Hi, you all.
Rebecca Zung here, top 1% divorce attorney and the bestselling author of the books Negotiate
Like You M.A.T.T.E.R. and Breaking Free: A Step-by-Step Divorce Guide.
This is part two of my interview, my exclusive interview with Tracy Malone, the founder of
the world famous narcissist abuse support group.
She has chapters all over the world.
Thousands and thousands of people have joined, unfortunately, because the other global pandemic
that's going on in the world is narcissism, and Tracy knows a lot about it.
She's escaped relationships herself that were narcissistic and abusive, and she tells you
how to do it right here in these videos.
This is part two.
Make sure you subscribe, hit that notification bell, and we're going to go ahead and dive
in right now.
Talk about your role as an empath and how that actually made you more of a target for
narcissists, because I think it's really important that people understand that.
Well, I think there's a lot of factors that make us targets, and being an empath is one,
being someone that has no boundaries.
So, in my recovery, I had to learn my own accountability.
After I learned about them and the behaviors and the stages and all of this stuff that
goes into what a narcissist does, I had to then go, "Why me?"
That was, "Yes, I'm an empath.
Yes, I'm a people pleaser.
I will do anything for anyone.
I don't care.
I will move your house next weekend if you need me to."
So, a giving, caring person, but there's other things like the boundaries.
I realized I was raised by a narcissistic mother in the end of this whole journey, and
that's why I didn't learn boundaries.
When a narcissist is looking for someone, the empath part is a big part, because they
can get away with more with someone that has loose boundaries.
So they've tested you all along to see if you'd be a good person that would do their
beck and call.
So, no boundaries is a thing.
Being a people pleaser is another thing.
Your own childhood.
They look for what you're looking for.
Because I had kind of a crappy family, if you would, I wanted someone with a really
good family.
They seemed so upstanding.
They went on vacations together.
I became attracted to that.
So they dangled the carrot of, "Oh, we've got a good family, come to our house, we'll
be your family."
So they're looking for whatever you're looking for.
Your vulnerabilities have to be explored, and I have a course that is how to change
the story, and how to learn what your vulnerabilities are, so that you don't give that information
to the next person in your life.
We'll make sure to drop a link to that course in our notes as well, so that people can find
that if they want that.
But I think that's so true, and I have seen that too.
The other thing is, that I've noticed... because one of the covert narcissists in my life,
is a family member.
I went to dinner with one of my dearest friends, who's a licensed clinical psychologist and
a PhD and brilliant, and I was saying that my husband was feeling guilty about putting
up boundaries.
My friend said that guilt was actually instilled by this person.
That his sense of what's right and what's wrong is actually from that person.
So, he feels bad about putting up boundaries because that's what this person wanted him
to feel.
That was a huge aha moment for us.
And through his own work and whatever, he's decided to have more boundaries with this
person, and it's been better for both of us in the long run.
You feel guilty, but remember that a lot of what you're feeling is what they've conditioned
you to feel.
Mm-hmm (affirmative), exactly, exactly.
I have a book on narcissistic in-laws up on Amazon, and I think the audible just got approved,
so hopefully that'll get out there this week.
Oh, that's on my website as well.
I have it featured as my narcissist resources.
Good, yay.
But it's if you have a narcissistic parent.
I'll use the example of my husband having a narcissistic parent.
He's controlled by that person.
And either they have the strength to stand up to their parent, so that they can protect
the spouse, or they are so controlled, say, by money, in my case, that they've got to
listen to the Holy Grail of the parent.
So you've got these different levels of where your spouse, if you've got a narcissistic
in-law, could be, where they're sort of looking at it and going, "Well, my husband can't even
battle with his mom.
He's not strong enough because he's been emotionally manipulated his whole life."
That's how it was for us.
They manipulated him into this divorce and ran the show.
So for me, that was such an important part out there because people think, "Oh God, what
am I going to do about this narcissistic in-law?"
And I'm using my case as an example, but it comes down to your spouse being able to stand
up to them.
If your spouse can't stand up to them, then you're in big trouble.
So when we decide to marry, we have to look at the whole family with a different lens
these days.
Yeah, I think a lot of times you don't even realize the person is a narcissist, especially
if they're a covert narcissist, because they're so good at hiding.
Like the rest of the world thinks this person is wonderful, and they purposely put themselves
in positions where everyone thinks they're wonderful.
They're oftentimes clergy or doctors or in places-
[inaudible 00:00:06:31], doctors, yeah.
... Yeah.
Politicians.
Where they only show their bad side to their target.
No one else sees it.
And even with their target, they're constantly gaslighting.
"Well, I thought we had that conversation.
You agreed to that."
And it's something completely different than what you agreed to.
Or, "I told you that I would take care of the bills."
Somebody saying, "I thought you were going to put the money in the bank account."
"I told you I would take care of it."
And three days later, you're like, "The money's still not in the bank account."
"Well, I told you I would take care of it.
I meant I would take care of the bills."
And they're constantly changing it.
Well, then they haven't even paid the bills yet.
I'm kind of getting a little bit into tricks people play in divorce.
I know you're writing a book on that, and I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk
about that also.
Thank you.
I don't want to steal your thunder on that.
So, talk about that a little bit.
Sure, sure.
I am writing a book.
We're hoping it'll be out by June.
It is called You Can't Make This Shit Up.
Then there's a whole subtitle about narcissists and how to be a surTHRIVER through it.
I've actually sourced, not only hundreds of tricks that people from my website submitted,
from my Facebook group, and from my support groups that I run have submitted, and gone,
"This is what they've done."
And taking that same trick and going, "Well, here's how you could have helped yourself
on that.
They turned off all the electricity in your house because it was in their name.
As soon as they move out, put it in your name.
Protect yourself."
There are things that we can do to protect some of these things.
But the idea is that they have been planning this in their mind for a very long time.
Even before a mention of divorce has happened, they're usually hiding money.
They're usually controlling the accounts, and they started the smear campaigns.
They are trying to isolate you by slowly dripping conversations to your friends.
There's a few that are really common, like, "She's an alcoholic.
She's a bipolar person."
Him, her, whatever it is.
But they've been slipping that to your friends for a long time, with concern.
"Oh gosh, Tracy had so many drinks at the party last week.
She's doing that so much more often.
I'm really worried about her."
That's just a planting of a seed before anything happens.
Now, when they decide to have the divorce, all of a sudden you're a full-blown alcoholic
and, "Look, I've got proof.
Did I not tell you about that three months ago?"
So, a lot of it has been seeded before the whole event happens.
I've had people with fake filing, where they've gotten legal papers from their husband and,
"Oh my god, he just filed for divorce on me."
And it was a fake document.
The game and the trick with that was to simply convince her that they could use the same
lawyer.
"You don't need your own lawyer, but look, I've already filed, so why file.
I did it.
We're good."
Yeah, that's a huge one.
And I can tell you, as a lawyer, the lawyers can't represent both of you.
They can only represent one of you.
Oh, see, and that's part of the game.
At least they try it.
They throw it out there to take you off from getting a lawyer, hold back the money so that
you aren't able to hire a lawyer.
So many people get stuck in that rut.
I know a lot of people end up having to take it out of, say, a 401k, to be able to start
the divorce process.
When you've got no assets and you're stuck, that's how they control you.
They think, "Oh, I've got her money, she can't do it."
And you end up with the raw end of the deal.
There's so many tricks they can do both before, during court, and continuing for many, many
years after, right?
Yeah.
I can't wait to read it.
I know it's going to be fantastic.
Once it's out, I will definitely feature it on my website, along with your other book,
which I already have there.
I'll go back and actually add it to the notes for this particular episode because this will
live on forever.
So, I think it's going to be fantastic.
Tell us about the word surTHRIVER.
You mentioned that just briefly, and I love it.
I have my little mugs.
Everyone's always going, "Going from surviving to thriving."
I just made up this word, and I'm like, "I don't know, I love it."
I've been buying lots of URLs and trademarking it, but it is what we are.
We're surTHRIVERS.
We can all be surTHRIVERS if we do the work, we learn to control our own emotions, learn
to move on after a divorce, and learn to have a happy life, because this is just a chapter
in our life.
Although it is usually a horrific, like made for Lifetime TV movie kind of a chapter, we
can't hold on to that.
We do have to move on to the rest of our life.
Being a surTHRIVER means you survived all that, and now the best revenge is moving on.
The best revenge is making a video.
For me, that was an awesome thing.
It was meant to help people, but in many ways, I know that I feel vindicated.
The truth is out there, and I'm not going to hold it back, and I'm going to thrive without
any worries of them in my past.
Yeah, absolutely.
And you are surTHRIVING.
That is for sure.
I really think that, and I tell people this, and Dr. Ramani and I actually just did a whole
bunch of a series together, and she and I kind of have a slight differential on...
I'm like all about get the hell out of there as fast as you can.
Being the psychologist, she understands that some people aren't ready, or some people aren't
there yet, or they financially can't, or they have children to consider.
Of course, I get that.
But I still say, as soon as you can, get the hell out of there.
Because once you shut down those boundaries, completely cut them off.
They're going to keep trying to hoover, or they're going to keep trying to come back,
and they're going to keep trying to do whatever they can to manipulate you for a period of
time.
But once they're no longer getting any supply from you at all, and there's just no value
any more to be had, you're not upset by what they're doing, because that's... they get
supply when you're upset, then they'll just move on to their next target, their next victim,
because they've got to just keep getting supply from somewhere.
If it's not going to be you, then it's just going to end up being somebody else, unfortunately.
But at least it won't be you anymore.
Well, the hardest part, I think, in this, and I was very, very blessed to not have a
child with my narcissistic husband, but co-parenting with a narcissist.
I was able to move on because there was no more connection.
Those that have to continuously deal with them, and deal with the drama until the kids-
So hard.
... are able to make their own choices- So hard.
... it's an ongoing battle, and they have to still move on with their life too.
Despite the fights, despite that weekly drama.
Going on with your life, its got to be your choice.
You have to say, "I don't want that part to just be my life.
I don't want the battle.
I don't want to be this soldier that's just battling all day long."
Make peace with what you can do, use the legal system for what you need to do, and really
hold onto your kids and teach them what's right and wrong, because the struggle begins
with the... daddy lets them stay up until midnight, "You've got boundaries and rules.
How come we can't be like that at the other house."
Those things are always going to be there.
Oh yeah.
That happened in my divorce.
Actually, my ex-husband isn't even a narcissist, but he was still trying to get the kids on
his side.
I was trying to get them to get good grades, and he'd say, "Oh, she's just such a bitch.
She's so uptight," which is exactly what a 15-year-old boy wants to hear.
So, it doesn't help.
No, it does not.
No.
So, [crosstalk 00:15:46].
But it is what it is.
I want to make sure that we hear about you.
Where can we find you?
Your YouTube channel, narcissists abuse support group.
Tell us everything.
If you go to my website, narcissistabusesupport.com, you will find links to my YouTube channel,
my podcast.
I'm on Spotify.
I'm everywhere.
You can find resources.
I built my website to bring resources to people.
It's not just a little website about Tracy.
It is, here is every meetup support group that my team can find every month.
And we check it to make sure they're either still in business or not.
Find a support group near you.
That was what saved my life.
I started my own support group because I needed a group.
Now there's 1,500 members.
So, get some support.
That's on my website.
Find a therapist.
If you're a therapist and coach that really understands this, that's on my website.
So, everything that you could need to recover is going to be featured on that website.
And you can find everything out about me, sign up for my coaching, get some advice.
I help people through their divorce.
I help people after their divorce.
And I help people that are dealing with a narcissistic family member as well.
I've had the gamut, and I've studied it all.
And like I'm interviewing with you now, I interview so many experts.
And before I interview them, I read books.
I've read about 250 books, not only on them, but on how to heal, how to deal with the PTSD,
how do we move on from the anger, the fear.
Understanding your fear is going to make you become stronger.
If that fear is controlling you, the negative voices in your head, your inner child, there's
so much there.
So, get to my website, and then you can find everything else about me.
You are a rock star, and I am so thrilled that I got to talk with you here today.
Definitely go check out her resources.
Get the help that you need.
It's there.
Thank you so much, Tracy.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for joining me today on this part two of this two-part episode with Tracy Malone.
If you haven't already, make sure you hit subscribe, hit that notification bell.
If you liked this video, give it a like, give it a share, drop me a comment.
And if you haven't grabbed my Crush My Negotiation Prep Worksheet, you're going to want to make
sure you grab that.
Don't go into a negotiation without it.
I will drop a link to that below as well, as well as part one of this episode so you
can go back and check that out, if you haven't done that already.
I'm Rebecca Zung, top 1% divorce attorney, and I'm so glad that you're here, and so glad
that you're a part of my community and part of this channel.
I will see you in the next video.
Remember, today's a great day to start negotiating your best life.