Dr. Ramani: 2 Signs You are Being Love Bombed & 8 Ways to Know If You are Dealing with a Narcissist

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one health and wellness podcast, Jay Sheety Jay Shetty Sadly. Hey, everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place that makes you happier, healthier, and more healed. Today's guest is one of your favorites, someone that you've been wanting to have back on and a dear friend of mine, So I always get really

excited when she's in the chair opposite me. Someone who's great at defining terms that we throw around in culture, defining those buzzwords, really understanding deeply how they impact our lives and how we can navigate the challenges that come with them. I'm talking about the one and only Dr Rahmany, a licensed clinical psychologist, Professor of Psychology at California State University of Los Angeles, and the founder and CEO of

Lunar Education, Training and Consulting. Dr Romaney discusses narcissism on her popular YouTube channel on social media as at Dr Romie. If you don't follow her already, make sure you go and do that. Her popular online program on healing from narcissistic abuse, and as the host of the podcast Navigating Narcissism. Her new book is called It's Not You, Identifying and healing from narcissistic people. Go and grab a copy of

this book right now. If this is something that you've been dealing with, if you have a friend or a family member, this is the book to give them for that healing journey. Please welcome back to On Purpose, Dr Romney.

you grab a copy of it. I want to start off d Rominy by again clarifying terms, because I think we're living at a time where there's so many terms on TikTok and YouTube and social media, and often they transpire into how we talk to our family members, friends. Yes, What is the difference between a narcissist and narcissistic personality disorder?

not a disorder. There is something called narcissistic personality disorder, which is when a person is presenting with the various narcissistic patterns we've talked about, the low and variable empathy, the entitlement, the grandiosity, the arrogance, the envy, the admiration and validation seeking, that whole laundry list, the egocentricity, all the selfishness, all that stuff. Right, So all of that is happening. It's chronic, it's pervasive, It shows up in

their life and whole bunch of different relationships. The difference is they actually go to a therapist's office who's licensed and trained to issue a diagnosis, and that therapist determines like yep, I'm seeing these patterns. They're consistent, they're across situations, and they may assign them that diagnosis. The vast majority of people who have this personality style are never going to be in a practitioner's office who's going to make

that determination. And it gets tricky, right, because to call something a disorder raises a whole bunch of issues. Personally, Jay, if I ran the world, I think we'd get rid of this diagnosis. I think we get nothing out of it. It doesn't I don't even think it helps the clients. A lot of clinicians don't issue it because it feels stigmatizing. There's a whole host of reasons I think it shouldn't be, but it is. Right Now, here's what you've got to

remember when we look at narcissism in the world. Right, So, there's people out there who are narcissistic. They might be mildly narcissistic and a little bit more emotionally immature and just sort of selfish and shallow all the way up to severe where it can be malignant and it can be coercive and manipulative and all of that. And there's all the stuff in between. This book is really focused on the in between. Right, So, most people aren't dealing

with someone coercive. That's and many are, and that's a much more severe issue that is probably beyond the scope of the book. But most people who are dealing with the mild narcissism, they're frustrated and annoyed, but they're not devastated and hurt like we see in that sort of middle level of narcissism. Right, So the difference is literally that sort of mechanical point they weren't seen by someone. And I don't know that any but listen, I'll be

honest with you. If I met someone at a dinner party and they start telling me their life, I might even think in my head, I've got a hypothesis clinically, what's happening in no universe we occupy. Would I ever say to that person, even if I talk to them for two hours, I think you have generalized anxiety disorder. I think you have bipolar two. I just wouldn't say it, right,

it's not the setting, it's not the situation. I might strongly sugges say, hey, you should talk to someone right where it gets interesting is the mistake a lot of people make is Number one. They assume that if a person has narcissistic personality disorder, that their narcissism is more severe. Not necessarily, there are people out there with NPD narcissistic personality disorder whose narcissism actually is not as severe as people who were never diagnosed because they never went into

that situation. So you see what I'm saying. So there's people out there who are malignant narcissistic people. They're never seen by anyone. We can speculate, we could spitball wed say yeah, it's probably the case, but that person with

NPD may simply seem a clinician. The other piece though here too, is that what it's doing is it's creating this very sort of strange space where people are saying, these are the patterns I'm seeing in a partner, parent, whomever, I think they might be narcissistic, and the Internet, as it does, is very quick to shame that person. Who do you think you are? How could you think this

about someone? And this person is probably already been really hurt, really devastated by this relationship, is now being shamed for sharing, Like I think this might be what's happening, it's also creating this ord really painful space. So suffice it to say, I think in the public conversation about narcissism, we should

only call it narcissism. Getting into the weeds on NPD is really getting on this sort of subtle clinical point and it just creates It makes a lot of noise here, so we're not able to have the clear conversation that these personality styles are harming the people who are in these relationships.

kind of awareness and culture? Has it always been there? Has it increased? What's happened?

them nice people. I'd say, let them innovate, just don't go on a date with them, you know, that's really what we're talking about here. So there is an out of the box nest to them, and there's a fantasy that they live in that they often feel compelled to create. So you better believe that they've always been there. I don't know that we would have had the leaps and boutance we've had in some ways without that, right, So that said, it's always been there, but we never had

a name for it. Remember, psychology is a field in its infancy. What's it been around one hundred and fifty one hundred and seventy five years, So it's evolving. And so this concept of talking about someone's personality in this way, maybe since the late eighteen hundreds, we've even been having that conversation. People have been doing narcissistic stuff to partners, children, family members since time immemorial. We just didn't have a

name for it. I think at some level because until recently, I think almost all cultures were probably much more authoritarianly patriarchally patriarchically organized. I think we're seeing sort of bigger conversations around that. So I think there was almost a strange sort of universal radical ecceps and said, some people are just really jerky, and let's just follow what they're saying. And so we didn't. We just didn't even think.

there are people with these personalities. They're out there. The way they show up in relationships is pretty consistently the same. And instead of blaming yourself and wondering what you could do, it's not you. It's really them, and they're having their process and their journey and probably not going to get the help they need to defend it against it, but rolling up and turning your life into a human sacrifice to please or win over or prove something to an

unwinnable over person. I have watched people waste lifetimes doing this, you know. And it's even particularly compelling if it's their parent, but even if it's a long term intimate relationship with some especially if they've got into the relationship young. So this has always been a thing.

may not be attractive to the rest of us. You're attractive to them because you're attractive because you may have power of some kind of world. When I say power, I don't mean like you're a leader. I mean you're self possessed. Many people who get into these relationships, we have this mistaken assumption that the people who get into these relationships are shrinking violets who have low self esteem. Absolutely not. I got to tell you some of the

people I've seen get into these relationships. I'm like, who I should have your self esteem. There they're strong and they know who they are, and they're saying this thing dismantled me. Brick by brick, I was really well but together when I met this person. Right, So this isn't about a person who doesn't have self esteem. It can be, but it's definitely not an absolute. Narcissistic people are attracted

to people who will give them supply. What is supply for every narcissistic person might be a little different, but it's usually physical attractiveness, status, praise. So you just being a nice person and praising someone could actually be what makes you attractive to them. So people may think, well,

those I mean, I have to stop being me. I'd say no. They may be attracted to you, and you may be compelled for a minute, but the key is then to know how to get off the carousel before it starts going too fast.

talk about narcissism being consistent. Walk me through the consistent pattern of a narcissistic relationship, so that anyone who's listening can because I think, like you're saying, a lot of us sometimes feel scared to admit that we might even be within us because it's it's scary to accept that and admit that and have that realization because we think it's something to do with us. We think we've wasted time. There can be a sunk cost bias of I thought

I had a future with this person. So walk me through the pattern of a narcissistic relationship.

person is shame and insecurity. So they want to be able to plug the top of that volcano, right, and that plug is all this stuff, the entitlement, the grandiosity, I'm perfect, I'm great, it's this so it keeps all that stuff under wraps. That's not a conscious process, right. So, but every so often in life something's gonna push that lid off to the side, which might be feedback a criticism. Somebody ends a relationship with them. Whatever it is, their

day doesn't go the way they want. They get stuck in traffic and they're late to something, they don't get the table they want in a restaurant, whatever it may be. That nudges that manhole cover over and the lava starts billing out, and that lava is their rage and their

anger because their shame has been shown. All of this is unconscious, So all these patterns in their relationship, the way they show up in the narcissistic person is manipulation, invalidation of the other person, minimization of what another person is going through, gas lighting, rage and reactivity, future faking, which means promises are made and broken just to keep a person sort of on the hook. There will be

blame shifting. They won't take responsibility. They'll always blame the other person, which is why people in these relationships always tend to blame themselves. There's a lot of deceit, betrayal, lying, infidelity, there is neglect. Over time, they just give less and less and less to the relationship, and the person in the relationship is trying to make do on the tiniest, tiniest bits of being noticed. That's how they show up in the relationship. Everything in the relationship is about them

getting supply in validation. They have absolutely no interest in the needs, wants, and honestly the subjective reality of the other person in the relationship. Over time, the other person gets almost as considered an inconvenience. If you want something, you're an inconvenience, much like this cup. CoP's convenient when I want to drink from it, But the cup all of a sudden said, hey, can you take me to CVS on the way home? Like what cup? You're a cup?

and seductive. It's called love bombing. But it's really this phase where they're winning, not only winning you over with gestures and tactics, but with attunement and attention, or seeming attunement and attention. They pay intense attention to you. What you realize afterwards is some of that intense attention was them learning things about you that were going to be turned around and used against you down the road. That's often a point of devastation for a person who says

I was vulnerable with this person. I told them things that I'd never told anyone before, and then six months in I was being shamed and humiliated, and you know, it was being used to sort of destabilize me. There is a point where that love bombing phase then starts heading into a place where there's ten good things, one bad thing, ah, one bad thing. Everyone has a bad day,

nine bad thing, nine good things, one bad thing. Over time, though, that ratio pretty much comes to like maybe one to one, So now you're having as much difficult, challenging stuff, and then these little sprinklings of good things happening. That's the origin of the trauma bond. That back and forth good bad, hot, cold, I'm here, I'm not here is where people will often find themselves falling into a cycle of justifying blaming themselves

because it was so great. It was great for two or three months, so how did it not become great? Maybe I'm doing something, so the person will literally it's almost like you know when you open a bag, you know, you're trying to find something in a bag, and you take everything out of the bag chaotically, and it's all in the airport on the ground, and it was like one little like your headphones. That's what people in narcissistic

relationships do. They open the bag that is themselves and pull everything out, trying to figure out what is wrong with me? Why did we go from babe, where can I take you to dinner? I'll take you anywhere?

very novelty seeking. They kind of get bored easily, so you being around from time to time they'll be into you, but then from other times they won't. They do like they do like the idea that someone's a constant sour as a supply, and over time there can be a real process of discard. They just really it can feel like they just don't care at all anymore. Basically, what they do is they no longer fulfill the roles and responsibilities of what it means to be in a close relationship,

which is empathy, compassion, kindness, attunement, self awareness. These are the responsibilities we have in a human relationship, and they do not fulfill them. I even hate putting them as responsibilities. I think that they come automatically for a healthy person. And then if you do decide to leave, or even if they decide to leave, you start to enter potentially a cat and mouse game of hoovering where they'll pull

you back, see how you're doing. Sometimes they'll even figure out, oh they're happy, now let me go see if I can spin that around a little bit.

be together. But that, especially in a child, that need for attachment is everything. And if a child has an unattuned parent, or even an abusive parent, the child doesn't have the option to say, I think I'm gonna split up with them and see what I'm gonna go on parent hinge and see if I can find someone new. Right doesn't work like that. The child has to hold this parent in esteem, which means a child that needs to devalue themselves. What am I doing wrong? How could

I be more? And the child really learns how to be everything that parent wants and needs to the detriment of their own needs, right exactly. So now let's just jump that to adulthood. Right, So the child comes up with all kinds of fantasies, but in adulthood they may be things like, everyone has a bad day, relationships are tough. I'm no picnic myself, They've been working really hard, we did have a good weekend. They did tell me I love you. I mean, I could go on for the

next two hours about all the justifications I've heard. Right, So the justifications are not only proliferate, they come easily and jay, they're reinforced by the world, right because the world will say, oh, relationships are tough. Maybe they're just having a bad day. So now what you're saying is completely in line with sort of what the prevailing wisdom would be. And you do that enough every time these really invalidating, destabilizing things that cut to the core of

your identity happen. The people who tend to get more stuck in these relationships, quite frankly, are the more empathic people, while narcissistic people are attracted to people who are whatever supply attractive they are to them. The people who get stuck are the people who are more vulnerable to trauma bonding and who have more empathy, and as a result, are more likely to make those excuses and justifications right. They're going to be more open to the idea that

there's always different ways too. There's another point of view. That's what empathic people do, and that's how it happens, but in a trauma bonded relationship. And it's also about cognitive dissonance, right, that we don't like. We don't like the tension of inconsistency within ourselves, so we're always trying to make it fit. And how do we relieve that tension and make it fit We justify, then we can maintain the status quo. And human beings are also homeostatic creatures.

We like the status. I want to keep living here, I want to keep having this routine. I don't want to find a new place to put my toothbrush. I don't want to wake up in a new place, even if you kind of might want to. Over time, many survivors will say, I don't even care if I wake up in a random place, as long as I'm not waking up here, but how much terribleness had to happen to the person in that period of time, And so it's a person is just getting sort of slowly distanced

from their true nature. The longer a person is in a narcissistic relationship, the more they literally have to abandon themselves.

that they're now away from this person. But often with people who've been with narcissistic people, especially empathetic people, they're still saying, well, I hope they're okay. I hope that person's okay, Like I know they're struggling. What is the impact of someone who's experienced narcissistic abuse on a deep scientific psychological level, What is actually going on for them?

develop clinical depression, but most don't. And what I'll see is these are folks when they are surrounded by healthy supports, therapist friends, they're animated, they're lovely, they don't seem like a person who's under that heavy weight of depression.

something I'd heard that day. It was really struck by the strength it had in our community because we talk about empathy, empathy, empathy and survivors. But one thing I'm really seeing in my again so many clients now at this point, and other people telling their stories, is that the empathy is almost functioning as a bit of a trauma response, like let me be as kind as possible, let me be as good as possible. And so it gets very confusing for you, like am I empathic? Am

I trying to survive? And is my empathy literally like this this trauma is a survival response to try to like it's almost like that fawn response we talk about that trauma response where I am going to be what this harmful person needs me to be so I can win them over and I will be okay, right so, and then after that, though they're shame. Why was I so nice to this person? They were terrible to me?

Like what's wrong with me? And something I really try to focus on with survivors is to say, this empathic, responsive, compassionate part of you is beautiful. We've got to heal you and not lose that. Does that make sense? So this isn't an amputation. This is very much about we've got to keep this here, pull the shame off of it, but allow you to become more discerning.

too to what you've been through. But if that empathy for you them is something you want to maintain, yes, I still need you to disengage. Can you disengage from someone and still empathize with them? I believe absolutely yes.

had to create to remain in this toxic relationship. And that balancing act of retaining empathy when you've been so hurt by someone, that's some of the hardest work of healing. I see people do it every day and it's really quite beautiful. But a lot of them think, have I become a bad person because I'm so angry at this person? And in fact, a big point I bring up in the book, and I'm going to sort of jump ahead here, is I actually don't know that forgiveness always has a

place in these relationships. And this is a complicated conversation. A lot of people say forgiveness is all good, and I'm like, slow, no, no, stop the presses. It's absolutely not. And there's a whole body of scientific research that suggests that repeatedly forgiving a repeat perpetrator actually harms the forgiver. There's no win in that, and so what way it lowers their well being? It can result in negative mood symptoms.

I mean, of course, you keep doing you keep doing this because I think forgiveness is a very personal decision, but it's also not a necessary one to heal. And I think that the message a lot of people get is, well, if you're gonna if you don't forgive them, you're never gonna heal. The hell you're not. And I'm gonna be very frank with you, Jay, there's some narcissistic people who harmed me immeasurably. I don't forgive them, and I he'll just fine.

they're dealing with it that way. Or you'd have the opposite in your case, where you're saying I actually don't want to be empathetic towards them, I don't want to forgive them, when your family is saying, well, you should be, but I do.

let's just be. I want you to write everything you feel for this person. And a person might write, this is my mother. I hate her. She had a tough backstory, she was terrible to us as children. She lives alone. I feel sorry for her. I wish you would change. I know she won't change. This is literally the stream of consciousness for a survivor. You look at that, and right there, it's manifest why survivors are so confused. But

I absolutely believe, and not everyone does. Some people have no empathy for this person, but I think it's quite possible. And this is where everyone say, no, that's not possible. If you empathize with them. You'd forgive them, I say, I understand why they are the way they are. I even kind of understand why they did what they did. What they did was unforgivable, and so I wish them no ill will. In fact, if good things happen to them, so be it. If bad things happen to them, so

be it. So there's a mild indifference to it, but it wouldn't be a loss. I mean, I don't think. Again, there's so many forms of empathy, and empathy is it's own complicated conversation. But I don't think that the not forgiving is a lack of empathy, because forgiveness really reflects the harm it's done to us. And people say, no, no, no, it's a gift for you too.

can understand how that's used. Because again, even looking at the difference between empathy and forgiveness, it's so interesting to me just how subtle and specific healing looks like as opposed to this almost abstract journey that's often painted of healing, being like you move from this stage to here where it's you know right, Yeah.

this into healthy relationship. That this behavior affected you, and as long as you're in the purview of this behavior, as long as they keep doing this to you, it will keep hurting you. Because some people have said to me, they say, I radically accept it. They're not going to change. How come when they say these things to me, it still bothers me. I'm like, Gods, it's hurting you. It's still hurtful just because you understand why it's coming out

of them. You didn't just become a piece of concrete, like you still have a soul and a heart and a psyche that can be hurt. So some people, I think, thought radical acceptance was like a magic pill that if I take this, then the narcissistic person will never bother me again, and so all of that particularly, but the key element of it is this is not going to change, and all decisions from that point forward have to be made on that basis. By definition, narcissism is, like I said,

a maladaptive personality style. But it's also a rigid personality style. The less healthy the personality, the less flexible that it is. So very healthy people have extraordinarily flexible personality. So the core of mental health is flexibility. It's almost like physical health, right. A person who's physically healthy has a lot of flexibility in their muscles and joints. A mentally healthy person has a lot of flexibility in their psyche.

there's the capacity to cope with it. It's a lot of coping, a lot of resilience is in that flexibility piece, right, That is the core of health. I've worked with people who have survived severe trauma. It's ice, but the ones who really are standing in a different way, it's that flexibility, right. And you think about it. If a tree is flexible, it'll bend with the wind. If it's not, it's going to snap if the wind is too hard. That would really be the best sort of an analogy. So narcissism

is this sort of maladaptive, rigid style. There's very little self reflective capacity for the narcissistic person, very little self awareness for the narcissistic person, and very little awareness of the people around them. There is little motivation to change. Most grandiose narcissists subjectively think of themselves as great people. If you ask them, let's say, I'm a great guy like I'll help anyone, I'll do anything for anyone. I'm

just a cool person. They believe it, having just cheated on their girlfriend two nights before that, they're able to maintain what almost feels like a delusional self schema. Those things are not amenable to change. And again, the nice thing about being an old lady is I've been doing this so long that I've seen cases fifteen, twenty years. And when I tell you that, there's been some interesting things they've learned about themselves. In some cases they had

co occurring conditions. Addiction is a great example. The addiction is managed like they've been sober for many years, but that core personnalit. They are definitely not fit for an intimate relationship, at least not one where someone's not going to get hurt. So that radical acceptance of the all of it, that moment is the penny drop moment, because now people see the path forward very differently. This is no longer once the kids grow up, it's going to

get easier. This is no longer when he gets the promotion, things are going to get better. This is no longer when the grandkids come my parents is going to calm down this is this is it. And I've sat with many clients and said, I'm going to put something to you, and I'm going to say, if I were to tell you this is it, this is never going to change, how would that affect the decisions you make? Most clients will say, can I tell you next week? Because that

has a lot to take in. But the challenge with radical acceptance, Jay, is that I wish I could say it's on and the light comes in the window. You know a couple things is that radical acceptance doesn't mean you're signing off on this. It doesn't mean you're giving into it. It doesn't mean you're agreeing with it. It's not that it is. You're seeing it absolutely and painfully clear.

And you know what happens if you painfully and radically see something, The grief comes over you like a tsunami, because this is your mom, the mom you always thought one day we're going to have the moment, or your dad where you're like, one day they're gonna get me, or the partner where're like, we are going to grow old together and it's gonna be okay. You're giving up a narrative, you're giving up a hope. You're giving up a life story, You're giving up things you held on

to since you were a child. That's devastation. And I tell folks, now we're going to hold on tight because grief is the most human of experiences. It's one of the other than life, other than being born and dying. I don't know of any other universal human experience other than grief. All human beings lose, right, we lose something or someone, and we all have a very similar experience. Internally, we grief, and that's why we have rituals. Right, But

ultimately we go through a period of grief. And I think in this moder age, we think we're better than grief. We think we can soldier throat. I can make my grief go like this. Nobody gets to make their grief go quicker.

from my mother or I'm getting a divorce. But the grief is how much of yourself you lost in this relationship when people have to dive into that, And sometimes I'll say, I'm kind of glad they're gone, but oh, what what just happened to me?

And I don't know whether I was confident, or whether I was bubbly, or whether I was extra or intro like. I just don't know, yep. And what's the first step when you're feeling I don't know what? Where do you? Where's the starting point?

This is how even these sort of low hanging questions become a place where a person is now being able to recreate a subjective focus. They were told for years you can't be hungry, you just ate. You can't be cold, I am warm, You're not tired, you got plenty of sleep.

That's what they were told. So when that's done to you, not just once, but hundreds, if not thousands of times, just that initial process and part of what I write about in the book is just you keep reorienting to yourself and you ask yourself a few times a day, like what's the temperature? I'm actually feeling a little bit cold, and that's okay, even if everyone else has a bathing suit on, it's okay.

what is purposeful. I remember a client when saying to me, we're talking about meaning a purpose, and she said, are you kidding me? What's meaningful and purposeful? She said, I just want to get to a day where I don't think about them. And I said, great, then that's that's where it is right now, and over time we're going

to build on that. But that can feel very out of for people, like in fact, in my healing program this month, it's going to be meeting in purpose this month, and even I as I construct that curriculum, I'm realizing, like I want a lot of the usual conversation about meaning a purpose. I'm almost having to have the conversation, you know, point two of what it means when you were going through this and someone who's the survivor of narcissistic abuse. But then it's also the willingness to turn

to trust it do us. I'm going to give you a silly example of something that happened today. I had a very problematic call today right with someone and I had to put the call on speaker because someone was helping me something in the house and I had to be she was doing her work quietly, but it wasn't a confidential call. It it was a business thing. And the call went terribly. The person was very disrespectful, very dismissive. And I've been through narcissistic abuse in many ways and

shapes and forms in my life. So my first tendency was am I being too sensitive? Am I being too demanding? Am I being Ridiculous's what I was thinking. And at one point, the lady who was helping me out, she kind of looked at me, rolled her eye. I rolled my eyes and she looked back at me and she said yeah. And I got off the phone and the person who was helping with something else, she had nothing to do with this is call. And I closed my eyes and the person said. The person in the room

with me said, yeesh, that was absolutely ridiculous. And I looked at it and I said, say more, and she said, I can't believe how dismissed of that person. She didn't even do the basic and jay I fell whole because my inner experience, which I still doubt after all these years and I've come a long way, but my inner experience, this person outside of me, who I know cares about me, said it wasn't okay how she talked to you, And each time that happens, we have a micro adjustment of

that was on point. I read that situation correctly, and then I was emboldened to make a stronger decision and decide not to go into to do what this person was asking me to do was like a speaking thing, and I'm like, no, I don't want to do that, but that other person's presence, having that safe space, and this is so a big part of the healing then becomes building up safe validating anti gaslights as I call them in your life, people who see you and say

that wasn't okay, or are you okay? Or that was disrespectful, they did not speak nicely to you, whatever it is. Most survivors are so used to being spoken too badly. They're like, well, so business as usual. But to have that this is why people go into therapy. And so then I was able to take the much bolder leap of no, I'm actually gonna end up going to the other meeting. But thanks, I don't know that I would have had that kind of courage. This is what healing is.

You build up those people even if it's one or two people giving yourself permission to put I call it the ninety ten in version. Most of us put ninety percent of ourselves into our most toxic relationships and ten percent into the giving, reciprocal, loving ones that run easily. I said, flip the math. I want ninety one present

into those good relationships and phone it into the toxic ones. Yeah, that's so true, and it's it's interesting because I think that kind of answers the next question I was gonna ask, but this idea of I think when someone's going through that healing journey, they're almost oscillating between like or do I know myself again?

What do you find in that period.

their feet when they're learning to walk. You're you're learning this again, and so that warbliness is it's the it's their internalized voice and your individuated self kind of having a little bit of an argument and sort of view that part of you that's trying to individuate, like say you got this, and that's an old voice, and that old we can just sort of say, you know, you're you're actually not welcome here anymore, like you could just step out, thank you, and the But it's the individuated

voice and the internalized, the narcissistic, internalized, the gaslighted and internalized voice. And they're they're going, they're still fighting it out, and we feel as though, am I aren't I just like today anyone watching that call? I mean, but it said this was not okay, and the person was almost like the Emperor's not bring any clothes, right that this person was saying, this emperor is naked, go away, rom Andy,

go away. And so I think that that initially we need those voices a lot more, and there will still be times when we we will tell because I think there's certain trigger situations that kind of remain pretty consistent for survivors for a long long time. We do hold it internally, and we were told too, Jay. Many serve diverse are told they're upity if they want to achieve a goal, do you really think you're going to pull that off? Like I think you're reaching a little too high.

So they were minimized and trivialized for wanting to do something that they still hear that inner voice of don't be ridiculous, You're never going to be able to do that, and they make that voice their own instead of trying to learn like that kind of that was an unwanted visitor. So let's see if you can sort of treat it

that way, and we can even think about it. If you look at trauma theory, we talk about the protector persecutor kind of a model that the persecuting voice, in a strange way is doing this really messed up way of keeping you safe because it's telling you, like in essence, it's that persecuting voices. That voice is telling you you're going to fail, So you don't try, and when you were in the narcissistic relationship and you failed, they would humiliate and shame you right or tell you it was

going to happen. But if you can say that, okay, I see what you're trying to do a persecuting voice, I'll be fine if this doesn't go well because it'll be on my terms. And if you really have done radical acceptance, even when the narcissistic person rolls their eyes and it's a little big surprise, you have to keep coming back to this is a them thing. This is not a me thing. Not saying it doesn't hurt. This is a carousel that really takes a toll on people,

but it can be done. But that oscillation starts to become a little less oscillate tea. The more people have these validating voices, people build up what we call efficacy, the idea that they're able to do something right. So the first time we're able to do something successfully from make up a cake or change the oil in our car, use a drill and put something in the wall, that what it does to the psyche is remarkable. So I tell survivors keep trying new things, because the more efficacy

you build that also helps foster individuation. So I'm like, grab the drill. If you put a few holes in the wall, but the picture goes up, you're going to feel really good about the picture going up. Try to make the difficult called soufle You may burn a few, but when it's made great. I did try to do this with bread. I still have not successfully raised the love for bread. So it's my last neurotic wound. But I think that when we find that some people and

other people do all kinds of interesting things. I see, like some folks I've worked with learned languages and they learn how to play a musical instrument, and they'll say, this feels so good because back in the day I would have been made fun of for this. Those who are able to get out will say it's so interesting to do this, and that confidence starts jumping into other areas of their life.

about people dealing with this in their lives. But I want to ask you one last question, and it's this idea of can going back to the empathy point, that forgiveness point for the person who's healing from the narcissistic person for them, can the narcissistic person ever heal?

modes right that subgroup. If they are willing humbly to engage into the work of growth, they do excellent trauma informed work with a therapist and then get beyond the trauma informed work and are able to reflect on how they're able to create that schema of how they affect others. Right to pull, it's almost like you're pulling away that you're pulling open gates and say, there's people out there

see this thing you're doing. They're being affected, and it's really opening the schema out of how they're desperately trying to protect themselves to how other people are getting hurt. And I have It's interesting. I work with a narcissistic client once for many, many years and I sort of cut back my practice and I've had one or two of them reach back, Can I work with you? I'm like,

you know, I've really kind of shut up shop. But they you know what they said, though, one in particular said, I am I'm screen me get my girlfriend and I know it's not okay. Now he's still screaming at her not so good, but he does know. He's like, I know it's not okay, and she may leave me and I probably deserve it. And he's like you taught me that, he's still screaming on that part. But humility is such a big part of this, right, and and the I

honestly think the antidote to narcissism is humility. And humility means we're not perfect, we have flaws and it and we are and it's not all a fantasy and that we're And honestly, the hardest thing for a narcissistic person to accept is that they're ordinary. We're your ordinary. I'm ordinary.

Everyone in this room is ordinary, and we're simultaneously special, but we're just people, right And so if that for them not to be the most special person means removing the camp off the volcano, which is terrifying for them. And if in a way they're almost terrified by their own rage, you need one very skilled therapist to guide someone through that journey, you know, And so and they

have to keep showing up. And for about almost sixty to seventy percent of narcissistic folks drop out of therapy prematurely. And it usually happens when the rubber meets the road and the work starts to getting really vulnerable. That's when I've lost clients, and so we have to go very very gently into that forest with them. But unfortunately, if we go too gently and we never get there, then

we're sort of doing a lot of navel gazing. So it's just finding that kind of balance, and you know, they can do a lot of spiritual bypassing that kind of stuff, Like you can't just you can't aphorism your way through this. You're going to have to do this

painful work face up to that vulnerability. That's I've seen some narcissistic people make a little bit of progress, But the way I put it is this, there's hope for them to make some progress, but the harm they've usually done to another person usually it's not super it's not really that fixable. And so many people will say, in a fear of a lot of people narcissistic relationships, is what if they change for the next person. They're not going to change for the next person, right, what if

it all changes overnight? This is not an overnight This is years and years and years of committed work to this. Like I said, I've seen micro changes and not enough to have probably consistently affected other people's relationships and they

still personality is like a rubber band. We can pull it out, so all of a sudden, Romney the introvert could become Romney the extrovert for one night only, and then when we get home, the rubber band will go back to It's like the narcissistic person on a good day with a good therapist might get stretched out a little bit, seem a little bit more tuned aware, do some empathic adjacent things, but as soon as the first time stress comes into the picture, rubber band goes back to its original size.

sort of a symptom of the culture. And this is where I've probably seen it most pointedly of people who really some folks would find a way, whether their spirituality or other relationships with their children or others in their community to sort of create a meaningful space outside of that problematic relationship. But others it was like watching a

fruit die on the vine. And it's to me one of the most horrific things to witness is the potential of a human being being lost to this kind of invalidation. And I shudder to think how much potential, creative, potential, knowledge, wisdom that people have held back because of invalidated. This book is a love story to every survivor and saying to them, please bring We need you. We need all

of your gifts in this world because you have so many. Listen, the fact that you endured this relationship is already a gift, but so all the stuff you kept behind the gate. Open those gates so we can see all this beautiful stuff that you could bring into the world.

I'd love to see if you've been affected by any of this, if you're a friend or family members benefiting from the book, I'd love to see your takeaways. Dr Rominey, thank you so much again for this very thoughtful, very

very insightful conversation. And I love your step by step approach and also the ability to define and clarify things so well for us, so I always feel better prepared to talk to people even who may mention it to me, friends, family members, whatever may happen, and kind of guide them in the right direction towards a therapist or the support that they need.