narcissism

It's just you and the joy because that right there is how for a moment in time, the narcissist doesn't win because narcissistic relationships are joy stealers.

While you are in them, there's so little joy because they take it all away.

Narcissistic people have tremendous contempt for finding beauty in small moments.

Kind of defies the entire premise of grandiosity.

If the smell of jasmine on a warm night is enough to evoke joy, then their grandiose BS is a little bit extra, isn't it? In fact, a great way to keep the narcissist at the gate for a minute and not let them and their negativity in is to be a small moment joy feeler.

She also works closely with Dr. Romani and Dr. Christine Cocciola.

When Catherine saw Narcissist Playbook, her first thought was, where was this film 20 years ago? What struck her was that people come to it from completely different situations.

It could be a cult, a partner, a parent, and they walk away with the same emotional experience.

She's even had therapists who consult with her start showing it to their clients.

There's forensic neuropsychologists, forensic evaluators, forensic psychotherapists.

So it's just everything that assists the legal system.

I want to get a little bit more into your personal story, but first I just want to just kind of recap a conversation you and I had, I don't know, it feels like a few months ago, about the film Narcissist Playbook.

Because you told me it had a pretty profound impact on you.

that there is a risk of going in way too fast with a new person who is offering all of this and then missing the red flags with that new person survivors do have to be more discerning to ensure that we aren't being played gaslighted and drawn in and sort of deceived by the love bombing or just filling in those needs that we so desperately want filled with another person And that way we may miss the other problematic patterns.

Narcissistic abuse really does take a toll on our ability to perceive any of this.

And breaking our leg twice in the same spot, as I've said before, isn't good for us.

Just as being narcissistically abused again and again by different people really takes a toll on us.

But we just have different labels for how we think about ourselves as heroes and how we think about other people as villains.

And it's almost in the zeitgeist nowadays, Narcissism is a great way of describing a villain in our life, someone who psychologically feels like a villain or an obstructor, someone getting in our way.

Yeah, and as you're saying that, two things come to mind.

One is the way that we tell the hero's journey story the hero and villain stories is it's a flat world right now.

And of course, if you're new here, I'm Lee Hammock.

I'm a clinically diagnosed narcissist here to give you the inside look at the mind of a narcissist.

And welcome to another episode of The Narcissist Code.

Let's get it.

Let's get it.

He's malignant and never broke me.

Good for you getting out of there.

Spiritually, are demons using the flesh? Narcissists, I'm not sure, not sure.

The therapy world can play into this as well.

Narcissistic folks can actually present really calmly and look really well put together in couples therapy.

The charming narcissist sitting next to the rather upset, anxious, and wide-eyed other non-narcissistic person, unless the therapist knows what they are looking at, it can be easily framed as, well, let's work on this messy person's anxiety and get this relationship tidied up.

That idea of fixing the other person, the survivor of the narcissistic abuse, and never addressing the manipulation and the personality of the person making the mess is a real problem that can occur in couples therapy.

And this is always worse if the confusion plays on your core wounds.

But pay attention to this dynamic.

Narcissistic abuse happens.

You feel confused and anxious and self-doubting and self-blaming.