Waking Up to Narcissism "I Never Said That!" - When Your Memory Becomes the Enemy
Have you ever remembered something so vividly that it feels etched into your bones — only to have someone look at you blankly and say, “That never happened”? Have you ever started to wonder if maybe you’re the one who’s losing your mind?
If so, you know the disorienting pain of questioning your own reality.
In this episode, Tony Overbay, LMFT, unpacks what happens when your memory becomes the battleground in a relationship with an emotionally immature or narcissistic partner. When every disagreement seems to rewrite history, your sense of truth can start to unravel — not because you’re broken, but because your brain and body have been conditioned to survive confusion.
Tony explores how:
- Cognitive dissonance makes you doubt what you know is true
- Gaslighting and confabulation distort shared reality
- The false self uses denial to avoid shame
- Chronic emotional stress rewires your nervous system and memory
- Tools like gray rocking and self-regulation help you reclaim peace
Through clinical examples, evidence-based research, and hope, this episode reveals how to rebuild trust in your own perception — and why remembering that you were there is the first step toward healing.
Because waking up isn’t about convincing anyone else what happened, it’s about remembering: you were right to trust yourself all along.
00:00 Introduction: The Fallibility of Memory
00:58 Healthy vs. Unhealthy Relationships
02:15 The Reality Police: Types of Memory Issues
03:14 Emotional Immaturity and Narcissism
04:12 The Impact of Chronic Invalidation
05:33 Welcome to Waking Up to Narcissism
07:00 Pam and Jim: A Story of Emotional Distortion
11:38 Cognitive Dissonance and Emotional Survival
21:06 Understanding Gaslighting
24:33 A Heartbreaking Misunderstanding
25:58 The Power of Gaslighting
26:13 Confabulation: Filling Memory Gaps
27:08 The Patchwork Quilt of Self-Image
28:18 The Cost of Emotional Immaturity
32:25 Interpersonal Neurobiology and Co-Regulation
35:37 The Impact of Chronic Stress
37:15 Rewiring Your Brain for Peace
45:29 Gray Rocking: A Strategy for Self-Protection
48:20 Reclaiming Your Sense of Calm
Contact Tony at contact@tonyoverbay.com to learn more about his Emotional Architects men's group.
And visit https://julie-dejesus.com/cruise to learn more about Tony and his friend Julie De Jesus's "I See You Living" cruise, a 5-night Western Caribbean Cruise from January 24-29, 2026 aboard the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line.
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You can learn more about Tony's pornography recovery program, The Path Back, by visiting http://pathbackrecovery.com