Farther Down the Rabbit Hole Paula Gloria Interviews Amandha on Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Amandha: And it can lead people to suicide. People with NPD often, if they’re the histrionic type, they can flail into fake suicide where they’re acting like they’re going to kill themselves if they don’t get their way. You get a lot of that. It can make people to that level of depress. Where they become addicted to all kinds of substances and, you know, are suicidal or, you know, all kinds of behaviors can come from being abused, really.

And that’s really the root of it. That’s the source is abuse for the narcissist and how this all begins. Because when I started to realize that I was attracting narcissists into my life for most of my adult life and I really have to be careful here. I can’t get too personal because I have to protect my own self.

And so I will use some personal experience obviously, but I’m going to try to be as anonymous with it as I can. The, what I realized is that I, being an empath and being sensitive and being a giver type and being empathic in the sense that I am, I feel what others are feeling and I can relate to that.

And I can put myself in another shoes and I can feel for them and I can want to alleviate their suffering in some way or want to try to help them. So being in that archetype of helper, I tend to become easily entrapped by a narcissist. Which I’ve learned from like own experiences and from study that there are many different subtypes.

As this is a spectrum, it’s a disorder with a spectrum and there are different types and subtypes of this disorder. And some would say that all of us on some level have a few of these traits. But what I’m really talking about are the ones who are very toxic, people who have taken it to the close to the end of the spectrum.

And if you’re not sure if you’re a narcissist, there’s a really good quiz you can take at melanietoniaevans.com. And it’s just a, it’s a 1 0 1 NPD 1 0 1 quiz. There’s, so there’s 101 questions and there’s 23 sections, and you can be very thorough with it. And you can see where you are on the spectrum.

If you’re wondering, most people, if they’re worried or wondering if they are, most likely aren’t because by its very nature, the narcissist doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with them. And that’s the key, the keynote to why they’re trapped in their own mental aberrations and why they very rarely, if ever, will seek help and be able to heal from this.

Because once I found out this was a psychological disorder, I thought, well, everything can be healed. So there has to be a way to, to heal a behavioral disorder, just like there’s a way to heal all kinds of, every kind of bodily disorder. And I sought out to try to heal it because I was in love with a narcissist personally.

And I felt there had to be a way to rectify the situation. To heal it. I’m a healer, has got to be a reason. There’s got to be a reasonable way to go about this. And so I found through my research, a Sam Vaknin, and he’s a self-proclaimed narcissist actually, who’s gone through his own transformation.

And he has developed more so recently a therapy called cold Therapy. And it’s sort of like a shock therapy using cold water to reset the limbic system of the individual with NPD to try to get that person back to their primal state or their fetal state, almost like a rebirthing process.

But it’s more neuro neurochemical than that, than just doing say like rebirthing, you know, in the water, that kind of thing. But what was interesting is,, it seems very like he’s training practitioners. It seems very in depth. It seems almost very dangerous. It’s not something you can just do at home.

It’s not something you can just, you know, hey, honey, come over here and take a cold shower and we’ll cure you, or something like that. It’s not so simple and it also doesn’t work, you know, in everyone. And what I came to realize is this is a tough one to heal. And you, even with people who come to me for healing, if they aren’t willing to do the work and they aren’t willing to open their minds to what, to their false belief systems, they won’t heal either.

Right? And it’s, we know this we know we can’t change others and all of that, right? We can just present the information and we can try to do what we can to help them to see their demo, their own selves. Because we hold mirrors for people. And in NPD, the mirror was always them anyway, but it’s the illusion of them.

So back to the abuse, what ends up happening? Because once I realized you can’t heal it really, or it’s hard to heal, I said, okay, how do we prevent it? Well, that happens in childhood because most of this error is in the parenting and in the treatment of the children. And usually you’ll see a parent who is.

A narcissist. And it is a chain of abuse and addiction that comes down the lineage and is quite a dynamic that’s created. So through the treatment of the children, you can, this is how the personality can be derived. There are different ways in which the parent with who, who has a narcissistic disorder or experiences trauma with the child.

So some sort of trauma has to happen to the child on some level in order for them to go into the primal brain, into a state of shock and into a a fear-based positioning where they feel of low or no self-worth or unloved could never, you know, get to that place where they feel satisfied, where they feel in control, where they feel safe.

And when that continues without repair the child never learns who they are. They never identify self properly. They don’t have that connection with who they are as a soul in a body. Only behave as how they think they need to behave to get the result that they’re after of feeling secure, safe, in control some sort of self-worth or self-love coming at them, adoration admir a admiration or something where they’re noticed because they feel so empty inside and so lost, and they’re just a big black hole of nothingness inside and they need to fill it up and they don’t know how.

And so all of this seeking behavior it’s called trying to get narcissistic supply. Like if you read the literature it’s called supply. So a narcissist will be empty and broken inside. They’ve never known who they are. They’ve been abused on some level, neglected on some level, or the opposite, where if they were the golden child in a narcissistic family, then they could do no wrong.

They were perfect. They had everything handed to them on a platter. They had a very easy life without certain important challenges to even etch out who they really are. And then when challenges come later, they’re ill-equipped to handle them. And they really throw a lot of tantrums because they don’t get their way.

So there’s different types that can be created for, you know, created as a narcissist. But at some level there’s lack of love. So maybe they had everything handed to them, like, you know, games and clothing and cars, you know, whatever it was that they wanted, that they got easily, that came to them easily.

But except for love. So the parent was probably, if they’re narcissists, they’re very giving, cause narcissists are actually very charming, generally very giving come across as as excellent parents come mostly, to the community. They’re very highly intelligent, so they can fool people very easily.

They can talk around people, they can spin a story in a moment. You know, they can really create the illusion that they’re perfect or very good or what you would expect from someone or whatever it is that you’re looking for in them. They will present that to you. So it’s really hard to see that from the outside, and that’s what makes this so deceptive and so very hard to.

So very hard when it’s such a deep abuse to then present when in a court case or even to psychiatrists or so or psychologists or to other doctors or anyone in a profession that needs to make a decision on something or to report something they are usually so, so sly that gets slipped by.

They don’t, they won’t see it because the narcissists will have everyone wrapped around their finger. But one of the keynotes is this they’re very generous and giving and a peer caring and, but deep inside they don’t have empathy for others. They don’t have compassion for others. They don’t have a deep sense of love within them.

They’re maybe, they think love is something co of the brain, like, is a cognitive experience. That’s what love is to them. If you would get them to that place to ask them that question, do they feel love in the center of their being in their hearts? No, they don’t. They can’t feel that. They’re only going to have cues on what they think love is from what they were told.

And that’s why some narcissists can be very convincing because the better they are at studying what other people’s reactions. They mimic those and they’ll play their, they’re acting their whole lives. They’re acting, and usually you’ll only see it when at home. So only in where they feel that they’re in their comfort zone or in their own space and specifically in a marriage or in a contract with another being where they know that person cannot get away from them, then you’ll see the true self and of the narcissist.

And that’s the problem with, you know what’s going on is it’s an illusion to many other people. And often you’ll hear the story. Oh yeah that Dan guy, he’s so nice. He’s, he gives to, you know, the heart society he gives to all these charities. He’s so generous. He helped me with my lawnmower that was broken the other day.

He’s just so gregarious and such a charismatic, happy guy. And he’s such a great doctor or lawyer or cause they always usually are very functional in their professions. So often you’ll find them in the higher professions. And they just look like the model of society. You know, politicians, all these types of people.

But at home, they are psychologically torturing their spouse or psychologically torturing their children or psychologically vetting their children against one another because they’re so bored within their life that they would ra they, they prefer destruction because they don’t have love. So destruction makes more sense to them.

So they will play the siblings against one another. So you’ll often see broken families coming away from narcissistic situations because they always will destroy the family unit in some way. And you won’t see the signs that you’re with a narcissist until you have committed to them in some way where they feel they don’t have to put on the mask anymore with you.

They have gotten you hook, line and sinker, then you see a completely different individual. It’s like Jekyll and Hyde, and you’re like, who on earth is this? Right? So they’ve been charming, they’ve been kind, they’ve been generous. They’ve been loving, they’ve been great lovers. They’ve been attentive.

Amandha: They’ve, they, they act like they care about your feelings. They act like they the future is bright with you and all, everything that you’ve ever wanted in a mate, in a friend. They will present that to you. And the moment that you commit, you marry them. You get financially entwined with them, either in a business venture or in a any type of purchase.

Large purchase where you are involved and you can’t just walk away without great loss to you. All of a sudden you begin to see the devaluation happening because they’ve now pumped you up. They’ve now made you feel secure. They’ve studied you intently. They’ve studied all your weaknesses, all your generos, your true generosities of spirit, all of your, all the little things about you, all your quirks, vulnerabilities, sensitivities influences.

They’ve studied your history. They know your family. They get in. They wanna know everything about you. And that was one thing I always found very curious about the narcissist in my life. At the beginning. They always wanted to know everything about me. They wanted to know all my history, my stories, and they came across like they actually really cared.

Like they really wanted to get to know me. They genuinely wanted to know who I was, what made me tick, all of this stuff. And it was all data mining. It was all data mining for later, for when they were going to use that information against me, when they were going to use that information to manipulate me or to make me feel like I was worthless or to confuse me.

So I didn’t know what was up or down anymore. And that’s what ends up happening in these relationships. And we’ll see people who are ill, who have like fibromyalgia. And I’ll say so tell me about the stress in your life. Because if you have fibromyalgia, you have huge wads of stress because your cortisol’s crashed.

You’ve gone past adrenal fatigue into adrenal exhaustion. You know, you’re in a metabolic disarray from the fact that you’re stress levels are outta control. And I will get stories of abuse like this, and oftentimes they’re with a narcissistic partner. It’s very common. And one of the ways that they can heal this is to try to get out.

But because the narcissist is so clever, it’s very difficult for them to get out of these relationships. For example, if you’ve been married to someone for 20 years or 40 years or whatever,, and you have your whole life is surrounding that living style and you’ve maybe gotten lax so they have manipulated you financially, right?

So you can’t get out financially of your situation, then that can be even more stressful trying to find a way to get out. I know one of my patients, she’s been trying to, once she realized she was with a narcissist, she’s trying to very quietly get financial control over her life so that she can make a break, but it’s going to take a long time and she can’t tip him off.

That she’s trying to make this escape from him. And her health really started to go downhill. And then she started drinking. In fact, once she started drinking and she really got unstable from the longstanding abuse, and she has two children with this person then he would even buy her alcohol.

So the gifts that often a narcissist will give are booby trapped gifts.

They’re gifts that will are there to, they’re so clever. They know your weaknesses now they know what you like. So they’re going to give you something that’s going to make you confused in your head about what they’re doing. They’ll give you something that’s looks good at first, but really it’s set you up to fail.

You know, like, I, here, I went to get you this, you really wanted a bottle of wine, honey, I bought you this bottle of wine cuz you know, I really care. I hope you’re gonna feel better soon. And I’m off though. I’m going to, I’m gonna leave and go do whatever I do, which you’re not gonna know about, because I’m gonna lie as everything I do is a lie.

So you’re never gonna know where I am and have a good night drinking a bottle of wine by yourself. because the other thing is they’ve abandoned your the narcissist will abandon your feelings. They will act like they really care and love you. And then once that is all played out and they go into the devaluing stage they will discard your discard you.

And they really don’t care about your feelings. They don’t have any concern of your wellbeing or what their behavior does to you. And they really never did. And that’s what’s really hard about people who are in the trap of these individuals is they’re like, but they, he was so loving. We had love.

It was great. Sex was great that, you know, we had intimacy, we had all of this. But the hardest, hardest, hardest part is realizing it was all a lie, and that you’ve been fooled the entire time. And it is a huge pill to swallow when you realize you’ve been played for years and you didn’t see it.

And you feel horrified and mortified.

And if your own ego’s not in check, then you will try to fix it. You will try to bargain. You’ll go through all the steps of denial that it’s happened, that it’s happening until you really come to a sense of understanding the deep-rooted psychology of this disorder and that it’s not your you were an innocent.

You are the true victim in the situation, and you have to work to get out of the situation and go no contact as best as you can. And that’s just the harsh truth for people. I had another patient and she really gentle soul would come in and she just always sounded like she was sad, you know, she always just sounded sad.

So I just started asking her a little bit here, you know, how are things going in your life? And that, and she would make these mentions of her partner a little bit here and there. And I just intuitively felt after, you know, quite a few interactions that this woman is with a narcissist.

And just by some of the stories.

And I just began talking generally about the behavior of narcissist and how inconsiderate they are for your feelings. But you have to be very attentive to theirs and that they can do no wrong. And that they always know everything over you and you know, all of these types of behaviors.

And it just clicked one conversation we had. I could just see her mind, just like the light bulb went on and she was like, oh my I have to get out of this situation. And what was good about her situation is she maintained her financial integrity. She was smart in that, so she had her, she kept her house of her own, like he had moved in, all of that kind of thing.

And she just she basically made a deal, whatever she had to do, and she was outta there and bought a new house within like something miraculous. It was like three weeks or something. And I said, how do you even buy a house that fast? She’s like, I know. It just kind of happened. It was amazing. The second she realized it, everything started to change for her.

And she’s still healing it takes a long time to heal from narcissistic abuse. That’s the other thing. And here we have half of the population, half this is a growing mental disorder. It’s frightening that there are this many people in the North American population that are narcissists. It’s alarming and it’s an ever growing trend because there’s children that are being raised by narcissists like never before that are, you know, getting everything that they want, their little s or princesses, and that’s the golden child.

Amandha: And then there’s the scapegoat in the family, and they’re getting the brunt of the abuse. And either or of them can become narcissistic or have narcissistic traits. But generally the scapegoat is the one that took all of rage of the narcissist took all of the verbal and mental abuse and emotional abuse of the narcissists worst or one of the worst in the family unit.

And that as an adult, that child will have their own self-esteem issues and so forth. Issues will have a hard time forming bonding relationships, have trust issues with people have a hard time or prone to depression, are prone to addiction are prone to you know, being like unmarried or having just you know, un unwed situations.

Having children that way. All kinds of things where they can’t bond properly with family, new family. And the agenda is working perfectly because the agenda is to ensure that the family unit is broken and we have a family unit broken now. We have community that’s broken, but also family unit. You know, it starts there and it’s all from continued abuse and generations of abuse.

And it takes a lot of strength and willpower to stop a lineage of abuse. What ends up happening is the child subconsciously takes on a lot of the energy of the narcissist.

And when that individual has their own children, that can be triggered, it can be triggered out of them, and they’ll find themselves doing things that they, that was done to them, to their children, right?

The cycle continues.

So it takes a lot of awareness and knowledge to retrain the self, to not fall in to lazy patterns of subconscious training from their own childhood. It takes work, and that’s why I do wanna talk about it in this way, because I want to try to help as many people as possible come to that realization so that they can change how they interact with their own children and not continue the cycle of abuse and just pass it down another generation, because we really don’t have the luxury of that at this stage of things.

We need children who are emotionally intelligent. The narcissist is an emotional imbecille they cannot form deep emotional bonds. They don’t have emotional iq. They are emotionally retarded, meaning slow. They can’t they can’t go to a deep place. And if they seem to, it’s fake, it’s acting. They studied it on a TV show and they’re emulating it.

It’s not real. It can appear very real because they actually believe it. themselves that’s the, that’s how convincing a narcissist can be because they have enveloped the role so wholeheartedly that they believe it themselves and then they can sell it to you much easier that way. And that is one of the hardest things to come to terms with, is to break that apart when you going back on the relationship after it’s ended and you realize what the bamboozle was and that you’ve been left with handfuls of abuse and that you are, have your own damage from all of the microaggression that has come at you from the relationship or macro.

But oftentimes a narcissist, if they’re very clever, it’s all micro abuse. It’s all microaggression. It’s very subtle. You don’t even realize that you’re bleeding until it’s like somebody has put in a thousand tiny little pinpricks all over you and you don’t even notice. It happens so fast.

Right. You don’t even realize you’re bleeding out. Right. That’s how clever they are. And it, when you’re, but when you’re doing that, reflect. You see how the abuse came. And it can take years just to come to terms with everything that happened and how to rectify it. And you go through all this anger and you go through your own level of rage and you even maybe feel resentful and that you want to take revenge and all of this because it can make you very crazy.

It can make you very unstable and empty in your own right, empty inside in your own way. And the gift in it, if there would to were to be any gift to be found, because we have to always look for that, is to identify your own self-worth issues within you and to identify the goodness within you that was innocent.

You were innocent and you came into that situation and someone took advantage of you in a very deceptive, dark and slyly manipulative way. And that’s just the way it is. That’s just what happened. And the sooner. Someone in a relationship like this can come to that, the sooner they’re going to start the healing process.

And it is, like I said, quite a long one, and it will put you in a place in your mind that is not pleasant. Definitely. That’s an understatement. It’s hell. And actually many people will report that, like on the Facebook pages, there’s some really good Facebook groups out there that you can join, that you can have support for.

If you think you’re in a narcissistic, abusive relationship, then you can join a lot of these groups and help to educate yourself and learn more about it.

Because once I started to realize it see, I didn’t even realize it through my past. It was actually, I had a brief relationship with someone and it was a very confusing relationship.

Amandha: And in that I went, this is so strange. I, nothing makes sense. And I just feel continually confused about my own behavior. I’m acting with integrity and kindness and in a loving but I’m getting the opposite responses and I’m getting, like, something’s wrong with me.

I feel you continually feel like I’m being judged by this individual.

Like it’s me, like, like I’m doing something wrong all the time. And the crazy thing is you, so you’ll, like a normal, healthy human will go, Hey, you know, I’ve been noticing the last few days that you’ve been really quiet or you’ve been you didn’t, you know, I asked you to do this and you didn’t or we, you know, it’s just been a weird energy off you.

I just can’t place it. Is everything okay? You know? And I’ll go, yeah, everything’s fine. What are you talking about? You know, like, I don’t, yeah. I don’t even know why you would ask that. That’s really weird that you would ask that. You know, and you, oh, okay. Sure. Like, I just am feeling this energy.

Well, you’re wrong. You’re not feeling anything. And you know, I don’t, why are you attacking me? And, you know, it’ll get like that. And you just try to have a normal conversation about an energy you’re picking up on. Right. And they’ll get, so that’s gaslighting. They’ll gaslight you, they’ll make you think you’re crazy for picking up on cues in of their behavior that is anomalous, that is strange, that doesn’t, isn’t coherent, that doesn’t make any sense to you.

Or that, where you come away from a conversation or you come away from a situation with them where you’re questioning, you’re like, did I do something? What like, is he., he’s acting different or she’s acting different. I don’t understand. And when, if you are doing that, then it’s not you

And that’s one of the biggest clues is there’s something they’re playing with your mind and you need to get away from that situation. And there’s no talking it through. That’s the thing. So when I was in this particular relationship, the, when I forced the matter of wanting to talk it through or I said, no, something’s up.

We’re gonna talk. We’re gonna work this out because it’s my belief in a relationship that you talk about your feelings and you talk about what’s going on with you. And if there’s something wrong, we need to figure it out. And I’m not just gonna sit idly by while that happens.

And if we can’t fix it, then it’s unfixable and then this relationship is over.

And that’s, and I had that talk and I and there was some thinking going on. And then the next day we didn’t get around to it, it was with a plan to talk about it. The next day he came in and sat at the opposite end of the room and wouldn’t make eye contact with me and said that I’m very strange that I’m he just judged me from all, like, actually from the entire beginning of the relationship, every single thing, he picked it apart.

He said, you did this. This was horrible. You just blame, blame, blame all the way through, and I’m breaking up with you. Bye. And it was fascinating to witness because I knew where I was at with it. I know myself and I knew what my behavior was, like I did nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong. And that was for real.

And but I realized that he did the discard. That was the narcissist will discard their prey if they feel the games up. So if you start to sniff them out and you figure it out, they will cut you. They’re, you’re out, you’re done. There will be sudden sea change in their behavior and you have been discarded because they know they can no longer get narcissistic supply from you.

You will no longer feed their lie. You will no longer fluff up their ego. You won’t pimp up their illusions. Nothing. They cannot get what they need from you, which is to drain you because they are a black hole. They have to keep feeding to survive, and they will find another. And in fact, usually they already have another lined up because they’re so afraid to go without narcissistic supply that they will make sure they have a backup plan in case you figure it out.

So most likely narcissists are in cheating relationships because they have to have something there in case they can’t be left without. And the ones that are left without, if they, that does happen to them, they are frantic.

You will see a side of them that is very uncharacteristic.

Their behavior will be very ungrounded.

They will, you will see all of their wounds. They do not like to be exposed and it is very uncomfortable for them. Also, when a narcissist ages, they get sloppy with a lot of their play, with a lot of their game. And they end up becoming generally very alone. And the addictions very much flourish at that point.

You’ll usually see them alcoholics, drug abusers at some level of it once they’re older and they can’t fool people as easily. So people start to see through because they can’t hold the lie the same way. For example, if they are in a profession and they have to act in a professional way to clients they will slip up in the client relationship and lash out at them or say something critical.

Cause they’re always criticizing.

So they’ll criticize them in a very extreme way and they’ll either lose the client or something will happen that’ll destabilize the situ., they’ll get sloppy. They eventually the older they get the, it’s the sloppier and then they use their drugs to get them away from facing the truth about themselves, which they can never ever know.

They can never know what’s happened to them except what’s happened to them.

And because they’ve, it’s basically like they have died to themselves inside, and they, so they’ll never be able to find that inner child that needs the healing. I did a lot of reading about healing the inner child and that’s when I was trying to figure out how to heal this, some individuals who are on the spectrum, the NPD spectrum, if they’re lowered down like in the mid-range, doing the inner child healing really makes a big difference.

That seemed to be the largest step to take. If one does come to their own realization, or usually it’s through others telling them that they have this disorder and their admittance of that, that the steps they need to take next would be inner child work, because it all comes from that inner child damage.

And the sad part about it, and I still, even though I’m angry at this situation, meaning it’s upsetting that there are so many people like this and you really do want to hate them because they’re so nasty. But we still have, I still find myself having compassion because these were children, ones that were innocent and somebody took that away from them.

Somebody hurt them to that level, or somebody didn’t allow them to grow the way they needed to grow. And that’s what began that whole thing. And it’s just a, it’s, it wasn’t really their fault, you know what I mean? And that’s what’s really challenging, you know, about and heartbreaking about people with this disorder and or really any personality disorder.

It doesn’t, it isn’t like they, they necessarily asked for that it generally begins in childhood. And so raising my own child, you know, I see, and you know, around other children, I see where, I see which parents have the challenges and how it affects the children and especially the sensitive children.

I see the family dynamic, how it plays and it’s has to start to, to, we have to have enough awareness now. And I really am, I do feel good about the level of awareness that seems to be growing on a lot of fronts. I think it’s there. I think the information age is, It is available, and more people are getting to that place where they’re seeking true information whether it be health, whether it be political, whether it be finding the true history of our earth, what be it, you know, whatever it is.

And because you know, even 10 years ago, you wouldn’t find, you know, thousands and thousands of articles on narcissistic personality disorder or like, you know, hundreds of thousands of you know, other articles and research papers and YouTube videos and podcasts and all this, and Facebook groups and, right.

So the conversation is happening and it’s getting to that critical mass point. And that’s a good thing. And I just feel I have to contribute to that in my own small way because I’ve had so much experience with it and I’ve looked at it so closely and felt the repercussion of it in my own life that, you know, it, it’s helpful.

Amandha: I think if someone hears it and it helps them, then that’s enough, you know? And the narcissists, okay, so narcissists have different, there’s different kinds. This is, it gets kind of complicated, there’s different types of narcissists and.

Really two, I’ll just break it into kind of two main you get your covert narcissist. So this is I realize the overt narcissist because they’re more obvious. But the covert for me was a real head trip. Those were way harder to see. The overt narcissist is the called grandiose, and it’s this, these are unofficial subcategories because honestly, in the DSM in the statistical manual of these disorders, it’s not discussed in this way.

This is all non-professionals really discussing this or they’re professionals in a different light. So it’s not textbook, let’s say. But they are the larger, the life, arrogant, loud boisterous center of attention types or obnoxious types. They’re the people who are very competitive.

They’re the types that if you’re in a class together, they’ll always have to try to control the class. They always have to, they try to one up the teacher. They they or they’ll seem bored if they can’t be totally the center of the attention in a group setting. So you’ll always see in the people either really love them or hate them.

They’re very status driven. They’re the hero. They always act like they’re a hero. They will justify any type of their behavior. They are always right, of course, but they will they will come across as victims themselves. They will say that, you’ll often hear this story from a narcissist if you ever meet a narcissist and they’ve very much talk bad about their exes and they are the victim of something that their exes did to them.

Be suspect right away. That’s the first thing. Ask them about their ex relationships. And if they go into victimhood about that’s a huge red flag because they often have destroyed.

Their relationships with their mates and destabilized them to the point where they’re you know, taking pharmaceutical medication or other kind of drugs to cope.

They’re dysfunctional. They will be unable to get themselves up on the couch, basically. So the narcissist will take them right down to nothing, pick them apart. It’ll take years for them to pick them dry, but eventually they’ll be dry. So they’ll have left carnage behind them in the relationship and blame the victim for everything that happens.

So, so that’s huge. Something to ask a lot of questions about if you are suspecting that you’re dating a narcissist. So that’s one type. And then there’s the covert type, the vulnerable or shy narcissist. And they do not come across textbook. They don’t come across actually kind of opposite. They’re charming, they’re very humble.

That’s, they come across victim as well. You don’t see the red flags. They’re very hypnotic. They can be very talented at something. They are really the smart kind, I think because I think they’re the hyper inte intellectual types because they really want this to be a longstanding game. And usually the overt narcissists, they’re actually hypersexual, but the covert narcissist can be opposite, can be asexual or not interested in sex or think it’s dirty or all kinds of because they so are unable to connect emotionally, they won’t even connect physically.

Whereas the overt nurse are usually hypersexual. They they use a person sexually a lot. And so they come across the covert, comes across very selfless, very giving a lot of like they’re likable. And often the red flag is they have strained relationships with their family members. And they’ll say, you know, they don’t talk to their family anymore.

And they will basically tell you the sad story of what that person did to them. And they use, see, they use pity to trap their victims. They use the pity party. That’s their game and they will do the suicide threats. He, the you know, all kinds of strange behaviors, any kind of addiction will be there.

Whatever it takes for someone to have pity on them and hope and will make promises of change and all this kind of thing. And it, you know, that’s their game. So there’s different types of games. So within. Two categories. There’s actually four more other types of narcissists that fall into that.

So you can see that kind of like an umbrella. There’s the cerebral narcissist, and that’s the type that I tend to attract because I’m very intellectual. I like to have intellectual conversations. I attract people that I like to have people in my life that I can have intellectual conversations with.

Right. And so this the cerebral, narcissistic type that’s covert is sort of where I’ve learned to not go anymore. But they’re master manipulators. They, and so one way I got through my feelings, you know, bad that I fell for this in my life is I realized how ingenious they’re genius, these cerebral narc.

So I didn’t feel so bad that I was fooled because they are, very masterful in their manipulations. And they are, you know, you’re high ranking in the, you know, up in, at the echelons of professional all kinds of various professions. And they often will have cult followings.

You’ll find the cult leaders in this group. They’re, they seem always wonderful and very lovely. And they have all these degrees and they very elitist in their ways. They don’t usually associate. Anyone below their intellect or educational level other than in their stories of how they give to the poor or so forth.

But if you’re with one and you go to a restaurant, oftentimes one of the telltale signs is they will be so rude to the wait staff, absolutely dismissive and completely disregarding them will not make eye contact with them. And that was at the key note for a special any narcist. But specifically the shy narcs do that because they do not, their elitist and anyone below their station is not even human to them, so they will treat them horribly.

That’s a good way, a good red flag. If you see that behavior, you can check that one off, that you might be hanging with one of these people. They’re not necessarily focused on status symbols, but they really have their own ideas of grandiose, like what they’re always going to be the better, they’re always gonna be the highest or the best, or they’ll have high achieving goals.

Okay, so then there’s the delusional narcissist and they’re the real grandi types with the full stories, over the top stories. Like say that, you know, you have 10 million that you know you buried in your backyard, or there’ll be really huge stories about being on jet planes or meeting celebrities, or that time when you know the CIA came and got you and took you in their bunker and you know, or that time you won that huge court case that this big lawyer brought you in.

Whatever it’s story stories.

And usually their stories will be focused around the military religion certain types of very special degrees, power and success is like, that’s their thing.

And then you have the, which I think maybe is the most dangerous, is the malignant narcissist.

They are the true psychopaths.

They’re the sociopaths. They’re the worst. The worst because they have the NPD as the least severe of their behaviors. Although I think they’re all, I think a narcissist can be just as dangerous in the right circumstances. But the true psychopath really, they’re the type that could kill, could do heinous things and really just not bat an eye.

So they’re, I would say they’re the most dangerous, the somatic narcissists that’s, those are the hypersexual types. They are seductive sex is their weapon. And that they’re very, they’re the highest status oriented types, that they’re the ones, you always see them looking in the mirror every chance they get.

If they’re on Skype with you, they are looking at themselves. They are not looking at you. They will be looking at themselves the entire time and interested in how, like always any merrier at a restaurant, whatever, they’ll be looking at themselves. They will not be looking at you. And the victims often will feel like they’ve met their soulmate because the sex is so amazing.

The sex is so amazing it’s so rough when you realize that you’re in love with the sex and you have to get out of the situation because they have faked a soulmate connection with you. They’ll even, I had one who even brought up the twin flames that, oh, I think we’re twin flames. I think we’re, you know, we are meant to be together.

We’re so alike, all this kind of stuff, and they are the masters at stealing your identity. So really all they’ve done is study. You stole your identity, thrown it back at you and made you think that they’re their soulmate. That’s what they’ve done, and they’ve got the good sex to go, you know, alongside it.

And that’s a full bamboozle and that’s a head trip. And getting outta that situation is not easy, but it’s gotta be done for your own survival because eventually they’ll drain you dry and you’ll just hate yourself. And it’s not a good place. It’s not a good place to be. So that, those are just some of the, you know, some of the subtypes.

I know it’s 11. I don’t know if, Felicia, you wanna do the announcement?

Station announcer: Hello? Yes, thank you. Okay. Just have to turn a few knobs here. Hi, you listening too. WIOF-LP, Woodstock 1 0 4 at 104.1 FM. And this is Farther Down the Rabbit Hole with Paula Gloria. And also on the line speaking has been Amandha Vollmer. Thank you.

Amandha: Okay, so we’re talking about narcissism, we’re talking about the personality disorder of narcissistic personality disorder.

We’re trying to hash out the identifiers of these types of people. And when it’s in your family, it’s really difficult as well because the relationship with that parent can be very discordant and can be very troublesome and confusing and,, the ongoing relationship can be really Rife with a lot of problems.

And it can be hard to know what to do to make sure that you’re not setting yourself up for more attacks or more subtle manipulation or any of the giving that is the type of giving that will either make you feel guilt or feel some emotion that isn’t helpful or it’ll be a sabotaging gift that ends up blowing up on your face later.

Or it’s just a way to try to reel you back in for more supply. There’s always a method there, and it’s I know it just, it’s unreal to people who aren’t like this, to think that there are people who do this. And that was my chief fault. My chief fault in setting myself up for having relationships like this is, I couldn’t believe that people would be like that.

I couldn’t get it. I couldn’t see it because I didn’t realize it was real, that’s how bad it could be, you know? And I didn’t even want to realize that or know that. And I think that’s one of the biggest pieces for anyone and every. You know, come around to, on a lot of levels of our reality is just getting our heads out of the sand and taking the Pollyanna, you know, rose colored glasses off and realizing that this world has a lot of not good things as well as good things.

And we have to accept that, and we have to come to some terms with it, and then we have to try to rectify it and heal it, or prevent it some way. You know, some part of that has to be you know, involved with our mind or with our understanding. And even in my own life, it was more not of a denial of just a real, of a lack of a realization.

Then that was a thing,

That was actually was how people behaved with two other people and that they’re not normal. And so you start to see them as not normal, and oftentimes they will revert back into their prior behavior. Once you are out of the picture, you’ll see them starting the same game over with another person, with another individual.

They, it’s very much like the ego. The ego. It can be very easy to identify once you have done the work, to see through that, to see through the personality. Of self of how we form our personality. Everyone has personality. We need it. Everyone has ego. We need it. It’s just about learning. When your ego’s on the stage, when learning, when your ego is being interacted with or triggered, or your shadow’s being triggered, or some part of you is being triggered then you go into that second attention of identifying that through your, you know, skills at meditation or your skills at self-awareness and your self-conscious awareness.

That’s what we need to get to so that we can see if we are doing something that’s inappropriate. But in an individual who doesn’t have the one self-reflecting boat in their body like a narcissist, they’re not going to ever see that it was them. They’re never, they’re not capable of seeing that it was their doing, that it was their responsibility.

And that’s what’s so difficult and in unnerving about a narcissist or even having a conversation with one, is that it will always be thrown back at you. And I’ll hear countless relationship stories of people who are so frustrated with the lack of admittance to any negative behavior that person has shown.

And the, to the spouse’s frustration that, you know,, this person is acting like a buffoon on a daily basis. And then they tell me I’m the one who’s acting like a buffoon and it’s crazy making because they can’t. Like, it’s ridiculous. There’s not even words to describe how ridiculous that is. And that’s what gets really, you know, these people very frustrated in these relationships and angry in their own right.

And then an someone who’s a victim can actually take on some traits of the narcissist themselves, just to try to protect themselves. And then I’ll see on a lot of these Facebook forums and groups, people going, maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m the narcissist. Maybe it is my fault. Maybe it is all me. You know? Cuz I, I have some of these traits too.

And I don’t know, like, am I going crazy? Is this me? Am I doing something wrong? And that is the echo effect of being with a narcissist. They, it’s called giving you fleas. You get narcissistic fleas from them that you have to go and do a cleansing bath and so forth afterward to clear yourself of the fleas.

It’s just, you’re around that all the time. And you begin to create those behaviors as a self-defense being, you know, dismissive avoidance behavior anger attacking, verbal abuse you know, emotional tricks or whatnot. Sneaky behavior. You start to take those traits on because you’re just trying to protect yourself.

And that’s really how it started for them as they started to have to hide things and lie and pretend they were someone else or start to play fantasy games in their head to get out of the situation they were in. And it just never stopped. But the difference is if you’re an adult or someone who’s in, you know, developed and go through this, you can get, you can shake the fleas off and you can get out of that behavior for the most part.

So that’s a good news about it. But the people who say, is it me all the time? It’s generally not. And I usually invite them to do the quiz and help them understand how they got the fleas in the first place. So the guilt trip part can be really harsh because they’re playing martyr.

So you’ll see them playing martyr on the outside world and people admire them, maybe come up to them, shake their hands, say nice things to them. And they’re always helping. They’re an involved part of the community. They always look like they’re trying to save the day or do something large and grandiose to help people on mass.

They get a lot of admiration that way because it fuels their, fuels them. But they’ll also do that to you. So how they’ll lure you in is with the generosity of either time or items or whatnot. And then when you don’t when the devaluing phase starts and you’re starting to be confused about their behavior, like for example one of the this is a friend who’s a narcissist very giving, overly giving like in pushing this, pushing on into my life with gifts and involving, you know, very involving in my life.

And when I started to give back to try to bounce it out, I would get negative behavior coming toward me as if that was wrong. I wasn’t to do that. I’m not allowed to give back, or the things I’ve given back are, could never even try to match what’s been given to me. So don’t even bother, don’t even try.

Who do you think you are? That you could even match the amazing things that I’ve done for you? And that was a real eye-opener. And the other keynote and then so that the guilt trip begins then, but the other keynote was to if I’m unable to speak on that behavior to you, then there’s another problem.

So if I can’t say, Hey, I noticed like you’re so giving and caring and I just wanna give something back, is there something you need? Like, how can I do this? And then they avoid the conversation or, you know, say something on the sly or don’t give you clear answer. Then you really are having games being played.

Because if it was a normal interaction, then they would know what they needed and what they wanted and they would be able to speak to that. But usually in those situations, all you have to do is call them out on the giving and not to fluff up their ego by saying, wow, you’re so giving and amazing, and like, I can’t believe how much you’ve done for me.

And I’m just so thankful and grateful.

That’s what they want. That’s their narcissistic supply. What they want is you to gro up their feet and tell them how amazing they are and how perfect they are, and how whatever they just did for you, no one could ever do for you. And like, what would they ever do without you, you know, what would you do without them?

All this kind of stuff. That’s what they want. And if you hold that back, so if you suspect it, hold that back. Let them give, just let them do it. And don’t just say thank you, like, don’t be rude, but., don’t kiss their, you know, rumps, let them see how it goes after that. And what you will see is they will start to be giving in a very weird way, the resentfulness will come through and also the discard will begin as well.

And then, you know, if you wanna try to speak to it, you’ll get the behavior I mentioned. If you wanna try to give back something you can give that a test as well. But that’s a real, you know, surefire way that you, they’re playing you with the gift giving for their own adoration and for their own narcissistic supply.

Amandha: It has nothing to do with their care for you because they don’t care about you and they don’t have the capability to care about you. And that’s really the sad fact is it’s not to say they don’t have feelings. They’ll have feelings, they’ll have rage, they’ll have anger, they’ll have sadness, they’ll have feelings of self lack of self-worth, they’ll have self-hatred.

They’ll have all kinds of negative emotions. They just don’t feel that care for others in that way. And even if they say they care about some in their life, it’s the right thing to say. So that’s what they’re going to say I remember one of my narcissistic friends we were having a conversation.

He was leaving and it was a very weird moment where I caught him off guard and he had said something very strange and he couldn’t make eye contact and he just needed to get out of there as fast as possible. And And I thought whatever that behavior was so out of character. It was very strange.

And on my reflection at way later, I realized that when you catch a narcissist off guard and you give him a or her a cue that he has not had a context in or for, he hadn’t hasn’t had a chance to study that hum that part of human behavior. You’ve given a new piece of information into the human behavior that he’s unfamiliar with.

They will have no way of responding in a characteristic way. There would be no nothing. It would be completely out of the ordinary and it would be a reactionary behavior. And it would be strange. And you’ll see this in them. They really do like to be parasites on you in one way or another. It doesn’t mean they’re always dysfunctional, but some are.

Some are the parasitic type of spouse, they won’t get a job and they don’t appear to be trying. They’ll just keep giving you those quote unquote reasonable excuses as to why, you know, they can’t find a job or why they haven’t tried to look, but really they’re just trying to live off of you. So there are narcissists like that which will drain you.

Resource wise, they’ll just, they’re either always sick or they’re, you know, they’re something wrong with them so they can’t work. Or they’re always as an excuse for why they’re unable to contribute. And even if they aren’t working you’ll see the household and disarray because they won’t care about anything else in the situation, in the household.

So say it was a spouse that couldn’t work for whatever reason and the other spouse was working full-time. Well, they also, even if they were at home all day, they wouldn’t cook. They wouldn’t clean, they wouldn’t pick up after themselves. They would expect the spouse to come home from a full day of work and do that too.

Narc, that’s what a narcissist does. You’ll have, it’s the friend who has like the never ending litany of problems. And it’s the type then, okay, so say your friend is talking about a specific problem, and then you get catch a break in the conversation. Lucky you. and you offer them some information like, well, you know, I have this idea.

Maybe you could try this, maybe you could talk to them like that. Or maybe you could do this thing. And the narcissists will give you a long list of why that wouldn’t work. They will just drain you, you will try to come up with all the answers and solutions possibly can to help them through their situation constantly.

And they will never take any of your advice, listen to it or adhere to it at all, and you will just be drained and dry and need to leave the situation. So, that’s very much a narcissistic trait. So the narcissist can be female or male obviously. And I don’t think I, I think it’s equal across the board for male and female types.

I don’t see really, I see stories on either side and they’re, it’s all the same. So the other annoying cause everything’s very annoying with a narcissists annoying trait, is this what’s called narcissistic amnesia. This is where the narc pretends that everything you talked about to them and everything they’ve done to you, they don’t remember.

They just communally forget. And even in the moment, so like the narc will come in and drop their coat on the floor and walk away, and you will turn to them and you will say, Hey, why did you drop your coat on the floor? Why didn’t you hang it on the hook? And they will say, I didn’t do that. What are you talking about?

Why are you blaming me? You know, you’re crazy. You can pick it up or whatever. They’ll say whatever it takes. But they do that to confuse you and to obviously enrage you. But they put doubt in your mind because you have to stay compliant and under their control. And that’s abuse. So that’s the way that they abuse.

They constantly criticize you make you question your sanity, make you question what you think you just saw with your own eyes, because they will deny it right in front of you that you saw that. And that’s just maddening. The other problem is this, once you figure out, okay, you’ve had enough with this person, they are just.

Making your life hell. They have destroyed parts of your life. You’ve lost a lot of friends and family because often the narcissist will ensure that you lose your friends and your other close people because they wanna isolate you away from them and keep you as full supply for themselves to drain you all.

And they want you when they want you. So they don’t want you out with friends or doing anything fun or doing anything that’s healthy and stable for you. cause they really wanna make sure that it’s all for them. You know, then, so they’ve had enough and you leave. Usually at that point, if they haven’t done discard phase two, you, they will come after you.

They will stalk you. They will try to figure a way to lure you back, to manipulate you back. They will make your life hell. Or they won’t do that. They’ll wait and they’ll wait until you’re stronger or you’re in a another situation where you’re feeling good about yourself. And then they’ll pretend like none of that happened and they’ll come at you again.

Like they’re sorry, like they’ve changed. Like they want to go again. They really miss you. They really love you. They’re really sorry for that. They just, they needed., you know, they realize when you left that, wow, there’s a void in my life. You know, what can I do without you? They’ll buy you flowers, they’ll just do all this kind of stuff.

And you might think, eh, you know, sex was really good. And it was, you know, there were some good times. And that’s what’s really challenging about it too, because there were, there are still good things that you liked about them because they can be very dynamic, adventurous spontaneous, fun do things you wouldn’t have done, take you places you wouldn’t have gone.

They can, they’re reckless, so they’ll do things that you might think they are actually having control of the situation, but they’re not. So they’ll take you on wild trips that are actually dangerous, but, you know, you don’t even know. They’ll put you in situations that you know, you wouldn’t have found yourself in.

And that can be exciting on some level. And so there’s a little part in your mind, go, yeah, maybe we should try again. Maybe it is a good idea. Whatever. And then you’ll, you know, if you do fall for it and you do get lured back in, it’s just a trap again. And you’re gonna be in the same situation as before, and you learn the hard way, and then you have to go through all that again and get out again.

So that’s probably one thing I see again and again with people who are getting outta narcissistic relationships, is they, they really can get fooled back in. And then they go, I can’t believe I did that I really, I feel so stupid that I actually did that again. And then they’re even more hard on themselves.

They also will say really weird things. They’ll say really strange things. Like, one says the only way I’ll marry you is if you were in the hospital dying. Or they’ll cut off conversation and just say, shut up in the, can you just shut up and obey or they’ll say I’m not cheating on you with her, I’m cheating on her with you,

Okay. Or like, just judging something, like if you’re making love, you know, they’ll say something really weird. Like, it’s like making left to you is like swimming in the sea. Or like, they’ll make you question your body and your health. And or like, I don’t reward behavior, I expect cause they can be very militant in their behavior.

They can see terrible things of course. But I could never say on a public radio they’ll say things like, if I were dead, you would be happy. The only thing between you and the streets is me. You know? He, they could say things very violent. They would give you the scenario of how they would kill you just out of the blue, you know, watching a movie and then they’ll say, here’s how I would kill you.

You know, that kind of crazy stuff. Yeah they’re crazy. So, they will say very crazy things. So if the, that’s not really something you usually would say to someone you love. The other thing, they can be very sexist and very racist. Often you will see that that’s another telltale sign.

Not to say that people who are all people who are sexist and racist are narcissists, but if you suspect there’s narcissist, then you can test to see if they have issues around sexism and racism. And often if they’re male, they will think females are lessen them and vice versa. And the other thing is see how your body is, see how your health is.

That’s a huge thing. Like, take a picture or look at a picture of yourself before you were with a narcissist, and then take a picture now and see, you know, how you’ve, how is your vitality in your face? Or you know, is your face bright? You know, they will really drain you down. They will aid you, they will give you gray hair.

I mean, the behavior is so mind numbing. It breaks you down. It really does. They will, you know, they’ll take your good faith and they will just use it to control and manipulate and deceive you for years. It’s a shame. It’s sad. And it, and there’s some really interesting stories on the, in the internet, on, you know, what people did.

You know the whole story from beginning to end. And it’s shocking. It’s and the other thing I notice is on a lot of, you know, I don’t watch tv, but I do wanna study what the hierarchy or the handlers are trying to manipulate us into through television. Like that’s how they television is used as a tool of mind control and programming.

It’s called Programming for a Reason.

And I like to see what the flavor of the shows are in general, what they’re trying, the messages they’re trying to get across. And a huge theme I see, and it’s not necessarily a new theme, but it seems to be a growing theme, is that of admiring the narcissist of admonishing the narcissist, or the narcissist is a good guy.

The Demon is the good guy, taking the demon and showing that he’s, you know, vulnerable and humanlike and we should feel sorry for him and he’s a real victim, you know, and we should just believe in, you know, believe in that character and so forth. And that’s an admirable trait to be like that, to be rude and coercive in all of these types of traits.

And I see it in a lot of shows. And think that’s part of why we’re seeing it on the rise. The abuse obviously being the main factor. So yeah. And it’s, and it comes in all shapes and sizes and, you know, when I look back in my relationships I realized that., it was difficult for me to identify abuse when it was happening.

Amandha: And now that I’m in my forties, I reflect on a lot of those relationships and what they taught me. And I realized that they were all ultimately trying to teach me to love myself, not a narcissistic self-Love what we people think of narcissism as self-love. It’s not actually self-love. Actually narcissism is lack of self-love.

Narcissism is not where you look in the mirror and you see your soul and you know that you are good and you know that you are of God and you know that you are pure of this earth is it’s looking in the mirror going, I’m so awesome. I am better than other people. I am beautiful. You know, I’m better than so and so and so, and that’s the mirror reflection is that, but they actually don’t, it’s like vampire looking in the mirror.

They don’t see themselves at all. That’s the truer representation I’m talking about. You know, when you’re reflecting on your life, which I hope everyone does, I’m just realizing maybe I’m assuming that people do this. And, but you know, when I see that it’s all been a design in. Self worthiness, self-love and trying to make me into a place where I can be my own.

We can be our own heroes. We can be our own strength. And not to say that we need to be alone or isolated, in fact the opposite, but it’s more to show us that we are versatile, strong beings, and we can metamorphise into our own growth and healing through trauma that’s happened rather than letting the trauma sink us.

And I can say that easier than it’s done, obviously. But that is really I think, the key when people go, why did this happen to me? Why is this, you know, in my life other than the fact that you’ve been, you’re empathic and you’re generous and you’re sensitive. And that is often what happens when you know, you can attract abuser, abusers like that by virtue of having, you know, if your boundaries are down.

But the other part of it, I think is to, is the mirror in the narcissist of the self-worth picture. I read a really cool article if a while ago now. I’ll see if I can find it. And it was talking about, okay, fine, there’s narcissist and all stuff, but let’s look at it from a spiritual standpoint. What’s really going on here?

You know, what’s., what’s the mirror? Because if you’re attracting our sister has to be something. Right? And it was the worthiness picture. It was that main part where it was saying, it’s all really trying to help you see that you actually have a part of self-hatred in you, or a lack of self-worth or self-care.

And that it’s working to show you it in the outer reality by attracting those who devalue you, that’s what you are doing to yourself subtly. And it’s more advanced when it’s is unseen longer and longer when you go with it and it’s not being seen, then the external gets more extravagant in order to show you yourself, because obviously you’re not seeing it in the subtle, you’re, so it needs to get a little more in your face for you to see it.

And I, I feel that’s a spiritual law. Like I feel that’s true in my, at least in my own personal experience in life. I feel that’s and from others also speaking in my witnessing of them, that seems to be a consistent consistency of our reality to, you know, we’re really, we can’t see ourselves.

Us because we’re in ourselves, we need to have others show us ourselves so we can learn about who we are. Because the whole point is to know thyself and to etch our souls into this unique individuality of the oneness, like our own unique stamp on this earth or otherwise or elsewhere. And that’s how I choose to look at it.

And that’s when I counsel people who are in these abusive relationships who come to me for help. I, this is how I help them out of the trap of their own horror and depression and all of the, and even suicidal thoughts and all of these negative thoughts is that I just, okay, that’s, you’re still gonna feel what you feel in your body while you’re recovering.

It’s important though, to do the work on the self-care and find in your day something to do that’s nourishing you. That’s even if it’s taking a nap, you know, even if it’s just going for a quick walk in nature, something that is going to help you reconnect to yourself, to God, to nature in a way that you can come to terms.

Who you are because it’s all coming home to self again and again. And that’s what’s so ironic about it. I think, you know, with the whole narcissism, people thinking it’s just this vain individual looking at a mirror, but really it’s, we’re looking at a mirror, so, but it’s the way we’re doing it and it’s the reason why we’re looking in the mirror is what’s what matters, you know?

And that’s as the wounded healer, I walk the path of the wounded healer and through my own journey of finding my own wounds and heal, having to heal them, and having to pretty much do it alone it’s stru, it’s, there’s a lot of struggle that I have to go through in order to find the strength and to achieve the triumph of that transformation.

And really it is it shows you that even the horrible things are, you can find the golden nugget within that and you can really achieve whatever the lesson is, whatever the challenge is before you, it can be done. And. And that’s where I really try, you know, with people to get them into a safe place out of the situation.

But the problem is I do see people jumping out of the frying pan into the fire because if they can’t see that they’ve already been in an abusive relationship, oftentimes they’ll jump out of that one and get right back into another one with another person. And that can occur quite a while before they’re able or even willing to do the work that’s required to heal the self worth issues to come to that term.

And that’s also why the victimhood part of the picture and the child abuse part goes both ways because the, usually the self-worth will come from both sides, right? The self-worth is plumped in the golden child and it’s denounced or degraded in the scapegoat, in the family dynamic. And that means the scapegoat is also prone to attracting narcissists because of the self-worth component.

And the golden child is, can develop into a narcissist because they have a extra inflated ego where they think they are basically God incarnate and everyone else is less than them. And that’s the ongoing lineage that needs to stop. I think the golden children have a harder time. They’re more lost in it than the scapegoats.

The scapegoats tend to understand more what’s gone on with them, but the self-worth and self-hate part can really trip them up and can lead to a lot of self sabotage where they’re just getting feeling good in their life. And then something happens to, you know, trip them up, or they get in a relationship with a narcissist and that messes around with them.

The thing that upset me personally the most with dealing with narcissist is their underlying agenda was to destroy you. And that was really shocking to me. I’m an, I’m a achiever. I make, you know, a hundred products now, my, myself, and, you know, my store, right? And I like to invent creams. I like to invent medicine that works.

That’s what I, that’s my thrill. That’s my joy. That’s what I do. I also I’m kind of like a little health detective where I like to figure it out, figure out how to heal disease holistically, and that’s fun, right? But the narcissist will come in and will pick away at your most wonderful achievements or your most glorious traits.

They will ensure that those become weak. And unstable. And if they have to, they will destroy your dream because you cannot be better than them. That will not be allowed. You cannot get to a place of equal with them or at even worse, higher than them. They are envious types, jealous types. They will not allow it.

And they will take you down. And so one of the things that I would notice about the narcissist is they would only acknowledge that which I’ve done my accomplishments at the beginning phase when they were trying to woo me or convince me that they were genuine. They would only acknowledge the work I’ve done or the achievements that any of the scholastic work I’ve done, any of that after they felt secure that I was in a relationship.

None of that was ever mentioned. In fact, it was the opposite. They would judge what I do or ignore what I do or try to change what I’m doing in some way to take me away from my life path, basically. And so a lot of people who are, have been in abusive relationships like that, they really feel like they had a purpose that they came here for a purpose.

That they had something that they wanted to do, that they needed to do, and they haven’t been able to do it. So they’ll feel that. drive, like they had more to give to this life and they feel they don’t know what it is. Even sometimes if they’ve been in the relationship very long time. But they’re, they have that sensation that they kind of missed out on things in their life because they gave everything to the narcissist and nothing to themselves.

Which just fulfills the same theme of lack of self-care because they really don’t focus on themselves. They think that focusing on themselves is a negative trait. And that’s the dynamic between the parties and that needs to shift. And if you want to enrage a narcissist, all you do is focus on yourself for a while and do something good for you.

Amandha: Like, I know of one narcissistic couple and the ones spouse was they were in financial disarray. Because also the narcissists has weird stuff around money.

They’ll either totally control the money or they’ll be very negligent around money, one or the other. So they either won’t let you pay for anything, or they won’t let you see a bank account or they’ll have nothing to do with it, and you’re the one do, you know, doing everything.

And they’re just the ones spending it. So they’re either very, they’re irresponsible with money or they’re very controlling money depending. But anyway, in this case, the, they were suffering because they have all these kids and the husband’s working this job that’s far away. And the wife wants to earn extra money and if she does earn extra money, she has to hand it over to him.

That’s the other rule in that household. And then, so she gets this great idea to start a little entrepreneurial side job. The kids are getting older. She can do it now, and he freaks out on that, will not let her get a job. He will not let her, especially entrepreneurial work.

He will not let her shine.

No way. So that’s, you know, that you’ll see that controlling behavior. I remember one narcissist, a long time ago that I dated and he was a histrionic type. He did the whole fake suicide thing and everything when we broke, when I left. Because he was charming and wonderful and magnificent. And then as soon as I moved in with him, he became a chauvinistic, total rude you know, the Jekyll and Hyde thing came through.

And when I told him that I felt really betrayed and the relationship was over, he, you know, became very erratic and he brought, he started to date another woman. So his backup supply, which he already had, obviously waiting in the wings and we’re in this little apartment and I’m in the kitchen making food or cleaning up something.

I was in the kitchen and he comes in with her and he sits on the couch and starts making out with her. And we’re not even totally, I mean, we’re sort of breaking up. We’re going through this phase and this is what he does. And this is the kind of stuff of the real overt narcs will do this kind of thing.

It’s just, I just shook my head. I mean, I couldn’t even believe someone would do something like that. But that’s the way of the narc. So yeah I just, there’s so much, this is a huge topic.

I mean, I’m only doing, I’m only. talking superficially in some senses about it because there’s just so much.

I just encourage you to learn about it. I think everybody should learn about this behavior type because it’s so prevalent and everyone can be a victim of this. It can be even in your workplace you know, often bosses, these kinds of things. They’re, it’s just, it’s everywhere. And we really have to try to navigate it properly and to not become victims ourselves from, you know, this crazy making that happens by being exposed.

And I don’t really know, other than staying away from narcissists. That’s really, I mean, that’s really the best thing to do is it’s called no contact. You’ll see a lot of lingo in a lot of the groups that talk about narcissism and you know, it’ll say, you know, I went NC with and I feel really great now.

And how did you do it? How do you get through it? And you’ll see all kinds of different lingo around it because it’s like a big club of victims trying to get together and heal from this situation. So they, and they are really quirky. They really are, do really weird things. Like they’ll do stuff like so say you’re going out, you’re getting dressed right, and you get dressed in green.

Then they’ll come out and they’re all dressed in green. Like, what are you doing? Why are you dressing like that? You know, because they’re trying to mess with you some in any possible way. So by, you know, mimicking what you wear or trying to copy something that you’re doing cause they’re so competitive like that, then they’ll just do weird and quirky things like that.

I mean, I’d rather be alone than ever deal with anything like that. And I really do feel for people who are, you know, trapped in, in relationship. Because the other thing is if you’re in a relationship that long with a narcissists, what’ll end up happening is you’ll usually lose your senses. Some part of your senses because you’ll, you’re trying to numb away from the abuse.

So you’ll see if it’s males, it typically ends up happening where they lose their memory, they become kind of Alzheimer based. They can’t really, they’re kind of like children again in a way. They can’t really, they can’t. function, but it’s more of a cognition part of it. The brain goes and that’s exactly what a, you know, the narcissist spent them, has taken all from them.

They’re spent because it’s the draining, right? And they don’t have any words back. They’re tired of arguing. Now, there is something called gray rock. There’s a, it’s called the gray rock technique. If you are in a situation with a narcissist and you can’t get out, it’s a technique where you do not feed the narcissist by giving them supply.

Amandha: If they start to talk to you, you are gray rock. You’re not emotional. You don’t respond to their cues. You pretty much are ignoring them. For the most part. You’ll say things like, uhhuh, and then, okay, bye. That’s it. There’s no conversation, interaction, anything like that. If it can be done, that’s called gray rock, and you can look that technique up.

It’s pretty much the only way to save yourself when you’re trapped in such a situation. They’re very good at pushing your buttons, at trying to get a rise out of you to try to pull emotions out of you because they want that feed. And if you don’t give it to them, There’s a few things that can happen.

One is they will find another source of supply, so they will pretty much leave you be, which is kind of what you want. The other thing that can happen in some circumstances is they will discard you and leave the relationship, which is another good thing that you would want. The other thing that can happen is they can notice you’re doing that and try, if they don’t have a backup supply, they can work hard to try to pull you back in.

And that can be not a desired effect of gray rock where they can be working harder to bother you or upset you. One of my cases, the, when like she’s doing gray rock and he found the one thing that would still trigger her and do it all the time, and it was messing around with the lights in the house, the light bulbs turning off some of the light bulb, like unscrewing them or leaving it on when it’s in, like, in weird times, like just walking by the light switch and just turning it on even though no one’s in that room or no one’s in that space.

And so the light’s just always on. There’s just, that’s like a type of torture, right? And so this person would look down the hall and the light would be on and it would bother her and she’d have to go down the hall and turn it off all the time, and then he’d go and turn it on again. Right? So that’s type of weird, messed up little game that narcissist will play.

And don’t even really waste your time past a certain lengths where you acknowledge, Hey, you’re a narcissist. We, here’s what’s, here’s what I’m seeing. Here’s some help and information. Most of the psychiatrists, psychologists that these people go to, they have, they’re also wrapped around their fingers, so they’re not properly trained in this disorder to even help them.

Usually they come out where the psychologist said, oh, the narcissists is great. They’re nice, everything’s wonderful. Too bad about their poor spouse. That seems to be horrible, and all this kind of stuff. So they fall for it too. They have to go to, they have to be specially trained to do that. There’s, I think his name’s Dr.

David Hawkins. He’s another, he’s a profane sorry. He’s a professional, trained professional who’s on YouTube, who talks a lot about narcissism as well, is quite good. And you can learn a lot from him. And he says, you know, to a certain point here are clues that you can use to see if your narcissist, is habitable, or is you know, can be repaired or can see himself even, you know, through the therapy that we will do with him.

If he’s passed this point, no, it won’t happen. Forget it. Walk away. Do what you can to get a situation. So, Yeah, it is an important you know, thing not to waste your time on endless discussion of their behavior, because I tried that quite a lot. And it’s just, other than if you’re doing it for your own edification or your own expression or do it for you, but don’t necessarily do it because you think they’re gonna read it and go, oh, I’m a narc,.

Okay, that’s what’s wrong. That, oh gee. Cause it’s just is not gonna happen. The, there is nothing wrong with them. That’s what they think. They think they’re perfect. There can be nothing wrong with them. All of this. They can’t even get it. I really tried with this one narcissist. I tried. So like, because I was really trying to solve it at that time and I’m like, you don’t see this here, read this, you don’t see this part.

Here’s all here is all your behavior cataloged. I even videotaped some of it. Here’s all the evidence that shows your behavior and then this is your denial of the behavior. And it’s all evidence in a perfect document. And it was still denied. They will still deny it even with fact, even with affidavits, everything.

So it just is, it will drive you mad trying to prove it. So I don’t really recommend that., which is, you won’t get, you won’t get sweet revenge generally. You, I mean, you won’t get that kind of satisfaction if that’s the type of you, if you’re in that place in your head you really want some kind of karmic justice.

You just gotta let that go cause they’re going to go on like you didn’t even exist. They are untouched by any of that. And you know, one of the narcissists that I knew for a long time, I think I got to him a little bit. I did I was really trying to help him see, and I think he did, but I think it just destabilized him.

And now he’s back like nothing’s ever happened, talking like he’s a hero and a martyr talking like, you know, he’s helping people, saving people’s lives, all this kind of stuff. And there’s no changing, there’s no changing. He can’t see himself. It’s impossible. He’s got a mirror in front of him, but he can’t see himself cuz he’s not there.

He’s just not there. And so the best thing you can do is do the reflection. Do it for your own sanity. But don’t do it for the idea of trying to change them because it just doesn’t happen. I mean, maybe it’s happened to a few lower on the spectrum, but I mean, the true sociopaths. It just, yeah, just not there.

So, so I know it’s only a few minutes left. I don’t know if you wanted to ask, you know, Paula, if you want to clear if there’s anything that wasn’t clear or if you want me to focus on any, anything else? Let me get the radio. Can you hear me? Yep. Hello?

Paula: Well, there’s a lot to think about here. I’m gonna take notes and when I get back in the studio, we can be you know, go through it more because there’s certainly a lot of suffering in the world and there’s different strategies that people have for dealing with it.

Paula: And I think that we need to have more innovative discussions. Perhaps the next time you call, we can have call-ins, maybe., do you like that idea?

Amandha: So you said just cuz you cut out a little to have more of a constructive discussion on how to more on the healing side of that. Like for victims of people.

Paula: Yeah. I would like to I would like to bring to the table more strategies of healing. and less antagonistic, struggling. And then, you know, I can put on the table a couple of the things I’ve been through recently and you know, see if it’s of any use and if sure if other people have things to say about it.

If, because you’re not hearing me very well, I can’t go into too much detail.

Amandha: Yeah. I’m just getting pieces. It sort of cuts out, but I’m getting, you’re just yeah, I mean, that would be it. It’s important because people, it’s, we’re basically trying to help the victims get out of abuse, you know?

Right. These situations, it’s no different than physical abuse. Maybe it’s even worse in some cases. And when you’re physically abused it’s really evident, right? Like you’re being hit, all in your body. There’s pain. You know, this kind of, when it’s emotional and psychological abuse it’s different for people.

They make excuses a lot for the abuser, it’s a very Stockholm syndrome kind of situation where that is just forgiven too easily and quickly. And you know, because I know a lot of situations where if they were, if there was a strike against them physically, they would walk out the door. Right. But they’re in a narcissistic relationship where they’re being.

On a deeper level, in a different way. The abuse is different and it’s happening so much. It’s like almost every conversation I’ve had with like, like maybe 50% of the marriage discussions I’ve had with people, they’re involved with a narcissist,. I mean, it’s a lot of people. That’s do you think, Amandha, that any of this has to do with the hypnotizing effect of the technology, the computer screens, the incessant you know, you see groups of people and each one’s on their separate device having a separate conversation?

Yeah. I think it’s, that’s contributing in the sense that device is taking over the abusive parent role and the device is making that individual compare themselves to others and question their self-worth that can get them in that place., right? Because they’re taking selfies, they’re comparing to other people.

They’re more isolated and alone, or feeling lonely or feeling unfulfilled. And the devices do that. They isolate further, but they also make you question yourself worth, because you’re always going to compare yourself to the illusion of the image on the screen, right? And that can get you into a victim position, or depending on the personality type, can become an inflated ego if you have a skillset that people like and are fluffing you up and all that, right?

Right. Where you can get aggrandized sense of self and that can, you know, set someone into motion and to become more narcissistic in their ways, in their activities.

Paula: How about for next time we have this discussion on the radio. We focus on bright solutions, and I wanna put on the table a book called Proof of Heaven, A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife.

This is Eben Alexander and a medical doctor who was in a coma for one week. Do you know the book? Yes you do know the book. Good. Well, when I’ve had better mics and so on, I’d like to read a couple pages out of it and talk about the Monroe Institute and Hemi-Sync and you know, even put on the table a completely spiritual approach where we’re nothing material is going to affect.

I mean, we can see it will probably go over more. Even just a one two hour session. I would like to go into concept of Jehovah versus a good God, you know, a universal God that could be of that, that everyone throughout the universe could be an agreement on.

Producer: Could we wrap it up? It’s time.

Amandha: Okay. Can you speak here? Well, thank you, Paula. We’ll have this discussion, and we can communicate about it off air too, okay?

Paula: Okay. Thank you very much.

Amandha: Thanks for having me.

Paula: Yes, thank you. Thank you, Amandha. Bye-bye.

Amandha: Bye.