Welcome to the relationship recovery podcast, hosted by Jessica Knight, a certified life coach who specializes in narcissistic and emotional abuse. This podcast is intended to help you identify manipulative and abusive behavior, set boundaries with yourself and others and heal the relationship with. So you can learn to love in a healthy way

today. I wanna touch on feeling bad for the narcissist and how to not. And this episode, I, this is like my fifth time trying to record this because it has been so difficult to explain how, like, why this happens and how it happens and what you can do about it. And how to see it differently. And so this is, this is where I'd like to start.

Is that a lot of people, myself included feel bad or have a lot of compassion or empathy for somebody that's hurting them. And it's very common. You're most likely an empathetic person. You have feelings, you don't wanna hurt people. And the narcissist takes advantage of that in a lot of ways. And they know that about you, you know, very often a narcist will know you very well, and they will know the words to say that will really trigger you and to make you feel bad.

They also know how to get people to feel bad for them. They can create a sob story in which it sounds like, you know, you are this evil monster and they're the victim. They're not doing anything wrong. All they're trying to do is show up. And a lot of time when we. Are feeling so bad for them or are feeling like, oh my God, like I could totally see his shame spiral.

We wanna do something about it. We wanna act on it. We wanna care take, but it's really important that you don't for a variety of reasons. First, in most cases, it's an act. It's an act to gain support, whether it's from you or somebody. You may notice that they turn on this behavior when, around certain people.

And if you can call them out on their bullshit in your own head, this, this is not really I'm every time I say, call them out on something. I never really mean like, Hey, you act differently around everybody else. What I mean, is you able to tell yourself that they're in their own bull? And then not responding to it.

So if you notice that they have the sob story of this and that, and oh my God, and I feel so bad and you really have to zoom out from the whole situation. Like when you're in the nitty gritty, when you're in that moment, you have to allow yourself a little bit of space, little bit of time, and then really think about zooming out, like as the same way that you would zoom in and out of a document on Microsoft word zoom.

and look at the whole picture, the whole thing it's like that person keeps doing hurtful behaviors to you or to your child or children, or it's a family member. Like they keep doing things that are hurtful and then expecting you to feel bad and forgive.  there is no change in action. So you have to zoom out and see the whole thing.

Sometimes you may even have a, there may be this, there may be a point where they're like, really, you can tell that they are like, there's a string of feeling bad moments. So it's like, they're feel shameful. They apologize. They're repenting for their sins. They're trying they're quote, unquote, trying.  you have to give it a little bit of time.

You have to wait because, and usually doesn't take very long for it to be, uh, to kind of go right back to where it was at that point. What they're trying to do is regain control when they are trying to be so kind and nice and caring, shameful, they're trying to regain control. It's an act.  because if they were truly feeling empathy, if they were truly feeling bad, if they were truly looking at their behavior, they wouldn't be doing what they're doing.

They would be going to some like a therapist or a friend or a mentor and being like, Hey, I'm fucking everything up. And as a result, I'm feeling like I, I need to change what I'm doing because I'm being an asphalt and I don't. This weekend. I noticed I was being kind of snappy to my boyfriend. I didn't mean it.

I was like super stressed. It's not his fault. It's also not his problem. He, he had nothing to do with it. And it, it literally took me like, I mean, I think I apologized Saturday and Sunday, but then on Monday I was like, I'm like, I'm like really sorry. And I was like, thinking about why I'm snapping and what's going on and what I need to change and what I need.

Like, I can't go on being an asshole. They can. And so usually it doesn't take very long to watch the change. And so if you notice that you're feeling all of this empathy towards them, it's fine to feel the empathy you're allowed to have that feeling. You're allowed to feel the way that you feel, but you need to see the full picture because you're looking at as very zoomed in version and you're looking at one word of an entire essay and you need to see the whole thing.

And when I talk. With clients, you know, and they say like, well, he said this and he said that, and he said this, and he promised this and he wrote this down. I often say, that's great. Where are the actions? Are we seeing different actions? You have to pay attention to the actions. The words mean nothing. The words are nothing without actions and the same way that an apology without an changed action is not an apology.

It's just words.  it's almost like a lie, you know, but if somebody who's like promising you, they're going to be different and you have not seen the action. All you're hearing is the words. Then what you are receiving is just bull. It's just a way to keep you in the cycle. That's it? And I, I always hate to say this.

Like, I, it truly hurts when I have a client on the phone and I, and I hear a lot of this coming up and I have to pause and say they they're bullshitting you if you've heard the same words a hundred times, and there's no change to action. It doesn't matter. There's no change. It's just words and therefore, they're just trying to control you.

And now a lot of narcissism is rooted in shame. It's rooted in the narcissist being unable to process and be with their vulnerable emotions and their own shame, their own shortcomings. So there is sadness in there. There is like a really sad, probably small child within that person that you do feel bad for.

But the same person is not willing to look at their inner behaviors and what they're doing and how they're showing up and how they're affecting people and be a good person. A lot of people ask me, why do I feel bad? Like he's being such a shitty person. Why do I even feel bad? And the answer is this. It is because you have empathy.

You're not a narcissist. If you feel bad, you're not the narciss.  a lot of people come to me and say, like he said, I'm the narcist, you're not the narcissist. If you were the narcist, you wouldn't be coming to me. You're a kind person, you're a caring person. You believe more outta people when you, you have a higher standard for that person than they have for themselves.

But I want you to try on zooming out, seeing the full picture. It might even be helpful to think about the full movie. What is happening? What are you noticing? Where do you know the story will. Because the sooner that you're able to recognize the patterns, the sooner you'll be able to start to break the trauma bond that you're likely in with this person.

And if you're confused about what a trauma bond is, I have two episodes about that. One is early on. It's really long, and I have another one that's a little bit shorter and talks just why trauma bonding is so mainstream right now. And the answer to that is because it seems to be quite universal when people are dealing with.

Behavior. So I hope you accept my invitation to zoom out, to see the full picture and to really, really get real with yourself about what's happening. And as always, if you need support, follow me at Jessica night coaching message me Jessica at Jessica night, coaching.com. You can also sign up for a clarity call there to talk to me.

But you are very, very much not alone.