I found Nick Pollard, known online as 'The People Displeaser,' through his Instagram reels, and three days later we were recording this conversation. Nick is a coach and recovering people pleaser who survived a brutal childhood, three divorces, and an addiction that nearly killed him. He came out the other side with ideas that a lot of people find hard to hear.

We talk about how people-pleasing quietly turns into resentment, why he calls it "little bottles of rage," and why the explosion almost always lands on someone you love. We get into why he doesn't buy the word "empath," what he saw after walking out of rehab and straight onto its staff, and why he thinks a lot of coaches need to stay in their lane. I also push him on the question I keep running into with my own audience: where does taking responsibility for your life end, and where does victim blaming begin?

Nick also shares why Narcissist's Playbook hit him so hard, and what it showed him about his own past relationships.

Nick's Instagram: @thepeopledispleaser
Book: I Hope You Hate This, out January 26, 2027. Pre-order at www.ihopeyouhatethis.com

Narcissist's Playbook Screenings
Washington, D.C.: Free screening, Sunday, October 25, Sylvan Theater, National Mall
Want to join the D.C. street team? Email outreach@narcissistsplaybook.com
Cape Town, South Africa: Late November. Details coming soon.
More U.S. screenings in December, with Europe and Australia planned for early 2027.
Rent the film: www.NarcissistsPlaybook.com

Patreon
Behind-the-scenes footage from my trip back to Albany, New York, plus the conversations I don't have publicly: www.patreon.com/markvicente

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The views and opinions expressed by guests on WTF is on my Mind?! do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast or Mark Vicente. Any content provided by guests are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything.

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This one is personal.

When I was waking up from NXIVM, Raniere and the people around him were turning on my wife Bonnie and trying to destroy our marriage. At one point she asked me where she stood in all of it. I checked in with myself, deeply, and I gave her my answer. The cult saw that answer as weakness.

Last week in New York, someone asked me about that moment on a podcast, and it brought back something I had completely forgotten. In the 90s I read a book called "The Nine Faces of Christ" by Eugene Whitworth. It moved me so much that I wanted to make a film of it. Near the end, the main character faces a final test in an Egyptian mystery school: to move on, he has to give up the woman he loves. What he chooses, and what happens next, has stayed with me for decades. I just didn't realize how closely it mirrored my own choice until now.

In this episode I talk about:
- The moment Bonnie asked me where my loyalty was
- How NXIVM turned my answer into a story about me having no backbone
- The story of "The Nine Faces of Christ" and why it hit me so hard
- Why sometimes the only way to pass the test is to fail it
- Going back to Albany, and what I noticed about how I used to feel there
- Choosing love, life and presence over ideology

NARCISSIST'S PLAYBOOK IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
We're screening the film on October 25th. Details and sign up: here: https://narcissistsplaybook.uscreen.io/pages/filmscreenings

MY ALBANY VLOG
I walked around the old stomping grounds and recorded my thoughts. It's up on Patreon: www.patreon.com/markvicente

Stay curious.

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The views and opinions expressed by guests on WTF is on my Mind?! do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast or Mark Vicente. Any content provided by guests are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MarkVicente
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You're sure you know who the enemy is. You've seen the evidence. You've read the comments. But what if the fight itself is the product?

In NXIVM, Raniere kept us busy fighting each other so none of us looked up at what he was doing. I'm watching the same pattern play out on a massive scale, and most people are too inflamed to notice. So I want to ask you a question I think very few people are asking right now: who benefits when you hate the other side?

And if the answer makes you uncomfortable, what do you actually do about it? I have a thought on the antidote. I'd love to hear yours in the comments.

🎟 Nashville screening of Narcissist's Playbook with Evan Rachel Wood, Sept 22: https://www.belcourt.org/events/rental-screening-narcissists-playbook/
🎬 Rent the film anytime: http://www.narcissistsplaybook.com
📩 Know a journalist or outlet who should cover the film? outreach@narcissistsplaybook.com
🎧 My earlier episode on narcissistic triangulation: https://youtu.be/jdlrfn7V22Q
🎧 My interview with A Little Bit Culty:
Part 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-little-bit-culty/id1553334816?i=1000789536099
Part 2: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-little-bit-culty/id1553334816?i=1000789541029

Stay curious.

Support the show

The views and opinions expressed on WTF is on my Mind?! do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast or Mark Vicente. Any content provided by guests are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MarkVicente
Website: www.markvicente.com
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For thirteen episodes, you've heard from the people Bentinho Massaro did this to. This episode is different. Carol Merchasin isn't a survivor, she's a lawyer, and some people call her 'The Cult Assassin.'

If this conversation resonates, watch my documentary on narcissistic abuse, 'Narcissist's Playbook: Empathy Not Included' www.narcissistsplaybook.com

Carol Merchasin is an attorney and advocate on coercive control and high-demand groups, and the founder of a litigation practice devoted to sexual abuse, trafficking, and coercive control cases against these organizations. She previously spent years as a partner at Morgan, Lewis, investigating sexual misconduct inside Fortune 50 companies. She's now president of the Board of the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA):
www.internationalculticstudies.org

In this conversation, Carol and I get into what coercion actually looks like when there's no physical force involved: the isolation, the indoctrination, the slow process of cutting someone off from every outside voice that could tell them something is wrong. We talk about why "why didn't you leave" is the wrong question, and why "it could never happen to me" is the most dangerous thing anyone can believe about themselves. Carol also walks through the legal side most people never hear: how a case like this actually gets built, what the Trafficking Act has to do with coercive control that never involves physical force, and why the NXIVM case set a precedent that keeps getting built on every time a new case reaches a courtroom. These organizations act like they're untouchable. They're not, and this episode is about exactly why.

Support the show

The views and opinions expressed on WTF is on my Mind?! do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast or Mark Vicente. Any content provided by guests are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MarkVicente
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This is a crossover episode between WTF Is on My Mind and Remember Your Greatness.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/remember-your-greatness-with-mark-vicente/id1838356198

People have watched me go from What the Bleep Do We Know?! to Narcissism, Cults, and Dark Psychology, and some have asked what the two have to do with each other. This episode is my answer.

Narcissism is, in essence, the ego gone completely out of control. Spiritual and philosophical traditions have talked about the true self versus the false self for centuries, and I think Narcissistic Personality Disorder shows us exactly what happens when that false self becomes so disconnected from reality that it takes over completely.

In this episode I talk about:

- The difference between the false self we construct and the true self that feels more constant and eternal
- The "I AM" state, and what happens when people touch that place of pure presence
- How our thoughts can become completely detached from reality when we mistake them for our identity
- Why communal narcissism can look like altruism and care when it is actually feeding a false sense of self
- Keith Raniere's use of the word "pride," and why disabling healthy ego makes people easier to control
- Why trying to destroy the ego is just another ego trip, and why that approach backfires
- What cult leaders reveal about this pattern taken to its extreme

Narcissism is a warning signal for what happens when we become spiritually dysregulated. Understanding it is not just about spotting it in other people. It is about understanding the same mechanism in ourselves.

If this resonates with you, check out Narcissist's Playbook, our documentary featuring Dr. Ramani Durvasula, Dr. Heather Berlin, Richard Grannon, Evan Rachel Wood and a host of self-confessed narcissists, available to rent at NarcissistsPlaybook.uscreen.io

As always, stay curious.

Support the show

The views and opinions expressed on WTF is on my Mind?! do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast or Mark Vicente. Any content provided by guests are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MarkVicente
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Inst@Guru is an investigative series examining Bentinho Massaro, a Dutch-born spiritual influencer, and the high-control dynamics inside his organization. It's built around the accounts of three former members who spent years close to him: Jacqueline Graham, Keilan McNeil, and Jade Alectra. Each brings their own texts, memories, and evidence to build a full picture of what actually happened, and why it's so hard to see from the inside while you're living it.

This is part four of the text message series. Jacqueline, Keilan, and Jade go through their private conversations with Cory, Bentinho's right hand, and with Bentinho himself, in the aftermath of leaving his organization.

Jacqueline shares her full exit conversation with Cory, the one where every doubt she raises gets reframed as a "visit" from a negative entity. Jade walks through what happened during an isolated retreat with Bentinho, Cory, and Paola, and what she describes as being groomed into treating consent as something to overcome. You'll hear what happened to Paola in the years that followed. Keilan shows the "plug the holes" damage control that kicked in within thirty minutes of a single online post, along with a threatening text from Bentinho to a former employee, and an older group chat that shows Cory's devotion to him years before any of this.

I'm Mark Vicente. I spent twelve years inside NXIVM, the group HBO covered in The Vow. This series exists because Jacqueline, Keilan, and Jade wanted people to see how this actually works from the inside, not just hear that it happened.

This is episode 13. If you haven't watched episodes 1 through 12, start there, this one builds directly on everything before it.

I also just released Narcissist's Playbook, a documentary highly relevant to this series.
https://narcissistsplaybook.uscreen.io/

Support the show

The views and opinions expressed on WTF is on my Mind?! do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast or Mark Vicente. Any content provided by guests are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MarkVicente
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I've been sitting with a theory for a while now: that dissociation isn't just what happens to survivors; it might be the actual cornerstone of narcissism itself. Not just what a narcissist does to the people around them, but something disconnected inside of them too, from their own shame, their own actions, maybe their own humanity.

Watch Narcissist's Playbook: https://narcissistsplaybook.uscreen.io
Join the Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/MarkVicente
Dr. Heather Berlin: https://www.heatherberlin.com

Dr. Heather Berlin was one of the experts featured in Narcissist's Playbook, and she joined us for our launch weekend, July 24th to 26th, for a live Q&A that left me with a lot of unfinished thoughts I couldn't stop turning over. So I brought her back to dig in a little deeper.

We get into what dissociation actually is, why some narcissists can pass a polygraph while telling a bold lie because they've come to genuinely believe it, and why some seem to see other people less as people and more as objects, tools, even less than that. We also talk about the difference between refusing to look inward and being unable to, whether some of this is decided early in life or wired in from birth, and why the people who seek power the most are so often the ones who should have it the least.

Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist and clinical psychologist, and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her research explores the neural basis of trauma and dissociation, with a particular focus on the insula, the brain region tied to body awareness, and on depersonalization, the clinical term for the numbness and disconnection so many survivors describe. She's also a well-known science communicator, hosting PBS NOVA's Your Brain and appearing regularly on StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Her new book, The Fine Art of Losing Control, is available for pre-order now.

Support the show

The views and opinions expressed on WTF is on my Mind?! do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast or Mark Vicente. Any content provided by guests are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything.

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Narcissist's Playbook is out now and available to rent at https://narcissistsplaybook.uscreen.io/

From July 24th to 26th, we held our Narcissist's Playbook launch weekend, and Dr. Ramani Durvasula was one of our featured speakers. I got to sit down with her for this conversation, and this time we didn't talk about the narcissists. We talked about the survivors and the road back to themselves. PLEASE NOTE THE EMAIL MENTIONED IS NOT AVAILABLE NOW. THAT WAS ONLY FOR THE LIVE WEEKEND.

We get into the fog, that disorienting space where you finally start to see the pattern but don't trust your own memory anymore. Dr. Ramani explains why time itself feels lost in these relationships, and why self blame shows up first, before anger, as a survival mechanism rather than a personal flaw. We talk about the fantasy people hold onto and the fear underneath it, and about grief, not just for the relationship, but for the person you were before it.

Then we open it up to audience questions, covering narcissists at work, grieving a narcissistic parent, custody battles, trauma bonding, and how to leave when someone threatens to hurt themselves if you do.

Narcissist's Playbook is out now and available to rent at https://narcissistsplaybook.uscreen.io/

Support the show

The views and opinions expressed on WTF is on my Mind?! do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast or Mark Vicente. Any content provided by guests are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MarkVicente
Website: www.markvicente.com
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