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What do you need?
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What are some of the skills you need in a relationship?
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One is you need to be able to challenge your partner.
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Even if they re innocent, you need to be able to say it.
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My feelings really were hurt when you canceled our bike ride on Saturday to be with your friends.
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If your partner flips out and can t even hear that kind of a complaint, how do you deal with the big issues?
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Welcome to The Art of Charm.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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Today we re talking with our old friend, Linda Carroll.
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We re gonna talk about narcissists in relationships and the current trend of labeling people, you know, our lovers, partners, mothers, et cetera, as having character disorders.
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It s almost a buzzword now, especially narcissism.
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We ll talk about why that s damaging the narcissistic continuum that we are all a part of, what constitutes a true personality disordered person, and of course,
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What we can do about this if we think we or someone we know and love might be in a relationship with a narcissist or even be one themselves.
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We re glad to have you with us here today at AOC, so enjoy this episode with Linda Carroll.
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And by the way, if you re new to the show, we d love to send you some top episodes and the AOC toolbox.
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That s where we discuss concepts like reading body language, having charismatic nonverbal communication, the science of attraction, negotiation techniques, networking and influence strategies, mentorship, persuasion tactics,
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and everything else that we teach here at The Art of Charm.
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In the US, you can text the word charmed to 33444.
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That s C-H-A-R-M-E-D to 33444.
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Everywhere else, just go to theartofcharm.com.
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Also at theartofcharm.com slash podcast, that s where you can find full show notes for this and all previous episodes of the show.
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Alright, here s Linda Carroll.
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Linda, I m really glad to have you back here on the show.
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Jason and I both are, because every time we have you on the show, we learn a bunch of really interesting stuff that we had maybe thought about briefly, but never really done a deep dive on.
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And every time we have you on, we get a lot of notes about, wow, this was so interesting, and we gotta have her back and ask about this, and we get a lot of fan mail about it.
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So we re really interested.
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and having you come back on, especially when you suggested the following topic, which was the whole narcissism thing.
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It seems like a buzzword, and every time somebody breaks up with somebody now, in this day and age, it s, oh, well, they were just a total narcissist, and it s like this clinical term that s getting abused.
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What do you think about that?
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Well, did I send you the article I wrote for Body Mind Green?
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It s called, Is Your Ex Really A Narcissist?
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And where it came from was that I started hearing people talking about people in their life who were difficult, and they were calling them not just narcissists, borderline personality.
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My mother s a borderline, my ex-girlfriend s a sociopath, my boyfriend s a narcissist.
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And I got curious about this because it seemed like
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it was happening all the time.
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People were using these labels all the time to describe it.
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And I know that from my own clinical studies, that maybe 1% of the population are real life narcissists.
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So like, what is this phenomena?
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And I started to then read it.
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Because I write blogs, I read a lot of blogs.
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And I couldn t believe how many blogs I read, many by people who are not trained or
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had not studied psychology about, well, if your boyfriend does this or your girlfriend says this, she s a narcissist dumper.
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I thought it s so incorrect.
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So I wrote this article and I just began to speak about it.
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I think it s a fascinating topic and I want to try to set the record straight too.
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So I love talking about it.
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Yeah, it is abused and everybody becomes suddenly, oh, this person s a narcissist, and what percentage of the population is a real narcissist?
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Single digits or point, fraction of a percent, 1%.
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That s still a hell of a lot of people, right?
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It s a lot of people.
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Yeah.
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You know, it s not that many people.
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If you have 10,000 people, what is that, 100?
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And then for narcissistic character disorder, there s a continuum.
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Some people are real live narcissists, but they can adapt.
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and they can develop their empathy.
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And other people at the other end, which is sociopathology, they can t.
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But out of that 1%, there s many people that can adapt to life and love from it.
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So it s not even that strong in terms of people that really are it, that that s where they live from.
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Right, so one, there s fewer narcissists than we think, and two, even certain narcissists are able to cope with it.
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Maybe they re not on the same level of spectrum where they re incapable of functioning.
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It s just something where they fall on the spectrum, kind of like, I mean, would you say there s high-functioning narcissists that can sort of get by and it s more of a vice or a little bit of a flavel versus a relationship-destroying flaw?
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Yes, can we talk about what a narcissist is versus narcissistic?
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Yeah, let s talk about the definition of who a narcissist is, what narcissism is versus somebody who just does something or is acting narcissistic because of X, Y, Z circumstances.
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Like you re fighting all the time, therefore they re acting more selfish versus the pathology of somebody who can t help but be narcissistic 24-7.
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we all have narcissism.
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Narcissism is a continuum.
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And healthy narcissism is something that everybody needs to have, so that we are all on that continuum.
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And healthy narcissism has to do with my own sense of well being, that I matter, that I deserve love, that I have a lot going for me.
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And that sometimes we equate that with self esteem, which is another old topic.
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But healthy narcissism is what gives us
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Resiliency gives us the sense that we re entitled to a good life or to love.
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So that if you think of that continuum of healthy narcissism on one end and unhealthy narcissism on another end, and that everybody has it, that narcissism is something that we all are a part of, or narcissism, that we re all on that continuum that is different than a personality disorder.
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So my healthy narcissism comes and goes.
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And then people who I would call normal people, sometimes the swing is a little bit of grandiosity.
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Sometimes it s a little deficiency.
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And sometimes I m not in it at all.
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I m just, you know, trying to collect money for homeless dogs or helping my kid with her homework, or weeding in the garden.
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I m not even thinking about myself.
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When I go for a job interview, it comes up, or I m in a fight with my partner, it comes up.
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But it s a part of well-being.
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In narcissism and the character disorder, it s always the center from which I operate.
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So I m never out of it.
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everything in that expression, which is sort of funny, it s another buzzword.
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It s all about you.
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That expression really is true.
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In a person with narcissistic character disorder, because they lack empathy for other people, and because they lack a certain awareness that other people count, it is all about them.
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and they never get out of it.
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It s constricted around them 24 seven, like you never took your headphones off.
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That s narcissism.
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People on the continuum, we take them off, we put them on people who are the personality disorder.
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Every decision we make comes from that sense of
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It s gotta be about me.
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I ve gotta get something, praise or validity, or I have to get something from you.
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Make sense?
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It does.
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Great, so we ve defined a little bit of what a narcissist is versus narcissistic behavior.
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What factors influence narcissism and what factors influence narcissistic behavior?
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And what I mean by that is we know that some people who are, for example, and I m trying not to make this comparison, but I m just gonna have to anyway,
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Psychopathy, for example.
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There are plenty of people, in fact, there was a researcher, and you might know who this is, who was studying psychopathy, and he thought there was an error in his data because he scanned his own brain, and it came up positive for psychopathy, and he was like, oh no, all my results are ruined, so they redid the test, and it turns out he has a psychopathic brain,
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except it was never quote unquote activated because he had a normal childhood and he had a normal existence growing up and he worked hard and he achieved results.
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he wasn t this crazy, selfish, awful human being, and that s sort of led to some more research where it s like, oh, you can have this stuff sort of latent, you can have the potential for it, but it doesn t mean you have to act on it.
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It s based on environmental factors, sort of the nature versus nurture stuff.
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Is narcissism like that too, where we can have a narcissistic brain, but maybe that program isn t running in the background because of the way we were raised or the way that we are living our lives?
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Is it the same?
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Yeah, it is the same.
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We have a very narcissistic culture.
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For example, we have a culture where kids get told they re wonderful just because they re learning how to walk.
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And that rewards the kid for being anything, for being everything.
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And there s a lot of criticism about that, about how kids are raised to have so much self-esteem that they have over entitlement.
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And part of our culture is what goes into that, that there is a switch, like you say, that turns on.
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There is a very strong genetic component to narcissism, you know, in twin studies where twins are separated at birth or where studies where people
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who are not around their genetic parents, adoption, become like them in terms of narcissism or self referencing, or inability to feel empathy for another person.
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There s a very strong, strong component that has to do with nature.
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And then there s all the factors of our personality besides that that come into it that either enhance or diminish.
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Then there s what happens to us.
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And then there s something very mysterious that I really don t know.
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And the older I get, the less I feel I know about what makes us who we are.
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There s a guy named James Hillman.
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He s wonderful.
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And he has a book where he talks about three components of the human.
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One is called nature.
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One is called nurture.
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And the third, he calls the acorn.
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and he says that the acorn is something we come with that is mysterious and that it s kind of what we are meant to be.
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And you can call that soul or spirit or something that isn t defined by science, but that that also is in the mix with it.
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So how people actually get to who they are, is something that you know, is mysterious, we ll probably never understand it.
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But those are certainly all the components.
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You can look in a family and some people are naturally empathetic.
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Let s look at narcissism just with one quality, which is the quality of empathy or allegiance to other people.
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You know, you go camping,
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and you pick your trash up because there s this sense that other people are coming in after you and you want to make it nicer.
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Some people inherently don t care.
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Some people really care.
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They want to set the fire up for the next person.
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What is that, do you think, that s in that person?
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Is it just what they re taught or is it in them from the beginning?
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I have no idea.
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I would assume that it s probably something they re taught.
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I don t think so.
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I think that that s a part of it.
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But I think that the bigger part of it is that some kids are, from the beginning, very aware of other people and empathetic.
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They want to share their toys.
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They feel distressed if they have a sibling who s upset.
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And some kids don t notice it.
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It s not like they re bad or it s not like something s missing, but they re just not as tuned in to other people.
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So part of what happens in our adult relationships, the more narcissistic we are, the less we are tuned in to how our behavior affects our partner.
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Now, here s something really interesting.
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Okay, I m just going to exaggerate this whole thing.
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Let s say there s one person that s very strong on the narcissistic scale, they lack being tuned in to how other people are reacting to them.
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What kind of a person are they going to draw to them, do you imagine?
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Let s say there s 100% in a relationship that has to do with how much you care about other people.
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So let s say person one is 3% of that.
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Who s going to come into the relationship?
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The person has 97% care about other people that we sometimes call codependent or a person who is so tuned into other people they forget about themselves.
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But if you imagine that each person takes up 50% of the space in a relationship.
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then you can t have a narcissist in that because that person only gets half the page or half the space.
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But a person who takes up all the space or 97% is gonna attract somebody who only feels like they need to take up or deserves to take up 3% of the space.
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So there you ve got the narcissistic and what we call codependent or enabler relationship.
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That s really interesting.
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So narcissists and codependents kind of magnetize towards each other, you think?
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Yeah, because if I think my value is what I give to you, and you think that my value is what I give to you, we ve got a match to start with.
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We ve got a mess later on, but we ve got a match to start with.
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Right, so how come this leads to a downfall?
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I mean, how come a person whose value is derived from giving everything to other people doesn t just live happily ever after with somebody whose value is derived from taking from them?
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Well, I think some people live like that forever, but I think that there is also something in us, most of us, that is trying to get healthier.
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You know, it s like if you put a plant in the window, it s gonna turn itself to face the sun in the same way, I think,
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People generally turn themselves to get healthier.
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Feeling cared about is something that is a healthy entitlement.
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Having you always park your car so I can t park mine in the driveway is something that the healthier I get, the more intolerable it becomes.
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So there s this joke about codependence or enablers.
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that you can always find them because they re in the self help center of the bookstore.
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They re trying to figure out how they can get healthier.
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So usually, well, two things happen.
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One, the narcissist grows tired of their partner.
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And as they do that, their behavior often gets
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much more discounting.
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And they stop doing the very few things that they do anyway, to make the relationship stay well.
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So the other person gets sick of that.
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That s one part of it.
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But another part of it is that when we live in an unhealthy dynamic, and we re not essentially a character disorder, we start to react against it.
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The third thing is that in every relationship, there are seasons in a relationship.
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Some of those seasons are, you know, hard, they re winter, in a long term relationship, you know, that sometimes it s good, and sometimes it s not so good.
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And when you re going through the winter or a tough season, in a relationship, which is a normal thing to do a person who is narcissistic,
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will not be able to go through that with kindness and doing the things that repair or get you back to a spring or summer.
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They just can t do it.
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They lose interest.
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then they start to blame the other person for what s going wrong, when it may be just a normal cycle of love.
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And so you may enter into a relationship with a narcissist, because you love being with someone who seems superior, because they seem accomplished.
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But after a while, being treated poorly, starts to wear.
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And that s when the person starts to rebel.
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And that s when the narcissist can get really nasty.
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Tell me about an example of this that maybe you ve seen in your work so that people can say, oh yeah, yeah, that s happened to me, or that s happened to my friend, instead of just looking maybe at the abstract characteristics of someone not sticking with them through a downtime in their relationship.
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One of the troubles with the narcissistic, one of the terrible pains they live with, is that underneath this sense of entitlement and being better than,
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is this very deep wound that their worth is really low.
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And so that there is this fragility and narcissism.
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So I had a couple once where the woman was out to save him.
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And he was not a very, he wasn t a flamboyant narcissist.
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He was sort of what I would call more of a fragile narcissist where, or a vulnerable narcissist, where he felt like people were always against him.
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And he lost one job after another after another.
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And so when they came to see me, it was because his wife had finally said to him, this is six jobs in seven years.
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There s something you re doing.
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She d never challenged him.
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And he had insisted it was always the boss who was bad.
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He s what was called the vulnerable narcissist, which is that his grandiosity was not I m better than it s I m worse than everybody.
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Everybody hates me.
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And he flipped out and got violent and abusive with her.
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He threw things against the wall.
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And she finally got the courage to say, can you look at your part in it?
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And he couldn t bear it.
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He couldn t bear that question because her job from the very beginning, from where she had come from, was to protect a little sister that was being abused all the time.
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And she became a great protector.
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She was really great at telling him all the time, you re wonderful, no one understands you.
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And as long as she was in that game with him, the relationship worked.
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But when she finally challenged him and said, what about your part?
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He completely came undone and the relationship came undone.
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She had to choose between getting healthy herself or the marriage.
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He would not do anything to repair that or to work with that.
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Right.
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In his mind as a narcissist, it s not his fault.
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It s the other people s fault.
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And then she joined the ranks of the person that didn t understand him.
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So there s a grandiose narcissist who says, I m big, and I m powerful, and I m better than everyone.
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Then there s the vulnerable narcissist that says, you know, I m worthless.
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I m worse than everyone.
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I couldn t get that job or people just don t like me right off the bat.
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But both of them share that characteristic.
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And then there s people that act that way, but they re not really the character disorder.
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They can learn to tap into the part of them that s all ready to go that cares about other people.
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Put them in a soup kitchen.
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Then you can see the people who can get better and who don t get better.
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Get them to do some service in the world.
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It s weird because you re locked in, right?
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Unless the narcissist goes, you re right, I am a narcissist.
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I m willing to grow with you, enabler.
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That relationship has to end because if the enabler decides I m gonna grow, the narcissist goes, well, that s not gonna work for me.
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And so the relationship is doomed.
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What do you need?
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What are some of the skills you need in a relationship?
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One is you need to be able to challenge your partner.
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Even if they re innocent, you need to be able to say it.
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My feelings really were hurt when you canceled our bike ride on Saturday to be with your friends.
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If your partner flips out and can t even hear that kind of a complaint, how do you deal with the big issues?
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So the narcissistic character disorder can never be challenged.
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They re always trying to make up for being deficient.
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Let s talk about why people use that label with their partners, because I think that s an interesting segue into something else, which is why that phrase is kind of the cliche of our time.
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My ex is a sociopath.
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You know?
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Right.
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Well, it sounds more clinical than we re not getting along, and potentially part of this is my fault.
2
SPEAKER_03
It s easier to go, there s a clinical reason they re terrible.
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SPEAKER_03
There s a medical reason that this person is awful.
2
SPEAKER_03
I m fine, though.
2
SPEAKER_03
I m great.
2
SPEAKER_03
I don t do anything wrong.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
2
SPEAKER_00
And also, I mean, when you re in your when you re cornered in your relationship, and your feelings are hurt, and you ve had a bad day, would you like a video on you?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like we all can act like jerks at times, and our partner gets to see the biggest jerk part of us.
2
SPEAKER_00
So sometimes when we re under a lot of stress, how we act
2
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is not something we want to look at.
2
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And our partner sees that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes we can act pretty self-centered.
2
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I think most of us do.
2
SPEAKER_00
But that doesn t mean we re a narcissist.
2
SPEAKER_00
So when you re ending a relationship, let s say your partner has dumped you and you re really upset about it, or your partner is rejecting you and you re reacting to that, it does feel like it s all about you.
2
SPEAKER_00
Or let s say that your partner broke up with you and started going out with your best friend, so you threw all her clothes out on the lawn.
2
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Are you a sociopath?
2
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Or did you have a really bad moment where you said all kinds of things and said, get the heck out of here?
2
SPEAKER_00
That doesn t make you a sociopath, it makes you somebody who was cornered and acted out in a way that you re probably not very proud of.
2
SPEAKER_00
But that s not a sociopath, that s just a moment.
2
SPEAKER_03
We re pathologizing normal behavior which is happening under stress.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s it, right, perfect, you said that perfectly.
2
SPEAKER_03
And it s normal to act certain ways when we re in extreme situations.
2
SPEAKER_03
It s different if your significant other said they didn t want to see a certain movie and you threw all their stuff out on the lawn.
2
SPEAKER_03
That s crazy.
2
SPEAKER_00
That is crazy.
2
SPEAKER_00
Although under certain conditions, some of us could even do that too if we had a bad enough day.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, sometimes everything seems like it s a front on you, you know?
2
SPEAKER_00
And here s the other thing about narcissists, they re deeply lonely people.
2
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They don t have that bonding part of them, where they connect in a soft way from the heart with other people.
2
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They re very isolated.
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And underneath the narcissist is very fragile.
2
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You know, there s workshops that are given about how to work with a narcissist.
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And the number one question is, how do you get the back?
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They usually don t go to therapy, first of all, because there s nothing wrong with them.
2
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It s other people that need to get fixed.
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If they do get in, and it s usually when they ve lost just about everything, it s usually their partner that s trying to figure out how they can help the narcissist or how they can manage to be in the relationship with getting so little back.
2
SPEAKER_00
But when a narcissist finally does come in,
2
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they come in always because there s something wrong with someone else.
2
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The question is, how do you get them to come a second time?
2
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And it takes years, because their ego is so fragile.
2
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It takes years to be able to challenge them.
2
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And it s an art to be able to challenge a narcissistic person so that they re able to hear it.
2
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Because underneath all that grandiosity is the sense that I m worthless.
2
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It s like they re kind of floating.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re not standing on normal ground.
2
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They re floating in this contained shell of, I have to pump myself up because I don t really have anything inside of deep value.
2
SPEAKER_03
Right, so the narcissism does come from internal sense of lacking that can t be filled by the person who s willing to give.
2
SPEAKER_03
It just can t.
2
SPEAKER_00
No, that s right.
2
SPEAKER_00
So let s say you re in a normal relationship that has normal trouble, and what you have to do is you ve got to take it apart.
2
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You have a loop.
2
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We ve talked about that before.
2
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You re in a normal loop in your relationship.
2
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And the way out of that loop, which is those reoccurring arguments that go on and on,
2
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is each person has to see their part and do something different.
2
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One person may be withdrawing too much, and their job is to move towards their partner.
2
SPEAKER_00
The other person may be too needy and want more connection, they have to move away from.
2
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We have to look at our part and say, what can I change?
2
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Because a narcissist can t look at their part,
2
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They can t change anything.
2
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They re powerless to make a different move.
2
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This is a very painful thing for both people.
2
SPEAKER_00
The person who s narcissistic, who thinks that they know everything.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, I have people that come in sometimes that are somewhat on the scale.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, not the great pathological narcissist, but I think have more narcissism than less.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they always say the same thing in therapy, which is, there s nothing you can tell me I don t know about relationships, about myself, about my partner.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s all because of what they did.
2
SPEAKER_00
That is really hard to deal with just as a therapist, let alone a partner or a friend.
2
SPEAKER_03
Right, because they re completely blind to it.
2
SPEAKER_03
That s the whole pathology, is it s not them.
2
SPEAKER_03
It s kind of like saying, hey, Linda, you know your face is purple?
2
SPEAKER_03
No, it s not.
2
SPEAKER_03
I m wearing a purple sweater, but my face isn t, no, your face is purple.
2
SPEAKER_03
If she doesn t think her face is purple, well, I can t help you there.
2
SPEAKER_03
I mean, if you don t even see the fact that your face is purple, because your face is, to the narcissist, your face is as purple as the sky is blue for everyone else, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they can t be wrong.
2
SPEAKER_00
A narcissist can t be wrong ever, ever, ever.
2
SPEAKER_00
One of the things that I, two things I want to go into, one is,
2
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how to avoid being involved with a narcissist, and the other is what if you really are in a deep relationship with someone who has a character disorder, because it plays out everywhere in their life, and you got yourself into it, what do you do?
2
SPEAKER_03
Right, I just want to highlight the last thing you said, which is that since our relationships are built on a dynamic between two people, we ve got to see what we re doing, what part we re playing, what role we re playing in this, because
2
SPEAKER_03
It s always easier to blame other people s behavior rather than look how their behavior interplays with our own.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think it s true for all of us.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I think most people go to therapy hoping their partner gets fixed, but soon they start to realize, hey, there s stuff I m doing that I could do differently.
2
SPEAKER_00
But that doesn t, with a narcissist, that doesn t click on.
2
SPEAKER_00
They don t, they can t admit that.
2
SPEAKER_03
There s different relationship rules because only one side is going to even be able to see the problem and be able to fix it, whereas the other person is convinced that it s not them.
2
SPEAKER_00
Another characteristic of a narcissist is they are always an exception to every rule.
2
SPEAKER_00
Rules don t apply to them.
2
SPEAKER_00
Not the rules of good communication, not the rules of showing up on time
3
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for work.
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I m an exception to everything because I m so special.
3
SPEAKER_00
So how do you work that in a relationship that I feel like I don t need to play by any rules because I m so great that they don t apply to me.
3
SPEAKER_00
So what happens in the relationship is one person may start the other partner
3
SPEAKER_00
I would call them the enabler or the codependent, may start getting healthier.
3
SPEAKER_00
First, they may get sick of being poorly treated, but they may also realize that everything they re trying to do is to try to make the narcissist happier and come to some point where they say, you know what, what about me?
3
SPEAKER_00
See, number one is the narcissist, it s all about me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Number two is the person who s with the narcissist is it s not about me.
3
SPEAKER_00
I can make it all about you.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s kind of how I know to love.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t feel like I m entitled.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re entitled to 90%.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m entitled to 10.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that can work well for a while.
3
SPEAKER_00
But it s very fragile, and it starts to break apart.
3
SPEAKER_00
So sometimes people come in who are with a person who is quote, narcissistic or a narcissist, and they want something to be different.
3
SPEAKER_00
They ve come to a place where they say I deserve something different.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m worth more.
3
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes their partner can make that leap and sometimes they can t.
3
SPEAKER_01
Poor narcissists, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
It s almost a leap of faith for them, because they have to at some point go, okay, I don t see it at all.
3
SPEAKER_01
Maybe it s because I m a narcissist.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let me try this whole therapy thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
But then of course, if they re really hardcore narcissistic, they re just thinking, ah, this person might just be trying to take advantage of me, or they re thinking they re getting gaslighted by the other person.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re not fair, that s what narcissists love, that expression, it s not fair.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then of course the other person, who s used to being a pushover and giving and giving and giving, has been under the spell of this narcissist telling them that it s them the whole time.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it almost takes a therapist to have to go, look, here s my semi-objective third party therapist opinion, and then they both have to trust that therapist, which is kind of a tall order.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and since the narcissist doesn t really connect, they re not going to trust in the same way that you would trust if you connect.
3
SPEAKER_00
So for a narcissist, they may go and shovel snow off the neighbor s lawn.
3
SPEAKER_00
But what matters to them is not that the 90-year-old neighbor isn t going to fall down and break her hip, but that the neighbor saw how generous and great they were.
3
SPEAKER_00
So that s what it means it s all about me.
3
SPEAKER_00
They don t give something without
3
SPEAKER_00
wanting everyone to know how great or generous or wonderful they are.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s really about their reflection all the time.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s very, very hard.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s also one of the greatest things we do in relationships is really learn how to love somebody for them.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s such a great feeling to be able to do that.
3
SPEAKER_00
They don t get that feeling.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, of course.
3
SPEAKER_01
They are kind of medically incapable of it.
3
SPEAKER_01
I d love to get back to the current trend of labeling people, lovers, partners, parents, whatever, as having character disorders.
3
SPEAKER_01
Why is this damaging?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because it seems obvious on its face, well, you know, it s not nice to tell someone they have a disease or assume they do, but there s more at play here, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because it s kind of like when people who are quiet say, well, I m an introvert, so I can t network for jobs and I can t be social because I have this personality trait and there s nothing I can do about it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Is it just because it makes us helpless?
3
SPEAKER_00
So one of the things about it is that two things come up right away.
3
SPEAKER_00
The first thing is that it s a cliche.
3
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t talk about what s really happening.
3
SPEAKER_00
It makes it into a cartoon, sort of.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, my ex is a sociopath, and often this plays out when people have kids between them.
3
SPEAKER_00
they escalate their behavior.
3
SPEAKER_00
If you split up and you have kids, or if you split up and you don t have kids, you lose half of your life for a while till you rebuild it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so there s a lot of acting out against each other.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s easier to give that person a label than to try to see the bigger story, including your part in whatever is going on.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s an easier thing to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s also easier if you re looking at parents and you put them in a box or family members or old friends or old girlfriends.
3
SPEAKER_00
Putting them in a box means
3
SPEAKER_00
you don t have any responsibility for what has gone wrong in the relationship.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you can be a victim.
3
SPEAKER_00
And there s some people get off on being victims, rather than I created this dynamic with my brother, where, you know, I always felt like I was less than and he felt like I was more than.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I guess that was our age difference, too.
3
SPEAKER_00
But we need to change that.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like my brother is a jerk, you know, and that s just he s a narcissist.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he it s sort of like, that s that there s nothing you can do to repair it.
3
SPEAKER_00
and it gets you off the hook of saying how did I buy into that or how am I a part of that.
3
SPEAKER_01
That makes sense, right.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s leaning on that medical excuse, right, like we mentioned before, where it s, well, there s nothing to be done.
3
SPEAKER_01
This is just the way he is.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, maybe, but then we re ignoring the ability for him to change if they want to, our role that we play in it, et cetera, et cetera.
3
SPEAKER_01
So, all right, that makes sense.
3
SPEAKER_01
It sort of puts it in a bucket and leaves it there instead of making it a changeable situation.
3
SPEAKER_01
So, we ve learned the difference between clinical narcissism and people who are exhibiting narcissistic behavior because of situations,
3
SPEAKER_01
How do we find our own place on the continuum?
3
SPEAKER_01
Is it just being more observant?
3
SPEAKER_01
Is it just noting when we do this?
3
SPEAKER_01
And why is it important to note that we re on that same continuum?
3
SPEAKER_00
University of Indiana I was, decided they wanted to, rather there s a long questionnaire to test for narcissists, but they wanted to see if they could shorten it.
3
SPEAKER_00
So they just asked this question, are you a narcissist?
3
SPEAKER_00
And they found that the people who said yes correlated very strongly with the people that turned out to be narcissists on this test, that there was something they were proud of.
3
SPEAKER_00
Not are you narcissistic,
3
SPEAKER_00
Certainly, I think most of us would say, yeah, well, sometimes I really am.
3
SPEAKER_00
But are you a narcissist?
3
SPEAKER_00
They found that the majority of people that said yes were actually narcissists.
3
SPEAKER_00
The magic question, as though it was a badge of honor.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think that s very funny.
3
SPEAKER_00
The question you re asking is how do you start to unravel this?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s very painful, not just for the narcissist, but if you re in a relationship with someone who is, quote, a narcissist or very high on the scale,
3
SPEAKER_00
It s a very painful dynamic.
3
SPEAKER_00
Getting out of a relationship, I think, is very hard if you love somebody.
3
SPEAKER_00
And when you read articles about if you re in love with a narcissist or you re married to a narcissist, you need to get out.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it does a disservice because sometimes people can make giant leaps.
3
SPEAKER_00
So what happens if you realize that you are with somebody?
3
SPEAKER_00
This is the real test.
3
SPEAKER_00
that their entire history is the same as it is with you, their history of other relationships, friendships, family, jobs, that that all has the same dynamic, that they were always right, that other people misunderstood them, that other people were jerks, and now it s happening to you.
3
SPEAKER_00
This is a person who is probably not going to change.
3
SPEAKER_00
but you re still stuck in a relationship that s going to be painful to get out of.
3
SPEAKER_00
But if they have that history, that s a really good indication that this has been there forever.
3
SPEAKER_00
But sometimes people can make changes.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think that what happens is as one person gets healthier,
3
SPEAKER_00
and they start getting it, that they re not always at fault, that they are entitled to have someone care for them as much as they care for the other.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s this really crucial place where you can either put the other in a box and say they re a jerk, or you can really try to address this, not by trying to fix the other person, but by getting healthy yourself and trying to do it in a way that remains kindly towards your partner.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s a very delicate walk.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t mean enabling towards your partner.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, kindly towards your partner.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s something that when I work with people in that, it sometimes can turn it around.
3
SPEAKER_00
Not always, but sometimes it can.
3
SPEAKER_01
This is very interesting because it seems like it requires almost an elevated level of introspection on the part of both the quote-unquote victim and the narcissist at the same time.
3
SPEAKER_01
Unfortunately, narcissists, it seems like what you re saying is they might even have that level of introspection, it s just that they re unable to see or unwilling to change.
3
SPEAKER_01
Or is this totally detached?
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, where do we kind of begin fixing the situation, I guess, is what I m really asking.
3
SPEAKER_00
Usually when they ve lost relationship after relationship, or people don t talk to them, or they re out of a job, that s when they really come in and say, I need help.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right, right.
3
SPEAKER_01
That actually makes sense.
3
SPEAKER_01
Most of the people listening to this are not going, yeah, I m a narcissist, I might need to figure this out.
3
SPEAKER_01
Most of the people are gonna be the ones who go, I m dating a narcissist, or I always date narcissists, or I ve been in a relationship with a narcissist, or I think I m in a relationship with a narcissist.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, the narcissist turned it off as soon as they heard the topic and said, that doesn t apply to me.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right, or yeah, screw these people.
3
SPEAKER_01
They don t know what they re talking about.
3
SPEAKER_01
This guy, some moron runs a podcast in his basement.
3
SPEAKER_01
Who cares about him?
3
SPEAKER_01
Right, who cares?
3
SPEAKER_01
So I get it.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s gonna be a smaller percentage of the population.
3
SPEAKER_01
Although, I will say, we have gotten fan mail from people who said, I found out I was a narcissist after listening to your show.
3
SPEAKER_01
I went to a therapist and went through all the stuff and it looks like I ve been dealing with this for years and I m really glad I discovered that.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I thought, wow,
4
SPEAKER_00
really cool because the amount of self-awareness that it would take to admit that and then go try to fix it because it s ruining your life is admirable.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that may be a person who was taught to be a narcissist, who was an only child of doting parents that said everything they did was perfect and they were going to grow up to be the greatest person that ever lived.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that s something that is conditional or conditioned.
4
SPEAKER_01
and you can change your conditioning as opposed to someone that has all the genetic material and all the stuff that sort of enhanced their narcissism.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, one thing just to the side, we ll come back, but a lot of times people who are alcoholics or addicts or addicted to love, which we know people can be, that that mirrors narcissism, but it really isn t narcissism.
4
SPEAKER_01
that if you have a fix you re trying to get to all the time, that becomes the focus of trying to soothe yourself or manage yourself.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that s what you care about.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you lie, you stop caring about other people, you do things that are always trying to make up for the mess you ve made because of the addiction.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that looks like narcissism.
4
SPEAKER_01
But often when a person goes to rehab, they get clean, that stops.
4
SPEAKER_01
So we don t really know what it is till we get a really good diagnosis from someone who knows how to diagnose it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Before the show, we talked about understanding emotional regulation and deregulation.
4
SPEAKER_00
Can we get into that?
4
SPEAKER_00
I think this might be something practical that people can take away from this as well.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
So what is emotional regulation?
4
SPEAKER_01
It s one of the most important components to emotional intelligence.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it means that if my partner says something that I feel upset about, I m able to not come back and do something hurtful or totally close off.
4
SPEAKER_01
I can soothe myself.
4
SPEAKER_01
I can calm myself down.
4
SPEAKER_01
I can say, wait a minute, he s really upset.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t have to get hooked into this conversation.
4
SPEAKER_01
I can manage myself, not react from my four-year-old or my 12-year-old.
4
SPEAKER_01
and do what I need to kind of bring myself back to being grounded and respond from a healthier balanced place.
4
SPEAKER_01
A person who s unregulated, they just scream or they throw things or they feel angry because someone s cut some off in traffic and they, you know, act out road rage.
4
SPEAKER_01
emotional regulation is we re all going to get upset about stuff.
4
SPEAKER_01
But how do we soothe ourself back?
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I really saw it during the election, I had six couples I was working with, where they were voting for different people.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they were activating each other all over the show.
4
SPEAKER_01
you know, all over the place.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, this is a whole other thing, because that election was so filled with feeling for people.
4
SPEAKER_01
And people were screaming and yelling and throwing things in my office, which never happens, because of this topic, because they were coming out at the hinges, their partner would say, Well, I m for so and so because, you know, they re the only person that s going to save the country in there, and their partner would flip out.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so that that was a situation where
4
SPEAKER_01
The topic was so vulnerable that it brought out people s extreme behavior.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had one couple who really both looked, I thought, are they really crazy?
4
SPEAKER_01
And they flipped out, but they weren t.
4
SPEAKER_01
They were so stressed out by the topic that they acted it out in very exaggerated ways.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they got themselves back together and said they were sorry and calmed down and found a place and apologized to each other.
4
SPEAKER_01
But emotional regulation is when
4
SPEAKER_01
We re able to regulate very extreme responses to stress, often brought out when our partner says, can we talk or I don t want to go to dinner with you.
4
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes that can exaggerate our stress and we react in a way that s harmful.
4
SPEAKER_01
So one of the most important components to emotional maturity is being able to manage that flight
4
SPEAKER_01
fight or freeze response in a way that doesn t harm ourselves or the other person.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes, the first one nobody s gonna like that s listening to this.
4
SPEAKER_01
This is gonna be the most unpopular thing that s been said on your show.
4
SPEAKER_01
First thing you can do is pay attention to the feedback you get from other people.
4
SPEAKER_01
If your partner tells you you re really defensive, or if your boss tells you that you can t take feedback, pay attention to that instead of to become defensive.
4
SPEAKER_01
Look at the data in your life, not just with one person, but with many.
4
SPEAKER_01
What is it that people complain about with you?
4
SPEAKER_01
Are you too reclusive?
4
SPEAKER_01
Do you not share enough?
4
SPEAKER_01
Is that what you hear over and over?
4
SPEAKER_01
And really have the courage to examine that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Not that you re bad.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s like we all have things that we do that annoy other people or that harm our relationships.
4
SPEAKER_01
Everybody.
4
SPEAKER_01
So being willing to hear that feedback is the first.
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So that s the first thing everybody can do is to say, Okay, what have I heard over and over again, from other people about where it is that I can grow myself in a relationship.
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That s number one.
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I m worried that somebody who s dating a narcissist, or is in a relationship with a narcissist, is gonna say, well, I hear the same thing from him all the time, which is that, I don t know, whatever narcissists tell their victims all the time.
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Is that the feedback we re looking for, or are we looking at the feedback like, well, my ex-boyfriend told me I was too giving, my mom tells me I m a pushover, my brother tells me I m a pushover, my girlfriends all tell me I m a pushover, and this guy tells me that I don t do enough for him, or that I don t understand him, or whatever it is.
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We gotta look for feedback from multiple sources, right?
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It s so good what you said.
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That was such a clever thing you picked up because you re right.
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A person who s codependent is always looking for where they re wrong or where they re off.
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And that can make them try harder with somebody who isn t giving them anything back.
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So that was great.
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So you want to look for multiple sources.
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You want to look at your whole life and say, where is it?
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And you don t have to do this in a negative way.
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Where can I grow myself?
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So I can be more effective and more loving in my relationships.
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Where is it that my eight-year-old is still in charge?
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Or where is it that my inner tyrant that s seven and mad?
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Or my 14-year-old oppositional self?
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You know, I have this part of me that s 14.
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And if I m cooking or I m driving or whatever I m doing, if somebody offers a suggestion, my first reaction is I get mad at them.
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don t tell me what to do.
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I ve got this like so in every cell in my body.
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I ve gotta work on that all the time.
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Not that I want people to tell me what to do, but a good suggestion isn t something I need to react to like I m still 14.
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And we all have those places.
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Right, so we need to look at feedback, what we re getting from other folks, what we re getting from people that we trust that maybe do have our best interests in mind, not the partner with whom we have the problem, the issue.
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right, who s trying to control us with that.
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And then to really watch ourself and see if we believe that it s true.
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Is that true?
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So I mean, I think that part of healthy narcissism, part of that healthy spectrum is somebody who says, you know, I can keep growing myself because I really deserve to have the best relationships I can have.
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So where is my part of this?
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that I can do to make myself healthier, one of those things is to know that I m entitled to be treated well.
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So that can be very healthy for someone who s in a relationship with a narcissist, where part of the time I get to have you take care of me, or you think about how I m going to feel about something.
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Right, and of course the serial narcissist or the actual narcissist is not going to do much of that if we re
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thinking that we re the victim of this or we re the other party in this relationship, we have to look at ourselves and go, okay, I never think about self-care or I never think about what I m getting from this relationship other than being comfortable in my victim role because dot, dot, dot, childhood stuff or whatever.
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Or a part of healthy relationship is I have to be able to give feedback to you about something that you did that hurt my feelings.
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And some of the time you need to be in a healthy relationship, you need to listen to that and say, I m sorry I did that.
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I m gonna change that, that wasn t fair.
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So that s another place that a person can look at their own behavior.
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Can you make complaints and get heard about that?
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And can you hear complaints and make changes for the sake of the other person?
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So those are two little quick tests and skills too, life skills that we need.
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Very interesting.
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So observing our own patterns, taking feedback from those around us that we can trust.
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Is there anything else that we need to focus on that we can look at here?
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Yeah, get educated, read, listen to programs like yours, find out about this.
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If you grew up with two narcissistic parents where your needs didn t matter and you just built a whole life on that and you ended up with somebody who also believed your needs didn t matter and you believe they didn t matter, that s what normal life is to you.
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So start educating yourself that that isn t actually normal.
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And I think that for somebody who may wonder if they re a narcissist, to know that with courage and a lot of good support and help, you can learn how to attach to other people, to creatures, you can learn the skills that can really put you in the ballpark to have a good enough relationship.
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But you have to have the courage to look at yourself like all of us.
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Right, so it comes down to, in part, being willing to look in the mirror, and also, in part, knowing who to trust in terms of feedback, which totally makes sense to me.
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One of the greatest things that narcissists
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can do to start to break that is to find empathy for themselves.
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Because narcissists also don t have empathy for themselves.
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They have entitlement for themselves.
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But it s different than compassion.
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So finding real compassion for oneself is also the way out of it.
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Compassion is not a weenie feeling.
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It s not a feeling of I m going to give myself, you know, real self love is not indulging yourself.
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Real self-love is sometimes saying, I ve got to say no to this because it s not good for me.
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Or I ve got to apologize because that was unfair what I did.
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So learning the difference between indulgence and real self-care is another really important issue.
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That s a whole talk in and of itself.
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What do you mean by indulgence versus real self-care?
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Can we expand on that just a little bit?
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indulgence is, I m going to give myself everything I want.
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And self care is, I m not going to give myself everything I want, because it s not good for me.
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indulgence is, well, it s not my fault.
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It s so uncomfortable to apologize.
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That s a whole other topic is apology, but it s so uncomfortable to apologize that I m not going to do it.
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And self care is in really in service to my being the kind of person I want, I have to learn sometimes to say I m sorry, and not I m sorry, you feel bad, but I m sorry that I did that thing that made you feel bad, which is a real apology, that indulgence is
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I m going to only take the job that s going to make me look good or feel good.
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And self-care is, I need to learn other parts of this job, even if it s not fun, so I can be the best I can at what I do.
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So they re very different.
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Perfect, well Linda, this has been super interesting.
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I know that there s a lot of people who are neck deep in relationships where they re wondering if they re dating a narcissist or they know that they are.
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And they ve been through this or they re going through therapy or they re thinking about therapy or they can t get to therapy because the other person won t do it.
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So this has been enlightening and I think it gives us a tool to look at our own relationships and our own behavior.
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And one, identify what situation we are actually in.
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Are we dating a narcissist or just dealing with some narcissistic behavior?
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And looking at the dynamic of what role we play in this, if any, which is, of course, going to be something.
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And then, of course, then and only then are we able to take action, which is fix the relationship or just get the heck out of there.
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And we can do it with empathy.
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We can leave a relationship with a narcissist with empathy.
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We can even have a narcissistic partner or a borderline parent and develop empathy for that person if we have good enough boundaries.
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Empathy doesn t mean walk all over me.
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It just means I know this is a hard road for you too.
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And I wish it wasn t so, and I have to take care of myself.
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So I ve got to make some pretty tight boundaries here.
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But we can do this with empathy rather than name calling.
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Perfect, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
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I definitely understand the empathy angle.
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I think that s very important, because otherwise, then we just end up with resentment and a narcissistic person in our life that thinks, oh, well, it s gonna be like that.
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And I would imagine that people who deal with narcissistic behavior, or rather people who are suffering from
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narcissistic tendencies in themselves probably don t deal well with being blamed for the downfall of their relationship, right?
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That s right.
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It s really a bummer to have it happen over and over and over again.
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So, as usual, it s wonderful to talk to you.
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Likewise.
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It s really been fun to be here.
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Always fun talking with Linda Carroll.
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The narcissism thing, it really is a buzzword.
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I mean, you just hear it, you read it, you see it all the time.
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Everybody who breaks up with you is a narcissist, and everybody who you don t get along with is a narcissist, and everybody who raised you that you don t like is a narcissist.
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I mean, it s just a trendy buzzword, but it s not good for us, it s not good for them, it s not good for our relationships, it s not good for our growth.
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and it s good to have some exit strategies here, or at least some tools to build awareness around this.
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And if you enjoyed this, don t forget to thank Linda on Twitter.
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We ll have that linked in the show notes as well.
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And remember, you can tap the phone screen while we re playing, and you should see the show notes pop up right on your phone.
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And I m also on Twitter, at theartofcharm.
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It s a great way to say hello, goodbye, F you, et cetera, whatever you wanna do on Twitter.
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And our live programs, all that detail that you need for those, our live programs here in LA, bootcamp.theartofcharm.com.
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The boot camps are super rewarding, well, for me, selfishly, because of how far they take people, what we see with our own eyes.
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It s really cool to see the AOC family grow.
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Would love to have you a part of it.
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And, of course, we have our AOC Challenge.
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If you just want to dip your toes in the water, if you re new with us, that s at theartofcharm.com slash challenge, or you can text the word charmed,
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C-H-A-R-M-E-D-2-3-3-4-4-4, and that challenge, it s about improving your networking skills, improving those connection skills, and we ll email you our fundamentals toolbox that I mentioned earlier on the show as well.
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There s also regular videos with drills and exercises to help you move forward.
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It s designed to make you a better networker, a better connector, and a better thinker.
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That s at theartofcharm.com slash challenge or text the word charmed to 33444.
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For the full show notes for this and all previous episodes, head on over to theartofcharm.com slash podcast.
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This episode of AOC, as always, produced by Jason DeFillippo.
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Jason Sanderson is our audio engineer and editor, and show notes on the website are by Robert Fogarty.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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Go ahead, tell your friends, because the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to someone else, either in person or shared on the web.
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So stay charming, and leave everything and everyone better than you found them.
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Thanks for listening to the Art of Charm.
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Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and more at theartofcharmpodcast.com.