Music.
Welcome to Waking Up to Narcissism, episode 72. I'm your host Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, host of the Virtual Couch Podcast, and also co-host of Murder on the Couch, which is out now.
And another thing that needs to be out is the gum that I am chewing. So let me do that.
But if you stay tuned, after today's Waking Up to Narcissism episode, I'm going to play the first 20 minutes of the first episode of Murder on the Couch.
And I'll include the links in the show notes, but I would love it if you want to hear more.
If you can go hit the subscribe or follow or wherever you get your podcasts and go sign up, listen to the rest of the episode.
And if you want to see Sydney and I in action, I'll also put the link to the YouTube video
of the episode. And if you happen to be poking around YouTube, then just hit that subscribe button on the.
Virtual Couch YouTube channel.
That would, that would be wonderful.
And also while you're there, I've been continuing to actually at Sydney, putting up a lot of
free therapeutic advice, not to be mistaken for therapy. And that is in the form of YouTube shorts.
So if you subscribe to my YouTube channel, the Virtual Couch YouTube channel,
you'll get a lot of content there as well. A lot of things about narcissism and emotional maturity,
but just a lot of mental health tips and thoughts and stories also.
So today we are getting back to, we are now doing part two
of exploring the five types of narcissists to look for.
And last time I took a break between part one and today's part two to talk about
the antagonistic attachment style of the narcissistic person.
And that has still just been a concept that I cannot stop thinking about.
And I mentioned it on the women's Facebook group last night,
the group calls that are done weekly.
And I mentioned that because now more than ever, if you are a man looking for a group,
if you are waking up to your own emotional immaturity, maybe some narcissistic traits
or tendencies, or you feel that you're in a relationship with a narcissistic fill-in-the-blank,
again, not a dirty, rotten, scoundrel version of fill-in-the-blank, but a spouse, a parent,
adult child, institution, a boss, you name it, then boy, do I have the group for you.
So reach out through contact at tonyoverbay.com and we'll get you on there and then just if you
sign up for the newsletter, that would be amazing because that's where we'll keep you up to date on
so many things. So I think if there were three things, if there were three things that I would
just love, if you like the podcast and you want to just support and wake up to narcissism, then.
Definitely go sign up for the subscription, the, for the subscription-based podcast.
I was about to say the free subscription, kind of a oxymoron there, but the subscription-based
podcast $4.99 a month and I answer, I go into question and answer mode and I'll have the
links are all in the show notes. The other thing would be to go sign up and follow virtual
and follow Murder on the Couch. And I guess the third thing would be to be nice, be nice
to each other, especially yourself. Give yourself a lot of grace and kindness and do the deep
breathing thing, do some mindfulness, put a pause in before you have responses, whether
it's to the tiny narcissists in your life, aka kids, or maybe the larger narcissists or emotionally
immature people in your life, which could again be spouses, bosses, adult children, friends,
neighbors, countrymen, you name it. But let's get to today's episode. So again, part two of looking
at the five types of narcissists. And just for fun, I have been playing around with artificial
intelligence, chat, GBT. And I just asked, what is the Greek story of narcissist? I just thought
it would be fun to just jump back in and let's talk about the history of narcissism because we're
talking about the five types of narcissists and I think what is pretty interesting is,
where we get pretty far away from the diagnostic and statistical manuals.
Diagnosis criteria of narcissistic personality disorder when we start talking about narcissistic
traits and tendencies, which is why I just go so big on the concepts around emotional immaturity.
Because if you just go with the story, the Greek story of Narcissist is a mythological tale about
a young man named Narcissus who was known for his exceptional beauty. The story goes that Narcissus
was walking through the woods one day when he came across a pool of water. As he leaned over to take
a drink, he saw his reflection in the water and he became enamored with his own beauty. Narcissus.
Became so obsessed with his reflection that he refused to leave the pool, gazing at his image
for hours on end, and he was so entranced by his own reflection that he forgot to eat or drink and
eventually wasted away and died by the side of the pool. So according to the myth, the gods took pity
on Narcissus and transformed his body into a beautiful flower, which was later named the
Narcissus. The story of Narcissus is often seen as a cautionary tale about the dangers of vanity
and self-obsession, it has become a popular metaphor for the concept of narcissism, which
is named after the character of narcissist and refers to excessive self-love and self-absorption.
So I think you can see where the tie-in though is when we are talking about extreme emotional
immaturity, then it comes across as looking self-absorbed because it's definitely selfish,
but instead of saying excessive self-love, I believe it's an absolute lack of self-love.
Than the narcissistic person or the emotionally immature person doesn't even know what it
feels like to love oneself. So they get their sense of self by exploiting and manipulating and sucking the life force
out of other people.
So while I was there with the with artificial intelligence, then I said, give a modern day story based off the Greek story of narcissists. And this is where I sound like such an old man. And just think this is pretty amazing. So I asked chat GPT that to give a modern day story based off the Greek story of narcissist. And it did take about three or four seconds. So I can already see that at some point, that is going to be a long time that it's going to be watching a watch pot and see it thinking it's never going to boil.
But it came back immediately with one modern-day interpretation of the story of Narcissist could be about a young social media influencer,
Who becomes obsessed with her own image and the attention that she receives from her followers,
The influencer named Sophia spends hours every day taking selfies applying filters and crafting the perfect captions for her posts,
She obsesses over her appearance constantly checking a reflection in the mirror and comparing herself to other influencers in her field,
As Sofia's following grows, she becomes increasingly fixated on her online persona,
neglecting her relationships and other aspects of her life.
She spends hours each day scrolling through her comments and responding to messages basking
in the praise and adoration of her fans.
But eventually, Sofia's obsession with her own image begins to take a toll on her mental
and physical health, and she becomes anxious and depressed when her posts don't receive
as many likes as she had hoped. And her relationships with friends and family begin to suffer.
So despite the negative effects of her obsession, Sophia is unable to pull away from the validation
and attention she receives from her social media following.
She becomes trapped in a cycle of self-obsession and narcissism, much like the character of
narcissists in the Greek myth.
All of that was generated in just a couple of seconds from typing in a question about,
a modern-day story based off of the Greek story of Narcissus.
Artificial intelligence is coming, and it is pretty fascinating. It really is.
Something that I feel the more we can embrace and learn to use it as a tool and not be afraid of it,
then that can really be a good thing.
So let's get back to these types of narcissism and where I left off last time was covering the,
antagonistic style, attachment style of the narcissist. And so there are two more that are left in this,
from, again, this is from the article of how many types of narcissism are there and how can you identify them.
And this is from the Psych Central article, which was written by...
Which is medically reviewed by Jeffrey Ditzel and written by Courtney Telloian.
And I will edit out my butchering of the first few versions of her last name. But we jump back
in at number three. We've already covered then in the first episode, the overt narcissism.
We also then talked about covert narcissism, and now we've hit on the antagonistic narcissistic
style. So we have two left, and these are pretty fascinating. One, I think,
I think maybe you might not have heard of a lot of them, but the fourth one is communal narcissism.
So communal narcissism is another type of overt narcissism, and it's usually seen as the opposite of antagonistic narcissism.
Where again, antagonistic narcissism is based off of the biological concept of an antagonist which needs another organism to survive.
So it just drains or sucks the life force out or uses the other organism as a way to then take the one-up position.
But when we get to communal narcissism, someone with communal narcissism values fairness and is likely to see themselves, though, as altruistic.
But research published in 2018 suggests that there's a gap between these beliefs and the person's behavior.
So people with communal narcissism might become easily morally outraged.
They might describe themselves as very empathetic and generous, and they may react strongly to things that they do see as unfair.
But unfair meaning not going their way. hard to then maintain that whole object relations
or being able to maintain a connection or a relationship with somebody,
even despite having a difference of opinion.
So what makes the communal narcissism, the narcissist different from genuine concern
for the wellbeing of others?
Courtney said that the key difference is that for people with communal narcissism,
social power and self-importance are playing the major roles.
So she said, for example, while communal narcissism might cause you to say
and believe you have a strong moral code or care for others,
you might not realize the way that you treat others doesn't really match up with your beliefs.
I did a little bit more digging and I came up with a few more concepts around communal narcissism.
The person does seek admiration and attention, but they're seeking the admiration and attention
through the acts of generosity and selflessness. So it can seem like, but the person is a good
person. And if you have a casual relationship with the person, it may truly seem like this is one of
the most altruistic and selfless people that you know. And this is that ironic thing that I get so
so many letters about, letters, emails about, direct messages about, of people that say,
my spouse has everyone in the world fooled except for me.
But then they start to say, so maybe what's wrong with me?
Because I'm the one that doesn't think that everything that he's doing is coming from
the place that he likes to think that it is, from this pure generosity and altruism.
So let me go through a couple of, I've got four or five real examples.
I tried to come up with some examples of these.
So one would be the volunteer who constantly brags about their charitable work and uses
it to gain recognition and praise.
Take for example, let's have someone, we'll call him John, and he is a regular volunteer
at a local food bank.
But then this is that guy that always makes sure that everybody knows about his volunteer.
Work and talks about it because he talks about it at every opportunity.
As a matter of fact, whenever you see John, it gets pretty easy for you because you say,
hey, how's life at the food bank?
If John is up, let's say, sharing an answer, even in a church class, a Sunday school class,
they ask something about, hey, tell me one of your favorite ones of the Beatitudes.
And if he says, blessed are the meek, or something like that, he's like, you know who's meek?
And everybody's thinking the people at your food bank, John. He said, people at my food bank.
And then he posts pictures of himself working at the food bank on social media. And he gets upset
if he doesn't receive enough likes or comments on his posts, because all of a sudden he thinks
makes people understand how amazing I am this work at the food bank.
He talks about how much he gives to the food bank, how much he sacrifices to help others,
because he wants to be seen as a generous and selfless person.
But in reality, he's doing it from a place of seeking recognition and praise from others.
And I think you can see the little flip right there where that's where that deep insecurity
comes from. So if he truly is altruistic and he wants to help because that's one of his core
values as service or compassion or fairness or equity or equality, then if it really is
of what it feels like to be John,
and it is part of who he is and the fiber of his being.
He is gaining a tremendous amount of satisfaction through a sense of purpose,
and then doesn't need to continually tell people to make sure that he knows he's okay,
because people tell him he's okay.
John needs to just know that he is okay, and he's doing amazing things at the food bank.
There's another version of the communal narcissist, the self-proclaimed martyr,
who constantly sacrifices himself for the sake of others, but then still expects to be acknowledged and praised for their efforts.
So an example here is somebody that will seem like the selfless giver and the
selfless helper, but again, they're doing it to receive admiration from others.
So let's just say that there is a mom. I don't know. We'll call her Tina.
I've got Napoleon dynamite on my head of where I think it was the Lama, Tina, come get your ham.
But Tina is a mother who always volunteers to help at school events.
Well, everything, bake sales, the jog-a-thons, the fundraisers, which is amazing.
My wife did amazing work helping out with our kids and doing the art docent stuff and
the teacher's helper and going on the field trips. It just warms my heart to think about that.
But let's get back to Tina. Then she constantly talks about how much she sacrifices for her kids, how exhausted she
is, constantly exhausted from all the work she does.
And so Tina takes on more than she can handle. And then when others offer to help, she declines.
And I had someone in my office recently talking about them continually trying to help, provide
help for a spouse. And the spouse continually saying, no, no, it's okay.
I'll do it.
And this person saying, no, I literally have created the time and I want to help.
No, it's, it's all right. I get it. gotta do all this work.
So, declining, saying that they are the only ones that can do things right.
Because in this scenario, Tina wants to be seen as the perfect mother,
who puts her children's needs first, but in reality is, again,
and this is where that emotionally immature or narcissistic person gets their sense of self through the validation, purely through the validation of others.
So, in this example, Tina is seeking admiration and attention from others.
And this is what would be considered or called this communal narcissistic martyr.
And she really does. She may genuinely compare, she may genuinely care about her children and the community,
but she's using her selflessness to gain the admiration and attention from others.
Her need to be seen as the perfect mother and as the only one who can do things right.
That's one of those red flags for the more emotional immaturity
or maybe those narcissistic traits or tendencies.
And the more I thought about it, I thought about that just bringing up something
that's kind of interesting, I think, because I think that some of the pathologically kind people
that will be listening to this episode will find any chance they can to say,
wait a minute, I help at my kid's school. Is Tony calling me a narcissist? I am not.
Again, the fact that you're even listening here and wondering that question means you're not.
You really aren't. But I was writing about when I'm trying to help people discover their values,
because honest to goodness, discovering your core values, the process of uncovering your values
is one of the biggest components of recovery. But it's one of those, we talked about this on
the women's group last night. But it's one of those situations where it's hard to even understand
what that means when you're so in the thick of trying to manage other people's emotions,
and trying to buffer for your kids and trying to just walk on eggshells and not say the
air quote wrong thing. Because in reality, there isn't a wrong thing. There's a thing.
And then we can have some curiosity about why one said what they did.
In that quest for values, that there are often people that will find themselves going toward on
this list of values when I'm working with clients individually, there is a value of reciprocity,
which means that people sometimes don't want, you know, they have a core value,
which is values are not some ultimate destination, but it's a sense of being and doing,
that they want to be in mutually reciprocal relationships. And I think often it's because
it might be somebody that has lived a life where people have just taken advantage of them
continually. Now, if their core value is service, period, then the yeah buts that will pop up in
your brain are, well, yeah, but sometimes it might not be reciprocated. And in that scenario, then
you start to work with the, oh, yeah, absolutely it might not. And that's not even a problem
because my core value is service. But if I have a core value of mutual reciprocity, then the yeah
buts might be, yeah, but the pool of friends might be a little bit more shallow. And not shallow as
in shallow human beings, but there might not be as many. And then we're not even arguing if that's
a true or false statement because it isn't a productive thought if you are truly seeking
out a value of reciprocity and friendships. So I think it's important to point out that
people do want to be is that the part where you do want to be in a mutually beneficial relationship
or because I think this whole communal narcissism thing is more along the lines of I'm doing things
for someone else so that they will maybe even owe me.
And I hear so often the people that struggle to accept help from others because they worry
that there will be strings attached because most of their life there truly has been strings is attached.
So another type of communal narcissist is the community leader who uses their position to gain
admiration or attention. And it could be community leader, it could be church leader, it could be
somebody who's serving in a particular calling or position in church, but they're doing that to gain
admiration and attention. And then they become angry or defensive when challenged or criticized.
And I will tell you, honestly, I work a lot in the world of working with people that are
in religious congregations. And I work with people that sometimes the concept is called
a leadership roulette where they can have one person, an ecclesiastical leader, who,
is a very kind, empathetic person who is selfless and who says, I am here to help, period. And,
then there are others that will run into people and that leader will say, you know what, this,
is what I think, and this is what you're supposed to do. God himself has told me that you need
to knock it off. You need to not continue to go to counseling. You need to just pray
and read your scriptures more. And if that doesn't work, something's wrong with you.
So that can be really difficult. So that's the leader who uses their position
to gain admiration or attention or control, and then they become angry or defensive when challenged.
So there's another version of the communal narcissist that is the parent who uses their
children's accomplishments to boost their own sense of self-worth and importance.
And it's interesting because when I talk about my own emotional immaturity or waking up to
those narcissistic traits or tendencies, some of these do, they start to hit a little bit
close to home because I really am very proud of the accomplishments of my children.
And I do find myself wanting to share them.
And sometimes I have to do that self-confrontation of am I sharing because I want people to think
I am a wonderful father because look at what my kids have done, or is it because I'm excited
and I feel from a healthy ego, which is again, I talk about that concept so often, but a
healthy ego is something that comes from within side and it's based off a real experience or real work.
So honestly, it sounds like a plug now, but the Murder on the Couch podcast is something
where I never anticipated putting a true crime meets therapy podcast together with one of
my daughters and she's done the lion's share of the editing, the recording, putting content
out and it's really good and I had such a fun time and we've already been getting some
feedback about our own back and forth or rapport and how much fun it is.
So I am talking about that because I'm just so excited to share and I think truthfully
it's in the hopes that maybe others will say, oh my gosh, not that I want to record a therapy
meets true crime podcast with my daughter, but that it's a really neat experience to
do things with your kids. And that takes a lot of work to build that. Look, then it sounds
like I'm bragging, right? And I put in all the hard work, folks, but it does. It takes
a lot of work to self-confront, to not make things about you. So you can provide that
secure attachment to then hopefully help your kids start to recognize some of the things
that they want to do and not, this wasn't a me hammering her. You need to do this podcast
with me, Sid. But if it's a, she likes true crime, what if we did a podcast together?
And now it's been just an amazing opportunity for me to self-confront and say, at times
I want to get in there and say, Hey, we need to do this often and we need to put this really
schedule out and we need to, like I've tried to do with my podcast, but this is a, this
is more of her journey. And so it's an opportunity for me to support, to build rapport, to bond
and also to self-confront and figure out what are the things that I need to learn from this
experience. And one of those is to step back and let go of some of that control, even if that
means that things might take a little bit longer or there might not be the consistency. And I don't
even know if that's the case yet. So I just, I love that concept.
So, yeah, the parent uses their children's accomplishments to boost their own sense of
self-worth and importance. Here's one that I think is really, really interesting.
The therapist, I love that this is one of the examples that I was able to find,
the therapist who constantly reminds clients of their own personal experiences and achievements
to gain credibility and admiration. Okay, we're getting a little too close to home now.
So, I was thinking about this. Does a therapist, and I think you can just see it doesn't mean you
have to be a therapist, but if you were just interacting with another human, and do you share
experiences to try and build rapport, maybe to normalize a situation so that person feels
more heard and seen and understood, or somehow to gain power or importance to get validation.
So I did, I jotted down a few notes about this because I think I can look at different
examples or an example with a client in my own situation where I can see all of these play out.
So I had a brother pass away over 30 years ago, and I was recently talking with someone
in my office who had also had one of their siblings pass away.
And this person was talking about some really big feelings, and I want to maintain the confidentiality,
the anonymity, the respect, because I love this client and the family.
But I had a moment where I really think I saw all three of these concepts playing out
of was I trying to then build rapport or to normalize the situation for this individual,
or was I trying to do this to say, hey, let me tell you my stories and I want you to validate me.
And P.S., I'm getting paid to do it, which I hope that's not the case.
And I don't think it was.
So then let's just say that the person is saying that their sibling's passing had,
not really set in yet, and leaving a lot of the details off, of course.
But while others around them were, from a general sense, saying that this passing had
in fact set in, and the person, my client then, so if I would have said, man, I have,
I've heard similar stories during times of grief and loss where there isn't one
way to grieve and that I really appreciated this person being in my office and being able
to share these things because I really wanted to help this person feel a bit more, air quote,
normal in the way that they're feeling because, yeah, I can understand that if they really
felt like, why hasn't this thing just hit me like a ton of bricks yet when it has been
all the people around me? Because then what's wrong with me?
So at that point then, if I share with them that, man, you know what?
I had a sibling pass away this 30 years ago and I have to be honest, I really struggle
that as well. So not saying that I know exactly what you're going through, but I hear you.
At that point now, I am reminding the client, again by definition of communal narcissism,
I am reminding a client of my own personal experience and achievement.
Is it to gain credibility and admiration? In that scenario, and I really am the only one that truly
knows my intent, but just being aware, that self-awareness is saying, I'm really not,
because I feel like I want to offer this as a way to say, I see you. Of course, I don't know
exactly what you're going through, but I'm grateful that you're here and I want to normalize.
But having us both go through losing a sibling then at an early age that might be more about a
bond, but then in comes the communal narcissist, then that would be me spending the next 10
minutes talking about when I got the news and what I did next, and then how I helped the others
around me through the death of my brother. But then while I was doing that, I hadn't grieved it
and on and on, because in that moment, then I would have moved from trying to truly bond and
help to just, I just took somebody coming into my office to process the passing of a loved one.
And by the end, I have them now telling me that they are so sorry with what I went through 30
years ago and how strong I am. So in summary, this communal narcissist, they seek admiration
and attention by portraying themselves as selfless and generous, and then using those
qualities to gain status or recognition or their own validation.
So we've got one more, the last type in these five types of narcissism, the malignant narcissist.
This is the one we're more familiar with, I think.
Narcissism can exist at different levels of severity, and malignant narcissism is a more
severe form, and it can also cause more problems for the person living with it.
So malignant narcissism is more closely connected than back to this overt or out there, over-the-top
narcissism than covert.
So somebody with malignant narcissism may have many common traits of just narcissistic
personality disorder, like this strong need for praise, to be elevated above others.
And in addition, malignant narcissists then often show up as vindictive.
Some consider them, and this article talks about sadists, sadism, where they actually
get enjoyment from the pain of others.
And that can just be really difficult to understand from the pathologically kind people, which
will probably be most of the people listening to this episode.
But then you're looking at it through your lens or what it feels like to be you.
But then there are others that then they do. You almost see this, I don't want to say a gleam in their eye, but when something really
hurts for somebody.
And sometimes you see this malignant version of narcissism say, well, good, I think it
should hurt because I don't like what you did.
Aggression often comes out in aggression and interacting with other people and then paranoia.
It's really interesting, the malignant narcissist, you can also find some tie-ins there to things
like, even things like conspiracy theorists and people that are, you know, this heightened
paranoia about the worry or potential threats, because then they are going to aggressively try
to make sense of things and then make sure that there's, you know, this is a zero-sum game.
Either I am right, which means you are wrong because we both can't share the same opinion.
Of that paranoia, this heightened worry, and then with that malignant narcissism,
then to really make someone else feel bad and put them down with that aggression and interacting with other people.
What's interesting too, and one of these days I need to do, I'll get more into things like
psychopaths and sociopaths, but then also some of the other traits that are in line with things
like antisocial personality disorder. So someone with malignant narcissism will share a lot of
those traits of antisocial personality disorder, which means that somebody with malignant narcissism
could be more likely to experience legal trouble or even start getting involved in substance abuse
disorders. Courtney talked about a small study that involved people with borderline personality
disorder and those with malignant narcissism actually had a harder time reducing anxiety and
gaining a better ability to function in day-to-day life than those people with borderline. And the
call of the borderline, there's a pretty popular book that I have often kept on my shelf that's
called I Hate You Don't Leave Me, but that yet malignant narcissism can actually have a harder
time reducing anxiety than borderline. I came up with a couple of examples of just good old
malignant narcissism. And it's interesting because some of the ones I found, I did actually on one of
One of the examples of malignant narcissism that ChattGBT proposed was a political leader
who is obsessed with power, has a grandiose sense of self-importance, lacks empathy for
others, and is willing to engage in unethical or even illegal behavior to achieve their goals.
This leader may use their charisma and manipulative tactics to gain support from the public and
maintain their grip on power, even at the expense of the well-being of the people that they govern.
And I really do, not to get political, but I feel like a lot of people that are maybe have more of those narcissistic traits or tendencies or emotional immaturity could find themselves in positions of power, especially political power, because, boy, not again, not wanting to get overly political.
But there have been some political leaders that I have found to be very, very incredibly narcissistic to the point where books have been written about some of these political leaders and their narcissism.
And for my chair as a person who works with the narcissistic trait tendencies population,
that when I watch someone say something in the moment, and they say it, and they immediately
take a one-up position on everybody else around them, they don't take ownership of what they've
done, and then they move on to the next city or the next topic or the next subject, and now here's
a completely different message. And again, no accountability anyway. Then I can start to look
at this and say, oh, that is such the trappings of narcissism. But I remember a client of mine
coming in one time and who had no idea about what narcissistic traits or tendencies or
personality disorder was. And they were referring to this political leader and they were saying,
but the person said it and what they said from a position of power and authority.
So they wouldn't lie because they are a politician. And, oh, I remember having this
a little bit of a pit in my stomach and mixed with an aha moment of, oh man, yeah. What it
feels like to be me is someone who works in this world of emotional immaturity and narcissism,
and sees, I feel clearly some people that do not take ownership of things, even when they're in
video and they are in print, but then to somebody else, they're trying to make sense of it. And
they're saying, well, if they said one thing one time and another thing the other time.
Then there must be a reason because they wouldn't not tell the truth.
As a matter of fact, there might even be a hidden code in there somewhere.
And so that's where even some of the things like the paranoia and the conspiracy theories and that
sort of thing come into play. So a couple other examples of the malignant narcissism, an abusive
partner who uses their charm and charisma to control and manipulate their partner, isolating
them from family and friends, and gaslighting them into believing that their abusive behavior
is justified. That kind of that siren song or clinical, these real common examples of just
true narcissism. Because in that partner, the malignant narcissist may have this sense of
entitlement, but then they also have a lack of empathy for their partner's feelings, and they
view them only as objects to be controlled or exploited for their benefit because that is how
how they get their sense of self, their narcissistic supply.
Or you can see that if we're talking about this in politics, then it can also easily
translate over into the business world and a successful business executive maybe who
puts their interests and desires above those of their employees, and they exploit and they
manipulate things for their own gain. So this executive then would also lack empathy for the,
struggles or the concerns that their employees, the people that are literally doing the work to
maybe make them the money, so that the leader is willing to engage in unethical or even illegal
behavior to maintain their position or power or influence. And then what do they do? Then they
gaslight, manipulate, use manipulation tactics to deflect criticism and maintain their image.
As a successful and admired leader. And I'll just kind of throw out there, boy,
if you've ever looked into the Theranos case, and there's a really good, there's a couple of
good documentaries out there, but there's a series on Hulu about that. And that is where you,
I feel like just is such an example of that business executive who does things for their
own benefit. That's all the time we have today, but thanks for joining me on this part two of two,
and we've now covered these five types of narcissism. And if you want to hang on a little
bit here, what I'm going to do is I'm going to play the first 20 or so minutes of episode one
of Murder on the Couch with my daughter, Sydney, and it would mean the world if you would go
subscribe, sign up where you listen to podcasts on YouTube, and I just really appreciate the support
and would love to get your feedback on those platforms as well. And continue to send in your
questions, your comments. I've got a lot of good stories and questions. So I want you to know the
people that are sending those in. I love reading them and I love it. They break my heart, but I
appreciate the time and effort that people spend in sending me their ahas, their waking up, their
stories, laying them all out. I would love to do just a whole other podcast that's nothing but
at Narcissist Stories, I need to go find the name for that one and trademark that right away.
But just keep sending those in because I see you. I hear you. I know the work that you're doing.
You're on a path you went from.
I didn't know. I did not know this. One of the ones I got last night.
And I shall maybe know who this is. But she started off by looking at right here.
Hello. I know you've heard this a thousand times, but your Waking Up to Narcissism podcast has helped me walk through a very dark and difficult period of my life.
She said, like you always say, you didn't know what you didn't know and boy, I sure didn't know and I just want her to know I read the whole thing while I was eating my my dinner last night and at the end, it ends just so poetically with and now I know what I didn't know, which I know is difficult, but I am grateful to even hopefully play a part of on that journey for people.
So, send me your questions, send me your comments, send me your stories, even if it's just from
a therapeutic place for you to just express and get all this out, because I will read
them and I do see you.
And I will also see you next time on Waking Up To Narcissism.
Now stay tuned for Murder on the Couch.
Music.
Hey, Sid. Hey, dad. Welcome to our, well, no, no, no, no, no, no. Are you kidding me
right now? Are you serious? I'm the pro. Do you care about this podcast at all? I've only
done 400 other podcasts in my life. Uh, okay. Welcome back to welcome to, okay. Look at
you bro. Right. Hey everybody. Welcome to murder on the couch. I am your host. I think
I'm the co-host. We're both co-hosts. I think, but I like you being the host. Okay. I'm the
host. This is your host, Sydney Overbay. This is Tony Overbay. I'm so used to going into
the whole spiel. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, a certified mindful habit
coach or all that stuff. And I'm a college dropout, but a world traveler nonetheless.
Can you technically be called a dropout if you really kind of didn't attend? Right? Because
it was during the whole COVID thing. That's true. I did attempt attending a couple of
So no, well, yes, but no. Did you ever get on the zoom calls or anything for college?
I would bring my laptop into the car and then I would just drive around while the zoom was just
playing. So you were attending technically. I was attending. Was that in your height of
your door dash days? So were you, see, you were working hard while she's going to school
And then just never again, we're excited to bring you true crime meets therapy.
Exactly. So you're going to get the insight of a therapist, a real life therapist and the insight of someone
who needs therapy. That's true.
So this is going to be really exciting. And then the format, which I am so excited about is I am not going to prepare at all.
So these stories are going to be new to me, which I'm really excited about that.
No, yeah. I have been doing so much research on this case. I've read every article, I've gone to every corner, and it's crazy.
Okay. It's really insane. So what are we talking about today? What's the case?
We are going to be talking about the disappearance and then dismemberment of Abby Choi.
If you're listening to this, please check out the YouTube version because there's so many videos.
I feel like it really changes something when you put a face to the name.
Also what if it has like four views? That would be really humbling.
So you should really go check it out.
Okay, bye. Abby Choi was a mother of four, a social media influencer, a model, a socialite.
She was so well known by everyone. Before we get into this case, I want to make a little disclaimer.
I feel like a lot of the coverage on true crime that has been coming out lately is a
lot more exploitative than informative, if that makes sense.
A lot of it is just like, oh, we want the gory details, you know, the shock factor.
It's gross sometimes.
And I really don't want that to be what this podcast is about.
I want this to be about the facts, about, in this case, Abby, and we're not romanticizing
the killers or anything. That's not what this is going to be about.
But yeah, I've been waiting to tell you about this for so long because it's been driving me crazy.
Okay. And I like what you're saying. So then I don't have to prepare my over-the-top reactions then, uh, you know, how, right?
What? Or I don't have to do any of those because I don't do that very well.
No, no, this is going to be real. This is going to be real. Okay.
Which if that's the case, are you prepared for me to interrupt?
Kind of like I just did there, but with, uh, amazing therapeutic knowledge around.
This is one of the fun things about me and my dad's conversations is nobody ever stops talking.
We just interrupt each other back and forth until the conversation in the therapy world.
I call it flow. Exactly. When people don't appreciate that, they call it annoying, but
I like the flow. Let's talk about the case. I want to give a little credit. I want to
give a lot of credit to Stephanie Sue. She's a true crime YouTuber. She's like one of the
biggest people out there right now. I enjoy those. You turned me onto her rotten mango
is the name of her podcast. She goes to town on these cases and gives all of the articles
articles that she used for research and stuff. So that really helped me with this credit
to her. And we'll have links to some of the articles that you'll refer to in the show notes as well. I will be doing that. Apparently that's
what you do. Of course. Let's talk about Abby. Okay. First, Abby was born on July 11th, 1994
in Hong Kong. Trying to do the math right now. 1994 when she disappeared, she was 28
years old. Okay. Super young. Yeah. She is the oldest of two sisters. So she has two
younger sisters, and she has four children.
Four children by 28. All of her friends and family have nothing but nice, like everyone
loves this girl. She has such a genuine heart and a good spirit. Her current husband described her
as, and I quote, kind hearted and good person who always wanted to help others. Hearing him talk
about her was so sad, but so sweet. He was just saying how lucky his kids were to have her as a
mother. She was from a very, very wealthy family. So she grew up very comfortable, but she wasn't
like a bratty rich kid in any way. She seemed to be the opposite of that. Her parents actually
owned a huge construction business that ran throughout China. So she was very well known.
But like I said, she was not bratty at all. She was actually really, really giving. She was the
co-founder of Hong Kong's, and I'm sorry if I pronounced anything wrong, Pei-O-Mez Charitable
Organization, which was an animal rescue organization. She's a good person.
Chris Bounds Having means, but then also still co-founding a charity for innocent animals. Nicole Rastogi
Exactly. And I feel like when somebody is nice to animals, it really says something about their
character because there's nothing in it for you when you're nice to an animal. They're not going
going to be able to give you anything. So it shows a lot of selflessness, I think.
One of her friends even tells a story about a time when they were walking down the road
and they saw a very badly injured cat, had just been hit by a car. He said there was
flies around it and stuff already. And Abby was like, no, we are saving this cat. I don't
care. Her friend was literally telling her, that is a corpse, don't. And she said, no,
I'm going to save this cat." And she did.
And the cat is doing so much better now.
Really?
Okay. So you spent time, you volunteered at an animal shelter in Costa Rica for two months?
Mm-hmm. Did you save any cats like that?
I was attacked by cats.
I was attacked by cats. I was attacked by rats. Chad Jordan Bats.
Nicole Rosenthal There were bats. Chad Jordan There were bats. Dogs?
Nicole Rosenthal Dogs.
Chad Jordan But what was that like though? Nicole Rosenthal All of the volunteers that would come in
and out, they were all such good people. You don't really catch a crappy person volunteering
at an animal shelter. Chad Jordan No. Nicole Rosenthal Just like I would-
Chad Jordan Because what's in it for them, right?
Nicole Rosenthal Exactly. Yeah. Just like I would presume you wouldn't catch a bratty rich person literally starting a charity for animals.
Chad Jordan Okay. First experience as therapists working with people that have money at times. One guy told me, and I thought this was so good.
He said that money makes you more of whatever you are. So if you're a jerk, you become a
bigger jerk. But if you're a kind person, then you're even more kind. I like that. So
it sounds like she took the money and became even kinder and more charitable.
She was also a very, very successful model and influencer. Socialite is what they call
it, I think, online. And she worked hard at this. Okay. I was stalking her Instagram.
A creepy way, but sure. Research side note. I was thinking if I ever not even wanting
to put this into the universe, but if I ever went missing, please use cute pictures of
me, please. So that's what I was researching pictures of her on like the, like just regular
images. And then I was like, if this were me, I would want people to use approved Sydney
approved pictures. So I went onto her Instagram and she's a hardworking model. Okay. Like
It seemed like she was somewhere new, not even every week, like every other day she.
Was on runway. She was modeling for everyone featured in Vogue. She was featured in L.
She was a regular attendee at Paris fashion week. Um, I can, I can say I have never been invited to Paris fashion week. If that's what that
says. I wonder why. I don't know why it was called lost in the mail. Yeah. I guess I've
already done one shout out for Stephanie. So how about one for Paris fashion? I don't.
Know why that's so funny.
I'm going to be putting a lot of pictures on the screen right now, just of her at all
of her shoots and stuff because she looks amazing. She's so cool. One thing that just
kept growing and growing as I was researching this case was my love for this girl. She's
so cool. So this is one of my favorite looks that she did. I'm kind of excited to see this.
They kept calling her a fashion icon. And at first I was like fashion icon, like that's
Such a cringy word to say.
No, she is a fashion icon. Look at this look. She's literally so cool.
She's wearing like leg warmer boots.
Like I don't even know, a Chanel little dress thing. And like, she is so cool.
I want to be here. Look at her bag. Look at that bag. It's literally like, it looks like a perfume
bottle. The things she's involved in designing are so sick. There's so many pictures of her
with animals in nature, like doing arts and painting and drawing. Like she was really,
she just seemed really talented. Yeah. I'm probably going to cut this out,
but there is this one picture that I found on her Instagram and look how she's sitting. I'm
literally I'm the only person that I know who sits like that. I don't put it up on the screen.
You must keep that in because I have, I've literally talked to your mom about how do,
you do that? Because I think I would pop every leg and tendon in my body on a hard chair no less.
Knees of steel. Now, last February 14th, the middle of March right now.
Oh, so not last, like last year, this year, February 14th, Valentine's day.
Valentine's Day, just a few weeks ago, she posted her last Instagram posts. And it was
a repost of her on the cover of La Officielle magazine. I don't know.
Chris Bounds One of my favorites.
Nicole LaRose It's been featured there many times. And they titled her one of the most sought out influencers in the industry. So her career was booming.
She was getting bigger and bigger every day. Chris Bounds So she was 28. Nicole LaRose Yeah.
Chris Bounds Okay. Nicole LaRose Only 28 years old. There's a theory, some believe in psychology around 27 is when you start really taking off in life.
Athletes are at their prime at 27, so I wonder if that's an influencer thing as well.
So she's in her prime. Little did anyone know, she would disappear, just...
Like 10 days after that. So first, I'm going to take you to the crime scene before we really
get into it. So this was February 24th. Police finally get enough information to go investigate.
Abby's been missing for three days at this point. So police go to investigate this creepy
apartment on the bottom of three floors in Lung Mei Tsuen, a seaside village in Hong
Kong. C-Sides. I'm sure it was pretty nice, I would imagine.
Yes. It was nice. It was like a very public, really popular area. And immediately as the
police pulled up, they knew that something was wrong because the house was so creepy.
There were long black tarps covering all of the windows and all of the entrances. Neighbors
also had been sussed out for weeks before this. I know what that means. They were suspicious.
The neighbors said that they'd never seen anyone spend the night at this house, but
just kept seeing people kind of show up and leave. And they saw this old man who was just
like chain smoking on the side. He looked stressed out, but nobody knew who he was at
this point. So the police opened the door and the floors are covered in plastic.
That's not good. I mean, unless they're painting the ceiling.
The ceiling was not being painted. I can confirm. The house was completely empty.
So no furniture or anything like that? Zero furniture.
Okay. Now this is really creepy. As they walk deeper into the apartment, they are faced with what one article describes
as a human butcher shop.
Upon further investigation, police found Abby's remains not only in the fridge, but also cooked
into two pots of soup with carrots and radishes.
I don't even know what to say. Absolutely not. Yeah. There's nothing to say. Now, who would
want to do this to such a kind, good-hearted mother of four? What if I told you that it was
not only the father of her own two children, but his entire family? And not only that,
but what if I told you this entire family was living under the roof of a luxury apartment
that Abby bought them herself. Okay. I don't, I was already kind of stumped a few minutes ago,
but I don't even know what to say to that because you're, I mean, they couldn't. Yeah.
Yeah. It's insane. Right. It really is. They bought, she bought them the place they're living
in. Yes. And then they not only murder her. Right. And it was a month ago. I feel like the best way
to understand this case is to start with Abby's ex in-laws, the Kwang family. Okay. They are shady
as fuck, let me tell you. But just laying it out first so you can kind of get a feel
for who's- You have a family tree almost?
Yeah, a little family tree moment. So first we have Quang Quao. He is the father-in-law,
the ex-father-in-law of Abby, and he's married to Jenny Lee. They have two sons together.
The oldest one's name is Anthony Quang and Alex Quang, and this is going to be Abby's
ex-husband. I feel like to really understand this, we have to start all the way at the
top with Kwan Kwao. So let's get into that. Now, this is her ex-father-in-law, so...
Michael Stelzner X husband's dad, okay.
Nicole Leung Yes. This is all the way back in the early 2000s. He was a former police sergeant in the Hong Kong Police Department. And at this
point, they were doing pretty well for their family, I believe. He loved this job. He was
obsessed with this job. It was his entire identity. He was good at it at first. You could say.
If that's the right word. He was awarded the Hong Kong Police Long Service Medal in 2001.
I think he even got another medal at some point too. He was confident. He loved being
a police officer. He loved the authority and most of all, he loved the power.
And- Like there's a little foreshadowing maybe?
Yes, definitely. It's crazy though. And I like the way that you laid it out because now my brain is going
a million miles an hour of the whole family is involved. And now we're talking about a
a decorated police officer.
Everything's going fine for Quan Quao until 2005 when a woman walks into the police station,
a victim of a crime. She's in distress, obviously. He took a liking to her immediately and he
felt connected to her for some reason, for whatever reason, and he was listening to her
and really making her feel like he cared and he cared about the case and getting her justice.
She actually felt very appreciative of this. I bet she felt safe, I would imagine, heard, seen, okay, which is so important in a situation
like that. He's calling her outside of the investigation at this point and stuff, and she still thinks
it's just for the investigation.
Like he's that good of a police officer.
She goes home that night and she goes to sleep, finally thinks that someone's listening to
her case, everything's going great, and then she wakes up to a loud knocking on her door
at like five or six in the morning, which first of all, why are you knocking on my door
at five or six in the morning?
She does answer the door though because it's police officer Kwan Kwao.
And already the power imbalance there. Of course she's going to answer the door, right?
So she lets him in. He says it's for the investigation or whatever.
And he allegedly raped her. Oh, oh man. In her own home. OK.
So, I have to say allegedly because he resigned immediately after this.
So that there wouldn't be an investigation?
Charges were dropped. They were. Okay. Exactly.
And again, allegedly, hypothetically, there could have been a deal made or you quit and
we let this thing go or who knows?
Yeah, who knows? Yeah.
But it's pretty suspicious that as somebody who was so in love with this job, it was his
entire identity. him to resign immediately after. I don't know. It's just kind of suspicious to me.
So alleged, but it seems a little fishy. Very fishy. This was all the way in 2005. She had nothing to gain from condemning a
police officer. As a woman, I don't see what she would have gotten out of that. And just
the fact that he didn't even try to defend it when this job was his entire life is very
suspicious to me. Oh yeah. So then all of a sudden he just quits.
Yeah. He quits. The one thing that gave him like character. Again, alleged, but I can only imagine, what do you say that, yeah, I just ran over there
at five in the morning.
Yeah, exactly. To give her an update. Like what update? Yeah.
And it's like, if he had one, then he would have had a defense.
It just doesn't make sense. The abuse of power, by the way, I mean, cause that, that stuff, when somebody is that vulnerable
and open and then you trust and you feel heard and understood and because in my world of
therapy, you get these things where people make claims against therapists and you get
monthly update and every therapist I think will go check out what the accusations are
and they're almost always someone ended up having an affair or sex with their client.
And they lose their license, they get fined because it's like, here's this person that
is opening up and vulnerable and trusting you. And then there's this therapist that's saying, I feel a connection.
That's right. The power imbalance. Yeah. The power imbalance is bad.
Is crazy. Like, and just like to re-traumatize this girl who's already been through something
so traumatizing to make her feel safe. And then to take advantage of that.
It's absolutely repulsive. I couldn't even believe that one said is bad.
He resigns. The charges are dropped and he basically just never tries to get a job again.
His life kind of just plateaus from there. He doesn't want a job.
He doesn't try to get one according to all the online records.
It seems that he just felt as though he was entitled to the world, but he didn't have to work for it.
I feel like there's has to be some form of narcissism that runs through the Kwang family
because they think they are gods. And it's like, bro, what? You literally assaulted someone.
Wait, let's jump into the old therapy world because I work with, you know, this is a big
population of narcissistic personality disorder, people that struggle with that. And there's a
concept called confabulation, which is the narcissist is creating a new narrative of
what really happened in real time so that it couldn't have been them. So that's where I feel
like, you know, somebody might resign, but it isn't because they did anything wrong. It's because
they are the ones, people don't understand them. They go victim status, you know?
Yeah. Of course he wouldn't fight it because he knew that he would be wrong deep down.
And then why would he try to get a job when now he thinks everybody's against them and,
you know, what's he going to do? And it's just a way for that person to still justify their behavior.
So four years of unemployment pass on his part, and then he becomes essentially
Abbie Choi's sugar baby. Let me explain. In 2009, Abbie Choi meets Alex Kwong.
So she's about 15 then at this point? Yes. She's 15 years old. He's also 15.
Okay. And Alex Kwong is Kwong Kwa's son, as we know.
We can assume that Kwong Kwa was pretty excited when they met because Abbie Choi was from a very,
very wealthy family. Of course, we don't know all the details and facts about that,
but with what ends up happening, suspicious on his part and on Alex Kwong's part. So they stay
together for three years and then they get married at age 18. And then they pop out a baby within the
same year when they were only 18 years old. So very, very young marriage. Never do that. Anybody
Don't get married at 18.
Do you know how old your mom and I were? What?
She was 19. I was 20. Did you know that? No, I didn't actually know. We were, we thought,
wait, really? I just sat in. I thought you were like 24. Honestly. Wow. I was 20. She was 19.
I had a full head of hair. I had as much hair as I had ever had in my entire life.
And, but we really did think we were old. I know. I got it. If you're balding,
Mary Young. Honestly, that is the more you know. She she was like, I caught her on my way down and her way up.
So you guys met in the middle, but then it was just you were winning power balance. Yeah, that was probably one of the
greatest timing I've ever had in my entire life that in the first Black Friday, wherever got like a Nintendo one with the
Walmart like at two in the morning. Those two things are some of the greatest timing that I've ever had in my life.
You did not just relate your marriage to, let me call mom right now and see what she
has to say. Do you know how old I am right now?
Ooh, 70? Okay. What? I don't think I'm 70.
But yeah, so they got married at 18 though. I mean, that is, that's really, really young.
He was really excited because Abby Choi's parents, they were very wealthy and Abby was
also wealthy herself. He ended up having a network.
Music.