Tony Overbay, LMFT, and host of The Virtual Couch Podcast discusses the difficulties in breaking free from a narcissist trauma bond. One of the biggest challenges in working with people who are trying to break free from the trauma bone or emotional grip of a narcissist is the fact that for the most part, we are trying to view the world through our own lens…we tend to assume that even if people don’t exactly think the same things that we do, like we may differ politically for example, but for the most part there are some generally accepted truths or values. So let’s put a pin in that…
Narcissists are extremely good and finding, attracting, or love-bombing trusting, good, vulnerable people who truly tend to see the good in others. So you can see the delimma…it can be extremely difficult for these nice people to see that they are, in fact, being manipulated…and remembering one of the key issues with narcissism is that it is a personality disorder…what that means is that the problem is the narcissist doesn’t believe that they are doing anything that goes against their sense of the ego, or who they are…they truly see the world through yellow-tinted glasses, and those glasses aren’t coming off…so when the narcissist says the sky that you know is blue is green, they think it’s green and you are the crazy one…I seriously can’t believe you think the sky is…blue? Like, have you ever owned a box of crayons before?
So where does that leave the good, nice person? Well, that nice person tends to believe that others are generally on the same page, or have similar moral code, such as that lying, or manipulating others is wrong…so an otherwise smart, kind, nice person will then go to great lengths to try and find the good reason why the narcissist is acting “off” rather than identifying the problem for what it is…this person has narcissistic tendencies, or is a full-blown narcissist…well, he’s tired, or he had a rough day, or his mom didn’t treat him well as a kid…those things might be true, but that doesn’t mean that lying, gaslighting, and manipulating are justified. And these feelings of anger or distrust about what we think we truly “know” about someone that we love or care about causes our brains distress…and our brains don’t like distress, this is called cognitive dissonance, and so as a result of this cognitive dissonance, most of us wind up resolving this by reinterpreting the facts that don’t feel right with what we want to believe about somebody…and then we’re back to square one…we made it through a confrontation or argument and maybe it was me?? And this is part of the trauma bond. You can visit my website, tonyoverbay.com and click on the podcast tab or search for narcissism to find podcasts that I’ve done that will give you more information of how to recognize more of these types of unhealthy relationship patterns and what you can do about them…nobody’s marriage needs to be one where you say “well, he’s good sometimes…” no, marriage should be operating from “it’s good most of the time,” and when there are hiccups we can talk about them, both feel heard, own our own part of the problem and grow closer together!
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Tony Overbay, is the co-author of "He's a Porn Addict...Now What? An Expert and a Former Addict Answer Your Questions" now available on Amazon https://amzn.to/33fk0U4. The book debuted in the number 1 spot in the Sexual Health Recovery category and remains there as the time of this record. The book has received numerous positive reviews from professionals in the mental health and recovery fields.
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You can learn more about Tony's pornography recovery program The Path Back by visiting http://pathbackrecovery.com And visit http://tonyoverbay.com and sign up to receive updates on upcoming programs, and podcasts.
