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The Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel is a transformative and supportive Podcast, dedicated to helping those who are, or have been, abused by narcissists to heal from the ravages of narcissistic abuse. Our show is a lifeline for those who are looking for next steps in their emotional and psychological healing, offering expert guidance and practical solutions for those who are in narcissistic relationships or are rebuilding their lives after narcissistic abuse. The hosts are Attorney Padideh Jafari and Jon McKenney who have helped hundreds of people in their narcissistic abuse recovery and know the journey personally in their own lives.
OLAS Media.
Jared Mello:For me, it started with self medicating of anxiety and depression. I didn't know what was wrong with me. And this is just one part of it because self medicating of that stuff, I also had narcissistic people in the family as well. They didn't know what was wrong with me. They didn't want to kind of address anything.
Jared Mello:They just wanted me to be a normal kid. And for me to have an issue like that, that wouldn't look too good on the image of the family. So they're just like, no. Get with it. What the heck's wrong with you?
Jared Mello:And they kept on blaming me, like, why are you keep on acting out? Why do you keep on doing all these things? And they just kept on blaming me for messing up.
Voiceover:OLAS Media presents the Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel with John and Padilla.
Jon McKenney:Greetings, I'm John McKenney with the Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel and Padilla, it's good to see you again. How are you today?
Padideh Jafari:Hi, John. I'm doing well. I'm in the Olas Media Studios in San Diego. Again, a beautiful day in San Diego.
Jon McKenney:It's hot and dry in the South. I don't think we've seen rain but twice all summer long. And one was a really bad hurricane. So I don't recommend those. Jared Mello is our guest today.
Jon McKenney:The Wizard of Radical Self Respect. Jared, where are you? What part of the nation are you?
Jared Mello:I'm in New Jersey.
Jon McKenney:New Jersey. Alright. I've been through New Jersey on more than one occasion and lost in the New Jersey Pine Barrens once as well. It's a
Jared Mello:great place over there, the Pine Barrens.
Jon McKenney:I I enjoyed it. I slept under a canoe. Lost in it's another story altogether. My friend, John Ferguson. John, God bless you out there.
Jared Mello:It's like an episode of The Sopranos.
Jon McKenney:It really it was probably something like that, if I'm not mistaken. So a cold a cold spring day in in late March one day when I was in college and lost from the rest of the resident assistants. But I digress. So so Jared, tell us tell us a little about the the your work with Wizard of Radical Self Respect on Instagram and the other social media channels. And I know you helped Narcissist Recover and also you have a great story to talk about.
Jon McKenney:So we want to just talk to you about your story and how you kind of got where you are helping other people heal from abuse and those kinds of things. So talk to us about how you got there and start from the beginning and tell us your story, man.
Jared Mello:All right. So yeah, it's been a long time coming for me to get to where I am doing what I'm doing on Instagram and YouTube, Facebook, TikTok. But for me, it started with self medicating of anxiety and depression. Didn't know for a long, long time, but I had the anxiety associated with being high functioning autistic. So I didn't know what was wrong with me for until I was probably in my low thirties.
Jared Mello:But in my teenage years, I just knew something was wrong with my consciousness. I always wanted to jump out of my skin. I couldn't wait to go use and escape to get outside of myself with drugs, drinking, any way I possibly could.
Jon McKenney:And how old were you when you started using? I mean, sounds, you're talking young now.
Jared Mello:15, 16 is when it started. And this is just one part of it because self medicating of that stuff. I also had narcissistic people in the family as well. They didn't know what was wrong with me. They didn't want to kind of address anything.
Jared Mello:They just wanted me to be a normal kid. I was the firstborn. And for me to have an issue like that, that wouldn't look too good on the image of the family. So they're just like, no, get with it. What the heck's wrong with you?
Jared Mello:And they kept on blaming like, why do you keep on acting out? Why do you keep on doing all these things? And they just kept on blaming me for messing up. And it wasn't until you were gonna say.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah, there's a stigma attached to that in society, but I know if you're in a narcissistic family unit, they're going to even more so highlight that and say, Get better soon, because guess what? That's a reflection on us and the family, so that must have been really difficult for you.
Jon McKenney:And narcissists love the perfection image.
Jared Mello:Right. I mean, I had a post the other day where I'd said narcissistic parents will often minimize the big things or sweep them under the rug, but then they'll exaggerate and blow up the small things. And that was pretty accurate from my upbringing too. But they couldn't understand it. They didn't understand what was going on.
Jared Mello:I didn't even understand what was going on. So I didn't have any answers for them either. But eventually what I discovered was opiates and things like that, Suboxone, methadone and then later heroin. Those were the things that really soothed me the most. And that's what addiction is.
Jon McKenney:Ridiculously addictive as well, Yeah. As I Absolutely. So so you're in your teenage years and you are hooked and and did did life spiral for you? What? How did I mean, there there had there has to be an unhappy ending and all of that there at some point in time.
Jared Mello:There are some wild times in there. Let me tell you, I, you know, I became a felon when I was probably 20, 19 or 20. Wow. Just from heroin drug possession as I got. That's a felony where I'm from.
Jon McKenney:Yeah.
Jared Mello:And I can distinctly remember this. There's times where I was in the car with four or five other people and we were all doing the same things. And this was when I'm 19, 20 years old, every one of those people is dead except for me.
Jon McKenney:Oh my gosh.
Jared Mello:So I try to think, well, there's gotta be a reason I'm still here to try to share my experience, strength and hope and to help people with radical self respect, help people with my awareness on narcissism. But it's kind of surreal to think about it sometimes, all of them dead. Some died young, some died a little older, but dead.
Jon McKenney:Yeah, I've noticed in my own life those people who are addicts don't generally last beyond 50. That by the time they're 50 years old they're kind of all gone. In fact, of my closest friends growing up, his name was Ken, and I met him he came to kindergarten late, so I met him middle of the year and we went through school all the way together. And by the time we got to middle school, he started running with some people who were not good for him and and got addicted. And I remember even through high school and kind of post post high school, he told me, he said, you know what?
Jon McKenney:He said, look, I'm I'm going to be dead by the time I'm 50. And sure enough, a month before his his fiftieth birthday, it all caught up with him and others who, were in those scenarios as well. Most kind of, you know, there is a day that it catches up with you, but most by the time they're 50 years old, unfortunately.
Jared Mello:Sure. And I'm just super lucky that it wasn't me. And that's all it is, though, is luck. It wasn't from anything I did differently than them. And the drugs are so dangerous nowadays that I think even more people die than ever used to.
Jared Mello:But it's just luck that it wasn't me and that I didn't do that to my family and everyone who cared about me. But that whole lifestyle is just pretty wild to begin with, where when you're at that mood where drugs become number one for you. And because for me, it was the only time I ever wanted to be alive. I was like, Oh, I do this drug. I finally feel like life's worth living.
Jared Mello:I finally feel like I can have fun. And the big thing, being comfortable in my own skin, Because I think especially if you had a narcissistic parent or a more of abusive, strict parent, that is not what they help you to be. Anything, there's a lot of walking on eggshells, a lot of judgment, a lot of criticism. And my belief in myself was just terrible. That's a separate issue than the It's mental health issues like, yeah, you can have anxiety, depression, or be on the spectrum or something else, but then your belief in yourself and your boundaries and being assertive, that's another issue.
Jared Mello:But often they combine because a lot of people who have anxiety, they usually don't have a good belief in themselves a lot of times. They usually don't have strong boundaries. So both of these things were working in tandem against me. And I went on like that for a while until finally I'd gotten on this drug replacement thing called Suboxone. But I still messed up in other ways.
Jared Mello:Like I still did other drugs and I was starting to crash cars left and right. And again, it's a miracle. I didn't kill myself doing one of those things.
Jon McKenney:There any time that your family I know that again, narcissistic people love this public persona that's kind of flawless, and you being perhaps acting out, being public in some respects, wrecking cars and things like that, has to tarnish that image. Is there any point in time where they kind of stepped in and tried to intervene on you in any kind of way or tried to get you help throughout the way?
Jared Mello:They did, they did. I mean, they just thought that there was something wrong with me. They didn't know what it was. They knew it certainly wasn't them and how they raised me though. Course not.
Jon McKenney:But it wasn't them.
Jared Mello:And it was like, okay. But they did try, they did try. But the problem was this. They were more like the police to me. And they acted like really strict cops.
Jared Mello:And I was always trying to avoid the cops, my parents, and their judgments and criticism because they were really just trying to stop me from doing the only thing I wanted to do. It's like I wanted to get rid of that uncomfortable feeling and drugs did that, but I didn't have the words to articulate that back then because I was a teenager. Didn't know what I didn't know, But all I knew was they're trying to stop me from doing what I wanna do. And so they got really strict about it and I couldn't be honest with them about things. They would always criticize me for being sneaky and like being deceitful because I was, I was, they were trying to stop me and I didn't want them to stop me.
Jon McKenney:Did you have any sense at all along the way that you were kind of self destructing?
Jared Mello:No, I kind of romanticized it a little bit. I kind of always like watched the war movies or the movies about drugs like Scarface and things. And I liked the dramatic tragic endings of those. And I was kind of romanticized those things because part of being on the spectrum, but was also undiagnosed. I had a lot of symptoms that pretty much turned into like borderline personality disorder where with that, I don't know if it was full blown BPD, but I matched all the symptoms according to the DSM.
Jared Mello:I was very impulsive. I'd have those the black and white thinking, suicidal idealizations, all of that. And it was just I was wild. I was wild, had a fear of abandonment, but then also a fear of smothering to a fear of being smothered, Often because of my parents, though, they were so controlling that whenever people do that, it can still be an issue for me to this day sometimes when I feel controlled. It's like, want to run the other way.
Jared Mello:It's like, no, don't control me. Like that's anything but that.
Jon McKenney:Yeah. And also, I mean BPD being in the same family of disorders in the DSM-five with respect to narcissistic personality disorder, both are cluster B personality disorders. It would be very easy, I imagine, grown up in the family you grew up with, and coupled with the addiction and things you were going through all at the same time, it'd be very easy to come up with a similar personality disorder, I would guess.
Jared Mello:Sure. I mean, was the golden child until I was about a teenager because I played sports. I was good at baseball. Those were the things that my dad really idealized. But then I stopped.
Jared Mello:I stopped playing baseball. And then that combined with me acting out. Then I turned into the black sheep or the scapegoat. So the role switched for me. And yeah, they were very disappointed in me for a long time.
Jared Mello:And yeah, and I had gone to rehab. I was going to make a joke earlier about it's like, have you even ever lived if you haven't spent thirty days with a room full of strangers that you don't know that are of all ages? And I still remember that. I still remember people that were bikers there, people that were in gangs in the city, their professionals. It's a wild experience.
Jon McKenney:I mean, sounds like an episode of The Real World Gone Bad. It is. It is.
Jared Mello:It's that plus Jack Nicholson's. What's the name of that movie? When he's in the mental place, I can't remember. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Yeah.
Jared Mello:It's like that.
Padideh Jafari:That's such a great movie.
Jared Mello:Yeah. So that's what my little brother would say. It reminded me. It reminded him of that, me being there because here I am 19 years old or so. And I'm at this rehab because I messed up so much.
Jared Mello:But the rehab didn't even help me though either. The first day I left that rehab, that was when I first did heroin for the first time because I met the wrong people in that place. I just that's got worse.
Jon McKenney:Could be a problem.
Jared Mello:Well, it's like jail where if you're not ready to do better, which is the same with narcissism, it's the same with addiction, if you're not ready to do better, nothing's going to help you.
Jon McKenney:And there are plenty of people that can help you do worse.
Jared Mello:Absolutely.
Jon McKenney:So the exposure to them, I imagine that worse across the board, whether it's AA or NA or whatever it might be, it's very easy to connect with people who would help you down the wrong path if they were not so serious about recovery.
Jared Mello:Absolutely. And a lot of people aren't because it's hard. A lot of people don't know what's wrong with them. I had a version that when I wasn't on drugs or drinking, I was just super quiet. I was super quiet.
Jared Mello:And people mistake that for someone who's good and has it together. But that's not really what it was for me. I was still had all this inner turmoil. They would consider that like the spectrum plus like a quiet BPD. But people didn't know what was wrong with me because I was just quiet.
Jared Mello:What do you do with someone who's just quiet and who's not gonna like try to actualize? But I just didn't. I was quiet. I knew what I wanted to do. And so I kept on getting worse until the consequences finally got great enough.
Jon McKenney:What were those consequences for you that kind of I imagine, you know, you have teachable moments, moments of reckoning in life where you go, Okay, this is a big deal. How did those consequences play out for you and deliver that to you?
Jared Mello:Well, there was several arrests in there and lots of crashing cars. And I'd gotten on, like I said, this thing called Suboxone and that helped. And I was on other psych meds at the time too. And they kind of stabilized me a little bit, but those things are super powerful. And I was going to school at the time because my mom made sure I got into school and did things, even though I wasn't even ready for that at all.
Jared Mello:It wasn't my own decision. She was leading the way with that. But I was sleep driving to school every day with this cocktail of like psych meds and Suboxone. And the psychiatrist would say, Oh, he's just getting adjusted to the meds. But it's like, No, I was a zombie.
Jared Mello:I was a zombie when I was 21 to like 23. As a miracle, didn't die sleep driving to school. It was so bad that the professors in school would be like, because I would fall asleep in class too. And they would say, how do you get here? I was like, Oh, I drive an hour to get here.
Jared Mello:And I was like, How didn't I die? I don't know. But I was super lucky. I was super lucky. But eventually I had crashed enough cars, gotten arrested enough times where I was like, You know what?
Jared Mello:I'm just tired. I'm tired of these consequences. And the last thing I did was I had taken some Xanax, which less than I normally took in. And I was on Suboxone still at that time, too. But I drove home from a bar and my girlfriend at the time was following me.
Jared Mello:And I just, I blacked out while driving and drifted off the road and crashed into this thing. And the police came and they arrested me, but I told them I took too much of my medicine, Suboxone at the time. And they didn't know what that was because this was new, like twenty And years I didn't get a DWI for that somehow because my girlfriend at the time was calling the police station so much that they just let me go to her. They didn't drug test me. They didn't give me any charges.
Jared Mello:But that was, I was fine. Like, you know what? I'm super lucky that I got off this way with this. So that was my mini bottom there where I was like, okay, I'm going to try to do better now. And then that's when I got introduced to NA.
Jared Mello:And I was just tired of the consequences. They'll say, when the pain's great enough, you'll try to do something to change. And that was the point for me where I finally decided, okay, I'm gonna try. And at that point, I just thought I was an addict because that's all they told me too. They said, oh, you're an addict.
Jon McKenney:Right.
Jared Mello:Of course. And it fits though, it fit in a not so perfect way, but it did fit. My behaviors were just the people there were doing all those same things, manipulating, lying, doing whatever they can to get one more. That was me. And that was the beginning though, of my self awareness journey.
Jared Mello:At this point, I'm 23 or 24.
Jon McKenney:Okay.
Jared Mello:And as young, as kind of young for back then, right? I was
Jon McKenney:Just out of college, I guess. Yeah. If you finished, right?
Jared Mello:I did finish. I from Stockton and I was able to at least get some self awareness. And I was working on the steps. And I suggest everyone, whether you're an addict or not, write on those steps. Because most
Jon McKenney:people- I've worked through them myself. Unbelievably good.
Jared Mello:Yeah. I mean, you get self awareness, you learn about your defects, learn about your patterns, you learn about like what makes you tick. And I think I'm so lucky that I got that when I did, because I think something happens like when your frontal lobe and your brain is fully developed, I don't know how much growth you can really get after it. But I think before it, the growth can be accelerated. Like you can really learn and change more the younger you get something.
Jared Mello:So I
Jon McKenney:got Neuroplasticity super is like, is just amazing when you're younger. Yeah.
Jared Mello:And it's not I believe in neuroplasticity at any age. I just think it's the most supple when you're
Jon McKenney:Accelerated.
Jared Mello:Yeah.
Jon McKenney:I felt, yeah, I think I can identify with that for sure.
Jared Mello:I did that and I got a sponsor and I started working the steps and I learned a lot about myself, but I still just thought I was an addict at this point. I didn't know anything else about what was going on. And then eventually that's when I started replacing the drugs with women. I wanted one woman though. Like, and that's kind of like a difference between like narcissism and borderline.
Jared Mello:A lot of the borderlines will want one ideal love. Narcissists, they'll want many. They want all the sources of supply they could get. But at that point, I just wanted one person because, and I was super, not to say co dependent, because I don't think that's the right word for it. It was more like I was super approval seeking and I had such low self esteem.
Jared Mello:I wanted a woman to make me feel better about me. So I made a woman my higher power basically. And that's an awful place to be. Let me tell you, that's not, you disrespect yourself, you do all sorts of terrible things. And this wasn't even the narcissistic woman I'm talking about.
Jared Mello:This is pre her, pre her by years. But that bottomed me out in another way too. And I realized, Oh my Lord, like, because she broke up with me for being so weak, basically. And I don't blame She did the right thing. I was in a bad spot.
Jared Mello:And I relapsed over at once with booze because I was just a mess. I put her on the pedestal, all the things you shouldn't do. And then I bottomed out again. And then I really got like centered on the steps and she did come back around, but I did end up breaking up with her, but I was okay. I at least got down to square one here.
Jared Mello:I've learned about myself. I'm working the steps. I'm doing what they're telling me to do. Like 90 meetings in ninety days, get a sponsor, call your sponsor, get a home group, all that stuff. That's what I was doing.
Jared Mello:And it works like that stuff. If you do it, that's the big keyword. If you do it, it works. And I know some people don't like the programs anymore for various reasons. They don't like the higher power component or they don't like the cult mentality component.
Jared Mello:And there's a point, there's a point with that where the cult component is, you know, you think similar to everyone in the room. Everyone thinks a certain way and there's a little bit of us versus them, like us addicts and then the normies that can drink and do things normally. So there's a little bit of it, but I think when the damage that could happen is what could happen when you're a user, when you're an addict, that you can go die. It's like, well, perhaps you need a little bit of a cult mentality to get yourself out of that. Perhaps it's not the worst thing for you in that case.
Jared Mello:And that's what I learned from me. It's like, okay, yeah. Because when the problems are that severe, the solutions need to be just as drastic a lot of times. It's like, you gotta meet it. You got to do just as much of a drastic change to get from where you were to where you want to be.
Jon McKenney:You figure out kind of, or you approach yourself as an addict and you finally get yourself to a point, you hit these consequences, you get to NA, and by and large it's working for you with some lapses and you kind of take this other route where you get your supply and your energy from again a single woman. How did you kind of get from there to the place where you're like, okay, wait a minute, maybe there's some other things going on with me finding, discovering autism and BPD and all of this other stuff. Did the steps and working the steps give you the clarity you needed, the focus you needed to kind of see all that stuff? Or how, were there, was another moment where you're like, Man, this is the other defining moment for me that kind of turned me in that direction to help me understand myself and perhaps my surroundings and what I grew up in that altered it for you?
Jared Mello:In a roundabout way the steps did. So when I was three or four years clean, my anxiety was out of control because was When you're in the program, they say the path gets narrower as you go down. And so I started to eliminate caffeine, eliminated cigarettes, was trying to eliminate sugar because everything, I got so much more sensitive to everything as I cleaned But out my I was still having severe anxiety. I was still having like manic episodes, like hypomanic episodes, we'll call them. And then depressions, still super depressed, suicidal idealizations.
Jared Mello:And I was like, there's something still wrong with me. Like I'm clean from all these things, but yet like my brain's malfunctioning still, like what's wrong with me? And that process led me to a woman named Lisa Rogers. She does emotional freedom tapping is what they call it. And she's the one that introduced me to supplements.
Jared Mello:Now she just mentioned that, oh, maybe some supplements could help you. And that started it. And then from that point on, I started taking all these kinds of supplements to kind of put my brain back together is what I would call it. And the puzzle pieces began to click, but I didn't discover my whole routine all at once. Years to just get to the point that I'm at now.
Jared Mello:But that was a life changer for me because where before I always had wanted to jump out of my own skin, I was finally able to get to a point, okay, I don't feel terrible all the time now. I don't have severe anxiety all the time now. I can
Jon McKenney:feel So these supplements really did help. And these are nutritional kinds of things, I imagine.
Jared Mello:Well, there's things like SAM e, B vitamins, five HTP, probiotics, there's a lot. If people saw my routine, they would think I'm insane. But that's okay, I like that. I like that, they'll think that. It kind of goes with the wizard thing.
Jon McKenney:Yeah, it's interesting, you know, one of the things we talked about in a prior episode was the importance of particularly those people who've been abused by narcissists, kind of beginning in a place where you're starting to take care of yourself physically. And Padita and I, surprisingly enough, one of the first things both of us did was find ourselves in the gym and started to eat healthy and eat right and take care of our bodies. And that was that was one of the things that that really helped set us on a path of healing. And here you are, honestly, recovering in the same way, just with supplements and things to begin to get your mind healthy and to get your body a little healthier from where you were. Not dissimilar.
Jared Mello:I mean, and I was in super good shape too. That was the other cue for me. I was like, I'm in super good shape. I'm doing P90X, running three, four miles a day, but I still was depressed. I still had super bad anxiety.
Jared Mello:That's why I knew something was just not quite right. And then the supplements really kind of added to my journey and that did help. It did help.
Padideh Jafari:Did you, as I'm listening to this, I'm wondering what were your parents like during this process? Because you went through rehab. Okay. We know they weren't disappointed, right? We could say that maybe they were disappointed, but now you're out and you're like three, four years sober.
Padideh Jafari:What were your parents like at this time?
Jared Mello:So at that point they had turned around a little bit because before my lower twenties, my younger twenties, they were really ashamed of me. They were like, they just, they would say they wanted their son back. I remember, I still remember that in rehab, would ask the people questions like, Oh, say what you want to say to the addict, which was me. And they would say, Oh, they just want their son back. And my mom, she was super sensitive too.
Jared Mello:So like I put her through a lot of help. But by that point, when I was three, four years clean, they had finally started to turn around on a little bit. I wasn't such a disappointment anymore. The difference then was they wanted me to really get like a normal job, be a normal person, get a normal job. That's what it shifted to.
Jared Mello:Because at that point, I was still kind of underemployed, we'll call it. I was working in restaurants and doing stuff at delivery driving stuff. And they were like, you got to do better. Like you gotta go, go, go. But I knew I couldn't do it though.
Jared Mello:There was something about me that would have died, I think, if I just went to do that route. And I was like, I knew there was something I needed to be doing instead. And it took a long time for me to figure out what that was. And they didn't have the patience for that. Like they didn't have the patience to kind of like, let me go.
Jared Mello:Like it made them insecure and anxious that I was still like living at home at 28 and just not kind of like launching for lack of a better word. But that's what it turned into. So they were happy with me on one hand, but on the other side, were still disappointed that I wasn't meeting my potential, I guess they would think.
Jon McKenney:Gotcha. So where did you discover the autistic component and you got to these supplements and you were dialed in as you could be, I think to what you might consider a normal life, I guess. Parents are reasonably pleased, although they want you out of the house and off the payroll probably. Yeah, exactly. And to get on with their own thing, which may or may not be a bad thing for a parent these days anyways.
Jon McKenney:So how did you get to this place of self discovery? How did you move to that from where you were?
Jared Mello:Well, especially at that time when I was three, four years clean, I dove into all sorts of self help books, spirituality books, psychology books, I was obsessed with trying to find out what was wrong with me. So I had learned a lot during that process. And it took me a while though, because I thought it was just anxiety for a long time. Like the psychiatrist didn't tell me anything. And I don't take any prescription drugs now.
Jared Mello:But when I used to do that, they didn't know that's what it was. Like no one knew. I slipped under the cracks. But it took me reading a lot of experiences on Reddit from people who were on the spectrum. I was like, Oh, that's me.
Jared Mello:That sounds just like me, except I'm just slightly more high functioning than some of these people. And it was hard because there's two parts of this, right? There's the trauma and the stuff that you're doing that you're trying to self medicate. And then there's that, the autistic piece is different because even if you heal trauma, that autistic, your brain's still different. So all this time I was trying to get that feeling under control.
Jared Mello:And I did a lot of good things for myself in the process, trying to like figure out what that feeling was and why I was so up and down left and right. But it was really both, like I needed both. I needed to do healing work, trauma work, and figure out what I wanted to do about the autistic piece because, and that's a weird thing. I saw a stat the other day that said, people who are high functioning autistic are nine times more likely to commit suicide. I know I could see why, you're kind of in a no man's land a little bit where it's hard to know what to do.
Jared Mello:It's like, well, should you medicate it a little bit? Should just take supplements? I've chose the supplement route. And I think for me, the results are showing, okay, that's pretty good. But other people who are less high functioning, it's different for them.
Jared Mello:Like you might not even be able to work. Your verbal abilities might just not be there. So a lot of it depends and I can't tell people what they should do. Just know you gotta be true to yourself whatever's gonna help you. All of that, and that was after the narcissistic woman too.
Jared Mello:I kind of skipped that part, But it was after her. But if you want me to talk about her, I can
Jon McKenney:do Yeah, that let's go talk about that because you know, it's interesting, you know, as Padilla and I talk to people who are victims of narcissistic abuse, you've talked about kind of two instances of that here. You've got a family that you grew up in that is highly narcissistic, and then you find somebody who's a girlfriend who's also highly narcissistic. Not uncommon, you know, we tend to kind of chase after the kinds of things we grew up in. So that makes sense as well. What happened there with her?
Jared Mello:So with her, I was playing poker one day at a casino. And at this point, this is like six years ago, seven years ago now.
Jon McKenney:Oh, wow. Okay.
Jared Mello:And what had happened was I told her by chance that I had like a YouTube channel or something like that. And she reached out to me and then she wanted to help me like take pictures for my cover art and things. And she came over and she was this beautiful Brazilian girl. And I know now what she was doing was love bombing me at the time, Like telling me how handsome she thought I was and how great she thought I was. Like, wow, you're so great.
Jared Mello:And we were immediately intimate. And at this moment I'm thinking, wow, finally found missing puzzle piece. The things all those Disney movies would always talk about.
Jon McKenney:Missing The puzzle whole new world.
Jared Mello:Exactly that. I was Aladdin. I got all the beauty in all of it. And I felt great. And you know the song that really captures it as I went on was Billy Joel's Always a Woman.
Jared Mello:You listen to the lyrics of that song, I could relate to that so much later on. But in the beginning I was like, Oh, this person, I'm gonna marry this person. I'm gonna marry this person. It's just clear, obviously. And she's just matching me, mirroring me, idealizing me.
Jared Mello:And I had no idea what that was at the time. Like I knew I'd been through some stuff with like family and narcissism, but I didn't put two and two together because I hadn't dated one yet. But then with her, then I was hooked and she would do all like she would start being sneaky eventually and doing shady stuff with like other dudes. But when push and she just basically put me through the stages. So it was like love bomb, devalue, discard.
Jared Mello:And it was brutal. And in retrospect, I got off kind of easy because I didn't like have kids with the person. I didn't marry them. It didn't turn into that kind of nightmare.
Jon McKenney:Yeah.
Jared Mello:Which that does happen to a
Jon McKenney:lot How did your relationship, I've got air quotes here, how long did your relationship last with her? How long were you involved there?
Jared Mello:It was like, overall, it was like a year and a half, year and a half to two years.
Jon McKenney:But enough time to really matter, you know?
Jared Mello:Yeah, for sure. And it was sporadic in that after the first six to nine months because she would go off and like ghost and like go off to other dudes. But, and this is the big thing, that whole experience taught me. I asked myself, what could I have done differently to make sure this didn't happen again? And what I learned was I should have practiced radical self respect.
Jared Mello:If I practiced radical self respect, at the first signs of disrespect, I could have bolted. Could have said, you know what, Jared, you're not going to deal with this. You're not going to let her treat you like that. But instead, my self worth just wasn't there. I wasn't okay on my own.
Jared Mello:I wanted someone to make me feel better about me, to help soothe me through life. And it showed me, no, that's not how it's supposed to be. Like you let this person have all this power over you. And yeah, she absolutely mistreated me. So I'm not blaming myself.
Jared Mello:I'm just trying to What I try to do is look at what I could have done differently, because that's all I can change. Can change what I do differently. I can change how I see things, but that's all I can do. And if I were to practice radical self respect, I would have saved myself a lot of trouble, but I'm grateful for it now. If it wasn't for her, my life would be completely different.
Jared Mello:So I'm super grateful for her because when I found out like she was doing all of the things that people in the narcissistic videos on YouTube would talk about, and that was what I would consider my sixth sense moment with narcissism. I started hearing, Oh, is doing this, like Duper's Delight. She's devalued you, ghosted you.
Padideh Jafari:What is Duper's Delight? I think that's the first time I've ever heard that. What's that Jared?
Jared Mello:Duper's Delight is when someone takes glee in screwing people over and being deceitful. And basically, it's the reason why a lot of narcissistic people like to cheat as opposed to even being in, say, an open relationship because they get more enjoyment about sneaking around and lying about it. So they call that dupers delight. Oh my goodness.
Jon McKenney:Was there a point in time where you kind of made the connection also between what you experienced with her and your family growing up and you go, Oh my God, no wonder. Because I think there are a lot of people out there who are being abused narcissistically and you have a couple of components. You've got the autism component or being kind of on the spectrum, being high functioning. But then you've got this as well, growing up in this environment where narcissistic abuse is just the norm, and you put those two things together and on the other end of that it's ridiculous addiction. I'm afraid sometimes for our listeners out there they experience addiction issues and you went through this process of just kind of going deeper and deeper and deeper and you found the why and part of that why was your own wiring, emotional wiring and personality wiring.
Jon McKenney:Then you've got this other component too, is narcissistic abuse and growing up in a narcissistic family. Was that all discovered kind of through this woman who you were involved with?
Jared Mello:Yeah, that was part of the Sixth Sense Moment, the red pill on narcissism. When I found out her, because a lot of the videos would say, Oh, if you dated a narcissist, there's a fair chance that you had a narcissistic parent. And that I even know now, parent, it's either high functioning autism Asperger's like me, which can look similar to narcissism sometimes there's emotional immaturity there, or it could be narcissism. But I learned it doesn't really matter what that label was because the behaviors were the behaviors. It was so similar that it was hard to tell.
Jared Mello:But that's like, that was the dynamic. I was belittled, put down, criticized, judged, shamed. They wanted me to do a certain, like live a certain way. And if I didn't, there was hell to pay. But that was part of the sixth sense moment.
Jared Mello:I realized, oh, and I realized that about a grandmother. So like my mother got with someone who was like her mother and all of her daughters got with someone like her. And then I had other extended family members like it. So all of these pieces started to come together And I was like, Oh, now I see it. Now I see this person's a little more people please y.
Jared Mello:This person over here is the narcissistic person. And in my family, it's everywhere. And it's to varying degrees. It's not always the most severe degree, but it's there. It's there.
Jared Mello:And it was mind boggling to see it because once you see it, you can't unsee it. Yep.
Padideh Jafari:We say that all the time. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Like the red pill, exactly what you said, Jared. It's like, once you see it, you can't unsee it. It's traumatic to see it, but then you're thankful that you know it now.
Padideh Jafari:I And don't know if this is the right word to say, but I'm really proud of you because you've turned all of those experiences into helping others. And really, that's why John and I are doing this podcast is to help the community understand what narcissism looks like. So I don't know if you've ever been told that by your parents, but I want to be the first one to say, I'm proud of you, that you have turned this whole situation around. We really want to know what you're doing, the Radical Self Respect, what you're doing for people.
Jared Mello:So with that, what I try to do is like, I pull from my experiences because everything I've been through, I think there's an opportunity there. And at the risk of sounding toxic positivity like, so I preface it with this. This is how I see things for myself. Doesn't mean everyone has to see it this way. But I try to think of it as, okay, what if life happened for me and not to me?
Jared Mello:What would that change? And what does that mean I could learn? Or what was the opportunity in everything that happened? That's how I try to see all of those things. And for me, it's had a great impact because I was like, okay, if I put that through like the narcissistic relationship, if that was for me, what can I learn?
Jared Mello:Oh, radical self respect is what I could learn. Or how about the addiction stuff? What can I learn there? About the autistic stuff? What can I learn there?
Jared Mello:And there is opportunities if we choose to look at it that way. But again, I'm very careful with this because some people may consider it invalidating, but I like what Jim Carrey said at one of his commencement speeches. He goes, Yeah, I don't know if life happens for you or to you, but I choose to believe it happens for me so I can best handle life's obstacles as they come up. I was like, yes, why wouldn't you want to try to do that? So that's what I do.
Jared Mello:And radical self respect is the antidote to me, to people that are dealing with a narcissistic relationship. And when you move It forward
Jon McKenney:really is. Embedded in that title is the key to you getting help. Because you said it earlier, you said this, you said, you know, I can't control that, but I can control me. And I, you know, I don't I don't ever want to be in a position where we're kind of blaming victims or survivors of narcissistic But but I had a component in that. If for no other reason it was an excessive use of compassion or excessive loyalty, these components are good in and of themselves but turned on in and too much of it when somebody is abusing you, you have to take back your self respect.
Jon McKenney:And people who are oftentimes sitting in these relationships with narcissists don't even think about respecting themselves. They're just they kind of want to stick with it, and here they're taking abuse not standing up for themselves, and in order to really beyond narcissistic abuse, you have to get to that
Jared Mello:place. Padilla?
Padideh Jafari:No, I mean, yeah, I just, I feel like I could talk to you all day, Jared, about this and your experience. And I want to know like what you're doing, I think coaching now and you're helping. Is it you're helping men and women? Are you just working with men? How does that work?
Padideh Jafari:How do people get in touch with you?
Jared Mello:So anyone can get in touch with me through my social media platforms. They can schedule coaching sessions using my Calendly. I help men and women both. I help men and women both. I help more women nowadays than I help men, but I'd certainly help both.
Jared Mello:And I guess I wanted to piggyback on what John was saying. The stages of healing are very important to me because when someone's in stage one and they've been abused and mistreated and put through the cycle of abuse, what they need is support. What they need is encouragement. What they need is validation that they're not crazy. And the first step is to get them out of those awful situations, or at least help them to get a plan to get out.
Jared Mello:Then It's
Jon McKenney:very hard to heal in a war zone.
Jared Mello:Exactly. For sure. So that's number one. And then there comes a point later on where then you look at your side of the street and say, okay, well, what could I have done differently here? And then that's where the radical self respect part would come in.
Jared Mello:You say, okay, maybe I did overlook red flags. And if I overlooked red flags, why did I overlook red flags? And it's like you were saying, is it because you're just loving and caring and you wanna give second chances? And then I would encourage people to dig to the next layer of that and say, Why with this person in particular? And is there any kind of like limiting belief or fear at the bottom of that too?
Jared Mello:There might be, and maybe in some cases there's not, but that's the second part. And I think some people, what happens to them is they get to the second part and then they forget where they came from. And certain people will, they'll turn more to the toxic positivity side. And they'll tell the people in the beginning, no, you gotta look at your side of the street. You gotta think this way, think that way.
Jared Mello:This is what worked for me. And it's like, you forget where you came from. You forget how it was. Like when you're in that spot, that's not what you need right away. Like you need that support and encouragement.
Jared Mello:Then when they're ready down the line, you give them the other parts of it. The parts where you look at your side of the street. And then the last part, stage three, trying to find a way to let go of resentment. I don't ever push for people to forgive. If somebody wants to forgive, they can, but I don't try to push people to do that.
Jared Mello:And I don't even like to try to push people to let go of resentment because part of it, the whole process of healing is feeling the feelings and you got to feel it to heal it. So anger is going to be a very normal part of that for a while. And I don't want to tell somebody, no, you shouldn't be angry. You got to let it go. It's like, no, you get through it by feeling it.
Jared Mello:Then adapt and what helped me with that part of it was, I said, okay, maybe they did the best they could. It certainly doesn't excuse what they did. A lot of the people who treated me the way they did, but it's an explanation. And for me, I thought, wow, like my parents, they went through a lot and they had me so young and then three other kids and they were not wealthy by any means. And I was like, wow, that must have been pretty stressful too.
Jared Mello:And it must have put them in a bed. And what I try to think for myself, what would I have done? It would have been tough. So, and that's not to excuse them. It just helped me have the happiest and healthiest mindset for myself today.
Jared Mello:That's what it helped me to do. And again
Jon McKenney:Working through that process also is what kind of frees you up for a new relationship as well. Right. Because otherwise you wind up in this cycle where you're just doing the same things over and over again and repeating it. You don't want to be in that situation either. If you don't identify red flags and figure that out, if you don't identify what piece of it you yourself played, even if it may have been turned having a good thing turned upside down a little bit or excessive compassion or excessive kindness.
Jon McKenney:If you don't figure that kind of stuff out, you wind up in the same kind of toxic relationship again. And the message in large part, think, is dig deeper for so much of this. Know, it's easy to go, okay, well maybe I'm an addict, but why? You have to ask yourself the Is it something internal? Is it my family situation?
Jon McKenney:Is it both of those things? And it seems like it's been a really fantastic discovery process for you.
Jared Mello:I'll be life changing. And I wouldn't change it for the world. I think when we become happy with who we are today, we realize everything happened, that everything that happened turned me into who I am today. You remove those pieces that I'm not who I am. So by extension, I can have appreciation for the things and I get it.
Jared Mello:I know what people will say to that. They'll say, Oh, well, I don't wanna appreciate this terrible experience, that terrible experience. And I get it. But when we do, when we enjoy who we are today, and we're happy with who we are today, and it does help when you've gotten some results in life too, right? That absolutely contributes too.
Jared Mello:But for me, I'm grateful. I'm grateful for the things and they weren't all great, but I've tried to do the best I can with them.
Jon McKenney:Yep, not far off from the good book, which says all things work out for the good. And it really has in your particular situation. Mean here you are helping other people with some of the trauma you went through. So there are other people who are gaining from your experience and so thank you so much for being with us today And, if you wanna you wanna find Jared, you can go reach out to him, wizard of radical self respect, on, on most social media channels. Again, he does some coaching and, and and has a ton of wisdom.
Jon McKenney:So, thanks so much for being present with us today. Vadita, for being here too and so glad to be a part of your lives and to begin to help you think through the kinds of things that might lead you through narcissistic abuse and to help you recover. And with that we're out. Have a wonderful afternoon.
Padideh Jafari:Thank you Jared.
Jared Mello:I appreciate you both having me on.
Jon McKenney:Thank you.
Padideh Jafari:Bye bye.
Voiceover:Thank you for listening to the Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel. Be sure to follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. To hear other episodes or read the associated blogs, visit olasmedia.com and be sure to follow us on Instagram with the handle narc. Podcast. The guest views, thoughts and opinions expressed are their own.
Voiceover:The information presented is for general information purposes only and is not intended to be legal advice. The co hosts are not licensed therapists. Seek professional help as information is often state specific. The Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel is produced in studios in San Diego, California and Tijuana Baja, California. Olas Media is an IVC media company.
Jon McKenney:Olas Media.