This Is What It Takes with special guest Daniel Ryan Cotler, Psychological Warfare In Intimate Relationships

The most dangerous abuse is often the kind nobody can photograph. We talk with Daniel Ryan Cotler, author of *Voiceless No More* and founder of the Heal Loudly movement, about the reality survivors describe as narcissistic psychological warfare: coercive control, gaslighting, charm in public, cruelty in private, and the slow collapse of self-trust that makes you question your own reality.

We also get precise about language. We’re tired of every bad partner being labelled a narcissist, because that buzzword culture makes the people living through true psychological abuse easier to dismiss. Daniel explains why a behaviour-based lens helps more than armchair diagnosing, and how early “love bombing” can function as indoctrination, information gathering, and a setup for trauma bonding. If you’ve ever wondered why leaving can feel impossible even when the relationship is clearly unsafe, this part connects the dots without shaming the survivor.

From there, we go into what happens after the breakup. Post-separation abuse can play out through smear campaigns, police calls, restraining order threats, and drawn-out court battles where the calm abuser looks credible and the traumatised target looks unstable. Daniel shares why so many survivors feel erased by friends, family, first responders, and institutions, and why he’s pushing legislative ideas like the Voiceless Justice Act and the Frankie Initiative to bring accountability and recognition to psychological abuse patterns.

If this conversation helps you put words to something you’ve been living through, share it with someone who needs that language. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us what topic you want us to tackle next.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Wounds Hide

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Hey everybody, welcome back to the This Is What It Takes podcast. I'm your co-host, Michael McNack, and I'm joined as usual by my partner and the genius of the bunch, Victoria Cure.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

I'm so glad I got that recording.

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Yeah, I know it's recorded. Today we have a really, really uh interesting and special guest named Daniel Ryan Cotler, uh, who wrote Voiceless No More. It's a the Legal War on Narcissistic Abuse, and he's a founder of the Heal Loudly movement, which I think is a really cool uh name. Daniel's work is really tackling uh a difficult reality that a lot of you survivors out there may know all too well. Sometimes frankly, the deepest wounds are the wounds that nobody can see, right? The ones that hurt our heart and hurt our head and ongoing for forever and ever. You know, people for years, countless people, all of us on some level, but uh but people really struggle to explain experiences that may have left them questioning their own reality, their perception of their reality, their confidence, their own judgment, even maybe their own identify, their uh identity, their who who am I. You know, people know something might be wrong, but they uh uh very often don't have the language to describe uh what it is that they're going through or what they've gone through. Daniel's book and and his and his work uh really focuses on bringing a lot of visibility to forms of psychological abuse that are misunderstood, minimized, or and and unfortunately even dismissed by many in the caregiving and provider world. He's developed a framework he calls the narcissistic psychological warfare, which I love, but I'm curious about the name. We'll talk about that in a minute. And what he wants to do is to map the patterns of coercive psychological abuse that uh people that the survivors and victims are reporting that they've they've gone through. This isn't just about narcissism, right? It's about what happens when somebody is deeply harmed, wounded by something that leaves no visible bruises, as I said before. It's about survivors who uh were told that maybe they're overreacting. It's about the caregivers who love them but watch them slowly losing themselves in themselves, you know, falling away slowly, quickly, gracefully or ungracefully. It's families looking for answers, folks. So I want to welcome Daniel here today. And I I I don't like to do sort of bios where I tell everybody about your education and what you did in eighth grade. So what I like to ask is, Daniel, what what are you working on right now and and how's things going that's really got you fired up, your passion burning right now, and your in your life and this work or anything else that you you got going on?

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Well, the the main thing that I am focused on right now is advancing two pieces of legislation: voiceless, no more the legal war, and narcissistic abuses centered around the Keel Loudly movement's you know mission, but also the Voiceless Justice Act and the Frankie Initiative. And the Frankie Initiative is a federal registry of abusers of narcissistic knowledge, identity, and exploitation. And the core principle of this is to be able to create a registry, kind of like a sex offender registry for convicted psychological abusers, because I know that if I had something like that available and if I knew my ex's past, it would have helped given me the tools I needed to make a better decision right off the bat. You know, and that's the one thing about the Heal Loudly movement that I'm so passionate about is that this abuse thrives in silence. I always say we heal loudly because we almost died in silence. And when we shine a light on this and speak to our experiences, not only do we help end the stigma around

The Voiceless Justice Act Vision

SPEAKER_02 3:55

it, but we help other people out there that are struggling with this abuse that may not know what they're going through, may not feel like they have anybody else. So trying to advance this legislation is really the core of what my mission is. And we have now about 2,500 signatures. So that's a good little start that we have going. And, you know, I don't think there's anybody out there that's written a complex, you know, build like this to help tackle, you know, narcissistic abuse. And I don't like to use the word narcissistic abuse because I feel like the terminology is just not accurate. I think it's more psychological warfare in a lot of cases. So just trying to raise you know awareness around that and trying to make sure that other people don't have to go through what I went through and what so many other people went through, and also to be able to help remember what I call the voiceless, and those are the people that didn't survive this abuse.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

Wow, that's a lot to unpack.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

It is.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

Kudos to you. Are you doing this on a state level or federal level?

SPEAKER_02 4:56

This is on a federal level, and I'm kind of doing everything like so many other people. I I have no idea what I'm doing some days, you know. I I depend on AI to teach me how to I it all started with TikTok, you know. I didn't even know how to do a TikTok video, but I wrote poetry, and so you know, I figured out how to put something out on TikTok and and everything that I'm doing, I'm kind of you know, using AI as a teacher to kind of teach me how to do stuff, but we do have it on a federal level, and you know, definitely would love to be able to get with other professionals to get it kind of peer-reviewed and kind of picked apart, and you know, because if if it were to advance further, it's definitely going to go through that process.

SPEAKER_03 5:37

Yeah, that's that's uh that I listen. I still don't know how to use TikTok or any of that stuff. So uh and I, you know, AI will can't teach me. But you know, obviously there's I hope that there will be plenty of lawmakers that listen to this and and want to pick up your your torch as we explain to people exactly what it means, because I think that's going to be very important here at the outset for for me as somebody who doesn't know a lot about this type of domestic abuse. Uh you know, Victoria is one of the professionals, one of the ex leading experts literally in the world about the the recovery or the the uh dealing with it from the victim side or survivor side, let's call it. But for me, I'm not I'm not, so I'm gonna learn a lot from you guys. But I want to start with a couple of things based upon what you said. And it just so happens that I just listened to the podcast recently where the family from out in the northern Midwest got the first sexual offender registry, criminal sexual offender registry through and enacted and all that stuff from that horrible kidnapping of that young boy. But one of the things that that I really want to make sure that we dispel right off the bat here in this podcast, because it's very important to me, is the nomenclature, is the verbiage that we're that we use. Just a very quick little story about 15, 20 years ago. The director, the medical director of the Department of Mental Health that helped me to start my nonprofit was getting ready to retire. Now, think about this is only 15, 20 years ago. And I wrote a speech for him, and I had to look up something that defined somebody who was, and this is this was supposed to be funny. I know this isn't a funny topic, but this at the time was supposed to be funny. Somebody who was self-centered, worried about themselves all the time, trying to make things better for themselves, blah, blah, blah. So I typed in years ago into the internet this idea of narcissistic personality disorder. Ha ha ha ha, made myself the butt of the joke. You know, I'm the one that that only you know cares about himself, etc. But the point of telling this story is that 15 years ago or so, I had to look these terms up. Nobody knew what they were, nobody had heard I had heard of it, but I had no idea what it really meant. Today, I guarantee you I will hear that term narcissism used at least three to four, not just in this podcast, three to four different times. Everybody's labeled as a narcissist, narcissistic, narcissist that, narcissist the. And uh it really bothers me because again, I think it's an overused word. Like we say, people are nuts, people are crazy, they've got to have a mental illness to do this, they gotta have a mental illness to do that. And the truth is something usually very different from uh those types of statements. So you're the expert for purposes of this conversation. How do you, or does the research or the criminality, or even this bill, define narcissism and how we should move forward thinking about it in a very specialized, very poignant verbiage?

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Well, I can't agree with you more with the word narcissism. I've written several pieces about overuse of the term where just because your partner is cheating, lying, you know, deceiving you, that doesn't make them a narcissist. It makes them an asshole, it makes them an abuser, it makes them somebody that's just not someone that that's just not a good quality person. But I believe that everybody has narcissistic tendencies throughout their lifetime. And there's nine different criteria that go into diagnosing someone with narcissistic personality disorder. And I think that we're all going to exhibit some of those, you know, at some point of our lifetime. That's just being human. But for somebody that actually has narcissistic personality disorder, it is absolutely devastating, not only to the people that love them or try to love them, but to the narcissists themselves. And there's this idea that the narcissists, you know, they just they love themselves. And no, they're very self-centered, they're very self-serving. But in my opinion, there's nothing about their behavior that says that they love themselves. It's quite the opposite. So when people are throwing the word narcissist around and describing everybody as narcissists, what it does

Why “Narcissist” Gets Misused

SPEAKER_02 10:05

is it takes away from the live reality of victims of this kind of abuse. So people minimalize it and they don't take it seriously. They're like, oh, well, it's just a bad breakup. It's just, you know, just you know, takes two to take all these horrible mantras that you hear that are actually very, very toxic and very, very hurtful and harmful for victims of this kind of abuse. So I think that we have to stop using that term to describe everybody because you know, there's there's a, I believe, a spectrum to narcissism. And not everybody is a narcissist. Just some people are just not good people. They have low values, low morals, or just you know, they just, you know, but for someone that actually have the disorder, it is absolutely devastating for the people in close proximity to them. And it's something that, you know, you don't see a lot of people being diagnosed with it because a very issue with the disorder is they're not going to go into, you know, to get evaluated, they're gonna have their mask on, they're gonna be hiding everything, you know. And unless if you really know how to look at it and kind of look behind what they're saying, it's very difficult to detect because narcissists are very, very charming, usually very charismatic. Everybody likes them, they're they're magnetic, you know, but behind closed doors, they're kind of like that sheep in wolves' clothing that, you know, to the intimate partner, they're absolutely horrible to. And that's what makes this abuse so easy to dismiss because everybody's like, well, he seems like such a nice guy, or she seems like such a nice person. In reality, they're not.

SPEAKER_03 11:37

No, and I think I think you you really nailed it when you when you said that because not every breakup is a breakup because the other guy's a narcissist, you know, and and I think we just we just go there too damn quickly. Because you're right, we all do have you know, first of all, you can't fix asshole, as you didn't say, I'm saying. And and second of all, of course we're we all have self-serving tendencies, which is a survival. We are we're we are creatures of this earth, we want to survive. That does not make us a narcissist. Being taking the that uh those traits and those other nine traits that we can get into, or or depending on how how this conversation goes, does not necessarily make you a narcissist. But so I'm glad you spelled that out for us so that we can get this language straight because I'm really big on that. I I I don't want to be disingenuous with terminology. So thank you at the outset for that. Victoria, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

I know I've never been so quiet with him talking. Hi, Daniel.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

So, like it means so much to me, first and foremost, that you're here. I've had the privilege of speaking with you off camera. We had a nice conversation several days ago, and we both were like, we feel like we he even said it first, he's like, I feel like I've known you forever. And it was just the relatability of everything that you've endured and gone through. And you have such a light about you. And I ordered your book, it's gonna be here today. I really hoped it would have been here sooner because I wanted to read it before, but you have such a light about you. And before we go anywhere, I want to thank you for so many things. First, I want to thank you for being you. I want to thank you for being authentic and for the fact that, like when we spoke, you were so genuine. And I heard not just the passion in your voice with your story, which is yours and yours only to share, but I heard the drive that puts you where you are to help other people, because there are a lot of men who don't want to be that voice that don't want to be the voice for the voiceless. And I've been saying for years I'm the voice for the voiceless. And for you to have said the same thing, I was like, thank God that there is a man out here, because I always want to, you know, shine the light on people's stories. And and you come out here with this, I am a I'm a victim, but I'm like, you're not a victim, you're a survivor, you're a thriver, you have overcome so much. Can what you're comfortable sharing, will you kind of tell everybody like where you've come from and how you got to where you are within the parameters of your comfortability, of course.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Uh well, I definitely am open book as you know, I my memoirs out there, and I I do need to be a tiny bit careful because I do have ongoing litigation with my ex. We're at our ninth court issue that we've had, and it's just it's a case of post-separation abuse, and that's one thing that I think that my next project is going to be really shining a light on the tactics that happen in post-separation abuse because especially men really go through sometimes after the breakup some really horrific things, especially when it comes to regarding children and custody and things like that. And so when you're a male and you're a survivor of domestic abuse or psychological warfare, as I like to call it, you're automatically at a loss because for me, I'm six foot five, I'm a big guy, you know, and at first glance, you know, you may think that I'm, you know, some tough badass or anything, but I'm I'm a I'm a teddy bear, I'm a softie. I mean, I have a big mouth, but there's nothing behind that. You know what I mean? I'm not a fighter,

A Survivor Story And Post-Separation Abuse

SPEAKER_02 15:20

I've never hit anybody, I've never been aggressive with anybody. And to be accused of that and to have criminal charges brought up against me was terrifying because every time I would go to the police here in Broward County, I would try to file police reports. They didn't want to hear anything. They didn't want to hear about sexual assault, they didn't want to hear about having video cameras set up in my home and having everything recorded. And they didn't want to hear about these things. All they saw was a six foot five man, you know, and a gay man at that, you know, talking about, you know, all this abuse, and all they see is that I have a pending charge. And so I kept getting dismissed. Every, every place that I went to for help, I got dismissed. Even with my lawyer that I had for my criminal trial, he didn't care. You know, he could have had it dismissed right off the bat, you know, because all the evidence that I had that this is just bogus, but instead he got an extra $5,000 retainer to let it go to trial and to have me go through that. You know, so it's just one of those things that what was made to break me definitely didn't break me, but it was a catalyst of me stepping into who I'm supposed to be. And so I'm very grateful for the journey that I've been on. I'm very grateful for everything that I've been through because the version of me that that didn't survive this, you know, I honor him every day. That's why I heal loudly. I make sure that I defend myself. And I've come out of this a person that truly loves themselves. You know, when you come out of this kind of abuse, it's it's not about what the narcissist or the predator or the sociopath or whatever. It's not about what they've done to you because we don't deserve that. You know, we understand that. But I had to look inside myself and ask myself these questions. What allowed me to stay here for so long? And that wasn't blaming myself, you know, that was trying to understand at the core. And when I really looked at that, I realized that I had been accepting love my entire life in forms that it never should have been accepted in. I thought that's what love was because that's how I grew up. I grew up thinking that it was here one day and then gone the next day, that I had to earn it, that it that it hurt. And that's not what love is. And so now I understand that I was a people pleaser. I was had low boundaries, I wanted to see the good in everybody. I gave people a million chances because I wanted them to be who I believe that I thought they could be, you know, and so all these things are indicative that people that have adverse childhood trauma and what you know we call being an empath. Well, being an unhealed empath is very toxic because to ourselves, we self-sacrifice and we end up, you know, allowing this kind of abuse to continue and thrive. So without going through this, I would still be in that cycle. So now I'm at the other side of it to where I truly love myself. I I I forgave myself for everything that happened. And, you know, I just I try to always remind people that this abuse, as horrific as it is, if you get the lesson that the universe is trying to give to you about yourself, it could be the best gift that you ever have, even though it comes in a painful package.

SPEAKER_03 18:27

What does it look like? What does the abuse what does the abuse look like for our listeners to who may be experiencing it or want to understand what it is that you're talking about?

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Well, to the outside world, the abuse is is is is you can't see it. You know, they just see two normal people. And but the abuse, it starts out what I like to call the in the eight stages of narcissistic psychological warfare, what we know as love bombing, or the you know, the term, pop term that we have out there. I call it indoctrination phase and constructive fraud or intimacy. And what that looks like is you find somebody and it moves very quickly. All of a sudden you have this intense connection with someone, you feel like you're on cloud nine, you feel like you found your soulmate, and everything that you want in life, they want in life. It's like you found the perfect person. It starts off as everything you ever thought you wanted, you know, and slowly, you know, once you get, you know, into the relationship a little bit, you know, there's all these commitments about getting married, about going, you know, having kids, doing this, doing that. You know, it's it's it's it's it's it's you're getting attached to this person very quickly.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Daniel, I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Oh no, go ahead. What were we gonna say?

SPEAKER_01 19:43

No, it's like they rush you through the express line, and they're like when you said it's spot on, they're so charismatic. And it's like they find what you yourself have been longing for and they placate that. It's like, oh, you wanted a family. Well, I'm gonna I could give you that family, and you know, I've never felt this way for anyone before, and we've wasted so much time in our life prior. Like let's just jump right in and and you know, they rush you through because it's one of their cycles and their phases that they go through, and they they make you believe everything they're saying, like they are so believable and so good at what they do, and then it starts with self-doubt, like you're like, really? Like you start doubting yourself, not them in this process. And then they're at the whole time, they're still pulling you in and pulling you. That mask is on that glued stage, it is glued on. And until you have keys and your residency and your mail comes to that house because it's not a home, that mask is on. But when that door shut and it deadbolt locks, that's when that mask falls off and you really see the creature behind it.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Yeah, definitely. And one of the things is that, you know, that that initial attraction, it is it's electrifying because you know, intimacy is amazing. They're they're so into you that like it's like you finally found someone that connects to you. But in reality, what they are doing, and this is a very predatory thing, they are what I like to call data mining you for information. They're getting to know all your hopes, all your dreams, all your fears. They're gonna they're gonna open up about trauma that they have that mirrors your trauma. And what they're doing is they're mapping you out because every single thing that they're finding out about you, they're storing up here and they're gonna use it to control you, abuse you, and exploit you. So that's why, like when I say language matters, when you say love bombing, it sounds like a fast attachment. It sounds like two people moving into, but what it is, it is indoctrination. And if you look at, and my book is based off of the Kubark Manual, which is the CIA's document on how to torture someone and how to break someone down psychologically without touching them. And the cycles that narcissistic abusers use is very similar to this. And in the beginning, in the Kubark manual, they want to gain rapport with their cat. Capture, you know, so they they they open up to them and stuff like this. And it's the same exact thing. What narcissists are doing is they're not trying to authentically attach to you, they're trying to gain emotional access to you to be able to get inside. Because once they get inside, what they do in that beginning period is when you're feeling this euphoria and this, like I've never felt this, you're on cloud nine. That's because all your chemicals, your dopamine, your oxytocin, all these feel-good chemicals are going, you're you're being brought up to a high that you never had. And that's why people feel euphoric. And what they're doing is they're hijacking basically your hormones and everything. And when they start to devalue and they drop

Indoctrination Trauma Bonds And The “High”

SPEAKER_02 22:40

you down, I mean, that's you chase that high and you try to get back to it. And that's one of the things that trap people so much because we call it trauma bonding. And I agree with everything that trauma bonding says. The only thing I disagree with is I don't think that it's an addiction to the abuse. I think it's an addiction in the beginning to that person that they pretended to be. That's what you're addicted to. That's what they get you, you know, when you're on cloud nine, and when you drop you down, you're constantly trying to get back to it. So, you know, I think that's that's that's how the abuse looks like. It looks like paradise in the beginning, and then it just slowly breaks you down, and it's it's it's horrific.

SPEAKER_03 23:19

So let me let me ask it to you in in this way, because I'm I'm getting a picture in my head that may or may not be fair, unfair, or whatever, but I'm just trying to draw an analogy to, you know, these god-awful like serial killers or kidnappers that are gonna take somebody for all the wrong reasons with the with the intent that eventually they they have to fulfill that need. There's a need, there's a desire in them to kill, rape, do whatever, torture, or all the above. Are you saying that a person who is truly a narcissist has a need to go out there, find a let's call a person, uh a partner, right? Find a partner, and then build them up so that they can systematically take them down, keep cut cutting them down, cutting them down, because it gratifies something in that person, the narcissist's psyche personality.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

In a in a way, yes. And so, and I'm not gonna paint a brush broadly for everybody because not all narcissists are the same, but there is a great deal of narcissistic people that have narcissistic personality disorder that also have antisocial personality disorder. And when you combine those two disorders, you have serial killers without weapons. And I and I say that as as I know it's an extreme sounding, but what happens in these relationships are extreme. When I shared that my partner was trying to get me to kill myself, and I had nine suicide attempts in in about nine months. It was very quick, totally broke me, like everything I was. I didn't realize what was happening until afterwards. And when I realized what he was doing, I shared a poem that I wrote called Every Time I Said I Wanted to Die, it wasn't the truth, I wanted to live. And when I shared that, it went viral. And I had so many people respond back to me, and everybody was saying the same thing that they felt that their partners were trying to get them to kill themselves. And the reality of that hit me so deeply because not many people talk about this abuse within the survivor community. It's very kind of you know close-knit. But almost all of us had the same experience. And when I started to listen to other creators and other people that have lived through this, a malignant narcissist, you know, is someone that is, you know, more sociopathic too. They get pleasure out of destroying people. They will push you to commit suicide because the goal is to neutralize you when the relationship is over. If you're not alive, you can't speak about the abuse. If you're discredited and everybody thinks that you're crazy, which I hate the word crazy, crazy is one of the biggest red flags I can hear. As soon as I hear crazy, it's like, what are you trying to convince me of about this person? You know what I mean? I hate the word crazy. And I've been called crazy a million times. And I would always say, I'm not crazy, but we feel crazy because that's what this abuse does to us. But when I found out that so many people had the same experience, I came to this realization the suicide rate due to narcissistic psychological warfare is severely under-reported. And when I say severely under-reported, it's it's almost non-existent. And the amount of people that are dying because of this, they're not they're not committing suicide. They're being murdered, they're being pushed to being murdered. And the the abuser will show up at the funeral, they'll they'll get all the sympathy, they'll collect insurance money, though, but they've already moved on to their next victim. And when we bury that person to the ground that was crazy or unstable or whatever, no, they were driven to suicide and they were murdered. And it's it's one of those things that really kind of drive everything that I do because I know what that's like, and I know what these people had to go through. We don't know their names, we don't know exactly the details, but I know how they died, and we can't forget them. And that's why everything I call is the Voiceless Justice Act or Voiceless No More, because those people are here to tell their stories. And they were somebody's father, somebody's mother, somebody's friend, and they weren't crazy, and we have to honor them. So that's why I try to put a light on everything that I do because I don't want people going through what I went through, and I don't want people to be erased like that, because the reality is most people that go through this extreme part of this abuse, they don't survive it, you know. So sorry, it just I get emotional talking about that part.

SPEAKER_03 28:02

How could you not? I'm emotional hearing about it. I mean, how could you not?

SPEAKER_01 28:06

You know, you're in a very safe space, Daniel.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

And yeah, I I I appreciate it. I just I just the the the thought of all those people, it's just like they they're not voiceless no more, and that's why the book is called that. It's it's because that's the main goal of the Voice Justice Act, is to get this recognized and to make sure that when somebody dies because of suicide, there's an investigation into it to see if these patterns are there and these people have to be prosecuted because in my case, my abuser, and I'm not gonna say his name right now because that's very not likely because I'm very much about we hold people accountable, but because there's pending litigation there, I'm gonna, for the sake of that, not give myself a headache. But my abuser was trying to get me to kill myself and to try to reconcile that when you get out of these relationships, it's your my brain sometimes can't even it just doesn't want to acknowledge it because there's this cognitive dissonance because it's somebody that you love, somebody that you cared for, somebody that you took care of. And it's like, but why would you want me dead? Like, like all I did was try to love you, and it's it's one of those things that's so difficult to try to wrap your head around because it's like it's just it's so predatory that it's really difficult to if you don't go through it, you it's it's it's not a bad breakup, but it's it's psychological warfare, it's it just totally messes with you.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

Well, not only is it hard to get your head around from that perspective, it's hard to get your head around as to why somebody, a in this take, in this case, a person who is truly narcissistic, uh why they rise to this let's just call it twisted challenge. And without you know, this is gonna sound horrible, but uh you if you go out to kill somebody, you kill them, it's over, you know, with this narcissistic uh this this narcissistic abuse this could go on and on and on for years and years and years, and the narcissist may never be completely he never may reach that that end game, that satisfaction of, hey, I did it, he killed himself. I I I succeeded. Do do they uh know that that's what they're pushing for? Do they not know? And I guess those questions are all unanswerable.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

It's it's one of those things that's debatable. The closest thing that we have to knowing about that is Dr. Sam Bachman, which is one of the leading experts on narcissists, he he he himself is a narcissist. He has some really amazing work that he's done, and he shows you kind of the insight of you know a narcissist's mind and whatnot. And the way that he theorizes it is that when you're when you're a child and you're developing, his theory is that when you bond to your initial caregiver, which usually is mother, that there's this individuation process that

When Abuse Pushes Toward Suicide

SPEAKER_02 31:05

happens. And what happens is, you know, once you bond with your mother and stuff, you break off and you individuate and you become your own person. He feels that narcissistic personality disorder, people with that disorder, they never individuate. So there's nothing there, there's no, there's nothing behind the mask. You know, and he says that it's hollow, it's empty. And so what he's saying in these relationships, what it's trying to repeat is that individuation process. So the new partner, from my understanding, becomes mother and the narcissist, you know, and their psyche, and they raise you up on this pedestal and they bring you really high, and then they want to cut you down, cut you down, cut you down. And he says, in those moments where somebody commits suicide, is the closest thing to being able to sever and to individuate. So the narcissist gets the sensation of becoming whole in themselves. And you would have to read more of his work on that because it's it's really interesting. But that's the closest thing that we have to knowing exactly what causes it, but there's no definite in that, you know. All all we can really assume is that this is something that happens because it's a trauma response, you know, just like being empathic is a trauma response, you know, narcissistic personality disorder, it's all born from the same kind of childhood wounds and stuff like that. So I mean, I think that people with a disorder that are more sociopathic, I think it's a sport to them. I think that they enjoy it, I think that they find pleasure in it and it's it's a it's a game to them.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

I can totally see that. I can I can absolutely and when you said that earlier, I was gonna absolutely, there has to be the connection. I and I'm just speaking anecdotally, I don't know, but you you know, if you have the sociopathic tendency and you throw in this this narcissistic personality side of it, you're it's a dangerous combo for sure. I mean, the Ted Bundys of the world, Ted Bundy's the first one, he's he's a classic for both of these things, I believe. But sorry, Victoria, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

No, it's like they will go the the best way, really, if if the listeners are trying to really say, Am I in this kind of situation? Is that God forbid the partner does end up committing suicide. This this true narcissist will be at the funeral with their new partner, grieving. I'm saying that with quotations, while everybody's providing that sympathy, which is filling up this psychological need that this narcissist is craving. And or if the partner doesn't show with them for that support, he's texting at the funeral, like, I'm here, can I meet you after? I'm just a mess. And it's the fact that they thrive on it and it's a cycle where they build you up to this point. And like, you know, we've said it's so charismatic, it's so charming. They just do this mind game on you where you just fall into this realm and it's hurry up and let's get together, hurry up, let's live together. And it's so that they have you in a controlled environment. They have you what I call in the box, which is the house, because it's not a home. And those have four walls. And then when those walls have you inside it, that mask comes off and it begins to self-doubt. It makes you start wondering about who you are. It makes you start listening to yourself as well, what am I doing wrong? Because this was like my soulmate. This is the perfect person, and he was everything I ever wanted, or she was everything I ever wanted. And and now all of a sudden things are different and they're not the person they were a month, six months, a year ago. What have I done? And it it starts to eat at you and who you are, and then it just goes down from there. And while they're tearing us down, it's lifting them up. And it is so it's so psychological. And the one thing that we have is our word and our honesty, and we thrive and strive by that because that is the one thing that these narcissistic individuals, if you will, can't take. And they try, they try to make us out to be the bad one, they try to make us out to be the abuser, or they try to make us out to be the liar. And so we know in our heart the only thing we have is our truth. We only have, and that's why I'm sure Daniel has so much proof and evidence, that's why I had so much proof and evidence, is because I even got to the point was like, did I deserve this because I did something wrong? And I would go back and reread, you know, the medical records or the proof of everything, because it does such a mind twist on you.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

It definitely does.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

And I think that that's that's the tragic aspect of it because not only is it doing a twist on you, the victim, while it's going on, survivor, hopefully afterward, but talk a little bit about Daniel, if you would, the the persp perception or the perspective of family, loved ones out there. So I'm I'm I'm Daniel's friend. I've been Daniel's friend for 35 years. Know the guy inside and out. And he's coming to me with with these stories or in this these horrific feelings, or maybe he's not, but it's very real to Daniel. And I'm on the outside looking in, saying, What the hell is Daniel talking about? Daniel's losing his cookies here. So there's you know, I I could see where it's very easy. I and you know, there you're talking a lot about it, a lot about the classic uh elements or symptoms that we see in in abusive relationships, right? The isolation, the gas lighting, gas lamping, whatever it's called, one way or the other. I don't know. But you know, you you have you have these uh a lot of these components and of course you got uh whether or not uh the Daniels of the world are running around saying he's a narcissistic asshole, he he only thinks about himself. But what is a family or friends? What do we what do we see when we're looking at you, Daniel, going through this? What might we see?

SPEAKER_02 37:04

Well, I'm just gonna speak on my experience. Everybody in my life uh erased me. My family didn't know how to deal with it. The only person were the only two people that were really, really there for me was my mom, and she was perfect. She did everything that she should have done, she just listened, you know, and my ex-wife.

SPEAKER_03 37:25

Can I ask you a question? What do you mean they erased you? Ghosted you, left you, no front, not friends anymore.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

So, what happens in this relationship, and this happens usually very early on, because when the narcissist is starting to devalue you or break you down, they're already looking for a new partner, they're looking to replace you eventually. So, what they do is in the beginning is that they're going to start the smear campaign, and how that happens is that they plant small seeds of doubt in the minds of people. So, what that's going to look like is, you know, hey, you know, Daniel's been working so much lately. I've been really worried about him. I wish he could get some time off. And they plant these little seeds of doubt that start to grow and grow and grow. And by the time you get out of this relationship, they've already preemptively cut you off because now they've baited you into situations where you're reacting to being abused, which I hate the term reactive abuse. I call it coerce defense aggression. They they keep you up for days, they they poke at you, they they they accuse you of things you're not doing. And finally, when you react to being abused, you know, they're filming it or recording it, and they're using that to show people that you're crazy and you're unstable. So when you get out of this relationship, you feel absolutely out of your mind, crazy. You don't know how to articulate it, you sound crazy, you sound panicked. So whenever you go out to try to tell people, they're not going to hear what you have to say because they're just going to see you and they're going to hear what they hear from the abuser, and they've already written a story. Now, imagine if they had to call the cops on you and try to get a restraining order or anything like that. My abuser told me, and one of the truest things he's ever said, it doesn't matter who tells a story. It doesn't matter if the story is true or false, it matters who tells it

Smear Campaigns Erasure And System Failures

SPEAKER_02 39:10

first. That's who they're going to believe. And that was the case. So everywhere I went, everybody just erased me. And what I say is that people in this community in multi manners, and that's why I'm so glad to be back because I come back a different person. And everybody that knew me, they knew me for years. And instead of saying, hey, listen, I hear what you're saying, but that's not the damn that I know. You know, that's not my experience. That alone could have done a lot to be able to stop the the character assassination that I had to go through. But instead, people didn't want to get involved with the drama. They didn't want to get involved with it because, you know, the abuser might be popular, attractive, this, this, or this. And they people just instead of sticking up and saying the right thing, they just say silent. And that is part of the erasure. When you go to get help from your friends and family and they can't understand the trauma that you've gone through and it becomes too much for them, they say, listen, we need you need to heal and move on. That's erasure. When they tell you that it was just a bad breakup, that's erasure. When you go to the police and they don't do anything, that's erasure. And whenever you have a crime committed against you and there's no accountability, there's no investigations, there's nothing done, and you have to heal and move on. That's not healing, that's being erased. And there's no true healing when there's no accountability. You can move on as much and move forward. And I hate the word move on because you don't move on from this abuse. You survive it. And surviving is an everyday thing. Surviving is painful every day. Surviving is some days it's it's so bad that I still can't function. Some days it's not so bad. But the entire community just erases you. Your friends and family, they can't handle it because for them to be able to process and understand what you're going through, it breaks the victim. They don't want to see the world that way. And unless you go through it, you know, you don't you truly don't understand it.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

So you have a micro level erasure and and blackout, if you will, as well as a macro level systematic, systematic erasure of the person that you were. It's just also diabolical. You know, it's like Lex Luthor, man.

SPEAKER_02 41:33

It's it's it's it's terrible because it's not only the abuse that you go through, it's what you go through afterwards. And every institution that is made to protect victims fails then. If you don't have that lived experience, you truly don't understand it. And if you did, you wouldn't be giving mantras like heal and move on, or it's just a bad thing. You wouldn't be saying these things because they're so toxic. And when you the first responders show up and they they they come to a scene of a 911 call, well, the narcissist is gonna be cool, calm, collected, gonna be easy to talk to, and the victim is going to look batshit, crazy because they're gonna be hysterical, they're gonna be emotional, they're not gonna be able to, they're gonna be erratic. And that instead of baker acting them, instead of getting a restraining order, instead of because all that stuff feeds into what the narcissist needs. See, look, oh, they got arrested, they got baker acted, they're crazy. It the whole system works against the victim because that person, when you show up and that that person's not okay, that's a victim right there. That's the person you need to talk to. Because the one that's cool, calm, and you know, collected, that's a person that's psychologically abusing them. And our first responders get it wrong every time. When I went to go get help for mental health facilities, they told me I had a drug problem. I would go to a drug rehab. They were like, You don't have any drugs, you're you're not you you we can't help you. Every place I went to go to turned me away, you know, and I'm like, I don't know what's happening to me. And they just put me back out on the streets and I was homeless. And and and thank God for my mom, you know, that I was able to get out of Florida and get towards her. But like, even the court system, I've been in front of the same judge, and I'll be careful about what I say because I'm we're still working on this. Nine times, nine times they've tried to put restraining orders against me, nine times they try to file criminal charges, and it's all fell apart. And it's like, after a while, when does somebody say, hey, listen, this is a pattern for three and a half years? There's been all these insane accusations, and none of them come true. How many times do they they try to file something and then not show up to court, but they don't see the pattern? And if they do, they just ignore it. And it's like, why continuously allow the legal system to be used to abuse someone? One. And that's the problem. Every system that's made to help you fails you. And it's not just my story, it's a story of hundreds of thousands of people in this country and across the world are going through the same thing. And there's nobody there fighting for them. Even within the narcissistic abuse self-help world, it's the same shit. You know, you need to heal quietly and move on. And don't give the narcissist any supply. And I reject that. I say, I say you give them so much supply, you name their name, you drag them with the receipts, you show the proof, you speak about their behavior, not them, you know, and you show the facts and you heal loudly. And you know what? If that gives them so much supply, let them choke on it because that's their behavior. That's that's that's they have to be held accountable. And if the law doesn't do it, if then you how do you move on from that when you know that there's been a crime and there's no one there to defend you? You have to defend yourself. That's how I learned to love myself, and I will heal loudly till the day I die. They've tried nine times to keep me quiet, and it just I refuse.

SPEAKER_03 45:02

Yeah, well, now and now now you you're fired up and your power is coming out of you. And and what I was thinking before was how in in that relationship setting, it sounds like you give so much power away, but no, you're getting it taken away from you, and your voice is saying, I'm gonna take that goddamn power back. And as you as you get ramped up, you're getting more and more powerful. Just you could see it the way your postures completely change and and everything. So kudos to you. And I like I really like what you called post-separation abuse because that's a very real thing that goes on, and that's that's not only with narcissism, but there's there's a lot of that with any kind of abuse relationship. So I I really think that's an important thing to to hone in on as well in in these studies. And just as a final thing, uh, you know, this even smacks a little bit of munchausen's when you look into what Munchausen's conditions are all about, too.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

So I I definitely want to say to Daniel, like I understand because I know when we've talked off air, I went through the same thing. Like, you know, when when police come to the scene, they immediately have another officer and they separate you and hear your stories. But the thing is that a lot of people don't understand unless they've been in our shoes, is that the individual who is the abuser, who is the true narcissist, is so calm and collective because you are just pouring into him at that point. He loves or she loves this because they're calm, they're taking it all in, and we're going, but they hit me, or they're doing this to me psychologically. They're not letting me leave, they're holding me hostage, they're doing this, they're doing that, and we're passionate, but we're also like frustrated and scared, and our emotions come out, and we are projected to be the ones that are unstable. And when you go to court and you're in there in the courtroom, we're sitting there trying to tell our story, asking for help, asking for a system that was supposedly designed, you know, to help and protect us, which is complete and utter bullshit that doesn't do what it's supposed to do, it protects them. Like here he, he or she is sitting over there on the defense seat, and they're just like sitting there, you know, just the calmest, quietest, coolest person. But inside, they are eating it up, sopping it up with a biscuit, loving every single second of it. While we're like, how many times do we have to come back here in front of the same judge, in front of, you know, the different police department, in front of all this, and you're not doing it? It is your responsibility as a system to protect us, and you're failing us, you're failing me, and you're feeding him. That's exactly you are not doing what the system was made to do, and it's making it worse.

SPEAKER_03 47:43

But and and but I think what what this conversation is pointing out more than anything, and you you're you're you're right, no arguing about it, but it's so frigging difficult. Right. That's why I actually Daniel's uh Daniel's perspective on this is spot on in that how difficult it is for a system to even recognize that this is a reverse problem.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

But like Daniel has all this proof. I had all this proof, I had my ex dead to rights, and they let him walk. They let him walk, and he is killed since, and he is walking it right now, and it doesn't matter. They let him walk, and so it's you know, the the system is so corrupt, and when it keeps going and going, and then it's just like it's not there to protect us. That's why I actually went and wrote the book Shielded, and you know, you look at it, and it's about the fact that it's not us that's shielded, it's not us that's protected, it's them, and it's the corruption of law enforcement, not all, but the fact they didn't do their job. It's the corruption of the court system, not all, but the ones that didn't protect us, which is what they're supposed to do. It's holding them accountable because they're not doing what they're supposed to do, which is to protect us, and what it's doing is protecting them.

SPEAKER_03 48:56

Exactly. Somewhere somewhere out there right now, somebody sitting in their bathroom secretly listening to this podcast because they can't do it out in the in the living room because their loved one family won't understand, and they may get beat up for it, or they may get gas lighted, or whatever that word is, or whatever. What is the important, absolute important message that they need to hear? Because they're relating to you right now. You're a very relatable guy. What do you what do you what do

The Message For Someone Still Inside

SPEAKER_03 49:25

they need to hear coming out of your mouth that they they need to take away from this right here, right now?

SPEAKER_02 49:32

That what you're going through is not your fault. You don't deserve it. But the person that you're with right now, you can't love them better, you can't fix them. They're gonna take from you and take from you till there's nothing left. You're either gonna lose everything or you're gonna lose your life. You have to make the decision, no matter how hard it is right now, to find a way to safely get out of there. I had to move states away. I lost everything. When I say everything, everything. But what I got from it, I want to trade it in. This is a painful, hard road. It's one of the hardest roads I've ever had to walk on, but it's worth it. You have to get out now because it does not get better if you stay with them. And you deserve a life that's happy, you deserve a life that's full of love. And and I just want you to know that you are not alone. There's other people out there that know you're not crazy. They know that you're not unstable, they know there's a whole community of people that understand it. And and don't give up because this world needs people like you. This isn't your fault. And I promise you, when I went through this in the beginning, I saw so many creators saying it's gonna get better. And I was like, these people are crazy. How does this get better? It does. What I do is not special, but it's very powerful. Our stories have the power to reach somebody out there that's struggling in silence. And when we heal loudly, we shine a light for people. So remember, things are gonna get better. Your story has a power to save someone, and and and just do whatever you have to do to get out of there safely.

SPEAKER_03 51:12

And in 20 years from now, for both of you guys, Victoria and for Daniel, you know, the voices that you have right now and the power that you have in your voices, uh my fervent hope is number one, you share that story and people are hearing it, as we just talked about, and they're learning from it. And it's also a lesson to them to uh tell their story so other people can learn from their stories as well, because they know people who may be going through this. But I think that the fact that you know you took the step, you you you you refuse to stay quiet is and continue to refuse to stay quiet is gonna be the legacy that maybe baby steps now, but you know, as I said, 15 years ago nobody heard of narcissist narcissism and it was just a funny word. Now it's a very serious uh word that's overplayed. So 20 years from now, I'm hoping that your willingness to stand here, sit here, be with us and hear hear your voice is gonna impact real positive change, real help for people, and that starts with guys like the two of you, Victoria and Daniel. That is the best thing that that any of us can leave on this planet behind us, I think.

SPEAKER_01 52:39

And I want to say, you know, another thing, and and I would love your your thoughts on it, Daniel, is you know, I I've had such an honor to work with so many beautiful people, and I hate how we meet because it's under such horrible circumstances, but they're amazing people. And when I hear, you know, someone say, Oh, you know, my partner or whatever, they didn't serve jail time. They don't get any time at all. And very rarely do they. And the very few that I have had the opportunity to work with that did serve jail time, they're like, oh, you know, they they got out in a year or they had six months of probation or anything like that. And I'm like, that's really not fair because their mentality of it is, well, I served my time, it's behind me. We don't get that. We don't have we have a life sentence. It is a life sentence, and it's not like we can just say we served our time and put the book on the shelf and get past it and move on, because it's a day-to-day thing, like you said in the beginning. It is every single day, it is a journey, you know. In our own way, we're in recovery. We are going through a recovery of abuse, of whatever type of abuse, it's still abuse. And we are always going through that recovery. And one baby step, as Mike said, is still a baby step in the right direction, which is away from the bad past. And that's why the mirror in the vehicle is so much smaller in the rear view and it's so much bigger in the front because that's the direction we need to go in. And I've told, I've told Daniel when we were talking privately that like I he is such a strength, and I can't thank you enough. He is very active in the mental health resource network group on Facebook that we have. And he is, he's just a voice that needs to be heard by so many people in so many places. And that I've even told him that, you know, I really would love to see him and I, you know, talk in any way that we can help him because he has such a message that needs to get out there and resonate. Because especially because a lot of men don't want to do exactly what you're doing. And on that part alone, I want to thank you because it's it's hard as a person, yet alone a man or a woman, or no matter what, it's a person who has gone through this and come out on the other side, and you are so much stronger than I think you've realized. I mean, you know your strength, but I see your strength and I see your light, and it is so strong. And for that, I thank you.

SPEAKER_02 54:53

Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.

Men’s Mental Health And Closing

SPEAKER_02 54:55

And and I do want to say, real quick, that it is Men's Mental Health Awareness Month, and it is narcissistic abuse awareness month. And I do want to just do one little shameless promotion. Absolutely. The ladies at I Am Magazine International, they're an amazing group of ladies. They had contacted me a while ago, and their whole platform is about sharing authentic stories and what people have gone through. And for this month's for Men's Mental Health Month, they featured me on the cover of their magazine. So if you guys could check it out, these ladies they have an amazing organization. It's called I Am Magazine International. They have a Spanish division, a men's division, and the regular magazine. So check that out. Read the story in there. And for men that are going through this, there's this kind of idea that you're not supposed to talk about your feelings. You're not supposed to, you're supposed to be tough and strong in this assist. Real strength is having emotional intelligence to understand that being vulnerable, that is my biggest strength. Being vulnerable and showing people who I am authentically without hiding it, that's what's made everything that I do resonate with people. And if it wasn't for that, I would be voiceless still. People wanted to listen. So it's it's not being weak showing your emotions. It's not being weak, you know, being open. That that's a sign of strength because a true strength in everything is being confident in yourself and being confident in your emotions and owning that and everything. And if you you're out there and you've been sexually assaulted, or if you've been abused, or if you had your kids taken away from you, or whatever the case is, just because you're a man doesn't make it any less, it's valid what you've gone through. And there's other guys that have gone through that. So, as a survivor of sexual assault and everything like that, you know, I just want to let you guys know that it's it's it's okay. There's other people out there that have gone through it. And you know, if you feel safe enough to talk about it, find someone to open up with because you know, you don't have to suffer in silence. And there's so many men out there that have gone through this that understand that it'll be there to listen to you.

SPEAKER_03 56:58

Well said, well said. Daniel Ryan Cotler is the author of Voiceless No More, the League of War on Narcissistic Abuse, and he's the founder of the Heal Loudly movement, doing great work, and it's been a pleasure. He is involved, folks, in our care coalition, and he contributes to our our mental health resource network and on your Facebook group, and we are so happy to have him there. So find him there, find his book, check him out, get the magazine, get the articles, get everything. And and thank you all for being here. And thank you again, Daniel, for helping to enlighten me on a subject that that's really uh important.

SPEAKER_02 57:38

Thank you guys for having me.