Ep.22: Surviving Narcissistic Abuse Part 2

In this episode of Insights from the Couch, we are back with Vanessa Reiser for part two of our deep dive into narcissistic abuse. We continue unpacking the signs, behaviors, and long-term effects of dealing with narcissists, including the devastating post-separation abuse that often follows the end of these toxic relationships. Vanessa explains key terms like gaslighting, hoovering, and supply, providing listeners with practical tips on how to recognize and protect themselves from narcissistic behaviors.

Vanessa also offers valuable insight into what recovery looks like—how to escape, heal, and rebuild your life after enduring this form of psychological manipulation. If you’ve ever struggled in a relationship with a narcissist or suspect someone in your life might be manipulating you, this episode is a must-listen. You’ll walk away feeling empowered and ready to reclaim your life.

Episode Highlights:
[1:39] - Understanding key terms like gaslighting, hoovering, and narcissistic supply.
[6:00] - What is hoovering? Why narcissists come back, and how to protect yourself.
[7:45] - What happens when you cause "narcissistic injury"? The risks of confronting a narcissist.
[10:40] - Can you neutralize a narcissist in a relationship if you can’t leave? Practical advice.
[12:01] - How to safely get out of a relationship with a narcissist: Tips for planning your exit.
[14:01] - Minimizing contact and communication with a narcissist when planning to leave.
[19:29] - Encouraging your children to think independently to avoid narcissistic relationships.
[21:42] - First steps in emotional healing after leaving a narcissist.
[24:13] - Finding the right therapist or coach for support and how to protect yourself legally.

Resources:

For more on this topic visit our website insightsfromthecouch.org If you have questions please email us at info@insightsfromthecouch.org we would love to hear from you!

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Transcript

Colette Fehr: 0:00

Music. Welcome back. This is part two of our special on narcissism. I'm here with Laura and our special guest, Vanessa Reiser, whose book narcissistic abuse, the therapist guide to identify escaping and healing from toxic, manipulative people, is out october 29 and we're gonna dig right back in where we left off. So there's no incentive to improve, and then there's rigidity in the brain. So, you know, I did a little video not that long ago. This is not my specialty at all, even as a couple's therapist. Of course, I've bumped up against it professionally, and I've lived through it. But if you're in a relationship with someone who really has narcissistic personality disorder, you know my personal opinion is, just get out. There's there's no way to be in that that's healthy for you. And perhaps the way we're conditioned by society as women to be nice, to be accepting, to your point, to give the benefit of the doubt can only serve to keep us there longer as we slowly lose ourselves. So I'm just so glad to hear you bringing such focused, in depth attention to this, and I wonder if maybe Vanessa, you could describe some of the terms that I know you're going to cover in your book, like you already talked a little bit about, love bombing, but hoovering, gaslighting, everyone's throwing gaslighting around left and right. Maybe you could really help us understand what those things are and aren't.

Laura Bowman: 1:35

And even the word supply, I don't know if our listeners understand supply.

Vanessa Reiser: 1:39

Yeah, so supply would be basically somebody who's providing attention. So there's generally, like a main supply. This might could be a wife or a husband, and then there are supplemental supplies, or a gaggle of people on the back burner that are going to feed supply to the narcissist. And these are not always intimate relationships, like a love affair. It could be the child of so that can be a main supply. If, you know, mother is out of the house, and that was the main supply, and then the son becomes a supply. Or the somebody who is a colleague, they tend to have very transactional relationships. So they don't have real friends, there's always some kind of give and take that's happening. So supply would be anybody who gives them attention, and they generally have a gaggle of those gaslighting is anytime you're having communication, it's not even just communication, but anytime somebody is trying to confuse you. So any communication that is word salad or circular, they go on and on and on, and you find yourself either feeling stupider or confused. That could be gaslighting when they deflect project. I always like to make the analogy of or the metaphor of, and it's a Manhattan reference, but being a New Yorker, if you're on Houston Street and the narcissist is taking you down avenues ABCD, so you're focusing on something, and then they're all of a sudden taking a different avenue. That could be a moment where you're being gaslit. There's also a version of gaslighting where somebody might hide your belongings to make you feel crazy or confused. People often report to me that their clothing has gone missing, and they're kind of trying to figure out if they're like, you know, crazy cyber gaslighting is another version of gaslighting where somebody might hack into your computer and start texting or emailing friends and family from your email address, from your phone number, and you begin to question yourself, did I send that? Did I have too much wine last night? What's the problem here? What's going on? Am I crazy? Am I the problem? So there's a lot of versions of gasoline, but by and large, they are generally just designed to have you second guess yourself, feel confused, and get you further and further away from the truth. Narcissists will always be controlling. They generally can be braggarts. They are boundary lists. So these are people who will text you while you're at work, knowing that you're at work, or push through the bathroom door or try to tell you what to eat, how to dress, so they're always pushing your boundaries. Anything that is autonomous in you is something that they're going to try to break down. Autonomy is kryptonite to the narcissist. So if you are autonomous, they are allergic to that. They want to control you and groom you. So autonomy is where you need to stay if you are to stay safe. That means, you know, staying connected to your hobbies, your passions, your family, your finances and your essence in general, because that will keep them from bothering you as much they'll kind of slither away and go find somebody that they can. Stipulate so autonomy is kryptonite. That is your best. Whatever makes you you stay connected to that friends don't ever allow anybody to keep you, get you isolated. They can be intimidating, isolating. They wear a mask. They do the smear campaign. They start that pretty early on, planting seeds. They become trees later on, post breakup, they can be very superficial. They triangulate, they withhold information. And Dr Ramani says this best. It's like a recipe. There's a lot of characteristics. It's not just one thing. But you know, there's a way out, as I mentioned. You just have to kind of lean into your power. And that's the magic of it all.

Laura Bowman: 5:48

I imagine there's so many risks though,

Colette Fehr: 5:50

well, and I want to talk about that, but, but first, I just want to one more term that I'm hearing more and more lately. Can you explain to the listener what hoovering is?

Vanessa Reiser: 6:00

Sure, so when we go through the cycle of abuse, we have the love bombing, the devaluing and the discard phases, hoovering kind of gets peppered in there. So they on the second time around, will kind of come back around and Hoover you back. And then we begin the cycle of abuse again, where it's sort of this idolizing, devaluing and then, like a fallout makeup session, tension building. Fallout makeup session, tensioning. But hoovering comes between the fallout and the makeup session is when they kind of bring you back. Sometimes they can sit on their hands for years and then Hoover you back, suck you in, yeah, mostly because they're either bored or they run out of supply. You are not the only one that's getting hoovered. You are not the only one kind of, I always think of it as like a beacon light in a prison yard, and like the light comes around and you kind of have to duck to make sure you don't get caught by, you know, the narcissist or the prison guard. So they are going to Hoover around to everyone. They're kind of always casting out lines. You know, old supply, new supply. They it's like they're starving, and they would almost like die without the attention. So, you know, it's important for people to realize they're not alone in the prison yard. Sometimes people think, and it's, it's really hard on their egos to realize that it isn't you that they want. It's not about you, and I think it's equal parts horrifying and equal parts liberating to understand that this has nothing to do with you. You are a utility. You are not alone. They're going to find someone else to fill the void. It's horrifying because you weren't seen as a person as and you deserve to be, but it's liberating because it has nothing to do with you.

Laura Bowman: 7:45

Let me ask you this, what about when you're in a this could be a family relationship or a romantic relationship, and you've caused the narcissist what we might call like a narcissistic injury. Oh yeah, you've maybe called them out, gotten away. Do you become more interesting in some ways, for the you? Does the narcissist become more fixated on you? Or do they? Do they truly discard you?

Vanessa Reiser: 8:13

Depending upon the malignancy, I would say, the more malignant, the more vindictive they are so now you will suffer for having harmed their ego. If they are benign, they may could just scurry onto the next supply, but somebody who is more malignant, and there are often overlaps in these Cluster B personalities with psychopathy or sociopathy. So if they are more malignant and there is any antisocial component, then you are really in for the post separation abuse, which it's literally like having a personal terrorist for the rest of your life. I mean, when I spoke to Debbie Newell from dirty John, and I asked her, What's it like to have him have been unalived? And she said it was great because she knew that he would torture her from prison. That was just exactly what she told me. And she sort of famously, you know, had to deal with her own daughter in self defense on a living dirty John. But you know, a lot of my clients share this with me, but that there's no way out, because the post separation abuse, it's like having herpes. It's just, oh, he'll always be there. He'll just always just be there, sort of lingering, ready to pounce, toying with you. So depending upon the malignancy and obviously, dirty John was a sociopath trying to, you know, kill Tara Debbie's daughter, then she, you know, in self defense takes him out. But the idea is, yeah, depending upon the malignancy, you really don't know what they're capable of in terms of impulsivity, whether it's even through an accident, because of something that you do and they just raise. John you, or if it's something rather maniacal, a lot of times people come to me saying that they believe they're being poisoned slowly. So, yeah, that that malignancy, I think, is what comes into play there.

Laura Bowman: 10:13

I was just wondering. I mean, obviously I want to shout out to women, and I heard you talk about this a little bit on your social media, about, like some women can't leave, like they're just stuck for reasons that this post relationship abuse would be too extreme, like they just don't want to live that way, or for financial reasons they can't leave. Well, how do you neutralize a narcissist in a relationship that you can't leave?

Vanessa Reiser: 10:40

Great question. And I think the word neutralize is a great word. It's just really hard to achieve. But I suppose what you'd have to do is, in some ways, placate, yes, them, you know, kind of dance with them, minimally, you know, kind of allowing them to win, like, micro dosing. You know, their wins like, okay, yeah, sure. You know, sure, yeah, okay, yeah, you're right to the extent that you can provide some harm reduction to yourself. I would say, though, and this is an uncomfortable truth, it's still worth getting out because you think you can manage that, and again, the dial will get turned up. They will sniff that out, find a way to get more attention from you. And so I don't think that the long game there is any better. I do believe firmly that to get out and sort of go through the portal of Hell is better than staying with one of them. And I know that's crazy, because it's really, really close.

Colette Fehr: 11:47

Yeah, well said. So what about in cases where it is possible, albeit difficult, to get out? How do people make the break and talk to us a little bit about that process and beginning to heal. Yeah,

Vanessa Reiser: 12:02

I think you have to get a safety bag together, get your precious belongings, maybe into a storage unit these. This includes, you know, things that are rather sentimental to you. If you have your grandmother's piano, you know, when he's out of the house, you're going to have to get going on, moving things even that big. Imagine that. It's like the elephant in the room, literally, you know, the piano needed to be serviced, hiding pictures, hiding cash, hiding jewelry, because the post separation is no joke. You will be sucked to dry. In terms of finances, there are plenty of Narcis that would rather bankrupt their billion dollar businesses than pay you a red cent. And so it's about the win for them. And so you have to start tucking and thinking a little bit differently about belongings and how to protect your finances and your cherished possessions. It cannot be kind of overstated that they will go after your grandmother's locket. They will go after the pictures that you have of your children, and you'll find them in the fire pit. There's nothing that they wouldn't do to cause you pain. So you have to kind of think ahead. Get some friends that might help you store things. Do it slowly, be careful as you do it. That is generally what I see work is just sort of not go you're a narcissist. I'm out of here because now you've alerted them, and they're going to, they're going to do everything to ruin your life. So if you can stay quiet about it and start to sort of pull your belongings out of there, it's best,

Colette Fehr: 13:49

this idea of kind of minimizing, not calling someone out for being a narcissist, because there's nothing to be gained from that. What do you suggest, if anything, that people say when they are going to leave and they're slowly extricating themselves, probably

Vanessa Reiser: 14:02

as little as possible, because again, if you say, going to be at the house Friday and I'm going to grab that blanket that you know my grandmother gave me, you're just guaranteeing the blanket is going to be gone. So there's nothing that you could share with them. If you say I'm not going to be home later because I have a meeting at work, all of a sudden there's a memo going to the attorney that you were supposed to be there with the child and you're drunk. And obviously like it just there's no information that you could share with them that would be helpful in any way. And so anything you can do to just not give them Intel, it just gets exploited. It gets shifted. It gets I can't tell you, a lot of my clients, they use the our family wizard when they're trying to co parent with the narcissist. And even in that environment, which is. Is the this is an app that is used by the courts so that they oversee communications via text between the two parents and the narcissist still will lie. You know, like you were supposed to be here at noon. Child had therapy, and the healthy parent is like, what are you talking about? There was no therapy, so you can't even engage with them in those capacities. There's just no point in doing that. They exploit everything to be used against you. It becomes rather treacherous. The best thing, I would say, is you have to find, if you are divorcing one, you have to find an attorney in your county that is in bed with the judges, there's somebody that is playing golf, that is smoking cigars, that knows the players. It is highly political. This is not a joke. You have to just understand that and accept that. This is not about a skill set for your lawyer. This is about politics. It's about knowing who's who in the county that you reside in terms of the Family Court. So you have to ask around, get, you know, get an anonymous post on a Facebook page and say who are the attorneys in this county that are in bed with the judges?

Laura Bowman: 16:10

Wow. Like you need that to I mean, that doesn't seem right. It feels like something the narcissist would do,

Vanessa Reiser: 16:17

oh, it's not right. That's what makes it so scary. It's not right, but that's real talk.

Colette Fehr: 16:22

Yeah, this is hardcore, being up against someone like this, and it's just everything you're saying Vanessa is so validating. You know, some of the things are more extreme than what I experienced, but so much of this really hits home. And just for me personally, once I wounded the ex narcissist in my life, once I wounded the ego, it's never there's there's no coming back from it. It doesn't matter how much time has passed, how much life has moved on for him, for me, it's just there's still that desire to fuck with me for sport, and it's evident anytime I'm around him. It's fascinating and scary, yeah, but so validating. So even for me, and I feel like I've really healed from this, but it's still so validating to hear. So I can imagine for listeners who are relating to this how validating all of this is to hear back to your point about why we really need to come together and reach out to other people who have experienced this in general and even as a result of our particular present or former partner. Can you share with us a little bit about you know, the hopeful part of healing from this and moving on, because it does such a fucking member on your psyche.

Vanessa Reiser: 17:44

Yeah, there's so much hope in the dialog being opened. I mean, the word gaslighting was the word of 2023 so we are seeing people begin to talk about this in a way that I don't think has ever occurred. This is a very age old condition. I often wonder about we called the witches being burned in Salem, and they were probably hysterical over having to endure some, you know, narcissists, tirades and so then they were kind of death. So I don't think this is a new conversation, but I think the fact that we have developed vernacular and words to describe what they are up to is encouraging, because it really will help to validate people. They won't have to suffer alone. I imagine so many people connecting around these conversations and feeling so much hope. Imagine doing this before the internet and how long it would take for you to recover, if at all, plenty of these relationships and in suicide homicide. I mean, we saw with Gabby petito getting strangled young girl, really good example of a sociopath who was also very narcissistic. But I think those are those stories are coming to light, and I think that it does nothing to harm us. It does a lot to protect us and our future generations, daughters, sons, etc, from being victimized, if we can sort of put the word out and get people to understand how to protect themselves from these kinds of people.

Laura Bowman: 19:29

My daughter dated somebody who was highly narcissistic is still highly narcissistic. I was so glad I understood what I was looking at to give her advice on really closing all doors to this individual, and I still see him orbiting. And I just, I mean, I think that we can recognize it sooner and sooner, so our daughters will have this vocabulary, yeah, and I think

Vanessa Reiser: 19:57

it's also important, because the book I wrote. Is really fusing the concepts of narcissistic abuse and cult abuse is for your daughter and others to understand, not just the manipulative partner, but the manipulative environment, like a cult of five, right? So this could be a work environment. This could be the neighborhood family. We have the cult of one, we have the cult of two, we have the cult of five, we have the cult of 50, we have the cult of 5 million in political environments. And so what I think is really important is to develop in our children this idea of being an independent thinker, as I mentioned earlier, autonomy is kryptonite. So if they become an independent thinker, and they understand fact and fiction, right? We saw with in some political environments like this idea of alternative facts, which doesn't fucking exist at all. So, you know, understanding fact and fiction and staying true to that sort of science brain, and then being very independent in their thinking and not getting caught up in any group think scenarios. I don't care if it's with their girlfriends or bullying somebody. I don't care if it's in an intimate relationship. I don't care if it's in a work environment. Independent thinking is the magic that is the sweet spot, that is the autonomy, that is the way to keep your children from being victimized by anybody. That's

Colette Fehr: 21:22

it? Yeah, wow. So if somebody is just newly getting out of a relationship with a narcissist, they've summoned the courage, they've seen the writing on the wall, and they've decided to get out. What's the first thing you would suggest in terms of healing emotionally, I

Vanessa Reiser: 21:42

think, surround yourself with people that get it. I don't have a lot of friends anymore that don't get it. They kind of it wasn't it wasn't a vibe for me. I needed people that really understood it, not that they had all gone through it, but they were able to hold space and were, you know, kind of eager to learn about what I was enduring and managed to remain close and understanding with me, so I don't have any friends that don't get it. If anyone is victim blaming me or shaming me or asking me questions like, Why didn't you just leave? Or, you know, I don't I don't understand this. There's two sides to every story or any of this garbage, I just removed them from my life, and I had a very, very big social group when I was in high school. And those people are not in my life anymore, because a lot of them sort of were seduced by my ex's finances, in my opinion, or other things, because I don't sort of look like a victim. I kind of have this badassery. So people, I think, weren't really sure of what to make of me, and when I was sort of screaming from the mountains about what this was. But I don't have anybody around me that doesn't believe me or honor what I have endured, and I think that that's okay. So I would say, find a good tribe. Find people that will listen to you process this. Another good thing to do if you are having a barrier there, or there's some time where you need to sort of sit in your own brain. I love journaling, and I'm sure you guys have some thoughts on this as therapist, but I do it even with audio journaling. Sometimes I'll just rage into the, you know, the messenger, and I'll just kind of just like, throw up everything I'm thinking. And a lot of times I process a lot of it through not just saying but also listening to it back. So I think the idea what I'm saying is to be expressive, to get it off your chest, and not to internalize the toxicity of this. And so run your mouth to anybody who will listen for the most part, and get it off your chest. Journal about it, rage about it, scream about it, run about it, just out with it. Get it. Get it out. Get

Colette Fehr: 23:56

it out. Get it out. And are there any particular resources you know, let's say, obviously, it would be great to work with a therapist, any resources in addition to that, or if someone can't afford or find a therapist, that are helpful as a frontline? Yeah,

Vanessa Reiser: 24:13

I'm a little leery of domestic violence centers. I know that's not a popular opinion, so I mean, obviously they are there, just be careful, because there are toxic environments in a lot of the institutions that we don't realize are there. But I would say, find a narc, savvy clinician. This is somebody who you can ask them directly if they've endured this, or if they have experience with domestic violence, specifically narcissistic abuse. I have an organization, teletherapist.org which is a nonprofit. So if you are looking for a narc, savvy clinician in your respective state, I will link you with someone. But a lot of times, if you express that you're struggling financially, you know clinicians will try to work with you on a sliding scale. Don't be afraid to ask for that support financially. By clinicians, there are other resources, like life coaches, that are actually phenomenal. They are not maybe clinically brained or trained, but they still have something that will help you in terms of feeling validated. Listen to yourself, if it's too expensive or your gut is telling you that it feels like a Ponzi scheme or something like that. You know, get out of there. The best thing you can do is find a clinician who specializes in this and try to manage even if you separate your visits with the clinician to be monthly or even bimonthly, getting in front of them is going to be tremendous, also, because you're laying the groundwork. If you find yourself in the judicial system that somebody is going to co sign what you've endured PTSD is the only diagnosis that has liability that means something or someone caused it. And when you get a clinician to write that in their notes and do a biopsychosocial for you and highlight that you've experienced PTSD, it you know, can be really helpful in terms of liability. It says somebody did this, something happened to this person. It's not they were born like this. It's not that they have Munch houses or borderline PTSD was caused by, you know, this alleged abuse or reported abuse, but the clinician will know the words to use to help you and bolster your story, and that can go a long way and pay dividends in the court scenario. So I cannot state enough how important is to find a clinician that understands this and will support you.

Laura Bowman: 26:34

Yeah, because if they don't, you know, sometimes the clinician will be like, Well, maybe you guys need to go to marriage counseling counseling

Colette Fehr: 26:41

Exactly, exactly right. Be very careful. Yeah, and I've always noticed I only work with couples as a therapist, and I've noticed that when somebody with strong narcissistic features, narcissistic personality disorder comes in for couples therapy, because I do Emotionally Focused couples therapy EFT, and it requires so much emotional vulnerability, they weed themselves out immediately. There's no tolerance or interest in the process. You know, they're here one or two times and they're out. Yeah, it's

Vanessa Reiser: 27:13

hard because as a couple's therapist, there are going to be something that sort of would be easier to treat, which would be avoidant attachment that presents very much like NPD, or bipolar in its manic phases, presents very much like NPD. And those things are highly treatable because, you know, as avoidance, you can spend time with secure people, and you can, as you mentioned, like talk about your vulnerabilities bipolar people, it's very easy to manage with, not easy to manage, but there's hope to manage in terms of medications too and stuff like that. But to your point, like in the couple's counseling, if they come in and there's an avoidant attachment, it could get diagnosed as that, and it could be NPD. There's certain things that seem very, very paralleled, and so it's probably really hard to manage that, but yeah, I think ultimately they reveal themselves because they're not going to be accountable. There's going to be a lot of blame shifting. They can be very manipulative in those environments, too, and that's why I caution people to never go to couples counseling with somebody they believe has NPD, because again, that information will be exploited and used against them, all of those vulnerabilities, which, again, it's very tricky. A lot of times people come into me in the couples counseling scenario because they're saying, I think this one has MPD, and I say, I don't recommend you do this, but I'll do it like once, and then, yeah, see, yeah. But it's really, it's really tricky, because there are plenty of things that you can treat, like avoid an attachment and bipolar that are going to mimic NPD. So hopefully it's just sort of finding, you know, when I'm assessing for bipolar, I'm looking for the depressive piece a lot. Yeah, you know, like I'm looking for that a lot.

Colette Fehr: 28:54

It's very dynamic. Yeah. Well, this is so helpful and insightful, even as clinicians, I can't even imagine, for our listeners and the hope that's there, you can get out, you can heal. No one's saying it's easy, but it's amazing. The awareness you've brought to this. And I'm so excited to read your book. Let me just give the title again, it's narcissistic abuse, a therapist guide to identifying, escaping and healing from toxic and manipulative people out for sale everywhere on october 29 You must be so excited. Vanessa,

Vanessa Reiser: 29:35

such a thrill. And I'm so proud of it. I think it's the only non self published book that fuses the concepts of cult abuse and narcissistic abuse. So the idea that people would think of themselves as being victimized by a cult leader is very important to me, because it's the exact same thing. Every cult is led by a narcissist, a sociopath or a psychopath. So it's the basically fusing. Those concepts, and so I'm really proud of it, and it is available for pre order now at Target, Walmart, Hachette, Amazons and the rest. We'll

Colette Fehr: 30:08

link to the book in the show notes and some other resources for you guys. Thank you so much for listening. Vanessa, thank you for being here. This was so helpful.

Vanessa Reiser: 30:20

Thank you so much for the work you're doing and shining a light on this as therapists. It's so important. And I really am so glad you know, to have you guys do this. You know, it's really good to be around people in this space that that understand it clinically. And so I just, I really, it's a big nod, and I really appreciate it. Yeah,

Colette Fehr: 30:39

thank you. Had

Laura Bowman: 30:40

you come to Florida, I'd be happy to run with you. Oh yeah, I

Vanessa Reiser: 30:43

think we plan on running across Florida actually.

Unknown: 30:47

Well, I'll

Colette Fehr: 30:48

start training so I can join you and I can make it past the block. All right, Vanessa, thank you so much, and please keep in touch and check out all the resources@insightsfromthecouch.org Thanks for listening, and please remember to follow share with your friends, anyone you think who could benefit from this episode and give us a five star review. If you liked what you heard, Thanks, and we'll see you next time you.