Welcome to today's podcast.
I'm Yamadi. I'm a trauma-informed transformation coach.
And today we're exploring whether or not it's possible to have a relationship with a narcissist.
And we're thrilled to explore with none other than Professor Sam Vaknin, a renowned authority on narcissism and the author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited.
His research has helped countless individuals understand the psychological complexities of narcissistic relationships.
Thank you for joining us, Professor.
Thank you for having me and so for the plug-in.
Yes, and before we dive into today's topic, I just want to thank Circles for making today's podcast possible.
Circles is a platform that helps people heal from narcissistic abuse and emotional challenges through live audio-based group sessions led by professionals and supportive peer community. Circles empowers members to rebuild their confidence and take back their power.
So Sam and can I call you Sam this time?
Yes, of course you can make use of the time much more efficient.
Okay, awesome.
Doge, you know, Department of Government Efficiency.
I'm all about efficiency. I love that.
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The last time we met, we dove deep into what narcissism is and how long it can take to recover from a narcissistic relationship.
Today we're going to explore whether a healthy relationship is possible with a narcissist and discuss some of the challenges and psychological dynamics involved in that type of relationship.
So many people struggle with the question, do I stay? Do I go? Can this person change, especially if the narcissist is someone significant like a wife, a child, a parent?
And the last time we spoke, you mentioned that the narcissist operates within a shared fantasy with those that they're in relationship with, and they expect them to play a specific role.
So can you explain how this impacts someone's ability to have a healthy relationship with a narcissist?
Well, let's make it the shortest sessions we're ever going to have. You cannot have a healthy relationship with a narcissist. It was a pleasure to meet you and see you next time.
However, it is possible to have a satisfactory relationship with a narcissist. A relationship within which your needs are met or you feel that your needs are met or you've convinced yourself that your needs are met. And a relationship which you wish to perpetuate, which you wish to go on with, continue.
First of all, it's very important to realize that victims we come across, victims of narcissistic abuse we come across in clinical settings and online and so and so forth, they are not a representative sample.
In other words, they do not provide us with a full panoply of possible relationships and interactions with the narcissist.
These are people who have opted out. These are people who regard the relationship with the narcissists as unhealthy, dysfunctional, non-satisfactory, and so on so forth.
So they've made up their mind. And this is how they assume the mantle and the identity of a victim, because they realize that they've been abused, they've been traumatized and so on and so forth.
But it doesn't mean that everyone is like that.
I mean, the people who are happy with a narcissist, satisfied with the relationship, they're not likely to go online and say, I'm very happy with a narcissist. It's great. You should look for a narcissist as a lifelong partner and so on.
These are the silent minority or majority. We don't know, but they're silent.
I can think of at least, with your permission, I can think of at least 10 or a dozen psychological profiles, which would find a narcissist to be a perfect fit, perfect match.
And I'll give three examples.
One would be the inverted narcissist. Inverted narcissist is a subspecies or subclass of covert narcissists. I was the first to describe inverted narcissism in the late 80s.
The inverted narcissist is someone who derives her narcissistic supply. She's a narcissist, but she derives her narcissistic supply vicariously, by proxy, through the agency of her intimate partner or spouse, who is also a narcissist.
So it's a combination of a covert narcissist and an overt narcissist, where the overt brings home the bacon of narcissistic supply, and the covert or the inverted narcissist partakes in the meal.
Another metaphor would be the moon. The moon basks in the reflected light of the sun.
So the inverted narcissists would be extremely happy with the narcissist, with an overt, grandiose narcissist, because he can do what she cannot. She is shy, she's fragile, she's vulnerable, she's socially anxious and avoidant and so on, and he's exactly the opposite.
He's extroverted. He's a life of the party. He's a go-geter. He's accomplished and so on so forth. And she derives narcissistic supply via his accomplishments.
So I'm saying he's her half of all narcissists are women.
Okay. So this is one example of a perfectly functional, happy, satisfactory relationship, which is likely to last for decades.
Another example would be the codependent. The codependent, I mean, the clinical term is dependent personality disorder. Co-dependency is not a clinical term.
The codependent is someone who controls from the bottom. She manipulates her intimate partner via clinging, affected helplessness, ostentatious neediness, and so and so forth. These are her Machiavellian manipulative tools.
Narcissists would love it because, you know, she needs him. He is the center of her life and her world. She's helpless without him. He is her guru. He is her father figure or whatever.
So here's another example of a confluence of pathologies which could actually work well together.
And the third example I'd like to give before we both get too old to in this process. The third example I'd like to give is the borderline, someone with borderline personality disorder.
Now, my late, lamented friend, Joanne Lachkar, was the first to describe this dynamic in her famous book, The Borderline- Narcissistic Couple.
And she said that borderlines and narcissists, it's a resonance of archaic wounds.
And what she meant to say is that they have mutually enhancing, mutually reinforcing pathologies.
The borderline makes the narcissist the quintessence and epitome and center of her world. She uses the narcissist to regulate her internal environment.
The narcissist stabilizes her labile moods. The narcissist regulates her dysregulated affects or emotions and so on so on. He is her external regulator. He is her rock. He is her special favorite person and whatever.
And he loves it. The narcissist adores being in this situation, in this position. You know, it's a job he wants.
And so they fit together. They fit together perfectly, very often.
So it's untrue. It's not correct to say that absolutely everyone who finds herself or himself in a relationship with the narcissists is likely to end up in devastation and tears and, you know, the whole thing is going to disintegrate and there's be a lot of victimization and so.
That's not true. It depends on who you are. Critically depends on who you are.
Okay. There was something you said that stood out to me before we move on to the next part of the conversation.
And I'm curious if you can expand on the differences between, in your opinion, satisfactory and healthy.
Because one of the types that we do come across a lot is the codependent in our group sessions.
And I would say I don't think that they're necessarily satisfied in the connection, but there is evidence of this trauma bond and they don't know how to live without this narcissistic individual.
So can you expand on that a bit more before we talk about some of the core challenges?
Again, not all codependents would be happy in the relationship. Not all borderlines would be happy in the relationship, although all inverted narcissists would be happy in the relationship.
Of course, we cannot generalize. Human beings have a multiplicity of inputs, dimensional inputs, personal biography, exposure to parental figures, environment, culture, society. You cannot generalize.
But one could say that codependents and people with borderline personality disorder, inverted narcissists, masochists, and so on so forth, are more likely to enjoy a relationship with a narcissist.
And the distinction between healthy and satisfactory, think of a couple of a, in which one of the members of a dyad is a sadist and the other is a masochist. Both of them have egregious mental health issues. Sadistic personality disorder used to be a thing in the 1980s, the 1990s, no longer. But it is, in my view, a severe disturbance. And of course, masochism is a problem.
And yet, I think that together they would be happy.
So we have a situation where there is a compatibility of pathologies, where the pathologies match in a way that caters to the needs of both members of the couple.
Is this healthy? Of course it's not healthy. Is this functional? Most of the time it's not.
But is this satisfactory? Yes. Could the people in the couple be happy? Yes. Of course, they can.
That's a fair point because happiness is not a constant, right?
So I think what you're explaining is that when it comes to these different subtypes, there can be a compatibility that makes it feel sustainable for the person, even though they may not be experiencing ultimate fulfillment in that dynamic.
Well, I would go even beyond that. I think a masochist in a relationship with a sadist would be fulfilled and happy and I think that would be perfect match there.
We tend to assume that only healthy people can match. But I don't think so. And many other scholars, of course, don't think so. My friend John Lachkar didn't think so.
I mean, I think pathologies resonate. And it's definitely possible to match pathologies in a way which is sustainable and induces egosyntony. It induces a good feeling, a comfortable feeling with a relationship.
That is not to advocate relationships with narcissists. I'm not advocating for this. I coined the phrase narcissistic abuse.
But I also reject the blanket statement that no one absolutely ever can be happy with a narcissist. That's simply counterfactual.
That's a very good point. And I think it brings us to the next point around what are some of the core challenges that make a truly healthy relationship with a narcissist difficult or in your opinion impossible, but for some subtypes perhaps satisfactory?
Well, the pathology, the inability to empathize is a major problem.
The lack of interest in the partner, there's no interest in the partner. There's interest in the outputs of the partner. Sex, services, supply, sadisticsupply, narcissistic supply, safety, the sense of safety, secure base, so that no abandonment and so on so forth.
So all these are outputs, they're not the partner, they're outputs.
And so the narcissist regards the partner as a service provider the way you and I would regard for example in our internet service provider and this is a major problem.
The next thing is the narcissist inability to regard the partner as separate and external, someone with agency, someone who is independent, personally autonomous, someone with their own emotions and cognitions, and needs and fears and priorities and hopes and dreams.
And narcissists can't see any of this.
As far as the narcissist is concerned, the partner is reduced to the equivalent of an internal object which functions within a highly constrained and constricted narrative.
The problem with the shared fantasy that it is not life affirming and not life enhancing. It's exactly the opposite. It's a constriction of life and a rejection of reality and by extension a rejection of life.
So here you are in a prison-like setting, within which you are reduced to a number, the warden expects you to behave in highly specific ways, is highly regimented and rigid.
Whenever you deviate from this, the environment turns punitive and alarmingly threatening and dangerous, you are not allowed to evolve or develop or grow because that would mean that you deviate from the internal object, from your representation in the narcissist's mind.
Whenever you display any signs of autonomy or independence, you're punished, you're isolated.
Narcissist isolates you from any social interaction with family, friends, you name it, even the workplace, and so on so forth.
So if you put all of this together, I think that the closest equivalent would be either a highly restrictive cult, or I think more to the point, a prison. I think it's much more to the point, a prison colony.
Kind of.
So who wants to be in a prison colony?
As simple as it.
Absolutely.
A lot of times we hear the question in our groups, you know, but did they love me? Or do they love me? And I love what you said because that's often how I like to describe it is the person, the narcissistic individual loves what you provide.
It's not necessarily that they love you the way that you might love them because there's differences and not only the way that they think, but sometimes even in their biology, right?
It's a combination of that nature versus nurture.
We don't have any evidence of that, but I think it's very likely that there is a hereditary component and brain abnormalities involved.
But we don't have any evidence at this stage to support this.
Okay.
So because of that, I think oftentimes individuals when they're being honeymooned or who have been through that pattern of honeymoon, devalue, discard, can start to feel really stuck.
Because it can be so confusing, because there can be elements like trauma bond, and many people find themselves in the situation where they might even be at the whim of the narcissist.
You know, perhaps the narcissist is in complete control of their resources or dragging them through horrific court proceedings, forced contact to court orders, right? We see a lot of that in our circles.
So I'm curious for those individuals who perhaps are not satisfied, as we were discussing in the previous part of the conversation, but feel stuck because of a lot of these kind of practical components, what would you say to someone in this position in terms of, I guess the best advice when they feel like they don't, they're not really in a position, at least not immediately, to cut ties.
That's a question that I would refer to an attorney.
I think the much bigger problem is the narcissist's ability to impair the reality testing of the victim in other words the narcissist's ability to monopolize access to reality so that the victim translates and interprets reality through the narcissists gaze and via the narcissists narrative and within the narcissists shared fantasy.
The victim loses touch with reality. The narcissist becomes her touchstone.
And you can see it like in speech patterns, she would ask the narcissists, do you think that's real? Do you believe that? What's your view about this and that?
And of course, this is very reminiscent of gaslighting.
I think this is the core issue, because I have come across, in 30 something years in this racket, I have come across extremely few cases where there was a real inability or incapacity in terms of getting rid of the narcissists.
A lot of this perception of being a captive or a hostage is just a perception, a lot of it.
And it is the kind of entraining or brainwashing that the narcissist does that replaces your own evaluation of reality and your own ability to exert independent judgment and so on.
I regard this as the main problem.
Because if you were totally free of the narcissists, if there were no trauma bonding, no intermittent reinforcement, which is an exceedingly powerful tool, you know, hot and cold, black and white, I mean, sorry, hot and cold, I love you, I hate you, and so on. This is intermittent reinforcement. It's a very powerful conditioning tool.
So if there were not conditioning, if there were no trauma bonding, and if the reality testing, the ability to gauge reality appropriately has been preserved, I suspect that suddenly the victim would have immediately noticed six ways to Sunday on of how to get rid of the narcissist.
But when you're blocked, you're blocked, you're simply blocked. You can't think straight. You don't know what's real and what's not real. You don't know if he loves you or if he hates you. You're bonded very powerfully and you hate yourself for it and you hate him for it and it's such a mess, it's such a chaotic scene that no rational linear decision-making can take place in such an environment and that is the main problem in my view.
Yeah absolutely.
I do think that there are some people who have been triangulated and cut off of social circles and are less resourced for sure.
But I agree with you that at some point it kind of becomes, I'm going to have to choose the very, very difficult decisions, which I don't want to minimize because I've been witnessed vicariously through supporting individuals of some pretty dire circumstances.
I'm going to have to choose that over living in that lion's den, which is the narcissistic relationship daily.
So I agree with you that oftentimes it's muddied by perception. And if we're thinking that we're going to walk away without fear, that is not the case. We have to choose the fear that comes with, you know, thriving and experiencing something new that we can't predict over the fear and discomfort that we know.
So, if I may add something, the narcissist convinces you that loss would be detrimental.
Healthy development, healthy growth throughout life, throughout the lifespan is loss-driven. Loss and pain and mistakes and hurt, negative things drive us. Positive things drive us much less. Negative things drive us.
The narcissist convinces you and trains you, brainwashes you, we use any word you wish. But narcissist alters your perception of loss.
And suddenly loss looms not as essentially positive things which could lead to a rebirth, reinvention and transformation, personal transformation, and learning.
No, suddenly loss is this threatening, monstrous thing that will consume you and destroy you completely and nothing will be left.
So the narcissist changes how you perceive health, mental health, Whereas loss is an integral part of mentally healthy processes, you begin to regard it as something totally unacceptable.
Whereas, for example, friction with other people, positive and negative. This is a positive thing, The narcissist convinces you otherwise. For example, by imposing some kind of paranoid ideation on the relationship.
And I can go through the whole list of elements of mental health that the narcissist converts in the victim's mind into the mirror image. All these elements suddenly become threatening, suddenly become dysfunction, something become evil and wicked and suddenly become malevolent.
And so you're trying to avoid mental health. That's what the narcissist wants you to do, to avoid mental health. It does not want you to grow.
And so when you think about how am I going to break up with him, how things are going to look, the first thing is, of course, loss and grief and grief and mourning, and in your mind, your brainwashed mind, your altered mind, this is utterly deleterious, it's disastrous. It's you catastrophize mental health.
And this is what I'm talking about perception. You need to change the way, you need to go back to who you used to be before you've met the narcissist.
And that is very difficult to do.
Yeah, absolutely, especially when some of that loss, I mean, has happened through isolation.
Right? Absolutely.
So I guess for the last part to kind of bring it off a circle, what might be, someone listening to this, what might be some of the warning signs that can indicate to them that staying in a relationship is doing more harm than good?
Because you did mention earlier, which a part of me almost worries like, for the person who's not in the right state of mind, can it plant a seed of false hope, right?
That there's a possibility for satisfactory conditions when someone themselves stays in what in my perspective in a state that's very unhealthy for them, right?
So what are some warning signs that can indicate that staying is doing more harm than good for them?
If you choose mental illness, you could have a satisfactory and happy relationship with a narcissist. Is this a price worth paying?
If you agree to suspend your existence, then also you could become background noise.
I thought we were going also to discuss strategies on how to survive with a narcissist inner.
If you want to throw them in there, that, I don't think we have time for that because circles made it very clear that we should keep to framework 30 minutes.
But we could have another conversation.
Yeah, that'd be a great follow-up.
Like what are the strategies of surviving if you have no other choice within the relay?
But coming back to the question, I tend to stray, you know, coming back to the question that you've asked, the price is always too high.
And you're equipped with a radar. You're equipped with the alarm system.
You know you're unhappy. You're uncomfortable. You begin to doubt yourself. You begin to doubt your judgment of reality. You're disoriented. You are suspicious suddenly and maybe paranoid a bit.
If you deviate, you stray away from who you used to be, to a large extent, the relationship is unhealthy.
Always ask yourself, how did I used to be? Did I used to be suspicious? No. I've never been paranoid. And now I am. End of story. It's a relationship that's doing it to you.
Did I used to be an unhappy person? Did I used to be depressive and moping and I don't?
No, I wasn't happy or lucky, but I was okay. Now I'm not okay. Now I'm depressed 80% of a time.
The relationship is doing this to you.
Did I use to mistrust my perception of reality, my ability to gauge it appropriately? Did I doubt what I was seeing, what I was hearing, and so on?
No, this has never happened to me. This is new. The relationship is doing this to you.
I'm is new. The relationship is doing this to you.
I'm not even saying the narcissist is doing this to you because it implies premeditation.
Narcissus doesn't do anything to you like as a psychopath would. The narcissist is just who he is.
He is embedded in fantasy. He believes his own lies. He's totally delusioned. He's sick. It's a mentally ill person.
So it's not that the narcissist is sitting there cunning and skimming and, you know, how to, how to.
No, that will be a psycho.
But exposure to the narcissist changes you, transforms you, pretty dramatically, pretty fast. The abruptness of it is surprising.
And so if you feel that you have changed, that's one test, litmus test.
And the other litmus test, how do you feel within the relationship?
Trust your guts. I keep saying, and it's founded on studies, that our intuition is wrong about 50% of the time when it comes to things, it comes to events. But our intuition is right 90% of the time with regards to other people. We were built like this, evolution made us like this, that we judge other people appropriately most of the time.
And yet we tend to deny it and repress it and reframe it and pretend it, you know.
So there's a lot of social conventions and maybe loneliness and maybe neediness.
But if you don't feel comfortable, then it's an extremely powerful indicator, in my view, the main indicator, that something is wrong.
You said something powerful a few minutes ago to bring it all to a close. You said, essentially...
Everything I say is powerful.
Everything you say is powerful, Sam.
But one thing that I kind of felt put the nail in the coffin for anyone listening was essentially you said maintaining a relationship with a narcissist requires us to accept the fact that we're going to have to self-abandon, sacrifice our mental sanity.
That's you're saying saying your own words.
Yes. And our sense of self-concept.
And so I really just want to highlight that for anyone who's listening who might be questioning, do I stay, do I go, can I make this work?
Those are really big prices to pay for love and connection.
For anything.
And it sounds like you said the most important question to ask yourself isn't just whether the relationship is possible, it's whether or not it's healthy for you in the long run.
I can put it in a single sentence.
The only way to be present in a relationship with a narcissist is to vanish.
It's the only way to be present.
You can be present in the relationship as a non-entity.
The minute you become an entity, entity derives from a Latin word for being. The minute you exhibit being, then you'll be penalized. It will trigger the narcissist to externalize aggression.
So you're conditioned, gradually conditioned, operand conditioning, if you were, you're conditioned gradually to disappear, to delete parts of yourself, to self-negate, to fade away, to dissipate, and to become an ancient Egyptian mummy, which is the narcissist ideal partner.
Unfortunately, there's not enough supply I hear. Otherwise, all narcissists would end up with ancient Egyptian mummies, believe me.
So the only way to stay in a relationship with the narcissist is to disappear. That is the only way you're going to have a relationship with the narcissist said here by Sam today.
If you're struggling with a narcissistic relationship, follow Professor Sam's YouTube channel or consider joining circles for group support, guidance, and connection.
Thank you so much, Sam, and I hope that we are able to do a part two next time to talk more about... Part three, actually. Part three, sorry, part three. You're right. This is our second with part three to talk more about strategies.
My pleasure. Take care of there. Have a nice week. Bye.
Thank you too. Bye-bye.
Maybe you just find the record button.