Okay, I need to talk about movie theater popcorn, not microwave popcorn,
not the stuff in a little paper bag that you pop on top of the stove,
not the incredibly sad, slightly damp kernels at the bottom of a bag.
If you've ever felt so desperate that you got gas station popcorn,
I'm talking about real movie theater popcorn, the kind where you walk into the
lobby and the smell hits you before the doors close right behind you,
the kind where you somehow already been thinking about it all day before you
even bought your ticket.
And true confession, I may have gone to a movie or two or 10,
and I don't even know what the movie's about. I really just wanted movie theater popcorn.
There have been times where I've been so full if we're going to dinner in a
movie, but I still get movie theater popcorn. It's overpriced.
I don't think it's very good for you. There have been times where I've gone
in and I've had to use mindfulness skills and I try to just notice the counter and walk by it.
But before you know it, I'm standing in line and I'm saying large extra butter.
And I don't really feel bad about that.
That's the kind of popcorn I'm talking about. And I genuinely love it.
And I've loved it my entire life.
And I think because I wasn't necessarily allowed to get it as a kid,
it means so much to me now. It must be eaten.
I must buy it. I will buy it. Anybody who goes with me, we're going to get those
little boats and we're going to share. I think you get the point.
But I've been thinking about it a lot lately, not just because I have a problem
with it, but because I think there's something about a single popcorn kernel,
that captures something that I want to talk about today in a way that nothing else can.
Before we get to the episode, and I promise I'm going somewhere meaningful with
this, I want to ask you something.
Do you actually know how popcorn is made? Do you know the journey?
And I love the hero's journey. I love the origin story.
But have you ever thought about that for a kernel of popcorn?
Because I think most of us just sort of accept that popcorn exists kind of the
way you just accept that Wi-Fi exists and however avocados are made or grown.
You don't really think about how it got here. You just enjoy the result.
But I want you to think about the kernel for just one second. Just one tiny kernel.
I'd like to start with the dramatic story of one kernel of popcorn.
It actually starts on an ear of corn somewhere in a field, maybe Iowa,
maybe Kansas, Nebraska, somewhere flat and probably pretty hot in the summer.
And this kernel, let's call him Kevin, because why not?
Kevin's been growing slowly in the sun, packed in tight with hundreds of his
closest friends, wrapped in the warmth of a husk. He's living his best life.
And then one day, Kevin gets picked just like that. his whole world,
the field, the sun, the husk, his entire community is gone.
And he has no idea where he's going. Now, it's something that he's learned to
expect, but he doesn't know what comes next. He's just harvested.
And here's where Kevin's story branches, because not every colonel gets the
same fate. And Kevin has no idea yet what his path is.
Now, maybe, who knows? I don't know if corn has a spirituality,
if Kevin maybe has not lived a particularly righteous life as a colonel,
if he's cut in line at the drying facility, if he's been dismissive of the other
Colonel's feelings, or if he's gaslit a few of his fellow ears of corn into
thinking that they're the problem, then Kevin's fate's probably grim.
Kevin might get put in scalding hot water, scraped from his home,
mashed into something thick and creamy and pretty undignified,
put in a can, sealed, placed on a shelf for who knows how long he'll wait.
It could be years, maybe even decades, until finally the can's open.
Kevin finds himself being gummed, not chewed, but gummed by somebody in a facility
that smells of mothballs and Necco wafers where the TV is way too loud and it's
always too cold and somebody down the hall is playing an accordion at an inappropriate hour.
That's not the life that Kevin had hoped to live.
But let's say that Kevin's lived well. Kevin's been a good colonel.
He's been present. He's been accountable, regulated, curious.
Maybe something different happens. And Kevin finds himself in a bag or a jar
or a big, beautiful bottle with just a bunch of his friends,
friends he hasn't seen since the field, friends that he didn't even know that he had missed.
And there's excitement. There's anticipation because they all know what's coming,
even if they don't have the words for it.
They get poured into something, a pot, maybe one of those big,
glorious silver machines you see at the theater. The ones where you can just
watch the whole thing happen through the glass.
And underneath them, there's heat, real heat, sustained, intentional building heat.
And nothing happens at first. And that's the part that nobody talks about.
There's a period of just sitting in the heat where it feels like maybe nothing
is going to happen, where a lesser colonel might panic. But Kevin trusts the heat.
And then the pressure inside Kevin starts to build. the moisture that's trapped
in a starchy little center begins to heat and it superheats.
And then his shell, the hard, tough outer layer that he's been wearing his entire
life, starts to strain against what's happening inside him.
And then the pop. In a fraction of a second, Kevin turns himself inside out.
Everything that was dense and compressed and hidden on the inside now explodes outward.
And Kevin goes from something small and hard and difficult to perceive to something
light and open and impossible to miss.
Kevin could expand up to 40 times his original size. He fills the space. He smells incredible.
And he becomes what he was always meant to become. And if Kevin is lucky,
if he's truly lived with integrity all the way up to this moment.
He gets slathered in butter, maybe a little salt, maybe even that bright orange
flavoring that we pretend is cheese.
And then he gets to spend his final moments in the hands and in the mouth of
somebody who is genuinely, deeply, unapologetically happy to have him.
And Kevin, if he's very lucky, might even get stuck in somebody's teeth for
who knows how long, weeks, months, which in popcorn terms is basically immortality.
I'm going to put a pin in Kevin for a second because now I want to show you
something else. Let me tell you about a different kind of kernel.
Now, this one doesn't start in a field. It starts in a relationship,
maybe a marriage, maybe a family, maybe a friendship that you've had for years
and years and you've always trusted.
And this kernel, this one little kernel, is something true. It's something real.
It's something that actually happened. It's something that on its own,
in its original form, is genuinely, legitimately, defensively accurate. it.
So let's say, for example, that you were late once and you said you were going
to be home by six and you got home at 645.
That happened. You remember it. You even apologized for it. You owned it.
It just was at the time. So that's the kernel. It's small, it's dense, and it's real.
Now, here's where the narcissist in your life becomes the heat source.
Because that kernel, that small true thing, doesn't stay small.
Not in the hands of somebody who knows how to apply pressure.
Somebody who knows how to build a narrative.
Somebody who needs the story to expand, to fill the room, to justify their behavior,
to make sure that you eventually find your way into the one down position while
they occupy the one up position. They take the higher ground.
So the heat gets turned up. You're always late.
And you think, hang on, it's not really fair. It was one time.
But okay, now the heat is on.
And as a matter of fact, you've never made me a priority. And now you think,
okay, that's not true at all.
I mean, granted, I did come home late that one time. So I don't know, maybe.
And the shell starts to strain a little. You know, I honestly,
I can't trust you with anything.
I don't even know why you don't tell me anything. You say one thing,
then you do another thing.
Now something interesting is starting to happen. Because that kernel,
that one true small defensible thing,
now starts to become under so much pressure, so much sustained heat.
This false narrative building, these accusations that build and build,
that it's about to do what kernels do under those conditions.
Remember what happened to Kevin? It pops.
And what comes out on the other side is 40 times the size of what went in,
and it fills the room, and it demands your attention, and it seems so substantial,
so present, so impossible to ignore that you forget, you actually forget that
the whole thing started with one Tuesday evening a few months ago where you
were, by most any reasonable standards,
a pretty considerate person, and you happened to be late. You lost track of time.
But now you're not talking about that Tuesday anymore. Now you're not talking
about that one time that you were late when you even took ownership of it.
Now you're talking about your character.
Now your reliability is being challenged. Your love is being questioned.
Your patterns are being inaccurately portrayed.
Your fundamental trustworthiness as a human being, and it's all because of one
kernel that's now become 40 times the size and it's mostly hot air.
So here's the part that really starts to get to me. the part I see over and
over in my office with people who've been in these relationships with emotionally
immature narcissistic partners for years and years and years,
or maybe you grew up with a narcissistic or an emotionally immature parent.
The reason you couldn't argue your way out of it is because that one kernel
was real and you're a good person. And there was something true in there.
You were late that night. And then every time you tried to push back on that
expanded narrative that's created against you, hey, I'm not always late.
That's not actually fair to say that, then they could point right back at the
kernel. Oh, so you're saying you weren't late?
And then you would say, I literally just said that I was late.
And then they say, right, exactly.
And you were late a whole lot of other times too, but you won't even admit it.
And now the pop gets bigger.
That's the move. That's the entire thing. Hey, everybody.
Welcome to another episode of Waking Up to Narcissism. We are going to talk
about the kernel of truth and how it goes on to become this big pop and fill
the whole room with a bunch of hot air.
I'm your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist,
host of the Virtual Couch podcast.
I would love for you to follow me on social media at virtual.couch on Instagram,
at virtual couch on TikTok, thevirtualcouch.substack.com.
Follow my sub stack. And if you go to tonyoverbay.com slash magnetic,
you can find out more about my upcoming re-release of my magnetic marriage course.
But what I want to introduce to you today is a concept that I am calling the pop.
And if you remember the concept of popcorn moments, which is when you do become
aware of what the narcissist is doing when they're trying to rope you into a
disagreement, an argument, a dust up, you name it.
And they're trying anything and you don't take the bait, you sit back and you're
eating your popcorn while the first act they might do is, it's a horror movie.
They're angry with you and normally you back off, but let's say that you realize,
okay, I'm actually okay.
So I'm going to have another bite of popcorn. And then the next act might be
the comedy. You know, I'm kidding.
That one doesn't get me either. Then we move into the drama.
The person's crying and you have more popcorn.
And then eventually that person most likely does a good old narcissistic exit.
Maybe even if you're lucky, a medical exit. Oh my gosh, I'm having heart palpitations.
Or oh my gosh, my arm is starting to act up on me.
And so why not continue the popcorn motif?
Because here's what I've learned by working with so many couples in particular
and people who are in relationships with emotionally immature narcissistic people.
That the most disorienting thing they do isn't usually the outright lie.
You get to the point where you see the lie. You see the blatant misuse of the facts.
It's more of what we're going to talk about today. It's taking something small and true.
There's a kernel of truth in so many of the narcissist arguments.
I hear this talked about so often by the pathologically kind person because
they anchor to that truth.
So there's this kernel. And then the narcissist or the emotionally immature
person applies so much sustained emotional heat that then that kernel does explode
into something that seems massive and legitimate. And then it's impossible to argue with.
Not that you are going to be successful in arguing with a narcissist anyway,
but this is one of the ways that they can find themselves an easy attack surface.
Find one kernel of truth and then now conflate and confabulate and blow up the
narrative. Now you're defending something that doesn't even happen.
If you find yourself walking away from conversations, feeling like you somehow
lost an argument that you know that somewhere in your body, you should have won.
Not that it even should be a win or loss game.
If you've ever said to yourself, I can't say they lie. I just know something
was wrong, but I can't put my finger on it.
We're going to make sure we cover that today because today we're going to name
it. We're going to look at exactly how the POP works, why it's so hard to see
in real time, and especially what it does to your nervous system over months, years, decades.
And probably most importantly, what can you do when you recognize it?
There is a term that researchers use for what I'm calling the POP,
because I think knowing that it exists as a studied phenomenon might do something
good for your brain, because it will help you know that this is something that
maybe I'm not just seeing and it's not something that's just anecdotal.
It's actually something that's been studied and it's called paltering.
And it's also sometimes called the half-truth effect. Paltering sounds a little more clinical.
Paltering is when somebody uses technically true statements in a way that creates
a deliberately false impression.
So every individual sentence could be accurate, but the overall picture being painted is not.
And what makes it so psychologically potent is that people who palter don't
experience themselves typically as liars.
Studies show that they feel significantly less guilty misleading somebody with
technically true statements than with outright lies, because then they can tell
themselves, I didn't lie.
Everything I said was accurate in a very narrow technical sense.
And they're right. Each kernel was real.
But the question was never whether each sentence passed a fact check.
The question was whether the overall picture, the narrative that they're portraying,
does it reflect reality?
So let me give you a couple of examples of this. Imagine somebody who is in
a job interview and the interviewer asks, hey, why'd you leave your last job?
So the applicant, they prepare for this. They said, you know,
I left to pursue other opportunities.
Now, that might be absolutely true. They did leave and they are pursuing other
opportunities. What they didn't mention is they were fired the week before.
Every word passes the fact check. So often, paltering or this half-truth effect
is what can also be considered the lies of omission or it's not being fully transparent.
But the person across the table in this job interview walks away with a fundamentally
different understanding of reality than what actually happened.
Oh, this person left their job because they're going to work it through their,
they're going to project or work it through their own mind of,
wow, that was probably pretty brave of them to leave for better opportunities.
No, they don't know that they came in late for the 14th day in a row,
essentially pooping on company time for 30 minutes, and they finally got written
up for it enough that then they were fired.
But what they're doing by giving those half-truths, that's paltering.
It's just a kernel of truth that just got popped. Now, why call it the pop?
Because a popcorn kernel is very small. It's dense, it's real,
and it contains actual substance.
But when you apply heat, intentional building pressure, sustained over time,
something happens. That moisture inside the kernel actually superheats. That shell strains.
So picture what's happening inside your body when you are getting the sustained
pressure that you are the problem.
So after that shell strains long enough, then it pops.
And what comes out really can be up to 40 times its original size.
Fills the room, smells significant, but it demands attention.
And I think here's what we forget. So often popcorn is mostly air.
The outside of it looks voluminous and impressive, But the solid material,
the center, it's tiny. It's almost nothing.
So the power of the pop doesn't come from the part that's false.
It comes from the part that's true. The truth is the kernel.
The truth is what makes the rest of the story believable. So the narcissist
or the emotionally immature person in your life doesn't need to lie.
They just need one small, real, defensible thing.
And then they apply heat, drama, accusations, victimhood, emotional pressure.
I think one of the key components is repetition.
Because the more that they tell themselves the story.
The more they'll actually believe the story and then it just is.
I had another amazing example this week of someone who had listened to the confabulation
episode and they brought in an example of where their dad has completely taken
credit for something that their uncle was very well known for.
And to their dad, they believe it. You tell yourself this thing enough and you believe it.
And if you are a narcissist or emotionally immature person who cannot be wrong
about anything, you have to believe it.
So I think it's happening in real time. after you get a lot of this repetition,
especially of a false narrative and attacking that one little bit of truth.
Then that small real thing expands into something that's going to fill the entire
room, the entire relationship.
And you're left standing in a cloud of something that technically started with
a kernel of truth, but now you're surrounded with what is mostly hot air.
One of the clearest, I think, large scale examples of the pop that I know of
is a fascinating documentary, I believe on HBO.
It follows NXIVM and it's spelled N-X-I-V-M. if you want to look this up.
If you're not familiar, NXIVM started in the late 1990s as what looked like
on the surface, like a personal development organization. They had legitimate
workshops and seminars and curriculum that was designed to help people become
more self-aware, more purposeful.
They talked about personal responsibility and examining limiting beliefs.
As a matter of fact, after one of the episodes that I watched of the series,
I can't lie, I went and looked up one of the psychological techniques that they
were using in one of the seminars and found some reality to it.
And I think I even ended up doing an episode where I didn't talk necessarily
about NXIVM, but I talked about whatever the concept was that I remember looking at at that time.
In the seminars, they would dig in to try and understand how your past shapes your present.
And the language truly did sound thoughtful, empowering, and it did sound like
it was from a growth mindset.
A lot of that early material actually did contain elements of legitimate growth work.
People described early courses as eye-opening, and they felt like they were
learning something real about themselves.
And they were surrounded by people who also seemed committed to growth.
So that's where the kernel lived. There were several kernels of truth there.
Because that genuine insight, that early credibility actually was part of the problem.
It built trust and it lowered people's defenses.
And then once that trust was established, now the larger narrative could slowly be shaped around it.
Questioning something that didn't feel right, that was reframed as resistance,
as fear, as a personal limitation that you needed to work through.
So the very tools that initially felt empowering became tools that now discouraged
any kind of doubt that came up.
Eventually, a secret subgroup emerged and members were required to provide what
they called collateral compromising personal information that then would be
released, used as blackmail material if they left.
And they were actually also branded
with the symbol that represented the philosophy of the organization.
So when the story fully came out, investigators found that now there was coercion,
manipulation, sexual exploitation, psychological abuse, control.
And when survivors are interviewed, they almost all said some version of the same thing.
They said, I didn't join a cult. I joined something that seemed to contain real insight.
I never felt better about myself until then all of a sudden I felt worse.
And that insight was what made me trust everything that came after it.
And you would hear that time and time again, very smart, intelligent people
that cannot believe that that's what they found themselves in.
And I find that that is the case in so many people that all of a sudden are
waking up to their relationship, to the emotionally immature narcissistic relationship
that they're in, but they're smart, intelligent people.
And it's hard for them to even fathom that this is where I'm at in my life or in my relationship.
Because in so many of these instances, the truth wasn't completely absent.
It wasn't completely absent with NXIVM, but it definitely wasn't the whole story.
The kernel gave the pop its legitimacy.
Without the real thing at the center, without the self-help vibe,
nobody stays in the room long enough for the heat and the pressure to do its work.
NXIVM is a very dramatic example, and I would have hoped that most of you aren't
navigating anything at that scale.
But most likely, you're navigating arguments that are happening in your kitchen,
or financial decisions and conversations that are happening in a car,
or a version of events that shifts every time you try to hold it still.
But the mechanism of what you're dealing with and what's happening with something
as big as a NXIVM cold is identical.
Small truth, very small kernel of truth, sustained heat, sustained pressure,
and repetition over time.
And then the pop. And suddenly the room is filled with something that seems massive and real.
So let's go a little bit deeper here because I think there's something really
important about what happens when the pop plays out, not just once,
but over months and over years.
And this is similar to the death by a thousand cuts feeling because in a single
conversation, a half truth might just feel like a misunderstanding.
So you walk away vaguely unsettled, but you still chalk it up to maybe I misread
that because it's much easier if it's a me thing, because then I can make sense of it later.
I can solve it. I can follow up on it later. Because if it's not.
Something that I misread or I misunderstood, then I maybe don't want to have
to deal with the fact that my partner is misrepresenting the truth,
lying to me, gaslighting me, changing the narrative on me, causing me to feel crazy.
So again, maybe I'm the one that misread it, so fine. But what happens when
it's not one conversation?
What happens when it's 10, 50, 100?
What happens when every argument has a kernel of something real and true that
gets popped into a narrative that consistently and systematically makes you the problem.
Let's go with another example. Let's call her Lauren.
She's been in a relationship for seven years with a partner who is very emotionally immature.
And over those seven years, here are some things that she's heard.
After he forgot a very important event, he said, I told you my schedule was
so unpredictable this week. He did say that. He also said he'd be there.
After a pattern of dismissing her feelings, he had said at one point,
I don't know why you're upset. I complimented you on Tuesday.
True. He had complimented her one time. After a major financial decision was
made without her, he said, you were involved. I showed you the paperwork.
Technically true, briefly in passing, but he just said, hey,
look at this. Here's the paperwork with the thing that we're doing.
So that was in passing, three weeks earlier, without context,
without discussion, and then nothing else said afterward.
None of those are outright lies. But over the seven years of Lauren's relationship,
she said that they created a very specific reality for her, one where she is
always the one who's misunderstood, who misremembered, who overreacted.
And then what happens over seven years? What does that do to a person?
And that's when you start losing trust in yourself. And it's not all at once. It's gradual.
So if you've been in a relationship for 10, 15, 20, 30 years of this,
then most likely at this point, it just is the fact that you doubt yourself
and you think you must be the problem because you start to develop this anticipatory
knowledge or feeling in the relationship where it's like, well,
I already know where this is going. I'm the problem.
So you start second guessing before you even speak. You start rehearsing the
conversations in advance because you know, okay, I usually just don't come out
of this feeling very good.
So you essentially have to build your case knowing that the story might shift.
People start journaling things more, writing things down, recording things.
You start keeping more mental notes because you've learned that without evidence,
your version of events will be challenged.
And for a lot of people, you've learned that your keeping of evidence will be
challenged and it still won't cause that person an aha moment.
And I think it's so important to share with you that if you find some sanity
in writing things down, please continue to write things down.
You're not paranoid. You're learning to adapt in an environment where your perception
of reality continually gets challenged.
And then where that challenge, and I don't use all or nothing statements most
of the time, but it almost always comes wrapped in something's technically true.
And you're the problem. So when I started thinking about the pop,
it actually came from a session with someone who's in an emotionally immature
or narcissistic relationship.
And so then I reached out to the private Facebook group for women who are in
relationships with emotionally immature or narcissistic fill in the blanks.
Because these are people that have been in relationships with narcissistic or
emotionally immature people.
And they are at all kinds of places in the relationships, beginning to wake
up in the middle of it, staying with it, and some that have exited these relationships.
So they're from all places and that's not a place of judgment.
I had asked them about this concept and I said, has anybody experienced this?
And it was immediate where I've got dozens of stories.
So I just want to read a few of them and I've changed so much of the details.
And I think this is so impactful because I continue to hear that hearing other
people's stories is one of the most powerful things for people because they
will realize they're not alone.
Because I think one of the most important things that I can hopefully do from
my chair is to hold a mirror and say, you're not alone, you're not crazy, and here's the proof.
In the same vein of the Death by a Thousand Cuts episodes, we'll look at episode
one right now of the Colonel Collection.
One person's spouse said, I said I would quit drinking, but I never said it would be forever.
So there's the Colonel. He had said that he would quit, which was true.
He did say that. The pop, everything that word quit was supposed to mean.
The safety, the relief, the promise of a different life exploded into a technicality.
One word, which blew up 40 times the size and it's mostly air.
Another said, I wasn't trying to isolate you. I just didn't think your friends
were a good influence. I was protecting you out of love.
Another example, the husband saying, I'm sorry I lied, but I confessed like an hour later.
And you know what? I could have not even told you the truth at all.
Each one of those is a real kernel. Each one popped into something completely unrecognizable.
One person told me that her husband had said he was going out to dinner and
drinks with a friend's son. There had been some kind of significant event in this young man's life.
And he framed it that night as almost a way to acknowledge or memorialize something
big in that person's life.
So nothing really felt off at first. That actually sounded pretty admirable.
But then she wakes up in the middle of the night and her husband is not home.
And that catches her off guard because he had not said that he was going to be out as late as he was.
She hadn't worried before But now something feels off Feels a little strange
So she calls him And he answers like Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry I lost track of time I'm on my way back.
Fast forward a couple of days later, they're in a room and there are other people around.
And almost as an afterthought, he said, oh, hey, you know what's funny?
When I was out the other night, I actually ran into a former employee that I
used to work with, but I totally forgot to tell you about that.
And then he got back to the conversation, which just seemed odd that he decided
to bring it up at that time.
So immediately her spidey sense, her intuition kicks in. Something about this
just doesn't really seem to sit right.
She doesn't say anything in the moment because there are other people around.
But later she circles back and says, hey, I was just curious,
who was that former employee?
And as it turns out, it was somebody that he had a brief romantic relationship
with, granted, before they were married.
So on the surface, that part is not inherently wrong. They both had lives before the relationship.
But what stood out to her was the timing and the way that the information was revealed.
She had to wonder if that had been part of the plan that he had the entire time.
But she tries to stay grounded and curious. And she said, I'm really curious
if you already knew that she was going to be there or why you were waiting so long to tell me.
And his response was he got kind of angry. And he said, what are you accusing
me of? How would I have known that she was going to be there?
And then he said, and I told you I was going out to dinner and drinks.
I didn't think I needed to give you a full rundown of the entire night or everybody who was there.
So all of a sudden, he's very defensive. And here's where it starts to get a
little tricky because so much
of what he says is true. He did say he was going to dinner and drinks.
And does he need to give her a full rundown of the night? That isn't their normal MO.
But what he didn't say was that he did stay longer and that he spent additional
time with somebody that he had a past with and that he chose not to disclose
that until later, almost casually, and he was really, really defensive about it.
But now she's left holding a lot of these partial truths and this just icky
feeling that doesn't add up.
So there are these little kernels of truth, but she can't quite piece together the full story.
In a healthy relationship, that would be a fair question to ask.
And if the person I want to say was not guilty of something,
that is a judgment statement.
But then they could sit with her discomfort and then help her make sense of things.
But anytime that she's trying to make sense of it, it feels like the narrative
shifts just enough that she can't quite get her hands around it.
And what makes it even more confusing is that when she shared this with a friend,
because she was trying to just run some things by a friend of hers because she
felt crazy, the friend said, I mean, technically he did tell you that he was
going out and you both have these pasts and you had relationships. And again, that's true.
But this is one of those situations I almost want to say, if you know, you know.
And if you're listening right now and thinking, I honestly don't see the big
deal, that is absolutely okay.
But if it feels in your bones why this would be unsettling, why it would feel
like something important was left out, then I would imagine you can understand
the impact or maybe you've been there yourself.
Because over time, what starts to happen is that she begins to question her own memory.
And she said, I know I don't have cognitive issues, but I sure feel like I do often.
She said, I remember events like this really clearly because I know that they
happen often enough and they matter to me and I'm starting to write them down.
But I kind of feel like if I don't remember every single detail perfectly,
then I'm going to lose my footing. And that's part of the cost of this.
It turns somebody into a bit of a court reporter and the relationship.
And then they feel like they have to track every detail and every timeline and
every word, because if they don't, then the narrative gets rewritten.
Another person had shared a situation with similar patterns.
She said she was driving in an area that had sub-zero temperatures with young
kids in the car and she got a flat tire.
They were in the middle of nowhere. There was no food, no bathroom,
and it was cold and she was kind of scared. So she called her husband and there was no answer.
She texted, she left a message, still nothing. And then finally,
about 30 minutes later, he gets back to her and he says, I'm sorry,
I was asleep. I was exhausted. I was taking a nap. Let me see what I can do.
And then nothing. two or three hours go by
before he contacts her again and he doesn't show up instead
when he does call her back he's frustrated and
she can tell and he starts off with questions like hey
did you check the tires before you left because if you didn't that's not
very smart or tell me you were paying attention when you were driving or were
you drifting off the road were you on your phone because tires don't just pop
on their own but meanwhile she's stranded kids have been crying and eventually
she flags somebody down and gets help changing the tire herself later when she
approaches him to try and talk about what happened.
He says, I don't see what the big deal was. I told you I had been asleep.
And she said, yeah, but what about the next two or three hours?
And he minimizes it. It wasn't two or three hours.
Later, she goes into this private investigator mode, which she felt bad about,
but also thought that she needed to do it for her own sanity.
And when she looked at different timestamps and messages, she said it became
pretty clear that he had actually gotten up.
Started heading in her direction eventually, ran some errands.
She wants to give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe even to get things that he would need.
And then he didn't show up. And it's just a guess, but she said,
I wonder if what happened is that somewhere along the way, he realized that
he maybe didn't know how to help, didn't want to admit anything like that or
acknowledged or realized how distracted he had been and how that really wasn't good.
Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it slid into shame.
Maybe he realized that he couldn't show up in the way that he really wishes
he could, but he was too afraid to admit that.
So, instead of sitting with that discomfort or trying to be open with her and
saying, man, I am so sorry. I don't really know how to handle this. And that's so on me.
He took the one true piece, the kernel that he had been asleep.
And then everything else grew out of that.
And it shifted into blame and into defensiveness and into turning the situation back on her.
And she said at one point, he even reframed it as, you know,
I was actually giving you an opportunity to figure things out on your own,
to show your kids how to solve problems and how to stay calm and collected like
I would have done if I would have been out there.
And over time, he starts to believe that version of the story.
And I think that's one of the big pieces here to understand because even if
these things aren't calculated step-by-step manipulations over time,
the narratives though do become
genuinely believed by the narcissistic or emotionally a mature person.
They become confabulated, which means they're built off of fragments of truth,
but then reshaped into a narrative that protects the person from discomfort
or having to take ownership of something that they didn't show up as their best self.
And so, now the story becomes he actually worked incredibly hard.
He was exhausted. He fell asleep. He's not appreciated.
And she heroically handled the situation on her own thanks to the work that
he had done on helping her be prepared for things like flat tires and being
stranded out in the middle of nowhere.
So this was actually a very good thing. And he should be praised for preparing her the way he had.
Meanwhile, the person on the receiving end, her, she's left thinking,
and it's a wonder why I even ever try to explain myself or ask questions about a situation.
Because she said, every time I do, the story shifts just enough that I'm not
going to ever land anywhere solid. And what's the point? And he believes the narrative.
Here's one that I've heard several times in my office. This lady said that the
question that was posed to her was, what's more important, money or our relationship?
So she said, I back down because of course I did in that moment.
Who wouldn't? She said, obviously, I have to say it's the relationship because
what kind of person says money?
She said, though, it took several years before I realized how twisted that question
really was because being able to have honest, respectful conversations about
money where both people's perspectives matter, that's not separate from the
relationship. It is part of the relationship.
So the kernel in there, of course, love matters more than money. True.
Universal. Hard to argue with. The pop, though, therefore, your legitimate concern
about how we handle our finances is apparently choosing money over us.
Your need for financial transparency is now being viewed as a character flaw,
and your question is the problem.
One question, one pop, a conversation that actually needed to happen has been
now shut down completely, and she said he would continually go to that line.
There you go again. You're making money more important than our relationship.
She couldn't even have the conversation. A lady shared that her husband didn't
go to her doctor's appointment, and she'd asked him weeks in advance.
There were some significant health issues and she had a real fear.
She asked him to please be there. Can you do that for me?
The morning of the appointment, he was in the backyard finishing some chores
and he had brought somebody along to help him.
She said she pulled out of the driveway alone and his explanation that he was
concerned about finishing before some bad weather set in and that the equipment
had been breaking down and he didn't know if he could afford to be able to rent the equipment again.
She said he was trying his very hardest to get out of the uncomfortable feelings
that he felt because there was definitely truth to the things that he was saying.
But he was also showing me what was most important for him, not even what was
important for me and what I really felt like would be important for the relationship
because I had asked him for his support.
The colonel, he was working that day, true.
But the pop there happened where he didn't feel like he had anything to apologize for.
And then, and I think this is maybe the cruelest part, her expressing disappointment
then led to her being called so mean.
And her pain became the problem because the pop didn't just protect him.
It reversed the polarity entirely.
Hey, look, I was working hard to try to get things done to save money before
the bad weather came in. And look, it turns out you're fine.
And you were attacking me for it, was the narrative that he was sharing. So now that's the story.
That's the extended cut, the expanded version. That's what fills the room and
that's what gets locked away in the family history now.
Do you remember that time that you ended up being fine at the doctor,
but you would not let this thing go and I didn't have any support in all the work that I was doing?
Somebody simply wrote in and said, what about the, I'm sorry, but?
That one is so common. They say sorry and then show how they're not sorry by
saying, but if you actually had not done X, I wouldn't have done Y.
And that's part of if you're familiar with the narcissistic apology,
it can land like, okay, fine, I did it.
But I wouldn't have done it if you hadn't have done this other thing.
And as a matter of fact, I can't believe that I'm the one now that is trying
to apologize to you. I think you owe me an apology.
And the rough part there is if you are pathologically kind enough,
you're most likely going to end up apologizing.
There's the kernel in its most compressed form.
Two words that are technically an apology, then the pop.
The sorry is the kernel. Everything after the but is the heat.
And I would imagine we've all sat in conversations where somebody says,
I'm sorry, and we somehow walked away feeling worse. And that's why.
Because that kernel was there, but the pop was bigger. I have so many more examples,
and I'll save those for a part two at some point.
I want to say something to everybody who sent these in and everybody listening
who recognize themselves in any of those examples.
I know that you're not making it up and you're not too sensitive and you're
not bad at communicating or you're not asking for too much to talk about the
finances or to really want somebody to be there for you. in a difficult time.
You're not being too emotional or impossible to please. You are in an environment
where real things, true things, are being used as raw material to construct
and build a whole false picture of reality.
And the reason you couldn't grab onto exactly what was wrong is the same reason
that you can't grab popcorn while it's still popping.
It moves too fast. It fills the room. And by the time it settles,
it looks completely different from what it started as.
But I know you felt it and your body knew. And that feeling that something just
doesn't add up feeling wasn't a malfunction of something going on in your brain.
It was probably the most accurate thing in the room.
That feeling of, I don't understand what's happening here.
And one of the reasons that the pop is so psychologically powerful,
especially in close relationships with people that you actually care about,
is that it bypasses the normal alarm system that we have for detecting dishonesty.
Because when somebody tells an outright lie, something in us usually notices.
There's a tonal shift. There's a story that doesn't quite track.
Something's kind them off, our gut sends up a flare.
But when the pop occurs, the alarm doesn't always fire because the statement
is based in some sort of truth or reality.
You can't really fact check them and find them wrong. There's nothing obviously off.
But what you get instead is a feeling. And at this point in the relationship,
most likely you've been made to feel like you can't trust your gut.
It's this unease, this nagging sense of this something doesn't add up,
but I already know if I bring it up, it's not going to go well.
It will appear that you don't have receipts to prove your case.
And I think that's why it's so painful in relationships with emotionally immature
and narcissistic people.
When you have that feeling, that unease, because you already know,
I don't even know what it is.
And I definitely can't speak to it because it will get turned around on me.
You have to metabolize it. And I think that gets into your central nervous system.
It is part of this concept of the body keeps the score. So now going into most
every conversation, you're already on guard because this is not going to go
well. Something feels off.
What they're saying, I know there's some truth in that. Even when you try to
bring something up like this, you know, you're hearing that you're always reading
into things, which I kind of am, but is that a bad thing?
Or the person is saying, I literally said this. I don't know how you can even
think that I meant something different. Or you have a way of turning everything into a problem.
So you can't even question it. The feeling gets labeled, it gets pathologized.
And over time, then you start to learn to distrust your own feelings,
which is exactly the point of what they're trying to do.
The reason that you couldn't point to exactly what was wrong is not because nothing was wrong.
It's because the wrongness of what is happening was being so carefully obscured
by what was technically right, right?
You're navigating something that is genuinely difficult to see.
And if you've been in an environment like this for a long time,
you may have started doing something that makes complete sense,
but I think also deserves to be named. You became a court reporter.
You start keeping mental notes, tracking exact words, holding on to timestamps,
because you learn through your accumulated experience that without the transcript,
then the kernel always wins, which is not a character flaw. It's not a waste of emotional calories.
It's your survival instinct. It's an adaptation.
It's your nervous system trying to protect you the only way it knew how.
So often when somebody who is in a relationship with a narcissistic person,
male, female, it doesn't matter, comes into therapy, one of the first things
they want to do is go into the details.
And I want to hear them. I don't need the details because I already know that
the way that person's coming in and presenting is they need somebody,
somebody to just listen and not tell them, well, what about,
or you should have, or, well, I think you're overreacting.
And as they talk it through, they start to realize, I am just,
I'm hypervigilant, I'm hypersensitive, and I'm trying to make sense of so many
things that that's all I'm doing constantly going over the details.
But they said this, and they said this, and but this worked,
and this didn't. And I think that can be just so difficult because you can now
see where it is crazy making.
When people step away from relationships that have this as a major component
and their nervous system calms down,
then they start to realize that they weren't even aware of the impact that the
narcissistic or emotionally immature relationship had on them.
I am not a neuroscientist.
I am open to this being a simplistic way to view things.
But if you are continually worrying and ruminating and second-guessing and trying
to make sense of, it makes sense that you are going to be in a heightened state.
You're going to be anxious.
And if you are anxious long enough, that becomes your baseline of emotions.
It's a high level of anxiety.
I had a doctor client one time, and I liked the way that he put this.
I was saying, I think that I'm a really chill person, that I'm very calm and
relaxed, but man, jump scares at movies or heaven forbid, somebody pops a balloon
at a birthday party, I lose it.
And I remember he gave me this, he did this thing with his hands where he said,
okay, your startle response is here.
And he said, and you're just resting or you're what it feels like to be you
is just underneath the startle response.
So you feel fine there, but you have such a short runway before you startle where you react.
We talked about what that looks like for the central nervous system.
It goes back to those neurons that fire together, wire together.
And over time, what it feels like to be you is continually ruminating,
worrying, hypervigilant, trying to figure out things, trying to make sense of
things, which unfortunately is the opposite of you just being,
being present, reading books, playing catch,
learning new things, interacting with people.
Because even when you get in front of new people, sometimes you're over-sharing
or over-talking or just trying to make sense of so many things.
This is where I would throw a big plug in for a mindfulness practice.
Meditation. And if you have not done it, and if you even just rolled your eyes
or set out that old chestnut doing that thing, I would love for you to know
the very simplistic version of, I guess, the science of it as I understand it.
So now, if your baseline emotional state is in overdrive, that a good meditation
or mindfulness practice is not trying to get you to stop your thoughts.
It's one of the biggest misnomers in the field of mindfulness and meditation.
When you do a meditation and mindfulness practice and you breathe in through
your nose and out through your mouth a little bit longer than you breathe in,
you're actually tricking your nervous system to say, we're safe. We're really safe.
Again, in through the nose and out through the mouth a little bit longer,
because if you're in fight or flight mode or you're on the run,
you're not going to be able to do that. Your brain's saying, we must be okay.
So you learn to lower that resting heart rate.
And if you do that with consistency, that is a way that you can start to build
more runway before you hit that startle response.
Now, while I'm continuing to admit that I'm not a neuroscientist,
also my understanding from the amygdala hijack episodes is that your prefrontal cortex,
the area of the brain where you can make sense of things, where you can operate
from more of a place of genuine curiosity and empathy, when you start to get
in this heightened state, your prefrontal cortex is actually kind of shutting down.
It's like light switches turning off the areas of the prefrontal cortex.
What's turning on is your amygdala, your fight or flight response.
If I'm continually in this state of hypervigilance, my amygdala,
my fight or flight response is pretty much running the show.
And so it's no wonder that I can't tap into my prefrontal cortex and get to
the logical part of my brain.
And I know it's at least helped me to try to make sense of things in that way.
Because as I can even try to stay grounded and calm and present,
even in a very moment where somebody is bringing me the heat in a session or
maybe in another situation,
If I can't stay present and grounded, then I'm going to start noticing that
I am about to get all up in my amygdala and I'm going to lose access to my prefrontal
cortex and that may result in me saying something pretty immature.
So as you work on this mindfulness practice and learn how to build more of that
runway before you hit that startle response, before you find yourself now kind
of losing your mind, then we can also talk about the idea of a boundary.
And remembering that boundaries are a me thing. Boundary is a if then.
Not to be confused with an ultimatum. If you are starting to get upset,
you may think you're setting a boundary, but you may be giving an ultimatum.
Hey, I need you to talk nicer. I need you to calm down. I need you to hear me.
That's an ultimatum. And we may say, nope, that's my boundary. You need to hear me.
A boundary is if you aren't in a position to hear me, then I'm going to leave the conversation.
A boundary is if I am now noticing thing, that I am starting to get all up in
my amygdala, then I need to leave. A boundary is a me thing.
Now, it's also fair to say that a boundary is there to try and keep you in a relationship.
Because if I know that I'm not holding my own boundaries and I eventually end
up being reactive and sometimes that reactive response and I don't feel good
about that, then I need to remove myself before I get to that place.
And I will go ahead and give you a little heads up when you start trying to
look at boundaries that way, which is a very healthy way to do so.
By the time you're aware that, oh, I'm upset, most likely you're already into
that and you're sucked into the tractor beam.
If you know Star Wars and you're heading toward the Death Star of narcissism.
But at that point, it's a little too late.
Your prefrontal cortex is probably already pretty far offline and your amygdala
is saying, And okay, just ease into this.
It'll be quick because it's hard to get yourself out of something when you're
already sucked into that death star of narcissism.
There's the path of awakening, the path of enlightenment, the path of growth
from the book Buddha's Brain. That's where I learned it the best.
The first stage is unconscious incompetence. You're not even aware.
You haven't even found the podcast yet. You're just continuing to react and just do.
The next step is conscious incompetence. and that's a wonderfully horrific place
to be because you are now consciously incompetent.
That sounds pretty heavy, but it just means you're now aware that you aren't
doing the thing that you need. You're not setting the boundary.
You are getting caught up in the narrative.
You're starting to try to give them the aha moment and give yourself a tremendous
amount of grace in this stage.
And it's the place you'll be the longest because now you know,
but it takes time to learn the tools.
It takes time to reset your central nervous system.
Start a meditation practice, do yoga, do trauma therapy, EMDR,
brain spotting, brain mapping.
Learn to do things for yourself, to learn to reset that central nervous system
or give yourself tools to get out of the moment or to be able to at least try
to stay grounded or self-soothe in the very moment.
Because your cognitive ability to be aware of what's going on is wonderful and
And it's amazing. And you are doing an amazing job by understanding these concepts.
But your logic and your emotion, they're friends, but they kind of operate on
different pages at times.
You can really get things logically, but then try to convince your emotional
state, your body, your reactions.
That's going to take some time. So, you go from unconscious incompetence to
unconscious competence, and you'll finally start to move over to conscious competence.
Now, I'm aware and I'm watching myself say the right things and keep the boundary
and remove myself from a situation.
And your nervous system is still kind of starting to get on high alert.
So now you've got all those things going on and you're doing it.
I want you to know that's an incredible place if you're starting to notice that.
And then over time, now you reach unconscious competence.
It's just what you do. I don't put up with people calling me names.
I know I'm okay and I don't even have to defend it.
And that's where you can start to see that you're going to attract a different
crowd. You're going to find yourself in better situations, better relationships.
And while I'm rambling right now, there's a pretty interesting concept that
I want to do an episode on at some point.
And that's when people are in this position, and I'm still the marriage therapist
in me is trying to save every marriage.
That's not somebody coming in and I'm thinking, I don't know, we'll see how this goes.
It really is. I'm assuming good intent when they come in and want to see if we can help them.
But when a relationship gets to a point where it does seem like it's not long
for wear, it's not viable, it's not sustainable, it's fascinating to see that
people, often when they're still angry, that they think that I should be angry enough to leave.
But I really believe that the fact they're angry still does mean they care.
They need that person to understand. Or if that person would just understand, then we could be better.
And while those things might be true, it seems like when somebody moves into
apathy or just, you know what, I don't even have that fight in me.
Some switch has flipped, something's turned. What is wild in the field of co-regulation,
where there's the push and pull, push and pull, that all of a sudden,
when you find yourself not being that anxious pursuer.
That then now the narcissistic person, they feel off. Where's my supply?
So now they're going to pick at you, poke holes at the things that you're saying,
but you may be at a point there where it's, I'm not doing that anymore.
And that's where you may realize that you deserve to be in a relationship with
somebody who values you in a reciprocal
relationship where there's genuine curiosity, shared experiences.
There's a version of a relationship, I promise you, where there isn't a component
of somebody telling you what you're doing is wrong or what they need you to
do for them and saying it in that way.
Like, if you don't do this, then I'm disappointed in you.
It's a place of you're going to be doing you. I'm going to be doing me.
Of course, we're two completely different humans, but I want to know you.
Hey, tell me about why you said that. Why do you do this thing,
this routine that you do?
When you get in a healthy relationship, the first thing that you might think
is like, oh no, did I have any trouble? Am I doing something wrong.
Unfortunately, that's what happens when you're in the unhealthy relationships.
Because I promise you, what if you're okay as you are?
You've been trying to defend your existence, your truths, your beliefs,
your life, when in reality, you should just be living it as your partner would be.
And now there's genuine curiosity and you're going to have some amazing,
wonderful shared experiences together.
A couple of weeks ago, I did an episode where I talked We talked about the double agent of your memory.
We talked about implicit memory and how your nervous system keeps records that
your conscious mind can't always access.
That's where I was headed. Let me get back to that because I think it explains
something that's really important about the concept of the pop.
Explicit memory is your conscious recall. It's the who said what and when version of events.
I think as we've been talking about today, that's most vulnerable to being undermined
by paltering, by the pop, because every individual statement has enough truth
in it that the timeline can get muddy.
But the implicit memory is different. Implicit memory is the stuff stored in
your body, your nervous system.
It's not the memory of what was said. It's more of the memory of how things
felt. An implicit memory is very, very hard to gaslight.
Your body keeps a running record of every conversation that left you feeling
smaller than when you started.
Every exchange that ended with you apologizing for being upset.
Every moment where the truth just seemed to slip through your fingers,
just, oh man, I thought I had the truth. I thought it was making sense.
The knot in your stomach when that person walks in the room is part of your
implicit memory or what it feels like to be you.
The way you tense up before bringing up a topic because you know it's going
to get redirected, that's logged in your implicit memory.
The fact that you have to rehearse conversations before you have them,
trying to anticipate how your reality is going to be challenged because you
know it's going to be, that's your nervous system protecting you because it's
learned through the slow residue
of lived experience that your perception is going to be questioned.
Your gut is not broken. It's not off. Your body's not lying to you.
The feeling that something was off was your most reliable intelligence.
And it's the one thing that the pop cannot touch. If you're recognizing this
pattern, and if you've been in a relationship where technically true statements
left you feeling confused and responsible and questioning your own memory, what do you do with that?
I want to throw out a few orienting ideas. It's not a, just do these five things
and you'll be fixed because it isn't that kind of a situation.
There's so many variables, so many things going on. But here's some things that
I've seen that do help stop arguing the individual kernels.
And I know it goes against every instinct because when something feels misleading,
The natural response is to challenge or be curious about the specific claim.
But you didn't tell me that important part, but you knew what impression that would give me, right?
And they will respond with some sort of defense. I said exactly what happened.
And now you're in a loop arguing facts. I want to air quote that while the larger
pattern is going unnamed.
Here's how you reframe that. You're not trying to prove that a specific statement was false.
Maybe you're naming the larger pattern. What that would sound like in practice
is, man, I noticed that in a lot of conversations, I walk away feeling that
I misunderstood something.
And I'm genuinely curious about why that happens. Now, you're saying that because
it's the right thing to say, but it needs to be outcome independent.
It needs to be completely void
of worrying about what comes back if you are in a position to do that.
Because over time, you can start to move from arguing the kernels to naming the pop.
And this is one of the most difficult things that happens because I really want
to be intentional or clear about this because this is part of what I love about
David Schnarch's work in constructing your crucible because you can't construct this crucible.
Until you really have done the work to become more grounded,
more differentiated, knowing that I don't need that person to understand,
of course I would like them to.
But if I need them to understand, you can feel the energy with that.
And that's still in the I need validation bucket. Narsh also talks about being
able to soothe your own self, calm your own anxiety.
And that's where the runway concept comes in. That's where the mindfulness,
the meditation, that if I can stay grounded in a situation where I'm being told
that I did things I didn't or things are being turned back around on me,
then I can get to this third point of balance of differentiation,
which is a grounded response. I'm not gonna get big and yell.
I'm not gonna play small, but I'm okay.
And then the fourth point of balance is knowing that growth is gonna come from
discomfort, but it's my growth.
If you're in a healthy relationship, it's the discomfort of the difficult conversations,
but you're both committed to figuring out how to have those difficult conversations.
This fourth point of balance of differentiation is I know that I'm okay and
they're saying things and I'll even take ownership of the things that I can
take ownership of because that's a me thing and that'll give me things that I can work on.
But I'm not going to take ownership for things that aren't mine.
And I've dropped the rope of the tug of war on trying to get this person to
understand because I understand.
You can't speed run through those four points of balance of differentiation, I'm afraid.
But as you become okay as you are, learning about yourself in a relationship,
not needing external validation.
But again, it would be great, but I don't need it to know who I am.
And I'm learning to calm myself to build up that runway until my amygdala is hijacked.
And I can stay grounded because I have to be very grounded if I'm going to try to express myself.
But it's not expressing myself, so they will get it. And I think that's the
big component. Again, I'm not trying to give them the aha moment or the epiphany.
And what I think is really significant is when I go back to my initial five
commandments of being in a relationship with a narcissist or emotionally immature
partner, raising your emotional baseline, getting your PhD in gaslighting,
getting out of unproductive conversations.
Setting healthy boundaries and learning the difference between a boundary and ultimatum.
The fifth one, the most significant one is I never will give that person their
aha moment or their epiphany.
For most of the people I'm working with, then there isn't much of a need to
say anything in a situation like this, where there's the pop and you're feeling crazy,
that for a lot of people, my advice would be that there's nothing productive
about trying to be heard or understood.
But then when you really dig deep into differentiation, and this is especially
important for people that do feel like they are not in a position where they
can leave their marriage, maybe there's the financial implications or familial
pressure, community pressure, church pressure, whatever that looks like.
And I'm speaking to the person that you are going through life as you.
I'm sure other people will tell you you need to get out or they're projecting
that I would if I were you, but nobody knows what it feels like to be you.
So in those situations, Schnarch's concept of constructing your crucible is so fascinating,
because he then says, when you hit gridlock, and I don't think we can genuinely
hit gridlock until you are pretty well-versed in those four points of balance
of not needing external validation, knowing who you are without that.
Soothing your own self, calming your own anxiety, a grounded response,
and then knowing that growth comes from discomfort, and then taking ownership
of the things that I can or need to, and making effort for change.
And you rinse and repeat those over and over until you know you're okay.
So now you're going to hit gridlock with something. I know that I would love
to be understood, and he or she is not genuinely curious or wanting to understand me.
As a matter of fact, it's quite the opposite. Anything I'm saying becomes an attack surface.
At that point, then I can set a boundary. If that's the case,
then I'm not going to say a word.
But I have found that when people do feel stuck in the relationship and they
still want to do work and grow, this is where this concept of crucible comes into play.
Because I take my unresolved personal issue out of this gridlock situation and
I confront it as an act of integrity.
Now I'm going to say the thing because I'm one who says things.
I'm going to say the thing because it's the right thing for me to say,
but I'm accepting the fact that it most likely still can and will be used against me.
I'm providing an attack surface, but I am outcome independent.
They can say what they want to say at that point.
So I just, I hope that I was intentional enough about that because I do get
a lot of feedback from that of where sometimes people, they feel like they can't let something go.
Which I understand. And sometimes I think that's maybe their own nervous system,
their own brain saying, I want to be able to tell myself that I am doing something.
And for some, doing is dropping the rope at the tug of war. It is setting the
boundary and walking away.
It is learning how to handle the fact that their narcissistic partner is going
to continue to construct a narrative that just isn't true.
But for others, it is constructing this crucible and saying things because that's the things I say.
One of the ways to start getting to that as well is asking yourself the question
after one of these kind of conversations and not saying, what did they actually say?
But how do I feel after we talk?
Because if you consistently feel smaller and more confused, more responsible,
more like you need to monitor every word, pay attention to that.
That is data and that residue is more of your implicit memory handing you intelligence.
And it's worth more than you've been told it is.
You don't need a confession to trust your experience. And
one of the most painful traps in this pattern is waiting the defensive caught
you moment, the smoking gun, the clear, unambiguous proof that you feel like
will finally validate what you already know.
Because paltering almost never produces that moment. There is no obvious lie.
So here's what I'd like to offer you instead, that you don't need them to admit
it for your experience to be real.
The cumulative picture, the one that your body's been keeping track of,
even when your explicit memory of events gets tangled, that implicit memory,
that picture is valid without the confession, without the smoking gun.
So you are allowed to name what you've experienced, not because somebody gives
you permission and not because you need them to understand, but it's because
you understand. in because it happened to you and that can be all you need to
construct this crucible.
So what did we learn today? Here's where I would love to land.
The pop is one of the most subtle and effective dynamics in the narcissist or
the emotionally immature person's toolkit.
Not always because it's planned. It's not like they're planned.
They're reacting in the moment with whatever they need to put them in the one-up
position because for them, it works.
It keeps them technically defensible and it leaves the other person carrying
the confusion, the self-doubt, the
constant effort of trying to hold on to reality. It's not always lying.
Sometimes it's the strategic or instinctive deployment of truth.
And I think it really matters to name that because so many people in these relationships
have turned this on themselves and they've said, I can't prove anything.
I can't point to a specific lie. It sounds like they are saying the right thing or the words are true.
So maybe I'm the problem and you're not. You are not the problem.
Confusion in the face of consistent half-truths is not a character flaw.
It's a relational survival response to a genuinely confusing situation.
And the fact that your gut was telling you something was wrong,
even when you couldn't prove exactly what, that's not a form of weakness.
You're not dumb or stupid or anything. It's intelligence. That's your nervous
system trying to do its job.
And that line that so many of you have probably said to yourself,
I knew something didn't make sense or add up.
I just couldn't prove it. that is not even close to a failure.
That's part of the waking up process.
That is the moment. Your implicit memory finally found the words,
and it's trying to tell you something just so it can at least imprint that in your soul.
Because once you can name something and just give it life, you bring it out
from the shadow and into the light, something shifts.
And now it doesn't undo what happened. It doesn't all of a sudden make it better,
but it starts to restore just a little bit of what was taken from you.
It starts to restore this confidence in your own perception,
your trust in your own experience, your right to call something out,
something's wrong without needing their permission.
You knew and you were right to know. I appreciate you joining me on this journey today.
If this resonated with you, if you want to share it with somebody, please, by all means do.
If you have examples of this pop, please send them in. I would love to include
those on an upcoming episode.
You can send them through my website at TonyOverbay.com or you can email me
directly at contact at TonyOverbay.com.
And if you have questions, if you have stories, if there's anything that you
would like to share, I read everything that I can. I will see you next time
on Waking Up to Narcissim.