SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, narcissist, parent, life, absolutely, children, narcissistic parent, abuse, friends, narcissistic personality, terms, person, clients, present, spouse, narcissistic, empathy, relationship, happened, invalidated

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Heather Kent

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a buzz, how to sit with your emotions, when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

Hi there, I had been searching for a long time to find the right guest to talk about difficult relationships and specifically relationships with narcissists. I have been surprised in the number of my private clients who have narcissist in their life, whether it’s an ex husband, a current spouse, their mother, their sister, their father, and I wanted to bring someone on to talk about these kinds of relationships, how you might feel, how it’s difficult to navigate, how to end toxic relationships and rebuild your life if that’s where you are, and also how to rebuild your confidence and your clarity while you’re doing it. 

 

So my guest today is Heather Kent. She’s a registered psychotherapist and trauma recovery specialist with an expertise in PTSD, who helps restore healthy futures for her clients. She’s the co-author of the newly released book Wellness Wisdom and the number one Amazon Best Selling Author of books Heal from Your Narcissist Ex and I Left My Toxic Relationship which uses elements of her own story intertwined with clinically proven therapy modalities. Heather’s work is focused on helping women through the process of ending abusive and toxic relationships and rebuilding their lives after they have left. So Heather, thank you so much for joining me.

 

03:05

Thank you so much for having me. I’m happy to be here. Yeah.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  03:08

And like I mentioned, I was surprised how many women who drink too much and are trying to stop drinking one of their big triggers is dealing with relationships and toxic relationships and specifically, they’ve mentioned to me, narcissists. And so I would love you to start with telling us what is sort of the definition of a narcissist? How do you recognize one? How do they behave? All that kind of stuff?

 

03:39

Absolutely. And it’s such a good question, because I think it’s also a bit of a buzzword now too, right? And so there’s lots of people talking about narcissistic personality or narcissistic tendencies, etc. So it is important to recognize that NPD or narcissistic personality disorder is a diagnosable DSM five from the American Psychological Association disorder, it’s a personality disorder. And so it does have like a psychiatric component to it. And so it is an actual recognized, you know, diagnosis, if that makes sense. Now, what I don’t love about the APA, the DSM fives, sort of definition of narcissistic personality disorder is that it’s kind of limiting to one sort of specific sub personality type of narcissist, if that makes sense. So the DSM five states that in order to be diagnosed with NPD, you have to have like five of nine specific criteria. And those criteria are absolutely true, but not always present. Because not every narcissist presents in the exact same way if that makes sense. 

 

Yeah. 

 

So the DSM five look said the more traditional what we see mostly kind of personified, I think, in the media, certainly in politics, that kind of thing. So this subtype is called the grandiose or overt narcissist. So we’re most familiar with these types. So these are the people who are really loving to be in the spotlight, command the attention of a room, desperately need to have validation accolades, and you know, receive applause and just constantly being told how wonderful they are. And this is something that they really crave. Obviously, along with that we have, you know, preoccupation with being, you know, fantasizing about unlimited success, unlimited power, unlimited brilliance, whatever. They believe that they are actually special, and can only be understood by other equally special people and should only socialize or associate with other high status people. They require excessive admiration, they have a massive sense of entitlement. They’re very exploitive, so they’re extremely opportunistic, they absolutely will take advantage of others to get, you know, to achieve their own goals. 

 

And the Hallmark component of any narcissistic personality is the lack of empathy. This is really what differentiates narcissism from other personality disorders. So the lack of empathy really, so that unwillingness to recognize or identify with the feelings and the needs of other people. Narcissistic personalities are also often envious of others, or they believe or want other people to be envious of them. Everything is in the light of a competition of winning or losing even a conversation.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  06:49

Are they insecure? Or is it to the point where they’re so self absorbed and confident that they’re not insecure?

 

06:56

Well, so, some of them are quite delusional. So a grandiose narcissist actually has a high level of like, third, delusional beliefs. And so they’ve convinced themselves like they’ve told the lie so many times basically, that they actually believe these things about themselves. And so like, they actually report like a grandiose narcissist will report high levels of happiness, and low levels of anxiety and stress because they think that everything’s going to stick and everyone loves them. Meanwhile, their spouse is, you know, secretly plotting, right, but they think they’re totally oblivious and think everything’s fantastic, right. So they do kind of develop this delusional sort of tendency as well. And of course, arrogant, haughty behaviors, you know, think that sometimes it has been proven that, you know, they’re above the law, that kind of thing. 

 

But this is not how all narcissistic people present. And so this is what I think is kind of limiting, right. And so, there are actually three other sort of major subtypes of people who present with narcissistic personality. And so the opposite of that grandiose type, we call a covert or vulnerable narcissist. And these people actually are terrified of having attention drawn to themselves, they do not want to be in the spotlight because they are absolutely terrified of any possible criticism from others. Their false sense of self that they’ve created, you know, will just absolutely just crumble and their egos their fragile insecure egos would not be able to handle in fact, none of them can handle any form of criticism whatsoever.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  08:38

That’s one I’ve heard from the clients right with their mother.

 

08:42

Oh, absolutely. And so they, they, they will deflect, they will blame, they will gaslight, they will project, they’ll do whatever they can to avoid taking responsibility or having any kind of accountability for their actions because they cannot accept that they are flawed in any way. Because it is incongruent with this false self that they’ve created about, right, that they’re projecting and presenting to the world.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  09:09

But it’s very victime, meaning other people are always doing things to..

 

09:15

Yes, so a covert narcissist Yeah, it’s really interesting. So they actually report high levels of anxiety, high levels of depression. They don’t have a lot of friends. Well no narcissists really do but they really don’t have a lot of friends. They kind of internally brood and like they have this internal kind of fight between their grandiosity and how they think they’re better than themselves and also this massive insecurity and like, desperate fear of you know, and comparing theirs, they’re very much comparing themselves like this. Keeping Up with the Joneses is really important because the outside image must be of perfection and everything being great, right, because they can’t again everything which is shatter. And so these people kind of brute a lot, they’re very just negative, and they’re very, very anxious. They’re constantly kind of thinking like what other people are thinking about them and that sort of thing. And but again, the lack of empathy, again, very exploitative, opportunistic people, and again, incapable of accepting any kind of responsibility for their actions. So, yeah, so that’s, that’s that. 

 

And then we have the one that I was married to, which was, they’re a lot trickier to see. Because they’re, I mean, they look great on paper, they really, and they present so well. So these are called communal narcissists. And so this is a communal, yes, this is a fairly new term in the last 10 years. And so basically, these people are the, you know, motivated go getters and do gooders in the community. So you have, you know, highly educated, highly social, they actually do have very good social skills. So they’re, you know, the life of the party, but not over, over the top, they have a lot of friends, their friends and colleagues think that they’re fantastic and helpful and thoughtful, and whatever reliable. And they are, right, as a friend, they are. They’re coaching the hockey team, or the soccer team. And they’re, you know, volunteering on organizations, they’re on the boards of directors, for charities, etc. And so everyone, they look like these wonderful, upstanding, fantastic humans, yeah, and the motivations behind doing all those things are not because they want to, you know, contribute to society, but because they want and, in fact, need the recognition of doing those things. So again, they need that constant validation, but they look for it in a different way. So they need to be seen as the best good person out there. Okay, but then when you go home with them, all that beautiful shyness comes crashing down. And that is not the reality of what it’s like when you live with someone who is a communal narcissist. 

 

And then finally, we have the most sort of dangerous subtype, and we call these malignant narcissists. And so these are the really extreme types. So narcissism is sort of a continuum. And so at the extreme end of the, of the continuum, we really get into the sociopathic side of things, you know, bordering on like Machiavellianism and psychopathy, we have the malignant narcissists, which are different because they, you know, they have the sort of typical symptoms, but they also display this really extreme anti social behavior, they experience high levels of paranoia, and they take pleasure in, you know, being aggressive and causing harm to others. So they have this sort of sadistic component to them. And so we might think of some, you know, like an Adolf Hitler, that kind of thing. A Putin, for example, and in current times, you know, if you’ve seen pictures of him, you know, with a shirt. 

 

Oh, yeah. Just, yeah. 

 

Sure, as an example, yeah. But really not funny. But yes. Like, it’s so, it’s ironic how classic that is, right? And so, when you look at these personality types, they gain pleasure from being aggressive, and, you know, torturing others to get what they want, basically, right. And so chronic lying, controlling, frightening, intimidating others, you know, threatening power and control, literally killing other people to get what they want. And so these are the personalities that we see in this category, right. And so the secondary gains that they get from this type of cruelty could be financial intrapersonal. It could be in Putin’s case, agricultural, you know, like economic gains. So these are a really powerful motivation for them to continue this behavior and they gain pleasure in creating chaos and taking people down.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  14:39

Yeah, that’s really interesting, because I hadn’t thought of it in all those different types is it’s the lack of empathy, that thing that comes through words, gaslighting, and lying. 

 

So people can display narcissistic tendencies, like behavior doesn’t have tendencies. But the real Hallmark sort of factor across the board is the lack of empathy, this inability to identify with how their actions or behaviors could impact others. And even if you were to bring that to their awareness, they just don’t care. And they do it anyway. Like, it just doesn’t matter. It’s not on the radar. Yeah.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  15:24

What portion of the population would you say, actually sort of falls into those diagnosable categories? Because like you said, it is kind of a buzzword, right? You’re like, Oh, my God, they’re such a narcissist.

 

15:38

It’s really difficult to get accurate statistics on this, actually. Because the problem with narcissistic personality disorder is that very few of them can admit that they have a problem to begin with. And so having them go in to get a diagnosis is next to impossible. And so it’s actually very rare that you have like statistics that you can look at saying like, Oh, so we, like there are statistics that exist, but they’re grossly inaccurate. I mean, if you were to pick any world leader in recent history from various countries, what is the likelihood that they would A, consider that they have a problem? B, go to see a psychiatrist for this problem, C, accept the diagnosis, and then D, commit to doing the long term therapy that’s required? Like, very few actual narcissists that can be diagnosed, because they refuse to admit that there’s an issue.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  16:54

Yeah, I can, I can see that completely. So I assume that narcissists typically get into relationships with certain types of people, or if they’re a parent, they kind of groom the people around them or their children to be a certain way, because they have that power dynamic.

 

17:16

Oh, absolutely. And if I may, I don’t know, am I, can I share my screen with you here while we chat? Because I have a couple of visuals that might help us.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  17:24

You can. But will you talk though for those listening on the podcast? 

 

I absolutely will for sure. Absolutely. But I do like to kind of show these visuals because it is helpful to kind of see what it all sort of looks like. So though, in terms of interpersonal relationships, in terms of intimate, intimate partner relationships, narcissistic personalities tend to target specific people. And so they are always looking for people who are highly empathetic. So literally, the antithesis of them, the opposite of them. They’re looking for people who, you know, are a little bit obsessed with helping others, right? So we call the you know, rescuers, right. And they also look for people who are extremely positive and optimistic, who you know, can see the bright side and can see the good in everyone and who can give people lots of second chances. For example, they look at people who look for people who are excellent at forgiveness. 

 

Now, to be very clear, these are not negative traits, right? However, these traits make us more vulnerable to possibly being drawn in and manipulated by these personality types. They also look for people who have some kind of trauma history. So for example, they might be adult children of narcissistic parents. They could conversely, as was, in my case, be adult children from very happy families. So they had no, like, previous exposure, no context. And so they’re really naive to the whole situation. So completely in the beginning brought in and just no awareness that someone would possibly, could anyone behave this way. It just doesn’t make sense, right? And that’s, I hear that a lot from my clients, like, I don’t know why, why would they do this? How could someone and I’m like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, you’re trying to approach this from a place of logic? That is not what we’re dealing with here. Right? And it’s because it’s a personality disorder for a reason, right?

 

19:29

And so this is really the hard thing for us to wrap our minds around as people who are not sociopathic, right, and do have empathy for others. It is really challenging for us to see and understand how someone can behave in these ways. And then we also look at people who are going through difficulty or transition, people who are vulnerable, people who just went through a big loss or grief or whatever. And so this is who they look for, in terms of a partner. 

 

Now, and is it very deliberate who they look for, or just these are the people who stick with them?

 

20:06

Oh, no, it’s deliberate, because they’re not able to as easily manipulate people who can throw it back at them, or would just walk away or like challenge them or whatever, right. And so they want people who are empathic, who are a little vulnerable with some trauma history, ideally, and who, and who are really, really excellent at forgiveness and extremely loyal, right. Because then you just keep trying, and you don’t want to give up and you think it’s gonna get better. And like, we go around the cycle of abuse over and over again, you know, waiting for it to get back to the way it was in the beginning. And so yeah, that’s what that looks like now. And in the context of family, in terms of sort of family systems, there’s, it’s interesting, there’s a few different things kind of happening there. So I’m going to also, excuse me, um, show you or talk about family of origin roles, and what that looks like, okay. 

 

So if we have a narcissistic parent, for example, and there are children that this parent has, the children are kind of attributed into one of these categories. And so typically, if there’s more than one child, one of them is going to be groomed as the golden child. So this is the child’s, you know, for lack of a better word, you know, the sun shines out there as they can do no wrong. In terms of this parent, they view them as being amazing, and that they’re, you know, God’s gift to the earth and leave the second coming, and all of that, and that these people are just fantastic. And they, they’re, they’re meant for great things. And they only deserve greatness and should not tolerate anything from anyone because they’re so fantastic kind of thing. And so they groom the child to become narcissistic, quite naturally.

Casey McGuire Davidson 

Hi there. If you’re listening to this episode, and have been trying to take a break from drinking, but keep starting and stopping and starting again, I want to invite you to take a look at my on demand coaching course, the sobriety starter kit.

 

The sobriety starter kit is an online self study sober coaching course that will help you quit drinking and build a life you love without alcohol without white knuckling it or hating the process. The course includes the exact step by step coaching framework I work through with my private coaching clients, but at a much more affordable price than one on one coaching. And the sobriety starter kit is ready, waiting and available to support you anytime you need it. And when it fits into your schedule. You don’t need to work your life around group meetings or classes at a specific day or time.

This course is not a 30 day challenge, or a one day at a time approach. Instead, it’s a step by step formula for changing your relationship with alcohol. The course will help you turn the decision to stop drinking, from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

You will sleep better and have more energy, you’ll look better and feel better. You’ll have more patience and less anxiety. And with my approach, you won’t feel deprived or isolated in the process. So if you’re interested in learning more about all the details, please go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com. You can start at any time and I would love to see you in the course 

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  22:00

Now, I was gonna say it sounds like, yeah, grooming them to be like them.

 

22:06

Because children from a parent, a narcissistic parent’s perspective, are not independent beings. Children are extensions of themselves. And so we have a golden child, usually where they, you know, kind of relive the glory through the children and that they’re the source of the lie child did this and that, really, that’s really all thanks to me, you know, that kind of thing. But then conversely, we also typically have in that scenario, a very often a scapegoat child. Sometimes the scapegoat is the truth teller, like calls it out, calls out kind of the BS that’s going on, calls out the narcissistic parent for being abusive, or being inappropriate or doing or, you know, this wasn’t okay, you shouldn’t have done that. And so then they’re labeled as the problem child, they’re, they’re the one that causes trouble, why can’t they just get along, you know, what, what is their issue? And so they’re, they’re seen as the scapegoat and the reason for all of the conflict within the family. Invisible children. I’ve treated a few of these as adults, they spend their lives wondering what they have done wrong, and why their parents don’t like them. So basically, nothing they do is good enough. And so their narrative is that they’re never enough. 

 

And so, you know, there’s a lot of like insecure attachment stuff that comes from this, and, you know, anxiety and all that sort of thing. They’re handmade, and again, like, children can also kind of oscillate within these roles. But typically, the golden child is almost always, like, permanent. Unless the golden child somehow wakes up. And you know, crosses the parent, then all of a sudden, that golden child is dead to the parent, was gonna say, you’re dead. Yeah. And then they focus on another child, who then becomes the golden child. And so this is sort of what happens within the context of family dynamics. So we have a handmade, who would like just kind of does everything that the parents says just like, you know, and then we have the fixer or the fixer who’s like, okay, let’s just let everybody, let’s just do what we need to do, do what needs to be said so that we can all get along and move on with our lives. And so these are kind of the different roles that the children of narcissistic parents fall into.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  24:41

And I’m curious, I mean, obviously, nobody, not nobody, some, many people don’t have five children.

 

24:49

No, so they’re currently dual roles.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  24:52

I was gonna say that. And does the spouse sometimes fit into the fixer or the scapegoat, you know?

 

25:01

Sometimes the spouse is basically like immobilized for lack of a better word, by the, by the narcissistic partner for fear of retribution or what crazy things the person might do, setting them off. Like, you know, in one case, you know, the mother, the mother used to threaten to leave the family every week, whenever he tried to cut her off of her excessive spending, and she would freak out and lose her mind and threatened to leave in front of the children. So the children always thought that their mother was going to abandon them. Yeah, so the dad, you know, became sort of immobilized in the scenario, because every time he tried to take a stand, she would threaten to leave. And what would that you know, but then he wouldn’t want that to happen to the children. So?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  25:59

Yeah, well, so this is fascinating, I would love to hear your story, because I know you have a personal reason why you started looking into this, you were in a relationship with a narcissist.

 

26:14

I was. And so I was in my relationship for eight years, we were married. And actually, I began this relationship really early in my life, I was quite young, I was still in the end of my first year at university. This person actually was from my hometown, ironically. And so we were 1000s of kilometers away from home, and we ended up in the same town going to school. So at the end of that year, we, he, you know, kind of wore me down because initially, I was like, No, I’m not interested, I know what you’re all about, you’re kind of a dirtbag, like, not interested. And he was very, very charming. And I did see this other side of him that was like, very kind and caring, and, you know, soft and, and thoughtful. And, you know, he really wanted to spend time with me. And he was certainly relentless, because I, you know, didn’t give him very easily. And so finally, you know, I kind of against my better judgment, let my guard down. And, you know, decided to give things a try, see how it went. And very quickly, I got kind of swept up and sucked into this, this narcissistic cycle of abuse. But of course, I had no context for this, because I was 19 years old, like, I didn’t really have much of a serious dating history before that. And so, you know, I was one of those really naive people in this situation. And so, but it did, there were lots of red flags early on. But again, I was like, well, but I’ve seen that he’s good. You know, I’ve seen that.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  27:51

What was this sort of red flag? 

 

Oh, yeah. That’s a really great question. So things like, continuing to speak to, you know, ex girlfriends or, you know, hookup buddies that he used to have in various cities since he was in the military. And so he had friends with benefits, you know, in various corners of the country. And so he would continue to have, you know, contact with them and conversations with them. I actually caught him with someone in front of me, and he vehemently denied that this is what was happening, that I was seeing things, that I was making it up, that I had, you know, had too many drinks, which I hadn’t. And so, like he…

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  28:32

Oh, so he, he actually tried to tell you that you were drunk, impaired, whatever, yeah,

 

28:38

I, you know, didn’t see properly and that’s not what happened, wasn’t about whatever. And I’m like, Uh huh. So, but this happened more than once. And they were things he would go away, like on training, and he would say he was going to call on a certain day and this is, you know, before the days of cell phones, so I’m dating myself here. So I would sit by the phone on the day that he would say he was going to call and I would wait for hours and hours and hours and hours. And finally he would call and you know, I would be worried that something happened. Is he injured? Isn’t he somewhere like, is he bleeding in a ditch? Like what’s happening? Right? And because it was military training stuff, so anything’s possible. So, he would just call, he’s very nonchalant and I’d be like, freaking out because I’m, like you said, we’re gonna call like, seven hours ago, you know, like, are you okay? And you’d be like, what are you going on about, why? So like, You’re overreacting or whatever, everything’s fine. Okay, I have to go and he would only talk to me for like three minutes, like once every, once every two weeks kind of thing. And I’m like, Well, what so you know, these types of things and I would be so confused, but then he would kind of string me along and breadcrumb some sweetness to kind of keep me on the hook, coming back for more. 

 

And so there, yeah, there were a lot of red flags. And it turned out that he had a bit of like a porn addiction and, and there was me kind of feeling like I was competing with that as well. And he would always compare me to previous partners that he had been with. And you know, so there was this sort of narrative of enough and I had to, like, perform better and all of these things. So yeah, I was really, really taught that, like, from the beginning, pretty much. But I actually did end it. At a certain point, I think it was like, for three or four years in, we were engaged to be married, and I gave back the array, and I ended it. And he panicked and tried to call my sister and try to like, get her on his side to talk me back into it, to getting back together with him and whatever. And I didn’t, and that should have been the end. But of course, it wasn’t. 

 

Months later, he showed up to my family’s home at Christmas and gave this extremely heartwarming speech. And not only to win me over, but more importantly, to win my family over and gave me this very meaningful gift and talked about how he had changed, therapy and this that and the other, you know, why don’t we get back and that I couldn’t, couldn’t live his life without me, etcetera. So I got sucked back in. And then he asked me to marry him again. And on that day, his mother actually suddenly died from an aneurysm. So this is hugely tragic. And I, of course, didn’t feel like I could leave at that time at that point. So I felt this sense of duty and obligation to stay. So we got married, and the abuse continued, although it did shift. And it just became a lot more insidious and a lot more like manipulation. So the gaslighting and the blaming me, the projecting and the telling me that I was crazy and getting explosively angry when I would ask them or things like, what would you like for supper and that sort of stuff. And, you know, being upset that I would want him to do something with me rather than the 27 other obligations that he had, you know, promised to other people. And he had no problem keeping those promises, but he didn’t keep promises, and he had beat me. And so there are lots of issues with that. And again, sort of, I believed that everything wrong with him and his mood were my fault. And so, yeah, so he, we ended up going to couples counseling, where he tried to shame me to the therapist.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  32:32

That’s pretty amazing that he agreed to go.

 

32:37

He made me go. Yeah, because he wanted, he wanted, he was like, I can get a therapist. Yeah, I need to get a therapist to tell her that she’s crazy. And this is all her fault. And so that’s what he had tried to do but the therapist, luckily, was really well trained. And she was able to kind of see what was happening. So she pulled me aside, and you know, away from him and said, like, you need to end this relationship. This is not healthy. This is a couples therapist. You know, it’s bad when the couples therapist, like, yeah, you need to get out like, this is not good. So that was sort of the slap in the face, wake up call that I needed, really to kind of see. And I had friends who were telling me like they hit through the ceiling, certain things, and they were like, This is not okay. And I always would, you know, minimize and dismiss and make excuses and think that they were overreacting because for me, it was like he’d had a bad day. He’s under a lot of pressure. 

 

He’s not like this when we’re alone.

 

33:24

Exactly. And, you know, really just defensive of him. Because, you know, I, this was my normal. Remember, this is the only context I really had for a long standing relationship. Right. And so it was, it was really difficult to see it when I was in it. And so then the follow up was really brutal, because then he turned into my family gates, he made up these crazy lies and told them that I had gone crazy and had a psychotic break. And then I needed psychiatric help. And I should be hospitalized. And oh, yeah. And of course, they had no reason not to believe him. Because I wasn’t, you know, sharing all the details of what was happening, because I didn’t want the stress of not liking him to be something else I had to deal with. Right. And so they thought that I had snapped and gone crazy. And then like, my mom wouldn’t talk to me, and I didn’t know why. And it was just all really stressful. So yeah, he tried really hard to get those, we call them flying monkeys, kind of on his side by trying to manipulate my family as well.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  34:27

So it ended and is it isolating you? 

 

Absolutely. I have never felt more alone in my entire life as I did in that time.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  34:35

And you know, did they try to, are they extremely jealous of other relationships you might have? 

 

Um, presentence jealousy or not even present, it’s but he felt that he should be entitled to do whatever he wanted and my, you know, displeasure with him sending flowers to ex girlfriends for example. You know, I was overreacting and how dare I feel this way, and he should be able to do whatever he wants, kind of thing.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  35:05

Yeah, yeah. So you did end up getting out, right, it was that? Yeah. How did that…

 

35:15

Well moving again. So back to the therapist, say like, you need to tell them, you need to pack a bag, you need to leave. So that’s what I did. I was homeless for like, four months. I was couchsurfing on a friend’s, a good friend’s house for a while. And then the stuff with my family did get ironed out, eventually came out what had happened, my poor mom, she still isn’t over it. And I’m like, you know what, you were manipulated too, it’s not your fault. Like, this is what they do, you know, like, you really need to let this go.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  35:43

She’s not over not supporting you, or believing it.

 

35:48

12 years is a long time ago, yeah, but my poor mom, she’s still like, you know, haunted by that time. And I, as you know, it’s really not your fault. This is what they do. So anyway, I ended up moving to a developing country for a couple of years. And that was actually a big piece of the healing work that I did. And of course, I engaged in therapy, which is where I learned about gaslighting and emotional abuse, and you know, that I was kind of the victim of all of this, and that, you know, I didn’t know any of this before. So I did a lot of work, you know, in therapy as well. But then I kind of just threw myself into doing humanitarian work and sort of giving back in a different way and immersing myself in a completely different way of life and a different culture, a different language, and all those things.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  36:39

We’ll talk about moving away and getting distance from, so he couldn’t wear you back in right or hurt you or all those things. 

 

Yeah, and, you know, the experiences that I had, in that time were absolutely life altering. And I’m so incredibly grateful that this happened, because it completely changed the trajectory of my life. At that time, I was a teacher. And so this, this brought me to, you know, discovering a passion for humanitarian work, which I now continue to engage in as much as I can, and brought me back to the path of going back to school and doing my master’s in psychology and doing this work. And, you know, being someone who people can, you know, hopefully turn to and rely upon in their, you know, struggle with issues, because I know, I certainly would have benefited from someone when I was going through it, who really understood it, because they had had a similar experience. And so, yeah, part of my motivation for writing the books was to provide people with a resource that they can use, it’s free, you know, so that they can kind of go to it and use it as a guide to kind of see what’s going on and use strategies to help them.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  37:58

Well, and I can imagine, I mean, I think it’s the same way when you’re struggling with alcohol, if you don’t know anyone else, who’s struggled with alcohol or who hasn’t, other than what you see on TV, you don’t realize that you’re not a bad person, that there’s nothing wrong with you that you know, this, this isn’t your fault and, and that you have power over it. And it’s not this huge secret that you can’t tell anyone about. So I can imagine just, you know, with your books, and with your work, some people might not even realize they’re in a relationship with a narcissist, they may actually have their confidence, so far undermined that they truly believe that it’s that

 

38:49

Oh, and they do. And this is the goal. So we call this as cognitive dissonance because we’re like, it’s so confusing, and you just can’t see it when you’re in it. Because it’s just, you’re in this fog, and you’re in this survival mode day to day and you’re just trying to mitigate, you know, walking on eggshells, and trying to foresee possible crises and avoid them as much as possible to make sure everything kind of stays, you know, smooth. So you just kind of go into this survival mode. And it really is hard to see.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  39:20

Yeah, do. I’m just curious. So, you know, obviously, there are a number of use cases, people in different relationships with different people in their lives. You know, you could have a boss, a mother, a father, a spouse, an ex, if you’re in a romantic relationship with a narcissist, is there hope like, could you stay? Are they so far gone? And, you know, can they become a healthy human being?

 

39:51

I mean, short answer, yes, it’s possible. But again, back to that likelihood question, right, again, how likely is it that this person is going to admit they have a problem, that it’s a problem that requires work, and that they’re willing and committed to doing that work? Because it’s not a short process. Yeah, there’s like 12 different phases of work that happened with a narcissist personality. And you don’t even talk about empathy until phase 10 of this. And so it is a commitment. Excuse me, it’s a commitment because, again, who and then who is going to do that hard work? Because narcissistic personality types are terrified of having that mirror held up in front of them, they cannot look at it, right? It is so terrifying. And so I mean, yes, it’s possible. It is very rare that you find someone who was willing and wanting to do the work. I actually do have a client, a narcissistic client who is self proclaimed and realizes that it’s a problem and wants help with it. It’s a struggle, but he has, his heart is in the right place. But again, like, it’s very, very rare, very linear. 

 

So you don’t like do an intervention with this person, with everyone in their lives, being like you are a fucking, call them out. 

 

And you know, calling them a narcissist is about the worst thing that you could ever do. It will never go well. Because, again, they cannot accept any responsibility. And so if you, one of their favorite things to do is to actually call you the narcissist, that’s very often. And so yeah, calling them out, doesn’t ever go as well.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  41:54

Are men more likely to be narcissists than women? Or is it sort of like equal opportunity?

 

42:00

There are both. I think, you know, men generally, generally, just because of their makeup, genetics and et cetera, struggle more with keeping that ego under control. And so it may present more commonly in men. However, I have seen women and have worked for women who are also massively narcissistic.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  42:27

Yeah, yeah. And is it sort of a condition behavior, or it literally is sort of brain synapses?

 

42:37

Many narcissistic personality types have a history of childhood trauma. But some of them might have just come from that narcissistic parent that groomed that, right. And so they were born into privilege, they were given everything they want, they had no boundaries, no limitations, no. Consequences. And so that naturally breeds a narcissistic personality in adulthood. Right? And so, you know, in this concept to like, even non narcissist, parents can cultivate a narcissistic child just in their parenting choices, because, you know, no woman is ever going to be good enough for my son, and you know, that kind of that kind of thing. Really, is that what you want him to believe? Because that’s not going to go very well for him at all. Really?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  43:28

Yeah. I was just curious about the nature versus nurture.

 

43:31

So I mean, certainly in terms of gender like predisposing factors, there is a genetic predisposition. So if you have a family member who has developed this type of personality disorder, you would be naturally more susceptible to developing it yourself. Although it is not a guarantee. So that’s why you see some children of narcissistic parents turn into narcissists and others who don’t. 

 

Yeah. So I know you focus on helping women through the process of ending in abusive toxic relationships, rebuilding their lives. So how, how do you do this? If you and when you say ending toxic relationships, abusive relationships, is that equal opportunity in terms of family and spouses and romantic partners?

 

44:25

Yes. Yeah, the abuse knows no boundaries, and so neither do our, our responses to that. Right. And so in terms of recovery from abuse, I mean, I think it goes, I wouldn’t say it goes without saying I’m gonna say it. In order to recover from abuse, you can’t be in the presence of your abuser. Period, no matter what kind of abuse it is with the physical violence, whether it be emotional abuse, you know, verbal abuse, harassment, that kind thing, you can’t recover if you’re constantly being exposed to it over and over again. Does that make sense?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  45:10

It totally makes sense. Yes. And I would assume as well say you’re married to someone with children that there’s fear involved not only what the response would be if you leave, but also retaliation in terms of lying about…

 

45:29

Yeah, I mean, there’s no shortage of drama that goes on. And certainly I live that a little bit myself on the day to day as my current partner navigates co parenting with his nurses, cystic x with parents to children. So it is an interesting, never dull time.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  45:56

Well the reason I say that is when you’re like, you can’t heal in the presence of your abuser. It’s obviously very complex in terms of getting away. 

 

Yeah. So I mean, protecting others, your ideal scenario would be to go no contact, whether that be a parent, or a sibling, or a spouse, or a friend. However, in certain contexts, that isn’t possible, for example, when you share children. And so in those situations, then you have to go into what we call gray rock, where we limit the communication abilities to only one form of communication, whether that be text or email, never the phone, never ever the phone and or through an app that is monitored and can be actually submitted legally as documentation for the court. 

 

I think one of my clients, so we call it so there’s a really great one called Our Family Wizard. And the courts recognize this in Canada, the US and in Australia and the UK. And so this is an app that it’s fantastic. It’s actually really great. Because you can also like, do, like look at your kids schedules, and track finances and all of that, everything can relate, it can be done in the app. And there’s also a chat feature, which is monitored. And so if you start saying something hostile, there’ll be like an alert that comes up and it says, This seems a little bit aggressive, are you sure you want to send that? You know, that kind of thing. Narcissists hate this app, because they don’t want to be muzzled, right, they want to be able to be abusive and not be held accountable. So they hate it, they don’t want to use it. But if it’s court mandated, then they have to. 

 

So those are, you know, kind of ways around it. But certainly, you want to limit your contact, and you keep your responses only to logistics. So if it’s about pickup, drop off, it’s about, you know, necessities that the kids need for school, or having to drive the mother to a doctor’s appointment for her dementia, whatever it is, you just limit it to business only. And you do not respond to anything other than the logistics. And you basically become the most boring person for them to interact with, and they’re not getting that supply from you. They’re not getting the reaction, whether it’s positive or negative, doesn’t matter for them. They just want the validation from you. And so if you don’t give it to them, then they grow tired, and they look for supply elsewhere. But yeah, it is. It’s an ongoing kind of struggle. And if you’re in a parenting situation, you look at this, what we call parallel parenting versus co parenting, because you can’t co parent with someone who is unreasonable, right? You just can’t do it. And so you have to just focus on what you do. You do have control over what happens in your home, and let go of whatever is going on over there. If it can’t, you can’t control it.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  49:01

So say you’re still in the relationship and you’re debating, should I stay? Or should I go? Is this bad enough? Like I would assume if it’s emotional and verbal and not physical in there, undermining your confidence that you’re like, should I go everybody else thinks this is an amazing, great person. Do you know…

 

49:24

But sometimes there will be someone who says that they’re not at some point. But we choose not to listen to those people or the narcissist says, I don’t like that person, stay away from them, they’re not good for you, right? And so they isolate you from the people who can see through them if that makes sense. Because they know that they can’t pull the wool over that person’s eyes so easily. So yeah, like it is. It is hard because, you know, there’s this very antiquated notion that it’s not abuse unless there’s physical violence, which is absolutely absurd. Absolutely not the case. Physical violence is just the final manifestation of abuse. Really, there’s not one instance of physical violence where emotional psychological abuse hasn’t been present, obviously, right. And so the physical, the psychological and emotional damage is far more lasting than the bruises and cuts from the physical attacks. Right. And so these are the three wounds that we need to spend time healing. And so, yes, it is bad enough, because you don’t have violence in order for it to be extremely damaging and abusive. And then you’re also look, if you have children in the in the mix we’re looking at, okay, what kind of example of healthy relationships Am I demonstrating for my children, in most circumstances, leaving is actually the only chance that the kids will have eventually seeing what healthy relationships look like, and understanding that if someone is mistreating you, it’s okay to walk away. These are valuable lessons.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  50:59

Yeah. And so, if you decide to end the relationship, how can you do that in a safe way?

51:08

Yeah, so it really depends on, every situation is different, right? And so, if there is a real danger, or a real fear of safety, then you definitely want to have a plan in place. I used to orchestrate these plans with clients in the past, you know, one of them, we call it, we called it like, Operation Get Out, I think it was called, the client named it. And in this case, trying to, to escape wasn’t necessarily her leaving, it was making the home so intolerable, that he wanted to leave. That’s what we did. Because she was, like, physically not able to, to leave, because she had limitations. So she developed this sort of stage strategy of making the house so uncomfortable for him that he wouldn’t want to be. Which was so fantastic. Poetic justice for her, right. Yeah, she did, she drove him out, which was fabulous. And then she had space to then navigate through the, you know, the formalities of the divorce process. But it really is, it does take planning, you definitely want to let people know what’s happening. You want to have support in place, you want to have a safe space to go, whether that be a you know, a women’s shelter, an independent, undisclosed location, or whether that be at a friend’s place out of town that the partner doesn’t necessarily know about. You want to have a plan, a plan in place, and a bag packed, ready to go with your necessities. So that when you have that opportunity, you take yourself, your kids, whatever it is you need, and you get out. So yeah, it certainly does take planning if there’s a real sphere of safety.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  52:55

Yeah. And so I’ve heard the term love bombing. Is that part of what narcissists do?

 

53:04

Yeah, so that’s part that’s the initial phase of what we call the narcissistic cycle of abuse. So love bombing or the idealization phase. And so love bombing is what happens at the very beginning. It’s what sweeps us off our feet and what makes us feel so incredibly connected. And it’s just so incredible and intoxicating, and all encompassing, because they just can’t get enough of you. And they put you on this pedestal and they, you know, future fake with you and they plan all these wonderful things, they bring you flowers, come to your work, and they whisk you off for surprise, you know, get away weekends and they buy you presents, and they tell you that, you know, you’re the best thing ever happened to them, etc. And boys feel like they are the only people in the world who really understand you because they mirror back to you everything that you are giving to them. They’re copycats, they just do what you do. Right? And that’s what makes us feel so incredibly connected to them makes us feel like they understand us and like I’ve never felt so like understood by this. Like anyone else in the world. This is so amazing. No, they’re just mirroring mimicking you and bringing it back to you. 

 

So we’re basically kind of enthralled and drawn in by the wonderful things that we give to others, which is really falling in love with ourselves a little bit, which is nice, because then it all comes crashing down unfortunately, and we don’t realize that we’re so fantastic, right? And so, after the love bombing, and we move into what we call the devaluation stage, and the devaluation stage, you know, we’ll start to be you know, some controlling manipulative tactics, you know, slow isolation from your friends and from your hobbies. Maybe them being like, I’m gonna go do my own thing and you don’t get to have a say, or they’ll start criticizing you, you know, under the guise of being concerned, and or, you know, make suggestions of things that they think that you should share, do differently or do better, etc. They may start with the gaslighting in this phase, they may start, you know, by projecting and blaming and you know, dismissing and invalidating your feelings, making fun of you in front of others, that kind of thing. 

 

And then we move into the discard phase where basically the person, the narcissist, basically, literally discards you, has no interest in you, cuts you off, stonewalls you, doesn’t want to talk to you, is extremely abusive, goes off to find other sources of supply. Um, and when you kind of get to the point where you’re like, okay, no matter what I do, I can’t get back at us. All we’re doing is trying to get back to that when everything was so amazing. That was great. We cling on to that. I certainly did. You cling on to that memory of how great it was in the beginning, and you desperately try to get back there all the time. And you believe that it’s possible and you’re like, you don’t understand what’s happening. And what did you do and how did this happen? And how can you fix it? You spend the whole time wondering how you can fix it. And then as you kind of decide, okay, this, I guess this is the end and you start to pull away, as soon as that happens they hoover you back. And we call this hoovering because they start doing the love bombing again. And they suck us back in and around the cycle again to go for another tour.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  56:27

Yeah, yeah. And what about with a parent, I mean, you show those different roles within a family. But I work with some women who their mother or their father is the narcissist and sometimes it was the one that you described that can’t take any criticism and is very defensive. And, you know, there is this huge feeling of obligation and guilt. 

 

Oh, yeah. 

 

They’re older. You don’t have anyone there. My parents, I have to take care of them. I’m a bad guy. And daughter, you know, yeah.

 

57:05

But that’s all our story. Like, that’s our narration, right? So we’re making that story up. We’re bad because we don’t want to hang out with someone who’s abusive, right? It doesn’t matter. The fact that they’re your parent is not relevant. The abuse part is the only part that’s irrelevant. Right. And so you don’t get to choose who your family is. But you do get to choose whether you allow them to abuse you or not. Right. So it’s an exercise in boundaries again, so if cutting them completely out is not something that feels congruent with the person’s core values, how do you navigate this in a way where you can establish and firmly maintain healthy boundaries, so that their narcissistic parent can no longer cause harm?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  57:57

Yeah, so once they realize that this person is a narcissist, once they’ve done some work on boundaries and are leaving, how did they heal themselves? Because I can imagine there’s a lot of, I’ve heard you say, in your writing, like PTSD, and healing come from that.

 

58:19

Yeah. So many clients that I worked with actually don’t realize that they have PTSD when they come see me. They know that how they’re feeling isn’t good. But they don’t realize that it’s actually like a result of this prolonged exposure to abuse that has caused like trauma in the brain, and then the outcome of these other symptoms. And so we look at those symptoms, and we’re like, oh, so I guess I have PTSD then. 

 

Yeah, yeah. 

 

So that’s what this is. So it’s helpful, because then it makes you again, not seem like you’re crazy. You understand what it is, you understand how it happened, you understand, you know, why you’re feeling this way. And then we look at okay, so what are the specific interventions that we can use to help and heal those wounds? And so we do a lot of self compassion work, a lot of work around, you know, letting go of that guilt and shame, a lot of empowerment work, and also looking at our distress tolerance and increasing our window of being able to function well and tolerate different emotions and uncomfortable things. How do we respond to triggers when they do come up for us? You know, do they send us into a tailspin again of reliving it? Or are we able to use some interventions to kind of bring us back to present and remember, okay, no, this isn’t happening. This is not saying I’m not there, I’m not there. I’m here, right? And so we learn specific interventions. And we look at ways of kind of reclaiming our story, changing that narrative and rewriting the story of our experience, right, because out of something painful can come something really powerful and it’s that kind of transitional work from, you know, the horrible painful part to a place of empowerment.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:00:07

Yeah, yeah. And does narcissism get worse with age? Or is it just sort of static throughout people’s lives?

 

1:00:18

That’s a really interesting question. I haven’t done any longitudinal studies of narcissists in my work, but I mean, it’s, it’s hard to say, because, you know, there are many things at play. As people age, people are typically more set in their ways, they become more solidified in their routines, etc. And so they’re less flexible or less able to be flexible, more rigid, you know, generally speaking, and so, it only goes, stands to reason, then that, you know, narcissistic behaviors would also become more rigid in old age.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:00:55

Yeah. Yeah. So I think this was super interesting. Like I said, I have a lot of clients who have these people in their lives, and I don’t have a ton of experience or expertise with it. If someone recognizes that this sounds very familiar, or they even know they’ve been in a relationship with a narcissist, and have gotten now but are still struggling with interactions, what’s the next best step for them.

 

1:01:26

Um, so certainly, if they feel like this is really unresolved, and it’s still impacting me in negative ways they definitely want to look at support, professional support, or, you know, educating yourself is great, there’s wonderful books and YouTube channels that I can absolutely recommend. But certainly enabled in order to kind of work through and process through that unresolved trauma, which is what it is, you want to work with, you want to do work with someone who can help you through that. So for example, I run small, like therapy groups for women who are, you know, wanting to recover from the impact of narcissistic abuse actually have a group starting in October. And so, like, I run those periodically, throughout the year. So that was, that’s a really lovely example of something that a person could do. Certainly, they could get in touch with someone. 

 

It’s so important, though, when you’re finding, looking for a therapist to do this work, that they are absolutely aware of personality disorders, and that they have an informed background, because so so often, I have seen examples and heard from clients who, you know, went to therapy previously. And the therapist had no idea what they were talking about. And they invalidated their experience and kind of blamed them. So they became further sort of alienated and invalidated in their experience and kind of told that they were overreacting and crazy by, not told, but, you know, the conclusions were I can imagine, or you go to couple’s therapy and the therapist, it’s like, this person is wonderful, you know, yeah, you should be doing better for your husband, you know, why are you not able to do that, so then you just become completely invalidated. And so it’s super important to like, do your research and make sure that the person that you choose to work with, you know, is trained and knows what’s going on and can help you.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:03:24

Yeah. Yeah. And so how can people get in touch with you to find your resources, find your books?

 

1:03:31

Absolutely. So my books are available for free to download from my website. 

 

So they get really for free, for free? 

 

Absolutely. You can buy them on Amazon if you want. But they’re downloadable PDFs on my website, if people want to have access to them. So they can just go, my website is HeatherJKent.com. So it’s just my name. So HeatherJKent.com. So there’s links to download both the books there. And there’s also a link to book a free consultation with me if people wanted to talk to me directly. There’s a link to my calendar there or people can book a consultation call with me if they would like. And there’s a few different interviews and things as well that they can listen to.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:04:14

Well, thank you so much. This has been really interesting. I know, very helpful for people. And I appreciate you taking the time and sharing all this information again.

 

1:04:23

And thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure. And I just hope that anyone who’s listening who might be in the situation, and that they really feel that they know that they’re not alone. This is really kind of the big thing, important message is that you are not alone and that there is help available. So yeah, it’s my, and you’re not crazy, and you’re absolutely not crazy, I promise. And so I’m so grateful for the opportunity. So thank you so much for having me.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:04:52

Oh, you’re so welcome. 

Casey McGuire Davidson  1:04:56