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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.
These spiritual narcissists use religion as a sword and not a shield.
Voiceover:In a world of hurt and pain, we find a way to break the chain, a caring heart, a guiding light. Lead us through the darkest night with preservation in our soul. We'll rescue those who've lost control, escape the grip of a narcissist on our journey to recovery bliss. Welcome to the Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel with John McKenney and Padida Jafari.
John:Padida, my dear friend, how are you doing today?
Padideh:I'm doing well. How are you?
John:Fantastic. It's early in California today. Not so early here. And, actually, I'm in North Carolina.
Padideh:Yeah. It actually is 09:00 today. And guess what? It is so hot. You know, I live in Orange County, and we get the breeze from the Pacific Ocean, but it is so hot this morning.
Padideh:I can't even believe how hot it is.
John:Wow. We've had we had about a a week of real blazing stuff here, and then it's been rain. And actually, in Georgia, it's rarely under 85 in August, and we were down in the sixties this week. So it's like we went from 100 down to sixties and kinda crazy. By the way, last time we were talking about wanting to go see the naked gun.
John:I went and saw it, and I will never trust Rotten Tomatoes again. They gave it an OMO's perfect score, and I would give it a one out of 10. It was terrible.
Padideh:Oh my goodness.
John:So tell your husband not to go see it. Tell John tell John it is not it's not even a Netflix worthy as far as I'm It was that bad. I think I
Padideh:Oh my goodness.
John:Think I might have laughed once. So it's not so fun.
Padideh:So if you're listening to this episode and you disagree with John, put it in the comments.
John:Feel free to put it in the comments. Yeah. I'd love to see that. There was one really good part. It was a clip that lasted only about three or four seconds, but it was my favorite part of the movie, and I'm not going to spoil it.
John:We'll let that go and see if our listeners can pick it out. Well, today we've got a really interesting topic. You and I have been talking about doing this for a really long time, and the topic is perhaps even a coined word. You and I call it spiritual narcissists. So what comes to mind for you when you think about that?
John:And and before we even start that, and I and I ask you that question, I probably ought to clarify some things. First thing is that narcissists exist everywhere. They're they're in the wild. So they're narcissists in all phases and walks of life. And also, your background and mine, we talk about spiritual narcissists.
John:We don't mean to confine these things to the Christian church because that is your background and that's my background, and if you hear us say church instead of religious institution, that's because that's just our experience, but it really We believe these things happen in all kinds of different religious institutions, and we can only give you kind of our experience with some in the Christian church. So if you hear that, don't be offended. We're not promoting any specific kind of religion or anything like that,
Voiceover:but just know that that's the faith background that we come out of, and it can apply to yours as well because we think that these spiritual narcissists, as
John:we call them, are in all religious institutions, not just one.
Padideh:Yeah. You know, it's great that you said that because actually, I wanted to give that disclaimer because we do talk so much about the church because of, like you said, our background. But I, I, you know, I was born Muslim.
John:Right.
Padideh:So I've gone to yeah. So I've gone to, you know, the mosque and things like that growing up with my parents. And so you're absolutely right. It's not. And I've been obviously, I've been to synagogues as well.
Padideh:So you're right. It's not just the Christian
John:We approach you as a listener with respect in whatever your belief system may be. And we're happy Again, we're here in The United States. You get the freedom to choose choose wisely, right? So we're happy that you have one if you have one. And there's no intent to offend here, but that's just our experience.
John:We come from the Christian church, the both of us, and we want to respect you as you listen as well. So we wanted to offer that kind of disclaimer upfront. So Padita, talk to me a minute about what you because we've kind of come up with this term. I don't know that I've seen it any place else, but we call them spiritual narcissists. So what does that mean to you, spiritual narcissist?
Padideh:So, you know, we talked about the overt malignant narcissist and then the covert narcissist.
Voiceover:Yes.
Padideh:So when I hear spiritual narcissist, I think of the type of narcissist that is intimately involved in their, quote, unquote, religion and in a cult like fashion
John:Mhmm.
Padideh:Where they are trying to convince people that they, in fact, are not narcissist, that they, in fact, are a good person, that they are faith based, that because of their faith, people can make the assumption that they are good and righteous and humble and all the things that really faith based people should be or they should be trying to achieve. Mhmm. Yes. And so that's when I think about the spiritual narcissist, I think about that type of person that is really just pretending or they're mirroring, and they're involved in their religious organization, whatever that is.
John:Yep. So again, it's a narcissist oftentimes that would profess to have faith or somebody you might find in a church who's kind of, again, has this air of religiosity. They may in our environment, they may read their Bible. They may pray and these kinds of things, but ultimately, there's something deeply missing about them. Though they may call themselves spiritual, they operate in a different capacity.
John:My first thought with this, Padita, was that narcissism itself flies opposed to almost any kind of religious faith. The reason Yeah, is absolutely. That We say all the time, narcissists do not want relationship with you, but what they do want from you is for you to kind of them to be at the center and you to spin around them, taking care of absolutely every need and providing completely for them. My ex said it once, she says, I want you to give everything and take nothing.
Padideh:And She said that?
John:Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Padideh:Wait. Say that again.
John:Well, I'll I'll tell you in in context. I we were talking about relationship, and I said, My estimation of what you want our relationship to be is a relationship where you take everything and I get nothing and you get everything and no. And you give nothing and get everything. So she and it was a part of an argument we had, to be honest with you, but ultimately she wanted to be at the center and me spin around. When I told her this, said And when I said this to her, she looked at me like I had had some- Epiphany.
John:Religious experience. She's like, Yes, that's exactly what my heart wants. And one of the things that came to me when I was thinking about all of this is what narcissists really want is not relationship with you, they want your worship.
Padideh:Absolutely.
John:And that's why narcissism flies in face of most religions, because you have somebody that you worship in Christian circles. Again, that's our background. You worship God through Jesus Christ, and in others, you worship others, and the narcissists themselves wants worship. That's ultimately what they really want, and that in and of itself flies in the face of absolutely every spiritual religion, every religion there is out there.
Padideh:Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know what? I think I said this at, during our last episode with Scott Silverman. I said my ex husband was like an idol for me because even though I was a church going Christian woman, I had set him up like an idol because I was constantly catering to his needs.
John:Right.
Padideh:Right? I was constantly catering to his needs because and you'd say, well, why would you do that? Right? If his needs were opposed to yours, if or if his needs were grandiose, why would you do that? Why would you sacrifice yourself?
Padideh:Well, I didn't realize it at the time, obviously. And furthermore, he used my religious beliefs as a Christian woman to, you know, be subservient, not submit, which is, you know, the Christian church says, you know, submit to your husbands. As your husband submits to Christ, he would constantly tell me, You have to submit to me. So he would use part of the Bible verse, but not the entire Bible verse to say, You need to submit to me as my wife, as my Christian wife.
John:And
Padideh:so to your point, because of that over the course of seven years, I built him an idol. Like, I said, he's my idol without even knowing it.
John:Mhmm. Right. And know, you described something where basically the narcissist is beating you over the head with the religious thought. In your case, was scripture. But they're basically beating you over the head to go follow them.
Padideh:Correct.
John:And and perhaps follow them in things that might violate other religious principles as well.
Padideh:A 100%. A 100%. Because if they didn't violate my beliefs, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I mean, I, you know, our listeners now know that, you know, I'm happily married, and my husband is a Christian man, and he has never used that bible verse. He just has never said, you need to submit to me, or you need to submit to me as as I submit to.
Padideh:He's never needed to because he leads with compassion and empathy and love and understanding and all of the things that we know are the fruits of the spirit. So I don't need he doesn't need to beat me over the head with a bible or with half of the truth of the bible verse. Right? So that's, I would say, one of the characteristics. If if you're listening and you're thinking to yourself, okay, I'm a Christian woman or I'm, you know, a Muslim woman or, you know, I'm a Jewish woman and I have to stay in this marriage because I don't wanna step out of, you know, what God has planned for me.
Padideh:God does not have planned for us, to be abused. I mean, look how
John:Absolutely.
Padideh:Gentle, you know, the God that you believe. I mean, with that being said, the the God of the Torah, was not so gentle. But but, you know, it's just to me, it's like that's not what God intended for us as women.
John:Oh, he didn't intend that for anybody. I mean, it's the physical equivalent of just kinda standing out in the road in traffic. You know, You don't waste your life by just jumping out in front of a car. That's a physical representation, and abuse has that destructive effect on you over time. Something else you said really kind of hit a chord with me.
John:They want you to submit is the right word, and we don't want to take anything away from even Christian thought or scripture. I mean, the Bible says those kinds of things, and there's a place to even have conversation about those. But there's a difference between having a conversation about those kinds of things and beating you over the head to go do something that you shouldn't be doing.
Padideh:Yes.
John:And that's where you'll constantly find some of these spiritual narcissists doing that. Quite honestly, I don't know how else to say this, and this came to mind while you were talking it. It's and they have a bit of a god complex here.
Padideh:Oh, a 100%. Not a bit of. They do think that they're little gods.
John:They
Padideh:So in your life at least, they feel like they are gods. You're absolutely right. I mean, that's why the idol worship comes in because they want you to worship them like they are the god. I mean, your your ex wife said it best, like, I want you to give to me, and I want you not to take from me, and I'm the center of everything. I mean, that's a god complex.
John:Yep. And, you know, one of the other things I was thinking about god complex, you know, one of the other A God, a God, and I use air quotes on that, right? Thinks that they're kind of perfect, and narcissists, quite honestly, at an emotional level think they can't do any wrong because they can't process any of their own wrongdoing.
Padideh:Correct.
John:So they live in this emotional place where they think they kind of bring perfection. They think they bring elevated relationship to things. Everything they have is elevated. They think they're the better of the two of you, and then you're supposed to bring everything to them. They live in this world where they kind of feel their own perfection, which is false too.
John:Again, there's only one who's perfect and that's God. So that's part of it. The other thing that came to mind about this is actually something that came out of a conversation with my ex at one time just after we married. Again, we both grew up in Christian faith. And she said to me one day, well, she said she'd moved back to the state we lived in with a friend, and she had visited this other church and gotten to know this pastor.
John:She said, You know, I didn't realize that had sinful or wrong behavior until he kind of said something to me. I went, What? You didn't realize you had wrongdoing in you until he said something to you? And mind you, she's in her twenties at this point in time. So it was a bizarre kind of thing where where they don't they don't even realize that or it doesn't even occur to them that they have sin or wrongdoing in their life.
John:And and and that to me is shocking. Most people, whether they would consider themselves spiritual or not, understand that there's wrongdoing in them.
Padideh:Yeah. I agree with you. You know, they don't they absolutely don't know it because they're in constantly in survival mode whether they know that or not. Because remember, narcissists are not born narcissists. Something traumatic happened in their childhood.
John:Generally speaking, it seems that way. Yes.
Padideh:Right. And so and so what happens is they are constantly in survival mode, and so they don't know what they're doing is wrong necessarily. I feel like they do and they don't, but they'll they'll justify the wrong because it's for them to survive.
John:Yes. Absolutely.
Padideh:Saying so. They'll say, well, maybe it is wrong, but I had to do this in order to survive. I had to lie. I had to cheat. I had to do this because to them, they are God.
Padideh:Yes. And so they feel like they're entitled. Like, they're you know, I have clients, John, that come to me. They're like, you know, he or she took my, you know, Social Security, number and opened up, an account without me knowing, forged my name on, tax returns even. I had, you know, that's which is so crazy.
Padideh:You know, buy I just had the other day a consultation with someone. They said, bought a $90,000 BMW.
John:Woah.
Padideh:Without the consent of the wife, but signed the name of the wife on I mean, just the most craziest thing, but they think that they're entitled to to everything when you get married to them. So they're like, well, your body is not your own. It's now mine. Your credit, you know, your finances are not your own. They're now mine, And I can do anything and everything.
Padideh:And then the spiritual component, they'll bat you over the head with any type of religion that you're practicing. And so as the victim survivor, you're sitting there going, and I have this a lot, John, well, where clients will come and they'll say, I don't want to get divorced because it's not in my religion. And I'm like, okay. Well, let's break this down a little bit. Is it in your religion for your spouse to lie to you, cheat on you, open up credit cards, and financially abuse you?
Padideh:For I know for, a lot of women, it's sexual abuse as well. Is that okay in your religion? And they're like, no. And I'm like, okay. So if God didn't intend that for you, then why do you think God intended for you to stay in this marriage?
Padideh:And I'll say, don't talk to me about it because I'm not your spiritual leader or guru. Go talk to, you know, your pastor, rabbi, you know, Iman. Like, go talk to those people about it.
John:Right. And I I think we could do a whole I honestly think we do and probably should do a whole podcast on divorcing a narcissist perhaps for people who are in religion religious backgrounds because both you and I consider ourselves believers in Jesus Christ, and the Bible is pretty set against divorce in most particular cases, and yet you and I both found the means to go do that. I honestly wrestled with it for twenty five years before I could even consider it. So that's very definitely something I think we should talk about some more in the days ahead here as well. What you describe here is somebody who has to be in control of all things.
John:Back to the God complex again, and where they're not in control of all things, they're trying to manipulate you so that they are in control of all things, and that makes them again, it feeds this kind of God complex in them, which can have an air of spirituality. And let's be clear, my ex would consider herself a person of faith. She sits in and would read her Bible and she would journal, but she could not and was not able to articulate wrongdoing in her life in any kind of way. And what you would get was if you confronted them Well, let me do this. Let me tell this story.
John:So the last time Again, my ex would consider herself a follower of Jesus Christ. And the last conversation I had with her, she said, I want to talk to you before we do all this divorce stuff. I'm like, Okay. So she said, Well, why are you leaving me? And I said, Well, you pretended you had cancer among other things, and I had skin cancer and you didn't have any compassion for me whatsoever.
John:In fact, kind of pretended it away, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. And then she started to lie to me about all of that, and I said, Look. I just stopped her. I said, This is a no lying zone. If you're going to lie, this conversation is over right here and right now.
John:There's nothing else to say. And she goes, Okay. Well And I said, Let me cut to it very, very quickly. If I come back to you because I really didn't want a divorce.
Padideh:Right.
John:And I spoke these exact words. I said, If I come back to you, will you stop lying, pretending, and making up stories? She looked over at me and she goes, No, I'm not going to say that. I thought, Okay.
Padideh:Least she was honest once
John:with you. Well, demanded it or the conversation was over, so I guess she felt compelled. So then I said, Okay. I said, If I come back to you, will you be emotionally present, emotionally supportive, and emotionally engaged in this relationship? She goes, no, I'm not saying that either.
John:Then she looked at me and she said, I guess what I'm saying doesn't want to make you come back to me. I thought, you think? But more than that, as I evaluated that conversation, this is a person who considers herself religious. Not only the way I phrased it with her, I said, will you stop lying and pretending and making up stories? Which talks about addresses the past.
John:If she wanted to address the past, could have said, Well, I'm not lying. And maybe would have if I hadn't demanded honesty. And stop is also about going forward. Will you stop doing this? Will you cease doing this in the days ahead?
John:And she goes, No, I'm not saying that. So what blew my mind about this whole thing is that a religious person, somebody who had a relationship with their God and who was genuinely religious would go, Well, no, I'm not gonna lie. There's no way I'm gonna go do that. Am I gonna make up stories? No.
John:Why? Because my religion says no. My faith says no. I'm not gonna go do that. But there's a complete and total disconnect between the religion they say they have and their practical everyday existence.
John:They cannot reconcile the two. So there's this shallow ascent to religion without any of the real substance of it whatsoever.
Padideh:Right. And two things I wanna say is the first thing is, wow, you are a great communicator, John. You really are. I mean, not all men communicate in that fashion that you are able to sit down with her and talk. I mean, they just don't.
Padideh:Okay? I'm sorry if if Appreciate that. My assessment sometimes of men cannot express the way that you express this to her. And really
John:trouble with that on the whole.
Padideh:Yeah. Really, really I mean, that's why maybe you have a podcast now because you're really good at, like, expressing emotion without getting angry. I mean, I've known you for a number of years now, and you're pretty stoic. I mean, I have seen you get upset, but you never raise your voice, and you're very calm, and you're like, look. I just wanna know that going forward, you're not gonna lie to me and make up stories.
Padideh:And she's like, well, I can't I can't promise you I won't. I mean, that's so crazy. Mhmm. It's like
John:Well, keep in mind also, this is this is five this is seven years ago since I had that conversation. Although I tend not to be an angry person unless I happen to get on the phone with my cable company, but I tend not towards anger, although those guys push my buttons right away. My ex would immediate after being gaslit for twenty five years, you'd be shocked at how angry I could get in those kinds of things. Well, while I sound dispassionate here and even in this particular conversation I had with her that was relatively dispassionate, I'd learned how to gray rock and to emotionally detach myself to stand up and say, Okay, do you know what? This is what we're going to go to.
John:These are my boundaries. I said the exact words, This is a no lying zone. And I laid out my boundaries, And if you're going to lie, we're done. Had to go do that in order to have this final conversation with her. But it was relatively stoic.
John:It was relatively dispassionate. I felt like in this particular situation for sure, I communicated it well. But as I thought about it, the most ridiculous thing is that this woman considers herself a Christian, And here she is telling me not only that she's lied to me, but she's gonna continue to lie to me and not be involved in a marriage for the days ahead. Where in the hell does that Where is that taught in any religion? It's just not.
John:And there's this gross disconnect between faith and intimate practicality with respect to relationships, and that's something you find in these spiritual narcissists. They look great in church. They look great to other people. The other people will see them as super Christians, and and and ultimately, it's all a show.
Padideh:It's all a show. I mean, you know, I will say a couple things about that. At our church, the one that we were attending, the pastor's wife who I was good friends with, I am still friends with her, she would call us the golden couple because we both had, like, streaks in our hair, like highlights or lowlights in our hair. So she would call us the golden couple and say, oh, look at the golden couple or whatever. And I every time she said that, I know I knew it was a compliment about our looks, but I thought to myself, oh, if only you know.
Padideh:If only you knew what I am suffering through this pain and agony and torture of abuse, if only you knew. And so when at the final time when we when the last time that my ex husband cheated on me and we went to the pastor, you know, it's like I felt like she was disappointed because, you know, here, you know, we're we're talking about getting divorced. And I'll never forget this, John. My her husband, who was the main pastor, he said, you know, why don't know, looking at me, why didn't you give him another chance? As if I hadn't been giving him chances for seven years.
John:Yeah. Like, that wasn't enough. And I I mean, how much of you how many how many chances do you get?
Padideh:And so
John:I know, after twenty five years or or seven on you know, it's like it's crazy.
Padideh:And I said to him, I said, if you come and live with us, I will take him back. But I said, pastor, you have no idea what it's like living with this man and the torture and the abuse that I have been suffering through. You have no idea because you only see the outside. Don't
John:see it
Padideh:from inside the home. And when I said that, John, I felt like it was a spiritual thing that I said because the pastor just shut his mouth at that point. And the pastor's wife said, he did you a favor when he cheated on you, and you will realize why later on. But right now, I know that it hurts. But for me, it actually didn't hurt because he had cheated so many times that it was like the a relief.
Padideh:Like, now I can biblically leave him. You know?
John:Right. You what the out as far as Christianity goes. You got biblical grounds for divorce in that particular situation.
Padideh:You Right. It's not like it wasn't painful in two years it took me to get, you know, really out of the trauma bond with him. But all that to say is that, yes, they he definitely had a god complex, and it was you you could not fulfill that god complex because it's like, he would move the goalpost. So as soon as I gave him what he wanted or ascented or whatever, it was like, no. Now I want this.
Padideh:And you're like, oh my gosh. Like so then I'm like working hard, working hard, trying to get him that. Right? Or do that or be that. And then as soon as I do that, then it'll be something else.
Padideh:So it was I was constantly exhausted in my body because I was being abused, and I could never measure up to what he wanted me to be, because really, they're just devoid of any humanity. So there's nothing I could have done to to make him sort of happy or content.
John:Right. Right. Oh, and and you can't you can't satisfy it. You can't satisfy them ever. And, you know, in in with this this god complex, also, talk about the church a little bit, and it's like, the church, it seems, is a very good place, unfortunately, for narcissists to thrive.
John:And I've thought again, I've had a I'm not here to bash the church. I'm just kind of saying this is, But on the whole, the church seems to be a pretty pretentious environment. Even as a kid, you dress up in your Sunday best. I can remember resisting that when I was a kid and going, Why can't I just kind of go as I am? Doesn't God love me like I am?
John:Instead of having to go dress up in a tie, and my mom loved to dress me up I'm sure when I was a little kid for church. There was a level, there's a standard for dress in there to kind of pretty you up and kind of make you look like something you're not in day to day. So there's this air of pretense in that environment where everybody looks pretty and everybody looks together when in reality, has serious issues in their own lives that don't necessarily get addressed. So it's in that environment that narcissists thrive. They thrive in environments where there's an awful lot of pretense, and that's one of the reasons I think they're kind of drawn to spiritual settings, to religious institutions, and on top of that, there are oftentimes opportunities to go be in a position of leadership or to have some authority or to do those kinds of things, which again feeds the narcissist.
John:Well, I'm somebody. They want to have this status, and they want to look great. And if they can rise to leadership in the church in some capacity or get close to a pastor or a rabbi or religious leader. In fact, my ex one time said to me, I just want to get close to our pastor. I want to get to know him so I can kind of get close to him.
John:It didn't make sense to me at the time. Well, it does now, Because it's narcissistic supply. She had a job at one time where she knew a lot of the local elected officials in town and in the county, and she was very proud of that. The fact that she had this favor with these leaders because, again, they think it makes them look fantastic, and church works the same way. So you have this largely volunteer institution where they have opportunities to lead if they're good and they look good and they look like they're spiritual and all of this other stuff.
John:And you're right because like with your pastor, they don't see what's going on inside the home. It's very easy to fool the people in the church into thinking there's somebody that they're not, and again, everybody looks pretty on Sunday morning, and they're in their Sunday best an awful lot of the times, although there's some change in that I think in the last five to ten years, but by and large, people are still dressing up for church, and you look good and what's really going on, I think of the passage in Matthew 23, it's like he's addressing the Pharisees, which are kind of the epitome of narcissists in the Christian scriptures, and he says, You're whitewashed tombs, you know? And the visual analogy is they had these tombs that would kind of get dirty, and they would whitewash them to make them look pretty again. It said, So you're whitewashed tombs, but you're full of dead men's bones inside. It's kind of ugly on the inside, pretty on the outside.
John:And that's unfortunately the environment, I think, of many churches these days. And again, this is where narcissists live and this is where they thrive, and it's a problem. That's why I think they're also drawn to these places, and many times these spiritual institutions, by the way, are headed up by narcissists as well.
Padideh:Right. And you know what? It's interesting that you say that. My husband always says, because I'm someone that does like to dress up for church, and we go to a church right now where some of the people wear flip flops and shorts because it's a very beachy town that we live in. Sure.
Padideh:And so so my husband always says, what is the motive? And he says, like, what is the motive of you wearing x y z? And so I'm like, I don't know. I just want to look, like, pretty or cute or whatever. And so and and believe me, there's been times I've had to go change my outfit.
John:Right.
Padideh:Because I'm like, well, you know, I just bought this, you know, this shirt or whatever, and I haven't worn it yet. And he is like, well, what if somebody at our church doesn't have the money to buy that shirt? And now you're wearing and so I'm like, okay. So it's it's interesting because, you know, check your motives and our and the reason why
John:And motives are everything in this. They they really are. It's not bad necessarily to go dress up for church either Right. To give God your best. I I get that.
John:You know? But but also there's kind of an air pretense behind it too, or it can be if the motives are wrong.
Padideh:Right. And and the reason why he says that is because our pastor had a, a sermon about motives, like checking your motive. Like, for even doing something for someone, what's your motive? Do you really wanna just do it to be, you know, a nice person, or you're doing it to get something back from them? So my husband still uses this, you know, especially about, like, clothing and things like that.
Padideh:And I do a lot of volunteer work as you know. And so my husband's always like, well, what's your motive for doing that? And so sometimes I'm like, it just makes me feel good. You know? It really does.
Padideh:And he's like, okay. You know? But just always check your motive. And so it's very, very interesting. Another thing I wanted to address was what you said about the pastor.
Padideh:We've been going to our church for the last two and a half years, and my husband met the pastor, writes emails to the pastors, knows the pastor. I've not met him once. And we go to a very small church, and my husband one time said, Come and meet the pastor. And I'm like, No. And he's like, why?
Padideh:Why are you so weird? You know, I'm an introvert, which is kind of weird that, you know, I'm an attorney and I have a podcast, but an introvert.
John:That is a little wild.
Padideh:And so in my professional life, I have to be an extrovert, obviously, and talk and network and all that stuff. But on the weekends, I don't wanna talk to anyone, and I think it's too people y outside. So when he's like, meet the pastor, and I'm like, no. No. No.
Padideh:And to me, it's like a sign of humility because I'm like, why am I meeting the pastor? You know? Or maybe I'm not ready to meet the pastor. But it's funny that your ex was like, I wanna meet the pastor to get close to
John:Oh, man. She was all over it. She was so ready to go do it. I don't know that I've kind of outed myself on the podcast or not, but I used to do church work way back in the day professionally and don't anymore. Of and I've served I served for many, many years in the church, and I would tell you that my ex, because I was serving in the church, felt like she was somebody because of the leadership position I had in the church, and that fed her narcissism, and it got worse when I was not in the church.
John:So there was something to that for her as well. And then the other thing I would tell you is I think I've served under eight pastors, and four of those eight, I would say had significant Now that I understand all of this stuff, right? I didn't know it back then, but before the eight had significant narcissistic tendencies, were gaslighters, full of themselves. Three of those four were removed or had marital infidelity. One was so ballsy as to he was actually discovered that he was having an affair, and I'd suspected all along, to be honest with you.
John:But he was found out, and that very next Sunday, brought his girlfriend, mistress to church where his wife and his kids were. No way. And his parents. I swear to you, it happened. So another one was sleeping with three different women in the church.
John:Two were on staff and a third was a parishioner. Another one loved to hear himself talk and could go on in elders meetings for hours and hours and hours and hours just listening to himself talk. He loved it, and he would gossip about people, and he set up himself as the grand pooh bah, and the only people he involved in leadership of the church were people that came just out of college so that he could manipulate them because somebody who came with experience couldn't be manipulated in the same kinds of ways. So my experience, there are an awful lot of people in the church who lead it, who have pretty significant narcissistic tendencies as well.
Padideh:Oh, absolutely. And also remember that with spiritual narcissism, they are a cult, and so they draw other narcissists to them and they draw innocent people. And that's why a lot of what we know that in the Christian church, people leave churches a lot. Right? They they call it church hopping because something doesn't sound right.
Padideh:It doesn't feel right about the pastor or the people that go there. Yes. And so they get hurt. And so I feel so awful about that. At one point when I was living in New York City and, you know, that pastor felt really weird to me.
Padideh:I was serving there. Every single Sunday I was serving there. I met girlfriends there. I just loved that church. It was such a friendly church.
Padideh:And, at some point though, I realized in my own spirit that there was something very wrong. And, you know, I even took my mom to that church when she came to visit me in New York City. And, you know, a couple years later, he was caught in adultery, and they took him you know, they they said, you know, you cannot be a part of this church anymore. And I could see the narcissism. And, you know, it's interesting because he's now on different people's podcasts, you know, saying like, okay.
Padideh:You know, I'm better now, and I've repented, and all this stuff. And it's like
John:And maybe he has.
Padideh:And maybe he has.
John:Don't know. Again, that's motive, and that's heart.
Padideh:Right. You know? Maybe he has, but I have to be honest with you. It it sounds like to me like a malignant narcissist, again, wanting to be on radio and podcasts and all this stuff because I don't see that humility. And so when I see somebody that's humble and kind and doesn't need credit for things, that's where I'm like, okay.
Padideh:That's a good person.
John:Well and honestly, the the megachurch movement kind of fuels that, I think, in some respects. It's more hero worship than I think it is. And you have to be you know, am I there to worship God or do I worship the guy who's got the microphone? I think it's very easy to of For parishioners even, you got to guard yourself against this, is to kind of dial in on your being of choice, which is God in whatever vestige you see him in your religious institution, is it the guy who's got the microphone? And I think it's very easy for a pastor in that position to have kind of narcissistic tendencies and to feel like this is his kind of world and this is his kingdom when the kingdom really doesn't belong to him at all, but it belongs to God.
Padideh:Correct. And I wanted to say one other thing too. So my ex husband also was a youth pastor at one point, and he, cheated on his first wife, And so they took, obviously, that position away from him. Then he started a then he started a at home, like, sort of grow group, that grew to, like, 40 to 50 people. And, then he cheated again on his first wife so that, you know, sort of dismantled, and then he met me.
Padideh:And when he met me, I was a Muslim. I was not a Christian. I was not saved at that point. And so when I became saved about two years into our relationship, he his common thing he would say is, oh, you know, my perfectly Muslim girl became a Christian, a born again Christian. And so by that, I knew what he meant.
Padideh:Like, you know, like, I was now knowing and learning about, you know, the faith and so
John:He's taking credit for it. Yes. He's taking credit
Padideh:for it. Credit, know? But also he didn't like it in a sense because he was like my perfectly Muslim, you know, girlfriend. And it's and so, I would question him. So when I became a Christian, I would question him about stuff.
Padideh:And I'd say, well, you know, you're not supposed to lie to your employees. You're not supposed to do this. You're not supposed to do that. You know? And I would question him and he obviously, they don't like that.
Padideh:And so that's why he would say it. You know? And I'm like, well, I would be questioning you if I was a Muslim because you're definitely not supposed to do those things either in that faith. And so but, again, it I feel like these spiritual narcissists are always sort of tied to some type of religion, and they use
John:It seems that way an awful lot, I've gotta say. You know, from my interaction with people on Instagram, are a ton of them who would consider themselves people of faith, and they show something completely different. There are a couple of guys out there I have an awful lot of conversation with. In fact, we talk in our little private chat on Instagram every morning. Two guys, I won't mention their names, but they know who they are, so hello.
John:We talk oftentimes about these things because all three of us have similar faith backgrounds. One of the things that kind of came up in conversation, one of the guys said, and I hadn't put this together until I think we had this conversation, but he would say, Sometimes he'd even get an apology out of his ex. He would she'd go, Well, I would I'm sorry I did this to you. And he would go, Well, what did you do to me? Well, I didn't act right.
John:Well, how did you act right? Well, I was not being my best. Well, how were you not being your best? Well, I was just not being good. Well, how were you not being good?
John:And they can't press themselves if they have even kind of an intellectual understanding of their own wrongdoing. They cannot in any way come up with the specifics of wrongdoing for themselves. So that's also, I think, a sign in some respects that you're dealing with somebody who doesn't have the ability to go process their own specific wrongdoing. Somebody who can't process their wrongdoing is not a person of faith. They're just not.
Padideh:Right.
John:Most faith backgrounds, you have to kinda take an assessment, an honest assessment of self to even participate, and if you can't, you don't have real faith.
Padideh:Right. And you know what? They use the spiritual narcissists use religion as a sword and not a shield. And
John:That's a great way to say it. Padeeta. That's fantastic.
Padideh:Start to look and start to see if this is true in your relationship with the narcissist. And, you know, I always invite my clients to go speak to their spiritual leaders. Obviously, I'm really big on psychotherapy as well.
John:Unfortunately, talking to your spiritual leaders about some of this stuff, as I've known men who do, that's a crapshoot right there, kind of like with a therapist also, bringing a narcissist to a therapist. My pastor did not help me one bit, Not one bit. So that doesn't mean there aren't good pastors out there because I do have friends who are pastors also who were very helpful to me in going through this. But it's not You don't know who you're dealing with, unfortunately, in a lot of these situations, and some of these people who are in religious authority are narcissists themselves, and birds of a feather flock together. So you absolutely wanna to seek somebody out perhaps in your religious tradition that you know and trust and can have a conversation with about what's really taking place.
John:My religious leaders did not even want to hear from me. They even converse with me in any way, shape or form. So hopefully your experience is better with yours when they start talking about this kind of stuff or when you start talking about this kind of stuff, and that they can be of help to you in some of these situations.
Padideh:I wanna just wrap up with one thing. When you're looking and wondering if somebody is a narcissist, and you're in the Christian faith, I would look at their fruits of the spirit. And I wanna just mention a couple of the fruits of the spirit. Do they have a love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. And I will tell you, the last one to me is the most important.
Padideh:Narcissists lack self control in all facets of their life. Yeah. And so these are the fruits of the spirit. If the person, even if you're in a relationship with them, married to them, your friend, neighbor, coworker, everybody, Put them through this lens if you're a Christian and see, do they have these fruits in their life? Because if they don't, I would really try to consider getting out of relationships with these types of people because they will take you down.
John:They're the epitome, and that list that you read there out of the scripture, most religious traditions would embrace. What's not good about love? Love is great. So spiritual narcissists are the epitome, the epitome of saying one thing and saying they believe one thing, even spiritually saying, I believe this, and then living out another. And these things have to be not just spoken, but they have to be lived out.
John:That is really the evidence, I think you described that perfectly there, of what somebody who might be in these spiritual circles had issues with narcissism. Well, a good conversation today.
Padideh:Yeah. I really hope that it helps our listeners understand spiritual narcissism. You know, narcissists always attach themselves to good people, and empathetic people because two narcissists can't really even get along because they're always jockeying for position or being the idol or, you know, being idealized or being the godhead. So, just realize that you need to get out. And if you are involved in these types of with these types of people, you're involved in a cult.
Padideh:And we're gonna talk about that in in later episodes of what that is like to get out of a relationship with these people, but you've got to get out and make a plan to get out.
John:Yeah. I think that some of this bears future conversation on kind of the difference between an honoring or a faith honoring religious institution and something like that where you're following a narcissist. And the other one is, if you're a person of faith, how how could you possibly divorce a narcissist? And I think that would be a good conversation too. But what a fantastic time chatting today, Padita.
John:Thank you for your insight for certain. We hope that everybody enjoyed the conversation and and that it spurred some thought in you, and we'll continue to have conversations like this here on the, the narcissist abuse recovery channel. So we hope you have a wonderful day and, narcissist free.
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