← The Nerve with Maureen Callahan
The Nerve with Maureen Callahan
Difficult Relationships: The Narcissist - Detecting the Behaviors and Traits and How to Navigate
01:24:50
Maureen sits down with Professor Sam Vaknin to discuss the traits and behaviors of true narcissists and examine the various types of narcissistic personalities. Together they break down the differences in how narcissism presents, distinguishing what it means to be a malignant, covert or overt narcissist. They also talk about ways to navigate relationships with narcissistic family members and romantic partners. Also in this episode, Maureen reads audience feedback from this week, showcasing new art created for her by a few Troublemakers. Masa Chips: Get 25% off your first order | Use code MAUREEN at https://MASAChips.com/MAUREEN Morning Kick: Watch his method by clicking the link in the description box here: https://chuckdefense.com/Nerve The Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club: Go to https://FarmFresh222.com & get your first $39 bottle free with no obligation or commitment.
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- [00:00]
A
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- [01:04]
B
Hello and welcome to your Friday edition of the Nerve. I am your host Maureen Callahan and we have another amazing show for you today. This one is going to be a little bit of a longer discussion and it's akin to what we did when we talked about borderline personality disorder and borderline mothers. We received so many much feedback from you guys, incredible feedback, and you not only enjoyed it, but you really loved our guest Sam Voxnin. Professor Sam who is one of the most knowledgeable, insightful, articulate people on this subject matter anywhere. Okay. And a lot of you sent in requests asking for a further discussion. Could we cover difficult fathers or addict parents or toxic siblings? We got a lot about toxic siblings and so we really thought a lot about it here at Teen Nerve. And what really binds so many of these difficult interpersonal relationships dynamics seems to really be rooted in narcissism. And so we asked Sam, who wrote a whole book. I'm sure he's written more than the one that we are going to reference in our talk with him today. But he's literally written the book on narcissism, on the different subsets of narcissism. He's going to talk to us not just about overt narcissism, but the narcissist who is known as the COVID narcissist. This is a subset that the field has only really recently discovered and begun to understand. I mean Sam has it front to back. They're very difficult to spot, but once you see them, you can't unsee them. And it will provide you with a level of armor that most will not have. So first we're going to chat with Sam and then we're going to circle it all back to a little bit of a light celeb roundup. This is a big one. We've got some big breaking news and your emails. We've got some new troublemaker artwork. It's coming in. There's so much artwork, so much merch that you guys are sort of conceptualizing that you want. And we also have a mini nerve teaser for the ages. So let's get into it. Did you know that up until the 1990s all chips and fries were cooked in beef tallow? That was until big food companies made the switch to cheaper, highly processed seed oils. And now those seed oils make up 20% of the average American's daily calories. Now, there is a healthy alternative in masa chips. These chips are made with just three ingredients. Organic corn, sea salt and 100% grass fed beef tallow. That is it. No seed oils, no junk. And let me tell you, they are so good. They are crunchier, they are tastier, and they don't fall apart in your guac or under your guac when you're holding it up. No, no table unforced errors here, okay? Plus they leave you feeling light, satisfied and energized. No crashing, no bloating. Masa is what chips should be. So go try them and you can taste the difference for yourself. Masa chips are beloved by tens of thousands of customers and have been endorsed by industry leading health and nutrition experts. If you are ready to give masa a try, go to masachhips.com to SL Maureen and use code MAUREEN for 25% off your first order. That's masachips.com Maureen and code MAUREEN for 25 percent off your first order. Welcome back please to Sam Voxnin, professor of psychology at CIA P S and the author of several books, including the book that is our reference point point today, Malignant self Love, Narcissism Revisited. Welcome back, Sam.
- [05:28]
C
Thank you for having me. And thank you for the plug.
- [05:31]
B
Of course. You know, the book is eminently readable. You know, when I got it I thought, oh, it's like, it's like a textbook. It feels almost academic. And then I started getting into it and it's so conversational and so readable. And in it you break down several, several subsets of narcissism. But in the main, I wanted to begin by asking, do we all possess a degree of narcissism? And is a certain degree of narcissism necessary to be a healthy, functioning human being?
- [06:01]
C
Yes. The answer is yes, and it is. Narcissism is a trait. And as a trait, it's probably hereditary. There's probably a genetic, genetic component that determines how much narcissism we're going to have. But everyone has a modicum of narcissism. Everyone has narcissism to some degree. Now, narcissism can be healthy. And when narcissism is healthy, it is at the foundation of the regulation of self esteem and self confidence and a sense of self worth. Narcissism also allows us to redirect various energies. It's kind of a channeling mechanism for various energies. And so it's at the root of ambition and working hard and accomplishing things and so on. And so narcissism is good for you, actually. But like everything else, like everything else that is healthy, it can go awry, it can become malignant or cancerous. And so then that's when we use the phrase pathological narcissism.
- [07:07]
B
Now, my understanding of it from my deep reading lo these many years, wonder, why is that the narcissist, the true narcissist, and I do want to get to the other end of the spectrum, but we'll walk there to the malignant narcissist. Do they know A how bad they are and B, is it true that true narcissistic personality disorder is really resistant to treatment?
- [07:36]
C
We'll start with the first question, which is always a good idea. And they are aware of their actions and the impacts that their actions are having on other people. So it is not true that narcissists are not self aware. They know exactly what they're doing and they know exactly what are the consequences and outcomes of their choices, decisions, and ultimately actions. However, they're completely unaware of their motivations. Because they are unaware of motivation, they kind of come up with a narrative that would explain why they're doing what they're doing. And so the narrative is always self justifying. We call it an ego syntonic narrative. It's a narrative that makes the narcissist feel good about himself or herself. It's a narrative that provides the narcissist with the kind of context and motivation and attitude that would render the narcissist's actions socially acceptable in the narcissist's eyes. So A narcissist would never say about himself, I'm saying himself. Half of all narcissists are women. But a narcissist would never say about himself, I'm a bad person. He would say, I'm giving you tough love, or I'm doing this for your own sake, or I'm trying to save you, or you are not aware and I'm waking you up. So there will always be some kind of storyline or some kind of fiction or some kind of narrative that would justify what the narcissist is doing. As to the second question, depends how you define narcissism and depends how you define treatment, and depends how you define healing and so on and so forth. It's a lot more complex than it sounds. In a nutshell, we are in clinical settings, perfectly able to, to induce in the narcissist what we call behavioral modification. So we're able to change the narcissist behaviors. We are able to render the narcissist less antisocial, less abrasive, less obnoxious, more palatable, easier to live with. We can do this in therapy. There's a variety of treatment modalities, schema therapy, some variants of cbt, cognitive behavior therapy, and so on and so forth. And they're pretty successful at accomplishing this. The problem with behavior modification, it is short term, so you need many a lot of maintenance sessions. Otherwise the effect of the therapy wanes and kind of vanishes, dissipates, and the narcissist reverts to form, to ill form, if I may add. That's the first problem. And the second problem is that the narcissist behaviors are not always the main issue, are not always the main problem because there are many people who misbehave. There are many people whose, whose misconduct is egregious and they're not narcissists. The problem with the narcissist is not so much the narcissist behaviors and choices and decisions, which are always kind of malevolent, if you wish. But the problem is the narcissist personality, the narcissistic core, the narcissistic identity, and how interacting with the narcissist within a fantastic space, the fantastic space the narcissist foists on you, how this impacts you in the long term.
- [11:02]
B
When you say fantastic space. Sam, could you define that and describe that a bit?
- [11:07]
C
Yeah. The narcissist offers you a deal. He says, reality is unbearable, it's intolerable, and I'm going to take you out of reality. I'm going to shield you. I'm going to create a firewall between you and reality. And I'm going to transport you into a Disneyland kind of a fantasy. And you're going to inhabit this fantasy. And within this fantasy, you are perfect. You're a perfect being. You're amazing, you are gracious, you are drop dead gorgeous, you are super intelligent. You are everything you have ever dreamt to be of being. And so the fantasy is self aggrandizing and it's very addictive, it's intoxicating. You see yourself through the narcissist gaze in a way that finally justifies self love. You can finally love yourself because you're perfect now. You're flawless. And so this is the core of the fantasy. It isolates you from reality. Second part of the fantasy says, now that you are a guest in my fantasy. That's what the narcissist says. Now that you're a guest in my fantasy, now that I've afforded you access to an idealized version of you which allows you to love yourself. Finally, now that I've done all this for you, I expect you to reciprocate. And I expect you to reciprocate in two ways. One, I will assume all responsibility for you and for your life. So you will no longer have agency, you will no longer have independence. You'll not be independent, you will no longer have personal autonomy. I'm taking all this away from you. So this is the Faustian deal with the narcissist. And the second thing, you're going to provide me with several things. You're going to provide me with what I call the four S's. The four S's are sex, services, supply, narcissistic or sadistic, and stability, safety, a sense of safety. Now, if you provide the narcissist with two out of the four S's, you're in. The job is yours. There's a job interview. It's called auditioning. And if you pass the job interview, you're inducted into the fantasy. From that moment on, you become the narcissist servant. But it's not a lopsided deal. It's not a lopsided deal because many victims of narcissists have never experienced self love before. Ross Rosenberg calls it a self love deficit. And so, and here is the narcissist. And through his gaze and within the fantastic space that he laboriously constructs for you, he makes you feel safe, he makes you feel perfect. He takes away all the drudgery of life and all the responsibilities and all the need to make, the need to make decisions and choices which might turn out to be the wrong ones. And he kind of regresses you, he infantilizes you. And now you're a baby, you're his baby. And as a baby you're entitled to unconditional love. And as a baby you're safe. And as a baby, all your needs are taken care of. And as a baby, nothing bad would ever happen to you. And of course as a baby, you never get to make decisions and choices or to have friends or whatever. You're totally isolated as a baby. And so there's a regressive element in the fantasy.
- [14:45]
B
At what point do you find in your experience the so called victims of narcissists that the light bulb goes off? That first phase which you described so eloquently, the what colloquially we in America called the idealization phase or the love bombing phase. And that is, that is a finite phase. It cannot go on forever. At what point do you see the non narcissists light bulb go off and say something's awry here. Something's very awry here.
- [15:20]
C
Yeah, like light bulb, light bulbs hopefully go on, not off. But yeah.
- [15:24]
B
Oh, sorry, yes, of course, on. Thank you.
- [15:27]
C
Yeah, hopefully.
- [15:28]
B
Hopefully, yeah.
- [15:32]
C
There are two sets of circumstances where light bulbs might go on. And the first one is if the narcissist overdoes it, if the narcissist exaggerates, if the discrepancy between what you know about yourself and what the narcissist is communicating to you via love bombing, and if the narcissist is psychopathic grooming you and the idealization phase, which is a clinical term, by the way.
- [15:58]
B
Oh, okay, good.
- [16:00]
C
Yeah, idealization is a clinical term. So I was trying to avoid clinical terms, but yeah, you're right, the correct term is idealization. So within this phase the narcissist might overdo it. And then you kind of feel, you feel the discrepancy, you say to yourself, this can't be true, something's wrong here, you know. So for example, if you know that you're good looking but not particularly intelligent, or highly intelligent but not particularly good looking or whatever, and here comes the narcissist and says that you are the most beautiful person or woman he has ever seen in his life and simultaneously you far exceed Einstein's, Albert Einstein's IQ and so on. If you have a minimal self critical capacity, a minimum of introspection, a minimum self awareness, this, this is a light bulb, light Bulb moment. Because you're going to wake up, you're going to say he's manipulating me. He's just, he's just trying to manipulate me. Is, is. And so this is one, one option, and the second and much more common set of circumstances is when the narcissist transitions ineluctably. Ineluctably is another word for inevitably from, from idealization to devaluation. Now, devaluation is a built in feature within the shared fantasy. It's not a bug, it's a feature. The narcissist must devalue you in order to discard you. And the narcissist must devalue you and must discard you because you are his mother and he is reenacting early childhood conflicts with the maternal figure will not go there. But at some point the narcissist begins to reverse course and instead of intelligent you become stupid and instead of drop dead gorgeous, you are merely drop dead and, and so on, so forth. And this sudden shift, and it's very abrupt and it has nothing to do with external circumstances. Unlike a lot of misinformation online. It's not that you, it's not that you have criticized the narcissist or you did not adhere to the narcissist demands and then the narcissist devalues you. The narcissist would devalue you even if you are the most obsequious, submissive, you know, catering to all his needs and he would still devalue you. It's about him, not about you. And at that point, of course you wake up. At that point you wake up.
- [18:32]
B
Yes, there's no winning. There's no winning with a true narcissist. To non narcissists who realize they are either partnered or married to, partnered with or married to narcissists, they have been going through the discard phase and they want to stick it out. They want to justify to themselves that this is a cyclical thing that they can somehow bear.
- [18:54]
C
The powers of self delusion are enormous. Especially, especially if the fantasy caters to deep set real psychological needs that have never been met before. For example, the need to self love, the need to feel safe, the need to feel understood and accepted, the need to feel that you are superior because you are somewhat narcissistic and it caters to your grandiosity. When the narcissist tells you you are a perfect being or a perfect entity, there's also that. So if these deep set fundamental needs are being met in the fantasy there's little incentive to abandon ship. And so then the partner would create counterfactual narratives, would create justifications, the narcissist behaviors. One possible such narrative is it's all my fault. Had I only behaved differently, if I only done that or said that, or have I only refrained from saying this or doing this, I would have been treated well. So it's all my fault. That's one. We call it the autoplastic narrative. Another type of narrative is going through a difficult period. It's a passing phase. Another narrative is, well, that's the way he is, you know, when he's loving, his love is like nothing else. And when he's abusive, you know, it's worth the price, the prize is worth the price. And so there are many such self deceiving narratives. They're self deceiving because none of them is true. None of them is real. The only narrative that's real is the clinical narrative. The narcissist is inexorably drawn into a fantasy and the fantasy dominates the narcissist. Narcissist has no control over the fantasy. And as I just said, the fantasy is inexorable in the sense that narcissists cannot stop the fantasy, re channel the fantasy, refrain the fantasy. The fantasy is in full control and mastery. The narcissist is its slave. And the fantasy has well defined phases, idealization, devaluation, and ultimately discard. There are inevitable phases, nothing to be done. Even the narcissist cannot do anything about it.
- [21:14]
B
Sam, is there a difference between selfishness and narcissism?
- [21:20]
C
Well, egotism or selfishness are derogatory terms. Narcissism is a clinical term. And one could even say that in certain types of circumstances selfishness is healthy. Putting yourself first is a healthy thing. Not putting yourself first is actually an indication of pathology. So we say, for example, that people pleasers are. It's a pathological state, pathological set of behaviors, you know, masochist. It's a pathology. I mean, I can, I can name 10 pathologies, codependency. I can name 10 types of pathologies where the individual puts himself or herself their needs last. That also applies in certain societal, cultural contexts. For example, mothers are supposed to put themselves last.
- [22:21]
B
Yes.
- [22:24]
C
In many societies, wives are supposed to put themselves last.
- [22:28]
B
Yes.
- [22:31]
C
I would even say that universally children have to put themselves last. If you have an aging mother or yes, you have to cater to their needs, you have to take care of them. You have to sacrifice yourself, your family, your money, your time, your resources. To take care of them. None of this is healthy.
- [22:50]
B
Agreed.
- [22:52]
C
None of this is healthy. And none of this can be justified either psychologically or philosophically. Even ethically. None of it. So I would say that selfishness. Unfortunately, we don't have a word in English which is the antonym or the opposite of selflessness.
- [23:09]
B
Yeah, but.
- [23:11]
C
Okay, let's say that selfishness is the opposite of selflessness. Then I would say that selfishness is healthy, whereas narcissism is not.
- [23:18]
B
You're so right. We need a middle word that is. That summarizes, you know. Because what you're describing. I've seen people I love do it. And it's never a bill that's fully paid. Right. In terms of, you know, situationally putting an aging parent first for a moment or a day or this. That bill never gets paid. And once you get locked in that cycle. I see. It's so difficult for people to get out of it.
- [23:46]
C
Yes, because it's. It's a clinging, needy form of emotional blackmail. We call it clinically, we call it control from the bottom.
- [23:58]
B
Interesting.
- [23:58]
C
Yes. You control people by rendering yourself helpless and needy. And this creates an ambience of extortion. Like, if you don't take care of me, I'm going to die. Or if you don't do this for me, I don't know how to do it by myself and I'm incapable of learning how to do it. And so on and so forth. These are all forms of blackmail. I would suggest the word selffulness. Self fullness, Selffulness.
- [24:28]
B
Interesting.
- [24:29]
C
Selffulness is healthy, whereas perhaps selfishness is frowned upon socially, albeit it's not pathological. And narcissism is pathological. But selffulness, like mindfulness. Yeah. Selffulness is, I think, very, very healthy. It is the self that defines boundaries. It is the self that informs us where we stop and the world begins and vice vers. It is the self that fulfills very critical functions. For example, reality testing.
- [25:03]
B
What is reality testing, Sam?
- [25:05]
C
Reality testing is the ability to tell what's real and what's not. What the narcissist does to you, the narcissist impairs your reality testing. The narcissist challenges your perception of reality. The narcissist does it unintentionally, not deliberately, as the psychopath does. Psychopath gaslights you. The narcissist gaslights you unintentionally. So within the fantasy, the narcissist tells you. Everything you think you know about reality is wrong. You perceive other people wrongly. For example, maybe you're Too weak or you're too submissive and people are taking advantage of you, or you shouldn't love your friend because she's backstabbing you and betraying you, or whatever you think you know about the government is wrong. So there's a lot of conspiracies involved and so on. This is, this is when your reality testing collapses or becomes impaired and you begin to rely on the narcissist as your sole exclusive gauge of reality. So you're going to come to the narcissist and say, tell me, is this real? Do you think it's real? Do you believe it? Is it believable? As if you have no mind of your own, you have outsourced your mind. The shared fantasy is when you outsource your mind and your ego functions. That's a clinical term to the narcissist. And he becomes your external mind, like an external hard drive, he becomes your external mind.
- [26:34]
B
I love that analogy. And what you mentioned too about the sort of isolating of the non narcissist, to keep them from, I mean I think we can see many examples of this in our popular culture today. To keep the victim from the others in their lives who actually would serve as reality enforcers. Right. Whether it's a family of origin or long standing friends that if they're going to counter the narcissist version of events, they have to go.
- [27:09]
C
Yes. There are two reasons for that. The narcissist superimposes, we call it projection. The narcissist projects, superimposes his own distorted and thwarted mind on others and on reality. So he says they're doing the same thing. They have their own fantasies. I have my own fantasies. They have their own fantasies. Friendship, it's a fantasy. Love, that's a fantasy. Empathy, bs. It's a fantasy. It's all fantasy. Because it's the only thing the narcissist knows. It's the only kind of experience the narcissist has. And so the narcissist superimposes this conceptual framework of fantasy on others. And then if you have a friend, if you have the narcissist partner and you have a friend, so that these are two competing fantasies. Your friendship, which is a fantasy in the narcissist mind, it's not real. Your friendship competes with his fantasy, so he needs to eliminate the competition. So that's one reason. Second reason, friends, family, co workers, institutions such as the church or I don't know, you know, your therapist, the royal family, perhaps. Royal family, perhaps on some Occasions. They offer you sustenance, vigor, succor, strength, resilience. They render you more. They render you immune to the narcissist fantasy. That is something the narcissist cannot countenance or accept. He needs to convert you into a susceptible entity. If we use immunology, like COVID 19, he needs to take away your immune system.
- [28:56]
B
Because I love that.
- [28:58]
C
Because his fantasy is a mind virus. It needs to infect you with a fantasy. As long as you have an immunological system which is comprised of people around you and their inputs, that's not going to work. So when you're isolated, your mind plays tricks on you. We know this, that's a clinical fact. When you're isolated, your mind plays tricks on you. And then it appears as if the narcissist is the only stable presence, the only person you can trust, the only gauge and measure of reality. And you latch onto the narcissist as if you're adrift in the ocean. And you kind of latch onto a piece of drifting wood, driftwood. So that's what he does to you. He removes from your life all certainty, all determinacy, all stability, all reality. And then he renders you dependent. By doing this, you become addicted to the self aggrandizing, idealizing aspects on the one hand, and you become addicted to your newly found self love on the one hand. But on the other hand, you are rendered so weak, so mentally emaciated that the narcissist becomes your only lifeline. He maintains exclusivity.
- [30:20]
B
So this is. What is this, what would be termed the fole a du, where the non narcissist then becomes sort of fully psychologically emotionally dependent and in order to survive has to. Has to mesh themselves into that delusion, into that noxious fantasy.
- [30:41]
C
Yes, absolutely. The shared fantasy, which is a term coined by Sander in 1989, was just another rendition of what used to be known as folia du and today is known as mass. Mass psychogenic illness. That's a clinical term. The updated clinical term. So yeah, these are two people where one of them is a leader, one of them is a narrative generator. One of them is the. One of them is the author and the other one is a character. So it's exactly like a video game or a movie where there's a director and a producer and a screenwriter, and then there are actresses and actors and you are an actress in the narcissist fantasy. Again, let me clarify. Half of all narcissists are women. I'm using he because it's a Victorian literary convention and I'm very victorious.
- [31:29]
B
I love the way your mind works. I love these descriptors and allegories and metaphors you come up with. You just bring it all so vividly to life. I want to talk to you. About what? Now, if my interpretation is correct, based on my own reading as a layperson, the inverted narcissist or the COVID narcissist is a relatively recent discovery in the field. Is that right? And can you describe what? Because I find these people, I know them in my own life, and they go around undetected, and it drives me nuts. So I want to bring the COVID narcissist to the fore. Please enlighten us. Have you ever wondered, you know, these guys who are, like, so big in the 80s and they sort of, you know, they fade away a bit and. The legendary Chuck Norris, if you've been wondering what happened to him, I recently saw a video he made and it was shocking. The guy is in his 80s and he is still working out and staying active. He says he's stronger, can work out longer, and even has plenty of energy left over for his grandkids. He feels, he says, like he is still in his 50s. And he did this by just making one simple change. His wife even started doing it, too, and she says she's never felt better. She says she feels like she's 10 years younger, her body looks leaner, and she's got energy all day long. So Chuck made a special video that explains everything. Watch it by going to chuckdefense.com nerve or by clicking on the link below this video. It will change the way you think about your health. You will not believe how simple it is. Chuck is 84 years old and this guy has more energy than I do. He discovered he could create dramatic changes to his health simply by focusing on three things that sabotage our body as we age.
- [33:29]
A
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- [34:02]
C
Mainstream thinking currently is that all narcissists go through overt and covert phases so all narcissists are sometimes in your face, defiant, reckless, go getters, you know, arrogant, haughty, disempathic, entitled, obnoxious. I don't want to continue the list. So that's the overt narcissist.
- [34:27]
B
Right?
- [34:27]
C
But even overt narcissists go through covert phases, phases of COVID narcissism and vice versa. So we no longer, as we used to, we no longer make a distinction between pure, pure types. Like the overt is never covert and the COVID is never overt.
- [34:46]
B
Got it?
- [34:47]
C
That used to be the thinking until about 10, 15 years ago. And unfortunately it still prevails online because everyone online is like 15 years back. But today we don't see it that way. Now the COVID narcissist is simply someone whose capacity to secure attention, narcissistic supply is diminished constitutionally because, for example, he's not very intelligent or not very handsome or not very good looking or whatever.
- [35:16]
B
Doesn't have charismatic.
- [35:17]
C
Charismatic, any of those. Yeah. Not talented, doesn't have the skills or whatever. So constitutionally unable to obtain narcissistic supply or has other mental health issues, for example his passive aggressive, or he's seething with envy and resentment or what have you. And so some narcissists would spend most of their lives, the majority of their lives being in a covert state. So maybe that's what we could call a covert narcissist.
- [35:48]
B
Okay, so what are they? What are the manifestations of COVID narcissism?
- [35:53]
C
Now we have two types. We have three types of COVID narcissists. One of them is a type that I was the first to describe. It's the inverted narcissist. And that's a narcissist who derives her narcissistic supply, her attention. I'm saying her because majority of inverted narcissists are women.
- [36:11]
B
Fascinating.
- [36:13]
C
She derives her narcissistic supply, her sense of self worth, her self confidence, self esteem, by teaming up with a dominant, in your face, overt narcissist. That reminds me that in Germany in the 19th century, if you were married to a medical doctor, they called you Frau Doctor. Even if you didn't.
- [36:35]
B
Wow.
- [36:35]
C
Even if you didn't have one year of education, you were still Frau Doctor. So the inverted narcissist is a Frau Doctor. She finds.
- [36:45]
B
Oh my God, I love this Frau Doctor. You're putting that in the lexicon at the nerve.
- [36:50]
C
Okay, so she is like by teaming up with the narcissist, she is vicariously enjoying the narcissist exposure, the attention is getting the admiration and adulation that he's subject to and so on vicariously. I'm the narcissist wife, you know, this kind of thing. The second type is known as the pro social, pro social or communal narcissist. That's by far the most dangerous type. I would even say more dangerous than the malignant narcissist. Because the pro social narcissist, as a communal narcissist, as the name implies, pretends to be empathic, loving, charitable, compassionate, pretends to be a do gooder who is hell bent on improving the lot of other people. So he would likely be a social activist or he would volunteer for an NGO in the furthest corners of Africa, or he would. And it's all done ostentatiously, it's all for public consumption. It's all very visible on the surface, it's all conspicuous and so it's all public facing and communicable. And this is the pro social, communal analysis. The problem with these people is that they are believable. And we have something called a rate based fallacy. Never mind that it's the fact that people believe 90 to 95% of what they are told without fact checking, verifying or even exercising minimal critical thinking. So when a narcissist like that comes and tells you, listen, I love humanity, I have empathy for all my fellow beings, I'm engaged all my life I've sacrificed my well being and my wealth and my capacity and talents and skills. I've put all of them, harnessed all of them to help humanity. And you, you would, I mean, vast majority of people would believe this kind of person and then they enter a shared fantasy and then they're easily manipulable. So these kind of people end up being con artists or swindlers or they end up abusing their positions as for example, members of the clergy, or they end up raising humongous sums of money and then taking off to Barbados or wherever these kind of people run away nowadays and so on and so forth. It ends badly. All the gurus, all the public intellectuals, all the charitable figures, all the Mother Theresas of the world, and I mean the overwhelming vast majority of them, in all likelihood pro social, communal narcissists. How do I know that? Because they're famous.
- [39:43]
B
So fascinating, Sam, because this reminds me of Christopher Hitchens writing an expose of Mother Teresa for Vanity Fair. And God, did he catch a ton of crap for that. But he was right. He was right to be looking under that hood and I want to ask you about. So we're talking about in the macro, the sort of most extreme examples who, you know, propel themselves onto the global stage. But in the micro, in your own community or your own network of friends or family. I find these people manifest as the following. They're just so generous, they're just so giving. They just advertise what is close to a kind of martyrdom. They'll put others before themselves any day of the week, but they want you to see it. You don't give a gift behind a closed door. You don't do something generous for someone without somehow blaring it out on social media. Which by the way, I think the combination of social media and reality television has embedded narcissism and this kind of narcissism in the culture to the point where it's becoming normalized so as to be undetectable.
- [40:50]
C
Yeah. The communal pro social narcissist is a precursor to the, the father, if you wish, of influencers, influencer. But the influencers are not hiding their commercial affiliations and that they're benefiting from all this. So in, in this sense they're honest and take it. It's a take it or leave it situation.
- [41:14]
B
Right.
- [41:14]
C
The pro social communal narcissist plays on victimhood, as you mentioned. It's self sacrificial. It's under sacrificial lamb. And I'm doing this for you and I'm paying a horrendous personal price for doing this, but I'm still doing this. Why? Because I'm a good person. I'm essentially a good person. That's my quidity, my goodness. And so these are very dangerous people. And the third type of COVID narcissist is someone who is, as I said, seething with envy and resentment, is highly grandiose, but believes himself to be discriminated against, overlooked. Develop some kind of personal conspiracy theory where people are envious of him and they have a malign intent and they are holding him back or taking him down or conspiring against him or something. So it's someone who is immersed in a narrative, a seething narrative, a narrative, that festering narrative of look at me, I'm being victimized by everyone, by the entire world because of my superiority. I am supremely intelligent and that's why my academic supervisors hate me or my teachers hate me. I am amazingly skilled and talented. That's why my boss never gives me a promotion. I am. My colleagues envy me and that's why they are undermining my Work and it's always not my fault. This is known as alloplastic defense. So this type of COVID narcissist blames the world, institutions, colleagues, neighbors, family members, spouses, children, his dog, you name it. Blames the world for any defeat, any mishap, any error, any mistake, any miscalculation, any wrong decision, any choice that have panned out badly and so on. So this is the third type, the most common type actually.
- [43:15]
B
Really?
- [43:16]
C
Yeah, that's the most common type.
- [43:19]
B
Why do you say, Sam, let's say even in a, in a pro social context, that's in the micro, right? So just someone in your own community in your field division, that those are the most dangerous kinds of narcissists, what is the worst outcome that could happen?
- [43:32]
C
You don't see them coming. You don't see them coming. The malignant narcissist is a caricature. The malignant narcissist is a narcissist. He's also a psychopath and he's also a sadist. And you see him coming from miles away. And you can protect yourself. You can defend yourself. Protect yourself.
- [43:51]
B
Interesting.
- [43:52]
C
If you listen, if you are self destructive, that's your ideal partner. And many, many self destructive people team up with narcissists and psychopaths and malignant narcissist because this guarantees their own demise. It's a safe and certain way to end essentially your productive life, if not your physical life. So but you see them coming. You can, you know, you don't see the pro social or communal narcissist coming. You don't see them coming. The COVID narcissist is by definition covert. It's very difficult. We have studies.
- [44:26]
B
How do you, how do you. Sorry, go on, go on.
- [44:29]
C
We have studies where we have exposed people to photographs and email messages of narcissists and people were able to spot overt narcissists. They had, they had what we call the uncanny valley reaction. They became highly uncomfortable. They were able to spot overt narcissists within 3 to 30 seconds they were exposed to a video or a photograph or an email. And within three to 30 seconds they have. Correct. The majority of people have correctly identified others who have been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. Overt narcissism triggers something in you, makes you feel uncomfortable, something is off key, something is half baked, something is wrongly put together. We call it the uncanny value reaction. Covert narcissists don't trigger this in you. They are really under the radar. It's very, very difficult to Spot them. And even I would even say that they are not as aware of their actions as overt narcissists are really. So it's not that they're hiding anything from you. There isn't even the overt narcissist knows exactly what they're doing. He knows he's hurting you. He's going to invent some kind of story to justify himself and everything, but he knows exactly what he's doing. Very often the COVID narcissist is self deceiving, extremely self deceiving. We say that the overt narcissist is self enhancing, whereas the COVID narcissist is self deceiving. The COVID narcissist just wants to feel at peace, whereas the overt narcissist wants to feel superior. So with the overt, it's about superiority. With the COVID it's about reducing anxiety. It's an anxiolytic state, an attempt to reduce anxiety.
- [46:22]
B
Anxiolytic state, yeah.
- [46:25]
C
So it's really, really, really pernicious, insidious. And when, when the COVID narcissist finds a way to obtain supply by pretending to be a good person and by deceiving not only himself but millions of others, you can imagine the damage.
- [46:42]
B
I find that these people also are never given, rarely if ever given to expressing what I would consider a healthy degree of anger. You know, it seems that their investiture is in their public facing role. They are even keeled, they can take anything, Nothing is a big deal, Everything is cool. Because to be angry would somehow be.
- [47:08]
C
I don't know, compromise their image.
- [47:10]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [47:12]
C
Well you're talking about COVID narcissists. Yeah, exactly, that's very true. Because as I mentioned earlier, they're passive aggressive. Passive aggression is when you do not express anger overtly, when you do not verbalize it, when you do not communicate it, when you are not trying, when you're not attempting to influence the behavior of other people by telling them I'm angry at you. There's no honesty, right? Covert narcissism is a dishonest condition. And what the COVID narcissist does instead, he's being passive aggressive. He sabotages you, he undermines you. He poisons your mind with a trickle, incremental kind of. So while the overt narcissist is highly overt, so there's narcissistic rage. When the overt narcissist is angry at you, it becomes disproportional and crazy making. It's a form of acting out and we call it Narcissistic rage. It's unique to narcissists. It's not exactly anger. It's not an attempt to modify your behavior. It's an attempt to annihilate you or at the very least, subjugate you. At the very least.
- [48:22]
B
Sam, what do you do? I guess we'll leave it with this. This, I think, is the most common question we have gotten from our audience. As a non narcissist, if you are forced to be in proximity with a narcissist, you either realize you are married to one or they are in your family and there's no getting away from them. You realize that there's a covert among you. Agreed. The most malevolent, destructive, difficult to spot. How do you defend yourself?
- [48:54]
C
Let's start with the fact that I've mentioned you spot analysis within 3 to 30 seconds. 3 seconds. Studies by in Harvard, and so these are serious universities and serious studies. You spot them. Don't kid yourself, don't deceive yourself, don't say, I've been played. You know, the narcissist is such a great actor and I've been played. I discovered this months later. Not true. In all likelihood, you knew that something was wrong within seconds. And so this is the fact. The first fact, second fact. The longer you're exposed to the narcissist, the more likely you are to develop narcissistic defenses and ultimately to be. To resemble the narcissist very, very much, you're likely to become a narcissist. Narcissistic defenses involve, for example, a reduction in empathy, becoming much more aggressive or even violent, verbally abusive at least, and so on. So narcissism is contagious. It's infectious. Point number three. Narcissistic abuse is not like other types of abuse, is not like being bitten, you know, which is bad. Of course, battering is bad, but it's not the same. It's not like being subject to financial abuse or legal abuse or, I don't know, verbal abuse. It's not the same. All other forms of abuse limit themselves to an aspect of you, to some dimension of you, to some area of your life, to some particular group of friends, to some. To your bank account, to your sexuality.
- [50:26]
B
It's an annexed part of your life.
- [50:29]
C
Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't say it's in the fringe, but it's limited. Other types of abuse are limited. Narcissistic abuse is unlimited. The main goal of narcissistic abuse is to eliminate you as an independent agentic entity and to Reproduce you as an internal artifact in the narcissist's mind. That is annihilation. That is eradication. That's not abuse. I think narcissistic abuse, the phrase that I coined, I beginning to regret it. I think I should have coined the phrase narcissistic eradication.
- [51:06]
B
Never too late, Sam.
- [51:07]
C
Yeah, never too late. Yeah, right. I'm young. So. So you, you can tell the difference because with classical types of abuse, it's a touch and go. The abuser is there, then the abuser is not there, then the abuser. It's intermittent, it comes and goes with the. With narcissistic abuse, it's all pervasive, it's all consuming. There's no respite, there's no rest, there's no break, there's no pause. It's it. This is it. This has become your life. You know.
- [51:41]
B
Well, as you said at the top of the show, it's a mind virus. Once it gets into your mind and that parasite takes hold of the host body, the narcissist could be away for a month. It doesn't matter. It's working on you.
- [51:54]
C
It's very true. The clinical term is introjection. The narcissist interjected, insinuated himself into your mind. Never to live unless you take care of it via therapy and so on. But. So when you feel that the abuse is this kind of abuse that is taking over you, a hostile takeover, when, when you are losing your identity, wake up in the morning, you say, that's not me. I don't feel the same.
- [52:20]
B
Right?
- [52:20]
C
I can't believe. I can't believe I've said that. I can't believe I've done that. I can't believe I've made this choice. I can't. You know, if you can't believe, if you find yourself incredulous and incredible in the worst sense of the meaning of the word, then it's time to go. Because you are becoming him. You're becoming your narcissist. And that's a very dangerous process because the triggers in you very infantile, primordial, primitive defenses like splitting. It reduces your capacity to empathize. It takes away your sense of identity and core self. It renders you more automatic, more robotic. It makes you a schizoid. In other words, you begin to isolate yourself. Self isolation, forget the narcissist and so on and so forth. These are detrimental and deleterious impacts that would take years to unravel in therapy and so on. The sooner you abdicate the Sooner you abandon sheep, the, the more, the better your prognosis later on. Now people say, but I can't abandon sheep. I can't leave the narcissist, my mother, or I can't leave the narcissist, my son. I don't buy that. I don't buy that. A narcissist is a clear and present danger and a mortal one. It's a mortal danger. And so you need to go, you need to let go, you need, you need to go. No contact. Which is a set of 27 strategies that I was the first to propose in the 80s. You need to go. No contact. No contact means no contact. Not directly, not indirectly, not by litigating, which is a way of staying in touch, right? Not by, not by stalking social media. No contact means no contact. Now some people say so I don't buy the it's my son, it's my mother kind of response. Another kind of response. I can't live because I'm financially dependent on the narcissist. Well, give up on your lifestyle and flip burgers in McDonald's. That's my answer. Anything is better.
- [54:32]
B
Sam. What do you say to the people who would say, oh, Sam, it's no contact? In theory, sure, but here's the pressure I get when my nephew is getting married or there's a 90th birthday celebration and I'm going to be the bad guy because I refuse to be in the same room with the narcissist who is so dark and damaging. I'm the one who's supposed to just suck it up for an hour or two and play nice. I don't have to interact with him. What is your response to that? What is your best advice?
- [55:04]
C
If you suck it up, you will be sucked in. As simple as that. Any single time that you suck it up, you're going to be sucked into the narcissist whirlwind and vortex and shared fantasy. You exposing yourself to one hour in the presence of a narcissist would mean another few months or another few years of having to cope with the outcomes among switch is a new shared fantasy. This is what narcissists do. They infect you. They don't need much. So what other people you have to you, I mean, you have to decide what are your priorities, your well being, your social, your mental health, your ability to function, being there for people you love, your agency, your independence, your personal autonomy, your core identity, knowing who you are, feeling one and the same with yourself, not experiencing estrangement and alienation this is one set of priorities and another set of priorities. What would your nephews and nieces and the neighbor would say? So if what other people would say about you matters to you more than everything else I've just enumerated, go ahead, attend the wedding.
- [56:18]
B
Well, if you are to go with option B and remove yourself permanently, I think you also have to allow yourself to know you're going to have to grieve. You're going to have to grieve all of those people who take the side of the narcissist and continue to suck it up because it's better to go along to get along, which is, I think, the default position of most dysfunctional families.
- [56:43]
C
There is massive grief involved in giving up on the narcissist, the likes of which there's none because you are giving up on a mother figure. You are giving up on your child. The narcissist becomes your child. You become a maternal figure in the shared fantasy. So it's like giving up on your child simultaneously, you're grieving the death of a mother figure, the death of a child figure, the death of the fantasy, the death of the narcissist gaze, the removal of the narcissist gaze which allowed you to self love, finally, the death of the disappearance of that person. I mean, there's attachment, there's bonding, sometimes trauma bonding with a person. So there are multiple layers of grief. This is archaeological grief. There are multiple layers of grief and the grief is not superficial, but the grief becomes who you are and the grief becomes your new shared fantasy. The grief is fantastic because what you're mourning has never been there. The narcissist you were mourning has never existed. The fantasy of mourning is a fantasy. All of it is nonsense. It's a dream. You're mourning the dream. And so the grief itself becomes a captivating, intoxicating, harmful shared fantasy or formal fantasy, and you're unable to let go. We call it prolonged grief disorder. There's a clinical term for that. There's a clinical term for anything, for everything, by the way.
- [58:19]
B
I'm getting that. I'm getting that from you.
- [58:21]
C
We love to pathologize people with some money making advice.
- [58:25]
B
Yeah, right. Well, you know, that's very funny and somewhat there's some truth to what you're saying, but I love your phrase archaeological grief. I would love for that to penetrate the lexicon. Archeological grief, complicated grief, moving through grief and knowing that if it's profound and true, as opposed to the fantasy that one is grieving. When you get to the other side, there is a level of freedom that is hard won but truly real.
- [58:56]
C
Allow me to add one more sentence.
- [58:59]
B
Yes, please.
- [59:03]
C
The biggest element in this grief is that you have lost yourself. You're no longer you. You're no longer you in any meaningful way. You've lost your core identity, your agency, your autonomy, your self perception, what we call self concept. You've lost your self concept. You no longer know who you are. You derive your sense of being in existence and your sense of reality from the narcissist, having been exposed to the narcissist. So there's nothing there. Once the narcissist is gone, you're floating in deep space. It's a state of obliviousness and oblivion. There's nothing to latch onto. There's no core. You're in a totally fluid state. And so this is very menacing. It's terrifying. Additionally, you have merged with the narcissist. You fused with narcissist, you melded. We call it the symbiotic phase. You became, you created a symbiosis with the narcissist. And you need to separate from the narcissist to become again an individual narcissist. Regressed you to a baby state. And as a baby, you're always one with mommy. So having regressed you to an infantile state, you became one with a narcissist. And now you need to break. It's like Siamese twins. You need an operation, an intervention to. The good news is, and I want to, I want to end on a good note, which is highly atypical of me, and I apologize, but the good news is that having been exposed to a narcissist, been victimized by a narcissist, having survived the narcissist in some way, the prognosis is excellent. If you subject yourself to soul searching and self exploration and at the same time to therapy and the various modalities of therapy. Again, I refer people to a playlist on my YouTube channel. It's titled Narcissistic Abuse, Healing and Recovery. There's I think 200 videos by now.
- [61:08]
B
Okay, and.
- [61:09]
C
And it's totally free and so on. But in a nutshell, if you attend therapy and which kinds of therapies you can find on the list, in the list that I've mentioned. And there's another list titled Therapies, which is very suggestive. And so if you visit these two playlists and you attend therapy and you do a lot of studying and learning and soul searching and talking to yourself and becoming Your best friend again, reacquiring your best friendship with yourself and exploring your core and who you truly are and so on and so forth. The prognosis is excellent. Your chances for healing and recovery verge on 100%. This is not narcissism where healing is absolutely impossible. This is not psychopathy where we don't even attempt therapy. It's like lost case completely. This is not this. This is not it. This is whatever. However long the shared therapy has been with the narcissist, it is a temporary phase. It's a transient phase and you can re emerge from this. Don't give up on yourself and don't despair. As I repeat, the outcome of therapy and self exploration is very close to 100% recovery and healing. So go for it.
- [62:31]
B
I love that message and I, you know, I guess against your own best impulses. Sam, this is the second time you've been here and you've ended on a high note. You want to give people a little.
- [62:40]
C
Bit of yeah, I'm ashamed. I feel guilty. There's a lot of disorders.
- [62:45]
B
You're a mansch. You're a mansch.
- [62:48]
C
Yes, sir. I'm Jewish. How can I help it?
- [62:51]
B
Oh, well, thank you again so much for coming on the Nerve and having yet another fascinating, illuminating discussion. Archaeological grief. I will be taking that with me in my back pocket. Thank you, Sam.
- [63:06]
C
Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
- [63:08]
B
Always a pleasure.
- [63:09]
C
Take care.
- [63:09]
B
See you soon. Bye. Thanks again to Sam Voxnin, one of the most brilliant minds I have ever encountered and we are just so lucky to have him here on the Nerve. I think that was one of. That was just such an educate, like in the best way though. It didn't feel like there was no eating your vegetables. It's just fascinating. Who among us cannot relate? Who among us has not had a narcissist in our lives and felt that it is just a complete non negotiable to just put up with it? And Sam has offered a completely new framework to look at that if that is what you yourself are worried about at the moment or are struggling with. So please send us your feedback to Sam, send us your questions, send us what you would love for us to talk to him or any of our experts about. Next up next, a major celeb update and troublemaker emails. And just a quick reminder to, like, subscribe and spread the word. Let's keep our community of like minds growing ever quickly. Also, please keep sending me all of your thoughts, requests, critiques, story ideas. I love reading them all you can email me directly@maureenvilmaycare media.com or DM me on Instagram at maureen callahanriter or thenerveshow. We are back in a minute. Do you love olive oil? If so, have you ever tasted it farm fresh? If not, your first taste will be a revelation. Just born of earth and tree, Farm Fresh olive oil is bright, vivid, grassy. It's like a garden in a bottle and it adds amazing flavor to all of your meals. Listen, if we insist on fresh milk and eggs, fresh meat and fish, fresh fruits and veggies, we should insist on fresh olive oil because in every case, freshness makes a huge difference in flavor and in nutrition. But you'll never find fresh olive oils in supermarkets where they can sit on the shelf and for months or even years. Prove the difference to yourself with a free $39 bottle direct from an award winning artisanal sorry, artisanal farm. Pay just $1 to help cover shipping and your $39 bottle is free. Courtesy of TJ Robinson, known worldwide as the Olive Oil Hunter. TJ searches the world for the best tasting olive oil and he ships it direct at peak Farm Fresh flavor and nutrition. Try your first bottle free with no obligation or commitment to buy anything. For your free $39 bottle, go to farm fresh222.com that's farmfresh222.com farmfresh222.com need to restock inventory, cover seasonal dips, or manage payroll. On Deck's small business line of credit provides immediate access to funds up to $100,000 ex. With flexible draws, transparent pricing and full control over repayment, you can tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. Apply today@ondeck.com and funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by Ondeck or Celtic Bank. Ondeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans an amount subject to lender approval. We are back. Now, before we get into your incredible, insightful, hilarious emails, feedback and artwork which continually bowled over here at Team Nerve at the artwork, I want to do a quick update regarding Howard Stern now. On Thursday morning there is a big announcement out of Stern Central. At least that's what it sounds like to me. That all of that hullabaloo that had been going on about a week ago, that Sirius XM was getting ready to show Howard the door and they were going to make him an intentionally insulting lowball offer to make sure he did not renew his contract, that he is no longer wanted. He is not relevant. He hasn't been funny in forever. He went woke and highly politicized. And his staff was not only hoarding their best material for themselves because they knew that it was a matter of time, but that when the news broke last week that this was all going on at Sirius XM Central, Howard staff that had just been at a team building meeting at a bar, a shitty bar in midtown Manhattan probably panicked and they all started trying to get a hold of Gary Delabatte, Howard's longtime executive producer, and Gary was not picking up. Okay, that's sign number one. That even Gary was taken aback by this news and didn't know how to respond and was waiting for his instructions from way upstairs before getting in touch with his panicked staff. Sign number two, the Daily Mail exclusively reported that Howard's celebrity friends had been trying to get a hold of him. After the news broke that Jimmy Fallon called Howard personally, went straight to voicemail. That Ali Wentworth, wife of ABC News's I Choke on that George Stephanopoulos had also tried to reach him directly, went straight to voicemail. Only Jimmy Kimmel, Howard's favorite celeb bff, could get through. And according to the Daily Mail's exclusive report, Howard sounded stunned and said to Kimmel, this is the first I'm hearing of it. Now, Howard, who has marketed himself as a truth teller, lo, these many years, is now towing this. Selling this line, okay? I think it's coming straight out of Team Howard that all of that was just a publicity stunt to drum up audience interest leading to his return on September 2nd. And I am sorry, but that is insulting. That is insulting. It's the same as Sarah Jessica Parker going, oh, no, this was our decision to end. And just like that, no, no, we weren't shown the door. Our audience doesn't hate us. And if they hate us, I don't care. This is the same thing. Howard Stern's ego is so fragile that there is no way in hell, mark my words, that he would condone or consent to a publicity stunt that painted him as a loser. Okay? And not for nothing, his. His much younger wife Beth, when that news broke that following weekend, like, within a day or two, posted a very thoughtful, meditative photo of herself with her back to the camera on the beach, staring out at the ocean with the words, like, something like, you know, it's been. It's. It's. It's. It's a long weekend with many decisions to make, okay? So don't try to bullshit bullshitters, Howard. Just have some fucking respect for your audience. God, he really can't go soon enough. It is long past time. Okay, now on to our troublemaker emails and artwork. This comes to us from Ireland, a troublemaker named Colette. Hi, Maureen. Just wanted to say a quick hello. It was your surname that caught my eye at first regarding the Nerve, as I'm Irish, so I thought I'd take a look. I love it. We love that you love it. See, we're unlike Sarah Jessica Parker. We're in the business of making you guys happy. Okay, now she says, oh, I love this. You might have been raised in the US but you have that Irish streak running through you, especially when something is pissing you off. Yeah. Also, I wanted to add that I'm sad that and just like that, is over, as I look forward to picking it apart on Tuesdays. All good things must come to an end. But we've got hate watches for days, Colette, so don't despair. She signs off. Keep up the great work. All the best, Slantia. I hope I'm saying that right. I'm sure you'll correct me, Colette, if I haven't. I tried my best. Okay, following that lovely, lovely email, I need to share with you Colette's incredible artwork. She sent two pieces. The first is the Nerve Daily, which I love. It's like a print edition. Oh, my God, how I love print media. It's a print edition. And then her second piece is me standing in front of a wood chipper looking like I'm about to take somebody out and throw them out back and ship them up. Colette, a amazing, amazing. Thank you so much for that. Next, we got from Paul, Troublemaker, Paul from New Zealand, who more recently gave us the Cauldron art of me as chief witch, troublemaker, head bitch, troublemaker in charge, the Hubble Bubble Toil and Troublemaker cauldron is back. First of all, he wants to email to give support to Tim, the makeup artist. You guys love him. We love him. Paul says of Tim, he is excellent. Agreed. He is quite clear, thoughtful, and I shall use a word that seems to matter so much nowadays. Authentic. Agreed, Maureen. I also prefer the word realistic. Tim is realistic about hbo, AGLT and sjp. So many acronyms. Okay. The Nerve is realistic. Your guests are realistic. Your Troublemakers are realistic. We don't buy the fake crap flung at us by Andrew Cohen, as he shall forevermore be known over here at the Nerve et al. So many names are included in that all. Keep realistic and carry on. Some new Troublemaker art for you attached. And Paul gives us Keep calm And watch the Nerve with a crown. I think. I think one Meghan Markle might take umbrage. To which I say, you can suck it, sister. Okay, now, from Julie in Athens, Greece. I am amazed at the reach of this show. Truly. She says that Tuesdays, once Monday level tedious, are now nearly as brilliant as Fridays. Because no matter what's blowing up at work, I know I get to kick home. Get. Come home. Excuse me. Kick off my shoes and listen to the Nerve. Instant mood lifter. Sanity restore. Honestly, it's like therapy, except way cheaper and much funnier. And we are all so gratified. Thank you guys for this feedback. It tells us we are on the right track. And lightening your load is task number one over here. Your takedowns of the absurd JFK junior cult. She's loving those. I can't get over the way the left insists on idolizing this smug charisma free mediocrity as though sainthood were hereditary. And as we know, his father was no saint and his grandfather was no saint. On and on and on. If anyone half as arrogant and empty showed up on the right, they would be crucified by the very same people. Agreed. If you haven't already dug into Brooke Shields's account of this guy, you must. In her version of their brief interlude, she really exposes the entitled jerk you've described. And yes, she. We've done this on another nerve. He was terrible to her. Okay. What I love most though is that the nerve isn't just commentary. Julie says it's more like a movement. You're steadily gathering this avalanche of listeners who are sick of the hypocrisy, the self appointed elites and the cultish worship of mediocrities. So thank you. You know what? We're so glad. We're so glad. We are striking the proverbial nerve, as it were, vis a vis the news reader. My recent viewing recommendation. Recommendation. Sorry to you troublemakers. It's Australian. It's amazing. I'm addicted. I'm dying. The next episode is dropping tonight on amc. Thank you so much. Or sorry it dropped last night. Thank you so much for your recommendation on an absolutely fabulous show. I am a Kiwi living in Australia and didn't know about this local morsel. And Nikki is loving the newsreader. Absolutely incredible on so many levels. Agreed. This from a troublemaker named Liz in Kentucky. Maureen, firstly, it is validating for you to be talking honestly about celebrities I've considered for ages. Thank you. Thanks to you, Liz. Whether it be Andrew Cohen who I believe hates women and exploits them as a modern day Truman Capote or even a Truman Show. Or the narcissistic, talentless and fragile Meghan Markle. You are spot on. As to sjp, she still fancies herself and her bitchy character Carrie, a stunning ingenue. The show is the ultimate let them eat cake statement to fans, many of whom cannot at all relate to the wasteful, frivolous and insane behavior of the characters or the actors who. Who play them. Most people in our country are under extreme financial stress. Yes, Liz. Also on the subject of Carol Radziwill, you guys loved that segment. Whoa. Didn't see that coming. I just thought the Tyler Henry psychic. Psychic reading. Scribble, scribble, scribble was hilarious. She was one of the most contemptuous women in any of the Real Housewives franchises. And that is saying a lot given the grandiose and deranged shit show Real Housewives always is. It was clear Carol considered herself a true intellectual, far superior to her castmates, but still needing the attention and the paycheck the casting afforded her. Unfortunately, her brains failed her when it came to the work she had done. Carol definitely wanted to draw parallels to herself and Carrie Bradshaw. Agreed. Both single, both quote, unquote writers, both with ovens full of storage and shoes, and both known to end up in wildly inappropriate relationships. Never forget Caroline's borderline in this troublemaker's estimation, predatory relationship to the chef Adam Kenworthy, who was 21 years her junior and who also had previously dated Luann's niece, who was his age, his peer. Now, I here is a working theory of the case. Just a working theory. And I love the Countess Luann. She gave us so much. I believe that Luann was so, so, so worked up over Carol sleeping with the chef, who was so much younger because Luann had also slept with said chef. There is no other explanation for that outsize reaction. I don't care how much you love your niece. It's just. It never made sense. The only working theory that makes sense to me. Okay. Hey, Maureen, it is Cody from Oklahoma. You can use my name and state anytime. Okay. Cody Tyner. He had sent the email about Matthew Broderick in an earlier Nerve, Remember? This is so good, Cody. You are you really. Someday we'll talk. Remember when Kathy Griffin had a reality show called Kathy Griffin My Life on the D List that aired on Bravo? Yes, I do. Andrew Cohen was basically her boss and definitely knew who she was, especially since his best friend, Anderson Cooper was very close with Kathy Griffin. And they used to host a New Year's Eve special together every year. Which was actually funny because Kathy Griffin was on it and could keep talking for hours on end instead of getting shit faced like Andy Cohen does and calls that broadcasting. Okay. When she got canceled for the Headless Trump photo, Anderson cut ties with her and she was fired from the hosting gig. Andrew Cohen was going to be her replacement. And when TMZ asked him about it, he acted like he didn't know who she was, but it was obvious. He was just being catty. He was awful about that. He was just waiting for that opening because, you know, Andrew Cohen has been gagging to get, you know, when they were auditioning for Kelly Ripa's next co host after Ryan left, you know, he was gagging for it. He's been trying to get a real gig that's not on Bravo and he can't do it. His he has what I call site specific fame. It is specific to Bravo and the Bravo universe. And we'll see how long that lasts for because as discussed, we at the Nerve, we've got skin in this game. Okay? Kathy Griffin responded to Andrew Cohen's slight by posting a video where she spilled all the tea she had on him and Harvey Levin. She called Andy misogynistic, said he was a miserable boss, gave reasons why, even called out specific producers and executives for enabling his behavior. Sound familiar? The most interesting part to me though was when she talked about what happened before she would appear on Watch what Happens Live. She said that the first time she was alone with Andrew in his office on Embassy Row, he asked if she wanted to do blow. She thought he was joking. But the next time she appeared on his show again, this is the, this is Cody's recollection the next time she appeared on his show again alone with him in his office. Kathy says that Andrew said to her, hey, want to do some coke? That's when she realized he was serious and turned him down. People dismissed the video saying she was crazy and having a breakdown, as people often do with inconvenient women. But I believe her for a couple of reasons. For first, after she told the story, she said, trust me, he's going to say he was kidding. But no, he was serious. As with the Brandy video. Remember, he said he was kidding and I said, you guys go look at that U.S. sun report. And I gave you the date of the story in the most recent Full Nerve. You look at that and he's not kidding. My opinion, there's no way you could Read that as joking around. Okay. I feel Cody continues like if she were making it up, she would have said he'll claim it never happened. Instead, she predicted he'd say he was joking, which feels more believable. Second, this was back in 2017 and now after hearing all of the housewives who have come forward accusing him of drug use and or abuse, I think she was telling the truth. Hey, Maureen. This is from a troublemaker named Margaret. Not only did Matthew Broderick kill two innocent women, again, skating at the low, low price of a $175 fine, making the lives of those women worth $87.50 each, he gravely injured his girlfriend at the time, the actress Jennifer Gray. Apparently she writes about it in her memoir, which I have not read, but I really need to. It was just tragic. And Jennifer states that it was the most traumatic event of her life. Matthew Broderick is disgusting and so typical of Hollywood. Reckless behavior that goes unchecked. From Lauren, troublemaker Lauren. Hey, Maureen. Okay. Holy shit, that Tracy Ellis Ross dry skin brushing reaction to your takedown of her. Thank you, by the way. You're welcome. It's a total public service. Do not dry brush in public, you heathen was insane. She looked like an unhinged lunatic. Of course, a dim witted narcissist such as herself would predictably lash out instead of taking some time for introspection to reflect upon her privilege, selfishness and overall lack of curiosity or intelligence. You know, just what Hollywood elites like to tell the rest of us all the time. Keep going after her. She deserves it for all her entitled and nasty behavior. The email from the lady whose hard working Haitian mother was berated by Tracy is probably one of hundreds out there. Agreed. Finally, finally we come to our end today. But it's not for long because we will see you tomorrow on the mini. But for today's end, our final piece of artwork from troublemaker Heather, who like so many of you, the last recap we did of. And just like that with Tim the makeup artist, I donned my version of Carrie's Holly Hobby on acid mega hat that was made by Emily over here on Team Nerve. She put it together literally with like safety pins and packing tape that was a piece of gingham fabric off of Amazon with a big summer hat. She is a feat of engineering and as I said, it's going in the archives. Anyway, Heather mocked me up for the COVID of glamour magazine, the 50 most glamorous women. And yours truly on it with the pizza pie hat. You guys are Geniuses. I laugh out loud when I get these emails and I see this art. I laugh out loud and then I marvel at how creative and funny and just intelligent every single person who reaches out is. And so I know that holds true for the whole audience. You know, we, we really lucked out over here at the Nerve. And that does it. Sadly, that does it for our time together. But as always, we have a new mini nerve dropping on Saturday. This one, this one is very personal to me and you may have heard me talk about it a little bit with Megyn Kelly on her show Thursday. And by the way, we covered a lot on Megan's show on Thursday. So if you missed that conversation, definitely head over there. You'll love it. But on Saturday on the Mini, we are going to tell you the real story. And I know this is the real story because I worked this story years and years ago behind yet another reality TV franchise. This one is currently getting the glossy treatment over on Netflix right now. And I think it dropped just earlier this week or maybe one week ago today. When it dropped, it went straight to number one. It is one of Netflix's top top rated shows at the moment. It's a three part docu series. They're bite sized. Each one is less than an hour long. It's called Fit for tv. So my suggestion is head over to Netflix, watch some of it. You don't have to watch all of it, but watch at least some of it. And then come back to the Mini Nerve on Saturday for some real talk about fake people and institutions. Okay? And in a Mini. First, we have a very special guest joining us. You guys are gonna love her. Okay, so we will see you Saturday morning on YouTube. Remember, that's where the Minis live for now. You can only get them on YouTube. Head over there. You're gonna. It's perfect for YouTube anyway because there's so much that's visual that you really have to see to, to really get the most out of the story. So that will be Saturday morning, 10am Eastern. And then we'll see you all back here for another full show on Tuesday at the Nerve where you will never guess what we're about to say next. What does possibility mean to you? That's a hard question.
- [86:57]
A
Something you can strive for.
- [86:58]
B
I'm able to do anything I set my mind to. You're confident in yourself and you believe in yourself. Stuff that you could achieve. I feel it's Sarah, anything is possible when you're more confident. Shoes are a huge part of that.
- [87:11]
A
They are the most important part of my style.
- [87:14]
B
You can, like, express yourself. In the right shoes, anything is possible. Dsw countless shoes at bragworthy prices. Imagine the possibilities.