The Jordan Harbinger Show - 954: Dr. Ramani | Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

How can you identify and heal from the narcissistic people who inflict themselves upon your life? It's Not You author Dr. Ramani Durvasula rejoins us to find out! What We Discuss with Dr. Ramani Durvasula: The impact of narcissism on relationships. The narcissist's perception of themselves and others. The influence of status and social media on narcissism. The struggles of dealing with a narcissist. The role of culture in narcissistic behavior. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/954 This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy med yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

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Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you do. get your podcasts. Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger show. You have to think of the insecurity and the shame inside a narcissist as like a volcano that's always bubbling in them. And on top of that volcano is like a big heavy metal manhole cover. And that manhole cover is all their defenses, their grandiosity and arrogance and all the rest of it. But every so often, that manhole cover gets kicked off a little. Maybe they don't get the promotion. Maybe somebody makes fun of them. Maybe they don't get enough likes, whatever doesn't get snudged. Then some of that, that lava and that explosive gook comes out, and that comes out in the form of rage.

And they're either going to rage at someone overtly aggressive or verbally angry, or they're going to be passive aggressive, or they're going to withdraw, or they're going to withhold. But either way, they're going to have a strong emotional reaction to some of that schmutsy shame coming out of them. And they want to get that manhole cover in place. And how do you get it in place by being the dominant one? And you do that through your anger. Welcome to the show.

I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional gold smuggler, Russian spy, cold case homicide investigator, real-life pirate or tech luminary. And if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show,

I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion and negotiation, psychology, and geopolitics, disinformation and cyber warfare, crime and cults, and more. It'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today, another banger, even if I do say so myself, on narcissisms, speak of the devil, with Dr. Romney Dervasula. You've heard her on the show before, and we just got tons of feedback about that episode.

I love her. She's amazing. She's a licensed clinical psychologist in Los Angeles and is literally a professor when it comes to narcissism and most impressively, she's also a podcaster. And you know how talented those folks are. Today we'll explore what narcissism is and is not. The relationship between social media and narcissism, traits of narcissists and most importantly, what to do if we find ourselves in a relationship, either intimate, familial, or professional with a narcissist. Lots to learn here if we are somehow involved with a narcissist or just curious about how these train wrecks around us operate and make others miserable.

Here we go with Dr. Romney-Dervasula. Okay, so I read the book, and I'm not sure what it is, but man, as a society, we are just obsessed with narcissists, myself included. And I think maybe it's because we've all dealt with one in business or a romantic relationship or a marriage or a friendship and the examples of the people in your book, all of the above somehow at the same time for some of those poor folks.

But narcissists are unavoidable. They certainly seem to be everywhere. I think that they are unavoidable simply by dint of the fact that they're often very good at what they do. So if you're somebody who wants to meet a partner who it feels like to you at least on paper, they have it all together. Or you're in industries where you're networking with lots of people, right? There's a certain inevitability unless you really know what you're looking for. And then it becomes this interesting tension between people saying, okay, this person may not be ultra ambitious or they may not have a, Big fancy job, but my goodness, they're the kindest human being I've ever met.

Sadly, people still don't date that way. They don't. Some people end up in those relationships and blessed are they because they really have healthy relationships. But I think the way that we're pointed towards people and told these are the people you should know, you should talk to that are cool, that have hip-cred, whatever. That whole thing, I think, actually sometimes stacks the deck towards that. And then you throw in the family piece and that's a roll of the dice.

A lot of people have it. Not everyone does. but when it comes to adult life, unless you're super discerning, I think this is certainly inevitable. That's a great point because you're right. We're wired for status. So if I'm out there dating and I'm a science teacher, I'm not going to flex on Instagram. And then I'm dating. I'm like, oh, dating is hard. But if I'm an influencer who's constantly bragging about, I don't know, spending the night in a hut in Bali and doing videos, it might be really easy for me to date. But then if my entire life is showing off to other people, I'm not saying all those people are

narcissist, but I'm going to go ahead and guess the Venn diagram of influencer who shows off their lifestyle and narcissist. I'm guessing that there's a decent Venn diagram there, maybe not a complete circle, but something like that. Oh, absolutely. And I love what you just said. It was so beautifully put. You said, wired for status. And we are. And it's not a modern superficial thing. I think we've always been wired for this sense of looking towards people who are the leaders, people who are doing the thing. And so they become whoever, back in the day, they might have been the mayor of the town or the person who ran the church or something like that. But we are wired for that.

We're also wired to view those people as desirable. And so I think that is why, because we almost feel fortunate when we're in the presence of these sort of status-level people. And probabilistically, people of higher status are going to be narcissistic because status matters. Usually status has to matter for a person to pursue it. If every so often, you'll find the person who was born into an incredibly wealthy family and they're just a decent human being. and their status comes from their proximity to that family, but they themselves are nice.

That's not a common occurrence. You look at Jeff Bezos's ex-wife who donates all this money and seems like a very sort of normal person. She wasn't rich her entire life and doesn't seem to care for the whole thing. And then she married a science teacher, actually, to pull it full circle. But that's what it is, though. Someone is a lifestyle influencer. Someone's asking me to take a bet. Like I'm buying a raffle ticket.

I'm like, yeah, I'm going to buy this is that this is probably someone who's gotten narcissistic qualities because the drive to want to do that, when the drive is to be admired, right? And it's how the occupation is defined. You're going to be much better at that job if you're narcissistic. That's a fact. When I was reading this book, I could not help but think about a lot of the people I know. I'm thinking, man, you work so much. Why don't you get and have kids? Why do you need another YouTube channel and another podcast and another whatever? And then you start to put the pieces together. And you're like, oh, your whole life is, who am I taking a selfie with today. And it's just, oh, no. And you feel bad for them. But also, I know some of these

people's current or ex-partners, and I'm like, oh, you have real deep-seated insecurity, which is one of the sort of pillars of narcissism or narcissists in the book. The other thing I liked about this book, it's a new angle because a lot of books about narcissists are about the actual person who is the narcissist, whereas this book is about the victims or the people that have to deal with them all the time, that seems like a new angle, at least from the stuff that I've read so far on narcissism. Narcissistic people are fascinating in the sense that I think the reason that people don't watch documentaries and Netflix shows about nice people. They watch them about serial. I was going to say serial. So that's what we are drawn to. We want to understand the mind of somebody

who is able to hurt us. We want to understand the why behind that because that's not a normative behavior. And so I think the why of narcissism piece is the same thing in the academic literature, Jordan. And when you look at the academic literature, I could count on one hand the number of published papers there are on people who have been harmed by narcissistic people. But I can tell you there's hundreds, if not thousands, about the narcissistic people themselves. And so that biases, I think partly our sort of our fascination with sort of people who don't do nice things and trying to understand them. Maybe we think we can out with them. Maybe we think we can protect ourselves. But I think it's really created a real whole. But I think it's really created a real whole. But I think think we had to have that conversation first. We had to even identify it, put it out there as a phenomenon, say this is a thing. And as more and more people absorb, this is a thing that's happening in my life, then we could really open up full throttle this conversation on healing. Yeah, you say it really well in the book. Until the lion can talk, the story of the hunt will always be in the voice of the hunter. Because we're talking about narcissists. We're fascinated by them. They're charming to get away with everything. But nobody's really talking about the wife of the narcissist

whose life has been ruined, who didn't go get cancer treatment because he kept minimizing her symptoms and now she's in stage four or whatever. And those are the people that matter. Narcissist is not a good person in many of these scenarios. They're not, but here's where it gets really tricky. We have to be realist. Is that sadly, history is made by narcissistic people. Innovations are made by narcissistic people. Some of the biggest creative endeavors were undertaken by narcissistic people. In some ways, that grandiose boldness is what makes an idea turn into some. something that revolutionizes the world. But then, sadly, what we do is we deify them,

turn them into our gods. If we could just say, thanks for the tech and please don't come into my house kind of thing, we would be in much better shape. I think that we've always glorified this. We don't glorify the person who was standing alongside or was the support for the person who made these things happen. And I am not convinced we ever will. I'm pinning my hopes in realistic places. But I want the people who've gone through these things to feel seen and heard and recognize that what happened to them is real. Because up till now, I have to tell you

the mental health profession is all but abandoned these people. Yeah, it does seem that way. And you're right. Going back to we're wired for status, we're never going to be like, I wonder who the person behind Edison was. No, we want to talk about him.

But also for every Thomas Edison, and I'm not sure if he was a narcissist, who knows, I'm sure we could find out if we read all of his journals or something. But for every guy like that, who's a super innovator and maybe also a narcissist, there's a million nobodies who are also narcissists that do something that work with all of us day to day,

and we're thinking, why do you think you're so special? You're doing the same thing as me, and we both hate our jobs. What are you talking about? You're not special. But if they're listening right now, they don't think we're talking about them anyway. So I guess I should save my breath. Nope. They don't think we're talking about them. And I think what's really tricky about narcissism is that most narcissistic people, at least at the superficial level we interact with them at, They think that they're good people. They think of themselves, I'm super empathing. I'm a great person. I help so many people. I'm so nice. I'm so generous. That's their self concept. It has to be. As a whole ideas are putting out what they believe is a sort of a perfect idealized self. And at a very deep, unprocessed churning internal volcanic level, they know that's not true. That's where that insecurity comes from. That's where those bits of rage we see is when those two things get activated. That inner insecurity gets activated, but they're not in touch with it. It's not. It's not. like someone can say, oh, you're hitting a real tender place for me. I need a second. That's what a

healthy person does. That is not what happens with someone narcissistic. And interestingly, Edison, actually, there are historical records suggesting that he wasn't a very nice guy. Yeah, as a practitioner, it's probably really hard to go. That person has this disorder based on things I've read about them. Don't you have to have them talk to you? Yeah. You absolutely do. And I think this is one of the issues is that even for me, I have to say, like, the reason a narcissistic person we get into therapy might be, for example, they're feeling some anxiety about a job. They're feeling sad because of a relationship broke up. They're feeling upset because there's a failure to launch. Something's getting them in the door. Or they feel as though sometimes it's for optics, but at the

end of the day, they're coming in sometimes for something else addiction. So as a therapist, we tend to focus on the most acute issue, the depression, the anxiety, the addiction. That makes sense. That's the issue that's causing the most trouble for them. It might even be a safety issue. So we address that. And then we address that. And then we address that. And then we address that. that. We're like, how am I not making any progress? Most of us will even think, like, maybe I'm not a really good therapist. But if narcissism is under those other issues, you're really going to feel like you're making very little progress. You might even lift some of the depression-y stuff, but you're not going to get to that core sense of, why is everyone out to get me? That goes along with what you said in the book,

trying to fix a relationship like this. You say relationship with a narcissistic partner, trying to fix a relationship like this without getting at the root cause, narcissistic behavior, is like trying to fix an engine problem by putting air in the tires. So if you're treating the addiction, but the person is still not being treated for narcissism or narcissistic behavior, yeah, you're putting air in the tires

even though you have sugar in the gas tank or whatever. It's also tricky with therapy because it seems like a lot of times people who are in relationships with narcissists, they're getting blamed for the problems in the relationship by the narcissist, but then they go to therapy and it's,

are you sure you're trying hard enough? It seems like he's willing to. been with him for 20 years. He always says this. We come here and then everyone says, but you're in therapy and you're still having this problem. Maybe it's you because it's like part of the game. I say when I'm teaching therapists. It's not always what we call antagonism informed. It doesn't account for the asymmetry that's brought into a relationship by antagonism, by narcissism. Antigism is an umbrella word. Narcissism lives underneath it. And so as a result, especially people who work in couples work, relationship work, family work, it's all observed in the sense of everyone,

is contributing. And I have a real problem thinking that somebody who's stuck in a relationship they can't figure out of or how to get out of safely is contributing to a problem. They didn't know. And a lot of folks will say, my goodness, now that I have the roadmap, like, I'm out of here. This is ridiculous. I wish I had known this. I wish they taught me in school. I wish someone had sat and taught me this because I would have known to look for these things because some of these patterns when they happened early in the relationship, they were uncomfortable, but I was taught to forgive, give second chances, make allowances for people. Those strategies were great and healthy relationships.

They're a disaster when you do them with someone who's narcissistic. So almost like any sensible way of living in a relationship with somebody else is maladaptive if you're in a relationship with a narcissistic person. I wonder, is it worse in certain cultures? Because like, I'm going to go ahead and say that if I'm a jerk to my wife, she's going to be like, what the hell is your problem? And show me what's the euphemism here? she's going to show me what's what, right? I'm not going to get away with it. But there are other cultures

where you don't talk back to your husband that your parents picked out for you or whatever. That does not happen. And oh, you want to leave? Nope, that's not happening. I did an episode on honor killing and I'm thinking of these really traditional cultures. So things like honor killing, constructs like honor, authoritarianism, patriarchy. Those are going to be cultures, honestly, where narcissism flourishes. And the built-in asymmetry. of relationships in certain cultures, the more asymmetry that's society lends to the relationship, the more likely that the narcissistic abuse will be worse. I mean, I don't think it's going to make someone who's not narcissistic, but someone who is, there's no path forward for a person

in that kind of situation. And those kinds of cultural tendrils, even if a person migrates away from that culture, those still might be assumptions that are held about relationships. So people will say, if I speak out about my relationship, I can end up blowing up my relationship with my family of origin or with my community. So none of these are easy decisions. And because this narcissism conversation is evolving that a lot of people say, well, is that even a thing? And what are you talking about? And do they have a disorder and all this other stuff? It confuses it. And throw in there, too, narcissism is not considered a nice thing to be. Some people walk around and say, yeah, of course, I got the goods and that's why I'm like this or whatever. But by and large, it's not a word people like

to use or believe it's a nice sort of a term. So when a person thinks that, way about a family member, about a partner. They almost feel like they're being disloyal. Maybe I'm the problem if I'm willing to see someone I'm supposed to love in this way. Yeah, there's a lot stacked against you if you're trying to get out of a relationship with somebody like this. It can be exacerbated by a conservative culture that you may have grown up in or your family. And you paint a really tough picture in the book where if you want to leave, okay, how do you do it? But then what happens when you have kids with this person? You have to co-parent. Or what happens when it's your sister? Oh, you're ruining the family.

You don't want to come to Christmas dinner because Shelly makes me feel like absolute crap every time. And nobody checks her behavior because we've been dancing around it for her entire life. And she gets to dictate Christmas. And I've got to bring my kids and husband in and we're all going to get treated like crap. And then you're going to blame me for it. No, thank you. So it's got to be really hard to get away from somebody like this because you're related to them. Absolutely.

And that's the challenge is exactly. is that a person might have the moment of this is definitely my sister. Now you have this knowledge, but everyone else in your family may not have it. And so even though your eyes have been open to it, it is kept in place because of the other people in the system who don't want to call it out, but also have implicitly been enabling it all these years. Everyone will say, yeah, yeah, we have to be a little careful around Shelley. But come on, isn't that just all families? No, it's not. And if it is all families, then it's not okay. in all families.

I think that we can say that. I think the ultimate sort of, if we're to boil it down to one simple thing, this behavior's not okay. It's that simple. And I think that the challenge, though, is our need for social belongingness, our need for social connection

is so strong that we'll make a million modification so we can maintain those connections. So many people will say, all right, we'll just suck it up every year at Christmas because we value potentially the sense of belonging to this larger system. Yeah, gosh. Do narcissists know this stuff consciously, or are they just really good at manipulating the system to work in their favor?

Because I have to believe that Shelley, who's not a real person, knows that she's ruining Christmas. Do they really think they're the victim? Or I guess maybe they do. There's knowing and there's knowing, Jordan, right? So there's an unprocessed, unconscious stuff that's not even accessible to us in conscious awareness. And then there's the stuff that we believe, right? And the stuff we believe drives how we go through the world. And sure, Shelly at some unconscious level may know that, well, this is the only way I can get attention.

If I don't get attention, everyone's going to abandon me. Shelly is not in touch with that. And so the fact of the matter is Shelley actually believes everyone else is the problem. Everyone else is out to get her. Everyone else wants to blame her for Christmas being bad. Why has everyone always been so mean to her? And Shelley believes that. And the problem with all the unconscious stuff in narcissism, that's my problem.

Is a therapist, if I'm going to get in there and open the hood and monkey, around in the engine of someone's mind, sure, we're going to get to that unconscious stuff, we hope at some point. But for all the human beings that have to deal with the narcissistic person, we can't keep making excuses around their unconscious world. We've got to deal with them when we have to deal with the Shelley who actually genuinely thinks of herself as the victim. That makes me feel a little bit bad for these people, because I can't imagine living that way. Don't get me wrong, I feel much more for the victim who has to deal with this person, especially if they're married to them or related to them. But gosh, can you

imagine living that way. Everyone's out to get me. Nothing works out in my favor. The only way to get attentions to blow everything up. If I don't get attention, everyone's going to leave me. That's awful. They're in a prison of their own mind in a way. But they're also spoiled children. Because one thing you got to remember about the shellys, it's quite possible that someone like a Shelley in the story, a work life where she actually shows up as a decent person. A person like Shelley might actually keep it together if on one given year a higher status guest shows up to Christmas that regularly doesn't come. So I think that the capacity of narcissistic people, not only to keep it together, but be quite charming, charismatic, put together in front of certain

audiences, but behind closed doors when they're with a partner or family and go off on them. Those sort of dual repertoires, obviously they're aware of it. They've been screaming at work too. So there is awareness, Jordan. I don't disagree with you. I don't envy them either, and I wouldn't want to be them either. But guess what? Everyone else is doing the vulnerable work of therapy to deal with them. They can sign up for it too.

Yeah, you're right. If they can control their behavior, then they can control their freaking behavior. If you cannot ruin Christmas because that rich uncle who might put you in his will showed up, then you cannot ruin Christmas when your sister's there with her kids and doesn't have anything that she's going to leave you with. Yeah. So, yeah, you're right. If you can control your behavior, then, you know, okay, you have some agency here.

Why the hell aren't you using it to be a decent person instead of a horrible bully? Yeah. One thing that I thought was particularly striking one of your mini-the-the-sees in the book, which is the narcissistic behavior was there before you entered the picture or the relationship, and it's going to be there after you're gone. And the patterns, they don't change. So those around them, which is like you, if you're listening to this and you're not the narcissist, you're not responsible for them or for the changes, which, by the way, probably won't happen anyway.

which I thought that was really important for people to remember. Personality is stable. It grows and it evolves until we're probably in our mid to late 20s, and then it's pretty stable. You've known people for a long time. Jordan, you think of people we've known for 30 years. They've consistently been who they are. It might be a little few tweaks here and there,

but I've had one friend since 13. She was agreeable at 13, and she's agreeable at 58, and nothing has changed. I think that you've got to remember. We all have personalities, and they're all relatively stable. So yes, it's been there all. along, but that key piece, I think that when we keep having this conversation, they can't change,

they can't change, their behavior can't change. You may even want to put a finer point on it here is that you are not going to be the reason it changes. So I think a lot of people almost take it as a challenge, like, come on, I'm not quitting someone I love. I'm not quitting someone I care about. I said, this isn't about quitting. This is about doing something impossible. I'm also not about to slingshot to Mars right now. I'd love to. I'm curious, but I'm not going to do it because it's not possible. And so, yeah, it's cold. It's probably and probably dusty. But I think that people have to understand that even if you say, well, come on, everyone can change only if they take responsibility for it and they consistently commit to it every day of their lives. That's what's

probably not going to happen. So if you're going to turn this into some sort of parlor trick of, oh, come on now, show me that this can never happen. It's not about the never of it all. It's that you're not going to be the reason it changes. And Jordan, I'm sure there's people listening. You have had this experience. I certainly have had this experience where there were narcissistic people in my life that I don't interact with. And I still hear about them here and there. Nothing's changed. And I've had nothing to do with them for over a decade and nothing has changed. There's people in my life where I suspect that they have something like this and other friends, mutual friends will go, all right, so how long until so and so blows up his marriage? And I'm like, oh, who knows? And then sure

enough, five years later, it's, oh, they got divorced? Well, I can't say I'm too surprised. Oh, they're back together, they're divorced again. It's okay, he cheated those business partners too. Some things never change. And you just have to wait for the other shoe to drop with these people at the time. Absolutely. And I think no empathic, decent human beings don't want to walk around the world assuming the worst of everyone. It's not a nice way to go through life, especially if we know some and it's certainly if we care about them. But the key to understanding narcissism is, listen, we're not going to get rid of all the narcissists in our lives. And most of us don't even wish ill will on them. We just wanted them to leave us the hell alone. And so then when you look at your

narcissistic friend who's getting married, you're like, oh my gosh, they're going to blow this up in five years, and they blow it up in five years. And you know it's coming. Like we also, there's a sort of a radical acceptance of, so we've seen the end of this movie. We know how this one goes. And so that's radical acceptance. We know this. And it doesn't necessarily mean we end all these relationships. Friendships are interesting, right? They can hurt us, but they often don't have the impact as like an intimate partner would or a parent or a family member we see regularly, not in the same way. How do we separate narcissists from people who are merely self-absorbed or shallow or arrogant? Where's the sort of line on a behavior that turns somebody into something diagnosable or treatable?

So self-absorption and arrogance, while they're part of the narcissistic picture, are by themselves not narcissism. And I use this analogy all the time. If someone showed up at my front door with an egg, I'd be like, thanks for the egg. I would not say thanks for the cake. They'd need to mix that with flour, sugar, baking soda, and all the other goodies and stick it in the oven, then I'd say thanks for the cake, but the egg is part of the cake. And so when we get into sort of the strands of narcissism, if you will, the self-absorption, the arrogance, even the entitlement to a degree.

If those things are freestanding, I'm pretty rare to find an entitled person who's empathic, but it can happen. Sometimes you'll see it in very privileged, wealthy feet don't touch the ground kind of people. like they're just so used to things running exactly on their schedule, that there can be an entitlement, but you talk to them a bit more and you're actually, there's a decent human being under there. It's been, again, they've been coddled to such a ridiculous degree. But by and large, these things you've got to remember is where there's self-absorption and arrogance. There's also likely to be low empathy, entitlement, a need for admiration.

These things tend to hang out together. But if for some reason you've pulled one strand, and let's not even use self-absorption because that's generally is associated with narcissism, but let's just call it selfishness. A person who really says, you know what, my time is my own, I love my work, whatever, I'm a writer, I have to write 12 hours a day, I need my environment to be a certain way. And as a result, I've made some decisions. I'm not going to get into an intimate relationship because I'm going to drive something out of their mind with all my demands. And that's not a choice I'm going to make. I like my life the way it is. They've made this known. They're not drawing someone

into the swamp, right? I like to write. I like to do my thing. I like to travel on my own. I like to live my life in my own way. It is selfishness if a person says, I'm only living a life that works for me, but I don't think it's narcissism if it's not a company with all that other stuff. A person's like, this is how I like things. And I love having dinner with friends. Some people will have members of their family. I know someone is a sibling like this. And they've said, they are the best aunt you would ever know in your life. They are kind, they're generous. They take my kid on vacations. But when they're doing their thing, they're doing their thing. And that's that. And so there's a clarity and they've communicated that and they're not cruel to anyone. So that would be the strand of

selfishness got pulled out without all the other sort of bells and whistles that make it narcissism. So we have to be careful if we meet someone. Let's say you meet someone and they're very authoritative about what they know in a conversation and they're very da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And they almost seem imperious. It's easy to say after that meeting that person's narcissistic. But then you run into them in a bathroom and they're super warm and nice and you're like, what the hell? And then you talk to them a little further at the group dinner and you're like, this is actually a really kind person, you recognize the way they show up in that particular setting is very specific. They're very warm. That cuts across other situations. That can happen. It's not the norm, though, Jordan. These things

hang together. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Dr. Romney-Dervasula. We'll be right back. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, and creators every single week, it is because of my network, the group of people that I no like and trust. And I am teaching you how to build your network for free over at six minute networking.com. This is a relationship building course. It is not a cringy, get other people to do stuff for you course. It's not awkward. It's not cheesy. It's just practical stuff that'll make you a better connector, a better colleague, a better friend, a better peer. It takes six minutes a day, not even that if you're really up to speed. And many of the guests on our show already subscribe

and contribute to that course. So hey, come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course at six-minute networking.com. Now, back to Dr. Romney. I feel like you just described me, which is why I'm laughing, because my wife will go, you talked a lot during that phase, and then I'll see the person and their wife later. And I remember one guy's wife was like, I'm surprised because I didn't think I was going to like you after the first time we met. Oh, interesting.

She's no offense, though, because you're like, what of the, and I'm like, I'm not offended. I get that all the time, and it's on me because, I don't know. know, whatever that was at the time, let other people talk or whatever it was. This is years ago, but I just remember that interaction. And that's why I'm chuckling because I definitely have done that exact thing and had that exact experience. And so the episodes, though, Jordan, I think it's like personality isn't about episodes. It's about a through line, right? So if the imperious person remained imperious in that interaction, there are people who will come across in front of an audience as the warmest, loveliest, heliest people in the world. But then you have a

conversation on the side and they're monstrous. I had this happen once with someone who's considered one of the most beloved people. And I had a conversation. It was one of the most offensive experiences I had ever had. Then I asked, have made a few sort of discrete inquiries. And they're like, oh, no, he's an absolutely terrible human being. And so this is somebody who's able to do that communal narcissistic, performative. I'm the savior of the world, but is actually a terrible person. It takes us to an interesting corner of narcissism. I just use the term communal narcissism. communal narcissistic people are people who get their supply, their validation and their admiration by being perceived as being these do-gooders, save the world, aren't I wonderful? That's their source of it.

And they actually get quite churlish and angry if they're not getting validated and being viewed as the savior of the world for doing all of that. But like I said, their audiences identify with them as saviors. And then I've even watched them dealing with audiences. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is terrible. They're so contemptuous. That is not an uncommon maneuver in those spaces. It's lovely when you meet the person who tracks. They're lovely in their space. And then you meet them in the side. And they're lovely people. When that happens, you're like, bless the world that these kinds of people actually get ahead. I hear that. There's that phrase, never meet your heroes. And I'll never say I'm a lovely person. But the biggest compliment I get is when people go, you're like the same person you are

on the podcast in real life. I'm like, thank you. Yes, faking things is hard. I'm a terrible actor, but at least they're not going, wow, I thought you would be like nicer or something. Yeah, that would hurt my feelings. You mentioned narcissistic supply. Let's talk about what this is. First of, I never heard of this. But man, does it add clarity to how and why these people are the way they are? It's almost like they're oxygen. They need this or they'd shrivel up and die. At least that's how they behave. It's exactly what it is. It is oxygen. Narcissistics, supply. I always have the visual of this massive warehouse and trucks all going into it full and coming out empty. And that's what everyone around the narcissistic person feels like a truck full of stuff that always

leaves that warehouse of the narcissistic person empty. And so it's admiration, it's praise, it's validation, its status, it's fame, it's money. It's all those things are considered supply. It's not just someone telling them they're great. Supply can also be being famous, because now everyone, again, thinks you're the hero and you're the healer or whatever it is. So it can be any of those things. And so the narcissistic person will work steadfastly to ensure that the supply stream is steady. A person who's a lot of money can buy people around them, right? If you ever watch a rich person's household, there's always people going in and out.

There's a hair person and a fixer person and a cleaning person and a yoga person and a get-your-energy-clean person. Like, they're always surrounded by people, but the people are all in the payroll. And so there's this sense of community around them, but I'm like, oh, well, all these people are being paid to be here. And so for that person, for a wealthy narcissistic person, getting supply is actually very easy. But for other, like a less resource narcissistic person, which is most of them, it's a lot trickier. Social media changed the game, Jordan. Social media changed the game. I always remember that day. I think I might even said this in our last episode back in 2000, I think it was eight or so, seven, eight. somebody said, hey, Rahm, you need to look at this thing called Facebook. You'll find it

curious. And I remember looking at it. I was already doing this work of studying narcissism, and my stomach dropped. I thought, oh my gosh, these fools were going to be able to get validation without leaving the house. Back in the day, they actually did need to leave the house. Like they'd have to go to work or go into the world or their community in some way. They'd have to go out and get it. There was no way to share your life with everybody. These would certainly be the people in their friendship group who would yammer on about, let me tell about my vacation to Hawaii. Back in the day, we'd call them,

we'd have to watch your slides from the vacation. And so they would bore a small group of people. But then one day, the world changed in a period of a year or two. And so what it did was social media gave, especially the grandiose narcissistic people, an essence, a playground to get validation 24-7. And I think they've always been grandiose narcissistic folk,

but they were really able to harness this platform to get the thing that they needed psychologically at a mass scale. Does getting more supply make you worse in terms of your behavior? Because otherwise, social media would be good, right? Because it's like, hey, now you can post your stupid vacation photos of Italy to Facebook and we can ignore them there. We don't have to come over for what you're pretending is your wife's birthday party, but is really a chance for you to show off your new car and your slides? Or is it like, oh, now that you can get likes, you're just even more insufferable because the supply comes more easily.

One of the problems becomes is that it should because when a narcissistic person has, quote, unquote, enough supply, they're better regulated. So on a day, for example, a narcissistic person, let's say they get a promotion or they get a big bonus. They're the fun dad that day, great partner, their good friend. They'll call, hey, how are you doing? And they'll be like that person, right? Because it was their great day. But every day you can't get a promotion. Every day you can't get a big raise.

So what social media did was initially, I think it was really. really exciting, but then it's never enough, right? That picture only got 200 likes. I wanted to get 2,000 likes. I only have 100,000 followers. I want a million followers. So it created this new carrot to chase. And it also did something that really messed with the world in an interesting way. It allowed the narcissistic people to peer behind the curtain into other people's lives and recognize that some people have lives that might be cooler than theirs. And that made them go off. This is what made narcissism go bonkers. And the vulnerable narcissist, the subtype of narcissism where these are people who often don't overtly at all look

grandiose and preening and arrogant, but rather these are folks who look victimized, sullen, resentful, angry, why didn't I get my turn? Why does he have more? I never got my chance. And they're very aggrieved. There's a failure to launch. For these vulnerable folks, seeing what other people have, if you will, has made them completely lose their minds. And I think all the internet trolls, that tends to be vulnerable narcissism. So all this cruelty we see on social media, a lot of that is doubled up by the variance induced by vulnerable narcissism.

That's insightful. Whenever I see these really cruel trolls, I always wonder, what do you like in real life? What is your deal? Julia Roberts just posted something, and it was quite interesting. There's a photo of her with her niece, and her niece had just slept over,

and they were playing cards or something, and she took a photo. And it's cute. It's Julia Roberts and her cute niece, holding cards and smiling, whatever. And she said, but the comments on the photo were so horrible. She's not aging well. And she gave some examples, and I was like, who's sitting here, trashing Julia Roberts

sitting with her niece? It's a cute photo. Move on with your life. And she said she's 51 and she just couldn't believe it because it hurts. And she didn't say it this way. But she's an internationally famous superstar. And she's like, it still hurt my feelings. And she goes, but what if I was 15 years old?

That was her point. Like it's just trashing people's self-esteem. But to your point, who's sitting there being like, I'm going to say the meanest thing I can to this person? The vulnerable narcissist. And it's dangerous, Jordan. It's not just like they're just saying mean things to people. It is sometimes creating an anger, a volcanic anger, and folks who feel like, how come it's

not me? How come I'm not getting my turn? I'm so mad. So I'm going to not only put other people down, I'm sometimes going to really lash out at them in dangerous ways. So, in fact, there's a narcissism expert, Dr. Keith Campbell's professor at University of Georgia. who I absolutely adore him. He's such a brilliant man, but him and I on both agreement,

grandiose narcissism, they've always been around. The people who brag and want to show you their vacation photos and think they're so great and they're annoying and they cheat on their wives, sure, whatever. They've always been there. But this particular brand of narcissism has also always been there, too, but they've gotten this new fuel. It's like they're going to bring other people down. Typically, the vulnerable narcissist could only bring down the people who are in proximity to them. Now they can do it everywhere. And the harm of it, like you said, 51-year-old, woman is still gorgeous, successful. Fifty-one-year-old woman was hurt by it. Can you imagine in someone younger or someone more vulnerable? Even they'd have to be 15. They could be at any age but vulnerable

for some reason. It's very upsetting. And this whole idea of it's free speech, no, it's not free speech. It's cruel. And so that cruelty, though, very much. We can explain a lot of the variance there is it's vulnerable narcissism, this victimized all, and how come it's not my turn? I'm entitled to having a better life than this. How come you have a better life than? How come you have a better life than me. Grandios narcissists don't get that kind of sour about it. They're like, I'm going to figure out how to get your life, and then I'm going to get it, and I'm going to get it better than yours. And they actually probably might, because grandiose narcissistic people have a lot of what we call agency. They go out and they get things done. That's why they're interesting. They're interesting

to have on a team because they actually behave like a-holes, but they do get things done. Yeah. So that's why they haven't been bred out of the population, because they occasionally have these great successes. They're just so motivated. That's what I was saying before about the influencers, like you'd meet these people and they don't want to have kids and they don't want to have close friends because they're just going to trade them in for cooler friends next year anyways. And they don't say it like that. But I've got a former buddy who he literally told a bunch of our mutual friends, hey, I can't hang out with you anymore because I really only hang out with like famous superstars now and you're

just not there. And I was like, how are you saying this and not thinking I'm a piece of crap? I almost had to admire the chutzpah to even think it, let alone tell the person. Hey, I'm not hanging out with you because you're not famous. Right. And we call it delusional grandiosity, right? It's not quite delusional because it was delusional than it'd be psychotic. But it is an almost delusional grandiosity.

Like they really believe their hype. And a lot of narcissistic people across all types of narcissism don't really have a filter. So they'll say what they want to say because they don't have empathy. We have filters in part because, first of all, because we have a frontal lobe. But second of all, because we have empathy. And so we might say, ooh, I want to say that, but I'm not because I could really really hurt this person. And so I'm going to hold back on saying it for that reason. They don't have that need to do that. And also it's posturing. Look, I hang out with famous people and you don't.

Ultimately, it's always a play for supply. Yeah, that's kind of one reason why you have that 1% where you feel bad for him. But then another 99% is, but he's such an a hole. Yeah, yeah, I don't really feel bad for him. He's sort of like the really unlikable kid who had a swimming pool. And so people would be his friend in the summer. That's a great example. That's so funny. You mentioned consistency in the book when they have adequate narcissistic supply. They're on top of the world, but then they're perpetually bored and they often seek excitement or novelty. And I'm guessing this is what leads to some of the overspending that these people do. And certainly a lot of the cheating and relationships, which the previous aforementioned example, he can't stop cheating on people that he's with because he'll trade in the nice girlfriend for the one that has more followers on Instagram, literally. And it's a choice no sane person would make. but it's not a sanity, right? The value system is different because that's the way,

and the motivation system is different. And I think in understanding when you're in a relationship with someone narcissistic, listen, the healthiest people amongst us are very clear on what motivates them them to do what they do. The more clear we are in our motivations,

the more we're in line with our authentic selves. A person might even be able to say, like, yeah, part of the reason I want that is ego. And owning that, it's healthy to know that because then when it doesn't work out, you're clear on why it stings, but it's not like a secret. The more secret things are, the more they sort of fester and come out in terrible ways. To tell you a narcissistic person has almost zero percent awareness of why they do the things they do. So if this is a mistake people always

make in an argument with a narcissist, why would you have done that? For example, why would you have cheated on me? I've been such a good da-da-da-da-da. And the narcissistic person actually probably, because now shame has been brought up for them, they'll blame the other person, they'll defend themselves, it wasn't that big a deal, let it go. But they'll never answer that question because they can't. Because they're just not connected to that part at all. They're completely unaware. No, there's no self-reflective capacity. The health, the work of being a person is to say, what is this about for me. So going back to what led me to say that is the motivations for healthy could be things like achievement and affiliation and even power, right? We are social species.

human beings are social creatures, wanting to be with other people, care about other people. It's built into our DNA. We needed it for survival when we're small. We're not turtles that came out of an egg on a beach and go swim off and figure it out. We are human beings that take a long time to develop and need our caregivers. Attachment matters to this species. And so when people don't care about it, they've definitely stepped off the norm. And I think that challenge is that you're playing by a different rulebook when you're in this relationship. You may value closeness and love and connection, but they value power and domination and control and validation. One of you is playing chess and one of you is playing checkers. They're both great games, but they don't make sense to be played

simultaneously. And someone's going to get frustrated real fast. Yeah, you can't play them on the same board and expect a good outcome. What's scary is, with the grandiosity, especially, you don't know which version to expect. If your partner is narcissistic and you're home and you're watching Netflix and making dinner or something, you don't know who's coming home. Is it the person who had a great day at work because their boss was like, great presentation there, Simpson? Or is it the person who their colleague that they don't like because they're constantly comparing themselves to them? That person got a compliment by the boss. So their entire life is now ruined for the next 48 hours. Who's walking in the door? That's the part that would give me just anxiety all day.

That's why people in these relationships are always anxious, because there is no consistency, there is no communication about it. Because again, admitting I didn't get the promotion because I wasn't as good as the other guy, that brings up too much shame, whereas someone else will say, I didn't get the promotion. I feel absolutely terrible and I need a minute. But I also have to know that he had better sales totals than me. There's a healthy human being ultimately will get there. But that inconsistency and that unpredictability, which actually isn't unpredictability, it's really the narcissistic person's moods really literally are in lockstep with what happened with them that day. They lack that consistency, that through line. Even a person's like, I had a bad day.

They might even call the partner and say, listen, I'm going to take a longer driver. I'm going to go to the gym on the way home because I need to let some of this out. I don't want to take it out on you. So there's enough of that self-awareness. I had a terrible day. I don't want to take it out on others. Or I better go to bed earlier, whatever. They don't do that. They can throw their tantrums everywhere. So really in some ways, the narcissistic person stuck at the development level of a three or a four-year-old. I can tantrum anywhere and that people are going to forgive me because I'm three or four. So they do believe that people always have to show them grace, but they won't show grace to others. And that unpredictability, who's coming home?

Who am I going to get? What's going to set them off? It means that anybody in one of these relationships does feel chronically anxious and chronically walks on eggshells. Yeah, I just couldn't imagine living like that. Another thing that I thought was quite insightful, you mentioned that the narcissists are chronically insecure, but it's not about high or low self-esteem, which I kind of tie those together, right? If you have low self-esteem, you're insecure. But it's not really about that.

It's this lurking sense of inadequacy that's close to the bone, I think you said. And what's scary about this one is I'm like, wait, I think I have that too. But that in a vacuum doesn't make somebody a narcissist, right? It just makes them, I don't know, a little bit insecure, I suppose. So actually, when we talk about gaslighting, gaslighting is the pathological. unologically insecure, preying on the conventionally insecure. Most of us are what I call conventionally insecure, right? To be a healthy human being is to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses, and none of us have had a perfect run of it. So we will admit like, oh, that's a little bit of

tender tissue for me, and just be careful with that. And so we know what our insecurities are, and we slowly process them. And it takes a minute. It takes some miles on our tires to get there. Narcissistic people have what we'd call distorted self-esteem, because they either think of themselves as the greatest, most perfect person in the world, or they fall into a big blob of shame. There's no middle ground. Yeah, I know some of this. I don't know all of it. Like, I'm not perfect at this. That idea that for the narcissistic person to either be ordinary or imperfect, it really feels intolerable. Because all of this perfection and this grandiosity and this greatness, it's like a suit of armor around all this insecurity. In fact, the analogy I've been using more and more

is that you have to think of the insecurity and the shame inside a narcissist as like a volcano that's always bubbling in them. And on top of that volcano is like a big, heavy metal manhole cover. And that manhole cover is all their defenses, their grandiosity and arrogance and all the rest of it. But every so often, that manhole cover gets kicked off a little. Maybe they don't get the promotion. Maybe somebody makes fun of them. Maybe they don't get enough likes, whatever doesn't get snudged. Then some of that lava and that explosive gook comes out. And that comes out. And that comes out, in the form of rage. And they're either going to rage at someone overtly aggressive or verbally angry or they're going to be passive aggressive or they're going to withdraw or they're going to

withhold. But either way, they're going to have a strong emotional reaction to some of that schmutsy shame coming out of them. And they want to get that manhole cover in place. And how do you get it in place by being the dominant one? And you do that through your anger. Right. So you put other people underneath you or whatever. So they're fragile. They're also ashamed of being fragile from the sound of it. Oh, man. That's right. Do I have that one too? I don't know. Maybe I don't want to admit that. You're not lashing out at someone. So when we're having our fragile moments, we all have them. This is not saying that while the rest of us are not walking around with fragility, we're all walking around with it, it's what we do with it and understand it as simply being part of being a

human being. I cry alone in the shower like everybody else. Love it. Narcissists clearly can't relate to others emotionally if they're like this. What do they do if you are ashamed of your own vulnerability or your own fragility, I would imagine that somebody else wanting to share that with you, like their own stuff, that would be probably triggering, right, if their romantic partners, like, I feel this way. It's, I don't want anything to do with that. So the term emotion allergy has been used to describe narcissists, but it's actually more of a disgust or a contempt.

It's as though when you open up those emotions, because it's pinging that manhole cover again, right, it's usually met with like, oh, God, really? You're so sensitive. and then there's often a pathologization of that other person. You're so sensitive, you're so needy, you're so this. So what they've done is they've projected their shame onto that other person. So now the other person's the one with the problem. You're the person that's all these messy emotions.

Who needs it? Right. And now the other person's left holding the bag that not only do they have an emotion, they're being told that they're dirty and bad. So that's how the narcissistic people do it. They fling it off. They're like made of Teflon. They're always flinging off onto others.

So the others around them often feel quite destabilized, but the narcissistic person gets to stay pristine on the pedestal. Yeah, the projection thing rings true. Whenever I read one of your books, I'm like, oh, still talking about this person, like dead on for them. A lot of projection plus gaslighting. So it'd be like, you always do this. And it's like, what?

I don't have any awareness of that. That's because you're not self-aware enough to do that. And then it's you did this thing. Or last month you did this thing. And I'm thinking, no, you're the one. You said that and did that. I didn't do that. And then you start thinking, am I just misremembering this?

and then you have to ask other people if you even can, if they were there. And in one example, I lived with a person and his girlfriend, and she would, of course, back him up. But I think 15 years later now, they've been broken up for a long time. She wrote me an email, and I was like, hey, I'm surprised to hear from you. She's like, well, I never actually really thought you were a bad guy, but I was dating this other person. So what was I supposed to do? And I was like, oh, okay, that pretty much shows me all I need to know. Because I was thinking either I've come such a long way in the last 15 years, and I'm sure that I have in many

ways or a lot of that was bullshit and I was just being blasted with it all the time. Yeah, I know. Projection is what we call a primitive defense. It's like an infant or something like that. This is not my problem. It's not my ick. It's your ick. And so then the person gets this again, they get to stay pristine within size. So as soon as there's any kind of unconsciously unacceptable impulse or feeling it gets knocked off into someone else. And I always say an interesting tell on whether the narcissist is cheating on you is if you're not and they keep a accusing you of cheating on them. I'm like, I have a feeling that their house isn't that clean. So it's whatever they're accusing you of is usually something that they're doing or

struggling with. And so that's something to also pay attention to as well. But if you don't know what projection is while it's happening, you're like, what the hell? And then it becomes part also the larger framework of gaslighting where you're being accused of things that aren't true, being told there's something wrong with you, that you're not remembering things correctly. And like I said, because of empathy, initially we believe them. This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Dr. Romney. We'll be right back. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors. All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are all searchable and clickable

at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. And if you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find the code, feel free to email me. I'm Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. I am happy to surface that code for you. Yes, it is that important. Thank you for supporting those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Dr. Romney. Nobody wants to be a bad roommate and a bad friend, and then there's two of them, and you're like, yeah, maybe I am rooting their relationship. What was interesting is, finally, my mom and other people were like, I'm pretty sure that this is what's going on and laying it out more clearly for me.

And I'd gone to see a therapist, and she was very much, you need to move out. And I was like, I don't know if I can, whatever. I move out. Two months later, they broke up because they couldn't blame me for their problems anymore. I was gone. And so the cannons had to move to her. And she was like, oh. Correct.

That's exactly right. So in some ways, there often can be a third party to absorb the blows. And then the person in the relationship who may be invested in making the relationship work. And this is how people get stuck, Jordan, is that when we believe we love someone, our go-to isn't, this person's toxic. It's how can I make this work? And how can I make this work means we take the responsibility on themselves. And when we see pieces of evidence that don't line up with, this is a thing. a nice person. We're going to do everything we can do to either justify, rationalize,

or find another explanation. So for a while, you were the justification. Oh, it's Jordan, it's Jordan, it's Jordan. Pull you out of the picture. And that's an interesting way when there is a third party, pull you out. And now it's mass destruction on the other person. The narcissistic person doesn't stop. They just find a new target. Yeah. It was quite interesting to hear from this woman after 15 years and have her be like, sounds like we both had a bad breakup. I was laughing because I was like, That's exactly what it was. I finally just left. My therapist was like, she basically fired me as a client a month later because she's like,

all the things that you were having problems with are just gone now. I was like, yeah, that was really interesting and something I should have seen clearly. And she's like, don't blame yourself. But it was quite interesting to see it. Because usually I would imagine as a therapist, you don't just rip off one bandaid and then everything is fine. There's usually a lot more going on. But I guess if you live with somebody like that and they're throwing all this stuff on you

and you're not actually the problem, then we're, when you leave, it's, oh, I'm not depressed anymore because I'm not being abused essentially by somebody anymore. And I live on my own. And then you start making different friends and dating, because you're not living with your two, quote unquote, best friends who actually hate you. Things change pretty rapidly. So anyone who's in this situation, much easier said than done, but like getting out is probably a really good idea. Oh, I always approach this part of the conversation very tentatively because a lot of people can't get out and then. Am I going to be forever in hell. No, you're not. So it's this. In an ideal world, I'm going to be honest with you,

the gold standard, the best way could go is you do not have to have contact with this person anymore. It's never, ever going to feel good. And anyone who's had that experience where they were able to get out of a narcissistic relationship after the initial shock. And if it wasn't too bad in the post-separation period, they'll say, yeah, no, my life is much richer with this person out of it. For those who have to stay in these relationships, for whatever long reason, and it no one has to defend the reason they're staying, but they have to stay. Healing is very possible. It's something I really break down in the book. It really is. A lot of this has to do, though, with that moment, that radical acceptance moment, that penny drop moment when you realize I'm never,

ever going to get what I need here. It's the day you realize, I keep just dropping a bucket in this well, and I keep getting no water, and you're like, yep, this is not ever going to give me water, and that you start building up a world outside of it. It could be, friends. It could be taking a class. It could be a social group. It could be a healthy spiritual community. It could be an exercise class. It could be anything. And existing friendships that you put more time into that you realize that this is not the place to go. And there's a lot of grief around there because you're like, great, I'm in this marriage. It's never going to be healthy. And I had to go outside of it. However, then I tell people, let's bring you back to the why of staying. You might be

staying for kids. You might be staying for financial reasons. That doesn't always feel good because a lot of people will say, listen, someone dropped a bag of money on me. This would take care of a lot of my problems that mean I could move out. Because in expensive areas, it's actually hard to go and start a new household, especially if there's not a lot of money in play and a person doesn't have steady employments. There's a lot of things that might be at play here, but you definitely can still heal because once you see it clearly what it is, you'll be a little less likely to personalize it. You'll say, okay, this is not a me thing. That's why I called it. It's not you. This is a them thing. And this is how they treat everyone. And my bad luck was this was the person.

I am with, and where can I find the meaning and the purpose? Where can I find the fulfillment in my life? Where can I find the awe and joy? And always remember to never share it with them, because they're just going to make fun of it. And in the book, which will link in the show notes, and if you use the links to buy the books, it helps support the show. In the book, you have a lot of practicals that are like, here's what you can do to get validation or have fun doing things this way and don't bother sharing it with the narcissistic person because they're not going to ever allow you to enjoy it. They're going to try to make it worse for you. There's a lot of practical sort of drills and exercises in the book, which I really appreciate,

because it's real easy for us to be like, get away from a narcissist. And everyone's like, cool, I'm a single mom with three kids under five. Thanks for the advice, you jerks. And that's thanks for the advice, you jerks, I wanted to get away from because I've seen this happen, even for cultural reasons, because my hope is that this book gets into hands of people around the world is that in some parts of the world to say that this is ridiculous. Like, it's not even meaningful guidance and respectful. It doesn't account for the context. And also, we elevate that to people who hoots their parents, especially if they're aging parents. And people say, okay, these people are old. I'm not walking away at this point. I don't need to spend as much

time with them. But now they understand the limitations of these relationships and may actually ensure just that their older parents are not in danger or something like that. Ultimately, you got to ask yourself what you can live with, right? Because people say, I feel like a sucker. Here I am taking care of this person. And they've been nothing but terrible to me. I'll say, you're not doing it for them. You're doing it because it's congruent with who you are. And some people say, I'm actually a very caring person and I'm still not going to care for them. I'll say that's absolutely fine. It's always giving yourself permission to make the decision that feels right to you because

that's what healing is that you actually allow yourself to be you, to fear a real self to finally be expressed because it was shut down in the narcissistic relationship. Yeah, I've got a friend who will take care of her aging parents, but she's like, I'm not letting you see the kids. And they're like, why are you abusing us by not letting us see our grandkids? And she's, no, I'm not letting you abuse them. but I'm still going to pay for your caretaker. I'm still going to come over and deliver groceries,

but no, I'm not going to let you tell my 12-year-old daughter that she's fat every time you see her because it hurts her feelings. That's right. And unfortunately, they won't stop, right? They'll find the way in. Oh, gosh, how are you? Don't worry. I won't say that you're fat.

Your mom already told me I'm not supposed to say that. So you're saying it's never going to end. Like, it's a game, right? It's all tactic. And there's a tremendous oppositionality to narcissistic people. You've got to remember that. You're not going to change. tell me what to do. And they're very big on that. My freedom, you're not going to tell me what to do.

And so they get really riled up. So you can never ask them to do something directly. It's the sort of thing where you just don't do the dishes. And at some point, they're going to need a cup. And they'll wash it because they need the cup. Like asking them to wash the cup, they'll get you nowhere. And so that's one thing that people have to remember is they're thinking, why is it that even when I directly communicate to them that they're not getting it? It's because they're naturally oppositional. You mentioned in the book that narcissism isn't a disorder. So what is it then? And also, isn't there a narcissistic personality disorder?

Is that different? Because that's, it sounds like a disorder. Narcissism is a personality style, right? It's a maladaptive personality style. It's an antagonistic personality style. It's not probably one of the good ones, but it is one, okay? Just like agreeableness is a personality style. An extroversion is a personality style.

And neuroticism is a personality style. They're all personality styles, right? And when a person has a narcissistic personality style and they show up to a therapist office or some licensed mental health practitioner, that person spends time with them and may evaluate them and say, this seems to all add up to NPD, narcissistic personality disorder. And they put it in their record. That's when a person has narcissistic personality disorder. And that doesn't happen that much.

In fact, most of the research that's done here, it's usually done on groups of people who are already coming into a clinic and we don't get their names. Like, I've done a lot of this kind of research with hundreds or thousands of patients. And they come in and we interview them with a very set checklist, but they're not often coming in for clinical care. And they're also not coming in because they're coming in for help. They're coming in to be in a research study. In those studies, we've seen NPD, narcissistic personality disorder prevalence rates somewhere between one and six percent, right? That's usually what the research has found. Now, there are people out there in the world, Jordan who have a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. And frankly, their narcissistic patterns

may not be as severe as someone who doesn't have the diagnosis. It's just that the person who doesn't have the diagnosis never went to go see someone. And since the vast majority of narcissistic people don't end up in a clinician's office, most of them aren't diagnosed. So I personally think they should get rid of the diagnosis. I don't think it's helping anyone. But that's the difference. You also said that in the book, the more maladaptive a personality, the less likely they are to change. Why is that? You would think somebody who's more maladaptive would have more consequences and therefore might actually try harder to fix something, but that's maybe not what happens. Mental flexibility is key to health. Just like physical flexibility is a key to health.

Mental flexibility is a key to health. It's why people are resilient. It's why people are able to solve problems. There's a sort of a go with the flow, being able to pivot, being able to adapt to new situations, all flexibility. Antagonistic personality styles like narcissism are very inflexible. So they're almost like people whose muscles are absolutely stiff as can be. It's not good for your health. It's also not good for your mental health. And accompanying these maladaptive styles are things like a incapacity for intimacy or closeness with another person, a real incapacity for empathy, a lack of awareness of why they do what they do, that lack of self-direction. There is a lack of clarity on how they set goals. This is what we see across all maladaptive styles. And so it's a different depending on the personality style. So it's a lack of It's not an adaptive style. It is not a resilient style. It is not a style that's good relating to other people. And those things are key to being a healthy human being.

So that's why it's called maladaptive. Yeah, that does make quite a bit of sense. And of course, some of these characteristics that come with narcissistic abuse or narcissistic behavior are interesting. You mentioned gaslighting before. I'm not sure everybody knows what that is. Can we do it now? Yeah, so gaslighting is a tactic, for lack of a better way to call it. And I think it qualifies as emotional abuse.

And gaslighting involves a relationship that's predicated on some level of trust. One person's a gaslighter, one person's the gaslightee. The gaslighter will doubt the reality, perceptions, experience, memory of the other person in the relationship. And then they will also imply that there's something wrong with the other person. Like, I never said that. What's wrong with you? What do you like demented?

Do you have like memory problems? So it's not just saying, I never said. that. That's the first part of gas sliding, but they really have to tell the other person there's something wrong with them. But because this relationship is based on trust, it could be a partner, could be a family member, could even be like a medical professional, somebody who has an expertise, you believe them. You believe it's plausible what they're saying, right? Because none of us are going to remember every single thing. And so you'll say, okay, yeah, sure. And now you're destabilized because they're going after you having something wrong with you at this point.

So now you're at a different argument. But this doesn't happen just once. Gaslighting, certainly in a narcissistic relationship, happens all the time. So over time, people who are gaslighted second guess themselves, they doubt themselves, they blame themselves, they can almost become obsessive in how they do things. Okay, I need to make sure this is 100% correct. Okay, did we document everything? Because I don't want them to come back around and say, so you waste a lot of time over and over again.

They'll say, did you remember that this and this on a trip? And in fact, you will have put it aside, but then they chose not to put it in the bag. And so you'll feel literally like you're losing your mind. This can involve things like even manipulating the environment just to mess with you. So they might move a checkbook and you're religious about putting it in the same place every time. You go to the place. It's not there. You're like, what the actual?

And they'll turn around and say, well, I guess you're not as organized as you thought you were. So they will do something to undercut that sense of self. It is abuse. And it is a part of every narcissistic relationship. Gaslighting though, Jordan. It's not just lying. and it's also not a difference of opinion. So you'll have to see two people in a conversation

and they'll say, I think that this team is great. And the other person will say, I think that team is absolutely terrible. And they'll say, don't gaslight me. And they're not gaslighting. They just have a different opinion than you. That's not gaslighting. Yeah, this is literally denying their reality

and possibly engineering things so that you look right. The moving the checkbook thing, that's next level, right? Because now you're not just lying to make up for something that you forgot. Oh, you didn't bring the passports. You said you put it.

them in your bag and you're like, oh, crap, I did, but I don't want to be wrong. So I can see somebody gaslighting if they really can't be wrong because it, like, fractures their worldview of them as perfect or whatever it is. But then to engineer a situation in which somebody else is wrong, that is really pathological and creepy. Yeah, but if they're trying to bolster their argument, because it might very well be, like your gaslighting response, you do, you organize everything to within an inch of its life. And they know that. And you're like, no, this house is practically alphabetized. They're not going to let you have that position. So they're going to do something to stabilize that position. It would be to move something. And the Darvo model, you see this all the time

on the internet. I think this is fascinating. Is there a brief way to take us through this? Because I think a lot of people might go, oh my God, this is happening to me. Yeah. So Darvo, let's give props to Dr. Jennifer Frye, who developed this model. And Darvo stands for deny, attack, reverse victim offender. It happens in every narcissistic relationship, and she has the data to show it. So let's say you go to them say, hey, you got to stop texting this woman at work. Like, this isn't cool. Like, this is not right. It doesn't feel good. I don't text her. And really, what are you doing getting into my phone? How do you know who I'm texting? And you know what? What are we even talking about here? Like, you don't even pay a lick of attention to me. It's always your friends and your job.

And I just sit here by myself all the time. Who are you? What am I even in? So now we've gone to a partner saying, what you're doing is not cool and it makes me uncomfortable to you've abandoned them. But Darvo, again, originally that work actually was done on sex offenders, but then we came to find out that it actually applied to anyone with an antagonistic personality. This is the deny, attack, reverse victim offender, and it confuses the hell out of the other person. Because now you're in a new argument. Because now this woman who is saying, I really am not cool with how much you're texting this person and it seems like a little bit too friendly, friendly, has now become you've abandoned your spouse. The other thing that was creepy about the narcissistic abuse was

minimization because this is where somebody says, oh, you're just complaining about this or you're always being dramatic. But sure, fine. In some ways that's just crappy. But if it's medical stuff that's being minimized, now you're talking about life and death. Because I was trying to think about why this would be anything more than just annoying and hurtful. But yeah, if someone's saying you're just being dramatic because you have abdominal pain, you could ignore a tumor or something. And it happens more often than you think people delay preventative care. They delay mental health care, they may delay repairs on a car and they also may stall their lives like, oh, please stop. Dear boss isn't a bad person. Let it go and a person stays in a job longer than they should or

something. But what it does is what undercuts a person's ability to plug into the reality of their own lives and the sense of, I guess this isn't that big a deal. And so what happens is even long after you're out of the relationship, you don't feel like you have the voice to be able to say something matters or something is important. And because you've always been told everything in your life is ridiculous and small and all of that. Tell me about breadcrumming. There's other forms of abuse, but breadcrumming is something I hadn't heard of before. So over time, a narcissistic relationship really becomes a place of neglect, right? So narcissistic people are really good at showing up with sort of attention and fun from time to time and then not being there at all. And that back and forthing

is actually why these relationships are so easy to get stuck in because of it. Because There's enough good moments sprinkled in there that you feel like you're in something meaningful or fun or important, and we make all our excuses on the basis of that. But over time, more and more neglect, and they're showing up less and less. So it's nothing. It's almost like you're with a person who doesn't even notice you're in their presence, which is actually a very kind of unsettling feeling. So people in these relationships will make so much out of the littlest thing. Like they'll say, you won't believe this. they said happy Valentine's Day to me this morning before they went to work and that's it or they're like oh you're not going to believe it they did remember my birthday they had to go to business trip because their job's really important they did send me a birthday text and this is their partner and so you make take this little thing or they came home for dinner amazing we're so good they came home for dinner and so that taking the tiniest thing and making it into all this good stuff literally turning a breadcrumb into a meal

Because the narcissistic person's learning they can do less and less, and you're still on the chain. But it's two parts of this process. The other person, desperate to keep it going for this reason of trauma bonding and all this other stuff, will make something out of that. And here's where it gets tricky, Jordan, because in our world, the relationship industrial complex is appreciate every little thing they do. So you're reading another blog that's saying show gratitude five times a day. That's almost masochistic having to show gratitude to someone who's ignoring you. And then, of course, if you try to end things with them, they'll be love bombing, right? Because the deprivation has lasted so long that they can now turn it up a couple of notches

to try and retain you. And it seems like that might be more effective if they've deprived you if they've deprived you. They don't even have to love bomb you. They just have to show up for dinner. For show up for dinner, right. That's it. That's all they have to do. But they have to say, you look pretty.

You have to have sent you a birthday text. Like the littlest things become the stuff that is enough in the relationship. and if they really do sense you slipping away, then they'll start the full court press again, just long enough to get you back in. What is trauma bonding? You just mentioned that. I've heard it before, but I don't really know what it is. So trauma bonding is this connection, relationship tied to someone we feel that almost

feels psychologically unbreakable. And it's created by the backing and forcing between good and bad, chaos and consistency. So you're always on your back foot in these relationships. And because these relationships often start from a relatively idealized place, things are great. You feel seen, you feel heard, you feel loved, you feel valued. There's all this fun. That becomes this sort of like bank account you keep trying to draw from from your justifications. It will get overdrawn over time.

But what ends up happening is that over time you're justifying, you're rationalizing. But over time, too, you're blaming yourself more. People say, this has got to be my fault. If it's your fault, then it can be fixed, right? You could do something different. people in trauma-bonded relationships will find that they are constantly having the same conflict with this person

nothing is ever getting resolved people when they describe trauma-bonded relationships they'll say it's like we have a magical connection what does the hell is a magical connection doesn't mean anything give me something I can hang a hat on what is this they're not like they won't say like this person I trust them I respect them we laugh together it's none of that stuff or they'll get stuck

again on ephemeral stuff like loyalty like people love their parents. And I'm like, why do you love your parent? Like ejaculation doesn't qualify someone for be a parent. Let's just call that straight. But people like, they're my parent. Give me more. And so when it's a trauma-bonded relationship, right, it's kept in place by this, again, this sort of this pseudo-connection that's created by there's a someday better coming and I know it's going to come and I know I can do something to make it come. And people in trauma-bonded relationships, Jordan, intellectually can even say, I know this isn't healthy, but I don't know how to tell you. If I have to leave this, I'm having a sense of panic, even thinking about it.

So there's this sort of left brain, right brain, emotionally laden, I can't leave, but this intellectually present, I understand it's not healthy for me. That's the trauma-bonded relationship. It's so fascinating. And I think a lot of people listening are like, oh, no, I'm doing that. And that's why one of the reasons I love doing these kinds of episodes, like the last time you and I did an episode, I got so. many emails that were people like, this explains so much, whether it's their husband, their mother-in-law, what are their kids? And so I'm looking forward to those emails because it means the light bulb went off over someone's head and they go, okay, now that I know what's going on, I can get the

book and then figure out what to do about it instead of just blaming myself for my failing marriage and my husband who's cheated on me 78 times with different people. And nothing I'm doing is changing. I lost weight. That didn't work. I got new boobs. That didn't work. I got my hair. It didn't work. We moved to a bigger house. That didn't work. Nothing is going to work. And I think that it's like an experiment at that point, right? If you think of a researcher in a lab, they keep trying every variant and they keep a record of it, right? We tried that. That didn't work. We tried that. That didn't work. And they at least keep records. So they're going to say, okay, none of this is working. Unfortunately, in our lives, it's not a research project. We're not keeping the accumulated evidence. And in fact, there's a real investment from a nervous system perspective that we conveniently push all that evidence out of the way. Wow, that makes a lot of sense, right, because keeping a journal of all the times, which is one of your pits of advice, actually, of all the times you've been gaslighted and abused, that's going to break the psychological shelf to hold all that crap eventually, right? It's going to be hard to deny when you're on your 13th notebook because it's full of double-sided, printed out, whatever accounts of this person treating you like crap. You can't really deny that it exists anymore. You can't deny it, but you still feel that physiological feeling, which is why healing isn't as simple. as saying, this person's terrible, I have to do something about this. It's also understanding how you experience this in your body. I would love to do another show in a few months, because I'm

like halfway through my notes on this. We've got to talk about at some point how to spot a narcissist, how they suck us back in and retain us, what psychological tricks were playing on ourselves, like euphoric recall and all these different things, self-blame. I would love to get into that in the next one, but we're going to be here all day if we do it now. So I'm just going to say, thank you so much for this. We've got to do something in the spring or the summer, too. I would love to. I love talking with you. You do a deep dive. You read the book so carefully. But above all else, I want to always remind people, as hard as this all sounds, it's not you is really a book that tells you anyone can heal and you can heal. And what's on

the other side is actually really good. Thank you very much. Really appreciate your wisdom and can't wait for the next one. Thank you. We've got a preview trailer of our interview with Dr. James Fallon on how psychopath brains function differently from the rest of us, and why psychopaths thrive in modern society. I'm a neuroscientist since about 1989. I've studied the brain imaging scans of killers, serial killers, really bad murders. And you should did one or two a year for many years. And then in 2005, 2006, I got set a ton of them.

And I analyzed them. I said, oh, my God, there's a pattern. So I saw this pattern that nobody had ever described. But at the same time, we were doing a clinical study. on the genetics of Alzheimer's disease. And we had all the Alzheimer's patients we needed, so we needed normal, just normal controls. And so I asked my family, that was kind of my first mistake.

I said, look, guys, you want to all get in? I have my brothers, my wife. I said, we'll test you. And the idea being that on my side of the family, there was no Alzheimer's at all. So we did it, and the two technicians walked into my office, and on my right side, I pile all these murderers, brain scans. And they handed me a pile of my family,

scans and they were covered up so I couldn't see the names. And so I went through, I went through one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I was really relieved that they looked at the first pass normal. And then I got to the last scan and it looked at it. I said, okay, guys, they said, this is very funny. You kid around with each other, right? And I said, okay, you switched him. You took one of the worst psychopaths from this pile of murders and you switched it into

my family, ha, ha, ha. And they go, no, it's part of your family. I said, you've got to be kidding. I said, this guy shouldn't be walking around in open society. It's probably a very dangerous person. So I had to tear back the covering on the name of it. And there was my name. For more with Dr. James Fallon, including how to spot a psychopath in the wild,

check out episode 28 here on the Jordan Harbinger show. There is so much we did not get to. I am already booking part two. Don't worry. It's going to be out in, I would say, a few weeks to a few months, depending on how crazy things get around here, but we are recording that ASAP. It's amazing how narcissists can retain you in a relationship, right?

They'll blame shift, they'll use the Darvo sort of methodology. Narcissists can be like skilled lawyers in terms of putting you at fault for pretty much anything they do. They use word salad. And there's a concept that I love from the book called Future Faking, which is essentially everything will be good just as soon as X, right? It's that bad bet on a better future under certain conditions that either never come or when they come, it's just never enough

because these people are just a black hole in terms of validation. Really important to remember that their behavior, it was there before you got there, and it'll be there after you leave. It will never change, at least not because you wanted it to. These people really have to go for it themselves.

It's extremely rare, and, well, you shouldn't bet on it. All things, Dr. Romney will be in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com, or you can ask the AI chatbot on the website as well, transcripts in the show notes, advertisers, deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show, all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals.

Please consider supporting those who support the show. We've also got our newsletter every week, the team and I dig into an older episode of the show and dissect the lessons from it. So, hey, if you're a fan of the show, and I hope you are, and you want to recap of important highlights and takeaways or you just want to know what to listen to next,

the newsletter is a great place to do that. Jordan Harbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. We've got the logical fallacy flashcards in there has a little bonus for you. Don't forget about six-minute networking as well. That's over at six-minute networking.com. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.

And this show, it's created an association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Millio Campo, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Fee for this show, you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting, and I think a lot of you are going to get something out of this. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. So if you know somebody who's involved with a narcissist, trying to get out, trying to figure out how to change their behavior, which we know we cannot do, definitely share

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