#9 - On Shame, Narcissism and Assertion

In this episode, my friend Fares and I discuss characteristics and experiences common to men and women experiencing same-sex attractions (SSA). We revisit shame and discuss anticipatory shame, and we explain some of the psychological defenses that we exhibit, mainly false selves and narcissistic thoughts and behaviors. We also dissect the notion of homosexuality being a repetition compulsion and tie it to addictions, and we look into some of the inherent deficits of homosexual relationships. Finally, we end by introducing the notions of grief work and the importance of vulnerability and assertion in resolving the repetition compulsion. What are examples of the false self? How are shame and narcissism tied together? What's the difference between distortions and illusions and how do they control our thinking? What triggers me to act out sexually, and what's the road to healing? We examine these and other questions in this episode.

Some extra and relevant resources:
- Stand4Truth Summit panel presentations with Robert Vazzo and David Pickup
- Coffee with Karim Podcast episode 69: "Are You a Narcissist?"
- Same-sex sexuality and psychiatric disorders in the second Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study (NEMESIS-2)
- Sexual practices among patients with borderline personality disorder

Chapters

• 0:38 Episode Introduction
• 3:06 On Shame and Anticipatory Shame
• 16:15 Defenses: Projection and Dissociation
• 21:33 Defenses: True vs. False Self
• 32:47 Defenses: Narcissism
• 48:18 Challenge: Developing Male Friendships
• 1:04:55 On Distortions, Illusions and Healing
• 1:24:30 Homosexuality as a Repetition Compulsion
• 1:33:50 On Addiction and Addictive Behavior
• 1:40:30 On Homosexual Relations and Mental Health
• 1:52:31 Resolving the Repetition Compulsion
• 1:58:43 Ending Remarks

Transcript

Waheed:   0:00
This is Waheed Jensen and you are listening to "A Way Beyond the Rainbow". Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi ta'ala wa barakatuh and welcome to the ninth episode of "A Way Beyond the Rainbow", this podcast series dedicated to Muslims struggling with same-sex attractions who want to live a life true to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and Islam. I'm your host Waheed Jensen. Thank you so much for joining us in today's episode. I have my dear friend Fares with me today in our episode. Assalamu alaikum, Fares.

Fares:   1:01
Wa alaikum assalam, Waheed.

Waheed:   1:03
How are you doing?

Fares:   1:04
Good. Fine, thank you. How are you?

Waheed:   1:06
Alhamdulilah, things are going well. Trying to make the best use of this corona situation. How is it with you?

Fares:   1:14
Yeah, it's a stressing situation, but we can cope with it, inshaAllah. I am hopeful.

Waheed:   1:22
We will get through this, inshaAllah. We have a lot of topics that are prepared today. The episode today is quite intense. We have a lot of grounds to cover. We will be talking, inshaAllah, about shame and the anticipatory shame, the different psychological defenses that are common to individuals struggling with same-sex attractions. We will be talking about the concepts of the true self versus the false self. We will be introducing the topic of narcissistic traits as well as the concept of homosexuality as a repetition compulsion. We will refer back to episodes 2 and 3 in a lot of places, you will notice this, because many of the topics that we introduced back then when Aadam was with me, those concepts were very important. You can see how all of these tie together with this episode. When I was planning this episode, I thought that the best person to consult would be Fares, because I know him, he's a dear friend of mine, and he's very well knowledgeable on these topics. MashaAllah, he's like an encyclopedia. I really appreciate that you are here with me. You have really enriched this episode while we were planning it. And I can't wait to share it with the audience today inshaAllah. I would like to start this episode by a quote from one of the clients whom Dr. Nicolosi quotes. He said, "Thank you, homosexuality! Through the misery you have caused me, you forced me to look at myself, to face all those things that I have pushed under and avoided. I am more alive because I faced my homosexuality."  

Waheed:   3:05
So, recall in episode number 3 when Aadam and I were talking about Dr. Brené Brown and her studies and discussions on vulnerability and shame. And remember how she defines shame that it is the "fear of disconnection". She asks, "Is there something about me, that if other people know it or see it, that I won't be worthy of connection? " So, in other words, anything that brings a threat to a sense of connection with other people, to feeling loved or to loving other people, this is what brings us shame. So if we were to understand it, the shame moment that we experience is a moment of conflict between two opposing impulses, we have self-assertion on one hand, which is being genuine, being authentic, being true to who you are, and shame on the other hand, shame for failing in making that assertion. So the feeling is more like "I can't explain myself. No one will understand me. I can never win." The person might feel frozen, paralyzed, unable to defend him or herself against an overwhelming sense of injustice. The sense of assertion shuts down. So there is more like a palpable feeling that stops me from connecting with others. I am completely still.. Numb. My mind goes blank. I'm just taking in the abuse, whatever is happening in that situation. Shame is not an emotion, it is more like a counter-emotion. It inhibits our effects, our feelings. And Nicolosi says, "For men with SSA, it is the wedge that splits gender identity off from the totality of the person. The result is an incompletely masculine-identified and ultimately false self. So what do you think about this Fares?

Fares:   4:59
Yes, Waheed. That's true. Essentially, shame is about not being seen, becoming non-existent, invisible. Someone might feel like "At that moment I could disappear, hide under a rock". Another one would say, "As a kid, I felt like I didn't belong to my family. I have flashbacks of smirks and hateful glances and looks. I try to understand it. I thought, what did I do? My behavior, my looks?" Shame posture is an embodied experience of the shame moment. Shoulders cave in with a bodily collapse and timid voice tone. Many men say they received the message that "You don't belong to us because you are flawed, defective, week, damaged.." and the like, and internalized the message that "You don't qualify to be masculine". This perception results in long-term emotional devastation with a shamed person taking up on himself the responsibility for the parents' emotional abandonment of him and feeling worthy of the shame. He becomes angry at himself and sad for his parents. Waheed already discussed this before in episode 7.

Waheed:   6:15
Right. So the idea that the person becomes angry at himself instead of his parents, and instead he feels sad for his parents instead of himself, right?

Fares:   6:25
Yes, exactly. There is a concept that is anticipatory shame. And this means that the person is always bracing for the next shame moment. The shame posture is a stance towards the world in which the person is always braced for the next collision moment. He/she, you know, is in a stance of constant vigilance against suddenly and unexpectedly becoming an object of contempt while in the act of some sort of innocent and spontaneous self-expression. Thus, the person assumes the shame posture in anticipation of getting slammed by another humiliation. One man described this as, "I don't feel I relate to people as people, but as negative judges of me, harboring mean thoughts about me. I think, yeah, they are right about me. I am a failure, loser, weak, fake, stupid, defective, weird, "sissy", "queer", not a male. I live with the fear of someone discovering I am fake. I'm always anticipating rejection, but when the moment comes, I never seem prepared for it". The anticipatory stance against shame is literally a posture, in that it is carried in the body and observable. Many men display a cautious, diminished body posture even in the way they walk, they feel like tiptoeing, while others adopt an exaggerated, flamboyant posture, that is a reaction against the same sense of shame.

Waheed:   8:09
OK, so basically what you're saying, there is a sense of we have a shame posture, which basically, we experience when we're having the same moment, and generally in our lives, so it can be what happens with the body, we cave in, we tiptoe while we walk, or maybe we just have this idea that we are going to get shamed. So the body kind of caves in, or some people, you know, adopt the completely opposite stance, which is this exaggerated, flamboyant reaction. But internally, there is a sense of shame that we feel deep inside, right? And, you know, as the "shamed one", when we were in our childhood, for example, the boy would hold a particular place of his own in his own way. So instead of me accepting the alternative, which is a sense of what they call "annihilation" to be abandoned completely and to die, so to speak, he is going to, well, "I'm going to accept my role as the 'good little boy' in this case". So the boy starts to repress his grief, to repress all of the anger and the pain that he feels. And so he starts to take on the responsibility of being unloved. This is what it's called in psychology "avoiding the psychic death of 'abandonment-annihilation trauma'". So what happens is that the shame itself preserves the boy's relationship with the parent by deflecting the rage that he feels towards them and his sadness for himself. In addition to that, shame has an important function, which is that it preserves the relationship with the parent, and it keeps alive this false hope that "if I keep trying, someday, somehow my parents will see me. They will attune to me, and they will love me for who I really am." So there is this kind of hope that keeps on, you know, it gets preserved, that "if I gratify my family's expectations of me, by remaining in this place as 'the shamed one'", this is how he sees it or she sees it, the girl or the boy, "they will someday, those parents, they will give me what I actually need". So there is an interesting point, Fares, that, as you recall, Nicolosi mentions, which is, some people might have difficulty understanding how a person can feel shame when other people have done nothing to them. Right? So all they have done is actually not responded, given them a non-response. So how is this shameful. So Nicolosi gives an example, which is more of a question, he says, "Have you ever told a joke and no one laughed?" I guess most of us have been there, and we kind of feel that sense of shame inside of us like, "Oh my God, this is very awkward!" But it is, you know, kind of shameful in a way. So, in this case, the parents' non-response, if we go back to the child, it takes the form of consistently failing to defend that boy or that girl who is temperamentally sensitive to begin with from either, for example, a bullying older brother or maybe the bullying peers at school. And this failure from the parents is seen by the child as a form of emotional abandonment, right? And there's another thing, which is during adulthood, for example, many men feel they are very embarrassed about this desire that they want to receive male attention and affection and approval and love from other men. And so, they sometimes admit to the therapist or to someone, you know, they trust that they actually feel weak or they feel that they're flawed or stupid or silly or simply bad for wanting that kind of male attention, affection and approval as adults. So one man said, "I recognize this need that I need to be affirmed by a man. But if I want to pursue that need, it seems weak". So, as you said, Fares, this anticipatory shame that comes from within, like we anticipate the next shaming moment. But for some, for the man, it comes "from outside". He feels that the shame is going to come from "out there". So the man starts to project on others the image of that punishing parent that he had as a kid, that those people are going to shame me one way or another.

Fares:   12:47
Yeah, I would like to add one point. Dr Julie Hamilton said that, if a child is very sensitive, in the case of a predisposed child to SSA, he might feel the father like a ghost when he is angry, or even the mother. So for him, a small amount of rage or a small amount of high voice, it can be very, very harmful for that little child, so he will be very sensitive to some sounds and some gestures. And he will amplify these things in his own world. And this is really the state of shame, how it demonstrates itself in the child.

Waheed:   13:34
Yes, absolutely. I completely agree. And I think most of us, this rings true for many of us. So, in other words, what we are doing to ourselves feels like what our parents and our peers did to us at some point also. And this continues in our adult life. So, in other words, there is this fear that is always there, that we are going to be reprimanded, one way or another, and always underneath all of that, we see that there is a little boy or a little girl that is ready to be punished somehow, because that's how we internalized all of these messages growing up.

Fares:   14:12
And sadly, this shame creates a lifestyle of hiding, this vigilance also, and it's creates a kind of avoidance and withdrawal. In some cases, the anticipatory shame can become so intense to border on paranoia, like feelings of "people are seeing me. People are observing me", with some men having the conviction that another person has the power to turn everybody against them. Like these paranoia and delusions about others' intentions, they seem to see others wanting to punish them or humiliate them or to reject them. So the assumption is that this person is helpless against slander. That there is "omnipotence" he projects on the other person, and this destroys any belief that he can have a direct impact on others. The "offended other" has all the power. Past occasions to this frightening anticipation often go back to early adolescence, when a bully turned the other boys against him and perhaps even earlier yet to the omnipotent mother or father, who would control the opinions of other family members and either turn them against him or prevent them from defending him. And, you know, Waheed, he feels himself like against a team of people, feels like he's alone and his family is playing a team role against him, and that's why he feels so ashamed about that

Waheed:   15:56
So it all goes back to how we related to our parents and how we related to our peers and how that impacted our thoughts and behaviors,

Fares:   16:07
So, we will talk now about the defenses that, many of us, people with SSA experience. First, there is the dissociation. People who use this defense are likely to have experienced early attachment trauma with the mother. In adulthood, they respond to certain triggers associated with the original trauma by disconnecting from the outer world and shifting into a deflated state. The attachment-traumatized person becomes highly sensitive to implicit cues of disapproval and rejection, such as a simple vocal tone, facial expression or subtle gestures from others. These cause the person to dissociate, to no longer be in the moment, to escape. Some people's gaze suddenly becomes flat and unfocused. The face goes blank. The person may become disengaged, unfocused and with greatly diminished affect. I want to mention here something also, I noticed that, of course, as a man who experiences SSA, I have this dissociation, but sometimes I think that it is also related to the family dynamics, I feel my father is, sometimes, disconnected from all others, even from my mother. I feel like he's always dissociated and he's out of reach, like we say. And when I discuss also with my brother, because my brother knows about my SSA, he agreed that my father has these problems. Maybe because he lost his father in early childhood, so maybe he has this disconnection from his father as well. So we can say here that the defense is maladaptive in adulthood and leads to a variety of issues. There is an inability to emotionally bond with other men, thereby perpetuating homoerotic fantasy and desires. What's important here is to make the person aware of the ways in which certain cues, including nonverbal communication, facial expressions and gestures inhibit one's affective states, particularly how these cues throw the person out of the healthy state of assertion, and into the constricted state of shame. Therapy in such situations helps, as the person takes comfort in the client-therapist conjoined state, working in collaboration to co-regulate not only positive affects such as joy and love, but also the negative affect states as shame, terror and rage.

Waheed:   19:19
So this is as far as dissociation, we kind of dissociate because of some triggers in our environment, and this basically happens because of early trauma in childhood. So what about another thing, which we see very commonly, and that is projection?

Fares:   19:33
Yes, projection. It's another defense, and it's against overwhelming stress. This was visible earlier in the boy's projection onto the father the same experience of affect dysregulation that he had with the mother. And as I mentioned about the dissociation of my father, this is also related to it. So the projection itself is an infantile defense mechanism developed as early as the first year of life, in which the child creates an internal representation of a particular traumatic event and projects those representations onto others. And these non-verbal representations serve to anticipate and therefore protect the child from future trauma. The internal constructs he creates will then become the basis for the phenomenon of the repetition compulsion. And we will mention this later in this episode, inshaAllah. As a survival and coping mechanism, the repetition compulsion is reactivated in response to particular social cues.

Waheed:   20:46
Right. So what we're saying here is that projection, we project on other people the same messages and the same behaviors that we have received from our parents, right? Whereas dissociation is when we are put in a state of dissociating, disconnecting from others, we are in a state of deflation because we have received some, you know, gestures or the tone of the voice or the facial expressions of others, we interpreted them as disapproval or they might actually be disapproval. So this kind of threw us either in dissociation, or we started projecting on people things that we have internalized.  

Waheed:   21:33
There are two also very, very important defenses, and I'm sure that a lot of people listening to us will identify with a lot of the things that we say now. The true and the false selves, this is a very important topic, and you will encounter this in many of the books that talk about same-sex attractions, as well as narcissism. So what do we mean by the concept of the true self and the false self? So, for many of us homosexually-oriented men or women, there is a childhood injury, as we said, and this occurs to the sense of gender, and we discuss this a little bit in episode seven, as you recall. So when this shame is internalized, there is a sense of worthlessness, and we cannot tolerate this. So what happens is that the child eventually develops those two defenses: the false self and some narcissistic traits, and we'll talk about these in detail. So these two defenses, they work together and try to compensate for those deficits that have occurred because of the shaming. Those not only serve as survival tactics to manage our present interactions with people, but they're also defenses against any future issues that happen, particularly any losses of attachments or relationships in the future. So, in order to kind of maintain that sense of acceptance and belonging within the family, and this family "doesn't see me as an individual with my own needs and my own worth", what happens is that the child's mind starts to develop a compromised identity. "I'd rather be a false somebody than a nobody." Why? Because the mind interprets this as annihilation. "I'm going to disappear." It's like total demise, right? So, "No, I need to survive, obviously." So in order to avoid this annihilation of being "no one", the child is going to comply with the family system. "Okay, I'm going to give my parents the false self that is necessary for them to recognize me, for them to be happy with me, for them to give me attention." Now, what is the problem here? There is a price to pay, which is my genuine self expression, my actual positive attachment to people is going to be compromised and restricted.

Fares:   23:59
And emotional regulation also.

Waheed:   24:01
Of course, yes, emotional regulation is going to be very compromised. And that's something that we see in our ability to regulate emotions, of course, as adults also. And so as Nicolosi describes, he says "The false self is a virtual straitjacket placed over one's authentic spontaneity and natural vitality, forcing the containment of all spontaneous expression." So, in other words, all of the behavior has to kind of be designed. Our lives must be arranged. Our relationships kept shallow. We are forbidden from being authentic or genuine, in a sense, that's how our mind interprets it, all because "I want to avoid shame." Now this is the false self. What about the true self? The true self is that posture or stance through which the man or the woman feels and authentically expresses to others their true emotions. In other words, being authentic, being genuine, being true to who you are and how you feel. Therapy is important in this case, and having a proper support system to navigate this is also important, because it helps us transition from that false self to the true authentic self. Now, let's give examples. Fares and I are going to give examples now about some of the false selves, and I'm sure that many of us will identify with some of those. So, for example, the classic false self, the most common one, in men, particularly, with same-sex attractions, and it's the earliest and the most common form during childhood, is that of the "good little boy", right? This very nice, inoffensive boy who is pleasing people all the time. It is an attempt to present this socially acceptable self. But at the same time, what am I doing? I'm hiding all of my emotions. I'm accommodating the need to belong socially and to be accepted, and I am protecting myself from any possible shaming moments in the future. Again, this comes at a high cost, as Nicolosi says, "It blocks the boy from expressing his natural masculine strivings and from satisfying his same-sex attachment needs. This persona causes a deep, affective avoid and eventually leaves the person with a chronic, unsatisfied longing for deep human connectedness." We're losing that connection with other people. That's the problem. Now what happens when this child grows up and becomes an adult? This "good little boy" becomes the "nice guy", right? Always compliant, passive, may even have codependent pleasing personality type, constantly seeking the approval of others, "I want to make everyone happy with me. I don't want to make anyone disappointed from me", and he avoids conflict, and he's more inclined to be confined, defensive and over-controlled by other people. He is always hesitant, always afraid of getting hurt. Like someone might say, "I know how to take care of people's needs. But I don't know how to let people know my own needs. I do what I think I'm supposed to do, but then I feel cheated. I get hurt. I get disgusted and then disengage from relationships, and I don't even realize that." And that's a big problem.

Fares:   27:22
What makes it worse, some guys, for example, they want to date women, and when they act like the nice guy, the woman, many women will not get satisfied because they don't always need the nice guy, they need an assertive man, and they end up failing in dating those women and getting married at the end, and this is also a consequence of the "nice guy" false self, let's say. The second example is the theatrical entertainer, which is the less common style, and the theatrical entertainer is outgoing and exhibitionistic. The person who adopts it has to keep the conversation going and keep everybody happy with him. Anything less than enthusiastic approval from others is interpreted as a personal rejection. "I have to be Mr. Personality all the time. How am I appearing? What are they thinking of me? Do they like me? Do they dislike me?" The theatrical entertainer appears to have strength, energy and vitality. But a closer look reveals a forced and pressured animation, a shallow intensity that is actually driven by anxiety, and ultimately it exhausts him.

Waheed:   28:46
Absolutely. So in other words, there is an inherent anxiety, and there is fear. But we put on this mask that we want to, you know, be "Mr. Personality" all of the time. But there's always a fear that others are thinking less of me. Another very common false self, which we see nowadays more commonly, and it's kind of stereotypical, this outrageous, hyper-feminine character, right? So the man who adopts this style, being hyper-feminine, is likely to be seen, for example, in the gay community at Gay Pride parades showing off and flaunting that feminine side. You know, there is an "in your face" kind of violation of social norms in some ways. And the person is, you know, the style is kind of outlandish. And nowadays you see all of these TV shows and these examples of drag queens, right? Who wear all of this flashy clothing, and they have their style of talking and all of that. And so this gratification of the false self is seen in kind of shocking others or in going against the social norms or in doing something that is kind of, you know, weird and exquisite in some way, right?

Fares:   30:00
Right, yes. And another form of the false self is the angry activist, the hyper-masculine character. The angry, hyper-masculine character assaults political and social norms. It is confrontational, combative, many times joining militant gay activist groups which become his new family.

Waheed:   30:25
Right, so we have the hyper-feminine on one side, and we have the hyper-masculine on the opposite side, right? And all of these are, you know, there is an inherent insecurity if we were to kind of analyze that. And there are other examples of the false selves, but these are, you know, these are some of them, and the man who kind of lives through the sense of the false self is kind of, you know, they have the static role they're not fully alive, so to speak. The person feels like they are, deep down, there is a sense of being an impostor, even to one's self. Held captive by the demands of others, the person suffers from chronic irritability, resentment and hidden hostility. At the root of this problem is a trust issue, as you can imagine, because there was a fundamental trust that was violated in my early childhood, I seem to be uninvested in my relationships. So I operate on one extreme or another: I either avoid others completely because I don't trust their motives, or I place a complete, trust in people, indiscriminately. And so I go about, you know, indiscrete self-disclosure, as they say. So one man described it as follows, "My identity comes from living the expectations of other people. I feel used. I feel tired. I feel drained. It's like I'm non-existent, empty. I have no purpose. I have no grounding. I have no home. I have no place to belong. I even fall asleep during the daytime just to find an escape. I would like to scream, to tear down walls that bind me. But what walls? I don't even see walls, just empty dark space inside. I am that dark space. So, only by fully experiencing all of the sadness and anger in the present moment can we, as individuals, start to heal and, you know, to grieve all of this and to start to heal. When we try to overcome this blockage, this is one of the main challenges of actual successful treatment and healing. How do we do this? We'll talk about this, inshaAllah, in episode number 11 when we talk about the concepts of therapy.

Waheed:   32:39
Now, how about, Fares, you guide us to the next point, which is the big, big topic of narcissism.

Fares:   32:55
Yes, and it's correlated always with shame. So, another common defense of homosexuality or homosexually-oriented men is narcissism. Before we introduce narcissism, we need to have a look at the human needs. Basically, Maslow has specified two main aspect of needs: the deficiency needs and the growth needs. Deficiency needs are our basic needs, and they are four: physiological, like food and water, safety and security, social needs and esteem needs. Growth needs are at higher levels, like cognitive and aesthetic needs, self actualization and transcendence. Most of us, men with SSA, lack the feeling of security, belonging, being loved and being confident, and some of us have trouble with developing a good physical body. So, many of us become adults, not having the basic deficiency needs fulfilled, which can imbalance our growth needs and self actualization. I will quote here a psychiatrist and SSA specialist in Egypt Dr. Shehab Eldeen Al Huwary who has mentioned that, once the infant slipped from the mother's womb into life, he would face a borderline dilemma and feel "I am bad". But for that reason, he needs to be seen and mirrored by the mother. If the mother mirrored him, then he will feel "I am good". But afterwards, he needs to be accompanied by a strong and empowering, perfect and salient father, who is tender and strong, to achieve a companionship in an encouraging way. The child needs to see the father as "glorified other", and due to that cooperation and achievement with the father, he then realizes that someone is better than him, and that he is not perfect and limited and accepts his limitations.  Once all that is done, this is when he completes the narcissistic phase of childhood, in order to pursue his healthy and balanced self-esteem, his masculinity, his competence and his healthy ego to go successfully through the room of mirrors, the life.    

Waheed:   0:00
So in other words, what you're saying is that the narcissistic phase of childhood is a normal phase in childhood. Right? We all go through this, and we need to be guided through that phase to establish ourselves, right?

Fares:   35:40
Right. And if we didn't pass this stage, then problems will appear then. So if the parents failed to see him and support him, or inhibited his trials to achieve his childhood narcissism phase, the child will look for another environment that fulfills his unmet needs. If he failed to accomplish that phase and find a suitable environment for himself, then he might think there's something wrong within himself. Usually, this feeling is shame. But another self defense also appears, which is when he denies that shame by supposing he is not wrong, but the others are to blame and that's when he ends up developing a fantasized, internalized image about himself, which leads him eventually to develop narcissistic traits and behaviors. These can be seen as being stuck at an early development stage in childhood, even when the person is an adult. These traits or behaviors are a last defense for someone against others around him. When he failed to be seen by others, there is an inclination to cope with these disturbing feelings and escape a bad situation by portraying a fake positive image of himself and seeking nourishment for it from others in deceptive ways.

Waheed:   37:10
Right, so basically, in this particular case that you're talking about, there is manipulation of other people to kind of gain attention, rather than to engage with people authentically. And this basically, again, it reassures us against shame, right? So in this particular case, what happens is that the person becomes concerned with promoting an idealized image of themselves to kind of gain special attention. You know, "In order for me to gain special attention, this must involve manipulation." So what Nicolosi says, "With this inordinate need to be seen, the narcissist never gets enough validation. People in his life are continually alienated by his unrelenting sense of entitlement. He is ever ready to counter any feeling of being slighted or hurt or unappreciated or ignored. Mired in self-preoccupation," as he says, "he will be limited in his ability to offer real empathy. Quick to feel victimized, he is often left feeling resentful and retaliatory. The narcissist has been described as the person for whom it is never enough. The price for having it his own way is that he will ultimately find himself alone." Narcissistic behavior, as we said, you know, it involves manipulating some external variables in my environment in order to reassure myself against shame. And it has been described in a lot of research, from the nineties, that shame is "the underside of narcissism," so to speak, with its alternating feelings of pride and self-contempt. Pride and self hate, they belong inseparably together, as some researchers have said; they are two expressions of one process. Even narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by an insufficient capacity to regulate shame. H.B. Lewis, in 1980, also saw that narcissistic personality, you know, individuals with narcissistic personality suffering from shame. And Alfred Adler, in 1969, describes the narcissistic superiority complex as a compensation for an inferiority complex, and we've spoken about the inferiority complex in episode eight, as you remember.

Fares:   39:33
And I just want to mention also that these manipulations usually with narcissism, the person does not recognize or does not see that he is manipulating. He's doing that automatically, as a reaction. He gets used to that, since he was a child. So he will never admit maybe - internally, he knows that there is something wrong with these things, but maybe he could not recognize it or could not admit it to himself even. So with regards to the manipulative aspect of narcissism, I can see now that it is an unhealthy coping mechanism with feeling ignored or unseen, a repeated reflection of what I experienced in childhood. When I read the word "manipulation," it sounded very negative for me at the first time. It is like doing something illegal, and yes, it is not healthy. But it is the behavior itself, not me! Even in the recovery community, I have heard many times about the narcissistic, manipulative mother, to the extent that I hated my mother. But with time, as I started to understand narcissism deeply, I found that my mother was also a victim, and I was stigmatizing her with her narcissistic traits, unfortunately. So, afterwards, it's very important at the end when exploring the topics of psychology, that my target would be to understand myself and not to diagnose it, to understand people not to analyze them, categorize them or diagnose them. It's crucial to understand my part of interaction and to know what my duty is before my right. It takes time to wash the layers of this mirror, and when the mirror becomes clean, then I can see myself and others clearly. In general, we as humans tend to speak from a narcissistic perspective. So when we talk about the need for mirroring and its control over almost all of our interactions, it fluctuates on the pendulum of narcissism, with manipulated features such as, "I need to overact how much I suffered". And usually it fluctuates between grandiosity and inferiority. And this particularly gives SSA the ambivalence feature.

Waheed:   42:19
So for anyone who's wondering, what do we mean exactly when we say "mirroring"? What do you mean by that?

Fares:   42:28
I mean the way you see yourself, like how you see your value. And as a child or as an infant, when he comes from the mother's womb, he might think like, "Oh, I am bad." When the mother sees him carefully and keeps her attention on him, he will see how he is valuable in the eyes of the mother. He will see that he will be tranquil. Everything is gonna be fine, so to speak. The mother reflects the real value that God sees in us. The mother is the eyes of God, so to speak, or represents the eyes of God. So when he sees his real value in his mother's eyes, he will then be ready to go out -- to go out from the mother's fear and experience his narcissistic, childish traits, like childish narcissistic traits, which then the father will be ready also to receive him -- if he is a salient father -- to take him and to accompany him through this journey.

Waheed:   43:39
Okay. Perfect. Thank you.

Fares:   43:42
So, let's take these examples. When I say, "I deserve to be seen", it's like a peacock, so to speak, or it's like, "I am undoubtedly better than them". And this is so-called grandiose narcissism. When I say, "I don't deserve to be seen" -- and this is kind of shame -- or "I am too wounded to be seen by them", this is so-called vulnerable narcissism. When I say "I am afraid to be seen" -- and this is a kind of social anxiety -- it's the narcissistic lead barrier that protects me from other people. So why is all of this considered to be narcissism? Actually, the concentration is usually on the ego, like the narcissist, or the man who has narcissistic traits, usually is concerned about himself the most. He's concerned about his needs, his issues, his benefits and his image mostly. So when he says like, "I am the one who wants to be seen," we can see clearly that the focus here on the "I" and it is a kind of compulsion. This is the narcissistic self-centeredness we see here. We are all at the end falling into a sort of narcissistic fixation. What I mean by fixation is like these moments that we are stuck in or we don't know that we.. We did something wrong, but we don't know what it is. It's something egoistic. We don't know how to deal with it sometimes. So narcissism is the mirror through which every person needs to see him or herself, but with a different reflection. And the solution is to be objective and describe the facts and not to speak out of egoism. Narcissism is also considered to be a shelter from sorrow. When life gets hard, we go to this shelter. Either we pretend to be strong in order to continue, and thus we take the narcissistic stance, or we start to blame other people and categorize them into devils and angels and thus we take the borderline stance. So some of us get stuck in this narcissistic borderline shelter, and staying in that shelter hinders our growth. The fixation on narcissism protects the person from that confusion seen in the borderline personality disorders or traits, from oscillating between one's confinement to oneself and to the world, sometimes in the corner of goodness only and sometimes in the corner of evil only. It also protects the person from preoccupation with the self and the separation from the world, which is seen in conditions like schizophrenia, and protects the person from feeling fragmented, lost and dead, so to speak. It's worth reflecting how many people would survive all these obstacles by developing the most unstable defense, which is narcissism. Contrary to what's been said negatively about narcissism, narcissism is a grace from God. We need to review it as a humanistic dimension of how people deal with issues in their lives. There's a spectrum and wide range of narcissistic traits from malignant, grandiose, exhibitionist, to vulnerable and communal narcissism. Again, narcissism is just one dimension of many dimensions that we people have in our interactions. It is never a stigma. It is a survival mechanism we use to escape being unseen or ignored. The more we understand ourselves and our responsibilities before our rights, the more we remove those labels, the clearer and wiser we can see ourselves and other people in our lives.

Waheed:   48:19
Now, what happens is that when we look for developing male friendships, this is a challenge to the shame and narcissism. So, as one man said, "When I am with other guys, they seem at ease, but I'm the one who feels locked out," right? "I'm not engaging with them. I'm acting like I'm with them, but I'm just acting," right? So the main challenge for the person who experiences SSA in relating to other men is to shift out of this anticipatory shame that we talked about, which is driven from, you know, deep down and from some certain, you know, narcissistic needs. He must give up this idea of the false self, of the nice guy, and kind of try to stay in that true self. So in this assertive self state, the true self, the true attachment and gender identification will become possible. So we see that there's a kind of a tendency to shift between two extremes: either feeling completely inferior or grandiose. And this is the ambivalence of SSA that you spoke about earlier, Fares, right? So when we realize this, we kind of tend to develop a realistic perception of ourselves in relation to other people. So in other words, I mean, what is the take home message here? How do we relate to other people? The task is for us to see ourselves as real men, real people, real women, and to see other people as real men or real women. Now what does this remind us of? Recall in episode three when we talked about vulnerability and when Brené Brown was saying that vulnerability is not weakness, and she defines vulnerability as emotional risk, exposure, uncertainty. It fuels our daily lives. And she has come to the belief that vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage. To be vulnerable is to let yourself be seen and to be honest. So this is what it takes to kind of feel that I am stepping into an arena where I am not afraid of being myself, or I'm not afraid of being transparent, to show my true emotions and to not wear those masks anymore, to take off this false self and to just deal with whatever life gives me, right? This is what we mean by living the true self: to embrace the unexpected, to surf the waves as they come, to be myself in the process, to be genuine, right? And to take risks, exactly. And this is what it means to be vulnerable and to actually be okay with this. And this is very difficult; it's not easy. But this is how we shift towards the true self to embrace ourselves. And this is what we mean by loving ourselves. It doesn't mean that I am proud or completely, you know, egoistic. No. It means being okay with myself, loving myself to take off this mask and to be the person I want to be, truly be, from deep down.

Fares:   51:24
You know, Waheed, it's interesting that our religion is the religion of staying in the middle, the wasatiyya, you know? It's kind of, we need of course to be humble, but also we need to be at the same time assertive. So when we balance those aspects, not to be, like, inferior or grandiose, then we are on the safe side. But when we go to extremes, this is the problem.

Waheed:   51:52
Absolutely. So it's all about the middle ground at the end, absolutely. Beautifully put yes. And so, I'm going to give some examples. So, for example, when men enter into relationships with other men -- and I'm saying here like friendships, let's say, or getting to know other people -- many of us find ourselves in this place of over-idealizing the other person or becoming very infatuated with the other person, you know? "The other person completes me. He is perfect. I finally found that person that I was looking for", right? The problem is that we are not willing to acknowledge these distortions that we have in our minds until we experience those painful disappointments which will happen eventually, right? And so those illusions that we have, they become shattered, and we are forced to look more honestly at our friendships, right? So "fulan [so-and-so] has been avoiding me. He says I'm overly sensitive, I'm too intense. It's painful to realize that my desperation pushed him away." And then there is a self talk that "I create these relationships which I fantasize will fill my emptiness. It's hopeless. I'm going to feel like this for the rest of my life. I'm a piece of crap," right? This is what we tell ourselves when we feel disappointed or we feel hurt by the people we had high expectations from. So more or less this is actually interpreted as a grieving process. There is this illusion that this fulan is going to meet all of my needs. [Idealizing, yes.] So the point here is to kind of see and accept this person as an individual, as who he really is, right? In other words, trying not to mold the other person into something that gratifies me, right? Some people eventually have to come to terms with the idea that they feel that they kind of manufacture these relationships. They engineer those interactions, and they never turn out to be the way that they had hoped they would. And at other times, the individual's task of establishing those friendships becomes complicated by two opposing feelings. There's, on one hand, these powerful longings of being intensely close to someone, and on the other hand, there is that fear of being rejected from that person, and these both work together, right? And what helps is that a lot of therapists say that the element of psychoeducation becomes very important to kind of clarify this instant intimacy, right? It's not how friendships normally form. It's not realistic to expect that. It's important to realize that friendships must develop in phases and over time; like we have those friendship circles, right? We have this inner circle where we are at the center of the circle with maybe one, two or three intimate friends. And then we have that outer circle with, let's say, six to eight casual friends, for example, and that, from those casual friends, we can expect a few intimate friendships to develop. But these don't happen instantly, right? They cannot be forced. So what this helps [with] is to reduce the person's anxiety and allows that person to focus more on, you know, being realistic and to develop healthier and less enmeshed relationships, as they say, with other people, be it men or women -- you know, the same applies for women with SSA. So we see that very common problem.

Fares:   55:41
I just want to add something here, that some people, some men with SSA, they don't really experience these intimate friendships even, or they don't have in their circle also an intimate friend. And so their longing to have a friendship or intimate friendship is very intensified then. That can create also these instant intimacy wishes for them. So, of course, this also needs to be taken into consideration. But there are here also two aspects or two distinct modes of relating to other men: the one is eros, the sexual or erotic mode, and the [other is] philia, the brotherly or fraternal mode. This distinction is more fully understood within the larger context of living within the shame posture versus living in the state of healthy assertion. It usually goes like, "once I feel better about myself, my homosexual attractions diminish. I am not driven by shame, but rather by assertion." There is a significant shift that happens when we realize that our homosexual attractions are generated primarily not by the attractiveness of the other man, but by the way we feel about ourselves. We discover that our SSA results from our tendency to relate to other men not as equals, but from the shame posture. Conversely, our homoerotic interests are absent, insignificant, when we relate to other men from an assertive self state. One man said, "I noticed that when I am secure in my masculinity, I am not visually checking out guys. When I feel good, I am not even thinking about them." It is true, and I can only speak from my own experience. I always felt attracted to specific men, usually blond men. I remember I was part of support groups in Egypt and Poland. One time in Cairo, we attended a support group meeting without supervision, as the psychiatrist and his assistant were not able to attend. It was an extraordinary group therapy session, so to speak, the most joyful and spontaneous session I've ever attended. I remember then [that] one man with blond hair stepped into the group, for the first time in my life, and started talking. There was a rule in the group that if someone is attracted to another man, he should confess it to him and be heard. So this man talked about his journey. I thought he was a newcomer. Then I realized he was sober for three years and in therapy. I remember I couldn't take my eyes off him and was even idealizing him. I wanted to be his friend so badly and I think many others wanted [that] too. At the same time, I felt such joy that we all shared our deep feelings openly in this safe space room. After the session ended, we went to a restaurant together. We were not less than 15 to 20 people that day. All the men were recovering from unwanted same-sex behaviors or attractions. Once I started to talk openly to this man about my SSA, I felt relieved. With time, he told me about his deepest issues. We exchanged thoughts and feelings. I felt this intimacy and mutuality after I was in a state of idealizing him. I felt my attraction towards him started to decrease. We would go out and talk. He was always calm, a good listener, and very spiritual, masha'Allah. I felt how he was transformed, and he was like a role model for me. And gradually, as I started to see him more deeply, I saw his weakness and he saw mine. But there was a sense of tranquility and peace with him. I then felt this relationship transformed from just a therapeutic friendship with some sexual attractions into a fraternal connection, and my SSA dissipated. At that moment, I believed that change is possible. Same things happened when I connected with some guys on a deeper level in Poland, when I see what's beyond their bodies: namely, their struggles, their fears, their shame and their vulnerability. I realize how similar we are and how this kind of connection is important and needed for my journey to continue.

Waheed:   1:0:56
Beautiful. MashaAllah! Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

Fares:   1:0:59
You're welcome. So proper therapy and support attempt to sensitize the individual to the felt difference between two states: the exciting, even thrilling, but shallow gratification of narcissistic attention, feeling adored, admired for external appearances, etc. and the less exciting but richer gratification of a full, mutually affirmative connection, respect, esteem, cultivating positive character qualities. No narcissistically-based relationship can offer emotional growth but rather only feeds the insatiable need for special attention. And when the other person fails to gratify his need, the man resorts to the familiar narcissistic maneuvers of flattery, moodiness, guilt trips or temper tantrums. One man said: "There have been good men like X all my life who I have turned away, I've turned down. So I have I haven't been filling the empty hole; I have actually being building a fence around that hole. I don't let them in. When I think about X, I think that I don't deserve his friendship. Why does he waste his time with me? I'm afraid of his rejection, his not caring about me. I put up a barrier. Then I want to get him to pity me so I can get more attention from him. I overdramatize to get him to pay attention to me. I know I'm probably burning him out of the relationship, but I never really got this attention at home. I would cry to get my parents' attention, but it never really touched my need. It felt good on one level, but it didn't satisfy me. So I have to dramatize my needs. I always have to make a scene. I can't just relax. The lesson in childhood is that "who you were was not good enough to get love and attention". Being ordinary meant being alone. Some even shift to borderline traits after many disappointments, developing an anxiety of abandonment, impulsions and rage and eventually developing borderline personality disorder and feeling hatred toward themselves or even having suicidal ideation and attempts. On the other hand, working through the narcissistic illusion in order to achieve true mutuality with the other person is achieved through a proper therapeutic-working alliance or proper supporting environment to navigate this. The man must risk the dread of anticipated shame and hold on to the healing stance of being seen by a man as a man, along with all his fears and weaknesses. Again, recall Brené Brown and vulnerability. The challenge also includes seeing the other man as an autonomous person with his own needs and flaws, a person at the same level as me. Also, I want to add that the healing of narcissism itself, or narcissistic illusion, is to see the reality as itself, not exaggerated or not underestimated. It's kind of the thing that we mentioned before about being in the middle.

Waheed:   1:4:55
So far we have been talking about shame and narcissism. And so how do we tie both of these themes together? It's by looking at what psychology refers to as illusions and distortions. So what do we mean by these two words? Distortions -- these are the shame-based thoughts in our mind. They can either be thoughts or perceptions or beliefs, and these have been ingrained in us through the negative messages that we have received in our childhood, mainly from the parents and from our environment. So think about these distortions as what, basically, as the negative self talk, the shame and the worthlessness. So let's give an example. So, for example, I'm calling a friend, and that friend doesn't pick up the phone, and I do this over a while. I keep calling the person over some time, and that person doesn't answer, right? Maybe that person is going through a problem. Maybe there's an accident. Maybe there's a situation. Or maybe he's busy. Or maybe he just doesn't want to answer because he wants to have his own time -- whatever that reason may be, right? But how do I internalize this message? I assume that I am rejected. I'm ignored. He's just going to leave me like the rest of them did to me, right? I feel incompetent. I feel worthless. So all of this internal self talk is about being a failure, being defective, not doing things right.

Fares:   0:00
It's kind of, it evokes shame, right? -- this moment.

Waheed:   1:6:22
Of course. Yes. And so it's, you know, and then I start attacking myself. Yes, they are right. I should be ignored. I will never be loved. What is all of this even worth, and so on and so forth. So this is an example of these distortions. Now, on the other hand, there are illusions. When we think of illusions, these are basically thoughts that are grounded in those narcissistic traits that we talked about. They can be, again, thoughts or beliefs or perceptions, but they are unrealistically positive, and they serve to defend us against the negative messages. So these are illusions. Again, going back to the example of calling that friend and he's not answering over a while, you know, the illusion would be what? "You know what? I don't need this. I am way better than that person anyway. That guy is lucky to have me as a friend. It's his loss. I'll find better people. I won't even answer his calls if he calls me back. He should know better than to ignore me." So you see the difference between thinking in terms of distortions and thinking in terms of illusions. One is grounded in shame, the other is grounded in narcissism. But now, what is it, if not distortions or illusions, then what? It's reality. It's accepting reality as it is. This is the necessary reference point from which we assess those illusions and the distortions. So if we think of shame and narcissism, these are the two extremes that we oscillate in: shame and narcissism. They're two sides of the same coin. And if you think about it, where there is narcissism, there is shame, and where there is shame, there is narcissism. And for many men, homosexually acting out defends against the shame that they feel for the sense of masculine inferiority, that inferiority complex that we talked about in the previous episode. And where do these illusions and distortions come from? Again, they originate in early childhood trauma. Again, it's not to shame the person for having them, of course not. We have them anyway because why? It's a survival tactic. It's made by the mind when we feel that we need to stay in a relationship with a parent who fails to deliver, who fails to meet my expectations as a kid, right? So for the man or the woman who has experienced this profound attachment loss, so to speak, those illusions and distortions represent my refusal to face the reality of how bad it really was as a kid. Now, today even, when this child grows up to be an adult, the man or the woman still has this wish for others in his or her life to be that "good parent" -- for them to love me, for them to embrace me, for them to support me, etc. And at the same time, I always hold on to that anticipation that those people will prove to be the "bad parent", unfortunately. They will shame me, they will be distant from me, they will be abusive, etc.  

Fares:   1:9:29
And that's why also we see also in the gay community this kind of seeking for the "daddy type", like some people want the father to be present in their lives, so they seek the father figure. But eventually they fail again.

Waheed:   1:9:48
There's a lot of disappointments, unfortunately. So how do we navigate all of this? It's by working through our traumatic past that has caused us to develop those illusions and the distortions, right? Because those illusions and distortions are a kind of projection on our relationship with other people. As you said, Fares, you were talking about projections and projecting onto others the messages that we have received during childhood or the images of our parents or other people who have hurt us, right? And what Nicolosi says, "the antidote, the only antidote to this shame-narcissism pendulum is accepting reality", as you said, right? "And that requires embracing a deep humility", being humble. So humility means "to realistically accept one's own limitations and to surrender the need to either overvalue or to undervalue the self or other people". Just accept reality as what it is, right? "Humility releases the person from self preoccupation and allows us to focus on our own and on other people's authentic needs."

Fares:   1:11:11
Yes, and in reality, I want also to add: even if the reality itself is painful, we need to stay and feel that pain in order to develop or to grow. But if we try to skip this pain, here is the problem. Like, we develop these narcissistic traits again.

Waheed:   1:11:30
Absolutely, yes. And if we look in our Islamic tradition, if we look in the Qur'an and the Sunna, we see a lot of verses in the Qur'an and a lot of ahadith by the Prophet (saas) [that] address humility. So, for example, in Surat Hud, verse 23, Allah says, "Indeed, they who have believed and done righteous deeds and humbled themselves to their Lord, those are the companions of paradise. They will abide eternally therein." May Allah makes us among them, inshaAllah. In verse number 63 in Surat al-Furqan, Allah says, "And the servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk upon the earth easily" -- meaning, in this context, with humility, right? -- "and when the ignorant address them harshly, they say words of peace." Again, many, many ahadith of the Prophet (saas), like a hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari: "Shall I not tell you about the companions of Paradise? They are every humble person considered weak, but if they gave an oath by Allah, it would be fulfilled. Shall I not tell you about the companions of Hellfire? They are every harsh, haughty and arrogant person." Another hadith in Sahih Muslim, for example: "Charity does not decrease wealth. No one forgives except that Allah increases his honor, and no one humbles himself for the sake of Allah except that Allah raises his status."

Fares:   1:12:56
Going back to the topic of SSA and its correlation with narcissism: for me, same-sex fantasies and enactments are like drinking seawater. Yes, it's water. Its appearance is [that of] water. But after tasting it, it never gets my thirst quenched. The narcissist never gets satisfied, as Dr. Nicolosi mentioned. A way to heal narcissistic illusions is to admit the truth that we have narcissistic traits. No matter how much we deny them, they exist. And to overcome them, we need to experience humility and surrender our own self image and self shortage to God first, not to another male in sexual ways. There is a verse in the Qur'an which reminds me that this life is temporary; it's not eternal. In Surat Yunus, verse 45, Allah mentioned, "And on the Day when He will gather them, it will be as if they had not remained in the world but for an hour of the day, knowing each other. Those will have lost who denied the meeting with Allah and were not guided." All our life is like only one hour in comparison to the afterlife. One hour out of 24 hours. Can you imagine? The Qur'an mentioned that the joy in this life is temporary. It cannot stay forever. See how people now live in panic because of Corona virus. Life is always changing, but it will never be perfect for us. For those reasons, we need to be humble to our desires, to accept them and tolerate them as we see them as temporary feelings in our life and not constant. Even though they are frequent, they are also weak and short and will dissipate sooner or later. And even if I live with a constant state of SSA, I know that this life is short and has an end, ultimately. Acting out isn't worth it for such a small part of my eternal existence. It might be hard for some of us, and I know that; I've been through that. But also, as mentioned in the Qur'an, Allah SWT says in Surat al-'Asr, verse 3, "Wa-tawaasaw bi-l-haqqi wa-tawaasaw bi-l-sabr" [And enjoin one another to truth, and enjoin one another to patience]. That's why we are commanded to align our morals and hold one another to patience and righteousness till we reach the afterlife, inshaAllah. I will tell you what Richard Cohen wrote to me one day. He wrote: "Never give up", no matter how hard it seems to us at the same time to surrender, and let's go to God. No matter how much we feel down and frustrated in life, we will together reach the safest shore in the afterlife away from narcissism, shame and loss. Together to the Paradise, inshaAllah.

Waheed:   1:16:26
InshaAllah, ya Rabb! Ameen. Together. All together, inshaAllah. So, this is beautifully said. And the more we realize all of these concepts that we talked about and recognize the thought patterns that we have -- you know, any narcissistic manipulations that we plan, the shame based, self defeating behaviors that we have -- we slowly give way to a greater toleration of the painful issues of of life, right? This adjustment to reality is achieved not only through our relationship with, for example, let's say a therapist or a support system, but it's a result of also our growing perception of others as real people with their own separate needs, with their ups and downs, right? This is what we call authentic human contact. It's taking responsibility for how my behavior affects other people. It's realizing my place in the world. It's realizing other people's positions and their needs and their, you know, issues. So my perspective begins to shift from self protection to empathy. And so the healing of shame and narcissism, we gain that through being more compassionate towards ourselves and towards other people, through consistently being real with other people and relating to others in an authentic way. Again, I'm not going to stress this enough: it's going back to being vulnerable. Again, episode 3, right? Being vulnerable, being open, being authentic, seeing other individuals as autonomous, as people. This helps diminish my self-focused expectations that I project on others -- the capacity to experience reality as it is at the moment, to accept other people in life as they are, for whatever they can or cannot give me, that's just how it is -- being okay with that. This is very important.

Fares:   1:18:23
Yes, and especially with the parents, especially with those people who are close to us. Sometimes we cannot change them, and we need only to change ourselves because it's really, really, really a big part in therapy that we accept others as they are.

Waheed:   1:18:43
Absolutely, absolutely. Yes. And recall earlier when we said that a lot of men and women, they project on other people the image of the bad parent or the good parent, and they seek that from other people. You know, what helps in this case is to navigate these unresolved issues with another person. That might be a therapist or an attuned, trustworthy friend or support system, and to have the other person be open and trustworthy and, you know, salient and mature enough to handle this. The other person is not going to be the ideal person who has all of the answers, who will make everything better, nor the bad person who I anticipate is going to explode any minute, right? So once I realize these motivations and my thoughts, as well as those needs that lie behind them, what happens is that it is natural to expect a reaction from a man or a woman with SSA to be what? To be shame. Once I realize all of these, I will be even more ashamed. "You are right. I can see now that I will never be normal. Now I can see narcissism for what it is. Oh my God, I see now that they must exist for me. When I turn someone into my object of narcissism, so to speak, I start to consume that person. It destroys people. It destroys me", right? For example, going back to calling a friend. "I called up a friend, and while he was talking to me and I was talking to him, I could hear in the background that he was watching the game on the TV -- a baseball game or whatever -- and I could sense that he was distracted. He wasn't giving me that attention. He was partially listening to me and I could feel myself getting offended. I made it high drama. What he was doing was actually like rubbing salt in my wound". So now that person starts to realize, "Of course, I can't really expect people to be totally receptive to me whenever I want them to," right? And so, in this example, we hear this shame-based self contempt. Once the person realizes their narcissistic needs, they start shaming themselves even further. On the other hand, a different way of reacting would be like the person, once they realize those thought patterns, they would go to the other extreme, which is rage: "How dare you tell me about my motivations? How dare you accuse me of all of this?" So that's a normal part of growth, which is, you know, this is a normal reaction to all of these things. And these things take time. But what we hope to achieve is the path of healing and being authentic and growing. So this needs time, and it needs patience. So this is what we're trying to say, right?

Fares:   1:21:28
Yes. To try and avoid intensifying those defenses and shame, it's important to try and substitute the man's self criticism for self compassion by framing narcissism within the man's personal history. We show how a compassionate understanding for the man's original need to develop narcissistic maneuvers in order to receive the love and attention that he needed. Usually a skilled therapist or someone with experience in dealing with this would navigate these illusions and thought patterns while avoiding shaming the person. This is achieved by showing the historical necessity for his illusory creation. Highlighting his childhood need for his narcissistic defense diminishes the man's shame reaction to such exposure. Gently highlight and name defenses as they present themselves while allowing the man the freedom to accept or reject what he will about any of the comments. For example, one way to address this is like, as a child, you could not directly express your authentic needs, so you learned to do so by manipulation, attention seeking, etc. Since you felt neglected and unacknowledged, you believe fulan is ignoring you when he really isn't. With compassion and tolerance, we navigate this. In view of how ignored you felt as a boy, it is understandable that you would manipulate your friend for special attention. Since your father showed you little attention, I can see how you would hope that this other person would totally love and totally accept you to fill the unmet need. Here, the person or therapist intervenes to model the self compassion that must replace self criticism. The man must accept for the present time the existence of his narcissistic behaviors as he works toward developing true authenticity with other men. The therapist or person shows attuned compassion for the man as he works toward developing mutual, realistic and more mature friendships. One man might say, "when I would get these special guys' attention, it would only satisfy for a short time because I know that I had pressured and manipulated them for it. But when I released them, allowing them to show interest in me on their own terms, in their own way, on their own time, then it feels awesome, truly affirming". As the man grows in the ability to see other people realistically, he also grows in acceptance of himself, along with all his human imperfections.

Waheed:   1:24:48
Now let's talk about what is meant in psychology as homosexuality being a repetition compulsion. So in psychoanalytic theory, repetition compulsion is defined as the continual recreation of a past traumatic incident. We play that in our minds. Through symbolically re-enacting that traumatic situation, the person unconsciously seeks to gain final victory in that situation and to resolve that core injury that he had back then. So, in other words, the person recreates in the now moment that traumatic situation in which he or she felt as a failure in hopes that this time the outcome will be better. So to try and understand this, repetition compulsion contains three elements. It's an attempt at self mastery, it's a form of self punishment, and there is an avoidance of the underlying conflict. Now, let us try to explain each one of these three elements. The first one is attempting self mastery, which is also known as the reparative drive -- that, if you recall in episode 7, we said that the reparative drive is basically where a man who has same-sex attractions is attempting to repair those unmet affective needs that he needs from the same sex, which is basically attention, affection and approval, and nowadays you have others that have been added to that, which is acceptance, and affiliation, and resonance and others -- so basically, those important emotional needs that we need from the same sex. And we attempt to repair also the gender identification deficits through this homoerotic behavior. So for many men with same-sex attractions, pursuing fulfillment and emotional intimacy through all of this same sex behavior is an attempt to kind of overcome the cycle that they're familiar with where any attempt to basically become self assertive, to be this masculine-identified individual, to be authentic and genuine is going to fail. And it will result in humiliation because this is how we have internalized these messages. So instead of me facing my past, instead of me facing my pain, I choose to reenact that with the hope that unlike every other past occasion, this time I will finally get what I want. With this man, I will finally find the masculine power for myself. And this time, all of this nagging feeling and nagging sense of emptiness is going to finally disappear. This is how the mind interprets that. So, on one level, the repetition compulsion represents . . . it is a healthy reparative drive. It's basically me being proactive, trying to gain victory over my previous humiliating or wounding experiences. But because this is a product of my illusions and the shame that I'm operating on, this repetition compulsion is going to fail. It will fail, because any attempt to resolve those early attachment losses through erotic enactment and acting out sexually, this is not going to work. So this is as far as attempting at self mastery. What about the second element of being a form of self punishment?

Fares:   1:28:25
Beneath the drive for same-sex contact is shame, carrying with it a feeling of unworthiness and being unlovable. Inevitably, there will be anger toward the shamer, which is turned against the self, as well as feeling of despair that life will never get better. Here we can recall the childhood dynamics addressed before, the family dynamics. Someone might say, "When I have sex with a guy, I don't care what happens. I know I'll hate myself afterwards, but I don't care. I am in a self-destructive mode." The self-defeating, self-punishing aspect of the repetition compulsion is a result of shame-based distortions, the false negative belief that somehow I must really deserve this shame. This eventually consumes the man's emotional resources. He stays stuck in this compulsion because he has not overcome the hurt from those who failed him. In fact, he keeps the shamer alive by subjecting himself to the abuse of still another shamer. Of course he does so under the illusion that this time he will actually be loved and empowered and thus achieve vindication. Yet by making another man his object to achieve vindication, he has given one more person the power to reject him, shame him and make him feel worthless. But he truly believes it is only about this one new man in the present. When the shame-producing scenario is played out over and over again, this only reinforces the conviction that he really is a hopeless victim and ultimately unworthy of love. Just as a note, the act of sodomy itself is intrinsically masochistic. Anal intercourse as a violation of our bodily design is unhealthy and anatomically destructive, damaging the rectum and spreading diseases because the rectal tissues are fragile and porous. Furthermore, the act humiliates and demeans a man's dignity and masculinity.

Waheed:   1:30:56
Yeah, exactly. And we will talk, inshaAllah, about the health aspects of this more in season two.

Fares:   1:31:03
So I'll give now the chance to Waheed to talk about the avoidance of underlying conflict, of the defense against grief.

Waheed:   1:31:13
Right, so this is the third element in repetition compulsion. So, the underlying conflict is defending against grief. What do we mean by this? So, there are two opposing aspects of repetition compulsion: reenacting the distortion that the person deserves shame and then re-enacting the illusion that this time he will master the shame. Now, these two opposing aspects, they defend the man against the grief that my parents emotionally abandoned me. For the child whose parents were profoundly mal-attuned to his deepest needs, some defense is required against acknowledging and truly feeling the horrible reality of just how bad things were, right? We kept on saying this over and over. So this re-enactment of the internal drama prevents me from mourning the loss of what was earlier denied. Essentially, the repetition compulsion is a refusal to grieve. I am not grieving what happened to me. I have the right to grieve, but I'm not doing that because it's painful. So I need to find another way to overcome this. Compulsive sexual acting out, with its high drama and its promise of gratification, is well suited as a defense against memories of childhood abandonment. If only I can get this man to make me feel better about myself. This self talk deflects my attention from the real tragedy of my childhood, which is this nagging sense of emptiness that I feel. Now, shame is kind of a double-edged sword in this case because it cuts me off from myself and from others. The the shamed self that I have, it believes it is defective, it is insignificant, and it's worthless. And as a form of reparation, any kind of sexual acting out -- be it compulsive masturbation, pornography or even gay sex -- seems to offer the relief from all of these negative self talks and negative self evaluation. Why? Because I tried to get the masculine attention, the admiration, the reassurance. It offers me the promise of reparation -- the reparative drive, as we said -- of my depleted masculinity. It gives me this intimate contact that I feel, and it reassures me that that person is going to give me that intimacy instead of alienating me or shaming me -- a sort of a special attention that is very, very short lived, and inevitably it's followed by a cycle of further shame. So it becomes a vicious cycle that feeds itself.

Fares:   1:33:58
So I'll come to another subject here, which is addiction. And it's also related to the SSA issue, [namely] that many men with SSA use drugs, alcohol, have porn addiction, excessive masturbation or compulsive sexual encounters. They are incapable of modulating internal distress. They choose mood-altering options as a pleasurable, quick alternative to the task of internal self management. For many men, there is the unconscious hope that same-sex erotic contact will replicate the peace and bliss of secure parental attachment. One man said, "I want to sit in the lap of a big man and never wake up." Drugs, alcohol, porn and sex provide immediate relief from internal shame-based distress. Substance abuse and sexual promiscuity offer temporary relief from emotional emptiness, personal inadequacy and chronic depression. All these serve to distract the person from his fundamental inability to establish authentic emotional attachments. Anticipation of deeply felt despair and feeling trapped in emotional isolationism and inhibited in his ability to relate to others authentically, the man with SSA will often feel defeated, hurt and let down. And this prompts manic defenses, including the homosexual enactment that many religious men with SSA most want to resist. One man said, "I am so used to covering up my sadness with sexual arousal that when I feel sad, I know arousal is right around the corner. I used masturbation ever since I was a kid. I do it three times a day so as not to feel like a loser and not to feel weak or sad." The gray zone appears to be a dead state emotionally, but underneath it, it is profound despair. And in this sense the gray zone is a pseudo grief state.

Waheed:   1:36:33
Right. And the topic of the gray zone, we will talk about it, inshaAllah, more in episode 11. But briefly here, we are all familiar with the gray zone. So it is basically the state where we feel discouraged, powerless, disappointed, lonely and weak, right? And deflated, yes. Those feelings are likely to occur . . . when when do we feel that? When a significant person in our life fails to gratify our expectations. It could be seen as, for example, hurt to my dignity. Or, if I am, you know, ignored by another person that I'm trying to communicate with. Or I am disappointed by my mother figure or my father figure. Or if someone else in my life disappointed me, or they hurt me, or they said something, or their facial expression was something, or their voice tone was, you know . . . anything that I perceive as hurtful or as a negative. So as a result, the shame opens up; it wakes up inside of me. And I feel inadequate, disappointed and humiliated, even worthless sometimes. And then I might feel angry at myself, angry at the other person, and it is in that particular moment . . . this is the gray zone. It is in such times that the homosexual attractions are most likely to surface. Why? Because we seek some sort of a same-sex enactment to restore my sense of assertion. I want to be assertive, but the way that I see it is, the only way to get that is to sexually act out in whatever ways available. Now, with this comes great excitement and a sense of liberation that is rebellious. And it is opposite to the deflated state that I was in in the gray zone, right? So, what Nicolosi says [is that] a symbolic contact with the idealized masculine image -- in other words, the projected idealized self through same-sex enactment -- has temporarily restored his depleted self esteem, right? So many men with SSA, as a result, become addicted not just to the sexual release -- because it is addictive; it has this dopamine surge and all of these wonderful hormones, and it's very rewarding -- but it's not just that part which is addictive, but also the compulsive cycle becomes addictive, right? And so sexual compulsivity tends to dominate the person's life, if not by behavior then also by preoccupation and fantasy and daydreaming and all of that. So what we're trying to say here is that whether it is sex, whether it's food, whether it's substances, etc., this compulsive hyperactivity and the drive to be distracted, to be entertained -- this will not override the distress that we feel of emotional disequilibrium for long, this emotional imbalance. After enactment, there will always be a sense of disequilibrium, a sense of imbalance. This will always return.

Fares:   1:39:40
Yes. And sadly also to speak that regarding also distress and the anger they feel, they try to express it in the form of sexual issues like masochism and sadism. And sometimes they try to express anger to close sexual partners or sometimes against their family members. But usually for their opposite-sex attracted friends, they don't express their anger toward them, and they keep this anger, like, trapped in them. And this also intensifies the cycle of the shame, fear [and] anger inside them, and it will end up, of course, with an enactment if they didn't notice that.

Waheed:   1:40:47
Absolutely, absolutely. Let's talk now about homosexual relationships in light of everything that we have spoken about so far.

Fares:   1:40:53
Yes. Each one of us, men and women alike, is driven by the power of romantic love. These infatuations gain the power from an unconscious drive to become a complete human being. In people with heterosexual inclinations, it is the drive to bring together the male-female polarity through the longing for the other than me. But in people with homosexual inclinations, it is the attempt to fulfill a deficit in wholeness of one's original gender. Two men can never take in each other in the full and open way. Not only is there a natural anatomical unsuitability but an inherent psychological insufficiency as well. Both partners are coming together with the same deficit. Each is symbolically and sexually attempting to find fulfillment of gender in the other person, but the other person is not whole in that way either. So the relationship ends in disillusionment. Many, many relationships are characterized by fault finding, irritability, feeling smothered, clinging behavior [and] dependency problems. Boundary and power struggles are very common -- possessiveness and dominance, boredom, disillusionment, emotional withdrawal and unfaithfulness. Many same-sex relationships are characteristically brief and very volatile, with much fighting, arguing, making up again and continual disappointments. They may take the form of intense romances where the attraction remains primarily sexual, characterized by infatuation and never evolving into major mature love. Or else they settle into long-term friendships while maintaining outside affairs. Research, however, reveals that they almost never possess the mature elements of quiet consistency, trust, mutual dependency and sexual fidelity characteristic of highly functioning heterosexual marriage. This is not to dismiss same-sex friendships. To the extent that there is friendship, there is love, but it is love limited to friendship. In Islam, there is a lot to say about the importance of male-male and female-female companionship and suhba. It's common to find men's relationships with other men to be about finding faults, collecting injustices and accumulating resentments. There is a tendency to express hostility indirectly, covertly and backhandedly, keeping it in and burning or blowing up inappropriately to the situation. Of course, behind this hostility is fear. Sexualizing aggression is a defense, a way of submitting yet conquering. There is sometimes a tendency of sexualizing or loving a feared or hated male as a way of evading competition. An adolescent boy, for example, may cultivate a sexual relationship with a peer group leader using sex to master a feared male.

Waheed:   1:44:43
Right, yeah. And if we try to explain all of this in relation to the family dynamics and the detachment concepts that we explained or presented in episode number 7 . . . so again, if we go back: as a consequence of the boy's early sense of rejection by the father and then the defense of detachment from masculinity, the man with SSA, now as an adult, he carries a sense of weakness and incompetence with regards to the masculine characteristics like power, assertion and strength. He is attracted to those traits, like strength, out of an unconscious striving towards his own masculinity. He is trying to reach out to his own masculinity through that. And at the same time, because of that hurtful experience with the father or with the peers growing up, he is suspicious of men in power, right? -- those who display those characteristics that he wants. Homosexual contact is, thus, we can see it as like a bridge. It's a sexualized erotic bridge to gain entry into that special world of men. It is a way of finding masculine acceptance, not through personal strength, but it's as if I'm vicariously living through that erotic power. Since the man with homosexual inclinations is particularly inclined to see relationships with men in terms of power, there is sometimes an overcompensation in the power drive. For example, we may see this particularly in the business world, where a man is working in the business field and he tries to compensate for his private sense of inadequacy on, and tries to work hard to compensate for that. Or from a fear of dependency or exploitation by other men, I need to prove myself, I need to work harder. And this can be applied to so many other examples, right? So we will not be surprised, if we tie all of these concepts that we talked about today together, we won't be surprised to know that there is a high level of promiscuity that exists in the world of gay men, and this has been documented. Many men report high incidents of anonymous sex or even sexting with strangers, high numbers of sexual partners in a lifetime with a minority, only a minority being able to maintain fidelity and monogamy in their same-sex relationships. And also, as you recall, in episode 5 we touched upon the high levels of mental health issues that are in high percentages among individuals identifying as part of the LGBT. There are many studies that show there are high levels of depression and anxiety issues, personality disorders (particularly borderline personality disorders), mood disorders, suicidal ideations and attempts, substance abuse, etc. And that's basically been touched upon in episode 5. And some studies have shown co-occurring disorders with bipolar disorder (type one or type two), ADHD, high association with borderline personality. Again, sometimes this is misdiagnosed as vulnerable type narcissism as you said, Fares, as well as other types of personality disorders like paranoid, avoidant, dependent or histrionic personality disorders. And it's very important to know these things because these mental disorders or traits, they can make therapy a challenge for individuals who are desperately seeking help through reparative or reintegrative therapy or any kind of therapy for their unwanted same-sex attractions. Sometimes these mental health issues could make the therapy of those addictive behaviors -- you know, the homosexual behaviors -- even harder. If we put what we have spoken about so far together with the childhood issues and the family dynamics, we can begin to understand where those mental health issues come from and how they are further fueled, right?

Fares:   1:48:39
Yes, true. I see it like a puzzle, Waheed. I need to collect each piece of it in order to get the full picture [or] situation and know how to deal with it later on. There are layers of issues covering the growing male identity, loss of father, and the attention and affection, approval, acceptance, affiliation and resonance and over-attachment with the mother, shame, bullying, emotional abandonment and pain, defensive mechanism, shame state issues and defensive detachment. And some of us experienced numbness or disowned parts. And finally, the happy false self that covers all of these, plus other, issues. So it requires a lot of effort, and it is really an ongoing process day by day. But at the same time, it should not be a process of digging or to overwhelm oneself, discovering every detail in his past. But there are some key elements that are crucial in the changing process out of these mental issues. Going back to repetition compulsion, it becomes thus important to reveal the repetition compulsion to the man with SSA. He must recognize the inherent underlying illusions and distortions. When the illusions and distortions are faced and understood, then the man can confront parental limitations and early attachment losses to be able to grieve. When a man's self-defeating behaviors lead him to a confrontation with the reality, he is most ready to face the losses of his past. What he often finds buried within is a profound sense of emptiness and sadness. This discovery will mark the beginning of productive grief work.

Waheed:   1:50:40
Absolutely, and we will talk more about grief work in episode 11. But, you know, as a summary, grief work basically involves going back and grieving those painful moments. So, for example, if I look back at the memories with the father, let's say, we asked, "Why do I grieve?" I grieve the lack of connection with men. Okay. What causes such a division between me and other men? "I think of Dad," someone might say. "Dad is a great man, but he is not good at connecting emotionally. He does not talk about feelings. I would have liked to be able to express my heart to him and have him hear me and acknowledge that he has heard and understood, but Dad shuts down. He falls asleep when the topic goes there." And then, for example, if there is a sibling, my sister recognizes that as well. She thinks that's because he's not interested in her. She's incorrect. It's a limitation of my dad, and we all grieve that limitation. And then the person would be like, "Well, I grieve that lack." But when I try to avoid the grief, it comes out wrongly in all that I do. When I refuse to feel the grief, when I fall into shame, when I fantasize and I masturbate and I look at porn or whatever, I am only setting myself up for greater shame. Shame leads to depression, and depression leads to sexual acting out, which leads to a greater sense of separation from other men, and the cycle goes on and on and on. So, to this Nicolosi says, "Indeed, homosexual enactment is very compelling. It offers a radical shift of the depleted affective state, lifting the man out of a depression and into a peak moment of intense, visceral arousal. With its power to manage internal disequilibrium, it distracts from more important underlying issues, particularly the healthy developmental challenge of learning to assert the true gendered self. So how do we resolve this repetition compulsion, Fares?

Fares:   1:52:52
Yes. We can say as men proceed in therapy and support, they often come to see their reenactment of emotional conflicts as motivated by a powerful need to keep things as they are, even if things as they are, are in fact self defeating. There is a healthier alternative to their unsatisfying enactments. Rather than recreating the traumatic failure, they can develop healing relationships that offer the chance to do now in adulthood what they could not do as children: namely, to acknowledge and truly grieve their loss. I can say also one thing that I remember now: there some therapeutic methods that are being used also for grief that you, of course, relive these moments, these shame moments, and start to grieve in front of the support group. And each one can play a role -- we can say, a role play. And this also a very helpful method for people to grieve their past. When a man confronts the fact that his unwanted behaviors are indeed a repetition compulsion, he faces the reality that happiness and fulfillment can never be imported from any other human being, Jalaluddin Rumi said, "You have within you more love than you could ever understand." This opens the man up to doing the necessary grief work, accepting the traumatic reality that his parents never saw him. One man trapped in a repetitive cycle of sexual acting out admitted, concerning the painful emotional work of therapy, that it was, in fact, better than staying stuck in an endless cycle of fantasy about other guys. "I'd rather cry," he said, "than keep on masturbating." There is an attempt to gain male connectedness in a self-defeating way that protects men against feeling deep grief. Through same-sex erotic contact, they are seeking resolution of the powerful and very normal human need to be known and loved by other men. Beneath one's homosexual behavior is a healthy drive to gain authentic attachment. For them, the challenge is to give up the dream of finding another man who will provide the masculinity they themselves lack. Instead, they must accept the male affirmation in a realistic way, through mutuality, not idealization.

Waheed:   1:55:54
And so, as we said, there is an exhilaration with this false vitality and transgression that men typically feel when they engage in sex with other men. But they also realize that it is maladaptive. This acting out is very compulsive. It's stereotypic, it is repetitive, and it represents, as we said, it's an unproductive attempt to resolve this conflict that is inside of us. Most often this conflict is between love and fear. It has to do with memories of the father, with our peers, with our childhood in general. So the same-sex drive is an attempt to connect with with what? With our own free and expressive and spontaneous gendered selves -- again, the true self that is trapped inside of us. The intent of the impulse is reparative, as we said, in that the goal behind it is to affirm our gender, to affirm ourselves. The man strives to be seen by other men as an attractive male, and that's a normal striving. But the behavior never resolves the original conflict. It creates even more distress when we sexually act out. So, what we're trying to say here is, there is an energy in being assertive and there is an energy in homosexual enactment. There is a sense of being alive in both of them, but the vitality and the aliveness, so to speak, when it comes to assertion, this is deep. It is relationally connected. It is long lasting. It is emotionally transformative. It is healthy. But the homosexual enactment's energy, it is intense, but it is shallow, and it is short lived, and it is not rewarding in the sense that we want, in an authentic way. So healthy assertion forms the foundation of our authentic relationships and direct communication. It is a positive adaptive medium to learn new ways of relating to others, and it involves intentionality and responsibility. You are being calm and you are being positive. You learn how to stand up for yourself and what you believe in, to be yourself, to be your true self, to be genuine and authentic. Again, episode 3: to be vulnerable, right? So these assertive behaviors, they help fulfill our male identification needs and they propel the man towards mastery of interpersonal conflicts, especially those that continuously arise in our interactions with other men. Some men, when they have a growth in their assertiveness and their genuineness, they choose to adopt a gay identity and live the lifestyle. And this may happen. But others will choose the opposite direction, which is what we hope to achieve, inshaAllah. As Muslims with same-sex attractions, we have a willful determination to refrain from acting out with other men, to achieve this genuineness, this authenticity, and to live a life true to Allah SWT and Islam, inshaAllah.

Fares:   1:58:51
InshaAllah.

Waheed:   1:59:00
And with this we have come to the end of today's episode. I would like to sincerely thank my dear friend Fares, who has been a co-host with me today. Thank you so much, Fares, jazakum Allahu khayran for joining me today. It's really a pleasure to have you, and I really hope that you can join me, inshaAllah, in later episodes in later seasons. You have been phenomenal in planning out this episode and in the episode itself as a co-host. Jazak Allahu khayran. Thank you so much for joining me. Do you have any last take home messages for the audience at the end of today's episode?

Fares:   1:59:38
I want to mention something that I've learned in Egypt from my psychiatrist, the very first time I came to the group. He told me, "Be real and feel in order to heal."

Waheed:   1:59:56
Jazak Allahu khayran. It's a beautiful advice, and it basically summarizes the entire episode, right? Just be real in order to feel and just be who you are, right? Feel your genuine, true self. This is what we care about, inshaAllah. I would like to end this episode with the following quote from Brené Brown: "Owning our story can be hard, but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky, but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy -- the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light." Thank you so much for listening to this episode. As a reminder, you can always email us at "awaybeyondtherainbow@gmail.com," and you can listen to all our episodes on our website, awaybeyondtherainbow.buzzsprout.com, and you can listen to us also through the podcast apps like Google podcast, Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart radio and TuneIn radio. In the next episode, inshaAllah, we will be talking about female same-sex attractions. The entire episode is dedicated to our wonderful sisters who struggle with this. And it's also very important for men and women who who struggle or don't struggle with same-sex attractions. It's a very important episode for all of us, inshaAllah. So until next Friday, I hope that you have a wonderful week. Stay safe, stay healthy and I'll talk to you soon. You have been listening to "A Way Beyond the Rainbow" with Waheed Jensen and Fares. Assalamu 'alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.