ORIGINALLY RECORDED ON 12/17/21

For many people trying to break free from unhealthy narcissistic relationships, a "no contact" policy is recommended. Tony discusses the challenges of going "no contact", as well as what healthy vs unhealthy reasons, look like for adopting a no-contact policy. Tony refers to the article "Narcissists and the No Contact Rule" from https://psychologia.co/narcissist-no-contact/

With the continuing "sheltering" rules spreading across the country, PLEASE do not think you can't continue or begin therapy now. http://betterhelp.com/virtualcouch can put you quickly in touch with licensed mental health professionals who can meet through text, email, or videoconference often as soon as 24-48 hours. And if you use the link http://betterhelp.com/virtualcouch, you will receive 10% off your first month of services. Please make your mental health a priority, http://betterhelp.com/virtualcouch offers affordable counseling, and they even have sliding scale options if your budget is tight.

You can learn more about Tony's pornography recovery program, The Path Back, by visiting http://pathbackrecovery.com And visit http://tonyoverbay.com and sign up to receive updates on upcoming programs and podcasts.

Tony mentioned a product that he used to take out all of the "uh's" and "um's" that, in his words, "must be created by wizards and magic!" because it's that good! To learn more about Descript, click here https://descript.com?lmref=v95myQ

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[00:00:08] Hey, everybody, welcome to episode 15 of Waking Up to narcissism, I'm your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and host of the Virtual Couch podcast. And if you are not subscribed, please go find the virtual couch wherever you listen to podcasts. And I would love to have you as a part of that audience as well and continue to send me examples, examples of what you are waking up to, whether it is waking up to the narcissistic traits and tendencies of somebody in your life, whether it is a spouse or an adult child, a parent, employer, anybody, because every bit of feedback that I'm getting is going to help me create content that will just help get the message out there to to help others not feel crazy. And if you are also one who is starting to wake up to your own narcissistic traits or tendencies, and I am getting more and more of those emails, they're incredible. They are, and I know that takes a lot of courage, a lot of strength as well. And please, I would love to hear your examples as well because I am getting more and more of those. And as I shared in one of the previous episodes, that that is that's the duality of the title of waking up. The narcissism is I love talking about my own, waking up to my own narcissistic traits and tendencies as I really do feel as I share.

[00:01:22] Often there's a small percentage of people that are truly that diagnosable narcissistic personality disorder, but the concept of narcissistic traits and tendencies it does. It comes from our childhood. It comes from our insecurities, it comes from our weather. We were modeled the right way to take ownership of things. Or just how do we show up? Do we show up emotionally mature in adulthood? Because quite frankly, unless we are working on it or you have some awareness that you are going to maybe not even be aware of the way that narcissistic traits and tendencies look in relationships, sometimes I feel like one of the simplest things that is so powerful is being able to say my bad or I'm sorry, I'm so sorry that, yeah, I did do that or I wasn't aware of that's how you felt or how I was treating you. And that is just such a scary concept for so many of us. The concept of child childhood, the concept of gaslighting gaslighting is a childhood defense mechanism is so powerful when you realize that as kids,