Transcript #420 How to Avoid Narcissists and The Codependency Cure with Ross Rosenberg
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- Find out what’s in store on this Myers Detox Podcast with Ross Rosenberg, who joins the show to talk about how to avoid narcissists and his amazing Codependency Cure. Ross covers so many great topics like how to overcome what he coins “self love deficit disorder”, how to identify if you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, why many of us get into multiple relationships with narcissists, what to do if your suspect you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, and so much more.
- Find out what happened in Ross’ life that caused him to write his book The Human Magnet Syndrome.
- Learn more about what defines a narcissist, as well as a codependent or someone with “self love deficit disorder”.
- Learn more about what a covert narcissist is.
- Find out why most codependency treatments fail, and what Ross did differently to develop a treatment that works.
- Learn more about what causes codependency and SLDD and why it can often times be hard for the person to identify these negative feelings.
- Find out what someone needs to do in order to break up with a narcissist.
- Learn about the different levels of Ross’ SLDD Pyramid.
- Learn the difference between an addiction and an SLDD addiction.
- Find out why you need to build self love in order to overcome SLDD.
- Learn why it is nearly impossible for a narcissist to get better.
- Learn more about how Ross’ book The Human Magnet Syndrome defines codependents and narcissists.
- Find out why leaving a narcissist or getting out of a relationship with a narcissist is only half the battle to resolving SLDD.
- You can learn more about Ross and his amazing treatments at www.selfloverecovery.com
- Make sure to check out Ross’ book The Human Magnet Syndrome, click here!
- And also head over to his Youtube channel for all kinds of great videos on the topics from this episode. Click here!
Wendy Myers: Hi everyone. How are you doing? I’m Wendy Myers. Welcome to The Myers Detox Podcast. We have a fantastic show for you. We have my friend, Ross Rosenberg, on. And he’s going to be talking about how to avoid narcissists and the codependency cure. He prefers the term instead of codependency, self-love deficit disorder, or people that have self-love deficit, and the narcissists that they love. And so we’re going to talk about this because I think this topic is something that really, when people are in a relationship with a narcissist, I think people have a hard time. They’re not aware of it. They don’t know how to identify it. And it can make them very, very unhappy. And I’ve found myself in this situation with my ex. I have a couple of exes that I deem to be narcissists. And it took me a really long time, as someone that was educated and knows a lot about psychology and emotional trauma, I still had a tough time identifying the person that I was in a relationship with as a narcissist or someone that was emotionally harmful to me, or what have you.
Wendy Myers: And so I wanted to do this show to help you identify whether in this show you identify as someone with self-love deficit disorder, or someone who’s codependent, and perhaps if your partner is a narcissist, and then also what to do about it, some solutions that you can embark on to kind of resolve this once and for all. And we talk about where this kind of pattern comes from. And it comes from emotional trauma from parental attachment traumas. Say your parent was a narcissist themselves, or an alcoholic, or drug addict, or they were a sociopath, or they had borderline personality disorder. And a lot of us have had parents like this, and parents that seem very, very loving, but still damage us in some way, and then our primary relationships, we seek out relationships that emulate those of our parents, that are similar to those of our parents because they feel familiar.
Wendy Myers: And so Ross Rosenberg’s book, it’s called The Magnet Syndrome, because you get in these relationships, and it’s just this very strong magnetic pull that really draws you in very quickly, and it’s very difficult to get out of these relationships because you feel like you found your soulmate, this person that completes you. So we explore all these aspects and more on the show today, really, really, really good, especially if you’re trying to … Something just doesn’t feel right in your relationship, and you’re seeking out answers, definitely listen to this show. So Ross Rosenberg is the Self-Love Recovery Institute CEO and primary contributor. He’s an MED and a CADC. And his internationally recognized expertise includes pathological narcissism, narcissistic abuse, and attachment trauma. Ross’s Codependency Cure treatment program provides innovative and results oriented treatment, and his expert educational and inspirational seminars have earned him international acclaim. And he has over 21 million views on his YouTube channel.
Wendy Myers: In addition to being featured on national TV and radio, his best selling book, The Human Magnet Syndrome, has sold over 135,000 copies and are published in nine languages. And Ross also provides expert testimony and witness services as well. You can learn more about Ross Rosenberg and his work at selfloverecovery.com. Ross, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Ross Rosenberg: I’m so happy to be here. Thank you.
Wendy Myers: So I love your book, The Human Magnet Syndrome. I’ve shared it with many friends. And so this is a book that’s been translated into nine different languages. It sold 135,000 copies. Can you tell us about it and what inspired you to write it?
Ross Rosenberg: Well, let me first tell you what inspired me to write it. As a psychotherapist, I had this idea that I would solve all my problems and then be this role model of a person to help other people. But despite that self proclamation, I was getting into really dysfunctional relationships and two marriages that ended in a bitter divorce. And the only way that I could control the shame that I had about that was to figure out what happened. And I realized that I’d never got a good answer when I blamed the narcissist who I was in the relationship with. And once I figured out that I was a participant, that there was this dance, there was this unconscious magnetic pull, that I finally figured out that I am unconsciously falling in love with the same type of person over and over again.
Ross Rosenberg: As my therapist once told me, I’m falling in love with the same woman with a different face, or as she also said, I had a broken picker. And once I figured that out, everything made sense. Then I went on this journey to find out why that happened. And all of that resulted in me writing my book, The Human Magnet Syndrome, which is currently … There was a first version, but the current version is The Human Magnet Syndrome: The Codependent Narcissist Trap. And it’s through this book I’m able to explain that this is not a coincidence. This is not bad luck. This can be stopped, but to stop it, we have to know what it is. And up until that point, no one did. And so I explain why opposite, unhealthy, dysfunctional personality types, codependents, or whom I call people with self-love deficit disorder, always predicatively, reflexively, fall in love with narcissists and vice versa.
Ross Rosenberg: And there are reasons for it, and so I spent about … Originally, the book was 350 pages. The publisher said it was too long. But I spent a long time trying to explain to people the reason, so that they can find the solution.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. So many people are in terrible relationships. They’re miserable. They start out amazing and they have this crazy connection, or this crazy sex, or they just feel like this magnet like they just can’t get away from each other. But then that can slowly turn into verbal abuse, or emotional abuse, physical abuse, and things like that. And also I think women that are intuitive at that impasse, that’s the classic person that gets involved with a narcissist also, but let’s define what a narcissist is exactly.
Ross Rosenberg: Couple things here. So first it’s not by accident. And the people that follow me understand that I attribute responsibility to the SLD, or the codependent, because if we’re going to solve a problem, we cannot be victims for the part that we have responsibility for. And so part of the Human Magnet Syndrome book and the contents of it is to explain what happened to we codependents, or people with self-love deficit disorder as a child, and the trauma we experienced as children with a narcissistic parent, and how that deeply impacted us, so that we felt that the narcissist seemed oddly familiar and oddly safe. As my dad would say, relationships, you start off as a soul mate and you end up as a cellmate. And I love that saying because all of these relationships start off with such deep, profound attraction and chemistry.
Ross Rosenberg: And chemistry, it’s the unconscious parenting of people who are oppositely dysfunctional. The other thing I want to say, and sorry for just kind of rambling here, is that I don’t really subscribe to the term empath when it is used to describe a person who is prone to fall in love with narcissists, who is stuck in a relationship with a narcissist, who can’t really get themselves to break free. And should they, the next person they see, the next person they fall in love with is a narcissist. I do believe that empaths is a very good and descriptive term that I use regularly for people who, irrespective of their background, mental health, positive or negative, have this ability to be highly empathetic, highly sensitive to people. But it’s not connected to codependency. It’s an independent variable. You can be an empath and be really healthy. Or you can be an empath and be an SLD or codependent. So hopefully that doesn’t ruffle any feathers.
Wendy Myers: No, thank you for clarifying that. That was really good. That was great. And so let’s define what a narcissist is, and then what’s codependent, or an SLD, or someone with a self-love deficit, just to make it clear.
Ross Rosenberg: Oh, absolutely. So one of the things that I did with my book was I realized the world needed a new definition because there are so many books out there, and YouTube videos that go on and on with everyone’s unique definition of what a codependent is, what a narcissist is. So as a psychotherapist with 35 years of mental health experience, I utilize the tools that I was trained in. And those are diagnostic tools. You can’t give a name to a person and say it’s a mental health disorder unless there’s a very specific diagnostic set of criteria. So I simplified it, and by answering what a codependent is, I’m going to answer what a narcissist is.
Ross Rosenberg: A codependent or someone with self-love deficit disorder in a relationship gives most, if not all, the love, respect, and caring to the individual with whom they’re connected to romantically, in love with, and they expect that it be reciprocated because of the human magnet syndrome, and they fell in love with a pathological narcissist, which I’ll explain in a second. They don’t get that reciprocity, that mutuality. They get upset, they try to change it. And here’s the most important part of the definition: they stay in the relationship. So the succinct version is someone who gives all the love, respect, and care in a relationship, wants it to be reciprocal, tries to make it mutual, they can’t, and they stay in the relationship. And that explanation accounts for the various personality types. And we won’t get into it unless you want me to, but I have different personality types for SLDs or codependents because people get confused. And they think, “Well, one type of codependent is more narcissistic than the other.”
Ross Rosenberg: So if you understand that SLDs, or codependents give all the love, respect, and care in a relationship and it’s not reciprocated, then the pathological narcissist is someone who has a personality disorder of either narcissistic, borderline, or antisocial personality disorder, and takes, demands, requires all of the love, respect, and caring.. does not reciprocate, does not want to reciprocate, and manipulates the relationship to continue. And the love, respect, and caring distribution helps explain what these two disorders are, why they match up, and why you can have so many different types of personality traits, but yet still be the same codependent.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. Aren’t there covert narcissists, they hide it really well? They’re not really that abusive, or they show love, they’re capable of showing love, so it’s very difficult to identify this individual as a narcissist.
Ross Rosenberg: So what I’ve done painstakingly in most of my work, including my books, is I describe and categorize types of problems, so people could understand because one of the biggest … By the way, I’m going to get to your question. The therapist in me kind of goes here, and then kind of goes around and gets to what I want. So everyone has a different way of explaining, and there are so many different names for it. So let’s begin and stay with mental health concepts developed by researchers, academics, therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists. And a narcissist, there’s a narcissistic personality disorder. And there are subtypes. The subtypes are not even the diagnosis. So a covert narcissist is one of the subtypes of narcissistic personality disorder, NPD. And these individuals pretend rather successfully to be loving, giving, kind, empathetic individuals for the purpose of personal gain. They create this very realistic presentation to the outside world.
Ross Rosenberg: But back at home in their private life, they are horrible monsters that have no or little empathy or concern for the people with whom they live. So this can be a therapist, this can be a doctor, it can be a teacher. It can be a rabbi, a priest, who does an incredible job of convincing the world that they’re a good guy or a good person. But they only do that because they know they are the narcissists that are conscious of it. They know that if they don’t convince people of how likable and nice and talented they are, they have no life, and they won’t have any type of respect or place in the world.
Wendy Myers: So why do you believe that most if not all codependency treatments fail? I remember my dad going to codependents anonymous meetings, or wanting me to go to those, because he was just really into therapy. He wanted to be a psychiatrist. Why do these treatments not work for codependents?
Ross Rosenberg: So let me give you an analogy. If we’re 300 years ago, I think it’s 200, and you asked me, “Why do 50% of people if they have surgery die?” And because let’s pretend I’m a doctor and I went to medical school, I will give you the answer that is equal to what the field of medicine knows at that time, and they don’t know yet that they’re wrong. And so codependency for the longest time carried on so many meanings and so many interpretations to so many different people. So if you don’t know what the problem is, or everyone has their own unique idea for what the problem is, then the solution is going to be varied.
Ross Rosenberg: So one person might do talk therapy. One might do cognitive behavioral therapy. One might do EMDR. But what I did was, I created a very succinct definition of what it is. I explain where it comes from. And with that knowledge, for example, codependency, SLDD, comes from childhood attachment trauma, the development of subsequent core shame, deep, bone aching pathological loneliness, an addiction that requires us to stay in these environments that hurt us, but that we think are good for us. And at the very top is the disorder. And so instead of looking at what I call the top of my pyramid to understand what SLDD is, codependency, I explain that those are just the symptoms, that the problems are deeper. So the reason that codependency treatment or therapy didn’t work is they didn’t know what codependency was, and therefore, had no idea on how to solve it. And so not only did I explain that, but in my subsequent work following my Human Magnet Syndrome book, I created a treatment program called “The Codependency Cure”, most of which is information is available at my selfloverecovery.com website.
Ross Rosenberg: So when you know the problem and it seems scientifically logical and you know the therapy technique that can solve it, then you have good outcomes. So going back to the analogy, once the medical field understood what single cell bacteria were and why bacteria and unclean medical equipment or surgical surgeons created infections that would ultimately kill 50% of any surgery person, patient, they understood the problem. So then they could come up with a solution, washing your hands, disinfecting everything. And it kind of runs along that same parallel. Know the problem, understand where the problem comes from, understand or develop understanding or solutions that specifically solve that problem, then you can cure it. And that’s why I came up with the term for my treatment program, “The Codependency Cure”.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. I love that because I think it also can be hard for someone to identify that, because they don’t want to think of themselves as codependent. And including myself, I’m a codependent person, and I was in a relationship with a narcissist, or a few of them. But in my life, I thought of myself as happy, successful in my career. I had good self esteem. I felt good for most of the time. But what I didn’t realize was I really had a lot of loneliness, profound feelings of loneliness when I wasn’t in a relationship, feelings of worthlessness, feelings of self hatred, lack of self-love, which I perhaps was unconscious of, largely to a degree, which I think a lot of people are unconscious of these negative feelings.
Ross Rosenberg: Well, again, knowing what codependency is, it’s attachment trauma that comes from a child’s very, from the beginning of their life all the way up to their adolescence. So if we understand PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder, if there is a horrific situation, or injury, or loss, and it’s too much for a person to manage, the brain relegates it to a part of the brain and takes it offline, becomes unconscious. In other words, because of the brain, we disassociate the memory and the feeling. We don’t know. We don’t remember. We don’t feel it. And that is the brain’s way of protecting us.
Ross Rosenberg: So if we understand attachment trauma, that it’s just not PTSD. That’s not chronic PTSD. That it’s trauma over a large swath of a person’s life, starting from birth, sometimes to 17. And that trauma is so significant that the only way to survive really is to block it out, is to numb it out, to disassociate. So it’s natural for any codependent, any self-love deficient person to have no recollection of the trauma that they experienced as a child because it’s just too painful. So when we understand that, then it makes sense why when these adult SLDs or codependents take what I call relationship templates that comes from the attachment trauma, and they bring that forward into relationships, because of the chemistry and the opposite matching up. And once they get caught, they get trapped into the web of the narcissist, then it’s too much pain. And they use what always has helped them, they block it off. They numb out, they disassociate.
Ross Rosenberg: So one of my primary challenges for any person who comes to me for my self-love recovery treatment program, AKA, the Codependency Cure, is to acknowledge that they really don’t know what happened. They don’t remember it. And therefore, not make them feel more ashamed of something that they’re not ready to handle. So that is why it’s so difficult for people to overcome codependency, because the solution requires you to know what part of the brain it’s in, and know a way to bring that out because traditional therapy doesn’t work.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, yeah. And especially when people have this really deep rooted trauma and they don’t really know how it’s acting on them. They don’t know how it’s driving their behavior, and certainly not in their partners that they’re choosing. So if someone listening to this, they think perhaps they’re in a narcissist, codependent, or SLDD relationship, what should they do? How do you break up with a narcissist? Because it’s very difficult, you have this … You call it magnet syndrome. You have this very strong connection with this person. It can be a really extreme physical chemistry or emotional chemistry. How do you break up with that person?
Ross Rosenberg: I wish there was a simple answer, but I’ll give you my simplest answer. If the relationship fills a void that is so deep and empty and ultimately painful that your brain makes it so that you don’t feel it, there is this huge consequence of even the idea of breaking up. First of all, we have what the narcissists do, and that in itself is an explanation. But to understand why SLDDs or codependents stay in a relationship, is because the relationship, remember, SLDD is an addiction. And it seeks a way to numb the person so they don’t have to feel the loneliness, the core shame, and remembering the trauma. So it makes sense that they stay in these relationships because they don’t know any other way to be in this world except with someone they want to work really hard to love, that can never love them.
Ross Rosenberg: So to stop it, that’s why all these therapies don’t work, because you can’t … I have had so many clients who were brilliant. In fact, I have names for different types of codependents. But this type of codependent, I call it a cerebral codependent, where they use their intellect to try to make them feel better. But not that I consider myself brilliant, but I didn’t figure it out, and I was a really good therapist who had a couple good moments of intelligence. But it doesn’t matter what you know or how smart you are because the unconscious impact of what happened to you as a child and the replication of that powerlessness into your adult relationships, that to stop it, there’s this feeling of you will fall apart and break, and no one will love you.
Ross Rosenberg: So if that is the problem, first of all, we know why it’s impossible to break up. And we then know why the next relationship puts the SLD with a narcissist. So then the solution requires a treatment program that incorporates every part of the SLD codependent problem and has therapy or treatment that is specifically designed to solve the problem. For example, I have an 11 stage treatment program called the Self-Love Recovery Treatment Program. And one stage is just using my hitch by healing the inner trauma child, trauma resolution method. It’s just using that method. And then there’s 10 other stages, so that the way to solve a problem is to understand that every mental health psychological intervention has to match up with the problem and have a way to resolve it, which is why coaches do not work with this. Therapists do not work with this if they do not have the mental health background or training. And it’s just you have to find someone who has a specific understanding of this disorder and what is needed to resolve it.
Wendy Myers: Fantastic. And so what is your SLDD pyramid? And why is it instrumental to your codependency cure program?
Ross Rosenberg: Absolutely. So if you guys are listening or watching, just Google Rosenberg, my last name, pyramid animation YouTube, and it’ll come right up for you. So again, what I did in my books is I had to create an explanation so people could understand the problem, so that the treatment would work. And by changing the word, the term, self-love deficit disorder first, I got it out of stigmatizing, negative, judgmental, icky, codependent.
Wendy Myers: No one wants to be called a codependent, because that term, it’s a term, you’re like, “No, that’s not me.”
Ross Rosenberg: Yeah. And plus, codependent was made, was created for another disorder that in the ’70s that became another disorder and another disorder. So self-love deficit disorder actually explains the problem. So the pyramid explains in logical … So it’s logical and intuitive. And I promise you any SLD, any codependent who’s listening out there … Is your podcast a video or is it audio?
Wendy Myers: It’s both.
Ross Rosenberg: Okay. Listening or viewing, my experience is they resonate strongly with this explanation, that they experienced incredible, at the bottom of the pyramid is attachment trauma. And that is the experience that is often not remembered because of the nature of trauma. It’s moved and disassociated to another part of our brain. But it is the experience of profound trauma at the hands of a narcissistic parent and to some degree, the codependent parent, because codependent parents are responsible for what happens to kids, even though they are not blamed specifically for the abuse or the harm.
Ross Rosenberg: Attachment trauma is the experience of a child being raised with a narcissistic parent who can never love you for who you are, can only love you for what you do to them, how you make them feel good, or how you don’t upset them. So you are raised in this family that you have to mold yourself into the person the narcissist needs, disavow your real self, and start your life from age zero to maybe your teen years as kind of an imposter to your real self. And that attachment trauma is profound. From attachment trauma comes core shame, and that is the belief that one is fundamentally broken, unlovable, or not worthy of a loving relationship.
Ross Rosenberg: And from core shame is pathological loneliness, is a bone aching, searing pain. It’s not just loneliness, but loneliness where you don’t feel like you have a right to live in this world, or you are comfortable in your skin. Your shame is so bad, you don’t think that anyone could ever love you, unless somehow you take care of them. So we got attachment trauma, core shame, and pathological loneliness. And the next part of the pyramid is SLDD or codependency addiction, and that is a compulsive pursuit of the drug to take away the pain of shame and loneliness, and that is a relationship. The addiction is not to a narcissist. That would make no sense. But if you are addicted to a relationship and you’re an SLD, you’re always at a high 90%, 98% probability that the next person will be a narcissist.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. It’s like a peptide addiction. Right? It’s a little like a chemical.
Ross Rosenberg: A peptide, no, that doesn’t account for it. To an addiction, I mean, I don’t want to take this off track, but an addiction is created by a combination of influences, first the brain, and serotonin and dopamine issues, and the brain’s need to get a certain amount of dopamine that if it doesn’t get, it will go into a mini invisible convulsion that will push the brain to get it. So it’s like any other addiction, whether it’s chemical or it’s behavioral, that if the person does not get that drug, they will experience pain. The withdrawal symptom for SLDD is pathological loneliness. And every SLD knows that. So we have attachment trauma, core shame, pathological loneliness, SLDD addiction. At the very top is codependency. And I, as I explained earlier, I described the core definition of it and the different type of personalities that are subject to that.
Wendy Myers: Okay. And so when someone is in a relationship with a narcissist, what are some of the steps they need to take to develop some self-love. If they think they’re in a relationship with a narcissist, they suspect that, what steps can they take to then get out of that relationship?
Ross Rosenberg: It’s virtually impossible to develop self-love abundance, so I think … I’m not a medical doctor, but I think like a medical doctor. In other words, if SLDD is a diagnosis, then there has to be a treatment. And if the treatment is good, it solves the problem. So the solution to the problem is self-love abundance. So if you go through treatment and you solve SLDD, you neutralize it, you feel self-love abundance, and that is the automatic reflexive, it’s the opposite of the narcissist codependent human magnet syndrome. It’s a reflexive attraction, magnetic attraction to healthy people. So what I’m trying to say is you cannot survive in any healthy way, a relationship with a pathological narcissist. That idea, that advice is dangerous because it promotes the idea that you can love yourself, you can take care of yourself, when everything around you is doing the opposite.
Wendy Myers: I guess what I meant was, develop enough self-love to then leave the person. Maybe that’s what I meant.
Ross Rosenberg: Sorry. I remembered that question and I kinda forgot. I was getting there, I just forgot. You cannot develop self-love if you don’t solve self-love deficit disorder. So to solve love deficit disorder is to go through the treatment, and there’s no easy way to go through the treatment. There’s no type of pointers I can give someone to say, “Look in the mirror. Smile. Say you love yourself. Once a day, do something good for yourself.” All these great superficial therapeutic techniques that some people use, they don’t work. The only way to get to self-love is to understand how deeply it’s embedded and rooted in you, and how that self-love deficit disorder is one of these trees that are invasive. The roots are everywhere.
Ross Rosenberg: And that if you do something that makes you feel good, there’s a really high probability you’re covering up for how you really feel because that’s what many SLDs do. And I wish I had an easy solution of telling people how to achieve self-love while in a relationship with a narcissist. There’s ways to do it, but more often than not, it’s impossible because a narcissist has everything to lose if their partner, their lover, their wife, their spouse, becomes self-love abundant. So they will actively try to break it down.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, yeah. And so if someone’s in a relationship with a narcissist, and maybe there’s just something in the back of their mind, they’re just hoping maybe there’s a glimmer of hope they can stay together.
Ross Rosenberg: Oh, there is a glimmer of hope.
Wendy Myers: Can narcissists be cured?
Ross Rosenberg: Oh, absolutely not, absolutely not.
Wendy Myers: Okay. So that was my question. If someone’s thinking that perhaps they can go to therapy, or the guy can change, dispel any notion of that.
Ross Rosenberg: That is why you have self-love deficit or codependency, go to a psychotherapist or mental health practitioner because a lot of these coaches online, they don’t have the training, education, or background. A narcissist as I describe them in Human Magnet Syndrome, has a personality disorder. And that group of mental health disorders share the primary characteristic is that they don’t know they have a problem. And therefore, they don’t think they need help. And should they be forced into getting help, they kind of break apart. And I also have a video that will explain how they will fake getting help if they think you’re going to leave them.
Ross Rosenberg: So if someone has a personality disorder and they don’t think they have a problem, and they think everyone else is to blame, therapy doesn’t work. Therefore, there’s not a cure. So statistically speaking, there’s almost 0% probability that someone, a sociopath, can be cured. There is less than a 3% possibility if you have … If you are in treatment, see the thing is you have to go to specific treatment that is long-term. But if someone with narcissistic personality goes there, there’s a 5% to 10%. And there’s about a 20% probability-
Wendy Myers: So you’re telling me there’s a chance.
Ross Rosenberg: There’s no chance because I’m talking about these statistics.
Ross Rosenberg: So I didn’t say 20% of people with BPD can get better and … I said if they go to treatment, and then I said a probability is almost zero, very small, that they’ll go to treatment for the purpose of wanting to be better because they don’t know they have a problem, so there’s very little hope if they have narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, or antisocial personality disorder, which are the disorders that are naturally attracted to codependents.
Wendy Myers: And then you say that as a parent, say your parent was a narcissist, or had antisocial personality disorder, or borderline personality disorder, but also a parent who’s an alcoholic or a drug addict has the same effect as all these other parents.
Ross Rosenberg: Thank you for bringing that up. I should’ve said that. So in The Human Magnet Syndrome, it simplifies it. It tells you what codependency is, and then it tells you that codependents are attracted to individuals with one of three personality disorders, and/or someone with an out of control addiction. And the addiction is a little bit in the gray area because if someone is a heroin addict, a sex addict, any type of addict, the addiction by itself drives a person to do things that are completely selfish, destructive to others, that are very narcissistic. But you cannot tell if that person is a narcissist unless the addict goes into treatment and stops his drug of choice. That’s when you can tell if the person to begin with was either a codependent, or a pathological narcissist, or somewhere in between. But as an out of control addict, they resemble pathological narcissists.
Wendy Myers: Great. And also, it can be very difficult to leave a narcissist. I know because I left one last May. You guys know I got a divorce and I left my husband, who is a narcissist, when I kind of came to that realization. And I had a lot of help from Niki Gratrix, who’s one of my best friends and emotional trauma expert, helped me kind of realize that because I just couldn’t figure that out. I knew all about narcissists. I knew about a lot of things regarding psychology and emotional trauma, but I just couldn’t figure him out because he just seemed like a very loving person, a very giving person, a very spiritual person.
Wendy Myers: But so I knew that person was not going to just … If I said, “Hey, I’m not happy, I want to break up. Can you please move out?” That wasn’t going to happen because they have so much to lose. They have everything to lose, especially perhaps you’re financially supporting them. So for me, I just had to leave and disappear, and then ask the person to move out because I just knew that they’d try to manipulate, cry, get angry, or then do everything they can to maintain that relationship. So for me, the answer was just completely physically removing myself until that person was gone. And so not easy, it was a very, very difficult thing to do. But sometimes you have to take extreme measures like that.
Ross Rosenberg: Yeah. But for most SLDs, and I’m going to say 98%, that doesn’t work because … Let’s say it works because it removes you from the toxicity, the abuse and neglect, the triangulation, the poisoning of minds, the gas lighting. So it does work to that respect. But that’s not SLDD, that’s not codependency. Codependency is not the problem with the narcissist. It’s the unconscious attraction to them in feeling like that’s the only type of love that feels right, so that most SLDs who can finally break free from … Me too. I told you I have past marriages. I felt like once I left them, it was solved. But it is a very, very strong possibility that the next person they’re going to fall in love with is going to be a narcissist.
Ross Rosenberg: So one solves a problem in the here and now, and it’s really difficult to do it that way, but possible. But to really do it the right way is to look at all of the underlying causes, find someone who can help you sift through it, and sort it out, neutralize it, and then through that process, you feel self-love. And then through this treatment program, you don’t have the craving to repeat the relationship environment of your childhood without knowing it.
Wendy Myers: Yes. I love that, I love that, love that. So tell the listeners where we can find you, where we can get your programs and whatnot.
Ross Rosenberg: Oh, thank you. Well, my website, Self-Love Recovery Institute, which is selfloverecovery.com, is the portal for everything that I do, whether it’s psychotherapy, and it’s interesting because I’m starting to no longer call it psychotherapy because what I provide is treatment, treatment with me, my educational resources, my books, and more. So selfloverecovery.com is the place to go. And I am very, very grateful for anyone who just takes a peek at it, not because I want a sale, but it’s because I know, unless I’m delusional, I don’t think I am, this is the only way that it works. And by the way, it would be my dream come true, and it’s my ambition that therapists would learn this so that I’m not the only one doing this. So that is why I developed educational resources that were created for both general audiences and mental health practitioners.
Wendy Myers: Fantastic. Yeah, so go check that out. You also have an amazing YouTube channel. What’s the name of the YouTube channel?
Ross Rosenberg: Oh, yeah. Thank you. How could I forget? It’s Ross Rosenberg. You can go to YouTube.com/rossrosenberg, or just type in my name. I have 165 videos. They’ve been viewed 22 million times.
Wendy Myers: Wow.
Ross Rosenberg: And I think I have 127,000 subscribers. So it’s a great resource for others and for many who want some of my abbreviated information on these subjects.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, you have some great videos. I’ve definitely spent time on your channel watching some of your videos.
Ross Rosenberg: Thank you.
Wendy Myers: Well, Ross, thank you so much for coming on the show. Is there anything that we left out that maybe you want to address?
Ross Rosenberg: No. I actually think you did a really good interview and you gave me a chance to kind of get to the basics and give your viewers, your listeners some information to consider.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. And I wanted to have you come on because you’re one of the world’s experts, or the world expert on self-love deficit disorder and narcissists. And it’s very common. I mean, narcissism is very common in our society. It’s very common in the United States. It’s just kind of our culture just kind of fosters narcissism. And so it’s something you need to be aware of just so that you can live your healthiest life because I want people listening to the show to know that they deserve to feel good. And that starts with loving yourself. And that’s kind of more of the message I’m trying to put out there, is that love is the only thing that matters, and that starts with loving yourself and recognizing these patterns like we’re talking about on the show today.
Ross Rosenberg: One of my favorite quotes, and I like to end almost any discussion or presentation, is from George Eliot. “It’s never too late to be the person you should’ve been.”
Wendy Myers: Yes, yes, absolutely. Well, Dr. Rosenberg, thanks for coming on the show. And everyone, thanks so much for listening to The Myers Detox Podcast. And I love doing the show, bringing you guys the world experts on everything related to mental health, detox, physical health, et cetera, bio hacking tips, so that you can live your best life and have the health that you deserve, mental and physical. So thanks for tuning in. I’m Wendy Myers of myersdetox.com.
