Welcome to the narcissistic abuse recovery podcast. I'm Caroline Stawson and I'll be sharing with you

awareness, understanding and education about the devastating effects of narcissistic abuse to help you thrive.

I want you to know that I've been exactly where you are now and I believe you.

And this show is all about taking you from trauma to transformation.

So in this episode, I want to talk to you about two words that may conjure up very different concepts to you, or it may actually make you think,

well, they're the same thing, aren't they? And that's narcissism and confidence. Very often when we

think about a narcissist, we naturally gravitate towards thinking that a narcissist is someone who,

you know, will walk into a room, command that attention, look at me, look at me, someone who might take selfies, someone who is

grandiose, somebody who lacks empathy. Now, you are right on some of those, but there's a real

problem in our society today with what we really think a narcissist is.

Somebody who just takes selfies of themselves doesn't make them a narcissist, okay? Because they might

be doing that because they are insecure. And that, again, doesn't make them a narcissist,

even though we also know that narcissists do lack that sense of

self. They do feel really insecure. This is where the problem arises with using the word

narcissist around in the world of narcissism, because when people call somebody else a narcissist,

immediately what we think about is the diagnosis,

the narcissistic personality disorder. So how many times have you heard someone say, I know I heard

this many, many times, see if you can relate, that you would talk about your ex or your mom or

your dad or your partner or your friend, co-worker, that they're a narcissist.

And a number of things can happen.

One, you can see them actively rolling their eyes at you as if like, oh, no, not that word again.

And then others will almost push back and say to you, oh, have they been diagnosed?

...