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Dangerous relationships. Recovering Your Reality · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome back to this, the final episode in the series Dangerous Relationships, or at least the final episode in the section of the series that has to do with narcissistic behavior, traits, and disorder.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, I want to focus on recovery, recovering your reality.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: In the previous episodes, we've explored the distinction between healthy narcissism, narcissistic traits, and personality disorder.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: We also explored something that I believe is central to understanding dangerous relationships.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the distinction between intellectual insight and emotional insight.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we considered how over time another person's internal psychological world can gradually begin reorganizing your own.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: So today I want to complete this.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because eventually we arrive at a question that's far more important than diagnosis.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's about what happens to the people who live inside these relationships.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, throughout my career, I've learned something that I didn't fully understand and appreciate when I first began practicing, and that is that people rarely seek help because somebody else has a disorder.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: They seek help because they no longer recognize themselves.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that has stayed with me for all of my career.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: When partners begin talking, they often don't begin by describing the other person.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: They begin by describing themselves.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've become anxious, I've lost my confidence, I keep apologizing, I have to second guess everything I do.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I feel as if I'm walking on eggshells and I just don't know who I am anymore.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And these are not simply expressions of distress, they're evidence that something much deeper has happened.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Identity has begun shifting for them.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the defining uh characteristics of psychologically dangerous relationships is that they slowly move your center of gravity.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, at the beginning of a relationship, you ask yourself, What do I think?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: What do I feel?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: What do I need?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: But months later, those questions might start sounding very different.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Questions like, Will this upset them?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Am I being unreasonable?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps I'm overreacting, and maybe this is my fault.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, without realizing it, another person's emotional reality has become more important than your own.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't weakness.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we've all been there in one form or another.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: But this, as I said, it wasn't weakness, it's adaptation.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And human beings adapt extraordinarily well.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: We adapt to warmth and cold and danger and unpredictability and relationships.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: We learn that at the very earliest beginnings.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: But the tragedy is that sometimes we adapt to circumstances that diminish us.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: This was very evident when I talked about addiction and how families adapt, and it's apparent through many of my podcasts.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: One of the greatest misconceptions about these relationships, though, is that people stay because they're dependent.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they might be, but very often they stay because they remain hopeful.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And hope is a wonderful thing to have.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: It allows us to persevere, to forgive, to remain open to change.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: But hope also has a shadow side.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Hope can persuade us that tomorrow will finally be different, even when yesterday has repeated itself for years.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why recognizing patterns is so important.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because what it does is it frames the frequent arguments, disappointments, and misunderstandings in a way that shows us something.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Things don't get better.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And they do get better, if they get better, it's because of both parties having curiosity, a preparedness to take accountability.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then there can be movement and the relationship evolves.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: But in dangerous relationships, that doesn't happen.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the faces change, the words change, the promises change, but the emotional experience remains strangely familiar.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, many partners begin living in a state that psychologists sometimes describe as hypervigilance.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: I often think of it more simply, they just simply become emotional weather forecasters because they're scanning the atmosphere, listening to tones of voice, watching facial expressions, and trying to predict whether today will be calm or stormy.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's not manipulation, it's survival.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it's survival at a cost.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And when so much emotional energy is spent predicting another person's state of mind, there's very little for your own development.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this is because it becomes the case that your own emotional and psychological state becomes strongly influenced, if not controlled by the emotional state of the other.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So if they're not okay, then I won't be and can't be okay.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I can't rest.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And life gradually becomes organized around avoiding conflict.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, the children.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, whenever I speak about dangerous relationships, my thoughts inevitably return to children.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Not because they suffer more than adults.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Suffering shouldn't really be compared, but because children are still constructing their understanding of themselves and of relationships.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the emotional climate they grow up in becomes the blueprint from which they begin understanding love, trust, safety, and belonging.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Children don't understand disorders, they don't need to.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: They understand atmospheres, predictability and unpredictability, silence and tension.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: They understand that one parent may seem permanently anxious, and they might also understand that everyone becomes quieter when one person has entered the room.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: They understand a whole lot more than adults often imagine.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Their understanding, though, is of what they observe and what they feel rather than the explanations beneath them.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the greatest mistakes we make is assuming that children are unaffected because they can't explain what they've experienced.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Children communicate differently, as I frequently say, and it's through behavior, anxiety, sometimes perfectionism, aggression, withdrawal through becoming invisible, through becoming little carers, or sometimes becoming remarkably compliant.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And not because they are naturally easy children, but because they've just learned that taking up emotional space feels dangerous.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Some might become extraordinary achievers, overcompensating.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And as a child and adolescent psychotherapist, I've learned never to understand, never to underestimate what children silently absorb.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Children don't just listen to relationships, they live inside them.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And relationships become part of their internal world.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why safeguarding is so much more than protecting children from physical harm.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Safeguarding is also about developing minds.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: We think about emotional harm as a subcategory of safeguarding concerns.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: We have to protect children in a variety of different ways.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people ask whether I think individuals with significant narcissistic patterns can change.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's a difficult one.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: There is a school of thought that says the more extreme end, what are known as the category category three narcissists, never change.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's because they don't believe that there's anything wrong or that there is anything that needs to change about them.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Category two narcissists are people who have the capacity because that they recognize that for the greater good something has to change.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And category one, well, they're people who actually, I'm not sure I would I would regard them as narcissists.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think they're people who who who realize they've got something wrong, don't know how it happened, and are eager for change.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the answer is not simple.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: People can change, but they have to want to.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, meaningful change requires a lot more than just understanding, it requires emotional insight.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where we come back to this thing of intellectual insight and emotional insight.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're two different things.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: It requires for the capacity of genuine responsibility taking and willingness to acknowledge and experience another person's pain without defending oneself against it.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's difficult.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I've come into contact with a number of people who are permanently in a like a substate of preparation for criticism, preparation for having to defend themselves even when they're not under attack.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: People who don't have the capacity to tolerate the feelings that might be evoked in them when they're told that they've upset someone.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I've seen these patterns, and it is very hard to work with people like that, or even to have, you know, when thinking about people who I've I've not worked with, but people I know or have known personally, it's extremely difficult because the the relational the relational structure is so narrow that there isn't scope for growth.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so so that's the kind of eggshell organizing yourself around.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And those are those are treacherous experiences.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe those people reach a point where they've had so many of the same sorts of experience that they actually come to the realization it's not other people, it's me.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: But generally speaking, you know, the abiding principle has to be people only change if they see a need for change and they want to they want to take up the task.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: It it can't be done because somebody else wants them to do it, and I think therefore we have to come back to people who are on the receiving end, and this brings us to recovery.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Recovery is one of my favorite words because it's hopeful, and and in this context, it doesn't simply mean leaving a relationship, but then it doesn't mean remaining in one either.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Recovery means something much deeper, it means recovering your own reality and learning once again to trust your own perceptions and learning that your feelings carry meaning and they are real.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: All feelings are real.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, be their feelings, feelings are like indicators, they're they're telling us something, and we need to listen to them, and rather than suppress them or reframe them, we have to acknowledge them.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's real, I really do feel this way.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's okay but also learning that disagreement doesn't make you unlovable, and that learning to put boundaries in place isn't an act of aggression.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they're acts of psychological health, and quite often recovery is quiet.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: It begins with very small moments like saying, No, I'm not doing that, or I'm not accepting that, without apologizing.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: It also means recognizing manipulation without arguing about it, it means not entering into the fine detail, entering into a discussion about it.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: It means standing back and seeing the behavior and calling it out.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is manipulation.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you this, I'm not asking you.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: That that's a boundary.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very important statement.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's allowing yourself to think before you do anything.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's responding rather than reacting.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: I also think it has to do with rediscovering those relationships that make you feel good and learning to trust your instincts again, and perhaps most importantly, asking yourself a question that may not have been around for a long time, and that is what do I think, not what should I think?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And not what will keep the peace, but what do I honestly believe?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that that question or these questions are often the beginning of a kind of freedom.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Throughout the series, I've tried to avoid dividing people into heroes and villains, but because people are shaped by their histories, by trauma, attachment, fear, and loss.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And understanding that helps us remain healthy and compassionate.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: But compassion doesn't mean abandoning ourselves.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's collusion and it's it's self-denial.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And nor should understanding require us to tolerate behavior that repeatedly causes harm.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the balance I've tried to hold throughout these podcasts.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: We can understand, but we don't have to excuse, and we can remain compassionate without colluding, you know, to recognize suffering without ignoring responsibility, because genuine compassion has room for everyone.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: The individual whose life has become organized around psychological defenses, the partner whose confidence has been slowly eroded, the children whose emotional development has quietly had to adapt to survive, every one of those lives matter.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone deserves understanding and everyone deserves the possibility of recovering.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: But recovery is, by definition, something that cannot be conditional.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, well, I'll allow myself to recover as long as it doesn't annoy anyone.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: The probability is that when you do recover, you will annoy people.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: You will annoy people who are invested in you remaining passive, quiet.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when people are in the process of recovery, they become loud.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say that, I don't mean that as aggressively, they become assertive.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because once the truth comes to the fore, many people feel the need to communicate it.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: They've kept their mouths shut for far too long.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a kind of this is what I've had to live with, and this is what I've had to deal with, and I'm not having it anymore, and I'm not going to keep quiet about it either, because that's part of the game, and I'm not doing that.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's um oddly enough, people don't say thank you when you do that.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if there's one message I'd like you to carry away from this final episode, it's this the most dangerous relationships do not usually begin by taking away your freedom, they begin by quietly taking away your confidence in your own reality.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And recovery begins the moment you start trusting that reality again.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Once you have really allowed yourself to say there's a pattern, there is, you know, this I'm not imagining things, there is a pattern.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that because I don't trust my my own judgment.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: That is a really powerful position to take.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for listening.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in our next episode, we'll explore another form of dangerous relationship, and that's one that's often confused with narcissism, but which is psychologically very different.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: We'll begin examining sociopathic and antisocial patterns, asking not only what they look like, but what they feel like to those who become caught within them.