Podcast E5: The Narcissistic Defense

This podcast, hosted by Mette Miriam Sloth, focuses on shedding light on narcissistic defense mechanisms, which we all may have within us, but which in some individuals can be so dominant that they create significant problems in close relationships.

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  Mette Miriam Sloth emphasizes the difference between having narcissistic defense mechanisms and being a narcissist. We can all experience being triggered and reacting with narcissistic defenses when we feel hurt or threatened. The difference lies in how often and to what extent we are governed by these defenses, and whether we are willing to take responsibility for our actions and work with our patterns.

  Signs of Narcissistic Defense

  The podcast describes a number of signs of narcissistic defense:

  • Projection: Blaming others for one's own feelings and actions.

  • Gaslighting: Denying other people's experiences and manipulating reality.

  • Silent treatment: Ignoring and punishing the other person by being silent.

  • Subtle criticism: Belittling and undermining the other person with small, seemingly innocent comments.

  • Anger and rage outbursts: Reacting violently when confronted with one's patterns.

  • Lack of accountability: Avoiding taking responsibility for one's actions and their consequences.

  Consequences of Narcissistic Defense

  The podcast describes the harmful effects that narcissistic defense can have on close relationships, including:

  • Exhaustion and breakdown: The partner of a person with narcissistic defenses may experience being drained of energy and emotionally broken down.

  • Lack of intimacy: Narcissistic defense can prevent deep connection and intimacy in the relationship.

  • Conflicts and power struggles: Narcissists can thrive in conflicts and power struggles, as it gives them a sense of control.  

  • Harm to children: Narcissistic behavior from parents can have serious consequences for children, who can become confused, insecure, and emotionally damaged.  

  Handling Narcissistic Defense

  Mette Miriam Sloth provides advice on how to deal with people with narcissistic defenses:

  • Setting boundaries: Setting clear boundaries for what behavior you will accept.

  • Gray rock: Sliding off provocations and avoiding giving the narcissist the attention they seek.

  • Breaking contact: In some cases, it may be necessary to break off contact completely to protect yourself and your children.

  • Support for children: Supporting children who are affected by a parent's narcissistic behavior.

  • Possibility for change: Although it is difficult for people with narcissistic personality disorder to change their behavior, it is possible to work with narcissistic defenses if you are willing to look inward, take responsibility and seek professional help.

• English transcription

  Translated transcript of the original Danish podcast

  Host: Mette Miriam Sloth

  Hi. Then I'm live with the lecture here about the narcissistic defenses. I'm just installing it here, because I can see that I'm stoned. And before I start throwing myself into it, the light turns and starts to come on. I think it's alive for a minute. Hey, there was one on now, so those of you who come on. You can write in the comments section if you can see me and hear me, because I've always tested it in here, but there can always be such a crunch on the line. So if you just want to write if everything sounds as it should and if you can see me. And then I'll take care of it here. There's always someone who wants to join in at the last minute. So I'll just follow you on the computer to let someone in. I can see and hear you. Fabulous. Beautiful. Amen. Amen. That's wonderfully good. For just the final touches here before I start. And you can make me just a little bit more right here. And then I'm also a little bit stoned. Some of you may have been to some of my talks before, and some of you may not know me at all, so I can just say something practical about how this is going to work. And that is that it's a two-hour lecture, and in the first hour and a half I'll talk about everything I've promised to talk about.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: And then I'll open it up for questions. So those of you who have questions, please feel free to ask. They may be answered along the way. It may also be that you get more questions along the way. So what you can do is just keep the questions in mind. And then write them down when I open up for questions in the last half hour, because they will appear on the screen here and there. So that's how I make sure I take all the questions. Maybe it's because there's a lot of variety. There are many more on today. There are almost 250 on this one. But there aren't that many right now, because it's at a time during my own working hours, when people are at work, so it's possible. That's why I do it. Live for those who have the opportunity to participate. They can ask questions, and then it's the broadcast afterwards. So the recording is sent out to everyone. So you can watch it again and listen to it and watch it. As much as you want and when you need it, so please do. Save your questions and I'll get around to it. Today, there are quite a few of you live. Unfortunately, it's the narcissistic ones. Narcissism it's hard. So it is unfortunately. Many people need knowledge about this. Because it's something that you could say is a disease. In the relationship between people.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: So that's why people can be very desperate. And very powerless. It can be a very confusing defense. So there's a real need to gain knowledge about it out there and how to tackle it in practice. How to spot it. And how to be with it. So I will do my best to do that. Get around it. And that's why. Because there are so many people here today, I may not be able to answer all the questions orally. I'll take all the ones I can and keep time. But I promise that I'll go into the group and answer the questions I missed. If there are any, so everyone who has written questions, I'll probably get answers one way or another today. And I'll just take the last ones here that come in. And just a few last ones that came in at the last minute. And then we'll get started, because now it's also time and it's actually a little after 10. I'll just do one last check, and then the rest will have to wait until afterwards. And hello to all the new people coming on. There was just one more. I think we're almost there. Okay, good. Uh... No more membership requests. And here we go. Okay, good. Uh... What I want to talk about today is those. Hi. Uh... What I want to talk about today is the narcissistic defenses. And the reason I call it that is because there's a difference between narcissistic defenses and what we understand as narcissist.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: And it's not because I go out and diagnose someone with narcissism to do that. My role in this is quite clear. What I do is that I sit and counsel and have a therapeutic practice with people. It's often parents or people who are in relationships. And the reason why I've actually spent the last couple of years working a lot on understanding narcissistic defenses is because I can see how destructive they are in relationships. I can see how much confusion there is. And how destructive they are. And both on, on, on, on, on, on the adult in the relationship. But certainly also if you've brought children into the world and you're trying to get out of a relationship with someone who's very caught up in the narcissist defense, or if you're trying to get your children through it. So there's an extreme amount of pain here, and that's also why I think specifically in this case, we really need to understand that. We really need to understand how to spot it and also how to deal with it. Because there's a lot you have to do if you choose to stay in a relationship with someone who is either a narcissist or has these defenses that are triggered from time to time and that the person can't really see themselves or doesn't work with, doesn't manage to work with? Then you will have to act in a somewhat different way than if you actually leave the relationship.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: There are some things you won't really be able to do if you're with someone who is trapped in narcissistic defenses and who doesn't mature in them because it becomes too hard, simply too debilitating for you. So there is no judgment on my part, and there is no judgment about choosing to stay in a relationship with someone who has a narcissist who can do that. You can still have love for a person who is there. And there may also be reasons why you choose to stay because you think it's better for the children. There can be many reasons. So this isn't about whether you should go and stay or what it is, but more to shed some light on this. What the hell are we up against? Why is it there? And how does a human being trapped there function? And why us? Why it's also really tragic for them? But the problem is a bit that when you can see their suffering. There can be a catch. In the sense that when you see a narcissist who is suffering, or someone who is trapped in defense who is suffering, and you really want to help them, there can be a rescue syndrome. So someone who is very caught up in narcissistic defenses won't always. But often especially if it's the cover it narcissist, the one who needs to be taken care of.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Who seems quite fragile. Who has very fragile self-esteem. And who can seem extremely vulnerable under the surface. Will often be attracted to someone who is very empathetic, because an empath. And you could say the immature in empathy is what I want to give. Does love have enough for both of us? I wish I can see your suffering, and I can easily keep us both afloat. The problem is that in a relationship, both of us have to be willing to mature and take responsibility for ourselves and start to understand what it is that I bring to the table, both the beauty and the conceptual. That is, if the empathy kind of takes over and says I keep providing and I keep avoiding where it hurts you, and I keep lifting you up in the end, then an empath will be tired to the bone because there is hope in empathy. If I hold you up long enough, you'll take over and start taking responsibility yourself. But if you're with someone who has pronounced narcissistic traits, they don't take responsibility. It's actually just like they become more immature because you keep trying to hold them up. And once you realize that, you get into a fight pretty quickly.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: And that's why it's quite important to know what you're dealing with here, because you may well have realized that you, as an empath, are holding your partner up a lot, and you still find it meaningful for you to stay in the relationship, but that you can actually see that I would perish. You could die if you have to keep holding them up all the time, so you need to find a new strategy to stay in it so that you don't completely burn out. Someone just wrote here. That's why I was just here. Just one last one I think that came along, which I'll just let in. That's good. So you could say, if I start talking about these narcissistic defenses, and there's such an escalation, you could say that we can all fall into narcissistic defenses, and we will all fall into them at times. A narcissistic defense is when you get so triggered that you are very intent on making the other person's reality wrong. In other words, you don't understand me. I mean what you're saying here and there. Someone wrote to me and told me to let them in. Well, that's the end of that. So that means that when you go into feeding a rage on someone else, when you become childish, when you become immature, and when you project and project, I would say that you give another person responsibility for your emotional moods.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Of course, it may well be that the other person has been transgressive, where you mark a boundary, but it's actually more. It could also be that the other person is just pointing out something in your behavior that you should take responsibility for, that triggers something in you that hurts and that you don't want to take responsibility for. And then you say it's your fault that I feel this way. You tell me that I said something, did something, or did something. Or that my child, you know, that I've handled my child in a way that he or she doesn't want me right now, or whatever it may be. So maybe not actually. That's actually a nice observation the other party makes. It just feels unbearable in the system, which means that it's interpreted as you're doing it to hurt me. And then it's like it gets thrown over to the other side. That's actually the main theme in a narcissistic defense. That is, the difference between being in a narcissistic defense once in a while, where we come and we all do. So it's actually part of being emotionally immature.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: It's that something hurts, and then we break it open. Children do that all the time. Children have to do it. That is, every time they have some emotion they can't handle, they throw it up on us. They have to do that in order to travel in a way. We adults should have gotten to the point where we could hold some more emotional tension. But when we get really triggered, we end up doing the other person wrong for hurting our emotional life. So it's very human to do that. The difference between doing it once in a while and being caught in a narcissistic defense right there versus being so identified with a narcissistic defense all the time that you become what we call a narcissist. There's a long scale, and that's also why I've gotten so many comments about many of the posts I've said. Where was God? I will also do that in some of the descriptions I've given of how you blame the other person, and you end up manipulating, or you end up making the other person's understanding of reality wrong. And there are many of those things that you can recognize in yourself. This is also why there is nothing in narcissistic behavior that we don't all have available in us in one way or another.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: But it's just not the same as being what we call a narcissist. So you could say it's a scaling degree because what happens is, let's say you're an ordinary person, as we all are, and you suddenly experience a situation where you're under enormous pressure. You get really triggered. It's something that hurts like hell and you lash out. You just have a little bit of that. You ignore the other person's perception of the situation. It's only yours that counts and you do a you know you, you you you. You show coldness or anger or aggression towards the person, because you've done this to me, and then you walk away in anger, and then some time passes, and then you're like fuck okay, now you're a player again. You rethink the situation. It's kind of okay, there I was. Maybe it wasn't quite right, and I can see that you actually said that it wasn't the way I interpreted it. That's not what you said, you know. Then you start like that, and you feel a little bad about yourself. You start like Fuck, it wasn't, it wasn't. It wasn't cool. It wasn't. I don't want that disconnect between us. It's there. First of all, there's something that hurts about that disconnect. There is also.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: It's also unpleasant. Has there been a heated conflict? It's actually not very nice in the system. But what also happens when you're not a narcissist or not trapped in narcissistic defense is that the defense has let go. So you've come back up to sea level and you start to have a self-reflection on the situation and you start to think, what was my own part? You naturally start thinking about Could I have handled the situation in the same way? Or is there something I actually want to go back and apologize for and say Fuck, I overreacted. It got to me. It hurt me so much that I started acting like a little kid. And I'm so fucking sorry. Can you forgive me? So that's where the difference lies, so we can all end up there, and that's also why you can recognize many of the situations I've written about in my posts. Because when we're under pressure, we can end up there. We all sometimes end up in a state of emotional immaturity because something hurts so much that it's unbearable that we end up lashing out. It's extremely human. There's just a difference. If you're constantly caught in narcissistic defenses in the sense that you're actually approaching what we would call a narcissist. You could say the difference between being trapped once in a while and actually being a narcissist.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: This is where there is such a deep identification with the narcissistic defenses that they are constantly running. This means that the person who is very caught up in narcissistic defenses and is what we call a narcissist will not have self-reflection. That is, they won't come back and sincerely apologize. The person may well come back and give a truce apology and with that, get a little mad at her. There will be a bit of oatmeal, so there's a bit of a difference here in terms of whether a person comes back sincerely and takes responsibility for their own behavior, or whether they come back and say something that we want to hear, but without taking responsibility. So when you do. If you are in a relationship with someone who is a narcissist, you will observe that they can. After a huge conflict, come back and try to mimic the apology session. Something that reminds you that there is some self-awareness and there is some responsibility. Taking responsibility, but it eases your system. No, it was nice and funny, we just met each other again. But what you saw. What will confuse you enormously if it's a narcissist you're in a relationship with. It's that the next day, two days later, it happens again. It's as if that situation reflects itself again. That the person suddenly becomes extremely angry about something.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Or blames you for something that confuses you. Suddenly explodes. Or over small things that you hadn't expected. Where you can see Hey, it might be a different thing you're exploding over right now, but the pattern is the same. It's still something you think I'm doing wrong or something you think someone is doing wrong or something. That frustration, that underlying aggression that comes to the surface very quickly and is then thrown at you. And when you try to pinpoint hey, this is actually the same thing that happened two days ago when you said you would look into it. You're sorry about that. You do exactly the same thing. Then the person will start explaining away and say no, that wasn't it at all. In other words, gaslighting. Gaslighting is a big part of the narcissistic defense. Gaslighting is where the person will say No, I never said that. And you've misunderstood that. That's not how it was at all. You know. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then say how? With silence. And yes. It can also be done. And if there is. It can also be silence. No apology. And you could say it's almost worse if there's a rage and then there's just nothing. Then it's just a flat-out lie. So... So a characteristic feature of the narcissistic defense, where there is no sense of responsibility.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: It's also the one where you're just put on ice. In other words, there's a huge conflict. The person leaves. Silence. Silent silent treatment. And then all of a sudden, the person is just like that. Now everything is fine again. We're not allowed to talk about it, and it's forgotten, and it doesn't matter. You know, ignoring that it has had an impact, ignoring that it has been unpleasant to ignore. And the closest thing is if you come to someone who has done silent treatment and then suddenly comes back and goes all cherry cherry again, and you say hey, that was actually very unpleasant for me. The fact that you go into silence like that is incredibly uncomfortable for my system. I want us to talk about this, then the person will start riding you. You're also sensitive and you can't understand. And that's nothing. Which again is actually gaslighting. So what you'll notice with someone who is a narcissist or who is hugely identified with these defenses. You'll see that there's a pattern and the pattern repeats itself over and over again and it can take a long time. It can take some time in a relationship to spot this. It can sometimes. Not everyone has caught the narcissistic defense, which is classically grandiose, which is a bit like that.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: I'm not saying Trump is a narcissist, I'm just saying a little Trump behavior. He has at least some times when he comes out and stuff like that. I'm the best in the world, and you're an asshole. You know, the one where everything is good. I'm totally amazing and I'm constantly critical of others, explode quickly, behave very childishly. It's classic narcissistic behavior, but it's definitely not always that. Because you can also meet people who are trapped in narcissistic defenses, who seem to be both hugely charismatic but also very empathetic. They can seem hugely giving and helpful, but look like there's something like some underlying weird aggression or something strange that the world is against me. I've always drawn the short straw, and it's like there's a constant criticism of others. That they're always always after me. And if I had just gotten, if I had just gotten a few more chances in life. Look at that guy over there. Holy shit, he's got it easy. So there can be a persona that is shown to the world that is incredibly inspiring. So a narcissist or a person who is caught in very narcissistic defenses may well have a very persona that seems to be extremely likeable. In other words, someone who you find extremely nice to be with. But when you're with that person for a longer period of time, it's as if your body starts to react.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: There's something that's off here and there, where it starts to get a little dangerous. And you have to say that with a person who has these narcissistic traits, it's that some of it is so subtle, so they can subtly make you incredibly wrong in an incredible number of ways that you almost don't register, because you can think if he's just having a bad day, or if she. I think she's a bit stressed at the moment, and so I kind of go around it, and I can help her. And there can be so many subtle subtle criticisms, because sometimes it's direct and stuff. Where they really get on your nerves. But other times it's very subtle. Well, but you are also. You're also just a human being as you are. You're just not that rewarding. Or are you just a person who is in a way where you're like that. If you go down and feel your body, you can actually feel that it's uncomfortable. But when you try to speak up, when you try to mark a boundary based on your bodily response, you get confused, and you get thrown for a loop that when you're hysterical, you're over-interpreting. That's not what I said. That's not what I said.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Come on. And like that. Then it's the pattern. It's a pattern that builds up something that becomes unpleasant. Either full blown range conflict, but also a lot of open groupings where it's just a bit like no, hey, why did you say that or that you? I don't like that. Or there's something between us that's weird. And when you pinpoint it, they turn into guilt. So it's either your fault that I got so furious, or it's your fault that you're oversensitive. So you misunderstand me, you misunderstand what I'm saying. That's not what I meant at all, like actual gaslighting and so on. And that's how it works. So it's something about the person who is caught in defense having to try to put their feelings down to the person. They haven't learned to handle their emotional regulation themselves, so they will use you as a blood back. And this, it's not conscious. If it's conscious manipulation, then we're more into psychopathy. Another branch of dyssocial personality disorder, where the narcissist It's a bit more of a borderland, that's the big one. I also suffer from this, but I can't do it myself, can't do it. Can't even see that the person is using you to regulate their emotions. So that means that the narcissist is actually trapped in some very childish immature behaviors, where he or she will use you so that it's always your fault.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: It's always your fault. If the person has strong feelings, it's your fault and you're the one who has to deal with them. So you have to take the blame all the time. Or you have to take on the fact that you're hysterical or that you're too much. Or you've misunderstood, so there will be one. There will be a conflict of one kind or another. Now we're going to sit and talk about this, or how it plays out in this particular person with narcissistic traits. In any case, a situation that is unpleasant. And what happens when it becomes uncomfortable here is that you start to confront. You start to set limits to it. You start to. It's often here. Then there will be a gaslighting. That is, you don't understand it. And that's not what was meant and you've misunderstood it. And there was a neglect. It's the same thing. A person who goes into narcissistic rage. That's when they can't hold it anymore. When you start to see their pattern. Really putting a limit to what you're really shining a light on. The pattern is fixed. Then you get full on range. It's classic for a person who is trapped in narcissistic defenses. If you pinpoint Hov.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: What you are doing right now. What you're putting me in charge of your emotional life for. Get about it. It stops right here. Then there's Unleashed. And that's because they can't handle it. They really can't handle this in terms of there's no one regulating their emotions for them. And they don't have awareness of it. So it all explodes inside them. So what lies in a person who is very caught in narcissistic defenses is the underlying aggression. Because this emotional accumulation. They can't handle the differentiation in their own emotional life. So there's a constant need to break up these emotions in one way or another. And other adults won't just happily accept all kinds of crap. So of course there will be a lot of trouble. So you could say that some narcissists enjoy the power struggles, but I would say that we're a bit more over in psychopathy too. That's also why it's incredibly annoying to end up in the state office with a person who enjoys fighting, because they keep fighting. So it has nothing to do with the children. The narcissist wants to be more. There's not necessarily that much enjoyment in the fight. In fact, they don't find it very enjoyable either. But they are addicted to the fact that you can say that the struggle makes them feel something and that is actually the most frightening thing for the narcissist.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: It's because they can. Not because they're not in touch with their own essence, as you like. Or with their own core. Because we don't have a fixed core in the personality, but they can't really. They're not in touch with it. It's as if there's a barrier blocking them from having access to themselves. In other words, what they feel when they get in touch with themselves is emptiness. An extreme emptiness that is often interpreted by their system as a deep, deep fear of loneliness, which they can't handle either, and therefore all this is thrown onto you. So, that is to say, the fact that it quickly makes it so that it's not very. You get triggered incredibly easily. Then there are some themes they can sit and talk about and be extremely reflective about. But then it's typically because it's a theme that doesn't trigger them. If it is a theme that triggers them, they go from 0 to 100 in no time. So it's also a way of spotting, because we all have things that can trigger. It's very human. But the difference between being triggered and saying fuck, that hurt. I have to go in and look at this. Why is this triggering so much? I need to seek therapy. I have to talk to my friends. I have to try to be Mette.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: I have to do breathing exercises, I have to meditate, I have to go down and work Jungian or what? There are many approaches to trying to work with it. When you can feel when you say something like that. It triggers the hell out of me, or I have a hard time having children, and I see other women who are pregnant. I fucking hate them. I have to work with that. There are a lot of things that can trigger, but the difference between being triggered and working on it, that's the crux of whether you're caught in a narcissistic defense that can set in as narcissism, or if you're just momentarily overwhelmed and you actively go in and take responsibility and bring awareness to it, say to work on this. I can see that I become unbearable to be around when I end up there. I become unbearable to be around in my relationships, and I end up pushing people away. Ergo, I want to work with that. So in those people where we are not so caught up in narcissistic defenses, we are aware of how our behavior. We have a dawning awareness of how our behavior negatively impacts our relationships. We have a desire to take responsibility, and then there are times when we have stood in something that God then looks back on.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: I can see some of my relationships. Well, I wasn't very nice there. And I can see that the younger I was, the more I can see that I wasn't very mature, and I hadn't learned that. Now I haven't learned that either, I haven't learned that either. But that is to say, it's a maturity journey you take on. When you are a narcissist, there is no maturity. There's no self-reflection, there's no taking responsibility. There can be some talking. It can be very seductive. Because you can also be too much. It can be huge. It's very confusing to be with a person who talks about taking responsibility. So you can easily find narcissists in the whole self-development industry. And you can also find narcissism, psychologists and stuff like that. They're everywhere. So you can find someone who can talk about taking responsibility, but in practice they don't do it. And that's where you can see the pattern. That's how you talk about taking responsibility. But now, here you go again. Now you're blaming corn again. Now you can't hold your criticism in again. You have to throw it on me. And when I point out the pattern, you flip out or give me the silent treatment. Because that's the pattern itself. For God's sake, it must not be illuminated.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Because it's the pattern the narcissist is not willing to look at the pattern. The narcissist does not dare to look it in the eye. Because it hurts. It hurts like hell. It goes to hell. Seeing where we hurt, others hurt. It hurts like hell to spot places where we're immature and we're fucked because there's a part of us that's an immature part of us that has that. I don't want to share it. Can't the rest of you deal with it? I don't want to deal with it. You know, and that's what kids do too. It's just... It's your fault that I'm my food and cold or whatever the fuck I know. That's just the way it is. It's something we have to, as far as you can say. Some psychologists have said that certain stages of childhood are equal to narcissistic periods. I don't agree with that. I see it more as becoming emotionally mature, so it's just emotional immaturity is a natural part of being a child. They're supposed to be emotionally immature, because they haven't learned it yet, but the emotional immaturity. If it stagnates and becomes Arrested Development, then it can settle as these narcissistic defenses in an adult body. And there they can do a lot of damage. Because a child who has a tantrum can't.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Yes, I can smash some furniture, but basically not do that much damage. But do you have an adult who is trapped in these childish immaturity defenses that simply haven't been developed? But has an intellect and can take care of you in state court and you can sue and can do all sorts of things. Then it stays. Then it stays. Then you have it in an adult body. So it becomes a bit of a risky business. So you could say. How do these defenses arise? And there are several things in it. There are several pieces of the puzzle. There are both where you can say that narcissism is learned. These are behaviors that are learned. Ergo, you could say that, in theory, it should also be unlearnable. So it's a learned way of approaching life. So if there is an increased risk if you grow up in a family where one parent actually. If both parents have very strong narcissistic traits, then there's an increased risk that you'll learn it yourself. But that doesn't mean you'll become a narcissist if your mom and dad are or have been. If they are still living it. You can't put it that bluntly. You can say there's an increased risk of it. But it's not. But you can also have non-narcissistic parents and develop narcissism. So you could say there's also something in a culture. We have a culture where we unfortunately glamorize in some ways.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Narcissistic behavior seems to be top of the game, and you know. So there have also been there have been. We've also had a history where we haven't focused on emotional regulation, that is, emotional release. It's been a lot. So it's relatively new that it's no longer taboo to go to a psychologist and work with your emotional life. Previously, it was just a no go. It was just compressed. It was just a little bit of emotion. Just swallow, it show it. And you know. The substance down. So, you could say there's a lot. There is a lot in the way we have approached children and parenting. That has also come to cement these defenses. And it's also if you grow up in a family where you might not get much. You don't get a lot of smiles. You don't get a lot of recognition for who you are, but maybe you only get recognition when you perform. So there you go. It doesn't matter if you have proud parents who are also proud when you perform. But if that's the only time you get recognition, and that's what narcissistic parents can get to. They can do what they often do to children. It's that children are an extension of themselves because they're not really emotionally mature. So, they see children as an extension of themselves, who are supposed to be there for them in a very strange way.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: So, in other words, they must at least do the right thing. And it's again about going in and correcting their perception of reality. So what can be difficult for narcissistic parents is that it can be easier for them the younger the child is, because the child easily gives their unconditional love. When the child starts to get more of their own understanding of themselves and their own will and starts to set themselves free, there can be an incredible amount of conflict with a person with a parent who is trapped in narcissistic defenses because the parent cannot control. There is an extreme need for control in a person who is trapped in narcissistic defenses, because for God's sake, this person should not feel this emptiness and existential emptiness that is inside. And in order to avoid it, they have to control and cannot feel these emotions because that's what they've learned. I can actually only endure and be in these feelings if you take responsibility. Because if I have someone, you know, I can throw them up on, or you know, who can listen to me and give me empathy. It can take different forms. You know, you know. You can also go in one of those. Oh, I've been the worst parent in the world again. I hang myself, and then there's someone sitting there.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: No, you're absolutely wonderful. You're absolutely fantastic, and we can all be down in a hole and therefore show empathy and then get back up again. But that's something else. The narcissist will end up there again, like a broken record. So it's a pattern. That's how the foot ended up there. Rage. Who doesn't take care of it on the other side and just says Well, it was just arh, it was damn. It wasn't something I just shouted. It was just a bit angry and stuff. And the one who has just been exposed to rage and suddenly gets hit back and is just a bit like that. No, I think. I think it was something. Maybe I didn't think it was so nice to do something like that. You're far too sensitive, and the person may well have forgotten that. So the person who goes full on range, when you try to talk to them about it afterwards may have forgotten. They may be both gaslighting you as well as genuinely thinking it's almost like there's a shadow over them. It is as if. That's why you can also a little. Too faced that it's almost like that. It can be a bit of a Master Jakel master hide that it's almost as if they change personality and this darkness takes over them.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: And afterwards, they really have no memory of any of it and gaslighting to try not to remember it. But it could also be that they don't remember that they've said those nasty things. It's almost as if their brain has snapped and it's just poured out of their mouth, as it can happen with children. You know, kids even at the age of 3 or 4 can say all sorts of nasty things that they don't necessarily remember afterwards and don't attach much importance to. So it's a bit of a tricky place because it's hard to land afterwards because you can't talk to them afterwards. They don't want to talk about it, and if they do talk to you about it, it's to make you wrong, that you overinterpret and you've misunderstood or also something about you not. You're not warm and open and giving. You're cold. Now I'm sitting here feeling absolutely terrible, and you just tell me to get off my ass and take responsibility for my life. So it's a blame game, there's a definite blame game going on all the time. I can see that there are some questions coming in there and that's great. I just want to open up the questions here. Just make sure you don't sit and wait for me to answer them, because I'll take the last half hour, so those that have been answered before you should probably go back and get answered when I open up the questions.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: It's half past eleven. So what you can say is that there is also a part of the narcissist that can be this. And it's actually the same thing. It's not so much race, it's more like the one I have too. I've also been a terrible parent to you. That's also closed now. I hope you can forgive me. I hope you can forgive. I couldn't do anything else. And that's the thing. Again, it's about asking your child to take responsibility for their parents' feelings all the time. So that means there's not even room for you to be angry. If you think your parent has violated your boundaries, you can't be angry. Can't you see what it does to me when you get so angry at me? Can't you see what it does to me if they collapse, so you can see narcissists find themselves, or those who are very caught in narcissistic defenses. They're kind of on the far end of the spectrum. Either there's this rage that's just like that. It was nothing afterwards, and afterwards they have regulated. They've gotten rid of it, they just feel better. They actually feel much better on the other side.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: But they don't take any responsibility for it. They don't take any responsibility for the fact that they just shouted and screamed and did all sorts of disgusting things to you. Then you just are. You're just so sensitive. Or they can collapse. Well, you can say that a lot. Sometimes you can be drawn into a relationship like that because you see that kind of collapse as a vulnerability. You want to protect or cherish. So it's not uncommon that when I talk to someone who's coming out of a narcissistic relationship that they talk about that first period as being. Well, I felt like I had to protect him, or I had a protective urge towards her. Or I felt like I had to take care of him or take care of her. So we're more over what's called corporate narcissism, which is that there's a vulnerability that you interpret as something good. I would like to help you stand here until you find your own footing. It's actually an extreme extreme existential fragility. And what you find if you've been in a relationship with someone like that for many years is that you keep giving and giving and giving and trying to help and help and help and help and help. And the person becomes more and more fragile, so it doesn't matter. There's no responsibility for it.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: There is no desire to take responsibility. There is a very infantile drive to be taken care of. So you could say that the grandiose narcissist needs to use you as an instrument to show off or show off or some such title. But anyway, I'm entitled. I'm entitled to you giving me your attention. I'm entitled to you just taking my shit. I am entitled. I'm huge. There's an extreme sense of entitlement, and when it's out there, on the other, more fragile end of the narcissistic spectrum. It's actually more about me being entitled to you taking care of me. So it's actually often. And it can be. It definitely can. And it can definitely happen if you've grown up in a very dysfunctional family where you've never really had a parent who's taken care of you. Who may have had narcissistic or psychopathic traits themselves and thus have always picked on you or blamed you and only gave you love for small parts of who you are. And it can get stuck like that. That is, the deep need to be seen and to be met and to be taken care of. Has been arrested. It has simply been punctured and they have been buried. And so there is such an unrecognized longing. And that means that there is a breed of aggression when you meet a partner.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: So it's actually the huge race that was against mom and dad, who didn't take care of me, being projected. It's simply thrown onto the partner. So there's always an underlying background music of. You have to fucking take care of me You, which the person is not even aware of. And when you realize it, it sends chills down my spine. It's just like God, I'm a 50-year-old man who has something, you know. Infantile demands. Unconscious demands for me to take care of him. Like when I shine a light on it and say to him Hey, hey, hey. You're a grown man or a grown woman. You can't do that. Then there's a race. It's like they can't see it. It's more like, you're walking on the pattern when you first spot the pattern and you start pinpointing it like that. Whoa, whoa, whoa, you're just now seeing this. Uh, if you're with someone who's a narcissist, that's the crux of the matter. So this. If you're with someone who has narcissistic defenses, which you may also have yourself, then it's this. Then there may well be a full-on race. Ouch, it hurts like hell. There are all sorts of things. Then the person can come back again and say now I can see that you're right.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: I can see that you're on to something. It hurts like hell. But I can see that I need to get some help to work through this. And I hope you'll stay with me, and I'll do whatever the hell I can to take responsibility for these aspects of me. I can see that they're destructive. And I'm scared shitless. But it's still my responsibility to take on. There you see someone who takes responsibility for the Narcissistic Defense. So there you see someone who actually has that real empathy. There's genuine self-reflection and empowerment. Taking responsibility is actually about the fact that the pain of inflicting our shit on others is greater than the fear of confronting it in our own darkness, which we have no desire to get acquainted with. The pain of not being greeted like children. The pain of seeing how we came to hurt former partners that we couldn't see at the time. The pain of something being passed down. The pain that we first saw God. I also do this to my children. That pain, it hurts my system tremendously. And it's basically those with narcissistic defenses and those who are trapped in narcissism.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: They don't get it at that level when I see it energetically. And it was also described to me by someone who saw it energetically. Almost as if there's a barrier. There is such a barrier, which means that the person lives outside this barrier, where the ability for self-reflection and authentic vulnerability and it's actually having the stamina to be able to stand in such contradictory emotions. Fuck fuck fuck, fuck. I want to make you wrong. That's because my parents did me wrong. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Fuck, it's not my fault. I don't know what's wrong, but I have to deal with it because my parents are not coming to save me. The place that's a mature place, they don't get it. So they live out here all the time. That's also why the best way to spot if a person is so caught up in narcissistic defenses that they become extremely destructive to be around. And maybe that's actually what we call narcissism, because they're so identified with it, they'll live in projection all the time. So if they're not projecting onto you, in the sense that you've misunderstood me and it's your fault. I feel this way all the time if there's a specific case you have to deal with where they've messed up in some practical thing where they've. They've made a few mistakes.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: They've messed up and not lived up to what they said they would. Then they will try to get around them. It's because you've done something. You've done that a lot. Anything that tastes a little bit like guilt, they can't handle any more guilt. So every time it smells a little bit of guilt, they'll do whatever they can to push it and push it away. Then when you see it. In other words, it's not just you they're externally projecting. It may also be that when you get home, you've been to some party or other, and you're sitting there - did you see her there? And he's there a hell of a lot too. There will be many points of criticism. They'll constantly need to put out aggression towards other people, and it might surprise you to say okay, you had a really bad day and you'd have many conversations with them about it. Maybe you shouldn't be so much into other people and they might say well you're right and you shouldn't do that. Your own half of the field. Then five minutes pass, and then they do it again. Fuck, he's driving annoyingly or shit, she's so ugly, that one or something. It's as if you would get, if you would spot that there's a lot of aggression coming out.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: It's as if they can't help it. It's as if they want to. They constantly want to find blame elsewhere. Even if they're really good at talking as if they take responsibility. Like talking as if they understand this. You both have a partner. I need to look at some of mine too. Then you'll eventually realize that it's hollow. They can be very good at parroting language and then pretend to have a lot of self-awareness and understanding. But you can see that when it comes to changing behavior, apologies happen. So when you realize that you are with someone or have someone close to you. Whether it's parents, sister, brother, partner, whatever it may be, that basically doesn't develop. That is, they talk about taking responsibility, but they don't do it. This is the crux of the matter when it comes to spotting how identified a person is with their defenses. If a person falls into them once in a while and then comes back and says It happened again Fuck, I have to work, and you can see they are working. It may well be that progression is slow. It can be difficult to change these patterns because they have been handed down for many generations. So it's often a defense that gets away from you.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: But the trick is that if you can see that they actually create progression. There are many who are trapped in their last defense. It's also the fact that they shop around among therapists. Anyway, I need to look at this too. And the moment they don't feel seen and met, that they're not allowed to just sit and unload. That the psychologist or therapist goes to them a little. Then it changes. So it's also the fact that there's some persistence there. Do they have something? Do they have some maturity? Is there a maturity foundation that allows them to actually take responsibility? What I often ask when I have someone, where? It's not like I can start diagnosing someone as a narcissist. It's actually not. It's actually not that important. It's the word narcissist itself. I actually want to. I would say more like emotional immaturity. But the reason why it can also be a little dangerous is that we can think that teenagers are narcissists, and they're not. Or kids are. And they're not. Or. Or when you're in your early twenties, there's supposed to be a progression in emotional maturity. We are the mammal that takes the longest to mature. Other animals don't have teenage years. Our brain is only getting there between 20 and 25.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: That's a long time. And even then, when I look back at how I was relationally at the age of 25, I was completely hopeless. I see me now being 43 and I still have a lot to learn. You know, so we're also just human. It takes a long time to mature, so that's what it is. That's the most important thing I have to say. If you're going to go for a partner or for sustainable relationships that don't become destructive over time, it's really only if people have the ability, they have the ability to say Fuck, it hurts. I'm curious about my own contribution to this. We can all be confused. We can all be Whose fault is this? And what the fuck has happened in the interaction between us? But is there a real one? I have to take responsibility because I don't want to hurt you and I want to understand this. That's actually the crux of it, because the narcissist doesn't have that. They can talk about it, but they don't do it. So either it's that sometimes somebody who's caught in the narcissistic defenses doesn't do it at all. It's the thing about there being wraiths. There's something, then they leave. Then they go into a sulk and say nothing. Then they come back, pretend it's nothing, and then you don't talk about it. There's not even an attempt to say anything.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Maybe I should take a look at that. But otherwise, there's the fact that they've learned a language. They've learned giraffe language, and they've learned therapeutic language and appreciative language and things like that. That makes them almost more dangerous, I would say. Because then they actually have. They've learned to pretend they've got it together. And then they are. Then from here, with that vocabulary and that intellect, they can actually very easily make you. Incredibly wrong. And now you're hysterical now. What's going on in your body? Now there is what sometimes happens to a narcissist. It's that you completely lose it, because that's when your body can feel that you're being pulled around the carousel. And here you really need to trust your body. I mean, if you're in a relationship where you feel over and over again, something is off. And you can't pinpoint it. It's like you're trying to grab it, then it's running away between your hands. But you're all the time. You're not. You can feel you haven't. You lose the desire for sex. Or you lose the desire to be too close to the person and stuff like that. And of course, you may have some trauma yourself that does this.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: And you have to deal with that. But it could also simply be that your body is telling you that something is off here. There's something manipulating or something that's not authentic. There is something here that is strange and that's it. That's actually what it does to the body when you're in a projection field, when you're with a person who is constantly going to use you to make you feel better. So what you can say in a narcissistic relationship is that the more giving you are, the more. Oftentimes, you don't get it. It's not rare that a narcissist attracts an empath, so you can feel you give and you give and you give and you give and you're very happy. I have to look at my share as well. You know, some of us are a little too quick to think it's our own fault all the time. And that's great, because then we go in and look at and understand our pattern. That's great. But if you're with a narcissist, it becomes really dangerous. You become extremely broken because he or she can always see it's your fault. They can't see their own part, but they can always angle it so that it's your fault. And if they have vocabulary, if they have giraffe language, if they have, and if they have all this, they can put it on top of their unconscious practicing field, and then it will be almost every discussion you have with every conflict will have a hint of whether it's you who is a little too much, a little too shy, a little too damaged.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: There's something about you. You need to go out and get it fixed. And if you buy into it, and that's why being with a narcissist becomes a bit like the boiled frog analogy, which is like if you put a frog in a pot of water and then turn it on so it slowly boils. It won't jump out. If you put it in boiling water, it will jump out if it doesn't die on the spot. But if it lies there, it gets hotter and hotter and hotter, and eventually it just croaks. And that's because this is a subtle virus, this one. These very continuous constant constant boundary crossings that. Sometimes it would almost be better to just get slapped or hit on the head. I'm not advocating violence at all, but it's very visible. It's very visible, what the narcissist does. Much to a much higher degree. Psychological violence that they're not very aware of and actually not very aware that they're doing. And that's why it becomes such a risky business.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: So you could say that it's the difference between you ending up there yourself, and that's why it's also really good that many of you have been very aware of when I've made these posts. God, I can do that too, and I can also end up there, and I can also end up in those wounded. Emotions can come too, we all can. So we all have access to the narcissistic defenses in us, because it's a by-product of the evolution, the evolutionary journey we're on. That getting consciousness into a mammalian body, a monkey body almost. It's been a bit of a wild experiment, which has also meant that we also have emotional maturity as a species. We're still a fairly young species, so we have much greater potential for much greater emotional maturity than we've currently achieved. And on that journey, you could say that the narcissistic defense has been inevitable, I would say. That's just what it is. When we add a bit of an immature culture where we glorify Wall Street and making a lot of money, regardless of whether you fuck with people and stuff like that. We can have a bit of a glorification of the fast and the smart, the youthful. We can have a glorification of stupidity. It's really weird. So there's also some cultural influences there.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: So you may well have had a nice, secure attachment, but have ended up in a really bad environment and then came out, where it may not be cemented in it, but affected. But of course, that's a big part of it. There's also the interaction with parents and upbringing, so we see a lot more personality disorders, narcissism, psychopathy and things like that in children and young people who grow up the more neglected they have been. The risk increases tremendously, so there is also a lot in parenting that we need to focus on here. And it's actually about us being with children. That we both learn to love them as they are and we learn to take our own projections home. So when do our children trigger us? When do we see God? I can see God. I want you to be like this, and it triggers me that you're not like Okay, I have to look at that. So it actually is. The children are reflected here on our own immaturity, which we can bring home and work with, and that's the best defense against putting narcissistic scientists into our children. So in that way he is that our relationships can always be a contribution to our emotional maturity. The problem is that if you're trapped in narcissistic defenses and or narcissist, then there's no maturation. There isn't. There is no desire to mature.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: There isn't one. And it's not just like that. It's not. It's not a strategic manipulator. I don't want to mature. I just want to abuse you so we don't end up in psychopathy. It's more than that. It's like the people closest to you don't have. They don't have access to see their own patterns. So they don't have access to see what they're doing. And I would actually say that many people have rewritten it. So what do you do if you can see that you're caught narcissist in defense and actually want to work with them? And when we look at the clinical studies, it's extremely discouraging because what we really want to say is, are you a narcissist? Do you have a lot of narcissistic defenses and then you definitely need therapy. The problem is that when we look at what therapy actually does, it doesn't do very much. It's more like we can see that it can be done in therapy. It's that it can be a little bit fluid to understand. It can easily become such a learned thing, and I learned some things that I shouldn't say, because then you get upset. I can't feel why. So it becomes a bit more mechanical. There may be a small change in behavior, but it's not that big one where you've been completely down and you've been completely horrified to see what your behavior has done.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: You haven't. You've been unconscious of some behavior in yourself, and then all of a sudden you spot it. You find out that God has exposed my children to it from my partner. Because fuck. It comes from my childhood or whatever. It goes back deeper. That horror shakes your whole system and whether you can move on from there. From there, you can actually release behaviors and change them quite magically. But you can't escape the darkness. You simply cannot escape having illuminated the darkness in a way that sometimes you actually feel like you're about to perish from your own horror at what? What kind of behavior is humanly possible? We are that. Darkness is not easy to dance with. And that's where we hit the shepherd in the narcissistic defense, because it requires self-awareness. It requires access to vulnerability and it actually requires that you have the courage to collapse into the darkness. You have a desire to come back up into the light. So that you can take this home and eventually, for God's sake, not feel the emptiness. They can't. They don't have that layer. They don't have that core or that supporting structure within them. At least they don't feel like they do. They have this again, this one. The one they can't get through.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: So that means they can only. They can only shoot outwards. And that's why they don't mature, and that's why these patterns repeat. Going again, going again, going again, going again. And it becomes so extremely exhausting for you. Because if they can't blame you for something, they can just blame something else. So you'll also see when you try to have a conversation with someone about an issue you need to resolve? Well, it's almost impossible. It's just a tiny little thing like that. We had said we would do it like this. And then all of a sudden it starts. Then some kind of discussion starts about it. And then those who have, those who want to skip the themes. If no, you've done that too. Well, there was also this one. They start dragging in old stuff. That drives you around the carousel. And this thing where it's like, there's coming. Hey, is there background noise? Okay, I'll just shut that down because it's good, because you say so. And you can say. What happens is that these things make it confusing. Because they don't want to go back. That is, as soon as you have a little light on the pattern. As soon as you start shedding light, it's like, hey, hey, hey, there's something here. Now, now, now you're driving around.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: We have to go back. Back on track. We need to talk about this thing. Because you've hit a snag. We have to deal with that. You can't keep the person there. They will simply jump from the point. And get old dirt on you and try in every possible way to get you to lie down flat and say I must have misunderstood, then it's probably my fault. And that's when you see the pattern you see. It's reflected over and over and over again, then you can be pretty sure that you're with someone who is very caught up in these narcissistic defenses. What I also tend to do when I talk to people who feel that way a little bit is coming. I can't understand it and I try these relationships and stuff. It just keeps going on and on, and they keep messing around. I can't understand why we have so many conflicts, and it must really trigger how much and I try to stretch myself. I try to give myself something, but there's always all sorts of things. I often ask the person if it's okay. Do you feel this way too? How many people in your social circle do you feel this way with? I mean, how many people are you around? Do you end up in conflict with all the time, and there isn't really anyone or? Or if I do, then we'll get it resolved.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Of course. You know what I mean. And there may well be some bumps in the road, but on the whole, it's actually just this person. Then you can be sure that it's probably that person who has a problem and not you. And it's also the case that if you ask this person with whom you have many conflicts, is he or she otherwise good at relationships? And does he or she have many relationships that are sustainable and deep and close and conflict-solving? And that's just? No, not at all. It's messy. It's always messy in the relationship and that's why. You have to dare to see it. You have to dare to look at it, because if you're someone who naturally goes in and looks at your own part and is very giving, then the person will make it seem like you're the one with the problem. Whereas if you look at the relationship, the relationship and the person, you'll see that the person is typically not very strong relationally. It may be that the person is very good at meeting people initially and can be very talkative, very charismatic and very trusting and seems very empathetic and everything else. But it doesn't take long before it starts, and then there's a beef, and then they're annoying, and then something happens, and then it's as if there's conflict with that person.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: There are all other relationships, collegiate friends, extended family and so on. And you can even feel a bit like that. You feel that it's a bit hard to go to social events with this person, because you often feel like you have to smooth things over and clean up, and you have to shield the person a bit, and you have to be like Oh no, what the hell are you doing? And then you have to clean up on the other side of meetings in the cooperative and everything else, because the person gets messy where you go in and say. You have to try to keep it down. So it also means that if you've been in a relationship with someone who is like that, you will simply be so tired. You can be tired to the bone. And here's where I would say it's a question of should you stay or should you go? And that's exactly where you have to look at the individual context. I would say that if you're in a place where you can feel that I don't want to. I actually don't want to be with this person. I've actually gotten to the point where my body is completely shut down, and I can just feel that those behaviors don't work. I don't feel like it. I can't handle it. I'm afraid for our children and I'm afraid of what will happen.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: But I saw some stays from the children. I would actually say that it's hard. But I would actually say that if you're there, you can see that you become more and more miserable. You become more and more broken. So for God's sake get out. And then give the kids. When you have your children. Give them the opportunity to experience you. Where you are yourself and where you thrive. So they have the opportunity to see. That you can be in a different way. Because when you're in the groove. With a person who is in your narcissistic defense. Then it also becomes confusing for your children. And of course that's not nice. Sometimes you stay for the kids. Because you want to be a buffer. You don't want the person to be alone. With your children. But you can just say it. You stay. And that also means that you don't. There is no space for you to be there. The narcissist won't give you space for you to be there, because there's always that fragile self-esteem. So if you suddenly have. A stronger relationship with the children than he or she has. Then it also becomes a problem. So you will constantly have to pack yourself away, pack yourself away. And if you don't pack it away. And if you shed light on the pattern, there are conflicts all the time.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: All the time. And the narcissist doesn't stop. So that is, once they've gotten to where they are. Where they've hit their pattern, they keep going. They keep going. They keep talking. There needs to be discussion. Again and again and again until you lie down flat or give up. Most people have so much energy on it. They have so much charge that they haven't processed, so they haven't regulated. So I would say rather go and then create a life where you have the opportunity to have your children and show them that. Life can be different, so get out of the conflict field. You could say that if you choose to stay. If you choose to stay. There can be different reasons why you choose to stay. And if it's either necessary for a period of time or you choose to say this is what I'm doing. I choose to stay with the person because there's a difference between how you approach someone who has very narcissistic traits versus you being in a relationship with them and staying or you're actually forced to be in a relationship with them sometimes because they're children together, but you've actually moved because. I would basically say you can't shed light on their pattern. You can't keep pointing out the pattern if you live with them. Because then there will be too many conflicts, because the narcissist can't handle it.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Simply can't handle you shedding light on and and and so it will be too hard. And if you've tried to shine a light on and, there's no improvement. Don't take any responsibility. You've been standing for many years and you say it's not going to happen. Sometimes you just want to know. When I ask people who are standing here, you can tell that they are in a relationship with someone who is trapped in narcissistic defenses. I say. Do you think that person is going to change anything? No, they won't. It comes completely promptly. Then it would have happened. No, they wouldn't. The person takes no responsibility. It's obvious. That's just the way it is. What about taking responsibility and really taking responsibility? And really taking responsibility for their behavior and correcting it because they're not hurting you? That's not going to happen. So you know, the answer is not right there. So that is, if you've come to that conclusion. With a person who has those behaviors. And it's not going to change, then you shouldn't shed any light. You shouldn't either. You can't share your vulnerability either. Because the person will abuse your vulnerability and exploit it in a moment of weakness. Not because the person is evil, but because their defenses make it the only thing they have to hit you with. So when they catch their defenses, that's it.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Either I collapse myself or I win. That's where they stand. It's an extreme dualistic approach and therefore they will take whatever they have Arsenal and throw it at you without apologizing, without taking responsibility. On the other hand, it means that if you choose to be with someone, you actually can't. You can't really. You can't share very much. You typically can't share your successes either, if something goes well, because it might be that their fragile ego can't handle it. So you know, you have to learn gray rock, which is slipping. You have to learn not to go into something that might trigger them. So you want to all the time. There are things you have to do. You have to learn to manage them. You don't have to learn how to manage them like some immature children. And then you have to. And then you have to figure out how much energy you want to put into it. That is, how worried are you about the person causing trouble in a way that affects your finances? Or that they'll get fired, or you know the family can't stand them, or whatever it is. And you have to figure out, how do you deal with this in a way that you spend the least amount of energy on it? So you really need to learn to let go, and then you really need to have some confidants that you can be with, that you can share yourself with, and that you can.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Where you can be more you. Because if you choose to be with someone who is a narcissist, there is very little of yourself that you can put into play, because there is very little of yourself that the person can handle, and you can't. You can't really expect a deep conversation. You can have something resembling a deep conversation, but the person will very quickly divert it to talking about themselves with their own experiences or their own hurt or their own whatever. So you can't really expect that even when you're asked about yourself, because you've kind of learned that you have to. Then the person will look a little healthy and can't really take it in, and it can trigger all sorts of things in them. So that. You have to see it as a rather superficial relationship because you're with an emotionally superficial person. Because the person doesn't know how to go deep. Unable to take responsibility for their own darkness and shed light on it and face the pain it causes. Then that's it. It would be very little of yourself that you can actually put into play. And it may well be that you choose to stay there and act as a buffer.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: I've spoken to several adults who have come from consultation and counseling and guidance and therapy, who grew up in a family where one of the parents was a narcissist, and who can see that the other parent was. It might have been especially if it has been. It's actually been equally valid mom and dad. But in some situations, if it has been the mother who has had very strong narcissistic traits, then it's not atypical. If we're talking about a generation, if that's the case. If I work with someone. They're typically between their mid-twenties and up to about 50 or 60, so if they're there and they've just had children themselves and have processed something from their childhood and have to figure out how much should my child really spend with their grandmother or their father, their grandmother or their grandparents who are caught in the narcissistic traits, you want to put yourself in between as a buffer, and what I can see is that for fathers at that time it's there a bit. It's been there for men that if they were with a woman who had narcissistic traits. About a generation ago. A lot of them chose to stay because they had a bit of that. They were afraid that they thought it's better that I stay as a buffer rather than if I stay. If I leave the narcissist, I will lose my children.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: I would actually say that the good instinct is really the hardest. And that's also why someone knows. Someone knows if they are in a relationship with someone who is very pronounced, has very pronounced narcissistic defenses. I can feel instinctively if I try to get out of this relationship. It's going to be a fucking hassle. The hardest thing is to leave. Therefore, it may well be the right thing to do to go full on. But it's actually hard to separate from a narcissist, because it awakens all their abandonment and feelings start to press on this membrane to push through, so they get hold of their feeling of emptiness. And they want to avoid that for God's sake, so it works quite subconsciously for them. So that means yes. Once you start pulling away and start wanting to leave, they do a love bombing. It's an idea, and it's also part of the pattern. You know, there's conflict. Then there's gaslighting. You're being done wrong and it's your fault. Gaslighting and blame imposition. And then on the other hand, what looks like a sincere apology that doesn't really come anymore. Love bombing. Then they can be very loving and bring flowers home or be more physical and seem very physical and buy things or seem very boss or very friendly for a period of time and then it starts all over again.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: So they will first need to push you away and throw some feelings at you, which of course you don't want to take on. But it's uncomfortable. And then there's conflict, and then they pull you close afterwards to secure the relationship, and then it starts all over again. Very, very classic. And that means that when you've finally realized it and you have that ceiling where you can't use it for anything because it becomes hollow. Well, it's not. So you call me names and do all sorts of nasty things to me. And then you try to pretend that everything is fine. And then it starts all over again. So when you've been in it long enough, you're just like No fucking way. I don't want to do this anymore. That is, if you decide to leave. Then expect hell. Expect a period of time where the person trapped in narcissistic defenses becomes more and more loco, that is, becomes more and more loco. And that may well make you start to doubt whether you can leave because you're afraid of what will happen to your children. If you have children together. So you realize more and more that it's a phase you have to go through. What that seems to be with narcissists. It's again different from what we call psychopathy or dyssocial personality disorder, where we have what we popularly call psychopathy because it's there.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: There isn't over here. There isn't a single person who is what we call a psychopath. I don't really feel anything. I can get a huge thrill from adrenaline. So that means they feed off the fight? Yes, they do. The nastier it gets, the better almost. And that's because they have a nervous system where it's very difficult to feel anything. So it takes very little stimuli for them to feel anything at all. So that means narcissism? It's more than that. There's much more of an emotional storm and journey and it gets messy and they do strange things and stuff like that. But when you stand long enough, when you really decide to go and you stand firm. Because when you walk now, you can actually start shedding light on the darkness. I would actually say that when you go, then. Versus if you choose to stay. You have to bend and rock. Do nothing. If you leave, I would actually say the most loving thing you can do is actually illuminate their darkness and say I'm not taking that on. That's not going to touch me. That touch me, they're going to explode. But you can just say tough shit, I'm leaving. And you can actually also start saying Hey, if you explode, I'm going to have to bring a child.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: He or she doesn't want to be with you right now. It could well end up in the state office. Yes! Be prepared that there may be cases, there may be trouble, they may freak out. They can suddenly turn around and freak out at home-school talks and stuff like that. Expect to be talked down to in the city. No one is going to be completely malicious once you go and start illuminating the pattern and start saying things that you didn't say when you were in a relationship because you were like Hey! I can see that you're getting triggered here. I want to take care of you. I want to do all kinds of things. So... I'd rather Nerf Breaks Loose. But again, it's not. It may seem enormously violent, but it's not over into psychopathy. So in that sense, it's not psychopathy. Psychopathy is more dangerous. You don't want a psychopath on your back, that's for sure. Because they thrive on the hunt. The narcissist doesn't. They don't thrive on the hunt. They just need to unload theirs. They need to have someone. They can regulate their way up. And if they can't do that, then you can expect them to. And that's probably what hurts you the most. It's that when you leave, and you, when they no longer have you as a pushing back, they actually will.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Then it will affect your children more. So there's a buffer there. The good thing about it can be, which of course is horrible. It breaks your heart. It's terrible when you can see that they suddenly start raking more on them because they have no one they can count on unless they've found a new blood back they can travel on. And that happens unconsciously. But even if it's unconscious, it's just not a behavior that's okay by itself. You could say that, so that's why we have to call it that. That's what can be the good thing about them responding to the children, even though it's horrible of course. It's that the child actually starts to see the difference. We actually start to see that this is how it is over at mom and dad, and this is how it is over at you. And it's not about you being the good one and the other being the bad one. That's not what it's about at all. It's just that the child needs to be able to orient themselves. For the child to be able to say. The child has to choose, so to speak. How do I want to live in the world and who do I lean into? Because the more they lean into someone who is very narcissistic, they will be broken. They will be controlled and there will be a risk that they will either become extremely empathetic.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: They become extremely good at taking care of everyone else's needs, taking care of them to avoid being put down themselves, and this increases the risk of ending up with a narcissist themselves later on. That's how the nervous system finds what they know. Or there is a risk of them developing narcissistic traits themselves. So if you really want to pull them out of it, you have to dare to move away and you have to dare to take the fight. You have to understand it. You have to say that doesn't bother me. No, I don't take that on me either. That's it. Now I'm hanging up the phone, and yes, now we have to. Or I have to. And I have to make a case for internal visitation, because I want the child to be with me until you sort that out. They might not, but you know, you actually have to take it, and you have to know when to take something in, when not to take something in, so that the person doesn't exhaust you. Because that's what it is. That's what the narcissist does. They're trying to be the psychopath that enjoys driving down there. So the narcissist can't get rid of their aggression. So it's just having this exchange with you and having the opportunity every time he or she sees you to grope you, then they feel a little bit better.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Because it's a very, very primitive way of regulating emotions. So that's why you have to be extremely No, the one who says no, no, you're going in circles. No, that's not what we're talking about. I'm hanging up. And it's actually something about not sitting and talking to them for hours, because that's not where you want to go. So you have to be, once you've moved on and you want to have your own life and live well and you know show your kids that you can live in a different way, you have to be extremely limiting of narcissistic behavior. There is zero tolerance for what you have to take in, and it takes some work. And it also actually requires that when you come out. You will be bruised, you will be more bruised than you thought. Because you would have taken on an enormous amount of guilt. A subtle guilt. You would have taken on an enormous amount over the years. Kind of that boiled frog analogy. So there's both something about just being healed a little. It's not atypical that I see that when people re-enter a relationship and carry it with them all the time, they suddenly expect there to be aaarh.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: All of a sudden there's criticism of something I couldn't have predicted. It's very typical with a narcissist. You never know if it's because the knife is in the wrong place in the drawer, or you accidentally walk a little too close to them, or you go around them, or you open the door wrong. You're breathing wrong. So that underlying aggression is there all the time, so you never know all of a sudden. Your boss is friendly and nice, and then all of a sudden, you do something that pisses them off and they spit in your face. And then when you try to say hey, that's unpleasant, it's because you have to understand that your behavior is a nuisance to others. You have to take care of that. So again, it's the idea that there's someone who is someone I have the right to correct. And I have the right to say you're wrong. I have the right to say Why do you look like that? Or I am like that. There's one of those. And they simply don't have access to see how transgressive it is, how much they are constantly over the pill. And that's also where you get the most horror fight. In terms of you actually seeing God. You start to believe. You start believing. The relationship is okay.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: That we just have a little upside down, so that's how it is. And then you start to see a pattern here. But then first you spot a pattern. Then you're like Fuck, I have. What the hell do I do about it? I have to get out of it. But you still believe. You still think it's just you. Who is being exposed to it. You're sure of the person. Would never think of doing this to your children. But the person does this to everyone. The person is in a relationship with. Because it's their basic pattern and they don't get it. So your children will also be exposed to it to one degree or another. And it hurts. It fucking hurts to see it. Really, really, really, really hurts. You get worried. What's happening to my kids here? And that's actually where I would say that if you choose to stay in the relationship. As a buffer slide off and stuff like that. Then you have to take many times. Take your child away from the relationship. Have conversations with the child. I would actually also say that it's quite important. To begin to shed light on these patterns for your child. That's where you have to be careful. As an empath, you can be very, very focused on. That you don't want to alienate the other parent, which is healthy and good because alienation is deeply destructive for children.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Deeply destructive. But it can also sometimes make you so afraid of alienating a parent that there are things you don't say. If the child comes and tells their mother, Why? Why? Why is dad doing this? Why does daddy do this? Or why does mom always want me to take what? I have to apologize for things that are not my fault or whatever it is. And this is actually where we can get to. Actually empathically gaslighting in our children. And it knows that if we say mom was probably just a little stressed or dad, he loves you and stuff like that, and that's great. That's exactly what we need to do out of respect for the other parent in any divorce proceedings, or if you're cohabiting, if you will, because we all get to piss off our kids sometimes. And it's great that the kids have an outlet where they can go to the other parent. And now we've just said this It's really annoying, and it's part of a healthy relationship where we sometimes let things get out of hand, or where children think they've been treated unfairly by something that was actually a fine boundary they had been given. They just have to learn that over time. Being able to distinguish what's what. So that means that if you stand there and think But I'm no longer with my mother or the father of my child.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: But I respect the person, and I know that they love and adore their children, and we have a good working relationship. You know, it's the right thing to do. Well, that doesn't sound very nice, but you can be absolutely sure that dad loves you deeply. Or I think maybe mom was a little stressed or something. You know, if you're convinced that's what it was all about. Then you take the parent, you have the parent's back to the child. You're actually showing the child that I'm standing together here because you're preventing the child from falling into a very, very bad loyalty gap where they have a little bit. What's going on here? Then Alienation is incredibly harmful to children. But if you know that your ex-partner is trapped in narcissistic defenses, you know what it's like to stand there and be exposed to that. And when you see your child slowly start to open up and ask you for advice about how he or she is doing. Why does that happen? I'm confused about it. Why are mom and dad doing this? I would say that's where it is. There you are going to be gaslighting your child. By gaslighting your child or by gaslighting your child, by ignoring the parent's behavior. So there it is. And of course you shouldn't. Speaking openly badly about mom. Absolutely horrible.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: But what you can say is actually. Yes, I know that behavior well. I know that when dad is there. I also think it's enormous. Incredibly uncomfortable. So you actually give the child? You show the baby. I see you and I hear you. And then instead of saying. Daddy or mommy is a bitch or something, just say. Yes, I know that behavior well. And then it may well be that you were like that. What's wrong with mom and what's wrong with dad? And then over the years you can add more knowledge. I actually want to take it instead of stuffing it into children. So take these moments. When the child comes and seeks you out. And even opens up to this. Show that you are there. That the child can trust you. And you can also say Okay, you have to go. Is there anything I need to do? Should I talk to mom? About these things and the child? The funny thing is that the child typically has. The kids are ahead of us here. I've heard children as young as seven years old say. You can't talk to mom about that. And they've completely seen through it, and that's just how they see it. There's also another child who said You know. I don't really know if my dad is just sucking up to me. You know the ceiling. The child has seen what the child has seen.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Okay, then you freak out, and then it's weird. Then all of a sudden I need things. They're actually really good at spotting these things. So when we can see that they've spotted it. We can't bear it. We actually can't bear it. We have to be in the unbearable and show them. Yeah, you're right. It's not nice when mom or dad ends up there. I understand that. And then they may well ask Why is this happening? And that's again the thing about sometimes answering at child level, but so close to the truth. But of course corrected to your child's age, so. So it's better to wait until they come and open rather than trying to cram, because you can get so worried about how are mom and dad doing that you start trying to pull things out of them? Well, what did mom say? How was dad there? Did you argue a lot? And stuff like that? And the more you do that, you can feel the child pulling you. Because it's as if they feel pulled in in unpleasant ways. And they're like, oh no, what if I say something here? And also because the people who are trapped in narcissistic defenses have no problem alienating you. So they can do anything. If they start to be afraid that the child will withdraw, then they start blaming the child.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: And they blame you. They also blame your new partner. It's all the other person's fault. The narcissist doesn't have that self, can't take any responsibility. So it's everyone else's fault. And they have no problem saying that to the child. And they will also say it in ways that if they were told it again on a calm day, they would be horrified. If they could take responsibility for it. But they would just ignore it. No, that's not what I said. Well, if you can catch them with their hat in Cookie and say You're stealing one, you rarely know I can see you standing with a fucking cookie in your hand. No, no, it's not that. It's that it's so awful. The ability. The inability to self-reflect. To stand in what is difficult. They simply can't stand the fact that they are not perfect people. They bring something with them. I am not to blame for anything. They simply can't bear the pain of fallibility, and that's why even in the most hopeless situations where they're caught red-handed, they still. It's kind of apropos that Trump, as I mentioned before I saw a documentary about some court case he had lost, so he had some ridiculous lawsuit about some construction and stuff like that.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: But he. He keeps saying to himself I won it. It went brilliantly. I won it, and he didn't. It's completely black. You know. So there's just one of those. It's a little bit. It's a lot. It's very strange and it's very confusing to be in. And that's also why you experienced it so many times. That's the most. That's where you get hit. Hardest hit, I would say with narcissist. It's because you see a reality and you can see that you have a cookie in your hand. But because they're so persistent and because they just. No, I don't. No, I haven't. That's not what you see. Well, they have to keep holding on to their own reality so that it doesn't crack for them. And that's why they have to force their reality into you. And you do that. The longer you stay in it. You go crazy because you have one of those. Well, that's not what I saw. Or that was weird, right? Well, you just did that. Why are you saying it's my fault? You know, it's extremely mysterious. That's also why when I work with people who have come out or are on their way out. Their sense of self is very small, or they have huge doubts about their own perception of reality.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: And it's really sad, because they actually have. They actually have a very good grip on themselves. So it's actually a matter of rebuilding it. And that's why it can also be good to take a break in the relationship. Just to get back and find out who you are. Because there is a deep fear of being let back into such a relationship. And that's also why I would say keep an eye on what you need to keep an eye on when you're dating. On the other side of a relationship, are they taking responsibility? Are they just talking? Talking. Get the fuck out. That's the one that's there. Real accountability for their behavior. Can they handle you coming back to me and saying Hey, that situation yesterday, we need to talk about it. And it's fine if it's uncomfortable. But there's a difference between saying. There's a difference between having someone who was like Oh, fuck man, you're shining right where it hurts. I can do it, you're right, but fuck, I don't want to look at it, but I'll do that and then be mad. It's none of my business. We're not going to talk about it. It's two completely different worlds. So again, it's about being gentle and understanding that we're all human beings, and it hurts to recognize our immaturity and our wounds.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: A lot of our immaturity is also related to where we've been wounded in our childhood and what's in our genetics. So it hurts. But that doesn't mean that becoming an adult. To grow the fuck up. It means that we take care of it, and narcissists don't do that. They don't take care of it. So therefore, as children get older and ask more and more questions. Well, there are also some things that you know when you can tell from what they're saying that they've understood the behavior and they're at an age. You know, in pre-teen teens, you might actually say I think you should look and see this material about narcissists or something like that if you google Dr. Amani. She's phenomenal, is Amani. She has a first name I can't pronounce. She's a psychologist and has worked with dyssocial personality disorder, and she's just really good. Especially corporate. She's good at all of them, but corporate narcissism in particular she's really good at describing because it's the one that's sometimes the hardest because it's not classic, they're not classically grandiose. They are the ones who seem very fragile and very vulnerable and feel entitled.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: And you have this underlying unconscious. You have to take care of me. You have to take care of me. So that's the way you get to really become a parent. Because even if you don't want to. And yes, I will. I'll put the psychologist's name in the group as well. So that's this too. And slowly, as the child comes and seeks information and to turn these things around. That you unpack it more and more at a pace so that it's an organic process, and it's not easy. It's not easy, but I would actually say that the fact that you have the child sheds light on, well, that, it's not nice. And no, it's not your fault, because then it will be easier for your child. You actually have to prepare your child to be able to come back and be in that behavior and say yes, okay, when mom or dad does that. It's just saying I can't do anything, and it doesn't just stop like that. No, that's right, and that's where you can say Well then go to your room or call me or teach me gray rock. And teach them to slide off. And then it's also with time that it's the child's choice. And that's actually one of the most tragic things about narcissists is that they are so desperate not to lose relationships, and what they end up doing is losing relationships like so many narcissists.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: They lose relationships with their children because their children can't stand their behavior. So you might be there once in a while and listen to them. But they bring very, very few things into play, and they try to avoid the parent. Or even actually being there. I don't want to do that. I don't want to put on a body that then just withdraws. And it's kind of the same thing. So you actually have to support your child in that process. It may also be that your child wants to have a relationship with the parents, which you have to understand. Although it can break your heart to see them come back a little bruised. That's why it is. I would really recommend if you have children with someone who has very narcissistic traits and your child is at an age where you haven't spotted it by now or you know, and there's a shift between you. I'm very aware of. You have to be very, very clean when your child comes back, because you may well get some behaviors that are similar to narcissism. And it's not because your child is a narcissist, but simply because standing there and being printed on makes the defender right at your fingertips.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: It may well be that when you get the child over in the same period, the child very quickly goes and goes, shuts down or becomes furious or collapses. And this is actually where you really need to help the child a lot with emotional regulation. And if you're in a situation like that and you have what the hell do I do to help my child? Then maybe contact me and book an appointment. Because I have quite a lot of experience with how to help children there. Also to assess how harmful it is. And in other ways. Because it is. I would actually say it's kind of sad. But the less responsibility one parent does for children, the more responsibility the other parent actually has to take to help the children through this. And the more you know, the more mature, the more straight they actually have to stand. So it can feel a bit like that. And it's not a responsibility you get praise or recognition for from the other parent. Quite the opposite. On the contrary, you will be fed a breed you will be accused of alienating. That is, if this child suddenly doesn't want to see the other parent who has narcissistic traits, you will get the shit ball. You have alienated because the person sees everything in you that they would have done themselves. You can't see anything else in the world.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: So that means that the dirty tricks that the person themselves would have used to pull the child close, that he or she is sure you do by projecting them onto you. So where you might actually just really wish that you are actually in deep pain? You would wish with all your heart that your child had a wonderful relationship with to to to. To the other parent. But you can see that it's not possible. You can see that the child doesn't want to. It's uncomfortable for the child to be there, and the parents can take some responsibility. Then you would have to intervene and say. Just have to be with me, or whatever it may be. Right now I don't want to push the child over to you because he or she doesn't want to be with you. But you will get so much heat on it. It's a guilt that you alienate. You'll do everything possible to take the child away from me and you'll have everything thrown at you. So that means you have to stand in it and sometimes also be God. Am I the one who's wrong, where you can start doubting again and at the same time you have to help your child? It's not. But I would say that the more you take it upfront and take the heat out and help your child and do what needs to be done, the more things will calm down.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Because that's what I was talking about earlier, and which I didn't get to finish. At some point, it's as if the narcissist has no more entrances, and that's unconscious. But it doesn't matter, because for you it's still deeply uncomfortable if the narcissist has no more entrances. If there are no more entrances for you to take something on, and it's like the battle is lost, then it's as if they withdraw, and then the others just find a base. What it can be, at least with female narcissists. It's that if you're standing and it may sound completely black this, but if you. If it's a woman, a narcissist, who hasn't hit menopause and can still have children, then as a rule of thumb she will find it easier to let go of you and any children they may have because she has the opportunity to create a new family and try again if she hits menopause. There is a slight difference between male and female narcissists, however, because men can keep having children. The woman will have always dreamed of this family life, and that's because she's trying to avoid her empty sense of time, where there's a huge fear of loneliness in reproducing.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: So she doesn't see a child. What she experiences as love for her children is not love for children. It's really just an attempt to avoid feeling pain herself. So that means that she is deeply dependent on these children wanting her, even if there are constant conflicts and they don't get along. Because they're not just going to eat all her shit, are they? Luckily. So that means that if she's standing there and she's in her mid-40s or early 40s or older, you can do it. It can be a bloody battle because she can't have any more children. So if she's left without a man, and she hasn't found a new relationship, and there's no one else in her life, loneliness creeps closer. It's harder for her to keep away. And since it's the whole narcissist, it's the whole struggle against existential loneliness, where there's a sense of emptiness imposed on the outside. Then there's her, and then they outwardly project, so it will. Then you can take a risk there. And she goes in there tooth and nail, because having to start feeling that incipient loneliness. Phew, she can't, so that's why you have to do it anyway. So you have to do it anyway, unless you have chosen to stay with her. To avoid gray rock and stuff like that. That's just it.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: As a band, you can be aware that this is also why you can see it in clinical observations that female narcissists actually become more nasty with age. And it's possibly because we have We can't reproduce indefinitely. We typically can, actually. So men can of course also become more and more nasty. But right here it seems that they become more. They get more burned out because loneliness creeps in more. It's also like there's an addiction to the youthful. It's easier. It's easier to go out and find people you can use. The more youthful you are, because we have a youthful culture, so it's also something about old age. So the woman, the female narcissist, also gets extremely angry at old age, so she feels deprived. She constantly feels that life is against her. She's so deprived of her youth and herself. Her breasts are sagging and she doesn't have the same value on the market. Because when you're trapped in narcissistic defenses, life is a battle, you win and you lose. Those are the options that are there. So equality is a concept they don't understand how to get into the cells. So that's why there's so much fighting arena with them. And that's also why they either collapse themselves and get back up at another time, and boom, and then the cycle continues.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Or they force you to lie down flat and take the blame. Those are like the only two options there are. There's a winner and a loser. There are no other fucking options. And that's because it's a pretty immature stance and they don't have access to it, so they can't move. You have to keep an eye on the time here. I also need to see if I've covered everything I said I would cover. Honk, honk, honk. Uh-huh. Yes, this is the thing about knowing a narcissist changes behavior. Theoretically, yes, in practice it's very discouraging. Very, very few people do it. The reason why it's difficult. The reason it's hard for a narcissist to change behavior. Again, you have to have access to vulnerability. You need access to be able to stand in your own darkness and the overwhelming emotions so you can actually move. And because they don't have access to that, because they do. They have loneliness, which is a huge empty capsule. Very, very uncomfortable, violently uncomfortable and like a thick membrane. To protect it. And then they only have the projections. So that's why you can say. That's why you can say that it's extremely difficult. But in practice, if you stand somewhere and you can see Okay, I have narcissistic defenses that I learned in my childhood and that have come in that I actually want to work with.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: If you're willing to work with them. If you're there, it's actually possible. And it's actually possible to get help to work with them. But to stand with a therapist and actually also work energetically. I would actually say. That actually. It's actually hugely important that someone comes along who is a help in relation to loosening this, because you actually have to get behind this membrane, and you actually have to. And you would have to get in and feel this empty feeling and then the loneliness. And then learn to stand in it and to be able to bring it home. If there's a willingness to really consciously dive into the darkness, then yes, it's possible. So yes, it is possible. And it is possible to transform all defenses. But it requires an enormous practice of consciousness. And it also requires that the person who is trapped in diagnostic defenses actually starts to take it seriously. It's actually about the person starting to work with their automatic pilot. That every time discomfort arises, they simply shut the fuck up. Instead of always throwing it in the other person's face. They will actually be able to learn to contain accumulated emotional energy.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: That would be absolutely necessary. So they would simply have to learn to inhibit their impulse to always lazy out and to always argue and to always insult others. They would simply have to learn to hold it back. It would be a huge mindfulness practice. That is to say, yes, it is possible. Someone asked about sound. There was someone who thought the sound was fluctuating. The other sound is fine, so it could be there. Your network connection is Something with sound, so it might be a good idea to just log off and then log on again. I don't find that it usually affects the recording as such. When the audio is fine with others when it's sent out later today. So you can say Then you sit out there and can see Fuck, I've caught those defenses, and I actually want to change that. And because if you are, I would never say you never are. Then you are what we call full blown narcissist. I would still say that if you have a little bit of fuck, I would like to change that, and I have the drive, and I have the will, and I'm going for it. Yes, it's possible. But you need to know that it's hard and it's possible that it's possible to do, but it will take everything you have. It will require that, and it will mean that you go for it.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: It will be your life project. It will be your life project to go in and change these defenses, because they are defenses inherited for generations. So it's a big mouthful to take on. But damn, how beneficial it would be for us as a species if we could overcome this. These ingrained, very, very cemented immaturity aspects, which is really what lies behind narcissistic defenses. These are very immature behaviors that we need to mature, and if we want to do that, we need to get rid of all that cement. All those blockages that are around, simply need to be softened, and it will be painful. There will be all sorts, and it will just both come up in relation to how you are. How things have gone. How we ourselves have been affected as children and what was painful there. But when you start working with your narcissist defense. Then you will also start to notice that you will start to see how you have hurt others. And it's actually a different process that is painful. And become aware of how you yourself have hurt someone. But the fact that we become aware that you yourself have come to hurt someone, that's a hero. It has a very specific flavor, that pain.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: And that's why. And that's why I would always recommend a therapeutic program. I would just say choose someone who can also work energetically and can work with the emotional regulation physically, because conversation in itself cannot do that, because conversation does not change the defenses, because the defenses come from the body before the thought process comes on. So we have to go in, and we have to get a grip and feel all the things that men are so afraid of down in the depths. And that's also why it can help to be with someone you're not. Because there will be a fear of losing yourself. And there will be a huge fear that you will disappear into the darkness, and the darkness and never come up again. So that's why I completely agree with working with narcissistic defenses. That it's important to be in a very, very loving relationship where you help each other or in a therapeutic relationship or with friends. Someone who can stand there and hold you when you're over. Because you're actually letting yourself fall backwards into the darkness. And it has to be. It has to feel dangerous. Because we want to be dangerous, because we get trapped down there. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Now it's 32 o'clock, so I'm going to open it up for questions, and I think I'm just going to come with my index finger here and just take them from the top down, because if I look at them on the computer, it's like someone disappears. So now I just take and you just write in here. Deep deep deep deep dive.

  Speaker2: Into my screen.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Yes, it was the silence. It was there too.

  Speaker2: Have we come around.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: There is someone who says I can really relate in relation to the previous relationship with my ex, but to a large extent also with my mother. Yes, and it's not. It would be really typical that if you end up in a relationship with a narcissist trait, that you can also spot it elsewhere. But it's not. That's why you can sometimes believe that God. If I had narcissistic parents, I will end up in a relationship with a narcissist. But it can happen even if you've had a secure relationship with both your parents, because one pattern can be that it can be so confusing. Especially if you know that the person is very good at pretending and talks a lot about taking responsibility and talks a lot about giraffe language and relationship skills and stuff like that, then you can get very confused and gas yourself at the same time. So it's more to say that we're all at risk. We are all at risk of ending up in a relationship with someone who is in narcissistic defense. How early does narcissism start? And you can say Well, it's really It's really quite. I mean, it's actually in the interaction from infancy onwards. But that's not to say that, it's this thing about, if you want to say we have. We have a family with mom and dad. One of them is a narcissist and they have three children.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Then it may well be that one of the children ends up getting too much and getting too many narcissistic defenses, and some of them do not. And some of them might become overly empathetic. It's like they're two opposites. So either to end up being completely identified with narcissistic defenses or to be completely identified with being empathetic and completely identified with being empathetic. Then you will always take on guilt. You will always stretch and you will always try to help the other person. You will always think I have to give and give and give. And here you can actually do it. The reason why the two can also find each other is that when you're very identified with being an empath and maybe you've also been pushed into being so empathetic as a survival instinct, actually. Because if you're with a parent who is very narcissistic to survive in that. You'll be constantly trying to anticipate the parent's needs and emotional state to try and avoid being mocked. Avoid them freaking out. Avoid wanting all the time. You always want to. They will always blame you for not noticing what their needs were. That is, you can be trained tremendously. You can actually be trained as an empath to be extremely aware of other people's needs.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: The problem is that the more you pay attention to other people, the less you pay attention to your own needs. So it becomes a conflict in you. So it actually does. So if you're naturally very empathetic and then you're pushed to the extreme polarization of being with a narcissist who constantly does you wrong, despite the fact that you're extremely giving and constantly pushing yourself, giving something, but never enough for the narcissist. It's never enough. There is never enough. You can never do it well enough. Because at the end of the day, it's not about you. It's about avoiding emptiness. But you can never, ever save them from it. Emptiness can't be done. It's an impossible project. So that means that the more you have the empathic pole as a defense to try to avoid being belittled and mocked and made wrong. Then it will be extremely difficult to take care of yourself, and you can actually end up there. That you are deeply dependent on having a person you can help because it's the only justification you've felt you've ever had. You've never been recognized for anything else. You haven't even been recognized for helping. You've just been criticized for not helping enough or not giving enough. So it may have left an imprint in you that I'm only worth something if I can help.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: You almost only feel alive or worthy of being here when you help. And there's nothing better than finding someone who is always there. Someone who always wants help, but where it still comes down to the bios in it. So that's why you've ended up in that one. If you're very empathetic, it's actually about learning to work with boundaries. You have to learn to put your own needs first. Not all the time. And there can be a huge shadow on that because you're so afraid of becoming a narcissist. So it's kind of what you want. I don't want to put myself first. I don't want to put my needs first, then the narcissist just becomes No, hey, hey. You can have needs. You can put yourself first. You're allowed to say no, and you're allowed to not go to some party where you think they where you don't Like you don't click with? There are a lot of things you can do. So it's actually not to stand completely out here The opposite pole is actually something that you can actually go in and get to know yourself and your needs better? And stand by them and stand up for them.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: So that's what you could say. The two strongest outer poles. Can you generally say that all narcissists are emotionally immature? A lack of responsibility in jealousy? Yes, I would actually say that. I would actually say that's basically what they are. They simply are. There is simply emotional stagnation. There are simply some places where their emotional development has stalled. So, you could say that there's a fallacy. So you could say that they really, developmentally, a narcissist would very much. Have the behavior that a 5-6 year old would have when they get angry. Where you could say. A 5-6 year old. They don't have the neurology to carry it themselves yet. So they have to get through this. Where they vomit their emotions on us and we get them mixed up. Safe and made them comfortable in their own body, so it's actually on. That you can be with the kids when they're there. You can set loving boundaries and all that, but actually get them mixed. And when there's been an argument or a boundary setting, when they've freaked out, that you take responsibility and say Hey, come here honey, everything's fine. And you can feel it sinking in. You can feel them becoming comfortable in their own body again. The more times you help the children land it, the better they get at regulating themselves emotionally in the long run, because they learn that they won't be done wrong on the other side.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: They're not scolded. They are still loved, even if there was something, some annoying behavior, or whatever it may be. It's completely natural for children. They don't have to be them. They are by definition emotionally immature because they haven't matured yet. They are an unripe fruit. They're supposed to be. It's just not like that when you're an adult. But it can look a lot like the same behavior, so. So yes, it can. It's actually fair to say that it's actually a huge amount of emotional immaturity. Can you show these recordings and posts to someone who has a narcissistic defense? I've broken downward contact with my mother and I'm getting the energy to resume. Will they gaslight you if you confront them with any of these materials? Or will it be payback? Will it be futile and will it make it worse? Or is there a way through? Yes, and here I would say. It's again this thing about if you have a person who is caught in the narcissistic defenses. The person if it's just momentary. So if you choose to use it, it's probably because you've realized that the pattern is there. So, there's no taking responsibility for it.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: I would say that if the person is so caught up in the defenses that no maturation has happened in all those years, you've just been there all the time. There is no maturation. Then it will typically just make it worse to sit down here. Then they will typically start gaslighting, because they don't want light on it. So you can say you can try. But what will typically happen is that you get into a cycle where they react to you. Or oh, I'm terrible too. I need to hang myself. They go into these where you, where you still have to deal with their feelings because you've triggered them. So instead of taking responsibility, they take it out on you. So you can say if you want. If you have the feeling that yes, this is what's going to happen, then you are. So believe in your good here, and then it's about whether you can really handle it. Because you can't really get rid of a narcissist. So the worst thing you can say to a narcissist is that they are a narcissist. Unless they've seen some footage themselves. You say? I fucking think so. I think I have learned narcissistic behavior. Fuck, I need to do something about that. Then you can dive into the same thing. But if there's no realization of it.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: If there's no realization of fuck, I think there's something here. I can see that. I have to work with that. If the person is completely denial. Then you can just expect there to be chaos. That you're going to get dragged into, no matter how much you try to avoid it. So it may make more sense for you to familiarize yourself with these traits. And how best to navigate them. For your own sake. Can you talk a little bit about narcissistic defense in a work situation with employees? Yes, I'd love to. And this is where it gets really fucking tricky. I would actually say that if you've identified A narcissistic behavior in your colleague or your manager, I would actually go as far as to say that you need to find out. You need to find out container it again. The person who is trapped there doesn't want it to be brought to light, so you can't talk to them about it. It won't do any good. It'll just cause more trouble and they'll start slandering you. It will create all kinds of mess. So I would say, if you have identified someone, I would try. Then I would recommend that you do what you can to make Grey Rock slip off again. Don't get into so much and actually try to see if you can avoid collaborating too much with that person or collaborate in a way where you avoid some minefields or get things resolved.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: And actually, it can also be very beneficial from time to time if you can sense that something is smoldering. That you go up and say Well, that wasn't exactly something that you, you, you, you. You're them a little bit, so not in a way where you become self-effacing and take shit on you, but it can actually be holding because it's not because you have to be. It's not like you have to go and be conflict-averse. But getting into a conflict with a narcissist isn't going to solve anything, it's just going to cause more trouble. It will just cause them to start talking about you and they will go to the boss. They can make up all kinds of things because it upsets them so much. They don't like to be seen. Narcissists don't like to be seen in their narcissism. It's the worst because they hiss so And if you have a narcissistic leader. It's debilitating for you. I would actually say change jobs, unless you can find a way to deal with it where it doesn't affect you, where you can figure it out, then you have to learn how to manage him and her. You have to learn to know when are you slipping? And that's a burning point. And phew, here we go. I'm going to clean up a bit, because otherwise I'll be in trouble because he or she is taking a shit.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: If you can handle it in a way where it doesn't affect you, that's fine, I'll learn to deal with him, and then he'll let his hair down a bit. So in a way where it doesn't penetrate, and you and you also learn a way to say no to Pjevs, and you have to learn to put a person in their place without shedding light directly on the pattern. It's an art form. I would say that navigating with narcissists is an art form. When you're forced to. But if you can get a little curious about it, if you can see it, I fucking can. I think I can fucking see it. It's a bit interesting. How the hell do I make it work? But if you can feel that you're breaking down, and you can feel that there's so much gaslighting that you start questioning your skills and your worth. And you can feel that it's all going wrong. Because he or she has gotten entrances to ride you. Change jobs or go to your boss and say it's not working. The chemistry between us is just completely fucked. That would probably be my best. My best. My best advice. It's either. You have to go well. If I can handle it, I can make sure I have as little to do with the person as possible.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: And if that's not the case, see if you can get another manager. And more on how conversations frame the work. More needs to be handled. Again, it's something about seeing the pattern and not talking, not going straight to it. And then you find out what. What can you put up with and what can you let slide? And how do you do that? How do you do it? How close do you need to be to the person? And can you? If you can get a buffer, you can bring in another middle manager so that you don't report directly. So it's a matter of being a little subtle and navigating it a little gently, I would say. How do you avoid ending up in the same type of relationship again? Are you more prone to ending up in that type of relationship again when you've grown up with someone who has the same type of behavior? Yes, you could say the risk increases slightly. Conversely, I would say that it can happen to anyone. Because it's so confusing. That's also why I've actually made this lecture. Because narcissism is such a confusing defense. We get so confused because it's not like that if you don't. If you only get defensive once in a while, you feel terrible.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Then you clean up after yourself, or you can see God. I was completely off and all that. Phew, I was overwhelmed. But gentleness towards yourself and your own fallibility, all that stuff, you don't expect a person to be. Like this, you know. That's also why they get away with gaslighting. It's because you're a bit of a Now you're thinking. I mean me, did you just completely rage, or did you just go completely loco there and then come? No, you're just surprised. That's not what I said. That's not what I meant. I was just being something. You know what I mean. You get really confused in it. Really, really, really, really confused in it. So, yeah. You're at an increased risk if you've had it as a child. But then again, we can all end up there. I would actually say. The trick is to enter into a new relationship with someone new again. It's working on getting yourself all to yourself, pieced back together on the other side. It can also be a therapeutic process. I also really like to do what I call energy work. It sounds very abstract. We'll talk about that in another lecture. It's actually about going in and working with the blockages that have set in. That they are continuously used up. And then there's this thing about actually getting out and finding a standpoint and then being gentle, loving, critically observing the behavior of those you're dating.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: And it's not like we sit around and say if you don't do something, I won't bother you. But we can do it. I mean, if we're going to do something together, like you want to check out some used car dealer before you buy a car from him. And you also want to know that you have some kind of chemistry with your bank advisor. So it's the same thing. So it's this, that if this is to work between us. Basically, there has to be an opportunity for us to talk about what's difficult. And that we can actually come back and take responsibility. So you have to look. Is there accountability? Is there relational accountability? Is it something that there's a recognition? I think it's hard to talk about what hurts. But I do it anyway. And phew, I can see that. I've been sulking for two days now. Fuck, I was hit. I'm going to have to deal with that. I'll be back again. So that's what you need to look for. Is there a consistent lack of accountability? Then it's better to get the fuck out. If I'm being completely honest. Then again, in relation to a narcissist, manager and boss, it's the same thing.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: It can be like I mentioned before. It's incredibly difficult. Unless you can handle them. That is, you actually have to learn how to handle them in a way where they don't feel handled. So again, it's an art form. But it may actually be that you gray rock and you slip a little bit. You're kind of you. You're a little light when you're with them and you're like, you know. You know exactly what their triggers are, their fragile ego and stuff like that. Or they're very anxious, or there's something that you honor them a little bit, and you know you give them some recognition and stuff like that. And then it may well be that on the whole, it works fine, because you know what kind of holes you're avoiding, and then it can work very well. Because narcissists can also be funny. They can be charismatic, they can be anything. So it's more about knowing what kind of exchange is possible and then knowing that it's a man shit hits when a problem arises. So you might say okay, I'm not going to go directly to them, so I have to bring in someone else or have to go to a middle manager and have to get it handled in a different way so that the person is not affected.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: And then again, if the person has gotten angry with you and is riding you, and you start to feel that it's starting to give you stress, and you start to get heart palpitations, and you start to feel like fuck and it can affect your career and everything else, that's when you have to consider that if the relationship has gone sour with a narcissist who doesn't take care of it, then it's about moving. How to best support children and deal with children after a divorce. Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Well, there's both the pain of the divorce and something that also has to be dealt with. And there's also something about leaving with some knowledge about why you left. Something you don't share with the children until it's too late. So it's something that it's really important that you have. If you're the one leaving a relationship where you've been with someone who's a narcissist, you should finally have either good friends or some people you can talk to about all these things where you start healing your wounds that have nothing to do with your children or a therapeutic practice so you get some help to land on your feet again.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Because the stronger you are in yourself, the easier it is to see your children clean and help you, because you would be worried sick. You'd be worried sick about what happens when your kids are with the other parent. And the more worried you are, you might end up picking at them, you might end up pushing your kids away and your kids get confused because the other narcissist. It's classic though. That narcissist will often tell and refer to the other partner who is not a narcissist as if they are. This is huge. That's also why when cases end up in the registry office and you've gotten multiple calls and phone calls. You know, late nights. I'm going to the state office tomorrow and my x partner is a narcissist and what kind of weapons do I have? What the fuck, what can I do here? And I'd say you're fucked. I mean, you're pretty fucked in that situation. Because it's completely opaque to their caseworkers and what's up and down in this by itself. Raman, who is a psychologist on the board. She is working. She and she has a lot of people who have. There are many narcissistic relationships that are narcissistic. In therapy, and she says. Sometimes it takes her. Months, and she works with it every three years. Sometimes it takes months to figure out the pattern.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: So it's more. It's a battlefield, that. So it's actually more about. Minimizing the battlefield. Avoiding too much exchange Ian. Stand strong in yourself, so you have the opportunity to give your child a different reality because you stand in it. Not because you are pushing it into them. The narcissist will push their reality into your children. You are there, you. You are living in another reality. You're living in it. This is how I deal with things. Then when you get your kids over, let's say they get very defensive. Because they expect to be picked on. They expect to be controlled, and they're coming from the other parent. Then there's one of those. So it's like they slip into being with you because they've been so tense. And the thing about if you can take it now. The stronger you are in yourself, you won't be so despondent. Plus, you're not traveling quite as much either. It's easier for you to be. Then, after the collapse after traveling, when you fall back into yourself, you can pull them to you and say You don't have to do that here, honey. I'm not going to bother you. You can relax completely. Then the baby starts to get. Okay, there are two different realities here. And then you give them a choice. You give them a choice in the long run.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Because the fact is you can't save them that way. You think you have to save them. But what you can do is that you can give them a different reality where they can choose. They can choose how. What kind of people do I want to be around? And what kind of people do I not want to be around? So that's why I actually say it's pretty damn important to leave that narcissist. I know there can be all kinds of reasons why you stay. So it's not a must. But if you choose to leave because you actually show your children that you leave a fucking relationship, and that's something. Because it also gives them the strength to say like I had a 7-year-old boy who said he sat and thought for a long time. Yeah, but my dad, he left. And then... In this particular case, he had. Then there was another child from another relationship. So there you go. My mom also just has to learn to lose me. I mean, you know. He had thought about it. He had thought about it. What the hell am I doing here? I mean, I don't want this. You know what I mean. So these considerations. Even in a 7-year-old. These are very, very big considerations, this. That's it. Came freely from the liver. There wasn't someone who was in there tinkering. And pulling something out. So it's more these considerations.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: It's not there. Not all 7-year-olds have that consideration. But it's more about this. That we simply have to let these questions. And let them land in the children, where they open up and reach out. And then you have to be there when they reach out. And give them in the right dosage and in a way that doesn't put you in danger. Fuck! Also my mother fucker! But yeah, that behavior in Dad is not the breed. Where does it come from? And just sometimes that's how it was, right? Sometimes laying down the line. That's just the way it was. And sometimes the kids say it themselves. Isn't it also because dad has it pretty hard with his parents too? Maybe it wasn't. He didn't get as much love, but I think you're right about that. I think you're right. That may well be it. When you haven't received love yourself, it sometimes becomes a bit difficult, and there can also be one. Should I just give them a lot of love? Just like that? No, your father has to learn to love you, my darling. You know, you have to serve it in some ways, because you don't have the final conclusions, but you have to meet your children there. So you actually have to help them regulate that, in the sense that they have to find their way back to feeling safe in their own bodies afterwards.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: They may come after a week of being tucked in and being pressured and everything else to actually show that you can relax here, and you can feel after a few days where it may be chaotic and there are many conflicts and everything else that starts to land. And then it hurts your heart. Just like that, you have to go back in brackets. So it hurts. And it may well be that it will land at some point. The child says I don't want to go there. I want to be here for a period of time, and that's what you can do is support it, knowing that the other parent is going bananas. So there's both a bit of helping them to regulate. But. But the main part is actually that you actually get to heal yourself. That you. The stronger you are in yourself, the more you go out and live life and actually fill up. That who you are because you have had to pack yourself away so incredibly much. The more you can be something for your children, because you show them that it is actually possible to go out. And then you become a role model. Have someone with narcissistic defenses and the ability to heal. I saw a program where a young woman said that she had been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, and that's what it is.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Well, in theory, yes, in practice we have to look at it clinically, it's very, very difficult to get out of narcissism, and the reason for that is that it requires so much. You have to dare to dive into this darkness, so yes, it may be possible and heal or work with it, but it requires so much strong will in the person to actually go into their own and get help to go into their own and let themselves be overwhelmed by that deep sense of emptiness, where there is an extreme existential sense of loneliness and actually let themselves be overwhelmed by it and be helped to come out the other side and actually start actively working with their nervous system to say Hey, right now I feel like doing you wrong. I don't. Right now I feel like I want to be over there poking you and controlling you. I'm not doing that, you know. It's actually about taking concrete responsibility in each situation. Yes, there are relapses. But it's getting back on the horse to continue to make very specific behavioral changes that affect the nervous system so that it changes over time. So yes, it's possible. It just requires so much hard work that it's rare that we see anyone doing it.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: I have lost my home to a very narcissistic man. Despite much evidence of parental alienation critical statements from our girl, the Family Court chose not to be curious to investigate it further, but to hand over the residence to him because the girls wanted it in the following children's conversations, where they were almost pressured into what he had gaslighted. The powerlessness was and is terrible. And especially the trust in the system. Yes, it's not rare that I see that, because that's also why we have that whole alienation fight in the system. It gets messy. It really gets messy. And it's not atypical that it's the one who's willing to be the most vile. Sometimes the one who wins the residence wins. You know, the one who puts the most effort into the fight. Unfortunately, sometimes it's the other way around. Sometimes it's the other way around. But then sometimes the person who has been fighting for so many years is completely broken on the other side. So that's really where it's much better to avoid too much confusion and actually actively work to stand strong in your life and heal and show children that it's possible to live in a different way so they can choose it. Because you could say that what happens to the narcissist is that he or she doesn't realize that they're doing all this alienation, all this.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: It's enormously destructive for the relationship. So the stronger the person who isn't trapped in narcissism is and can be a role model for the children. Then many children will naturally get pregnant. It may well be that some children disappear into the darkness. There is a risk of that. But many children with pregnancy towards it. Towards the light. And it's not because you want to. Some will wish there was no contact with the other parent. But conversely, there also needs to be a relentless love. In the sense that if the parent really doesn't take responsibility for their immaturity and thus damages the relationship with the children, then the children must be allowed to leave. They should be. They shouldn't be just gone and be some supply for a narcissistic defense. I'm curious about the empathic defense that you've written a bit about. Yes, and that's what I mentioned. The fact that you can be pushed to the point where you probably came into the world and are by nature very empathetic. But that it actually becomes a defense, because you're constantly being pushed into having to anticipate the needs of others. Because otherwise you become wounded. So that means that your empathic trait goes straight to actually becoming a defense, where down in the darkness you see the shadow side of what can be I'm only worth something when I help, and that can simply wear you out.

  I'll stop right there.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Keeping an eye on the time here too. Is it classic for two narcissists to be in a relationship with each other? Or can you, as the partner of a narcissist, acquire the same defenses? Two narcissists can get into a relationship together. I'd almost rather they stuck to each other, I'd say. But, but, but, but, but. It can also be hugely explosive, because no one really has a supply for the other. So it can be huge. And I would say that it's not atypical that if you've been in a relationship with a narcissist, that you yourself sometimes think that you have more narcissistic defenses or maybe you're a narcissist yourself, because you become extremely despondent that you have so many powerless conflicts where you are blamed for being hysterical and immature. You're all kinds of things because you simply feel like you've been driven into the ground. And it's so confusing what's happening. So, you can actually feel yourself becoming more and more self-absorbed when you're with a narcissist. And that can be the good trademark. Just to get some clarity on what's up and down in this. It's again this thing about is it with all people? Is it with all your relationships? Of course you sometimes have problems in relationships. We all do, no matter how empathetic we are. But can you see that there's a pattern in that you actually get into a lot of trouble relationally with all sorts of people at work with family, acquaintances, girlfriends? In other words, the whole package.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Or is it primarily with this one person that it explodes quite often? And that's what it means. Because what happens when you're constantly on parade is that your own defenses start, that you become quite edgy. And that can also be why, when you get into a new defense, you can think Oh god, I need to toughen up a bit, because now I expect to be attacked. And it may well be that it's ok to say it out loud. I've helped several people who are thinking okay, in a new partner, they just need help hanging something up. For example, it could be a woman I talked to. She was used to from her relationship with someone where she had very strong narcissistic traits, as did men. He was the one, he's powered. So he was the one where he was very fragile, and he had also learned a lot of self-development talk, so he seemed like a person who was very empathetic and who seemed very focused on developing himself. There just wasn't. It was just pure empty air. There was nothing in the behavior, and what she experienced was that. Then they went and talked. It was cozy, and then suddenly they had to hang something up. And then there was a huge amount of conflict, because she had hung the wrong thing, and she had taken the wrong measurements, and she couldn't figure anything out.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: He suddenly freaked out over the smallest things, so she had entered a new relationship where she was about to hang something up with her. And it was actually only when she really became aware of it and started to see how much bias there had been. It was as if it was wrapped up in a way where it didn't look like habitus. She thought It must just be me being a bit thoughtless and a bit in the way and a bit annoying, forgetting things and stuff like that, right? But what she saw, she then said to her new partner. I just need to know. I just need to know. How important is it to you that this hangs exactly because I'm expecting you to flip out on me in a minute? That's actually when she realized, in collaboration with her new partner, that he was a bit like that. Are you sure that the relationship you've been in is really healthy? Because it's not typical behavior. You freak out over little things like that, and it actually helped her realize how destructive it was. She actually didn't see it. It was really that boiling frog. She really hadn't seen how many of them. And then those situations just started coming up. But she could see that underlying aggression that kept coming up in little things like that, and she opened the door wrong, and she was always a little late, right? But it was.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: Why don't you go home five minutes earlier? So these kinds of strange things that are hugely confusing for her. So what you can experience if you're with someone who is very narcissistic is your own defense. You get a little bit edgy because you, because you're trying to protect. You never really know when you're going to be, when you're going to get hit. You never know when you're going to be criticized. So that's why you can be a little bit ahead of the game. But there's a difference between being a little bit on edge because your nervous system is stressed and being trapped in a defense where that's the person you always are, and that's where you can just look at your relationships. Is it typical that you're like that in your relationships, or has it been more in that relationship? And then maybe in the wake of entering new relationships because you're actually a bit traumatized? And then it's about getting yourself healed there, because then you avoid the defenses being cemented. Yes, it comes out on replay. I'll take that day, there was a question about it. I'll download it when we're done here in a bit, then I'll download it and the recording and put it on what's called Vimeo, which works like YouTube. And then you'll all get the link sent out, and then you can watch it as many times as you need to.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: I'll take the last question here, and then if there are more, we've just gone into the last question, and then I'll take the rest in writing. Children aged almost 11 and 13, no relation to their father. We just got divorced and moved apart, but the children have had no relationship for several years. Dad's responsibility. In the last year the children have withdrawn themselves. They now see his patterns so much that he acts like a child. Alcohol problem. Lack of self-awareness, inability to express needs, etc. They don't know about narcissism and that's exactly what they realize now. They have no desire to see dad. I've never said anything bad about dad and have probably empathized with them until now. I have always wanted them to have a good and safe relationship. Dad sees exactly as you say, that I have alienated children from dad and I have told the children a lot of things. I haven't. What can I do? The children saw dad with me and a teacher close to them for an hour and a half last week. They reacted violently to having to do that and it was extremely uncomfortable for them. What the heck do I do? Dad has no understanding of it, and it's clearly about him having the right to dad makes them very insecure. He has not yet approved the move of the children, even though we have agreed that they live with me. And that's exactly where you are now.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: How old were they? They were 11 and 13, and this is what happens at some point, if children get there themselves and stuff. I don't want to, and you're standing there, because if you're standing there and thinking I understand that, because I know those behaviors too. And are you that one too? Is that healthy? It's a healthy reaction. Well, it's also a healthy sign that you're not caught up in a lot of narcissist defense. That you actually have a deep desire. What you can feel is a deep sadness inside that the children don't want or don't have a relationship with their father. So it's actually also a heartwood in relation to not being very caught up in narcissist defense, because a narcissist wouldn't care. A narcissist will just be when and if the kids don't see that mom sees the other, then I just have. But then comes the awkward relationship where you can't get childcare and whatever you want. But, but, but, but, it's something about being entitled to the kids being there all the time, so they don't want to. They don't want to feel the grief if the kids opted out of the other parent. So it's really healthy that you feel that way. But it's also about having respect for the fact that your children say, “We don't want to do that. So what you could do was actually, well, I understand that.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: I can, because I know those behaviors in Dad. They're not nice. So if you need a break for that, I support it. I don't want to force you to Dad. And you have to because you get the heat. Anyway. Well, you. He's going to say it's your fault and the only thing he has in his repertoire. But as long as you know. As long as you know that's not what it's about. I wish there was a good relationship. But I just can't fix it. Because you can't fix it. It has to come from him. But what you can do is actually respect your children. That is, without talking badly about him. But saying that is exactly what I understand. I understand that those behaviors are hard to deal with. And if you do, it's your choice. I also have to say that children, when they grow up in a family where there is someone who has narcissistic traits. They become. They get forcibly removed. So they do that. Because we actually have to sometimes. To share things with them that we didn't want them to see. But when they start coming. And even articulate it, then we actually have to say. And to actually say. And to actually confirm their reality and their reality right. Just like that. Yes, that's right. And you can also say that I hope the father takes care of it.

  Mette Miriam Sloth: I wish I had a good relationship. I can understand that you don't want to be with that kind of behavior, and it can actually be a way where you can instead of saying dad is pissy, because dad as a human being is justified and everything else. But his behaviors are destructive. That way, you can maybe somehow separate it a little bit so that you, being the empath that you are, can actually articulate it in ways that you feel you can vouch for. I'll let you go for now because we've come through and it's a tough topic. You can say that you also know what we know about who has signed up for it. 230 or something like that have signed up. Which just goes to show that this is out there, and it's so confusing and it hurts so much and it's a hassle. It's a pain in the ass. I hope this has been able to give you some tools and shed some light on how you navigate it. And finally, are you on the other side, or can I sense that you're affected and getting some help? Because the more strong and you live your life to the fullest, the more you can be for your children too. Thank you for now and you get the recording sent out. If it's not there, check your spam, it's probably gone in there. Bye.