Elisa Donovan

Sometimes my husband might say, I'm a difficult personality.

Mine never says that.

He'd be wrong, but he might say that.

Obviously.

What do they mean?

So here's the real difference in those is that, again, as I said before, we all grow up with patterns, either patterns that we modeled from our caregivers or patterns that we did in opposition to our caregivers.

But the way we are in our world up to a certain point really is based on our development.

We do the things we do because they're patterns.

We are experts at our patterns.

We can do our patterns the best out of anybody else.

And so we may be difficult, but not narcissistic if just our patterns annoy other people or they just don't make for

the easiest relationships, that doesn't mean you're a narcissist.

It just may mean you have toxic interpersonal patterns or you're using interpersonal patterns that worked great for you growing up.

And that's how you got through it.

And that's how you survived.

Fast forward into adulthood when that context is no longer present, but yet we're still using the same interpersonal styles.

We're going to feel like we start to hit a wall.

That's not narcissism.

That's not that.

Because the truth is, is if your husband sat you down and said to you, listen, when you do this and this, you're hurting me.