In this insightful episode with Dr. Ramani Durvasula, we navigate the murky waters of narcissistic relationships and uncover the ...

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Trapped by Narcissist Love Bombing? Dr. Ramani&#39;s Tips to Break Free

what are some red flags when you're starting to meet someone because initially you've mentioned in the book they're very Charming they're very captivating um how can you sort of start seeing those red flags and sort of because it's sort of a fluctuating pattern how can you sort of start to spot out like okay maybe this isn't like when should I start standing up for myself and saying this is not acceptable you never say it to them because they're not going to listen when you say it's not acceptable you say it within yourself and that's already hard because people as they come into these relationships like I say in the book we're attracted to them because they're charming and they're charismatic and they're you know they're they're confident we're often taught that this is exactly the person we should be looking for they're often also very successful too so all these boxes are getting ticked and then it doesn't start badly these relationships especially adult onset narcissistic relationships start out quite nicely you feel like this person gets you like no one else ever has they're so fun they're so romantic it you really feel like you've sometimes been swept into a fairy tale or some sort of idealized situation right and so as the it's almost like there's this this process people go through where in the in the sort of Love bombing stage it almost feels like it's close to 100% good as weeks go by it becomes 90% good 10% bad 80% good 20% bad 70% 30% then you start getting to 50% then you start getting to 20% good and 80% bad but it was a gradual titration and as that titration happened and it happened gradually the other person in that relationship starts justifying because it's not always bad it's 90% good 10% bad who complains about that that's every relationship so now the justifications though become part of that relationship they didn't mean it they they they had a tough childhood they're working so hard to provide for us we had so much fun I love having sex with them whatever the reasons and there could be all of these and then some that we start making justifications and this is where it starts getting really dark people start blaming themselves in the relationship maybe this is my fault maybe I'm not trying hard enough maybe I didn't say that right and when you throw in the gaslighting dynamic where basically the narcissistic person throws back on the other person and says I never said that that never happened and I don't I think you have a memory problem or something there's something wrong with you now they're telling you you're impaired you're even more destabilize you internalize that before long you have this inversion where the person in the narcissistic relationship feels like they're responsible for this problem until a person gets educated about what narcissism is do they because people are feeling it they're feeling in their body these people get sick people in these narcissistic relationships start getting sick in a variety of ways some subtle some more obvious some people say I'm more more trouble sleeping because I'm ruminating I'm not eating as well I'm not taking care of myself I don't talk to my friends as much all the stuff that's essential to self-care but that's it's all happening slowly so that idea finally identifying that this behavior is unacceptable sometimes it happens from the outside it might be a friend who says Whoa like is that how he always talks to you because it of course the narcissistic person isn't going to let that many people get close to your relationship and you'll say what what and you'll they your friend might say that wasn't okay and that's sometimes the first light switch moment where a person might even say no no no it's how it is but when that friend goes away they're going to say hm and when those light switches start hopping on that's where even gets harder because people are like okay is it me is it them am I being sensitive so this isn't just I as much as I say we have to recognize behavior is unacceptable it's not that easy as it gets worse and worse there's usually a rock bottom for everyone in these relationships sometimes it's infidelity sometimes it's physical violence sometimes it's Financial misbehavior um and sometimes it's just Death By A Thousand Cuts it's just how many times you can bear up against this yeah you know you mentioned the physical thing and I can guarantee we all see these victims of narcissistic relationships because I see plenty of patients who have pelvic pain who have um overactive bladder who have intertial cystis sort of Urologic issues that are sort of on this chronic pain Continuum or um and they often um have a lot of co-morbid conditions that are like anxiety fibromyalgia uh migraines right these sort of conditions that we talk about with Central sensitization or things like that but I wonder if really one of the big root causes is there're in these narcissistic relationships and I can guarantee you I've never asked anyone specifically about narcissism I've asked is your relationship good right and most people will say yeah it's fine or you know we're okay um but most people are not divulging so you know they're very in details about their relationship when they're at the urologist um unless it's sexual so in terms of questions that I can ask or other clinicians can ask uh if we see patients that we might be concerned are having bad relationships at home that might you know trigger at least a light bulb for us to say maybe you should you know read your book or assess this I mean again you said you already are asking how you know how is your relationship I think what you don't ever want to ask the person is is your relationship good because you've already now um primed the yes versus if you ask how is your relationship um you might get more of like it's fine so you're still going to get that kind of that because a lot of folks in these relationships are into aware in fact more the people who have more physiological Fallout as you're talking about Central sensitization whether it's migraines alongside any number of Urologic issues when you see that I think the more we see that that transference of the physical pain into the physiological those are the clients who might be least likely that they're not in a healthy relationship one thing actually one thing we're working on I'm actually building it out now and we're doing some of the um original piloting of it right the initial piloting of it is developing instruments like so you can actually have this in the packet of um pre of the pre-check in before you see the patient or even as they check in like checklists that they could fill in so that then instead of them having to answer this very broad question how's your relationship or is your relationship going well or even is your relationship going badly there would be a chance to get a more quantitative indicator even look at those responses and see that when you bring it down into its component processes what they're answering fine to actually may not be healthy the other thing to ask someone is do you feel emotionally safe in your relationship do you feel like you're able to express yourself openly in your relationship that would be a different way to ask that question because when we think of safety people immediately go to well I don't think they're going to beat me up it's more of a if you say emotionally safe do you feel like you can share of yourself fully that might give people a little bit of pause and say well you know it's we don't really talk about that stuff and then you could go a step further and say why not like and but the problem is I also know that Physicians are on insurance and it's you got how long 15 minutes 12 minutes whatever tiny amount of time you get so I'm well aware of the limits that are also on on Physicians so something that can also happen instead of asking every patient the question and hoping to get an answer is providing psycho education to all of them you know so it's whether it's it's the the handouts that are available in the waiting room whether it's the stuff something that's put into their hands where it may not even be so much that you're asking them this because many won't give you an accurate answer and not because they're even being resistant or in denial they just haven't identified it as such that if they're being shown something being offered something that they might say h you know it's good I I might need to pay attention to this because I to be frank with you when a client gets to PO or patient gets to the point where they are thinking this is a disaster and my marriage is a disaster this is awful and this person mistreats me you might actually start seeing some more physiological regulation at that point because now that that awareness I think that the brain is going to process that very differently than the absolute everything's fine

Dr.

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