Deciphering Personality Disorders and Navigating Manipulative Relationships with Kerry Kerr McAvoy

What if you could decipher the enigmatic world of personality disorders? I'm your host, and in a captivating conversation with psychologist Carrie McAvoy, we unravel the complexities of personality disorders, like narcissism, sociopathy, and psychopathy. Carrie's professional expertise coupled with her personal experience as a survivor of narcissistic abuse takes us deeper into understanding the profound impact of these disorders on our lives. We explore the public health implications of rising narcissism and the struggles of a family court system ill-equipped to handle abuse cases.

Moving beyond the initial exploration, Carrie and I delve into psychopathic and sociopathic traits. We expose how these traits can blend seamlessly into our daily interactions, often going unnoticed. Drawing on our personal experiences, we discuss how to deal with these personalities and establish healthy boundaries. Through our conversation, we aim to empower you in recognizing these traits and fortify your defenses against them.

Lastly, we underscore the role of self-awareness in managing manipulative relationships. We illustrate the importance of trusting your intuition and listening to your feelings in identifying toxic relationships. We also shed light on the societal pressures that often hinder us from speaking up for ourselves and share strategies to nurture emotional intelligence. By the end of our conversation, you'll have a toolkit of insights to navigate tricky relationships and spot manipulative behaviors. Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation and join us as we break the cycle together.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome to the Relationship Recovery Podcast hosted by Jessica Knight, a certified life coach who specializes in narcissistic and emotional abuse. This podcast is intended to help you identify manipulative and abusive behavior, set boundaries with yourself and others, and heal the relationship with yourself so you can learn to love in a healthy way.

Speaker 2: 0:33

Hello and thank you so much for being here Today. Carrie McFoy joins us again. This time we go through the different types of personality disordered people that we can come in contact with so not just a narcissist, but a sociopath, a psychopath and how disorienting it can be to start to realize that a lot of disordered people are in society all of the time and we may not notice or pick up on some of the things that are happening, and when we start to describe those things to other people, they don't understand. It's a core point in all of this. We also will touch on how narcissism is becoming a public health issue, something that I hope to be expanding on more broadly in my work and as I talk about this stuff. But the fact that the family court system is backed up. The family court system also doesn't always see the issues for what they are in cases, ie when someone's being abused, the issues of workplace abuse, partner abuse, domestic violence, shelters, the list goes on. But it's very clear that, as a light has been shed on narcissism and on personality disorders in the last few years, we're also seeing an uptick in people talking about a lot of the levels of abuse that they are undergoing, and I really think that this episode is going to help you begin to unpack what that looks like in your life what to start to look out for and Carrie shares part of her journey in which she started to notice as she was feeling.

Speaker 2: 2:23

This is a really important episode. Carrie is a really great resource. I highly recommend following her on Instagram Her handle is in the show notes as well as on YouTube and on TikTok. She posts videos almost every day. She goes live twice a week. She runs a community. She is a great, great resource for understanding the ins and outs of personality disorder and how we would receive it as the victim. I know this episode is really going to help. As always, you can find me at emotionalabusecoachcom, at emotionalabusecoach, on Instagram. If you're looking to begin to understand and dissect emotional abuse, you would go to my website, emotionalabusecoachcom, and click on courses, because I have a course that will begin to break down the patterns and help you see what's going on. Hi, carrie, thank you so much for coming back and joining me today.

Speaker 3: 3:27

Thank you so much for having me back, jessica, I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 3:29

I really appreciate it too. I have really enjoyed talking to you about narcissism, about personality disorders, about abuse. Before we dive in, I'd love for you to introduce you and tell us a bit about what you do.

Speaker 3: 3:44

Yeah, thank you. I'm Dr Carrie Kerr McEvoy. I'm a licensed psychologist with over 20 years of counseling experience. I'm also a narcissistic abuse survivor. You'd think being a psychologist would somehow have made me immune, but it didn't. This is something that can happen to anybody at any time. I think it's more prevalent than we actually realize that it is.

Speaker 2: 4:04

Yeah, I think that once I started to begin to heal from narcissistic abuse and years after not within the first month, but within probably around now I started to really realize that there are a lot of personality disorder people around. I can be aware of it, but most of us are not. Today, I really wanted to dive into what the personality disorder actually is and why that person doesn't change, and how we can begin to protect ourselves and identify what that looks like in society, so that we can have stricter boundaries with ourselves and not feel like it's our fault all the time. Can you tell us what a personality disorder is?

Speaker 3: 4:48

Yeah, that's a great question because you'd think that I would have had it nailed after going through grad school. It wasn't actually until I went through continued education recently with Dr Gregory Luster that it suddenly crystallized and made way more sense to me. I think if you stand way back and you look at the whole field of mental health, we tend to think that everything's the same. We tend to think that depression and schizophrenia and Alzheimer's and personality disorders are all part of the same entity, that's in this bucket. It's just that maybe you have ADHD and maybe somebody else might get diagnosed with depression, but that these are treatable situations, that with just the right kind of therapy and the right kind of medication that people get over it. That's actually not the case.

Speaker 3: 5:33

There are different types of mental health problems. I think that's the best way to say it is to think of them as conditions. That's the things that we suffer from and you know something's wrong. If you have a depression, you know that's not your normal self, some things different. Then there are things that are immutable, things that are permanent qualities of ourselves.

Speaker 3: 5:54

For example, your IQ level is pretty stable. It may fluctuate a few points, but you're not going to suddenly go from a genius to somebody who's not. Unless something really catastrophically bad happened to you. If you have an average IQ, you're probably not going to raise it significantly higher. It would be extremely difficult to do that Not possible actually. Well, personality disorders are called disorders because there are things that are wrong in the personality. These are hardwired qualities of an individual. It would be like making somebody is an introvert into an extrovert. Very difficult to do Would basically, they'd have to go against their natural instinct, the way that they're made. Narcissists and as well as other personality disorders are born with certain vulnerabilities, certain weaknesses that make them prone to seeing the world in a specific way. That's a personality disorder.

Speaker 2: 6:48

If they are prone to seeing the world in a different way or a specific way, then that really points to why it is so hard for them to change the way that they think and maybe why else they don't change the way that they think.

Speaker 3: 7:00

Exactly, exactly. That would be like going out and telling an ADHD person to stop being disorganized or don't be so scattered and distracted. They're not going to be. No, yes, medication comes in and, for a period of time, will help diminish that quality, but they themselves will always be on the more distractible side of things. That's just part of who they are. I'm autistic. I'm very literal in the way I approach the world. It's hard for me to even conceive of deception, for you to tell me to be different. I don't even know what that would mean, because you're essentially saying Carrie, don't be Carrie.

Speaker 2: 7:36

Yeah, Wow. It's really interesting because it's like for me, if someone came to me and said you're doing this, it hurts me, I don't want you to do this, I probably would immediately be like, oh my God, what did I do when I have engaged with narcissists? The immediate answer is a no.

Speaker 3: 7:54

Right. But even your response, though, is an indication of your personality type, though Right. So what you just indicated to me, if I was to say, okay, if I'm thinking of a personality index, how agreeable and open is this person? How cooperative are they? Do they have a pretty good internal driven level of integrity? Are they a person who's extroverted? What I just heard you tell me was that you're somebody who tends to be an easygoing, cooperative person, that you value connection and teamwork over your individual way of doing things. Now, see a person with a personality disorder. Whatever way it's done let's take the narcissist, for example they tend to be on the antagonistic end of that same quality. They're not agreeable. So when they hear that they're like this person's trying to control me, why would they say that? Who are they to think that what I do is not right? They hear it through the grid of antagonism. You hear it through the grid of agreeableness, and these are not kind of flexible qualities. These are baked into your personality, yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:59

Yeah, so you just said that it's on the side of the spectrum, that they're on complete opposite ends, and so would you say that a narcissist and a sociopath are on the same side of the spectrum there?

Speaker 3: 9:13

Yeah, they are. That's why in the DSM-5, there are four personality types that are all labeled antagonistic. Okay, the antagonistic group is borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, anti-social personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder. They are bent from that antagonistic angle opposite of those who would be seen as more cooperative and agreeable, right, okay.

Speaker 2: 9:39

So what would you say are the differences, or the core differences, in a narcissist and a sociopath in the way that they engage with people?

Speaker 3: 9:49

Yeah, they're very close to each other and it's rare to me an anti-social personality disorder that doesn't have some narcissistic traits. They often kind of co-occur. So that's the confusing part. That's hard. You think you've met the narcissist but you don't realize they also have psychopathic or sociopathic tendencies. So that's the confusion.

Speaker 3: 10:09

But I think the big difference between these two is their law-breaking, the fact that they feel rules don't apply to them and they're ruthless or callous in the way they approach the world. To me that would be the big way to identify the two. So if you get somebody who's increasingly callous, increasingly ruthless about what they're doing, increasingly willing to go beyond maybe what we would see as social mores or what's appropriate, you probably are not just dealing with a narcissist, You're dealing with someone who's more on the psychopathic end as well. Now there are pure, just psychopaths and sociopaths without narcissistic traits, but they're not as common. The psychopath without that would be just somebody who walks completely through their own drum, thinks that all rules are ridiculous and is going to do exactly the way they want to do things, the way that they want to do them. You won't see the same kind of jealous concern about other people. They just head in their own direction and ignore everybody. They're almost cold. They feel very robotic when you meet them.

Speaker 2: 11:12

Yeah, sometimes I reflect back to me before this journey and something that I realized is that there have been a lot of people that I've been around that have had psychopathic sociopath almost ever and I never picked up on it because I always thought a psychopath and sociopath in these larger words were just like serial killers. They weren't like the people that we interact with at college or at a law firm or like that. They weren't just quote, unquote regular people in the world. But now I know that anybody could have those qualities. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3: 11:43

We meet them way more than we think that we do. They just hide really well and I think that because of we focus on the serial killers and we tend to lump them all together, majority of them never break the law, so you're not going to see that necessarily. For example, this was research that came out I don't know if it's still accurate, but it was accurate when I was in graduate school that those who are in surgical end of medicine tend to have more psychopathic traits. Now think about that. What does it take to be able to cut into another human being?

Speaker 3: 12:13

Well, you want to be rather dispassionate, see people as objects, not have a lot of empathy towards them. Sometimes you want them to break the bit of the rules if your life is on the line, and maybe that technique is not always warranted, but they think because, based upon their expertise, it's going to work they may break that rule and do that. Now, do I want them necessarily working with me if I'm a hospital personnel administrator? Probably not. Do you see what I'm saying? But that may not be the easiest person to work with, but it also probably makes them good at what they do.

Speaker 2: 12:42

Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. It also makes a lot of sense why the same personality types show up in law enforcement too, or even narcissistic. It's like, for some of the things that you need to do and be able to handle, you can't have the empathy of me, for example. This is a story that really doesn't make any sense, but I'm going to tell it anyway.

Speaker 2: 13:02

The other day I live in an apartment complex in a city and there was a rat like there's a rat trap outside Really not pleasant to look at, but whatever and I continued to walk and I kept hearing this bird. And I kept hearing this bird and I reached out and I looked over and there's this bird I'm going to call it a her for no reason at all. The foot was caught in the trap. My first thought was oh my God, if my daughter was here she'd be so upset. My second thought was oh my God, how am I going to help the bird? And then I really felt like I had a traumatic experience about this bird. I was able to release the foot from the trap and the bird was not in good shape and there really wasn't anything else I could do other than give it a good ending in some way, but it really did affect me.

Speaker 2: 13:49

I think all day that day I just was trying to tell myself it wasn't a big deal, when it was really like that was really sad, like the bird was suffering. I watched the bird suffer. I couldn't like the bird kept running away for me with this little trap and I just kept thinking like there's no way I can handle this, like if this was, like if I was a doctor, you know, or something like that. Like there are some things I just can't, I can't do, and sometimes I think like all this healing has made me a lot Colder in some ways in the world, but then there's moments like that that remind me no, this is actually who you really are. You know, like these situations and these people have made you more on guard, but not colder internally. I appreciate what you said at the beginning of like a lot of these things are just sort of like who you are at your core right, right, and that's a really good point that you're making.

Speaker 3: 14:40

I know that I would love to follow up on that. I have so many survivors tell me that they don't. They struggle with who they're become, who they're becoming or who they've become, and they feel like that has converted them or changed them or made them colder. But I think there's a way to reframe that, to think of it differently. You are essentially the way that you always have been, but what you? What is changed?

Speaker 3: 15:01

As you've learned that the world is not as safe as you Once presumed that it was, that you had made a common miss. You make the same error that the narcissist makes. Nurses this make the assumption that everybody's operating on the same rules, same frame that they are, which is, it's competitive and everybody's up for themselves. Well, those who are not make the same error. We assume that the world is a great place, everybody's a team member and wants to get along with everybody, and then we find out that that's not true. So what I'm hearing you say and I think this is a really good point for for your listeners, but for all of us who are for healing is to know that as we become more careful about who we trust. We're not colder, we're just being wiser.

Speaker 2: 15:41

Yeah wiser, and it's also been a big need for me to be able to set boundaries and learn how to set boundaries but people that don't want to accept them, and what that really means for me, like and how, how. It is more of a me taking care of me thing rather than a this is against this person type of thing.

Speaker 3: 16:00

Right, right, exactly, exactly. And at first it feels really foreign because that's not the way that you have learned to operate, it's not your normal way of being you.

Speaker 2: 16:11

Yeah, and I think, like in relationships, where most I think you know I mean obviously a lot of us also had narcissistic parents, but most of this podcast is focused on Relationships. So in relationships, one thing that I noticed is that, like at the beginning of relationship, I'm always looking at my own behavior, you know. I know that I have unhealthy coping mechanisms. I also know that, like I have resolved trauma and unresolved trauma, you know, like I do care about how I show up in a relationship, I also probably have, like you know, wanting my perfectionism comes in there too of wanting to be like the perfect partner, but with a disordered person, what that has led me to is Overcompensating, over-excusing and turning myself into a pretzel to try and get this person to be happy or to accept me or do Just be in the relationship, when I'm not even realizing that that that's who I'm dealing with, and so I'm curious if you have any Tips for somebody to be able to almost like shadow light.

Speaker 2: 17:17

I'm gonna rephrase that because I don't want this podcast to be like let's teach you how to diagnose people, you know which? Obviously it's not, but it's like Some things that we can look for if we are in the beginning of a relationship or even in the middle of the relationship with someone, and we're starting to be like, okay, this doesn't seem quote-unquote normal and maybe it doesn't seem like what my friends are going through. It doesn't seem what I've known in the past. It actually seems like there's rules that are different for them and me. What are some ways that we can, like find a way to pause and just say, okay, here are some things that are going on here.

Speaker 3: 17:51

Right.

Speaker 3: 17:52

I think the best way to start with that, because it is really tricky is Not so much to look for red flags although because we've talked a lot about that and and the thing is is that there are people that probably could avoid triggering a lot of red flags.

Speaker 3: 18:05

Initially, we may not pick up on them right enough what right away? But what we can always do is know ourselves enough to know how we feel in our own skin, to know when things start to feel uncomfortable in our own skin, when we start to feel pinched or Lesser than when we're starting to find ourselves rephrasing or reframing things because we know it might not go over well, when we find ourselves avoiding certain topics altogether or not wanting to go home or Holding our breath when they come in through the door. These are signals that we're being asked to modify ourselves and that there's something about the situation that doesn't Leave us feeling completely safe and that we can't be our most authentic self. I think that's the best indicator. If we can learn to really turn that up, we would then start to pick up situations that are super subtle but are impinging on us and asking us to change.

Speaker 2: 19:05

I love that. I feel like that just set off like a bunch of light bulbs in my head around, like asking us to change right, and it's not like hey, this thing really hurts me. I would like you to like look at your behavior. It's no, you're not seeing it right.

Speaker 3: 19:18

Yeah, yeah, because when we make a statement back out, when we like, save you that example you just gave, I this hurt my feelings, can you do this differently? What you actually were getting first was, I feel, a permission to say to you Things that are hurtful to you, because I'm not very sensitive to your feelings and I want you to tolerate that. And so, actually, you're getting the change message first. Hmm, right, right, you don't like it. So then you give them back another change message, just saying wait, wait, wait. I don't want to change. You need to be more sensitive to me, please don't do this.

Speaker 3: 19:50

And then they say, well, no, I'm not changing, but we shouldn't have been asked to change in the first place. If a person who's truly respectful and cares about your feelings, they walk in and they see you in a bad space, they're gonna check in with you, they're not gonna be cruel to you, they're gonna be mindful of that and manage around that they won't just like walk over you. We shouldn't have to hold our breath around. That's even holding our breath. We're changing, or changing person, or Jumping up and looking busy when they come home. We're changing for that person. All of that is that we're being asked to be modified, and if we can pay attention to the degree that this person's putting us into some kind of a box and then resist that or Use that at least as a cue to say, hmm, this is not the healthiest relationship, then I think we could get out of these relationships a lot faster, a lot earlier, before we get in way too deep and it's really tough.

Speaker 2: 20:42

Yeah, that's such a good point and it just I mean you reflect back to this client that I talked to today that has a lot of guilt and, like I, gang a lot of shame around some of Basically like there was a very financially abusive situation and she sought to basically Try and find ways to spend, like she had her own credit card and spent money and it wasn't a big thing, it wasn't a big deal, it was just. But the amount of shame that she had was huge. But the change that she couldn't make that I was really trying to point out was that at the beginning of the relationship, when the money started to be controlled and there was rules around the money and things that could be bought and not be bought and who got to make those decisions, like that's a big freakin deal and to just even be able to think about Do I have to change who I am, in my behavior and even my likes and dislikes. To like, not argue with this person is a huge deal, you know right, yeah?

Speaker 3: 21:34

that's all a request to modify you. You're being modified, yeah, because if you think back to it, if you go back to that, we all know that we're an object to the narcissist. They don't really see people as fully humans with their own wishes and dreams and ideas and needs. They come in and they have a pretty set agenda and the agenda is they want to utilize your strengths and then they want to kind of like, make them feels better by putting you down. If we can see that, as that already is a modification to you, minished you as a person. So we can get sensitive to that, that sense of being diminished. We can get better at picking up. This is not a good relationship, but here's the problem, why we're not good at it.

Speaker 3: 22:14

We're told from an early at eight, from early age that we should get along with everybody. What, how many times have you been hugged or Forced to shake someone's hand or talk to someone as a kid that you didn't want to? Something about that person either freaked you out, or it was an unknown situation, or you kind of got dumped into it, but everybody told you to stand up. And then you know, grow up and deal with it. We get these message all the time. And so what happens over the course of our life is we then turn the volume down and Stop paying attention to our sensation, our bodies that tell us that something here is off.

Speaker 3: 22:47

Yeah, even that situation is a kid. That was an off situation. Maybe that person rushed you, you know, maybe they were kind of insensitive about body space, maybe they had bad breath. I mean probably, first you think back, there was some reason. Even those of us who have young kids, there's reasons why our kids don't want to show up. Maybe they're scared and anxious, but maybe the other person is too much. But what we've done is we essentially tell them your feelings don't matter. What matters is you modify for the situation. That's the polite thing to do.

Speaker 2: 23:18

Yeah, right, oh my god. Yeah, I mean as a, as a mother to a young child, I definitely resonate with that and I think about it all the time because I don't force her into those moments, you know, and I'm very conscious of that of like not putting her in positions that are like you should do this Because of this unwritten rule that I don't have an explanation to, but like it can come across like a little standoff, as you know. I can come across like I am not teaching her manners, but at the end of the day, I care more about her being able to decipher and to trust her intuition and her gut.

Speaker 3: 23:52

Then Then, just people pleasing you even think about it from a. Why is that moment happening? Generally, it's because we're accommodating a not healthy person need over the need of our children.

Speaker 3: 24:03

Mm-hmm right right every situation I can think of if I recall me raising my kids and I generally tried not to do this, but it I was usually accommodating toxic behavior, yeah, and I shouldn't have. And then they have that person fuss or other people like well, they need to know, no, nobody needs to show up for that. I think that's our whole cultural problem is that we have Acclimatized to toxic behavior to think that it's normal, to the point that will then pile on victims for having any kind of reaction. Victims are wrong because they miss the Fred flags. Victims are wrong because they stay too long. Victims are wrong because they leave. Victims are mean what? What we're not talking about is why are there people who think it's okay to pray on other people?

Speaker 2: 24:47

Yeah, well, and also it's helping people understand and have a place for them to be able to like talk about these things and figure out what's even healthy for them. Because if they grew up in a home where they were told that you know, you have to be kind to everybody, you're like give everybody a chance, you know, or whatever whatever the messaging was, it's not allowing us to really have that internal compass of who do I feel safe around? What does feeling safe actually mean? You know, like, how do I listen to myself? It's almost like that. Yeah, I mean I definitely didn't have that when I was a kid. I didn't have like someone that like really thought about and cared about my inner wisdom, and I think that it took me until in my 30s to be able to really listen to myself. But even then I know that I felt like I was being mean by taking care of myself.

Speaker 3: 25:35

Yeah, me too. I mean people want to know why I stayed so long which is ironic because you and I were talking before we got on the taping is that I was being accused that I stayed two years too long in that relationship because of great sex, what. I think that's a weird way to sort of order the world. But I'll tell you why. The reason I stayed too long. There are two main reasons.

Speaker 3: 25:58

One was the financial ramifications were too grave and I was enraged around it and felt it was so unfair that I refused to walk out and let that person have that kind of advantage and rob me of my children. And it was our legacy. He was in a rob us of our legacy. That was number one. But the second one is that I didn't like to hurt people's feelings and for me to walk out and say I don't like this felt really selfish, felt very difficult. It wasn't because I had a low self-esteem. No, I mean I had a successful practice. I had already was writing in that year. That second year was named top writer on Cora. I mean I knew that I was good at what I did.

Speaker 3: 26:37

I did not suffer from low self-esteem, but what I struggled with is. I struggled with really not liking to be hurtful or harmful to other people and for some reason me standing up from my right, I got in the message, particularly as a woman, to do that was rude, yeah, and I think that's. Maybe that's what as a culture, we're missing is that we have socialized women's compliance, and I do know that men get stuck in this too. So I'm not trying to ignore that. This doesn't. It does happen to men, I know that. But it's even worse for women because we're from a little age to like keep your legs together and walk like a lady and don't chew with your mouth open and don't run. I mean, we hear all these messages about how you're supposed to be, and that includes how you're supposed to show up and not intimidate or upset or threaten or usurp a person's power, particularly men's power, in your life. Yeah, be a lady.

Speaker 2: 27:30

Be a lady. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love my grandma to pieces, but she definitely said that to me all the time Like be a lady, show up and be a lady. That like a be lady, like and I'd be like fuck. That you know Probably wasn't exactly here. And also why I couldn't stay in narcissistic or sociopathic relationships because I was, like I always say, like I spit myself out because I couldn't adhere to the rules that they had for me. Even if I tried, it was impossible for me. Like I just like I would get into fight after fight after fight and like blow things out of proportion and like be like, oh my God, I keep thinking I can stay in this, but I can't, because I guess my intuition, my inner wisdom, just with like fine ways to spit me out. I could not agree to what they would want me to agree to.

Speaker 3: 28:15

I love that. I love that I feel the same, only in a different way. I really don't like to be offensive to other people and this may be unique to me, I don't know, I haven't heard a lot of people express it. But to know that I am hurting you actually physically hurts me. I feel pain when I see that I'm being unkind to you. I don't like it so I avoid it. That's super. It's not even about wanting you to be happy or like me. I just don't want to hurt you. And in hurting you includes shaming you or making you uncomfortable or putting you in an awkward position. I don't like that.

Speaker 3: 28:49

But here's the thing Narcissists, they actually are low responding to emotional distress like that, and they're low. And they're also low on empathy, not only empathy to others, but empathy to themselves. They're just not very empathic. So that means they're not aware nor care nor feel that impact they have on other people. So here I am hypersensitive, trying not to hurt anybody around me because I don't want to be hurt and I don't want them to hurt. And then that you get into this relationship with somebody who actually is the opposite, who just sort of like barrels around, sort of like a bowl in a china shop, bashing things over and not really caring, and then, on top of it, whenever you complain, say it's your fault that this is happening. So it really puts victims in a bad spot if they're bent like that.

Speaker 2: 29:36

Yeah, yeah, well, when you had that image, it really made me feel like I guess I was picturing how many people are in the world right now that don't even know that they're dealing with somebody who is a narcissist or has narcissistic traits or sociopathic traits, and they are just like trying to fit into this box that they're never going to be able to fit in because it's not really meant to have anybody fit in it at the end of the day.

Speaker 2: 30:01

Yeah, I was listening to this talk this free talk actually by Dr Romani at the end of August, and she only touched on this lightly, but it really stuck out to me. She said we need to start to talk about how narcissism is a public health issue, and I believe what she was pointing to was the fact that, like there are so many undiagnosed narcissists in the world or rather, all of the narcissists in the world, for them pretty much are undiagnosed, but we are dealing with them every day as if they are a healthy, well-intentioned person, when they're not, and it's perpetuating. I have a feeling that you probably took that course too.

Speaker 3: 30:43

Did you? I did, I was there, yeah, yeah, you know. To follow up on that, I asked Sandra Brown what percentage of the world is predatory? I mean outright predatory. She said 20% Mm. Here's a. Go, think of that. That's one in five. One out of five people you meet is actually has completely not good motivations for what they're doing. They have ulterior motives for what they're doing, or at least motives that wouldn't benefit you. Maybe they're good for them, but it wouldn't benefit you. Years ago my supervisor back in the day when I was counseling and being trained, was the chairman of the disciplinary committee for the state, which means he then heard all the troubled situations that therapists got themselves into or psychologists got themselves into in that state and then they as a committee would decide does that person get to hold their license or not? Do they get a suspended? Do they need supervision? So he's seeing really awful abuses and I asked him once I said what percentage of the world do you consider healthy? And he said 7%.

Speaker 2: 31:43

Oh my God, that's so much lower than I would have imagined.

Speaker 3: 31:47

Yeah. So imagine this You're walking through the world. Only less than one person less than one out of 10 person probably is reasonably healthily functioning, with good ego strength. Then it's able to take care of their emotions or have realistic goals, have good insights into themselves or able to soothe themselves when they get upset, don't kind of impulsively lose it. They show good judgment. Only one out of 10 people probably is doing a really good job at that. Let's just say it's not a continuum really good job at that, but one out of five not only are not doing a good job at it, but on top of it it's predatory.

Speaker 3: 32:25

Yeah, that's not the way I've seen the world. When I walk through the world, I don't characterize it that way. I mean, next time you're on a busy street like downtown, chicago or New York or wherever, imagine you realizing the majority of the people probably might step on your toe and some of them might deliberately step on that toe. Yeah, but even that then to me. Then, if you think of it that way, that then comes back to your comment of I feel cold. Well, if you were in a dangerous world, you would be, or even, let's just say that if we lived in a blizzard, we would wear a lot of garments to keep ourselves warm. When we live in an unhealthy world, we should do more to keep ourselves safe. And we don't Right. That's not coldness as just being wise. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:11

If somebody is listening to this and they're like, okay, how can I begin to learn more about this topic? How can I begin to decipher what is even healthy or what is a personality disorder, or am I with a depersonally disorder person? What would you recommend that they do or where they might go for some additional resources?

Speaker 3: 33:31

Well, I think there's a lot of free things online. I know following you and online and following me are great ways to go. I offer a live every week where I actually take those questions, and I have a podcast myself where Tara and I tackle these topics. I think education is the first line, but also, like I said, really learning to tune into your body, recognizing the sign when you're becoming a little less than or more careful or not quite who you normally are, when you're completely by yourself In a safe world. You should be yourself all the time. I love that, yeah. And if you're not able to do that, then ask okay, how am I shifting and with whom am I shifting, and what am I ignoring about this situation that maybe I need to pay more attention to? I think if we started to be more careful about that, we would have a safer world. We got safer people in our world and we'd probably learn to be more content with ourselves. So I think that's a great way to start is to learn how to really bring your best self forth and support that, protect that. The same way, if you lived in a blizzard, you would not walk out naked, you would just wouldn't do that we need to not walk out unclothed psychologically when we walk out into the world, but also to just keep educating yourself and looking into that.

Speaker 3: 34:49

I always think coaching and counseling is a great thing to do. I have an online membership club where people can go to process where they're at in a relationship, why they're having troubles making different decisions and how to make sense of it. And I'm also thinking about I so far haven't really gotten off the fence of going to do this or not, but I've been really debating whether or not to have a group coaching, a live group coaching called Predator Detection Masterclass, and it's how to spot and avoid predatory people and it's not just how do you spot the red flags. You're going to tell that that's not my main focus. Mine is how do you navigate tricky relationships when you get into it and realize this person's manipulating you?

Speaker 3: 35:27

Because that's where we get stuck. It isn't necessarily. I think a lot of us do pretty good now at these days they say no drama, my dating app not interested. But what do we do when we get somebody who said if you said to them, don't call me after or text me after 8 o'clock and they text at 8.01 and then they get all over you for holding the line. There's where we get in trouble those tiny little microcosms that are moments of aggression that we don't know what to do. We get trapped and our own bent, our own niceness, makes us then accommodate into a toxic person like yep, there we go, I got them, I know where I can push them, and then they take that inch and becomes a mile.

Speaker 2: 36:05

Yeah, yeah, well, that a class like that, a masterclass like that, sounds so helpful and, as you know, when I reach out to you with this topic, I had no idea that that was in like in the works or in the possible works. But I think you're really.

Speaker 3: 36:19

Yeah, I've got it all outlined, but I just need to know there's interest, because I won't put all the effort into building it if there's not the interest. But yeah, I have an outline and I'm personally super excited what the class I would like to take. But yeah, that may not be a good reason to do it.

Speaker 2: 36:35

Well, if somebody is listening to this and there is interest, you know, in a course or a masterclass just to begin to identify some of these, you know predatory behaviors, just email me at Jessica Jessica night coaching dot com and I can sort of begin to keep a list for Carrie and then we can see if we can get this going. Or Instagram DM me, which most of you know, add emotional abuse coach. But I think that if there is interest, let us know and that way we can actually, you know, carrie can actually put this together and, of course, I'll promote it and I also will take it, because this is definitely something that I guess I never just like, how the healing journey is never really going to end. I also think that learning about the ins and outs of personal discharges, personality disorders, what is healthy, what is not healthy, is a lifelong journey to I do too, I do too.

Speaker 3: 37:28

I think I'm always always learning. It's always a process.

Speaker 2: 37:31

Carrie, thank you so much for joining me. I have loved our conversation and I'm sure you'll be back again. If you don't mind, can you just share where people can find you and where your podcast, what the name of your podcast is and where it's hosted?

Speaker 3: 37:44

Sure, yeah, no, you can find me on most social media platforms at Carrie McAvoy PhD. It's just run together Carrie McAvoy PhD. My website's the same, and then the podcast is called Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse, and Wherever Podcasts Are Played.

Speaker 2: 38:00

And I will have all your links in the show notes so that people can easily find you too Great. Thank you so much for this interview. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 3: 38:06

It's always fun talking to you.

Speaker 2: 38:08

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it.