Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Narcissism

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

Introducing the Magical Overthinkers podcast, a show for thought spiralers, exploring the subjects we can't stop overthinking about. Host Amanda is elated to share her latest audio project, based on her New York Times-bestselling book The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality. Magical Overthinkers is out this week on all major podcast platforms (as well as YouTube)! Links below.   Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Apple Subscribe on YouTube Here is a look at episode 1, "Overthinking About Narcissism." Episode description below! Is it just us, or does American culture have narcissism fever? Between 2004 and 2016, the volume of Google searches for the word “narcissist” grew exponentially. Thanks to factors like the rise of therapyspeak, TikTok mental health diagnoses, and badly behaving reality stars-turned-world leaders, discourse about this buzzy, yet poorly understood phenomenon has exploded. Are we as a society becoming more narcissistic? Or are we now over-using and misusing this term to the point of meaninglessness? Wait, is obsessing about other people's narcissism its own kind of narcissism?? In an effort to soothe these thought spirals, host Amanda (@amanda_montell) settled in for an illuminating chat with her debut guest, psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula (@doctorramani), author of the New York Times bestseller "It's Not You" and one of the world's foremost narcissism experts. Tune in for a relatable, brain-tingling, and clarifying discussion about this confounding topic, complete with questions submitted by the "Magical Overthinkers Club" and bits of wisdom to help us overthinkers get out of our own heads.  Join the "Magical Overthinkers Club" by following the pod on Instagram @magicaloverthinkers. To access early, ad-free episodes and more, subscribe to the Magical Overthinkers Substack. Pick up a hard copy of Amanda's book The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, or listen to the audiobook. Sources: What Is Narcissism? Science Confronts a Widely Misunderstood PhenomenonTime grows on trees: The effect of nature settings on time perceptionTherapist Aisha's Instagram

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And the Frida Fertility Ovulation Test Kit is a reimagined tracking and prediction system designed with the accuracy you need while trying to conceive. Again, Frida Fertility is designed to make trying a little less trying for couples trying to conceive. Find Frida Fertility on Amazon, Target, and at SelectCBS near you. select CVS near you. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm your host Amanda Montel, author of the brand new book, The Age of Magical Overthinking, Notes on Modern Irrationality. Typically, every week on the show, you're going to hear about a different cult-like group from the zeitgeist, from K-pop to chiropractors,

which is discussed in a light-hearted, culturally critical tone. To try and answer the big question, this group sounds like a cult, but is it really? Hello, my culties. We are still on a little mid-season break from normal Sounds Like a Cult episodes. Don't worry, we're gonna be back with a good one next week. Very excited about it. And in the meantime, I have been dropping a couple little bonus tidbits, extras, cute fun things for your eardrums and your cochlear hairs. Sorry, I don't know why I said it that way. Anyway, today I am doing a little feed drop for

my newest audio project, the Magical Overthinkers podcast! Just in the same way that this podcast Sounds Like a Cult was inspired by my last book Cultish, I have been enveloped by the world of the age of magical overthinking for the past few years and I'm still obsessed with the notions of overthinking and thought spiraling in the digital age. So for the past few months I have been working on a new podcast called Magical Overthinkers about the buzzy, confounding, anxiety-provoking topics we can't stop overthinking about from narcissism to polyamory to social media comparison to imposter syndrome. So every episode is going to be titled like overthinking about blank, overthinking about blank, overthinking about

blank. And every episode I interview a brilliant personality-filled expert guest from psychotherapists to astrophysicists to philosophers and then every episode ends in kind of like a little tidbit of evidence-based advice for overthinkers and how we can get out of our own heads. It's been really fun to be able to interview these experts and just get to learn and work through my own anxiety-addled brain. and just get to learn and work through my own anxiety-addled brain. So this podcast launches tomorrow. It's gonna air every other Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. I'll put links in the description. I'm filming in a beautiful studio so there's also a video component if you want to subscribe on YouTube. You can also follow the Magical Overthinkers Instagram account so you don't miss updates and fun

giveaways and merch drops and be launching cute Overthinker merch. And I am also still going to be continuing Sounds Like a Cult. So the two shows are kind of complimentary but different, you will see. So today, one week before Sounds Like a Cult returns to its regularly scheduled programming, I wanted to introduce you to Magical Overthinkers by airing the pilot episode called Overthinking About Narcissism. Oh, and also, I hope you notice and enjoy that there's like a lovely, very calming, beautiful, sparkly musical score to the Magical Overthinkers podcast. And that is courtesy of my partner, my fiance Casey, who I've been shouting out recently because he composed my

Sounds Like a Cult theme music too. So fun to collab with your loved ones. Anyway, thank you all so much for your listenership, for your patience, for your openness, for coming along for this ride wherever it takes us. So here is the opening episode of the Magical Overthinkers podcast. Please consider subscribing and leaving a rating and review if you like the show, cause it helps with that. Here's the episode and I hope you stay culty and overthinking. But not too overthinking. Don't worry, that's not the outro. Welcome to the Magical Overthinkers podcast, a show for thought spirallers, exploring the subjects we can't stop overthinking

about. From imposter syndrome to celebrity worship. If you can relate to the feeling that despite living in the information age, the world only seems to be making less sense. If you can connect to the idea that for some mysterious reason it just feels especially hard to exist as a human in the world right now, then you're in the right place. This podcast is here to soften the clash between our innate human mysticisms and the overwhelm of this time. I'm your host, Amanda Montell. Today we're overthinking about narcissism. But first, I want to introduce

you to this new show. Hi, I'm Amanda. I'm a thought spiraler, an overthinker. I'm also the author of The Age of Magical Overthinking, the book that this show was based on. Both the book and the show were inspired by the observation that from extreme celebrity worshipers to scammy TikTok therapists, there is just a lot of nonsense out there these days. As I mentioned, we're living in the so-called information age, but why does more information seem to cause the world to make less sense if you identify as an over-thinker but also maybe a little bit delulu sometimes. Or just someone who's always asking what the hell is wrong with people's brains these days, including and especially your own. My hope is for the show to dial down the noise in our brains a

little bit, at least to a decibel level we can stand. Every other week on the Magical Overthinkers podcast, I'll focus on some buzzy subject many of us can't stop overthinking about, from narcissism to monogamy to nostalgia. Each episode will open with a mini audio essay of sorts, followed by an interview with a brilliant expert guest from philosophers to psychologists to authors, where I'll ask them the sorts of unfiltered questions that only an overthinker would ask. And then I'll close out every episode with a simple but actionable tidbit of advice for how we overthinkers can get out of our heads this week.

This podcast is basically a thought spiraler's guide to the zeitgeist's most curious and most anxiety-provoking topics. It's a show for people who want to think less about the things that don't matter and more about the things that do. I guess when I think of what magical overthinking means, I think of the clash between the excess of information that we're confronted with every day and our natural human coping mechanisms and superstitions and decision-making strategies, which are not perfectly rational. They never have been.

I, like a lot of people in 21st century America, feel overwhelmed, burnt out on screens, and so isolated that I guess I've kind of lost trust in my own ability to make wise choices or judgments about a subject, which doesn't exactly inspire hope in other people's judgments either. The digital age seems to cause us to overthink and underthink all the wrong things. For example, why do I feel 100% confident diagnosing my ex with narcissistic personality disorder? I have no psychology accreditation.

But overanalyzing some irrelevant Instagram comment will keep me up at night for weeks on end. I don't know if anyone else can relate to this, but sometimes when a thought spiral is living proverbially rent-free in my head, I will overanalyze it to death. Google it to death, Google it to death, as if the act of typing my feelings and irrational thoughts to a robot will make them go away. Or as if coming up with the perfect synthesis of logic or explanation will help me control the situation.

It's totally delulu. Because overthinking about a subject has literally never helped anyone think about that subject less. You know, like how doing a whole bunch of cocaine never helped anyone think about that subject less. You know, like how doing a whole bunch of cocaine never made anyone want to do less cocaine? It's just not how this behavior works. The only times I've ever really been able to release a thought spiral was after I got the chance to talk about it with an expert much wiser and better informed than me about

the topic. Connecting with scholars and having real human conversations with them always helps me feel closure and even instills in me a sense of hope that allows me to let go of that particular strain of overthinking. That's the journey I hope to take us all on today. This show is here to make some sense of the senseless, to help us quiet the cacophony in our minds for a while, or even hear a melody in it.

On to today's topic, overthinking about narcissism. I actually vividly remember the first time I heard the word narcissism. It was in Disney's Hercules, you know, that cartoon movie? There was some funny bit that I remember seeing as a kid where the god Narcissus was obsessed with his own reflection. Fabulous party, you know, I haven't seen this much love in a room since Narcissus discovered himself. It was funny. I didn't really understand it. But as I get older that really informed my perception of what a narcissist was. Some

attention-seeking, braggadocious blowhard who was obsessed with their own reflection and everybody knew it. Fortunately growing up, I don't think I ever really met anyone quite like that. Then by the time I was in my late 20s and was really developing an interest in psychology and mental health, the word had gotten so trendy. According to Google's Ngram viewer, which tracks a word's popularity in written texts over time, narcissism has been escalating in usage every single year and has yet to reach its peak.

Google Trends reflected that the volume of searches for the word narcissist had grown exponentially between the years 2004 and 2016. So I totally wrote it off. My impulse was that the mainstreaming of therapy speak, and this maybe isn't the greatest impulse, but at first it was to be frustrated. Like, you don't know what the words gaslighting

and trauma mean. Can you please stop using them? Or, you know, I would see someone in a YouTube comment just casually throw out the phrase maladaptive coping mechanism. Like, come on, that is just performance art. Then I actually spoke about the phenomenon of therapy speak with a linguist and lexicographer named Kelly Wright, and she brought me back down to earth with a much more generous take. She said, and I quote, language from a specific

group or community or context makes its way into the mainstream because the activity that language marks has itself become or is becoming mainstream. Language use is so physically bound, so intimate, that its collective nature often goes unnoticed. The mainstream is what can be understood as so-called normal or appropriate, and I personally cannot get enough of care-focused language becoming that which is expected in private and public social situations. She went on to say, "...seeing these terms mainstreaming, as you say, is really inspiring to me as a lexicographer

because I'm very much seeking linguistic areas that are actively responding to social change in real time. And I believe this is one of them. The world may be on fire, but we're finally talking about how that makes us feel. I was really glad that Kelly Wright made this point that there are benefits to the rise in therapy-speak and everyday discourse. Terms like validating feelings or even more diagnostic terminology like trauma and anxiety. But this mainstreaming is also a double-edged sword.

On one hand, it's amazing that we're now talking about how the end of the world makes us feel. But on the other hand, some people are using what sound like helpful mental health diagnoses, but are actually sometimes just self misdiagnoses from TikTok as excuses to mistreat others. And that really put me off therapy speak altogether. So when I would hear people throwing around terms like narcissism, I would think, that's not real. Or if it is real, it's not even

helpful. Then I started writing this chapter of my book that talks about overconfidence bias. And as I was doing my research for that chapter, I came across this really fascinating article in the publication Scientific American titled, What is Narcissism? Science Confronts a Widely Misunderstood Phenomenon by Diana Kwan. And this article completely disrupted that misconception

I'd had of narcissism as this cartoonish self-obsession that is now being tossed around as a meaningless pseudo-diagnosis. This article said that narcissism can actually be a lot subtler than that. The article said, quote, although most people are familiar with the grandiose version of narcissism as displayed by an arrogant and pompous person who craves attention, the god, Narcissus, and Hercules. The disorder also comes in a vulnerable or covert form where individuals suffer from internal distress and fluctuations in self-esteem." The thing that

these seeming opposites have in common is an extreme preoccupation with the self. It just shows up differently depending on the person. We humans are complex. Everybody has a different background, a different nature and nurture, a different disposition. And this was mind blowing to me. As soon as I started reading about symptoms of covert or vulnerable narcissism, I was like, wait a darn minute. I recognize these traits.

Not in a lot of people in my life by any means, that would be suspicious. But I can sure think of a few examples. Like, say, that former college friend of my partner's who was so funny and the life of the party, but terrified everyone around him and would use stories of his tough upbringing as an excuse for the most bone-chilling selfish behavior. Or my friend's sibling, who uses access to her niece as currency to manipulate the family. Or that old colleague who had such a fluent-seeming hold on therapy language and was always talking about boundaries and oh, I'm an empath, meanwhile keeping everyone around them in a state of self-questioning

until the first person to break the silence helped everyone else understand that the common denominator in us all feeling like we had to walk on eggshells all the time was this very person who was always talking about how they were so emotionally intelligent. I then became absolutely obsessed with learning more about what narcissism really was. Not only because it was personally validating, but also because human personalities are so interesting, especially these days when there are so many weird influences shaping us, like social media.

Lord knows, as soon as I started Googling narcissism, developing an interest in narcissism, my algorithm figured me out, and Instagram started serving me a deluge of reels and quote grams talking about narcissism. I remember there was one posted by the narcissism expert Dr. Romani Durvasala, who was talking about narcissism math.

Everybody shout out an example in the comments of your experience of narcissism math, and I couldn't help myself. I was like, like oh my god narcissism math is that thing when you go to confront someone about their behavior and then by the end of the conversation you end up being the one apologizing for that same thing post post post and all these likes flooded in and everyone was like that's so true and then I got to feel good about myself for clocking narcissism math and then I got to feel good about myself for clocking narcissism math. And then I was like, wait, no, hold on a second. Am I really learning about narcissism

in a way that's helpful to me? Or are these algorithms just serving me what I want to hear, these sort of reductive nuggets of wisdom about the topic that I'm now internalizing as absolutist ground truth, as if I'm some sort of therapist now, I thought, wait, am I now becoming one of those annoying people who can't stop talking about narcissism and other people's narcissism? At a point, is this

even a productive exercise or has it gone too far? Should I just go back to writing off this term since half the research I've come across says these people almost never seek treatment for or remedy their behaviors anyway? God, now I'm so hyper-focused on diagnosing other people's narcissism, does that make me some kind of narcissist? Or is that the cycle of overthinking that narcissists want to keep you in? This is the kind of thought spiral I entered and could not find my way out of. The only true solution I could think of to put this overthinking to bed was to go to

the source. Dr. Ramani Durbasala, the high priestess of narcissism. Dr. Ramani is a licensed clinical psychologist in Los Angeles who has made understanding narcissism her life's work. She is the host of the incredible podcast Navigating Narcissism and is the author of several books, including her most recent, the New York Times bestseller, It's Not You.

I got the chance to interview Dr. Romani about her expertise, bringing to her, not the most poised questions, not the most sensible ones, but the ones that I hoped would finally help me navigate my way out of this thought spiral. I'm so excited we're doing this.

This is the pilot episode of this new show. So I wanted to lead with my opening question, which is actually, what is the most erratic and most difficult thing to do? And I'm so excited to be able to this new show. So I wanted to lead with my opening question, which is actually, what is the most irrational thought spiral you've gotten down lately? Personally. That if this book doesn't become a bestseller, then it was all not worth it. The measure of my worth is this book succeeding commercially, maybe is the broader

take on it. Yeah. Don't make me cry. That's my rationale. Every day, every day, especially now as you can imagine. And you know, I mean, it's like, I'm such a preparer that I've already prepared for what it's going to be like for me when that doesn't happen. And like, I literally, my staff is like quickly creating my depression days. Like I'm on it. Oh my God. I completely understand. It's like the politician preparing his concession speech. That's exactly right. I completely relate to like the idea of you prepare, you prepare, you prepare endlessly.

And then it just makes you more attached to an outcome that really doesn't have anything to do with your self-worth. But we're living under toxic productivity culture. So how could it not? Yes, we are. Thank you. Yes. Anyone who's ever put a great deal of effort into a project that they thought at the beginning maybe didn't mean that much to them, but by the end they're like, oh my God, this is entirely who I am. Can relate. All right. So we're here overthinking about narcissism. I just, oh man, my personal journey with this word and this concept has been pretty dramatic. My first question on the topic at hand for you is

just why has this word blown up so much recently? Is narcissism actually more common due to factors like social media's role in encouraging us all to be more self-focused and attention seeking? Or are we just more aware of narcissism thanks to the increase in mental health discourse or both? I think there's greater awareness certainly. And I think what social media has done is taken an existing issue that's always been there and it's amplified it. So I'm not certainly going to sit here and say social media has increased narcissism. Narcissism is a social and emotional developmental phenomenon that plays out through childhood and adolescence. And since a four-year-old child is not playing with social media, this is not what's doing it now. Could it be that the child

is getting a message of over-evaluation based on doing cute things and very much recognizes if I do the cute thing for the camera because my parents want to get likes, I mean, we're waiting for those chickens to come home to roost basically to see what that data looks like because we're not even at pretty much 20 full years, I think, on social media and it was a meaningful phenomenon. So I think that the word is out there more because I mean, there were things that happen in world politics and not even just going to say American politics, world politics in the last 15 years, where we've seen this sort of rise in authoritarian leadership and authoritarian leaders are all narcissistic. So I think that

the term people try and understand how can people behave like this. And I do think that there has been an opening of a conversation that this level of selfishness in a relationship is not okay. Some people would view this as anti-patriarchy work. It really depends on what angle you're coming at because it's really the sense of the permission we give to some people to destabilize, dominate, overpower people. That to me falls under a lot of sorts of movements in this world. I think that now that we're seeing that it's happening, a word that often is being referred to big things applies to smaller relationships, just individual relationships.

But I think this has always been a theme in relationships. When you read the essays and everything on unhappy marriages over time, I think a lot of them were probably narcissistic relationships. There was just simply no vocabulary and there was a sense of grudging acceptance that this is sort of the lot, particularly of women, to be in these relationships. Wow, that's fascinating. Yeah, I do think we over credit social media with a lot of cultural despair. And I hadn't really considered the role of these very prominent authoritarian political narcissists in granting us cultural permission to kind of follow suit. And then

of course, yeah, the language is right there to help us describe those things. So I always thought that narcissists were like outwardly obsessed with themselves, very clearly selfish, that they never expressed anything even resembling empathy. On that note, can you list some of the most common myths about narcissism? So the most common myths about narcissism? So the most common myths, some of them are include that narcissistic people are always

men, not true. Enough people have narcissistic mothers to know that it's not just limited to men, that it's just simply selfishness, bragging or arrogance. Those are certainly elements of narcissism, but that's not all of it. It's a lot more nuance, takes in a lot more territory around entitlement and that variable empathy and the incapacity for deep, sustained, intimate relationships. And then there's lots of behaviors we see in it. So it's not just that simple a thing. There's also the myth that they can't help it. They just can't help themselves. But enough people have seen narcissistic people who are able to be absolutely charming with the CEO on the golf course and then

come right home and scream at their partner or their kids in a really cruel way. They can be super attentive to their bosses, oh, isn't it your little daughter's birthday today? But then be contemptuous in their family if attention is being given to their own children. So that ability to go on off means that they know what good behavior looks like and they turn it on for people that they value. So this isn't just them not having any control over all of this.

And that narcissistic people, that this is a disease that can be treated. And so that it's just a matter of getting these folks into therapy and everything will be fine. There's little evidence to show that there's any therapy out there that can really significantly shift personality. The best we can hope to do shift their behaviors,

but if they don't think there's anything wrong with their behaviors, that's gonna be a really tough buy-in. That is the ultimate trouble with this disorder condition, sequence of symptoms, we'll get into it. But yeah, this is something that I can't stop over thinking about personally is like, if you have depression, ostensibly you're motivated to want to cure it as soon as you recognize it or heal it in some way. And that doesn't seem to apply to narcissism, but we'll get there. But before we do, I do want to talk about some of the causes of narcissism.

There's so much discussion of nature versus nurture. So can you talk about the idea of narcissists being born versus made? Well, they're made. It's definitely nurture. This is again, like a social and emotional developmental phenomenon, which is how personality is shaped. We are born with what's called a temperament. Temperament is almost like a biological aspect of personality. It's why babies, some babies are super easy to soothe and are smiley. Some babies are just a real handful and it's just hard for anyone to soothe them or manage

them and they just sort of seem unhappy from the day they're born kind of thing. They're often more behaviorally difficult and challenging for the adults in their midst. We call that the more difficult temperaments become sort of a biological vulnerability. Temperament. Temperament. Now, if that biological vulnerability, that so-called temperament comes up against an invalidating environment, for example, one in which there's adversity, trauma, neglect, emotional abuse, chaos, other adversities. That combination can set someone up more likely to develop a personality style that could be considered to be more antagonistic or narcissistic. But we also know that narcissistic people can be developed out of being told that they're too

special and more wonderful than anyone else and more special than anyone else. They often have parents who are themselves quite entitled and really raise their children. These children often don't learn to regulate their emotions. They really are sort of indoctrinated to believe that they are more special. And the parents are often quite available materially or to cheer them on when they're doing the things that the parent wants,

but they're often not there to emotionally nurture these children, again, teach them how to self-soothe all of that. Now, the thing I want to say is that even though this is, is its nurture and it's made, not all children who come up in these pathways are going to become narcissistic. In fact, the vast majority don't. Most children who grow up under conditions of adversity, depending on how severe it is, some may develop complex trauma, some may develop anxiety disorders, some may just simply have decrements and self-esteem that dog them for a lifetime, but that's where we tend to see that go. And even those kids

that are overindulged, most of them don't go on to become narcissistic. Some may feel a sense of shame, you know, that they're not living up to the so-called specialness that their parents sort of set them up for. Some may simply gravitate out of that in some way, not sort of by the parental hype, but neither of these pathways are, if you will, a guarantee. So while it is shaped by early environment, it's why we could see in one family and you see that there's multiple siblings that one sibling's narcissistic and the rest aren't, but they were raised under relatively similar conditions. Got it. Wow. Oh my God. Human personalities are just so mysterious. I will never

get over it. Like the fact that so much is unknown about this is probably why I can't stop overthinking about this stuff. But I'm kind of hearing that extremes create the conditions for narcissism, but that narcissism is not guaranteed to come out of those extreme conditions. And I am curious to hear a little bit more about the role of trauma and narcissism and if you have answers for why certain traumas create narcissists in certain temperaments and not others. It's not that certain traumas create narcissists in certain temperaments. It's that trauma can set someone up for that vulnerability to develop narcissism. And in fact, it's more likely to

develop that form of narcissism. The Scientific American article called it Covert Narcissism. Most of their scientific research also suggests vulnerable narcissism might be the better name for that. The vulnerable narcissism, to some degree, maybe some of the malignant narcissism may come out of these kinds of origins because really what's happening is that the child's developing sense of self is shut down, shut down, shut down. So then the child develops a series of grandiose defenses to sort of maintain a healthier version of themselves, a more desirable version of themselves. those grandiose defenses persist into adulthood. So the trauma breaks the kid down and the child is still trying to survive in the world.

So the grandiose defenses that become a protection once they're still hanging around in adulthood are not good for them. Right. So there are certain people who maybe are what we might call like, dare I say, a spoiled brat who then grow up to be adult narcissist. And then there are people who kind of grow out of it. So like, what can help you grow out of it? Well, that's the challenge is that, you know, it's very rare for a 22 year old narcissist to show up in therapy, right?

It's very rare for a 22 year old to show up in therapy. So a 22 year old, you know, who is bragging about their lives and thinking I'm all that and I'm so great and is, you know, living their life online and looking for admiration and looking for likes and, you know, wanting to drive in a fast car or whatever, wanting to show off themselves. That's not someone who's likely to show up in therapy. If anything, the odds on favorite of why you might see that 22 year old narcissistic person in therapy, it might be addiction or something like that. Some other co-occurring issue. Addiction is a great example because they may be trying to regulate these emotions that may be sort of all over the map for them.

But the problem is most addiction medicine or treatment centers, they don't pick up on it. They pick up on the addiction, the addiction, the addiction, the addiction, but the narcissism is often underlying it and can make treatment a lot more difficult, but they aren't going to get into therapy. So like what could change it would be doing that work early on. But otherwise what might happen is as they come up through adolescence and through early adulthood, many narcissistic people either will be very almost Machiavellian with their parents. They'll figure out which parent has the money and they will form their alliance with them and be what they want to be. Or they will be very manipulative with their parents and so manipulative that they're getting money from their parents or their parents

are always cutting them slack or the parents are letting them live rent free forever, but also sort of wreak havoc in the household. They're not responsible and they don't make them take responsibility. And so that almost continues the dynamic that was established in childhood. So that can happen too. The parents are getting more and more frustrated, but they don't know what to do. And they've only been doing it this one way. And so that can also be sort of what kind of gets it stuck.

But it would be great if you could intervene with people like in their early twenties, but personality is still shaping out that time. Like a lot of teenagers are grandiose. A lot of teenagers are sort of all over the map. A lot of teenagers' emotions are very labile and again, very chaotic. And as they grow out of that,

and they kind of, as the jello mold sets into something more solid, then we see a more stable adult. But that's around the time we can figure out whether or not this person is just behaving like an adolescent or whether they're behaving like a true narcissistic person. Wow. So this sends me invariably down the thought spiral of like, did narcissists exist in the hunter gatherer period? That is my Roman empire proverbially. Did we have such personality disorders before modernity? Yeah, I would guess so. I would actually guess that you had them more in the hunters than in the gatherers. If you look in the work of Robert Sapolsky, who is a neuroscientist who's on the

faculty at Stanford, has written brilliant books. I think one of the great, great thinkers of our time. His most recent, well, his second most recent book, he has a very recent book on free will. The one right before that is called Behave. It was really about sort of why we behave badly. And, you know, I'm kind of giving the sort of very Cliff's notes version of it here and the very summarized version, but he would argue that first of all, we're not a nice species. We were meaner to each other throughout history than we are now, believe it or not. So we're more, I think, psychologically mean, but I think from a physical aggression, willing to enslave people, willing to dehumanize people and torture people, that definitely was our roots. So club people in the head, human beings are not nice.

Totally, totally. I think about this all the time because there's one theme in my most recent book where I address this idea of decline-ism or this, you know, fallacious perception that life and society are only getting progressively worse and worse and worse and worse, even if only certain things like climate change might be getting worse. But no, I think you're totally right. We forget that like people mistreated each other worse, you know, 20,000 years ago. So the argument he would make is like, for example, the hunters, they're putting all their resource into getting one thing, right? Those hunters have started becoming herders.

That's when people started getting really mean because you can't steal a field, but you can steal a cow or a goat. Now this sense of one person had more goats. A gathering agrarian economy requires more cooperation, Whereas a hunting or a herding doesn't. And if you can even sort of see even some of our current world conflicts, the way they've sort of spread out from, were people more agrarian or were they more sort of hunter herder kind of thing? And so the way that one person could have more and then they would have more control

because they have control over the most important thing, which was food. And so I know it's always been a thing. they would have more control because they have control over the most important thing, which was food. I know it's always been a thing. The history books are only written about narcissistic people because they're the only people who would have made history. We're not reading about the kindly empathic baker or the really sweet woman who raised her children well. We're not reading about them.

We are reading about the narcissistic warriors, the narcissistic leaders, the narcissistic explorers, the narcissistic colonizers. All of these, the narcissistic explorers, the narcissistic colonizers, all of these are the people that are our history books. So that's already the bias in terms of what we read about. These were the people who were garnering all that attention, needed all that attention at that time. So I think we've always had narcissism. And if you even look at sort of, you know, when the early Greek and Roman physicians were back and talking about bodily humors and all that stuff, some of their writing really did imply that there was a selfishness type and they were already coming up on that. There were some people

who just were more about themselves. Look at how the Roman emperors conducted themselves. It was narcissism and psychopathy all around. So I think that we have to remember it's always been around. And in fact, yes, the economics of a culture, of a civilization, might have dictated whether narcissism, frankly, was a more adaptive quality in that particular situation, at least economically. You know, and because lifespans were shorter, we really weren't thinking about this idea

of a long-term sustained relationship. We were thinking about reproduction. We're thinking about survival. And so that idea of collaboration had a very, very different meaning too. How fascinating. I'm really interested though. I mean, it's hard not to notice that there aren't quite as many women in the history

books. And so that brings me to the question of how narcissism shows up differently depending on gender. Well, so what we know is that grandiose, again, I'm going to be using the binary for now because that is how the research has been done. So obviously as time goes on and we have some more clear understanding of gender identity, we'll have hopefully research that captures that. But this is how the research has been done. And so the grandiose narcissism is more common in men. Malignant narcissism appears to be more common in men, but vulnerable narcissism, the more resentful,

sullen, passive aggressive kind of narcissism, that's equal across genders. And so it may, part of this may be a socialization effect that women are not socialized to be sort of walking around and engaging in trash talk and pridefulness and all of that. So that may not be selected for, but that kind of victimized approach that might be more socialized for. And so when that narcissism presents in women, it does tend to present more that way. I mean, we also can't exclude social influences, right? So I have no doubt that there were many narcissistic women throughout history, but there were not the abilities for that woman to get into positions where she would be able to make history into leadership.

She didn't have the same stage, but those narcissistic women have always been there. And I have no doubt, like when we read about women rulers, you hear about the 15, 1600s Queen Elizabeth, she was probably deeply narcissistic. And so we definitely hear about women rulers who might've come along and they don't sound like very nice people. My guess is they were narcissistic as well. Oh God. This is a question that I also, I can't stop pondering

if you can even answer it. What does it feel like to be a narcissist? I'm desperate to have some kind of model because in their bodies and minds, I can't imagine it's very comfortable. How does that show up? It's so funny you say that. I don't, I thought I wanted to take away from our time,

but I have this wonderful quote and I would love to read this to you because it's so good, like answers your questions so much better than I would answer. And it's written by one of my favorite authors, a guy named Dan Shaw. So listen to this piece and then I'm going to sort of partly this is how they do and then I'm going to talk about how they feel. So what Shaw writes is that the relational system of the traumatizing narcissist, a system of subjugation in which a highly narcissistic person through psychological manipulation that involves coercive persuasion and undue influence, they disavow and project their shameful dependency into their targets. By finding recipients for these projections, the narcissist can control and exploit the

shameful dependency he has cultivated in others, successfully disavowing his shame and dependency and avoid having to come to terms with it himself. So I'm just giving you that quote to sort of build onto that where for the narcissistic person, if I were to guess, when they go through the world, there's a real jittery quality to them. There's like an on-edgedness. They almost look like they have ADHD. They almost feel like they're always kind of gunning for a fight or trying to defend themselves from a threat. That's what a lot of narcissistic people look like.

So there's a unsettled, maybe that's the better word, it's like an unsettled quality to narcissistic people that like to go to the next thing. Give you an example. You'll be at some big event, big grand, like everybody wants to go event. And they'll be like, what's the other thing that's cooler to be at, right? There's always like, what's cooler? What's better? Who's better? How can I have what's

better, better, better? So they're never able to fully and mindfully kind of into something. It's like, who's got a bigger boat? Who's got a better car? And so I would imagine at some level to be a narcissistic person, it might be mildly exhausting. Exhausting. It sounds exhausting. They're always sort of like hovering just to go uply exhausting. Exhausting. It sounds exhausting. They're always sort of like hovering just to go off the ground. Buzzing. What's next? What's next?

Yes. Buzzing. That's the word. Buzzing. Yes. I really, I recognize that behavior in certain people that I've known for sure. I mean, I think I saw you say something in one of the many narcissism videos that my algorithm has been serving me over the past few months.

I heard you say something about how narcissists will always be like sort of scanning the room. Their eyes will not directly meet yours for an extended period of time. And that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, no, it sounds like there's an incredible amount of unease. That's a really helpful way of putting it.

And I can see the discomfort in some of these people. So you mentioned projection in that quote from Dan Shaw. Can you talk about some of the subtler ways that narcissists might manipulate you? Like I commented on a post that you made about narcissism math. And my comment, which was based on something that I'd experienced, was, you know, narcissism math is that thing when, you know, you raise an issue of something that you have a problem with, but then you end up the one apologizing for that exact same thing. And then you end up feeling crazy.

You're like, whoa, wait a second. I brought up this behavior that I wanted to modify in this other person, but actually now it's me. Can you talk about some of those subtler ways that narcissism shows up in a manipulative capacity? I mean, I think that they're very skillful. They've done the bad thing and they'll very quickly be able to turn around their bad behavior

as though we're the bad person. And that happens quite regularly. If you express a need to them, you might say like, Hey, can you help me out with whatever? Can you empty the dishwasher? It's a classic one I always offer. Oh my gosh. Do you not realize how much I do around here? Do you not realize how hard I work? My gosh, you're so selfish. Everything's about you. And you're thinking, Whoa. So many people will originally start fighting in the beginning about that, saying, how dare you, how dare you. But narcissistic people are skilled fighters. And because they have so much conviction about their deluded and self-centered and self-serving view of the world, they'll be able to make their argument quite strongly. Whereas the rest of us, we don't have

that deluded conviction. We're open to the idea that other people could potentially be right. We're open to the idea that things should be shared. So the very thing that's good about us, our empathy, our compassion, our mental flexibility can often get weaponized because it becomes plausible that the thing they're accusing us of is true. Oh my God. I really, it's so validating to hear these things. But then that actually brings me to my next question, which is just like, can you go too far? Because I've found that like, once you start learning about narcissism,

it's really easy to become obsessed with it. You identify people in your own life who fit this description, who've hurt you in various ways. Now you're down a rabbit hole and your whole algorithm is a mix of actual experts, as well as sort of like pseudo psychology sort of figures that I feel like are maybe just sort of telling you what you wanna hear. And my question there is just how can learning about these things be helpful and empowering? And when does hyper fixating on someone else's perceived

narcissism in this armchair diagnosis type way become counterproductive? Well, I think it's about becoming what I consider to be narcissist resistant, is that even early on when a person is doubting your reality, a person's painting a picture of you as selfish or self-centered, you know that's not who you are. I mean, part of this requires doing a deep dive into yourself.

Like, who am I? What do I stand for? What am I about? Totally. And you know that, you know, you'll know what your vulnerabilities are. You might say like, listen, I'm not a aggressive deal maker. You'll say, I know that about myself, or I'm not always confident in my decisions. You'll know your weaknesses, right? That's the strength of being a whole person.

But you'll also know that, no, you're not an entitled person. And no, you're not a mean person or a terrible person. But in a way, buying into the idea you're a terrible person is what works for the narcissistic person, right? So if you find yourself starting to use more and more devaluing language with yourself in the presence of someone, pay attention to that. That's not healthy. And you might be doing it to almost create a sense of what I call congruence. So if to be around someone, you have to keep saying you're a terrible person and that's what keeps the relationship going.

Ask yourself, is this a relationship you want to be in? I understand that fixation that people are trying to say like, this is a narcissist. I don't want to get hurt. I don't want to get this. I wanted that. Listen, even a good therapist might sometimes take six to 12 months to really understand a patient's narcissism, especially if they come in with a different issue. They come into therapy with depression. They come into therapy with a clear anxiety disorder. They come into therapy

with addiction. We are trained to go for the more acute problem first, which should be, for example, the depression or the addiction. And a lot of clinicians aren't looking for narcissistic personality at the same time. We're just like, how do we get this person detox and stable? How do we get this person so they're getting out of bed in the morning and going to work? That kind of thing, right? How do we get them to being functioning? And so while that's happening, the way we'll often figure it out is depression is an eminently treatable illness, right? Usually somewhere between six and eight weeks, we're seeing change. You're eight weeks in and nothing's happening. It's the same, woe is me, woe is me,

woe is me. And you're like, I think this stopped being depression a minute ago, and now we're into something else, right? It takes a minute. And a therapist is in that room really focusing on one thing. So people in their real lives, sometimes it takes them three, six, nine, even months, even a year to figure out, like, oh, this is somewhat narcissistic. But in our zeal to avoid it, we might also be painting ourselves into a different corner. So I always say to people, don't try to figure out who they are. Pay attention to how you feel. That is such like cogent advice and a very helpful reframing. Because some of the magical overthinking that I'm always guilty of is believing that if

I can understand a topic perfectly as if that even existed, then I could control it, which is obviously false. And that self-loathing congruence thing that you mentioned is also mind-blowing. But I wanna ask, speaking of thinking that by armchair diagnosing someone that you know, you can somehow control their behavior, could you talk about the difference

between narcissistic traits or tendencies and narcissistic personality disorder? Yeah, so I think narcissistic personality disorder has completely muddied the conversation. This is where the pseudo psychology folks on TikTok and Instagram have actually really created a mess of this conversation because narcissistic personality disorder is a personality disorder that showed up in the DSM for the first time in 1980. And it was the biggest mistake I think they ever made in that personality disorder section of that manual. Because what you now have is a so-called personality disorder for which we do not have a super strong evidence base of treatment. Nobody assigns the diagnosis

because it's too stigmatizing. Nobody with these issues, they rarely get into therapy. So now what you have is these low prevalence rates. It doesn't inform us on much. The laundry list of things that qualify someone for NPD are pretty similar to the laundry list of things that make someone narcissistic. The only difference is you can really only come to that diagnosis. As with all diagnosis, the presumption is a person has to be in the office of someone who is trained to issue a diagnosis, look at pervasiveness and stability and how this thing shows up and other co-occurring conditions.

You'd have had to have a very specific conversation with someone to rule out the competing explanations, right? What I mean by that is there's some people out there who live with addiction, but they look narcissistic because they have the same patterns. So when we talk about narcissism, we're talking about a personality style that is characterized by the laundry list I just gave, lack of empathy, entitlement, grandiosity, arrogance, excessive need for validation, excessive need for admiration, selfishness, superficiality, status seeking, blah, blah, blah, the whole list, right?

Now, are there people out there with a diagnosis of NPD who actually have less severe narcissistic personalities than people out there who have never been diagnosed? Absolutely, NPD is not a designation of severity. NPD is simply telling me somebody showed up to a therapist's office and got the diagnosis. So I think we've got to stop talking about this because unless people want to go to school and spend the next six years getting a degree and a license to practice or 10 years if they want to work as a psychologist, then give me a call. We can have this, but don't use the term otherwise. It muddies the waters. It makes no

sense. And I'm telling you, there's people out there who are called NPD that are less severe with their narcissism than people who are narcissistic. That makes perfect sense. I too, I noticed that we seem to be living in like a hyperdiagnostic period of time. There seems to be a lot of diagnostic terminology being thrown around. And I've heard clinical psychologists talk about how that is actually making their work more difficult. Much more difficult. Yeah. I think we really just want to understand ourselves and figure out what's causing us

discomfort or emotional pain. But this brings me to my next question. I just have a few more and then we're going to do a little lightning round. I cited a study in my new book that talks about how increased science literacy doesn't actually make a person better at identifying real facts, but instead just makes a person better equipped to use science to defend their existing beliefs. It's a scary notion. But on that note, now that the word narcissist and NPD, God forbid, and therapy speak in general are so diffuse, do you think narcissists can more easily weaponize mental health jargon to get in front of the narrative and continue harming others? They do it all the time. And what this does is they can, they will weaponize it.

I've heard everything from people alleging, despite having tremendous social skill and social processing skill, weaponizing everything from I'm neurodivergent to I'm on the spectrum to I have ADHD to everything. And there's absolutely no diagnostic proof for anything of that happening, right? And they're weaponizing that to shut down a conversation, basically to say, you can't hold me to a higher standard because X, Y, Z, right? Or I have this personality disorder. So I have a disorder. So now they're saying you're being ableist if you're calling me to be accountable for my behavior. No, no, no. And no, behaving abusively is a problem. And so if you truly do believe you have a mental health issue, please by all means, seek out services. I hope you are able to address it. But continuing to bludgeon people

and weaponizing and saying, well, it's because I have a mental health issue, then don't spend time with people and abuse them. That's a given. And what we almost have what we're viewing it as is that, well, we all kind of have to figure it out because they're struggling with someone thing. We're all struggling with something. And somehow we figure out how to not abuse other people. Thank you for saying that. I actually am now recalling another point that I've seen you make about sort of therapy as a performance. Two more questions. I've heard, you know, from the world that there is nothing to be done about narcissists because they can't accept feedback. So my question is, what can someone do if they have a narcissist in their

life that they can't just cut off like a family member? I mean again, we get to this this sort of tenuous concept of radical acceptance. Radical acceptance is not giving in or capitulating or accepting Oh, this is how it is. So I just have to put up with it. It's recognizing that it's not very likely to change much It's just the nature of this personality style and that takes you to realistic expectations That if you are going to have to stay in this relationship You now know its limits and stop engaging with it in the same way. People completely exhaust themselves trying to explain themselves and explain themselves and defend themselves and explain themselves to the narcissistic person.

They're not listening. They don't care. Stop doing it. It's painful because when you stop doing that, it's almost like you've given up some hope and a lot of grief comes up like, okay, so I'm in a relationship where I'm not being heard and I'm not being seen. You were always in a relationship where you were not being heard or not being seen. Now you know it. That's the difference.

Right. And so it does mean that you, like again, it's a lot of disengagement. I always tell people if you're in a relationship with a narcissistic person and you can't leave it, don't go deep. Don't defend, don't engage, don't explain, don't personalize. This really is how they go through the world. This is not specific to you. Your bad luck might have been that you're very close to them or they're able to dominate you for whatever reason.

Maybe you work for them or something like that. But I do think that people have to remember is that those realistic expectations mean that there are limits here and you have to be aware of those limits or you're going to keep breaking your heart. And it also means you have to cultivate other sources of support, healthy friendships, healthy relationships, healthy collegial relationships with people who are empathic and compassionate and attuned to you in a very real way. You don't need a lot of people like that. Just a handful, two, three, four is a great start. I'm not talking

you need 20 people like that. In some cases, therapy becomes a place for that group therapy, support groups. There are ways to get that and start to realize like, oh my goodness, I have a really distorted take on myself. And if you spend enough time with a narcissistic person, you really believe that hype, especially if they have the louder megaphone. It's important you get enough distance from them that they might be blaring through their megaphone, but their voice is no louder than the healthy people around you. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. This is reminding me of the first time we had ever had a conversation where I interviewed you about cult-like one-on-one relationships in the context of the sunk cost fallacy. And this is reminding me of that because, you know, I am as susceptible as anyone, if not more so for some reason, to the sunk cost fallacy where, like, I think, you know, emotional resources and time spent on this relationship justify spending even more. I need to protect this person. I'm going to dig my heels in. Surely it will get better if I only try harder. And you know, it sounds like when it comes to someone who you perceive to be a narcissist or who just is one, because I don't know the difference at this point, then it's just better to accept that and to

surround yourself with the resources that you need to to be okay My last question before we get into this lightning round is what should someone do if they suspect they have narcissistic tendencies? Well, here's where it gets tricky Okay, cuz that that conversation takes us into two separate directions The more common direction is that there's people out there who think they're narcissistic because the narcissistic person is telling them, you're selfish, you're greedy, you're needy, you're demanding, everything's about you. And you hear that enough, you start to believe,

well, maybe I'm the problem. But in fact, that's not true of you. And many people have said to me, maybe I'm the narcissist, I'll say, talk to me. And they'll say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, you were told this. But in fact, it was part of a whole gaslighting move. Now, there's a subset of folks who might be thinking it and it's true. That's a bit more rare, right?

Because you have, there's two pieces to this conversation. A person could recognize their narcissistic. Yeah, I'm selfish. But what they're not concerned with is that they're harming other people. So they may cop to it with little regard for, and so, so that's group untouchable. Then that leaves this little group who says, yeah, I'm those things and I've hurt people and I didn't want to hurt people and that was never what I was setting out to do. And I can see how I've hurt whomever they've hurt in their lives

and say, I want to stop. And they will go into therapy. These are more often the people who have adversity in their backstory too. These are people who might've had the histories of trauma and neglect and all that. And they get into therapy, particularly good trauma informed therapy, and you might be able to move the needle a little bit. It may be that there's too much water under the bridge and the people they've already heard,

but they might be able to rally a little. It's a slow burn. I mean, it's probably lifelong work. It's not like I'm gonna go into therapy for a year and I'll be better. It's lifelong work because those same triggers, the same lack of frustration, tolerance and all of that, they may pop right back. And that's a very small group who not only are aware, yep, these are my patterns and then, yep, these are causing problems for other

people. And third, that means I want to address them because I don't want to hurt people. That one, two, three is a pretty rare combo. And it usually happens when a narcissistic person has hit what we could consider sort of proverbial rock bottom. They've lost significant relationships, they've become estranged from relationships that matter to them, they've been caught in a very public scandal and even then, even then, many narcissistic people, even at that juncture of the road, especially the public scandal one, might get into therapy, not to genuinely get better, but for optics. Oh, devastating.

But good to know, ultimately. Okay, now we're going to get into a lightning round where I had my magical overthinkers club community submit a series of yes or no questions. There are 20 of them here. I wrote 20 of them down, but there were over 100. So I'm just gonna read them and you will simply, no matter how badly you might want to expand, I'm just going to ask you to say yes or no. First question, is clinical avoid them all costs

narcissism really that common? No. Do narcissists ever recognize it in themselves? Yes. Are all actors and politicians inherently a little narcissistic? I feel like you have to be. Yes. Are all actors and politicians inherently a little narcissistic? I feel like you have to be. All, no, most, yes. Do narcissists get caught up in the cycle of their own lies? Like, are they trapped too? Yes. Are there any non-abusive narcissists? Yes. The hesitation says so much. Is perceived narcissism in men often just the patriarchy at work? Yes-ish. Yes-ish. Can narcissists easily detect other narcissists? Maybe. Can they have low self-esteem? Yes. Yeah, that big facial expression with the yes, by the way. Do you think the word narcissism gets thrown around in excess like gaslight and triggered incorrectly overused? Yes. Do you think the word narcissism gets thrown around in excess like gaslight and triggered incorrectly overused?

Do you think people too often use the word narcissist as an excuse to cut people out of their life instead of just working on their relationships? Sometimes. Isn't narcissism just a perception of someone's personality and not an empirical fact? Well, now we're getting into epistemic reasoning. So I'm going to say maybe. Can a narcissist truly ever change? Depends. Is it worth trying to reason your way to why narcissists do things?

Yes. They say it's a childhood wound, but they also say run from these people. Is there a way to help them? Not unless you're a shrink. Can a narcissist be self-aware enough to seek treatment? Yes. Can narcissists ever overcome their condition? Depends. Is narcissism hereditary? Not really, no. Someone says, in my effort to survive having to live with a narcissist, I've become more forcefully selfish. Does that mean I'm likely to become one

in the eyes of other people? Mm, probably not. Isn't there a kind of gotcha narcissism where you over-focus on clocking other narcissists? Can be. Fascinating. Can I be a narcissist if I'm constantly worried about being a narcissist? Probably not. Okay. Thank you so much for participating in that. Yes,

absolutely. I have one very, very final question, an important ultimate inquiry for you now that we've reached the end. What is one thing about narcissism that people are overthinking the most? And what's one thing that we're under thinking the most? I think the overthinking is that we can pick up red flags the first time we talk to someone. And so they're like, sort of like, okay, is that red flag, red flag, I'm going to figure this out in the first date, second date. And so they're so focused on like, I'm never going to get pulled into this again. I'm never going to play it again.

And so I think that's the over the overthinking one. And then what's one thing about it that we're under thinking? We are under thinking that these personality styles result in harmful behavior and in our desperate attempt to understand it, we're making too many excuses of it and not simply saying unacceptable behaviors unacceptable. And it's very interesting to look at the cause of it. But at the end of the day, it's unacceptable and it's harming us. Great. Thank you so much for this interview. Can you please tell the listeners where to buy your book? Yeah. So you can buy my book anywhere they sell books. Like, listen, those of you of independent

bookstores, you get into those independents. I mean, this is a time independents are struggling. If your independent doesn't have it, tell them to get it into stock. Like, come on. You know, like I'm trying to support them. They got to get out there and support authors like me who aren't the big, big, big authors. So anyone who's a bookseller, you can get it from them. Give the independent some love, really. Fantastic. I know this is such a busy week for you.

I will let you go. Congratulations. And thank you so much again for this. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you listeners for being here. As I mentioned, at the end of every episode of this show, I want to leave us with an actionable takeaway. Just a simple piece of advice for overthinkers to carry with us moving forward.

Because I find that once I've dedicated myself to learning about something that has been the subject of my thought spirals, once I've reached a point where I think I've learned what I can, at least for now, I have two options. I can either continue turning over the ideas in my head over and over again ad nauseum in an attempt to internalize them, or I can do something to get out of my head, so to speak. I personally struggle to remember that the mind and body are connected. They're the same thing. Through my work, I'm fortunate to have access to many wonderful therapists and other mental

health experts, some of whom follow me on Instagram or listen to my podcasts. And so at the end of each episode, I am going to convey a nugget of wisdom from them, a ritual or physical activity or craft or other exercise that can help us manage our thought spirals to quiet the brain buzz for a little while. I'll also be sharing these tips on the Magical Overthinkers Instagram, so be sure to give that a follow. Today's tip is deceptively simple. It's merely to find the closest opportunity to take a walk outside.

A study I cite in my new book, and I'll link that in the show notes, found that taking walks in nature compared to city strolls increased mood, decreased stress, and most interestingly, made time feel more expansive. I tend to get really overthinky when I feel like I'm in a panicked state,

when problems feel urgent, even when they're not. So the opportunity to slow down time is really helpful. Additionally, an EMDR therapist who follows me named Aisha, shout out, I'll also link her Instagram in the shout outs, recommended walks for overthinkers specifically because the bilateral movement helps with processing and getting clarity on your thoughts.

And with that, thanks again for listening. Hope you return in two weeks where we'll be overthinking about monogamy. That's a fascinating episode. And until then, I will be overthinking an outro. I will coin it at some point. Maybe you can help me. I can't tell whether I'm overthinking this or underthinking this, but insert an adorable, zingy, memorable, merchifiable outro here.

Overthinkers. I love you. Bye. Bye. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. one. Okay. Magical Overthinkers was created and hosted by Amanda Montell and edited by Jordan Moore of the PodCabin. Our theme music is by Casey Kolb. Thank you to our magical coordinator, Katie Epperson, producer Rebecca Swan, and network

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