Are You an Enabler? Ask Dr. Ramani | Season 2; Ep 24

Hey, Navigators! On this episode of Navigating Narcissism, I'm answering all of your burning questions about enabling. Believe it or not, the problem with narcissism doesn't end with the narcissistic person. There is an equally toxic presence afoot, and these people are known as enablers. From Red Table Talk Podcast and iHeart Media, I'm Dr. Romani, and this is This podcast should not be used as a substitute for medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a health care professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue, or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast and do not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk Productions, iHeart Media, or their employees. Sherry writes, Last week my sister told me I'm enabling my mom's narcissism. I know my mom can be difficult, but I don't think I enable her. What does that even mean? Okay, so there's a few pieces to this one. First, let's talk about what enabling is within the context of a narcissistic relationship. Enabling is the at times silent and sometimes active, not simply avoidance and not addressing the narcissistic person's behavior, but also doubting or even gaslighting the experiences or reactions other people are having to the narcissistic person. In essence, what the enabling person does is they reinforce, reward, and allow the narcissistic person to maintain their behavior. Enablers may or may not clearly see what's going on, but they justify it or poo-poo it in a way that can actually do a lot of harm to the survivors, as it were, in these situations. People wonder, like, why? Why do enablers do this? Well, it serves a lot of functions for the enabler. For some enablers, above all else, it allows them to maintain the status quo. We can keep pretending we're a very happy family or I don't need to deal with a fight at the Thanksgiving dinner. It's a way of just keeping things sort of artificially stable. And because the narcissistic person tends to be the most volatile in the system, if you can keep them appeased, then usually the system will keep working. And then the sacrifice and all of that are obviously the people getting harmed by the narcissistic person. But for the enablers, a lot of it is about status quo. We're going to get into the types of enablers that will also help you understand why it is the enablers do what they do. Keep this in mind. This sort of term enabling came out of the addiction literature. It was used there and it sort of was related to other concepts like codependency. But what was happening was that people who were considered enabling in that space were people who would do things like overlook the drinking or drug behavior, keep alcohol in the house, keep giving the addict money. So these behaviors that would allow the addictive behavior to continue unquestioningly, and it all represented in some ways a form of denial. Because one of the pieces that's happening at the core of enabling is some form of denial. Either it's active denial, I just want to not see this as happening because I don't like how this looks, or it's passive denial. You simply aren't aware of it. I even can say personally, I remember a friend of mine who is one of the most lovely human beings I've ever met in my life, has a little bit of an enabling streak. And one day said, you know why I don't like what you talk about? Because if I really listen to it, it's going to mean I have to look at some stuff happening around me and I don't want to do that. And I thought that was such an honest assessment. I said, that's fine. But never gaslight someone who's going through it. So we were able to have an open and honest enabling conversation. Enablers aren't necessarily bad people. And that's what makes it so complicated. So let's talk a little bit about the different types of enablers. One type of enabler is just the Pollyanna. Like everything's just great. And aren't we all getting along? And aren't we all friendly? It's a little bit immature. And it's kind of head in the clouds. And so the Pollyanna enablers are just sort of people who just, I think there's just good in everyone. And you're thinking, I kind of believe that, but this interaction wasn't okay. So they kind of take that good in everyone thing a little bit too far. When we sort of push the accelerator on the Pollyannas, we're taken to the toxically positive people. And the toxically positive people will shame other people who aren't being positive. Like, I don't, I don't like this energy. I don't like this word, narcissism. I don't like that. You know what? They have their own story and we have to hold space for their story. Like what? Okay. They keep lying and betraying people. But if that's how you want to frame it, the toxically positive enablers are a bit more dangerous than the Pollyanna enablers, because they tend to shame the survivors and say, you're being, you're not being positive. This is a you issue. Maybe if you were nicer, they would be nicer too. That kind of thing. Then there are what I call the transactional enablers. These are the enablers that are somehow benefiting from the narcissistic relationship. This could be money. This could be resources. This could be status. It could be tuition. It could be a car, whatever it is. They're very much benefiting. And while they're not transparent about it, say, Hey, I'm ignoring their behavior because I'm getting a car out of this. There is this discomfort, sort of dissonance that they know, like, I don't want to really burn this bridge. I'm getting stuff from this narcissistic person. So I'm going to, I don't want to know it. I don't want to see it. It is sort of this, this kind of this active sort of, I don't want to see this because then the implication would be it could sort of throw off this transactional structure they have with this narcissistic person. Again, may not be happening consciously, but keeping that status quo and not burning that bridge. There are also trauma bonded enablers. These folks are tricky because you may have tremendous empathy for them. You yourself were probably there with the narcissist yourself at one point. Then you saw it, you did the work, you did the healing. You're more clear on it. The trauma bonded enabler is enabling the narcissistic person by justifying their behavior, by giving it a free pass, by doing all the things that trauma bonded people do, minimizing their behavior and may in some cases, even gaslight you because for the trauma bonded person, it is still about maintaining that tie and that connection to this harmful narcissistic person. That for the trauma bonded enablers, this process is really unconscious. These are often people you actually may very much care about or love. Where this dynamic gets the most tricky is if the trauma bonded enabler is your other parent. So you have a narcissistic parent and then the other parent was trauma bonded to that parent. So they were enabling their stuff. Now that trauma bonded parent might have been very loving to you, very sweet to you, really was actually the only thing, your only bright light in your childhood, but they did keep giving the narcissistic parent a free pass, which did leave you confused. You go into adulthood, the enabling becomes clear to you and then you might have a very complex set of emotions about that trauma bonded enabling parent feeling like, how could they have let us twist in the wind like this? Why don't they see it? And while you may have empathy for their trauma bondedness and you may feel guilt about being angry at them, you may feel very angry at a person who's a trauma bonded enabler, especially if their presence really influenced your development in your life. Now listen, some trauma bonded folks may be mildly narcissistic themselves, so they may not even take note of the entitlement and the grandiosity and the arrogance is a thing, like get over yourself, you know, that kind of thing. They're also the mildly narcissistic folks also don't have that much empathy for you. So their lack of empathy combined with the sense that this behavior might actually be okay can mean those folks can be enablers and then there and when it comes to enabling the cultural stuff is really really important. When we think of cultures where it's family first and everything stays within the family and don't talk about our family business out of here, the person that does break ranks and might go to therapy or want to actually call out abusive stuff in the family, that person will be viewed as the problem, whereas the family might close ranks and protect the narcissistic person. It may not even be that the family doesn't see the narcissistic person's behavior as bad, but whatever sort of cultural rules of order there are, maybe they might be sort of patriarchal qualities, they may be related to other sort of authoritarian structures, may simply be cultures where again it's family first at all costs, that at those times people will often report feeling very gaslighted and very confused because they'll say, people know this person's bad, they're all talking smack inside the family system, but we're just not allowed to go and get help for that and that can leave people in this very confused spot. Can I get help? Can I talk about this? Am I the bad person for talking about this? Don't forget about the flying monkeys. The flying monkeys are absolutely a form of enabler that is a much more active enabler and even in a more terrible level, not only do the flying monkeys enable the narcissist, they attack on their behalf, smear campaigns, spreading gossip, holding up rumors and innuendo, coming at you, bothering you, stalking you, harassing you, so to me the flying monkey may be the worst form of enabler. Let me tell you, when a narcissistic person has flying monkeys, they feel so emboldened because now they literally have someone out there doing their bidding. The flying monkeys are the type of enablers that may very well cause the most harm. As you could imagine, some of these enabling patterns overlap. The point again I want to make is the reason enabling is so insidious is that there are people in your life you really adore and say this person's actually very empathic, very nice, has been a good loyal friend, but where the cracks began to show was when I was talking about maybe a mutual narcissistic person in our lives and the enabler was more likely to jump to the narcissistic person's defense. They'll say they're still empathic, I'm still cool with them around everything except this one relationship and you can see then how in some ways enabling relationships can be even more confusing than the narcissistic ones. In our next question, Glenn asks, I feel like I'm losing my mind. I know my brother is a narcissist and uses every opportunity to gaslight me. The people around him know how difficult he is but they never call him out. I'm so sick of the that's just how he is. Come on Glenn, let it go. Be the bigger person. So in Glenn's case here is that all these people around him again it's that status quo that's such a big part of the enabling process that it's not that they want to hurt you but that they don't want the system to get cracked or in some cases have to face up with what they already know is an uncomfortable truth but it's almost like something that they don't want to deal with looking at as any of us sometimes don't want to when we're in a close relationship with someone where we've invested time and years and feel like I really don't want this to be true of this person. So what happens is in Glenn's case whose poor Glenn is losing his mind, Glenn knows something to be true that his brother's behavior is unacceptable, unhealthy and frankly toxic but what's making it worse is that the people around him are almost it's almost worse gaslighting because you're with the narcissistic person like okay they're gaslighting me but when the enablers are saying let it go it's just how he is or you be the bigger person the implication when somebody tells you to be the bigger person is that if you call this person out then you're being a smaller person that's gaslighting. The thing with enabling is to stay solid within yourself that you're very clear in what's happening in the narcissistic relationship. Have other sort of what I call gaslight free zones in your life where you can talk to people and say this is what my brother did can you tell me what you think of it and those people say that is not okay. You then will feel perhaps more steadfast in the face of the people who are telling you that you're the problem because you won't let it go that you need to be the bigger person or they sort of rationalize the behavior by saying that's just how he is. If I can give you one piece of guidance you know how I always tell you don't call out the narcissist double that and don't try to convert the enablers. It is so tempting they may ask you what's this narcissism thing you're talking about say well it's when a person doesn't have empathy and is entitled to la la la la la you give them the whole list. The other person may nod and say okay cool and keep going. You may plan to see but this idea of you need to see that my brother is narcissistic that's not going to work. If anything by pushing your experience at them and your assessment of the situation they're probably going to double down on no you're the one who's the problem. They're not ready to see Glenn's brother in a clear light or at least understand Glenn's point of view. For many folks for a lot of enablers they actually know that the behavior that the narcissistic person is engaging in is toxic but they don't want to poke the bear. They don't want to deal with it and that not wanting to deal with it I struggle with that because in the not wanting to deal with it people who are really enduring a lot of abuse have to keep enduring more because nobody is willing to step up to the plate. Here's one thing we do know there is strength in numbers. When multiple people recognize that something's not okay it's not going to change the narcissistic person's behavior but the people who are all sharing amongst themselves this isn't okay. You feel heard and you feel seen and all of those are essential ingredients sort of letting this go and healing. So I feel for Glenn and I understand why Glenn is losing his mind. What Glenn needs is some gaslight free zones to at least have a sounding board and recognize that you're not going to be able to turn these enablers around overnight. The best thing that many people can do in a situation like this is just say you know why I'm struggling with my brother's behavior because he did this because he did this and because he did this. Stick to observable behavior. They're still probably going to gaslight you instead of making it about your brother's narcissism. So to stick to the behaviors and you'd be surprised maybe a few people will come around. One of the worst positions to be in is to be the first person in a group or a family to be the one who recognizes that the narcissistic person may very well be narcissistic. It's a little bit like the the boy in the emperor's new clothes right he was the first one to probably say it. Maybe the other people in the parade knew the emperor wasn't wearing any clothes. The boy saw it and got it and said it. To be the first person to see it is actually a not particularly enviable position because you may doubt your judgment about it. If you have your own trauma bonds and your own history with this person if you feel like by saying this you're going to kind of upend a fantasy about this being a happy family or a great place to work or something like that. So it's a lot of guilt for people to say I don't want to be the one who punctures the hole in the balloon that everybody really cares about. But in the same breath you may also see not only the toll it's taking on you but on other people in the system. If you are the first person who gets it the most important thing you can do is find sounding boards. That might be therapy, it may be support groups, it may simply be friends who've seen it for a long time and might say glad you finally got up with that. And I have to say as a therapist who's worked in this space I remember many years ago saying someone was sharing with me about a sibling I said whoa your brother sounds narcissistic and it was actually a bad thing I did. The person's behavior was so egregious I couldn't let it slip that was a bad therapist moment of mine and I said oh your your brother's and the client just reeled back and said come again and didn't like it because they weren't ready. And so that was a real that was a real lesson for me. Now interestingly years later that person said you know you were the first person who ever saw it. I didn't take that as congratulations I saw that as trying to rush someone in a point of view. My work at that point as a therapist and actually for anyone even as a friend would be how do you feel, how is how does their behavior affect you, tell me more about those behaviors, helping them create a vocabulary about how this behavior is affecting them. It's so tempting to say that's a narcissist but it actually doesn't do anyone any favors unless we can really frame it and think about it in terms of how this behavior is affecting us. In our next question Alina writes do all narcissists have enablers? Not necessarily but you almost have to view a narcissist as a plant and the enablers as water. Without that water that plant is going to wither and die and without enablers a narcissistic person's grandiosity and posturing and all of that will fade. You may wonder then what's left if a narcissist doesn't have enablers. You may see anger, you may see acting out, you may even see maladaptive behaviors like addiction and in some cases you may even see depression. An example of this would be someone like the character of the Joker who was somebody who wasn't getting that validation not he doesn't have anyone close to him, didn't have family, didn't have an audience and it just really sort of ate him up from the inside out. It's actually an interesting illustration of that but most narcissistic people do. Keep in mind narcissistic people are charming, they're charismatic, they're sociable, they're extroverted. Many people want to be close to them and as a result they often do have a rather robust social network. They do great on social media, they post all the time, everybody likes their stuff. A lot of people want to be near them so as long as they're getting validation as well as have people around them who not only validate them but let them get away with stuff, the narcissistic person is adequately supplied, they might even feel well regulated and they go through their lives quite contentedly. But not all do and some people have enablers and then they lose enablers. We might see this in older adults, people who once had marriages and children and jobs, they may get older, they may leave the job, they may get pushed out of the job, the kids may have burned all their bridges with the parents saying enough's enough, they may get divorced, their partner may pre-decease them, partner may completely cut off from them and in later life what you might see and I've seen this over and over again in the family systems of hundreds of clients I've worked with is that the narcissistic parent who no longer has their enablers really kind of goes off to a very angry, lonely, isolated older age and they may actually have difficulty finding placements for them in assisted living or other kinds of facilities because they can often be rather difficult and combative. So it's not a pretty picture when you see a narcissistic person without enablers. Most do, not all do, and when they don't they actually don't do well because there's nobody any longer propping up their behavior and letting them get away with stuff and without enablers there's no one making excuses so even as new people come in they'll say this is this is bad and there's no one saying no no no you're reading the situation wrong. So enablers are not only sources of validation, they're also sources of excuses and when those things go away the narcissistic person loses a lot of their power. Some people keep their enablers, many keep their enablers their whole lives especially if they're from family systems where it's not okay to step away and also people who may have a lot of wealth and power and privilege may continue to have enablers around them a bit like vultures circling something because everyone's waiting for their piece of the pie so they may continue to have enablers around them that prop them up perhaps waiting for the reward on the other side. Jonas says, I have recently realized my dad is a covert narcissist this has helped me understand so much about my family but I'm having a tough time with feelings towards my mom. I realize I'm very hurt and angry at her for protecting him, defending him, staying with him, and giving up her joy and happiness for a terrible marriage. How can I work through my hurt and anger while still maintaining a relationship with my mom? So Jonah's question here is one of the most complicated ones we see around enabling relationships because as I said the enablers in our lives may be people who are very important to us, who we do love, and who we've actually seen suffer. In Jonah's case his mother definitely sounds like she had a rough time in this relationship and that she gave up her life, she gave up her joy, she gave up her happiness. It's not like the mom had an easy ride whereas the father probably just got away with a lot. Mom just endured a lot. However her endurance became a form of enabling that hurt Jonah and would have shaped Jonah's developmental experience. Jonah's hurt and anger absolutely make sense but for a lot of folks in Jonah's position there's also a tremendous amount of guilt. My mother's already suffered so much, my mother's already given up so much joy, so much happiness, and now I'm one more person piling on. This is where this concept, I've talked about this on Navigating Narcissism before and I'll talk about it over and over again, is this concept of these stacked up multiple truths. Multiple things can be true. Jonah likely loves his mom, Jonah is hurt by his mom's enabling, Jonah is angry, Jonah may very well feel guilty. What's he supposed to do with this? All of this stuff can coexist. Being angry at his mother doesn't mean he can't have a relationship with her. Folks like Jonah actually there's a benefit if it's possible to go to therapy with your mother. We often don't think of that as adults but whereas it's actually going to therapy with the covert narcissistic father makes absolutely no sense but with his mother having that if you will referee or sort of guidance in the room could really be a place where Jonah feels safer sharing his anger. Mom after years of a marriage to a covert vulnerable narcissist has probably learned to swallow her feelings and will just capitulate her husband's anger. A therapist could be a great place for Jonah's mom to make sort of her experience more understood and it's very very likely that Jonah's mother feels a tremendous amount of grief and regret over what happened but may not feel that she has the vocabulary to express it and keep in mind after however many decades of invalidation Jonah's mother experienced in her marriage she probably doesn't even feel justified at sharing her voice, her feelings, herself separate from her husband. So it's possible and the hard part becomes how do you maintain a relationship with someone when you have such a complicated mix of hurt, anger, guilt, and love. It's small steps and it's good boundaries. I wouldn't advise Jonah his mom to go on a two-week vacation but taking little bits of time doing it separate from his father and that might be a really important ask for Jonah say if we're going to spend time together I don't want him around and that's a very fair ask and to slowly have those opportunities of getting to know each other. Jonah may feel that there are limits that some of his hurt and anger might mean that he can only go so deep with his mother he may not fully trust her and the loss of whether it be respect or or regard he had for his mom for staying in this and the harm that came to him again there's only so deep he may be able to go which is why also individual therapy in these cases can be really really important. Just because someone was an enabler in your life especially the one that was a parent doesn't mean that there's not a path forward there absolutely is and honestly giving a name to these feelings instead of just staying mired in guilt but understanding that this is a really complicated mix of hurt and anger and grief and guilt and love can mean that there's a possibility for a conversation but it's slow the boundaries have to be good you have to trust yourself and if it's possible to have someone guiding you in this process like a therapist could be incredibly helpful. Alexandra asks about a year ago I stopped speaking to my friend who is a narcissist since then some of our mutual friends people I care for deeply told me I should make amends and reconnect with this narcissistic person are they considered enablers and how should I respond when they say this? So to Alexandra the thing that I would want to know is have your friends actually listened to your experience to what happened for you it's not I can't imagine you woke up one day and said hey this person in our friend group is narcissistic out my guess is lots of things happened over a long time that led you to come to this assessment are your friends aware of this? Listen it's not your job to be the narcissism education police but to give them context may help them understand why you've stepped away. One of the dangers in groups of people is when we say I want nothing to do with them they're a narcissist a lot of people still don't know what this means and so they're thinking what you don't like her because she looks in the mirror a lot and post selfies no that's not what the issue is and so if you were to break it down and say listen this person this happened this happened this happened this happened that left me feeling this this and this and it is not a healthy space for me that's a very different conversation than saying this friend is a narcissist it can and it can put you on your back heel because now people are saying well you're the one who's name calling and it's not really that but by painting out a more behavioral picture and an experiential picture of what you went through your friends potentially may come up with more empathy now Alexandra let's say you've done that you've explained all of this to them and said and said what happened and they're still saying you should make amends and reconnect not great that feels more enabling it really comes down to how much information they have they have a full working knowledge of what happened and they're pushing you to do this I would then really say that you think through what again that status quo they may just want things to be the way they were they might find themselves tired of having to be your friend and her friend and kind of having to keep things separate but if you can have that conversation and they're aware but if they still hold their position yeah despite all those things that she did yep you still need to make amends if you feel up to it and Alexandra I don't know that you'd want to some do some don't is to say what is this to you what why is it so important to you that this happens if they give you some ephemeral well everyone should forgive to move forward that's not an answer hold their feet to the fire see if they tell you what's really on their mind a good friend may be disappointed that a friend group has split up a really good friend will say yeah I'm bummed out that we're not all one group but I understand that you need to do what feels right to you and I got you and then proceed to maybe even have the conversation are you comfortable that they're still friends with that other person some people can toe that line but it really requires that your friend can really be able to appreciate and empathize with your point of view Gina says my father is my mom's enabler anytime I bring up her behavior or even read direct quotes she's texted to me he denies it or says the classic she didn't mean it like that I'm at the point I need to go no contact with my mom but I'm so afraid I'll lose my dad too how do I navigate this oh Gina isn't one of those those those catch-22s that these narcissistic situations bring up all the time in a family you know right from the jump you can see how enablers how their gaslighting can be just as potent as the gaslighting of the narcissistic person she's reading direct quotes to the dad from the text or showing him the tax and he's saying she didn't mean it like that didn't mean it like what how do you know it's really dangerous and I'm just going to go on a little bit of a side rant here one of the most dangerous things any of us can do is to draw a conclusion about a person's intention anytime we do that nine times out of ten we make a mess out of a relationship you do not know what is going on in someone's head I get paid to do this and I don't know what's going on in someone's head I ask them and I highly would recommend you do the same so unless dad has gone to mom to get her to decode her toxic text dad doesn't know now and he doesn't know but again that status quo enablers wanting to keep everything just the way it is is that he's going to say whatever he needs to say to be able to keep mom on the good side of the fence the challenge with enablers is that there's a sort of a simplification they're trying to engage in it's really really hard when you have someone in your life who's narcissistic that you have no intention of removing from your life and then you have somebody who's being hurt by that narcissistic person and you don't want to get rid of both of those people or you can't lose or you don't want to lose them right and you're trying to be that's in that sort of middle place between the two if I can give all of you one piece of guidance if you find yourself in that situation do not be the narcissistic person's publicist because that in essence is what enabling is let the narcissist make their mistakes they're not your mistakes and if that means this other person is like that behavior is not okay your role then becomes to foster a relationship with the person being hurt by the narcissist that helps that person feel heard and seen and recognized and empathized with it is possible is it easy no but if you care about someone enough you'll figure out how to do it doesn't mean you're kicking the narcissistic person to the curb but to keep them in your life doesn't mean you have to kick the other person to the curb just remember that but in this person's case that she's now feeling like I can't do this with mom anymore and here's where this gets tricky I'm happy to say we're going to be taking on your no contact questions as well because no contact is its own kind of complex sort of space but this idea that will I lose dad if I go no contact with mom I wish I could sugarcoat that here but the answer to that is you might if dad is really trauma bonded with and really committed to being mom's enabler when you lose a narcissistic person when you put down that absolute boundary that's not about one person there's often a lot of other people you may lose as well in some ways also becomes an uncomfortable place because people don't like to give ultimatums but in the same breath is dad willing to kind of in essence it sort of feels like he'd be sneaking behind mom's back to see you I cannot tell you how many people I have walked through the space of is there a way to kind of keep both one thing I can say to Gina, Gina if dad matters that much to you stop showing dad the mom texts because what you're going to then have to realize is that a relationship with dad means that you don't talk about mom he is not your ally in that space he is not your advocate in that space and he does not want to see it if you can have a relationship with dad and carve out that piece of talking about mom if you think you can do that you can have dad in your life on that limited basis and if dad starts bringing mom up hey we're having a nice time maybe next time mom could come then you set the boundary and say no I love you dad I want to spend time with you I don't want to spend time with her it can feel painful if ultimately dad sort of starts stepping back because mom is actually going at him how dare you get together with her because you know dad's going to be foolish enough to tell her the truth but at the end of the day if he does you gotta remember too dad can make his own choices and it's painful if you feel that you're on the losing side of that choice Britney wrote I've just left the narcissistic boss I worked for for nearly 20 years as part of my healing I'm realizing I was enabling a lot of toxic behavior how do I process the fact that my behavior hurt a lot of people Britney that's a tough one so this actually is a spot where I can talk about something that is sometimes termed moral injury moral injury is the negative emotions that occur when a person believes that they have done something bad that hurts someone else it's an experience that almost feels like post-traumatic stress that we have when we feel as though we were doing something often in the line of our job or our work that ended up with someone people getting harmed so it might be somebody having followed orders exactly as they were supposed to but by following orders a person or many people got hurt and although on paper the person did the right thing those people got hurt and the person experiencing moral injury will feel responsible for this one of the strongest examples we had of this was in the pandemic where a lot of health care workers when we didn't have enough PPE we didn't have enough beds we didn't have enough spaces in emergency rooms we're actually feeling like the kinds of decisions they were having to make could have ended up resulting in significantly worse illness or even death for people and people were feeling they felt a sense of moral injury it wasn't their fault there wasn't enough PPE and gloves and masks and all of that stuff but that the people people were getting sicker or dying that a lot of health care workers took that upon themselves and there's now research showing that that helped happen for people at that time and the way we carry moral injury in ourselves psychologically again it looks a lot like post-traumatic stress a lot of anxiety a lot of rumination a sort of a sense of vigilance attention a self-blame it's an incredibly uncomfortable space to occupy and in this case Britney recognizes that in my job doing my job probably being told you even did your job well by enabling this toxic behavior that in retrospect there is a recognition that people got hurt by this. I'll tell you this right now one thing we know about moral injury is we still haven't come up with good psychological treatments for it and one of the most important things that somebody in Britney's situation could do is talk it out. I could sit here till I'm blue in the face saying clearly you were trying to survive that is totally understandable but I also in the same breath recognize that you may have hurt people in a very real way who are also struggling and say well you know you didn't mean to I can't you know what I'm saying we're back to that issue of intention. So for Britney this is very much an issue of going into a space and talking it out. Now we want to lift from systems like 12-step and to me probably one of the most powerful aspects of 12-step and of working a program is the aspect of making amends. Having watched patients do that over the years having watched work with many clients who are going through the making amends phase I find it particularly profound because making amends is done without an agenda this isn't about them accepting your apology this is about you rolling up and saying I'm aware that some of these decisions hurt you I was part of that and I'm genuinely sorry for the pain you experienced and that's that no explaining no nothing and and for Britney part of your process may very well be over time and again this would be something would one may need to explore very carefully in therapy and there may even be because it's a workplace issue there could be liability issues involved in this so you have to proceed very very carefully but if there is a way that you that might help them feel more whole and in in making amends that might also be something that you explore. A lot of people are able to connect the dots they're able to see that I see where this decision came from and I see the person who was executing it. Britney doesn't mean that people are going to be fond of you but they may also be able to connect the dots to up here and keep finally in mind that you were hurt by this process too it's so easy to get lost in the pain you may have caused that you forget that this experience also significantly harmed you 20 years in a toxic workplace situation that's no joke and it is really harmful so you do have a process of healing to go through too and it is very likely that some of the people that you believe you hurt were also aware of the hurt that you were experiencing as well. Britney's question isn't an easy one and it's not one that could really be resolved without therapy this is definitely not a a self-fix kind of a thing and so through therapy determining whatever that path forward looks like for you and that many of us sometimes have to carry these burdens for a long time and may determine that there are other ways we can pay them forward you may then engage in some form of mentorship working with people in a volunteer capacity doing something that you feel at least pays back or even makes things right depending on whatever industry you're working in and while it may not turn back the clock it may at least help you feel that not only are you not contributing to a problem but that you may be protecting people from things like this happening in the future. Samantha asks is it necessary to remove people from your life who don't get it when trying to separate from a narcissist? Listen if we did that we are going to have some real small social networks really fast I mean Samantha it's tempting and you know I talk in my own work of something I call the toxic dump when once you get out of a primary narcissistic relationship you kind of look around and say whoa a lot of unhealthy stuff happening but as you are separating from a primary narcissistic relationship that's going to be enough psychological energy. If there are people around you who are second-guessing you, doubting you, blaming you, shaming you, guilting you or trying to give the narcissistic person a free pass at that time significant boundaries are needed because you're going through enough of a difficult experience for example if it was a divorce that having to manage all of these dissenting opinions can be really really overwhelming. When you get through the initial crisis of separating from a narcissistic relationship which can last a while if you account for things like post-separation abuse but it can really take a while before you feel like you've separated from that relationship then as you kind of lift your head over that dust cloud is the time when you look around and say are some of these people in my life healthy or are they not and then to ask yourself when I needed a friend was my friend more interested in moralizing about marriage than she was to be there for me or was my father complaining more about losing his golf buddy than being a father to me those then become the difficult conversations you have with yourself and set boundaries and make those choices accordingly. I got to tell you trying to do it all at the same time it's probably a little overwhelming and you question Samantha you ask is it necessary no it's not necessary what we learn as we navigate this territory of narcissism is discernment about how deep or not deep we let people into our lives you realize that that friend who is that moralizing not able to be there for you person as you have another conversation with her you recognize that you leaving your toxic marriage was actually really unsettling for her as she started wondering about her own marriage that she was talking from a place of fear you may still feel as though some connective tissue was cut but you may still feel as though there's a place for her in your life discernment means that everyone doesn't get to have a front row orchestra seat to that theater called your life that some people are going to be in the cheap seats and some people get to be backstage and you get to make choices about that by just by really paying attention and saying I value myself in a way to make choices in my life about people who are good for me and who help me grow and who are safe fact is is that discernment is everything when we're thinking about narcissistic relationships Charlotte asks why is it that as I've begun healing I have more contempt for the enabler than the person with the narcissistic personality who Charlotte that's a question I love that question too this is so common the funny thing about the day we finally get the narcissistic personality piece we recognize that it's not good for us we recognize the harm in it we recognize that it's not going to change we may even understand how their backstory made their narcissistic personality and still give ourselves permission to set a boundary or get out that almost feels more clear to us than this really messy space of the enablers people who we may have let far more deep into our lives we may even have talked about the problems in this relationship been very open very vulnerable so once you get the narcissistic person figured out like okay that's their personality but with the enablers especially if they're not narcissistic but people who really may be sort of again whether it's for a transactional reason or a pollyanna ish reason or a trauma bonded or just plain old denial reason that they could let you down in that way despite having opened up to you despite you having had what felt like a friendly relationship that feels like a deeper betrayal because your feeling is they do know better i've seen them know better but for whatever sort of thing that they're stuck on around this narcissistic relationship that they can't get unstuck and just be there for me listen you may not even be asking the enabler to agree with you that the narcissistic person is narcissistic you just need them to be there for you to not gaslight you to hold space for your point of view that's all you need because not everyone's going to be like i don't know about the narcissism piece but i totally agree that this person has treated you horribly all these years and i get why you need to step away that is sometimes and in fact often more than enough and for that reason the contempt we may have for the enablers for when they you saw that they did get it at times they had even endured some of the narcissistic stuff especially if the enabler feels at all self-interested that it's as though if i do this then i may not get those tickets to the super bowl or if i do this then may not be able to get to go to the beach vacation this year like you chose the beach vacation over me not a good feeling and so you really want to i think that there's certain kinds of enabling experiences that feel so much more invalidating because it was basically they were they were playing both sides of the street and that doesn't feel good at least the narcissist is just on that side of the street but when someone seems is sort of being your friend but then not really there for you that can actually feel more betraying max writes my cousin's wedding is coming up and i'm going to be in touch with my enabling on a lot during the planning process how can i control myself without feeling triggered oh the family wedding it's there's just so much happening at family weddings and then there's a bunch of strangers you don't know who bring their own toxic mess to the party but in this particular case that with your cousin's wedding coming up that is going to put you in proximity with family members you may traditionally not if you're involved in planning or you're a member of the wedding party or you're actually the person the bride or the groom whatever it is you are now having proximity to somebody who may be an enabler of another toxic person in this family system which is very unsettling for you and most of the time you don't need to do that one of the most useful tools you can have when you're dealing with narcissistic people or enabling people is so simple it's preparation you know what your aunt's about so what that means is and i wish we could almost view boundaries as these little gates around us that we could pull up you know how they go shutters that go on windows when you're out of town or business is closed at the end of the day imagine those around you and then how they go click click click click click click audible sound like okay going to see auntie enable click click click click click click click maybe up to here okay toxic person the whole thing goes around you but that click click click as silly as it seems it's a visual and an audible sensation that you can have of like going in with the aunt click click click imagining that around you something protecting you that sense of self-awareness giving yourself for example permission to step away when the enabling aunt is enabling or signing off on the toxic behavior of a key narcissistic family member knowing is so much because you really can gird yourself again click click click those shutters up and down as you need it may very well be that another time you're talking to the cousin and you may love the cousin shutter comes down aunt comes in the room shutter goes back up you might want to put that shutter on a remote control as you plan this wedding but the feeling is the self-possessed about this the enabling aunt being an enabler is not a surprise it is unsettling and when we are triggered or activated i prefer thinking of it like the pluck of a string that keeps reverberating for a while but when that happens it's our nervous system saying i don't like this and what we need then is sometimes time to come down after those encounters if you are in a situation where you can get out of the situation in this particular setting one rule could be as soon as auntie starts enabling i'm stepping out like i can i can work with this we will talk about flower arrangements and who's gonna get aunt melba up from florida or whatever i do all that but the minute this person starts signing off on toxic person's behavior i am going to start excusing myself from the conversation not abruptly not dramatically they may think you need to go to the bathroom a lot but just get up and step away give yourself a second to talk yourself down say i can step away i can give myself permission to do this i can pull those shutters up but this is a very intentional aware process the more of that you have the more you don't feel surprised and shocked and again the more you might even feel more in command of what this entire experience is like and good luck to your cousin enabling takes the harm caused by the narcissistic relationship and magnifies it a hundredfold the very people you thought you could turn to for support all of a sudden feel as though they are allied with a narcissistic person and that's a moment that not only feels really gaslighting it can be unsettling uncomfortable and magnify existing issues you're having including shame self-blame and guilt we put so much focus on the narcissistic people that we forget how much of this story is playing out with lots of other people in our lives and to recognize that somebody that we actually may care about isn't able to fully appreciate the experience that we're having can be heartbreaking one of the most difficult things about enabling is that in a healthy situation you're not asking people to choose sides it's not as though you're saying to the enabling person do not do not have anything to do with that narcissistic person anymore it doesn't quite work that way we may want that to happen but it doesn't always work that way that sometimes all we need from the enabler all we wanted i should say from the enabler is that they could have simply held space and seen our hurt our loss our pain and our experience because for most human beings being seen and having someone bear witness to our pain is an incredibly healing experience for someone to not do that and the sense that they may be doing it to maintain some status quo or in a way that helps or preserves them can really really create a schism and break our hearts in a way that's very different than what happens in the narcissistic relationship i'm so glad we did an ask dr romany episode on enabling because it's a thing i have to say that once people get narcissism don't get me wrong devastation devastation devastation but they it's almost like there's a playbook for that okay yeah insecurity got it grandiosity invalidation got it got it got it all right so it's like got it all right there's a road map i'm not saying it's an easy road map i'm not saying it's easy territory with the enablers it is it's like the wild west it's just open territory like my sister i love and then this happens my best friend from college and then there's an enable thing and it is it is incredibly complicated space enablers don't just bring up simple feelings i'm not saying the narcissistic people do either but the feelings are so complicated and then if you think it's bad going through narcissistic abuse the shoo all those enablers coming in there is absolutely overwhelming so this was a really really important q a because this is a show for you the survivors and so keep in mind that when the enabling is happening it can really really make the narcissistic abuse feel so much worse so i'm so glad we did this