Am I more prone to dating a Narcist if I grew up in a household with a Narcistic caregiver?

Well, it certainly sets you up with the vulnerability because it almost normalizes some of it. And it also takes away, it robs a person from their sense of self and the fact that they even have the right to express their needs. Well, that's a perfect trap, because now, if you're not expressing your needs, the narcissistic person you need isn't going to meet them anyhow. You can easily get caught, repeat that same trauma of bonded dance, of justifying this person's behavior, feeling that it's your fault. It really, it endoctrinates you into accepting this behavior in a partner.

Because it's familiar from childhood?

It's familiar, and it becomes It's a psychologically a way of relating to the world. In fact, I've worked with more than a few survivors who said, I met a healthy person. They were kind and empathic and generous of spirit and believed in me. And I convinced myself I was bored with Wow.

That's so true. It is true that there are lots of... We all have a friend or a sibling. You're like, They're such a nice person. The person that you're supposed to be with is right in front of you.

And I tell them, if you've come through a narcissistic family system and you meet someone, and boring is not even the right word. I hate to say it, it's that you're not triggered by them, right? But you feel like it's not It's not what you think love is supposed to be. It's just exciting. But think about what your life was as a child. It was a roller coaster. Good days, bad days. I'm going to win them over. Today's the day. Oh, my gosh. Who's going to come home today? They have a candy bar in their briefcase for me. It's a good day. That up and down and just anticipation almost makes it that an adult relationship that's characterized by that rollercoastery vibe is what you've conflated with love. So when a survivor tells me, I've met someone like, I don't know, it's not all the Zaza Zoom. I'm like, Okay, this might be a keeper. Let's just keep going. Sadly, what I've witnessed, Mel, is that many people had to go through the brutality of a narcissistic relationship. And then after having to leave that and shut it down, were they then able to hold space for someone who treated them with kindness and generosity?

It breaks their hearts. They think, What would my life have been if this was the person I had been with all along? But it's almost as though their psyche couldn't accommodate that Because nobody's teaching this in school. People learn about this after they've been hurt by it.

Well, and the thing that you just said that I think is really important is whatever that roller coaster was, that was your experience of love because you were a child. That's what you know. And so it makes a lot of sense to me. So for those folks that are listening, we got this question a ton. Well, first, let me ask this. So if you listen to the first episode or you already know that you grew up in a household with a narcissistic parent, what are the few things that you need to do for your own healing so that you can be open to and interested in somebody who's healthy, even though you've never been with somebody who is?

Number one is being willing to see it clearly. This is a painful... It's that painful awareness of, oh, my gosh, my parent is narcissistic. My parent is antagonistic. I have a parent who has no empathy. Because it almost is leaning into this... A lot of people say who had narcissistic parents said, I felt a certain shame about my childhood. I knew something wasn't quite right here, but I didn't know what it was. No kid wants to be the odd kid out. Nobody wants to be the kid who was the fighting parents or something's not quite right in their home. I think with people who grew up in those kinds of homes, it was like fake to the world. Maybe your friends would come over and your parent would actually be really charming, but then when everyone was out of the house, your parent was a rager, that inconsistency really would leave people feeling like, What is wrong with me? So it really becomes doing... It is about therapy or doing the deep dive of being willing to look at these patterns with a very open eye, no matter how painful it is that just because you came from a narcissistic family system, it doesn't mean you're damaged.

It's not an indictment of you, which unfortunately a lot of people feel. And then to really take a good hard look at where has this hijacked you? Where has this robbed you of your autonomy, of your identity, of who you are. Do the hard work. Some of that can even be done, if not just through therapy, through journaling, just being aware of where that happened, how you talk to yourself, how you apologize for things you didn't even do wrong, how you're constantly putting yourself down, self-gaslighting yourself like, Oh, I don't know what I'm talking about. Don't listen to me. How many people do that reflexively? That's a throwback to that childhood. It's about getting your house in order before you start going out there and basically replicating those cycles. Skills. Unfortunately, that's not what people are taught to do. And a lot of people in their early 20s don't have the time, the volition, or the money to go into therapy. Yeah.

Are there personality types that are more prone to having a narcissist come into their lives?

Well, I think that there's definitely a person who comes from a narcissistic childhood. There's a vulnerability there. Listen, I'm going to say this, Mel, to make this almost as an easy question to answer. Everyone is. There's not a person out there who's not. And I'll tell you why. Because at first blush, narcissistic people are charming, charismatic, curious, confident, comforting even. They feel like they can take care of things. So if these people were coming in on date one, screaming at you and cursing at you, probably not going to be a date, too. There's a whole phenomenon of love bombing.

Well, okay, we'll get to love bombing in a minute. But how the hell are you supposed to spot one then if you're dating?

Because this is where the trauma bond becomes a problem. So what the trauma bond results in, not just that alternation between good and bad, but you justify the bad days. So, oh, dad just had a bad day at work. Mommy's just really tired. We're all pushing her. And then you internalize that blame. Daddy had a bad day at work. I have to be good. Mom's just really tired. I have to help. So they're trying to, but you justify, justify. Think of everyone in a narcissistic relationship. He had a tough childhood, has a competitive job. The deals haven't been coming through the way they want. They just want what's best for us. I mean, the justifications go on forever. But the justifications keep the toxic dynamic in place, and that's another core pillar of that trauma bond, right? So justify, justify, justify. And so everyone's vulnerable because you meet someone and you're attracted to them, and they are charming and interesting or whatever it is that appeals to you about them. And they stay that way four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, three months sometimes. Now you're You're in. You're falling in love with this person.

Now the stuff starts to gurgle up, those proverbial red flags.

And what are the proverbial red flags when you're dating?

Okay, the red flags might be things like getting snappy when you give them a little bit of feedback, being really entitled when you go to a restaurant with them. So watch how they treat waiters. Watch how they treat waiters. Watch how they treat anyone, how they talk about other people, contentuous dismissal, how do they get along with your friends. It may be that one of your friends, the one friend that might have called them out on someone, might be the one friend they say, I don't think that friend's good for you, thing. Those things will pop up. But here's the thing, Melo was talking with someone recently on my own podcast. And in her situation, she didn't have a single So six years of marriage, not one red flag. I'm going to make people listen to my podcast to hear what happened when the red flags came piling in. But that was someone six years. She's like, I am being honest with you. And people who knew me would say the same thing. There was no red flags. So I'm saying this for one reason. Why? A lot of people blame themselves. They'll say that one day, whether it's one year in, two years in, or 10 years in, the narcissism shows up.

There must have been red flags. I didn't see them. I must be an idiot. This is my fault. This is my fault for not seeing the red flags. And I really want to tell everyone, while some of them may be out there, some of them may be humming at such a low level that you're not noticing them, or they're so reminiscent of what you grew up with. They're It's like, Oh, my God, this is nothing compared to my mother, thing. But in the vast majority of cases, the red flags were there. It's a combination of either people didn't know they were red flags, people justified them, or people blamed themselves immediately. Like, I shouldn't have criticized their sweater, even though it wasn't a criticism. They quickly justify. But everyone is vulnerable. Now, are some people more vulnerable? Certainly. People who grew up with a narcissistic parent or parents, they're vulnerable. People with histories of trauma who already are might be... That can often result in self-devaluation and other phenomena that would lead a person less likely to call out the red flags. People who... This is going to be a surprising one. People come from very happy families with two loving parents and just happy, happy, those folks are vulnerable because they can't even believe this exists.

So when there's a red flag, they'll often think like, Well, we just loved each other through this stuff. There ain't no loving anyone through a red flag. So they might turn to that. There are people who are going through periods of transition. So on the rebound, people will sometimes meet narcissistic people. When a person moves to a new city, has moved to a new job, has experienced a major loss, these are people who are already more vulnerable. And the idea that someone new is coming into your life, especially, let's say, new city. Oh, wow, this is great. I'm meeting someone, and you go into the rom-com mindset rather than like, this is moving a little bit quickly, that thing. People who are in a rush are vulnerable. People are like, my biological clock is ticking. All my friends are getting married, that thing. Those are folks who may be vulnerable saying, Okay, I'm just going to have to settle here because I really want to be a parent, and this is who's in front of me right now. I can't tell you how many people have gotten roped in narcissistic relationships because they felt a time clock ticking around marriage, around settling down, around having a child.

They really felt like, If I don't do this, I don't want to end up like my friend who ended up never meeting anyone and regrets that. I tell you, one thing they regret is meeting that person. Exactly. All of these kinds of other sorts of vulnerability factors that a person can bring in can increase the vulnerability beyond what we all have. I think that the idea that all of us, that somebody is not vulnerable. I mean, again, the unicorns out there are the people who really, really almost I see it right away. Listen, I do this. This is what I do. I'm still still played. People still come into my life. I'm getting better at it. But to get better at it, Mel, I almost had to become... I feel at times there's a part of me that's become closed off.

So is there one or two red flags that for you are just non-negotiable? Like, the second you see that one, you are like, Nope. Because when you talk being closed off because you are extremely warm and extremely smart and extremely generous. And so I'm just wondering because I think that what's scary about hearing all this is that by the time you wake up and you're three months into something or three years into something, and all the bonds are there and the lease is signed, and you're married, or you have kids, or now you've moved in together, or now you got all the chemicals flooding your your body because you're falling in love and you start to hear these red flags, I never would have had the strength, I think, when I think- Most people don't. You know what I mean? To be like, Okay, time to end this.

No, no, no. Most people don't. And that's, again, it's important for people to hear that because a lot of people feel foolish. Why didn't I hear the red flags? I knew it on my wedding day. I knew it. I felt it. Because, again, these stories are so easy to tell backwards. But at that point, it would have felt cataclysmic. And in a way, this was the only way you were going to truly get the lesson. It's unfortunate. The issue then becomes like, when I meet somebody who's a little bit too charming, a little bit too charismatic, I shut down. I'm like, What is this? And people are saying, You're the only person I've ever met who walks away from charismatic people. Literally. I've been at gatherings and a person is just that person. People must think I have some bowel disorder because I'm like, I have to run to the the restroom. The number of times at a social event, I'll say, I have to run to the restroom. People are like, What did she eat?

It's interesting that you say that because I recently had a couple of things go down, both in business and life. That were just shocking betrayals, lies, stolen from, all that stuff that just knocked me over. And when I look back through my life, there is a very pronounced pattern of me being drawn like a moth to the flame to very charismatic, funny, rebel-y people. And I get sucked right in And then I realize once I'm in the inner circle, oh, my God, this person's unpredictable. This person trashes people that leave the room. This person has major mood swings. And then I I literally go into a mode of just twisting myself in knots to not upset the person.

Correct. And that's actually a trauma response. Yeah. Twisting yourself into knots to not upset the person or even like, Oh, you're so great, like the fawning response. These are classic trauma responses.

It took a couple really painful experiences back to back to have me look backwards. It was almost like life hit me with a sledgehammer.

Yeah. I think that that's what it is, too. I both worked in the media and you in a much more profound way than me. But I have to say, over the many years I've done this, what I've always seen was the charming, charismatic, grandiose people never, ever, ever followed through on their promises. Sometimes, almost to my very real financial harm and all of that. And that happened in academia. That happened in other areas of my life. And so I think for me, those Those things have become correlated in my mind. Big talker, big promise, big, big, big, all that big talk, it never comes to fruition. And I got hurt by this. So when we talk about classical conditioning, it's like Pavlov's dogs, this elevating dog when they heard the bell. For me, it's charm and charisma means you're about to either betray me or you're just full of BS. But a lot of harm had to come to me to learn that lesson. When I connected the dots to my own childhood and my own experiences, I saw I could see how I got played. Like I said, now it comes off as a little bit closed off.

I wouldn't be surprised if people would think that about me. I do think that this is, though, in order for all of us to become more Narcissist resistant, we need people around us that will back us up. Where I'm really blessed, at least professionally, is a team that calls BS. They'll read emails like, No, no, yes, no, yes. And then I'll go deeper in. Sometimes I'll be like, Yeah, sure. And they'll say, Listen, it's your gig. You call that one, but we don't love this. Did I hear that right? In fact, the other night, I had had an experience that was really uncomfortable. I was like, Was that uncomfortable? I remember my team like, That sucked. I was like, Oh. If you have the people around you who are actually able to be authentic and call out BS, that's also another way you become more resistant to this nonsense versus almost like-It's almost like having siblings that bond together. Healthy siblings. Yes, healthy siblings. Not siblings that throw you under the bus. Right. And I think that because the problem is a lot of people are surrounded by enablers. Oh, come on. He seems like a nice guy, and he's cute.

And he's from the same place as you're. I'm like, he's invalidating you. I don't care how cute. Nobody's that cute.

I'm sorry. As a mom, now I'm like, thinking about my daughters. But so what is love bombing?

So love bombing is where the charm and charisma turn into behavior. It's the early phase of any narcissistic relationship. We tend to only use this term for romantic relationships. It can happen in friendships, workplace, you name it, anywhere. It is this intense and overwhelming, let me call it a courtship, where a person is... It's almost an obsessive fascination with you. They are as a person trying to win you over. The classical tropey love bombing is on your first day, you go to the best restaurant in town, and they get the concert tickets no one can get. And on your third day, you fly to Paris, and you dance till 6:00 AM on the beach, and it's so exciting, and they make a scavenger hunt for you, and they get you gifts. And every Friday, there's a dozen roses waiting for you. That's love bombing. It's fairytale. It's larger than life. But I think if we only use that trope, it's tricky. Yeah, I was just going to say, who can afford to do that?

I'm like, how do you do that on a blue-collar budget?

I'll tell you how. Tell me how. You take people to whatever is considered the best restaurant to your Got you. The person is still going to think that's great. They'll pack, they'll say, Let's go on a drive to wherever the cool place to go on a drive is. I'm going to show you the coolest view you've ever seen in your life. They'll buy things.

It might not be-It's like the whiskey off your feet. I'm proving to you.

It's the good Good night, princess. Good morning. I can't start my day without thinking about you. And then there'll be subtle things like, take a picture where you're at. I just want to see where you're at. To me, that's this person stalking you. Why do they need to know where you're at? Of course, I am the anti Romance. Do not find me on Valentine's Day.

A couple of those is fine, but not on the second date.

But it's a lot of that. It's intense contact. But love bombing just doesn't look like that. Love bombing may become really intense is almost oversharing really early in the game. They're laying out this really deep, profound, true or untrue story about their past, about their childhood, about what they're feeling. And for some people, that's the play because they'll say, Oh, my gosh, this person is sharing so much. They're so vulnerable. And now you're in because they've shared so much. Love bombing can be too much time together. Our first date lasted two weeks. Do you even have a job? What first date last two weeks? So when people say that stuff, or I knew right away. I was like, Trauma bond. The minute people say that, I know that sounds so cold, but it's actually not. It is this... People I'd say, when I first saw them, I was really attracted to them, but not like I knew right away. But the two week first day, there's this intense intention. They spend so much time together. I canceled all my plans to be with them. Their lease came up, and yeah, we'd only been together a month, but we decided to move in together.

Fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. The fastness is also a part of love bombing. It's an intensity. It's what I call an intense indoctrination into another person. They are winning you over. When you're being love bombed, you're so distracted by the sharing, by the obsession, by the texting, by the emails, by the gifts, by the quickness that you're not noticing the red flags.

So what do you do if you're a friend? Because I think often Sometimes, if you see this happening to a friend or you, as the friend on the outside, start to have the red flags go up, and you say something to your friend, Maybe you guys should take it a little easier. Or, I hear he wasn't that great with his last girlfriend. Or you just tried... How do you approach it if you're the friend?

Don't drop a dime on the other person because the minute you try to-What do you mean drop a dime? Like, I heard they weren't great with their other person. He's moving real fast. It's something Everything we learn from doing treatment with substance users is, do not make them defend their behavior. And don't make them defend the narcissist. The minute you say he wasn't great with his former partner, Yeah, have you ever met his former partner? And now they're defending them. Never do that. You got to find the back door.

So how do you find the back door with a loved one?

You say, How are you? Talk to me about your new relationship. How are you feeling? How are you doing? And they'll tell you the story, Wow, that's a lot happening. How do you feel about that? You might be more likely for them to say, Yeah, it is a lot. I'm trying to go with it because I've always thought, I don't deserve a fairytale. Now I'm getting the fairytale and say, But it feels fairytale-ish about that, too. You're trying to get them to talk without getting them to defend the narcissistic person. Listen, I'm basically trying right now to train people to use therapy tricks here, right? But that's really what it is, because I think we're so quick to say, I don't like them. The first thing they're going to do is defend them. You've got to get them to talk about the relationship so they start spilling on like, Oh, I don't know about this. What do you mean you don't know about this? And let them talk and say, Well, if you're feeling like that, do you feel okay? I don't know. Take a step back It's like, you can do that because it sounds like this person cares about you so much.

And that's a little manipulative, but if you're trying to save someone, you try all the tricks. But what you're trying to do is give them permission, maybe, to slow down, to pull back, or saying, he wants to move in right away and say, you love having your own place. So how do you feel about that? Get them to talk about the thing that they value, which is to having their own place, versus what fool wants to move into your apartment in a month?

Right. I got it. That's very, very clear. So if you're spotting this, just get them to talk. Open-ended questions. Do not say anything that makes them defend.

So interesting.

I can look backwards now and see as a parent, several mistakes that I made.

Because as parents, too, Mel, we're so quick in there to want to protect our kids. I think nowhere else do we see that reactive like, bad, bad, bad. And it's almost like you can feel the clenching in yourself of saying, well, talk to me about this friendship, and inside you're like, Leave them. I hope you never talk to them again. But you can't because everybody, when they're ambivalent about something, and we raise the thing that they're ambivalent about as being bad, their reactive response is to defend that because they're ambivalent.

It makes a lot of sense. It seems like you can't talk about narcissism, particularly in the dating world, without the term gaslighting coming up. Can you explain what gaslighting is?

Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse. It's a form of manipulation. But it is a doubting of reality followed up with making someone feel impaired. It's It's not just lying. It's not like, I didn't move the checkbook. That's a lie. They did move the checkbook. It's not, That never happened. That's a lie. It did. Up to the first part of gaslighting is lying. It's the second part of it that makes it gaslighting, which is the... You say, we'll use a simple example. Did you move the checkbook? I always keep it in this drawer. No, I didn't move the checkbook. Are you sure you didn't move the checkbook? It's always in this drawer. You know what? Your memory has been going lately. This isn't the first time. You've been so distracted and stressed. In fact, it's affecting our relationship. Have you thought about talking to someone? Now it's become a conversation about how you have memory problems and are distracted and stressed out of your mind, but they actually did move the checkbook.

I had this situation. I can't really go into it in great detail, but dealing with a narciss and a work relationship where I knew something was up, I would say blah, blah, blah, blah about the issue, and they would lie, and then they would point it back, But you've been so busy. Correct. I handled it.

Correct. Bingo.

Over and over. And then the closer I got to the truth, the more I noticed this rage. In the narcissists that I now see that I have dealt with, whether it's in work or in life or relationships or friendships, there's always There's this moment that I call that... You know in the Bravo, Real Housewives of New Jersey, that famous clip where that woman flips over the table?

Yes. I don't even watch it, and I know that. It's like this rage. Yeah, it's rage. That's a great narcissistic moment.

So Narcistic rage is a thing?

It's absolutely a thing. Because it's a rage that's set off by their thin-skinned reactive sensitivity. Something that does not require a table being flipped over. I don't know that anything anyone could say to you would be a table being flipped over. I mean, short of like, I don't know. I killed your best friend. I suppose I might flip a table over at that point. But short of that, no table flipping. And table these very dramatic dysregulated gestures. And afterwards, they'll soft pedal it or downplay it or give you a pseudo apology, and then just do it again.

Yeah. Wow. Are there other forms of gas Gaslighting that might surprise us? There's that lying and then flipping it back on you. But are there other forms of gaslighting that surprise people?

In some ways, there's other things that are gaslighty, like the silent treatment in a way can have a gaslighty feel because you start feeling like you're losing your mind. So that's a great example of a gaslighty behavior. At some level, denial can have a gaslighty feel. Again, gaslighting in its purest form is the denial of reality and then telling you there's something wrong with you. So that's the sequence of it. But it can take these other... Can't you take a joke is a great example of gaslighting. You're too sensitive. Yeah, you're too sensitive. Can't you take a joke is a great example of they insult you. You have a reaction to that. I was like, That was not okay. It was in front of a group of people. What were you thinking?

I didn't mean it that way.

I didn't mean, Can't you take a joke? So now you're this hypersensitized, hyperreactive person who can't take something that was allegedly a joke, even though the tone or anything. Can't you take a joke? And again, I think comics do this all the time. I mean, I don't know, being a comedian relationship is probably a tough because probably everything is a joke, right? But that's another great example, something you don't realize it's a gaslighting.

I want to take a highlighter, and I want to highlight this right now for you listening. Because if you've never heard that narcissism is not something someone's born with. It is created in childhood. It is the result of repeated trauma. And what Rebecca is explaining to you, and this piece of it is critical, that the trauma during childhood, emotional neglect, physical abuse, whatever the trauma may be, it causes a rested development in the part of the brain that is responsible for someone's emotions. Yes. And what does that mean? That means that while their prefrontal cortex or their thinking part of the brain is fully functioning, their emotional part of the brain is lagging. That's why somebody who has a narcissistic personality personality has so little emotional control. And when you start to understand, oh, wait a minute, the thinking part of the brain goes forward, but the emotional one literally stops. If you've ever dealt with somebody who's Narcistic, I bet they spin on a dime. I bet all of a sudden they can rage at you. I bet all of a sudden they're irrational. And when I started to realize in my own brain, Oh, wait a minute.

This is something that a narcissistic person has no control over. This is why they're so unpredictable. This is why they're immature. This is why they can say such mean things and be like, I understand that. It has to do with the delay in the emotional development while the thinking part of the brain is proceeding. And this is really important for you to understand because this is not your fault. Yes. There is nothing you can do to change this. And getting yourself all wrapped around the axel because you got somebody in life that tantrums at you, like some eight-year-old. This is part of how the brain developed because of the, you heard the word again, arrested development in the limbic system. And this was critical for Rebecca to learn so that she could navigate the courtroom, so that she could be a savvy negotiator, so that she could get into the courtroom or into the deposition and win because she knows she's dealing with somebody who's super sharp in the mind, but ridiculously immature in the emotions. This is so life-changing for you to wrap your brain around because this has nothing to do with you.

And later, I promise you, Rebecca Zahn is going to teach you her four-step, proven approach to negotiating with somebody that has narcissism and still winning. She's also going to give you the phrases that she likes to say that really disarm somebody with this arrested development. And when we come back from a short word from our sponsors, you better be here, because I'm going to be here with Rebecca, and you know what we're talking about? We're talking I've got this phenomenon called blindness that happens when you have narcissism. This is also part of how a person's brain develops during early childhood. I can't wait for you to hear this, so stay with us. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. I'm so thrilled that you're still here because we are with Rebecca Zung. She is one of the world's highest ranked attorneys, worlds, the US. Okay, I'm just so excited. I'm now starting to inflate her credentials. But the bottom line is, she's a badass, and she's here teaching you and I about narcissism and what she's learned as a lawyer, and in research and writing three different books on the topic about understanding how Narcism is developed as a result of childhood trauma.

I want to recap what you've already learned, because this is going to empower you. You've already learned that narcissists are not born, they are made, and they They are the result of childhood trauma. I'm going to repeat this part because this is a game changer when you understand this. Due to childhood trauma, somebody with narcissistic tendencies or full-blown narcissism, what happens is the thinking part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, it keeps on going and developing. But the limbic system, the emotional controls, has this arrested development, which is why when you're dealing with somebody that narcissistic tendencies, they can seem super irrational, or emotionally immature, or like crazy selfish, like a six-year-old who doesn't want to share their toys, and then erupts in something, and then you're like, What is going on? And then somehow you feel like you're the problem. And so, Rebecca, I want to continue right in this thread, and I want to flip the script a little bit. As As you're listening, I want you to think about somebody in your life that you're dealing with that either has narcissistic tendencies or is a full-blown narcissist. Maybe it's your mom or dad, maybe it's your ex, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a boss, maybe it's a kid, somebody in your life that really fits the description that you're starting to fully grasp.

Good. You got that person? Great. Now, I want you to take that person, let's just say it's your dad, and let's shrink Take your dad down and imagine who's just a little kid who is experiencing a traumatic situation in their house, whether it's emotional abuse, it's physical abuse, it's abandonment, it's loneliness, whatever it may be, that that is their reality. And so can you explain what's going on for that little eight-year-old kid that's exposed to this, Rebecca, and how narcissism develops?

So for children who are dealing with this continuously in households where there's a lot of stress, where there's a lot of trauma, and they're exposed to this on a continuous basis, while the pre frontal cortex part of the brain continues to develop, the part of the brain responsible for judgment or other thinking, planning, that continue to develop. And so during the rest of their lives as adults, they appear to be functioning normally. There's actually a disconnect between the development between that part of the brain and the limbic system part of their brains. And so while they are functioning normally in one part of their lives, and now something might happen, some trigger, some stimuli has caused them to feel like they need to be back into survival mode. And that stimuli can be anything. And most times, it's not necessarily rational or reasonable to most people, but it is to them. And it can be anything. It can be nonverbal or it could be verbal. It can be a nonverbal cue, such as an eye roll or a stance, or it could be a tone of voice. I always say, Narcissus hear tones like dogs hear whistles, but there's no tone, but they hear tone.

So it could be anything. But They get triggered. That thing triggers them. And because of the phenomenon called splitting that they have, where everything is black or white or good or bad or whatever, when that triggers ever happens, now they go from that prefrontal cortex back into the limbic system. That limbic system becomes activated. And now you're dealing with that limbic system, or they are dealing with that limbic system. And that emotionally charged state is what is taking over now at that point. And now that front part of their brain is no longer in charge anymore. Their limbic system is now in charge. And when that happens, they don't necessarily remember or know what they're doing. That's what's now happening. And when that happens, it's what's narcissistic injury, is what it's called. And they will then take themselves down, sometimes, to take you down. The retaliation might happen. They inflict harm. They manipulate. They have little recollection of their actions at that point. And they are seemingly blind or indifferent to the collateral damage that they cause to themselves or others during that state. They are literally blinded by their actions.

We have to stop on this point right here, because what Rebecca is explaining to you when she talks about blindness and this being tied to the brain development. This changed my freaking life. And I want to take a highlighter, and I wanted to change your life. Because when you have somebody that is narcissistic in your life, and they say, I never said that. That never happened. You're wrong. I didn't mean that. I always felt like they were lying to me, that there was this intent to destroy, right? And when I dug into the research, just like Rebecca dug into the research, and I learned that there is this term, blindness. That due to the arrested development in the limbic system, which means they have little to no emotional control, right? That the emotional eruption, when they get that wave of emotion, it does override the thinking center, and they completely forget what they did. I will say, are there narcissists that do it intentionally? Probably. But it It's super helpful for me to realize that there are things that have gone down in our family, for example, in the past, where somebody with a narcissistic personality or narcissistic tendencies erupted and said some really cruel things.

There were tears, there was a fight, there was upset. It has always bothered me that the person has operated as if it never happened. And what I've come to realize is that based on the research, if it is a heightened emotional state, they might not even remember that it happened. And if we track back to the example I gave you. Remember when I asked you to just imagine, let's just say it's your dad who's narcissistic, and imagine him as an eight-year-old freaking out, right? And having a complete temper tantrum. Do they remember the mechanics of the temper tantrum? Usually, they don't. And so you know this based on your experience, but being able to tell yourself, Oh, they say this because they actually don't remember saying it. Yeah, they may be a sociopath dickhead, too, but there's all There's also this, again, spectrum, where because somebody is so emotionally immature and they get so triggered so fast, and then they erupt with emotion, and then they forget that they actually said it. One of the things that I love about this is We have had a number of the world's most renowned experts on this show.

One of my favorite things that I have ever learned about narcissism, I have learned from Dr. Romani Diversula, who, by the way, is coming up for a two-part series because she has a new book out about healing after you've been sucked into a narcissistic relationship. But one of the things that I learned from her, and this is why I keep repeating this stuff, that narcissists are not born. They're made, and they're made during childhood. And what I loved about that is that it allowed me to feel sorry for a narcissist. And that may sound like a weird thing to say, but when you feel sorry for somebody, You get your power back, because they don't seem so big and scary anymore. When I look at an adult who is narcissistic, you know what I feel? I'm like, Wow, you must have experienced a lot of trauma as a kid. I feel pretty bad for you. And that ability to feel empathy or sadness or feel bad for somebody, it gives me my power and makes me not susceptible to their BS. You know what I'm saying? And so knowing that narcissists are not born that way, they're made.

Tap into a little empathy. And now you know, because there is this arrested development, you are dealing with somebody who is not mature emotionally, and you are dealing with somebody who will tantrum as an adult. You are also dealing with somebody who will likely deny that they did that because they're blind in those moments where they get wildly emotional. And, Rebecca, why this is so important is that one of the most important things, and we're going to get into Rebecca's four-part strategy that she uses when she needs to negotiate or navigate or diffuse or win against a narcissist. You're going to learn the phrases that diffuse somebody who has a narcissistic tendency or approach. But what I love about this is you're getting the why this works. You're getting the understanding. You're getting the facts and the science and the research so that you know this isn't about you. And I think that it's really empowering for me to know that every time this particular person in my life that I love, who is so easily triggered, who so easily rages, who so easily, like at the drop of a hat, boom, the who's always about them, who's got crazy-ass expectations, and the second that the expectations aren't met, they're pouting like a freaking six-year-old.

When I can look at that and go, Oh, this is childhood drama. This is somebody who is not emotionally mature, and probably never will be, because the development of their limbic system got arrested due due to childhood trauma. That's why they don't think rationally, and that's why they can't control their emotions. That's why this has nothing to do with me.

That's exactly correct. That's exactly correct. Even beyond that, what people need to understand is when that is happening, and because that is happening, dealing with that in any situation means that you cannot communicate with them. You cannot negotiate with them in the same way that you can with a rational, reasonable person. You cannot.

Well, Rebecca, I love that you said that because we're both parents. Just to make this as So simplistic that anybody of any age, anywhere in the 194 countries where this show is syndicated, can understand it. Just like you cannot negotiate something with a eight an eight-year-old, the same way that you would negotiate with a fully functioning adult, you need to put someone who's got narcissistic tendencies into the camp of negotiating with an eight-year-old, because you're not dealing with a fully functioning, rational human being with fully developed emotional centers in the brain and the ability to regulate themselves or even understand what they're doing. Is that correct?

Yes. And I would even say an eight-year-old who's having a tantrum. Okay.

I love that. How did knowing that help you?

Oh, so much so. So much so. Because once you learn this, then, first of all, you can stop taking it personally. Second of all, once you learn that you can stand in your own power, and they're actually way more afraid of you than you are of them. Are they?

Are they afraid? Do they feel fear? You start to feel like this person is such a cold piece of shit that you wonder, do they even feel fear? Do they not?

I mean, they're afraid that you're going to leave them. They're afraid of abandonment. They're afraid you're going to expose them. They're afraid. They're very fear-based individuals. I mean, they're afraid you're going to figure out that it's all a big bruise, that none of what they're doing is... That you actually have more value than they do. The next step is knowing that once you stand in your authentic power, that they can't touch you because They prey upon people who don't have that. They prey upon people who have leaky boundaries. They prey upon people who are... They're going to be able to get, suck that supply from because that's what it is that they need.

You We use that term leaky boundaries. What are leaky boundaries? Give us an example of what a leaky boundary would look like.

Leaky boundaries is when instead of stopping somebody from doing something, we allow something to happen that we probably shouldn't. So for example, we don't speak up when we should. I I can say for me, in my business, I saw some things happening with money, for example, and I didn't say something, and I should have. Sometimes maybe you allow things to happen. It's just like things happen in relationships where you shouldn't and you don't speak up. You're just allowing things to happen happen when you shouldn't. It's an emotional response to trauma, and it allows you to be open and vulnerable to situations especially with narcissists, that allows them to come in and take control.

I feel so empowered, don't you? Now that you really understand the brain and the development and the emotional aspect of this, and that it's not your fault. And now that we got that, we're armed with the knowledge, everybody. I want to pivot, Rebecca, and talk about this concept that you have researched extensively called Narcistic Supply, because this concept also changed my life. And so based on your research, can you explain to the person listening, what does Narcistic Supply mean? And we have to really put a lot of emphasis on this as you're listening. And here's why. Because you have to understand narcissistic supply in order to truly follow Rebecca's four-point strategy and in order to use the tactics to win. And it has to do with narcissistic supply, okay? This is paramount to you understanding and being able to effectively deal with narcissism, negotiate with a narciss, stay grounded in your power, and not get sucked in to this supply and demand loop that Rebecca is just about to explain to you. So, Rebecca, give us the 101 on Narcistic Supply and Why It Matters.

It's anything that feeds their ego. Because ego is the only thing that They feel is... They're very steeped in ego. So it's the only thing that motivates them. It's what fills them and gives them a feeling of value. So for me, I say there's two levels of narcissistic supply. It's that diamond level supply and what I call coal level supply. And there's two tiers. To me, it's tiered. And it's important for people to understand that when they go to create leverage. This diamond level supply is all wrapped up in image. So it could be celebrities, it could be money, it could be a new girlfriend, it could be a judge in the courtroom, it could be their employers. It could be the employees. It could be a new wife.

Could it be the outfit they're wearing, the car they're driving?

It could be the label of the outfit. It could be what bank they're banking with. But it's all wrapped up in image. It's all wrapped up in what I call the window dressing of the world. But they will protect and defend the diamond level supply at any cost, even at the cost of their children, even at the cost of their children. And I have seen it. Period. End of story. And then there's what I call coal level supply, which is also very, very important to them. They love it, they need it. But there's a slightly less tier, which is degrading people, controlling people, manipulating people, treating people poorly, pushing other people down in order to make themselves feel good. So passive aggressiveness, little comments, Oh, that dress is very becoming on you for your figure, things like that.

One of the things that I've seen a lot, because I feel like I've mostly come in contact with people that do the coal-level supply, that insult other people, manipulate other people, is this concept of triangulation, where they are gossiping and they are building bonds by trashing other people. They're the person in the corner of the room at a party who's gossiping about everybody else to create a bond with someone in the corner. When I first heard about triangulation and that type of, as you call, coal-level supply, trashing other people to bond with the people that you're with, that was my first introduction to narcissism about five years I'm like, Wait, that's what a narcissist does? Oh, yeah, that's the number one sign that somebody has this as a personality type. And it was mind-blowing because I didn't realize that that becomes something that somebody does in order to supply their own ego. Because when you're trashing other people, of course you feel better than other people. And once you see that trashing other people as a sign that you're dealing with narcissism, and you see it in the context of supply, I just want to warn you listening, you're going to see it everywhere.

I mean it. You're going to see it everywhere. Narcissism, I find to be an absolutely fascinating topic. The reason why I don't think it's dark is because I believe that when you understand what it is and what it isn't, and when you have tools, all of a sudden, there is a light at the end of the tunnel that you're walking down, and you realize you're not crazy. You're around somebody who's making you believe you are.

Correct. That's beautifully put. And I agree with you. In a way, what it is, is you're giving... Back in the day, we would have said a roadmap. Now, I'd like to think of it as GPS. I'm giving people a I'm hoping to give people a guide to what they're dealing with, and not in an accusatory, your bad, I'm good way, but in more of a, this may not be good for me. And the challenge in this space the narcissism space is so many people invest themselves and can I get this person to change? Can I be better? Can I do different to pull something different out of them? And it's to say, Stop. That's not going to change. It's like trying to change the weather. There's nothing you can do to make Chicago warmer in February. It's going to be cold. Bundle up great city, but it's going to be cold. Okay.

I want to just go. There was a wake-up call right there. When you're done listening to this episode and you understand what narcissism is, and you learn the signs to spot it. Takeaway number one is, you cannot change the weather in Chicago, and you cannot change the behavior of a narcissist. So let's start at the beginning, because People are fascinated by the topic of narcissism. The word is now thrown around all the time. What is the definition of a narciss?

Okay, so let's get... I even want to go to step zero from step one here, is to say, Narcism is not a diagnosis. Wait, what? Everyone's like, Don't diagnose people. I'm like, okay. I roll up to someone, I said, If I called you stubborn, would you tell me I'm diagnosing you? They're like, no. If I told you you were agreeable, would you tell me I'm diagnosing you? No. Then why are you saying narcissism is a diagnosis when it's not? It is a personality style, just like agreeableness, just like introversion. All of those are personalities these styles. Nobody's getting themselves all be in their bonnet when we say those other things.

Wait a minute. I thought that this was like a diagnosis. See, already I'm learning stuff from you.

Narcistic personality disorder is a diagnosis, right? Okay, that is. Okay. That's a very specific... Three words, specific. It's like, let me put it this way. No one would get mad at you if you walked up and said, Gosh, you're sad. You seem a little depressed. Don't diagnose me. We'd be okay with you saying, Oh, you're sad. You seem a little depressed, Why? Depressed actually is a a clinical term, right? Depression, it's actually called major depressive disorder, is a diagnosis. That's actually more on point. But this word has got people so worked up, Don't diagnose me. It's interesting. It's a pattern that is rewarded by society, and yet people don't want to be called it. I'm like, Pick a lane, folks. Let's start here. It is a personality style. It is a maladaptive style. It is an antagonistic style, but it's a style, no different than any other personality style.

Okay, so just so I make sure that I'm tracking and everybody's tracking. Basically, we've collapsed two things when we talk about narcissism in society. There is narcissists and narcissism, which is a personality style that is maladaptive that we all might exhibit at some point.

No, no, no, no, no, You got a personality, and that's their personality. For example, Mel, I'm introverted. Everyone's like, No, you talk so much. Oh, heck, no. There was a day the other day where I didn't speak to a single human being, and I didn't leave my house. It was the best day of my week. People are, Aren't you sad? We're going out. I'm like, Have fun. Don't call me. We're good. I am a naturally introverted person. I am never going to be the life of the party. I I am never going to want to go to a party. I am not a joiner. And after I spend time with a large group of people, I collapse into bed. That's my personality. I've been like that since all my life, and that got shaped. So if that is my personality, some people aren't a little bit introverted. There's an extroverted person. If you've ever spent time with an extroverted person, they actually lose their mind. I don't have plans. Where is everybody? I can't believe If I need to be alone. I work with clients who are extroverted, and they really are upset about that.

And as an introverted therapist, for a minute, I was like, What? That sounds like fantasy camp. Like three days alone? Sign me up. But I have to be empathic to, this is hard for them. They're exhausted by being alone. I have an incredibly extroverted child, and when she's alone for six hours, she actually starts feeling very sad. And that's real. I can't say, Don't be ridiculous. Use your time alone. Just like if somebody said, Don't be ridiculous, Ramony, you're at a party, lighten up. It's the same thing. So that's why I'm saying, you are what you are. I actually think a lot of people out there don't have narcissistic qualities. So this leads us to, then what is this?Personality style.Right. What is this?

But there's two things, just so I'm tracking, we're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about narcissism as a personality style, and then narcissistic personality disorder, which is a diagnosis.

It's a diagnosis. You know what? I don't even think we should talk about it. Because the fact is, only one to make Maybe 4% of the population has this personality disorder. The vast majority of cases are never diagnosed. I actually think they should get rid of the diagnosis. I think it serves no function whatsoever. I really don't. It's the only diagnosis in the world where having it means you do more harm to other people than to yourself. Most disorders are based on the distress that the person themselves are facing. A person with major depressive disorder is really struggling. A person with generalized anxiety disorder is experiencing distress. Stress. Even other personality disorders like borderline personality disorder, these are people who are having a lot of distress. Narcistic personality disorder, as long as life's going the way they want it to, they are happy as can be. Until something goes wrong, then they make a mess, scream at everyone. And then when it goes back to the way they are, they tend to make more money, they're much more successful, they tend to have more success in dating. So this is a tough diagnosis to give out.

Now, let's break down what narcissism is. Okay, great.

And I just want to make sure because this is such an interesting topic, and obviously, there's lots of content out there all over the place, but you are, in my opinion, the world's leading expert on this. And so what you're basically saying is, if we just understand what a narcissistic personality is, that's enough, because then you can spot the signs, then you can learn to protect yourself. And if I'm going to extrapolate what you're saying, you're They're basically saying the 1-4% of people that ever get that diagnosis anyway already have the personality type, so it doesn't matter. It's just blown out of proportion, and they're finally now in therapy. Don't most narcissists don't know their nurses.

Don't go to therapy. That's the thing. That's what I'm saying. There's a lot of people out there who may have this diagnosis. They're never going to get diagnosed because they're never across the table from a licensed mental health professional who's actually the only person qualified to issue said diagnosis. I'm going to be honest with you, even the majority of people who have the disorder, it's never documented anywhere because the insurance company ain't going to pay for therapy for it because you can't do anything about it. You see what I'm saying?

Okay, hold on. That was also just... You just said it again. You cannot change the weather in Chicago, and you cannot do anything to change somebody with a narcissistic personality?

Yeah, and let's push this a little bit further, okay? So I'm going to be a provocateur here. Personality is tough. I There's different schools of thought on how much personality can change, all right? There's a little wiggle room, and I think the greater a person's flexibility, psychological and personality, the healthier the person is. It's almost like your body. The more flexible you are, likely the more you work it out, the less likely you're going to develop osteoporosis and break bones and all that. Flexibility is everything. But I would say it matters more psychologically than it even means physically. It's why people stretch before a workout.

Oh, That's interesting, because what I'm thinking about right now is there's a pretty famous TED Talk, but I think it's Dr. Schwartz talking about personality. And what he basically says, and now I'm realizing it's the flexibility you're talking about. He, like you, said, I'm a professor, and I am very introverted. But when it matters to me, I can be flexible. I can stand in front of that classroom, and I profess. But the second that lecture is over, I collapse.

I'm done. That's it. The flexibility you're talking about is that an extrovert like me can shut up and be alone when it matters.

An introvert like you can step in front of the mic and invite people into your home when it matters. But that flexibility is very limited. It's tied to when it's important to you, but then you go back to your baseline. Is that what you're saying? Always. In fact, there is a theory, and I hope I credit it as the right person.

I think it's Campbell is the one who writes about this, the idea of the rubber band theory of personality. The idea of the rubber band is that we all have our personality. Rubber band just sitting there in its state. That's who we are. But we can stretch it. We could stretch it a bit. But When back to baseline or even at times of stress, we go to our baseline personality. The challenge is that that person with a narcissistic personality not only has trouble stretching, it's not even the stretching as much as the changing. You see, here's the challenge with the narcissistic personality, which I still haven't described, and I'm aware of it. Sorry. But the challenge with the narcissistic personality is that it's a very egocentric self-serving style. It's designed to get them what they need. It's what helps them feel safe, what helps them feel happy with very little regard for anyone else. Other personality styles, agreeableness. In fact, agreeableness is considered the counterweight to narcissism. Narcissism is actually what's It's a real personality style is disagreeableness or antagonism. If narcissism's disagreeableness, agreeableness is the other side of that. I love agreeable people. They're the best.

I just would like a little commune full of them. We're never going to take over the world, and we're not going to make a lot of money. But let me tell you, so fun. Empathic, warm, flexible, make accommodation for other people, follow the rules, highly ethical. That's agreeableness. Opposite of narcissism, right?

So what is narcissism?

Narcissism is a person who has a lack of empathy, and I'm going to talk about, or performative empathy, which I'm going to get to in a minute. But they have inconsistent or low empathy. They're very entitled. They're arrogant. They're egocentric. They're chronically validation and admiration seeking. They need to be in control all the time. They are poorly emotionally regulated, prone to show strong shows of rage. If they're frustrated or disappointed or aren't getting their way, they're very easily provoked and very thin-skinned. If anyone gives them feedback or criticism, they just rage very quickly. They can't regulate themselves at those times. They're very pretentious. They tend to be very superficial. I mean, the list goes. It's that stuff. Now, the core of narcissism is a deep insecurity. And that's the piece we forget. These are not people actually who, at their most primal unconscious level, believe their hype. All of this stuff is to create almost a suit of armor around that unprocessed insecurity. The narcissistic person is always fighting a battle against shame. And the shame is at an unconscious level, people are going to see they ain't all that. So if anything even pokes them, that even someone makes a joke at their expense, they lash out to maintain dominance, because you also want to know what motivates the narcissistic person: power, dominance, control, and frankly, safety, because all those things keep them safe.

If they're in control, if they're the boss, if they have all the money, then they feel okay, all the power, whatever, the Fame, whatever it looks like, then they're okay. That's narcissism. What's tricky about narcissism is there's different... I forgot to say they're very grandiose. So they live in a fantasy the world. I'm going to have the perfect love story. Look at my perfect life. You can see how social media took this grandiosity and blew it up into something that I've been studying narcissism since before. There was social media, and I was like, what the Holy hell just happened. What have you seen? Narcism has always been around. As long as they were human beings. I'm guessing Attila the Hun was probably a narcissist. Napoleon might have been a narcissist. I think if you go all the way back in the history books, in fact, when I helped my daughter with all of her ancient and even modern European history. I'm like, Narcissist, Narcissist, Narcissist. I said, You see how much they shaped history to this day? I think that it's always been there. The difference Because back in the day, if you needed validation, you and I are both old enough to know about rotary dial phones and no answering machines and no social media.

There was a time if you needed validation, you actually had to clean up and leave the house. True. You actually had to get up and go. You couldn't become famous. Even if you wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper on some rant, the editor was going to get 100 of these, or they'd get 100 of these and pick one. So there was no public place to do this. So where narcissists really did their dirty work was they would harm the people around them. Very dominant, probably cruel to spouses, cruel to children. I think if you look at family lines of this inter-generationally, they'll say, Yeah, really brutal father, really brutal grandfather, really brutal great grandfather. It often links to things like hierarchies, patriarchies, things that are all very hierarchical. One person gets the final say, not because they're a good person, but just because. These systems have always been there. And so what happened, though, was one day, I remember it so well. I remember the house I was living in. Somebody said to me, Have you seen this thing called Facebook? I'm like, Facebook? I remember what a Facebook was. A Facebook was that group of pictures that you'd get in your first year of college.

That's what it was called where I went to college. We had one of our dirt with, too. Yeah. So there's a Facebook. And I'm like, What is a college thing? And they're like, No, you need to go check this out. They said, Created an account. So I did. And I was like, Oh, this is what happened to all those people I went to high school with. Okay. But at the moment, I thought, Oh, God, you just write stuff and people like it? What went through my head in that moment. I remember my kids were really small at the time. The moment sticks in my mind. I I thought, This is going to be a disaster. It must have been being like a pulmonologist or a cardiologist when cigarettes were out. You're like, What is happening? And so at that moment, I thought the game is about to change. I had no idea what was going to come with the Instagram and the influencing and all, I had no idea what was coming there. But I thought, wow, no, nobody needs to leave the house. They can put forth a false version of themselves, the grandiose version, the fantasy version, and sit at home and let the validation come in.

My concern was this was going to make their narcissistic symptomatology worse overall, and I think that has been borne out.

Can I ask you a question? Because this is one of the things that really changed my life. When you taught me that narcissists When they're not born, they're made. Can you explain that to everybody? Because this is a game changer. I understand this.

So nobody's born this way. Okay?

I mean, I guess- So even in a family structure where you have a grandfather, a father, like these dominant or mother person, you are not born a narcissist.

Everyone listening to this will say, There are four kids in our family. I have a brother who's narcissistic, and the rest of us are really cool and nice and kind to each other. So think of how many people out there who have siblings are like, My sister's really kind, and my other sister's really, really narcissistic. So if that was the case, it should appear in all siblings, or at least 50% of them.So how does it get made?It's made. So here's the most likely explanation. Is that there may very well be, and this has not been isolated yet, but there may very well be a biological vulnerability to it, and that would be probably delivered through something called a child's baby's temperament. Temperament is the genetic part of our personality. Anyone who spent time around a baby will know some kids soothe really easily. Some kids are just... They're easy. They're easy, smiley, friendly babies. They're really sweet kids, right? Right. And as they grow up, they stay sweet, and the teachers like them, and they have friends, and they're just sweet, sweet, sweet. Then there are those kids. Who will not stop crying, and they're demanding.

And as they grow up, Look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me. And they're always doing things for attention, and they're disruptive, and they won't sit still. And as they enter Every school in school, the teachers always, Shit, sit down, stop that. So they're already starting to get bad vibes from their constant attention-seeking behavior. It's probably an interaction effect. The kid may not be getting enough attention or attachment needs met. So you have this biological vulnerability. In the hands of a skilled, attached, warm, present, loving, consistent parent, that might be manageable. And that energy might get turned into athletic interest or creative interest, and that child won't feel pathologized for their style. But I hate to say it, probably for the majority of kids with that style, it's a lot of, Stop that, sit down. Can't you be more like your sister? You're going in the corner. You're making a mess. You're going to the principal. So that kid is getting invalidated every time they turn around. That invalidation, plus the temperament, plus the possibility that they don't have an environment where there's a possibility for secure attachment, plus the possibility of trauma, chaos, and neglect.

That's one pathway to develop a Narcissist.

So if I can just make sure I'm understanding what you're basically saying is, even regardless of temperament, if you're not getting your emotional needs met, if you do not feel safe and secure in your house, if you have a parent that abandons you, a parent that's abusive, somebody with mental illness and addiction, somebody who's unpredictable, that you, as a child, don't feel safe or you don't feel seen, all those emotional needs, and that's what leads to narcissism?

But not always. In fact, I wouldn't say the vast majority of the time. Many, many, many, many people grew up in situations like that, of trauma, of neglect, of abuse, of chaos. And they do not go on to become narcissistic. They typically go on to become rather anxious adults with poor self-appraisal who don't know their value and worth, a whole another different burden to carry. But the narcissism- Are you talking about me? No, I was actually talking about myself, Madeira. So, yeah, That's all me. But at the end of it, what we see is that the problem is that these paths aren't linear. I always say the development of narcissism is a story we can tell backwards, but never forwards. I have some clients who have been through horrific early childhood trauma, horrific. Physical abuse, sexual abuse, violence. They grew up in chaos. To tell you that these are some of the most empathic, loving human beings I've ever met would be actually missing the mark. They're just solid people. If anything, they don't understand their value. Their harm is very internalized. It's like, I'm not good enough, I'm not doing enough. But there's so much goodness, so much empathy.

They've gone on to amazing parents, all of that. That early chaos does not damn someone by a long shot. But it does set up these what are called adverse childhood experiences. Definitely, if we view this from a probability standpoint, there's more negative outcomes that could come, either internalized, disliking oneself, or externalized, and that's more of what narcissism could potentially look like. Now, there's a secondary path to Okay. And that secondary path is actually one we probably should be monitoring in modern times quite a bit, which is the overindulged child, the child who gets whatever they want. The money is spent on them lavishly. You're so great. You're so smart. There was a study done out of Amsterdam. Now, it'll be interesting to see what happens when these kids turn into adults. He was studying children. But what he found, this guy, I think his name was Eddie Bremelmans at the University of Amsterdam. And what he found was that children who were told they are more special than other children, those were the kids that were already showing entitlement and other soft signs of narcissism. So it's not that you're telling your child they're special, it's that you're more special than somebody else.

That was the penny drop moment, which is very much what you could imagine a more narcissistic parent doing. My child is more special than the other children. My child deserves special treatment. My child should play the whole game. My child should get this. My child I could get that. But you're looking at kids where they're not taught the most... There's two critical things, three critical things, I'd say every child needs.

Okay, so there's three critical things.

Secure attachment. So explain it.

Secure attachment.

Secure attachment happens when a child has at least one primary caregiver that is consistently available, that the child feels that they can call that caregiver when they need them, that secure attachment develops over the early years. We're talking birth to two or three. This is something where you got to lock this in early. That securely attached child in those early experiments done by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, seminal work in the field, what they found was that the child who was securely attached, when mom would leave them in a strange situation, that would be preschool or babysitter or something like that, the child would wimper a little like, Where are you going? But then they would actually calm down very quickly with the soothing of a caregiver. And then when the parent came back to pick them up, the child would be thrilled to see them. In children who are more anxiously or avoidantly or insecurely attached, there would be almost difficult to soothe at the point the parent came back, and more importantly, When the parent left, so they'd be difficult to soothe when the parent left. And when the parent came back, the child would actually either go into absolutely another meltdown, almost like, How could you leave me?

Or they turn their head away from the parent. You see, whereas that securely attached That child would actually be happy to see the parent when they return. See? Now, that secure attachment is number one, and that's created by consistency and availability in that early environment. You need one parent doing that and one primary caregiver, to be honest. Anyone, whoever that child identifies as such. Number two is that children need to learn how to soothe themselves, and they need to learn how to be disappointed. And we're not letting them do that. Sometimes How does she fail? Sometimes you don't get the teacher you want. Sometimes they run out of chocolate ice cream by the time you get up. And you know what? Sometimes you lose at shoots and ladders. I remember saying, I'm going to win this game. And the other people, Don't let them win. I'm not going to let them win. I'm getting up to the top of the shoots and letters, and I'm going to win. And I'm going to say, Well, that felt good. And when my daughter said, That's not fair, I said, Oh, I won this game. Let's be present with me winning.

You want to play again? Sure, we can do that again. But you need to learn to be present, that not every outcome is the way you're going to want it to be. That's number two. Number three is empathy. You've got to foster empathy in children and foster compassion. That can be through books they read, stories they experience, sure, but above all else in the home. How do they learn that? It's modeled for them. They see parents empathizing or caregivers empathizing with each other. They see extended family empathizing with each other. They see empathy in the classroom. They see empathy in the world. And you can imagine a child who sees none of that, or the parent is acting in a very entitled manner like, Oh, let's just go to the head of the line. We're more important than these people, or, Oh, gosh, we're not sitting in that line. All these things parents do that they think are innocuous in an airport, at a soccer game, at a theme park, your kid's learning, and their brain is just an explosion of neurons and dead rights. And that's getting filed away under, We're special.

The reason why this is so interesting to me is because I think one of the challenges when you have either a narcissistic parent, or sibling, or boss, or somebody that you're in a relationship with, is that you think that somehow everything is your fault. Yes. And when I learn from you that narcissists are made in childhood. It just opened up this door for me to go, Oh, wow. So they didn't choose to be this way. They're not consciously doing this?

What it is, it's a regulation issue. So it's the sense that a narcissistic person never quite feels safe in the world. Because they never feel safe, they're always on the offense and the defense simultaneously. I'm going to win. I'm going to dominate me, me, me. And are you looking at me? You're looking at me? And then rage, rage, rage. So that constant offense defense that they play makes them very antagonistic unless things going exactly the way they want. And where narcissistic people are tricky is that if they feel safe, I got to tell you, it might be one of the most engaging, entrancing, exhilarating, charismatic How charming experiences you've ever had. They've hung the moon, they've hung the sun, only for you. I mean, it's dopamine, okay?

It's literally a Jekyll and Hyde experience.

It is. But then at a time, they don't feel safe or they're bored, It's over. And people will spend their lives trying to get back to that hung the sun, hung the moon a moment. And they said, They really don't have any more use for you anymore. Then that's it. You ain't going to feel that again.

Today, we're talking about a Mindset Reset, which is when you identify the default programming in your mind, that critical voice that's constantly chirping away in the background, you're never good enough, you didn't get it right, you look fat. Once you identify that and that you're sick of it, how can you erase that bully and program a new positive soundtrack in its place? Well, Diane is about to help you do just that. Hi.

How are you doing?

I'm great. How are you?

Doing all right. Doing all right. Do I have a question for you? I mean, wonderful information from Popy. My question comes more of, what about when this programming and voices are from spouses, friends, employers? And they're just basically building on what your parents or other people have said.

Great question. So the question is, what if you've got programming from childhood that now is basically being reinforced by colleagues, bosses, spouses, friend group, blah, blah, blah, blah. What is the default negative thing that you say to yourself?

It's definitely not good enough, and who the heck do you think you are?

The who the heck do you think you are? That has a real bite to it.

Yes, it does.

Yeah, it does. I don't know why I'm going to ask you this, but I'm going to ask you this. Were either of your parents on the narcissism personality disorder by chance, Spectrum?

Well, I'm pretty I would say yes, one of them for sure.

And the reason why I say that is because the who do you think you are has a very hostile nature to it. So I would imagine, and again, I'm just guessing, just guessing here, that there was a level of either hostility or fighting or outbursts or eruptions that were very chaotic for you when you were a little kid happening with the adults in your house?

I've blocked out a lot. I remember more of my adulthood where my ex was a narcissist.

Okay.

Definitely.

Yeah. Okay. I am not surprised that you blocked a lot of childhood out, because what happens is that when you're in a situation that is extremely stressful as a young kid, because the adults around you can't be trusted, or they're erratic, or whatever the situation may be, you live in a state of fight or flight, and the alarm system in your body is going off. When you are on edge and the alarm system in your nervous system is going off because you don't feel safe around the adults in the house, it impairs the cognitive functioning in your brain. This comes from research Research out of UCLA, Dr. Judith Willis, has studied extensively how nervous system dysregulation impacts the brain's ability to function. If you're busy managing this toxic stress in your body as a kid, your brain is not actually present to make memories. And so super normal to not have a lot of memories, by the way. I do not have a lot of memories from my childhood, from high school, from college, from law school, because I was in a constant state of anxiety. Never present in the room to make memories there.

And what I want to tell you first is the good news. So the good news is, Even though you have been the victim of being with a psychologist, and you have had a childhood that was fraught with all kinds of stuff, you can change your brain. You can learn how to to calm your nervous system, and you can absolutely change the programming in your mind. And I want you to relate to the programming in your mind as if it was deliberately put there. Because even though a narciss or somebody with a narcissistic personality is not deliberately doing this to you, they are so incapable of empathy. They're not even considering you and me. We're objects. They're just doing what they're doing. But we literally get damaged in the way that we think about ourselves when you're around somebody like that, because you think you're the problem. You think that if there was something different about you, then everything would be okay. And lots of people with a narcissistic personality issue, they actually tell you that you're the problem. And so this was a deliberate programming in your mind at the hands of other adults. Now, the good news is you're an adult, and you can take deliberate steps to reprogram your mind.

And I'm going straight for like, boom in the face on this, because I want you to realize that you got to get deliberate about this, that somebody else trained you to think this way. And it is a level of being deliberate, as if I said, you're going to move to Russia, and you got to speak fluent Russian. I realize you've spoken... How old are you? Sixty-five. You've spoken English for 65 years. But for the rest of your life, we're going to speak Russian. We're going to speech Swahili. We're going to speak a different language, and you can learn a different language. Learning to shut off the abusive voice in your head and teaching yourself through thought substitution a different language is what you're going to have to do. So that's number one. Number two, you're not going to overnight be able to look in your ear like, I love myself. It doesn't work that way because you've had a lifetime of people telling you otherwise. And your brain will reject any mantra that you choose that you have actively tried to disprove. And so we got to pick something for you That you may not quite be there yet, but you believe in the truth of it.

And what I believe that everybody deserves is, I think you can say, I deserve to be happy, or I'm a good person who's She's trying her best, and I deserve to be happy. I'm a kind person who deserves respect. I am doing the best I can, and that's good enough. There are these mantras that Kick the Narcissist, You're not good enough, who do you think you are, thing out of your head. And you can say something back that's like, Hey, I'm a kind person. I'm doing the best I can. And that's good enough. And that is enough of a rebuke, and it's believable enough, even when you're beaten down, that as you repeat it and repeat it and repeat it and repeat it to yourself, because you're going to have to, you will start to believe it. And one final thing that I wanted to say to you is that, you know how you said that the program started with my parents, and then it was an ex, and then it was colleagues, and then it was a boss, and it was this. That may be true, but we've also got to start to do the work of catching the filter in your brain.

So yes, your boss may be an erratic douche who calls out the things that are negative or is always in a grouchy mood. But that doesn't mean anything about you. This is where your filter and the programming in your mind scans the world and reads your boss's crappy mood as is having to do with you because the narciss in your life made you feel like everything was your fault. For all you know, your boss's wife is having an affair. He's going through a tumultuous divorce. He's dealing with some issue in his gut, and he has irritable bowel syndrome, which is why he's always grouchy, and he's a really sad, sad guy who can't get his shit together because he has childhood trauma, none of which has to do with you. But your programming in your mind makes you think everything's your fault. And that's also the part of the work that you're going to need to do. You got to reprogram the words you say, Hey, I'm a kind person. I'm doing the best I can. That's good enough. Or, I deserve to be happy, especially after these assholes that were in my life. You can put a little sauce in there.

You can tell I like a little spicy mantra, like something that... Because if you don't quite believe it, if it doesn't loosen you up a little bit, that's not the right thing to say. Because most mantras are bullshit because people pick things like, I love I love yourself. And then they spend the day going, You look like shit. You've screwed that. No, you don't love yourself. I need to give myself a break. I'm doing the best I can. Now, there's a mantra I can get behind because I believe that. And so pick something believable, put a little edge or fun into it because it shakes the mood down a little bit. And then go to work on this filter that you have of making everything as your fault because it's freaking not. Your stupid parents and your dumb ex-husband, all of whom mentally challenged with narcissistic personalities made you think that horse shit. You're not to blame for that, but you have a responsibility to change the way you talk to yourself and to basically go, not everything's about me. Thank God. I love that you're laughing now. You seem lighter. What did you get out of this?

I love the one thing, it's not everything's about me, period. It's not Not always, not all of it. And really retraining the brain, really working through, catching those filters. It's going to have to be one step at a time. That's it.

And here's the thing. Give yourself a fucking break. Seriously. Give yourself a break. Have a little bit of compassion. Wow. I got out of a marriage with a raging narcissist. I'm pretty awesome.

Yes, I I know.

Yes, you are. Yes, I am. Give yourself more credit. It is true. We get so focused on our own bullshit that we convince ourselves that the world's problems are our doing. Most people have so much stuff going on and are so busy beating themselves up, they're not even thinking about you and me.

All right.

You got this. You got this. Let me hear you say your new mantra.

Well, quit taking myself so seriously. I'm not getting out of this thing alive.

That's true. This ends the same. And how about adding, I might as well enjoy the rest of the ride.

There we go. I may as well enjoy the rest of the ride.

The first '65 kicked my ass. So let's have some fun the next '65.

And they did.

Oh, my Lord. Yeah, but you're here laughing about it. That's more than most can say. And so I do believe the best days of your life are on the road ahead? Is narcissism on the rise?

So there's the big question. Dr. Keith Campbell, he's a professor at University of Georgia, and his work on narcissism, to me, is some of the best out there. And he wrote a book called The Narcissism Epidemic Back in 2012 with Jean Twenge, and they were suggesting that it was on the rise at that point. Here's what him and I were noticing. I was noticing it as a clinician. He was noticing it as a researcher. Literature. He's like, The grandiose narcissism, interestingly, is where it's always been. What social media has done is it's given grandiose narcissism a interesting platform and place to live. But the vulnerable narcissists, their victimhood, their anger, their sullenness, their mean comments on social media, that has shot up. Because those vulnerable narcissistic folks are seeing that other people have stuff and they don't have it. So they're seething. And all this seething we're seeing in the world is the vulnerable narcissistic people have gone off like a wildfire. And that's what the new problem is, to be quite honest. That's how I see it, is that the vulnerable narcissism is really the problem. That victimize, failure to launch. I have all these big fantasies, and why isn't everything going my way?

And how come everyone else gets a lucky break and nothing ever happens for me? Angry, angry, angry, troll, troll, troll, mean, mean, mean. That's what's on the rise. And so I think that the grandiose piece is probably, oh, there's always been that group of people. Here's what I don't believe. I think if you have a person with a healthy personality and they're mucking around on social media, they understand the difference. Does that make sense? They're able to say, this is fun, but I think people who already have that personality stuff churning in their adolescents, social media is the match you're throwing on the gasoline. But with no gasoline, the match is just going fizzle out. So all this stuff, the social emotional development, the three-year-old with the designer duds, that's the kid who wear that plus the social media and the messages from the world and the non-emotionally-attuned parents and the parents modeling entitlement, that's the person who is going to love, bomb, and destroy someone's life in about 25 years.

Well, this is super helpful to have the distinction grandiose because I can think of a million examples of people People that just display it. It's out there. I find the vulnerable narciss that you were just talking about, this deep-seated anger-And victimhood.and victimhood to be really fascinating. I can see how a deep-seated anger and victimhood then leads to this sense of entitlement that might not be displayed on social media, but then gets aimed at your family, at your friends, at your colleagues, your loved ones. And so as somebody's listening to this, and this always happens when you and I talk, there's usually one of two reactions, which is, Am I a nurse? And the second one is, Oh, my God, you're describing my dad. You're describing my son. You're describing the person I'm dating. How would you counsel someone if you're having this epiphany for the first time? What are some things like, You see these three things, we got it for sure.

What you see in vulnerable, narcissistic people is a chronic grudge. That's what it is. It's the chronic grudge. And a lot of it comes out in political conversations, but it could even be like, that neighbor, your brother. It's grudge. It's a constant grudge and grievance. And the grudge and grievance is as though even these random things that happen to be happening in the world seem to be targeted at them. So that takes us to the second thing, which is this chronic sense of suspiciousness. People are out to get them. Bad things are negatively targeting them. They're just literally a hair away from seeming paranoid. It really feels as they almost feel like people are out to get them, but it's not quite that bad, but it's this sense of, he's always trying to make me mad. I'm like, no, I think he just parked his car there. I don't think he was thinking about it. This is a good parking spot, right? But they're thinking that the person parked the car there to piss them off. Yes. They make the person's parked car about them. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. I feel like I'm having a trauma response as I hear you describe this, because grudge, and this edge, and the suspiciousness, and that it's happening to me. It's about me. The traffic. So many people have moved here, and the traffic is really terrible, and somehow it's personal to me. About it's personal. Or you're too busy at work. And so you never come to see me.

That's right. And then the third piece is that victimhood. One thing that Keith Campbell and I talked about, which is it's the sense of the grandiose narcissists, they'll have a big dream, and it's big, and they'll do the thing, right? And they might even succeed. In fact, I think all the big things in our lives, the big, big stuff, probably there's a lot of grandiose narcissism behind that. The vulnerable narcissistic people talk talk about the big thing, and they never take the step. And they never take the step because everyone's against them. I got the idea for the biggest book ever. It's the biggest book ever. Wait till you hear about this. It's going to be so great. Not one word to paper. And like, oh, you know what, Mel, you got so many easy breaks. It was really easy for you. My idea is way bigger than your idea, Mel. But I'm not going to waste my time with these publisher never. They're not even able to see how great I It's that. Does that make sense? They're going to put you down. They're going to lift themselves up. They never do the thing, but they talk as though they are doing it.

That's a real hallmark of vulnerable narcissism. And ultimately, it looks like failure to launch.

Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, by God, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here. We've got so much amazing stuff coming. Thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family. You. We create these videos for you, so make sure you subscribe.