Hey Tabi!

What If They Aren’t a Narcissist After All?

• Tabitha • Season 2 • Episode 9

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Are you quick to label someone a narcissist? This episode of Hey Tabi explores if the person hurting you displays signs of something even more dangerous. We'll cover dark psychology and challenge popular assumptions across the mental health spectrum as licensed trauma therapist Tabitha Westbrook dives deep into the concept of coercive control and why labeling a partner as a narcissist can miss the mark. Learn how coercive control deceives, manipulates, and endangers, and discover how to reclaim your clarity and safety. Get ready for an eye-opening discussion that may change the language you use about this forever. Listen now to understand the true severity of coercive control and why it's crucial for your well-being to understand. Don't miss out!

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Speaker 1:

you've heard it. I've heard it he's a narcissist. He's a covert narcissist. Hear it all over the internet. But what if the person hurting you isn't a narcissist, but actually something far more dangerous? We're going to talk about that today.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to hey tabby, the podcast where we talk about the hard things out loud, with our actual lips. We'll cover all kinds of topics across the mental health spectrum, including how it intersects with the Christian faith. Nothing is off limits here and we are not. Take two verses and call me in the morning. I'm Tabitha Westbrook and I'm a licensed trauma therapist, but I'm not your trauma therapist. I'm an expert in domestic abuse and coercive control and how complex trauma impacts our health and well-being. Our focus here is knowledge and healing. Trauma doesn't have to eat your lunch forever. There is hope. Now let's get going.

Speaker 1:

So today we are going to break down why calling your partner a narcissist, saying it's narcissistic abuse or calling them a covert narc is not the best way to describe it and really, truly, is missing the point. We want to talk about why understanding, really understanding coercive control really could be the actual key to reclaiming your clarity and your safety. Like I said when we started, the internet is full of talk about narcissistic abuse. All you have to do is a simple Google search and there are entire YouTube channels, podcasts, all kinds of things dedicated to this one term but it is probably the most unhelpful term to describe this that I can think of. And we're going to talk about why. If you've been listening to the show, you and we're going to talk about why, if you've been listening to the show, you know our very first episode talked about why you shouldn't use narcissistic abuse and how it can harm people. But we're going to take a little bit of a deeper dive today on this topic.

Speaker 1:

First, it is misleading for survivors. I understand totally that it is shorthand, that it is a way to convey something quickly so that people kind of understand, but it is too shorthand and it really can put survivors into this place where they're going down a rabbit hole of looking for ways to fix this person, ways to get this person help for their narcissistic tendencies and all of that good stuff ways to get this person help for their narcissistic tendencies, and all of that good stuff. Also, it really shifts the focus from the behavior of the individual to what is potentially a personality disorder diagnosis. Now, why is that important. Well, anyone who says, well, this is just a personality disorder or something, oftentimes it's like, well, maybe that can be fixed, especially in the Christian realm. I think when we put things in that space and we do believe that God can fix anything, then we are going to look for exactly that. Oh, they just need a change of heart, they just need the right treatment, they just need this, when in reality, the right kind of treatment actually is accountability and boundaries for this and because, again, it's not narcissism, it is something far different. Also, when we're using the term narcissist, we are honestly, in some ways, even talking about ourselves.

Speaker 1:

We all have a tendency at times to self-focus, and that is different than self-care. Right, we all sometimes have this ability to have a narcissistic moment, if you will. But coercive control is far different than the occasional yeah, I was really thinking about myself in this space and it really does take away the weight of what coercive control really is. It also really reduces the urgency around safety planning. We don't often think of narcissistic individuals as actually dangerous. We think of them as self-focused and definitely unkind, but we don't necessarily consider the inherent danger. And with coercive control it's a much different paradigm. There is the understanding that there is an inherent danger, even if nothing overtly physical has occurred. Now, if you've listened again for some time, you do understand that I believe that all abuse is physical abuse because, unless you can take your brain out of your skull and stick it in a jar, it is still a body part and it is dumping out all kinds of neurochemicals that impact our bodies in very negative ways when we are in a coercively controlling relationship.

Speaker 1:

So I've said coercive control a few times and now I'm going to give you a much deeper definition of it. First, it is a pattern of psychological and emotional domination that's used to maintain power and control over a partner. So think about it this way it's not just a one-off right. So if we have a narcissistic, let's say, moment, or a self-focused moment, or we hurt somebody's feelings, we feel bad, we apologize, we truly repent, which means we turn and go in the other direction and we don't repeat the behavior, we don't harm somebody again. It's not this ongoing thing that we see very often in coercive control. Also, it can be very subtle in coercive control, getting the silent treatment, so being iced out right. This is just more than let me take a break. I'm overwhelmed, I can't talk right now. This is I'm going to ice you out and make you feel like trash.

Speaker 1:

There can be monitoring of your whereabouts in all kinds of different ways. In all kinds of electronic stalking happens, and then gaslighting, which is basically making you think that you're crazy, and gaslighting is not a disagreement. Now, I probably need at this point to do an entire podcast on that, because gaslighting has become such a ubiquitous term that it's used anytime someone disagrees, and that is not what gaslighting is. Gaslighting is a systematic deconstruction of your personhood by making you believe that you're crazy. This isn't saying I disagree with you. It's saying you are completely wrong. The sky is not actually blue, it's a shade of hot pink, and here is all the evidence of it, and it really is making you think that you're crazy. And they're very persuasive in this process. And so we really want to understand that gaslighting isn't just well, I don't agree that this is this way or that way or whatever it's really more of I don't agree with you and also you're completely insane, right. So it's really something so much deeper than just a disagreement.

Speaker 1:

Coercive control is always soul crushing and it starts off if you've heard me talk about the funnel of captivity that Dr Deborah Wingfield has illustrated in her book Eyes Wide Open, that the funnel starts very wide at the beginning of the relationship very often, and then it narrows and narrows and narrows until you are a captive of this individual, and so areas of freedom that you might have had in one space suddenly become eroded over time with what seem to be plausible excuses. Well, you know, I've worked all day. I really just want you here with me. I know you have your book club tonight, and that keeps happening until suddenly you feel so guilty for going to book club and not being the spouse that you think you should be that you just stay home. The next thing you know, when you say, hey, I'd like to start a book club, Well, no, you can't do that. I'm not going to give you the keys to the car, I'm not going to put gas in the car. We have had clients where the perpetrator of abuse will take all of the vehicle keys and then also do something to disable the vehicle from running, like take out the battery or something like that, so that they can't go anywhere.

Speaker 1:

And that is a pretty high level of wickedness and coercive control. And again, that's not just being self-focused, that's like really being ugly to someone. One of the things I say often is that coercive control is battery of the soul, so it is a pummeling of your personhood. And again, that's so much bigger than oh, he or she is a narcissist. Also, narcissistic personality disorder is a clinical diagnosis. Most people are not qualified to assess this and if you're saying I hear you, tabitha, but I am just saying this person has a narcissistic tendency, okay, but again, the tendency to be self-focused, the tendency to try to get your way, is not the same thing as being a coercive controller, which is a much deeper level of character problem. In my opinion. It's a heart level issue. They fundamentally do not see their partner as an image bearer of the living God, and that is a problem. It's more than just having narcissistic behavior. That is seeing you as a couch that can cook and make sandwiches and do other things right. It is property. It's very different when we look at it.

Speaker 1:

Also, most abusers truly do not meet the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder and that can be really tricky if you're using that term with a therapist and the therapist is putting it in their notes and then their notes are subpoenaed for a court hearing. And then you know the judge sees that and says, oh, you're high conflict. That's like the first thing that they're gonna say is, oh, you're high conflict. And then you're discounted. And that's not ideal. And look, no therapist that you're seeing can diagnose your partner. Without actually assessing the partner by the way, we might be able to say you know, those are really. Those sound like terrible behavioral patterns. I can see how it's affecting you, but what we can't do is diagnose somebody we've never met. So if your therapist says in their notes partner is a narcissist, then if I'm a decent attorney, I'm going to go. How do you know? Ever met the person? Did you run any tests? Did you do any diagnosis? And then that's also automatically going to discount your therapist.

Speaker 1:

If they need to provide their notes or testify on your behalf in a trial just regarding your treatment, this can really derail understanding the severity of it. If your relationship isn't textbook narcissism and what I mean by that is if you have an idea in your head, or from TikTok or from Instagram or whatever, that this person is a narcissist. If they blank, blank, blank, blank, blank and your partner's not doing that, then you might say, well, it's not that bad, and we already have that happen where it's like well, I'm not being hit, I wasn't thrown downstairs and all that stuff, so I'm not sure it's really abusive. We see that in our office all the time, all the time. So I want to caution against that because, again, we want you to take the seriousness of this very to heart. We want you to know where you should safety plan.

Speaker 1:

And if you're dismissing it because it doesn't meet whatever criteria you know you think narcissism is, if you're dismissing it because it doesn't meet whatever criteria you know you think narcissism is, then you could be in real trouble and in real danger. Also, it really presses in on the ability of the coercively controlling partner to manipulate couples therapy. So let's say, for example, you go to a therapist that does not know what they are doing and does not know what they are seeing and they're like well, there's narcissistic tendencies. We could try to teach this person how to take your side, how to take influence, all those things. It's going to be a gigantic waste of your time and money and potentially quite dangerous. And so when we get into that narcissism space, whether it's narcissistic personality disorder, whether it is narcissistic tendencies, narcissistic behavior, all of those things then we are truly mislabeling things and it really gets us in trouble.

Speaker 1:

And again, like I said, when you go into court and you say things like that, you are automatically seen as high conflict, you are automatically seen as the problem, unless there is a diagnosis. And my experience and the experience of other people that specialize in this, whether they are therapists or advocates, is that there rarely is that diagnosis. Even if it were to be true, it rarely is going to get diagnosed and brought into court. And so then you are seen as someone who is calling names and making labels and that's not helpful to you at all. In fact, it could actually be very detrimental to your case. So what does coercive control look like?

Speaker 1:

Well, when I sit across from somebody and this is the dynamic of their relationship oftentimes I hear things like oh, I just feel like I can never do anything right. I'm always walking on eggshells One minute it's this way and the next minute it's that way, and I never know which is going to be okay or if it's even going to be some third standard I haven't heard of yet. I never got hit or I'm never being beaten, there's no hands laid on me, but I'm like scared all the time, like I feel like there's this moment that my partner could just snap and take me out, and I don't know why I feel that way, but like I know that I don't want to disagree. Disagreement in our house goes really badly. Those are some things that I hear and I start asking questions Like well, what else is happening? Are you allowed to come and go freely? Well, no, all my communications are monitored, like they have my iCloud password. They read my text messages, they read my journal, which is just terrifying and awful.

Speaker 1:

They, you know, restrict my finances. I'm only allowed so much money. If I spend more by even like 25 cents because taxes went up or the price of a good went up, then I am going to catch it when I get home. It's going to be really bad. I have to provide the receipt or I'm only giving cash and I can't go over a certain amount, no matter how many kids we have or what the grocery bill is or anything like that. I'm not allowed to make decisions. If something in the house needs fixed, either my spouse is going to pay for it and get it fixed or it just doesn't get fixed, undermining parenting. Oh, kids, your mom is just crazy Gosh. Look at how dysregulated or discombobulated or nuts mom is. Oh, you don't have to listen to mom, I've got you Undermining parenting in every way. Or mom's not strict enough.

Speaker 1:

This is when I've heard a lot from abusive pastors actually that are abusing their spouses and children, and it's oh, you are not disciplining the children with enough force and so you're going to send them all to hell essentially. And that is so awful. And it tells the kids I deserve punishment, I deserve harm, and I've seen these kids as teenagers go there's nothing good about me and all I deserve is to be beaten. And they end up in bad relationships or they act out trying to establish control and dominance over someone else because they've never had any autonomy in their home. They also weaponize the victim's faith or therapy. So if someone is a very faithful person, they will take scripture and say well, if you really love God, then it looks like this or if you go to a therapist and you start setting boundaries, oh, your therapist just hates me. Your therapist is not godly, your therapist is this or that. I have had clients tell me oh, you got a shout out from my abusive spouse. They say that you're just causing me to hate them or whatever, which is obviously never true. I don't tell people to get divorced. I don't do any of those things no good therapist does. If that ends up being the case, it's because the other person was so wicked and refused to change that they ended their own marriage. So it's very rarely a therapist that's going to tell you anything like that.

Speaker 1:

We can get now into the dangers of mislabeling something as narcissistic. Like I said earlier, it really minimizes the potential danger for a victim. Oh, this person's just difficult. They're just narcissistic. It belies how very dangerous they can be. Even if you have not been thrown down a set of stairs and you don't believe the abuse that you have received to be physical, it can change from words to actions within an instant. It's one of the reasons that one of the first things that we do is safety planning, and I have so many clients go. I don't need that. He would never to find out that he actually does, and I have yet and I've been doing this a very long time now I have yet to put a safety plan in place with a client where we did not use some aspect of it, and I just say that because I know sometimes when a victim hears you know we really should do a safety plan, let's kind of talk about what safety looks like for you, where your lines in the sand are for this and all of that, that a victim goes, oh, oh, no, no, no, it will never get to that point and it is so not uncommon that, as victims heal, it does in fact get to that point, and sometimes very quickly.

Speaker 1:

So for saying someone's just a narcissist and just discounting it, dismissing it, then we are not safety planning in a way that is helpful and again, like I've said already, it causes confusion in the court and with legal systems. It is not a helpful paradigm to follow. It really is going to harm you in the end, especially with regard to child custody. I have seen it go very negatively for the protective parent when those kinds of words are used in a court setting. It also brings in false hope in therapy. Well, if it's a mental health issue, then you can treat it with mental health therapy.

Speaker 1:

Now, I'm not saying that coercive controllers don't have trauma in their life or abuse in their life or things that need to be worked through. However, the first thing they need is accountability, and if you're treating it in the wrong way and not understanding the appropriate way to deal with someone who is destructive, then you are going to fail at therapy every single time and again, like I said, marriage therapy is going to be a failure at best and outright dangerous to the victim at worst. We want to call it what it is coercive control, because again it reframes things to let's start with safety and accountability for the perpetrator. So safety for the victim, accountability for the perpetrator, and then let's go from there and see whether this individual is interested in change, interested in health, and while we're doing that, we're keeping the victim and any minor children safe. Right, and when we have the right words, we often have the right treatment plan or the right path forward, and that is what we are looking for. It's why it is so important.

Speaker 1:

So you might be sitting there now and going oh no, I think my relationship might be coercively controlling. Here are just some really simple things that you can ask yourself to see where your relationship is. Can I say no without punishment and I don't mean without disappointment, right? When we say no to someone, sometimes people are disappointed. It's how that disappointment is handled or the disagreement is handled. That is important. So if you can say no and your partner's disappointed, but they don't treat you differently or they might say I just need a few minutes, I'm really hurt by this, whatever it is, then they come back to you they're not denigrating you as a person, that sort of thing then you're probably okay. If you say no and they say you don't love me, you clearly hate me. Wow, you're so selfish, you know, I think you're a narcissist because it has to always be your way or no way, I will say coercively controlling individuals are very good at calling other people narcissists. Very, very good actually.

Speaker 1:

You can look at all of those things and say, well, yeah, I said no to this and I wasn't spoken to for three days, like at all. Like did walk by me and look at me with utter hatred. Right, you're probably at least got a yellow flag there, maybe a flat out red flag. Am I afraid to disagree? What happens when you disagree with someone? What happens when you say no, I don't want to do this, I don't agree with you, or hey, I don't see that the same way. How do they respond? Do they belittle you, demean you, tell you how stupid that you are.

Speaker 1:

All of those things would be big time red flags that your relationship is coercively controlling. Does my partner use my faith, my therapy or my trauma against me? Well, you're just setting this boundary because of your childhood trauma. Okay, maybe. But also, even if that's a yes, even if you are, then why wouldn't they be tender and kind and caring with you and say oh, I wonder if there's some recovery needed here. How can I come alongside you If they are saying you know well, when you go to the pastor, let's say well, I mean, she was abused as a child and so this is clearly just coming from that. She thinks I'm her father, with total contempt. That is a big old red flag. So what do we do if we're like oh no, this is in fact me.

Speaker 1:

Well, first you want to find a therapist or advocate or somebody that knows what they're doing. One big resource is Called to Peace Ministries. They provide advocates free of charge to people. You can be anywhere in the country or in the world. You can find them at calledtopieceorg and ask for an advocate there. There's also safety planning tools online, so you can go to domesticsheltersorg and there are all kinds of safety planning templates there as well. So if you're like I probably need to start with that for me, you can do that. I will say anytime you go to a website, because electronic stalking is so common that you might want to do it from somewhere that you know is safe, and also find trauma counselors that are specialized in domestic abuse and coercive control.

Speaker 1:

You do not want to go to couples counseling. This is not a situation where if he just went to therapy or she just went to therapy, all things would be fine. It's not the way that it works. What I want you to do is go. Does this person understand trauma and do they understand coercive control? And if they do not, then that would not be the right fit for you, particularly coercive control. I have seen so many therapists make missteps because they do not understand the dynamics of coercive control. So I really want to encourage you to ask some of those questions, and we have a question list that you can ask about how to find a good therapist that knows this, and I will link that in the description.

Speaker 1:

I know that it is so much easier sometimes to just use the term narcissist. It's shorter, it's easier. Narcissistic flows off the tongue quite lovely. However, coercive controller is much more accurate and actually much safer for you and this is a really important fact. And we're also seeing the legal system catch up with the understanding of coercive control. In fact, there are a number of states now that include coercive control language in their laws. So when you're using the same language that matches the legal system, that is going to help you so much more in court. Now we know the courts have a long way to go in understanding these dynamics and all of that stuff, but we also know that we're further than we were when we first started. So we're not at the top of the mountain, but we're definitely no longer at the bottom. But victims and survivors and people helpers, using the right language is vital to continuing to combat this wickedness and this problem.

Speaker 1:

You do not need a diagnosis or a mental health term to justify the pain of abuse and coercive control. You absolutely deserve to be safe, respected and free, and God is not a God of oppression. God is not telling you to suffer under wickedness, to look like Jesus. That would be a complete misapplication of scripture. If you're thinking oh gosh, this really is me. Take some breaths, take some next steps.

Speaker 1:

Everything, like I said will be in the description below, and hopefully this can help you get better clarity. Get better clarity for yourself, for a friend, for someone that you care about. Maybe even give this episode to your pastors and elders, if it would be helpful for them to understand these dynamics differently. I'm super glad that you joined me this week for hey Tabby. Thank you so much and I will see you again next time. Thanks for joining me for today's episode of hey Tabby. If you're looking for a resource that I mentioned in the show and you want to check out the show notes, head on over to tabithawestbrookcom forward slash hey Tabby. That's H-E-Y-T-A-B-I and you can grab it there. I look forward to seeing you next time.

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Tabitha Westbrook, LMFT-S, LCMCH-QS, LPC-S, CSAT, CCTP, CCTCP

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