Relationships with narcissists can be thrilling, consuming, and completely devastating. Narcissists try to fill the void of their own insecurities by controlling or exploiting their loved ones, creating patterns of narcissistic abuse. In this episode, we talk about how people can tell if they're a victim of narcissistic abuse and what this unhealthy relationship looks like according to Monique Dauphin. We also share tips about how to support a loved one who is being abused by a narcissist.
Resources:
Relationships with narcissists can be thrilling, consuming, and completely devastating. Narcissists try to fill the void of their own insecurities by controlling or exploiting their loved ones, creating patterns of narcissistic abuse. In this episode, we talk about how people can tell if they're a victim of narcissistic abuse and what this unhealthy relationship looks like according to Monique Dauphin. We also share tips about how to support a loved one who is being abused by a narcissist.
Resources:
Hey, little helpers, we're so glad to be back with you again after a brief pause, and we thought we would kick it off with one of our favorite topics of all time, which is narcissistic abuse. Now, we've done a couple episodes on narcissism before, but we're really going to go into the by perhaps the best reality TV show ever made Kibbe. What is it?
Speaker 2:Married at First Sight, Australia.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:It was unbelievable.
Speaker 1:It's so good it's 40 episodes long, or something insane like that. I told Kibbe I was relieved that on our streaming platform I could only find one season, because it took over my entire life. I was unable to complete work art, you know. I mean, it was like Jason became concerned for me. He's like he like tried to get me out of the house and to get me to do other things.
Speaker 2:It's so good they have such good people. The casting is great. They match people who would be just an explosive combination. The premise is that people just meet at the altar and then basically go through intense couples therapy as a group to make it work. It is fantastic.
Speaker 1:And you are actively not just encouraged, but nearly required to out people for poor behavior, to comment on people's bad behavior at these group dinner parties. So I think the most striking thing about Mouths Australia, though, is the inclusion of severe personality disorders. I mean, there was one woman who I honestly think she might be a psychopath. I don't think she has any empathy, yeah, and she was completely for her side, and it didn't even seem like she was interested in being narcissistic and needing narcissistic supply, which we'll talk about, but anyway, it was just unbelievable. But there was a narcissist on the show, and he really clearly illustrated narcissistic abuse, and so we thought it would be a great topic. I also want to say that we had a really excellent workshop led by Monique Dauphin. We're going to be basing a lot of our episode on her workshop, so I just wanted to give a shout out to her and, kibbe, I know that you have been receiving requests to work with us, and so I just wanted to let you address that as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we want to thank the people who reach out to us asking where they could get help for some of the topics that we've talked about before in this podcast, like how to set boundaries with difficult family members, how to help a loved one with intense anxiety or depression, or how to heal from a relationship with someone with BPD or narcissism. So, to address those requests, I'm offering one-to-one coaching for loved ones and caregivers or people with mental illness. So my company, sion Health, is launching an app on which I'll coach you through learning and applying skills to manage your relationship with your loved one or how to take care of yourself. So if you're interested in learning more, you can email me at kibby at sionhealthcom. That's K-I-B-B-Y at S-E-O-N-H-E-A-L-T-Hcom, or click on the link in the show notes. Join the wait list.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Okay, so I think this episode is gonna fit nicely into what we try to do with this podcast, which is talk not only to the person suffering, but to the family members and, in this case, also therapists who are trying to help them to the person suffering, but to the family members and, in this case, also therapists who are trying to help them. I have been in the cycle of narcissistic abuse twice. I was not a willing participant, I was, you know, I was the victim. But I've also had friends in this, and even when you go through it yourself, it can be so agonizing to watch it happen and to it, to feel like they're brainwashed somehow, um, and to just see them keep staying in these relationships that make them feel so awful, um, and so this, this episode, is really going to talk about all of those angles. So, kibi, how would you kind of define narcissistic abuse?
Speaker 2:Yeah, with the workshop that we did. I really liked how Monique described it. So a lot of people talk about narcissism. Right, we kind of use it to describe self. You know someone who's self absorbed or really egotistic or even emotionally neglectful. But I like how we talk about narcissistic abuse as a kind of abuse in which the abuser devalues or denigrates or depletes the victim to feel better, to feel an increase in their own self worth, to boost up their own self esteem. And there's another concept that we talked about that I've never heard before but I really like it. It's called narcissistic supply, which is almost something that the narcissist feeds on. It's this constant admiration, attention, validation, deference, submission from the other person. So it's like all of the, the food of narcissism that the narcissistic abusers will seek from their victims.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is this is critical, because what defines narcissism is an inability to regulate and um and basically be able to supply yourself with all of those things, and so they seek it externally. So an inability to supply yourself with self-esteem, to give yourself true compassion, self-love, confidence, and so there's this extreme need to get it from external sources. And this is either because in childhood they were so pedestaled by their parents that they weren't they were kind of protected from failure, shame, learning from mistakes early on, and so they, you know, later in life, when they start experiencing those things, it's incredibly destabilizing or it's because there is like a a wound from early childhood that they were actually never given the love support that they needed, and so they just don't. They never learn how to create it for themselves either, and so they seek it from other people, and what often happens is that one person in particular, in particular, will be targeted. That's usually the romantic partner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting to kind of think about this as like a very particular kind of abuse, because it could be tricky to identify because we're so used to abuse. At least thinking about abuse as really obvious, right, like hitting or physical violence or assault in that way, physical assault and it's really hard to detect abuse when it's someone who says they love you so much and are kind to you and love you in so many different ways that feel really good. It's really hard to tell that kind of abuse. I think in our first narcissism episode we talk about how narcissists have a hard time getting into relationships, right, like they get into it, they love the infatuation stage and then they get bored and leave. So I think I keep thinking about narcissists as oh they're, they basically can't commit, but they actually can. It's just a really dangerous kind of commitment for the victim.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I want to make clear that narcissistic abuse can happen even with somebody who doesn't have narcissistic personality disorder. I mean, this is a spectrum case, so it's. I think one thing that would always trip me up when I was in these relationships was a reluctance to diagnose either of my boyfriends. They're like, oh, like I can't, they can't be a full on narcissist, Like I'm noticing all these things about them that just don't seem to fit with that picture, Like they seem to really love me or they're really nice to their friends or you know something, but the the narcissistic abuse cycle was clearly in both relationships. Yeah, so so one thing is, if you're a therapist or a friend, it can actually be harmful to try to label or diagnose the perpetrator.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's always the tip that we give when we talk about abuse. It's if you're the loved one or the the caregiver or someone who is in that kind of relationship, the one of the most tricky and tempting things to do is to be like that guy's a bad guy or that woman is terrible, they're a narcissist. Get out, because then it just polarizes them right. It makes the victim or your friend want to defend them Because there is so much you know there's, there's so much of the tenderness and love that they want to hold on to, they're going to defend it, even if they know the other parts are true, that this person is, you know, hurting them or the relationship isn't happy. Blaming and and categorizing and attacking the abuser usually backfires right the abuser usually backfires right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and also for a reason that we'll get into, when we talk about something called DARVO, which is kind of an abuse tactic. That tactic that that abusers can use. That is incredibly. It's like a spider web. It really kind of draws their victims in and confuses the hell out of them and gets them to stay for longer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for you. When you were talking before this and we're mentioning that you've experienced being a victim of narcissistic abuse a couple times how could you tell that it was narcissistic abuse versus other kinds of abuse, or like that it was narcissistic abuse versus other kinds of abuse, or like?
Speaker 1:how do you know that it was narcissistic abuse? First of all, there was no physical abuse. There was questionable sexual abuse. But I think the primary feelings I was left away with were confusion, guilt, feeling like I was going crazy. Um, there were multiple attempts to sever me from loved ones. Um, there it was just. I mean it was just sort of straight out of the playbook. I mean it wasn't I would get insulted, but it would be sneaky. Uh, there were lots of attempts to to make me the perpetrator somehow. So I'd be like no, you clearly did something fucked up. Wait, no, but now I'm responsible, and then that would be a huge mind fuck did you have a sense that there was like this power dynamics?
Speaker 2:is what we learned in the in the workshop that narcissistic abuse is like this power dynamic where the victim is bolstering and feeding the self-image or the self-worth of the abuser? Did you feel that that was a case like you were controlled or or something you did was was in service of bolstering their self-esteem?
Speaker 1:I think what's weird is that in the first case so he was like a grandiose narcissist and he was so much older. He was very successful, he was smart, he's good looking, he's fun I didn't see myself as someone who necessarily could bolster his self-image, I think, just because I maybe like lower self-esteem, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't like. I was 18 years younger than him and he I mean he was certainly taking me out in public and all of that. I think it was something akin to. It often feels great for older men to be idealized by unjaded younger women who are just astonished by everything they do. I mean, I thought he was just.
Speaker 2:sometimes I actually found him quite embarrassing, but a lot of the times I just he felt like a superhero, like being with him was such a high for me and I'm sure he he picked up on that, yeah, so you idealized him, and then also did you feel like this was like characteristic of narcissistic abuse, did you feel like you were put down or controlled by these dudes, or Because also, it's not just like you bolster them up by you know, by being, you know, adding to their social capital, but also it seems to be that abusers, narcissistic abusers will like put someone down to make themselves feel better, right, like you're garbage I'm, I'm the one who's really amazing, or you know, like you are, you're lucky to be with me, kind of kind of vibe.
Speaker 1:I mean I can describe the first time he tried to have sex with me, which was that we, we would regularly stay out drinking until 5am. I mean I was 21 at the time and he was almost 40, uh, probably 39 at the time the time. And, uh, I don't know how he had that much energy because I could never stay out till five in the morning. Now, I mean, I think later years was a drug problem, but at the time that was very normal and at a certain point and he had a lot of money, okay. So at a certain point we didn't know what to do next. And he's like, how about a movie? I was like, okay, sure, and he's like, well, we need to get booze for the movie. Nothing's open. I was like, oh damn. He's like, what if we get a hotel room? And I'll just get the, I'll raid the mini fridge bottles. And I was like, okay, I don't know how much money he has, this seems like just something that he does. So we get back to the hotel room, we're making out out. And then I'm like, oh, we're going to miss the movie. Like we should probably go. And he's like, okay, so then he, he grabs me and he goes. So we watched the movie. Everything seems normal, until the movie is almost over and then he becomes very stiff and unresponsive to me and then, out of the movie I'm like, hey, like what did you think of the movie? And I'm sort of bouncing around him so happy to be with him.
Speaker 1:It's our last night together, pivotally and he was the CEO of the place where I interned as a college student. So, yeah, he had a lot of power over me, um, and he was like you're playing games. I'm not a child, you know, you're being this is. I understand that maybe you don't understand what it means to be with someone, but this is not why I'm here. I was like what are you talking about? He was like, essentially, his point was that I should have known that him saying let's get a hotel room meant that we were going to go have sex, even though I had explicitly told him I did not want to sleep with him for the two months that we were together. And he just made me panic because I was about to lose this guy I was falling in love with. I, you know, wasted my internship on being with him instead of working for him. Essentially, um, which is, you know that was me being childish and stupid, but whatever, that's who you are when you're 21. And then he called a cab over, as if to to push me into the cab and, uh, say goodbye forever. And I was just panicking and crying and I was basically like we can have sex, we can have sex. You know. I was like what, like, please, like, please, don't leave, like let's figure this out, please. And he's like no, I'm done, I'm done, you're this. You don't understand, you don't know how to date, or something like that. And then he put me into the cab and then he followed me in, oh my God, and he would do that over, and I mean that kind of thing, dumping me in the middle of the street at 2 am and then pretending to call a cab for himself, but then walking back. It was he would, yeah, he would leverage his age over me all the time. So that was him.
Speaker 1:The second one was controlling, but it was never explicitly like you can't do that. It was like I'm going to emotionally punish you so much that you won't do that. So like I'm going to act incredibly aggrieved, I'm going to berate you if you do it. Um, I'm going to just walk around sullen and quiet and wounded for days. If you do it, I'm gonna ask you incessant questions about it. I'm gonna, you know, question why you would do it, if you, if you really that, if you really committed to me, I mean, it's just just shit like that, um, and and yeah, there were certainly some insults thrown in yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:The second one had a lot more it sounds like from your stories had a lot more of that vulnerable or covert narcissistic presentation where it's more like a sad like you did this to me and that's why and the first one, there's some like vulnerable narcissism, like oh, I'm hurt or you're rejecting me, so I'm going to reject you, but it's still got the covert or vulnerable. It's just so hard to detect because you feel like the perpetrator, you feel like the bad one who's like hurt this poor person and and they're they're doing things to almost repair for their pain that you caused.
Speaker 1:I will say that if people don't know the term vulnerable narcissism or covert narcissism, to go back and listen to our episode on it, because it is a truly confusing presentation and I think a lot of women may be fine or sorry, a lot of men, I think. Actually women are more likely to be vulnerable narcissists than grandiose, but they're not more likely than men to be vulnerable, if that makes any sense. So people can be very confused because they're used to thinking of narcissism as grandiose, as clearly arrogant, larger than life, and that's not the case with vulnerable narcissism. But I think the key point is that there's a switch from their shitty behavior to making themselves the victim and you the perpetrator. That leaves you very, very confused.
Speaker 2:It's so funny You're, you're taxi. I was thinking I was like, do I have an experience of being a victim of narcissistic abuse? And then I'm like, oh yeah, my first major relationship. And the taxi thing just reminded me and I almost pictured myself. I've had so many of my first relationship, so many of that similar experiences.
Speaker 2:He was I don't know. I still don't know if I would consider him narcissistic, but there was definitely something, because there was a lot of lying. There was a lot of grandiose lying too, about like claims that he started businesses that he kind of didn't. Grandiose line too, about like claims that he started businesses that he kind of didn't. Um, and a lot of putting me down but as well as being like you're the love of my life, right, this like kind of the love bombing part of like you are so beautiful, you, you're gorgeous to me, but then later on, comparing me to other women he hung out with on his spring break that were like super hot and much skinnier than you and blonde and you know, so really putting me down but then also keeping me there by being like you are special to me, yeah, um, and I do remember. Uh, anytime I would. This is another feature of um, this narcissistic abuse. It's like you're they're keeping the victim trapped right. It's like keeping them keeping the victim trapped right. It's like keeping them under their shoe in a way right Like someone to step on. So any kind of attempts for the victim to try to get out or explore other things or find support in other ways is a threat right to their control.
Speaker 2:So I remember that when I went to college I had all these other experiences, other friends, and he got much worse then and we were visiting each other. We were in a taxi and I had admitted to him that I tried a new drug. I had this fun time with my friends and he was like you did. That's disgusting, how dare you. And he literally, at the stoplight, jumped out and left like we were on the way to a date and he got out of the cab and left me there because he was so disgusted by. It was a minor, I was like weed or something, but it was like he was so disgusted that I that I ventured out and do something that irresponsible. So he jumped out and and left me in the cab by myself going to our date ps.
Speaker 1:We talk about him in greater detail in the anti-social personality disorder episode. Um, this guy's behavior through pavy's relationship was unbelievable, unbelievable, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and it's interesting like you two are on a date and there was no seemingly no need to put you down, but I guess it was an opportunity to gain leverage over you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I also was confused, I was ashamed. It was that was closer to the end of our relationship, so it had a little bit more burning out of that. But that kind of behavior in the beginning I was, I had really low self-esteem when we first started dating. So everything that he said in terms of putting my looks down or you know, just kind of punishing anything I did, felt real. It felt like actually.
Speaker 2:It felt like, oh, he really sees me but he loves me anyway, like I'm not as beautiful as the girls he's hanging out with, or I do bad things like you know, try drugs with friends in college but he, he sees that dark side.
Speaker 1:It upsets him but he loves me anyway 100 percent 100 percent. I mean, my second relationship is clear in my memory, but that was yeah. Well, we can go into to phase one.
Speaker 2:I think idealization yeah, you were everything I ever wanted. Fun cycle of narcissistic abuse. Um that we got in this workshop yeah.
Speaker 1:so love bombing is a term I think a lot of people know, but basically the victim is pedestaled, they are treated like a fair it's, it's like a fairy tale being with the perpetrator. Um, they're given gifts, they're taken on elaborate dates, they're taken to Paris and whatever the case may be and I want to be clear, though, that this can look different for different people. Um, you know, for my second relationship it was he was very good at gifts and that, but it was mostly about making me just feel like the most beautiful, intelligent, soul, connected person he had ever met, like we were fated, like I, and that actually never died. Throughout the entire relationship he would insist that I was the absolute love of his life, but it later it alternated with um, with other stuff, um, yeah, that idealization is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like that first stage of idealization. It's. It's so addictive because, yeah, the abuser is idealizing the victim. So it's like I love you, you're the best, oh my God, you're the most beautiful, like all these amazing things. And so for the victim, especially people who have low self-esteem, right, that can be really amazing. Right, this amazing person is like showering you with love and admiration. So, yeah, that's the weird part. It's all like the relationship is supposed to be about bolstering the abuser's self-esteem. But in the beginning, right, the idealization probably is going back and forth. Right, you're idealizing each other. But is that really typical infatuation, where you don't see any of the bad sides? It's suddenly like like fireworks and rainbows, and I do remember that with your, that relationship you're talking about, like it was as if he saw you as the one with power and the one with who's like amazing and could leave him at any moment.
Speaker 1:Kind of kind of thing yeah, and in an odd thing, I think that was real. I mean, a lot of the times we look at these relationships as if they are mapped out ahead of time and the abuser is just following a script and they know exactly what they're doing, and I think that is another thing that confused people. They're like no, I see him like, I see him actually Like, I see him actually struggling, I see him crying. I and I'm using male pronouns here only because that's my experience but women are completely capable of of being perpetrators here, and this, I think, can actually be quite subconscious.
Speaker 1:I think the idealization, the left bombing stage, can be real for the perpetrator, because there's a reason they want you as their source of narcissistic supply. It's because they start out idealizing you in some way. Maybe not all of them, some of them maybe are a little bit more calculated, but I think in a lot of cases they're like wow, she's beautiful, she's popular, she's successful, I need her to love me and all I see are those things about her. And then later the cycle changes. But in the beginning, when you are the victim to that, so when you are being love-bombed, what that functions to do is get your trust because you feel like you're in power.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm Yep.
Speaker 1:So you let your walls down because you're like, wow, in power, mm-hmm, yep. So you let your walls down because you're like, wow, this guy or woman, they just, they see me in all that I am and they love me this much. Wow, like I can be real with them. Then like and see if they still love me and I can, I don't know. I just if they love me this much, then I must, I must be amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it might be confusing to hear that idealization is the first stage of the cycle of narcissistic abuse, because it sounds like the cycle, the first stage of falling in love, in general, right Like this. The infatuation stage is like common. So you're like oh, is this me?
Speaker 2:I think the difference is that I think people who've had a lot of experiences with dating might go at this early stage slower, like yes, there's idealization, there's like gifts and admiration and all that, but most of the time when we start to date, it's a little slower. Right, it's like you know, we'll date slowly, we'll get to know the person, we start to fall in love a little bit more gradually, keeping in mind that, yes, I love this person, but there's also other things, things I have to learn about them, that are not as like perfect. In this kind of narcissistic abuses it's almost like it happens really fast and really intensely, right, the love bombing. Right, it's not just like oh, I love you, I'm getting to know you, it's I love you, you're perfect, You're the answer to everything. So there is a lot, there's a quickness and intensity that I think is supposed to be a little more characteristic of this.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I want to make a couple other points which is sometimes that could be seen as clingy or weird or overwhelming, and somehow, in this case, I don't know if it's how the perpetrator chooses the victim, or maybe because the perpetrator is actually quite charming and high value in quotes, as some people say these days that it feels amazing rather than creepy to be receiving all this attention. But when that so? The one function of this is to get you to trust, but the other function is you're like oh my God, no other dating experience has ever felt like this before. Like if I lose this person, I'm going to lose this absolute high that I'm on, and so you get a lot of leverage. And I think this can be confusing if people are like no, I wasn't love bombed.
Speaker 1:Because I think there are some relationships where it doesn't seem like you're being love bombed because there's actually inherent leverage. So like, for instance, with my first guy, he already had all the leverage he needed. He was rich, successful, he was my boss Like he didn't really love bomb me, because just being with him in his natural habitat already felt like I was being love bombed. Like he didn't have to give me extravagant gifts. All he had to do was take me to a restaurant he would already go to and I'd be like, oh my God, this is so magical. And I think when we're talking about Harrison on on married at first sight Australia, the leverage he came into was that she wanted to finish the experiment, she wanted to finish the show, she wanted to take the marriage seriously perhaps. So she was really. She had a lot of reasons for me for holding onto the relationship with all her might, and he didn't actually have to go above and beyond. That's my theory.
Speaker 2:That's interesting. I didn't think about that leverage piece as important. Yeah, it's like establishing this power dynamic. Right, exactly that's like fake in the favor of the victim, but it's actually in favor of the abuser, right, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so as soon as that power dynamic is there, then things start shifting. And one thing I think is interesting about Monique here is that she talks about phase 1.5, idealization, but where the cracks begin to show. So you're still being idealized, but it's not quite like it was in the beginning. So in this case, some true colors begin to show. So in this case, some true colors begin to show, so the victim might be elevated by denigrating others. So like you're so much better than your friend because she's just, like you know, not as hot as you are, not as just not as interesting, you know. Or like you, you're really like I don't have time for all these other people, just you give you a point I.
Speaker 2:It's so funny I did. I'm looking at her notes and like it says that the victim may begin to experience somatic symptoms, while cognitively believing the relationship is healthy. I remember how much you would have this like physical anxiety that you talked about even when things were good. So it's just like I was looking at that. I was like, oh my God.
Speaker 1:I mean I read that and was like, oh my God, and what's so interesting? So I was taught. So Kibbe and I were like texting each other while watching Married at First Sight. And so Jason and I moved in together recently and it was a little bit of a rough transition and I started feeling the same physical anxiety that I felt in this narcissistic abuse relationship where it was just like I felt nauseated and kind of sick and just like I just everything was kind of tight and tense and I couldn't breathe all the way. One of my biggest memories of breaking up with this relationship where there was narcissistic abuse was me breathing a full breath for the first time and anyways, I was like shit, shit, shit, like this physical anxiety is back. What does this mean? Is this my body telling me that I have to break up with Jason? Like that this isn't going to work? I realized no, it started the day I watched harrison for the first time at married at first sight, australia and it went away oh my god, is this?
Speaker 2:is this a gut reaction to commitment or like what is going on? No it it's the show. It's a TV show with a narcissist.
Speaker 1:As soon as he started behaving with narcissists, which was in the first episode he arrived, he was an asshole and I could just sniff him out. You know it was like definite narcissist and it came immediately. So it's kind of cool that my body has a narcissistic abuse radar now.
Speaker 2:Very cool Very very cool. But yeah, it's like these gut feeling that this is bad, but the person, the victim, might just be, like you know, just swept away or doubt themselves already. Right, and then ignore those early warning signs and then go into phase two.
Speaker 1:Yes, and then go into phase two. Yes, devaluation, okay. So I think this is confusing because a lot of people are going to be like, okay, well, I wasn't fully devalued like in my last relationship. Honestly, in in both of them there was never a period of just like I'm totally done with you. Now, in the first relationship, there were about 400 episodes of that, but he would come back like 30 minutes later or a day later or whatever. But the point is is that devaluation isn't necessarily like a downward slide, as much as it is something that will crop up like a weed among the flowers and eventually, you know, uh, hopefully leads to the end of the relationship, because you shouldn't be in a relationship where you're devalued. But this is when we talk about gaslighting a lot. I see this as a lot of control tactics, where the idea is for the abuser to have the power through a variety of tactics.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the main. We have an episode on gaslighting, so you could check that out too. But it's devaluing in all sorts of ways, not just like plain insults, right, like you're not as hot as these you know blonde hot women that I see but also devaluing and dismissing and invalidating your responses to things. That's where gaslighting comes in. But it's a form of devaluing because it's just like your perception and reality and feelings are wrong.
Speaker 1:They're just incorrect, right, yeah, so that's, that's the gaslighting I'm looking at because while I was watching maths yes, while I was watching maths I wrote out the strategy that I just want to stay here. Some of you might recognize it, but I have recognized. I remember once I was in an airplane and the couple behind me was in a fight and they followed these exact steps. So the first thing is he does something shitty and again, I'm using he pronouns, but it could be anyone. First one is he does not apologize and he never apologizes. Maybe maybe way later, but probably not. Then he refuses to see her point of view because that would give her some sort of legitimacy. So his object here is I am not going to give her or her point of view any legitimacy whatsoever. The third is that he makes her crazy until she does something he can blame. So by continuously deflecting gaslighting which is going to be part of this like by basically saying no, I didn't say that, you're wrong, you don't understand what it. You know what that even means. You're, you must be confused. No, I didn't, I didn't do that. She's going to get so dysregulated because it's incredibly dysregulated to be willfully misunderstood that then she's going to do something to try to retrieve some sanity. So in married.
Speaker 1:At first sight that was separating herself from the situation. As soon as she did that, he would call it abandonment. So then he's got something he can blame her for. And then the fourth step is pushing on her problems so that he becomes a permanent victim. I do these things because you abandoned me. How could you? I can't be with somebody who abandons me. Why do you think you abandon people? Why do you think you're not ready for commitment? And then five he only forgives her and lets up on this gaslighting and crazy making if she comes around to see his point of view and accepts the blame and lets go of her perspective. And then he's, he's got his hooks in her. So basically, she finds it eventually so punishing to maintain her own perspective that she gives into his, called DARVO, which is a term that was coined by Jennifer Frey.
Speaker 2:It's deny, attack or accuse, reverse victim and offender. So this is like super, super gaslighting, right. So it just it's basically like not taking accountability for anything that they do. That's like hurtful or bad or whatever, and it's then it flips it on that other person, the victim, for reacting the way they do to the first event, right, it's like you are upset and everything you're saying and doing out of that place of upsetness is abuse.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 1:So it's like flipping the victim and abuser roles. I think if you are in a relationship like this and you frequently find that whenever your partner does something upsetting to you, that then in the conversation you become dysregulated and then blamed for something you do while you're dysregulated and then blamed for something you do while you're dysregulated, that is a sense that that is a sign that Darvo is happening. I remember my sister was on a phone call with her ex-husband and he she was asking him for something entirely reasonable and he kept saying like no, that's unreasonable, no, I'm not going to do that. And she was just getting, uh, more and more like her voice was raising, she was, and then eventually she like lashed out or something. And he hooked into that and just pounded her on that for the rest of the phone call until she started crying and apologizing. And then he gets power because he got an apology and she never gets the thing that she asked for in the first place, which was reasonable. So, yeah, I mean it's just, it's just an unbelievable tactic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the key, the key part of that is the D, the deny. It's like I'm not taking accountability for anything. So if you're in this argument and the person's like I didn't do that or you know, you perceived it wrong or basically you're wrong for being upset by that and in maps it was amazing because he would do like objectively awful things this guy Harrison and people like the whole room will call him out on it. They'll be like you just said this and that is very mean, and he's like no, I didn't.
Speaker 2:That's not upsetting at all and just just no. No guilt, no remorse, no shame, just like Nope, that was not wrong Actually. You guys are all wrong for yelling at me Like nope, that was not wrong Actually you guys are all wrong for yelling at me, exactly, and then you see the reverse, and then people who doubt themselves are like maybe I am abusive, right? So it's super confusing.
Speaker 1:I think one really critical piece here is when I was in these relationships. I was not the partner I wanted to be either, and so it was really easy to look at myself and be like, well'm not behaving very well, like maybe I am the problem. But if you're in a relationship that makes you crazy, you're not going to behave in ways that you would normally behave. You're going to be yelling, crying, separating yourself um, going on retreats at your friend kibbe's house for four days because you have to get away. Like everything in you is objecting to what's happening, but you're so confused you don't know that what's happening to you Right, and so it's very easy to accept the blame because you're like, yeah, I shouldn't have yelled, yeah, I shouldn't have abandoned him, I should, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember even in that retreat right, we'll get to the next phases, which is like the bringing back part but I remember that he was very mean to you, said, said all these like horrible things to you. You were very confused if you were the one who's being awful Is it your issues or him but at some point point he brought over you, asked for some of your stuff to to say over, and he admitted to intentionally not giving you all of your medications that you needed.
Speaker 2:That's why so you could come back yeah, he said it in a cute way and you're oh shit, do you remember that I might? I didn't give you the full dose, so I'd hope you come back and get them, yeah I was like oh, that is so messed up oh, memories, memories.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, being out of it for years now, I'm like that was crazy. That was a crazy time.
Speaker 2:So that's phase two. That's devaluing gaslighting, making someone go crazy and then blaming them for it. Awesome, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, phase three, the discard. I experienced this, I would say more in the first, yeah, yeah, definitely not in the second. So this happens when. So Monique would say this happens when the abuser identifies a new target they would want. Um, I guess that's true. Eric identified multiple new targets. Uh, throughout our relationship and afterwards, I guess maybe I was causing, maybe I was just not not worth all the trouble I was causing at this point. So this may include the silent treatment. This was a big one for me. Tumultuous fights meant to blame and humiliate the victim, so again throwing me away in the middle of the street in New York at three in the morning.
Speaker 1:Um, I would just be like, where is this coming from? Like how did we wind up in a fight? Like I don't even remember how this started, like I was just trying to. I think this happened to me not because he was trying to get rid of me, but because I would say something that caused him to feel a tiny bit of shame, and he could not. He could not feel that emotion, um, and so then it became worth it to punish me so severely and get rid of me. Um, but yeah, this. So if you're in this cycle where it's just like you're breaking up and getting together constantly, this might be part of phase three, anything to add here yeah, it could be a breakup, but it feels a little bit more just like a shutdown of like you're dead.
Speaker 2:To me, regardless if there's actual breakup or not, I definitely in my first relationship there was lots of you know the breakup Fine, I'm done, I'm done, you're nothing Like, I don't need this, right it's. It's just kind of like okay, you devalue to the farthest point and sometimes maybe, like the victim might put like stand up for themselves, or they might leave, or they're they, they might actually shame the person back. So the so, so the denies, the, the gaslighting and the denying is not really working. Um, and that that could be another. I feel like my experience that's when um phase three of the discard comes, like, fine, we're done, we're done.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, that's a. That's a fun time. Um, you know, this is extremely upsetting, because you've gone from being somebody who was love bombed and treated like the absolute center of somebody's universe and suddenly you're treated like you're nothing and so if you can fall from that high of a cliff, then what does that mean about your value and worth?
Speaker 1:So I think if you are, you know, the loved one of somebody going through this, this is a really sensitive time on if somebody going through this, this is a really sensitive time and also a time when the victim may be at risk of trying to get the abuser back because this insult to their value is. It's just, it's kind of hard to incorporate. Yeah, which brings us to phase four, hoovering. Okay, this is when they try to come back, so this might be more love bombing, but this can also look a little bit more sinister. I certainly got hoovering when I ended second relationship, so this involved shit, loads of guilt, um, blackmail. He would bring up, uh, an intimate tape we had made. He would kind of constantly talk about how it's the one thing he didn't delete. Oh my god, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's all all sorts of tactics to try to get that person back right after that discard, whether it's guilt tripping or the I love you or the I mean this is. This is really high time. People go for the jugular, people go for your weak points or soft spots, whether it's the flattery of like you know you're, you know you're beautiful, you're amazing to me. I see this right going for. The vulnerability connection between you two is either the positive, like I see the connecting to the good parts and the love, or the bad stuff to entrap you right to To the black male. Or I mean I remember when we were looking at this we were in this workshop and there's a picture that Monique showed of flying monkeys and I remember you laughed because you're like that relationship, literally called your friends flying monkeys.
Speaker 1:Oh my God. Yeah, he did. Oh my God. And that's another thing is that the abuser will, like often, try to flip the script and make you the narcissist, yeah, and so some of these terms might be used against you. And it's so dangerous if you've never been in other healthy relationships before. Like if Jason and I break up and I date somebody else, I'm always going to have the example of this relationship to be like no, I'm not a narcissist. I can have a healthy, healthy relationship.
Speaker 1:But if this is your first one, you don't know who you are in a relationship and so you're like God, maybe, maybe it is me, but flying monkeys are usually unsuspecting other people who the abuser has, as Monique puts it, dispatched to convince the victim to comply. So these might be like friends or family members. Like my second relationship, he tried to get in really close with my family and always kind of leveraged my family against me, so they'd be like well, maybe you should think about things from his point of view. Maybe you know, I really think you need to reach out to him and resume conflict or contact, because he's just not doing well. I just saw him and he's really, really suffering. He's lost a bunch of weight like I.
Speaker 1:I think that it would be immoral for you to not resume contact um and then bananas yeah, yeah, um, and then you know, threatening to sue us for for things and using my parents as like to freak them out so much that their daughter might get sued to again. Like, call me and try to get me to comply. So yeah, that would be an example of that.
Speaker 2:Some fun hoovering, but it didn't work luckily but it often can work, because either people come back out of shame or fear of retaliation, or even just remembering that there were things that drew them together right. It's hard to leave someone.
Speaker 1:In general, I think one thing that people always told me, things that drew them together. Right, it's just, it's hard to leave someone in general, but, um, I think one thing that people always told me maybe it was just one person, I don't know, but they were always like are there more good days than bad, you know, like is there more good than bad to this relationship? And I really think that's the wrong question. I really think it needs to be like it's 90% of the time good or like or like.
Speaker 1:How bad is the 10%?
Speaker 2:or how do you feel about yourself? Like how do you?
Speaker 1:feel about your autonomy or freedom or right self-worth you need way more than 50% of the time to be good in a healthy relationship, and you need the bad times to not include denigration and control.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, these relationships easily you could have over 50% of the time is great, but that doesn't mean that you're not being abused. I mean, like we would never say that to somebody who's being physically abused Are there more days where you're not punched in the face than others? Okay, didn't stay, you know. So just think about how ridiculous that would be. You should not be being abused period. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if it happens, if any of this happens once or twice or every now and again, even in the greatest relationships, there could be really bad fights where you look back and go, oh my gosh, like you know, was I abusive, was it? You know? Am I in a bad relationship? I don't know. But the reason why this is called the cycle of abuse, with those four stages, is because it's a cycle.
Speaker 2:So once you get back to hoovering and go back in the relationship, you're back to idealization and then it goes to right, to devaluation and the discard and back to Hoover. So it goes in a circle where it's the. That's the ups and downs. And I remember learning that the discard phase to the Hoover phase is so tricky to break out of because you, when you break up with someone, you feel really sad, right, you feel like ugh, you know like the pain of losing that person in any breakup. But then when they come back, it's kind of like a drug hit, right, it's kind of like you feel sad, so you get the person back, so that's the benefit, but you also get the love bombing. So it's just like kind of going through withdrawal and then you get the hit of like the best drug ever.
Speaker 2:And then you're back to idealizing the honeymoon phase. And then it cycles again and the tricky part, going from the Hoover to idealize, is that the loved ones and therapists and everyone around them are like, oh no, this is a cycle. I see this happening over and over again. But then the victim maybe both parties really have hope that this is going to be different, like finally we're back together. We've gone through hard things and now we've, you know, renewed our love and that kind of self-deception of like this idealization is going to stay. This time is part of, you know, identifying that this is an abusive relationship, or not a good one.
Speaker 1:Not a great one for you. I think we can also distinguish between like fuck boys. Like a lot of people have bad dating experiences. They go that guy was a narcissist and what they're really experiencing is someone who's really interested in you at first. They treated you really well at first and then they stopped you, became an asshole and broke up with you. That's just somebody with commitment issues who isn't very nice or doesn't you know, isn't really considering your point of view or doesn't have a ton of empathy but, it doesn't mean that they're like trying to use you for narcissistic supply over and over again, that they're trying to abuse you, that you're in a cycle.
Speaker 1:All of us are going to encounter those sorts of situations. People can have interest in you and then lose interest with you and then discard you. That happens a lot, but this is like way more insidious. It happens over a longer period of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you see that you or the other person is, what you're experiencing is like the other side of the narcissism, which is idealized perfect, amazing and all good, or garbage and all bad, right. I think that healthy relationships have a mix of both, but it's usually integrated into two. I'm so mad at this guy, you know, like he's really the worst right now, and I also remember that there's other good things, but narcissists have trouble integrating those two things in themselves. So you also experience that you're the best, you're amazing, you're the perfect person, you're beautiful or you're nothing. To me, you're garbage. Everyone's going to see how terrible you are. Right, it's all good or all bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you want to get back to it. Yeah, yeah, um, okay. So one of the things that can happen is this reactive abuse or reactive defense. So this is kind of what we're talking about when the narcissist makes you so crazy that you do things that you'd otherwise never do, like scream in their face, throw something, run out of the house, you know whatever the case may be, and then they can start to attack you for that. So, yeah, my second relationship would always call me abusive because I give him the quote unquote silent treatment, when what was actually happening is I was being berated and I knew it would never end until I separated myself. So that was a big thing.
Speaker 1:Or, you know, sometimes you'll be pushed into talking about your relationship a lot and talking shit about the relationship a lot, because you're so fucking confused and crazy that you need another person's perspective, and then you can get accused of denigrating the relationship being just as bad, turning people against them, you know, etc. But the key thing is, like it's because this cycle has been happening to you and you're slowly losing your perspective and trying anything to get it back or to like, avoid the horrible feelings that are being brought up. But what can happen is that they'll blame you for that, and it can be very difficult for friends and family then to understand like, okay, wait, who is behaving poorly?
Speaker 1:Who is the source of this dysfunction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, as loved ones, we can kind of go into the tips for loved ones too, like what you can do to help when you're watching this cycle or watching your loved one go through this cycle. You don't have to be the one to make that judgment call. You don't have to be like you're the bad one and the spouse, romantic partner, is the good one or vice versa, and pick you. You don't have to diagnose. You don't have to diagnose who has, who's the narcissist and who's the abuser, who's the victim. Right eventually, at the end of this, both parties going to feel like victims.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right like I think, if you're to think of this, like compassionately towards the narcissist, like they are trying to, as you were saying, fill that void in themselves of feeling good about themselves, like they are trying to, as you were saying, fill that void in themselves of feeling good about themselves. So they're trying to do it with other people and they're realizing over and over that it doesn't work right. Putting someone else down is not going to make you feel good and then they're disappointed, right?
Speaker 2:And so you know. So you could be like you don't have to be the one to pick who's the good or bad one, but you could really just give your observation, totally unbiased and objective and reflecting what your friend says about the relationship, right? So even like you say, oh, last time you you two also said that he would never do this again to you, or just saying, hey, I think this behavior or this cycle or dynamics that you guys are involved in is really hurting you. It's really making you into a person you don't want to be. Yeah, right, and it's not blaming anyone, but it's looking at the effects of how this cycle has on you.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I think if anybody feels like a victim in their relationship, a lot of the time they're in the wrong relationship, regardless of if it's narcissistic abuse. I never feel like a victim in my current relationship. Yeah, yeah, I might feel like things suck, but I don't feel victimized and that does a huge difference but I don't feel victimized and that there's a huge difference.
Speaker 1:I think one thing that you have to, I mean another. I guess tip would be tons of patience and expect in advance that this will take multiple breakups to stick because of the hoovering, because of the huge drop from idealization to devaluation, because of all the good memories and because of the guilt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think one thing that I probably, like I was tempted to do, and I probably did, and some of your friends probably did is almost try to like convince you or strong arm you out of the relationship Like you gotta, you gotta get out of this. Right, and I think that's the wrong thing to do, because what's important is to to bolster the victim's own agency right To remind them that they have a choice, whether it's just asking them questions about them like you know what, what is the evidence that they're changed, that they'll change, like, how do you know that this is going to be different than last time? Yeah, and okay, you decide if you want to stay in this or not, right, or you know, I just remember you, as you know, a different person, like happier and more adventurous before this relationship, but you get to choose that.
Speaker 2:This is what you want, right? Like, basically like giving, giving your loved one the agency to see this pattern and to make their own decisions. Not like he's the abuser, he is a narcissist. You got to get out of this. You know what I'll make you get out of this, right, which is just almost like replicating the same dynamic of power over you.
Speaker 1:I think that's really important. Yeah, the victim is already feeling so controlled by the abuser, but the other thing that can do is it can hand ammunition over to the abuser. If your friends are like if somebody told, if one of Jason's friends told him to leave me, I'd be like, fuck that friend, what the fuck? Yep, and I wouldn't want Jason to hang out with him. Now, it doesn't mean I would say you're never allowed to hang out with him, but I wouldn't want him to. You know, and if he kept trying to tell Jason to break up with me, I might be like okay, this is dangerous for the health of our relationship, so you can't hand the abuser ammunition or you have to try not to, or you have to try not to.
Speaker 1:I think another thing that is really important is that it is very likely that the victim is going to be cut off from friends and family and you might feel like you have to be cut off because you're getting too much blowback from this relationship, you're getting too exhausted or you're getting insulted, and I think it would be really important to say hey, I have to go away now, but I want you to know if you're ever ready to leave this relationship, I will be right back on. I will be right back with you, like you can call me, because a lot of times then the victim doesn't leave because they have nowhere to go.
Speaker 1:so if you make it clear, I'll help you create a plan you can, I'll help you find, figure out where to go. Like you will not be abandoned on the other side of this. That's really important, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, these are all the kind of things that um just to put in the plug again for the coaching Um, if you have a loved one who's struggling with, uh, narcissistic abuse, or you yourself are actually a victim of narcissistic abuse, these are the kinds of things that you know I would coach you through in Cian Health. So if you feel like some of these concepts or some of the things that we talk about kind of ring true to your experience, you could reach out to me and kibbymcbann at cianhealthcom and we'll talk about it Awesome.
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