Kristen

Welcome to the Close the Chapter podcast. I am Kristen Boice a licenced Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice pathways to healing counselling. Through conversations, education, strategies and shared stories. We will be closing the chapter on all the thoughts, feelings, people and circumstances that don't serve you anymore and open the door to possibilities and the real you. You won't want to miss an episode, so be sure to subscribe. Welcome back to this week's close to Chapter podcast. We have a topic on today's show that we have never talked about. I think it's a term that gets tossed about often and we don't really understand exactly what it means. We're talking about narcissism and narcissistic abuse and how to heal from it. My guest who I'm thrilled to have on really as an expert in this subject, Brenda Stevens is a licenced professional clinical counsellor, who works solely with survivors of narcissistic abuse and trauma. She obtained her education through the University of Wisconsin System where she graduated with honours, and Brenda is the founder of a group practice in Southern California and the narcissistic abuse recovery centre, a coaching practice assisting survivors of narcissistic abuse globally. She offers training to other therapists to help them support their clients who are children, partners and others who have been abused by a person or persons with narcissistic traits. She is the author of recovering from narcissistic mothers, a daughter's guide in the narcissism recovering workbook healing from emotional abuse. She has presented at conferences appeared on several podcasts, including this one to talk about narcissistic abuse and recently appeared in a documentary on covert narcissism, which we cover, there's three types of narcissism that she talks about, that are really interesting, you're going to want to listen to the entire episode, she also talks about symptoms of narcissism, whether you know you're with a narcissist, how to work through that how to transform that relationship, or you can't change a narcissist, that's for sure. So we need to know that and be aware of that we need support. If you're in a narcissistic relationship with a family member, or a romantic partner, or maybe you're divorced from someone with narcissism, or you've had anybody with narcissism in your life, a co worker, a friend, a neighbour, it doesn't matter. This episode is so important for you to listen to, because we really get into it on what to do, what not to do, how to approach it, and you'll want to listen to the whole episode, like I said, and to support you in the journey. Grab the journal, the trigger Journal, the healing journal, I call it, it's at kristendboice.com/freeresources. Share this episode. If you found it helpful. Please share it. If you know someone that's in a relationship with a possible narcissist. I know we're throwing that term around. But it's important for you to understand exactly who is a narcissist, what are the symptoms, and we talk about one important factor. They often have outside relationships, going multiple outside relationships, possibly struggle with addictions, you'll want to listen to this episode. Please share it so we can get the word out so we can help more people on the healing journey. So without further ado, here's my very important conversation with Brenda Stephens. Welcome to this week's close the chapter podcast I am so grateful you're joining me for this very important conversation. We've actually never had a conversation about narcissistic abuse brand on the show. So this is our first conversation around this topic. And I am so pleased you're here with us. Thank you, Brenda, for joining us today.

Brenda

Well, thank you for having me. And thank you for allowing me to be the first one to talk about this on your show. I'm honoured.

Kristen

It's such an important topic, and it's one that people are throwing the word around narcissism, and I think it can get misinterpreted, overused, and misunderstood. So that's our really hope today to get some clarity around what is it? What is it stand for? Talk to us a little bit more in depth. But before we get into that, I would love for you to introduce yourself to the audience. And just how did you get into this work?

Brenda

I feel like my story is probably one that is similar to other therapists. However, I will say Hi, my name is Brenda Stevens. I'm a licenced professional clinical counsellor in California and I'm licenced in a few other states as well. I have a group practice here in San Diego in California and I also the founder of the narcissistic abuse recovery centre, which it for short standards burner or is narc for short. I've trained all the therapists that work at my practice. They all have training and treating survivors of narcissistic abuse. And I want to say a little caveat here that survivors of narcissistic abuse victims, those are words that I tried to be very careful about using. And I have not found a better word yet that then survivor or victim and I hate to say it like that. But the reason I see a victim and I kind of if I could create a new word for that I would, but narcissists tend to prey on people. And that is why the word victim stands out to me. And I will explain that a little bit more later. But I just want people to know that I don't take that lightly. That is something that I've given a lot of thought to have stated that what brought me to this work is my own life experience. But what really kind of pushed it forward was, when I went into private practice, I had Oh, and even before that, I had a lot of mostly women because mostly when they come to therapy, but it was mostly women coming in telling me about their relationships. And most of them would say, I feel like I'm going crazy, which is kind of been like our motto now. Like, if you feel like you're going crazy, this might be a red flag. The stories were so similar. And the stories resonated with me so much with my own relationship with a narcissist who I'd been with for a very long time. And I literally was starting to say to myself, do they all know him? Or they all dating was so similar? That it's just kind of become a joke now. But it was true as at first, like, how did they how no one would they know now years later is that that narcissists tend to behaviour that is very similar to one another. And I like to say to almost like they have a playbook that they share. And this is why there's so much similarity in the stories. But that is how this all started some of my own experience, and then having all of these stories that resonated with me as a therapist, working with clients and seeing that there was a real need for them to be heard and seen, and probably most importantly, validated. People don't understand this kind of abuse, and there hasn't been a lot of there is now that it's changed. But back then there hasn't been there weren't a lot of avenues for them to go and get the validation and that understanding, and even therapists that could kind of delineate the difference between typical emotional abuse and the emotional abuse with a twist that is narcissistic abuse.

Kristen

Thank you for thinking that at the beginning, because I think that's an important distinction about victim and kind of a survivor. Yeah, how that is an important part of recovery, narcissistic abuse recovery. How would you define a narcissist just so we're on the same page so we can get a shared language and understanding about what is it mean? And how do you know you're in relationship with a narcissist?

Brenda

Yes. Oh, that's a big question. So I will say in agreement with what's been said before, I think the word or the term narcissist is turned around kind of willy nilly these days, we see somebody who's selfish and call them a narcissist, and a true narcissist. It's way more than just being selfish. It is someone who puts their needs above all others, no matter what. And the big difference between somebody who could be emotionally abusive and somebody who can be narcissistically abusive is this lack of empathy, the presence of intent and their abuse, we can all be emotionally abusive, someone that we love. But typically, when someone who doesn't have narcissistic traits, it's in an argument with somebody that they love, and they see something that's emotionally abusive, we typically will come back and try to repair that will feel bad about losing our cool losing our temper, a narcissist, when they're being emotionally abusive. They do it with intent, and their intent is to control and to kind of chip away at their victims and demean victims again, but they chip away at their victims confidence and their self sense, which gives the Narcissus control, more control to manipulate and more control to keep that victim as a source of supply for ego for the narcissist. And I can explain more about that if you want. But that is their goal to get the supply of ego that they don't have within them. That would be beautiful. Can you explain

Unknown Speaker

that? Sure. And I

Brenda

know that I'm using probably two clinical terms here. But that sense of ego that sense of self is very undeveloped in narcissists. And that may seem counterintuitive to what people think. Because when we think of a narcissist, we think of somebody who's really grandiose, who is looking for attention, who's having the spotlight on them. And to most of us that could look like confidence. And that is also we have different terms for different types of narcissists. That one that I just described is typically considered to be a malignant narcissist. And this is kind of the stereotypical narcissist that most of us can probably have pop into our minds when we hear that term. Even though there is this image of confidence and self worth. It doesn't really exist with narcissists no matter what type of narcissist they are. They have a very fragile ego meaning a very fragile sense of self. They're trying to get attention and affirmation from other people in order to have that reflected back at them and that is Spend how they see themselves that is how they feel a sense of ego even though it it's fragile, it's fragile when you're only getting what's mirrored back to you. So you have to kind of have that supply that you said before, you have to have that supply of kind of ego from other people constantly, in order to feel kind of normal for them.

Kristen

That makes sense. Is it rooted in childhood trauma? And if so, what does that look like? Because it's hard for people in a relationship with someone that's narcissistic to see that they have a fragile ego,

Brenda

of course, right. This is a technical talk that I know that I'm using your it is very difficult to see. And if someone is not a malignant narcissist, it's even harder to see. But there are different types that kind of fly under the radar. But to answer your question, it almost always develops in childhood, maybe universally, it develops in childhood, and typically from abuse and neglect. And I would say probably equally between the two, but then neglect leads that child to develop a sense of self that that isn't naturally developed, as it is in children and healthy environments, they find ways to get attention, which then as the mirroring starts very, very young, they find ways to get attention and often though, is to be kind of extra or flamboyant in some way, or achieving great things, and certainly bragging about it, um, because then brings the attention there is research out there about whether it's nature versus nurture, that kind of thing is they almost always come from a traumatic childhood. There is research saying that there is probably a genetic component that maybe lead someone towards that kind of narcissistic path versus other ways that people kind of manage trauma throughout the lifetime. And sometimes far more rarely, it's from overindulgence of the child, the child is being told that they can do nothing wrong, they're not disciplined, they don't have any expectations. And the parents are constantly praising and over indulging, which also, it may sound good. I don't know if it does that, to me as a therapist, but I think in my lens is definitely on. But it's a terrible rate for a child to be raised to because they don't learn how to who they are, how to develop their own identity. And they're always trying to live up to this expectation of who they seem to be through their parents eyes. I would say either path is not ideal. I mean, this is neither one is ideal. And it's far more common to come from abuse than it is to come from that kind of overindulgence. It's so

Kristen

interesting for people to start conceptualising the deeper development of narcissism. And then you mentioned malignant narcissism, and then there's different types, what are the other types, so

Brenda

there are a lot of terms being thrown out there to subtype narcissists. I only use three. And I feel like it kind of covers pretty generally speaking without getting too technical, but malignant covert, I also use communal, I think communal is an important one to notice as well. And I'll talk about communal first, because covert is complicated, but a communal narcissist is probably one that we've all seen it somebody who's going out and taking pictures of their volunteer work or their travels. This is not to say, though, that people who travel and do volunteer work are narcissists by any stretch of the imagination. But I would say that people with a truly altruistic heart will go out and do volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity saving the whales and whatever it is, they will do that out of the goodness of their heart and not necessarily need validation from it. a narcissist will do it because of the validation of it. So and that's a small example of what a communal narcissist a narcissist is, often see them in helping professions to kind of make sense if you think about it, wanting to get the accolades of doing something good is going to happen naturally when you're in a job, a helping profession fireman, a police officer, a doctor, and again, not saying that they're all that way. But these are the type of jobs that narcissists tend to be drawn to. I will jump into covert narcissism Next, if that's okay, yeah, right. Yeah. So covert narcissist is a slaver all its own, and I will probably not do it justice without having notes in front of me to explain it properly. But a covert narcissist is one that we always think of is flying under the radar. So they tend to be more vulnerable, they tend to be self effacing, which does not match our idea of what a narcissist is, you know, again, we think of somebody who's very boisterous and attention getting a covert narcissist may seem like an introvert, they may not want to have the spotlight on them, but they are still going to use the same tools of manipulation, they're going to use themselves as a victim to get the attention. This is why they're called vulnerable. It's not true vulnerability, but they will show some vulnerability in order to get attention. So it's kind of opposite of what we see with a malignant narcissist where we have really someone who's maybe having a pity party shut themselves while was knee kind of narcissist. And that's not something we expect. So you can imagine if you got into a relationship with somebody like that, and these red flags start popping up, but you see them as being so open with you and so ready to share their own feelings. You wouldn't necessarily think that they would kind of fall under that narcissistic umbrella,

Kristen

like can be very confusing for people there and confusing and in sheep's clothing.

Brenda

Beautifully said that is really really what it is. And I think this really is very confusing for people. And like I said clients in the beginning were coming to me I think I'm going crazy, because they would be in the cycle muscle with covert narcissists, it's easier to figure out what the malignant narcissists though the covert narcissist, it takes a long time to really kind of understand what's going on and, and see that these vulnerabilities that they're I want to see in air quotes again vulnerabilities that they're showing are really ways of manipulating

Kristen

they want to hook you in solely this is what's so hard because people are like, I didn't see a thought it was me we have a lot of gaslighting, which is turning it making you self doubt yourself. So what are the red flags to know? You're in a relationship with a narcissist?

Brenda

Oh, there's so many. I think one of them is that confusion, feeling confused about your interactions with your partner or whomever it is? It could be a co worker, a friend, a parent, it could be anybody that's suffering, leave a conversation feeling confused. Often. I think that's a big red flag. When you notice that your words are being twisted in ways that you don't need to make sense how they got twisted, whenever conversations. And this often happens in arguments, but having conversations or arguments with them were suddenly you're so far off base, you don't even know what they are. You don't even know what's being talked about anymore. These are big red flags. I would say some smaller red flags might be in the beginning of the relationship. You may recall it love bombing. I think that's probably a pretty general term, right? But narcissists are known for love bombing in the beginning and during break up and make up times, they love bombing their victims, when we first meet this narcissist and partner with them we can get there then was kind and caring and benevolent and just lovely person, they're showering us with love, and maybe gifts, and who knows what trips, it could be a lot of things. But then we see the mask start to slip. So we talk about narcissism as being wearing a mask. But sometimes you might be out to dinner with them. And they're being kind and loving to you, but they're horrible to the waiter. And that would be a big red flag. And just behaviours that aren't in sync with what you've seen given to you in the love bombing phase. It's important to remember, when there aren't these consistencies. Remember that your instinct is also telling you something to retest your gut. I feel like that is the one thing when people have been with a narcissist for a long time, they shut that off, then so much confusing and conflicting information coming into them. They don't trust their intuition anymore. And they kind of ignore it. But I say trust your gut trust what your body is telling you.

Kristen

Yeah, they start self doubting, like, well, maybe that's me, well, maybe I am too sensitive. Maybe I'm overreacting. Well, maybe I didn't understand what they were saying. Maybe I am just coming on too intensely. I'm too much.

Brenda

I feel like you may have had a conversation with a narcissist and

Kristen

you just appeal and but the clients, right, they just start self doubting themselves. And they're real struggle on their life, but they can be so nice. They can be so loving. And that begins the mind game.

Brenda

Exactly. And I call this cognitive dissonance in the work that I do. And I know that's not the exact true term of cognitive dissonance. But I think what I've seen happen with my clients is that they meet this person, they've been very loving and kind and everything that they wanted, full of promises during the beginning of the relationship, we're gonna have this great life together, and then the mask starts to slip. I've seen my clients, I've seen myself do this too, in a relationship that I had believed that that person was really the person the love bombing person that love bombing version that they got of the narcissist. Unfortunately, the real person is the one with the mask is slipping in, you're seeing that kind of dark side of and this is a terrible realisation for any of us. We don't want to face that and especially the longer we've been with somebody to realise that they were never who we thought they were, and tells us also going through a lot of grief to move forward to this process. And the grief can be overwhelming as you I'm sure know as a therapist is a very complicated grief because you're grieving something that never was this person that never really existed this relationship that was never really what we wanted or hoped that it could be and then throw kids into the mix and that's a whole other ball of wax there.

Kristen

That feeling people are almost the idea of what they thought the relationship was and so that grieving the reality of who the person is and what the relationship is takes a long time of silly except that this is the person it does not the love bombing person.

Brenda

No I think this is the most difficult part of the healing process for people who are trying to recover from these relationships. And this is, to me also the most vulnerable time in the healing process, because the grief can be so overwhelming. And we do hold on so tightly to those love bombing moments in their relationship, that when we're faced with a choice, which we can be, I can go through the grief process and move forward and leave this relationship or I can go back, a lot of people will go back, and they'll go back a few times. And that's very common in all kinds of abusive relationships, that you can only imagine when there aren't necessarily and this is not to say, across the board, but there aren't necessarily like physical signs, where you've got bruises on your body that you can say, this person did this to me, it's confusing. It's kind of maddening, even, and you're weighing this option of going Waukee through this valley of grief, or going back kind of putting your rose coloured glasses back on. A lot of people choose the rose coloured glasses, and I can't blame them, who could blame them, but it doesn't get better, and almost never gets better. And I feel like it's just part of the path that people need to walk to get to that point where they're ready to go through the grief and put their relationship behind them.

Kristen

Do you feel like one of the biggest red flags is not taking ownership for anything, or they may passive aggressively own it, just to manipulate the person so there is no true remorse and ownership for really anything?

Brenda

There's no accountability, there's no remorse, no ownership, you're absolutely right. And there's very little empathy. So even if a narcissist has a moment of feeling empathy, it's going to pass quickly, and they're going to find a way to jump out of it because they can't tolerate that vulnerability of feeling some empathy, they're going to jump out of that and then turn any situation back on to their victim to so accountability, absolutely not, they're going to make everyone around them accountable for anything that's gone wrong. They will not own it. They just can't tolerate it. There is no ego there. No sense of self there for them to tolerate big feelings like that. They can't do it.

Kristen

I had one time I was working with somebody in they literally said I don't have empathy out loud. And I thought I had never had someone say I don't have empathy. I don't have any empathy. I try. And the person didn't come across as narcissistic. And yet they were having relationships outside their marriage. It was a covert narcissist. It really plays with the partner in going well, they don't look alike. Like you said, a malignant narcissist. They're not coming across as that they can come across as sometimes humble. That's to preserve the ego. That's the mask you're talking about.

Brenda

That is the mask. It is the mask, as we've already said, you know, that is what is incredibly confusing, because it's not what we expect to see with a narcissist. But having somebody admit that they don't have empathy is pretty rare. Very, I'd

Kristen

never had that happen. In my 20 years,

Brenda

I had honestly, it's only been in my personal life that I've heard somebody say that, and that was my nurses. My main one, I've had a couple of myself too. But I was in relationship with my very long time and his brother was not doing well. And I was so concerned about his brother. And he said, I just don't care. I don't care if he lives or dies. And how on earth could you say that? And he said that I don't have empathy and empathy for him.

Kristen

Yeah, I think it's real. I think that's true. That's actually a truth. There was a truth that was coming breaking through the surface. And to me, that was a breakthrough for the partner, because a life partner could then go, oh, the veil is getting lifted. Yes, there's a truth coming forward. And now you have to reconcile that is the truth, even though it can appear he can have empathy. It's a varier, who still appears the key word. And so nuance is just a little bit between a parent that might be narcissistic, and a partner because I think people get hung up on calling a parent, a narcissist.

Brenda

It's hard for people to recognise that they were perhaps raised by a narcissist. I think this is one of the more difficult things people kind of come to terms with in therapy, because then you also have the same grief, but you look back at your childhood and your whole childhood was not what you thought it was. And some people go through their childhood with the rose coloured glasses on thinking my family was great, and this and this. And then as they get older, they see the cracks. They see the cracks in the foundation, they see where the veil has been lifted, the mask has fallen, when they're in memory when they're having memories of their childhood, or at work with kids. So I don't have kids coming in the middle of this. So I get kind of the after effects. And what I see happens a lot is when people have children when they have children of their own. I have to say this happened to me too. When you have that child, your first child, you're like, oh my god, this is what love is. I remember saying that when I had my first child. This is what love is. I never knew what love really, really was until now. And I think for someone who was raised by a narcissist having that contrast. I'm really realising I don't think my parent ever felt this way for me, because they surely never treated me like that. And I think that is where people tend to start kind of thinking back, they kind of started looking back way my mom never did this for me or my dad never showed up for me like this, eventually to therapy, hopefully, and they get support and validation wherever they turn in when it comes to having a parent as a narcissist. It's really devastating. I feel like I should say, though, what I see happen a lot is people coming in because they are partnered with a narcissist, not realising this isn't the first narcissist in their life, and we are attracted to what's familiar. And there may be like, just little nuances in the behaviour that they've seen in this partner that just felt familiar on a level that they weren't even aware of. But that familiarity, maybe the personality type makes him that has something

Kristen

I have this hill. Yeah. And it's a lot to reckon with, and they're really struggling to get out of this partnership, or is it them? Or is it the partner and wanting the partner to change if they would only own this if they would only see this if they would only receive my love if they would only you meet all the time to meet all their love languages and no matter what, yeah, you ever fill it because it's a deeper hole their childhood?

Brenda

That is a bottomless void? It really is. There's never filling it. And then the other thing for the partner of a narcissist is the partner the nursing students always changing the game or raising the bar, you may have met criteria to be a good partner one day and the next day you are not good enough. So it is a bottomless void of shame. It's usually shame that the narcissist I think main emotion is an nothing ever sells it

Kristen

out of someone start gaining the strength, the courage, the sense of I can handle and tolerate the grief the fear, because I feel like the fear can block people in their unworthiness and their shame from actually taking the necessary steps to healing. So where does someone begin?

Brenda

That's a good question. The courage the bravery of people walking this path just astounds me every single day, it takes so much effort and time and devotion to yourself, which people who have been with the narcissists aren't used to kind of paying that much attention than results. There's no room in that relationship for that. But I think it really gets to the point where it's intolerable. They just can't take it anymore. The manipulation and the crazy making behaviour from the narcissist often just pushes people in to therapy. And I'm so grateful when I started this work, there was Dr. Raman, he was the only person I know of that was talking about this, when I started doing this. So people would stumble across like her YouTube videos and say, Oh, that matches. Now there's a plethora of YouTube and use social media talk about this. So people are finding, I think that there's language to describe what they've experienced. And thankfully, that validates for them what they've gone through. So I think that realisation that discomfort gets so strong that they know that something needs to shift, something needs to change. And now they have these avenues to put words to what they're feeling and what they're thinking. And then they also have avenues for therapists like myself and other therapists that are working with this population to be supported as they walk this path again, and it's a long path to walk. I wish we could just rip the band aid off and have it all be healed, but it takes a lot people who have been with narcissists. Also, I would say, I probably 85% worry that there are narcissists too. When they come into therapy. They say I'm worried I'm a narcissist. And then when we dig a little deeper, it's because that's what's been modelled for them.

Kristen

I'm so glad you said that. Because so many people are afraid to turn out like the narcissistic parent or their narcissistic partner or they feel selfish because they've been told they're selfish.

Brenda

Exactly. And all of the above, right? They see similarities between themselves and their narcissistic parent. And I think they generalise that to mean Oh, I am exactly like them. And of course we behave in ways that were modelled for us in childhood. But when when we know better, we do better right? We know that those ways don't get the results that we want. We shed that a narcissist doesn't a narcissist just finds new victims, they just move on to the next person who hasn't gotten wise to their games yet. And with parents and children, obviously, that doesn't happen. But what happens with parents and children unfortunately, the children in the family and this is true, even if there's only one child are assigned roles like scapegoat golden child forgotten child, one child might be the golden child one week and the scapegoat the next week. So that dynamic is shifting even in that small circle and partnered relationships. It's likely the narcissistic partner is cheating. I mean, that's pretty common for them, that they're finding new supply all over the place. I'm so glad

Kristen

that you said that. That was one of my questions. Can you find that there's somebody on the side I, well, I can waste in couples therapy, I can feel it, I can go, this is just a sham, like I'm not buying what you're selling. And then when I call that out, I bring that into the light. They do not like me, I am now the target. And then behind the scenes, they'll go I feel attacked in therapy. I don't want to go back to her. I mean, she doesn't know what she's talking about. And this is classic it is and then the other partners like no, I feel like she's on Do I feel like I'm getting somewhere and the partner wants to stay? And what percentage and this is totally georgeous? I don't think there might be you might know, is there a statistics around narcissistic abuse like them cheating, or addiction?

Brenda

Addiction is high, I don't have numbers off the top of my head addiction is high with this population. But you would expect I mean, given that they come from trauma, typically, trauma and addiction have like an 86% Correlation somewhere along that number. So that makes sense to me. And the cheating part. Just anecdotally, I've noticed that like even if they're not slowly having relationships outside of their primary relationship, they usually have an heard the word harem. And I don't like that term to be used. But they usually do have people kind of that they're keeping kind of on a string. They flirt with just enough to keep them interested. But not enough to get them in trouble with their primary relationship. There's almost always people around that they could be the next source of supply when the primary relationship goes south.

Kristen

So paying attention to how you feel is your own key piece. How do you feel and if you're getting love bombed, that showering with compliments, that's telling them how wonderful they love them, they give them gifts, what other love bombing type things do you see with narcissists,

Brenda

that's most it's usually pretty overt behaviours like that. Sometimes it's duration for you, most of the time, they're not doing anything for you. But it could be using love language, that could be an act of service, they may do the dishes, but they're gonna want to be rewarded for that. And they're not just gonna do it. But that would be a way of love bombing any little subtle ways. And I remember having a client saying that she was never a loved one. But when we got deeper into her history and her story with her narcissist, there were little moments like picking the kids up from school when he normally wouldn't, you know, little things like that, which most of us would just think that's part of co parenting. But for a narcissist, they are seriously going out of their way because they don't get any benefit. There's no attention given to them for going to pick the kids up from school. And they'll say get out of the car and look at me, I'm the great parent, but that to them is also a form of love bombing.

Kristen

That's a good example. What's the difference between a sociopath because there's the great book, The Sociopath Next Door, and the narcissist, what's the difference between the two

Brenda

empathy, it really is empathy, which may sound crazy when we're just talking about not having that empathy. But I think if you look at this all on a spectrum, and I have seen narcissistic traits very low on the spectrum, still damaging, but not maybe not necessarily permanently damaging a relationship. And then we go all the way to the other extreme. As we get less and less empathy, I think we start walking into sociopathy, or the social personality disorder, but it is really a nurses will have some empathy. And that little bit of empathy probably stops them from doing worse things than they do. But I think that is really the defining difference, in my opinion.

Kristen

So when someone's on this healing path, they're want to get out of the relationship. They want to maybe have boundaries with their parents got two scenarios here. Maybe you're in a relationship with somebody, or romantic relationship. Perhaps you're in a relationship with someone in your family, or a friend or co worker, like you said, what are the key ingredients, if you will, more healing from this relationship with a narcissistic person.

Brenda

So I cannot stress this enough validation from other people, first of all, people believing the stories that you're telling because I use this example recently, your narcissists do something really what might seem really benign, but to you, you know that it has deeper meaning it maybe you harken back to something 20 years ago, but because they don't let go of anything. They hold grudges in a big way. When you cook them an egg that morning, and it was over easy instead of hard boiled or something right? That could be enough for a rage to start. And when you go and tell the people that you're close to, Oh, he got mad because I cooked the egg the wrong way. People are not going to be able to piece all of the parts together to understand what deep significance a little thing and a little argument like that might be. So when folks have an opportunity, we offer a support group and I know there are other support groups than just mine but they have the opportunity to have support around them people that understand what narcissistic abuse is and understand like the nuances of what a little comment or a little look can mean. I would say to children of narcissistic parents. I I'm sure that they can walk into the room that their parent is in and just punch up just feel, you know whether there's an attack coming on. And most people aren't going to understand that they haven't experienced it. So having the support and the knowledge of this kind of abuse, I think is incredibly important that validation is absolutely essential. And the thing that made me laugh when you ask this, initially was self care, because they know self care is something that we talk about all the time. And folks who have been with the Narcissus self care is just such a foreign thought to them, because their waking hours are devoted to keeping the peace, right, trying to fly under the radar of any rage. So self care is just never even a thought. And when I say self care, I mean little things, like go out and put your feet in the grass or smell a flower or, you know, it doesn't have to be a spa day, it can be something that you just take a minute to do some breath work or to just some way to just get away from kind of the chaos that is happening in the house or in that relationship. 10 minutes, give yourself 10 minutes at a time and just grow that from there. It is so incredibly important. And boundaries, of course are essential as well.

Kristen

And do you find narcissists don't respect the boundaries? I mean, that's really what happens. It's like I'm trying to set the boundary, but they keep railroading me, or gaslighting me,

Brenda

exactly. gaslighting is sort of the basic tool for narcissists. That's it, if you put a boundary up, you're going to be gaslit, that you're hurting them. By putting that boundary up, that is going to happen, no doubt about it. The really important thing for people to realise is the boundary is for you, not for them. Because when I started doing this work, and I would talk about boundaries for people, I would hear exactly what you just said, Well, they're not going to respect that. No, they're not, they never will. But what you can do is maybe start to extinguish their behaviour by backing out, you don't have to show up, you don't have to argue back, which I know sounds defeated. But it's important. There's no point in arguing with a narcissist either. So we use the term grey rocking in narcissistic abuse language is dull, it's a grey rock, that is a boundary, you don't interact, you don't give them anything to kind of feed off of you just dial right you just don't engage your brief in your interactions with them. If you have to have them, you kind of all business, you just don't engage in that there's a strong boundary. Another part of that too, is remember, you can maybe remove yourself from the situation, if they're raging at you, or gaslighting, or whatever, you might be able to just go to the bathroom, you may not be able to leave the house go to the bathroom. But getting away kind of breaking that turbulence that's going on in the communication, I think is a really powerful thing and empowering things for the person who puts that boundary in place for themselves.

Kristen

I love that term. You said grey rock, grey rock? Yeah, yeah. Because what I find people do is they like build a case on why they did that, like, we were out of groceries. So I went to the groceries and I was gonna make this dinner, and I was gonna be backed by five. And I'm like, what just happened? Like, you're going into building a case on why you did it. And grey rocking is just, I'm just not, I'm not going to engage.

Brenda

Exactly. And I get that too. I mean, we have a sense of justice, or we want some balance. And we're never going to get that with a narcissist. It is a futile effort that is only going to, I think exhausts us if we try to engage in in defending ourselves. And I know that sounds terrible. But I promise that you're gonna feel a lot better if you grey rock and just avoid the whole, all the chaos that's going to happen if you're in a position where you're defending your behaviour, or your words.

Kristen

That's the best recommendation. I really do. And I also want to talk about texting, because I feel like this is where people will get a mic, stop, Oh, stop, pass it over to that clip to under dollars do not engage, respond. But it's like a compulsion. Like, I'm going to text back and I'm like, I don't how do you work and somebody when their texts are blowing up, or maybe their emails, but texting is seems to be what people are doing now how it is recommend.

Brenda

So stop. There really is my recommendation. And it's hard for people, especially if you're married or you're co parenting. I mean, it's almost impossible. But you can block somebody temporarily. You can take a break, you could turn your phone off, maybe not in all situations, but you can block that person in just I was in a meeting. I couldn't have my phone blowing up like that. But I will tell you, I had a client one time that was sitting in my office and we counted the text it was 154 texts in 30 minutes. He wanted to know where she was. I mean, he was very, very controlling. That just could not handle the fact that she wasn't texting back. So she finally turned her phone off. But I think there's also this worry that there's going to be hell to pay if you put that boundary in place too. We do have the ability to say, I'll talk to you about this when I get home, and you can stop it there. I know we're kind of treading into what could be dangerous behaviour to or depending on how abusive the narcissist says, if there hasn't been extreme abuse, like physical or anything really extreme, I think it's safe to do something like, I'll talk to you about this, when I get home, I'm turning my phone off. So these are boundaries that we can put in place. Another thing to remember, and this is probably not gonna sound very nice, but most narcissists are cowards. They really are underneath at all. So when you kind of take a stand, of course, you're gonna get pushed back. But if you say, this is what I'm going to do, and you stand by it, they're going to be taught a new behaviour from you like what you're going to allow, and it will come in tiny, little doses. But that's how you built the bigger picture.

Kristen

Yeah, important. And then if someone's in a dangerous situation of you'll want to get a protective order, you'll want some support around that that conversation, if it can escalate it to that level.

Brenda

Yes, thank you for saying that. I don't want to encourage anybody to do something that they fear will put them in danger. Absolutely not, don't do that. But most of the time, we can put these little boundaries in place that that are quite empowering, even though it may not feel that way. And it probably actually will feel that way. Because we're not used to putting boundaries that but little things can make a big difference and it can start changing actually help the person feel empowered to change the relationship in whatever way they feel they need to change it. Yeah,

Kristen

it it plays with your mind. I think that's the whole net of being it with somebody in a that's a narcissist, or even maybe some mental health issues is you begin to feel like you're the bad person. Wait, why am I feeling like I'm the bad person. It's so subtle, it feels like it's in the nooks and the crannies it

Brenda

is, I say that a lot actually. It is in the nooks and crannies, and it just kind of seeps in slowly and all the veins and I used this example yesterday of movies on them. And I think they did this in Spider Man to where it's like a plant roots that's kind of seeping into the body. And I feel like that is such a great kind of visual for what narcissistic abuse feels like to gas filling that nastiness and tears yet like your cellular structure.

Kristen

And that's the body sensation you're talking about. When you walk into a room, at least you described it with a parent, you feel it in your physiology, if you're waiting for the next you're like bracing for the next dysregulated outburst, or even if they're very passive aggressive, and they look calm, there's an intensity there. So you're waiting, kind of bracing yourself to try to protect yourself. So listen to your body, I think that's has so much powerful information

Brenda

you receive right as so much information. Children of narcissists, turn that off, because and then it stays turned off. Or when you get in a relationship and adult years, you turn it off, because you've gaslit to say no, you're wrong. There's nothing wrong. Even though your body's screaming, get out of here, this person's not being nice, or whatever it is, they're going to get into that whatever it is that you're experiencing isn't real. We learn to ignore that. But when we bring that back online, it tells us everything we need to know. Yes,

Kristen

Brenda, you are so wise and I'm so grateful for our time together. If someone wants to join the support group, can they join from anywhere in the US? Or I've got clients or other therapists or working with clients or anybody listening? They can join in. It's NARC, can you give them the

Brenda

it's narcs trauma.com, we have a place there that you can sign up for the groups on Calendly. And it's also in Stevens therapy.com. We have it in both places. And Stevens is Ste pH en s just to make sure you go to the right place. But both pages have sign up for the group. Everyone is welcome. And we do it every week on a Thursday, one o'clock Pacific time. And we literally had people from all over the world. So I mean, everyone is welcome. I can't say that strongly enough. We want people there. We want people to feel supported. And I run the group myself. It's kind of my little passion project.

Kristen

I love that how many people are in the group if people because that's always a question clients will help you it probably depends on the week, I'm guessing

Brenda

it totally depends on the week, we cap it at 10. We almost never have 10, it usually averages. We can't have some regulars. And then we have some other folks that kind of pop in and out and we'll come in over time and then be gone for a while. But we capped at a 10. And we typically have between five and eight.

Kristen

And you can just come or do you have this register or how does that work.

Brenda

So you have to register we do charge $20 for the group. So you register on the website there's a if people go to the web, either website you'll see there's a spot for registering for the group and then our intake specialist at our practice sends out a zoom link so we do it over zoom every looks at every Thursday. She sends that out. We stop at 10 and But I do like the groups to be small so that people have an opportunity to share and be heard, because it's not often a privilege that they have in other environments. So we do keep it small, but we hardly ever sell out.

Kristen

I think I mean, and tests are not worse. Yeah. And if you tell us about where they can find your books, and you have a workbook, we've got books. So can you tell us a little bit about where to find those?

Brenda

Yeah, so there, I think, both on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The the first book I wrote was, let me caveat this by saying this was the publishers choice of topic, but it was, it's titled, in narcissistic mothers daughters guide. So it is about relationships with narcissistic mothers, I will say, I wrote it in a way that it really encompasses both parents. And when I talk about that in there that I think is really important for children of narcissists to look at in my book or any book is that typically, you have a narcissistic parent and an enabling parent, that enabling parent may be narcissistic as well. I think the enabling I would love to do a whole book and a whole practice around enabling parents because I feel like they can be just as damaging. Yes, but I

Kristen

need work on that. I will champion you in that.

Brenda

Thank you. Idli. The do 10 A lot of times you'll see a malignant narcissist parent with a covert narcissist, parent. And that covert narcissist parent is often the enabling one. So you can only imagine that they're enabling the narcissist. there's children involved and their covert so they're kind of woe is me. They throw the children under the bus, that children are fair game if it protects them. And that's a horrible situation for a child to be in. Sorry, I went off on a tangent that, oh,

Kristen

we need more about that. I really believe that. So I want to just encourage you to put that out there.

Brenda

Thank you really well, really? Yeah, I think it's really important for people to understand because I've had people come to me too, like my dad was a narcissist, but my mom was okay. And then as we do the work, it's like, Oh, Mom maybe wasn't really okay. Mom wasn't there mom was checked out, which leaves the children to centre themselves.

Kristen

Exactly, exactly. And then you have a workbook to I do

Brenda

so the workbook. It's not the narcissism recovery workbook. It is a step by step guide on how to heal from this. I strongly encourage people to work with a therapist, if they're using the book or not work with a therapist, because there's trauma held in the body. There's trauma held in the mind when you've experienced these relationships. But the workbook is a guide to help you kind of move through the grief moves through all kinds of steps that you're going to go through. As you're walking that path of healing from this relationship or these relationships.

Kristen

I highly encourage you go out get the books, get on Brenda's website, join the group. If you need support, I'm telling you, this is spot on Brenda, the support you get is essential, essential it's like a non negotiable so please, if you're in this situation or know somebody or have a friend or family member, please share this podcast and share Brenda's resources. So thank you so much, Brenda for being on the close the chapter podcast. I appreciate you your heart, your wisdom and being here today.

Brenda

Thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker

Thank you.

Kristen

Thank you so much for listening to the close the chapter podcast. My hope is that you took home some actionable steps, along with motivation, inspiration and hope for making sustainable change in your life. If you enjoy this episode, click the subscribe button to be sure to get the updated episodes every week and share with a friend or family member. For more information about how to get connected visit kristendboice.com. Thanks and have a great day.