Do you struggle with co-dependency? Is there a narcissist in your life whose abusive tactics are eroding your joy, self-confidence, and energy? Unfortunately, issues like these are widespread in today’s world, and they affect people of all ages and genders. And given the prevalence of both narcissistic abuse and co-dependency, it’s likely that you or someone you know has encountered–or currently is wrestling with–these extremely challenging and destructive dynamics. Yet in my clinical work and research, I’ve found that it’s certainly possible to gain the awareness, strength, and courage that it takes to grow and heal.

Today, I’m joined by Dr. Sarah Schewitz who is renowned for her expertise in helping people recognize, understand, and change unhealthy patterns that get in the way of secure attachment, healthy relationships, and genuine love. Topics discussed include narcissism, gaslighting, narcissistic abuse, abuse, emotional abuse, healthy relationships, healing, secure attachment, insecure attachment, attachment styles, unresolved attachment, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, dismissive attachment, disorganized attachment, attachment trauma, avoidant attachment, trauma, NPD, narcissistic personality disorder, love, empathy, co-dependence, addiction, addictive behaviors, addictive cycles, awareness, self-awareness, self-care, self-love, inner strength, and compassion.

Please note that this episode contains sensitive material; listener discretion is advised.

Emergency Assistance Note: If you or someone you know needs immediate support, please call your emergency services. In the US, 24/7 help is available by calling “911,” “988” (Suicide and Crisis Hotline), or SAMSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). Support/informational links are in the show notes.

Connect with Dr. Carla Manly:

Website: https://www.drcarlamanly.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drcarlamanly/

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/drcarlamanly/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drcarlamanly

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carla-marie-manly-8682362b/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr_carlamanly_imperfect_love

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dr_carla_manly

Books by Dr. Carla Manly:

Joy From Fear: Create the Life of Your Dreams by Making Fear Your Friend

Date Smart: Transform Your Relationships and Love Fearlessly

Aging Joyfully: A Woman’s Guide to Optimal Health, Relationships, and Fulfillment for Her 50s and Beyond

The Joy of Imperfect Love: The Art of Creating Healthy, Securely Attached Relationships

Oracle decks by Dr. Carla Manly:

Etsy

Amazon

Connect with Dr. Sarah Schewitz:

Website: https://coupleslearn.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coupleslearn/

Twitter: https://x.com/coupleslearn/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coupleslearn

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-schewitz-psyd/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Tiedye5

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Healing From Narcissist Abuse And Co-Dependency with Expert Dr. Sarah Schewitz

How To Identify And Heal From Narcissist Abuse And Co-Dependency

Do you struggle with codependency? Is there a narcissist in your life whose abusive tactics are eroding your joy, self-confidence, and energy? Unfortunately, issues like these are widespread in today’s world, and they affect people of all ages and genders. Given the prevalence of both narcissistic abuse and codependency, it’s likely that you or someone you know has encountered or is currently wrestling with these extremely challenging and destructive dynamics.

Yet in my clinical work and research, I found that it’s certainly possible to gain the awareness, strength, and courage it takes to learn, grow, and heal. I’m joined by a psychologist who is renowned for her expertise in helping people recognize, understand, and change unhealthy patterns that get in the way of secure attachment, healthy relationships, and the genuine love they deserve.

Today, we’ll focus on this listener’s real-life question. “I never realized that I was surrounded by narcissists until my daughter started showing me TikTok videos that have blown my mind. I feel stupid for not putting the pieces together, but I grew up in an era where parents and men pretty much did as they pleased. The videos helped me see patterns in my dad, mom, sister, and friends that I passed off as normal or just plain mean behavior. There’s so much gas lighting and me-me-me behaviors that I’ve been taking as normal or okay. Now that my eyes are open, I want to stand up for myself and make changes, but I’m afraid.” With that issue as the focus of this episode, I’m Dr. Carla Marie Manly, and this is Imperfect Love.

I’m joined by a wonderful special guest, Dr. Sarah Schewitz. She is the founder of CouplesLearn.com. Dr. Sarah’s work focuses on narcissism, attachment wounds, and building healthy relationships. Welcome to the show, Dr. Sarah. It’s a joy to have you with us.

Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here.

Before we launch into the heart of this episode, could you tell our audience a little bit about what makes you you?

Sure. I feel like that’s a lot to unpack, but one of my passions as a psychologist is helping people recognize and heal attachment wounding from their past to have healthier relationships. I think that’s part of what makes me me because I experienced attachment wounding in childhood and could relate to some of what this question is about. In our greatest healing lies our greatest teaching as well. Part of what makes me me is that the things I talk about professionally, I have recovered from and gone through personally, and come out on the other side of. I’m excited to help other people do the same.

Thank you so much for your honesty and your genuineness. You and I are very much aligned already because I believe we can learn so much from books, so much from a lengthy doctoral education, and all of that. Not that you can’t be a great clinician without having gone through a lot of trauma and healed from it, but there’s something about having faced the issues that you’re working with, faced them, and worked through them. That gives you that awareness and that knowledge on a cellular level or on a soul level, which helps you get people in a nonjudgmental, empathic way. Even if you’re not saying, “Yes, I’ve been there. I get what you’re feeling,” and I believe they are feeling, “Yes, you get me.” It’s so important.

Thank you for that lovely introduction to part of what makes you, you. When we look at our question, and it’s a big one, it has a lot of levels to it. As someone who works a lot with attachment theory and believes in it, I would like to set the stage for our audience, who may be unfamiliar with attachment theory. Could you give us a nice, gentle background on it that’s easy to process?

Foundation Of Attachment Theory

Everybody grows and develops in their relationships based on how they were parented. Whether you had a mom and a dad, grandparents, or whoever were caretakers in the foster system, it doesn’t matter. Through that, you developed your attachment style. Usually, in the first eighteen months of life, our attachment style is developed. There are four different types of attachment styles, but they fall into two categories, secure and insecure.

People with secure attachments, I feel like, won the lottery. They tend to have an easy time in relationships. For the most part, they tend to find it easy to trust people. They’re pretty optimistic about how relationships will go. They are pretty good at setting boundaries and respecting boundaries. Overall, relationships seem like they’re going to be a pretty good time, and they are a pretty good time for people with secure attachment.

Folks with insecure attachment, which could either fall under anxious, avoidant, or a combination called disorganized attachment, have a harder time. They didn’t get everything they needed in childhood. Even if their caretakers had the best of intentions, they weren’t able to meet all the attachment needs that are necessary to form a secure attachment. They have different challenges in relationships. They might have challenges setting boundaries.

They might have challenges respecting boundaries, communicating their wants and needs, and maybe even recognizing their wants and needs. They may have worthiness wounds where they feel like they aren’t worthy of having their wants and needs met. All kinds of little challenges can bubble up, and big challenges can bubble up from having an insecure attachment style.

Thank you for that foundation. As a believer in attachment theory, and I work and write books from that perspective, it is so important to realize that it’s not your fault. It’s no use blaming parents or caregivers. It’s a big boost to understand it, to say, “This is what happened to me. Mom and Dad were both preoccupied with making money, so they weren’t showing up and paying attention to me. I am constantly looking for someone to pay attention to me. If somebody does pay attention to me, sometimes it’s scary,” whatever the dynamic might be. “Mom and Dad, or Mom or Dad, were alcoholics or both highly critical, so I never felt safe. I could never trust.”

Interestingly, you brought up a beautiful part about secure attachment. The securely attached people are not perfect. They have issues like everyone else, but they tend to gravitate toward secure partners. You have a secure and secure and things go well. It doesn’t mean a secure person can’t end up with someone who is in the insecure realm. What’s interesting is that you brought up the piece of trust. They tend to trust. I appreciate that because their radar for trust is based upon the trust they learned early in childhood. They tend to not get in sucked into relationships where people are untrustworthy.

It can happen to all of us. We can be gamed or manipulated by somebody good at it, but they tend to have a better radar for it because they grew up knowing the difference between someone strong, true, and genuine, and knowing someone who’s manipulating them. For our audience who might be thinking, “I must be broken because I’m the one who gets manipulated,” it’s not your fault. It’s how you were raised. It’s how you were programmed. Thank you for setting the stage there. That’s so beautiful.

Understanding Codependency: Patterns, Origins, & Nervous System Roots

Now, let’s get a definition of codependency, and then we’ll do narcissistic abuse. Codependency had its earliest roots in AA, where it was seen as being codependent within a relationship where some form of addiction was taking place, but it has expanded. We now use it for all relationship dynamic descriptors. Could you please explain how you’re going to use it today so that we are staying within that framework?

I’m going to use it loosely because there’s no clinical definition for codependency that’s like, “These are the differentiating factors. This is how we diagnose this.” It’s not an official diagnosis, but it is a pattern of behavior that looks similar amongst a lot of individuals. Some of the challenges that we see in folks who struggle with codependency are, I’ve brought up the word boundaries three times already in this conversation, probably because I have codependency on my mind, a hard time setting boundaries, respecting boundaries, understanding what their boundaries even are.

They tend to overgive. A lot of times, they feel resentful as a result. They may not even realize they feel resentful until they aren’t getting back what they unconsciously expect they should be getting back in return. Suddenly, they’re irritable and snippy. They may not even have insight into why, unless they’re doing some good work around this. They may feel resentful, irritable, or that things are unequal in their relationship. Instead of talking about it or leaving, if they’ve talked about it ad nauseam, and it’s not working, they continually try to change their partner and fix their partner. A lot of times, they end up dating folks who are emotionally immature and don’t necessarily have the capability to look within and reflect on themselves. The codependence is doing that work for them, and that emotional work for them.

There are two different types of codependency. You talked about how this originated in AA a long time ago. The kind of prototypical codependent from the AA days was someone who was a little bit more on the helpless side. They might have been dependent on their partner and meek in a way, not necessarily asserting their needs and not necessarily arguing or pushing back, but enabling their partner to do what they want without a ton of pushback. That would be what we call a more passive codependent.

A more active codependent is someone who tends to be pretty confident, as opposed to the more passive codependent, who may lack some confidence in their abilities and skills and lack the confidence to speak up. Active codependents will speak up. They will push back, they will argue, they will tell you how they feel, and they’re not afraid to do that. It’s still in a protesting, controlling way, rather than saying, “Look, this is my boundary. These are my needs. If that’s not going to work for you, we’ve got to either work it out or move on.” They’ll continue to protest and continue to stay in the argument and continue to try to change their partner very actively, versus passively sitting there and taking what comes to them. Those are the two versions of codependency.

I think that’s all excellent for creating a foundation and helping us understand. To our audience, if you’re seeing yourself in both of these styles or one of these styles, having been in one, maybe moving to another, or healing from these, it’ll be a nice foundation. I have a question for you that maybe our audience is asking themselves. Why the over-giving? That’s a critical part of the codependent. Why do they tend to overgive?

This brings us back to attachment theory. They were conditioned to do so in childhood. It kept them safe in some way, shape, or form. We can’t talk about any relationship dynamics or attachment dynamics without also talking about your nervous system and the impact it has on your behavior. Our nervous system is a primitive system in our body that’s meant to keep us safe. It keeps us safe by sensing danger and responding to the danger, either by fighting, fleeing, fawning, which is acting in a loving way to get somebody to do what you want, avoiding getting hurt by that person, or shutting down. Your options with your nervous system are fight, flight, fawn, shut down, or a combination of all those, which would be freeze.

Our nervous system’s primary and only job in this world is to keep us safe. Sense danger. Go into one of those responses to deal with the danger. Codependency is often a fawn response, an overdeveloped fawn response, or a shut-down response. That’s more of the passive codependent, where you’re shutting down, feeling helpless to do anything about your circumstances. Your nervous system is collapsing in that way to keep you safe because it senses danger, but doesn’t think there’s anything it can do to change the danger. Therefore, it helps you disconnect from your experience so that it doesn’t hurt as much. It’s not as painful.

It’s a very beautiful and compassionate way of outlining it because you’re right, our nervous system is a primitive and essential part of who we are. We learn these behaviors early on in our lives, depending on what’s going on with us. That’s why this listener’s question is especially poignant because it was normal for her. If you don’t resonate or understand the word ‘fawn,’ sometimes you hear it ‘appease,’ but it’s the same response. You see it in animal behavior. Often, a dog who is frightened or scared might do a fawning or appeasing type of behavior, like, “Don’t kick me, don’t yell at me, don’t hurt me.” You’re right, it’s so common.

If you grew up in a home environment where it was scary and you couldn’t fight, you’re little, you can’t flee, you have nowhere else to go. It doesn’t do much good to freeze because the people are going to make you come out. Even if you retreat to your bedroom or a corner, those caregivers are going to pull you back in somehow. Often, it is the parasympathetic nervous system part, which is either the freeze or appease, that brings you in.

Narcissism & Narcissistic Abuse: From Love Bombing To Devaluation

As you do these kinds of behavior that you’re learning, “If I can only make everyone happy, if I only can stay invisible, if I can only do and do and do,” and we can start moving into narcissistic abuse now, it’s like candy for the narcissist. Let’s move into that piece now that we’ve set this. You’ve created this beautiful foundation. Please explain narcissism and then narcissistic abuse so that our audience can understand your paradigm.

Narcissistic personality disorder is a diagnosable diagnosis in the DSM-5. It’s a pattern of behaviors where essentially somebody centers themselves most of the time. It’s very much all about them. They lack empathy for other people’s experiences, meaning it’s hard for them to care about what other people are going through or even put themselves in somebody else’s shoes. Often, narcissistic relationships or a relationship with a narcissist can be dramatic and erratic. Narcissism is part of a cluster of personality disorders that’s called the dramatic and erratic personality disorders.

There are a lot of ups and downs. The beginning might feel like a complete fairy tale. This is the love bombing stage where they’re grooming you to think that they’re this wonderful, loving, kind, and attuned person who’s going to give you the world and make your dreams come true. Somebody who has attachment wounding, which somebody with codependency would have attachment wounding from the past, often feels inadequate deep down. This feels like water in a dry desert. It’s feeding this part of you that’s so malnourished and so underdeveloped. It can feel almost unbelievable. This person, who is so great, thinks I’m all this and thinks that I’m worthy of all this love, attention, and affection. It can feel a little unsettling.

That’s something you should listen to if it’s happening and it feels a little unsettling. It’s feeding this dry desert part of us, we often tend to ignore that feeling and move forward anyway. This is where, as you said earlier, somebody with a secure attachment might tune into that feeling a little bit more and go, “Something feels off here. I’m going to trust my intuition and move on.” Somebody who wasn’t allowed to trust their intuition or taught to trust their intuition as a kid because they had to cater to everyone else, like this person who wrote in, they don’t have that felt sense of, “What is true internally for me is actually true. I can trust that.”

I’ve noticed, too, that often, even if they do have the felt sense, “There’s a red flag. Something is off. This is too good to be true.” The narcissists’ behaviors aren’t adding up. They’re saying one thing and doing another. Often, it hearkens back to childhood, where they had to learn to ignore all of those inconsistencies and red flags because life was full of them. Life was nothing but red flags and inconsistencies. To them, it’s normal, and they learn to disregard them because you can’t stand up to these big people when you’re little and they’re doing things. Even if you do ask a question, you’re likely to get squashed down for calling out something that’s inconsistent or a red flag.

They almost learn to disregard, even when that voice is clawing its way up, saying, “Listen.” The other part of them is saying, “No, that didn’t get me anywhere in the past.” It is that interesting, almost balance beam where you hear it, but you don’t want to step off the balance beam and into what the monsters that might be underneath it. That can be even more difficult until you’re in the relationship. Please continue.

I do want to add, for our audience, what we’re talking about here, NPD, narcissistic personality disorder, as Sarah said, is a diagnosable clinical disorder. It’s in the DSM-5. Many people use the term narcissistic to mean anyone and anything, any behavior that is not suiting their needs or that seems selfish or self-absorbed. We are talking about the narcissistic spectrum. On one end, there is a normal amount of narcissistic tendencies that we all have, then you get toward the middle, and it gets more pronounced. You go to the other end of the continuum, and that is where you have narcissistic personality disorder. That’s what we’re focusing on. I just wanted to clarify that. Let’s move in to narcissistic abuse.

It starts with love bombing. As I’ve already described, it’s a very fairytale experience. Too good to be true. You’re being showered with all kinds of love, affection, gifts, and promises for the future. Things tend to move pretty quickly in this phase. I find, a lot of times, my clients during this stage will say, “He wanted to get married and proposed, and I thought things were great. I figured this is fast, but why not? It’s awesome. It’s great.”

This momentum gets you going and maybe gets you committing to things that are against your better judgment, but you do it anyway. At that point, once the love bombing has reeled you in to the point where you’re committed in some way, shape, or form, then the devaluing starts. Devaluing can be subtle, and it can happen so incrementally that sometimes you don’t even notice it’s happening. What it does is break down your self-esteem and you as a human. They might start criticizing you. The things that they loved about you before, they might start disliking.

Also, some of this happens in any relationship. We go through romantic love, and then we get into a power struggle, which is another stage of a relationship. We stop looking at our partner through rose colored glasses. I want to acknowledge that that’s going to happen in any relationship, but the extremes with which it happens in this type of relationship are stark. It’s very different.

The Devaluation Trap: How Narcissists Erode Your Identity & Isolate You

Let’s pause there because that is a very important piece that you’re talking about devaluing and criticism. In a healthy relationship, it doesn’t look like devaluing and criticism. It would look more like, “I have a difference of opinion,” “I’m feeling hurt,” or “This isn’t working for me. Can we try this?” which can be power struggling in a way because people are creating a home together. They’re creating a life together, and we all have a tendency to want it to be the way that we’re used to, but a relationship requires us to create this joint decision-making, this joint emotional field, and this joint area of respect. The difference with the narcissist is the predominant push to “I want it my way.”

“You must abandon yourself to make me happy.” That is the difference.

Continue, please.

In that stage, they might start to alienate you from friends and family, either by asking you to move away from them, or talking about how they don’t like them, or they feel judged by them. It can make a lot of sense, honestly. This is like the frog that’s in slightly warmer water for longer and longer, and then suddenly, it’s boiling, and it doesn’t even realize it’s being boiled. That’s how narcissistic abuse can show up as well. It all makes sense.

You can understand where they’re coming from, and you can see that you can be stubborn in this way. It makes sense that they want you to work on yourself a little bit. Over time, you start to get more and more alienated from the people who love and care about you. You start to feel less and less like yourself. You start to feel less confident and less worthy of love. Often, they’ll say things like, “Who would want you?” or “Nobody else is going to put up with this,” things that make you feel less than and inadequate.

Isolation, Indoctrination, & The Loss of Self

I want to focus for a minute on the part where you’re talking about that tendency to alienate, because that is such a big piece. It’s almost like a spider with this web, and they’re taking away anyone who can give you words of wisdom and anyone who can give support. I call it having a robot in a closet. They want that robot in the closet to pull out. That’s what I mean.

I’m agreeing with you in you say they want you to lose your sense of self because they want you to be more like this thing that they can tuck away whenever they need it or don’t need it, pull it out when they need it, and give it attention if they want to shove it back in the closet. This is a real human being with feelings, thoughts, family, and friends. Yet, as you said so eloquently, it’s like the frog in boiling water, and the water gets warmer imperceptibly so. All of a sudden, it’s boiling. It’s like, “I’m dying.” That is one of the specialties, unfortunately, of the narcissist.

Like this person who wrote in said she didn’t even recognize what was going on, and her daughter is sending TikTok. I think TikTok has been so illuminating for so many people about how indoctrinated they’ve been in their dysfunctional family dynamics. A tactic of dysfunctional family systems, as well as narcissistic relationships, is that you’re made to feel like blood is thicker than water, stick with family at all costs, or, in this case, stick with my partner at all costs.

Nobody is going to be there for you like they are. It makes you not question. It’s set up so that you don’t question the terrible or the uncomfortable things that are happening. Very often, people who get in relationships like this had some element of that in childhood, some element of a dysfunctional family system, that maybe it was that children should be seen and not heard. They were constantly dismissed and shut down, maybe not abused in any way, but they were taught that your voice doesn’t matter here, and what you think and feel isn’t important. It’s not reality. You might think this is wrong, but the adults in your life are telling you, “It’s fine. You’re fine,” so you turn off your intuition. You stop listening to it. That’s what happens in these relationships in the devaluing stage.

Gaslighting, Projection, & The Fear of Exposure

Especially when they come to therapy, they’re so hesitant about their reality. “Am I crazy? Am I the one who’s off here? He says it’s me. He says I’m mean, controlling, and critical, but I’m not. I can’t find it.” Another one of the narcissist’s specialties is projection. They don’t want to look at anything going on inside them. They don’t want to do the inner work. It’s too inconvenient. It’s too unimportant. They want to project any of their issues onto other people. Even to have that level of awareness can be very difficult for them.

It’s threatening to their ego. Narcissism is this fear that they are inadequate or this deep knowledge that they are inadequate. Anything that gets too close to uncovering that, even the most minor amount of feedback about behavior that was hurtful or inappropriate in any way, hits too close to home. That would get deeply defended. It will get spit right back at you. “You were inappropriate,” whatever it was projected right back on you.

Attachment Styles & Narcissism

The stop criticizing me mantra for bringing up something hurtful is a very common dynamic. I know I’m taking us away from narcissistic abuse for a moment, but let’s segue back to attachment styles, so we’re understanding what’s happening for the person who’s being victimized. I don’t use that word lightly because for someone who’s saying, “I’m not a victim,” I’m talking about the fact that there is a perpetrator, and there’s the person who’s the object of the perpetrator.

That person is a victim. They aren’t doing something wrong. It’s the state of having somebody go after you, and what that signals to the nervous system. Attachment style for the person who is narcissistic, what do you see? I have tended to see a lot of a mixture of the person who’s very dismissive, avoidant, anxious, preoccupied, and then a lot of the disorganized type. What is your clinical experience?

More avoidant. If you look at narcissism and codependency on a spectrum, we all fall somewhere on that spectrum. Narcissists are folks who are much more self-oriented. They think about their own needs. Codependents are much more other-oriented. They think about others’ needs before their own. If we look at this from an attachment spectrum as well, avoidant attachment tends to think more about their own needs. Anxious attachment tends to think more about other people’s needs and abandons themselves in favor of keeping the connection.

You will see more narcissists on the avoidant end of the spectrum, but very often, narcissistic personality disorder is the result of abuse in childhood or trauma in childhood, and that produces disorganized attachment, which is a combination of anxious and avoidant. That’s exactly right that you’ll see that combination a lot of the time because a personality disorder is a pretty severe impairment and diagnosis. To get to the point where you have a personality disorder, it’s usually a pretty severe experience in childhood.

The piece that gives me a great deal of compassion and empathy for certain narcissists, not all of them, I try and have compassion and empathy for everyone, but more for the ones who are deeply wounded, where there is that very anxious child in there. Maybe there was a dad who was an alcoholic and a mom who was maybe otherwise engaged, too many kids, trying to please the dad, or trying to make a home, or work. That little child that is inside, that narcissist, particularly the wounded narcissist, is often anxious. As you were saying, it comes out in that disorganized, unresolved style, but that little anxious child is inside. They’re screaming help, but they make it all about them. That’s their key coping strategy.

I want to call out that even though you can see the trauma from which this came, it does not mean it’s an excuse for the behavior, or that you should be trying to find empathy and tolerance if you’re being abused. Almost every abuser has had some traumatic experience. That’s how they got the way they are, but that doesn’t mean you need to put up with it, and it doesn’t mean you need to stay.

Compassion Vs. Tolerating Abuse

They’re almost two distinct realms, one having the understanding, the empathy, and possibly some compassion. Never in any situation, no matter how much empathy and compassion, do we tolerate abuse, and that is a big part of the victim’s growth curve in realizing I’m a good person. This is the victim talking, doing their work, so they can see I’m a good person, I’m worthy, I can see this and maybe feel bad for this person, but this is not okay. If they want to stay in the relationship, which is often hard because I believe I’ve seen narcissists change, but it’s very rare. They have to want to do the work. Would you agree?

Yes, I think the reason most of the time, if you see a change in somebody with true NPD, is because it benefits them in some way, not because they’re developing empathy or changing. I think that sometimes, complex trauma gets misdiagnosed as personality disorders. Once you address the trauma and heal it, you see change, but I don’t think those people had NPD. Probably, they had complex trauma, were highly defended, and were in a constant state of nervous system dysregulation. PD is one of the only other, aside from autism, ADHD, and intellectual disabilities, things that are differences in how your brain functions. They are constant, and they’re not going to biologically change.

They’re pervasive disorders. That’s a category, and narcissism is the only other pervasive disorder. It’s along those lines of things that aren’t going to change. You’re neurodiverse. You are how you are, you can adapt, and you can find ways to make it work for you and those around you, but ultimately, it’s how your brain is set up.

I like this perspective. I’ve heard different perspectives. I like this as an interesting perspective on perhaps the brain’s neuroplasticity. From your mindset, what you see is that it’s so firmly entrenched. No matter the work, their brain, their neuroplasticity, is not going to allow them to change. I’m the eternal optimist. That’s where I come from. I’ve been that way since childhood. It persists, talking about persistent things.

Let’s look at the point where somebody is questioning, “Am I a victim of narcissistic abuse?” What would you say to them? What are some coping strategies, some tactics, for how to deal with the person where there’s narcissistic abuse, because it can get pretty intense? They can be an array of bullets, sometimes hitting the other person. What would you have to say about someone who’s wondering, “What are some tips? What are some coping strategies?”

Understanding The Nervous System & Somatic Regulation

There’s a lot I want to say here. One thing is it’s so helpful to learn about your nervous system, how it functions, and how it’s trying to protect you, but ways that it might be misguided, ways that you might be carrying experiences from childhood into current day. Those things helped you stay attached to your caretakers and helped you stay alive in childhood, but they may be hurting you in adulthood. It’s because your nervous system hasn’t gotten the message that you can do something about it. You’re safe. You have passed through the danger. Learning about how to get into a more regulated nervous system state from which you can access intuition, trust, self-understanding, and self-reflection is such a key component.

The first thing is understanding Polyvagal Theory. You can do a Google search on it, look it up on any platform, and learn what the different nervous system states are, what I am in primarily, and what my home-based nervous system state is. From there, I would engage in somatic practices, which are body-based practices to help you learn to soothe your nervous system. You can make good, solid decisions if you are in a regulated state and if you are connected to your intuition. It’s just getting you back there.

This is another good place to pause. For our audience, Polyvagal Theory, in short, we can look at it as our nervous system, often for all of us. It goes from a place of regulation to dysregulation. In a healthier individual, they’re in regulation more often than not. If they get dysregulated, upset, angry, or off-balance, they have the tools to bring themselves back to a more grounded place. What can you do? What are some takeaways? You can learn breathing practices. You can meditate. You can journal. You can go for a five-minute walk, a ten-minute walk, or an hour walk. You can do some yoga. You can lift some weights, whatever it is that helps you come back to your center.

One of the things that won’t work, I think, Sarah, you’ll agree with this, is trying to talk it out with a narcissistic abuser when they’re in full mode. That one is surefire to make them more dysregulated and make you more dysregulated. Instead of doing that, learn to call a timeout and not engage. It doesn’t mean you’re accepting. It means you’re having a boundary. We’ll talk more about boundaries in a minute, but having a boundary where you say, “No, I’m not having this conversation. This isn’t healthy for me.” What do you think of that, Sarah?

I think those are great strategies. On a larger scale, it’s getting help from whoever, a friend, a therapist, a coach, or somebody that can help you see the truth about what’s happening and, in a loving way, guide you into your truth and your self-knowledge. You’re trusting yourself and your intuition again. The way that I often work with clients like this is through somatic practices and through a type of therapy that helps you reprocess past attachment traumas that are keeping you stuck in the current day. Finding a good therapist is always an essential factor to healing from narcissistic abuse and learning how to deal with a relationship where you’re going through this.

Also, getting to the roots of the codependency. Again, no blame, no shame, but starting to look at it to realize, “Why do I do what I do? Why am I doing this? If I want to shift the patterns, that also means shifting me and the way I engage,” which the beauty of neuroplasticity is that we can change. Whether you’re 5, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, however old you are, your brain has the power to change with work. I agree with you on getting support. Sometimes, friends aren’t objective enough. Sometimes, they are. Sometimes, we have wise soul friends who can help us and listen to us.

Domestic violence support groups are often free and incredibly helpful. Having a pastor, a mentor, a psychotherapist, a women’s support group, or any gender support group where you can start detangling. I have a sense that the listener who wrote in is probably a little older, not 18, 30, or 40, but it sounds as if getting some perspective and starting to understand, “What I’ve been subjected to isn’t healthy for me.”

She has the opportunity to create the awareness, the understanding, and the strength that will help her start setting boundaries, and it won’t be easy. Change is never easy. People push back, especially narcissists. They love to push back because they don’t like the change in the status quo. That’s a big part to be aware of, that your world won’t look the same. There will be upheaval, but it doesn’t mean that you need to withstand the abuse as things start to shift. What do you think of that whole realm right there?

Boundary Setting & Pushback Dynamics

I think that’s true. One thing to know about when you start setting boundaries and holding boundaries is that just because somebody’s pushing back on them doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be setting them or holding them. A lot of times, when we’re learning boundaries for the first time, it can feel terrifying to say no or to say, “I don’t like that.” Especially if you get pushed back, which you’re going to if you’re in a relationship like we’ve been talking about, don’t give up. Don’t make that mean you’re doing something wrong. It means that the person who’s been benefiting from your lack of boundaries is upset about it.

I don’t know if you’ve seen this, where the narcissist will often employ tactics where they’re saying they’re setting a boundary, but they’re stonewalling. They’ll say their piece, they’ll download, they’ll vomit, and then when it comes your turn to offer your opinion, they’ll say, “No. I have a boundary around this. Don’t cross this boundary,” when it’s not a boundary. It’s a rule that creates inequity.

It’s abuse.

Perfectly said. Sarah, where can our audience find you?

I have a website, CouplesLearn.com, and if you’re on social media, Instagram is the same, @CouplesLearn.

I understand you also offer some courses.

We do. There are two courses that I think would be relevant to this conversation. One is a short one-hour webinar that gives you a lot more info about codependency. It’s called Codependency 101. The other is a longer, multi-week course called Getting to Secure Attachment. Most folks who are in relationships like this have an insecure attachment, and one of the ways to heal is to learn how to have a secure attachment. That can be changed, by the way, to give people hope out there. You’re not stuck with your attachment style. That course is to help folks learn what a securely attached relationship looks and feels like and how I embody secure attachment within myself and in my relationship.

Thank you for affirming that secure attachment surely can be earned. In my fourth book, The Joy of Imperfect Love, which is based on attachment theory, I talked about it in there that that’s one of the beauties of doing this work. We can earn no matter what type of insecure attachment you have. It’s a continuum. You can do the work to create that internal world of secure attachment. That’s the beauty of being human. It’s that we can often change if we put the effort behind it. Thank you so much for being with us. It’s been such a delight, and thank you to our audience for joining us as always. It’s a privilege and a joy. This is Imperfect Love.

Important Links

• Couples Learn
• Dr. Sarah Schewitz on LinkedIn
• @CouplesLearn on Instagram
• Codependency 101
• Getting to Secure Attachment
• The Joy of Imperfect Love
• Relationship Quizzes – Couples Learn
• Online Courses – Couples Learn
• NAMI HelpLine
• National Domestic Violence Hotline
• Building Hope for Treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorder
• Dr. Carla Manly’s Website
• Dr. Carla Manly on Instagram
• Dr. Carla Manly on Twitter
• Dr. Carla Manly on Facebook
• Dr. Carla Manly on LinkedIn
• Dr. Carla Manly on YouTube
• Dr. Carla Manly on TikTok

About Dr. Sarah Schewitz

Dr. Sarah Schewitz is a licensed psychologist and founder of the acclaimed online psychology practice, Couples Learn. Named as one of the top 3 online couples counseling services by Forbes Health, Couples Learn is dedicated to breaking generational trauma patterns by helping clients heal their attachment wounds and have healthier relationships. Dr. Sarah and Couples Learn have been featured on CNN, The Washington Post, Women’s Health, Bravo TV, Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown Podcast, and more.