Starve the Ego Feed the Soul
Starve the Ego Feed the Soul
Healing from Narcissistic Parents: Insights and Strategies with Dr. Karyl McBride
The conversation explores the topic of narcissism and its impact on individuals and relationships. Dr. Karyl McBride, a therapist and author, shares her expertise on narcissistic parents, the traits of narcissism, and the effects on children. She discusses the different types of narcissistic mothers and the role of the father in enabling the narcissistic dynamic. The conversation also delves into how growing up with a narcissistic parent can affect adult relationships, leading to codependency and impaired trust. Dr. McBride emphasizes the importance of setting boundaries and doing the work of recovery to break the cycle of narcissism. In this conversation, Dr. Karyl McBride discusses the dynamics of narcissistic families and offers insights on how to navigate relationships with narcissistic parents. She emphasizes the importance of dropping expectations and accepting that these relationships may not be deep or emotionally intimate. Dr. McBride also explores the different roles that siblings may take on in narcissistic families and the effects on each child. She provides advice on empathic parenting and creating a safe and consistent environment for children. Additionally, she discusses the possibility of having a healthy relationship with a narcissistic partner and offers tips for setting up successful relationships.
Karyl McBride, Ph.D., LMFT, is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Denver,
Colorado with thirty-nine plus years of public and private practice. She specializes intreating clients with dysfunctional family issues. For the past many years, Dr.McBride has been involved in private research regarding parental narcissism and the debilitating effects of narcissism in relationships. She has treated many adult children of narcissistic parents as well as many others involved in relationships with narcissists in her private practice. Dr. McBride is considered a pioneering and leading expert in her field. Dr.
McBride also has extensive clinical experience in the fields of trauma, sexual abuse,
domestic violence, divorce, and stepfamily therapy, marital and family therapy,
specialized trauma treatment in Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR),
and individual adjustment issues related to anxiety, depression, and life transitions. In her
career, Dr. McBride has done forensic consulting and has served as an expert witness in
numerous civil and criminal cases involving children and sexual abuse. She has nine
years’ experience conducting sexual abuse investigations with law enforcement and
has conducted training for law enforcement in the area of sexual abuse investigations.
In 1996, she was invited to present her doctoral research at the International Police
Research Conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Unlock the keys to healing from the deep wounds inflicted by narcissistic parents with insights from Dr. Carol McBride, renowned expert in narcissistic family dynamics. We promise you'll gain a deeper understanding of how narcissism manifests within family structures and the profound effects it has on children into adulthood. Through Dr. McBride's experience and groundbreaking work, including her celebrated books "Will I Ever Be Good Enough?" and "Will the Drama Ever End?", we dissect the journey from childhood trauma to finding resilience and empowerment.
Connect with Dr. McBride here https://linktr.ee/drkarylmcbride
Warmly,
Nico Barraza
@FeedTheSoulNB
www.nicobarraza.com
Keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. And I need you to be a minister for a moment and find somebody sitting in your general vicinity. Look them dead in the eyes if they owe you $20, and tell them neighbor, whatever you do, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. It's hard to keep pushing. In the world that we're living in right now. How is one supposed to find serenity and sanity and strength?
Speaker 2:in the world we live in right now. I keep pushing on. Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. I have a very special guest today. I keep pushing on. It's an incredible conversation that I have with her.
Speaker 2:The book that I was first introduced to her with is Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers An incredible work in its own right. But she has a new book out. I'm going to throw the link to that below, which is the new. One is titled Will the Drama Ever End? Untangling and Healing from the Harmful Effects of Parental Narcissism. I'll throw all the links to all of her books in the show notes. You can check that out. She also has a workshop for adult children of narcissistic parents that is scheduled for October 19th and 20th. This is online, so if anyone's interested you can just shoot Dr McBride an email. I'll throw a link to her website and her email in the show notes as well too. This is a great opportunity. I'm sure it's an incredible workshop and I'm sure you'll walk away with a lot of information and hopefully some healing as well too.
Speaker 2:But our conversation was primarily focused around, obviously, parental narcissism and how that proliferates in childhood and adolescence and throughout adulthood with our relationship with ourselves and with others, so I really hope you enjoy this conversation with Dr Carol McBride. Dr Carol McBride, thank you so much for joining me on the show. I'm really excited to talk to you today. I've only had one other sort of therapist or counselor speak about narcissism specifically, and that is a big part of your line of work, and so I'm really excited to speak to you. I actually was given or your book was brought to my attention by an acquaintance of mine who actually grew up with a narcissistic mother, and she's, like you, got to read this book, because I have experience with narcissism in my family too, and you hear this term get thrown around so much on the internet these days, and so I'm really looking forward to speak to a professional that's worked with it, has personal experience with it too, so thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me, Nico.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Can you start us just the listeners off with a little bit of brief background about how you got into this line of work and how you became a practicing professional and how you started to write books on narcissism?
Speaker 3:Sure, my background is really, I would say my platform basically is child advocacy. So I've worked with a lot of children and adolescents and families over the years and started seeing this sort of missing void in the literature. You know I'm a family therapist, marriage and family therapist by license. But there was a void in the literature around this certain kind of dysfunctional family that I was trying to identify that is led by a narcissistic parent. There's a lot of information when I was doing my initial research on the alcoholic parent and that kind of family. But that started my research and then it kind of went from there. I started with women because I identify myself as a daughter of a narcissistic mother, and then it moved into looking at what happens in relationships if you're involved with a narcissist love relationships. And then my most recent book is about the dynamics of the family If you grew up in a family led by a narcissistic parent. So it's just sort of evolved over the years.
Speaker 2:That makes sense.
Speaker 2:You know I want to ask, I want to start off with this follow-up question because I feel, like you know, as a practicing counselor, now there's so many, especially on Instagram and TikTok, that the word narcissism is thrown around a lot now, right, like if you have a bad experience with a partner and you're breaking up well, I was dating a narcissist, you know, or you know it's thrown around as this sort of catch-all term that just describes poor treatment.
Speaker 2:And it really isn't that. It's actually a personality disorder that's part of a cluster B trait and you know there's a lot of things that go into actually defining someone as a pure narcissist versus having narcissistic tendencies, which all of us have to some degree, right, depending on how it proliferates in life. And so I wanted to start off with this is can we start to differentiate actual narcissism versus what we think are sort of narcissistic traits? And I know you talk about the nine traits of narcissism and how they can present themselves in, well, the mother-daughter relationship in this book. But maybe can we look at a more broader relationship. Like you know, what are the nine traits of narcissism and how can we really tell, you know, narcissism versus someone that's maybe just behaving selfishly in an instant.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think it's a great question, and I agree with you that the term is thrown around very loosely.
Speaker 3:It's sort of become trendy and there are some traits of narcissism that are, you know, listed in the actual DSM or diagnostic manual that you know I personally and professionally don't really care that much about.
Speaker 3:Like so, if someone is arrogant, for instance, or boastful, or they just it's all about me and they talk about themselves all the time, okay, you know, I don't really care. I mean that might be annoying, you may want to stay away from those people, but what my work is about and what I really care about are the traits of narcissism that hurt people, hurt children, hurt relationships, and those particular ones are the lack of empathy, which is a whole issue unto itself and hard to understand to itself, and hard to understand the inability to emotionally tune in to other people's emotional world. The sense of entitlement that creates a lot of problems in relationships. Being exploitative like I will take advantage of you for my own good and my own needs, but I have no concern for how it's affecting you. And jealousy Jealousy is an interesting one because it's so hard to imagine parents being jealous of their children.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:You know, those of us who have children, we want our kids to have way more than us or be more than us. So those are the traits that I think are the ones that truly define narcissism. Now, narcissism is, as you kind of alluded to is, a spectrum disorder. So, like you said, if you look at this on a continuum, we all have some traits on the lower end, we can have traits along this continuum, and if it goes all the way over to the other end, it can become a narcissistic personality disorder.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, it's interesting. One of the things I've seen you know, growing up with narcissism in my family too is that when you talk about empathy, I mean that's like sort of the elf in the room with narcissism, right. It's like the inability to really put yourself in someone's shoes and see how your behaviors or actions are affecting them. From the parental standpoint it's even more interesting because you brought up jealousy. It's like in my mind, I don't have kids yet I do want kids. I want to be able to have that honor.
Speaker 2:If I do, and I couldn't imagine it's almost like a lot of people will have kids and they think that their kids are born to serve them, right, and so the goal of having a kid is like it's going to make me happy and serve me. I'm living vicariously through it. And there's a lot of pressure on appearance, right, and on oh, everyone has to see like I'm a great mother, I'm a great father, right, and you speak about that in your book too. And I'm curious, like is there any way for someone that you know gets diagnosed or say like they're in therapy, and someone says they have a lot of narcissistic personality traits, right, can they do anything about that to become a better parent? Is it like feasibly impossible? Because that's just who they are, it's ingrained in their personality.
Speaker 3:Yeah, good question, the. It depends on if you think about that spectrum again. Okay, it depends on kind of where they are on that continuum. So the closer someone is over here to the full blown, the more problems they're going to have. Right Now, empathy is a hard thing to teach, yeah, you know, and it's a hard thing to understand when someone doesn't have it. But there are people who just maybe didn't get taught how to do that in childhood and you know I've had many people in therapy who say I want to be more empathic in my responses to my children and my partner and, you know, can work on that and yes, but the further along they get on that continuum, they say things to me like and to all therapists I'm assuming, what am I missing? You know I'm not getting. Assuming, what am I missing? You know I'm not getting it. What am I missing?
Speaker 2:here. It's so interesting. There's like this inability to relate in that right, which is frightening. I could never relate to that because I was raised very empathic from a young age. I think that was very much influenced by my grandfather, was a very empathic man but I had women in my life who was raised by that, didn't have a lot of that right, there wasn't as much empathy and it seemed like there was a lot of sort of hot and cold and you know, for approval you have to do this right To be loved, that kind of thing and as a counselor and having friends that have dealt with similar situations being raised by primarily narcissistic mothers although I've heard maybe a couple instances of narcissistic fathers, but it's interesting like from what I've read it seems to be more prevalent with females. But maybe it's just a diagnostic thing too, where, like there's just more females getting diagnosed or being studied in it.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I don't. Oh, I don't mean to interrupt you, but I I don't think it's more prevalent with females.
Speaker 2:Okay, thanks for clarifying. Yeah, whenever it's brought up to me it's always seems to be like a mother or someone, but maybe it's just because men don't seek treatment or don't get help or don't get diagnosed with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's in both genders and although my first book, like I said, I really did focus on the narcissistic mother Although my first book, like I said, I really did focus on the narcissistic mother, but in my new book, will the Drama Ever End? Talks about the family dynamics I talk about both genders. Narcissistic parents in general yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate that too, because I was as a man. I'm like how does this proliferate in the masculine being a man? You know, how are the different types of behavior, traits kind of come up, right? Um, can you explain I and I don't, I mean we can focus on all like a lot of these questions that I've written down are based on this book, so the will it be good enough, but we can also focus on the newer book too, because I'm sure you can speak more to the, the male aspect. But um, can you explain the six types of narcissistic mothers and how those proliferate, and then maybe talk about fatherhood too, if you wouldn't mind?
Speaker 3:yeah, the um I let me say I know I broke them down in the first book um, the, the secret, secret kind of narcissistic mother, the the psychosomatic, the mean, the image-oriented, the flamboyant, extroverted, kind. But as my work has evolved, I kind of look at the way parental narcissism presents itself in either engulfing or ignoring ways which, if you think about that, it seems like they would be very different impact.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:You know, but with the engulfing parent they're like hovering and helicoptering so much that their child doesn't have a sense to or have a chance to develop their own sense of self, a sense to or have a chance to develop their own sense of self. And the ignoring parent creates the child that is just running around trying to get love and attention and affection and also doesn't have time to then work on developing their own sense of self. So what I find in that is the impact of the opposite is the same and the lack of working on sense of self and developing that as a child, which is why often adult children of narcissists have kind of a stunted emotional development and have to work on that in recovery and adulthood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're making up for the lost time, essentially right, and you kind of speak a little bit about, you know, being raised by a narcissistic parent, how that might influence narcissistic qualities within yourself. Do you see like a higher prevalence of, I guess, being more narcissistic if you're raised by narcissistic parents, or do you feel like it's more of a codependent tendency? I know those things are somewhat related.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do not believe. Based on thousands of interviews and seeing clients over the years with this particular issue, I do not believe that if you were raised by a narcissist, you will be a narcissist at all. In fact, most of the people I work with kind of come out of that experience with I learned what I did not want to do and how I did not want to be, and I'm working really hard in that direction. Now can some children from these families become narcissists? Yes, it certainly can happen, because the traits are being modeled for them and it's kind of interesting because a lot of times the golden child is more likely to identify with the narcissist, is more likely to identify with the narcissist. Interesting.
Speaker 2:That's very interesting. It almost, yeah, I wonder how that proliferates in families with multiple children, right, because is that usually the oldest child? You know, usually the oldest child is the golden child, the one that's doing, or the youngest. But I want to backtrack because I think, particularly in my generation, the younger generations, you know, with social media, with cell phones and selfies and, like you know, being well known for being physically beautiful and appreciated for these things, right, because you can this thing's got exacerbated. We live in a sort of hyper-individualized society now, right, that's very much focused on the self versus community, versus giving. It's like what can I get, you know, and you see a lot of entitlement. Honestly, there's a lot of entitlement. With my generation, younger generations too. Do you think that we've almost sort of grown into a culture of narcissism and do you see it being more prevalent because of how our society works now with this kind of me, me, me attitude works now with this kind of me me, me attitude.
Speaker 3:I think there's controversy about that, nico.
Speaker 3:I think there are some researchers that say yes, we live in a more narcissistic culture today because of social media. The reason I am a little hesitant to say that is because narcissism is a personality disorder and it really, you know, in the people I've worked with and certainly in my family, you can trace this back through the generations. I mean, this is a generational legacy that gets passed on, and so it was back in the day when for my grandparents, you know. So I'm not sure, because it has to do with the personality and because we believe that narcissism is caused from trauma, maybe we live in a more narcissistic culture, but I wouldn't say that's a for sure at this point, because I see it through the generations and people, when they're working with me, can usually trace it back to you know which grandmother, which grandfather, where did this kind of start in our family and okay, that that makes sense.
Speaker 2:So, but if you're saying that you know, if not all, uh, children of narcissistic parents, they don't. They don't necessarily turn into narcissists, right, they're raised in it. Does it skip a generation? Because if we have this family lineage of narcissism, are we seeing like it's skipping generations? Then it pops up again because of some sort of trauma or some sort of parenting thing.
Speaker 3:I don't think it skips a generation, but I think the real key is the people that come out of these systems that don't turn you know, don't just model what they were taught exactly are usually people that want to do the work, want to do the recovery. Don't turn you know, don't just model what they were taught exactly. Are usually people that want to do the work, want to do the recovery, want to point out the dysfunction in the family and work on it yeah, and change their own behavior and their own relationships and their own parenting yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you, that's a wonderful answer. It's interesting to see how a lot of narcissistic parents can use grandchildren as sort of this scapegoat or sort of a thing to focus on and they almost like overlook their parenting duties, right, and we're talking about adult parents that have kids, and then their parents are narcissists or have narcissistic tendencies, depending on the spectrum, and they'll almost like hyper-focus on the relationship with their grandkids and they'll use that as sort of excuses or you know, it's almost like they can use that to sort of hold their own child hostage or make them feel guilty or put that pressure on them. Do you find that to be a common thread in narcissistic grandparents that you know have grandchildren, or is that something unique, depending on the dynamic?
Speaker 3:I think what's unique about it is narcissistic parents and grandparents are better at what they do in focusing on the children when the children are little, because if you think about little children, they adore adults.
Speaker 3:All they want is affection and attention and admiration.
Speaker 3:And you know, if you step in as a grandparent and you're so excited being a grandparent and you bring them all these presents and you're like, oh, I have a grandkid and you know that can really feed the narcissist's supply in a way, and but then what happens is the children get older and have their own sense of personality and maybe they don't like everything that grandma or grandpa like, or you know, or they have the ability to stand up for themselves and say I don't want to play chess, grandpa, or you know, then it can change and because the narcissistic parent or grandparent is not able to carry that on, is not able to maintain intimate, close connection. But they're all about the image and they're all about you know what can I get for my supply? And you know you can I get for my supply. And you know you can particularly see it with infants, because you know what is more feeding our soul, so to speak, than holding and cuddling and loving a baby. I mean, everyone loves that right, because it gives you something back.
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah, there's always a transactional thing there, right, and very rarely is altruistic. I find one of the things that comes up a lot in my counseling sessions in working with men and women that have a narcissistic parent, is if they go through a separation or divorce, and I find oftentimes that parents or set of parents can be very focused on how the divorce affects them because of how it looks right.
Speaker 2:And so, instead of even providing empathy or a safe space for their child who's an adult and going through a separation and maybe having to do co-parenting and moving out of a house. It's not even about that. It's about do you realize how much this has affected me? Right? This is so hard on me.
Speaker 3:How does this look for the family? What will the neighbors think? What will the people at church think? How will it impact how people view me as a parent? Oh my God, I have a child who's divorced.
Speaker 2:I feel like I mean God that can be so lonely, to want to be, you know, caressed and have the safe space held for you by your parent right and not getting that get even more pressure on when you have no place to. You know, go to tendencies of people in my family. I had to almost create my own family with friends that I could use as a safe space to use a support system, because I wasn't able to go and confide in those ways right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like you have to end up finding your own tribe, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, you know, it's interesting because we have, depending on religious pressures or societal pressures, we have this idea of like the nuclear family unit right and at all costs sort of like, you know, obey the family and give to the family and it's all about the family. And I've always had a problem with that, I think, because, you know, a lot of people have amazing families, I have a great family, right, but I have some severe problems with my family too and I've had to create healthy boundaries as an adult or else they continuously negative affect me because those people are not changing right as a matter of how many years of therapy they've gone to, it's the same stuff every time, right, and I think a lot of times from people that have I would say, quote unquote healthier family structures, but it's always sort of biased, sort of subjective perspective it's hard for them to relate to people that have healthy boundaries with family or, for instance, have to completely cut off members of their family because of unhealthiness. And I think it can also be sort of stifling from that perspective because it's hard to have empathy or relate unless you've grown up in a family dynamic like that and actually understand how much courage it takes to say this is stopping with me, right, like I'm not engaging with this anymore. And it's hard because you love this person. Right, like you love this person. That love isn't there.
Speaker 2:But you have to get to a point where you love yourself enough to not take that abuse because it is, it's covert, it's abusive and it sticks you in this pothole that if you allow yourself to stay stuck there, you will be 50, 60, seven years old and be a shell of yourself, never know who you really are, never know what lights you up, never know what you love, because you've been living in someone else's shadow, based on their own ego. You know and I find that particularly hard for people to relate to that haven't grown up in a situation like that that are like oh, you should keep loving your family, keep trying, right.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, and you know what I always tell people is adult children of narcissists are not. It's not that we didn't love our parents or our family. It's what we're reacting to is that they didn't know how to love us properly. So we are reacting in a normal way to an abnormal situation and to the needs that we didn't get met. But when we have to do that and pull away or set boundaries, it takes courage. I think it's a heroic act really for people to do healing and do that, but it also, in reality, creates losses for people. You know, sometimes it's losses with siblings that don't see it their way, or losses with a parent or extended members of the family, and so then, you know, then it causes more things to have to work on and more grief and loss.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. A lot of grieving, I think it's continuous too. Do you have any advice to parents that are in that situation, that have narcissistic parents and their grandkids, and how do you create a healthy relationship there? Because a lot of times the grandparents will want to be overly involved or they'll guilt their adult child and be like, hey, it's for the good of the grandkids, you know, like, why are you keeping away from them? Because, again, they relate better to children because of that sort of subservient, like you know worshiping, sort of transaction they get. Do you have any advice for parents and how they navigate that?
Speaker 3:Well, I think it depends on how toxic the narcissistic parent is. You know, there are some situations I've seen that are fine if they're monitored.
Speaker 3:You maybe don't send your kids for the whole week and you go on vacation like you'd love to, because you don't know what's going to happen while you're gone and there may be a lot of impaired trust there that those people will tune in emotionally to your children. So, you know, I think it can be handled, depending on, again, where they are in the continuum. It can be handled with setting boundaries and monitoring and supervising, but also being very clear that these are your children and you know. If there are certain things that happen that are not okay, you have to stand up and say that for your child's sake.
Speaker 2:Right? Yeah, absolutely. I can sense that there probably could be a lot of manipulation if you were to leave your children in the environment because you know, you really don't know what's going on and I think it's hard for people that aren't clinicians to know where on that spectrum someone falls. You know, I think immediately they probably just go to code red because of you know, mostly our experience is trauma and then, you know, everything is like heightened because of that. Right, your fuse gets shorter over the years of people just because it continues. Right. One of I think the most powerful chapters in this book that I really connected with is the essence of where is daddy Like, where is the enabler in?
Speaker 2:this right, because most of the time you have two parents. One of them might be narcissistic or a narcissist and the other one is enabling that right Due to guilt, or that's their dynamic and they grew up in that, so they were attracted apart and like that. If we look at the mother-father role this question was submitted by a friend of mine Can you explain the father's role in how this impacts children, specifically daughters, on how they could potentially enable a narcissistic mother or you know, obviously not create that sense of space, sense of safety?
Speaker 3:Yes, if you look at the family structure of the narcissistic family, the narcissist is basically in the middle. You know, just like in alcoholic families, the alcohol is in the middle right, and then the spouse oftentimes will orbit around that person to keep them happy and then the children are back down over here unattended to, basically because this creates so much work. Now, not all narcissists are married to or in relationship with enablers, but oftentimes that is the case in the narcissistic family, and what's sad about it is oftentimes that enabler parent has to do that to stay in the relationship, in the relationship. So it's sad, though, and not okay, to see them then not tune into their children and give their children what they need. So oftentimes in recovery people will be working on the dynamics with the narcissistic parent but also have to work with their anger and upset and sadness about but actually the enabling parent didn't tune in either, because that person was just orbiting, you know, the narcissist.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, as long as the narcissist's world is perfect and good, I'm good because they're not going to take it out on me, I'm not going to feel that wrath. So I have to keep that sort of fed, you know, which is interesting, because that doesn't feel like love to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, is that how those people are loving, or is that just like a different way of relating, because it just doesn't feel like love in my mind.
Speaker 3:You mean the enabler?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's almost like I agree with you. It's almost like I agree with you. It's almost like survival. Yeah, totally. If I want to stay in the relationship, this is what I have to do, and it's not healthy for them and it's not healthy for their kids.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah, so interesting. So the sort of second part of this that is really interesting to me that I wrote down is how growing up with a narcissistic parent affects your adult relationships and the people you seek right, meaning who are dating, who becomes our, our spouses, right? That's hugely important, right? So how do you see women and men with narcissistic parents carry these emotional burdens into adult relationships? And what are some of the common themes there?
Speaker 3:It's interesting that we learn in the narcissistic family to have impaired trust, and it's almost like a bootcamp for codependency, because everybody is orbiting around the narcissist, which means. The true definition of codependency, by the way, is I will take care of you to the exclusion of taking care of me, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So what I found in my research is adult children tend to, before they do recovery, find themselves in a codependent relationship where they're the caretaker, or in a dependent relationship where they're like please give me everything.
Speaker 3:I'm going to lean on you because I didn't get these needs met as a child. So we have dependent or codependent relationships and of course a healthy relationship is what we call interdependent, where today maybe I want to be a baby and you're going to take care of me, that's okay, but tomorrow I'm going to take care of you. There's reciprocity, there's a give and take in healthy relationships, so it doesn't mean we can't be a baby sometimes. But you know it's not just one person is the caretaker and the other is the taker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense. You're mutually benefiting from each other's. You know, care not just one person, being the infant or being taken care of all the time. You know you, you speak a lot about growing up with a narcissistic mother and I'm curious like, through your life, as you've worked on your own relationship in that time, you know how has your relationship changed over time in your own personal life?
Speaker 3:With my parents.
Speaker 3:With your parents, yeah with my parents, with your parents, yeah, um, I think after my parents are deceased now, um, but, um, as I moved through recovery, um, I was able to do what I try to help other people do establish kind of a civil connect where you don't have to go no contact, you don't have to have no family, but you sort of accept that this is not going to be a deep, empathic, loving, emotionally intimate relationship. You're not going to get your needs met, your expectations have to drop. You kind of accept that it's. You know you're going to talk about football and the weather and you know what kind of followers what you have for dinner.
Speaker 3:What you have for dinner, what the neighbors gossiping about the neighbors, whatever they do. It's sort of a it's a matter of acceptance, but it has all everything to do with dropping those expectations if you want to be able to do a civil connect with true narcissists.
Speaker 2:Man, when you say that, I just I want to give everyone that experienced that a huge hug. You know, because it's just like, it's such a there's still so much courage in that because you're accepting less than like you get to that point of acceptance but you're never going to get like that. You know, when you see really healthy parents and you're like man, you know I wish I had that as an adult. You know um wish I had that support, wish I had. You know, like, like in my mind. As a parent, like you know. Again, I hope hopefully get the chance to have kids, but I want my kids to grow up and be free and understand that, like I didn't have them to serve me, I had them so they can go and fall and get back up and be adults and fall in love and get their hearts broken, experience all the beauties and, you know, travesties of life, because that's what living is right.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:I didn't get them to like float around where I'm living or love where I'm living. If they do, fine, that's up to them, but they don't have to, you know. I didn't get them to put pressure on them in that way, of course you know. And it's go ahead.
Speaker 3:Well, it's like the hierarchy is messed up in the narcissistic family.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:In a normal family, healthy family, I should say, the hierarchy is like the parents are up here, the kids are down here and the parents are there to serve the children, to guide them, to teach them, to direct them, to nurture them, to comfort them, to create safety for them. In the narcissistic family, that hierarchy is reversed, so we are there to serve them, which then obviously you know that child is not going to get their needs met.
Speaker 2:How does it differentiate with siblings right? So in families that have multiple kids let's say boys and girls or all girls or all boys how does the effect of the narcissistic parent and perhaps the codependent parent in that relationship, how does that affect children differently?
Speaker 3:if they're in a family unit. Yeah, I did a lot of work on that in my latest book, will the Drama Ever End. Did a lot of work on that in my my latest book, will the drama ever end?
Speaker 3:Um, and the, the role sort of the cast of characters, I call it in the narcissistic family is somewhat similar to the alcoholic family. So oftentimes you'll have a scapegoat that gets all the family crap you know projected onto them and then you'll have the golden child that kind of represents the idealized part of the narcissistic parent that gets projected, and then you have the lost child that just is sort of invisible, kind of blends in. So, and usually not usually sometimes those roles that children take on in these families or are cast into can change, like, maybe when they're little they're the golden child, but as they, you know, become more independent and stand up for themselves and rebel a little, oh, now we're the scapegoat. Or if they stand up to, you know, I don't believe what you guys believe, I don't necessarily want to go to that church or I don't necessarily want to have that political leaning or whatever you know.
Speaker 2:Then they become the scapegoat because they're not conscripting to the mold of the image of what the parents think they should be. Yep, that makes total sense For anyone listening to this podcast. Do you think people's light bulbs go off if they're parents and they have narcissistic tendencies and they might not be fully on one side of the spectrum If they're listening to this? Do you think the light bulbs go off and they're like wow, that's actually describing how I treat my kids and how I put pressure on my adult kids and maybe I'm able to change that. Is there some possibility of awareness there?
Speaker 3:I think so. Yeah, I think there's people can. I believe of course people can learn and grow. But I would say to parents out there, young parents, a key, a huge key is ask yourself if you know how to do empathy. Okay, you know. Really, take a look at that. You know, when someone is talking to you, can you put yourself in their shoes? Can you say what would this be like for you know? I want to imagine what this would be like, because empathy is just huge in raising children and love relationships, that ability to emotionally tune in to other people and care about what they're feeling, what they're experiencing. So the empathy is just a crucial piece of this.
Speaker 2:Amen. I view empathy as the sort of elixir or the antidote to resentment and anger. Right, Because if you can put empathy in there, you can turn that into compassion and understanding. That might not change how you feel about a situation or about something that happened, but you can relate in at least a base level to why the other person might have thought, felt or behaved that way.
Speaker 3:Right, right, and it's interesting with empathy you don't have to agree with someone. You know I might think well, that's kind of empathy. You don't have to agree with someone. You know we might. I might think, well, that's kind of crazy. I don't think that way, you know, but I can still do empathy in understanding why you might feel that way, based on your life experience and based on where you're coming from, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like how you're using it as a verb and not just a noun. Right A do empathy versus like empathy, and I think that's you're saying that for a reason. Right, because you're making it something you can practice, versus like oh, I'm just always empathic, right? People are like I'm an empathic person, like well, are you practicing empathy right now?
Speaker 2:You know that's a practice. You know, just like anger is a practice, right, we get used to resentment as a practice, built up over time. Right, how we communicate is a practice. So I'm picking up on that. That makes a lot of sense to me. So, with the new book, is it and again, I haven't been able to read it, I don't have a copy of it yet. I really would love to crack it open. Is it mostly on, uh like the parenting structure from like a non-gendered, uh like like that, that opinion, or what is the? What is the primary focus of it?
Speaker 3:the primary focus of the I'll here. I'll grab a copy of it. Um, will the drama ever end? Um, it focuses on what are the dynamics of the narcissistic family, like what happens in the communication, what happens in how you're treated. The first part of the book sort of explains all of that. The second part, which I think is really important, talks about the effects, like if you were raised in this kind of family, what are the effects on you that you might want to be aware of? And then the third part is my most comprehensive and refined work on the five-step recovery model that I've designed and that I work with in therapy with adult children.
Speaker 2:Okay, wonderful. Well, one thing that just came up to mind is are there differences between, let's say, multi-child families and how it affects multiple children? Because you kind of gave us as archetypes right, the golden child, the scapegoat, the lost child, versus only children?
Speaker 3:Wow, I have so many clients that would just love you for asking that question.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm an only child, so I'm asking that I have friends that have multiple and to see how it's proliferated in them. It's a little different, at least from what I've seen.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, and I think it's very hard for an only child if there's a narcissistic family, because, first of all, they don't have siblings that they can compare experience to, it's just them. And if you look at those that break out of the cast of characters, they become all of them, because it depends on wherever the narcissist is at the moment, like whatever's going on inside of mom or dad, who's a narcissist will get projected onto the child. So one day they may be idealized and they're the golden child, and the next day they're devalued and they're the scapegoat, and the next day they're completely neglected and they become the lost child. So it can go. You know, they oftentimes go through all of those cast of characters.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense to me. The other thing that I wanted to ask you is, in sort of these particular archetypes that an only child might go through throughout life. When did they? I guess because it proliferates different in your adult relationships, right, because if you played one role in a family of three, four or five with a narcissistic parent, versus you've played all the roles, does that almost like propel you more into sort of like a borderline kind of personality because you don't know where you fit, or is that a stretch? And the other part of that is you know how do we differentiate? Because a lot of people that are clinicians don't know how to this and this is a completely separate question. But it just came to mind, like the difference between you know having a narcissistic parent versus, like a borderline parent or a histrionic parent, that there are some similarities but it's, you know, different, different thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think. Well, I think if you just look at borderlines versus narcissists and you're right, they they do overlap a lot, so you can have both in a, in a parent or in a person, right, but the the borderline kind of person is more um needy and more apt to harm themselves, where the narcissist is more likely to harm others and think that they're just damn fine and nothing's their fault.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is a great descriptor because, having had personal experience with both, that makes total sense in my own personal experience. Because, yeah, I would say BPD for the most part is it can look for attention by self-harm or by like calling out in that way, whereas I don't think a narcissist would ever do that, because they could never imagine that right. It's just not something they would do is harm themselves. It's really about you know anything?
Speaker 3:I could do to feel better get more attention or feel more special, and the narcissist. They both will play the role of the victim.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:You know. So you see that in both. But the narcissist is just more likely to blame it on someone else, or the borderline may take it on themselves and do self-harm so like it's, it's because of them.
Speaker 2:I'm the problem. Such a horrible person I can never get better that kind of thing, yeah, and start to self-implode in that way. Um, very interesting. Are there any like for for non-only children, so bigger families like is there any advice you give the children narcissists if they have other siblings? Like how to support each other in adulthood? Right, because a lot of times you see fractures between siblings because of the parental, like you know, space they're raised in and you know, is there any? Is there any sort of advice you can give those people to maybe have a closer sibling-to-sibling relationship that supersedes, you know, the unhealthy environment they grew up in?
Speaker 3:Yeah, what's really sad is we oftentimes see the siblings in these families not connected in adult life. There's a lot of loss there, where the siblings just are distant, not close. They haven't been taught to support each other, they haven't been taught to be emotionally connected. So what we most commonly see is estrangement with siblings. Now, once in a while, while, there might be one sibling, that's that the person in recovery can talk to and share experience and have their experience validated and acknowledged, which is just wonderful, and I mean that's a great thing if somebody has that, because I think that can be very beneficial. I think trying to go out to the siblings that don't want to see it because denial, of course, is one of the big mantras in the narcissistic family it's easier to stay in denial because then we don't have to face it and we can still say we came from this great, big, happy family that everybody wants to say they came from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, came from this great, big happy family that everybody wants to say they came from.
Speaker 3:And so it's really hard to confront those kind of siblings who just say hey, it's you, you're cracked, you know what's wrong with you, that you would see it this way, and that's just becomes more disappointment, more angst, more pain for the person in recovery.
Speaker 2:That makes sense, would you say. Your work is mostly with people in recovery, more so than people that are actually showing true narcissistic traits.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I imagine it'd be pretty rare for someone that is full-blown narcissist to come to therapy or say, hey, I'm here to work on my relationship with my children, because I realize I've been messing up, because there's some empathy in that right right um, but do you? Do you once in a while, get someone that's like victimizing themselves, and then the light bulb goes off? You're like this person actually is sort of the central figure of what's causing everything.
Speaker 3:What's interesting about when a narcissist does walk in the door? They usually come in because they want to complain about somebody else. Yep.
Speaker 3:They usually come in my kid's a fuck up. My spouse is a weirdo. You know, I don't know what to do. It's always somebody else's fault. You know, I don't know what to do. It's always somebody else's fault. And then, if you begin the process of well, what, how is it that you might be contributing to this factor? You know, are you doing anything? Cause we can only work on you. That's when you, the therapist, become the not good enough therapist and they leave therapy.
Speaker 2:That's so interesting. It's almost like empathy and self-awareness are two sides of the same coin. Right Because you have to be somewhat self-aware to have empathy, because you have to be aware that you might not be the only person that's right or living an experience. Right Because it's subjective what I think and what I'm observing, what I'm absorbing. But I would think someone with narcissism doesn't have a lot of self-awareness either, because really it's all outward facing. Right, it's like okay, this person's doing that, I feel this way. That's the truth. It can only be the only truth.
Speaker 3:And because narcissists aren't in touch with themselves, they're not in touch with their own feelings. So when those feelings come up in them, just like they do in all of us, that's where we roll into that concept called projection, where they feel uncomfortable or angry or upset and instead of embracing it and really dealing with it, they project it. So if I'm feeling really angry and you're my kid rather than embracing it, I'm like why are you acting so angry today? What's wrong with you?
Speaker 2:Yep, right, that's a great segue to this question I have. Is that if we have narcissism in our family, you're saying it's a generational thing, it's generational trauma passed on, right? Know, if we have narcissism in our family, you're saying it's generational thing, it's generational trauma passed on, right? Um, and we want to be the best parents we can and exude empathy and exude a safe space for our kids and still have discipline and all these other things that are quintessential for healthy parenting. How, what are the things that we can practice to ensure that we don't raise narcissistic children?
Speaker 3:um, I think you want to. I think empathy is the opposite, um of narcissism. So I always tell people you know it's really important to do empathic parenting, raise children with empathic parenting, which basically means whenever anything happens, unless it's an emergency, you go after what is the child feeling first and then you deal with solving the problem or having a consequence if it's needed. So that's one big thing, empathic parenting. Another is teaching children that it's not okay to be entitled. We all have to stand in lines, we all have to wait. Sometimes. You're super important to me, you're the most important thing in my world, child, but out in the world you're not better than anybody else. So I think you have to come at it. I keep going back to empathy, but you have to come at it from an empathic standpoint and then keeping the hierarchy. You know it's my job as a parent to create a safe, consistent, predictable environment. So you work on that, work on how is our life in this family predictable, consistent, safe? It's our job to comfort.
Speaker 2:How does that work?
Speaker 2:with showing emotions around your children, because I think that's also a gray area where someone will not show any emotions and they'll always have these hard conversations with their spouse outside of, so the kids never see that. It's always just like perfect, like mom and dad never fight, right, they would never yell at each other versus like the opposite of that, which is screaming and yelling, cussing. You know profanity, you know just all that energy, right? So it's like the fight or flight complex. What's like the healthy way to actually expose your kids to emotion? Is there a certain age that's safe for that? Because, you know, as adults we're going through our own stuff, right, with bills and healthcare and all these other things that happen. You know, and I find that people are either on one side, right, they either hide everything or they show everything. You know where is the healthy balance to show your kid that you're not, you know, this perfect, infallible human being?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think it's important to start talking about feelings with children when they're very little and modeling talking about feelings when they're very little, and that means that we have feelings too. Now do we want to have domestic violence and screaming and yelling and hitting and being cruel and mean and name-calling and bullying? No, of course not. Yep, but you know I always talk to parents about start out with basic child feelings Mad, sad, glad and scared Start very simple and then model that Today I was kind of mad when I was driving because this person cut me off on the highway. It kind of made me mad, or something happened today that made me sad. Now it isn't like breaking down and having a meltdown in front of a child because we don't want to put them in a position that they have to take care of us, but we can express feelings to children and that teaches them. You know how to tune in also.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's, I love it. What do you think about apologizing to children, right? I think a lot of parents have this pride sensibility where, like, well, I can't apologize, because it's going to teach them that there's this different sense of hierarchy and I'm, like you know, apologizing to a peer versus my child. You know a lot of. I imagine most narcissists can't do that, but I think apologizing is healthy.
Speaker 2:It's certainly a practice that I've learned as a man through my aging and through being in therapy, because you're never born knowing how to apologize, like the whole kid at the you know playground, because you're still a kid's toy, like, go apologize, well, that's just because that's like a cultural thing, right. But really to understand why you're apologizing and how it's making the other person feel, right, that's a skill learned over time. I mean, dr Harriet Lerner wrote that book why you Won't Apologize, which is basically an ode to like how to apologize, which I think is incredible, you know, yeah, do you think we should be apologizing to our kids when we mess up and hurt their feelings and we're at fault? And how does that look?
Speaker 3:Absolutely, Absolutely. Because there are no perfect parents, there are no perfect families. None of us are perfect. So we're going to make mistakes in our relationships, in our parenting with our friends. So, absolutely saying to the child you know, mommy was stressed and I kind of had a bad day and I yelled at you and I shouldn't have done that and I'm really sorry and I'm going to work on that. You know, that's not something I want to do with you.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful. I mean, there's self-awareness in that. Is there any instance where a narcissistic parent do you think could do something like that, or does that require too much empathy and too much awareness to even get to that point? Again, we're talking about a spectrum here, but but I imagine you don't really see a lot of narcissistic parents apologize to their kids because they just can't do it, because they're not the problem yeah, usually they just project it onto the child and it's the child's fault and they can't be accountable.
Speaker 3:Now it depends on where they are on the spectrum, but it's, it's less, you see it, less the more traits a person has on that, on that continuum.
Speaker 2:You know, Dr Mbrogan, I imagine that you have a lot of people reaching out to you that have been raised by narcissistic parents, that want to work with you. Because of your firsthand experience, but also your writing on this, you know you've become an expert in this area on how to communicate it and how to provide some step-by-step guides on how to heal from it.
Speaker 2:Is that the majority of your client base now? Are there people reaching out because they're like you know, I have this parent, this mom or father you know that I'm raised with and I want to heal from it and create healthy boundaries. Is that primarily the type of client you're seeing today?
Speaker 3:Yes, I would say yes, I've dealt with as a marriage and family therapist. I deal with couples a lot, but a lot of adult children of narcissists and I would say just in general, family of origin dysfunction where people want to come in and really take a look at the wounded child within and figure out how to heal that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we only use Foo or Family of Origin on the show a couple of times and my friend, vienna Ferron, is very much into that. She's just written a book on Family of Origin, which was amazing. So my last question before I let you go is about, you know, let's say, a newer couple or a couple doesn't have kids yet and one of the partners, let's say, is on the narcissistic spectrum, right, and maybe the person that is with them isn't aware of it or doesn't know, right, they're in this codependent thing. Can those relationships, depending on where you are in the spectrum, can you ever be in a relationship with someone on narcissistic spectrum and it be somewhat beneficial and equitable and healthy for both people? Or is it pretty much impossible to have a relationship with that person and feel loved and feel valued and share?
Speaker 3:It just so depends on where they are in the spectrum. Yeah, but I've worked with a lot of couples where, you know, where someone will say I've read about this and I know I have some traits and I want to work on that and I think I am acting a certain way in this relationship and that can be taught and learned and worked on and healed in the relationship. And the reality is whether a person is a narcissist or not I mean, let's just take that out of the equation for a minute. We all bring to the marital bed, so to speak, our baggage from our past.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I kind of look at it like this, Nico, like here I am dragging my suitcase and here you are dragging yours, and then we kind of dump it all out on the marital bed and it gets all mixed up, you know. And then when we're fighting, it's sort of hard to know hey, now is this my issue or is it your issue or is it our issue, you know. So that happens a lot because, again, we all kind of bring our stuff to relationships. And it's beautiful when people want to look at that, you know, want to sort that stuff out and say, oh, that's my stuff, oh, that's your stuff.
Speaker 2:You know it is that. That is like you know, one of the questions I get at us a lot from newer couples, depending on whatever age they are, is like how do we set ourselves up for success in the best way? You know whether it's a new marriage or new relationship, and give any you know advice in that regard? Because I always think people should go to couples counseling, whether you're a new relationship or before you get in. I mean it's just especially with a good couples counselor. It helps you communicate, helps you set up some pillars of success before their relationship gets into something like that where resentment's built or someone's feelings get really hurt or infidelity or something happens Right. Do you have any advice in that and how newer couples can set themselves up for success?
Speaker 3:I think the biggest thing I would say is to look at how you communicate, because when the communication breaks down, then all this other stuff starts to come into play. And so you know, having a couple really look at how are they talking to each other? Are they doing reflective listening? Are they really understanding? Can they validate and acknowledge each other's feelings?
Speaker 3:We don't fight about facts because we can prove it. We can bring ten people in the room and say is there a coffee table there? Yep, there is, unless you're psychotic or something and you don't see it. We fight about perceptions. You know, like just an example, like if you were sitting here with me, we could talk about do you think my house is decorated in a pretty way? That's perception. And you might think, no, I don't like that at all, it's to this or to that, and we could fight forever about that because those are perceptions, fight forever about that because those are perceptions.
Speaker 3:So, helping people sort out, you know, let's get the facts on the table and then let's break it down what's our perception, in other words, how do we think about this, and then what are our feelings about it, which we need to be empathic with each other about, and then you know, what do I really want out of this conversation? And then, ultimately, what do I want to? What am I willing to do about it, not just what. Hey, here's what I need for you to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, you're on the same team. That's always when I work with couples. It's like a lot of times you're angry, resentful or even something's happened that you know. It's really, really hurt you. You know, on the hard end of the spectrum. Uh, it's really about don't forget, you're on the same team. If you're not playing on the same team, you're not in a relationship anymore. You know, you're just.
Speaker 2:It's just opposing people trying to be proved right all the time yeah, you know which usually doesn't lead to success or intimacy or any sort of chemistry you know, and you've thrown that in over years.
Speaker 3:You know I use that phrase that someone could probably shoot a lot of holes in it, but I always use the phrase would you rather be happy or right? And you know we all want to be, I suppose right, but um, I was. I was uh with my kids the other day in the car, just to give you a quick story, and, um, my son and his, my daughter-in-law, and they were arguing about something and I'm just sitting there, you know they're arguing with their mom, who's a therapist, in the backseat right exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3:And so you know I did something I know I should never do. I said, hey, would you guys like me to tell you something? I often tell my clients, and my daughter-in-law is like sure, and I said, well, let's just look at this issue, would you rather be happy or right? And my son looks at me with this you know, there's my therapist mother look and says you know, sometimes I just want to be right, like okay, at least it broke the ice, you know.
Speaker 2:I love that honesty. I'm guessing that came from your biological kid, though that's funny. That's that's.
Speaker 2:That's funny, because I feel like the yeah. Well, dr McBride, it's been so lovely to talk to you and share some time with you. I would love to meet you in person You're a busy lady, but when I'm going through Denver it would be amazing and I just want to say thank you so much for everything you're putting out in the world. I can't wait to read the new book, and I'll throw a link to all of Dr Bride's work in the show description. They can pre-order it now, right.
Speaker 3:They're all out now.
Speaker 2:They're all out, okay, cool. Well then the newest one's out. I'll throw a link to all of that stuff in the description. I'll get a copy myself. And yeah, thank you so much for all the work you've done in this particular setting of therapy and of healing, because I mean we need more of it and I feel like you just you bring a very unbiased sort of you know open opinion on this. You're not, you know, it's not like you're out for blood, right, because you've been hurt and you know through childhood, which I really appreciate, because a lot of times it can come through and clinicians writing it's that man, they've been hurt so much, it's like there's no way to get out of this, right? You don't say that in your work. It's just about providing some understanding and some context so people can heal and have a healthier relationship, to the extent that's even possible with their narcissistic parent or their narcissistic relative right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's important for people to know that our work is really an inside job anyway.
Speaker 2:That's it. That's why we're here.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So well. Thank you so much. Uh, wonderful conversation, Wonderful to meet you.
Speaker 3:And I can't wait for people to be able to hear this, thank you. Thanks for having me, nico.
Speaker 2:I wish people could realize all their dreams and wealth and fame, so that they could see that it's not where you're going to find your sense of completion. Everything you gain in life will rot and fall apart and all that will be left of you is what was in your heart, in your heart, in your heart. Thank you so much for tuning in to Star of the Ego. Feed the Soul. Please leave us a five-star written review on Apple and Spotify podcasts. It's a free way you can give back the show and show your support and, as always, if you want to work with me one-on-one, head over to wwwnicoborazacom.