Tag: narcissism

Couples Therapy divorce Individual Treatment Infidelity Narcissism • • • • • • By Sara Sloan 0 Comments

Advice on Divorcing a Narcissist

Divorcing a narcissist is brutal, there’s really no way around it.  Divorce often destabilizes the narcissist’s fragile sense of self, which can sometimes result in a narcissistic collapse, which is dangerous for their partner.  If it’s possible, it can be good to see if you can get the narcissist’s buy in, so that eventually they may believe the divorce was their idea. Narcissists can’t handle the rejection, which will make you enemy number one.  They often split on people, similar to borderline personality disorder, where the narcissist turns their partner from all good to all bad.  In other words, you’re either for them or against them, they can’t tolerate anything in the middle.

So, before letting the narcissist know your plans, it’s best to get ahead of things.  It’s important to make sure you have the money ready for first and last months rent way before you need it, as well as money to retain a good divorce attorney that is well versed in narcissism, as well as any incidentals, until you can get temporary orders in place.

If you own property/a home together, do not be the first one to move out, otherwise many states may consider that abandonment, which could cost you in the long run. If you need to move out due to domestic violence (DV), make sure you log any past DV with a family doctor or law enforcement.  This evidence will be important to you, especially if you go to court.

Take care of any family heirlooms or other sentimental pieces.  Move them out of the home and into a safe place, so the narcissist can’t retaliate by destroying them.  It’s not uncommon in divorcing a narcissist, for them to try to take or destroy anything you care about, simply so you don’t get to have it.

If you have children, make sure you find  a good family therapist that is familiar with narcissism and isn’t afraid to take sides in court.  Many therapists refuse to take sides, which allows the court to assume both sides are equal, which down plays the reality of the situation.  Unfortunately, many therapists fear a narcissist’s retaliation, which is not unfounded.

A good rule of thumb is to delete anything on your phone or any other electronic device that you don’t want being read aloud in court, because once you’ve filed for divorce, deleting information after filing can get you in trouble with the judge.

It’s important that you get copies of your past tax returns and any other financial information before you file, so that money doesn’t disappear without a history to track it.

If you suspect your narcissistic partner is cheating, or if they’ve accused you of cheating, it’s worth checking your bank statements for evidence. It’s incredibly common for narcissistic men to go to strip clubs, massage parlors with happy endings, sugar babies and sex workers in general.  To catch this, look for sums of $200, $1000, and $2000, usually pulled from an ATM usually after midnight or 2:00am.  Then, call the number attached to find the location of the ATM, which will often be at the establishment in question (strip club, massage parlor, hotel). If you can prove that the funds were used for one of these purposes, the money spent will go into your financial column at the end of the divorce.

Make sure that if you have to cohabitate for any period of time after deciding to divorce, sleep with a good lock on your door.  Domestic violence is most likely to happen during this period, before you’ve fully separated.  It’s not worth the risk. If the narcissist tries to break down the door, immediately call 911, so there will be a record of this behavior.  A witness is necessary.  Otherwise, if there isn’t concrete evidence (like a recording, an email, or a third party reference), it didn’t happen according to family court.

Couples Therapy Infidelity Narcissism Stress Therapy • • • • • By Sara Sloan 0 Comments

Part 3: Advice and Techniques for Understanding and Coping with the Narcissist in Your Life

Sara Sloan, LMFT, CST, IRT contributed to Mind Body Green’s article, “How to Deal with the Narcissist in your Life, According to Experts,” originally published on October 20th, 2024. Below is Sloan’s content and article summary.

Narcissistic relationships in the devaluation phase can end at any moment.  So, the best thing you can do is to begin to create a safety net for yourself for when the end occurs.  The more you can educate yourself on narcissism, the easier it will be to understand what will come next, as well as what you’ve been through.

Unfortunately, the narcissist often has a sixth sense for when you’re done.  Sometimes they will lean back into the love bombing stage in order to pull you back into the relationship.  So, if you’d been begging them to take a trip, they’ll book a romantic vacation to Tahiti.  If you’ve been begging them for intimacy, you’ll suddenly be having sex again every night.  If they catch on that you’re out, they’ll do anything to reel you back in.

Once they feel unstable, though, many narcissists will begin to plan their exit at your expense.  Narcissists are unable to be alone, so they will get on the dating apps without telling you.  Sometimes you’ll learn that the narcissist has been cheating throughout the entire relationship, which is often the case, even though they will tell you otherwise. Narcissists need supply and you will never be enough, because no one will be enough to fill the empty hole inside them.

Usually, the narcissist will begin a smear campaign against you, before you know what’s happening. They will employ people close to you to keep tabs on what you’re doing, which we often refer to as “Flying Monkeys.”  They will talk to your friends, their friends, anyone they worry about their opinion, to make sure their story is the dominant one.  Many will cry crocodile tears to others and blame their behavior on you.  So if they were the one that cheated, they will accuse you of being the cheater.

Once they begin their attack, the best thing you can do is grey rock.  Grey rocking means going flat, showing no emotion, saying as few words as possible.  The feed on the emotions they create, so don’t give it to them. Remember, never feed the emotional vampires!

If you have shared housing with the narcissist, make sure you have a place to stay and escape to, if things get bad. Once things are over, you’ll often see a side of the narcissist that you’ve never encountered.  That alone can be so startling, it often makes you question yourself, which is exactly what they want.

If you’ve been sharing a bank account, make sure you open one in your name, and get a credit card of your own.  It’s also important to run a credit check, because oftentimes narcissists may have opened cards in your name.

Make sure you explain to your friends and family what’s been going on.  Don’t feel ashamed, narcissists can trick even the best therapists when they put on their charm.  You were chosen by the narcissist because of how amazing you are, so don’t allow the narcissist to make you question your value.

The best thing you can do once you realize you’re with a narcissist is to prepare to leave by gettin your finances in order, letting your support circle know what’s going on, and finding a therapist skilled in narcissistic abuse recovery.

 

Couples Therapy Narcissism Self-improvement Stress Therapy • • • By Sara Sloan 0 Comments

Part 2: Advice and Techniques for Understanding and Coping with the Narcissist in Your Life

Sara Sloan, LMFT, CST, IRT contributed to Mind Body Green’s article, “How to Deal with the Narcissist in your Life, According to Experts,” originally published on October 20th, 2024. Below is Sloan’s content and article summary.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder often follows a predictable trajectory in relationships.  However, if you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, the experience can feel a lot like emotional vertigo due to their always pulling you into their delusion or point of view.  Narcissists generally view their partner as their thing, something to be used for their benefit.  Love often gets exchanged with power and control, when you’re in a narcissistic relationship; this is why over time, the narcissistic partner begins to isolate you from your friends and family.  The narcissist wants to be the only influence in your life.

In the very beginning of a narcissistic relationship, it often feels like a dream come true.  Many people believe they’ve met their soul mate.  Oftentimes, this is because the narcissist believes it with such conviction, you begin to believe it, too.  This initial stage in the relationship is referred to as the “love bombing” stage.  Here, the narcissist often reflects your image back to you, allowing you to essentially fall in love with the qualities you care most about your self.

Once you’ve fallen in love with the narcissist, that’s when things begin to change.  Narcissists aren’t able to keep up with the demands of a real relationship, so that’s usually when the devaluation process begins.  Narcissists often pick partners who have everything they don’t.  Usually their partners are hyper-empathetic, intelligent, fun, and well loved by others.  Subconsciously, the narcissist hopes to gain these qualities through partnership for themselves; so when that doesn’t occur, they begin to pick apart the very qualities they loved in the beginning.  For instance, if you were the life of the party, the narcissist might begin to complain that you’re “too loud,” or they might turn a compliment into an insult, “you have too many friends.”

During the devaluation stage, the narcissist will try to destroy the qualities that most define you. They’ll play games, often refusing intimacy when you want it, or demanding it when you don’t.  They will begin to ruin important events where they aren’t the center of attention.  For instance, they might call off Christmas due to a petty argument they initiated, or they might intentionally sabotage your birthday.  Narcissists are incapable of allowing anyone else to share the spot light.

Narcissists often end up creating trauma around the holidays for their spouse and family members, as well as any other important day that doesn’t center around the narcissist.  They take pleasure in destroying things that matter to others, because it makes the narcissist feel powerful and in control.

Narcissists are sadists.  An obvious tell of the narcissist’s sadism can be seen in their facial expressions when they’re hurting others.  Oftentimes, narcissists can’t help but grin, when they’re cutting you down, or breaking up with you.  They often become cruel when feeling challenged.  One example of this could be you getting a raise, which gives you a higher salary than the narcissist, which hurts their ego; so to punish you, the narcissist will pick a fight about how you work too much at your celebratory dinner.

Overtime, you’ll see the abuse cycle begin. Narcissists often pull from the various abuses found in the Wheel of Power and Control.  If you recognize any of these behaviors in your relationship, it is abusive and you should leave, because it always gets worse.  Domestic violence never moves backwards, it only becomes more extreme and dangerous.

If you continue to stay with the narcissist, they will cause you brain damage.  The constant gaslighting, lying, and DARVO-ing, and their unpredictability causes narcissistic abuse victims’ brains to look similar to someone with borderline personality disorder; this is because narcissistic abuse makes the amygdala (fight, flight or freeze) becomes over reactive, while the hippocampus (logical and reasoning center) begins to atrophy the longer you stay in the relationship.

Individual Treatment Narcissism Stress • • • By Sara Sloan 0 Comments

Part 1: Advice and Techniques for Dealing and Coping with the Narcissist in Your Life

Sara Sloan, LMFT, CST, IRT contributed to Mind Body Green’s article, “How to Deal with the Narcissist in your Life, According to Experts,” originally published on October 20th, 2024. Below is Sloan’s content and article summary.

We hear the term “narcissist” constantly now in the media, and the truth is we all display some narcissistic traits.  However, what separates you from a narcissist is that your traits my show up under duress, or only in certain specific situations, whereas a narcissist’s traits are pathological and operating all the time.

If we examine the traits that define Narcissistic Personality Disorder, they break down into two major types of Narcissism: grandiose/malignant and covert/vulnerable.  Sometimes individuals with these traits may overlap.  In a grandiose/malignant narcissist, they’ll often seek out admiration, always needing to be first and the best in any situation; by comparison, a malignant narcissist seeks your pity, often playing the victim, especially the hero-victim whenever possible.

All narcissists expect special treatment and all have the ability drain the energy from those around them.  Narcissists are emotional vampires, and expert manipulators.  They live in their own reality and expect those around them to conform to it accordingly.  You can tell when a narcissist is trying to pull you into their false version of reality, because it creates an emotional vertigo, which makes it hard to know what to believe.  Narcissists create this confusion in order to gain control of you and any situation.

Other traits you’ll often find in a narcissist include, but certainly aren’t limited to:

  1. Narcissists have an exaggerated sense of self, similar to a chihuahua that sees themselves as a doberman
  2. Narcissists always speak with conviction, convinced that they’re right, and that they know what they’re talking about
  3. Narcissists constantly seek out adoration, attention, sexual attention, and any kind of external validation
  4. Narcissists carry a sense of entitlement, which they think should give them special access, special privileges, and the ability to be the exception to any rule.
  5. Narcissists are willing to manipulate, exploit, and control others for their own personal gain.
  6. Narcissists have grandiose fantasies that place them far above their own abilities in life.  They expect to be the CEO, have the biggest home, or the most attractive wife, etc.  Everything about the narcissist and what they touch or are involved in has to be the best.
  7. Narcissists are jealous of those that have more than they do, or those that have something they want for themselves (money, beauty, friends, spouse).  Everything is a competition to the narcissist that they must win.
  8. Narcissists use others to advance their own interests.
  9. Narcissists use DARVO (Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender) in any argument.
  10. Narcissists lack self awareness, because they can’t see outside of themselves, their wants, or their desires, and how they effect others around them.
  11. Narcissists often blow up and get mean when criticized.

Not all narcissists will have all of these traits, but they should have enough that it negatively impairs their life and their relationships.

Research Shows Narcissistic Abusers Think the Same as Pedophiles

Don Hennessy is a therapist and domestic violence (DV) specialist, who has studied abusive men and their victims for almost …

When Desire No Longer Exists, but You Really Want It to …

Desire can be an illusive thing sometimes in a relationship/marriage.  You  may want to be intimate, but that doesn’t …

Neurodiverse Couples Therapy

New research in the last six months disproves past assumptions that neurodiverse people have difficulty communicating.  …