The Covert Narcissism Podcast

What happens when an AI questions the story of someone who has spent years not being believed? In part two of this conversation, Renee and Anne Wintemute, founder of Aimee Says, look at how some AI tools push back on users in subtle ways, like "if it happened the way you say," and why that can feel a lot like gaslighting to survivors of covert narcissism. Anne explains how to move past validation...

Covert narcissism doesn't only show up between adults. It can shape how a parent relates to their own child. In this episode, Renee unpacks what happens when a parent can't hold the adult role in a disagreement, using a real client story about a mother who argues with her two-year-old daughter as though they were siblings. Renee traces this back to the same "on purpose" pattern she's experienced f...

Covert narcissism survivors are turning to AI for support, but what happens when it gets your story wrong? In this episode, Renee welcomes back Anne Wintemute, founder of Aimee Says, an AI tool built specifically for people who are in, or recovering from, controlling, manipulative, and abusive relationships. Anne explains why AI can only be as accurate as the context you give it, and why a missing...

Covert narcissism rarely says sorry out loud. Instead, it hands you a gift, plans a nice dinner, or turns on a sudden burst of affection — and calls it even. Renee Swanson breaks down why these gestures work like a reset button, closing the incident without ever offering the three things a real apology requires: accountability, humility, and vulnerability. She reads a personal story from her upcom...

Covert narcissism recovery isn't just about understanding what happened to you — it's about finding your way back to yourself. In part two of this conversation, Renee continues talking with psychotherapist and author Amy Lewis Bear, picking up right at the emotional core of this discussion: vulnerability, and why it's often the very thing survivors of narcissistic abuse recovery are most afraid to...

Covert narcissism doesn't always look like yelling or control — sometimes it's a completely ordinary conversation that somehow ends with you defending yourself against something you never said. This is what I call a circular conversation: every word you say gets fed through a filter that isn't listening to you, it's listening for a reason to feel attacked, or a reason to be right. Using real, ever...

Covert narcissism doesn't always look like screaming matches or dramatic blowups — sometimes it looks like a slow, quiet erosion of who you are. In this episode, Renee sits down with psychotherapist and author Amy Lewis Bear, who has spent nearly twenty years helping people through narcissistic abuse recovery and emotionally abusive relationships, and who has lived through this pattern herself. Am...

Last week, we asked whether passive-aggressive behavior is always narcissistic. The answer was no — but that still left a big question: how do you actually tell the difference in real time, and what do you do once you know? This episode gives you both. We go deeper into fear-based and care-based passive aggression — the kind that comes from being afraid of conflict, or from truly not wanting to hu...

Did they make you feel guilty for taking time for yourself? In this episode of the Covert Narcissism Podcast, Renee Swanson reads through real responses from her Covert Narcissism Group — the private Facebook community she started in 2018 — after asking members one question: what do you do now, just because you enjoy it? From napping and puzzles to solo walks, quiet mornings, and leaving the dishe...

Ever asked someone "are you okay?" and gotten a four-syllable "I'm fine" that clearly meant the opposite? That's passive-aggressive behavior — and it's one of the sneakiest patterns to name out loud, because it's built to be deniable. In this episode, we break down the real signs of passive-aggressive behavior across relationships, family, friendships, and work — with specific examples you'll reco...

What if the episode you already listened to still has more to teach you the second time around? In this throwback episode of the Covert Narcissism Podcast, Renee revisits one of the most-requested episodes in the show's history — the original breakdown of the six types of narcissism: grandiose, vulnerable, malignant, communal, somatic, and cerebral. Instead of just replaying it, she reads back her...

Covert narcissism doesn't just create crisis moments — it leaves your nervous system stuck in a chronic state of hypervigilance long after the argument ends. You can get good at managing the spike, catching yourself mid-reaction, and still lie awake at night with your jaw clenched and your shoulders up around your ears for no reason at all. In this episode on narcissistic abuse recovery, Renee exp...

Ever ignored a gut feeling on a date because you wanted to "give him a chance"? In this episode, I'm sharing a conversation from Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse — host Dr. Kerry McAvoy sits down with Dr. Jennie Young, a PhD linguist and creator of the viral Burned Haystack Dating Method, to break down how the words men use in dating profiles and early text messages expose who they really are...

If you've ever felt your chest tighten before your phone even finishes ringing, or braced for a reaction before you've said a single word — you already know what fight or flight feels like in a covert narcissistic relationship. It's rarely one dramatic moment. It's the accumulation: a grocery store phone call, an ordinary dinner plan, a night class — small moments that train your nervous system to...

In Part 2 of this CNG Community Chat, Renee Swanson continues the conversation with three parents navigating parental alienation and covert narcissistic abuse — this time focused on how to protect the relationship with the children they still have access to, and how to hold onto hope with the ones they don't. The conversation opens with a powerful explanation of why alienation happens the way it d...

This isn't my story anymore. It's ours. In this solo episode, I'm finally announcing something I've been sitting on for a long time: my book, This Is Not Okay: Escaping the Invisible Grip of Covert Narcissistic Abuse , is coming this fall. I walk you through the five stages this book moves through — the same stages so many of us move through on the way to healing from covert narcissistic abuse: re...

In this CNG Community Chat, host Renee Swanson sits down with three parents who are living through one of the most painful experiences a parent can face: watching a child be turned against them. This conversation covers parental alienation, covert narcissism, high-conflict divorce, and co-parenting with a narcissistic ex — and the very real toll it takes on the parent-child relationship. Each pare...

Have you ever discovered narcissism in your relationship, started reading everything you could find, and then panicked — wondering if you were the one who created the pattern you were seeing? In this episode of the Covert Narcissism Podcast, Renee Swanson opens up about a fear she's never shared before: the worry that dwelling on covert narcissism had somehow manifested it in her marriage. She wal...

Narcissistic abuse and predatory behavior often hide in plain sight — and this episode pulls back the curtain on exactly how. In this special crossover conversation, I'm sharing an episode from Dr. Kerry McAvoy's podcast, Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse , featuring her conversation with Don Hennessy. Don Hennessy is an Irish psychotherapist who has spent decades working directly with abusive...

Narcissistic entitlement rarely looks like arrogance from the outside. Often it looks like two people with "different expectations" — normal disagreements, normal marriage friction. In this episode of the Covert Narcissism Podcast, Renee Swanson breaks down why that framing is misleading: in a relationship with a covert narcissist, one partner's expectations are about the relationship, and the oth...

Part two of this CNG Community Chat picks up where we left off, as four moms go deeper into what it's like to parent through covert narcissistic abuse. They talk honestly about whether they see these patterns showing up again in their kids' own relationships and friendships, and close with the one piece of advice each of them wishes she'd been given back when she was standing right where you might...

Covert narcissism doesn't always look like rage — sometimes it looks like a warm smile and a locked tower door. In this episode, we break down two Disney stories that map almost perfectly onto real narcissistic abuse patterns: Beauty and the Beast, and Tangled. The Beast shows the overt side — imprisonment, an explosive temper, a rescue that resets everything, and the exact mechanics of trauma bon...

In this two-part CNG Community Chat, four moms sit down to talk about one of the hardest parts of covert narcissistic abuse recovery: watching your children start to see it for themselves. In part one, they share the specific moments — some sudden, some slow-dawning — when their kids realized what was really happening at home, and what daily life looks like now as their relationships with the othe...

When one parent shows up as the "nice, generous" one — buying gifts instead of ever offering real repair, gaslighting instead of listening — kids learn to distrust the very signals that are supposed to keep them safe. In this episode, Renee walks through practical, age-specific tools to help kids and teens of a covert narcissist reconnect with their own nervous system: how to recognize an emotiona...

  In part two of this community chat, the conversation goes even deeper. We pick back up right where we left off — with Denise sharing what it actually took to go no contact after twenty-seven years of covert narcissistic abuse, including the post-separation hoovering, manipulation, and false self-awareness that so often follows a breakup or divorce with a covert narcissist. She also opens up abou...