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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. Â
OLAS Media.
Padideh Jafari:This is gonna be, I think, great for our listeners, you know, the ones that are stuck in these relationships and don't know how to get out.
Jon McKenney:This podcast is about is about not being a victim and and and not living that life in the days ahead.
Padideh Jafari:You need all of these people and all of these resources because your healing is not going to happen with just you in in the room.
Jon McKenney:Our desire to help comes from real life situations in both of both of our lives. We are survivors of this. We're not just people who decided one day, hey, you know what, I think I'm gonna go do this.
Padideh Jafari:Really the raw emotions of being in a narcissistic, abusive relationship and marriage myself.
Jon McKenney:This has been the most difficult experience of my life.
Padideh Jafari:Nobody is more single than a married narcissist.
Jon McKenney:Yeah, or more alone. But narcissistic abuse is kind of like swampland. Don't know it's there until you know it's there. If we can say anything to you there is hope on the other side of this. Welcome to the Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel.
Jon McKenney:I'm John McKenney and my cohort and my partner in crime here is
Padideh Jafari:Padideh Jaffari
Voiceover:Padideh it's so good to see
Jon McKenney:you again for those of you who followed us on Instagram. We've we've done some of these before but decided to step it up a little bit to begin to get the news out. We felt a real connection in our conversations over the last couple of years as we've done this online and really have just decided to approach podcasting from a different kind of way, more regular, more content, some guests and some opportunities to get out the word about narcissistic abuse and how to heal from it.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah, we're really excited to launch our podcast and this is our first show.
Jon McKenney:It is. I'm pretty excited about this Padideh. It's really quite an endeavor.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah, it's a great opportunity to help people understand what narcissism is, how to heal from it, recover from it, and really go from a victim to a survivor.
Jon McKenney:Victim to victor, right? I think we'll trademark that.
Padideh Jafari:Exactly. So
Jon McKenney:you and I have been talking about our first our first show here. Why are you here? Why are we here? Why are we doing this? Give us some insight into into this whole thing.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we've talked about this so much. You you don't know what you don't know, right? And so when you are married and you're in a toxic or abusive relationship you sort of don't know that you're being abused some of the times, right? It's only when you go into your divorce attorney's office that for the first time when you're talking about your marriage you realize wow this was really abusive. It's like sometimes for clients it's the first time they've actually expressed all these things out loud.
Padideh Jafari:And so for me the reason why I wanted to start this podcast is because, and I don't share this with my clients by the way so this is a different side of me that they're going to see through this podcast is really the raw emotions of being in a narcissistic abusive relationship and marriage myself for seven years.
Jon McKenney:And we should probably start with that, right? You and I as we approach narcissistic abuse and this narcissistic abuse recovery channel acronym Narc We are survivors of this We're not just people who decided one day. Hey, you know what I think I'm gonna go do this Our desire to help comes from real life situations in both of both of our lives,
Padideh Jafari:right? And you know, it's it's ironic that I was a divorce attorney and in an abusive marriage helping other people and really I didn't even know the word narcissism. I have a psychology background but it was not discussed okay like twenty five years ago when I was So going
Jon McKenney:when did you find out? Do you remember that moment?
Padideh Jafari:Yes, it was like an moment five years ago. Started
Jon McKenney:That recent. Yeah.
Padideh Jafari:I started to read up on it and look at lots of social media and then really tried to study it. I remember my current husband was like, if you say the word narcissism one more time, we're gonna have a problem. Because it was like every other word. Was like, this person's narcissistic, this person's narcissistic. And so now I have a podcast called Narc.
Jon McKenney:We have one, yes. Yes. You know, it's interesting, you know, as people approach abuse in life, and there are lots of different kinds of abuses. There's, you know, certainly domestic violence abuse from alcohol and substances and things like that. Narcissistic abuse does not get much press.
Jon McKenney:It really doesn't get much attention. I think the closest thing we've really seen to that is Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, where those terms come up and maybe Taylor Swift, she talks about covert narcissist in one of her songs. Yes. Narcissistic abuse is kind of like swampland. Don't know it's there until you know it's there.
Jon McKenney:And I think that's why I wanted to go do this. Mean, found out five years ago. How long were you in a relationship,
Padideh Jafari:Seven years. Seven long years. Okay.
Jon McKenney:Seven years. People used to ask me, How long have you been married? And I'd tell them, and then the next question is, Well, how long have you been happily married? Maybe not so many. Right.
Jon McKenney:But I mean, you went through seven years of hell in this relationship, seven years of abuse. And then one day the lights came on for you and I was on the same boat and you're much smarter than me. It only took you seven years. It took me twenty five years to kind of figure out what was really going on. And I'll remember, I remember the day I was sitting down and saw a, it was a Facebook post from a friend and it was twenty, twenty, I think it was 20 diversion tactics or 20 tactics of narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths.
Voiceover:I thought, you know what, I'm gonna go click into
Jon McKenney:this and went and clicked it and it was like, oh, oh, you know, and I'm going down the list. I'm going, okay, one, two, three. And I'm thinking of stories for each one. And while I had pieces of this, realized there was a denial cycle in my ex. You know, we started with a problem and then kind of confrontation and and a very heated kind of argument where that there's just nothing but denial.
Jon McKenney:And then what I thought was ownership, but it really wasn't. It was more acquiescence to the situation just to shut me up. And and then back to stage one again, just you run this cycle and it was like living fifty first dates that that movie with Adam Adam Sandler, where you you kinda have to go and address the same stuff over and over and over and over and over again to the point where it can literally drive you crazy. Where a lot of the people who are involved who are abused by narcissists have kind of some mental and emotional health issues, to mention other issues possibly as well along the way from this narcissistic abuse. I want people to know what this is.
Jon McKenney:I want people to understand not just what we've been through but thousands and thousands of people, maybe millions with three thirty, I think three thirty three million people in The United States, there have to be millions who are going through this either with a parent who's a narcissist or a sibling or those who've married narcissists like you and I did or children who are narcissists or even in my arena, I hear a lot from moms who have sons who have married a narcissistic wife. And you of course, you have those kind of experiences too. Tell me about some of yours where you have encountered these.
Padideh Jafari:In the divorce space I encounter the innocent spouse I call them, right? And then the narcissistic spouse. And so I, like our firm is really clear cut in that we will never represent a narcissist. Good for you. Shouldn't.
Padideh Jafari:No matter how much money they throw at us, right? We say that narcissists find narcissistic attorneys an because empathic is not going to be of any use to them. Because an empathic attorney is going to say, I need you to settle. I want you to be fair. Don't lie.
Padideh Jafari:Don't manipulate through the court system. And that's all they're about, really. So I always tell my clients, while you're fighting with your ex, I'm fighting with the attorney because they have narcissistic traits as well. So it becomes a circular cycle of abuse in the court system.
Jon McKenney:This
Padideh Jafari:is going to be I think great for our listeners, the ones that are stuck in these relationships and don't know how to get out, the ones that have escaped because you don't leave a narcissistic relationship you have to escape one. And then the ones that are in their healing process but they're like what resources, what other resources we can offer them. We're really excited to do this.
Jon McKenney:You know what my fear is? Is that there are a group of people out there who just don't know, like we didn't know. I mean, I was literally in the dark for twenty five years. I did not know what was going on. I certainly didn't know it had a name, you know, that there was an actual malady.
Jon McKenney:There's an actual personality disorder called narcissistic, you know, personality disorder. I had no idea that existed. You don't find this on the Today Show. You don't find this in the news, you know, where you there's an awful lot of conversation about other kinds of things, you know, borderline personality disorder, which perhaps is even which is in the same family. You may hear more about that, but you do not hear much about narcissistic personality disorder at all.
Jon McKenney:My fear is that there are people out there and I genuinely hope you're tuning in. You a toxic relationship, know, where you're beating your head against the wall trying to connect with somebody that you're perhaps married to or in a relationship with, and maybe this is for you and you need to go, okay, I need to understand what narcissistic personality disorder is because there's a pretty high chance that you may be experiencing issues with somebody who's got narcissistic personality disorder.
Padideh Jafari:Right. And you know the thing about it too, John, is that even if somebody tells you and you're not ready to hear them, right because like a lot of what we do is protect our abuser. We try to make excuses and say well they had a really bad childhood, right? And so we want to fix it. We want to protect them.
Padideh Jafari:I mean, that's how I was with my ex husband, right? A brother of mine said something about my ex husband, it was like, no, no, no. He's had a really bad childhood. I'm going to save this. I'm going to save this marriage.
Padideh Jafari:You know? I'm gonna save him and I'm gonna be his savior. So I feel like, yes, this is really good and an opportunity for even a family member who sees and is witnessing a loved one that is going through this type of abuse.
Jon McKenney:Oh yes, absolutely.
Padideh Jafari:Like they could say go listen to their podcast and maybe they'll have the moment. But I feel like so much of what we do is as victims of these types of narcissistic people is we try to protect them at all costs even if it means losing our own soul to them.
Jon McKenney:Yeah, and you know in my work on Instagram at male victims of female narcissists where you'd think I just have a following of men and which is not true. It's actually about fiftyfifty men and women because everybody's got to deal with female narcissists. Don't discriminate. Men and women are abused by them, but men particularly are ridiculously bad at identifying abuse in their own lives. There's something about us that maybe it's a masculinity thing, call it whatever you will, But to go ascent to the fact, to go own the fact, to go admit to the fact that I'm being abused is a very, very hard step.
Jon McKenney:Particularly, again, back to masculinity, again, if it's coming from a woman and you're being abused by a woman, it's perhaps even harder. I've found over the years, easier to say that men are experiencing undeserved cruelty. We can I can embrace that? But to say that I'm abused is is a very very hard thing where somebody might think they're in a toxic relationship. They they're men perhaps even protecting their their their own masculinity in some respects by not not admitting it.
Jon McKenney:And then you then on top of that, like like you described wanting to protect the person you care about whether they're narcissistic or not, is a whole another level. I think it's easy for people not to know that they are the victims of narcissistic abuse. And we talk about victims, we're like, that's a stop, but you don't want to live there. This podcast is about not being a victim and not living that life in the days ahead. And hopefully you'll find some healing here and our listeners will really plug into that and and find practical things that will help them understand how to move from perhaps a position they're in right now.
Jon McKenney:So Padideh, let's move to this. There are people out there that perhaps don't understand like you and I didn't understand. What do they need to know?
Padideh Jafari:Well, I think like what you said, right? You saw something on Facebook and then you went sort of line by line and said yep, I can check this box off and I can check this box off. And so here are a couple of cluster B personality disorders like you mentioned borderline, histrionic narcissistic personality disorder. And here's some characteristics I think. So as a listener you can go through these and see which ones you're in a relationship with, which ones that person has.
Padideh Jafari:So lack of empathy is they always say this. Profound lack of empathy, right? Profound lack of empathy. I mean I can clearly remember an example of this with my ex husband when his brother was gonna come stay with us and he was like absolutely not, absolutely not. And his brother came to stay with us because he was gonna go into a program, an AA program and I was like, why?
Padideh Jafari:We need to help him. Like he's just, like he was gonna stay with us for one night or something. And he was like, absolutely And I was like, but why? Like I just couldn't. And so anything to help someone else or that lack of empathy for his own brother, it was just like he just didn't want to He do did not care.
Padideh Jafari:And so, and I know a lot of people talk about that lack of empathy. What kind of example can you give of that?
Jon McKenney:So the one that stands out for me, I was, I had skin cancer some years back, about five years ago. Let me start here, is basal cell carcinoma. It's not the worst cancer in the world. Most of the time it's not fatal unless it's near a lymph node or something like that. They cut it out and you're kind of done.
Jon McKenney:But to me, and I think to most people, when you hear I've got the C word, everything inside you goes, and you go, oh, wait a I got cancer, I got cancer. And I don't I can remember hearing from the the nurse. She goes, well, you know, we checked that thing and by the way, you've got skin cancer and you know, your face becomes kind of ghost like and you're, oh my god, I've got this thing going on so I can remember calling calling my ex and telling her and at the moment you would think that she go you know what I'm gonna be with you. I'm present with you. We're gonna get through this together.
Jon McKenney:It's gonna be okay and all of my friends from the most healthy to unhealthy. We're just like that. What can I do for you? You know they understand they understood the trauma in it real or not so much, but they they understood that it was a big deal and offered help And when I called my ex to tell her, pretended she'd had cancer too, which was kind of crazy. I remember literally staring at the phone as she's telling me this and holding it out and I'm going my god.
Jon McKenney:I've got cancer on my back and she's pretending she has it and and and did not engage with me beyond that at all. No conversation with me. And there was a point in time where I said, I just don't understand. You've got not only no empathy, no compassion. I think that the compassion word might be a better word to Yeah.
Jon McKenney:For people to wrap their mind around empathy seems a little more nebulous than compassion, no compassion whatsoever. And she looked at me and she said, it's a nothing cancer.
Padideh Jafari:Oh my goodness.
Jon McKenney:I'm like, okay. You know, I'm not sure I know what to do with that. And I really didn't know what to do with that. But you know, we're the normal person, a person without a personality disorder would go, man, let me come alongside you and help you bring emotional stability to your situation. A complete absence of compassion, complete absence of empathy, no ability to feel what you're feeling.
Jon McKenney:And in fact, more than that no desire whatsoever to kinda to go through or even experience your emotional pain or trauma. So that it's we're not just talking about somebody who who might miss something along the way we're talking about a profound a profound pervasive life covering lack of empathy. In their lives and in addition to other things like they are they are completely there's no self awareness whatsoever. I've said many times on male victims of female narcissists that narcissists do not have the ability to go introspect.
Padideh Jafari:Right.
Jon McKenney:So particularly where their own behavior is concerned. So they'll introspect yours. They'd be very happy to go do that and tell you where you fail and probably do more often than not because the rules only apply to you. It does not apply to them. But if they fail at something or they've hurt you or something like that and you confront them, they have absolute zero ability to go inside their own head for even just a moment and go, yeah, I did that wrong.
Jon McKenney:I'm sorry. They will avoid conversation about that. They will avoid accountability and that's all because they don't introspect their own behavior. They just can't. So that's another piece of the equation.
Jon McKenney:If you're dealing with somebody who is completely not self aware, they don't see their own behavior, sometimes you can point it out and they'll go, no, didn't do that.
Padideh Jafari:Right, they'll deny.
Jon McKenney:It just happened, a complete denial of what's actually taken place.
Padideh Jafari:Right. I think that I they actually think that narcissists think that they're perfect. And so I would They think that they're perfect. So if you point out a flaw or something you did wrong they go, I didn't do that because if it was a mistake. A lot of times we'll have clients that say, he clearly cheated on me.
Padideh Jafari:Brought the evidence. I showed everything. And he still denied it, right? And it's like Yep. Yep, that person thinks that they're perfect and they think that they can do that to people.
Padideh Jafari:So they think they can do that to their spouse. There's a saying I see frequently on Instagram. It says, nobody is more single than a married narcissist. And that's
Jon McKenney:so Yeah. Or or more alone. It is. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Jon McKenney:And and you can what's interesting, you're talking about this here. You can have forensic evidence in front of them and they will pretend it didn't happen.
Padideh Jafari:100%.
Jon McKenney:There's a time where where where my ex and I had I I was one of the guys most most narcissists by the way don't ever get to a therapist, but I did get mine to a therapist. And she worked her through some of this stuff and was working her through some of the denial. And the therapist had my ex write me a letter of apology for something she'd done to me pretty egregious. And II can remember the the it quite honestly, it didn't sound like my ex's writing anyways. Sounded more like the therapist.
Jon McKenney:I was wondered who wrote it, but I remember the therapist asking me, do you how do you receive this? And I'm like, I don't know. She's denied this and pretended it didn't exist and pretended she never did this so many times. I'm not sure I know what to do with this letter. I looked over at my ex and I said, but I want you to know I trust you that this is real.
Jon McKenney:I trust that you're apologetic. I trust that you are not in denial over this. And thank you for this letter and I'll hold on to it. And also if you ever pretend to me again that this didn't happen I'm going to show it to you and I'm going to tear it up in front of your face. Two weeks.
Jon McKenney:Threw the papers in the air and I'm like, I knew it was going to happen. Because again, they're not self aware, they don't wanna deal with what's really going on, they don't wanna deal with the reality of the situation. And they will go to extreme measures to pretend that some of this stuff doesn't exist just to keep from having to introspect their own behavior.
Padideh Jafari:Right. The way, I got a letter too along the same lines at the very, very end like seven
Jon McKenney:Mine was always a Dear John letter.
Padideh Jafari:Yes. At the seven year mark while I was like literally planning my escape and it was like this beautifully written letter. I think I still have it believe it or not. And I just, the words had no meaning because he had apologized so many times. We'd been to three different therapists and it just didn't have any meaning.
Padideh Jafari:And it's like I remember holding that paper of apology and it was like everything that I ever wanted him to do which was like go to church with me. Know, like do, not lie to me, not cheat on me, not be physically abusive. Like all those things were in that letter like I'm sorry I did this. But it just had no more meaning. You know and I was like he knew it all along.
Padideh Jafari:Knew the right things to do all along. Just never did them. And so yeah, it was
Jon McKenney:just And he probably continued, which invalidates the apology anyways. Know, these things are not real. These things wind up being manipulative manipulation tactics to try and reel you back in, to try and keep you in relationships so they can continue to use you for whatever they're using for.
Padideh Jafari:Right, this time I had seen the light and I was like it has no meaning like you said, right? So I had my plan of action and I escaped very shortly thereafter.
Jon McKenney:So And and and in that, they're also very controlling, very manipulative people. They are constantly trying to manipulate you and will do almost anything to go do it. They'll do anything. They'll say anything. They'll violate any belief they say they have.
Jon McKenney:I know my ex is a church going person and would call herself a person of faith. But all that stuff is completely out the window when actually having to go evaluate their own behavior. They'll manipulate, they'll do, they'll say anything, they'll do anything to manipulate you and violate any worldview or belief system that they have just to manipulate you or go do whatever the hell they want. And it's truly unfortunate because you're constantly being you may feel like you're constantly being manipulated or controlled or angled. A lot of people who are being abused by narcissists particularly are even abused financially as well
Padideh Jafari:Right 100%.
Jon McKenney:Makes it very very difficult. Did you experience that at all?
Padideh Jafari:Right. So this is what I usually say physical spiritual abuse, which is what you're talking about. Yeah. Emotional, mental, I mean financial. There's so many ways that these narcissists abuse and I also see the financial abuse a lot with my clients because the court system is very, very expensive, right?
Padideh Jafari:Attorneys like in LA County where we practice are $550 an hour and up.
Jon McKenney:That's money.
Padideh Jafari:So they will really try to abuse that way through litigation. They call it litigation abuse, financial abuse. Mean, they're really good stalling cases.
Jon McKenney:Oh, They'll keep you in. They'll keep that case going for years. I know some of the people I've spoken with and coached over the years have been in court hell forever just because they're dragging it out to soak you for every dime you might have.
Padideh Jafari:Yes. So let's go through the other characteristics I think. So this one is great. Ruled by their feelings. Feelings are reality.
Padideh Jafari:That is such a great one. Because I used to, I actually remember I used to say to my ex husband, feelings are not facts.
Jon McKenney:100%.
Padideh Jafari:And he would go, oh yeah yeah yeah. And so people that are just driven by their feelings and it's like a quick fix for them, right? It's like they want something and they just go do it instead of talking and to their saying let's talk about this big purchase. There was no talk, it was like I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna go buy that, for him it was like a BMW seven series which by the way at the time he didn't have a job so I don't know why he needed that car. But it's like
Jon McKenney:So you could pay for it. That's why.
Padideh Jafari:Right. So let me go buy that car and then come back and say, oh, by the way, I bought us this car and you've got to pay the payment. So always the feelings, like their feelings are reality to them.
Jon McKenney:Sometimes you see this a lot when you go back to a story. You may confront them about something and get a response from them. Well, did it because of this. It didn't make sense in the first place, their response to it. But you go back, you go revisit that two days later and you may get an entirely different set of answers based on how they feel.
Jon McKenney:Well, I didn't do that at all. I don't know what you're talking about. But you said you did this the other day. Well, no, I don't feel like I did that. You know, I didn't do that.
Jon McKenney:And they can literally sometimes not see what is right in front of them because they feel something else. And they're dominated by those things. In that also, they are ridiculously emotionally self centered.
Padideh Jafari:A 100 Like
Jon McKenney:I talked about, I had cancer. She could care freaking less about that. She had absolutely no desire whatsoever to comfort, to care for, to provide any emotional support. And this you find across the board with narcissists. There's no help from them whatsoever.
Jon McKenney:If you go to them, in fact, if you go to them for help, they will twist the story, twist whatever's going on to make it about them. Yeah. So you know you can say, hey, you know what could you help me with this? I'm really struggling with this and they go well, you know what my what I'm going through is far more important II need. I need this this this this this this and this from you And I'm expecting you to go deliver it now in order for me to ever go even think about helping you and you walk away going, why in the hell did I, why in the world would I go and talk to this person about a need for help?
Jon McKenney:Because it is emotionally and conversationally always twisted back to their own emotional self centeredness.
Padideh Jafari:Right. We have clients that complain about this to us like some moms, right? They say that their husbands are narcissistic and they feel like they're a single mom anyway. And so now they're getting a divorce and they're like look I've been a single mom in the relationship and so for me it's not hard for me to take care of my children and work full time and do all the other obligations because I've been a single mom. So I did want to say one thing though just this is how a healthy, spouse should have responded to your cancer news, okay?
Padideh Jafari:And I can give you a great example because my husband just did this for me. I was having, I'm in like pre menopause, okay? This is disclosing a lot but I literally
Jon McKenney:Are you saying that you're old?
Padideh Jafari:I'm gonna turn 50 in November, okay? So I literally could not sleep. Was like just always, always, always just, really hot, like the hot flashes, whole thing and I didn't know what it was. So I discussed it with some of my girlfriends hiking and they're like, look, you're in premenopause, go see this doctor. My husband drove with me thirty five minutes to go see this doctor and he went on every single appointment with me.
Padideh Jafari:There was like six appointments, okay? And it was premenopause. It wasn't cancer. It was something that I could definitely take the medication and the pills that they were saying, the vitamins the doctor was saying. But he was like, no.
Padideh Jafari:And even the last one, was like, are you sure you want to go? And he's like, I'm there to support you. That's what I'm
Jon McKenney:That's awesome. Here
Padideh Jafari:So that's why we say once you get through this type of relationship there is hope, and healing and a great marriage on the other end if you decide to go that route again, right?
Jon McKenney:We'll see about that part of it. One might have been enough.
Padideh Jafari:Well that's what I said. But you know what, eight years later after you do get your healing, after you realize what you've been through, after you start to trust yourself again, my thing was like I didn't even trust myself again to make a decision. I was like
Jon McKenney:I'm there.
Padideh Jafari:Right. That's that's where you're at, but you've been divorced now four years. So In time
Jon McKenney:it's been a minute. Yeah, well, you know one of the other things It and you described something here, you talked about kind of going to the doctor and things like that. I found, at least in my relationship, that everything was always upside down of how you should normally connect with somebody. So where, you know, each of us in life are, you pick up a relational skill set for better or worse, okay? And nobody's relational toolbox is perfect.
Jon McKenney:But everybody has a relational toolbox. And as you interact with people in day to day, you learn how to resolve conflict. You go, okay, well, you know conflict can't be resolved absent of honest conversation. And vulnerability in a relationship often brings intimacy. You know, when there's a trust there that you, like you have with your husband, you know, you got this trust because there's a vulnerability that takes place.
Jon McKenney:These are skills and tools that work with the majority of the population who's healthy. But when you are with a narcissist, none of this stuff works. Like none of the relational tools that you have grown up with that you know that that that make emotionally healthy people, that make for intimate relationships, that make for for kindness and peace and honesty and niceness and all of that, they just don't work. So instead of having a conversation with a narcissist, if you got conflict, And you go, okay, you know what? I need to talk about this conflict with this person so that we can bring resolution.
Jon McKenney:No, you don't. In fact, having a conversation about that stuff will make it worse. Yes. And you will vulnerability is if you're vulnerable with a narcissist, you would think that would bring with a human being, you would think that would bring intimacy because there's this trust there. You're trusting them with a piece of yourself.
Jon McKenney:And on the other side of it, it it it would bring intimacy. Vulnerability brings abuse. Yeah. Instead of instead of instead of actually being trustworthy with with what you've been vulnerable with, they will actually use it against you. And they think you're weak when So you bring these this relational toolbox that you have, you might as well just throw out the window because it doesn't work.
Jon McKenney:If you're in a toxic, you know, what you would deem a toxic relationship or relationship that isn't working, you go, why the hell is this stuff not working? The reason it's not working is because you're probably dealing with a narcissist and none of the relational tools that you've learned over the years fly with this person. So you're like, well, what the heck do I do? Okay, if I can't resolve the conflict with conversation, the conflict remains for all eternity.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah. No you're 100% right and actually you touched on one thing that I wanted to emphasize. They look at it as a weakness. So not only did they not help you with it, they will turn it into you're weak and now they're going to pick on you about that of saying Use
Jon McKenney:it against you.
Padideh Jafari:Use it against you in fights and say you're not perfect anymore because what a narcissist does in the beginning of the relationship is they idealize this spouse, this other person. They put them on a pedestal, they love bomb them, they say that they're perfect, they gloat about them to others because it makes them look good. And then once you're in that discard phase or let's say you do have cancer, let's say you are going through premenopause or whatever it is they look at that as like now you're weak, now I'm going to have to find someone that's more perfect. And you know it's interesting my ex husband used to say that all the time. I actually used to ask him this.
Padideh Jafari:I just remembered what if I got cancer what would you do? You know what his response What's
Jon McKenney:that?
Padideh Jafari:He'd say I would trade you in for a younger model.
Jon McKenney:Oh my god.
Padideh Jafari:I just remembered that. I swear to you, I have not remembered that.
Jon McKenney:Never heard you say that before.
Padideh Jafari:That's crazy. In years, but he literally would say that. Did I
Jon McKenney:know somebody you met this is somebody you married. Like that thought shouldn't even be on the radar, but here you are, relational tools, relational skills you have, everything's upside down. It's backwards of what it would normally be and leaving you wondering like what the heck did I get myself involved in?
Padideh Jafari:I actually didn't have to wonder because he admitted it. It was an admission that what he would do and so, you know, Conversations like this kind of made me realize over time right like no this person's serious. This is not a joke.
Jon McKenney:Yeah Yeah, so yeah, you know and there are there are lots of different class ifications for narcissists that some people call them, they're vulnerable narcissist, covert narcissist, overt narcissist, malignant narcissist. There are lots of different classifications, but two, I wanted to kind of dial in on today so that people could understand something about narcissistic abuse. One is what we call the covert narcissist and the other is the overt or sometimes we call them the malignant narcissist. Malignant narcissists are an overt narcissist. Generally speaking, nice thing about them is that everybody knows they're narcissists because you can see it across the room.
Jon McKenney:So if you're at a party, you're looking and they're okay, that's self centered behavior right there. Might say former presidents have been narcissists. And that might be a really good example of what we're talking about for this. You can spot it wherever and you understand it. You think, okay, well, that person sat in front of a therapist, which which you're not going go do anyways because they didn't think they ever do anything wrong.
Jon McKenney:You understand something about them and you know the world understands something about them as well. Probably a pretty good example.
Padideh Jafari:And then the covert.
Jon McKenney:Covert narcissists fly under the radar on just about everything. The interesting thing about coverts that I think make healing from it so much ridiculously harder is that you may be having this experience with this person privately and nobody else around you knows. Right. So if you start to talk to a friend about this and you say, Well, this is kind of what's going on, a covert narcissist public impression to them is the most important thing. So they want to look perfect in front of everybody.
Jon McKenney:In fact, they judge themselves based on how their persona is received in public. They're not going to mess up in public. And then privately, they're horrific. It's like this, know, it's Jekyll and Hyde in some respects. Outside in the world, they look fantastic, and inside, maybe even only within your own marriage, maybe your children don't see it, maybe your parents don't see it, maybe your brothers and sisters don't see it, but you have this relationship with them that is so egregiously horrific that you don't even know what to go do with it.
Jon McKenney:And then you start talking about it with some of your friends and they're like, Surely not. I know this person. I know how they respond to these kinds of things. It's not bad. Then you wonder, Okay, maybe I'm going crazy because I'm the only one experiencing this stuff.
Jon McKenney:But it really winds up being a very, very private battle that nobody else knows about other than perhaps the people that trust you and also perhaps people where they've seen chinks in the armor along the way. I remember watching The Flintstones as a kid, which dates me as well. There was this character called Schlepprock And, and he was a real little guy and he'd always go, Wowzy, woo. And everything for him, they call it In fact, it was bad luck Schlepprock. So wherever he went, bad stuff was happening to him.
Jon McKenney:In fact, he had this little storm cloud that followed him wherever he went around the screen. Anytime you saw Bad Luck Slep Rock, he had this personal storm cloud around him and that's what it's like to have a covert narcissist. You have this private battle going on and publicly it's like the weather's fine. They look wonderful. They're respected.
Jon McKenney:They're honored. And Back behind the scenes. It's this nightmare of pretending that they had cancer
Padideh Jafari:right
Jon McKenney:and makes it very difficult to go endure and To go to go deal with and it Also takes away perhaps any support you might have
Padideh Jafari:right which we're going to get into You know the smear campaign that these covert narcissists, that they just do because they can, right?
Jon McKenney:They'll talk bad about you to anybody.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah, I say that the covert narcissist mothers are the ones that are like the leader of the PTA, selling Girl Scout cookies with their children outside of Ralph's. Like, not to say if you do that you're a narcissist. I'm just saying that these are the things that those covert narcissistic women do. And so when it comes time to divorce and you're saying she did this, she did that, nobody in the community believes you. And not even your family, your own family believes you because they're like, no, I mean, she sent me birthday cards every birthday.
Padideh Jafari:Was the most thoughtful person in the world. And you're just going, oh my God, if you knew, if you only knew. And I want to say one thing, unless you've gone through a narcissistic relationship with someone.
Jon McKenney:It's really true. It's very hard. Yeah.
Padideh Jafari:At a normal breakup, they're never gonna get it, right? Because they're gonna say, oh, just settle it, just sign the paper, just give them what they want. You can't do that with a narcissist because if you give an inch they take a mile. So that's one thing I want to emphasize that yeah, we understand
Jon McKenney:Well not not just that but the word narcissist is thrown around a lot in our world, you know, I think when you hear the term narcissist, you're a narcissist. What they're saying is you're self centered. This is beyond self centered. Everybody's got momentary self centeredness. That's life.
Jon McKenney:But this is complete and total unilateral self centeredness in a human being. They can't even find compassion for you when you have cancer. It's that kind, that level of self centeredness. And when we talk about narcissists, you have to understand, we're talking about people with a personality disorder, with narcissistic personality disorder as listed in the DSM-five, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Personality Issues and Other Things, mental disorders. And this is listed as a cluster B personality disorder.
Jon McKenney:This is not something that is, you know, people call it evil. And We hear that a lot to be honest with you that people go these people are just evil and quite honestly it feels that way
Padideh Jafari:Yeah,
Jon McKenney:all the time people we hear that a lot. I mean, do you hear that with in your conversation as well?
Padideh Jafari:I mean I do and as a lawyer, I don't bring up the word evil, okay? No, But like this morning on threads where I share my personal thoughts on threads, I literally said these people are evil. So yes, they are evil because they systematically try to destroy somebody that all that person wants to do is love them. So if you think about it that way, that is evil at its core.
Jon McKenney:Unquestionably. Unquestionably. But, you know, people want to go research this, this is a bona fide, this is a legit personality disorder and you're being abused by somebody who has this personality disorder. It's called a cluster B personality disorder. You can go look it up.
Jon McKenney:Under cluster B is also borderline personality disorder and histrionic. So there's some similarities between those things. But this is worth looking up and the effects of these people on your life can be nothing short of catastrophic.
Padideh Jafari:Oh, one hundred percent. I mean, depression, potentially suicide. We have mothers. You and I both know there's a mother on our Instagram. We're always posting her stuff.
Padideh Jafari:Her daughter committed suicide because even though she got a divorce, she could not take the custody battle between her and her ex and she committed suicide. And so potentially suicide, financial abuse, mental fog. I mean we're going go through all of this in the upcoming shows. And we're going to bring you actual psychotherapists that can speak to what narcissism is. We're gonna have great guests that are gonna help you along your journey.
Padideh Jafari:I think next week we'll have a psychotherapist and then we'll have a personal trainer. I think our show is going to be very well rounded to say you need all of these people and all of these resources because your healing is not going to happen with in the room. You're going to have to talk to coaches. You're going to have to talk to psychotherapists. You're going to have to get a personal trainer and work out.
Padideh Jafari:I know you and I, that's one of the things that we both did is return to exercise as part of our healing journey. Because half of the time you're going, did this really happen? And then the other half of your brain is going, oh my god, I can't believe this happened.
Jon McKenney:Yeah, absolutely true. You know that for us it's important to us not that we just sit here and whine about the ails of narcissistic abuse because it's hard winding through that stuff. There's a real lack of understanding much of it. And we hope to provide you information. We want to validate what you're going through as well.
Jon McKenney:We to be able to give you practical solutions that can help you move from one place to another to help you move beyond the abusive relationship you're in and ultimately to provide some healing as well. And each week we're gonna give you a thought. We're gonna give you, we hope to give you one thought, something you can take away that will increase your understanding of what you've been going through. For me, I look back, this has been the most difficult experience of my life.
Padideh Jafari:100%.
Jon McKenney:There's nothing else comes close. Job loss, whatever, there's nothing else that holds a candle to these kinds of things. It's our desire to help people who are experiencing these kinds of toxic relationships to move from where they are to a place of health. That's really our desire. There are some of you who may be in danger from narcissistic abuse as well.
Jon McKenney:We hear that a lot. I know for a fact there are people I've spoken with personally that contracts taken out on their lives by narcissists. Others, as Padideh said earlier, can be in stages of suicide or thinking about those kinds of things. So this is not to be trifled with. And if we can say anything to you, there is hope on the other side of this.
Jon McKenney:My life, I'm not married, but Padideh, God's been gracious to her and given her a wonderful husband who I've met, and he's fantastic a new kind of relationship, and there's love and peace and kindness and everything it should be in that. I'm not married and quite honestly, I have to tell you my life is peaceful. Four years post divorce, I have a lot more understanding and here I am taking that situation and using it to help other people which brings purpose to even that. We hope to help you cultivate a healthy life and perhaps a new life, something you haven't experienced in a long time. But that's our desire in the days ahead and hope you'll tune in with us in the future.
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 IBC media company.