Chris Watts Psychology | How can one man make so many terrible decisions?

You guys have asked for it, and now you're finally gonna get the explanation to a ton of the questions that you guys have been asking me. Some of the questions we're gonna cover today that you guys are just asking me lots and lots of times are, why did Chris Watts take that polygraph test? If he's not narcissistic, why does he not show emotion? If he's not narcissistic, why does he tell so many lies? Let's see. What are the questions I got for. I got a list of them here for you. Let's see. We have why. Why does he think that he can get out of jail? Which I really don't think he can. But why does he think that? What's the deal with Chris Watts and his relationship with his mom? Why does he make so many bad decisions in general? And why do I still not think that he's a covert narcissist? And I'll also add to that list a communal narcissist. Now, those are the questions that I've seen over and over. And recently, I've got a few questions directly from you guys that I will also answer in this conversation that we're having. If you're watching with us live, please feel free to participate in the conversation. But before we go much further, I do want to say this. It seems that this case really triggers a ton of very strong emotions in people. And for whatever reason, these videos different than the other videos I've done, people have just really gotten into arguments in the comments. People are saying nasty things towards each other, towards me, towards the whole situation. I mean, it's pretty unbelievable, honestly. So what I'd like for you to realize is that this is really just a conversation. Okay? I don't know Chris Watts. I don't know anyone in his family. And because of that, I can't diagnose him. You can't officially diagnose someone that you've never met. It's kind of a rule, and I'm not trying to do that, but pretend that I did know him, and all that I had was this information, the same information that you guys have had. If that were the situation, these would be my thoughts about it. The difference is, if I did know him, then I would have a lot more information, and maybe my thoughts would be different. But based on what we have, this is what I'm going to share with you. And I'm going to try really hard to stay in my lane. And my lane would be the psychological sort of profile of Chris Watts. And maybe some of the other family members. We might get into that a little bit. I'm going to probably steer away from getting into the nitty gritty about the evidence of the case. I have opinions about that just like everyone else does, but I really don't feel like that's necessarily my, you know, that's not really my wheelhouse. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna leave that to all the true crime people that are really much better at that than I am. And I'll stay over in my lane, which is the psychology of the situation. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Amber Hollingsworth, master addiction counselor, and this channel really is all about the science and psychology of addiction. And you might be wondering, why in the world are we talking about the Chris Watts case if it is the science and psychology of addiction? Well, that's all about. Because my theory on the Situation is why did Christopher Watts do what he did instead of getting a divorce? I believe he did that because he was in an addicted state, an addicted state of limerence, or infatuation. Limerence is the clinical word for infatuation, and that truly is a very addicted state of mind. In fact, it's possibly the most addicted state of mind. And if you'd like to hear more about that particular issue and why in the addictive state of mind and why it's the most addictive state of mind, then join us Thursday, because I'll be releasing a video specifically on limerence and addiction. So today we're going to focus on some of the psychology of Chris Watts. Let's see. Somebody saying, my volume's a little low. I'm going to pull my microphone up closer and turn my volume. Does that help at all, you guys? I turn the volume up just a little bit. Alrighty, let's see. Let's start with our question from Ruby. And I'm going to start with Ruby's question because it really is a great question to start this discussion out, which is why were there no signs before this happened? And I think that's really the crux of the matter. I think that that's really what baffles us all the most, is, is how did we. Not us particularly, but how. How does this not. Like, no one saw this coming. Even looking back, it's really hard to see, like, could you have saw this coming? And the truth of that is you really couldn't have seen it coming. And the reason you couldn't have seen it coming is because it wasn't Always there. This. This really is sort of a debate about whether or not Christopher Watts was this narcissist, sociopath, whatever, whether he always had that. And then finally the what they say the mask dropped and then this happened. That's what a lot of people think. Or whether or not he did not have that. He's just sort of a regular Joe, like he appeared and then something happened and that triggered all this other stuff to take place. And I have to say that I am on this other. That sort of option B side of this equation. And I'm going to give you some really, a lot more specific reasons as to why that is. But please remember this is just a discussion. Anything that I say about this case, I want you to please know that it's not me taking up for him. He is exactly where he should be, no matter why I think it happened. I think that he deserves where he is at. I think that he did it, and I think that he's absolutely where he should be. So please know that I am not taking up for him at all. We're just taking a look at the psychology of it. And a lot of you might be even wondering, you know, why. Why does it matter? Why is it relevant? He's a monster. He did what he did. A lot of you have left that comment, which I totally agree. But the reason why it matters is, is because if we can understand why this happens to people and why it can happen to regular people, then maybe we can do something about it in our own lives and in our own situations when we maybe we can see these signs in ourselves, maybe we can see these signs in our loved ones, and maybe we can head it off at the path. I think that's why it's important to talk about. Okay, so those of you who've seen some of my other videos, you know that my thinking on Christopher Watts is that he is not a narcissist. And a lot of. I've gotten a lot of comments from people saying that I need to look at other videos and that I need to look at the criteria further and that there are these other newer kinds of narcissism that are less known, called covert narcissism and communal narcissism, and that I must not know about what those are. So I think the really good place to start is with the actual definition criteria of narcissism. What that is why he doesn't meet them. And I will specifically address those two sort of subtypes, which would be covert narcissism and communal narcissism. To you in sort of the, the brief overview. Not, not in too much excruciating detail, but basically there are nine symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder. And in order to receive a diagnosis, diagnosis of that, you have to have. You have to sort of meet the criteria for five of nine of these that I'm about to tell you now. The other thing that's really important to understand about these criteria is that you have to have shown signs of. For a personality disorder diagnosis, you have to have shown signs of it by the time you're in early adulthood. And these signs and symptoms have to be present in a variety of situations. And I think that's where the crux of the matter comes from. People are looking at what happened and what he did specifically in those two or three months leading up to what happened, and they're looking at his behavior. And yes, if you look at those couple months, it looks narcissistic, it looks sociopathic. It looks like what the heck is what it looks like, you know, so it's like if you look at that incidence, you're going to see those signs of behavior. And I think for most people, when I look at this case, you know, they're thinking, he had to have been that to be able to do this. Like, who could do this? And in a lot of respects, I feel that too. You know, it's like, I'm a mom. I get it in my heart. I'm like, how in the world could this happen? He must be a monster the whole time. But based on the evidence we have, and I've looked at what you guys have looked at, it is not there. It is not there in a variety of situations. It is not there since early adulthood. And I know so many people are talking about, well, you know, if you're this covert narcissist or you're this communal narcissist, you can hide it, which is true, but you can't hide it from everyone your whole life 100% of the time. You can probably hide it from people that you don't live with. You can probably hide it from your co workers. But you, if you have this trait, someone is going to see it. And I'm talking about before these last two months, because these last two months was a special circumstance, not special. And that it, like, means it justifies what he did. That's not what I mean. I'm just saying, like, this circumstance created the situation. We'll get back to that a little bit more in just a minute. So here are The. Here are the official criteria for you. The first one is grandiosity. The person has a sense of grandiosity, which just means I'm better above things. You know, it's just sort of like I'm more important than most people. The second one is fantasies of success and all these fabulous things that happen. So in their head, it's like they imagine, you know, all this, all this wonderful accolades and how they're just more better than everybody else in all these kinds of ways. They believe that they, this is the third one, are exceptional or extraordinary in some way. They have a desire for unwarranted attention. There's their attention seeking. Like everybody's a little attention seeking, but I'm talking about like a lot excessively, pathologically. They have a sense of entitlement. They have oppressive behavior. And what that means is they sort of rule the roost and anyone else around them is beneath them. And when you're in a close relationship with someone with a personality disorder, you can absolutely for sure feel this. They lack empathy for others. They have empathy for themselves, but not for other people. They resent. They either resent others or they feel that others resent them probably for how wonderful and fabulous and special they are. And number nine, they are. They have egotistical types of behaviors. So you have to have met five of nine of those. And those symptoms or traits or criteria really have to be present for a variety of situations present since early adulthood. Now, there's not been one person, one piece of evidence, one shred of anything that says that Chris Watts demonstrated any of those traits prior to the couple of months that led to this horrible crime that he committed. And so let's, let's get into. Because I know a lot of people are thinking, well, yeah, but you're talking about. Those are the criteria. And if you're this covert kind or you're this communal kind, then people can't quite see it. And so you can hide under the radar. And I agree that if you are a covert narcissist or a communal narcissist, you can absolutely hide under the radar a lot longer and a lot more effectively than sort of your really stereotypical, kind of conceited, really out there, attention seeking kind of narcissist. So let's talk a little bit about what those two words mean now, going to overgeneralize it for you, because I think sometimes if you're trying to understand a new complicated concept, it's easy just to get your head wrapped around it in a real sort of easy, simple way. So a covert narcissist is kind of a narcissist. And it's not so much that they feel like they're prettier, smarter, more, faster, whatever than everyone else, but it's kind of like they feel like their problems are special. And they. They call it the vulnerable narcissist because it's kind of like they get their narcissistic needs met by being overly vulnerable. They constantly have problems, their situation is different, which makes the rules for them different. And they're just terminally unique. They're terminally special. They terminally have these unique set of problems. I don't think Chris Watts meets that category. Right. You don't see that behavior in any of the stuff leading up. Now, that second subtype called communal narcissist, which is a little less known than the COVID narcissist, it's a little bit different. And the way I'm going to generalize this one for you is I'm going to call it. And this isn't a clinical term, this is just the Amber term, but martyr syndrome. This is somebody who feels special and unique not because they're faster, smarter, stronger, but because they do more for other people. Now, if there were one that I could think Christopher Watts might. Could fit in, like, I could go closer to this one, but I still don't think he fits in it. And I'll tell you why in just a second. This communal narcissist, it's this sort of like Mother Teresa syndrome. When I used to work at the psych hospital, I used to have a really good friend, and she used to say, get off the cross because somebody else needs the wood. You know, it's kind of like always doing for other people. I'm always giving to charities. I'm always putting myself out. You know, I'm the one that sacrifices all the time. And we've all known people like this, and we don't necessarily automatically think narcissism when we see that kind of behavior. So because of that, it does kind of fly under the radar and it doesn't hit our, you know, it doesn't kind of trigger us to think, oh, they think that they're better, but. But in their way, they think that they're better because they think that they're more sacrificing, that they're better. But the thing of it is, in order to meet narcissistic criteria, there has to be some kind of, like, overt attention seeking for it. So this type of person will constantly be telling you how that they do for everyone else and how that they, you know, overextend and they put themselves on the back burner and they give to this charity or that or whatever. And so it looks like they're so caring and empathetic and taking care of everyone else, but it's really just their way of feeling special and unique. Now, I agree that Christopher Watts put other people's needs first, that Christopher Watts, you know, did some of these things. But I don't think that he was attention seeking about it. I don't think that he thought it made him feel special or unique or anything like that. I do think that he was what in Enneagram language we call a type 9 mediator personality type, sometimes called a peacemaker personality type. And those types of personality types are extremely conflict avoidant and they tend to sort of meld into whoever's energy that they're around at the moment. Now, those of you who aren't familiar with Enneagram personality types, it's not a disorder, it's just a personality type kind of. If you think of it like a Myers Briggs, like everyone has the personality type. It's not a disorder. It's. It's not a good thing or a bad thing. It's just a way to sort of conceptualize the key motivators, fears and drivers of any particular person. And Christopher Watts, I believe, was a type 9. Now with Enneagram is the same kind of thing as a psychological diagnosis. With Enneagram you really have to diagnose yourself. So really I can't quite say what someone else is or isn't. But if I were looking at it from that lens, he really demonstrates a lot of these type of nine qualities, which is this. Whoever I'm in front of, I see your point of view. The reason they're called mediators or peacemakers is because they do see everyone's point of view. This type personality rarely says no. In fact, they hardly ever, if ever say no to anything. They go along even when they don't want to go along because they don't want to. They don't want to stir up problems or have conflict because when other people are upset or anxious, they feel those other people's energy. And so they spend all of their energy trying to manage everyone else's energy. They just want everything to be sort of calm, consistent, copa static, if you will. And so they pretty much do whatever they need to do or say whatever they need to say. They sort of keep that energy from getting into any Extreme high or low, they want it to maintain. They sort of want to be neutral all the time. Now the problem with the problem, I think that happened with Christopher Watts is he was in a relationship, particularly with the women in his life, three of which had very strong personalities. And when you deal with a personality type 9, they're going to agree with whoever's in front of them. And not necessarily because they're completely lying, but because they really do sort of see that person's point of view. And it's really hard for them to figure out in most cases where they stand on things and how they feel. And you can see this dynamic between him and his mother, him and Shanann and him and NK. So you see when he's, you know, he's in this dilemma between his mom and Shannan at first, and you can see when he talks to both, he just tries to keep them all calm, right? He doesn't really say where he stands on any of these issues. He just sort of says whatever he has to say that's going to keep him out of the hottest water. And probably whoever's personality is the strongest, in the end, he's going to go that way in order to try to keep things calm and copacetic. You can see that behavior consistently throughout his whole life. You can see everyone that ever talked about him talks about that kind of behavior. He was basically. He just sort of goes along with things and he doesn't really raise red flags. So how can somebody so conflict avoidant do what he did? That's probably what you're thinking, because that was what I'd be thinking. He. He gets in this relationship with nk he falls in this limerence addicted state. And when people are in this addicted state, they really, it's almost like they rewrite history. They forget, you know, all about any other time that they've ever fell in love or been infatuated. And all they can remember is they're right here and right now. And it feels to anyone who's ever been in this state, and most of us have been in this state at some period of time in our life where it's like, this is the one. I've never felt this way before. Like I have to have you. It's this obsessive state about this other person. I think this is the first time where he in his life is like, I have to have this, like I want this. And there was a. There was a sureness inside of him. But when you're in that state, you really devalue, especially if you're in that state because you're in an affair, you really devalue your current partner. You can't even remember having ever felt that way about them before. And it feels like you don't even get me. And this other person gets me. And this is my real, one true love. And I've got to get out of this because this is my fate and this is where I should be. This is how people feel when they're in that limerence state, particularly if they're in it due to an affair. And you can ask pretty much anyone who's ever been in that state if they'll tell you the truth. And they'll tell you that. Now, most of them don't go on to do what he did. But you've got to combine the facts of his personality type, right? How conflict avoidant he was. Do you really think Shanann was going to let him go easily? Heck no. She was gonna give him a run for his money. It would have been difficult emotionally. She would have made everything hard on him. And not only that, so many of you have mentioned in your comments like he did it because of the money. And I do think that that was part of the reason, right? He knew he was in such a financial bad situation with Shanann and if he tried to get out of it and went for divorce, it would be even worse. And he financially really would have been in an extremely bad situation, which would have been hard for him to make this new life, this new fantasy that he had going on as far as this new life with nk. So that's the thinking about in my mind why that happened. It was the circumstance of the limerence. Now somebody let me look back so I can give credit to who asked this question. Somebody asked the question, would this have happened if NK had not come along? I do think that he would probably have been vulnerable to having an affair. But I think a lot of people are more vulnerable having an affair than they actually think. Because marriage is hard and it's difficult. And you know, if someone new comes along and they're paying all this attention, it does give you that addicted type feeling. And people are just much more vulnerable that than they think. But I think the thing that set him up the most for that was the fact that he lost all that weight. I think that that process is what set him up for the affair. And I think the affair is what set him up to do what he did. Does that make sense to you guys? So it's like the fact that he lost all that Way, you know, previously, he's been this quiet guy. He's been behind the scenes. He doesn't really get his needs met very well. He doesn't really stand up for himself. He's just sort of this kind of wallflower type guy. Now, everyone likes him and everyone gets along with him, but there's not a lot special about him. And certainly no one ever really has given him a super ton of attention or chased him down. So he's lost all this way. He's attractive. People are now giving him attention, which he's never really gotten a lot of before. You know, NK Comes along, and clearly, I mean, everyone kind of agrees on the fact that she pursued him. Right? She went after him, I think. You know, I heard someone say on a video I watched yesterday, someone that. That worked to Anadarko. I knew the both of them that she was a little. She was a little that way in general, and she pursued a lot of guys, but he fell for it. And I think that's the key, is he fell for it because he was more vulnerable. He'd recently had all that weight loss. He was in a tough situation in his marriage. But any person who's married with little kids and dealing with the finances of that and the stress of that, that's the time when life is. That's the time when you really. Whether you're the mom or the dad, you're just not getting your needs met very well. Because every ounce of you goes into either working to pay the bills or taking care of your children. And because of that, there's no. You're not getting any of your personal needs met at all. And that's when you're so much more vulnerable. So when you combine that with all the weight loss and the attention over here and the fact that NK had this really strong personality and she wasn't going to put up with no sharing. Right? That's not me saying I don't think she told him to do it. I know that I'm not gonna get into all that because we can do another video on that if we need to. But. But he knew that it wasn't gonna be like this. I can get a divorce and, you know, I can go over here and pursue this life with her and then have my kids on the weekends. Like, it wasn't gonna go down for him that easy because he's dealing with these very strong personalities. And the truth of it is, is he didn't have what it takes to fight. You know, he. He didn't have the ability to stand up for himself or to speak. And plus, he just didn't have any leg to stand on because he's getting out of this marriage and an affair. So even if he had the assertiveness abilities, he didn't have any leg to stand on. So he just knew, like, it wasn't going to work for him. It was not going to work out for him to just get a divorce and pursue this fantasy life over here that he had built up in his head. So that all that. I know that's a lot of information. I appreciate you guys sticking with me, listening that. But all that leads to how I'm going to answer all these questions I have for you. A lot of you want to know, well, if he's not narcissistic, why did he agree to take that polygraph test? Well, he agreed to take that polygraph test because he was scared not to. Right. I think a lot of people agree to take the polygraph test because they're scared if they don't take it, they're going to look guilty and also because they think if they do take it, it's not admissible in court. So even if it shows positive or even if it shows that they lie, that they can then deal with it later. So in his mind, it's like, you know, if I tell these two investigators and I'm not going to take this polygraph test, that's going to cause a lot of contention. And they're going to say, well, why not? Well, what are you hiding? And with a personality type like he has, it's all about avoiding that. I don't think that he took that thing because he thought he was smarter than that. I think he thought took it because he was basically trapped up in a situation, didn't know how to get out of it, and he wasn't assertive enough to say, no, I'm not going to take it. Get me a lawyer. Right? Why does he not show emotion? That was the next question. The reason I think he doesn't show emotion is because his personality type doesn't show a lot of emotion. Remember, they're very. This personality type is extremely adept at suppressing emotions, suppressing their own anger, and they spend all of their time and energy trying to keep other people on a level, on a steady level, and that keeps their anxiety in check. I think when you look at the Christopher Watts case, these two were they the guy and the girl were the FBI, anyway, the two agents that dealt with him, that you can see all those crime interrogation footage with man they were perfect, right? You could see that the woman plays a little bit more of the hard cop, but even as a hard cop, she was really like, you know, she's touched him. She was like, nice to him. And that was really the perfect way to come at this personality type, to sort of keep him level enough to get him where you need him to be. Because he's so conflict avoidant. You just want to kind of. You can. You can see even in that second interview, the way they're able to ask him these questions and the way they let him answer them, but without forcing a lot of distress. It's kind of like answering them, but without getting into a lot of the feeling, which I think worked perfectly for this situation. Why does he tell so many lies? I think what he. He definitely tells lies. And people with a mediator personality type, I'm not going to say that they're more prone to lying, but I will say they're more prone to saying what they think another person wants to hear. How about that? When I say that, or leaving out details and that kind of thing. Why do I think he made so many bad decisions because of this? Because he doesn't stand up for what he thinks is right. In some cases, I think he doesn't know what he thinks is right. And so it leads him into one bad situation after another. Especially when you have these really strong personality types telling you what to think all the time, right? So it's like you've got somebody who's conflict avoidant, who's got all these other women, you know, the mom, the wife, the mistress, who are basically telling him what to think, what to do. And he's just sort of going along with that until he gets himself into a major big trap that there was not going to be any easy way out of. Why does he think he can get out? I don't know that he does think he can get out. You know, there's all this talk about he's following this and he's following that and he's trying to get out, which may be true, but if you listen to those phone conversations that he had between him and the parents while he's been in prison, in those conversations, you know, a lot of people say, listen to him. He's manipulating the parents, what he's doing. He's just avoiding every direct thing. You know, he's just like. He'll distract by talking about the football. His dad does the same thing he does, by the way. I think his dad is probably the exact same personality type and so, you know, the mom's always like, we're gonna fight this, and everyone believes in you and everyone knows you're wonderful. And he doesn't really come against her directly and say, you know, what he needs to say is, no, mom, like, I did this. You know, I pled guilty. I did this. I'm staying here. But instead of saying that to her, because that's going to be very difficult, there's going to be a lot of emotion in it. He just kind of doesn't tell her otherwise. Does that make sense? He just kind of like lets her think what she wants to think. And there's so much pushing from that side of the family to do something about it, to talk to these other lawyers. They're just going along with it. And you can see this behavior in all these people that, you know, these people that, you know, the letters to the lady that wrote the book. He just does what the next person in front of him wants him to do. And I don't think it's because he's so narcissistic. He thinks everyone has to think well of him. I think it's because he's so conflict avoidant. He's just scared of uncomfortable and difficult situations and conversations, and he just does whatever he has to do to avoid them, which is a problem because it only leads to more conflict and more distressful situations. Let's see. Let me get. Make sure I answer all these questions. I told you I was going to answer the love bombing. A lot of people have asked me about the love bombing. And do I think he love bombed Shanann? Based on the history that we have, I think he pursued her and he was nice to her and he was a nice guy type. But there's nothing in there that makes me think it was love bombing, because I don't really see that it went away. You know, if it's love bombing, it's like there and then it goes, and then there's this contempt or what. And I didn't see that happen. Yeah, there was some arguing there at the end of the relationship, but I think that was after we got to this point where he's wanting something else. And you see these other behaviors that are coming out from him, but you didn't see that leading up in the situation with nk. Could you call that love, Mommy? I think that was probably that infatuation state of what everyone does when they're in an infatuation state. People talk about, you know, why did he look up? What is love? You know, how do I know think when you're a mediator type personality, it's really hard to know. It's like, how do I feel about situations? And that's not uncommon. You know, it's like, what do I want to be when I grow up? Whose side of this argument am I on? I don't think it's because he doesn't have the emotion. I think it's hard for him to figure out really, like where he stands on situations, which is common of that personality type. Linda asked me about the occult and there was this video done by this. I can't remember who it was done by, but I took a look at it and Linda sent me the link. And I had seen it once before that where you can see in the video it kind of like slow motions down and it shows these interviews between him and the cops and he like makes these hand gestures and this and that. And it's the occult in that particular video. To be honest, I think they're just stopping the video at any one point. You could stop me at any one point and get some kind of weird hand gesture and say whatever you want to say about it. So as far as that video is concerned, do I think it means anything about the occult? No, I really don't. A lot of people have talked about NK being into some really dark things, and I think that that's a possibility. I could kind of see that, you know, whether she had this negative influence, whether she was into occult stuff or whatever, I don't know. I don't necessarily think that's why he did what he did. I think she was bad news. I think he got wrapped up in a bad situation with somebody he shouldn't have been in with and he was out of his league. And that right there alone is enough, I think, to trigger the whole bad situation of what happened. We have a viewer named Kelly. And this wasn't necessarily a question. It was a little piece of information that she put in her comments. I don't know if it's true or not, but I thought was interesting. Kelly was addressing this whole idea about NK Googling Shanann, like way before that they were supposedly in that relationship. I don't know if this is true or not, but Kelly says that prior to working at Anadarko that NK was also involved in some kind of MLM type work or industry. And that a lot of times when you're in that industry, you're really well aware of the other big players in the industry and so you know who they are. You might Google Them, you might sort of watch them just because they're other big players in whatever industry you're in. So I thought that was an interesting theory about that, because a lot of got a lot of questions about that. Why was the Googling beforehand? I think it could have been for a lot of reasons. People talk about they met on the 4th of July thing, and it could have just been somebody that he met. And she's like, who is that? And she Googled her up that way. I don't know. I don't think the relationship started too awful long before they said it started, just because you can kind of see how it evolves. You can see in the emails and letters, you can watch it kind of go from beginning to escalation. And that's why I think. That's why I think that happened. Okay, you guys have been awesome listeners. I am going to scroll through now and look at some of your comments and questions. For those of you who joined us, if you're watching on the replay, feel free to leave me comments and questions in the comments, and I will try to do my best to come back and look at those as well. Well, all right. Okay. For me, it's about trying to understand the human psyche and ultimately understanding ourselves. I agree with you. That's what. That's the only reason I'm really even talking about this, because in my mind, it really was an addicted state of mind. It was a lot of things that came together in a certain particular order that created this situation. Kind of like the perfect weather conditions creates, like a tsunami or some kind of massive hurricane or something like that. Sue says, I don't believe he's a narcissist. Lori says, I believe he is a family murderer. Yeah, I agree with you. I absolutely think he did what he. I think he did exactly what he said he did. I think it's funny that he's, you know, supposedly trying to file and get out of it, because not only did he confess to doing it at the time, like, what, a year or two later, then he sits down with the two investigators and told them the whole story again. So in my mind, it's kind of silly because it's like, even if you go back and fight and you say, whatever, they can coerce this confession out of you, which they didn't. But even if you tried to say that, like, well, what about the fact that you went through the whole story a year later and told detail by detail, how's he gonna get out of that? Yeah, he's not. Hey, Jennifer. From Nashville. I'm from pretty close to Nashville. I'm from Tennessee as well. Laurie says what type of person tells a different story to different people and plays the victim? Victim. I'm not sure about playing the victim, but I can tell you personality type 9 will sort of tell a different story to different people. It's not always that they're trying to overtly lie. They're just trying to avoid the conflict, which sometimes means deceiving. CJ says, I know a diagnosed narcissist, my brother's ex, diagnosed by their marriage counselor, doctor. And Chris doesn't act or speak or do anything like her. Yeah, I just don't see it there. I'm with you, cj. Lori says, I think he would get great satisfaction from people thinking he was a good guy. Never gets upset taking care of the kids. I think he likes to dupe people, plays, enjoys playing the victim. With Shannan, I think that the first. I can kind of agree with what you're saying there, Laurie, especially on the first part of what you're saying there. Like, he likes for people to think well of him. He wants to go along. He wants to do the right thing. But I honestly don't think he plays the victim card too much. And I think if he was a narcissist, he would play into this like, you know, Shanann was bad to me, and she was the devil, and I did everything for everybody. You don't really hear him overly saying any of that. You know, he's not playing into that nearly as much as he could be. He could play that situation up and amplify it up to play the martyr more, to play the sort of communal narcissist more. He really, in my opinion, he doesn't play that card very much at all. And that's another reason why I think I just don't see these narcissistic tendencies from him. Now, he did say the one thing like Shannan said, that I would never see my kids again. And that's possible she might have said that, but I don't think that's uncommon to say when you're in a fight and you just found out your husband's had an affair and you're about to get divorced. It's like a mad thing that you say. I don't think that she meant, I'm gonna go hurt my children. I think she meant to say, you better watch what you're doing or else kind of thing. And I think he knew that as well. Lori says. I think losing weight really changed him Too. Yeah, I definitely think so. Basically anyone who's attractive and giving him attention. Yeah, I think, I think Ashley, he was very vulnerable to that because like I said, in general he didn't have ways of getting his needs met. He'd never really been pursued like that. He's in a situation where he's like working hard every day taking care of kids, which is hard for any adult person with young children. I just think the situation was, it was just bad. It was just sort of the right or the wrong, I guess. Combination of events. Hiding his emotion. Probably learned from growing up. I can't imagine growing up in a house with his mother. Yeah, she's a bit over overbearing. And you can see that even the dad sort of does the same thing that Christopher does, which is just sort of kind of like avoid or placate or just kind of distract or go around or not deal with her in a lot of ways. And so a lot of, he just sort of, they just sort of let her do what she's gonna do. Cindy says avoidance, another key word in the lying game, as well as suppression of emotions learned in childhood. Yeah, I'm right there with you, Sandy. NK love bomb. Cw in my opinion. Yeah, I kind of think, I definitely think she pursued him and I think she knew what she was do. And yeah, CW says, or Tammy says, CW equals sociopath. I think what he did was sociopathic. I could kind of agree with that. But it's kind of the difference in like someone saying like I'm depressed versus someone saying. Or someone actually meeting the criteria for clinical depression. So it's kind of a word that we can throw out and we. And you can be depressed today. You know, you can say I'm depressed today or I feel depressed. But that's very different than meeting the clinical criteria, the actual formal criteria for depression. So it's like, does he meet the clinical criteria for sociopath? He doesn't like. No, quite like if you look at the clinical criteria, like he just doesn't. He just doesn't meet them to get the, the diagnosis. At least not with the information that we have. Why the cruelty towards his children? I think that's the biggest question, Amy, I think you asked, you hit the nail on the head right there. Why did he do what he did with the children? And if there's one thing that sort of, it's just the most mind blowing part of this whole thing, it's that not that killing your spouse is ever okay, but you could kind of understand how it got to that point, not saying that's okay, but your kids, that's just a whole different thing. And I think he got himself in that situation. He did what he did, and he even talked about how Bella came in there. She saw it. I think he pretty much knew that there was no getting out of it at that point, right. That there would be witnesses that. I just think he got himself in a situation he couldn't get out of. And it's terrible, horrible, awful, awful thing happened. He was probably in a bit of a dissociated state when it happened. That's not me saying that he was clinically having psychosis or delusion. I don't think that he was. I think he just broke. And I don't mean like, I don't know what word I used in the initial video. People talk about, like, snapped. And when I say snapped, I don't mean like in the legal form of the word, as in like a crime of fashion. Like when that happens legally, it's almost like a reflex. Like something happens and I just rage out. I'm not even thinking, like, in the moment immediately and do what he did. But I think he had thought about it. I don't think he had really planned it, per se. I think he had had this fantasy about, like, what if they just went away? My whole life would be easier. I think the thought had crossed his mind. And then I think the time came, the moment came, and then he sort of impulsively did what he did. The reason I think that is because it was so poorly thought out and executed, Crystal says, Is CW's personality learned from his parents. His dad, maybe. What did his mom do with him growing up that was so bad? As far as, like, what I'm saying, as far as the Enneagram personality types, Those aren't, like I said, those aren't psychiatric diagnosis. They're not like personality disorders. We all have them. And essentially it's like some traits are either over nurtured or under nurtured in all of us in childhood and create these other personality traits. And I think with Enneagram, what you're looking at is what. Like, what is somebody's primary defense mechanism? And we all have defense mechanisms. You know, we've all been through something hard in our childhood, you know, and hard things. And how did we deal with that? And eventually we start relying on some defense mechanisms more than others. And ultimately those defense mechanisms become pretty like, hardwired into our personality types. And so I don't know if there was anything so severely traumatic I think his mom's kind of difficult. I think she's. She's. But I don't think she's. I don't think she's a monster. I just think she's just difficult. And she probably doesn't realize that she never gave him much of a chance for an opinion, the dad either. But I don't really blame her for all that either. It's also everybody else's. It's, you know, it's. It's your own personal responsibility to stand up for yourself and ask for your needs to. To get met too. Lori said, the mom said it didn't matter what happened either way, please fight to get out. His dad said, please fight. And he said that this is him taking responsibility for his actions. Right. I know exact conversation you're talking about, Lori, and I heard him say that. But they keep pushing and pushing, and I think he's got so many people in his ear, and I literally think he's kind of got. You could just tell him over and over and over and he's just gonna do what you say. And I think he's got a lot of people in his ear saying those things and doing those things, and he's just gonna do what he has to do. RG says, I agree. He's not the. I agree with you. He's not a narcissist. He couldn't deal with life, in particular with conflict. Shannan was no saint. She couldn't see how the thrive crop was negatively affecting her family. I think. And that was another question that someone asked me about to talk about her personality type. I don't have as strong of a feeling about her enneagram personality type. I did do a little research, and there's someone out there that has a theory, I think, about her Myers Briggs type. And when you correlate her Myers Briggs type to enneagram personality type, It's a type 2. For those of you who even know what that means, which is a helper or a giver. She was definitely extroverted. She was definitely opinionated. She was definitely take charge. Do I think she was narcissistic? No, I don't think she was narcissistic either. Do I think she had more narcissistic traits than he did? If you put everybody on a continuum, which we all are, I think yes, she had a few more traits than he did. Does she meet the criteria for it? No. And everyone sort of talks about the way she ran over him, but the thing of it is, is he let everyone run over him. Right. And so she just had a strong personality, she took charge. But I feel like he was just as responsible for that as he. As she was. Like, he could stand up, he could say something too. He was. He just didn't have it in him. Matthew says, did he do a Basil. I don't even know. Is that a person? I don't even know what that is. Make a terrible mistake and embark upon cascading series of even worse mistakes to try to dig out of. Yes. Whatever that word is, which I've not heard of. That's what he did. That's exactly what I think. And I see people in the line of work that I do that find themselves in that situation all the time. Right. It's like one bad decision leads to another, leads to another, leads to another, and you just dig into this situation until ultimately there's no good way out. And. And he absolutely got himself there. What the heck. I like your profile name there. Do you think he wishes to go back in time and not do what he did and would have done it no matter what? No, I think he. I think now that he's out of that relationship and the limerence is cleared, I think he absolutely wishes he could go back and undo what he did. Yeah. And I think that's what happens if you talk to anyone in any kind of addicted state, whether it's limerence or. Or drug addiction or any kind of process addiction like gambling, once they get out of that and it doesn't happen immediately, it takes months for your thinking to really clear. People look back and they think, who was I? What was I thinking? Why was I so deluded? I see it every day and I do think that, yeah, he sees it now a little more clearly. And I think he would definitely, if he had the clarity he has now, it wouldn't have happened. Tammy says. Didn't NK say that when CW started showing up where she lived without being invited? That's a good question, Tammy. Does anybody know the answer to that? I'm not sure. I'm not sure about that. It's possible someone else in the comments let us know. Y' all might know better than I know on that one. Reminds me of automation boy in the movie AI Artificial intelligence, where he wants to be a real boy and he emulates human traits in such a way. Basically a piercing human. That reminds me of. A lot of people have asked me about whether or not I think he's on the spectrum, which is the autism spectrum. A lot of people have the theory that he's Asperger's. And I'm honestly. Of the theories. I've thought about that one the longest. I could probably be convinced of that one more easily than I can be convinced of the narcissism diagnosis. But I even went back again yesterday and watched again those really long series of videos where he did that second interview with those two detectives, because you can really see them interact for the longest amount of time there. And I wanted to get a sense for him. And I don't. I don't see a social skill deficit there. So I thought about that. I kind of actually wanted that to be the case, and I was sort of looking for evidence of it, but honestly didn't see it there. I'm glad you brought that up, because I meant to address the spectrum thing, and I was about to forget. Let's see people do that with ADD and adhd, too. Borders on a slang word anymore. Are you talking about over. Over diagnosing? Is that what you're talking about there? I think maybe that's what you're saying is like. It's like throwing the diagnosis around. Yeah, I kind of agree with that. I feel like for a long time, bipolar disorder was the one that got thrown around, and then, like, ADHD and now like, narcissism, man. That's like. Diagnosis of the day is like, everyone thinks everyone else in their life's a narcissist. And I'm not saying that. Let me say this. I shouldn't have said that so flippantly. I know that if you've been in a relationship with a narcissist, it's horrible. And I don't want to minimize that in any kind of way because I don't want to be offensive. But I do want to say that the diagnosis is thrown around excessively without a real understanding of what it is. That doesn't mean. I'm saying you didn't have a situation with narcissist, but if you look at it, it's like all of a sudden, it's just everywhere. Stephanie says, I honestly think Bella saw what happened and she could talk. I think. I don't know if she saw it happening, but I think she saw the aftermath. And I think she was big enough to say, mommy was in a sheet and Mommy wasn't awake. And I think she was big enough to talk and give enough information. So I kind of agree with you there, Stephanie. Right with you. Thank you for explaining to me. I'm struggling to understand. You are welcome, Amy. Thanks for listening. What do people with ADHD do. I think Caitlin's asking that question of life in the red? Kim, think what he's saying there, what that person is saying there is that it's overused diagnosis. But I could be wrong. Do you believe the prison confession? Yeah, I believe the prison confession. I mean there may be small parts in there. I don't. But I listened to it again, like I said, I listed again just yesterday. I really do believe it. I think that that's. I think that that's what happened. Yep. And it's funny because somebody heard some question or some kind of conversation about that. When his parents asked him about that, he just said, well, I had to tell them something. And you can see that it's just sort of a non answer. Right. Like with the parents, he just sort of non answers them. And so he doesn't really say one way or the other, which I think is just his long history of avoidance skills. Gil says, why is Jim so off limits? Somebody should really investigate him. You know, I don't, I don't really know. There's a lot of like conversation that he had, you know, was intimate with him and NK and all that kind of stuff. And that could be, I don't really know. I think he was probably involved in some kind of inappropriate way. But I think that Chris, I think that Chris killed the family. So if that's a lot of what people are asking, I think it was Chris and he did it by himself and being similar in different ways. Yeah. Sally says flavor of the month diagnosis. I say flavor of the year. Right, Sally? It's like flavor of the year or something though. I've seen it so much. Would you say that NK went after him to start the fair? Yeah, I think NK went after him. And I think you like that. I think he never had attention like that. I think he was in a tough time in his life because he was raising young children and finances were hard and so yeah, he was vulnerable. Bad situation. Okay. Caitlin says, I think his mom definitely got traits of bpd. What do you think? I'm thinking when you say bpd, you mean borderline personality disorder. I haven't studied the mom enough to see that. I could not say one way or the other. But I definitely don't have an absolutely not reaction to it, I can tell you that. So I would definitely put some thought into it. Alright guys, we are about out of our time here. If you'd like to know more about limerence and that addicted state of mind, Thursday at one, we'll be premiering a video on limerence as an addiction. And I think that you're really gonna find that fascinating. And I think it's really gonna help you understand even more about what happened in this particular case. Thank you, everyone that joined us, and I will see you on Thursday.