In this introductory episode of the "Stronger in the Difficult Places" podcast, Dr. Zoe Shaw welcomes listeners and shares personal anecdotes about a recent family trip to Yosemite, highlighting a win (anti‑motion‑sickness glasses) and a fail (inadequate cold‑weather gear for her adult children). She then launches the new "Loving the Narcissist" series, aimed at women navigating difficult relationships, especially those involving narcissistic partners, family members, or bosses. Dr. Shaw defines narcissism as a diagnosable mental illness characterized by inflated self‑importance and lack of empathy, warns against over‑diagnosis, and explains why empathic, “pathologically kind” individuals are often drawn to narcissists. She offers concrete, actionable guidance: educate yourself about narcissism, acknowledge and validate your emotions, pick battles wisely, set healthy boundaries, prioritize self‑care (including physical health, venting, and restorative breaks), and recognize the physiological toll (elevated cortisol, cardiovascular strain, amygdala shrinkage). She advises against standard couples therapy unless the therapist is a narcissism specialist, recommends individual therapy for the survivor, and encourages personal responsibility for the initial attraction without victim‑shaming. Dr. Shaw emphasizes that leaving the relationship is not a mandated first step, validates incremental progress, and invites listeners to submit questions for future episodes. The episode concludes with a call to subscribe, an invitation to share the series, and a teaser about her motion‑sickness glasses.
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This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Hi there, welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. This is Dr. Zoe, and I am so glad you're here today. Today I'm going to be introducing a series called Loving the Narcissist. I'll talk more about that right after my win and my fail. So my win, if you've been listening, we took a family trip to Yosemite. My boys are home from college, and Sage, my big Baby boy is leaving on Wednesday, in 2 days, to go back to school. So my win though is that we had a really wonderful, beautiful time in Yosemite, just family time. The Wi-Fi. So my goal was to have a Wi-Fi-free, like a device-free weekend. Didn't quite happen like that. Unfortunately, there was actually Wi-Fi at the cabin. I tried to not alert anybody about it, but— Oh, no. By the second day, the older kids figured it out and they're like searching for the Wi-Fi. They're like, Mom, we see it on our phone. There's got to be a Wi-Fi code. Isn't this an Airbnb? Can't you call the people? Just all the things, just like the pressure, the stress of not having Wi-Fi. So we got a good day in with no Wi-Fi. I never let the younger kids know, um, Siggy and Sully, that we had Wi-Fi. So it was mostly device-free, but not perfectly device-free, but still a wonderful time. My big win, which might be a big win of 2022, you guys, is motion sickness glasses, anti-motion sickness glasses. I, on a whim, bought these for me and Sage because both of us have terrible motion sickness. I hate sitting in a car driving because usually I will get sick. And so I saw these glasses on Amazon and I decided, you know what, they're not that expensive. I'll get them. They probably won't work, but at least, hey, I'll know I tried. So I got a pair for me. I got a pair for Sage. These glasses are a miracle. You look absolutely ridiculous, silly as all get out, but they work. For the first time, I was able to sit and read a book in the back of the car and not get nauseous. It's the most beautiful thing. Anyway, I'm not sponsored by this company. I don't even remember the actual company's name, but if you go on Amazon and you Google anti-motion sickness glasses, you will find Find them. If you have motion sickness, get them. They will save your life. If you know someone who has motion sickness, get these glasses for them. Okay, so that's a big win. Oh, our fail. So we went to Yosemite, which I knew would be cold, obviously. I packed coats, I packed some gloves, hats, those kinds of things. But we went on this trip Which was an ATV, UTV, like those all-terrain vehicle things, all the way up into the mountains. And there was tons of snow and we were not prepared appropriately for the amount, for the coldness, for the level of cold that existed up there. And my boys are California boys. And oddly enough, I grew up in Maryland. And so even though I haven't lived in Maryland in 29 years, I think, There's something about my body that just still knows how to adjust maybe a little bit more to cold. And so I survived a little bit better than the boys. Now, Kai did not have on appropriate pants. His pants were too thin. He did have a coat on. My boys were so miserable up there in the snow. They almost died. When we finally got back to the car, they were whining. They were like miserable. Kai was telling me everything was gonna fall off and he was gonna die. And when we got all the way up to Bass Lake, it was so beautiful, but so cold. My boys wouldn't even get off of the UTV. They're just like, can we go back down? So my fail is that I did not properly dress my adult children for the snow and their California bodies just cannot take that kind of cold. But otherwise we had a really great time. And afterwards, once they warmed up and realized that they didn't have frostbite and they weren't gonna die, that, you know, they admitted that it was really beautiful. They just struggled with the cold. My fault. I should have dressed them better. And I hope that you had a wonderful holiday season. Happy New Year. I should have said that before. I'm recording this now on January 2nd and welcome to 2023. Okay, so onto the topic. I'm really just gonna introduce this new series that I'm gonna be putting out. And so I hope that you guys will take a listen to it. It's called Loving the Narcissist. I'm not sure how many episodes I'm going to be doing. I'm going to be bringing some guests on later in the series, but I really want to dive deep into narcissism. And the reason why is because you guys know this episode is about women who sometimes find themselves in difficult relationships. And what I'm finding, unfortunately, is that so many women that I'm talking to who are emailing me are struggling in narcissistic relationships. They're questioning, Am I crazy? They they they're constantly being gaslighted, and they really need some tools for what do I do? How do I can it? Can I even love a narcissist? Can I even have any kind of healthy relationship? Is he even a narcissist? What does that even mean? What's the difference between toxic and narcissism? And you know so many questions. And so I want to do a series about loving a narcissist with the full. Knowledge and understanding. The reason why I have not really talked extensively about narcissism, although I have started to, is because I feel that it's so overdiagnosed. But the problem is, is that for the people who are really struggling in relationships with narcissistic people, whether it's a narcissistic boss, whether it's a narcissistic parent, a narcissistic spouse, or a narcissistic child, the pain, the torture is so excruciating, and it's been described as dying by a million paper cuts. And one of the reasons is because, you know, when someone is experiencing physical abuse, it's obvious. It's, you know, it's a hit, it's a push, it's something physical that you can feel and see. When someone is experiencing narcissistic abuse, you can't see it often. It's subtle. It can easily be denied when you bring up an instance to someone, a friend, uh, you know, a therapist, even sometimes, uh, a pastor. Sometimes the question is, well, are you, you know, that's not that big of a deal, or, or maybe you misunderstood, or you just need to, you know, give him some grace or understand. And so, you know, people in narcissistic abusive relationships experience death by a thousand paper cuts. And I have had women who have come to me and said, I need help because my partner is telling me that I'm crazy because I am jealous or I'm, you know, overreacting. And we get into work and we get into sessions and they start telling me things that are happening in their relationship where they're being gaslit and things are horribly inappropriate and they want help. To not respond in a way that's going to set their partner off. And what I will tell them is, I'm sorry, what I cannot do is help you tolerate your abuse better. And sometimes that's really hard to hear. But when you're being gaslit, you feel like you are the problem. Everything's turned around and you're overreacting and you're too sensitive and And you just want to fight all the time. And why do you always have a problem? So anyway, I'm not going to get deep into even what narcissist is yet. I'm going to work on that as we walk through this series. But if you have heard somewhere about narcissism and your curiosity got piqued or your heart started pounding or your stomach just kind of dropped because you thought, oh, that's my experience. Oh, he says those things to me. Then I want you to listen to this series. And if you have an inkling or you already know that you are in relationship with a narcissist, there's a couple things that I just want you to start to focus on. The first one is become educated about narcissism. Educate yourself as much as possible. Narcissism is a complicated mental illness. Yes, it is a diagnosable mental illness that centers on an individual's inflated sense of self-importance that's also accompanied by a lack of empathy for other people. And while that might sound really harsh for me to say mental illness, we have to acknowledge it for what it is. Narcissists are people who are mentally ill. You need to read about the symptoms, you need to read about the causes, you need to read about the risk factors and treatment. Although that is very controversial and you worrying about treating narcissism is not really your problem, nor Why is it necessarily also your business to get deep into the causes? The reason why is because for people who are empathic, for people who are what has been called pathologically kind, those are the people who tend to be most drawn to narcissism, or rather narcissists tend to be most drawn to you because you are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt because you feel like I can just fix it. I can work harder. I can try to understand him. And that is actually the trap that a narcissist wants you to get into. And so when I ask you to educate yourself about narcissism, I'm not saying understand why he's that way so you can give him grace. I'm not saying understand why he treats you that way so that you can learn to accept it better. I'm saying understand it so that you can recognize it, understand it so that you can identify the behavior as soon as it pops up. And we'll talk more about what that behavior is. The next is I want you to acknowledge emotions. Relationships with narcissists are cortisol-charged, they're emotionally charged, and you need to acknowledge what you're feeling because often you're going to be gaslit into believing that the way you feel is not okay, that you are oversensitive, that you're overreacting. I want you to be able to sit and acknowledge what you're feeling. Your feelings are real and they are valid. Allow yourself to feel them. Next, pick your battles wisely. So there is a difference between going at it with a narcissist, a game that you will probably never win, and setting healthy boundaries. So picking your battles wisely means that you're not going to try to prove to the narcissist that you're a good person. You're going to recognize that there will never be an aha moment. You can't explain yourself away. You can't get him to understand your feelings. Well enough so that he will have an aha moment. So you're the times that you do need to confront; it's because you're setting a boundary, not because you're trying to get him to fully understand. Because you can talk till you're blue in the face. A narcissist doesn't necessarily understand your feelings, but he can understand a boundary. The very best thing you can do when you are in a relationship, whatever kind of relationship with a narcissist, is double down on self-care. Take a breather. From the turmoil. We know now through research that relationships with narcissists increase cortisol, increase cardiovascular issues, increase stress, shrink the amygdala actually, which, which actually makes you have issues with short-term memory. And so because of the constant gaslighting, your amygdala actually responds by shrinking. And it's almost as if your brain just starts to question itself And physiologically, your brain responds. So we know there are physiological responses to being in a relationship with narcissists that are not healthy. And the best way that you can counteract that is by caring for yourself well, taking breaks, exercising, meditating, affirming yourself, physically removing yourself from the narcissist's presence when you need to reflect and restore. And recognizing that there is nothing selfish about it regardless of what he or she might say. Self-care is also allowing yourself to vent. You know, there's a fine line between venting because sometimes we feel productive when we vent. And if you're choosing to stay in relationship with a narcissist and you're constantly venting about it, there's a part of your brain that thinks you're working on it when you're not. And so I encourage you to vent when you need to, but make sure that you are also following up your venting with taking action. Even if it's just other self-care activities, establishing healthier boundaries, and no longer tolerating certain behaviors. I also want to encourage you to take responsibility for being attracted to the narcissist's initial charm. Now, please know I am not victim shaming. It is not your fault that you're in a relationship with a narcissist, but it is important to understand that. Relationships do take two people. There was something about this person that you were attracted to, and there was definitely a reason why he was attracted to you. Your job is to just take an understanding about that. Your job is to recognize that part of the dynamic so you can detach from what keeps you stuck. The last thing I'm going to suggest is therapy, but when it comes to narcissism and couples therapy, I would suggest against that unless your Therapist is very well trained specifically in working with narcissism. I would highly suggest that you suggest to your partner, "Go get your own therapy," although that often doesn't work so well either because a narcissist is often very much a charmer and can charm even therapists. Yes, and couples therapy just generally does not work well with a narcissist because they can feign empathy. They can feign the aha moments, and so I suggest you get your own personal therapy. To help shore you up, to help give you some clarity, to help remove some of those gaslighting walls so that you can be able to build healthier boundaries, take good care of yourself, and respond appropriately in the relationship. So those are just a couple of things that I'm asking you to do as you start to think about your role in loving a narcissist. What I'm not going to ask you to do is take any action, meaning get out of the relationship. That's a That's a hard thing to do that might happen in time. And I know so many professionals will just say, get out, get out, get out. And it's just not that easy, is it? It's not. And I get that. It's complicated. And so I want to honor that for you. You are making strides. You are caring for yourself. You are doing the work by just starting to acknowledge. By taking the small steps, and the rest of it will take care of itself over time. Tune in to future episodes of Loving the Narcissist series. If you know someone who's struggling in a relationship with a narcissist, please refer them to this series. And I'd love to hear if you have any specific questions that I can address in this series about dealing with, loving, working with. Being in relationship with a narcissist. Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. New episodes go up on Tuesdays. Subscribe to my email list so that you can get encouragement from me. And also, I'll be putting up a picture, I think on my next email, of me and those silly motion— anti-motion sickness glasses. So you definitely don't want to miss that. Have a strong week.
