Latest / The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show / Episode 28, Season 1: The Self-Aware Narcissist with Special Guest "The Nameless Narcissist"

Transcript

Episode 28, Season 1: The Self-Aware Narcissist with Special Guest "The Nameless Narcissist" · The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Love Dot Podcast. I'm your co host
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Raina Butcher here with our host, doctor Sarah Hensley, the
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: owner and CEO of The Dating Decoder.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Hello.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: Hello, we are super excited.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Ex nice episode episode twenty eight, and we have our guest,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the Nameless Narcissist.
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: Yes, and we'll keep today because it's part of your
• 0:29
  Speaker 4: identity on social media.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: I love it. I love it. So thank you for
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: being here. We're so excited to have you here.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: And I'm just going to let doctor Hinsley dive right
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: in and ask you all the questions and we want
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to get to know you better.
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I just want to introduce you, just just for
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: a second. I follow you on TikTok and I am
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: fascinated by your videos because you are what you call
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: yourself is a self aware narcissist. And that is more
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: of a rare thing that people who actually have narcissistic
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: personality disorder as a true diagnosis actually become and make
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: it to the level of self awareness. And so that
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: you've given me so many insights that studying narcissism for
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: literally almost twenty years hasn't given me, which so thank
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: you for that. First, I just gonna say thank.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: You, you're welcome. I'm very fascinating.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: Yes, you are very fascinating. I find it.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Ever has ever said that they're fascinating?
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Ever?
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that There's just so many
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: things you've said in your videos that have just been
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: such light bulb moments, light bulb moments for me in
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: my first marriage of like, oh, that's why that happened,
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: or that's why he did that. And I think intellectually
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: studying narcissism hasn't revealed those things. And part of that
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: is because we don't get access to a lot of narcissists.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: They don't come to therapy, or they drop out of therapy,
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: or they're not identified because they're able to manipulate so well,
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: and a lot of people don't catch it. So I
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: just want to know, first and foremost tell us about
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: your journey to getting that diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: NPD for short, and how you actually became self aware.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: So it's a I apologize, it's going to be a
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: long time. That's okay, a lifetime journey right there, it is,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: So I guess, so, like I'll start off when I
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: first started kind of realizing something because Okay, this is
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: something that I don't think you'll talk about enough when
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: talking about having a personal disorder in general. Is I
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: always knew something was off about me, something was different,
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: but I could never really identify what that was. Right,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: I can assume that everybody else is just stupid compared
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: to me. But then what because I remember when I
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: was when I was like, I don't know exactly what
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: my age was, but I was young. I was a kid.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: I remember I went to a funeral of like a
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: family member of mine, and I'm sitting there thinking, well,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I'm like looking at everybody and just thinking, like, I'm
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: assuming that everybody there is playing up this emotional reaction
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: either the garner sympathy or because if they have to,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: or for attention or what have you. And I started
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: thinking like what if? Like but like I remember driving home, well,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: my parents were drivving home obviously, but I was thinking, huh,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: what if I'm the one that's a little messed up there?
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: And of course my childhood was very chaotic to say
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: the least, and because of and like me and my
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: sister both had severe behavioral problems growing up. Whether it
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: be like over violence. My sister was very heavily into drugs.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: She's she's been sober for two years now, by the way,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: graduates graduation. Yeah and she and she has an adorable
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: daughter now. But anyways, so but yeah, So basically because
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: of all this erraticness that at least in my family,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: there was one point that we were court ordered to
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: go to therapy because I had a violent episode. My
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: sister a violent episode. Everybody had a violin episode, is
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: what it is. And this was the first time that
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: narcissism was brought to my attention at all, because I
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: was probably fifteen sixteen at the time. Where and like
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: the therapist there mentioned handedly that like I was showing
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: like narcissistic behaviors. I don't think I was actually diagnosed.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: I think I did. I was diagnosed with conduct disordering,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: but they were like he said that I was starting
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: to exhibit pleas bete and like I looked into it
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: and my first thought was, yeah, I'm good many playing people. Yeah,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: out of emotions like weak people, blah blah blah. It
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: was very surface level. I didn't really understand what the
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: diagnosis meant, and from there on I kind of chilled
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: out a little bit following like that treatment that I got,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: But it was always kind of the back of my
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: head of like, yeah, I probably have MPD, but like
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: who cares, right, who? Like it just didn't feel important,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: especially since my life at the time was going, relatively speaking,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: pretty good. I was very good at kind of maintaining
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of these superficial relationships, getting the admiration and
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: stuff that I craved. This kind of changed though, when
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: I actually went into I went into basic training to
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: join the National Guard to pay for my college, and
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: prior to entering I had these huge networks, like social
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: networks that were basically designed to basically like prop me up, right, like,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: you know, nobody wanted to anger the boss man. But
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: the weird thing is when I was gone, people were like,
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: you know, Jacob's kind of an asshole, so like, so
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: basically I come back and like a bunch of people
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: that I felt were very important me kind of left
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: my life because of a lot of my manipular behaviors,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: which kind of led me to kind of I kind
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: of did like a death spiral where I was like
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: desperately like doing very overtly manipulated cool stuff to keep
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: people in my life because like my desperation for that,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: which led to me going into very depressive episode. I
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: did go into therapy around this time for like a
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: very short period of time. But basically I'll never forget
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: the therapist looking at me because I would I'm a narcissist.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: I didn't like divulge anything basically, and she just looked
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: at me and she was like, I don't even know
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: why you're here. And it's like I don't blame her,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: like she it is what it is and followed. But
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: then following that, basically I tried to restart my life.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: I started working at prison as a directions officer. Just
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: trying to basically start over was my kind of mindset.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: But it and during this time I started dating somebody.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: I thing's going well, but I ended up having an
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: affair with a woman that I was like on off
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: with for a long time. This woman, she me and
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: her were not good for each other, is what I
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: will say. And and like basically I ended up going
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: to therapy for the woman I was having an affair
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: with because I was like I was desperate to be
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: with her just to impress her, Look how healthy I am.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: I'm going to therapy good, but then basically so my
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: actual relationship ends for obvious reasons. And then that woman
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: that I was having an affair with, she dips out
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: again for obvious reasons, and I and like, I just
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: kind of asked myself. I was like, why did I
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: do that? And that's been a question I've asked myself
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: what most of my life is like, I will do
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: these things that are obviously not beneficial to me, and
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: I'm like, why did I do that? So I ended
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: up saying in therapy to understand why I ruined a
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: relationship for somebody who's objectively bad for me. And after
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: and it took two years of being in therapy for
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: me to actually get my diagnosis, because I would just
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: I would. I knew what the therapist wanted to hear,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: what the healthy and quotes thing was to say, and
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to humiliate myself by sounding like I
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: didn't know, you know, what the right thing was. But
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: I and then I ended up betting my diagnosis when
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: one day I was like, I was going on one
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: of my typical rants, just complaining about somebody and because
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, they think that they're like me,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: but they're not like me, like they don't under actually
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: understand me. And I just kind of sit back and
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: I'll never forget. I just start chuckling myself and I say,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: but I can't blame them. They're also fucking stupid. And
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: my therapist, she seems she thinks I'm very mild mannered.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: She's like what, and I'm like, well, I mean, look
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: at them. They complain that I think I'm better than them,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: but like I am, like, look at me compared to them,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: and she's like, these are your friends. And I was like,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, but like that doesn't mean that they actually
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: understand me or know me. Blah blah blah. I'm going
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: like this pulled Radio's tirade and then like and it
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: was towards the end of the section, I stand up.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: I'm putting on my coat and I just say, like, man,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: that felt good to get off my chest. And she
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: was like, well, I feel humbled. And I look at
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: her and I say, were you're fucking mocking me. I
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: was very quickly diagnosed after that, right, gotcha?
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: So it took you, so it basically took you two
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: years to kind of show those true colors. And I
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: guess that makes sense from a from a therapy standpoint,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: with a narcissist, I think it would probably it would
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: be like a long game, right because because they're they're
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: not going to divulge. And I mean, I think one
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: thing that a narcissist will do a lot from my
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: personal experience is am I X. It was never his fault, right,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: nothing was ever his fault. It's still not his fault.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: This is someone I share a child with. And so
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: even after you know, multiple affairs, multiple cheating, you know,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: cheating episodes that he would have, he still blames me, right,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: he still blames me, And there's really no self awareness
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: around that at all from what I know in my experience.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: But I really don't think there is an if. And
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: he's never sought out therapy, so I don't know, if
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: you know, if he spent two years in therapy, if
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: it would maybe come to fruition or not. But it
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: makes sense why it would be a long game and
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: why it would take maybe those moments where you finally
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: just divulge and you're like and then your therapist is like, ah,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: now I see.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: You're actually you're a narcissist. You have MPD.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's so interesting that my therapist said, like once
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: like I was actually diagnosed, is because I asked her
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: about it of like if she had any idea before
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: I started kind of being honest. Yeah, and she said,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: like she said that she always had a sense that
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: something was off and that she was missing something, but
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: she couldn't she could never pinpoint what it was.
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's very interesting. So what's what do
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: you think is the one thing you wish people understood
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: about narcissism because narcissists get just very vilified across the
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: board because so many people have been hurt obviously by
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: their behavior. But at the end of the day, you're
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: a human being. You're a human being who's had trauma,
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: who has had You didn't ask for this diagnosis. This
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: isn't something that you wished upon yourself or chose for yourself,
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: and you obviously have come a long way in your
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: healing journey. And so what is the one thing that
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: if you could talk to sort of the American public
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: about what it's like to have narcissism and what the
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: pain and the struggle is like and what you want
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: people to know, what would that be?
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: I guess the first thing that I would I always
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: talk about is because you see all these articles about narcissism,
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: and what I always say is that they get the
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: behaviors right, not the motivation. And for me, I think
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: motivations are very important because ninety percent of the time
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: there like I can be condictive, but obviously, but there
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: isn't like a malice ninety percent of the time when
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: I'm doing this, Like I like I've talked to so
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: many like because like I like I have a like
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of my exes'm on good terms with, and
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: like I've talked about the relationship imposed to better understand myself,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: and like I always get this, like you made me
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: feel like I wasn't important, like I was replaceable, Like
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: you just didn't care.
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: Not.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: I never meant to make anybody feel like that, right,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: It was just my own self absorption, my need for
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: self esteem regulation made me blind to their own needs.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that makes it acceptable how I
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: treated people, obviously, but I think it's hard to basically
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: encourage people go into therapy for a condition like this
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: when it's viewed so, you know, maliciously, as opposed to
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: what it really is, where it's I'm a bowl in
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: a china shop. Basically, it's like I'm just self absorbed.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: I only focused on my own needs and then a
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: lot of people will end up getting hurt, which sucks,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: but that end, I would say that, like, I feel
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: like a lot of people view narcissism as kind of
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: like as a personality style that doesn't have any suffering
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: to it, which I very much disagree with. Trust me,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: if nothing else like the again, the first one of
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: the first things I ever noticed about myself that was
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: distressing was the loneliness. Just like like just being able
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: to see people connect at this intimate level that I
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: felt like I couldn't get to as always been distressing
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: to me. And one of the biggest reasons I say
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: in therapy is because I'm like I want to, I
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: want to I want to like connect to people like that.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: It just very hard.
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, well, I appreciate that insight because it.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Makes so much sense.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: It does.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Like just thinking about again, it's like the only one
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: true NARSI so that it's narcissists that I feel like
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I know is my ex And you know, it's been
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: hard to have empathy for him, right because he's he's
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: hurt me so bad. But when I hear you talk
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: about you know, the motivations behind it, and you know
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: you'll often hurt well. Sarah heard me say what last
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: week on our way home from the podcast. I was like,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, Paul does have some resounding good qualities,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: you know, And she's like.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: What, And I'm like because, And then I asked her
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: what to name them?
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: And she I couldn't.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: I couldn't because he's never given you an opportunity to
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: show that side of himself to you.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, but when I hear you talk, and I can
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and and I mean, this was a guy that I
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: spent fourteen years with, right, so it's like I can
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: see the motivation of why he did a lot of
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: what he did and the pain that he really deep
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: down feels.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is something that I have to explain
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: to my son now.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: It's like, your dad has this tremendous amount of pain
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: that he doesn't fully understand, right. So it's refreshing and
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: so awesome to hear somebody speak up on that pain
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: because so many times narcissists aren't aware that they hold
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: all this pain, and that's really the motivation behind it,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: and so it's enlightening.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: So again, thank you, Yes, thank.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: You so much. And so one of the things that
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: you said in your video a couple of weeks ago,
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: and I don't know how old the video is because
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: you just never know when it's going to pop up
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: on your algorithm. Right, you said something that was I
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: have never heard another researcher say. And I have read
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: so many research papers on narcissism, books on narcissism, you know,
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: I was married to a narcissist for ten years. Was
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: that when a narcissist is trying to control you, it's
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: not to get a specific outcome. It's so that they
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: can reassure themselves that they can control you. And that
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: was so profound to me because I was very hyper
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: controlled in my first marriage. I you know, especially if
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: there was any negativity towards him, like if I was
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: trying to tell him how he was hurting me, or
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: that this wasn't okay or that this was unfair, that's
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: when it would become extremely manipulative. Right, That's when it
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: would be just the darvo, like the blame shifting. It
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: was all my fault. And then if I wanted to
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: leave he would take my purse, he would take my
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: debit cards, he would hide my stuff, you know, And
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: you know, there was lots of gaslighting, lots of manipulation,
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: and I always thought the manipulation was really directed to
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: get me to be upset and then so that he
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: could say that I was a problem or to keep
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: me isolated or whatever. But I think that there was
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: just this desire to know, Okay, I can't control her.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: I can't have control if I need to have control.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: And that made so much sense to me. So talk
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: to us a little bit more about that, because I
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: think that there is really a myth that they just
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: they want an outcome when it's really more about the
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: outcome is the ability to control you.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Because that's the thing is that, Like I feel like
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: what a lot of people miss about narcissismic way with
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: the core of it is is self esteem regulation. It's
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: they want to feel like they are better than they
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: can't feel good about themselves intrinsically, like I've always said,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: like people don't have any hand worth. People are just
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: people can only have worth if they can demonstrate that worth, right,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: And the only way you can prove that to yourself
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: in MPD usually is proving that you're better than other people.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: And I think a good way to be able to
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: kind of illustrate that is this is like demonstrating that
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: you can if you can control somebody, that proves that
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: you are inherently better than them. And I think a
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: good if I'm referring to the situation we were talking about,
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: when somebody wants to leave me, at least in the past,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: I could not view that through any other lens other
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: than they think that they can do better than they
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: think that they're better than me, stuff like that, and
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: there would be a need to basically show that I
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: am superior. And a lot of times I probably wantn't
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: go to those lengths, usually because I would think, well,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: if I'm desperately trying to cling onto the relationship, that
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: means I'm inferior and it's pathetic. So I wouldn't do that.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: But you know, all presentations can different wildly, But like
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: the but yeah, it's like it's just a way to
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: basically affirm superiority as because I don't really I don't
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: really want to control a lot of people. That sounds
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: like a lot of work, but I want to show
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: But if I am in control. That proves that I
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: am better than that. That affirms my self esteem in
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: that way. And it's never like I and a lot
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: of times like I'm I mean, I'm pretty damn impulsive.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: I don't really have like a good long game a
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: lot of these things. I can be very defensive and
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: manipularly of like in the moment, but it's like half
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: the time I don't even know what I'm doing. I
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: just want to feel better.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: That makes sense, That does make sense, and it really
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: makes me reflect back on my marriage. So just to
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: give you just sort of a little maybe you can
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: help me a little bit, just gain even more insight
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: than I've ever had of us, help us. This is
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: actually we met because we both had like very narcissistic
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: exes and they and they presented in very similar ways.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: So our exes are very overtly narcissistic aggression like bullying.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: I can be louder than you, can be bigger than you,
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: I can be stronger than you. I can be I
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: can control you. I can absolutely make you do anything
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: I need you to do right to fulfill my desires.
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: So my ex struggled with addiction, which is definitely a
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: lot of times comorbid with narcissism. Right, So, he was
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: an alcoholic. He abused opiates. Then toward in our marriage,
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: he stopped abusing opiates because basically I was like, I'm
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: not going to marry you if you're abusing opiates, Like,
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to do that. That wasn't a big
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: enough red flag for me to not marry him. But
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: I did marry him, and then the alcoholism. Alcoholism really
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: took over in our marriage. He was a serial cheater
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: and that was always the thing that was hard for me.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: His dad was an alcoholic and a serial cheater, and
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: then Mom treated him like golden child. So he was
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: labeled the golden child, like he's so smart, he's so
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: good looking, he's the best athlete. And so what I
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: felt like happened in his childhood was Dad was very absent.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: Dad was very harsh. No emotional attunement from Dad, So
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: big Father wound, and then he could run to mom
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: and Mom would tell him how wonderful he was and
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: how handsome he was, and how great of an athlete
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: he was, or whatever he needed. And then so the
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: only way he could get soothed was to run a
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: mom and be told how awesome he was, and so
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: he really became a like I saw the pattern, and
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: he was so addicted to attention from other women and
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: it wouldn't matter who the woman was, if he could
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: get a hit of a tension from another female. It
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: was like that was the only thing that would regulate
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: his own self esteem. And so I'm curious if you
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: have any insight on that, because you're using the word
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: self esteem regulation and I find that really, you know, interesting,
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: that that that is the ultimate goal. And maybe that
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: presents through a variety of different behaviors, but for him,
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: it really presented through a lot of infidelity, a lot
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: of cheating. He was just never he was He's never
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: going to be capable of being with just one woman.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's look so like I have
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: a because I have, like I have a few theories
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: on this, but like I'll try to keep it more concise,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: like because for me, because like for I always think
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: that like narcissists have like one thing that they'd have
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: pride themselves on, right, that like they really focus on
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: that really demonstrates their a legend superiority. But for example,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: like when I was growing up, it was like I
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: got attention because like, I'm a pretty smart guy, I
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: like to say, and when my and the only time
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I would get positive attention was when my parents are
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: basically parading around my intelligence, right, and so that very
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: much reflected my entire life when it comes to something
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: like infidelity, though this is actually something I mean, I like,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: I don't I would say that I've had I've been
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: infidelitus before obviously I mentioned that earlier, but like usually
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: it's like when if somebody is offering me positive attention,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: something that's proof of my worth, it almost feels impossible
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: to turn it down. And that's been like like actually,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: like actually had a recent issue in my relationship where
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: somebody was somebody was flirting with me, and I was
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: eating it up because it's like, oh, you are showing
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: that I'm desire, that I'm attractive, that I am somebody
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: that's worth pursuing. And I didn't want to shut it
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: down because I because I loved it, Like I couldn't
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: like it's like I couldn't say no. And then and
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: then it's like and there's more that goes into that
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: obviously in regards to how it affects my relationship. But
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: it's like that that's the thing I always say, is
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: like self esteem regulation that need to feel better and
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: to feel good about yourself. It trumps everything at the
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: end of the day and will rationalize around it. And
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: I've never like it's, uh, I'm rambling a little bit.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: I apologize, but it's like I but yeah, it's like, oh,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: like it's it almost feels impossible to say no to indidelity,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: even if I really care about the person that I'm
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: with right, just because like that of regulation is like
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: it makes you almost manicked. Sometimes I call them grandiose highs,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: where it's like like I remember the first time I
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: was like asked to be in the newspapers before and
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: I was literally skipping down the street just like feeling
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: I'm better than everybody. I want to go to McDonald's
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: and tell them that they're inferior me.
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: Now, yeah, yeah, interesting. So do you experience that empty,
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: hollow feeling that they talk about?
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: Can you? Can you describe it more? Because I can't
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: connect with what that would feel like, because I feel
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: so intensely and so deeply all the time that I
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: can't connect. I can't imagine a feeling of emptiness. Is
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: there any other description that you could give other than
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: just emptiness? Like what does it what does it really
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: feel like?
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: I feel like a shell, if that makes sense. It's
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: like there's nothing like what I say is, there's nothing,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: nothing deeper to me than my skin. Is what it
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: feels like half the time. And like sometimes it can
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: like it can be like a physical feeling where I
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: genuinely feel like my chest wants to collapse in on
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: itself because it's just it just feels intensely like nothing.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: And this gets very prominent and I think it has
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: to a shame a lot too. Yeah, Like let's say
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: I have a friend who is very attached to me,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: and you know, I'm you know, playing the part, and
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: so I'm and so I'm just kind of like, oh yeah,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: they go to hug me, and I will feel so
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: just almost like just ashamed about the fact that I'm
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: not returning any emotion, okay, because it's like it feels
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: like I'm like lying to them, Like it's like this
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: big facade again. Like I I mean, how I look
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: in the I will look in the mirror and I
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: don't even feel like a person. I feel like I
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: feel like I'm like I'm looking at like a I
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: don't know, video game character or something that I'm controlling. Okay,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Like I can't. It's hard to identify even who I am, period,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: and it's just it's sorry, it's hard to explain. Yeah,
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: like a very, but it is a very.
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: That's a great analogy, Like you're an avatar that you're controlling.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: Interesting, Okay, I know.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: So one thing I wanted to bring up specifically with
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: my ex so he would discard very easy. So it
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: was very, very easy for him to appear as if
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: he was just like madly in love right with me
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: one minute, and then I was in a love triangle
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: with him and another girl for three years. It went
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: on for three years. It was brutal, it was really
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: But what he would do is he would, you know,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: flip flop, right, he would flip flop from her to me,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: from her to me, from her to me, and for
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: both of us. I think I can't speak for this girl,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: but I think in just relation to how I felt,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: is that it was very easy for him to once
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: it was like once he reached the high with that person, right,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: like he reached this threshold of being built up, and
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: then shit would get real. He would discard very easily
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: and then go back to the other one.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: And I'm not.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Kidding, he did this for three years. And so again
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: in relation to the self esteem, I don't I'm not
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: really asking you to make another point here. I'm just
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: trying to make the point in terms of like it's
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: making so much sense and trying to understand my ex
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and not this really dark light, right, because I've seen
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: him in this really dark light for so long. But
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: it's so eye opening. And this is what we really
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: hope for our listeners is that it can be eye
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: opening for our listeners who may be in a relationship
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: with a narcissist in terms of getting out if it's unhealthy,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: because once you lean into these people with more curiosity,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: knowing that these actions and these behaviors come from a
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: place of pain and self esteem issues, then you can
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: maybe know you're worth right and actually get out right
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: and not blame right right, which I thought for so long,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: you know, I thought for so long like I'm just
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: not good enough, Like I'll never be good enough, because
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: this was a guy that I was with for fourteen
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: years and he would never marry me, you know, so
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, but again the discard thing, looking back on it,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: I think I didn't realize this until just this conversation,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: that it truly was never really about me. It was
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: just that he needed that self esteem boost, and when
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: that self esteem boost would reach its threshold, he had
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: to discard that one and then come back to the
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: other one.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: And I was like, anecdotally, like, obviously, you know, having
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: an MPD, it's like, Okay, I didn't have a great
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: childhood obviously, right, And obviously you have a lot of
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: resentment towards your cargivers during that time. And something that
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: like I think is that I really try to integrate
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: into my contents a lot of the time is when
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: I started going to therapy. What really helped me the
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: most was when I started talking to my parents about
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: their childhoods and then understanding the childhoods of their parents
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that. And it sounds kind of bad,
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: but it's like my first thought was, man, none of
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: us had a chance to begin with, right.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Right now, there's something to be said about evolutionary psychology, right,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: and then what are in you know, evolutionary trauma and
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: things that our ancestors passed down as it's real, It's true.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they let me allow me to let go
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: of like so much resent means towards them, which was
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: which was again something I try to get in my
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: content a lot. Is that, like you know, I'm not
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: saying you know obviously it's a lot of times keep
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: your distance surial mental health obviously, but also it's like,
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: and it's weird coming from a narcissist, but hate does
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: it like cling on to hate and resentment? Right, it
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: is exhausting, it is.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: My god, yes, it is absolutely And so that brings
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: up a very interesting point that really only one percent,
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: according to the research, one percent of narcissists reached the
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: level of self awareness that you have and so which
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: would be like high levels of self awareness, right and
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: actually actively continuing the healing journey. My question for you
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: is one, do you believe that statistic is accurate too?
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: Why do you think that is? If it is accurate
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: that only one person reach sort of the healing face true.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Enlightenment, I would have to well, I have well so
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: go so on whether it's accurate, I would have to
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: look into it more. But because I'm not sure if
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: I fully agree with that statistic, I think it might
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: be hot. I think I'm very much in the minority
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: in this opinion, but I do think it's higher, especially
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: since there's one there's one say that I read that
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: shows that this was a study done Norway, so very limited,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: but it said that like up to like twenty percent
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: of people in outpatient therapy had MPD, which I thought
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: was very interesting. Yes, but I don't think that there's
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: much information about like how like the actual percentages. But
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: I do agree though that like, yeah, a lot of
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: narcissists aren't going to seek treatment, and I think that
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: there's multiple reasons for that. At one, I think that
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: there is a site thank you baby, my my girlfriends
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: gave me a beer. But but I think the biggest thing.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: I think the biggest thing when we talk about narcissists
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: becoming aware of their narcissism itself, is that narcissism. I
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: think that there's a huge difference between saying somebody's a
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: narcissist then saying somebody has narcissistic personal disorders. And these
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: are completed a lot of times if some and to me,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: like even I'll say like, yeah, I'm a narcissist in
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: reference to my disorder and stuff. And but the term
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: narcisst is used as a majority. And now this is
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: a population it's already very shame sensitive. So it's like,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: how can you expect a lot of these people to say, yeah,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: I think I might be a narcissist and I need
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: help when there's so much ideas around it that may
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: not be accurate. That is going to inspire a lot
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: of shame. Sure, and well, but that being said, there
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: is so I personally think that there's two groups of
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: people because Deanna Diamond at a great interview about this
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: where she talked about how she thinks that she'll have
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: two types of clients who.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Have an MPD.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: One of them are the people that you kind of
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: it's more stereotypical where it's like, oh, yeah, they can
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: never hear that, like they would never be able to
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: tell her. Then the other group, and I was actually
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: in this group myself, is that they'll where as a
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: badge of honor, We're like, yeah, I'm a narcissist, I
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: deserve to be I'm superior, so like whatever, But they
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: don't have a good understanding of what that actually means.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: But I think that I and I'm hoping that by
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: telling people what the realities of MPD is, there's going
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: to be a lot a lot more people are gonna
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: be willing to kind of accept that they might struggle
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: with these issues and stuff. Right Aside from that, I
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: do think that also the something that I really struggled
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: with when I was growing up, especially up until I
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: was like, like I really got into therapy, is that
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: I had a very close friend of mine who always
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: said that they thought I was suppressed, and I would
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: they were right, Like most of my life I probably
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: have been a pretty depressed person, but it felt pathetic
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: to admit that I could be suffering a lot of people,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: a lot of people make it say it's like, oh,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: admitting something that there's something wrong with me is like, oh,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: you can't admit that. No, it's that I I like,
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: it's like, I'm not like the rest of you. I
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: don't suffer from things like that. I'm not pathetic whatever.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: But I think that's a big one too, is admitting
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: that you are struggling is something that they are going
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: to always that is always going to be kind of
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: and I still do it to this day, always going
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: to be something that kind of impedes any sort of
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: healing and self awareness.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Right well, and I mean again, it's like with the
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: stigmas around depression or mental illness. And if you're talking
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: about superiority complex, right, those people who don't view, you know,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: seeking help as an actual good thing, you know, of
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: course they're gonna.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: Do it as something superior, you know, like they're they're like,
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: oh gosh, that's bad. That makes me feel shame, right,
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: go ahead.
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: Go ahead.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: Like a big thing that I that I've read about
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: is that and I also had is admitting that they
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: need like a therapist to help them is humiliating itself.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: And a lot of narcissists, myself included, would intentionally defy
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: a therapist in order to feel superior to the therapist
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: just so like or just to feel powerful by being like, no,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: you can't help me. I'm too complex. I am like
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: there's no way you can handle me, and then would
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: self destruct just to get one over on them. Right.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: And what we know about superiority complex is it's just
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: as it's a trauma response, make itself feels safe.
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: It is, for sure, Yeah, people seek superiority to seek
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: safety right in their own nervous systems, whether that's to
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: regulate self esteem, to avoid shame, et cetera. Which brings
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: me to another question. There are lots of competing theory
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: theories about what narcissism really is and how it develops.
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: I mean, we have the shame based theory, right that
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: is just a giant defense myanism against shame. And then
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: Craig Malcolm came out with a book a handful of
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: years ago called Rethinking Narcissism that really sort of bucked
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: on that theory and said, yeah, no, narcissists really do
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: believe they're as great as they act like they are.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: And that was hard for me to reconcile because there's
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: so much research on the shame based theory right that,
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: that there is so much core shame and that narcissism
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: is built as a defense to deflect from that shame experience. So,
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: how so what theory feels best to you? What what
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: theory from your own personal experience? I know you can't
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: speak for everybody, but what theory really feels like a
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: good accurate description of why this disorder develops some people?
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: So I have so obviously it's com sure like you know,
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: pro genetic predisposition, and also you know the effects of trauma,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: et cetera. For me, but like if I'm just like
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: talking about my own experience and what my subjective experience
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: growing up was is like, and I will say, it's like,
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: because I respect Craig Malcolm a lot, I don't agree
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: fully with his book based on experiences, but like for me,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: it's like that belief in your It's still hard to
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: explain because it's like, yeah, I believe I'm better than
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: everybody else, but also I'm a bag of shit. Everyone sucks,
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: but I suck slightly less than everybody else more or less. Yeah,
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: and I feel like my biggest thing is kind of
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: like it's this. It's a desperation to maintain this idea
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: of like superiority and my grandiose self image, seeking that
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: wherever I can, because otherwise I don't have, like, I
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: don't have anything else to fall back on. I don't
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: feel worthy as a person in general. I don't think
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: any as I said earlier, I don't think anything's worthy
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: as a person. Uh usually Okay, to anybody out there
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: who does, who might suspected narcissistic, I will say one
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: thing that made me kind of challenge that belief in
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: myself is my therapist was like, what would you say,
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: like a baby who is just born has no inherent
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: self worth? And I was like, I was like, oh god,
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: that's that's that's the first time I ever challenged because
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: even I have some compassion for you know, children, sure,
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: but yeah, like I really think that it's because I
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: don't I'm not sure. I do think that it is
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: a defense against shame largely, but but I would say
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: that it's like it's a little bit more diffuse than that,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: basically because it's like I have it feels like a
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: my Like I feel like everyone's default is worthlessness unless
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: you can prove that you're better. And so it's like, sorry,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: I'm having a hard time explaining this one.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: But to explain for sure, because you're trying to translate
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: over you know, a personality, right, right, So it's very
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: difficult to slain that in words. I mean, I don't
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: think you're alone in that. So are we done? Do
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: you have any more questions?
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: I just want to I think wrap up by first
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: just thanking you for your for your bravery because there's
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: so many people I know that are going to be like,
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: you're a ship bag if you're a narcissist, right, just
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: because you're a narcissist, and like, we don't think that,
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: I don't think. I don't think that at all. I
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: think that you're helping a lot of people. I think
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: you're bringing humanity to this disorder, which is really hard
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: when you've been hurt by a narcissist. And I think
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: that's the last point I want to make, is just
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: you are able to do this thing. And and I
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: realize I'm giving you a lot of like a lot
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: of self esteem regulation here, right, but I think you
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: deserve it in this moment, I think, and overall, I
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: do think you deserve accolades because what I see you
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: do in your video is have immense empathy for people
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: who have been hurt by narcissists while also giving understanding
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: to the fact that this is a painful disorder to have, right,
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: So you're not giving backlash to the people that are like, hey,
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: I've been terribly abused by a narcissist, and I think
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: narcisism is awful, while also saying I get you, I
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: see you, I hear you, I understand that, and I've
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: hurt people in my life too, and I hurt. Yeah,
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: I have pain, And that's actually the driver of this disorder,
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: is the internal experiences of pain. I can't imagine walking
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: around feeling like I am worthless or that I am empty,
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: and that I needed some kind of outside source to
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: tell me that I was okay. I think I had
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: that sum to a degree with attachment trauma issues that
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: I had.
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we all do.
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: And the only thing that held that for me was God.
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: And so I can't say for anybody else, right, what
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: their journey is going to look like. But I can't
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: imagine that level of feeling empty, right, and that level
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: of feeling like shame sensitive, right, And so I don't
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: want anybody to experience that, right. And so you do
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: this really good job of balancing your own humanity, your
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: own experience, with empathy and understanding for others who have
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: been hurt by narcissists. So I just want to tell
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: you to keep going, keep giving us these real life
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: experiences of why I did what I did. There's a
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: lot of honesty, there's a lot of raw material in
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: your videos, and I really enjoy them. So I'm just
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: going to tell our listeners to go follow you on TikTok,
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: and if you can tell me how you got verified
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: on TikTok, I would love to know that because I've
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: tried like a hundred.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Times actually want to know, Like, okay, here's a secret.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: I'll just keep out the secret. Do you have those
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: fake accounts on TikTok that.
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: Try that like a million a million?
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: What I did is I went to to I went
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: to email TikTok and I said, all these people are
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: trying to like impersonate me and stuff like that. I
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: need verification so that I can so that I can
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: like basically take them down. And they were like, then
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: they sent me a form. They were like here put
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: some way put like I don't know what, like news
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: articles you've been in stuff like that. I was like okay,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: and I was verified within like a day.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I did all see, I'll go. But I went
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: through the I went through the just the regular channel
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: of click this button, fill out the form.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: All of that I got to I got denied from
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: that one.
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, so yes, because the impersonators are actually really
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: hurting my business, like they they dm people trying to
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: get money and then people come back and get mad
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: at me. I'm like, I will never DM you, I
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: will never ask for your money. You can only book
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: via my website. I try so hard right to say
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: I have no affiliation with them. I report their accounts constantly,
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: and yet.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: It's so funny because so like people will be like, hey,
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: is this your account? They DM me for like a
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: terror reading? Now, yeah, well that's me. Makes you think
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: that I would give a terror reading right right? Yeah?
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: And I do, like I know who some of these
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: people are. Once is somebody I know for sure who
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: they are. Another person, I know who they are because
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: they're dumb enough to have easily have found them, right.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: But yeah, it's pain because I I linked my Washington
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: Post like I was in the Washington Post. I've been
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: in USA today, I've been an upworthy I've been and
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: they're like, yeah, you're not a famous Like that's not
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: that's not notable enough. The Washington Post in USA today
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: are not credible enough media for you to be verified?
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so what's this email? Like just TikTok?
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: Like what like what? Yeah?
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: I would have to look it up, but like message it.
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: To me if you don't mind.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I will again because again I went through this.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: I did the same thing that you did, where I
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: just did the automated one. I sent the exact same
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: links for the articles that I was in for that
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: and then when they sent me the form.
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: Itself, Yeah, so you kind of that.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's like, so, yeah, I trust me. It's
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: a lot easier when you actually just like that super helpful.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: And I kept and I kept saying each email like hey,
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of impersonators doing this shady stuff right now,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: this is important.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, we just want to thank you again, and
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: I want to add to you know, on top of
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: what doctor Hensley said, I think that a big thing
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: that you're offering people, and even what you offered me
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: today is forgiveness, right, because it's really difficult, like you said,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: when you've been hurt by a narcissist to find forgiveness
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: because it feels so malicious, right, The intent behind what
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: they've done feel so malicious. And so you know, even
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: for me, this is really really cathartic and really healing,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: because you know, I've always been on a journey to
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: forgive my ex, but there's always this tinge left of like, nah,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: fuck him.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: And I don't you know, like it's been easier to
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: forgive mine, because yeah it is.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: And so you know it's healing because it allows me
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: to lean into him with more curiosity and understanding, hearing
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: it from somebody firsthand.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: So again, I just.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Want to thank you, and I just hope that our
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: listeners really get a lot out of this, So please
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: please go follow the nameless narcissist? Is that your handle
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: on all platforms?
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: It is? I began neglecting those platforms on TikTok recently, but.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard to She had to hire me to
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: manage all the other ones, so yeah, I.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: Could only manage TikTok. Yeah, I mean, it's just too hard.
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: It's a full time, too harsh. It's a full time
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: for sure. So thank you again, Yes, thank you so
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: much for being here. I'm going to keep being a
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: fan of your content because again, so many light bulb
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: moments for me that that the science isn't able to
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: grasp at because they're not living in that skin, right right, How.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Can anybody explain like the internal experience of somebody research paper.
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: It's hard, I mean, and as a psychologist who's been
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: a researcher. It's what we do our best to to
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: measure the things that we can't see. But but there's
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: such a self reporting bias, right, And if anybody's going
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: to give this a biased self report, it's probably going
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: to be somebody that's a narcissist, right, who's trying to
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: present well, right and wants to present well. And my
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: ex really wanted to present well. He and the crazy
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: thing just one last thing, Maybe give me some insight
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: into this. He was a very grandiose narcissist, but he
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: didn't see that his own grandiosity sometimes was obnoxious, Like
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: he would brag on himself so much in front of
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: other people, so where other people would kind of like
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: start to give them a funny look of like yeous,
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: that's obnoxious, But he didn't see it at all, like
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: he would get the boost from his own arrogance. His
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: own verbalization of the arrogance gave him some regulation.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: We want to work. I would I put money on
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: because I'm pretty decent, because I've been pretty and said
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: most of my life of coming off as two grandiose,
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: because I know that people don't like that generally. But
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: what I think might be what may have been going
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: on there is it would say, somebody has a bad
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: reaction if I'm being too grandios and stuff like that.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: A lot of times in my head I'll be like, oh,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: they're just envious of them, and that itself gives me
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: more of a like grandiose boost. It's like I'm intimidating them.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: They yeah, want so definitely it be me and that's
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: why they're being so off stent office.
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: Right, right, And that is one of the DSM criteria.
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, is right believing that other people are envious
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: of you, right, And so that that's very interesting and
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: I can actually see that right because I was like,
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: how do you not see that other people see that
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: you're obnoxious? Like how are you not noticing that? I'll
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: never forget this one. Not to extend this too long,
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: but this was right after we got a divorce. My
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: child was in pre school. We went to the first
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: like little parent teacher preschool meeting of like it was
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: a monassory school, so they were doing skills and stuff.
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: We sat there and the teachers are like, oh, well,
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: what do you do for a living? And he went
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: on and on about his you know, how great his
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: job was and then I said, well, I'm a professor
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: at the universe, well this small university I'm not going
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: to say the name in Kentucky. And the teacher went, oh,
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: my nephew's thinking about going there. And he goes, oh,
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: you don't want to send your child there. They're a
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: degree mill and you know, they really have no substance
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: over there at that university. It's just like a sham
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: of a degree. When I just said that I worked
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: there and I've been there for a really long time, right,
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: So it was like this direct hit on me and
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: to make himself have some kind of superiority there. But
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: the look on both of those preschool teachers' faces was
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: one of like, I can't believe you just said that,
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: and you have made me feel very uncomfortable that you
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: just insulted the mother of your children right here in
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: front of me. But he didn't see it as an insult.
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: He saw it as a one up that was that
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: made him look good.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Oh my god, Okay, that's such a funny
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: story that I'm like even, I'm like even, I'm like, oh,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of like second hand embarrassment. Yeah, Because every
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: time somebody says a story like that, I was like,
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: take back the things that I did. Oh God, like.
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: A little cringe, Yeah, yeah, a little cringey.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Was the same way, like his obnoxiousness has never been
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: He's never been able to recognize it. And it's hurt,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: you know, his it's hurt all of his other relationships,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: not just his romantic ones, but his relationships with friends
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: he's never been able to really keep unless they were
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: like childhood friends that he's just had for his whole life,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: and they have this loyalty to him because they've been
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: friends for so long. Like he could never really truly
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: make new, real connected friends. Now, he would make a
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: friend wherever he would go in terms of like the grandioseness, right,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: because it was like wherever he went, he had to
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: be seen. But when it came to true connection, and
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: I think that is a really key that you talked
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: about in the beginning, he never really had it right, or.
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: He's never couldn't make that true connection. And I noticed
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: with my ex the friends that he did make as
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: an adult were all friends that we were, in fact
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: a little bit in terms of like their status or
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: their looks beneath him a little bit so that he
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: could and they thought he was super cool. Yeah, and
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: they let him know that they thought he was super cool, right,
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: and so he loved hearing them.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: He wasn't threatened by them at all.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, like I was say, like, that's actually
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: something I was talking to my girlfriend about recently, is that,
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: like I had of like one of my childhood friends
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: I've known forever. He is one of the only people
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: who've everbody able to talk to me and like point
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: out my behaviors and like critique it in any way.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: And that's because when we were in school together, we
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: like I had my little cult, you know, obviously, but
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: they were they I viewed them as having a similar
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: social standing, but outside of my own hierarchy, so I
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: could view them on even playing field of like, oh,
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: this is somebody that can actually that I'm even with,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: They can actually look at me and tell me about
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: my behaviors. But I also wasn't threatened by the fact
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: that of that, because I knew that I'm so separate.
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah. One of the things I noticed about my ex
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: was like he would really buddy up with like the
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: head of his companies that he would work for, like
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: the bosses, because he did want to be associated with
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: more powerful people, but he would act like they thought
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: he was on an equal playing field with them when
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: really like they like he was an employee. He was
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: like he was not the boss, right, but he wanted
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: to pretend like he was in good with them so
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: that he could act like he was them.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's like, oh, I'm with somebody that's
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: like I'm associated with somebody who's so superior. That means
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: that I am also superior in that way.
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So just interesting how those dynamics play out of
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: how they associate with both those that are superior in
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: those that they view as inferior. Right, Well, again, thank you,
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: thank you so much, so much for being This has
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: been very enjoyable, Thank you and so insightful for our
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: listeners especially, and so again, if you are in a relationship,
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: possibly with a narcissist.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: And you are seeking intervention, please go follow the Nameless Narcissist.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: And while you're going to go follow doctor Hensley at
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: the Dandy Cooder dot com go check out all of
• 51:19
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