It's Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People

by Ramani Durvasula

The clients I have worked with have gone through divorces that spanned years; been doubted by the leadership in their company when they made documented claims of harassment and abuse and watched the workplace perpetrator be moved to a new post in a different location; been cut off by their families when they set a boundary; had grandchildren withheld as punishment; watched elderly parents be financially abused by narcissistic siblings; survived invalidating childhoods just to have to survive invalidating adulthoods; had narcissistic friends start online smear campaigns when they didn’t get their way; and had narcissistic parents manipulate them from their deathbeds. I have worked in organizations where gaslighting was the preferred mode of communication, and I witnessed the most toxic people be enabled by the systems they worked in, to the detriment of the best and brightest in those places.