie. What are you? Like, who do you think you are? It's a Garcia or something. Now they have a feature debuting.

It happens. And I see people fall in love. I mean, all the time. But you have, think about it. If you have a bunch of junk in your house and you can't walk around, you can't really get anything done. Yeah. At some place, you've got to clear it all out. And that's what this is.

And then some people might get to the point where they can have that conversation civilly with a narcissistic person because they're fully in their own bodies again. They're fully into their own souls and their own minds. They know who they are. And you know there's some narcissistic people in my life. I could not like could not for a variety of reasons let go of. And when I talk to them, I'm very tactical. So they might even ask, hey, what's going on? I'm not going to tell them about this.

Even though this is all I think about, I will not have them shit on something. that is my heart and my soul and my love working on this book and working with this community. No way. They don't get to hear it. And then what I realize is that you screwed up so badly that you didn't get to share this beautiful experience with someone who did something. You don't get to have nice things. Exactly. I mean, I think this is one of the most important parts of what you share with them and what you don't, not setting yourself up to get your heartbroken over and over. This is really wonderful. I think a lot of people will find a lot of validation from this. I love it. Thank you so much. I think that we're constantly told in society to like try harder, understand the other person, dig a little deeper.

Like I think we really value that. It's important. If Ashley was mad at me, I would stop at nothing to understand what I'd done and how I could change. Like, that's what a normal person does. Right. But one of the hardest things to do when we're in a betraying relationship. And when I mean betrayal, I don't just mean somebody who cheats on you or lies to you or steals your money. I also mean it's betrayal if somebody says they love you and they will not hold up their side of the tent. That's betrayal to me, right? So what happens, though, when we love someone who chronically betrays us, it's hard for us. Our minds almost moderately dissociate and don't let us see the accumulation of evidence

because then we'd have to leave when we don't want to do that. That feels too scary, too. We want to keep that connection. So we don't pay attention to you say, I'll go to her and we'll talk and we work it through. We forget that in healthy relationships we can bring something uncomfortable up and we get to the other side. We find compromise. It works, and that doesn't work in these relationships, but we sort of conveniently forget the number of times

that these relationships have been harmful. Because if we've remembered them all, I don't think we'd be able to get out of bed in the morning. Right. I know, and Rain has a relationship in her life, and it's just like, we've tried to navigate it so many times of like, well, maybe this and this, and you're just like bashing your head against the wall.

Like, you know, I think it's a hard pill to swallow, but also really validating that, like, it won't work. It won't work. And it's also about lifting that idea of instead of making it, how about this? How about this? Is this is it? So this is how I'm going to engage with this. And not be surprised because you know how it's going to go. And build in time on the front end to sort of prepare, get into your body, breathe ground, and afterwards do something to release. And it could be a nap, could be a shower, could be a workout, it could be watching a funny TV show. But you almost have to reorient. So I always tell people, you got to book out. these interactions with narcissistic folks. Prepare, ground in your body. Have the interaction. Now you're wiped out and do something on the back end to take care of yourself.

I call it preparing and releasing in the book. I think it's a huge way people can heal. And I think congratulating yourself and giving yourself credit. Like I wasn't surprised that time. I didn't take the bait. Exactly. Yes, I didn't take the bait. Like appreciating your own growth.

I think of these things is truly like training, you know, to get to the other side. So all the small milestones along the way, pat yourself on the back. And those milestones are as small as they feel like I told my best friend the good news about my promotion first. That's a huge win. And those huge wins, especially if you journal or write them down, you're like, I'm getting there. Because in the beginning, it feels like you're making no progress. You're making more progress. I love that.

I write them down too. Yeah. Okay. So we'd asked our followers on Instagram, narcissists or not. And we don't expect you to just diagnose, you know, but you can do that. It's not a diagnosis. It's a personality. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yes, no, or maybe. Of course, you don't have all the context. You don't have the full story. But some of these are just also like light and funny. So I'm just going to go through Montreina told me to just take it away. Actually in charge of this part. Okay. Had a photo of just him as his phone computer background for the five years we dated. Maybe to yes. Okay. Oh, okay. That's crazy. That's crazy. Maybe to yes. Yeah. No, no, no. I have my cat, which just makes me seem like concerning old cat lady. I can live with that. And like some people,

like you have kids. I said, I don't want people to see pictures of my kids. I'm very protective of my kids. But she's a tabby. She looks like every other time. It's not you. It's not me. Yeah. That's so funny. Okay. Quote, I don't like giving oral sex. No. Okay. Yeah, it doesn't have to be. Listen, we always could. We don't know what the ends and outs. Okay. Early on an ice cream date, I asked if he wanted some of mine. He ate the entire scoop in one bite. Maybe I'd need to know what was said afterwards. Exactly. I have one. I have one. I went on a date with somebody recently. Two hours.

Never asked me one question about myself. Has no idea who I am. Does no idea for work. That's a yes. So fucking charming. It took my breath away, but never asked one question about me. That's a yes.

Okay. What would cause a person to not ask questions? Because they are fully, they're so preoccupied with themselves and only think that it's about them. Though I'll give a little nugget. They may be socially anxious. Sure.

But then in which case, I mean, do you want to be the social anxiety coach? Right. That's on yours. Also true. Again, Some of these things could be a lot of things. They could be on the spectrum too.

You know, like there's a whole different thing. Yeah, but here's the thing. I think that there is more advice on dating on the internet than almost anything. So watch it. And probably every single one is going to say number one. Ask questions. That's so true. Yes, absolutely.

And also the response was also on the top of this so fucking charming type of person. Those two together. Correct. That's charming. So that makes you think not spectrum. It wasn't a socially awkward person that wasn't asking questions. Totally. said he's not sure he can take our relationship to the next level because I'm not blonde.

Oh, yes. Yes and yes and yes. And so many yeses. Then don't go out on a date in the first point. And that superficiality? That starts as well. I love this. Okay.

I'm bracing myself for impact on this one. But made me switch sides in a picture so they were on their good side. No. Okay. Thank God. Listen, about it starts asistic. I think lots of girls were like this. Yeah.

You know, you think about how you look. Okay. Friends who don't celebrate with you, but they immediately compare your accomplishments to themselves negatively or positively. Maybe and a yes. Maybe to yes, yeah. This is a good one. Saying I was selfish for picking up an evening job because it messed with his sleep.

Yes. Because I, especially depending on why she picked up the evening job. It's not for fun. Yeah. Right. Okay. Took out credit cards in my name and then continued to ask me for money. Yes.

What? But that's also like a swindler, but I guess that's like, I mean, narcissistic people can be swindlers. Sometimes are psychopathic, but those are really skilled winlars. That's a yes. Right. Capital Y. I'm psychophastic this time, but maybe next time.

Maybe two years for now. Okay. And then we'll just end on this one since we were talking about pets anyway. He'd ignore my dog because my dog took time away from him. Maybe. And I'm going to say maybe because he may not like dogs. But if he articulated that it was specifically because the dog took away time, then I'm veering more towards him. Right.

Don't have a kid with that guy. Correct. Correct. And it shows like a certain lack of empathy and like trying to understand the whole you. And if a person is, listen, standard. dating, you're that anti-pet, then don't date the person with pets. It's that simple. Yeah. They love animals. They're going to love animals and don't ask them to be someone different. That's something you can do in the first few dates. All right. I love that game. Thanks for.

Thank you. That was fun. That was great. Yeah, that was perfect. Yes. I've been keeping a secret this whole episode. It's not narcissistic, but it's not, it wasn't February 19th. The last time we recorded with you. As soon as I said it, I was like, that's not possible because it was two years ago. It had to be 70. It was, I'll say this up top, but it was September 27th, 2020. No, let's save it like this. Okay, that's fine. So it's a year and a half.

Yeah, I was really, I was like, wow, that's so amazing. And then I was like, that's not how dates work. There's no possible way. This whole episode, you were a fraud. This whole episode, I was like, why do I tell him that I mean it was sick? That's okay. And you know what? Here's the thing.

You were able to tell it. We were able to laugh about it. Whereas a narcissistic person, like, really? Must have been my assistant. Right. It's actually Tess's fault. It's actually Tess's fault. Yeah.

We'll blame you. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Romney. Thank you so much. Tell everybody where they can find you. Yes, please. Order, order, order, order the book. This is a week to do it because I'll tell you this.

If you order it this week, this week as it comes out, we're having all kinds of, like, week one and pre-order incentives. So if you, and you go to my Instagram, you go to my website anywhere. We have, like, a place you can put in the info. We'll get some of those goodies to you. But you got to do it. If you don't do it by. I think the 23rd, no goodies. Like then it's just just finding a book.

So no guess for you. So order the book, get the book, talking about it, all kinds of places. And also have a YouTube channel, post new content every single day. I have a healing program for people who are in narcissistic relationships. People want to do a deeper dive, really like with journal prompts and Q&As and all kinds of stuff like that. I do have a podcast. It's on hiatus now, but you can go listen to the old episodes, navigating narcissism. And go to my website. Everything's there. All the things we're doing and talking about. And I have other books, but get this one first. Okay. And your website is Dr. Romney.com. And then Dr. Romney on Instagram? Is it just... At Dr. Romney. All socials. Yes. I mean, people are listening and they're like, I want more and you have so much more. So much. So much. So much. So much. So much. So much. Great. And you guys know where to find us. Of course, Girls Got to Eat.com. Of course, Girls Got to Eat.com.com. We are Girls Gottoeat.com. We are girls got to eat.com.com. We are girls got to eat.com.com. And we are

Subscribe on YouTube, share this episode with a friend, and we'll see you next week. Have a good week, guys. Bye.