Running for Narcissistic Abuse Awareness w/ Vanessa Reiser

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:25):
episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people.
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(00:46):
con job. There's nothing authentic happening at all that I've
ever been able to see other than the occasional pepper
ring of truths so as to confuse both. That is
a lie. Everything is basically a lie. Why would anyone
ever run almost three hundred miles in a wedding dress? Well,

(01:09):
maybe some of you are thinking to run away from
the altar instead of marrying a narcissistic partner. Well, let's
find out. In this episode, we are going to hear
the story of Vanessa Riser. Vanessa Riser is a mother, entrepreneur,
life coach, advocate and a psychotherapist specializing in working with

(01:30):
survivors of narcissistic abuse. Vanessa herself is also a survivor
of narcissistic abuse. As part of her process of healing
and raising awareness. Vanessa made international headlines when she ran
two hundred and eighty five miles across the state of
New York in a wedding dress to raise awareness for

(01:54):
narcissistic abuse in May of two thousand twenty one. So
welcome Vanessa. Hi, thank you for having me. Thank you,
thank you, thank you. It's so lovely to have you.
I know, for me, I had actually we had connected,
but then I saw I think I was reading a
magazine once on like a Saturday or a Sunday and

(02:15):
saw about your run, and I thought, I've got to
get in touch with her again. And here we are.
So I am. I'm just honored happy to have you here.
Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you. So Vanessa, your story of narcissistic abuse,
it's so compelling because when any of us who are

(02:37):
therapists go through it, it's always all the more interesting.
People say, well, if you're going through it, it's gonna
happen to me. So that's how I think your story
becomes even more important. So let's start at the beginning.
What was your life like before meeting your ex partner.
I had a childhood that was filled with adversity, So

(03:00):
there were a lot of ups and downs, tons of toxicity,
no boundaries, quite chaotic, and so when I got involved
in this relationship, the ups and downs were quite familiar. Interesting. Yeah,
that was definitely something that my system was accustomed to. Okay,
all right, so that was love to you. Chaos was love. Yeah,

(03:24):
it felt comfortable, It felt familiar. I would probably characterize
it at that time as somewhat eccentric, manic. It felt
familiar and happy in a lot of ways. There were
a very big swing from the ups and downs. The
love bombing was particularly heavy based on resources that he had,

(03:46):
So the ups and downs were rather severe, and that
was something I was familiar with with my upbringing. And
when you think about your childhood, because what I'm hearing
from you is that the chaos, the ups and the
downs of your childhood, the vulnerability they gave to you
was that it normalized chaos. So if somebody came along
and behave like that. That was not something that was

(04:08):
going to flick a red flag for you. If anything,
the familiarity made it really enticing. Yeah. I think in
some ways I coveted it, probably more because I maybe
needed to resolve that. I think we've done. Did that? Now?
Did it affect you in any other ways to be
from a family that was characterized by this again, this adversity.

(04:29):
Did it affect your sense of self for how you
conducted yourself in other spaces of your work, not just
relationships but friendships or work. I think that I was
too diversified. The boundaries were not there. I would let
anybody into my circle. And as certainly as a social
worker that was cemented. People can all be rehabilitated and

(04:50):
everyone deserves rah this kind of stuff. So it was
like very like part of my fiber to be all
encompassing and like the least judge mental person you could ever.
I mean, I just really would advocate for all different
types of demographics and I really had no filter around that.

(05:10):
I would not discriminate whatsoever. And that really was something
that came to bite me that I wouldn't do that.
Do you still believe everyone can be rehabilitated. No, okay, alright,
so we're gonna get to that. So I know it's
probably hard to think about now, but what or who
did you fall in love with when it came to
your ex myself in the rear view mirror, I know

(05:31):
that it was myself that I was spending a great
time with. I fell in love with the fantasy, an
idea of parody, a con job that was very meticulously orchestrated,
someone who was wickedly manipulative and a deviant, and I
had no idea, just was super naive, very naive. And

(05:56):
you said that there was a lot of love bombing initially,
what did that of bombing look like? Because I think
that love bombing is this term, but it's so diverse,
it looks so different in every relationship. So there were
extravagant trips, helicopter rides south of France, diamonds concerts. You
are my soul mate, You're the most amazing lover. I've

(06:18):
never met anyone like you. Everyone is jealous of us.
We are power couple, all of these sort of staples
that they generally or rate. So I got it, and
I got it bad right that one. Everyone is jealous
of us. It's such an interesting kind of a love bomb.
At the same you get two for the price of one.
You get the love bomb and you get the triangulation.

(06:38):
You're really sort of in something that again, it feels
larger than life. And if you don't have a roadmap
for this, and you have a backstory characterized by any
kind of chaos, it's very appealing. Most of us have
not been socialized to say, oh, you're telling me this
is all great, it must be terrible. That's not what
we're taught to do. So you never experience you had

(07:01):
never experienced the love bombing, the highs the lows the
way you did in this relationship and any other relationship
before this. No, so this was the first right and
I think that was known by him, and it was
probably a great deal of fun because it felt very
like I grew up. I was raised by wolves, and
so I was very much the pretty woman's scenario. So

(07:22):
every single thing, from the Lulu lemon pants to the
dollar engagement ring, that whole gamut, everything along the way
wowed me because I was this ragmuffin Irish kid running
around those shoes and no food and no heat for
my childhood, so I was very easy to impress with

(07:45):
the slightest thing. So if you could imagine I was,
it was like a fever dream. I had no idea
and and the hits just came left and right, and
it was like it just swept me away. Okay, So
that contrast is again something to so pay attention to
a person grew up with and then someone rolls up
with this, so we understand what would have drawn you in.

(08:06):
What were the first red flags that you saw? I
think the first real red flag was he made a
purchase for me, and on the day of the purchase,
which was an automobile, it I was punished for something.
Again not essentially, I had the goal to bring up
a conversation I have with a friend on that day.
How could you bring that up on this day where

(08:27):
I'm so it was this like giving of the gift
and then kicking out the legs simultaneously. That created this
confusion within me? And how did you make sense of
that day? I beat myself up. Why would I ever,
you know, have the audacity to communicate something random on
a day that I'm being gifted a car? Right, So

(08:49):
when you say it now, it sounds unreasonable, but on
the day it happened, it is. I mean that uses
this extraordinary gift is being given to Vanessa is raising
the issue of narcissistic gift giving here. It's a rather
twisted space. It's a mishmash of grandiosity love bombing, but

(09:10):
ultimately it's a transaction in which they are trading on validation.
They want you to ooh and ah and praise them
and admire them for their gift. In her situation, she
was being given a gift, and the implicit communication was
that him giving that gift meant that he sort of

(09:33):
owned the day and for her to mention something he
didn't want to hear about, in her case, something about
a friend he experienced reactive hypersensitivity and rage. Narcissistic folks
may give you an over the top gift, but it
will always have psychological strings attached. Were there any other

(09:57):
red flags you notice, because what I'm hearing there is
that sense it was a reactive sensitivity. Right things didn't
You didn't do exactly what he wanted, and so he
strongly reacted. It was communicated to you. In that moment,
you give up on being you and you do it
my way right, But what other red flags other than
that one did you observe? Pretty early on in the relationship,
speaking of marriage, right away, he wanted to build out

(10:20):
my career. He was very focused on my career and
how he was going to help me with my career,
and I remember thinking it was great, but also thinking
it was very heavy. It felt almost pressured, like I
had to be performative. I remember being at a Broadway
show front seat, always right front row, and we were

(10:42):
with another couple and he was pushing my buttons and
I remember turning to him and reacting, and he sat
back in his chair so the couple with us could
witness my reaction, and I remember thinking it was very
peculiar that he sat back. He literally physically was like,
look at her, watch what she's about to do. And
there were just moments like that. He would speak very passive,

(11:04):
aggressively and disappear. There was a lot of silent treatment
where he would go days without talking to me, and
it was confusing. There was never a physical component. While
I had heard from others that were with him there
were it was not like that with me, but it
was this up and down and then there was this
classical cycle of abuse. There was the makeup phase and

(11:26):
then the tension building and the fallout, and the makeup
and the tension building and the fall and it just
went like this. And I would say, if we could
just go more than a couple of weeks without this,
we'd be okay. We never were able to do so.
So one of the things you said, Vanessa, it's really
jumping out at me is the fast it moved fast.
You moved in together fast, you were talking about marriage fast.

(11:48):
And it's so funny because so many people think like
fast is exciting, fast is intoxicating. Fast feels like I'm
so sure it's a sure thing. And yet I've heard
that story so many times of people saying, when I
look back, we moved too quickly. Everything was like, it's
sort of fast eating gluttons, fast, money, making fast cars, fast, fast, fast,

(12:14):
never assciated a hole in the bucket. It was just
this unfillable void of yes, fast and furious attainment and
needing to have everything all the time. And it just
it was dizzy, and I truly was becoming sick. And
let me tell you, nobody keeps up with me. I'm
an athlete, and the rest and it was making me sick.

(12:36):
It's such an interesting visual you're putting out there, the Vanessa.
I can almost picture it right, the intensity, the fast,
and when I think of something so fast, something fast
is going to move quickly across the horizontal, but it
can't go deep. When everything is so fast, it's almost
like acquiring all the time, but you can never go
deep because you're going so quick. And that's what I

(12:56):
hear there. You just gave me the children writing that down.
I mean, it's really really a frenzy. But when something
is happening that fast, we almost can't. We can't pay attention,
we can't process information. I don't know that this guy
was smart enough to think of it that way. But
for the other person in the relationship, they're at a
market disadvantage because things are happening so fast that unless

(13:18):
they say slow down, and then it's very likely that
the person you're telling to slow down would rage at you.
So you learn quickly if I do that, I'm going
to have to end the relationship, which also might feel scary,
or I'm going to get raged at so I might
as well try to keep up. And someone has driven,
especially as an athlete is you you're going to keep up.
You're gonna keep up. Yeah. And it's funny because if

(13:40):
you say to a narcissist, slow down, their ears will
perk and they'll say, oh, this person potentially could be
on to me, and you might find yourself discarded. Anyway,
this slowdown is not going to work for if you
want to slow down, it's on to the next Bye.
I know you're committed to helping survivors and helping prevent this.
How do we let people know? And that's okay to

(14:02):
honor yourself enough say this is too fast for me,
So I'm gonna say slow down, they'll discard you. It's
helping people recognize that the discard is actually a good thing.
And that's a tough sell because that's got some deep
developmental roots for a lot of people who may experience
that as abandonment or rejection or any of those things. Vanessy,
So you're a therapist. I'm a therapist, right. Everybody wants

(14:25):
to think that therapists, of all people, would see the
red flags before anyone else would. Everyone else would write
do you think that there are things that you actually
did notice because of your training as a therapist. I
had him pegged for some manic That's what I was
witnessing and thinking was going on because I didn't receive

(14:47):
enough education around personality disorders in general. But yeah, I
was busy studying it in a d h D was
obviously flying around in my mind and others, But this
was not something that ever came into my mind until
the day I left and I was gifted that information

(15:07):
from one of his exes, And that was the day
I went through the portal. Was like here ago. And
I did know at that time as a therapist that
one of the big indicators for this disordered personality was
no empathy. I didn't know that, and that was enough
for me, because even the girl who was raised by

(15:28):
wolves knew enough that I couldn't be with any person
that didn't experience empathy. I just I couldn't even fathom
that concept. Okay, so how long did it take you
to figure out that this person didn't have empathy? It
was that day that I was told and I just
remembered somewhere along the way, remember hearing that narcissists didn't
have empathy. It was just something that was in my

(15:49):
in my mind somewhere in the corners of my mind,
I knew that to be true, and you were experiencing
him is not having empathy, right. I remember then reflecting
on when my beloved Katie the go the retriever did
pass away, that he was missing, that he was indifferent,
that he kept like carrying on as if nothing had occurred,

(16:10):
and I was just destroyed by this. I would often
tell my son Anthony, I love you, but I really
love Katie. So the connection I had to this dog
was known by most to be really special to me,
and so it was something that just didn't There was
no registering of it for him, and I was totally
I was acutely aware of that. Okay, So that that

(16:33):
was the penny drop moment. Many every narcissistic relationship has one.
It is interesting, though, in the sense that you said
something that really just stuck with me, that I had
a sort of a framework for what I thought was
going on with this guy. I had the wrong framework,
and then I learned this other framework. But what it
comes back to is, in some ways your training might
have actually been a liability because you were actually trying

(16:54):
to apply a framework. The thing you weren't doing was
just paying attention to how you felt and saying I
don't care what the framework is. This is not cool.
And I always try to help people say, I'm thinking,
I'm trying to put a name to your this whole
thing you're dealing with, but you don't need the name,
you just need the feeling. Yeah, I agree with you.
I think it definitely was a problem for me because,
as I mentioned earlier, I was also a fixer what

(17:16):
he's going to get fixed? And I think that concept
was something that was I would have argued long and
hard with a lot of people about and I was
totally wrong. What were you wrong about that everyone could
be rehabilitated? That this was something that was just like
in my fiber, that like, no matter what it is,
we can fix it. And I was wrong about that.
And I think that does come from my training in

(17:38):
a way. It's almost like there was just you'r in
this relationship. Things are happening that felt uncomfortable, You kept
going with it. You had a framework, you feel now
it wasn't the right framework. You are like every survivor.
I'm like every survivor, We've all been through this. What
do you think was the block for you that you
couldn't figure out what the problem was at first, Like,
clearly this relationship wasn't going well, what do you think

(18:00):
was blocking you from figuring what out this problem was?
Given all your knowledge. That's why I'm asking that I
was still was blaming myself. I think I was still thinking,
it's got to be your ex husband left you gotta
and you're you're kissing vinegar because I am I'm a
tough person, and so I figured and I think a
lot of people around me still question that because of

(18:21):
how strong I am, like, oh, it could never have
been him. It had to have been her kind of
a thing. And so I feel like I blamed myself.
Such an important thing again for people to know, you
had a couple of things going on. You had your
own training as a therapist number one, which is a
blessing and a curse. Number two, you had a belief
that anyone could be rehabilitated, and that can sometimes obscure

(18:44):
us from the toxic patterns we see because we're thinking, oh,
this tool shall pass. And then you know the third
thing you're saying, which is I think the signature of
every narcissistic relationship is the self blame. It's got to
be me. Someone else's left me in the past. I
am a handful, I'm tough, I'm not always the easiest,
all of those things which are often internalized narratives from childhood's,

(19:07):
especially if you came from adverse or difficult childhood experiences. Yep,
that's exactly how it felt. And I think it was
then cemented even further by his sort of presentation generally
of being sort of philanthropic and kind and donating money
and perpetuating this con narrative. So I just became confused

(19:29):
around it must be me, And that was something that
took a lot for me to realize. At the end,
when I finally did vacate the home and leave, I fled.
It was because I had seen something that I knew
it wasn't me anymore, and that there was the day
I realized it wasn't me. And what was the moment?

(19:50):
What was that aha moment where you're like, this isn't me.
What happened for you? That he was insatiable, that he
never going to be sad, satisfied, There was nothing that
was going to make him happy, content fulfilled. It was
just this ongoing neediness that I thought was absurd quite honestly,
for a time, did you actually try to fill that insatiability?

(20:13):
Like did you know when you see someone who can't
ever be satisfied? A real risk for a partners that like, Okay,
I'll keep doing more, I'll keep giving more, I'll be more.
Was that how you managed it? I think on a
lot of occasions, there was a lot of travel, and
I remember I get motion sickness, So I remember being
on planes, trains and automobiles, drivers, private jets, running around

(20:37):
the entire world, and I was fully exhausted. And I'm
so much a homebody, like I love Christmas and puzzles
and red wine and my puppy and things like that.
I don't tend to be excited about travel. And I
know that sounds like very strange, but I tend to
be sort of grounded. And I remember that I kept
going everywhere, and I kept forcing myself to get on airplanes.

(21:00):
And I remember being a Barcelona and I had to
have a doctor come to the hotel room because I
had gotten very ill from running around. I didn't participate
in flitting about the earth a lot. Then I really
didn't want to stuff I did, So you kept trying
to meet him where he was out with all this
endless travel, even though it wasn't who you are, You're

(21:23):
you're giving up your preference for him. So ultimately, then
how would you characterize Like how what was the word
you were using to describe him to yourself? You're saying,
this is a difficult person, toxic person, narcissistic person. Like
when you got to this aha moment, how did you think?
Like what how did you describe this person to yourself
to help you make sense of this? It took me,

(21:44):
I would say, about three weeks to fully process what
had even happened. So for nine days I shook like
a drug addict because I was in a very wicked
trauma bon I mean, fully shaped crying. And then when
that sort of lifted, I still had this dissonance, right,

(22:06):
so I was still confused things were happening in the
courtroom now, and I was actually second guessing myself having
sent texts because I was getting cyber gaslet and all
of these weird hackings were occurring, and I remember thinking
I was very crazy at that moment, and thinks I
had a good group of friends that were telling me,
You're not crazy. But I still didn't really understand until

(22:31):
probably a month later, she said, I was so trauma
bonded that for nine days, I felt sick. I was shaking.
Talk a little bit more about that, because I think
that people need to understand that, even when we know
intellectually it's good for us to leave the idea of
leaving one of these relationships because of this trauma bonded experience.

(22:52):
It's so uncomfortable and it's so physically unsettling. That's what
pulls a lot of people back in. Are they endured
the nine days you did? What was that nine day
period like? And again the physical feeling of it, if
you could talk more about that. So for nine days
I shook like a drug addict because I wanted him
to fix it. He always fixed it before, and I

(23:15):
was conditioned for that cycle to begin again. So this
is the cycle of abuse, the love bombing, de valuing discards.
So the love bombing is the makeup part. Okay, So
in the very first place, it's love bombing with the
love vombing is equivalent to the makeup version in the cycle.
And the makeup was supposed to be coming soon, and
when it didn't come, I was just physically experiencing it.

(23:38):
The other part of this is I had to go
stay with my mother, who was my childhood adversity, so
I had a compounded experience. And then when I finally
got home, it was like a rebirth of sorts. It
was really scary. A lot of my friends left me.
They didn't support me. They were you know, he didn't
do anything to me, so I had to experience that also.

(23:59):
It was it was not for the week No, it's
not for the weekend. That's why I think every survivor
is so strong and to anyone listening and hearing Vanessa's
story here that idea of physically shaking this is a
woman who's trained as a therapist, who knows about trauma
and the physics that physiological experience of when our trauma

(24:20):
bonded experience is cut. I want this to humanize the
experience of listeners who sometimes will feel there's something wrong
with me, or maybe this is a sign that I'm
not supposed to leave this relationship. If I feel this terrible,
it would actually be easier to go back and end
that feeling, and that it is really about pushing through

(24:40):
that discomfort, because that's the only way you're going to
get to the other side. I think that was important,
But you also said something so important too. So many
survivors go through this. Here you are leaving this narcissistic
relationship which is emotionally abusive, and then you had to
go live with your mother. It sounds like maybe more
an original kind of a sort of a narcissistic abuser,

(25:03):
and that is not a unique story. Many people will
get their finances intermingled with the narcissist or just leave
with what they've got just to get out and then
find themselves. And the really problematic position of then having
to turn to people who were once people who took advantage, abused,
you know, invalidated all of that, and now they're having

(25:24):
to go back into that space, which can also feel
almost like a re traumatization. So leaving is no picnic.
So ultimately, even as how did you survive the relationship
and then how did you survive the end of the relationship.
I survived the relationship with my friends, the ones that
stood by me and helped space for me and loved
on me in spite of what seemed to be a

(25:47):
strange experience or something that I was. It didn't seem
believable in some ways because his sort of his facade
is such that you maybe wouldn't have noticed or seen
anything wrong. In fact, it was like, what do you
mean you found Prince Charming? What are you talking about?

(26:08):
So the ones that honored my truth were carrying me
through that. So every two weeks, as I mentioned, I
would find them and be like, what the hell is happening,
and they would sit with me and believe me. So
those friends carried me through this. And my son also,
who I think at one point I'm actually quite sure

(26:28):
of it was on the verge of getting gasolt and
grooms a little bit. When I snatched him back, I
was like, this is what's happening. And thankfully we had
such a great relationship that he locked arms with me
and his father. His father also said, listen, you always
stay with mom, and we were able to kind of

(26:49):
keep him out of the clutches of that like faithful,
like that scary, grooming, poisoning, manipulating thing. I just remember thinking,
like my only child, if he gets poisoned by this
and he starts to believe this and he's being gaslight
But there was a moment in time I saw it,
and then thankfully he didn't bite, and I was like,

(27:10):
oh my god. Yeah, it got a little scary because
you know, the fallout is so pervasive. Everything they touched
just just gets destroyed. So that was that was I
was on the precipice of that, and that would have
wrecked me. And I see that with so many of
my clients, is that their precious children are manipulated, gaslate, destroyed, ruined, traumatized,
and we have to do so much work in the

(27:31):
judicial system to fix that. That is really that's everybody's
lions done at this point. It absolutely is. I think again,
that's a whole other conversation and one we actually did
also with Tina Swidden, who was on this podcast but
love her. Yeah, she's great, And this idea of you're
absolutely right, it's not enough that the narcissistic relationships so
traumatizing people, but then the systems that exist in our

(27:53):
world right now all re traumatized and the survivor almost
doesn't have a fighting chance. So how did you do after,
like what was the survival like after the relationship ended,
because in some ways that's almost more precarious. It was
at first, I was very alone. It was COVID, which

(28:15):
was isolating enough, and so I had to sit in
the muck of my healing. But my God, was that
the greatest thing I've ever done, because I had to
sit and work on all of the stuff that I
should have worked on a zillion years ago. And I
got good and comfortable being by myself, listening to jazz
music and talking to my friends and just pasting around

(28:37):
and running, and I just began to love myself in
a new way and just build confidence that I kind
of had before. A lot of my clients and a
lot of cult members get robbed of their childhood. I
really was tough before I met this fool and I

(28:59):
went back to her. So I got back on my bike,
or I got back into like I kind of lost her,
but she was already there. Some people don't even have that.
So many children never really haven't a sense of self.
I was fortunate enough to just go ahead and find
that girl again. I was putting on the hip hop
music again and the reggae, and I was just I

(29:20):
was getting back into myself and it was It wasn't
as scary for me as I think it is for some.
And it nearly killed me. Imagine that it was nothing
compared to others, and it was. It nearly killed me. Yes,
it's a matter of degrees, right. I also see narcissistic
abuse as being on a continuum. I think at the
quote unquote lower ends, it still plays with someone's head.

(29:43):
And obviously at the most moderate and severe end, you're
talking about people who walk out of these relationships with
post traumatic stress. But when it is a lifelong relationship,
you've been dealing with narcissistic relationships from the very beginning.
It really does rob a child of their identity. They
never ever ever get to to develop the who of themselves,
the personhood, what they like, what they don't, who they are.

(30:07):
It's almost as though without that sort of big, glooming
narcissistic person, they don't even have a way to define themselves,
and they're defined by that person. So that time alone,
which is something I preach, you need time alone to
find yourself. You need to know what kind of pizza
you like. You need to know what time of day
you want to exercise, you need to know what TV

(30:28):
shows you like, because all of that was stolen from you.
And so I agree that even when it feels like
you had a decent start with it. It's still completely
did in number for you. Were there any sort of
practical things that you did or structural things you did
at the point you left? Was there anything you need
to prepare for moving out of the house that the

(30:48):
two of you share together. So I had a little whisper,
probably only six months into the relationship, so I was
probably moved into the home only two months. This is
how chaotic it was. And it was just a lot
of fighting all the time. And so I remember I
had this whisper that was like this makes me emotionals,

(31:09):
like hi to Anthony's pictures. So my son is twenty three,
but because he's twenty three, his pictures are actual photographs, right,
So we don't have those anymore. But there were bins, big, big,
big bins of pictures of my boy, and somehow there
was this voice that was like, hide the pictures. Hide

(31:31):
the pictures, hide the pictures. And every time there was
like an argument, I would shuffle them over to the
guesthouse and tuck them into a closet, and another argument
that I would lock the closet door. And then I
remember I have like an eight thousand dollar tri bike,
and I remember same things, scurrying it over to the
guest house. I remember talking. I was aware that something

(31:56):
was going to happen, but it was the universe was
like that, as we have to hide this stuff. Literally,
I'm thinking I should rent a storage unit, and then
he would love bomb me again, and then I would
on hand it. I would become lazy and complacent the rest.
But I was able to fundamentally at least remove things
from his direct grab. Let's say, so that what I

(32:19):
did exit, I was able to stash it all in
my car and run. That's actually an interesting strategy. I
know in the past what I've said, and this is
pre pandemic, when people might have still had an office
and said, get some of the whether it's copy scans,
things that matter to you, get them out of their friends, house, friends, garage,

(32:39):
something somewhere, so that if you did have to do
it quickly, at least around the sentimental stuff. And then
obviously there's all the other stuff like having a burner
phone and having some cash that you can access quickly
and all of that stuff that's much more strategic. But
even those things, like you said, a box of photographs,
we don't think about that. But those are the things
that would throw you into a pan neck And when

(33:00):
you're already teetering on the brink, you're like, I can't
leave because the photographs are still in there. So by
getting those things out when the moment comes in, the
moment will come for most people that you're like, Okay,
I can get out, and all the rest of it
is just stuff. Yeah. I always tell my clients to
get the passports, get the tax returns, get the computer.

(33:22):
I say it all the time. I'm not afraid because
my clients are in harm's way, make a safety bag,
get the kids pajamas, put in the neighbor's house. We
talk about things that are a little bit different in rogue,
and I don't apologize for that. And I will say
hide the money. Start hiding your money. Now, these are
conversations that I have with my clients. I think that

(33:42):
what happens is so many structures aren't supportive, so these
things are so manipulative. We need to give people those skills.
So I think that's absolutely great. My session with Vanessa
will continue after this break. What I'd like to do

(34:06):
Vanessa's given what you've been through and what I know about.
I'd love to go over with you some of the
warning signs for people to look out for when they're
in a relationship with a narcissist, which I know you
know about just because you also work in this space too.
I'm going to ask you some patterns, and you've already
talked about some of these, like, for example, the relationship
moving really fast as one of the signs that you

(34:29):
might be in a relationship with a narcissistic person. What
about the idea of a mask. Did you experience any
of that wearing a different mask in public than in private. Yeah,
So the mask generally is this sort of facade, so
they will wear it for others to see, they will
be nicer to the public than they are to you.

(34:50):
At some point, the mask might slip and then fall directly,
depending upon many variables. But it's just their optics. They're
concerned about how they're perceived by others, right, and that
perception is really about validation. I think that there's such
a simplicity to understanding narcissism once you get it, in

(35:10):
the sense that everything is driven by validation. Right. But
if they can get validation and they can overwhelm another person.
In other words, so that other person has no sovereignty.
They're not a differentiated person from them. They exist to
feed them like you're almost like a pipeline feeding them,
so that the those the mask, these optics, as you

(35:32):
put it, it becomes a way to get validation. But
the second piece of the simple model is their need
for regulation. That mask is exhausting for a narcissistic person
to have to play nice, and so when they're behind
closed doors, then you get to the simple part number three,
which is domination. Not only are they going to show

(35:53):
you I dominate you, but also they're exhausted from depleting
all that bandwidth having to be nice and in inhibiting
maybe things they wanted to say, and they'll take it
out on that person in private. And the danger of
that means that everyone is seeing this person in public
as being a great person. In private, you're experiencing something awful.
And you yourself had that experience of some of your

(36:15):
friends saying I didn't have any problem with him, and
that's the foundation of that. The interesting thing with many
other mental health issues, the person looks the same all
the time, Like agreeable people always look agreeable wherever they
are people were sad depressed, even look consistently depressed. The
narcissistic person is charming in public and horrific in private,

(36:38):
and that differentiation is a choice. Yeah, And I think
we need to recognize that classically, poets, priests and politicians
are sort of these legendary characters of the Boogeyman. Doesn't
look like the Boogeyman. We need to understand that just
because you don't see it doesn't not make it. So

(37:01):
this is so important. What you're saying is is a
big piece to the puzzle because even with our own experience,
myself included, even my own experience with my abuser was
a lot of dissonance for me. So imagine, I can
absolutely put my mind around the fact that you don't
see it because I can barely see it, and I'm
with it because I'm confused myself. So I honor what

(37:24):
you're doing. But what we really need to do is
start believing people who are dealing with emotional abuse. We
need to start talking about it and identifying it as
not being somebody who's sort of overt and obvious. There's
nothing obvious about this, That's what makes it so bad.
Our entire legal system and our justice system is based

(37:44):
on things we can see, right, things that are actionable,
a crime that can be identified, and that right there
is the bane of every survivor of narcissistic abuse, because
short of taking a video or recording of someone, which
is then not admissible, there's no way to capture this

(38:04):
unless by happenstance, someone happened to see it. And then
even still, people may not even believe that person in you.
So you're absolutely right, it's really really insidious. Another pattern
that is so common in narcissistic relationships is lying is
deceit was that something you experienced? Yeah, And I think
that's very interrelated to the manipulation in the gas lighting,

(38:28):
because it all becomes muddy. I don't I don't know
that first of all, that the narcissist knows all that
they're doing. I know they know a lot of it,
but they oftentimes confabulate and become confused and deluded around
all the lies they've been telling. The truth is is
totally lost. And people will say to me, you can
tell the narcissist is lying when his lips are moving

(38:49):
and or her lips are moving, And I say no,
the narcissist doesn't even have to move the lips because
they're lying to themselves. The whole thing is a con job.
There's nothing authentic happening at all that I've ever been
able to see other than the occasional peppering of truths

(39:10):
so as to confuse. Most of it is a lie.
Everything is basically a lie. There's a few things that
randomly are truths, because a broken clock is right twice
a day. Right, Well, let me think that's what it is.
And it is delusional grandiosity. They have to believe their
hype that they are. They're not even ordinary people. They
don't have any needs, they're not weak like the rest

(39:31):
of us. It is delusional and in and of itself
that that becomes a lie because they do have needs
and in fact, probably way more needs and all the
rest of us. And it's a it's this mix of lying,
like you said, gas lighting, delusion, all of that. And
one time we're talking about things that people miss is
are things like insecurity and anxiety. We think the narcissist grandiose, arrogant, bully,

(39:56):
But insecurity is what sort of at the center of
all this was that something you experienced in yours. This
was something I was able to discern for some reason
because I felt secure enough in myself and I remember
picking up on this like it was he was so insecure,
and I remember saying, you are so insecure. I've never

(40:17):
seen anyone who had everything be so insecure, because it
was where you're going, what the neediness was, you know,
it was showing me the insecurity because it was like,
if you were suppose security wouldn't really care about the
mailman talking to me or whatever it was. But yeah,
the insecurity was just glowing, glaring all the time. And

(40:39):
I think that, you know, this is the root of
part of why they behave the way they do. But
this wicked insecurity is a big part. Every narcissist is insecure, correct,
It's a core dynamic of narcissism. And the fact is
all these other defenses, the grandiosity, the arrogance, even the
lack of empathy, these are all sort of a They're

(41:00):
a mask. It's almost like a suit of armor around
this shameful sense that they're not all that. So they
have these delusional states that they maintain so they can
be all that. And yet that insecurity is always sort
of knocking on the door. They're not able to integrate
that vulnerability into themselves and lash out at anyone that
reminds them of their insecurity. So you stepping out or

(41:20):
maybe talking to the postman would be enough, because you're
reminding them that maybe they're not all that. So they're
going to rage you. You how dare you do that?
But it's that part, I agree is not conscious at all.
They're raging because this sort of sense of shame and
inadequacy has sort of been has been brought up in them.
Another theme we see in these relationships are smear campaigns,

(41:43):
so when the whole thing, even sometimes when people are
in the relationship, there will be smear campaigns, but they
certainly come up afterwards. Was that your experience, girl? Oh?
So I was on the board for the local domestic
violence center where I lived and and I was so
proud I am a wicked advocate. So he wrote a

(42:07):
letter that I was the abuser and tried to get
me kicked off the board and it was so horrifying
to me. And the other thing is they didn't exactly
handle it right. President of the board said to me,
we believe both of you, and we had to have
a meeting, and it was really, really horrifying. And I

(42:28):
know you and I have talked a little bit about
how DV centers maybe don't do a good enough job
around calling narcissistic abuse narcissistic abuse and what that's meant
to so many of my clients, because it would be
like if you went to the hospital and they said
you're sick, and you say, well, what do I have
and they said, well, you're sick, Well what is wrong

(42:50):
with what is it? So the validation that I give
my clients and that others like yourself and a gaggle,
there are so many of us, not enough, but that
gift of validation for somebody who's super confused is not
being given to them by DV centers. I know that
they have their place and we need them. In my experience,

(43:11):
it was equal parts sort of. This was just another
compounded thing where these were my friends and they were
supposed to support me, but because he was a big donor,
I was made to feel a certain way. It was horrible,
and I know that this that I'm not the first
one to have experienced something like this where a donor

(43:33):
the wife stays in the shelter and things like this.
I know that because I was told that that happens
a lot. But that smear campaign was horrible for because,
as I mentioned earlier, I'm that tough girl, um, that
sort of gritty broad and it was easy enough, I
think for people to subscribe to the look of Fanessa,

(43:53):
like she's not going to get pushed around. Who's it?
Just it was horrible, And in some ways that's important
to mention because I feel like I'm able to understand
the male victim correct of narcissistic abuse because I'm in
some ways the outliers, so I say to them. And

(44:16):
even though my work is very much around advocacy for women,
because of patriarchy and that's a whole other macro conversation,
I can put my mind at it because I'm like,
you know what, I don't. I don't fit the profile either, right,
So not to the extent I want to honor that,
but like somewhat I could put my mind er at it,
and I try to honor that too. It's hard for
me because of patriarchy and just like structure that's built

(44:39):
into our cultures and the rest. But yeah, the spear campaign. Sorry,
long dietrage. The smear campaign was terrible for me. Yeah,
and I think it's beyond the scope we can talk about.
But the history of where the world of domestic violence
kind of came up a little bit short when it
comes to narcissistic abuse. Back in the seventies, there was

(44:59):
a lot to pushback on not wanting to place a
diagnostic label on an abuser, right because that would imply
that it's something that could be changed and fixed, and
it almost takes the lens away from the abuse and
getting helped for the survivor. But I think what's happened
now is that we've you know, it's very muddy conversation,

(45:20):
and I've said to people a narcissism is not a
clinical diagnosis. It's a personality style and be you can't
shift it. So if I'm telling you someone's narcissistic, your
ears should perk up, because now I'm basically telling it,
there ain't much that could be done. So this person
is harming this person, They're going to keep harming this person,
and we need we need to keep that in mind

(45:41):
rather than oh, they're narcissistic, So what do we do?
I mean the punchline to that is not much, not much.
We will be right back with this conversation with Vanessa.
M So, Vanessa amazing and your stories extraordinary and all

(46:05):
of that. But after your traumatic relationship, you decided to
do something about this with your very personal flare. And
it's something so unique. Why did you choose to run
two hundred and eighty five miles in a wedding dress
to raise awareness? Well, as most of my brilliant ideas occur,

(46:27):
I was on a run and I thought, how can
I make people understand? And I knew that because I
was a clinician, that it was my duty to warn,
it was my duty to say something, to speak out,
to be the voice for all of the silent victims.
I just knew it. I was like feeling like, oh,

(46:49):
here we go, and I thought, okay, let's get this
dress hacked, let's start running. My son graduated from college
a day before, and I was like, I love you,
here we go and off I went, just like the nutty,
you know person that I am, And it was very
healing for me, but I think it validated so many

(47:09):
people in my inboxes, like thing the thing. Everyone was like, oh,
thank you for you know, and I remember, at some
point in my court proceedings, because I've been dealing with
this for quite a while, my son was like, what's
wrong with you? You have to stop. I go like,
can't stop. These people need me to do this. I
can't stop, and I haven't. And you know, here we are.

(47:31):
Why did you choose to do it in a wedding dress?
What was that symbolically? So the narcissist generally exploits fantasy
is that we have So if you tell the narcissist
that you don't want them to feed your child peanut butter,
then you can guarantee that the child's going to get
peanut butter. So the wedding is something that they understand

(47:52):
generally and holistically is coveted by in our culture women specifically,
the wedding is your faked and dangled and the rest.
So the wedding is very problematic, not just for the
interpersonal love affair, but the narcissistic mother generally gets very
kicked up by this. It tends to be a hot
spot that narcissists exploit. They're just very uncomfortable around this,

(48:17):
or they dangle it. It's it's a big deal. So
the wedding dress is a symbol of something fantastical, so
it's very, very vulnerable. Spot my interpretation of it when
I I saw you do it, and there's this absolutely
beautiful image of you running and the entire dress and
the train are trailing behind you. It's just a beautiful picture.

(48:39):
And what I saw from it was a couple of things.
Number One, it was like runaway. That was one interpretation
I had. And the other interpretation I had was it
was about putting on this dress that on the day
somebody could potentially marry a narcissist that they're going to
be imprisoned. And yet you took that costuming and turned

(49:00):
it into an act of strength and persistence and perseverance.
And that's how I interpreted when I saw that, because
I think we still view a woman in a wedding
dress is something demure, and you turned it into something
very strong, and that's what I loved about it. You
know that that was what from you. Oh my gosh,

(49:22):
I'm just taking notes because I didn't set out to
necessarily do that, but I'm thrilled that that was something
you saw, and that sort of speaks to me about
the warrior you are. Because at that time I was
talking about something that was being exploited, was this sort
of coveted experience. But I just love that that's what

(49:43):
you saw. I'm taking a note good good because obviously
everyone's going to project onto that image because it's such
a unique one that this it's actually, if anything, a
bride to me an address is such a restricted thing,
and then there's something so free about it. And that's
the problem in a narcissistic relationship. You don't get to
be free, you don't get to be you. And the
day you put on a wedding dress. In a narcissistic relationship,

(50:05):
it's over for you in a way. But you were
saying you can be free, you can be you, and
so I think that that was really really important. So
you said, you've got a lot of traffic in your inbox.
What do you think your run did for other women
who have followed it on social media? I think they
were so connected to somebody that had the balls to

(50:26):
say something, do something. I saw women crying. Some people
came and they met me out there, and again this
is the problem. They themselves want to rage. They can't
because they are raising children with this. The real problem
that we have to address is the judicial system. As
Tinus Webben definitely is clear about my leg and my

(50:49):
work is the clinical piece, but as the social worker
that macro lens and being an advocate, I attached myself
to that directly because that is really what the problem is.
My clients can't speak because of that problem. That's exactly
where I couldn't agree more. And you know, listen, it's
going to be a slow burn of educating judges, educating attorneys,
changing laws. So how do you plan and you know

(51:13):
you've already started in a big way, but how do
you plan on continuing to bring awareness to domestic violence
and to narcissistic abuse. Yeah, I'm going to run the
state of New Jersey in at the end of September,
September and October one, and we're gonna hopefully do this
a virtual version this time. So last year we did

(51:36):
just me in New York. This time we're going to
have others run in their wedding dresses in their respective
states regions and if they're willing share their stories so
we can hopefully either blurb out their face or something,

(51:57):
because we want other stories to be high lighted whilst
protecting their identity. So we're trying to peek into others
voices and I think ultimately the idea is for the
wedding dress run to become a yearly thing and we
really this time. I think we're going to hopefully hear

(52:19):
from others and they'll share their stories. They'll have their
cameras and and highlight some part of their story so
we can capture a little bit more of it and
create a movement. Tell us about your organization. Is there
any other things that you do to raise awareness about
narcissistic abuse? Sure? So, I have a nonprofit called tell
a Therapist dot org, which is just a nonprofit where

(52:44):
if you contact us, we will connect you with the
North Savvy clinician. Great. The goal ultimately is to get
an app The goal is to also maybe open up
a center at some point. I know these are very
big goals, but we're not playing games over here. There's
been such a wonderful conversation hearing about your process, and
it's again somebody who's in the field also who has

(53:07):
gone through this, and you know some of O Listen,
I'm someone who is in the field. I have been
through this more than once and in fact, you know
the sort of decide ee joke as well. Girl, If
you keep getting stuck in this, does this mean you're
not very good at it? And I think you nailed
it that even stable can discard you, and chaotic will
discarade you. And it is about that constant checking in

(53:28):
with yourself. But as a psychologist that's been hurting many
kinds of narcissistic relationships, I have to say that I
think it's really humanizing for people to see that all
the knowledge in the world that our trauma bonds are histories,
are back stories, and honestly, sometimes just our empathy is

(53:48):
what can get us back into these relationships. So I
can't thank you enough, Vanessa. And I couldn't fit one
leg into my old wedding dress, but if I could,
I would not be running but walking alongside of you.
Thank you so much for everything. I'm just so thrilled
to be with you. I just I think the world
of you, and I'm fan girling and loving your work

(54:11):
and I'm excited to be on this journey with you.
Thank you, Vanessa, I am too, and again we're sending
you nothing but good luck and wins at your back
as you make this this this run across New Jersey,
which is the state I was born in, So I
send your good Jersey girl vibes. Here are some takeaways
from my conversation with Vanessa. First, Vanessa's story teaches us

(54:35):
once again of the complicated role of social support in
helping us survive narcissistic abuse. She told us her story
of the friends who doubted her, which made her process
much more difficult, but also of the friends who held
her up. Listened and we're there for her. As you

(54:58):
go through your experience of nar statistic abuse, the one
thing that you're going to learn is who your real
friends are. A person doesn't have to have gone through
this to be a supporter. They merely need to be empathic.
But sadly, because so many people don't understand this, it

(55:18):
can be a tall order and you will run into
the folks who say, well, I never had any trouble
with him. But when you find those people who do
have that empathy, they are absolute treasures in this process
of recovery and healing. Our next takeaway is that Vanessa
is a therapist. She has learned about trauma, mental health,

(55:43):
mental illness. She does therapy with clients, and yet she
has the humility to observe that trauma bonds can interfere
with seeing red flags. No matter who you are, be
kind to yourself as you go through this process. Red
flags can be clear as day when we look back

(56:04):
at them, but trauma bonds actually mean that while we're
in it, we can't see red Her story is also
a reminder that even when a toxic relationship ends in
those early days, we literally feel sick, and the easy
play is to go right back into the relationship, behoovered

(56:28):
and start the cycle again. It's normal to feel that depleted,
sick feeling. We carry trauma and loss in our bodies.
This is a reminder of why therapy is so important
in the process of healing, but also to recognize that
your body, when it feels so sick, it's not telling

(56:49):
you to go back, it's reminding you how bad it was.
And in our last takeaway, in Vanessa's story, she was
recovering from her relationship in the early days of the pandemic,
which forced her to be alone, and it's pretty clear
that solitude was a key part of her healing. Many times,

(57:10):
being alone can be a scary feeling and isolating feeling,
But for survivors of narcissistic abuse, that time alone to
let our nervous system sort of settle down, a time
when you can listen to the music you want, do
the things you want, give yourself the time you need,
and to do all of that without criticism is absolutely crucial.

(57:36):
Solitude is how we come back to ourselves. It can
be easy to want to throw yourself back into crowds
and people, but make sure you give your body and
your psyche a minute to rest and recognize how great
your company is by spending some time alone. Hey everyone,

(57:59):
so I've been welcoming hearing your emails and I have
one that somebody sent in. I have been listening to
your Navigating Narcissism podcast. Thank you. Without a question of
a doubt. I have been married to a narcissist for
fifteen years. So my question is is divorced the only
option for someone in a relationship like this. I have
come to the conclusion that I cannot change him, but

(58:21):
can I change the way I think and relate to him?
To that question, I give a resounding absolutely. I want
to reassure everyone who is listening because a lot of
people hear this and hang their head and say, oh, no,
I this is all hopeless. It's actually not. I'm gonna
tell you right from the jump, folks, fifty of people

(58:41):
stay in these relationships. It's not always practical to leave.
Reasons of money, children, culture, religion, support, whatever it may be.
They're your reasons and that makes them valid reasons. So
don't immediately say, oh my gosh, I'm married to a narcissist.
Got to call an attorney. No, no, no. I think
it's sort of slow down for a minute and really

(59:04):
think about, Okay, I'm not going to be able to
change this person, but how can I ratchet my expectations
and come at this from a place of radical acceptance.
This isn't going to change. These patterns aren't going to change.
So what do I need to do to sort of
make this doable? As it were? There's a lot of
steps you can take. One is it's not always going
to be I'd say, in the cases of more mild

(59:25):
to moderate narcissism, people can make a horse race of it.
There's some grief, though. I'm gonna tell you right now,
this relationship won't have the sort of the depth and
the intimacy that you may have hoped for in your
love story, and again there's a lot of grief and
loss around that that you have to process, and therapy
often becomes a really important space in which to do
that that holding out for that someday better is not

(59:48):
likely to come. Creating that depth in other areas of
your life, though, becomes very important. One of the most
important things that survivors can do is to cultivate other
deep experiences in their lives. Whether that's relationships with family
members you actually do, like your own children, friends. It
might be work you do you may take on, whether
that's volunteer work, whether that's paid employment, whether that's pursuing

(01:00:10):
a goal you had. In a way, it's recognizing that
you're now going to transfer that misplaced psychological energy that
you've been putting into this narcissistic relationship and that yields
no return, and actually investing it into you, into your
healthy relationships, into the healthy people around you, and into
the things that matter. What I often tell people who

(01:00:31):
decide to stick it out with a narcissistic partner is
make yourself a promise once a year, your own personal
anniversary date to revisit it and reassess. Some folks while
for divorce the day their youngest child turns eighteen years old.
Some people sort of waited out and wait for other
transitions in life to happen. Some people wait until something

(01:00:52):
really egregious happens in the relationship, for example, perhaps something
like infidelity. Only you know what that process is. But
before getting ahead of yourself and taking on something that
feels as big as seeking out a divorce, I really
really want to stress to you that you take the
time to decide what can you live with. Remember the
hard part of a narcissistic relationship, this is going back

(01:01:15):
and forth between good days and bad days. And a
piece of advice I give to all survivors is don't
burn your umbrellas. And what I mean by that is
on those good days, you might think, oh, we're on
a good roll. Here, it's going to rain again, so
hold on to that umbrella. The bad days are that reminder,
and maybe you can just sort of ride the wave
on those good days, and on those bad days, maybe

(01:01:36):
you got a little bit of bandwidth from those good
days when you had realistic expectation on those good days
that the bad days are coming, instead of those bad
days feeling like a slap in the face or a
bucket of cold water, you like, I knew this was
kind of coming, and that you start building up strategies
and the like to help you manage. And I'm gonna
leave you with one little gift here And this is

(01:01:57):
for all of you. And I say this over and
over again on this pab guest. When you're in a
narcissistic relationship, because these relationships are not deep, it is
crucial that you remember that you don't go deep in
these relationships. And what do I mean by that, I
mean don't defend yourself, don't explain yourself, don't engage with them,

(01:02:17):
and don't personalize what they're doing. If you can remember
that little rule and keep it in your pocket, it's
a great way to say, oh, I'm not even get
into this with them, and I am not going to
defend myself so they can just start gaslighting and it's
not about me, this is them, this is their personality.
If you don't go deep, you might be able to
buy some time and take a minute before you make

(01:02:39):
a decision that has major implications for your life. A
big thank you to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith,
Valon Jethrow, Ellen Rakaton and Dr Romeney de Vassela. And
thank you to our producer Matthew Jones, associate producer Maria

(01:03:00):
Della Rosa, and consultant Kelly Ebling. And finally, thank you
to our editors and sound engineers Devin Donaghy and Calvin
Bailiff h

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Host

Dr. Ramini Durvasula

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