Finding Love in the Age of Narcissism with Dr. Ramani Durvasula | Transcript

21.10.19

This transcript is from a live online event, hosted on the hiitide app during Real Love Ready’s Online Learning Summit “Building a Blueprint for Better Relationships”. It was hosted and recorded on Zoom.

Robin Ducharme | Please, as you're joining us this evening. 

Welcome to our third keynote, with the Real Love Ready summit on blueprints for building a healthy relationship. Tonight I'm so happy that we are hosting Dr. Ramani Durvasula with us to speak about narcissistic relationships.

And as you're joining, please join the chat and let us know—share your name, where you're from. And if you have questions, please make sure that you're submitting your questions through the chat as Dr. Ramani's speaking. She's gonna do her 30 minute keynote and you're going to be allowed—please share your—share your comments and your questions in the chat.

Hi, Clara. Nice to see you. I hope you're really enjoying the summit. Hi.

Where are you joining us from? Everybody put your microphones on mute and if you can send us a little messages through the chat, let us know where you're from. And if you have questions for Dr. Ramani, she'll be happy to answer those during the last half of the keynote.

So I want to start by honoring and thanking the Coast Salish people, the original caretakers of the land that I call home and Victoria. I appreciate those who have taken care of the beautiful land and waters that we call home, and I invite all of you to take a moment to acknowledge those that have stewarded and continue to steward the land that you love and live on.

And tonight is our third keynote with the Real Love Ready Summit. And I'm so happy to introduce Dr. Ramani. Dr. Ramani is a licensed clinical psychologist in Los Angeles, a retired professor of psychology at California State University, and the founder and CEO of Luna education, training and consulting, a company that offers a range of programs focusing on educating survivors, clinicians, coaches and businesses, on the impacts of narcissism on health, wellness and functioning. 

She's the author of “Should I Stay, Or Should I Go?: Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist”, “Don't You Know Who I am?: How to Stay Sane in the Era of Narcissism, Entitlement and Incivility” and of “You Are Why You Eat: Change Your Food Attitude, Change Your Life”. 

She also has a popular YouTube channel and she was just sharing with us, has over 700 videos on YouTube. So you know, there's no shortage of information to learn about from Dr. Ramani on narcissism, and that focuses on narcissism and difficult relationships. Tonight, we are excited to talk about Finding Love in the Age of Narcissism, and we thank you, Dr. Ramani, for being here. 

Dr. Ramani Durvasula | Thank you so much, Robin, for having me. I'm so honored to be here. Also to honor the land I'm on. I'm in Los Angeles, which sits on land of the Chumash and Tongva Nations, and I also wish to honor the indigenous caretakers of this land, and the honor of actually living in Los Angeles. 

So I am, I'm going to be talking about something that feels quite paradoxical, which is, can we find love in the age of narcissism? 

And I think it kind of goes back to sort of that old adage about how do you hug a porcupine very carefully? How do you find love in the age of narcissism? Very carefully. 

I'm going to try to do two things today. I'm going to talk about the impact of narcissism on relationships, but also, how do people navigate this territory? Because it can't be that all is lost, that everyone has to say, “I have to forever stay alone, because of how hazardous the world has become”.

So let's talk about how this can be done and the way we're going to start is, we're going to talk about exactly what is narcissism? It's the buzzword of our time, everybody's talking about it. 

I got to tell you, when I first got into this gig of really thinking about and caring about narcissism was about 15 years ago. Nobody cared about it. In fact, my own mentor said,” You're really destroying your career concerning yourself with this thing that nobody cares about.” I said, “Well, I'm interested in it.” And then one day, the world changed and everybody became interested in it. But the danger of that is that this word isn't always being used exactly correctly. 

One of the great misunderstandings about narcissism is this idea that it’s somebody who loves to look in the mirror just like Narcissus who fell in love with his reflection, and it's not really that. When we look at narcissism, when we look at it from how people have defined it almost clinically, when we define it as a personality style, the pattern that really emerges is one of a lack of empathy, entitlement, grandiosity, arrogance, a constant need for validation and admiration, a tendency to attempt to control other people, and control the narrative, a reactive sensitivity to criticism, but no problem criticizing others. 

Again, lots of entitlement, a very dysregulated emotionality in the sense of rage. When folks who are narcissistic become stressed, or frustrated or disappointed, they tend to react with a rather quicksilver rage that can be sometimes quite terrifying for other people. There can be a lot of manipulation, a lot of exploitation, gaslighting, dismissiveness, feeling criticized. And one might wonder, okay, why is all of this happening? Why would a person have this personality? Because at the core of narcissism is a person who is actually deeply insecure, and has this unconscious sense of inadequacy that they're always trying to manage. Thus, the need to be grandiose and play at being a sort of superhero, or a super person, as a defense against the fear that that inadequacy will constantly be popping out. So it's really a sense of insecurity, more than it is a sense of self love. In fact, one would really be able to argue, narcissism is actually a state of self-loathing.

One thing I want to caution all of us against, though, is calling it “narcissistic personality disorder”. That is, in fact, a diagnostic terminology and it's beyond the scope of what I could get into this keynote, but I actually don't even think it should be a diagnosis. It's a very problematic issue. Like I said, it's a bit more of a pedantic clinical issue that I'm not going to belabor here. But a lot of the pushback people get— the people who are going through narcissistic abuse, the negative psychological effects of being in a relationship with someone who's narcissistic—that when they say, “Oh, I'm in a relationship with somebody, they're really narcissistic” they'll often get pushed back: “Don't diagnose somebody, you're not a doctor.” Or they'll say to me, “Dr. Ramani, you've never met that person's partner. You can't diagnose them.” 

I'm not. To call somebody narcissistic is merely to use an adjective. It's not a nice adjective, not something I want to be called. But it's no different than calling someone friendly, or stubborn, or agreeable, or extroverted. It's descriptive, and it tells us all those things: that lack of empathy, entitlement, grandiosity, it's a word that captures a pattern. But let's not call—let's not even go down that rabbit hole of narcissistic personality disorder. That gets into a diagnostic nomenclature, like I said, that doesn't even really work and it's not what we're talking about today. So I don't even want to go there. Because it's not really necessary to be honest with you. 

So if we kind of have a handle on what narcissism is, that really begs the question of what is not what isn't narcissism, right? It's not self love. So we really need to break out of that idea that a person who's narcissistic is in love with themselves. Quite the contrary. 

Like I said, it's inadequacy, it's insecurity. It's not at all self love. It's actually like I said, self loathing. The other thing we assume is that narcissistic people are very confident. After all, they're so pretentious, they're preening, they want all the attention. Not so. True confidence really resembles humility. Truly confident people are actually often quite, if not self effacing, they tend to be quiet about their skill set, because they know they're good and they don't feel the need to dominate other people with their sense of expertise. Confidence is not noisy. 

And finally, the other mistake people make is that they think narcissism is high self esteem. Actually, the way we talk about it and write about it, is that it's actually inaccurate self-esteem. At times, they have a very overblown sense of, “I'm so great, and everybody likes me so much” and then if just one thing goes wrong, “I can't believe it or not, everyone's out to get me. Why doesn't anything work out for me?,  it is a very victimized, almost distorted sense, to their self esteem, if anything. It's inconsistent, and it's very inaccurate, but one would never argue it's high. The goal, the gold standard, is one of healthy self esteem, and accurate self appraisal, an understanding of who we are, what our strengths are, and what our weaknesses are. 

For a person who's narcissistic, being reminded, or even being aware of their own weaknesses brings up that inadequacy I was talking about, and that then brings up a feeling of shame. And what always follows shame for a narcissistic person? Rage. And so, that's more of what we see. But this idea that “Ah, that person not narcissistic, they're just they love themselves and they're confident”—We're not going to think like that anymore. This is an insecure state that comes out in ways that are what we call antagonistic things that sort of put them at odds with other people.

We're not going to be able to go fully into this but I'll probably be able to give a sentence to each of these and I think it's important to understand this one key issue about narcissism. Number one, it's on a continuum. All narcissistic people don't look the same and that's why when people talk about this, or maybe even talk about a relationship, the stories are so different. One person will say, “Oh my gosh, I thought I wasn't even going to survive this” and the other person will say “I was just annoyed by their social media behavior.” It's on a spectrum where on the low end of narcissism you're really seeing something that looks deeply emotionally immature, a lot of inappropriate boundaries, a lot of “Look at me, look at me look at me,” it feels very adolescent almost. But at the high end, at the more severe ends of narcissism, we see people who are very exploitative, who are very controlling, who can isolate a partner, we might even see dynamics that we might that resemble more of what we'd see in relationships that have elements of domestic abuse or domestic violence in them. That's a pretty wide continuum. And you can see now, if people at two ends of that spectrum are comparing stories, they're going to say, “Maybe I'm using this word wrong”. But it goes beyond that. It's not just the spectrum of severity. But there are also these subtypes of narcissism.

Traditionally, what everyone is used to hearing about is the grandiose narcissism, the person who is slick, and well put together, and has got the clothes, and they got the car and they pick up the chick, and they're so charismatic, and they're so charming, and they seem so confident. That's the grandiose narcissist. They use grandiose defenses to sort of hedge against those feelings of inadequacy. 

Another form of narcissism that a lot of people don't even recognize, but can actually really wreak havoc in a relationship is something called vulnerable narcissism. Traditionally, this has been called covert narcissism, but the actual appropriate terminology is vulnerable. Interestingly, in vulnerable narcissism, a person might actually almost look, at first blush, more depressed or socially anxious. There's an awkwardness there is a sort of a sullen, resentful, brooding anger. “Why doesn't anyone take me seriously? How come I never got a fair start? If I'd only had a trust fund, I'd be ahead of everyone else. Why do I have to waste my time paying dues in this job? Why is everyone else out to get me?” Very, very angry, very sullen. And there can be a real tendency, especially in a dating relationship, you want to rescue these folks. “Oh, if things only went their way, this is a diamond in the rough.” It's called vulnerable narcissism because it again, victimization is a primary sort of manifestation here, it doesn't look like your preening, you know, silk shirt narcissist, this is very much someone who really looks downtrodden and is sort of glumly sitting in the corner of the party.

Another form of narcissism that actually feels more menacing and frightening is what's called malignant narcissism. And malignant narcissism, we have all the same patterns, lack of empathy, grandiosity, entitlement, all the rest of it, but there's also an almost a sense of paranoia that “people are out to get me and if they do, I'm going to get them back.” There is a vindictiveness, there is almost a quality of sadism, there is a very strong sense of control, you'll see financial control isolation, people in relationships with malignant narcissists will often feel frightened. They'll say, in the beginning, it felt like this person was so into me, they were all about me, they wanted to talk 25 times a day, and that, that over-interest was mistaken for “Wow, they're really into me,” when in fact, it was really setting the foreshadowing for a lot of control.

A form of narcissism that's not even recognized sometimes it's something called communal narcissism. These are folks who get their validation by doing good things for other people. You’re like “Well, that doesn't sound very narcissistic”—the fact is, it's the same stuff: it's the lack of empathy, the entitlement, the grandiosity but the validation seeking now is “Look at me. Look at all these charitable endeavors I’m doing, I’m posting on Instagram every day about the people I'm saving and rescuing and all the good deeds I'm doing.” And the thing is, though, if people don't give them enough likes and enough validation for all the good things they do, they get really irritable and unkind. People who are communal narcissists are notorious for being the most like “Look at me I'm saving the world” in public, and the minute they're in private with a partner at home or even in the car on the way home, they'll start raging and screaming at them. Very different than the person who was standing on stage, raising all kinds of money or support for a cause that seems so humanitarian. It's very confusing for their families where people say “Wow, your mother, your father they’re a pillar of the community,” and the people are like “I can't even tell people how monstrous this person has behaved.” 

And then when we get into the weeds with things like self righteous narcissism, these are people who get their validation by being morally superior and very judgmental of other people. And then neglectful narcissistic people who will be engaged only when it's convenient for them to be interested in other people. So as you can see these different types speak to many different flavors. 

So as I'm giving these descriptions, some of you are thinking, why does anyone fall for this? Like this all sounds incredibly unpleasant. Well, because of something that at times I've called the C suite. 

And those are qualities, they all start with C to help us organize them, that make these folks incredibly attractive, especially when you're dating or trying to find love, and can really confuse people or even suck them into these relationships for far deeper or longer than they ever intended. 

Foremost amongst these are things like charm and charisma, narcissistic people are incredibly charismatic, not the vulnerable folks so much, but all the others, lots of charisma, lots of charm, and lots of seeming confidence, talking about achievements. Most of us don't do that, most of us are self effacing and saying, “Oh, that's not such a big deal.” So when somebody is out there kind of owning it really, “Wow, they really must be on top of their game.”

I'm probably the only person on the planet that when her friends come up to her and say, I just met someone and they're charismatic. I'm like “No, no there's not going to be a second date. Charisma,  danger, danger”, and not all charismatic people are narcissistic by a longshot. But, charisma is often a quality that eclipses some of those other problematic patterns, like the rage, like the sensitivity to criticism, and all of that. 

But there are other things in the C suite, things like credentials, there's been research that's been done, where they used an experimental paradigm, and they were able to show that, interestingly, people who are narcissistic, actually were more successful at attracting long term partners. Part of this was attributed to the fact that a lot of narcissistic folks look great on paper. Because of the need for validation, or pursuing goals that will get them validation from the world, they'll often be really good about making sure that they get the right job, live in the right neighborhood, go to the right school. So their credentials, they look impeccable on paper. Narcissistic folks are actually probability wise, more likely to pursue leadership positions, doesn't mean they're more competent. But the need for power control and dominance that are a part of the Narcissistic Personality means that they're going to pursue leadership or you're like, “Well, this person's in charge of the company, they must be really competent.”

There are others also a very, and this is very important for understanding dating—there's this remarkable capacity that people with these personality styles have. A lot of it is because there's something we call superficial intimacy, and narcissistic individuals, they don't go deep. They're not interested. But what they're very good, is doing what I call “the lean in” like, “Tell me everything about yourself. Tell me your greatest fears.” They're mining data, folks, they're learning about you. And let me tell you, those fears about yourself, those, those terrors, you have the things that fears about being found out? They’re stirring that up, like weaponry. And then when you are in an argument, they're going to literally pull those vulnerabilities out and throw them back in your face. 

And that is an incredibly painful moment because what was your courageous vulnerability just got melted down into bullets that are being used to hurt you. 

The final piece, though, of the C suite, is something called comfort. And by comfort, I mean familiarity. While not all people who get into relationships with narcissistic people came from family systems characterized by these kinds of high conflict antagonistic or narcissistic patterns, a lot of people do. In a way when you come from a narcissistic family system, there's an indoctrination that takes place. And there's sometimes even a desire for working through: “This time, I'm going to get it right. This time, I'm going to get this node person to notice me,” Right? That familiarity. In fact, sometimes when people say, “we have so much chemistry,” that's when I often say no, no, no, don't say chemistry to me, because what chemistry often means is there's a familiarity. There's something about this relationship that feels ancient, that feels familiar. People will use words like “magical connection”. And unfortunately, if somebody originated from a family of origin that has, has narcissistic top notes, that familiarity may actually be that this person is evoking the familiarity of that family system. And people will again, almost write it off to this sort of ‘magical relationship’, when in fact, it's potentially not really good for them. 

So after all that, people get in, why do they get stuck? Before I get into the why they get stuck, I'm actually going to talk a little bit about the cycle of these relationships and then I'm going to talk about the why they get stuck, because that's actually a better ordering. 

Many of you have heard this term love bombing, right? It’s—everyone's talking about love bombing. What’s love bombing? It's really a phase in a relationship of idealization and seduction. With a more grandiose narcissistic partner love bombing can look like five dozen roses showing up at your house, being whisked away to the best restaurants, being wined and dined, getting tickets to the impossible to get tickets show, taking a vacation on your fourth date, things are often intense, exciting. A lot of people will call this phase as a fairy tale. This is also a time where’s there’s this intense “Tell me everything”. You feel as though this person can't live without you. Some people find this phase almost overwhelming. It's too much like “what is happening?” and other people will say, “Wow, this feels like a fairy tale” and instead of seeing that as a red flag, we'll say, “Well, why not? I'm solid, I deserve a fairy tale.” So it's not this idea that everybody that's falling into this is a shrinking violet, or somebody who's scared of their own shadow, not at all. In fact, some of the most healthy, confident, strong people I know, are the ones who get into these relationships, because it's it feels very special in the beginning. and it's people saying “Well, I deserve special” instead of special as a red flag. The problem is, is that the red flags are there and people are ignoring them or justifying them.

Love bombing can last anywhere from two weeks, sometimes as long as a year, but the modal amount of time is somewhere between six weeks and three months, okay, maybe four months. After you sort of almost exhale and say, all right, maybe it's a fairy tale. Maybe they're red flags, but I'm all in. The minute that narcissistic partner gets the idea that you're all in the phase of devaluing starts. All of a sudden there's some passive aggressive barbs, some invalidation, disrespect, gaslighting, you're like, “wait a minute, what's happening here now, you're—you're trying to say what? Wait a minute, I want to go back to that other stuff, that love bombing stuff felt good.” People almost feel like they're chasing a high, they want to go backwards, right? And so this devaluing phase starts, and people are starting to feel like it's a bit of quicksand, there can be a lot of arguing and tension at this point. 

As the devaluing phase proceeds, then the relationship enters what's called the discarding phase. Now discarding doesn't necessarily mean that the narcissist breaks up with you or you break up with them. But it may at what it is more likely to be is that it could be, it could be the relationship ending, it could be infidelity, it could be what we call triangulation where the narcissistic person starts comparing you to people from their past, or starts comparing you to people from their present. You notice that they're a lot less, they're a lot less engaged, or they may be less interested, they may run hot and cold. 

If the relationship does end, whether because you end it or they end it, in a significant proportion of cases, something called hoovering happens. They try to bring you back in, and this in-and-out on-and-off fight breakup/makeup cycle is very common in narcissistic relationships. 

Why do people get stuck in these relationships? It's what I call the quicksand. 

There's hope. There's always this hope that this is going to get better. “They're just stressed, they're on residency, they're, they just moved, they got a lot going on, they didn't get enough sleep, they didn't mean to say that.” It's this hope that it's going to get better. So people keep waiting. 

Then there's guilt. There are enough good days to keep people stuck. And they'll feel bad. “Well, this people this person, it seems like they'll have a tough time. If I go, they're begging me to stay.” And a lot of people really get pulled in and stay in over and over on that guilt. There's pity. “I feel bad for this person. Like they're really actually insecure. And I'd feel bad to sort of leave them in the lurch.” There's fear. “I'm afraid of being alone. I'm afraid you're afraid that maybe the devil I know is better than the one that I don't. I'm afraid that I don't want to start over again. I'm afraid that maybe I'm not reading this relationship, right and I'll end the relationship with them in the next person will get a better version of them.” There's love. Listen, there's again, enough good days in there that people genuinely feel a sense of love for this person and it's real. And if it's your love, and it's real, then it's your love, and it's real. And people say “I actually love this person”. Many times the challenge is that they love a narrative that they've created, or they love the hope. But that's the reason and we don't get to doubt that. But finally, there's also a lack of information. People don't always understand what these relationships are about. I'm amazed how many people say to me after 30,40, 50 year marriages, “I wish someone had taught me about this about two years into my marriage”. I even had recently a woman who's 82 years old, who had been watching my videos and said, “Thank you. That's what's been happening to me for the last 53 years” and ended a marriage when she was 82 because she said, “I am not spending one more day with the narcissist” so let me tell you folks, hope always springs eternally.

When I met with Robin and her team, one thing they really wanted to talk about was talk to us about not just red flags, but green flags. Like, when, when do we get to go? Like, yeah, red flags, everyone's talking about red flags. I'm even going to talk to you about some yellow flags, the red flags, let's start there and get them out of the way.

The red flags are things like chronic invalidation. Not even, and it doesn't even have to be as extreme as you think. It might be that you state a preference or something that's, that's something that's meaningful to you professionally, and there's a bit of, “Wow, it's not something that people make money at”. It can be subtle invalidations and digs initially that will start to escalate over time. 

There's triangulation, you being compared to other people. The person is talking about exes all the time, you feeling that you're being pitted against family or something else, but you always feel that there's some sort of third person in the relationship. 

There's dismissiveness again, that mockery I was talking about, it's related to invalidation. Gaslighting, or the denial of your reality, to the point where you feel like you're the one who's absolutely losing your mind. There can be literally downright contempt or disgust that's issued towards you. Lots of manipulation, lots of passive aggression, lots of control, any of those patterns. Those become red flags. So once that's happening, you’re really in the danger zone. 

On the plus side, what are the green flags? You've met someone in this world where—Is narcissism becoming more and more prevalent? I'd argue probably yes. And if not full blown narcissism, antagonism, this sense that everybody is at odds with each other, right—So what are the green flags? What are the things that you might notice in a person a month or two in that make you say, “Oh, green means go like, this is good.” It's things like respect, reciprocity. Reciprocity is that—the normal give and take not a transactional give and take but a very natural given take. You don't feel like there's an accounting ledger on your relationship. Mutuality, like a shared sense of pleasure, purpose, enjoyment, your, your wanting and doing the same things. Empathy, compassion, kindness, and having a dual growth orientation. It’s you sharing this cool thing that you're doing? And the person saying, “that sounds absolutely amazing” and they want to hear more, rather than being threatened by your growth. That you don't—you don't have to reassure them when you say, wow, “I just got this really new opportunity—neat, new opportunity and I'm going to get to go to Paris for two weeks”, instead of them saying, “Oh, god, you're going to Paris for two weeks, I hope you don't meet someone”. Not that, but rather, “That is so exciting. You've worked so long for this one.” 

What about those yellow flags? Because that's really, that's really where people get stuck. Those yellow flags are the slow down flags. Early on, you'll notice patterns in the relationship like: they're not really listening to you. They're great at listening to themselves, but they’re not really listening to you. Something called future faking: all kinds of promises they make but never seem to come to fruition. “After I get to this deadline, we're definitely going to go do this or that”—never happens, or “I'm yeah, I know my temper’s real bad, but I'm going to get into therapy”—never happens. Making a promise, not seeing it through, and often moving the goalposts. That's the future faking. Lots of inconsistency, reactivity, when you give any feedback. You might even say, “Hey, you know, you're parking a little like—the gate is there, why don't we park closer?” “Oh, I don't know how to drive. Oh, I get it. I don't know how to drive a car. No, I've never driven a car,” and you're like, “Oh my gosh, I just was telling you so we didn't have to walk in the dark”. And over time, you're walking on eggshells. You're not giving feedback anymore. 

Watch how they treat other people. Is there contemptuousness? On the flip side, really poor boundaries with servers in a restaurant or a bar, or the other people who are acting as sort of service employees—watch how those folks are being treated in your midst. How they talk about other people. Is there a lot of sort of cruel triangulated gossip and throwing people under the bus? If they're throwing them under the bus today, they're gonna be throwing you under the bus in another month or two. 

You're also looking at how, how often they're interrupting you, interrupting other people, how much they're comparing you to other people. These are things that show themselves very early in a relationship and that most people attempt to justify to be able to keep the relationship moving forward.

A lot of people wonder, “Well, I'm already in this relationship. And we're married, we have children, and I can't go”. And that's okay. I'm not here to tell anyone to stay or go, I'm telling people to understand these patterns, so you don't personalize them. If you do stay in a relationship with somebody who has this personality style, it's really important you engage in radical acceptance. It's not really going to change. These personality styles are very resistant to change. Every so often we see a unicorn, the person makes real change. But by and large, they don't. So have realistic expectations so the relationship isn't consistent disappointment, which really does take a toll on your nervous system. 

It's important that if you stay, that you shore up your supports, you seek out therapy, you create spaces in your life that are meaningful. And then on those good days—and I can't tell you, I think when I look at all the narcissistic relationships I've ever consulted on, 50% of people stay. So if you stay, you're in just as many folks stay as go. There is no shame in staying. Everybody's story is different. But keep in mind that that is something that may happen. 

And then something—and I want to come to the end here, because I want us to get to questions—But one of the things that this begs is, what is the blueprint for a healthy relationship, and is it possible to create a healthy relationship in this sort of era of narcissism? And my answer to that is absolutely, yes.

It's absolutely possible to meet someone and start a healthy relationship. You pay attention to those green flags. You get comfortable with your own solitude. Any client I've ever worked with, that's coming out of a narcissistic relationship—I can't force them to do this but—I say to them, I want you to commit to a 12 month detox. And in those 12 months, you're going to be single, there will be no dating, nothing. And why? 

Because a narcissistic relationship steals us from us; it steals our sense of self and our identity. To learn to be comfortable with your own solitude, to learn your own preferences—maybe like eating Cheetos in bed while you watch French films, that's great. To live in a world without judgment, and without invalidation. To get to know you, so that when you meet a person, you're willing to honor the yellow flags and not justify them. You're willing to pay attention to the green flags and recognize that you deserve them. And that no matter how bomb-y the love bombing is, to always keep an eye out for those yellow flags and say, “I am not doing this again,” or “I am not doing this”. But that really means to break out of the cycles of justification. And really say—and going back to that classical Maya Angelou quote, “When somebody shows you who they really are, believe them the first time.” 

So I can go on about this, but I promised to answer some questions, and I'm hoping that in the questions, we may be able to open up to some of the things that I may not have covered because honestly, I could go on for 24 hours about this, and we ain't got 24 hours. So I hope this is a bit of a primer or an introduction to what these relationships are, how they impact us, and what the yellow, red and green flags are. And that: is it impossible? No, absolutely not. All of us can fall in love in the age of narcissism, but it really means that we need to learn to protect ourselves and pay attention.

Robin Ducharme | Wow, that was such a powerful 32 minutes. Really, Dr. Ramani, you're just filled it with so much amazing, amazing information. Thank you.

Q&A

Robin Ducharme | We did have some good questions coming through as you were speaking. The first question is, “Do you think there are narcissists who could display qualities that are vulnerable type? And at times are more of the grandiose type? Maybe depending on the situation?”

Dr. Ramani Durvasula | Yep. So whoever asked that question to me is probably already a scholar, and should already be getting a graduate degree in psychology. That is an incredibly astute analysis because actually that is what narcissism is. It's like, it's like a two headed God, Janice, right? It's the two sides of a coin. 

What we know is that people are either more grandiose, more vulnerable, using those two classical subtypes, but every narcissistic person has both parts to them. At times of stress, threat, disappointment, or when the inadequacy is being pinged, the vulnerable type comes out. More passive aggressive, more victimized, angry, resentful, sullen, perhaps even anxious. But when things are going the way the narcissistic person wants, you see the puffed up, pretentious, preening, arrogant narcissistic person. 

It's actually incredibly confusing for people in these relationships, because they'll see the person go from passive aggressive and victimized to, on top of the world, manipulative, arrogant. And a lot of times people feel like I don't know who I'm going to get. Well, you don't know, because you often don't know how their day is going to go. And for the rest of us, Well, certainly our moods will change a little, depending on the day we've had, but we're still able to keep a pretty consistent level of empathy, like, we're still going to be loving to our children, we might say, “Oh, I had such a tough day, sweetie,” but you still want to hear about your child's day. Not so with the narcissistic person, if they've had a bad day, everybody's gonna have a bad day. So basically, those two subtypes of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism coexist in all narcissistic people, which is why you would see both of those presentations.

Robin Ducharme | Wow, you were talking about love bombing and how, after time, there's this, it's almost, you know, this devaluing starts to happen. And so I'm wondering, you know, you said, and maybe I'm just, I'm not understanding 100%, but that there's, like, would there be triggers to that, to that shift happening?

Yeah, it's a great question, and I was, I think I was rushing, and so I really want to draw this out a little bit:

Love bombing is such an interesting experience because traditionally, when we think of love bombin  we do think of the five dozen roses and the big nights out and, and the gifts and, and the excessive attention.

Keep in mind too—just want to give you the vulnerable narcissistic version of love bombing—what it can often be is a lot of oversharing. You might fall into the role of being the rescuer, like,” Oh, if only they had a car, they'd be able to get to these job interviews, I'm going to give them my car”. Like, for a person who is rescuing in nature, a vulnerable narcissist can often feel like a project. So the love bombing then almost becomes this sense of falling into this person's world and wanting to make everything magically better. 

But to your point, Robin, this, where does this transition happen? When we go over into the devaluing phase, here's where it gets interesting. For the narcissistic person, they have what's called a very anxious attachment style. They are always convinced that people are going to leave them. There's a lot of anxiety, a lot of abandonment, fear, basically. So they are almost always treating you as somebody who's about to leave them, so they're kind of a little bit angry at you all the time, even though you have no intention of leaving. The love bombing phase is a period of time designed to get you to be all in. So when that moment comes when they sense that you're all in—maybe you move in together, maybe it's a very fast engagement, maybe you say I love you—but it's something that communicates to them that you're all in. That's the moment the devaluing starts. So as long as it's a game, the love bombing continues, the minute you breathe in, and almost say, “Okay, I mean, let's commit, let's get to the sort of the day to day part of this relationship game on” devaluing begins.

Robin Ducharme | Wow, that makes—it makes a lot of sense. It's pretty scary, actually. There's so much manipulation in that. So there was a lot of—I'm going to continue watching the chat. So those that are like—please continue asking your questions, and I'll make sure I ask, but there was a lot that came in through the Summit this week. The first is: how do I handle being a family villain? When I go, no contact with my narcissistic abuser. Even my family loved them, because they were often generous with their resources, but used that as leverage in our relationship.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula | Right, so the story that this person is laying out of being the family villain, because of the generous narcissist—it's interesting, because what's happened is, the family is almost pushing this identity. This is how enabling works, right? 

Narcissistic people often get to stay in the game longer in people's lives. Because people enable them: “Well, they're not so bad, they're so generous, good luck to you finding someone else that's this generous”, and then it makes you wonder how much the family system works from a narcissistic point of view too—of not having empathy, of not hearing you, of putting their needs first. 

So this idea of being painted as a family villain, this speaks also to this idea of: not only does this person have to face the loss and coping with recovering from the narcissistic relationship with the partner, now they may also have to manage the grief of “Wow, my family really doesn't have my back like they were about to throw me under the bus for another trip to Hawaii”.

And there is a really dire moment when you recognize that “my family didn't necessarily have my best interests at heart”. But what they had what were actually their best interest, or what they thought my best interests are. Which they didn't talk to me, and find that out. 

So there's a moment of grief there. So what do you do about that? One I'll tell you right off the bat: don't try to explain it. Because the more you explain it, the more you're again, you're falling into these justification patterns. I always tell people who are in narcissistic relationships of any kind: “I want you to remember the word D.E.E.P.” I tell all survivors, “You need to go deep”. 

What does deep stand for? Don't defend, don't engage. Don't explain. And don't personalize: D.E.E.P. , defend, engage, explain, personalize, don't, because when you do that, they've already got their agenda. They've got their story: you're the villain and you cut off this person that we thought was so great. 

Remember, that's the triangulation. Narcissistic people are the masters at triangulation, turning people against each other. And in this case, this, this narcissistic partner did a masterful job of getting into the family system, using generosity as a tool to mobilize them. We call them flying monkeys, when the narcissistic person mobilizes a group of people, in essence to do their bidding. And now, they're these family members are doing the bidding for the narcissist. And this person who had the courage to leave the relationship is being branded the villain. So don't engage, don't defend. 

I would say keep it tight. Things like “It didn't work out, sometimes things don't. This is healthier for me to move forward.” And if the family wants to continue to villainize and demonize someone for that choice, this person actually faces the more difficult and treacherous path forward of trying to decide how do I now have to set boundaries with my family. It's a piece of intel you may not have wanted to see about your family, but now you're seeing it and want to pay attention to that. Because it's very possible if this person got into yet another unhealthy relationship, their family would enable that too.

Robin Ducharme | Can you really talk about how we forgive narcissistic behaviors in those who are considered to be of a higher social or economic class than those of lower social or economic classes? Why is this and how can we be conscious of this while I'm dating things?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula | That's interesting. I mean, I read that question, you showed it to me ahead of time, Robin, and I actually grappled with that one. I thought the question was just going to be about forgiveness. I think it's, this person's questions less about forgiveness than it might be about enabling, right? Why would we allow people of higher socio-economic status to get away with things who wouldn't allow people of lower socioeconomic status, there's a few reasons for that. 

One sometimes is actually fear. There's a sense that this person, because of their money, may have power or may be able to cut off or make opportunities happen. But the other is that people who have money are often considered to be emblematic of success or aspiration, even if they're not, even if they didn't earn their money, or they did shady things, to make that money, to make that money. 

I think part of it is sort of internalized classism. That's a part of our culture. And the sense that we do view people lower on, the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum are often treated as more disposable, if you will. And I think that that's like it's any kind of an internalized kind of oppression. And internalized classism is a very, very big problem and issue in the world. But I do think that more often than not, what we will see is that when a narcissistic person has means they're more likely to be grandiose or malignant. When we have people who are narcissistic, who don't tend to have economic means they do tend to be more vulnerable narcissists, who tend, interestingly, sometimes to pull for something different, not as much fear as much as pity, whereas the grandiose narcissist may either pull for fear or adoration, but I think that that might be it. 

Now if this person's question, and I wasn't entirely sure where they're going with it, I thought they might mean it in a public way. Like I think publicly, when a narcissistic person is famous, or really rich or a celebrity, there's a tendency to “Oh, but they make such great music, or they make such great movies”. Again, I don't know that the word is forgiveness, I think it's confusion, and people will say “you keep buying their records, and you're enabling them”, and I suppose that's true. And maybe, that's a little of what this question is getting out. 

Whereas, where somebody doesn't have all those things to offer we're not as worried about enabling them because there's really not the same kind of economic way to enable. But I do agree that when a narcissistic person has a lot of cultural wealth or power, they get away with it a lot more, because people want to keep people up on pedestals, up on those pedestals—and we as a population don't take well to when our, I won’t say heroes, but the people who are idolized get knocked off those pedestals. That kind of throws off our sort of, our entire sense of what's up, what's down, what's right, what's wrong. And now all of a sudden, people are throwing away old CDs and old music and old movies saying “I can't watch this anymore”. And we've seen that happen after lots of scandals.

Robin Ducharme | How do I start building relationships with someone after narcissistic abuse? I keep attaching myself in cycles of negative self-talk. And I feel like it's keeping me from being able to get close to people.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula | Yeah. Remember what—I was using the word grief, and grief is a very, very real experience after the loss of a narcissistic relationship, but it's not the usual grief. When we think of grief, we think of a death. Or we think of a loss, like, like a divorce like so it's, you know, it's the loss of a marriage. But the grief after a narcissistic relationship is something quite different. It's the loss of self you feel like “How did I get, well, let myself go all the way in there”. 

Sometimes it's—like this person who wrote the family villain question—sometimes for people, it's a wake up call in their family of origin. So they're grieving a childhood, they're grieving what they believed was a close knit family, they're grieving the family they thought they had created with somebody. So they're not just grieving that direct traditional loss, but they're grieving narratives, and aspirations. 

And in a way, those are almost harder to grieve because those very narratives and aspirations are what kept the person sort of stuck in that relationship. 

So that said, number one is to give yourself time to grieve. Walk through it all. Grieving, your again, grieving the reality that was taken from you that you're going to get back grieving the self that you're going to get back, but understanding that all of that happened number two is to stop the cycles of self blame. It's not you, and this is not your fault. 

This is why I fight so assiduously against this issue—for this issue of narcissistic abuse. I really want people to get that this is not your fault. We're not taught this. Most therapists don't talk about this. People go into these relationships so well intentioned saying “Well, I'm not going to label someone, I'm going to show empathy, I'm going to love them”, and it keeps getting thrown back in your face. It's a really, really big paradigm shift for people. 

So it's that—it's the self forgiveness, self compassion, and ending the cycles not only of self blame, but also of self shame. People are very ashamed that they let this happen—”How could I have been so foolish, everyone else saw this”. You're not foolish. I talk about this, and I've been through this more than once. 

So we—it happens to us because of the very best parts of ourselves, the parts of us that want to trust the parts of us that do have empathy, the parts of us that do have compassion, they get played. And I actually think that if they get played, and we don't lose them, then we've won. The narcissistic people have won when we walk away from our own compassion, right? And that's got to start with yourself.

And so I think it's a process of letting go. This is why therapy is so important. Therapy with a therapist who gets this. I have clients who went through 40 plus-year narcissistic marriages. And some weeks, we just, they keep replaying it again and again. And I listen, not from a place of impatience, but from a place of, trying to hold space for the—compassionate, loving space, validating them, letting them know, this wasn't your fault. This is what happened, you didn't know. And there's so much grief, and the tears feel like they won't, and I know the tears will stop at some point. We just need to be there for people and receive them.

That's why I want that 12 month detox to, to do all this working through to become acquainted with your preferences. I sometimes tell people—I mean, I'm being a little flippant when I say this, but to kind of go on what I call sort of a trauma tour. 

And what do I mean by that? That restaurant where they left you in a huff in a rage? Or that coffee shop where you saw that they were texting another person? I want you to go back to those places. And I want you to go with your best friends, the ones who make you laugh, and you're going to be scared and your heart’s going to be racing and you're going to feel sick, and dammit, you're going to take that place back. And you're going to go in with your friends—and I've known people to say, “I'm just putting on my wedding dress and I'm walking into that place”. You do you. You walk into that place anywhere you need. I don't care if you go in there and order their best champagne and have dinner, take those places back. Get to know yourself. 

I tell people you need to make three lists. I need you to make what I call the “Ick List”: Every terrible thing that happened. Why? So when they try to hoover you back and you're like, “Oh, hell no, I am not doing this”. The other list, I call it—the past, I've called it the ”Biscuits in Bed List”: like, it's all the things you couldn't do when you're in the relationship and now you can do because you're doing your own thing. It could be “I'm going to watch films with subtitles”, “I'm going to go to that restaurant, they wouldn't go to”, “I'm finally going to go on that vacation that they, they felt was wasteful”, “I'm going to go back to school”, “I'm going to take back those day to day things that mattered to me” and the aspirational things that matter to you. What did you give up in this relationship? Did they tell you, “oh, you're too old to go back to school”, or “that's a dumb business idea”. Go do those things. And slowly taking back your life. Pay attention to what it's like to have to not have to get into an argument before you even board the airplane and say, “Oh my gosh, like, it's not isn't bad that I'm alone. Like, this is so nice. I'm on the little jet bridge and nobody's screaming at me”, or “I can actually get the aisle seat”. Everything becomes a blessing. And in doing this, and being so intentional, and giving it a year, you'll see that over time you've become acquainted with you, and you'll fight for your preferences.

And if a person meets you and you say, “Yeah, I like French films and subtitles” and the person's like, “Oh, I don't watch films and subtitles”, you can say, “Well, then I think this isn't gonna work out”. You learn how to be for you. Instead of being the chameleon that changes for the person who's trying to dominate you, you will get there. I have—every day I hear survivor stories who amaze me and do amazing things, who fall in love, who write books, who start businesses, who sometimes, for the first time in 40 years, are sleeping in a bed alone. I mean, miracles are big and small, they happen, but it takes time. And you can't rush it. And you have to be intentional.

Robin Ducharme | You know, one of the things you did talk about today during your keynote is the fact that so many people, if you are in a relationship with a narcissist, stay. And your talk this week about love lite, right? It's like this idea that somebody that's, that's very narcissistic is unable to love deeply. So if you're in a relationship with somebody and you have this radical acceptance that you talk about, well, really, how is, how can this—How can a relationship sustain in a very healthy way?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula | It really can't. I think that one of the big philosophical questions is: do narcissistic people love? I never will question someone's labeling of an emotion. So when the narcissistic person says they love you, they love you. The problem is what you call love, and what they call love are very, very different things. 

What we know clinically about narcissism is that there's an incapacity for intimacy. For a narcissistic person, relationships are superficial and they serve instrumental needs for the narcissist: pleasure, power, entertainment, companionship, but not that depth of intimacy that requires vulnerability and trust and that, this, sort of that back and forth narcissistic people are often looking for. More sort of short term validation-seeking—almost transactional experiences. That's not what you're calling love. 

So when they say I love you, the temptation is that “You don't mean that” they do. These are just such different experiences. I always say, it's like a person will say—The room is 80 degrees and one person will say “I’m freezing” and one person will say “I’m hot”, you're both right. 

You know, and the challenge is, is, that, that love is such—it's such a hazy word. And so yeah, they do love you, but it's not what you mean by love. And that's, that's really, really a challenge. It's a very, very superficial transactional form of the word and that's not what works for most healthy people.

Robin Ducharme | Well, next question is: “I've been working on repairing myself after growing up with narcissistic parents, and I've gone low contact with them. But I worry about my siblings who are still being abused. There's a big age gap between my siblings and I, and I worry that they will develop either the same behaviors, or the negative self-talk and experiences that I've spent the last couple of years unpacking? Is there a way I can protect them and model healthy relationships for them?”

Dr. Ramani Durvasula | I think it's a great question. And I love that this person uses the word low-contact, I think no-contact is what it sounds like no-contact. You don't see a person, you don't talk to a person. And that is a that's often an impossible bar for a lot of people to set because it means they can't then see other family members that matter. They may have children with someone—I mean, it's not always possible. I love this idea of low contact because it's, it's a—there's some contact, but it's something we also refer to sometimes as gray rocking, which is sort of this very sort of neutral, disengaged form of contact. 

But this person is saying “I have siblings in the house.” One thing that is almost impossible to do is to tap someone on the shoulder and say, “Hey, yo, Mom and Dad are narcissistic,” okay, it often doesn't land well and it’s often confusing for people. 

I tell people, if somebody is in a difficult, narcissistic relationships—relationship— and you want to be there with them, I say “Check in with them. If you observe something that makes you uncomfortable, you see that they were the subject of an unsympathetic interaction, or somebody should have treated them in a contemptuous way. You go up to them and say, ‘Hey, I just saw that, are you okay?’” 

That communicates to the person that what just happened to them wasn't okay. You don't even need to call it that way. You just say “Are you okay?” And you give them the opportunity to share their emotions and feelings about the situation. When a person shares their experience about this person, sibling says, “Mom said this, and dad says that”, ask the person first. “How do you feel?”

We always want to say, “Well, that was wrong or that was bad”. And that often makes some people pull back and feel like that's a little intense, right? Because they're not ready to cut that relationship off. So check in on how they feel. Be there for them, model empathy, model healthy communication, listen to them, don't interrupt them. 

I know this person said that their concern is that their siblings will end up either narcissistic themselves or engaging in the negative self-talk. One thing we know,  is that when a person has a narcissistic parent or parents, the most likely thing that's going to happen to them as adults, is that they're going to become deeply anxious as adults. A lot of again, the negative self-talk, the self-doubt, the sense of “I'm not enough”. That tends to be what really plagues people with narcissistic parents. A much smaller subset become narcissistic themselves. But I think it's about maintaining open lines of communication, not trying to proselytize or convince them of something, but modeling healthy relationships and being there for them, when they share what their experiences are as well as carving out time with the siblings, that doesn't involve the parents having that healthy time and showing them that your relationship with the siblings is defined by something other than just your parents, because then that, again, creates a sort of clear, healthy line of communication and stability for the siblings who are still stuck at home with the difficult parents.

Robin Ducharme | Well the time is going by so fast. We do have time for maybe two more questions. One question came in on the chat saying, “I have started a new relationship after having been in multiple narcissistic relationships and then taking a break from dating? And I feel hyper vigilant, would you say that feeling eventually fades or lessons.”

Dr. Ramani Durvasula | So what this person is describing as this hyper-vigilance in a relationship after having been through several relationships is ultra, ultra normal. Most people who've experienced narcissistic abuse on the back end have a picture that looks like at times, almost a post traumatic picture. But there's also a wisdom. And I don't view the vigilance as just being a pathologic state. I think there's a wisdom to it, right? If I touch something several times, and it burns me, I'm gonna be a little tentative when I touch it again. I always say to narcissistic abuse survivors: “This is going to take a minute, this really you have the right, for this relationship to be paced in a way you want. If somebody ever tries to rush you, ‘Well, this is awfully slow’, then this isn't your person”. A person who's loving will have that mutuality, that reciprocity, that respect for the pacing that you need, that hyper vigilance will slowly fade with time, when each day is characterized by trust and consistency, right?

There's a—there's a new habituation that takes place. A new getting acculturated, if you will, to a trusting space. And we know this from trauma survivorship. 

When a person is in a place of safety and validation, some of those trauma responses actually start to start to come down. I highly advise somebody who's in a new relationship to be in therapy, to have that sounding board. Because many—listen—I've worked with so many clients where they're saying “I'm in a new relationship”, and they'll say “They ordered lemonade before I got there, is that a red flag?” I'm like, now it's been 90 degrees. So I get it, but I have to say some folks though, they will actually see real red flags and act on them and say “I think I'm being ridiculous”. Not at all, they're on point. 

But see, acting on the red flags for them feels really—it feels really intense. I think it's—I think it's magnificent. When somebody who has been through narcissistic relationships has the courage to put themselves in the vulnerable place of entering into another relationship. But what I tell people is that the wisdom of survivorship is that you give yourself permission to pace this relationship in a way that feels right. And with each day, with a little bit more trust, you can feel that that foundation feel stronger under you every day, and catch your justifications whenever you're using the “but, well”, and you're making excuses and pay attention to that, because that's the kind of justification that gets people stuck in those narcissistic relational situations.

Robin Ducharme | I really love what you said, what you just said, about you know—if you've been in a narcissistic relationship and you're looking. You know, you're settling in, and being ready to enter a new relationship. And you're dating somebody, let's say and you're in therapy, why not? I mean, you have somebody trained that can be giving, like you said, all these green flags but you may not understand those. Right? 

Dr. Ramani Durvasula | Yep, yep, absolutely. It's essentially because it’s the person who—because many times friends will fall into an enabling role “Oh, give them a chance”, or “It's so great you're getting on the horse again. I'm working through a 12 month detox with more than a few clients right now”. All their friends are like, “I don't understand like, why isn't your therapist letting you—what is six months? You should be dating!” 

And I'm like, Oh, no. 12 months. We're getting to—

And you know what? The clients? The people have been through narcissistic abuse will say, “Yeah, I'm good to wait for 12 months”. But there's so much pressure, you're out, you're free, you can finally date. And I say “Right now it's all about you. It hasn't been about you for so long. Once you get that is then you can tentatively move in”. 

But if anyone tries to say ‘Well, this relationship is moving too slowly” again, not your person. 

And you can give yourself permission to say it. Because many narcissistic relationships were not paced in a way that felt comfortable for the not narcissistic person or relationship. They either felt rushed or they felt everything was being commandeered by the other person to the other person's convenience and that person always had excuses for that. It's easy to fall with that.

Robin Ducharme | Wow. Well, I know our time, our time is up, but I just want to thank you so very much. The chat’s been so active and I know that there's so many that are in the summit that I'll watch the recording and just get so much out of this, as we all have during this live. So thank you so much, Dr. Ramani. Can you tell us what you're working on these days, what you're passionate about, and how we can continue following learning from you?

Dr. Ramani Durvasula | Well, first of all, Robin, thank you so much for this beautiful opportunity. I've loved working with you and with your team. So I really appreciate your help. This whole week has been helpful for everyone. Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. So where can you find me? I've got two books, as you talked about, “Don’t You Know Who I am?” and “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?” you can find out more about those books—and I have another book that's unrelated to this topic, but it's about authenticity—those are all available on my website. My website is doctor-ramani.com. The word doctor spelled out D o c t o r dash ra ma ni. 

On my website, you can find pretty much everything you need, like links to interesting articles and, and different kinds of news things I've done and documentaries and things I've written in all of that. 

I have a YouTube channel, and we have a new video every single day. So anything you want to know about narcissism, you're going to learn it there, and a lot of people just almost treat it as a daily podcast that they can listen to you just go to YouTube, and Dr. Ramani, and there I am talking narcissism at you from my basement, so you can find that. 

And I do seminars about every other month, I'll be doing one actually on November 13, on gaslighting. Everything you've ever wanted to know, to be more gaslight resistant. And if you want information on that, you can do that. Go to my Instagram, we'll have info about that there soon. It'll be on my website, and we just set the date today for that one. But it's: To learning to be gas light resistant is one of the most important tools to push back on narcissism and narcissistic abuse whether it's in a family relationship, partner relationship, or even in the workplace. And so we're providing those tools. 

And you can follow on Instagram and always putting up new posts, and new content and things that you know, get new videos we have coming out. So there's always something, always something out there giving this information. 

Because I think that for everyone, what I'm tired of is watching how many amazing people have had their wings clipped and their voices silenced by these relationships. I want to return everyone their wings and their voices so they can go out and be the best version of themselves and not be limited by these relationships and the sense that you're not enough you're more than enough, and I think it's high time that the world knew that.

Robin Ducharme | Wow, that is absolutely beautiful. Thank you Dr. Ramani.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula | Thank you. Very honored, thank you.

Robin Ducharme | I'm going to close our evening with a blessing and it i—, much of this blessing is from your words. So: 

May we remember that narcissism is born from deep insecurity. 

May we break free and or create firm and clear boundaries with those people in our lives who have narcissistic behavior.

May we understand that many narcissistic abusers may never receive justice for the hurt they caused others, however, we can reframe our thinking around this. We can choose to view the break from narcissistic abuse as freedom from demoralization, freedom from gaslighting, freedom from their entitlement, and freedom from their lack of empathy. 

May we no longer personalize how a narcissist has behaved, and stop judging ourselves as being in the wrong.

And may we stop ruminating over past experiences involved with a narcissist. Ruminating cannot fix the unfixable. Ruminating takes up precious energy, time and space in our lives. 

And may we be more mindful, live in the present moment, and do more things that give us joy in life.

So thank you, Dr. Ramani. And on behalf of everyone here tonight. I just want to thank you for forgiving us all of this wisdom tonight, and many blessings. 

Dr. Ramani Durvasula | To you too. Robin, thank you. That was absolutely beautiful. I really appreciate that.

Robin Ducharme | Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai and edited by Anna Lafreniere.