Are you Wired to Love a Narcissist?
Plus Surviving Singles Events IRL!
The word “narcissist” gets thrown around a lot these days, but as I learned in this week’s conversation with the brilliant Michelle Roberts PhD, there are degrees of narcissism that range from your standard charismatic, self-centered, life-of-the-party type, to the pathological “No one’s life matters other than mine” varietal.
Listen here! EP73: Are you Wired to Love a Narcissist? with Michelle Roberts, Ph.D
We are awash in cultural messaging about women loving “bad boys” or choosing men who don’t treat us well - why, we lament, have we chosen so poorly yet again? I’ll confess to being attracted to my share of rebels and egomaniacs: They’re so sexy in the beginning! They sweep you off your feet! They live by their own rules! They’re going to be SO successful one day - you’ll see! And I’ll admit to selling myself out, doing what Michelle labels as “fawning” - one of the four trauma responses on a list with fight, flight and freeze - in order to please them once the relationship starts to sour, as a way to keep myself safe.
Michelle’s research into the childhood trauma of women who get involved with pathological narcissists holds some clues that are key to understanding these patterns so we can break them and make better, more self-loving choices the next time. Women who get involved with pathological narcissists are four times as likely to have suffered adverse childhood experiences (from your garden variety parental divorce to serious and sustained abuse). So in some way, our minds get wired for a certain kind of intimate relationship that feels as crappy as the dynamics we may have grown up in. I marvel at the fact that we humans are pattern-seeking machines, that our brains and bodies are magnetized toward familiar feelings, even if those feelings are terribly painful.
If you want to get free from these patterns, Michelle recommends you seek out a trauma informed therapist who uses techniques like EMDR and the newer psilocybin protocols, which are legal in Oregon, ladies - who’s up for a field trip?!
On a lighter and infinitely more awkward note, in this episode I tell tales out of school about the two dating events that I recently attended IRL: a matchmaking mixer and a BDSM munch.
Getting out from behind my dating apps was a super weird and uncomfortably fun adventure. I’m used to being a head and thumbs behind a strategically crafted (and sometimes even A/B tested) dating profile with hand-chosen photos, clever copy and a flirtatious approach to meeting men online.
Listen Here! EP 72: Surviving Singles Events IRL
Stepping into the meat world sans filters, in my size 10 shoes and my 52 year old skin, required a different kind of risk. But since I’m happily in my “Fuck It” era, I was able to show up as my whole self - tall, funny and perfectly imperfect - and have some memorable interactions (one of which led to an unexpected car makeout session…). I am a ridiculous teenager, I swear.
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