Music.
Hey everybody, welcome to episode 83 of Waking Up to Narcissism.
I am your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist,
host of the Virtual Couch Podcast, Murder on the Couch Podcast, and yet another brand new podcast
from the Virtual Couch Podcast Network called The Mind, The Mirror, and Me. It is a new podcast by
my daughter, Mackie, and co-hosted by yours truly, and we have released the trailer. The first
The first episode comes out later this week,
so please go subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
I'll have a link in the show notes.
But again, the trailer's up now, the first episode, which we've already recorded, and it is so good.
Mackie is, she's a natural, and she was on the Virtual Couch podcast last week,
and we talked about parenting older kids. If you haven't heard that one,
I highly recommend you check that one out.
But we also introduced a couple of concepts that I want to talk more about,
holding this assertive frame, and assertive versus nurturing,
and putting that in the context of parenting. So I would just highly encourage you
to check out that episode.
And if you like what you hear from Mackie and I together, then please go subscribe to The Mind, The Mirror, and Me.
And please sign up to get the newsletter. My social media team at the EIA Agency
and I met a few days ago, and there are some really big things that are happening,
and they do have to do with this podcast in particular, as well as other things
that I think will be shared via the newsletter.
But let's start off today's episode.
And I realized that if you saw the title already, then spoiler alert, you already know
that we are going to share the fifth installment of Death by a Thousand Cuts,
and these have been very special episodes because I feel like these are some of the first things
that I would just continually jot down in my notes when I was meeting with clients
and starting to deal with more emotional immaturity and narcissistic traits and tendencies,
but just when people would start to describe things, and it's typically the pathologically kind person
that is describing their experience,
and they are things that don't sound like a huge deal all the time, but especially when they mention these
to friends who say, well, there's bumps in every relationship, but I'm sure there's a lot
of good things that he or she does, and so where people would just feel dismissed,
where we start talking about those concepts like Switzerland friends.
But the more that these things add up, then it really does feel like you are dying slowly
by a thousand cuts and starting to bleed out over time, and it can feel overwhelming to try and put band-aids
on a thousand different cuts on your body.
So I wanna start off by reading a letter that was sent in by a listener and I think this will get the ball rolling.
Dear Tony, I hope this email finds you well.
My name is Emma, although that is not my real name and I felt compelled to reach out
after delving deep into your podcast, waking up the narcissism.
Your episode titled Death by a Thousand Cuts resonated with me so profoundly that I felt an immense need to share my story with you.
Jake, also not his real name, and I have been together since high school.
To the world, we were picture perfect, the epitome of young love.
But in reality, our relationship has been anything but idyllic.
Behind the scenes, we've been in a continuous cycle of emotional imbalance and strain.
I became the perennial peacekeeper, always trying to placate Jake at every turn.
Anytime he expressed displeasure, I'd internalize the blame.
Hoping that my efforts would bring tranquility to the relationship.
I would surprise him with gifts, I would plan unexpected dates,
and a lot of times I would just agree to whatever he believed seemed to be my modus operandi.
Jake conversely had a knack for evading responsibility. My concerns were often met with deflection or minimization.
Phrases like, you're overreacting, or other couples have real problems, Emma.
This is trivial, became all too familiar.
This emotional dance left me perpetually anxious, and everything felt like a potential trigger.
And I started questioning my sanity. Was I truly overreacting?
Was I the root of our problems? Are these just things that are happening in every other relationship?
So finally, in search of my answers and clarity, I began therapy.
I had to tell him it was for something completely different.
But it was there, thank goodness, that my therapist recommended your podcast,
and I have to say, Death by a Thousand Cuts episodes were a revelation.
The idea of enduring countless minor traumas, which might seem inconsequential to others,
but are overwhelming to the one experiencing them, hit so close to home.
At times I felt like I couldn't even listen anymore, and then there were times where all I wanted to do
was listen to these episodes over and over.
Starting to understand that I wasn't losing it, but rather caught in a relentless cycle of appeasing Jake while he shirked responsibility.
Was groundbreaking my healing journey had just begun,
Bolstered by the insights from your podcast. I'm learning to set boundaries and champion my own worth,
Our relationship dynamics are I would say evolving and the path ahead absolutely remains uncertain,
However, I am resolved that I will no longer be a victim of a thousand tiny cuts Tony,
I share this with the hope that my story might resonate with others in a similar boat,
Thank you for the invaluable work you're doing.
Your podcast is not just enlightening, it's life-altering. Warm regards, Emma."
So I just want to say that I see you, Emma, and I appreciate you sharing that email,
and I know that you are on that journey.
You went from, I didn't know what I didn't know, to now you know and you're doing,
and that can be pretty frustrating, but eventually you're gonna be doing it
more than you don't, and finally you will just become, and you will be and do the,
you'll be the person that you've always wanted to be.
So just for anyone new, or if you want a quick refresher,
just the whole concept of death by 1,000 cuts
is just talking about just numerous minor actions that over time, they'll wear down a person's self-confidence.
They'll have you just really question who you are and what is your sense of purpose.
And the individuals that are often affected by these actions are what I like to describe as the pathologically kind,
that they are pretty consistent in their attempt to nurture and improve their relationship,
mistakenly believing that both partners, that them and their spouse,
that they both have mutual goals of self-improvement or understanding or mutual respect.
But due to the emotional immaturity in their partner's behavior, these typically kind-hearted
individuals often feel, they feel their emotions and their feelings and all their experiences
start to become more invalidated simply because they differ from their partners.
And I've done a number of episodes around everything from antagonistic attachment styles to
just learning how to just be and watch, but unfortunately watch as the buttons get
pressed bigger and bigger as you're starting to change the dynamic in your relationship. But I put the message out to my women's private Facebook group for.
Some more examples because I think those are so powerful. But I also have been
keeping some examples just from the emails that come in. So I think I have
four or five of those and I put these in a little bit of narrative format. So let
me just share a few of those then I'll get to those examples from the private
women's Facebook group. The first one I just had entitled movie night and every
every Friday. We'll just call him Sarah and Alex have a tradition of watching
movies together and Sarah is the one that wrote in and talked about loving romantic comedies. Alex preferred action films so every time that it was Sarah's
turn to pick then Alex would just make little remarks about how sappy or how
predictable her choices were. So she said that just over time she stopped
suggesting movies altogether and she started just even believing that her own
taste in movies were inferior or silly and what can be really strange about
about this situation is that she said that Alex then just started to believe that she just liked
the same movies that he did, because to her, it wasn't worth the fight.
And I think that subtlety is what is so, can be so powerful about when you don't have a way
to express yourself, even about these small, tiny cuts.
Because I'll get a couple, like, let's just say, if Sarah and Alex come into counseling at some point,
because Sarah's done, and then she mentions this, and Alex will say something to the effect of.
Well, you should have told me.
Why didn't you ever tell me? I had no idea, but then I know just looking over at Sarah
in this situation, I would be able to just guess and or give her a voice and say,
well, it's because of over time, she's tried to bring that up.
But then when you say they're sappy or they're predictable, that she feels like, well, what's the point?
Because you're gonna eventually just watch the kind of movie that you wanna watch anyway.
But then if you're complaining, if Sarah's complaining about this to her friends,
then her friends say, well, just tell him that you really wanna watch the movie.
Or, well, I mean, they are a little bit predictable. And so people just stop losing their voice.
So the next one is, it's about cooking, and it's one where the husband,
I'm just gonna call him Liam, said that the more that he started to cook
in hopes of learning how to raise his emotional baseline because he had been frustrated a lot,
that he had been listening to the Virtual Couch podcast and just really wanted to start doing things
that he really enjoyed.
But the more he cooked, and he would try out these new recipes on his wife.
He said that after they would eat, she would say, you know, it's not really as good as what my mom makes,
or, well, I can tell you didn't use much of whatever this particular ingredient might have been.
And so he said that while it started to seem like it was just this innocent comparison,
that over time, he said it just became a recurring theme.
And so then he started to second guess, is it even worth it trying to cook?
And eventually he just avoided cooking altogether. And what caused him to write in was he said
that he had tried to bring it up and just said, hey, do you remember that when I used to try cooking
and do you remember what your response was to which she just said, no, I don't.
I don't really remember that at all. If you wanna cook, then you should just cook.
So if you are a regular listener to this podcast, then I think you understand why that story is significant.
But if somebody is just checking this podcast out and they've made it however many minutes this is in,
at this point, I would imagine they're saying, just watch the movie you wanna watch
or just cook if you wanna cook.
But we know that it's not that simple when you're in a relationship with somebody
that is incredibly emotionally immature, bordering on narcissistic traits,
tendencies, or personality disorder.
Another one is just about a new hobby.
This is a woman that said that she started to take up painting during the lockdown,
and she really was happy with her progress.
She started showing her husband her artwork, and he didn't seem to show much interest at all.
So finally she said, hey, what do you think? What do you think about the painting?
To where he said, do you want me to be honest? Well, at least you're having fun.
And she just said that that dismissive tone made her question her talent,
made her question, is this even worth it?
And she said that she really just started to show up different or play small in the relationship,
but she really was finding that she loved painting. Now she's back to a point where she said
that she is starting to paint, but she's not showing him what she's painting.
There's another one where a wife talked about that she really enjoyed hosting gatherings. They had moved into a bigger house and part of she now believes the husband wanted the house. And so he said, when we move in there, you can finally host all these gatherings that you want to host.
And so for their anniversary, she suggested a theme party to her husband. And then he just said, well, why complicate things? Just keep it simple. And as a matter of fact, I would rather just be with you anyway.
Anyway. She would always value his opinion over her own, so she said that she just abandoned
the idea. But she said that this was the pattern, that her creativity she felt like was frequently
sidelined by his preference for simplicity, and so it just made her feel over time like
her ideas were always just too much. But then meanwhile, she was helping with things at
her kids' school and would get regular validation or just like a healthy praise from the work
that she did there. And in those scenarios, her husband was very proud when they were
out in public or at a back to school night. And then the last one, and then we'll get
to the examples from the private Facebook group, is one of the, someone that wrote in,
a guy wrote in and said that he started really, when he went into therapy, started to uncover
some stories from his childhood. And so he said he started to share those with his wife,
but instead of listening, she would just interject with their own stories. And he said that she
he would continually say things like, oh, that reminds me of when I,
without ever acknowledging his stories.
And then over time, then he started to feel like his experiences weren't as interesting or as valid as hers.
And so he started to again, keep them to himself. And it wasn't like then she started saying,
hey, you never finished those stories that you were telling me about.
And why I appreciate that one so much is it can sound just so benign,
but here's a situation where this person wanted to start talking more to his spouse
about these things that he was discovering.
And he wrote me, in part of the email, he said, am I crazy to think that, am I being narcissistic
in saying that I wanted her to take interest in the things that I was sharing?
And absolutely not. This is the part where I feel like we are all worthy of these shared experiences and just mutual curiosity
in our relationships.
And when that doesn't happen, that doesn't mean that something is wrong with you,
but it may mean that your partner is unaware or maybe incapable of being able to just keep the focus,
on you, because if we go back to that antagonistic attachment style from a narcissist,
that it is this zero-sum game.
So if you are talking about your story, then that means to the emotionally immature person,
that then they think that you must not think that their stories are very important.
So now they need to tell their stories, because their stories are much more important.
So, in each one of these narratives, though, the pathologically kind partner, they try to share a piece of themselves only to have their more emotionally immature partner diminish or dismiss their feelings or their experiences.
And then over time, these just consistent, subtle, I don't know, what are they, jabs kind of erode their confidence and their sense of self-worth and their sense of purpose.
And so then the people just go back into this playing small in their relationship and then
they resume this role of just well I guess I can just try to keep the peace which is just not what
we're here to do and it doesn't make those around you but it doesn't it's not the way to show up
for yourself either so here's what I posted in the women's facebook group I said okay we have a lot
of new people since death by a thousand cuts four was released and it seems that with my current I
I said my current at the time is that my current fascination with chat GPT and how you can
take anything and turn it into a poem, a haiku, or a musical that perhaps it is time for death
by a thousand cuts, volume five, the musical, a little tongue in cheek, but I said, I may
turn one into a song to the tune of you are so vain just in the intro, which I chose not to do.
You are welcome. But with that said, I would love anybody's examples as well as the making sure that everything's
okay to share in an episode.
And I just mentioned that these episodes are the ones that really resonate with people.
So everything that I'm going to share has been given the okay to share in an episode
and some of the things have been changed a little bit here and there just to make things
more understandable or put them in context.
So the first few people I think took me serious and thought I was going to do something to
the song You're So Vain.
So the first one said, You're so vain, you spend your days preparing a very cool costume
for yourself, for the work party.
While refusing to lift a finger to help your ex-wife prepare a huge obligatory celebration for your son.
But then later, you do give her flowers as a band-aid to her wound to make sure that
she will go bike riding with you whenever you want to do that the next time.
She said, isn't that great how that works out well for you? And just for any new listeners, the context, I don't think that she means that literally
go bike riding, but here was a situation where they had a, they have a son together and there's
a very large thing happening that they needed to spend a lot of time to put together a celebration
for and he, the husband, left it all on the now ex-wife to take care of the celebration
so that he could spend days preparing a very cool costume for a work party.
And so then when he felt bad about it, he gave her flowers to, in that case, ease his
own discomfort or anxiety because he's subconsciously maybe sure that there are going to be plenty
of other things that he is not gonna wanna do in the future.
And if she'll continue to take that role of taking care of everybody and taking care of things,
then he'll be able to keep preparing cool costumes for the after work parties
that will be coming up in the future.
Another one said somebody was heading to a family, an extended family function,
and she said that she told her spouse, everybody's ordering pizza for dinner,
what do you want on yours?
And he said, very haughtily, which I love that word, he said, I'm not eating pizza.
So she said, I went about ordering the pizza for everybody else, and when we arrived
and he only saw pizza to eat, surprise, he got really angry and yelled at me
in front of my entire family, just, you're unbelievable.
Apparently I was supposed to read his mind and know that when he said he didn't want pizza,
I was then supposed to sort something else out specifically for him and know that then,
even though he didn't want it now, that he would want it later, and what he would then want
when he finally realized that he wanted pizza.
Another one people talked about, walking ahead, And I know we've addressed this in previous episodes,
but I get, this is one of those where I just get so, I get a lot of emails about this is something
that people didn't realize was more of an emotionally immature, narcissistic trait.
So she said, another one, the walking ahead of me and the kids.
He walks so far ahead that when anyone has to stop to tie a shoe, he doesn't even notice.
He keeps walking off into the distance and disappears.
She said, I would be at the mall with little toddlers he would just walk ahead and leave us.
Now, why the walking ahead? And this is where I really do want to have a wheel,
spin the wheel of narcissism, because it's emotionally immature,
but it could be for a variety of reasons, which I like to now coin the,
oh, there it is, that's the reason.
So whether it is a, he wants to do something different, or I am gonna show everybody else that they are being lazy
and they aren't as efficient as I am, or he doesn't want to have to deal with the crying
of the toddlers, or, I mean, there's a lot of different reasons,
but none of them are the, oh my gosh, I am so sorry, I didn't realize I was walking ahead,
and let me get back and help out.
Because if that was the thing that he really felt, then it would not be a consistent pattern
because it would be something that he was willing to self-confront and grow and deal with and work with.
And these are those times where I have to pull out my own formerly emotionally immature card
and say that I remember those times where I felt like we've got to get to this place by a certain time.
If I was at a park or something like that and almost feeling, hey, that's my job
is to get us there in time, but that's a me issue.
And so when you really sit and self-confront, then you don't realize how controlling that is,
where you're just saying, no, this is what I want.
I wanna get to this place at a particular time, and I'm gonna do it, whether you guys
are coming along or not, almost as if that is, I don't know, gonna motivate the people to hurry up.
But here's the thing, people are just doing the best that they can, especially when there's kids.
And this is one where I am very happy, and hopefully this isn't me confabulating a narrative,
but this is something that was discovered a long time ago,
so that, and then you can actually swing the pendulum all the way to the other side,
where if we were traveling in a car, then it was, hey, we will stop 900 times if we need to,
because I would rather do that and over accommodate
than be the person that just feels like, no, we're doing it the way I'm doing it
because I'm the one driving, or I'm the one that paid for us to come to Disneyland
or whatever that looks like.
So you start seeing a lot of these about the people that are just walking ahead
or keeping or staying ahead or leaving without those kind of things.
In this, this person that had just shared the one about people her husband walking had also said,
bought one child a bike for no special reason and didn't get one for one of our other children.
When I asked why he did this, because it was hurtful, he said it was all because the other
child wasn't showing enough interest in him that week and wasn't very appreciative. So she said,
unfortunately, the kids then learned that love always has its conditions. Now someone else then
chimed in and said, Oh, your walking story just brought a flood of memories. I've always been a
fast walker, but my husband used to tease me and get irritated by this when it was
something that irritated him. At some point though, there was a turn. She said
Disneyland trips left me holding the kids' hands and him darting through the
crowds only to be annoyed that we weren't keeping up. And she said he seems
to walk extra fast whenever I'm in heels. And she said because I thought I might
be imagining it, I did an experiment where we had a quarter-mile walk
together. I decided no matter what, I would walk by his side. And she said it
proved to be extremely challenging.
Our pace never steadied for a second, just slowing, then speeding up,
then slowing, and then speeding up.
She said, I couldn't help but wonder, what was he thinking as he was probably
having to work as hard to try to get away from me?
And this is one that we're gonna talk about in future episodes, and it is the concept of keeping score,
that we're told continually we should not keep score, but I really believe that at times
that keeping score is for your own sanity.
Not to say, see, look, Mr. or Mrs. Narcissist, I do actually tell you that I love you,
or I do help out with the kids, or I'm keeping track and you did vary your pace,
because we're still assuming that if I showed that
to the narcissistic partner, that they are now going, that's the thing, that'll give them the aha moment the epiphany.
I'm starting to recognize and there's a wonderful thread in the Facebook group about this of that the don't keep score is almost at times in an emotionally immature narcissistic relationship has been used as a tool to say, hey, don't track what I'm doing because I'm being pretty darn inconsistent because I'm emotionally immature and I need this one up. I need to be able to have this leg up on you. I'm not going to be consistent.
And of course, they're not saying that overtly,
but that's what's happening from a covert standpoint.
And so keeping score to know that, hey, I do say I'm sorry, I do follow through,
I do keep my word, just for your own sanity.
And once again, and I promised myself earlier that I wouldn't keep going back to the,
and for those who are listening to this podcast, we'll understand, but I think that that is something
where if somebody is just sitting in their healthy ego,
their calm, confident self, and they are emotionally mature,
and somebody is telling them that, well, you don't do the right thing,
or you should do it this way, that person doesn't even, they're thinking,
hey, that's a you problem.
But so, the keeping score thing is almost a way to start to prove to yourself
that you are that consistent person.
You are somebody that shows up and says the things that you mean,
and you follow through on things, and that can be really helpful,
because sometimes people just go from the, am I crazy, to then they want to point out,
look, I've done this this many times,
but that just becomes fuel when you're feeding an emotionally immature narcissistic individual.
But when it can be something that will help you keep your sanity, then that can be very, very powerful.
Somebody else then chimed in and when they were seeing these things,
about the narcissist walking quickly through Disneyland,
and they said a narcissistic mental as well as physical obstacle course,
which is so well said.
She said, I was blown away when I found out that always walking ahead of a person
was also a narcissistic trait.
Some other examples, this is another person said, I was walking into the dark bedroom
and I tripped over and fell over the dog.
He wasn't laying in his usual spot. And she said, I fell hard onto the floor.
And instead of asking if I was okay or getting out of the bed to help me,
he screamed, gosh, what is wrong with you?
Like, how could I be so stupid to trip and fall down? And again, breaks my heart.
And these are some of the stories that you hear about people that heard a spouse just retching
or in pain at night, hovering over a toilet bowl, throwing up,
and the spouse just put their head under the pillow because they had a rough day
for ahead of them the next day.
She said, and speaking of that dog, the same dog stole the dusting wand from my daughter's hand
and he screamed at her, gosh, you are such a disappointment
when screaming that to the daughter, not the dog.
She said that he'll travel for his job for a couple of weeks, comes home,
doesn't even acknowledge her or the kids, not even hi, and she said, yep, the dog gets a hug and a kiss.
She said, I definitely see a theme here with the dog getting better treatment.
And I'll just put a quick pause on that as well. There's some threads going around in the group
about what is it with animals, because sometimes that can be the unconditional love of an animal,
and other times that can be the displaced anger toward the animal.
And actually, I think it ends up being both.
And if you go back to that episode that I did on intermittent reinforcement,
that one of the ways that you, unfortunately the ways that people train dogs
is they are the punisher and the offerer of the reward.
So then when they want that dog to love them, that dog is ready to love them.
And when they are frustrated, then unfortunately they often take it out on the animal.
So it's just another, I feel like it's a trait of the, it can be of the emotionally immature.
Oh, on that note, okay. So then she said, he leaves home the same way.
So ignoring people, but saying goodbye to the dog.
And she said, I've discussed with the kids that this isn't normal behavior and that they haven't done anything wrong,
that this is more of a dad issue, not anything that they've done,
because she said it's soul-destroying to me to watch the way that they react
when he doesn't acknowledge him coming home or leaving.
Another one, this is a woman who said that her husband called her by his ex-wife's name as she
was in labor with their daughter. She said it was the biggest, most meaningful day of her life,
and he managed to take a slice out of me during that time. And she said maybe what was even more
difficult is when I wanted to discuss it afterward, he said, I don't remember saying that. I don't
think I said that. She said, one might say that it was a slip of the tongue, but she said, I just
feel like I know better. And I think that one's really difficult because if there was a pattern
of the person, the husband in that scenario of owning up and apologizing for things,
then if it would have been a slip of the tongue, then man, I can only imagine if he would have
said, I am so sorry. Like that, that was, I am so sorry. That is the last thing that I meant to do.
But instead, when this becomes that big story or the big question about confabulation is,
does his mind just immediately confabulate in real time so that it couldn't have been him that said
that because that would have meant that he did something wrong at this really important time for
her. This one's one that comes up often too that I find very interesting. This is where somebody
just said, compliments that I've received from him have all been in public settings and sometimes
even feel contradictory to comments made to me privately. And I think this one's going to
resonate for people that are listening. And I would love, and again, I want your examples,
please send in your examples of the death by a thousand cuts, because I think these episodes do,
better than even most. And because I think they just speak to people that people don't
feel like they are crazy, even though some of these examples seem so small in comparison to some of the things that you hear about when you hear about narcissistic abuse.
But she said, OK, compliments I've received from him have all been in public settings, and sometimes I feel contradictory to comments made to me privately.
I think the compliment is actually about how it makes him look for giving it and leaves me feeling used.
And that's just, well, spot on how it makes him look when he's saying in front of somebody else, man, doesn't she do amazing work?
Isn't she wonderful?
I just think she's beautiful and I just love everything about her.
But are those happening when there aren't other people around?" Another person said that when they found out that their high school student was failing
classes at school, and she said, I was helping our student make a plan.
My husband's reaction was, and she said the quote's so important here, have we not been
talking to their teacher?
And have we not been checking their grades?
And then they said, Hey, I am sorry to their kid that we have failed you when you needed help.
She said, since I'm the only one that handles school, and I've been working with our kids' teachers
and their ADD since third grade, it's clear that we means me.
Now in the same thread, they also mentioned that he hardly ever uses or wears a gift that I give him.
And she talked about, I make several fresh foods that are almost always in the fridge
and my grown children love to visit home for.
Applesauce from the apple trees, OJ and lemonade from the citrus trees,
homemade yogurt, fresh salsa, refried beans from scratch.
But she said, my husband has made it a point not to eat them and has never even tried some of them,
and he buys his own salsa and yogurt at the store.
And I wanna just continue down the list here, but we're gonna talk about food here in just a second.
And I also, we could do another episode on the not using the things that are given
or the gifts that are given to them.
This same person said, anytime I bring up a concern,
I feel like I am lectured then about how I brought it up.
That sometimes I don't bring it up with enough confidence. Other times I bring it up and I'm being passive aggressive.
Sometimes I need to bring it up and be nicer.
Sometimes I need to bring it up and be more forceful. So there's never a good way to bring something up.
Because in that moment, I am bringing up something, this is my take, in that moment,
she is bringing up something that then is going to be uncomfortable.
And that is that sign of the emotional immaturity of the husband in this situation is that he is a master.
Deflecting that discomfort and a master of then being able to take a quick, take quick control of
the conversation by saying, hey, you didn't present that the right way. So, I'm not even
sure what I'm supposed to do with that because it's about criticism or something that he does
not want to hear. Oh, and back to this example with the kid in school, someone else chimed in
and said, oh yes, all the we statements and not eating any of the stuff I cook, it gets, yeah,
yet he gets really irritated if I don't cook.
Truly crazy making stuff.
Someone else chimed in and said, my husband never eats my food either.
I thought it was just me. And then someone else said the food thing.
So during the divorce, I offered him most of the food storage and he said he would only take everything,
or he would take everything except for the things that I had canned myself because he said that stuff
wasn't any good and he would only feed it to the neighbor's pigs like he had always done.
Food, we're gonna talk about this. I'm gonna try to blast through a article by Christine Hammond
that talks about narcissists and food.
And so to set that up though, I do wanna give this example. This person just said this so well.
She said, my husband gets this zoned out look on his face around food before and during eating
that it almost looks like he's on a high.
She said, this isn't all meals. This would be a meal that he presumes is really good
or whenever we get restaurant food.
There is no conversation with him. You cannot touch his food,
but he will sneakily help himself to yours, especially when the kids were really little.
Now they will put up a fight. No one wants to have a shareable food with him like popcorn or chips or naan bread in an Indian restaurant.
And if you're watching a movie, he'll come for the food and then shortly leave right after it's eaten. He'll go right back to his room.
Then he takes more than his share and he says, well, I'm bigger. I need more. Or I pay for all of this.
And she said, am I crazy to think that a workaround would be for somebody responsible, somebody who's going to be fair in the distribution to, let's just say, open up a chip bag and then get out however many bowls of people are around and separate it out evenly?
Or make sure and ask, does anybody else want these?
She said then her daughter or her son could then eat it slow, save it.
That then they're not gonna be taught that man, you have to just grab what you wanna grab
and then you have to consume it quickly or dad's gonna eat it or he'll bug you.
Hey, are you gonna eat all that?
She said people cover their food and they start to get mad at him.
And if you're not looking, then he sneaks the chip and if he gets caught, he'll laugh and make light of it
and say, oh, you had more than me.
But she said it's made mealtimes in general just so uncomfortable with him to the point where she said,
we really haven't sat down and had a family meal for a very, very long time.
So I love that example because there's just so many things there around food
that broken down individually, people would maybe say, that doesn't sound crazy.
Oh yeah, we do that sometimes too. Or my son will have popcorn and my husband will grab it.
But if it is an issue, then it needs to be addressed. And then this isn't about the scenario
of the husband and his need to, I am bigger, I earn more money,
so therefore I am teaching this lesson to my kids that their needs are not significant.
That once I have met my needs, then they can fall in line behind.
And that is not the way to develop a secure attachment with your kids.
Somebody else then just said, this was back to the you're so vain reference,
you're so vain, and this one breaks my heart.
She said throwing a plate of food and then saying that this is disgusting, this is icky,
and then wants me to then get down and clean it up and then just almost beg for forgiveness
for not making edible food.
And then I apologized at that point. I said, I apologized for the opening in my, in the Facebook group, and I said, where I encouraged people to post and maybe I was using a little bit too much humor, but I appreciate what she said. She said, I now find humor in it.
She said, I'm away from the situation and I'm doing great. And I look back at all the BS I went through with him and I laugh at a majority of it because I can't believe an adult can act the way that these narcissists or emotionally immature people do.
She said, I feel bad for the women and men who are still in the trenches because they
deserve so much better.
And it's something that they don't even know what they don't know about what they deserve.
Yeah, there's a there's a food there's a food context in this.
This is a woman who shared some of her journal entry and then I will get to the food article,
that Christine Hammond shared and then we'll wrap things up.
So she was talking about her journal and she had shared another experience or two earlier
in the Facebook group and I think one or two of the experiences that she shared even made it into the podcast.
She said that in one of the journals that she had read to get some content that she shared
that made it into another episode, she said, I reread the journal entry
and she said she just saw so many other,
death by a thousand cuts in the journal entry. So she said that I was welcome to read this.
So she was just talking, and it's a little bit out of context at first,
but it said, but mostly it is, and I'm just gonna say my husband, she name by name,
but my husband who I feel lonely with.
He repeats over and over again how he wants to focus on just the positive.
She said, I was feeling terrible.
And I say over and over again that he doesn't make room for my difficult emotions, but then he denies this.
So then I finally say, okay, I'll just flip the switch and I'll just do the positive thing.
And she said, this is what I will do. And this is what I am trying to do.
Now he will check in on me, but like his family and mine, What he wants is for me to say everything's okay.
Just everything's fine. And this is one of those situations where, talk about love or control.
So, here's somebody that I know in her situation, she was dealing with, I think it was a significant
loss in the family, the death of some loved ones. And then if she's saying, I'm struggling,
that makes him uncomfortable. So, he just says, hey, we just, we all struggle. We all go through
things. So, we just need to focus on the positive. So, does that make sense? Do you feel okay?
And all she can do then is just say, yeah, no, that makes sense. I feel okay. Because that gets
gets rid of his discomfort, his anxiety.
And so now she's being trained to say, no, everything's okay, it's all right.
But she said, I still feel terrible.
And she said, because I really don't think my husband understands what it means
to be a team or to care about us.
I think that he sees self-care as a zero-sum game. There's a winner and a loser.
He asked me if I wanted to bring my bike on a trip that we were gonna go to.
And I said, I don't know, probably not.
But then I see that he went ahead and brought his bike anyway.
She said, there's no, hey, let's both go ride bikes along the coast because that's not actually what I think he wants. I think,
he wants to take a long bike ride alone. She said I may bring things up from the
past that have been hurtful, but then he doesn't want to talk about them. And then I,
say, I don't think it's gonna go well if I really do tell you what's on my mind
when he says, well, what were you, what do you want to talk about? And then he said,
and oh, that must be really hard.
Must be a really terrible feeling.
She said, we just made a run to Costco and we bought almost $1,500 in groceries.
And she said, I just decided to wait in the car because I don't like the solution for groceries.
But we're buying way too much food. We waste food. I'm going to end up hearing about that, too.
She said, I really think we should come up with a different solution.
And then I try to say so. And he says something like, oh, OK, but nothing happens.
And she said, I let it drop because I guess it's not a big deal.
And she said, I wish we could talk about things that don't seem like they are big deals.
She said, I said, one time I told you I thought your mom should serve dinner on
paper plates and you didn't talk to me for five days. Do you remember that? But,
he doesn't. And then he doesn't ask any more questions. He just says, no, I don't.
Can we just forget about that? And she said, this is how we used to cope. And
then I would just forget it too. And he talks about wanting to focus on the
positive. She said, we talk about things like sports or golf or tennis or bowling
or anything. And we talk about the landscape. And she said, I just find that
that I have to engage on his terms.
And so then I can't even force myself to get excited about those things,
and I just start to feel so sad.
He said, recently, I was ready to just resign. And he comes from this family that has a lifetime habit
of just handling things this way.
And I hear in his words really clearly for the first time that he does not understand that connecting in pain
or anger or any of the negative emotions can even be a foundation of creating intimacy.
He doesn't understand that these deeply painful feelings are the well that we drink from,
that at least I drink from.
Pointing to our souls or our humanity, he only understands it's unpleasant to experience,
so why would he want to experience it?
And she said, it is, it is unpleasant, which is why I want to experience with him even more.
Or does he understand that or that he's afraid of intimacy?
That he says the words that he can see that could happen, but in real time when the moment comes,
and he shies away from any feelings of discomfort, over and over and over again.
So, I look at that journal entry and I think it's beautifully written, it's sad, it's profound because it just shows that over time, even somebody who doesn't appear to be a narcissist but may appear that's the emotional immaturity of never being taught to sit with their own discomfort or pain or learn how to acknowledge their own feelings.
And I think that's what can be so difficult about this situation, because that he may not be a bad person at all.
But then if he was never modeled the way to sit with discomfort and share with another person and be open and vulnerable, then he doesn't know what he doesn't know.
And unfortunately, it sounds like he might be unwilling to even take a look at that from a self-confrontation standpoint.
Here's another example, and then let's get to the food. food. One person said that when their oldest daughter was around six or seven,
they had basically a piggy bank for her. And she said, I was starting to teach her
how to save money. But then one time I walked in and my husband was removing
coins from the piggy bank. When I said, hey, what are you doing? He said, well, I
need money for coffee. And I said, well, that's, that's our daughter's savings. And
he said, well, the money came from me anyway, and I'm gonna replace it. So she
said, after that, I got a sheet of paper and I would write down the date that she
contribute money and keep it running total. And he never replaced it. Within a
a year or so, then I just got rid of the piggy bank and I found a hiding spot among her things.
Death by a thousand cuts. There are so many examples that just do seem
like they aren't that big of a deal
until you get enough of them.
And I hope that if this resonated with you at all, that you would feel free to reach out
and share some of these examples with me and we'll put them on a future episode.
Now, we'll call this almost bonus content because Christine Hammond has a wonderful podcast
called Understanding Today's Narcissist.
I had her on my virtual couch podcast long ago and she has been working in this space
for far longer than I have and she has just some really great information.
So just for fun, I was looking up on online just what is it about narcissists and their food
and Christine had a great article that is on Psych Central and it's just called Obsessed, Narcissist and Their Food.
So, all credit to Christine here and then I might have a couple of thoughts as I read this.
She said, it's called Obsessed, Narcissists and Their Food. It wasn't until Tabitha had dinner
at a friend's house as a teenager that she realized there was something odd about how
her family handled food. At her friend's, there was food with a variety of healthy and even some
unhealthy snacks. Her mom didn't have a lock on the special food so no one could have access.
Their mealtime was engaging and fun with everybody participating in a conversation.
There were no snide remarks about eating too much or being forced to eat seconds. It was
It was just an enjoyable experience.
But it wasn't until years later when Tabitha realized that her mother was narcissistic.
Still, she didn't make the connection between narcissism and food until she had her own family meals.
And then it struck her, her mother's narcissism translated into an unhealthy obsession with food.
This explains so much about Tabitha's own anxious journey with food and the unhealthy food rules
that she grew up with and that they were an extension of her mother's controlling and manipulative behavior. And here's how.
And Christine lays out 14 different concepts around food, food management.
Tabitha's mom disliked fish, so she refused to serve it even though everybody else in the family loved it.
Her mom's food likes and dislikes dominated the menu. If she didn't like something,
then it wasn't to be served at all. All or nothing, black or white.
Food supremacy. She said perhaps the oddest realization was that Tabitha's mom expected
that she would always be served the best and or the largest portion of food.
Whether she cooked the food or not, her mom demanded the first pick.
Food is power. One morning, Tabitha's dad surprised the family by making a large pancake breakfast.
Tabitha's mom took one look at the meal with disgust on her face and started making herself eggs.
When confronted, she said she didn't like being told what to eat.
Food is entitlement. Even when Tabitha's family was a guest at someone else's house,
her mom would find something wrong with the food being served.
She doesn't like cheese, and therefore she can't eat the meal.
Or she would then expect an additional meal to be specially prepared for her,
basically allowing her to still be the special flower.
Food is control. During family members, Tabitha's mom would scold her for eating too much
and make fun of her for asking for seconds.
But when company came over, Her mom would demand that everybody have seconds
or else she won't believe that they liked her food. So a complete lack of consistency there.
Food and appearance. She said to make matters worse, Tabitha's mom would look at what she was eating
and make a comment like, you're not gonna eat that, are you?
Or you know how easily you gain weight.
She did this even when Tabitha was struggling with anorexia.
And that's one of the most common things that we hear about the narcissist with food
where it becomes more about control and shame.
Food, arrogance. Growing up, Tabitha's dad did a lot of family cooking.
And on one several, one occasion.
On several occasions, after he prepared the meal and it was ready to be served, her mom would take
a phone call and hold up when the family ate. One night, they sat at the table for over an hour,
staring at the food, waiting for her. Food is a stage. Tabitha could not remember a family
mealtime that was not dominated by her mom talking about herself and her work. There
were no questions about Tabitha's stay, and if she chimed in, her mother would give her
the death stare and then ignore her. Food's snobbery. There were only a handful of restaurants
that Tabitha's mom would agree to go to. Looking back, Tabitha realized that these establishments
treated her like she was a queen, giving her the best place to sit in the restaurant, and
this explained her tolerance for the average food quality that came at a high price.
Food expectations. Tabitha's mom would openly complain if the food was not to her liking, whether at home
or at a friend's house or in public, and worse yet, she would then make fun of what
she called food ignorance for their lack of adequate preparation.
Ironically, her mom was not a good cook.
Just got a few more here. Food is attention.
When her mom did cook, she demanded excessive amounts of appreciation during the meal and
afterward. enough gratitude, then she would passive-aggressively say,
so you didn't like my cooking?
Food superiority. For a couple of years, Tabitha's mom became a vegetarian,
and during that time, no meat was allowed in the house, and everybody was expected to eat the way that she did.
When they ordered meat from a restaurant, she would talk openly about how they were supporting
the killing of animals, and that all lasted until she was tired of being a vegetarian.
Food is punishment. When Tabitha was little, her mom used to punish her by saying that she was not allowed to eat dinner.
She was still angry in the morning. Her mom would then make her go to school without breakfast,
and there were many days where Tabitha would go with almost no food. And then food is a
possession. After a night out with friends, Tabitha brought home some of her leftover dinners,
and it was from an expensive restaurant that she spent weeks saving up her money so she could go
to. The next morning, she discovered that her mom ate her food. When confronted, her mom's
attitude was, well, what's yours is mine. However, what was her mom's was only her mom's.
So it becomes hard not to see how Tabitha came to view food as a weapon of control
from her mom, and she used food to manipulate others, demand attention, dominate in her family,
justify her selfishness, and so now, as a mom herself,
Tabitha is rewriting that narrative or changing that family dynamic.
But the reason I wanted to just go through those quickly is just to show that there are so many reasons
why the narcissist can have these issues around food.
Because food, when somebody is not all up in their emotions or feelings or have not been, it hasn't been modeled to them
how to express themselves emotionally, then something like food or something like money
just becomes the ultimate,
it becomes the muse of power and of control.
And so then it's almost as if here is the weapon that now they can take and use against someone
to show their dominance, their superiority. It just becomes a weapon of control.
So whether again, that's something like food or it could be money,
and then they can get right into that world of the coercive control.
I appreciate you sticking with me today. If you have thoughts about this episode,
questions, comments, if you have examples of death by a thousand cuts that have happened for you,
please send them in to contact at tonyoverbay.com and or fill out the form on the website,
but I would love to include these in a future episode,
and I appreciate the support and I will see you next time on Waking Up To Narcissism.
Music.