The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Most Replayed Moment: How to Know If You're Being Gaslit by a Narcissist And What to Do About It: Dr Ramani Durvasula
Fri, 23 May 2025
Dr. Ramani Durvasula explains the toxic and insidious nature of narcissistic abuse and gaslighting. In this powerful conversation, learn the psychological tactics narcissists use, from denying your reality to invalidating your experiences, and how to reclaim your sense of self in the face of manipulation. Listen to the full episode here - Spotify - https://g2ul0.app.link/iSxOEXrTzTb Apple - https://g2ul0.app.link/JjQg2rvTzTb Watch the Episodes On YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Dr Ramani Durvasula - https://doctor-ramani.com/# Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the signs of being in a narcissistic relationship?
You spend time, even today, dealing with patients who are the victim of a narcissistic relationship or the victim of a narcissist.
Every week. Every week. I mean, it's probably one of the, if not the most gratifying part of my week. I'm a big believer that if you're a mental health practitioner, you practice mental health. So that's a privilege to be able to be in that room and to work with clients. But
It would be so easy when you're dealing at a macro level, large populations going on YouTube, writing books, to get distanced from what is happening to individual people's lives. One of the tricky bits with research is we study populations. We study samples, right? We study hundreds of people. What happens in the room is something very different.
And you start to recognize, A, how badly these relationships harm people, their schemas of the world, their schemas of themselves. And B, how much potential for intervention there is with these clients through very, very simple approaches around education about narcissism, validation of their experience, breaking through self-blame and teaching them to trust themselves.
So how many patients do you think you've seen that have been victims of narcissists?
I mean, hundreds, hundreds, really. And I even use the word survivor. I hate to call them victims because I don't even think they're that passive. I mean, I think that they just weren't. No one ever taught anyone this, right? I'll give you the example. When people are in a relationship with somebody who's living with addiction, it's very clear what they're dealing with.
You have a person, they're using a substance that's altering them, that's altering their behavior, that's taking them away from who they are in person. People in relationships with addicts will say, I'm in two relationships. I'm in a relationship with a sober person, and I'm in a relationship with somebody who's using or intoxicated or denying or defending their use. Two people.
And it breaks the people in those relationships, and we're willing to call it that. The experience people have in narcissistic relationships in a way is no different. With the added bit though, that at least with addiction, people can say, I see what the behavior is. I see what the issue is. Addiction's a disease and we know it's treatable. Narcissism, not so much. And on top of that,
The narcissistic person has this very well-developed, very successful behavioral repertoire. They can go out in the world and they're able to be charming and charismatic and confident and smart and the center of attention and running companies. And behind closed doors, they psychologically eviscerate the people they're with.
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Chapter 2: How can you identify narcissistic behaviors?
By the time the gaslighter's done with someone, they have lost all sense of, they don't trust themselves at all. And so if they don't leave the relationship, and some people don't, they are then sort of in this, again, this form of servitude with the narcissistic person, the gaslighting person, almost relying on them to lead them through reality.
So it's almost like utter submission at that point, that the gaslighter gets to dictate reality. And then over time, there's this tactic that narcissistic and other abusive people use called DARVO. DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse, Victim, and Offender. It's a construct that was developed by Dr. Jennifer Fried. Deny, Attack, Reverse, Victim, and Offender.
So what the narcissistic person will in a very skilled, I mean, in a cruelly skillful way do is... If the person, the gaslighted person ever attempts to push back on something that the narcissist has done, like you came, you said you were going to be home by nine o'clock last night. You didn't get home till one in the morning. the narcissistic person with denial said, that's not true.
I came, yeah, I didn't get home at nine, but I didn't come home at any one in the morning. But again, like, what is your problem? Like, what do you do? Like you read the ADT guide all day to see what time I come in the door. And you know what? Like, I can't believe that this is my life. I worked so hard to keep us in this fabulous house. I worked so hard so you can stay home and I'm the bad guy.
Like, I can't even believe that this is the issue. Like you put me through so much. Reverse victim and offender. He was out till one in the morning and he knows it. But now he shut down the conversation. It is an insidious dynamic because done enough, you literally strip another person of their reality. And that is unacceptable to me. That's absolute abuse.
Do you see this a lot?
All the time. All the time. It is the dynamic that once it had name to it. When the word is used right, most people use this word wrong. That whole process I described is gaslighting. When the word is used correctly, it's powerful. It captures a unique interpersonal dynamic that really eats people from the inside out. I hear it. I see it all the time.
by family members, by partners, in the workplace, you name it. And it really messes people up because they feel like they've lost their minds and they feel like they can't trust themselves. And I think that's a terrible thing to do to someone.
What should you do if you're being gaslit?
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