Summary5 min read

Episode 293: A Familiar Stranger – When Narcissists From The Past Come Back

Podcast: The Little Shaman: On Narcissists & Toxic Personalities
Host: The Little Shaman (Shaman Sister Sin)
Date: April 27, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode explores a common but under-discussed phenomenon: when narcissists or toxic individuals from the listener’s past suddenly reappear in their lives. The Little Shaman unpacks why our brains tend to mislabel “familiar” as “safe,” how this can make us vulnerable to old dynamics, and offers practical strategies for boundary protection, even when nostalgia or a prior connection clouds our judgment.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Familiarity vs. Safety: The Brain’s Mistake

Timestamp: [01:50]
- The brain is hardwired to categorize familiar things, people, and scenarios as “safe.”
- “Anything that is known and familiar is considered safe…this is why familiar pain is easier than the fear of change. It hurts, but it’s known. The devil you know, right?”
  — The Little Shaman [03:40]
This instinct isn’t based on intelligence or trauma dynamics, but on survival mechanisms.
But: Familiar does not mean safe. Familiarity can bypass our normal red flag detection.

2. The Known Quantity Trap: How Past Connections Open Doors to Toxicity

Timestamp: [06:00]
- Narcissists often re-enter people’s lives through past relationships: old friends, exes, distant relatives, former coworkers.
- “Because the person is automatically categorized as known and therefore safe, people tend not to respond the same to red flags…they often say stuff like, ‘Yeah, but I know this person — it’s so and so. They wouldn’t. They’re not. They don’t.’”
  — The Little Shaman [07:15]
The reality: if you haven’t seen someone in years, you don’t actually know them anymore—if you ever truly did.
Even negative past experiences often come with an assumption that “the person must have changed,” but narcissists often do not grow or mature.

3. Why Narcissists Circle Back

Timestamp: [12:30]
- Often, people feel a rekindled connection is “fate” or “meaningful,” but it’s frequently random or self-serving on the narcissist’s part.
- As narcissists age and lose their charm or ability to manipulate new people, they “reach into the past for this, instinctively looking for situations where they felt they had some kind of control or connection.” [14:24]
- They may contact people they’ve already burned bridges with, hoping time will allow a reset.

4. The Limits of Change: Some People Don’t Mature

Timestamp: [09:40]
- “Some people do not learn. They don’t mature, they don’t grow up, they don’t change, except possibly to become more entrenched in the childish, selfish, or otherwise negative behaviors they have always had. It just is what it is.”
  — The Little Shaman [09:58]
It’s a painful lesson to accept that not everyone evolves, regardless of time passed.

5. Attachment vs. Bonding: Narcissistic Relationships Explained

Timestamp: [18:40]
- “Attachment and connection are not being used here to mean bonding or anything in that sense, but more in the sense of how parasites function. Pathologically, narcissistic personalities do not bond with other people. It’s very likely that they cannot. They attach and they enmesh, but they don’t bond in the way that most people understand that word and what it means.”
  — The Little Shaman [19:55]

6. Bypassing Boundaries: Why Known People Get a Free Pass

Timestamp: [21:50]
- “Your brain has already let them pass the gates, so to speak. Because as we said, you open the door for people you know.”
  — The Little Shaman [22:00]
- Familiarity short-circuits normal security checks and boundaries, making one more vulnerable.
- Avoid superimposing your old, positive image of someone over their current actions.
“It’s not 15 or 20 or 25 years ago. It’s now. And now, this person is not that anymore, if they ever were. The past is over. We can’t let it dictate our future.”
— The Little Shaman [24:45]

7. Setting (and Keeping) Boundaries – With Everyone

Timestamp: [26:00]
- Boundaries must apply regardless of how long you’ve known someone. No one deserves a pass for bad behavior based on shared history.
- “If you would not let a new partner move in in two weeks, for example, don’t let anybody, it doesn’t matter who it is. If you don’t let relatives borrow money, don’t let relatives borrow money. Doesn’t matter who it is.”
  — The Little Shaman [27:17]
Boundaries are what protect you—use them, or create them if you don’t have any.
“Remember, anything with teeth can bite you, and you should not dismiss this possibility just because you knew them.”
— The Little Shaman [27:52]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the risk of assuming safety:
“A dog you know and trust can still bite you…Why? Because a thing can only ever be what it is.” [02:29]
On nostalgia clouding judgment:
“We have to let go of these images of people and allow reality to be the guiding force.” [24:00]
On disappointment and loss:
“It’s okay to mourn those images. It’s okay to hold onto and cherish the memories. But it is not okay to let these things dictate your actions.” [24:20]
On enforcing boundaries:
“Your boundaries and standards are what protect you from these kinds of things. That’s why you have them. Make sure you use them, and if you don’t have any, then create some.” [28:00]

Key Takeaways

Familiarity does not guarantee safety—our brains can trick us into thinking it does, even with people who’ve proven they can be harmful.
Many narcissists return to old connections when new sources of supply dry up, especially as they age.
Some people simply do not change, no matter how much time passes; hoping otherwise can be a setup for disappointment or harm.
Boundaries protect you—apply them equally, no matter the history, nostalgia, or length of acquaintance.
Recognizing what you wish someone to be versus who they actually are is essential for your well-being and safety.

Timestamps for Important Segments

[01:50] – How our brains equate familiarity with safety
[06:00] – How narcissists re-enter our lives from the past
[09:40] – The myth of change: why some people stay the same
[12:30] – Fate or coincidence? Why the narcissist returns
[18:40] – Attachment vs. bonding with narcissists
[21:50] – Old connections bypassing your boundaries
[26:00] – Applying boundaries to everyone, no matter what

For more resources, books, and workshops by The Little Shaman, visit littleshaman.org.

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Transcript1 lines

[00:01]
A
Hey, everybody, it's Shaman Sister Sin, and you are listening to the Meditations and More podcast brought to you by littleshaman.org that's me, little Shaman. Today I wanted to talk to you about something many people deal with when they find themselves caught up with narcissists, and that is that the narcissist is somebody from their past, someone they knew years before or had some kind of previous relationship with. This is actually really common, so I thought we could talk about it on the show today. Interacting with human beings in general carries some inherent level of risk. Other people are not harmless, and most of us know that by now. They also don't wear signs announcing themselves as not harmless. So the risk is in many ways ever present. Any person you walk by on the street could potentially be harmful to you. And walking around in the world as a human being requires a certain level of vigilance. Ambulance. In order to be safe, you don't go down dark alleys. You lock your door at night. Some people carry weapons in their car or on their person. They make pepper spray that is specifically designed to hang from your keychain. Humans have developed ways to navigate the world within this context, always aware that other humans could potentially be harmful, especially strangers and people that we don't know. The thing about this is knowing someone does not guarantee that they're harmless. A dog you know and trust can still bite you. Many do. Thousands of people are bitten seriously by their own dogs every year. Some people are even killed by their own dogs. Why? Because a thing can only ever be what it is. A dog is a predator. This is not a strange dog in these situations. He's not a stranger dog, but he's still dangerous. There are some people who, when you ask if their dog bites, they'll say he's got teeth. This is usually said as a joke, but it's also a warning. Anything with teeth can bite you. People are no different. Familiar does not equal safe. It just means familiar. Enter the narcissist. The way our brains work is anything that is known and familiar is considered safe. And anything that is not known and not familiar is. Is considered to be unsafe. This is why familiar pain is easier than the fear of change. It hurts, but it's known the devil you know, right? The brain makes the mistake of identifying familiar as safe in many situations, even when what is known about the thing or the situation is actually bad. This has nothing to do with intelligence or even trauma dynamics. It's just the way the brain works. And it can be very difficult to circumvent it will require conscious effort. As an aside, some people assume that the natural thing for you or your brain to do is always the right thing. This is not true, and the situation that we're discussing is a good example of that. It doesn't mean that something is wrong with you or your brain either. It's doing what it's supposed to do and it's doing it the way that it's supposed to do it. It's just that it's going to make mistakes. This is also normal, especially when you're being given false information, such as someone portraying themselves as safe when they actually are not. Your brain identifies familiar things as safe because in general, this is true. In general, most familiar things are safe. A chair that we sat in safely 500 times will be considered by our brains safe to sit in 501 times. A dog that we petted safely 227 times will be considered safe. To pet 228 times. A food that we've eaten for our whole lives safely and never had any bad reaction to is going to be considered safe to eat going forward in our lives. This is why when someone shows up in your life who you used to know, for example, your brain tends to place them in the safe category. They are known to you, therefore they're not considered a threat. It's not uncommon at all for me to speak to people who are entangled with a narcissist in some capacity. And this is the mechanism by which the narcissist came into their life. It was someone that they knew. It was someone they dated in college, or someone that they knew when they were a little kid or a former co worker or a relative that they have not seen for years. Because the person is automatically categorized as known and therefore safe, people tend not to respond the same to red flags that would concern them in somebody else, someone that they did not know. If they register the red flags at all. They often say stuff like, yeah, but I know this person. It's so and so. They wouldn't. They're not. They don't. This can be dangerous because, for example, if you have not seen someone, anybody, not just a narcissist, in 20 years, you actually don't know them. You feel like you do. Things can change a lot in just a few months, let alone many years of not seeing somebody or not being around. People also tend to kind of chuckle and be like, oh, same old so and so. When red flags show up and it's like, okay, but it's been 25 years. Shouldn't they be different after all this time? Should they really still be exactly the same as they were when you knew them, however long ago? Ironically, because it doesn't feel different, it's identified as safe and therefore, okay, this is not good, because depending on what it is, it could actually be a huge problem. This known quantity element tends to bypass a lot of our security checks that are in place for strangers and people in general. You open the door for people you know. We might get into a relationship much faster than we normally would or place an inappropriate amount of trust in this person because we feel like we've already vetted them, we feel like we know them. Again, this is dangerous because if you've not seen or spoken to someone in years, you don't actually know them anymore, if you ever did. And if they're a narcissist, you never did. And unfortunately, you will find that out even when the previous experience is negative, such as parting on bad terms years ago. Something that can happen in many of these situations is that people will assume that the other person has to have changed by now. They have to have grown up, they have to have learned, and therefore they must be different by now. This is understandable, but unfortunately, it's just not true. Some people do not learn. They don't mature, they don't grow up, they don't change, except possibly to become more entrenched in the childish, selfish, or otherwise negative behaviors they have always had. It just is what it is. This may be one of the hardest circumstances to navigate for people in this situation because many people simply cannot accept the reality of it. They refuse to believe that someone could still be the same rat bastard or selfish child or scheming con at 50 that they were at 25. But they can be, and many of them are. It can be a very painful lesson to learn that you are wrong about this. But the reality is, everybody's not the same. Some people grow and mature, and some people don't. Another thing that can happen is that people might feel it's fate that they came back in contact with this person. It could be, although not in the happily ever after sense, it could also be just a coincidence. As Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. People's brains often try to make meaning out of the things that happen to them, but not everything is actually meaningful. Some things are, but not everything. Not at all. It's also possible that they've come back around because they have alienated or exhausted everyone in their current life or otherwise ruined their current life somehow. This is particularly common in narcissistic personalities over the age of 40. But it can happen at any age. The people around them are not young anymore and neither are they. Their excuses and grandiose promises don't impress or convince anybody anymore. So they have to find people who haven't heard all of this already. They very often reach into the past for this, instinctively looking for situations where they felt they had some kind of control or connection. At some point, you're more likely to catch a fish in a pond where you already have, right? This can feed into these sort of narratives about faded returns and oh, this person must have matured, because why else would this happen, right? The truth is, it happens for the same reason that you buy groceries at the grocery store, because that's where the groceries are. If the store that you went to all the time suddenly did not have any groceries, you would not go to the auto mechanic to try to find some. You would go to another grocery store. This is the same thing particularly too, as some narcissists get older, they can lose their ability to attract people in the same way as they did when they were young. Maybe their looks are fading or they gained a lot of weight. Maybe they're not as charming anymore as they were before. Maybe their sort of gimmick for attracting people was something that doesn't really work for an older person. We see that a lot of times in the narcissist who use a vulnerable victim type of act. People will listen to and support someone who is 25 with a hard luck story. They don't want to hear that from someone who is 45. By that age, people are expected to have gotten themselves together in some fashion. Other narcissists seem to lose some of their sort of specialized social skills that they have somehow, and they find it harder to put on the mask the way that they used to do as a young, younger person. This makes it harder for them to hide their dysfunction and people can see it faster, making it harder for them to make new connections. Many narcissists have failed to capitalize on any potential they may have had by the time they are older as well. And this makes new connections difficult. Also, they're not bringing anything to the table. And unlike with someone who's 25 years old, people are not willing to wait for someone who is 45 or even 55 to grow up and reach their potential. So the narcissist reaches back into the past to find someone who they've not burned all their bridges with. Yet they might even reach back to someone they have burned all their bridges with, hoping that enough time has passed to make reattachment possible. And as an aside, attachment and connection are not being used here to mean bonding or anything in that sense, but more in the sense of how parasites function. Pathologically, narcissistic personalities do not bond with other people. It's very likely that they cannot. They attach and they enmesh, but they don't bond in the way that most people understand that word and what it means. This is a difficult situation to be in, especially if the narcissist appears to be offering the type of relationship that you've always wanted to have with them, or a deepening of one that you already had before. Your brain has already let them pass the gates, so to speak. Because as we said, you open the door for people you know. What do we always hear in crime shows, both real and dramatized? No sign of forced entry. Why is that significant? Because it suggests that the perpetrator of whatever crime was known to the victim. Why else would they have been let in? Again, this is a hard situation to be in. This person has bypassed all of your safety checks and boundaries and now they're inside. The most important thing here is to stop trying to superimpose your image of this person over top of who they actually are. But I know them. I know this person. No, clearly you do not. And that is not a failure on your part in any way. But it is a fact that needs to be recognized. Because making decisions based on who you want somebody to be or think they are is a very big mistake. We must act according to the facts of this situation. He might have been your first love 20 years ago, but now he's a raging lunatic with no job and no respect for anybody or anything. She might have been your beautiful baby niece, but now she's a 30 year old heroin addict who is stealing everything in your house and leaving dirty needles around for your kids to pick up. We have to let go of these images of people and allow reality to be the guiding force here. It's okay to mourn those images. It's okay to hold onto and cherish the memories. But it is not okay to let these things dictate your actions. It's not 15 or 20 or 25 years ago. It's now. And now. This person is not that anymore. If they ever were. The past is over. We can't let it dictate our future. Make sure your boundaries apply to everybody, regardless of if they're a stranger or a best friend of 40 years. No one should get a pass to mistreat you or act out of pocket just because you know them. Remember, anything with teeth can bite you, and you should not dismiss this possibility just because you knew them. If a dog you know starts growling at you, you would not just assume that he won't bite you just because you know him. If you do assume that, then you're eventually going to be bitten or worse. People are the same, but if you use the same boundaries with everybody, that goes a long way to preventing situations like this. It's okay to be disappointed and sad. It's not okay to ignore or overlook these things because we think we know somebody and therefore their behavior can't possibly mean what it seems to mean. Chances are it does, and this is a sad hard lesson to learn. So don't compromise your standards. If you would not let a new partner move in in two weeks, for example, don't let anybody it doesn't matter who it is. If you don't let relatives borrow money, don't let relatives borrow money. Doesn't matter who it is. Your boundaries and standards are what protect you from these kinds of things. That's why you have them. Make sure you use them, and if you don't have any, then create some. This is exactly what they're for. I hope this clears a few things up for you. As always, I look forward to your comments, questions and suggestions, so please keep those coming. I take appointments online, over the phone, via text, via messenger, via email, and through Skype and Zoom for clients worldwide. So if you're interested in speaking with me one on one, you can visit littleshaman.org to do do that. I have several books in publication, so if you are interested in picking up a copy of any or all of those, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that. Or you can find them on Amazon.com I teach workshop, seminars, clinics and more. So if you're interested in seeing what we are running, you can visit littleshaman.org to do that. And if you are interested in joining our support group with access to exclusive content, weekly support meetings, and more, visit littleshaman.org to do that as well. You've been listening to the Meditations and More podcast brought to you by Trans relational healing and littleshaman.org that's me, little Shaman. May the Great Spirit bless you. Have a beautiful day.