REPLAY: Dr. Ramani Durvasula on Navigating Narcissism

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[00:00:59] This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical or mental health advice. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone or anything.

[00:01:26] I'm Sarah Edmondson. And I'm Anthony Nippy Ames. And this is A Little Bit Culty. We woke up from a cult and that journey was captured in The Vow on HBO and in my memoir, Scarred. Now in this podcast, we break down the shame and secrets that make these experiences so destructive with honest conversations on how seemingly benign groups can cross into the cultiverse and how to spot and recover from trouble if it happens to you. Each week, we bring in experts, survivors, and whistleblowers to explore red flags, resilience, and even share a few laughs because sometimes you gotta laugh.

[00:01:55] Subscribe to our Patreon for early and ad-free listening. Some live Q&A and exclusive content at patreon.com slash a little bit culty. Welcome to season eight of A Little Bit Culty.

[00:02:22] Nippy thinks he doesn't need to catch up with me because he lives with me, but... Welcome back to A Little Bit Culty, everybody. This is a summer extravaganza. This is the beginning of our summer. Memorial Day just happened. We're getting ready for an incredible summer coming to Vancouver. We are preparing for a end of summer book launch here in ATL. If you're not signed up for a newsletter, you might not hear about when our book launches are. So make sure... I mean, it is on the news. Breaking news. Yeah.

[00:02:47] Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee. Book launch is happening. We are so grateful for everyone who pre-ordered and have purchased our book on Amazon. We are now starting to plug people for the reviews, which is really important. So thank you everyone for the support of our book. If you have not purchased it yet, please do so. Or if you're waiting for the Audible, yes, that will be out soon. It's coming soon. So sometimes people ask us about our episodes. Sometimes. Sometimes.

[00:03:11] And they're not like in the cult space. They're not cult survivors. And we send them... There's a couple episodes that we send people who like, I feel like they would love our podcast. Yeah. There's deep divers. There's cursory people. And then there's some episodes that no matter what you listen to will be helpful to you. And this is one of them. Yes. This is an episode that we really love and I feel like anyone can relate to. And we're actually going to release it again because it came out a number of years ago. But it's important now because...

[00:03:40] Because next week we dive into our Where Are They Now series. And this one is our conversation with NXIVM's own Mark Vicente. And... Our co-pilot in taking this thing down. Former business partner. And his new film, Narcissist Playbook. But first, we're going to revisit one of the most important conversations we've had on the topic with the leading voice of narcissism, Sarah. Dr. Romani Durvasula. Dervasala.

[00:04:06] If you missed that episode or have been living under a rock, Dr. Romani is a licensed clinical psychologist, professor emerita of psychology at Cal State LA and the founder of Luna Education Training and Consulting. She spent her career studying the impact of narcissism and high-conflict personalities on relationships and mental health. And is the author of some fabulous books, including Should I Stay or Should I Go? and Don't You Know Who I Am? and then most recently, It's Not You. This is a book I've given to so many of my friends. These are essential guides for anyone navigating these dynamics.

[00:04:36] Her work has reached millions through platforms like TEDx, Red Table Talk, and her widely followed YouTube channel, where she breaks down everything from gaslighting to hoovering in a way that's clear, practical, and eye-opening. We're grateful that Dr. Romani has endorsed our book as well. I'm just going to read that to you real quick in case you missed it. She said, The absorbing stories and research in this book spotlight the many ways cults can show up and remind us that the best parts of anyone can be exploited by manipulative systems. Thank you, Romani. She didn't use the word riveting? Absorbing. Ugh.

[00:05:06] In this episode from Season 5, way back in Season 5, she helped us understand where narcissism comes from, how it operates, and what it really takes to recover after narcissistic abuse. This is essential listening to gear up for our conversation with Mark. It lays the groundwork for recognizing how these patterns scale beyond relationships and to larger systems of power and control. She's also a key sounding board throughout Mark's movie, and we'll get into that later. We had a chance to speak with Dr. Romani again in Season 6, where we focused on post-narcissistic healing and what comes next.

[00:05:36] So be sure to check that out after this one. Enjoy this throwback episode. I like to call it a throwback episode. I think we've done so many. On navigating narcissism with Dr. Romani Dervasala. Enjoy!

[00:06:08] Dr. Romani, welcome to A Little Bit Culty. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Us also. In fact, since we spoke last time in our prelim call, I found out that you are actually working with my former business partner and very close friend, Mark Vicente. Yes, I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We met, gosh, I think it's been almost a year ago. We met, and he's working on, I think, you know, he's working on narcissism-facing content, as you could imagine.

[00:06:36] So, yes, yeah, it's wonderful to be able to work with both of you. Yeah, he's got a project coming out about it. Top secret. Big project. I did get permission to mention it on this podcast, but we can't go into more detail. We saw a top secret trailer, too. Yes. What I think is funny is that we're always kind of, you know, our projects overlap in certain spaces, obviously. And I'm always saying, oh, I just interviewed someone who'd be perfect, you know, a survivor from XYZ. And I was like, have you heard of this amazing doctor, Dr. Romani Durvasula? And he's like, oh, yeah, she's like the through-line interview of our movie. I'm like, oh, wow, because you're head of the game.

[00:07:06] That's really sweet. Yeah, no, I really enjoyed meeting him. And he happened to be in L.A. for some period of time. And so we were actually able to meet in person. Oh, great. So it was just nice. Amazing. It's so rare these days. It is rare. You really, and he made a point of it. He's like, I really want to meet you in person. So we waited until the stars lined up and were able to do it. Cool. Yeah. So we realized that you've done so many interviews. And you have a huge body of incredibly helpful work out there, which we're going to be giving to our listeners as homework. They do like the homework.

[00:07:34] But since our podcast is a little bit culty, we're going to try to take your expertise and apply it more to this field that the podcast covers. Before we do that, we wondered if we could just start with like a baseline so that our listeners understand this word narcissism in context to the cult space and how maybe sort of breaking down like how that word is a bit overused, misunderstood, giving us a little bit of like a foundation. It's been thrown out a lot in the last five to six years for reasons I don't think we all can speculate. Right. It really is.

[00:08:03] It is a very overused, very misunderstood, but also a really important word. I think that in the anger that people have about being overused and misunderstood, people are forgetting the potency of the word. And it is a word that gives us a lot of information if you're getting the right information. So narcissism is a personality style, right? It's not a disorder. It's a personality style. And it is characterized by certain consistent patterns in a person, such as having really inconsistent empathy.

[00:08:32] And I'm going to talk about this idea of it being inconsistent empathy. Usually we just say it's a lack of empathy. It's a little bit more nuanced than that. So inconsistent empathy, entitlement, grandiosity, validation and admiration seeking, arrogance, a need for control, a real hypersensitivity to any kind of feedback or criticism, envy of others, or they assume that other people envy them, a real incapacity for deep relationships or true intimacy, and a very externalized model of going through the world.

[00:09:02] So in essence, they set their goals on the basis of what they think the world wants them to do. Their identity is very much shaped by how the world views them instead of having a strong internal sense of self. But at the bottom line, people with narcissistic personalities are actually deeply insecure and have deep-seated feelings of inadequacy. So all of those things I'm talking about, the grandiosity, the arrogance, the entitlement, it's almost like a suit of armor that protects this really vulnerable internal piece of them

[00:09:30] that they are not even in touch with. But if anyone criticizes them, it's almost like that wound comes up and they lash out. And the reason I say inconsistent empathy is that some people will say, you know, I met someone, but times they seem really empathic. Empathy for a narcissistic person is very transactional and it can be very performative. They use it to get what they need. So if you and the narcissist have really aligned needs, wants, or desires at the same time,

[00:09:57] you might actually feel like this is the most empathic person I've ever met. What will happen is that once that need has been served or they no longer are aligned with you, they will seem like the most cold, aloof, rejecting, or even contemptuous person. That confusion is often what keeps people in the game. So what happens is they're saying, oh, I want to go back to empathic day. And so they bring it upon themselves. How can I please them? How can I win them over? How can I get them over back to that beautiful empathy they seem to have?

[00:10:24] What they don't understand is that narcissistic people know that empathy is a thing. They also know how to use it, but it's not genuine empathy. Again, it's very performative. So all those things, insecure, arrogance, all those things, and I'll speak for me, but I imagine a lot of people have felt like that in their lives, right? What would you say, it doesn't mean just because you're arrogant, you're entitled, it's a thing and you can outgrow those things. When does it become a narcissistic thing and not just a growing pain, so to speak?

[00:10:54] Right. So that takes us almost to like, well, how does personality develop, right? Personality is part of how the central nervous system develops. And the central nervous system is sort of not really done. And I almost view it as a jello mold. I'm like, you know, if you open the jello mold too quick, it's just going to splat on the table. You really have to wait until a person's around somewhere between 25 and 30 to say, this brain is cooked and almost a little older for men than women. But then you can pop the jello mold and you got the shape.

[00:11:22] So that's how personality works. And that's why adolescence is so tricky. Some people will say every adolescent is narcissistic. And I'm like, yeah, kind of, because that's the nature of that stage of development. Adolescents are trying to separate. They're trying to become their own people. In many ways, they're almost trying to say, all you folks who are trying to control me, namely parents, get away from me. I'm going to do my own thing. And so I always liken them to having clothes that are just too big for them and they're trying to fit into them.

[00:11:49] So there's lots of emotion, lots of raging, lots of figuring it out. That's adolescence. So I've told many parents, I'll say, listen, narcissism is a story that can only be told backwards, but not forward. So if you have a 17-year-old, 18, 19-year-old kid who was acting like an entitled, arrogant, oppositional, unempathic jerk to you, I'm sorry. And I really am. And then call me in seven years and let's see where I'm at. Because in many cases, that kid is going to grow up to the demands of the world.

[00:12:19] They're going to have to learn how to behave in a workplace. Empathy is going to kick in. And now that they feel more sort of in their own skin, the parents will start seeing that empathy come back, all of that. Now, the problem is for the parents who say, okay, my 30-year-old is still the same entitled, unempathic, arrogant jerk that they were in their teens. And that's when I say you might have a problem. Because now it seems that they didn't. So in other words, you can tell the story backwards. They were like that then. They're like that now. But so many people at 17 will grow out of it. So there is that.

[00:12:48] There's definitely that piece of it. Then some people say, like, what about the showboater? Like the person who's got the big ideas and they come in and they hold the stage. But then offstage, I'll ask them, what's their behavior like? This is a person who might really be able to hold the room. But then when you talk to them on their own and they're very sweet, they're very kind, they're very solicitous and self-aware and self-reflective. Like they're not narcissistic. They're able to put a grandiose show on a stage, but they're also very aware of other people, not a narcissist.

[00:13:16] But that person who's up there on that stage prancing about as an arrogant, grandiose performer and is a jerk offstage, narcissist. It's the consistency. It's the stability. It's the pervasiveness that it cuts across multiple relationships. We're looking for like a pattern, not for somebody who behaves badly on one afternoon that they got fired. This is not a one-off. This is a life-off. It's happening all the time. Got it. Well, just looking at the patterns of narcissism within the cult world and what we're seeing

[00:13:46] right now with series like the Tinder Swindler or Inventing Anna, where does it cross over from narcissism to narcissistic sociopath? And what are the tendencies to look out for? How do you distinguish those things? So when we start using terms like, so for example, you're bringing up two examples, Tinder Swindler, Inventing Anna, of people who were, you know, in essence, grifters. They were probably more in the sociopathic, maybe even marginally psychopathic, but more sociopathic realm.

[00:14:12] When we start bringing in other terminology like sociopathy and psychopathy, we have to view narcissism as being on a continuum, on a spectrum, right? So at the low end of narcissism, where it's light, narcissism light, as it were, you're talking about people who are sort of superficial, adolescent, emotionally stunted. At the age of 50, they still seem to concern themselves with the things like, oh, we're going to a cake party. I'm like, oh my God, you're 55. Like what is happening, right? But they're annoying. They're ridiculous.

[00:14:41] There's no depth to the relationship. But they're not psychologically harmful. At the far end of the spectrum, though, now you're leaning into malignant narcissism. And malignant narcissism is really where we see not only all the top notes of narcissism, but some of the stuff we see in psychopathy. The hostility, the callousness, the exploitativeness, the willingness to take advantage of people. And we also see some sadism mixed into there. We see some paranoia. And we see Machiavellianism.

[00:15:09] So now it starts getting scary. Then the train goes into the more scary stations like sociopathy and psychopathy. Psychopathy is the most terrifying of all because now we're no longer talking about insecurity. These are people whose nervous systems are very, very different. They do not get that sympathetic nervous system activation that we all get when we do something wrong. Like we feel uncomfortable. If we do a bad thing, we're like, oh, this does not feel good. We'll feel sick. We can't sleep.

[00:15:38] Psychopath can, you know, can do, I don't know, can rock. Bank at breakfast and be having lunch with their mom and not even think about that sequence. Like they're not bothered by doing bad things. Narcissists are bothered by doing bad things. They don't want to get caught. They don't want to get publicly found out. They actually do value how the world sees them. The psychopath, it's a little less important to them. Sociopaths are a different animal. Sociopathic people are people who are, they're much more dysregulated than the psychopath.

[00:16:07] So they're like the narcissist. They get angry very easily. They're your bar brawlers. They get really upset. They can be very manipulative. They'll take advantage of people, but they're not the cool operators like the psychopathic folks. Sociopathy is actually not a term we use in the mental health world. It's more of almost sociological, criminological kind of a term. And so it's sort of, it's not as well-defined in our world, but that malignant narcissism. And if you look at Fromm's work, Fromm has actually written about cult leaders.

[00:16:36] And he specifically said cult leaders are malignant narcissists. And I agree with that. I think 100% of cult leaders are malignant narcissists without exception. I've never seen one story of one. By definition, a cult is a controlling space that is exploitative. That's the malignant narcissist space. So you have these terms for these people and, you know, with empathy. And I'm curious where the empathy and conscience comes in, because a lot of them are very high performers in certain domains.

[00:17:04] And I think in some of your talks, you mentioned how they get a hall pass because of that. I'll use examples like Steve Jobs. I know he could be very temperamental to a Michael Jordan who is win at all costs. And they seem to have a capacity to, and I certainly wouldn't necessarily throw them in those categories, but they seem to have a capacity. Even when I was playing sports, I could put my empathy on the back burner to perform, right? But when the game was over, there's a way you compete and there's a civility to society that we all reenter. And maybe some of them do, some of them don't.

[00:17:32] I'm curious as to when, you know, how do you make those distinctions? And what kind of freedom do they have without their empathy that seems to serve humanity sometimes? Like, you know, if these people are contributing to humanity, like, how do you reconcile those differences? Does that make sense? What I'm asking? It absolutely makes sense. Empathy makes us very inefficient. That's the bottom line. It is like the drag coefficient on our souls. It's a paralysis sometimes because you have to work it out.

[00:18:01] I wouldn't even say it's a paralysis as much as if I'm going about my day and I see someone, a colleague of mine is sad or upset. And I'm like, hey, let's go get a cup of coffee. Let's talk it out. And they're starting to tell me about, oh, they're having marital problems and I'm there for them and I'm helping them. I might've just lost an hour of my work day. Now I got to stay an hour later. I'm inefficient. Or if I say, oh, maybe I should let that person get the promotion. They've been here longer. They're just as good at me as the position.

[00:18:27] Now I haven't thrown them under the bus because I had the inside track and could have gotten it. But I recognize they're older. They're more experienced. In fact, their family could use the money. I just lost efficiency. The more empathy you have, the less efficient you are in the most beautiful way, by the way. You know what I'm saying? But in a winner take all capitalistic, whoever has the most toys wins society that the people who don't have empathy and are willing to climb over whoever they need to climb to are going to be your billionaires, your innovators.

[00:18:57] They're not stopping to change a baby's diaper, right? They are all in on their success. And you're absolutely right. Then we look at them. They're the visionaries. They've changed the world. I get all of that. And I'll even tip my hat and say, what you did, did change the world. What I say to the world is, don't marry these people. Don't get close to these people. They're not father of the year. They're not father of the year. They're not person of the year. So our problem is we're conflating too much. Like separate it out.

[00:19:26] Just because a person is a great basketball player doesn't mean they're a great person. Just because somebody who has made a technological advance has changed the world doesn't mean they're a good person. I can't tell you how many people I have worked with who have said they've endured terrible narcissistic relationships. And when I asked them, what drew you to this person? And sort of what keeps you in the game? Well, they're so smart. I'm like, when did smart become a virtue? Smart is smart. You know?

[00:19:56] I mean, that's great. You're smart. Wonderful. That doesn't mean you're capable of deep emotion or empathy or intimacy. And that's our problem. We're putting very successful people up on pedestals and we're viewing them as holistically good people. No, they're good at one thing. We can acknowledge that. But we've got to stop viewing success as being necessarily good. Because what that means is people want to get close to successful people saying, well, this is going to be a great relationship. And more often than I say, no, it's not.

[00:20:25] That's such a great piece of advice. I really also appreciated the advice I heard you share with somebody about parenting and how teaching empathy is sort of the anecdote to this and raising our kids with that trait. Can you give us, our audience, a couple tangible nuggets on what that actually looks like with young children? I've got mirroring as one of the things. Is there, or maybe you can elaborate on that. So the younger the child, we do it in different ways. There's no higher task than teaching a child empathy. There's really not. And alongside empathy is self-soothing.

[00:20:55] The child learning to regulate themselves, like recognizing you got to wait and learn, wait in line. You got to wait your turn. Sometimes you lose, you know, and then you're going to have to manage the emotion around that. So, and I think those two things are very related. But in a very, in an infant, empathy is achieved by staring at their face. And that's if you look at the angle at which a child is fed, you know, put on the breath, it's a perfect angle for them to make eye contact with the mother. So the mom may not want to be checking her phone while she's feeding her child, like face to face.

[00:21:24] That's how it's been done since time immemorial. Even physical touch, skin to skin, all of that slowly starts building up empathy, doing mirrored games. You, you play with their expressions. They make an expression. You copy their expression. That's baby. But as they come up, it's you. As soon as they start having language, you start working with them on feeling. How do you feel? You teach them that feelings have names. You never shame their feelings. It can be built into play.

[00:21:49] You can read any children's book and someone, a bear or a cat or a bird has a feeling. How do you think the bear felt? Like you think, how do you think the bear felt when Goldilocks was sleeping in his bed? You know what I mean? Like, I wasn't okay with that. I like that kind of felt like breaking and entering, but they might say, I was happy Goldilocks was sleeping in my bed. You can take any children's story. And at the end of the book, that's actually where the magic happens. How do you think she felt? How do you think he felt? How do you think they felt?

[00:22:18] And you're now teaching your child to name emotions, not just in themselves, but in others. You can do this in TV shows. Like, I think that media can really be used as a jumping off place. You want to have your child spend time with other children so they can learn about taking turns like, oh, we've baked a cupcake. How should we split this up? So they learn like, oh, let's cut it in half. Oh, sure. Let's get a knife and cut it in half. So you're doing that now as your child comes into it.

[00:22:43] And I have to say all of what I'm suggesting is easy to do through primary school. Like, gotta love the little ones. But once they hit middle school, their brains are developing in a different direction. They're more focused on their peers than their parents. They think adults are full of crap. And so empathy starts taking on a different tenor. What's interesting is puberty age, adolescent kids have a lot of empathy for their peers. They have none for their parents. And so the parents get confused and say, my kid has no empathy.

[00:23:12] And I'll say, can you tell me what your kid's like with their peers? They're great with their peers. I'm like, good. The empathy is sound. They're trying to get rid of you. They're trying to make you so awful that when they have to leave, they're not panic stricken. It's actually a phenomenon called shitting the nest. And so they make a mess. And then they're like, oh, this place sucks. I'm out of here. And that's how they let go. And I think for a lot of parents, we struggle. I have adolescent kids. We struggle with hurt feelings. And I have to remember that what they're doing is they're making it easier to leave.

[00:23:41] And my job as a parent is to make it easier for them to live. So they're not looking backwards and saying, mom. And I'm saying, I'm always here. You know, it's just differences. Now you're carrying me inside your heart and I'm just not going to be at your side. But that's a hard thing for a parent to do. Because when my child's moving out, I've got a child graduating high school soon. My child's moving out. And I'm telling you, I see like a six month old infant. And I'm thinking, well, no, she's not. And that's the piece I carry.

[00:24:08] And so all of that is part of the empathy that we have for our children. And we teach it over and over again. What we cannot do is tell our children, hey, you're more special than all the other kids. To hell with them. Go ahead and take three pieces of pizza. And sadly, some parents do that. And so I know it seems so logical, but actually a lot of parents don't practice it. And narcissistic parents, least of all, because they have absolutely no blueprint or template for what empathy should look like in themselves or even in their children.

[00:24:39] Before we hear from our sponsors, just a quick reminder. Our book, A Little Bit Culty, Navigating Cults, Control and Coercion is officially out and available on Amazon. Signed pre-orders have closed, but you can still get your copy today. This book is the combination of five years of conversations, interviews and research. Everything we've learned about how people get pulled into high control groups and how to avoid, escape or heal from them. If you've been listening to the podcast and want a deeper go-to resource, this is it.

[00:25:09] Available now on Amazon in print and as an e-book for Kindle. And yes, the audio book is coming soon, narrated by us. Just search A Little Bit Culty and grab your copy. Do it. Thanks, everybody. As a small business owner, sometimes it feels like no matter how much planning you do, there's always surprises. Like an urgent, expensive repair.

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[00:27:08] Escape's over. Let's return to our regularly scheduled cult talk. Can we contact you in like seven years when Troy is 15 for a consult? I feel like we're going to need a test. And adolescent boys often just really kind of go off into their peer spaces. Adolescent girls are a whole different kind of creature. I know I was a piece of work with my... I apologize to my mother. Mom, I'm really sorry.

[00:27:37] This is another apology publicly. Okay. That's the empathy, right? The empathy is like, oh, shouldn't have done that. But it's hard. I mean, your heart's always getting torn like I did everything for you. But I recognize what they're doing. They've made such a mess of things that that goodbye just became easier for me. And it became easier for them. In some ways, their mess was the most compassionate thing they could have done. Maybe you'll want to help them pack. Maybe. Maybe. You definitely want to help them pack. You're like, all right, got to go, got to go. Like my daughter's dorm opens up on a certain day in September. I'm like, we can go out four days early.

[00:28:07] I really want to go out. Well, talking about these childhood, you know, the template in a healthy way is super. It's just wonderful because we really like to give our audience like these nuggets of what they, how they can heal and make their lives better and change the patterns that they've grown up with. And one of the things I found really interesting in our cult recovery self-education is that a lot of the leaders that we were analyzing, Keith included, or people like David Koresh, is there was a consistency in what little we know of their childhood, about their childhood.

[00:28:35] There was a consistency in the way that they were raised specifically in the lack of healthy attachment with their parents and then how they ended up kind of becoming special through some gift and then, you know, winning the ladies. And that was like the end for them. Have you noticed that? Or have you seen any studies that would verify what seems to be a pattern? So the lack of secure attachment early in life would seem to track for, because it's a huge player in the development of the narcissistic personality, right? Secure attachment is everything.

[00:29:03] A child having a secure base, the place that they know is always there for them. It helps them at points of separation. It helps them learn to self-soothe. All of that stuff we're talking about, empathy, it needs that attachment, that secure base of attachment as the sort of, as the root of it. People who are narcissistic didn't have that. Even the most overindulged, spoiled child, you'd say, well, how did they not have it? Because the parents were really good at buying things or taking them on extravagant experiences

[00:29:28] or showing up to every soccer game so they could get attention for their kid being a great soccer player. But at those early years, when it was really about the consistency and the availability, they weren't available. And so that's how attachment happens. Attachment doesn't happen because you show up to your kid's soccer game. Attachment happens because in those earliest years, the caregiver is consistently available. So that part doesn't surprise me at all because that's often a forerunner of narcissism. Now, it's not the case for everyone. Some people don't have a secure attachment.

[00:29:57] They just end up not becoming narcissistic, but very anxious adults. So it's not a slam dunk. And that's the challenge. The story can be told backwards, not forwards. So we'll always have that insecure attachment in their backstory. But that next piece you brought up, Sarah, is so interesting. That having a gift, right? Because what the child then learns, like let's say they're really good at school or they're really good at a sport or whatever it is they are, they now learn that something external to them, something they do rather than who they are,

[00:30:26] is going to actually at least get them some validation. It's not the same as attachment, but at least it's something. So now they cultivate that. And that's what I'm talking about, how the narcissism really runs a very externalized game. Everything is what's happening outside of them. How are people viewing me? Am I doing what the world wants? Because they, again, the kid who wins the spelling bee or is the best soccer player, whatever it is, that child is learning. That's where my gift lies, right? So then they take that into adulthood.

[00:30:54] And that's why narcissistic people are so charming and charismatic. Because that's a very external game. Like they just put on their bright face. It's almost like they're putting on a mask. Hi, Sarah. It's so nice to meet you. I love your sweater. Tell me a little bit about you. And we think that's good. We think that kind of really slick presentation versus the person who's like, oh, hey, Sarah, it's kind of nice. And they're kind of awkward. We view that as unskilled.

[00:31:24] Whereas that kind of slick, smooth thing is often a mask that kind of gets put on. And they learn to put that mask on early because it's getting them the thing they need, which is attention. And then, as you said, and then oftentimes it turns into sort of sexual admiration or being able to have sexual partners or conquests or people they attract to themselves in that way, that creates that overvaluation of power, control, and dominance in a very specific way, which is all a narcissist is motivated by. They want power, control, dominance.

[00:31:54] That's it. If they have those things, they're done. They're good. And then that goes into adulthood. So a question follow-up there. I'm wondering if, you know, predominantly maybe in the Western culture, you see a lot of this stuff in men because of the pressure to perform. And, you know, I can remember thinking even in my teenage years, my self-worth is predicated on how good I am at my sport, at least for me personally. I felt like if I wasn't good at this, I didn't have value more to myself.

[00:32:20] And then, you know, maybe to the world, but it wasn't so much the validation as much as I wanted to be good at this because it felt good. And I'm wondering how that relates to maybe, do you see it more in men or differently in men than women? Would you say that the scale is more men and women do it differently? What's the distinctions there? So grandiose narcissism and malignant narcissism are more prevalent in men. They are. And I think for some of the reasons you say, I think how we raise boys is very different than how we raise girls.

[00:32:49] We don't hold space for men to safely express emotion or boys to express emotion. We often shame emotion in boys. Yeah. And so it's, that's not healthy for the child. Now there can be outlets like sport and the challenges that the child may build a sense of confidence in sport, but then the sort of the flip side to that is then the child may recognize like, I'm not making goals or scores or the MVP, I'm not going to be loved. So then that's going to create this sort of performative.

[00:33:18] The only way I'm going to get through the world is if I, the best salesperson or the best athlete or the best, whatever. And I think that, and again, because we view men through a more financialized lens, like they're going to need to be providers and all that. We still, even though obviously women are very much in the workplace. Well, it's reinforced by our culture. Reinforced. Yes. And it's valued. It's also valued. It's beyond reinforce. It's incentivized. And in girls, there's more space held for emotion. There's more focus placed on affiliation and that human relationships for girls and

[00:33:48] women serve a more sort of emotionally supportive space. It's not the case for men. It's not how they're socialized. It doesn't mean they're not capable of it. Obviously they're capable of it, but if it's consistently shamed and it's devalued, they're not going to do it. Now, here's where it gets interesting with gender. You might see more narcissistic, more men are in the grandiose narcissism world, malignant narcissism world, but not so in the vulnerable narcissism world. Talk about vulnerable narcissism, the gender distributions equal.

[00:34:15] Now, vulnerable narcissism has all the same bells and whistles. The lack of empathy, the entitlement grandiosity, that list stays the same. But the difference is in the vulnerable narcissist, it's expressed more through a victimized, passive aggressive, resentful, petulant, sullen, like the world hasn't been safe to me. I wasn't born with a trust fund. How does anyone expect me to get ahead? Everything's unfair. And why should I go to college? The professors are morons. I'm smarter than them. It's a lot of that grudging kinds of stuff.

[00:34:45] And people who are higher in vulnerable narcissism, you see higher levels of sort of sad mood, even sometimes full-blown depression, social anxiety. So they're not as socially skilled. They're not the charming, charismatic narcissist. But they still, they don't have empathy. It's all about their victimhood. And if they're going through something, they don't care what someone else is going through. Their entitlement is things like, why should I go to college? I'm smarter than all of the teachers. And so in the vulnerable narcissist, you might even see more of sort of a failure to launch.

[00:35:14] And there's more of a rejection sensitivity in the vulnerable narcissist. When you really see their anger come out is where they feel like they're being rejected or even abandoned. But in that presentation of narcissism, we see that to be similar across genders. So the story is a bit more nuanced than is it more men than women? It really comes down to the subtypes and all of that. Okay. So it's more of types than it is quantity. It is.

[00:35:38] And then that socialization is, so let's say you have a girl who, again, has that insecure attachment or the anxious attachment in childhood and doesn't feel valued and isn't seen and doesn't feel like she's enough. It's more likely that for her, her narcissism is going to be almost more of a life's not fair. Why should I try? Nobody likes me. So it looks different. And that's why many times narcissism in women is missed. It looks more victimized. That's interesting.

[00:36:05] Would you say that it's predominant in Western culture? And the catalyst for that question for me comes from, I read this book a while ago, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. And there's a part of it where he talks about how he went on a date with someone in Russia and how he was doing kind of a persona of getting to know the person and the person just wasn't buying it. And they were like, do you want a date? Do you want to go out? They were like really direct. And he's like talking about the Russian women. And he went to a professor to discuss it.

[00:36:34] And the professor was like, that's because people there need to know who they need to trust right away. And the niceties of culture don't fly in a Russian culture in the way that they're nurtured in the Western culture. And I'm wondering if that may have a little bit more of a breeding ground or less calling it out in the Western culture than, say, Eastern cultures. So I think it gets tricky here. So being abrupt doesn't mean someone's narcissistic. Oh, that's exactly what I mean. It's a protection.

[00:36:58] But it may very well be that once you get on the other side of the abrupt wall, there might be somebody who has intact empathy and is well-regulated and all that. It's just getting to the other side of the wall. I think this is a global phenomenon, right? Because to the degree this goes back to attachment issues, right? That attachment issues present in all cultures.

[00:37:16] And I think that when we throw the cultural piece on top of this and the argument I and other theoreticians would make is the more authoritarian, the more capitalistic, the more stratified and the more patriarchal a society, the more narcissists it's going to be get. Because what it's doing is it's basically you've now sort of codified the idea that some people are better than others.

[00:37:38] And that sort of societal dismissal of entire groups of people creates a societal narcissism, which then in the more privileged people in those societies, they're going to be very dismissive. And that will happen in a family system as well. So I think and at this point, I'm going to be honest with you, that seems to describe most cultures in this in the world. I hate it. And when you have, it may not even be authoritarian, but it may have a culture where they're like, no, we're all so warm and fuzzy.

[00:38:05] But it just so happens that a very small handful of people hold all the money. That's going to beget narcissism. And this has obviously become a real passion for you and a big part of your life, it appears. If you could wave a magic wand and manifest your ultimate goal in terms of education and recovery from narcissistic abuse, what would that be or what would that look like? It's a complicated answer because at one level, what I'd like to see is more accessible, informed services for people who have gone through narcissistic abuse.

[00:38:33] Because the mental health field has not caught up. We are not recognizing. Because usually when a person comes in with an issue, we're like, ah, they're anxious. Ah, they're depressed. We talk only about the person in the room, which is ridiculous because we exist in all these interpersonal spaces. But the unwillingness of many therapists to acknowledge like, ooh, their spouse is narcissistic. Let me teach them that they're with somebody whose personality is not going to change and they need to make their decisions accordingly.

[00:39:00] The field is uncomfortable saying that the narcissists aren't going to change. That's a bet. They're not going to change. Every so often, a unicorn gallops through the valley who is a changed narcissist. But they would because at some point, though, their lives get blown up. Their lives get blown up enough. Some of them will say, okay, I can't live like this. But then they find the change is almost too difficult to make.

[00:39:23] But that said, to your magic wand, I'd like to see a world where there were informed services, accessible services available to people healing from it, number one. Number two, I'd like to see us starting to talk about this with younger and younger kids. When I've tried to pitch talking about narcissism to high schools, they're like, that kind of feels negative. And I'm like, oh my gosh, negative. Let me tell you what's negative is a high school kid getting into a really emotionally abusive relationship. That's negative. And if we could teach them this.

[00:39:52] So there's a real resistance to teaching. Because by the time this has happened to you, it kind of does a number on you. But if we could teach younger people that this is a thing, that would also be really great. I would also like to see that people who are able to securely attach with their kids are the ones having kids and the parents who can't are getting supported to do so. I mean, I think that this is an early childhood issue too. And that we support parents and we teach parents. But you need a whole, in essence, we would have to address insecurity on a global level.

[00:40:22] And finally, if I really wanted the magic wand, I'd want all people to have agreeable personalities. That's the world I want to live in. I mean, it does mean like we're sort of all going to be like sort of living communally and there would be no wars and everyone's going to get along. I want to live in that world. Me too. Kumbaya. So that's it. But you know what? It's beyond kumbaya though because I think agreeable people are very collaborative. They'll say, okay, we can work this problem. However, what I'm not going to do is like, I run Amazon. I don't need to make $100 billion trillion.

[00:40:52] How about I pay the warehouse workers $60 an hour? Yeah. That's what would happen in an agreeable world. That sounds great. But we don't live in that world and it's only getting worse. And in fact, the narcissistic people prey on the agreeable people. Of course. So, you know, the agreeable people and agreeable men make lower salaries. So there's not a lot of incentivization to be agreeable, except it's kind of who we are. Some of us are just sort of, we come into the world more agreeable and our agreeableness gets cultivated.

[00:41:21] Everyone out there should marry an agreeable person. You may have some trouble paying the bills, but everyone should marry an agreeable person. I don't know how much you know or followed the story with NXIVM or how much you read about Keith, our former leader. You did? Okay. A lot. I thought I'd share a little tidbit with you that I think you'd get a kick out of. And it relates to this. He had us all fill out these what they call personality questionnaires before and after. And it was, I want to say, what do you think? Maybe like 20 pages?

[00:41:51] It was too long. I just went C, C, C, C, C, C. Yeah. It was way, way, way too long. Just to get out of there. And listen, we were there for like over a decade. And we still, even as leaders, anytime we took a training, like a higher level training, we still had to do a before and after of the same questionnaire. A new person going through it would take at least an hour, especially if English was not their first language, an hour and a half. Very specific questions, true and false statements, A, B questions, a number of different formats.

[00:42:18] And first of all, after the first one, I just hated filling it out because it was very redundant. But it was very tedious. And what we were told is that these tests were being sent to an outside source to analyze so that they could actually be looked at from a scientific point of view. Great. Peer review. Amazing. Now, not only did we find out that they never left the building when we left, but it always bothered me that we were the first time. The success program and the papers were clearly photocopied from different things and cut and paste and then put together again.

[00:42:47] Like it wasn't even one format. Do you know what I mean? Like it was one page looked like it was Xerox from something. And anyway, it was just messy. We found out later, like if you type in personality questionnaire narcissism, the questions that I found on the Internet were word for word. What was in this at least one section of this questionnaire. Wow. Oh, cut and paste. Wow.

[00:43:07] And we think that he, our theory was that he was trying to figure out who were the narcissists so that he could have them be, you know, in his inner circle and be his flying monkeys. Like give them, you know, the golden key to the whatever it was that they were. Like he basically was looking to see who he could control and use for what depending on their level of narcissism. Do you have any theories on that? It's interesting. Right. It's interesting because I would say it depends on the narcissism questions. One of the biggest problems in the field of narcissism is measurement, right?

[00:43:36] Traditionally, a lot of the questionnaires that are used and probably some of the items that were being used in what the two of you filled out, they lean more to grandiose narcissism. And how grandiose narcissism is measured is sometimes even a little bit more like people who want to be leaders and assertiveness. It's not this stuff I'm talking about, this sort of soul crushing, unempathic, entitled, like it's not as dark as some of the clinical stuff. That stuff is often done in an interview format.

[00:44:02] But, you know, it's interesting because someone like him who is so manipulative and if he knew anything at all about narcissism, which he may not have, I wonder how much he also might have been afraid of the people who are higher in narcissism and actually tried to ice them out. You know, isolate them, keep them away from others, not let them be as influential. Because in theory, the more narcissistic people might actually try to take some of his influence and try to be the leader and try to overtake.

[00:44:28] So they might be the people, instead of bringing him into the, unless he wants to keep his, you know, friends close and enemies closer kind of thing. Unless he was trying to keep them close to sort of neutralize them, there might be some wisdom in a position he was in to take the narcissistic people and sort of actually put them out on an ice flow and keep them away from others so they couldn't usurp his influence. They're going to the front lines, so to speak. Yeah, yeah. Well, just keep them, make it so that they can't, that they're not a threat.

[00:44:56] Because at some level, a person is a much, much higher narcissism score on these kinds of questionnaires. It's somebody who wants to be a leader, somebody who is more assertive, the person who might be less involved with the emotional worlds of others. But that leadership and assertiveness piece could have been a threat. That makes sense. We kind of had our, you know, we're obviously not a therapist, but just our analysis of the people. Who got close to him. And before we understood attachment, we called it like daddy issues. To your point, they were more agreeable.

[00:45:24] They had a lot of the family systems that we've learned about through, you know, getting ready for this interview with you. Like, oh, that was consistent. They, you know, their dads weren't around or, you know, whatever it was. They were like that. I don't know. I think, I think we both had very healthy relationships with our parents generally. And, you know, I think ultimately that's, you know, obviously we were very indoctrinated and we were bought in, but we weren't bought in as much as other people were bought in. We were able to kind of snap out of it when it was clear what the abuse was and what was happening.

[00:45:53] And whereas other people just kept doubling down. Correct. So they would, if they were, if they really wanted to be sinister, they would have done better giving out questionnaires that assessed attachment style and trauma. Yeah. So if they understood that about the, you know, post-traumatic stress sort of symptomatology and address something called adverse childhood experiences. If they had sort of gotten those numbers, then they know exactly who the most malleable people could have potentially been in that kind of a group. And I bet you that those questions were there.

[00:46:19] We just, we just recognized that one page as cut and paste from the internet about narcissism. I'm sure there were other things that we haven't even analyzed because we don't have access to those tests anymore. But also, you know, he would elicit information from them on his long walks and everything. I'm wondering, what was your assessment if you, I don't know what the extent of what it was, but what did you think of what you've seen? When you heard about this debacle? You know, immediately the reason I was drawn to it is like, wow, here we have malignant narcissist, possibly a psychopath, predator. I want to, you know, I want to listen to the story.

[00:46:49] That's what drew me in. It was wanting to, because anytime there's a story like that, I just want to see how it played out. And the whole thing tracked, in some ways his story is interesting for how uninteresting it is. You know what? I totally agree. You know what? If you put a bunch of ingredients in a cocktail shaker, that's what you get. You know, like his history, his intelligence, you know, again, that sort of smarmy salesman thing he's got going on, that sold. And then he took it into the sort of the personal growth market.

[00:47:17] And then, you know, and there's this piece that this, and you see this in yoga cults and a whole bunch of different cults where that sexualized piece is the piece where he started recognizing like, because I mean, he's kind of a short, dumpy looking guy. He's not kind of, he is. Yeah. Okay. So I'm just trying to be kind. Short, dumpy looking guy. I mean, like nobody would look at this guy twice. Right. And so, and yet here he's getting the attention. I was looking at this, this movie and I'm like, my God, these people are absolutely gorgeous.

[00:47:46] So these absolutely gorgeous, intelligent women are gravitating to him. He hit the mother load. And at that point, we, one thing we do know about narcissistic people is they're what we call very reward sensitive, meaning that dopamine for them, like kind of gets them worked up. That's why you see a lot of problem gambling in narcissistic people. It's why they like stimulant drugs like cocaine. They like rewards. They like prizes. They like putting plaques on their wall and they like sex and sexual attention.

[00:48:14] So for him, when he realized that this new racket was getting him the Holy Grail, which was the sexual attention of women, that was it. He was off to the races. And so, and that's where a narcissistic person then obviously gets completely drunk on their own power because it's going to, what did I say? Power, dominance, control. And one would also argue pleasure are the main motivators for a narcissistic person. Everything that motivated him was there. So that's, it was so clear.

[00:48:43] And then the way he would get intel on people, those long walks, I found that really interesting. I was like, ah, this is how he's doing the download. Narcissistic people are notorious for being able to, they seem so curious about people. And so many people out there have never had somebody deeply interested in them from childhood. Their parents, most people's parents were relatively disinterested in them. And so now there's a person who's in a position of authority, who's leaning in and saying, tell me everything about you.

[00:49:12] A special person is valuing you. That's what every child has ever wanted. That the parent actually wanted to hear about their day at school instead of, hurry up, wash your hands, do this. I don't have time for that. I'm too busy. Which is what most kids hear. He was the parental figure, as it were, who was leaning in and listening. There's nothing more seductive than that for somebody who has felt not heard and not seen for most of their life. That was the play. And he played it well. Even Cult Podcasts need sponsors. Check out these must-haves.

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[00:51:28] Verwandle deine Leidenschaft mit Shopify in ein Business. www.dsponsorty.com and see how you buy. Thank you, sponsors. We couldn't do it without you. Now, let's get back to the show. That explains so much. He definitely did that. And even just to attend next year, I mean, to fill out an intake form, which was, the questions were, you know, what are your goals?

[00:51:58] Like, why are you coming or whatever? But it was also like, what's the worst moment of your life? What's your worst decision of your life? Who's your best ally? And who's your worst opponent? And that intake sheet, if someone filled it out honestly, was also could be used as blackmail because someone's worst decision is like, you know, hookers and blow or something that they don't want people to know about. That can be used against them. Also, he did it in plain sight. Yeah. So he wouldn't suspect it because he knows that people wouldn't suspect it. And most people don't know what they're looking at. I mean, people forget.

[00:52:26] He was able to convince the Dalai Lama. He was able to convince some pretty influential people. And that just goes to show you. Okay. Let's go back to the Dalai Lama piece. It's that piece I actually stopped and went back and watched. Here goes back, though, to the point you were making earlier. This idea of how we revere powerful people. Okay. And I have to say, maybe this is on, I mean, I really respect his holiness.

[00:52:52] But I do think that the Dalai Lama probably could use a session with me on narcissism because I see him getting played all the time. I really do. And I'm sorry. There's no Buddhist. I was raised Hindu and I was raised Hindu. Like mom was in it, you know. And I am sorry. There's no Bhagavad Gita. There's no Buddhist scripture out there that is going to say, you got to have your game on. I would say that there's some wisdom here in sort of knowing your enemy.

[00:53:17] And I do struggle a little bit with what happens is that it does feel like, I'm using the Dalai Lama as an example because it was in the documentary. But anyone who has that kind of sort of spiritual authority or it seems like a paragon of goodness or something. And that the idea that these are often sort of purchased almost like papal indulgences and transactional relationships. That if you know the right person who has enough money, which is how he got there with those heiress ladies, you have enough money, you can get an audience. And I have a problem with that.

[00:53:47] If you're a holy person, you should be sitting with the most vulnerable and indigent in a society, not the person who could fly in a damn private jet to India. I struggle with that so that what happens is then there is this messaging to the world of like, oh, if somebody has spiritually evolved as a Dalai Lama seeing this person, the danger to that. And I have to tell you, the Dalai Lama has sat with some really evil people. And I'd like to think he'd see it. I'm not kidding you.

[00:54:13] I there's it's all I can do to say I'd love to get to Dharamsala and say, can we sit down and talk about this? Because you could be doing far greater work. You weren't giving so much platform to people who are going out there and doing so much harm. Agreed. And it seems like his organization separate from him or part of him or whatever can be bought essentially. All organizations can be bought. That's the problem. And you know what? Everyone getting bought. I don't have like, listen, that's the world and it is what it is.

[00:54:41] But the problem is, is that the virtue that is given to some organizations and that then leads people to no longer trust their instincts there. So people say like, he can't be a bad guy if this guy is signing off on him, but he feels like a bad guy in his gut. So what do survivors do? They say it's got to be me. I've got to be the one that's wrong. And how do I tell people? No, actually, they paid for that audience.

[00:55:06] And nobody is acting as the narcissism patrol at the sort of the gateways of all of these seemingly evolved people. That was certainly us. I mean, that was us. And was it 2009 or 10 when he came? I mean, we had many problems. It was a stamp of approval. All my doubts. It was like, yeah, well, okay. All my doubts at the time were like, okay, this guy. Well, dilemma. And same with, you know, allegedly there was a training on Necker Island with Richard Branson. Same thing. These people are validating us.

[00:55:34] Or even when there was a study that apparently we cured Tourette's, which I don't think we did. But all of those things, when I was still in it, was like, okay, phew, like validating, validating. We're in the right direction. We're going in the right direction. We're part of something good because couldn't be part of something bad because then, of course, we're stupid. You know, and then the shame was there was so much shame around everything that Keith did to make us feel less than, not enough. Same as I would imagine in a one-on-one relationship with a narcissist. But like. So, okay. So this is where I go to like my hopeful question or something like that.

[00:56:03] Because I look to leaders in the past and I think some of them got it right. Some of them are, you know, parts of it right. You're never going to have the perfect leader or whatever. But for me, when I look at the template in history, and I was a history major and I'm interested just in leaders and why they're leaders and how they do it. I look at like the 60s that gave us like the Kennedy brothers, Robert and John and Martin Luther King.

[00:56:26] And it seems that, you know, I played a speech for Sarah last week and it had us both crying because it seemed to come from an empathetic place. And I look at John Kennedy in particular as a person who, while he probably bought the presidency through clandestine means, seemed to empathize, good balance of understanding the power that he had and spoke from a place of empathy and principles. Now, I don't know how narcissistic John Kennedy was because it seemed like he had a sexual appetite that he couldn't control. But that was also maybe because a lot of the drugs that he was on because of his Addison's disease.

[00:56:55] And so it's complicated. And then, but you hear Martin Luther King and you hear things about that. So what's the balance and like, how do you, you know, I don't think people should put all their trust into a leader, but there seems to be people that do embody these things or at least try to embody these things, the balance of empathy and power. And are you hopeful that that that person can emerge or is it one person or is it a movement? It seemed that the 60s were that movement. And look what happens when that movement gets such an inertia. It feels like it has to be stopped.

[00:57:24] If that's indeed, you know, what happened, we'll never know the nuances of it. But it seems that there was a movement that the principles of the American idea were starting to gain some inertia and they literally got shot. The challenge there, though, becomes like, here's what's interesting. There is actually some really interesting literature saying that not only is empathic leadership possible, it works. It's profitable. I totally agree. It has better outcomes for the population. Everything. It's possible.

[00:57:50] Now, the problem is, is that the United States and politics in the United States is a shell game, right? It's bought and paid for. And so this idea that leaders are being elected for the good of the populace, them days are over. You know, I mean, even as I filled out my ballot that I live in California and I'm just sort of like, oh my gosh, this is like, I'm on this is like a continuum of psychopathology. And I'm trying to choose the least pathologic person. And I have very little regard or belief in the majority of politicians.

[00:58:20] Part of that is how, you know, again, it's a game system. It's a transactional system. There are lots of levers being pulled in back rooms by people. I mean, I don't want to sound like, you know, sort of conspiratorial, like cabals of people, but they're kind of cabali. I got to tell you, like they're, you know, they're these are organizations of people have a lot of money and want to maintain a certain status quo.

[00:58:40] So that said, I think in the political realm, especially in the United States politics is I don't see how we're going to create that shift that easily because it is such a power game. I do think, though, in some small local politics, we do sometimes see people trying to step up and do the right thing. You might see this at the level of school boards, small town politics. There are people out there who are really go into this well intentioned. I think you can even see this in business leadership of people who are really trying to say, OK, we're trying to live by these ideals.

[00:59:09] We're trying to, through leadership, ensure that all boats rise with the rising tide kind of thing. That's empathy. That's empathic leadership. It's not always easy. And what's interesting is where you have a disconnect. Let's face it, the way John Kennedy ran his private life, I have to believe his wife was hurt by how he conducted himself. Maybe rich people have affairs and that's just how they live their lives. But by all reports, she was hurt. And so there was some empathy chip missing there. One would say it was the time, it was privilege, it was entitlement. I don't know.

[00:59:39] You see a young woman who was thrust into a really public role. At 31 years old. 31 and handled it with grace and there's hurt on her face and he chose not to recognize it. There was some empathy missing there. There's no two ways about it. She suffered. She suffered. The favorite thing I heard you say, and I have to say it before we get it in, Sarah, you can take over after that, but pushing back on narcissism is a human rights issue. That was a goosebump line for me when you said that. Absolutely. Look at the world we're in right now.

[01:00:04] You show me a single problem in the world right now, and I'm talking big problems, wars and lack of health care and the state of girls and women in parts of the world. You show me one of those problems and you can't track it back to narcissistic leadership. Every single case of that.

[01:00:23] It is an absolute lack of empathy for the most vulnerable people in a society and a person using a position of power and inborn privilege to maintain their sense of power, dominance and control and viewing human beings as disposable. That is the root of all of it. And we're not pushing back on it. In fact, a lot of people are saying like, well, you know, all different kinds of personalities and we shouldn't judge. I'm judging. I am judging that the way we treat an individual is how we treat the world.

[01:00:52] That's where our podcasts overlap. You know, I think that like that's our shared mission, you know, slightly different content. But I know that you, if you feel comfortable sharing, we can cut it out if you don't, but you have a podcast also, a burgeoning podcast. Tell us. Yeah, burgeoning podcast. I wish I had a release date for you. Yes. It's a new podcast coming out called Navigating Narcissism.

[01:01:11] It's an opportunity to hear from people in all kinds of different stories of people who've been through narcissistic relationships, what the stories look like, where the red flags are and how they navigated it and where they ended up. And more importantly, what can we learn from it? That's what the podcast does. And I think that narcissism is lurking in so many public stories. NXIVM is a great example. You know, I remember sitting with my team and I said, OK, this is this is the narcissism story of the week.

[01:01:37] And I covered I watched it very carefully because as soon as I heard some of the elements of it, I'm like, OK, wait for it. And here it was. And so I don't think most people watch the story of NXIVM as a narcissism story. And it was that front to back, you know, and so and then using that as the frame and teaching people this story that seems so big and involving all these people actually relates to the person who's verbally abusing you in your kitchen right now. They're one in the same.

[01:02:02] And so the podcast is meant to help people connect those dots and teach people enduring this isn't OK. I am. I've said this before. I said this on Red Table Talk recently. The four most dangerous words in the English language when strung together are benefit of the doubt. Right. That's got to stop. Like, why am I not giving you the benefit of my doubt? Like your behavior is a problem. It doesn't mean I'm going to cut and run. But you better believe my boundary just got really thick and high. And I'm distancing myself a little bit. We don't give ourselves permission.

[01:02:32] And people judge us. The enablers step in and say, what are you doing? Or give them a chance. Or who do you think you are that you get to stand and be so uppity? I'm like, how come we just don't allow people to say, this doesn't feel comfortable. I don't like this. And let them step away. In fact, we often encourage people to walk towards their perpetrators. I have a problem with that. No, I do too. And that's great advice for our listeners and for anybody setting those boundaries. Is there anything else you'd share, especially because so many of our listeners are survivors

[01:03:01] of different, not only just cults, but narcissistic abuse, abusive relationships, anything else to recover from being gaslit or, you know, being in a toxic relationship of any kind? Absolutely. Well, please come over to my YouTube channel. It's a wealth of knowledge, everybody. It's so good. There's a big library of content there. And just, you know, join that because honestly, it's a really robust community. And people in the comment sections share a lot of their stories. You see that you're not the only one going through this. I also have a subscription healing program for people who want to do more of an intensive

[01:03:29] deep dive into sort of like, there's a lot, it requires a lot of journaling and there's a Q&A and there's a workshop every month and all of that. And if you just go to my website, which is drromany.com, you can sign up. And it's, you know, for some people, it's an adjunct to therapy. For some people say, listen, it's for this amount per month, it's an affordable price point for me to just be able to like stay on top of this. There's a community platform that's closed. Only the people in the program can get in it. So it's just, it's a safe space, which we cure, you know, we, we monitor multiple times a day.

[01:04:00] So I have that. I have, and then if you go to my website, you'll find my books and you'll find my various kinds of other recommendations I have for content out there. You can find me lots of places talking about narcissism all the time. Huge library. It's so good. We're going to put your, your website out. I have a resource page because people are always reaching out, asking for help. So I'll put it on our resource page and I know your books are on Audible. And is there anything else that you want our audience to know? I have one. Oh yeah. Okay. Sorry.

[01:04:27] When you go on social media, I think you see a lot of the stuff, Twitter or whatever. And it seems to me a lot of people don't know what they're looking at. And it seems like a lot of these so-called movements that are going on right now, what I call the maligned fringe movements are really people who are traumatized. And a lot of the solutions seem to be these kind of linear solutions to spiritual trauma problems. And they don't know what they're looking at. And then people feel like they're not heard. And then they start canceling you for not hearing them and all that stuff.

[01:04:56] And it seems just like a whole shit show of if people just understood they were looking at trauma and had the empathy that you're talking about to looking at it and not necessarily trying to get them louder voices or whatever, these things could be solved in a week. No, it wouldn't even be a week as much as they could be solved in the sense that the cycles I'm trying to see people end are the cycles of self-blame. But it's hard to end the cycles of self-blame when social media and the media at large are

[01:05:23] always raising up the narcissistic people as sort of examples of how to live. Or even in a world, listen, we live in a world where inflation is terrible. People are still struggling economically. Lots of people can't afford housing. And so when you see the most narcissistic person lives in the biggest, nicest house, you're like, wait a minute, what am I doing wrong here, right? Maybe this whole nice person thing isn't working out for me. And sadly, in some ways, that agreeableness research does show agreeable people do tend to make lower salaries because they tend to go into human service jobs.

[01:05:53] Therapists, teachers, helpers, helpers don't make money. You know, people who hurt people make more money. And so when your economy is organized that way, that's the struggle. And so I think, unfortunately, there's a lot of people out there who are sort of exploiting the vulnerability of people who've been through these relationships. I completely agree with you. A lot of this is very much holding a trauma-informed space, a space of not only safety, but also a space where the ultimate goal, like we said before for the parent, why do we raise children?

[01:06:22] We raise children so they get strong enough to walk away, fly away and live their life. That's parenting, not to make them live next to you for the rest of their life. Some people do that. Great. Good for you. That's how it worked out. But they should feel that they have the permission to also go and fulfill their destiny. It's very similar in therapy, that the goal for me in working with a client is for them to now feel that they feel committed in their choices. They feel confident.

[01:06:51] Like I'm trying to build up an independent or autonomous person. My job is great when people leave because they feel ready to go out into the world, right? I'm not trying to keep them on the chain. And so that's what we want people to be independent and autonomous and be able to feel safe in the world. And that's the problem right now. A lot of people don't feel safe. And the more we have personality styles like narcissism holding important and leadership positions, the less safe the world is. And that's the world we live in right now.

[01:07:19] It feels, I don't mean literally unsafe. I mean, it's a psychologically unsafe world right now. Right. And what you described is like the opposite of a cult, which of course breeds dependency. They want to keep people loyal, keep people in, keep people broken enough and not enough enough so that they stay and keep buying more and more classes or whatever it is that they're peddling. And isolate them from the world and say, we're better. Yes. We're better. The ultimate goal is to feed the cult leader's ego. Right.

[01:07:48] And not only is that happening through validation, the belief that the cult leader holds all the truth, that everybody outside of the cult doesn't have the truth and then, and it gets monetized. Then that's just merely a source of power, money's power. So it gives them more power. It allows them to sort of secret themselves from the world and do what it is they need to do. I was really, I mean, I will tell you when I saw the outcome of NXIVM and the trial and how it went and how it went, my immediate reaction was absolute relief.

[01:08:17] And it wasn't just relief that this guy is going to jail. It was the relief that all survivors feel when we see those rare moments of justice. I was convinced that Keith Raniere would not receive a penalty that was, you know, commensurate with what he did. I really was convinced that I was even glad to see his enablers took some hits too, because he needed those enablers to be able to be propped up. They were complicit.

[01:08:43] That trial was the kind of outcome that actually gives survivors that wholeness that only justice can deliver. And most of us don't get to have justice in our lives. And to your point, I think the catalyst for his downfall was empathy. Oh, that's interesting. Not from him. Not from him. From a prosecutor who saw it and Moira Penza. And really what I think, you know, the love that happened started with Mark's wife, Bonnie.

[01:09:13] Well, Bonnie, yes. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You know, that kind of Mark, she put it to Mark. And it's like, you know, this is that. And then Mark went to Sarah. And then, you know. He risked it all to Tommy. I came in and did my part. And that was the ripple effect of love and empathy, I think. That was a ripple effect. But also, Bonnie, to me, was such an important person in the story. Because in many cases, I wish everyone had like a Bonnie friend in their lives if they have a narcissistic relationship.

[01:09:41] That one friend that comes up to you and says, this isn't right. What I'm seeing here, not okay. And many people don't have that one person who takes the risk to step up. And then she told her partner. And he, instead of rejecting her, like you said, the empathy, he was willing to hear her. Most people, when they speak truth about these relationships, other people invalidate it because it's such a challenge to their worldview. And then he took it to you. And you were willing. So you're right. It's an empathy chain.

[01:10:11] But for most people, that chain gets clipped right at the very beginning. And you don't even have someone like Bonnie who's really willing to roll up and say, the emperor's not wearing any clothes. Right. And this is beyond the emperor's not wearing any clothes. Quite literally. Yeah. Emperor's literally not wearing clothes and harming other people. This isn't right. And I have to tell you, even in my world, when I have an organization and groups I've worked with, certainly not at this absolutely perilous level you were at with NXIVM, but in smaller

[01:10:38] scale issues, when you are the messenger, you are really viewed as a problem. Oh gosh, there's Romney. Why do you have to be so difficult? Why can't you give people a chance? Oh, you're a narcissism thing. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. And it's what I do. And I'm in an age where I just really no longer care what people think of me that way. But earlier in my career, it mattered to me more. And I keep my mouth shut. And there's a point at which, and this is hard when I often do leadership training for folks and people coming up in their careers.

[01:11:08] I say, everyone's like, well, how can we make it work? How can we make it work? I'm like, sometimes you can't make it work. Sometimes you've got to walk away. When it's that toxic, you've got to do that. And I think so much of the rhetoric out there is like, how can we meet them halfway? I can't meet someone halfway who's holding all the toys. Like they took everything. So I think it's a real shift. And this is a, like I said, if you haven't been through it, you don't get it. And that's a real challenge too. It's very difficult to anoint those who don't want to be anointed.

[01:11:37] And I struggle with that. And then when it finally happens to someone, years later, they'll call me back and say, I wish I listened to you. And I'm like, okay, fine. Sure. Okay. I've been that guy. Yeah. I wish I'd listened to you. Yeah. I wish I'd listened to you. And a lot, I've been labeled a cynic. I've been labeled a bitch. I mean, I've been called every name in the book because basically I'm saying there's no Santa Claus. You know, nobody wants to be that person. I was going to ask you about your colleagues and what it's like in the position that you're

[01:12:07] in and if you get pushed back, thank you for answering. All the time. And I have to say, you need only spend one hour in a room with a survivor who's been broken by someone narcissistic to say, I'm not, you sit with that human pain long enough. You're not going to care what if there's pushback saying, you know, just because you make the rules doesn't mean you're right. That this is not like, this is not okay. And we've got to, we've got to find a way to work with survivors and bolster them again,

[01:12:36] whether it's in a cult. And every narcissistic relationship is a cult. It's a cult of two, but it's a cult, you know? And so when you can see it and that's the level of manipulation being used and understand all those techniques when it's happening to someone in real time, I really want people to say, aha, I got it. And maybe one day long after I'm gone, there'll be a narcissism detector. The language will come in and a little device will beep and they'll be like, sequence of language. And I see AI that's not beyond the pale.

[01:13:04] I think at some point, AI will be able to detect the language patterns that people with these personalities use, and then they'll beep away. We've had this in the last couple of episodes. I don't know if you can see this bullshit button, but Nippy and I, when we were like, for example, read the response that Teal Swan had, she posted on her blog, her response to the media about her right now. Now we do this. So we, that's how we have to like find our ways to laugh and stuff.

[01:13:33] I don't think it'll become a, an ongoing sound effect in our podcast, but I think that would be great if that existed in the world more, a hundred percent. I really, I really do. I mean, I think that if we, and listen, people would just be even more savvy consumers. Capitalism is actually, is, is incumbent on people being played by narcissistic people because if we didn't feel insecure and we didn't fall for the gaslighting, then we wouldn't buy stuff, you know, like, no, that pair of shoes is not going to make you happier.

[01:14:02] Or, you know, it's that idea that a thing or something you pay for is going to be the sort of soul healing experience. People get to that point. Don't get, again, gaslighted by a sales pitch or something like that, but the economy is actually going to take a hit. So I always say, if we dismantle narcissism, we may be dismantling capitalism. I don't know that anybody's ready for that. That sounds like another episode, maybe on your podcast. Yeah, that's a big one. But then, you know, then you start getting all the, you know, then you get canceled by the capitalism crowd and that's, it's all. So let me get started.

[01:14:32] Before I start, yeah, before baby steps, before I start taking down institutional structures. Well, the world needs more people like you. And we were so, you know, honored that it was actually one of our, one of our listeners connected us. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. I'm glad to hear that. I think it was Amy. You have to go back and look at the email chain, but we're very grateful for that. We're grateful for your time. Thank you so much. Yeah. It's just like such a treat. I can't wait to meet in person when we're in LA. Please come to LA. Please find me. And also thank you for what you do.

[01:15:02] Your experience and you had such a raw experience in the vow. And I remember thinking like, wow, that is really great just to put your story and your vulnerability out there. And that's where healing happens. That I'm going to put my vulnerability out there, no matter how the world judges me, this is how I'm going to heal. And you did that. And I think a lot of people, you know, some people learn, some people don't. And like I said, you can't anoint those who don't want to be anointed, but many people learned.

[01:15:28] And I thought it was, it was really quite, I mean, I was, I watched it twice. The gift is wisdom. And if we can articulate it and stay in our lane, I think, you know, we're doing our jobs and then it's been worth it. It's great. You said something in an interview that really stuck with me. I thought I knew all the Khalil Gibran quotes, but you said, out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls and the most massive characters are seared with scars. And just want to let you know that I've had my brand removed. Oh, that's wonderful, Sarah. That is wonderful. And yet, you know what it is, is that I'm so glad you had that.

[01:15:58] And yet the other scars we all carry, I always tell people, I'm an interpreter. So I don't go to parties, but when I do, I always scan the room for the most scarred person. And I'm like, yeah, that's who I'm talking to tonight because they're always the most interesting and eloquent. It definitely has been an interesting talking point at dinner parties. And I, and I needed to keep it for a number of years, partly for evidence, you know, but to have it gone, I do have to, like, I literally had it cut out with plastic surgery. I just have like a, you know, a two inch line scar and I'm, I'm okay with that. It reminds me of what I've overcome. So.

[01:16:28] But I think that scar also reminds you that you took your power back. And that's a different kind of scar. Absolutely. Yeah. Awesome. So thank you again. I'm so glad I got to talk with you. Thank you. Thank you.

[01:16:59] We hope you're enjoying A Little Bit Culty. If so, please do show us some love, drop a rating or leave a review. Hit subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com slash a little bit culty. Even better, send this episode to someone who needs it. Maybe they're in a cult. Maybe they're just a little bit susceptible. Or maybe they just love a good story. Spread the word. Spread the love. Thanks for listening and see you next time. A Little Bit Culty is a Trace 120 production.

[01:17:25] Executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nippy Ames in collaboration with producer Will Rutherford at Citizens of Sound. Our co-creator is Jess Temple Tardy. Our production coordinator is Leslie Dinsenbor. Writing by Sandra Nomoto and social media marketing by Eric Swarczynski and Brooke Keene. Our theme song Cultivated is by the artists John Bryant and Nigel Aslan.

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