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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.
Talk to somebody, one person, a friend, a therapist, a coworker, somebody so that you're not isolated with these feelings with the situation.
Voiceover:Escape the grip of a narcissist on our journey to recovery bliss. This is the Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel with John and Padida.
Jon McKenney:Good morning, Padideh. How are you today?
Padideh Jafari:I'm doing well. How are you?
Jon McKenney:It's good to see your smiling face. I hope you had a wonderful weekend.
Padideh Jafari:I did. I did actually. Yeah. It was a little bit of traffic coming from Orange County, but not too bad. I'm just happy to be here and starting our I almost can't believe I'm saying that.
Padideh Jafari:No.
Jon McKenney:That's amazing. season of the narcissist, narcissist abuse recovery channel. I almost forgot who we were. So it's really exciting to continue to be helping people recover and to highlight issues that they might or might not have. We've heard from an awful lot of people who've listened in and there's a lot of identification going on and validation for people and hopefully some growth as well as they learn to manage relationships with narcissists.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah, I know. I'm really excited. I know we've gotten like fifteen five star reviews. So I think that's a good sign. The main thing is we just want to help the community recognize what this is, what they're dealing with, and hopefully recover and come on the other side of all this.
Padideh Jafari:So I'm just really excited to be taping our third season now.
Jon McKenney:Yeah. I actually had a friend of a friend who, my friend recommended me to the friend and then found out that he'd already followed us on Spotify and didn't realize it was me.
Padideh Jafari:Oh my goodness.
Jon McKenney:Was kind of funny. That's a really interesting way to, it's the time that's happened.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah, that's amazing.
Jon McKenney:Well, Padilla, you wanna introduce our guest today?
Padideh Jafari:Yeah, I'm really excited. So we have Bill Eddy. Oh my goodness, it's so good to see you. I'm so excited for this conversation. I've been following your work for quite some time.
Padideh Jafari:I don't know if you know that or not. You are a lawyer like myself. I know you started the High Conflict Institute. Tell us a little bit about your work and what you do.
Bill Eddy:Well, just the progression. I started out as a clinical social worker, so doing counseling with children, adults, couples, and families, psychiatric hospitals, outpatient clinics. But I found that I wanted to kinda help people resolve their conflicts more and got interested in mediation and then decided to go to law school. And I did primarily to do mediation, but when I was in law school, I realized I kinda liked the practice of law, the analytical thinking and and explaining really what's going on. So I ended up practicing family law for fifteen years after twelve years as a therapist, then switching primarily to mediation but also education.
Bill Eddy:So we founded High Conflict Institute in 02/2008, myself and Megan Hunter. And we've been really educating a lot of family lawyers, judges, mediators, but also in the workplace, human resources, communities, government agencies, police, etcetera. So high conflict seems to be everywhere.
Padideh Jafari:It really does. It really does. So that's amazing. So right now currently you don't have practicing family law, but you're doing sort of the consultation, right, and working with lawyers and clients and that. Tell us a little bit about that.
Bill Eddy:Yeah. So the consultation really pulls it all together. And people wanna know what should I do. Maybe they have a high conflict divorce case, and maybe they have a lawyer. And I'll meet with them and their lawyer on Zoom, spend an hour kind of helping them understand dynamics, especially personality dynamics, but also strategies for their family court case for managing a difficult co parent.
Bill Eddy:And I'll often work with individuals who don't have lawyers, and they go, what should I do? Help. I can't afford 150,000 in legal fees anymore. What should I do? So I give them tips, give them a lot of resources.
Bill Eddy:We have articles, books, videos. So we're really a big resource for managing high conflict situations. And my consultations are to give people strategies. So I don't take them as a law client, don't give legal advice, not doing therapy. I'm helping them strategize what to do.
Bill Eddy:And often, nobody else has this broad perspective I do, So they find that really helpful.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah. I think what you do is amazing. I mean and you've written books. Tell us about the books, some of the titles. You have these, like, great titles to these books.
Padideh Jafari:Tell us some of the books you've written.
Bill Eddy:Well, there's there's a wide range. So I've got in terms of divorce, probably the most popular book is called splitting, protecting yourself while divorcing someone with narcissistic or borderline personality disorder. I've also developed a method called BIF, brief informative friendly and firm for writing emails to each other, and that's really our most popular book. Then, of course, the most recent book is our new world of adult bullies because we seem to be on the increase of that. With all the knowledge we have, it's getting kinda worse and especially since the pandemic, and we wanna give people skills and tools to help them calm situations or, if necessary, disengage.
Padideh Jafari:Wow. That's amazing. That's exactly what we talk about on this podcast is, you know, dealing with high conflict individuals, you know, narcissists, other cluster b personality disorders. So we're just so thrilled to have you and we know this is gonna be such an amazing episode for our listeners. I wanna know from your extensive experience both on being a clinician and an attorney and all the things, what are the primary psychological dynamics that make it so incredibly difficult for someone to break away from relationships with a narcissistic or other cluster B personality disorders?
Padideh Jafari:Like, what are some of those what makes it so difficult?
Bill Eddy:Yeah. It's interesting because on the surface, it looks like, oh, why don't you just leave? And yet, there's it's like a magnet being held in. And the psychological well, of all, there's financial dynamics often. People are concerned about loss of income, loss of support, all of that.
Bill Eddy:But the psychological dynamics are more hidden. And people say to themselves, well, I know I should leave, but but but I just can't. And part of it is this sense of being worn down that what, you know, narcissistic people put out a lot of negativity towards the people around them to put themselves up, they put the people around them down. And so you get a lot of messages. You know, you're a mess.
Bill Eddy:Look at you. You can't succeed at anything. Without me, you'd be nothing. That you hear this kind of thing over and over again. You're a terrible parent.
Bill Eddy:The children don't like you. Now none of this may be true, but these are the kinds of messages. And what happens is people absorb those and feel worse and worse and worse. And as time goes by with a barrage of these kind of messages, especially if the person is isolated from other people, then this is all they absorb, and they feel worse and worse, less energy, more depressed, lower self esteem. And it gets harder to get away because of that.
Bill Eddy:And there's a dynamic called the principle of reciprocity. This is about relationships that if you're a warm, caring person, you hook up with a warm, caring person. It goes back and a lot. But if you get in a relationship where one person's more domineering and the other person's more submissive or deferential, that just grows worse and worse and worse and worse. And so people feel I'm a I'm a really inadequate and competent person.
Bill Eddy:I I really can't leave.
Padideh Jafari:Wow. That's amazing. I can tell you from my own experience having been married to a an overt narcissist that that's exactly what happened. So over a seven year period it was like you're not good enough, you're not this, you're not pretty enough, you know there's always somebody better. And so at the end of it, it was like, I'm gonna dump you for a model.
Padideh Jafari:And it was like, here I was a successful lawyer. I was advocating for other clients. I was advocating in DV cases and all the things that a lawyer does, but I was so beaten down. It was like and then at 34, when I finally left him, I was only 34 years old. He was like, nobody's gonna want a lawyer.
Padideh Jafari:I mean, who wants to marry a divorce lawyer? And so I really believe that. So exactly what you're saying, you absorb all that negativity and you start to believe that about yourself. John, did you have something like that with your covert narcissist ex?
Jon McKenney:It was very, it was very passive. While she would not say these things to me face to face, more because I'd kind of come after her if she did, like I was not passive in the relationship whatsoever. She was saying these kinds of things to other people, therapists and things like that. So I knew instinctively that these kinds of things were coming my way, but it was not the kind of thing where I would tolerate that kind of conversation with me. And I think she knew that.
Jon McKenney:Bill, it sounds like, you know, when people get to the place where they finally wanna leave, they're at their absolute lowest. When it comes to narcissistic abuse, here they are having to make what are perhaps the most significant decisions of their lives financially and for family and things like that. And, and they've been beat down to a place where they just, they, they've got nothing left and yet have to go tackle this, this most difficult of of situations that they will ever have to tackle in their lives.
Bill Eddy:Yeah. What what I see is that it's often at that point that they finally reach out to get help. And I I give the example in the our new world of adult bullies book. A singer, a famous British singer and actress who got into a abusive relationship with an actor in Los Angeles, and she said for a year, I just got worn down and worn down and worn down. Finally, with the help of a therapist, I got out.
Bill Eddy:And she was like you, successful, everything's going well, but she believed that she couldn't leave, that she wasn't competent. And that's the thing. It's it's a story that they spin, and it's not the reality. And that's important is to know this is the story of you, not the real you. And I think that's when people turn around.
Bill Eddy:That's where therapists often help. But also listening to programs like this can help. People go, oh, maybe maybe that's what's going on. There's nothing wrong with me. I've been worn down by this situation.
Padideh Jafari:Well, also wanna say to your point, narcissists, and I'm sure you agree with this, they always pick people, right, that they can get something from. So these people are never losers. These people are usually at the height of their career. They're going places. You know, they either are wealthy or educated or all the things, right?
Padideh Jafari:So they think, okay, how can I bring this really good person down to my level? So, but I don't, like if you ask me today fifteen years after the divorce, how I even believe that, I couldn't tell you because it was psychological warfare. And it was like a drop every day. It was like a little bit, right? It wasn't like all at once, but it was like just a little bit every day to make me believe like, yeah, who would want to be with me?
Padideh Jafari:And fifteen years later, I have a great marriage. My husband makes, he laughs. He's like, yeah, married a divorce attorney. Either I'm super smart or I'm really not that smart at all. And so he jokes about that, but it's like, I can't imagine how I how I actually believe that about myself.
Bill Eddy:That's the thing is that, like you said, it's the drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. And in many ways, it's subtle and unconscious. You get arrogant looks at yourself. You get, little subtle things to show you that you're incompetent. And so you start believing that.
Bill Eddy:It's that you start believing their story of you. And what's interesting, you said something that's helpful to understand with narcissistic abusive personalities, is they do start by wanting to get the prize. So you were a prize. You were the the perfect image of someone successful that will make them look good, but then they can't help themselves. They start chipping away, chipping away, and creating this story of you not being a competent person, etcetera.
Bill Eddy:And so that's what fools people with narcissists because it looks like they're gonna treat you like you're a goddess. But in fact, that's gonna fade once they have you, and then they're gonna chip away.
Padideh Jafari:Yes. That's So
Jon McKenney:so, Bill, is the is the and you you handle tons of and you sit with tons of people who are in in high conflict situations. In your estimation, are does one of those two people most of the time have significantly narcissistic tendencies? Or is it, you know, cause in my head I'm going, well, narcissists are always blaming the person who they're abusing pretty consistently. And you have one person, the dynamic is usually have one person, the victim, just desperate to try and figure out how to go deal with these people. And the other just dialing in and giving ridiculous abuse to the others.
Jon McKenney:Is that kind of the situation that you normally encounter?
Bill Eddy:Well, yeah, with narcissists, so you see that. But all abusive personalities have different strategies. So for example, with borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, we often see more violence. And so there's research saying those are predictive for violence, although not everyone with those diagnoses are violent. And so the violence often wears people down.
Bill Eddy:But the thing with narcissists is it's this story, this barrage of, you know, everything about you is bad, and I'm perfect. I'm wonderful. So I think what happens is it grows that, you know, there may be an imbalance at the beginning because narcissists are very aggressive. But slowly over time, they become more aggressive, and the other person becomes more submissive. And that's the thing.
Bill Eddy:And and people probably hate hearing that, like, I'm not a submissive person. But in this relationship, I'm becoming a submissive person. And the earlier people can spot that and realize, wait. This is a dynamic. I don't wanna be part of this, the better.
Padideh Jafari:You know, that's interesting because in our relationship, we were churchgoing. We were Christians. We were churchgoing, although I was driving most of that. And so when you say submissive, goes so much, like the Christian church is so much about women submit to your husbands, but they leave out the part of like, as Christ submits right God. So that's the story he kept saying, like, you're not submissive enough.
Padideh Jafari:And I kept saying, oh my gosh, what else do you want me to do? And so that's talk to to us a little bit about that submission part because I don't think that maybe our listeners really understand what you what you mean by that.
Bill Eddy:Well, it's it's a psychological concept. Like I said, that principle of reciprocity, that there's a give and take that reinforces each other. So the the the the question is if you become a submissive person in the relationship, there may be decisions. I think, you know, all healthy relationships, people make different decisions and go, okay. I defer to you on this decision.
Bill Eddy:You defer to me on that decision. And I think that's that's what it should be. It's not you're a lesser person. And I think that's what gets mixed into this is you're a lesser person. I'm a superior person.
Bill Eddy:And that's very much the narcissistic theme music is I'm a superior person. And that's not healthy in the long term in relationships.
Jon McKenney:I used to joke with my ex. You know? I I used to call her I used to say, you know, I married my better half. And one day she said, I just want you to know I really believe that.
Padideh Jafari:Oh my goodness.
Jon McKenney:Just flat out told me. I I really believe that that I was the better half and that I I was the one who was who was the real champion and the one to be had.
Padideh Jafari:Oh my goodness.
Jon McKenney:Yeah. Sometimes sometimes they get real enough to to get the the truth out of them.
Bill Eddy:Well, I think that there's a lot of cultural beliefs. We get them a lot from songs and and such that make people feel like you're not a whole person unless you have this other person. And what I've seen helping people get divorced and seeing some of them remarry and have new relationships is you need to be two whole people. And sometimes people need to take time off, see a therapist, become a whole person, then you're gonna have a happier relationship. If you're looking for part of yourself that's not realistic and you're not gonna find that and it sets you up for a problem.
Padideh Jafari:So are you saying that the verse, you complete me and Jerry Maguire is not true? Is that what you're saying,
Bill Eddy:That's what I'm saying.
Jon McKenney:Yep. Yep.
Padideh Jafari:So many people describe feeling trapped or losing their own self the relationship. Can you explain how the behavior of a narcissist specifically erodes a person's ability to diagnose the toxicity and ultimately how does one person leave?
Bill Eddy:Yeah. So of all, so in many ways, narcissists are acting badly. And what they're doing is distracting you from that by saying, it's your fault. You know, I I I shouldn't have had to do this, but I had to because you did this. I'm I'm preventing you from leaving the house because I know you're a mess.
Bill Eddy:You're gonna go out there. You might have an accident. You know? You're just you're incompetent, and I need to do this to you. And person's going, gee.
Bill Eddy:What's wrong with me? Well, it's not them. It's this is wrong. You should not be blocked from leaving. Talk about feeling trapped.
Bill Eddy:They often say things like, you know, you don't need them. All you need is me. I should be enough for you. And so that's that's part of the pattern of being trapped is emotionally, psychologically, really becoming trapped and sometimes physically, taking your phone away, things like that. That's actually a form of abuse.
Bill Eddy:In terms of getting out, so I see three areas. is your self talk. Start telling yourself, it's not about me. I'm a good person. I'm okay.
Bill Eddy:That behavior that's coming at me is the problem. So you build your self esteem. Rebuild your self esteem. And I've talked to people, men and women, more women than men are in these situations, but men also are, that they say, I really thought there was something wrong with me. And so when I say no one deserves abuse, no one deserves dis respect.
Bill Eddy:That the happiest relationships are equal relationships. And so just the self talk. I don't deserve this. I'm okay. I'm a good person.
Bill Eddy:I I can become strong, and I can do what I need to do. So the self talk, I'd say, is number one. You can start that immediately. is getting help. And I think especially from professionals, from therapists, from lawyers, etcetera, who've been through this before.
Bill Eddy:You're you're a lawyer. You've I don't know how many cases you've handled, but you see similar patterns and you know things that help people, and you've seen successes. And so to know that there is help out there is so important. And then the thing, I think, is changing the cultural awareness, and that's where programs like your program is doing this. I think our books, etcetera, are helping with this.
Bill Eddy:So people really learn these problems are going on more than people realize because they go on in private. So in many ways, this is exposing a problem but along with its solutions. So as people personally gain self awareness, as they get help, and as the culture change, that's how I see this getting better.
Jon McKenney:Bill, have you had situations where you particular are slow to understand that they're being abused? I've kind of gotten into this circle of talking to men and having conversations. One, they don't generally speaking adopt the word I'm being, or the phrase I'm being abused so easily. And I think that also culturally, as you kind of mentioned, there's an amount of abuse perhaps that every man feels like he should take. One of the things that surprised me, I started asking around even friends whose marriages I respected, I'd asked, Hey, has your wife ever hit you?
Jon McKenney:And the numbers were so ridiculously high, I couldn't believe it. So it's like men are just expected to absorb some of this perhaps more than women where they would just cry foul immediately. So I wonder if you think that, or if you've seen that men are kind of slow on the uptake in actually understanding that.
Bill Eddy:Absolutely. So yes, what we see is men tell themselves, I'm the man. I should take it. It's not a big deal that, you know, no one's gonna wanna hear about this. In many cases, the man is larger than the woman.
Bill Eddy:And so there's like, I should be able to, you know, cope with this whether I'm getting slapped or hit. I think of an example I had which didn't have any violence in it, but it had coercive control financially where the woman convinced the man he was incompetent with numbers, and he wasn't. But she convinced him that she took total control of the finances. And by the time he came to me about a divorce, is he said, I know she's hidden a lot of our money because we're not living at the lifestyle we should be with our two incomes. And and yet he was terrified of facing her.
Bill Eddy:Like he said, will we have to be in court? Do I have to, you know, say negative things about her? And so he was very fearful emotionally of her and ashamed. And I think shame is often a factor that that stops men from taking action where there's something like this. And I wanna add something in here in in regard to people with the, narcissistic personalities.
Bill Eddy:In some cases, couples counseling, family counseling may make a difference, and in other cases, it might not. So I don't want to just say discard the relationship, but have your eyes open. Try things like that. And if they won't go and they don't wanna make any efforts to change, then leaving becomes sometimes option. So I just wanna get that in there.
Bill Eddy:But for men and women, it can be hard. And for men, that additional shame, that's you don't hear about many men saying this, and that's part of why.
Jon McKenney:And I think it's a shot at their masculinity too, which most men treasure. You know, I've not been able to go manage they feel like, you know, right or not, that they're the heads of the family and that they really should be able to handle these kinds of things. And when they can't, it's a shot at their masculinity. I failed as a man.
Bill Eddy:Absolutely.
Padideh Jafari:So are you saying that you suggest going to therapy with a narcissist?
Bill Eddy:Well, here's here's the thing. I I suggest trying that and be prepared. Many therapists don't recognize narcissists in couples. And the narcissist will say, hey. You know, I'm doing okay, but she's really a mess.
Bill Eddy:And she does this, this, this, and this. And the therapist hears this, this, this, and this because, oh, I have solutions for that, ma'am. You need to work on blah blah blah blah. And they just totally go with the narcissist story of what's happening.
Padideh Jafari:Yes.
Bill Eddy:So I think people need to be prepared, but some people are willing to work on themselves. And there's a real spectrum of narcissism Yes. As well as other cluster b personalities, especially. I always believe you wanna give it a shot, but don't exhaust yourself there. If there's no progress after a couple couple's counseling sessions, that may not be helpful.
Bill Eddy:And if you're getting verbally abused in a couple's session, which many people report to me that that didn't work, then call a halt to that. Encourage your partner to get counseling themselves. Get counseling for yourself. So I I just see because I some people say, well, Bill, you're in a hurry to tell people to leave, and I'm not. I see that as as a last resort, but I don't want people to stay stuck in situations that aren't going to change.
Bill Eddy:So see if you can get a change. And if you can't, then it may be time to leave.
Jon McKenney:Right. I think that's really good advice. In fact, I would tell you, I mean, I did that. In fact, one of the people I work with in my day job used to be a licensed clinical therapist. And he said, I've never seen somebody work so hard at moving your relationship forward.
Jon McKenney:And this over a period, you know, of twenty seven years and the last fifteen or so, he knew me, and watched as I tried piece after piece after piece, element after element after element, including therapy and bringing her to a therapist, which is how I actually wound up getting her diagnosed. The nice thing about your advice, I think Bill, is that on the other side of having left and like you, like you suggest divorce was not my thing.
Bill Eddy:Right.
Jon McKenney:You know, that was, that's, it's, I tell people it was an act of absolute desperation and protection on my part towards the end. I just, there was nothing left to go do and nothing left to go try. But now having left, and by the way, today is the five year anniversary of my divorce, which I'm very excited about.
Padideh Jafari:I'm glad.
Jon McKenney:I'm celebrating with you, Bill.
Bill Eddy:There you go.
Jon McKenney:Alright. Yeah. There is such peace inside
Bill Eddy:Yeah.
Jon McKenney:Knowing that I tried app I I I tried everything I could possibly try. I put my hand to absolutely everything I could put my hand to. I turned over every stone I could possibly turn over to try and bring healing to her and also to our marriage at the same time. And knowing that I did that, there's a I sleep really well. I'm able to put my head to the pillow at night very peacefully knowing that I really took the time to try and go make it work.
Bill Eddy:Good point. I think that's I
Padideh Jafari:can tell you about my experiences that we went to several different therapists because as soon as the therapist would say, I don't think this is going to work, He would say, okay, we need to go find a different therapist. And so really we went to couples therapists. I went to therapy on my own. And then towards the end, I found a therapist who said, you know what, okay, I've seen you a couple sessions, I wanna meet him. Well, when he came in, we were sitting on a couch like you and I are sitting, Bill.
Padideh Jafari:And he kind of said all his stuff and the therapist said, okay, next week I just wanna see her by herself again. So I went in and I was really beat down. I mean, I was wearing, literally I was wearing, my pajamas and I was wearing Uggs because like literally I was so beat down I couldn't even like fathom dressing up, right, for this therapy session. And he said to me, you need to leave this person. If you don't leave this person, he's going to kill you.
Padideh Jafari:Like that's how, because once he saw him, that's how, what he got from it. So I was like, what do you mean? And he's like, no, no, no, this is really bad. Like I don't think you know what you're dealing with. So you're absolutely right.
Padideh Jafari:For us, for me, I had to go to therapy and just make sure that it wasn't going to work. Otherwise, I don't think I could have lived with myself because there would have always been this thing in my head. Because you love this person. Right? Like, that's the other thing.
Padideh Jafari:You're, like, love bonded to them. You're thinking they're your savior or, like, there's gonna be nobody else in the world for me. So I had to go the distance just like John did.
Bill Eddy:Let me just say, though, that the more educated people become, the less people have to exhaust themselves with therapy to become aware, okay, I am dealing with a pattern that isn't going to change. And that's that's a lot of what I communicate in court is judges say, well, let's give this person another chance. Let's do fifty fifty parenting, and I'm sure, you know, he'll he'll be more responsive in the future. And the thing is if you have ten years of history showing there's not going to be a change, is judges, lawyers, therapists all need to see when, you know, you're pretty much at a dead end and acknowledge that. Because I think and we say this to employers too.
Bill Eddy:They often let high conflict people stay a year or two too long. And so the more educated people become, the earlier they may see these. But I really appreciate what you're each saying that because you exhausted yourselves with that, you feel really resolved now. And I think it's good for people to hear that.
Padideh Jafari:And you mentioned, go ahead.
Jon McKenney:I was thinking also, the harder part for me was finding a good therapist. Think finding somebody who actually, you know, the adage is always, well, it takes two to tango. And I think when married couples who are in conflict walk into the counseling session, if you believe that it does that, that each person is constantly the aggressor, then you wind up in a situation where you really don't get help because it takes, you know, I've always said it takes one, it takes two to build a good marriage and only one to make a bad one. And I don't think that all therapists believe that to be true. Where perhaps the more empathetic person who's more than likely the victim, their problem is loyalty to somebody they, you know, which is a positive characteristic, but it can be abused as well.
Jon McKenney:And that certainly that's their issue. But what they bring to the table are good things that are being abused, bad stuff. So having a therapist that actually embraces the fact that it can be just one who destroys a relationship, I think sometimes is hard to find.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah. Also, you mentioned about sort of this co parenting space. Obviously as an attorney, I deal with a lot of couples that have a child or children and they're dealing with this narcissist. Now they know what this is, right? They're like, Okay, my spouse is a narcissist.
Padideh Jafari:How do you resolve, I mean, high conflict, you talk about high conflict, there it is. Like what are some of the suggestions for anyone that's listening today about how to resolve conflict or what do you do when you're in this co parenting or we call it anti parenting type of relationship?
Bill Eddy:A lot of our focus, especially with High Conflict Institute over the last seventeen years, is teaching skills. And our approach is if we can teach skills of writing decent emails. That's our BIF method, and we have that book, BIF for Co parent Communication. If we can teach giving statements that show empathy, attention, and respect, we call them ear statements. If we can teach that and have people practice that, also making proposals, we have a three step proposal making method to help people make decisions.
Bill Eddy:And also, we're now teaching a new skill we call SLIC solutions, SLIC, setting limits and imposing consequences. Because with high conflict people, you set limits. They ignore that. You have to have consequences. So helping people think through setting limits and imposing consequences.
Bill Eddy:By teaching individuals these skills, they can manage the co parenting relationship better. And, ideally, if both people get taught these skills. So we developed a method called New Ways for Families in 02/2009, and we developed it as a counseling method, then an online class, then coaching with the online class. So we've had this going for, what's that, sixteen years, and the online class for ten years. The idea is if the court orders people to learn skills, coparenting skills, there's a better chance that they're gonna be able to soften that relationship and work together more.
Bill Eddy:And if both people go through this, then they can really communicate more easily. And even if one person goes through this, they can soften their side of the co parent as well as setting limits and imposing consequences. People have to think about that, especially with a narcissistic co parent.
Padideh Jafari:Oh, love that.
Jon McKenney:That's And co parenting is the place where the necessity for having to go resolve high conflict situations is just ongoing. We talk oftentimes about high conflict divorces and things like that. There's an end to a divorce at some point in time that somebody, you know, the couple is afforded the divorce and they don't have to live in a relationship anymore and perhaps deal with each other in the same kind of way. However, the problem is oftentimes they're still having to go deal with that particular toxic personality in an ongoing situation with respect to the children. That makes it very difficult long term.
Bill Eddy:Yeah. Let me add something here briefly, and that is a dynamic I see particularly with narcissistic personalities after divorce is custody disputes after divorce where the narcissist had some unrelated setback in their life. Maybe they had a new relationship and then it fell apart, or maybe their job really collapsed or they had a business that fell apart. And it's a narcissistic injury, and they look around. Where can I kinda rebuild myself?
Bill Eddy:You know what? I'm gonna get custody of our child even though I have a of the time and the other parent has majority. I'm gonna put them down. And I'm gonna show I should be the one who has, primary custody. And I've seen this happen about 10 times where someone goes back to court.
Bill Eddy:The parent who's had the majority of time is doing fine. But this parent is so aggressive that they convince the court that there's a problem in the cope in the other parent's behavior and that they should get custody. I had a case like this with a 15 year old. My client was the mother. Things are going fine, and father decides he's had some setbacks.
Bill Eddy:He's gonna get custody of the 15 year old, and so he uses his time to feed the 15 year old boy all these negative messages about mom. Boy comes back to mom, says, mom, you know what? You're annoying. You know what? You're too controlling.
Bill Eddy:Anyway, so they go to court, and he gets a recommendation from the court counselor to be primary custodial parent. And my client says, fine. Let him go. So he goes. And then the father really wasn't that interested in the boy.
Bill Eddy:He wanted the title. And he takes a job out of town. And he's gone during the week, home on the weekends. And the boy goes back to mom's house and says, guess what, mom? I have an idea.
Bill Eddy:Why don't I live with you, but let's say dad has custody? And mom calls me, can I do that? And I said, yeah. I just know at any time he could pull the plug on it. And that's what they did.
Bill Eddy:The boy had it figured out.
Padideh Jafari:Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. I think a lot of children these days, it's not like when I was practicing law twenty two years ago, I feel like children get it. I've had a 12 year old a couple weeks ago come into mediation and she told the mediator exactly what she wanted.
Padideh Jafari:She said my dad drinks alcohol. He drives under the influence. He had the whole the whole thing to the mediator. I was sitting in there. I couldn't believe how she was speaking, almost like a 40 or 50 year old person.
Padideh Jafari:And afterwards, I said to her, how did you know how to talk to the mediator and what to say? She said, oh, on the way to court, I was texting my friend whose parents are also getting a divorce. And so I knew exactly what to say and how to say it. And she's like, it was all true. And I'm like, no, I believe you.
Padideh Jafari:She's like, but I just, you know, I kinda, so they teach each other to your point. But you're absolutely right that that 15 year old definitely had the father figured out. And so, that's great that he was able to do that and tell the mom and kind of explain it to the mom.
Jon McKenney:And that's where the kids wind up being involved in the high conflict relationship. You know, the situation Bill described, narcissistic or high conflict parent actually manipulated the child to choose. You know, by the time they're 15, in most states, can choose who they wanna go live with.
Bill Eddy:Not officially.
Jon McKenney:They're manipulating
Bill Eddy:Not officially. I wanna make sure people know it's not officially, in practice, it's
Jon McKenney:often the It's different state by state, but oftentimes they take the child's desires into account. By the time they're 15 years old, where would you like to live? And this manipulation is coming at the child about the parent who's generally the victim. That makes it even more difficult. They're teaching the child to not choose the parent who's been abused the whole way.
Padideh Jafari:Yeah, I think that's amazing. So what is one piece of advice that you would get for somebody or that you would give to somebody who's struggling to leave? Just one piece of advice. Like, what would that be?
Bill Eddy:I'd say number one would be talk to somebody. Don't be isolated because so many people I've I've worked with were isolated for a long time and afraid to tell anybody. Talk to somebody, one person, a friend, a therapist, a coworker, somebody so that you're not isolated with these feelings, with the situation, etcetera. And I think, you know, people just do that. Like, someone think of someone you can talk to, that that makes a world of difference.
Bill Eddy:You're not dealing with this alone. Because so much this goes on out of sight of everybody else, And you need to know it's really not about you. You don't deserve this kind of treatment. And when you isolate yourself, you start telling yourself you do deserve this. So one thing, reach out, talk to somebody about what 's going on.
Padideh Jafari:I think that's great advice. I know for myself I was extremely isolated. It was like work and home to him. And he had actually made sure that my family was estranged from me. Even though I had no problems and I still to this day have no problems with my family, but he made sure that they were far enough.
Padideh Jafari:And so yeah, that isolation, it's almost like that it's triggering that word because I felt very isolated and it was just my world was just him and his daughter. That was my world. And so, that's really good advice to just talk to someone. And, I think that's what I did actually. I went and therapy and it still took a long time because I didn't want to believe, right?
Padideh Jafari:Because I knew once you admit that this person is abusing you in a narcissistic way, then you have to leave. And I wasn't ready to leave. And I wasn't ready to give up. That was like, I'm not going to give up on us, right? So anything else, John, that you want to talk about?
Jon McKenney:Yeah, you want to make sure that those people are trusted and kind of emotionally capable of understanding your situation. In my particular situation, since I was married to a covert narcissist, her public persona was so good that the people I reached out to just didn't believe that it was possible. I can remember sitting with a pastor when I was explaining to him what went on. And he said, here's what I want you to go do. I want you to go home.
Jon McKenney:I want you to make love to your wife. And I want you to go make this right. Okay. I'll do that. Like she wanted that anyways.
Jon McKenney:So it, I've, I found that not, not all people were, were good people to have a conversation with, but you have to have somebody who, who believes you. And will listen to your side of it. Because again, my situation, the public persona of my ex was so good, and continues to be so good. There a group of people around her, including family and pastors and things like that, that that believe her and wouldn't even consider or hear, my side of what was taking place.
Bill Eddy:Yeah. Let me comment a couple things here. One is I wanna emphasize the concept of negative advocates, that what we see, high conflict people, people with cluster b personality disorders especially, are good at gathering people to tell their story to that will believe their story because that's all they're hearing. And so negative advocates reinforce the narcissistic personality and understand that that's happening. Also, a lot of professionals don't really see this and have values that block seeing it, like that all couple communication is contributed to equally by each party.
Bill Eddy:And I was trained kind of in that concept, see how each person contributes. But as I learned about, like, the principle of reciprocity, in some cases, there's an abusive person and a submissive person to that, and they're not the cause of their own abuse. So there's a lot of education of professionals. So be prepared for that. Find people you can talk to.
Bill Eddy:That's a lot of the consultations I do. They haven't found someone that understands. They read one of my books. They said, hopefully, you'll understand. And that's so powerful for people to have even one person who understands what's going on.
Bill Eddy:So be aware of that. Educate yourself, and and look for help. Realize not everybody understands, but there are people who do.
Jon McKenney:Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, it's been a great conversation. And, Bill, thanks so much for your time today. Bill, tell tell us how people can find you and talk about your books.
Jon McKenney:And let's let's go through all that because these these are valuable resources for people, particularly who are in high conflict relationships, for people who are in relationships with, narcissists, who have to get out of relationships with narcissists, who are co parenting with narcissists. So tell talk to us about your books real quick and and, and how people can find you.
Bill Eddy:Yeah. So highconflictinstitute.com is where to find me, and you can set up consultations with me. You can find all our books. You can find video training. We have a lot of one hour videos.
Bill Eddy:We also have a lot of free articles that people can get help from that, you know, just go sign up for our monthly newsletter because then we announce things. So we're we're definitely a a big resource. In terms of books, I've written about 20 books, some of them coauthored. I mentioned the BIF for Co parent Communication book. If you just get one book and you're facing all of this, that's probably a good one to get because right away, you can change your emails so that you'd feel more empowered.
Bill Eddy:The book splitting, I mentioned, if you're considering separating getting divorced, read that before you take any action if you can. Because we talk about ways to prepare as well as what to expect in court, what to expect from a high conflict person when things escalate into a dispute over the kids, etcetera.
Jon McKenney:Mhmm.
Bill Eddy:Then there's a variety of other books. Like I said, our new world of adult bullies just came out last year. Talks about bullying in families, in the workplace, in communities, everywhere because it seems to be increasing. We have a book, Dating Radar, after helping people get divorced from high conflict situations, is helping people avoid getting into these situations. There's a lot of warning signs that people don't know to look for or that they ignore.
Bill Eddy:And so that that's a helpful book. Books you can get anywhere, and a lot of them are also ebooks so you can listen to them while you're driving in traffic. All of that.
Jon McKenney:And and build the podcast too, which which name I love. Yes. I laughed. I had a good good belly laugh for that.
Bill Eddy:We have a podcast, we've had for several years now, myself and Megan Hunter, who's the CEO of High Conflict Institute, and it's called It's All Your Fault, Dealing With High Conflict People.
Padideh Jafari:That's a great name.
Jon McKenney:Fantastic. Well, so much for being with us today and Padita. So good to see you again. I'm John McKinney, and this is the narcissist abuse recovery channel. You can also find us at a narc.
Jon McKenney:Podcast on Instagram or, check-in on Spotify or on Apple Music, and, and you'll find us there as well just by looking up narcissist abuse recovery channel. And, it's been a fantastic time, and, thank you so much for your attention, and, we'll look forward to seeing you again next time.
Speaker 5:Thank you for listening to the Narcissist Abuse Recovery Channel. Be sure to follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to follow us on Instagram with the handle NARC. Podcast. The guest views, thoughts and opinions expressed are their own. The information presented is for general information purposes only and is not intended to be legal advice.
Speaker 5: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.