A leading psychologist has revealed the ‘Three R’s’ that mean you could be inadvertently dating a narcissist. Appearing on Dragons' Den star Stephen Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO podcast, Dr. Ramani Durvasula, an author and professor of psychology at California State University, revealed the top three 'red flags' that she believes are the classic characteristics of those in narcissistic relationships.
The author of ‘Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist’, outlined the 'Three R’s' as: 'Rumination, Regret and Recall'.
She told Stephen: "Rumination is an obsessive thinking about the relationship initially in an attempt to try and fix it. Trying to make sense of something that makes no sense.”
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She outlined the next R as Regret: “Regret leads to bigger themes like grief. The regret that: 'This is the marriage I created and my child will never get a healthy model of marriage', the regret that: 'I have spent 20 years in this relationship and all I have to show for it is a whole lot of nothing and it's harm to me.'"
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The last R, according to Dr Durvasula is Recall: “People in narcissistic relationships have an uncanny ability to cherry-pick the good things that happen in the relationship to keep justifying it to themselves.”
She continued: “They might be in a narcissistic relationship where the person has treated them shamelessly for months. but on one day of that month when the narcissist person went to the grocery store and for the first time remembered to bring back two muffins so you could have a muffin, the person would be like, ‘Wasn't that the best? We had muffins together.’”
"The euphoric recall is the over-focus on those good experiences as a way of maintaining the confirmation bias."
She added that many in narcissistic relationships aren’t necessarily thinking they need to get out, but rather thinking they feel confused: "They are saying: 'I am so confused, I am not enough, nothing I do is ever enough, maybe there is something wrong with me.'"
She also explained that the availability of research and information online within the last 10 years had led to many questioning their relationship dynamics: “The earlier you identify it, the less trauma bonded you will become, which makes it easier for you to make clear-headed decisions about how you want to proceed.”
She continued: “People in these relationships are confused, they blame themselves for everything that goes wrong, they are walking on eggshells. They have in essence modified themselves to be exactly what the narcissistic partner wants, but it's a very slow process of indoctrination – we say these relationships are death by a thousand cuts.”
What is a narcissist? Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others.
Treatment for narcissistic personality disorder centres around talk therapy, also called psychotherapy. According to the Mayo Clinic, narcissistic personality disorder affects more males than females, and it often begins in the teens or early adulthood.
If you believe you could be dating a narcissist, or want to take steps to ensure you don't fall for one, Dr. Ramani has shared her ten top tips.
- Own your truth and reality
- Stop falling for charisma and charm
- Don't get lost in superficial qualities
- Watch how they treat other people
- Learn how they behave under stress or frustration
- Breathe and take things slowly
- Disengage from the enablers
- Stop giving multiple second chances
- Cultivate a healthier social network
- Start getting comfortable with taking the less popular path
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