L.O.G. 149 The Trouble With Narcissists

Hello and welcome to the video version of The Human Behavior Podcast. I'm Brian Marren, the host and creator of the show. As always, I will be joined by human behavior expert, Mr. Greg Williams, who the show is affectionately named after. On the show, we discuss different topics through the lenses of what we call human behavior pattern recognition analysis. If you'd like to find out more about what that is, please check the links in the episode details and go to our website to learn more. Please don't forget to follow us on social media; the links are also in the episode details. And hit the like and subscribe button to help support our work. Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you enjoy the show.

All right, we got the recording in progress warning from Zoom, which means we are ready to go. Greg, we're live. We are live, going into this holiday break. Alana, first, thank you so much for coming on. Greg and I are excited to have you on the show.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

You've got an interesting perspective, an interesting background, and an interesting role that you've assumed and taken the ball and running with, based on your life experiences. I'll let you describe that here in a second, but just to our listeners, this is a little bit different type of guest that we've ever had on before. Since we're always talking about behavior, that's what you're going to be talking about. You take it from a different perspective, which is good. I want to have a different perspective on the show, one, being a female. We've had other female guests before, but the women who listen to our show, it's a lot smaller than the amount of men who listen to the show. However, the women who do listen to our show are much better at reaching out and saying, "Hey, I really like this," or, "Hey, I love hearing you guys talk about that." They brought up different relationship stuff before, which is nowhere near my area of expertise.

But we deal in predictive analysis. So what we'd like to pick up from you today is some concepts, maybe some indicators, some things so that I'm sitting here listening to this podcast going, "Holy crap, Alana's talking about one of my buddies here. Maybe I can get involved here or maybe there's something I need to know." With that, we'll just go ahead and jump in and talk about what you do. So I'm going to let you describe, tell me what you do. And where that came from. It's kind of open-ended, so I'll let you form it because you're going to do a better job than me trying to summarize everything I've learned about you from this research and our phone call.

All right. So I am a certified high-conflict divorce and child custody consultant. Now, that's a lot of words. So what I do is I support people in high-conflict legal battles. It's typically people that are battling narcissists. When you're battling a narcissist in a legal concept, it's very difficult because they don't want to negotiate or collaborate with you because they want to continue to control you. When you leave the relationship, they try to control you through your children. So it's a very contentious battle. They like to run up your legal fees; we call that legal abuse. They don't want to pay you spousal support if you're someone that wasn't working during the marriage; we call that financial abuse. So there's all these things you go through. We categorize it as post-separation abuse when you're in the process of divorcing a narcissist.

Okay, that's great. This is exactly why I threw to you because it was way better than I could have done.

Brian, what I want to do is throw in, just for anybody that's listening, a psychological definition. There's a whole bunch of different clinical definitions of narcissism and historical perspective. The idea here is what we're talking about is somebody that's selfish, has an aggrandized sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy and sympathy, which we can talk about in a moment, the constant need for admiration.

Yeah, exactly.

The idea, Brian, is we, both Brian and I, shared...

Greg, I think you were just slightly describing yourself there. Do I need...?

No, but what I wanted to showcase here is that Brian and I aren't subject matter experts from the female point of view. But I will tell you that we were involved in a corporate situation surrounded by narcissists, like a vampire movie, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting one. The lack of perspective, the lack of being able to put yourself in another person's shoes or understand where their feelings are coming from. So we constantly talk about that past relationship as a contentious divorce. What I love as well is, based on our experience in hostage negotiation or kinetic combat, high-conflict personality types, we completely get that as well. The extreme behavior swings, intense emotions, all or nothing, all in all the time. I mean, we're talking about all our friends right here.

The preoccupation with...

Absolutely, that anything that has happened is not their fault. It's constantly putting the blame on somebody else. So Brian, I wanted to make sure that we understood that your perspective doesn't have to just be from a child custody battle. It can be from a relationship with your parents; it can be from a relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend. You just happen to specialize in those things that lead to litigants that are contemplating or involved in a divorce. Is that correct?

That's correct. Yes.

Yeah, the holiday season. So just by timing, this kind of worked out to be a great one for folks with those family members, relationships, this, that, anything. How did you get in this line of work, Alana?

So, unfortunately for me, I was married to a narcissist, and when I say narcissist, it was someone with narcissistic personality disorder, actually shortened down to NPD, for 16 years. Once I went into that divorce process, I went into the post-separation abuse phase. My ex-husband took me to court for child custody of my younger two children because my daughter refused to spend time with him. So he cited parental alienation claims, which is very typical of a narcissist when they take you to court for child custody. They cite parental alienation, and that's how my battle began.

First of all, 16 years. You have to understand that if you're in anything for 16 years, you lose the ability to see the situation you're in. You're constantly aware of this situation, but you get what I'm trying to say. NPD, remember, NPD is a mental disorder. When it's a personality disorder, it's something that a doctor, a psychologist, a psychopathist comes in and says, "This is what you have," based on your behavior, your cognition, your experiences. So that's telling, and you were there for 16 years.

Yes.

What was the, I need to know, what was the line where it was, "This is it. We've got to go"?

He physically assaulted my 19-year-old son, and I said, "Okay, we've escalated to physical abuse. It's not just me taking the mental hits; you're actually attacking my son, and I've got to protect my kids and get out."

Wow. That's so smart. That's, that's amazing that you did that because, like Greg said, over time, the longer that goes on, the longer you endure, the longer you get used to it, the less likely you are to get out of those situations. Which is, a lot of people who don't understand that stuff, we've never seen it. Greg and I have experienced it in different areas. I'm trying to actually avoid in this conversation some personal stuff because people who will listen to it will know who I'm talking about, and I don't want to do that. But the idea is, and Alana will charge you because, "Well, that wasn't specific." I was like, "Okay, okay, all right. How do I get her on the podcast without having to charge me?" Because there's no podcast.

[Laughter]

That was my voice; it said, "It's now recording." No, but to get out of that is very difficult. A lot of guys, a lot of men, don't realize, but people who aren't narcissists, who are just normal, they see relationship things happen, and people argue, because arguing is normal in a relationship. There's a difference in arguing and abuse. Psychological and emotional abuse is just as bad, if not worse, sometimes than physical abuse. It's all bad, but people don't understand how powerful and controlling of a factor that is. Then again, how long it takes to wind that back and understand from the victim's perspective, from your perspective, to go through and fix that, almost to go back and recognize and then go, "Holy crap, this started way back here. I didn't even know I was being sort of groomed this entire time."

Let me throw that too, Brian. The grooming, grooming is very important. Alana, one of the things that I know from running into king-sized narcissists, we happen to run into them. When lives are measured in nanoseconds and people are dying in combat, everybody that's of a narcissistic personality disorder takes one step forward, you can see it almost immediately on the battle space. The problem is they're good-looking, they got a lot of charisma, they're charming, they're very confident, and they can talk like nobody else in the world and get people to believe their side of almost any story. That's why sometimes narcissists go on to, you have a certain type of narcissist that can be a serial killer or... So explain how, because it's easy to have 16 years go by and all of a sudden have to have a cataclysmic event like that. But how did you get roped in? I bet things were nice. What were all those, looking back now?

Right, right. Everything you saw from day one. Yes, yes. And it wasn't until I left the relationship and I started looking at day one that I saw that grooming process that you're referring to. Yes, so we actually call it the narcissistic abuse cycle, and the very first phase of that is love bombing. So that's when the narcissist gives you unlimited attention. They shower you with gifts. They elevate you onto this pedestal, and they become everything you've ever wanted in a partner. Now, how do they know what you want in a partner? They collect information from you in the first stages of dating, on things that you want in your partner. So they're constantly questioning you, and you're just thinking that you're both getting to know one another. But if you really look at the questioning, you're doing more answering than you're asking questions, and the narcissist is just sitting there collecting information. So from my perspective, he was my soulmate. He liked the same type of music I liked. He liked the same movies. He was perfect. And I said, "I will never meet anyone this perfect than this guy right here." Our first date, I knew then, I said, "I'm going to marry this man," and I ended up marrying him.

Psychological manipulation from hello. So this is how we would use some terms to almost describe some of that, because Greg brought up the term "psychological manipulation," and that's what he was doing. He had a high level of organization. So in order to do this stuff, you have to be highly organized. You can't be sloppy. But it's not often what people think, like he's not sitting at home making charts and graphs and writing things out. It's naturally ingrained because of whatever happened to him growing up, and however he was treated or whatever environment and biological reasons there were. He had to learn how to do that, and he learned over time that that was an effective way to get what he wanted out of people.

Correct.

And so you'll see that. So we see that in all kinds of different areas that we've been in. So when people think, it's not like they're taking notes on their phone to everything you're saying. They're taking mental notes. What we look at is almost like you say, "Does this pass the smell test?" Like you said, you went on that first date, you happen to have everything in common, and "We like the same stuff." Like me, I'm like, "Okay, sounds a little too good to be true." But that shows the type of person you are, for one, because that means you're just like my wife, you want to see the good in people.

Yes.

So guess what? We see what we want to see. We believe what we want to believe. We hear what we want to hear. So now you've built this up internally. This is normal human behavior. This is what a good person does. They go, "Okay, oh my God, this is great. You're everything that I've done, everything I want. It's all right here." Because you're open and honest, it's very easy for that person who isn't to mirror what you need or what you want. There's no, it's like the people, "Oh, we never get in arguments." Like, that's not good, man. People are supposed to...

My ex actually said that. He said that early on. I was like, "Hey, I want to learn how to communicate so that when we have an argument, we're communicating effectively." He said, "We will never get into an argument."

Oh, there you go.

Let me give you a perspective that you know well, and you're a subject matter expert. So I'll give you the perspective from 28 years of law enforcement dealing with violent domestic abuse. Generally, a female in this type of relationship, females are much quicker on the get than a male in the same situation. So I'll give you just an example that was carried over time and time again. The female would close the accounts, change the locks on the door, already be at the Ronald McDonald House, have been lifted to the aid of a lawyer, told all her friends about the things, had the bags packed. The guy is going, "Wait a minute, we're fighting, you're leaving me, what's going on?"

That thing is normal. What you're talking about is he's choreographing the relationship. He's planning and orchestrating it. It seems like the perfect word for it. How did he keep you, because I guarantee there were times where you're like, "This is going, we've got to stop this." How did he keep bringing you back? I think that's important. Brian, I think one of the things that Alana, what you bring is somebody out there that's listening to our podcast is going, "Wow, this could be me." How, what were the depths of the manipulation that he was willing to go to?

So taking me through this cycle. So after the love bombing, it dies out. You go into devalue, which is where they start to subtly put you down. But you realize it, but you don't realize it. They call it cognitive dissonance because you're like, "Hey, he was a great guy in the beginning. He's not really putting me down. He didn't mean that." So you're trying to rationalize in your mind what you're going through. Then they get to the discard, where they found another supply, or they just want to get rid of you. Then the hoover stage comes in, like a Hoover vacuum, they try to suck you back into the relationship, where they start the love bombing stage all over again. So you see that person that you initially fell in love with that you hadn't seen in months or years at that point. You just keep going through the cycle.

Yeah, and then again, it's so easy, I still hear people, "How do you get wrapped up in that? How do you not know?" It's like, man, when it's right in front of you, you never see it. That's the hardest thing to do, and you don't even see your own behavior sometimes because it's about adaptation, change blindness. It slowly settles, changes over time. Your brain does not notice. You're not primed. It looks for threats that are, "Oh my God, it's the grizzly bear, I need to run." So you don't look for those little things, a little thing here and there, a little thing here and there. Next thing you know, it's 10 years later or 15 years later, and then you've gone, "What the hell just happened?"

Exactly.

That's where we come in because that happens. That's the same thing that happens with a school shooter. That's the same thing that happens with the insider threat, the terrorist, the insurgent. It's the same behavior that builds over time. So what we specialize in is all that stuff. Here are some indicators you need to look for, for what we call incongruence. I don't know what it's going to be. Maybe there's incongruent behavior here because the guy's a narcissist, and he's trying to manipulate me, or they're cheating on me, or they're cheating on their taxes. I don't know what you're going to find. We look for incongruence. Do you have any examples of anywhere in that cycle of what you would maybe consider, because I know that's our term I'm throwing on you, maybe you don't use that?

I call it red flags.

Red flags. That's a common term. So what are some of those that you've seen from your experience?

So the very first red flag that I missed was he pushed my boundaries. He's six years younger than me. So one of the first things I said to him in the beginning was, "I'm not interested in dating one six years younger than me. We're in two different stages of our lives. I'd prefer to date someone closer to my age." He said, "I understand that." But then he continued to pursue me relentlessly after I said that. So he pushed my boundary until I gave in. Completely missed it.

Once he got me in there, he suddenly started changing things. Two weeks before our marriage, he got upset because I didn't do something that he wanted me to do, and he just blew up. Caught me completely off guard; I wasn't expecting it. I said, "If this is how our relationship is going to be when we get married, I don't want to get married." He flipped back into the loving phase, the loving mask, and he's like, "Very apologetic, I apologize. I would never do this again." So I accepted the apology, and my marriage ended up being even worse than that first incident. So that was another red flag that I missed.

Brian, let's go back for this second. First of all, let's talk cognitive dissonance. I'll give you a quick, for everybody that's listening, we're going to make sure that we street definition, so you're able to use cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a cognitive illusion. It's where your brain is clouded by the events based on other incoming novel information that you haven't dealt with in this situation. The reason it's harder in this situation is because you're at home, it's your house, you parked in the driveway, you came up and used your key, so you're more likely to miss it.

I'll give an example of that: a stolen car caper from 40 years ago. A guy wakes up in the middle of the night, looks around, knows something's wrong, cognitive dissonance, something is amiss, there's something going on. He hears his car, and he hears somebody starting to, trying to crank his car over, and he goes, "Hey, you got to pump it," and the guy pumps it and drives away with his car. He stole his car. But the idea was the guy missed the fact that the stolen car was in progress because it was at his home, he was in his bedroom. So what you've got is you've got these hooks that come with cognitive dissonance. So the idea that it's a couple of weeks before the wedding. So now we've got the carrot and the stick that turns into the stick and the stick. Okay, well, now we're going to fight. So what are we going to do? We're going to abandon the marriage. Look what you're doing to me. Then we flip the script again and say, "Oh, baby, you just got to give me that one more chance, man. It was the stress of the wedding coming on." Does that sound familiar?

I mean, yes.

Those are the types of things. And boundary, people that have control issues on boundaries, first I learn my boundaries, then I test my boundaries, and finally I push my boundaries. If you're not caught at each one of those stages, if it's not concrete, give a real quick your example of that. I'm going to say, because that's a normal way humans develop of how we learned. So he's like the kid example is perfect.

Yes. Brian, Brian Patrick, Brian Patrick Marren, you've got to come over here right now. But I didn't want people to use your credit card for Christmas, but now they're just going to get...

No, that late in the day. But the idea is that the first couple of times that I try to get your attention, that I'm not going to act on it. That means that you've already had the opportunity to understand what the boundaries are. So until I use your full name and stand up and start pointing, you're not going to budge. Remember, that is ingrained like a groove in a record, and if you're not old enough, know that means it's an electrochemical neurotransmitter in your brain that triggers on certain emotions. So the dissonance makes you stupid. Dissonance is like seeing an oasis on the highway. You know there's no oasis there, it's just hot asphalt, but you fall for it over and over and over again.

Yes, cognitive dissonance is a repeated offense of the brain.

Correct. So one of the things I always focus on with people in identifying this, because you can't, you can come in, Alana, after what you've experienced and studied and developed, and identify this stuff and make some sort of diagnosis. But the average person can't. Or I mean, average person, like average is just you, if you don't have any experience, and you know, it's like, "What am I supposed to look for?"

I always boil things down to, people focus too much on what people say. So one of the things that we get into is we teach a little bit of like biometric responses and physiological responses and how that affects your body language, and what that means. There's all different studies and estimates and stuff, but one of the ones that I really like because it highlights how unimportant the words are, is that it's something like 80%, or 70% of communication is your body language, non-verbal stuff. Another 10% or 15% is the physiological reaction that you're having that the other person's picking up on, they're just not really consciously aware of it. Then you get into the rest of it, is the pitch, tone, and inflection of your voice. Then you finally get down to, it's less than 10% are the actual words. Less than 10% are the actual words coming out of your mouth, but we always focus on, "Well, he said this," or, "She said this."

It's like, "Yeah, but what did he do?" So what Greg had mentioned about the cognitive dissonance is, if the cognitive, this is another example, is, you can say everything you want in the world, but what is it that you do? If there is some dissonance there, what you're doing is not matching up with what you're saying.

Correct.

That's inconvenient. Here we are again. You're looking at it going, "Oh my gosh, it's the broken cycle. I'm back here again. How did I get back here?" I know we've all had that situation.

And you're constantly changing yourself. So he's constantly telling me I'm the problem. So I'm like, "Oh, well, let me fix that. So then I won't be the problem anymore," because I'm trying to get back that man that I met and dated in those early stages.

Yeah, it's the perfect one. So on that, how is it then, how did you learn to deal with this? What? Because what is it that, I mean, you have this whole business, you have a service you provide, and I think it's wonderful because I know there's a lot of women out there who don't understand or know what to do, or what they're dealing with, or how to deal with it. Everyone goes, "You're a divorce consultant? What the heck?" I'm like, "Oh, if you know anything about divorce, I fully see that this is 100% necessary for people." But what is it that you learn to do to deal with it? How did you start drawing lines in the sand? What did you have to do? What did that look like? What did that feel like?

So even though I somewhat woke up when I saw him physically assault my son, I still did not realize that I had been in an abusive marriage. I knew that I had been through something bad, but I didn't realize it was abusive. It wasn't until I actually got out of the home that I started researching and reading up on what I experienced and learned what I was dealing with. Even though a marriage counselor had told me years prior, "Hey, your husband's a narcissist," I didn't believe her because the term gets thrown around so much. He wasn't my definition of a narcissist, but that's exactly what he is when you look at all the literature. So that's when I learned I had been in an abusive situation. I started reading up on it, and then I started learning how to combat that behavior because those people, I asked my therapist this, I'm like, "Why do they all act the same?" And she said, "It's like having a cold; we all exhibit the same symptoms. So once you know what those symptoms are, you know how to treat those symptoms," and that's what I learned how to do, and that's what I teach my clients.

That's why I kind of "glommed on" with a lot of what you're talking about, is because we're the same thing. There's a narrow bandwidth of predatory behavior. It's a narrow bandwidth; it's a finite data set. You can put a name on it. You can learn how to identify it. We use terms like "mission focus" and "predatory look." You can pick out a guy who's about to go shoot up a school or blow himself up out of a crowd. This is the distinct look that they have. It's a physiological response; they can't hide it even if they tried. They're so mission-focused.

It's not unlike that in these situations too with people. One of the things you talked a little bit about boundaries and learning how to deal with it because I had a situation before where a friend had asked me, she brought something up, and I'm trying to keep it super vague, and said, "Hey, this is what's going on." I had to say the same thing. I said, "You're in an abusive relationship, and you are at the point where this is restraining order point." And she's, "No, he would never do this." I go, "Straight, I need to stop right now. I go, you need to teach him how you want to be treated, so you need to tell him right now that if you contact me again, I'm calling the police and I'm getting a restraining order." Now, in that case, that was it. He shut down, was like, "Whoa, I don't want nothing to do with that." But she set that boundary, and he respected that boundary, so it stopped. But other people might not. So that's good. The idea is identifying it and dealing with that. Now, very difficult to do, especially in a situation you're married to someone. Maybe you're at home raising the kids while he's working. You don't have anything to go on here. You kind of feel like that's a whole different dynamic.

Correct.

[Music] What else do you notice about all these cases that you've studied and all the help that you do in your own? What is it outside the relationship that other people can identify? So like, I'm now buddies with your ex-husband. What do I need to look for, or what would I see? Have you seen anything like that that could help?

Yes. So I actually give tips for friends and family in my book as well. So from the buddy perspective: is he constantly calling his girlfriend or his wife? Is he constantly texting her when he's with you? He's supposed to be spending time with you, but is he more focused on what his partner is doing at that time? That's a red flag. Is he subtly controlling his partner when they're together? You can look at the partners. For me, for example, look at my body language. Do I seem like I'm walking on eggshells when I'm with my partner? Do I seem very concerned with what he's doing or how he's looking at me at the time and then trying to change my behavior to fit his? So body language, the sense of control, the person feels like they're being controlled, so they're trying to conform to the person. It's different things like that you could look out for.

Because that was one of the things that you brought up with, when you gave your story of like your first date and first being with that person. That's a guy I used to be friends with. I now know, looking back, that's what he used to be. And I was just like, "Wow, he's really in love with this chick. He's really into her. That's crazy. I'm happy for you." Then I didn't know what was going on when they were together. I didn't know that. No one does. And then what did it always turn into when things went bad? "Oh, she's this, she's that." Yes. So obviously, then once I saw the repeated behavior, I was like, "There's a common denominator in all of this, and that's you, buddy." But we're no longer friends since then.

But it's one of those things that at first glance, I assume he's my buddy. I assume the best out of him. I want to think the best of our friends, and you don't always know. My whole thing is, we're never hyper-vigilant about people. But when someone comes up to me and says, "Hey, do you ever think this person?" My answer is usually, "Yeah, that could happen." And they're like, "Wait, you really think this person could be like that?" I go, "Yeah, I don't know them well enough." They're like, "Yeah, but you see them every day." And here I go, "Yeah, in a certain context, for an hour a day. I don't know anything outside of that."

That's right. We have a lot of different cognition biases for that reason, that someone is nice to us, they must be a nice person.

Not true. Jeffrey Dahmer was nice to a lot of people. Not so much the people he killed.

Exactly. First of all, I want to make sure that everybody that's tuned in knows. Listen, Brian's going to put up all the information on how to get a hold of Alana, information about our website and books so you can go and do the research that you want. Brian, what I was thinking is Christmas and New Year's is the perfect time to conduct the limited objective experiment. When you're around people, sit back, have a cocktail, relax and watch. What you'll notice: watch the kids when the grandma that pinches too hard comes into the room. Watch if you've got an Uncle Paul in your family that gets too close to the kids. Watch the kids coalesce in one area to try to stay away from them or find something else to do. That type of behavior is what we're talking about.

The great thing about talking about a high-conflict personality disorder, a lack of too much sympathy and a lack of empathy, we could go and assign homework to the people listening. One great case, Aileen Wuornos out of Florida. Complete sympathy, lack of empathy, murderer. But she was so cool, she was so narcissistic that the people around her loved her. Even the people that were investigating for the homicide were like, "Oh, Aileen!" And she's like, "I know, Your Honor." I mean, you have to get into the case to read the transcript, but it's a great case study and how somebody did. Bundy's another one. Annihilators, you've got people that are all in all the time. What they're thinking is, it's all or nothing. So I'm telling you right now, if you leave me, I'm killing everybody in the house, and then I'm going to kill myself because if I can't have you, nobody else is going to have you. Folks, we listen to those threats, and we don't think there's substance there. That's cognitive dissonance. There's always substance when somebody is balancing and somebody is saying, "You do this or else." I'm not talking about a mom or a dad or a parental figure with a kid; kids need our guidance, kids need those boundaries.

But I'm telling you, in a relationship that we're discussing and that you've a major business out of counseling people on, when you hear that, words hurt, and words are going to, people that have been abused will abuse, people that have been hit will hit. If we forget just those basics, Brian, and Alana, I know that when clients come to you, you probably have to hear your story over and over. Is that true?

That's exactly right.

Okay.

That's my story over and over. Sometimes it's triggering, sometimes I can handle it, but yes, it is my exact story. It's just two different people, but yes.

That's got to be tough. Brian, what I mean by this, sympathy, empathy, all of the people that will go down the road to have this disorder and try to manipulate others. Remember, we're talking psychological manipulation. You're changing the players on the risk board to your advantage. That's what we're talking about. Manipulate, not pushing or pressing or threatening. They're using their influence to get you to do something.

Because of control.

Of course. Yeah, it's a great word. So sympathy means that you understand from your own perspective being hurt. Brian, you do that a lot when we're in a room. I'll usually come with the empathy, which is my putting myself in some other person's shoes at that time and place. Sometimes it becomes overwhelming, and then you go, "Hey, I've got a friend that had..." I love that because what that is, is you're going through sympathy and empathy. A narcissist can't. A narcissist only understands sympathy from themselves. What you're doing now is hurting me. What you're doing now is not giving me. I need to be the lead in this room. People need to be watching me and how I react. You should be standing in my shadow all the time.

It's hard because if you haven't been trained what to look for, it's just like finding an IED or a sniper in a battle space. If you don't have a basic amount of training, you're going to miss it. Again, cognitive dissonance and fundamental attribution error, where you're going to assign a characteristic, "Well, hey, she's sharp, she married him. He's got to be a good guy." And your friends probably thought he was a good guy for 16 or more years.

Until I started opening up. Then when I started saying the things that he was doing, I still actually didn't know I was being abused, but their reactions to what I was saying, I was like, "Oh, is that bad?" I'm shocked.

So that's a perfect sort of segue into what I want to talk about, what you wrote, what your book. You called it, "Was It My Fault?" That's common. I hear that a lot, especially from women who are like, "What did I do wrong?" Where typically a guy, "Someone did something wrong." Where a woman would be like, "What did I do wrong?" So I'm assuming that that's a common thing you see with all of your clients in these situations. Kind of explain a little bit about that and talk about that book and what you mean by "Was It My Fault?"

In the very beginning and throughout the 16 years, my ex's justification for how he treated me was, "I was not doing something," or, "I was causing whatever it is he was doing that was abusive. It's all your fault. I'm treating you this way because of this. You didn't do this, so I did this to you." That's how my clients come to me as well. They feel like they could have done something differently. They felt like they didn't do enough, and that's why you constantly change. That's why I said cognitive dissonance. I kept trying to change myself and conform to what he wanted so that it wouldn't be my fault, and he could stop saying, "I did this because you didn't do this, or you did that," or whatever to make it my fault the relationship wasn't going well.

That's, people, the thing is with these people, with a narcissist, what we're dealing with is they're not going, they're not ever going to accept responsibility. That's the biggest thing that I've had to deal with with someone where I've said, "You have to understand, he is never going to change." Is there a possibility for people to change through therapy and want to? Yeah, but you have to want to. I think narcissists can't, and there's been nothing to demonstrate the fact that he's even tried.

Correct.

So if there's no evidence to support the fact that he's making an effort, that means there's no effort being made, which means it's never going to change. That's the biggest thing, is framing that when you have someone like this, that, "Okay, this is who they are, so I can't control that. This is what they're going to do. How do I deal with that?" Because Greg brought up something at the beginning and kind of reminded you of someone that we've worked with. Do not bring it up anymore, Greg. I don't want to kiss you, never. No, but it's very clear that they bring up points when we're talking about something and turn and make the conversation about them and their accolades.

Yes.

So that's a huge indicator. Now, we, for what we do, know how to deal with that. Massage the situation, and I'm more than happy to make someone think that they're the greatest person in the world if it gets done what I need to get done inside that day. Because we have a job to do that we are hired to do, and I'm not going to let one person get in the way of the other 30 people in the room.

Yes.

So I can deal with that, but how do you deal with that in a relationship? How do I deal with that if I'm going through this divorce process, or beforehand, or after, because it doesn't end if you got kids.

No, it doesn't matter. It's never ending. Yes. And the person you're describing sounds like an overt narcissist. So my ex-husband, and a lot of the men that I'm dealing with, their ex-wives, they're covert.

Oh, okay.

They're undercover.

Explain that a little bit. What you mean?

So they are very charismatic and charming to the outside world. They present very well. So when you go to someone and you say, "This man or this woman is the monster behind closed doors," they can't fathom it in their mind because of how that person presents. We would go to marriage counselors, and I'm like hysterically crying saying, "He treats me horribly. I can't stand the cycles." I'm actually explaining the narcissistic abuse cycle without even realizing it. And he's calm as a cucumber, saying, "Oh, I just love my wife, and I'm trying to do this, and trying to do that. Nothing works." And he gets the sympathy. I get, "She's the crazy person, and Alana, you just need to do more."

I'd like to add one more facet to that, Brian, if I can. We were talking about kids as well, and this is going to sound, take it for what I'm saying, thank God your son was 19 when the abuse occurred rather than nine. You know what I'm trying to say? Folks, if you're listening to this broadcast, it's okay to reach out for help. It's okay to ask an expert what they would do in the situation. Why? Because your kid's perspective, if they're young kids, your kid's perspective is this: I want mom and dad to stay together because that's my normal. I don't want a divorce because that means we leave the house, we have to go and do these other things. Kids just want a normal relationship, clinically normal. I don't mean anything by that. But a kid isn't a good sounding board, "Hey, do you think we should do this?" In that situation, this is for adults, and this is also for the law and for the arbiters of the law. So you need, like, look, if I was going to go in and negotiate a contract, I go to an expert, and I have a lawyer take a look over the paperwork. I would get some help. I would enlist the aid. What I'm not going to do is talk to the 50 of my family and friends that have been divorced. They're not experts on it either. So you fill a spot. So there's kids, and kids need that structure. Then there's adults, and adults need that help. You fill a niche market where, because of high conflict, you can come in and deliver that calming voice and a structure and an organization.

That's the other reason I think Greg and I were so excited to have you on is because, look, when police get in a scrum, they call a SWAT team. You're the SWAT team for the marriage police. So we appreciate that. We appreciate somebody being the voice of reason in an unreasonable situation.

I did want to correct my second one. That was the first time I saw the physical abuse against my son. It was actually happening behind the scenes, and I didn't know it. It wasn't until I was going through the divorce process that my son told me, "Hey, this guy had been hurting me since I was like six years old." I had no idea.

That's a good point to bring up, is because what does that look like after a divorce? You have kids together. Is he likely to treat those kids that same way when he has them? That's the big thing here too, is, "Okay, step one is you fixed your life situation, or you're trying to." You got out of this horrible situation, so you're not the pawn. But now what becomes the focal point, something he can control? What does that look like with kids involved? What are some of the things that you see that they're going to do?

We call it domestic violence by proxy, and that's when the narcissist goes after your children. They file the child custody case, and they try to get more than likely full custody of your kids. They typically do not want to do 50/50. They want full custody because they want you to pay them child support, or they want to do 50/50 even though you might be a mother that was a stay-at-home mom and didn't have an income. They don't want to pay you child support. So they're fighting for 50/50. So you're being abused all over again. You're just not with the person anymore. You're just in the divorce process, and they're relentless because it's all about control and winning. They want to continue to win and control, but they're doing it through legal means. Constant motions. I don't even know how many motions my ex filed against me; it was ridiculous. And I was getting upset with my lawyer because I'm like, "How is he allowed to do this?" But again, family court, it's a business. Every time you file that motion, that lawyer is getting paid. So the whole situation is, it's just bad for the people that are trying to get out of the abusive situation and then trying to handle it through legal means.

I would agree, Brian, that this is a different situation we're talking about. So when you go to the front of the court, or when you go to the corridor, or when you go to an attorney, they've seen it all, heard it all. It's like, "Yeah, okay, I got it. Sign here. We'll file this, we'll do that." Your ex-husband didn't know, or if he knew he was a narcissist, didn't think that his behavior was anything extraordinary. But the court needs to know. That's again why you have to have the right kind of person. When you, I don't go to my proctologist and say, "Hey, my hearing has been, this tinnitus is horrible." You have to go to a specialist in that field, I feel.

Yes, and you have to have the right lawyer, too. It's not just me to tag along, but a lot of lawyers, they just take your case, and they think, "Oh, it's just another regular divorce situation," but it's not. It really isn't. This person is not going to negotiate at all. They're going to make this very difficult.

I know that if your former husband is on our podcast, he just dropped off. He's not going to listen anymore. So he lost that one, but that was worth losing.

No, you're exactly right. You need a specialist for a special type of situation like that.

Was there anything during this process that you were able to look at or do or think to go, "You know what? If I just focus on this," or, what was that moment? So you had this realization of this huge thing, "Oh my God, he just abused my son!" Then you find out all this stuff. It gives you that perspective now to take a step back and go, "Holy crap!" I know you're doing the hit yourself in the head, "How did I not see this?" Of course, normal mom guilt. It's totally normal, and then you probably beat yourself up over that. I sure did, and probably still do sometimes. But what is it that you then focus on to get through that? What was it during that moment that you said, "All right, I've got to think about this to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving down this path?"

I did everything wrong, which is why you're an expert at it. That's why I'm an expert now. Absolutely everything wrong. I tell my clients, "Don't do this, don't do that." For one, he kept emailing me and triggering me, trying to get me to attack him. I took the bait every time. Don't do that. I was crying all the time, trying to get my lawyer to react to him filing the motions, the constant motions against me. Don't do that. Then over time, like, I think we went through it for about six months. Toward the end of the six months, I started getting my strength back. I was seeing my trauma therapist. She was treating the PTSD because a lot of what I was exhibiting were the signs and symptoms of PTSD. Once she started treating that, I could think more clearly, and then I could start to strategize. So I stopped responding with a motion to the emails. I stopped responding to every single text message that he gave me, which was driving him crazy because they want any kind of contact, whether it's positive or negative. That's supply for them. So I stopped doing those things, and then I was prepared to go to court because I knew, based on my son's testimony, I was going to get full custody. So I was now in control of the situation. Then he started doing everything wrong. One of the things he did wrong was he decided to depose my son. Why would you depose the child that you know you were physically abusing? Maybe he's a narcissist, so he thinks he's that one overall.

Amazing. Just amazing.

Yes, so I deposed his girlfriend, and through deposing his girlfriend, she just dug a hole. I let her dig a hole for two hours, collecting evidence for me. Then I said, "Okay, so do you want to negotiate now on the child custody agreement?" He said, "Yes. Yes, let's negotiate."

[Music]

Some of the things, many of the stuff you're talking about, is almost to a T of something I'm very familiar with. It's incredible how close these cases are, because they all have to play through the same system. They all, it's a marriage, there's legal stuff, there's this. So you can see it all play out almost exactly the same way every single time.

Yes.

I mean, that's absolutely incredible. So like Greg said, we're going to post all of your stuff. I know there's more, I just want to make sure I get all of it. If you're listening, you've got to hit the episode details, and there's a link to the book and to your website and all that stuff, because this is huge. I wanted you to get on here and give us this perspective. Then I can sit here and take that and go, "You know what? What would my, what would my buddy act like if I'm starting to think something's up?" You brought up those big ones of how he would behave when he's there. "I'm going to act one way in front of everyone while I'm kind of talking to you under my breath here in the corner." That's a huge one. I've heard that now a dozen times from different people. Those little controlling things are wrong. They're absolutely wrong. That's terrible behavior; no one should be treated like that. Seeing those things, you can see those now, because again, when I found out my buddy, that was years ago, I was like, it was like a light bulb going off. It was like an epiphany, like, "Oh wow, I get some of these stories I've heard before." Now I've seen it from my perspective, but if you've never seen that, you don't know. So now I can spot it a mile away when someone's doing that. But it's difficult if you don't have that one-on-one experience. So hearing all this stuff and how it works, it's incredible. I just want to appreciate you sharing all this and putting it out there and helping other people. It's got to be difficult when you're talking to that person, you're reliving your own traumatic experiences. But in a way...

It helps you work through it sometimes too.

It does. It does.

I get the joy from hearing, when I tell people, "I get it." When they call me and they're like, "I'm going through this and that." I'm like, "I get it. I had the same experience." I just love hearing the sigh of relief in their voice because it's probably the first time they've heard that.

That's exactly right.

Yes. And I can tell them because I can tell them what's going to happen. I'm like, "Okay, X, Y, and Z is going to happen." And they'll come back to me three weeks later, and they're like, "You know what? You were right. He did exactly what you said." I said, "Because they all behave the same."

One of the amazing things, Brian, that I found, Alana, when I went to your website and I'm poking around and taking a look at everything, you have a section on "Do It Yourself." Brian and I are huge on "Do It Yourself." The reason is there's a bunch of charlatans in the human behavior business. Brian came up with the idea, "Hey, let's do all our webinars free, and nobody will have to pay them for a crappy certificate after crappy training." So I like the idea that because you're really good at what you do, so you got to charge money, it's your business. But tell us about the "Do It Yourself." What can some people at home stand up on their own? How do they get started if they find out that they see these symptoms in their significant other?

So the "Do It Yourself" courses, they're little YouTube videos. They're actually not done by me; they're done by a woman named Tina Swiven. She'll walk you through how to deal with parental alienation, how to start doing your documentation, documenting the different incidents of abuse. Those are for the people that maybe they can't afford to pay me one-on-one, or they just want to see if they can do it on their own first. What I always tell people when they ask me about those courses is, it's going to give you a high-level overview. It's not going to be catered to your case. So if you have a very unique situation, you'll probably be better off with the one-on-one because it's going to be catered to your unique situation. You'll be able to take some of the tips from the online courses, but it's probably not going to help you to where you get to settlement.

Yeah, that's a good point because a lot of it comes down to time. Because I've had to deal with people before asking, "Look, you have to document everything. Here's what you need to do. You create the journal, or on your calendar, every time one of those drop-offs they say something, just write it up and document it. This is what they did, this is how I handled it, this is what happened. All those text messages, those emails. Keep a journal, say when I talked to him." Because we're in a state, "Hey, you can't record that phone call without that other person knowing." But you can take notes on that call. That's stuff that is admissible because in corporate it shows that you've kept the written documentation of it. They've done none of that. It's not just your word against them, it's like, "Well, here on the 17th at five o'clock at night, he said this. And when I dropped him off here, look, I noticed that every single time we exchanged the kids, these three things happened." You, and they're like, "Well, I don't have the time to do that." And I was like, "You have to. It's so important."

Yes, and the other thing I tell my clients is, "Were your kids present?" Because that's what family court cares about. He could battle you all day long, and they not care about it. But if your kids were there, and they had a certain demeanor before the abuse started, and a different demeanor after the abuse started, all of that is critical documentation. It could swing your case one way or the other. So yes, you have to document.

I know it's a pain in the ass, but that's who, look, I mean, I've got, this is our pattern just from this podcast. You get one, I got the same, I got a whole bunch of ideas. We're just, we're always in that habit of writing things down. I take notes on phone calls that Greg and I have that are five minutes long, that we really only passed a couple things, and there's no afterwards that I have to follow up on. But it's always like a note, "Oh, this, this, this, we covered," or something just because it's something to reference. We have documentation. We have to go back and go, "Oh crap, what was it that we said that time? Or what did we tell them we were going to do?" I have to go back through a yellow pad, "Oh yeah, that's right, here's what it is." But it's good because if you get in the habit of doing it, it's not as hard as you think. It doesn't have to be a novel, you're not writing a short story. Some bullet points every single time because guess what? Six months of bullet points is a lot of bullet points.

Yes, because you have to show the patterns of behavior. And when you have six months or so documentation, you could definitely show a clear pattern of behavior.

Absolutely. Greg, I don't know, did you have anything else you wanted?

Here's my thing, it's coming up on the holidays, and the holidays are always a tough time for me. They were always rough at home. So for single parents out there, I would say that being present is much better than buying a present. I would also say that if you're in trouble, reach out to Alana. She was easy to get a hold of. She was easy to talk to. She's everywhere. And if she's not, rightfully she'll tell you where else that you can go. It's Alana, it's been a pleasure. It's been, to me, it's been an emotional rollercoaster because Brian and I have been involved in situations from the perspective that you represent. They're so difficult, they're just horrible. Especially during the holiday.

Yeah, and I'm going to have all the links up in the episode details and get that out as much as I can because I feel like there's going to be some people that just click on your website and go, "Yes, I knew it! I knew it!" I don't mean they're going to read it, just reading what you have on there and go, "You know what? Damn it, I was right. I was right." They're going to have, I mean, it's just that epiphany moment, I think sometimes. So I appreciate you for coming on, Alana. I always want to give the last word to you, of anything you want to say to our listeners or whoever this podcast gets in front of.

I want to say to anyone that's currently in the situation or in the middle of getting out of the situation, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You will survive this, and you will come out stronger. I didn't even realize how good my life was going to be after I left my marriage. That's why I stayed in it for so long. So I'm like, "Oh, I can't survive on my own." I'm surviving, I'm thriving. You can too, so don't feel like you're stuck in a bad situation, get yourself out.

Can you imagine an hour went by?

I know, it's such fun.

It's like I looked up at the clock and I go, "Oh my gosh, we've got to have you back on." I know, I think you, hopefully you're going to get some business out of this podcast, at least from who I send it to, hopefully they pick up the phone and call you because they need it. But I do appreciate your time on and sharing the stuff and just getting it out there. It fits in a very specific context of what we talk about in general about human behavior, and then how to identify these little things. You know, we always tell people for the most part, just trust your gut. If something feels off, it's off. Now you may not know what it is that's off. They might not be a narcissist, maybe they just had something horrible happen to them or whatever, like you don't know. But if something feels off, investigate it. It's like if it happens once, it's not a disorder, so I don't want people duking it out. You have to have multiple incidents.

[Laughter]

It's a good revealing episode. Yeah, and we do appreciate it. So thanks everyone for listening. Check out the episode details, and thanks for tuning in. Have a wonderful and safe Christmas. This is getting released a couple of days before Christmas, so hopefully you're having a good time with family and friends and everything. Please don't forget that training changes behavior.