Speaker 1: This podcast should not be used as a substitute for
Speaker 1: medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek
Speaker 1: independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a health
Speaker 1: care professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
Speaker 1: or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This
Speaker 1: episode discusses abuse as well as descriptions of childhood abuse,
Speaker 1: which may be triggering to some people. Please use discretion
Speaker 1: when listening. The views and opinions expressed are solely those
Speaker 1: of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,
Speaker 1: and do not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions,
Speaker 1: I Heart Media or their employees. In this process of
Speaker 1: coming to believe Me, I keep hearing from people that
Speaker 1: they are believing themselves for the first time. And like
Speaker 1: I said, I never wanted to write a book about
Speaker 1: child trauma and narcissistic abuse. I wanted this to be
Speaker 1: left in Colorado when I graduated high school, and now
Speaker 1: it's become the biggest subject of my waking life. But
Speaker 1: if it is helping other people to heal, I would
Speaker 1: do it all again. There's no regret. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the second part of doctor Ingrid Clayton's story. Ingrid has
Speaker 1: shared her story of complex trauma as a result of
Speaker 1: narcissistic abuse. We have heard her story of being abused
Speaker 1: by her stepfather, her mother's lack of support and denial,
Speaker 1: and the fear and menace that characterized her childhood. As
Speaker 1: Ingrid proceeds through adolescence, she faces the transitions when adolescence
Speaker 1: need their parents support, such as going to college and
Speaker 1: moving to a new city largely alone and with the
Speaker 1: burden of self doubt and confusion continuing to weigh heavily.
Speaker 1: We now hear how her story of narcissistic abuse as
Speaker 1: a child impacts her as she goes into adulthood, of
Speaker 1: becoming an alcohol all like entering a series of relationships
Speaker 1: where the same invalidating patterns were repeated, and how she
Speaker 1: navigated all of that to an unexpected ending. We're talking
Speaker 1: about narcissistic abuse. You didn't have this framework, obviously, you
Speaker 1: did not know that when you look back, because now
Speaker 1: you're saying, I agree, this narcissistic abuse framework fits what
Speaker 1: I went through. How do you capture Randy's behavior as narcissistic?
Speaker 1: What elements of it jumped out to you? So I
Speaker 1: think the compulsive lying and the different faces for different people,
Speaker 1: that sort of I can be charming the way that
Speaker 1: people did find him charming, and yet at home he
Speaker 1: was this different person. The manipulation. I mean, as I
Speaker 1: see now, while the trauma bonding certainly fit the love bombing,
Speaker 1: I never would have known that that's what that was.
Speaker 1: So here's the jewelry. Or I got us a membership
Speaker 1: to the Aspen Club because I know you really want
Speaker 1: to belong there. And even the word gas sliding romany.
Speaker 1: I never had that in my personal lexicon. And yet
Speaker 1: that is the crux of my story, that is the
Speaker 1: trauma growing up in such pervasive intentional gas lighting. So
Speaker 1: once I had those terms. But like I said, even
Speaker 1: after I wrote a book with the subtitle Healing from
Speaker 1: Narcissistic Abuse and Complex Trauma, so I believed it enough
Speaker 1: to put it in the subtitle. I'm not kidding when
Speaker 1: I say I sent it to you going she might
Speaker 1: tell me that I'm out of my mind. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was all there. There was no empathy. How could
Speaker 1: you have it about me? That's right, That's why that
Speaker 1: moment on the edge of his water bed where he's
Speaker 1: telling me I cycle through these things where I love
Speaker 1: you so much and then I basically have to hate
Speaker 1: you because you don't love me back. I'm waiting for
Speaker 1: it to be about me, and I'm going there's never
Speaker 1: a time where something was so about me. But this
Speaker 1: is not about me at all. It's about you. You see,
Speaker 1: yourself is the victim, and I can see evidence of
Speaker 1: that in so many of my experiences, and that that
Speaker 1: lack of empathy is the court. Because some people say
Speaker 1: this person is entitled, maybe they're narcissistic. Entitlement does not
Speaker 1: a narcissist make, but obviously there was tons of entitlement
Speaker 1: in your story. But that complete lack of empathy, that
Speaker 1: lack of self reflective capacity, the the victimhood. And you
Speaker 1: were a child right so to me, that even magnifies
Speaker 1: that lack of empathy. The arrogance, the grandiosity, the manipulation
Speaker 1: with money, the manipulation with gifts, the need to control,
Speaker 1: the punishments, the egocentricity. Everything was about him, everything on
Speaker 1: his terms, the validation seeking tell me I'm great. You
Speaker 1: felt the compelled to tell me he's a good singer.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you're familiar with Pete Walker's work.
Speaker 1: You know what's so compelling about his work is you're
Speaker 1: talking about that fawning response of the children who really
Speaker 1: get programmed to praise these parents in this endless way
Speaker 1: because it's the only way to get safe and attachment
Speaker 1: needs met. And so then when you extend that to adulthood,
Speaker 1: now you're fawning over terrible people in adulthood. But it's
Speaker 1: that same quest for safety. So, I mean, it was
Speaker 1: all there. So it was thinking like it was all
Speaker 1: this is kind of like a literal law in case
Speaker 1: study on narcissism. So now you've moved to New York,
Speaker 1: you have faced down that you're struggling with alcohol use
Speaker 1: disorder addiction, You're going to twelve step and even the
Speaker 1: feelings that process brought up. What about relationships? How did this,
Speaker 1: this history and what happened to you affect adult romantic
Speaker 1: relationships for you? And how did that play out for
Speaker 1: you in young adulthood? Well, I mean, right out of
Speaker 1: the gates, I ended up working at this law firm
Speaker 1: and the World Trade Center as an administrative assistant, and
Speaker 1: I ended up working for this man who was married
Speaker 1: and likely an alcoholic. I've never thought about it that way.
Speaker 1: But next thing, you know, he and I are going
Speaker 1: to this bar across the street every day for these
Speaker 1: liquid lunches. Like this was before before I got sober,
Speaker 1: and fast forward to him taking me to these lavish parties,
Speaker 1: you know, and I was I was twenty, I guess
Speaker 1: because I moved to New KOs nineteen, so I was
Speaker 1: twenty at this time. He's mid thirties and like I said,
Speaker 1: wife and kids at home, and there was this part
Speaker 1: of me that always thought, oh, he's married, he's safe.
Speaker 1: I thought that someone's partnership or marital status was a boundary.
Speaker 1: I misstook that as a solid boundary, and so I
Speaker 1: entered in and yeah, maybe we were being a little flirtatious,
Speaker 1: and you know, he was sort of mentoring me. I'm
Speaker 1: this young Colorado girl living in the big city and
Speaker 1: he lived there his whole life, and he's kind of
Speaker 1: showing me the ins and outs. But I would always
Speaker 1: know there was a little something, like I knew that
Speaker 1: he was attracted to me, But like I said, I
Speaker 1: perceived his marriage as like a clear boundary, and yet
Speaker 1: men just like him would cross that boundary time and
Speaker 1: time again, and it would baffle me. I was truly baffled,
Speaker 1: and I talked about this so many times with different therapist.
Speaker 1: I was like, do I have a sandwich board that
Speaker 1: I'm walking around the city like looking for a corrective experience.
Speaker 1: You know, I couldn't understand because the red flags weren't there.
Speaker 1: It was this natural progression of a relationship that I
Speaker 1: found myself in over and over. But you mentioned Pete
Speaker 1: Walker's work. I'm so grateful to him because this piece
Speaker 1: about fawning is the thing that finally allowed me to
Speaker 1: make sense to myself as a lifetime fawner. So my
Speaker 1: trauma responses are a flight and fawn. I'm a free right.
Speaker 1: So in fawning, the way that we abandon ourselves in
Speaker 1: order to try to please other people and take care
Speaker 1: of other people, I'm gonna be who you need me
Speaker 1: to be in the hope that you're going to take
Speaker 1: care of me in return. Basically, what that says is
Speaker 1: I need to be exploited in order to feel safe.
Speaker 1: There is this dynamic that is set up. And so
Speaker 1: this part of me that for decades rominy this, this
Speaker 1: happened so many times I lost count this part of
Speaker 1: me that finally understood I wasn't broken, I wasn't stupid,
Speaker 1: I wasn't all of these things. My body was seeking
Speaker 1: safety in the way that it literally learned how to
Speaker 1: find safety, and I could go, I don't have to
Speaker 1: be so ashamed. I make perfect sense. My body makes
Speaker 1: perfect sense. And now that I know that it's about safety,
Speaker 1: I can enlarge my toolbox of Okay, so what is
Speaker 1: actual safety? Can I find some flexibility in terms of
Speaker 1: looking at how to regulate my nervous system and all
Speaker 1: of these other things? As a trauma therapist, that went,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this makes so much sense. So it
Speaker 1: was that boss, it was other mentors, it was professors.
Speaker 1: This pattern that Ingrid is describing given her childhood experience,
Speaker 1: isn't unusual. What's unfortunate is many survivors in these experiences
Speaker 1: may view themselves as manipulative or somehow damaged. Instead of
Speaker 1: getting to that place that Ingrid describes here of my
Speaker 1: body making perfect sense trying to find safety. Sadly, for
Speaker 1: most survivors, they don't make sense of it and merely
Speaker 1: extend the negative self talk from childhood. So these were
Speaker 1: the men that were sort of seeking me with this
Speaker 1: promise of I'm going to be helpful. I'm going to
Speaker 1: take care of you, and I was like, oh great,
Speaker 1: I want to be taken care of until it would
Speaker 1: go horribly wrong. And next to that is my dating career,
Speaker 1: which that's where it was sort of if guys were unavailable,
Speaker 1: active addicts. They all had one ft in the door
Speaker 1: and would flat out tell me like, no, I don't
Speaker 1: really want a relationship. And it ignited that thing in
Speaker 1: me of I'll prove my worth. You just don't know
Speaker 1: it yet, but we're it to be together. It was
Speaker 1: like it lit a fire inside me to try and
Speaker 1: improve myself. And of course we know what happens with that, right.
Speaker 1: It never ever, ever ever worked out, So it was
Speaker 1: deeply painful all the way up until my first marriage
Speaker 1: was exactly that scenario. But I was older now and
Speaker 1: I wanted a family, and I felt like, honestly, there
Speaker 1: was this part of me that I was just willing
Speaker 1: to almost do anything to get to the finish line
Speaker 1: of marriage. Because if I'm coming from a place where
Speaker 1: I fundamentally know that I was not chosen, I was
Speaker 1: not chosen by my mom, I was discarded. There must
Speaker 1: be something wrong with me. The key to my feeling
Speaker 1: free in the world, to being free in my skin,
Speaker 1: to being a whole person meant I needed to be chosen.
Speaker 1: It was just a math problem in my body, and
Speaker 1: it either needed to happen by my mom saying I
Speaker 1: believe you, or by somebody else saying you are worthy
Speaker 1: of committing myself too. I needed it, and the part
Speaker 1: of me that knew that I needed it in sort
Speaker 1: of an obsessive way. I was in grad school and
Speaker 1: I'm writing these feminist papers and sort of deconstructing marriage.
Speaker 1: I'm using all of my faculties to try and make
Speaker 1: a conscious, healthy choice, But none of that information could
Speaker 1: override my need for safety and connection in my body.
Speaker 1: And the only way that I had ever learned how
Speaker 1: to get it was through these very dysfunctional relationships with
Speaker 1: the hope that it's going to get better. Right like,
Speaker 1: if I get him sober, if I whatever, I'll be
Speaker 1: their therapist, I'll be their mom, I'll be whoever they
Speaker 1: need me to be in order to take care of
Speaker 1: my partner. I'm going to raise them up and then
Speaker 1: we're going to have a healthy relationship. Right what she
Speaker 1: says here, I'll be their therapist, I'll be their mom.
Speaker 1: I'll be whoever they need me to be. That belief
Speaker 1: that we need to be a one stop shop for
Speaker 1: the people in our lives. That is such a classical
Speaker 1: element of the trauma bond. It's that fawning thing. I
Speaker 1: was literally stuck in it for decades. It is I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that people don't fully understand it. And even
Speaker 1: what you brought up, this issue of being chosen, right,
Speaker 1: it is a theme I hear over and over again,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people will equate love bombing, which
Speaker 1: is a lot of these folks were doing with you.
Speaker 1: These men who were already in other relationships are just
Speaker 1: not ever going to be available. It's love bombing feels
Speaker 1: like being chosen, and I think you just really positioned
Speaker 1: it so beautifully and saying that in that moment, I
Speaker 1: needed my mother to choose me, to choose the truth,
Speaker 1: and she chose not to, And so then it becomes
Speaker 1: this quest for being chosen, because I think that's an
Speaker 1: essential attachment. Need you know, I'm choosing to even look
Speaker 1: at you, it's that, and then to regard you, to
Speaker 1: recognize you, to give validity to your needs. It's all
Speaker 1: of that, and that many many people I listened to
Speaker 1: stories over and over again where people will say I
Speaker 1: felt chosen and that just the profundity of that dynamic
Speaker 1: is it's so much. And then, like you said, this
Speaker 1: equation of you know, love and exploitation and safety, it's
Speaker 1: just that's trauma bonding, everything getting so mixed up. These
Speaker 1: ingredients that don't belong together get thrown together. And I
Speaker 1: think that that that's a big one. So you got married.
Speaker 1: How did that marriage work out? The first marriage? Not well?
Speaker 1: Not well, yeah, because not only was it in that
Speaker 1: trauma bonding cycle, but again, I'm a perfectionist who's working
Speaker 1: real hard to make it look pretty on the outside
Speaker 1: because I want to convince all of you that this
Speaker 1: is a healthy relationship and I'm thriving. I survived all
Speaker 1: of these things. Look how well I'm doing. And so
Speaker 1: the secrecy that that creates for me anyway, created where
Speaker 1: I'm sort of clocking what's happening with my husband, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I know that he's lying to me, and I know
Speaker 1: that he's drinking more than I'm comfortable with, but I
Speaker 1: can't let anybody else know that because I'm waiting for
Speaker 1: him to get better, and then we won't ever have
Speaker 1: to address it anyway, and I really just want to
Speaker 1: be in something normal. I didn't ever really realize why
Speaker 1: I was so like compulsively documenting my life through photographs
Speaker 1: but capturing this curated, beautiful moment because I needed to
Speaker 1: believe that that beautiful moment was the most real thing,
Speaker 1: even though I knew that it was covering up so
Speaker 1: much other stuff that I just either couldn't see yet
Speaker 1: or didn't want to see. So I had this life
Speaker 1: that on one hand, I really thought, No, we're happy,
Speaker 1: this is you know, this is what a marriage is,
Speaker 1: and a marriage is compromise and not everyone's going to
Speaker 1: be perfect, and we're gonna help each other through our struggles.
Speaker 1: But he wouldn't work, and he wouldn't contribute to our bills,
Speaker 1: and I'd come home and he'd be I didn't know
Speaker 1: he was past out. He just said he was really tired.
Speaker 1: And there are all these things that sort of started
Speaker 1: to add up. And then of course the experience around
Speaker 1: even our engagement that he proposed, you know, with kind
Speaker 1: of like a dime store ring and then later said, oh,
Speaker 1: that's I was gonna We're gonna go shopping for a
Speaker 1: ring together of course, I want to get you something beautiful.
Speaker 1: And so when we went shopping for the ring, we're
Speaker 1: looking down and again curating, and I'm trying to curate
Speaker 1: this perfect moment of like, how am I going to
Speaker 1: dress this up? And we see is this the ring?
Speaker 1: Is this the one? Oh? My goodness, it's so beautiful,
Speaker 1: And in front of the sales person, he turns to
Speaker 1: me and says, so, if you can put this on
Speaker 1: your credit card, I'll go ahead and make the payments.
Speaker 1: And I'm stuck in this moment because I need the
Speaker 1: ring to dress up what I know is not a
Speaker 1: healthy relationship. So what did I do. I handed over
Speaker 1: my credit card and he never made a payment, he
Speaker 1: never brought it up again. And this is just a
Speaker 1: microcosm of that entire relationship. Many people in narcissistic relationships,
Speaker 1: especially if they grew up in these kinds of relationships,
Speaker 1: will share that they need the relationship to look good,
Speaker 1: and maybe soothed by the idea that if I can
Speaker 1: make this look good, then it is good. And sadly,
Speaker 1: this superficial patina of if it looks good, it is
Speaker 1: good is a game that the narcissistic people are able
Speaker 1: to play so well. So this sequence of Ingrid doing
Speaker 1: something that inherently felt so uncomfortable to make it look
Speaker 1: good was a replication of her childhood, where her family
Speaker 1: system was all about what looked good, but underneath it
Speaker 1: was anything but. But again, I'm the one who's pushing
Speaker 1: us towards that finish line as though it's going to
Speaker 1: fix it. So it didn't fix it, And it was
Speaker 1: within our first year I knew that it was wrong,
Speaker 1: and I eventually got this feeling that I had to
Speaker 1: go to our hall closet, and I did, and I
Speaker 1: opened it up, and I saw a suitcase that was tucked,
Speaker 1: you know, under boxes and boots like a closet, and
Speaker 1: I pulled out the suitcase and it was just full
Speaker 1: of empty vodka bottles. And it was like, okay, that's
Speaker 1: what's that's what's going on, right. He's an active alcoholic
Speaker 1: and he's hiding it from me. And now I'm a
Speaker 1: therapist who works in addiction who married an active alcoholic
Speaker 1: and didn't even know it, you know. So the shame
Speaker 1: is just and we were separated before our second anniversary.
Speaker 1: The only thing that held us together longer is that
Speaker 1: his father, his father actually died of active alcoholism, and
Speaker 1: I kind of thought, oh, maybe that's gonna and it didn't.
Speaker 1: And so I had to face in my mid to
Speaker 1: late thirties this real feeling that I had failed, that
Speaker 1: the one thing that I was going to do was
Speaker 1: to do it differently, to do it better. I was
Speaker 1: going to overcome. I was going to prove my worth
Speaker 1: and I had failed. So not only am I a
Speaker 1: personal failure, but now I'm never going to be a
Speaker 1: mom who wants a newly divorced late thirties like it
Speaker 1: just I truly just thought it was impossible. And the
Speaker 1: grief at that time in my life was so painful.
Speaker 1: I literally couldn't go to friends baby showers because I
Speaker 1: would go and I would leave and I would just
Speaker 1: be racked with uncontrollable tears that would not stop for
Speaker 1: hours and hours and hours. And I just felt like,
Speaker 1: even if I could meet someone who was attracted to
Speaker 1: me and I was attracted to them and we at
Speaker 1: this age wanted to start a family, the chances of
Speaker 1: me repeating this cycle again, I just truly didn't think
Speaker 1: I had it in me to find an available, healthy
Speaker 1: person to be one. So it was. It was devastating.
Speaker 1: It was devastating that you know that presumption so many
Speaker 1: survivors I don't have what it takes to get in
Speaker 1: to a healthy relationship, and it gets confirmed because you know,
Speaker 1: there is that sort of first passed through marriage that
Speaker 1: so many survivors have, and that first passed in last
Speaker 1: one year, two years, or thirty years. But it's all
Speaker 1: these difficult, broken places all coming together. But I want
Speaker 1: to get married. And one thing that wasn't lost. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know we didn't talk about it, but as you
Speaker 1: were talking about the engagement ring and you know him
Speaker 1: and the credit card, I know that also there was
Speaker 1: a very significant moment with Randy where he I think
Speaker 1: it was buying you a ring that was in a
Speaker 1: store and the idea of even a ring and what
Speaker 1: that signified, and like Randy was trying to buy you
Speaker 1: probably an inappropriately expensive piece of jewelry. That's and it
Speaker 1: was interesting that it took on a different kind of
Speaker 1: a meaning and yet it still became a damaged space.
Speaker 1: That's when another relationship like these patterns really really die hard.
Speaker 1: So you you get into a marriage with somebody who
Speaker 1: is an alcoholic, you know you yourself were in in recovery,
Speaker 1: And can I ask you that throughout this period, like
Speaker 1: in your twenties, as you've met your first husband, as
Speaker 1: you're going through your own professional growth and exploring, exploring you,
Speaker 1: were you in therapy on and off my whole life,
Speaker 1: I've been in therapy. Yeah, did any of those therapists
Speaker 1: bring up the idea of narcissistic abuse or use the
Speaker 1: narcissism frame with never? Ever? One time. I don't even
Speaker 1: know how it came to me, but I heard about
Speaker 1: a book on narcissism somewhere in my clinical travels, and
Speaker 1: I bought the book and then I couldn't read it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see that. And then I bought the audio book,
Speaker 1: thinking oh, maybe i'll listen to it. I never listened
Speaker 1: to it. I'm curious about that, actually, that there was
Speaker 1: this part of me that maybe knew, but it was
Speaker 1: at least another decade until I started this writing and
Speaker 1: could start to piece together the truth of it. It
Speaker 1: was almost like I didn't I don't know if I
Speaker 1: was afraid of maybe not fitting in that paradigm and
Speaker 1: then and then what is it? I know, if you've
Speaker 1: experienced that with other people where there's like a it's
Speaker 1: almost like a hot coil, like I don't want to
Speaker 1: touch it. I don't want to know. Yeah. The answers
Speaker 1: to that, yes, yeah. How did the people you work
Speaker 1: with therapeutically frame your experience? And they look at it
Speaker 1: largely through the lens of family alcoholism and using the
Speaker 1: alcoholism model. I think that that's true, that it was
Speaker 1: seen as just the alcoholic family system. But honestly, I
Speaker 1: don't recall any other specific terms or sort of psycho
Speaker 1: education that was used. So they just would hear you,
Speaker 1: and they would hear your struggles, and there was a
Speaker 1: lot of compassion. Right. So, I've always been articulate, and
Speaker 1: I've always known my story, and so I could go
Speaker 1: in and say, here's my story and here's my experience.
Speaker 1: And what I think happened is my ability to articulate
Speaker 1: something was seen as oh, that's been a fully metabolized
Speaker 1: experience in her body. It was seen as insight, which
Speaker 1: was seen as sort of breaking through. And what I
Speaker 1: was trying to say is, but these feelings are still
Speaker 1: I am plagued by them today. They live in my
Speaker 1: body right now. And so we would talk about that
Speaker 1: manifestation and I said this in the book. It's as
Speaker 1: though talking about it over and over and over in
Speaker 1: this sort of surface level way was just weeding a
Speaker 1: garden with kitchen scissors, chopping off these leaves over and
Speaker 1: over and over, when the roots kept branching and getting
Speaker 1: deeper underground, making me feel even more broken. I love
Speaker 1: that idea of, you know, trying to trim it in
Speaker 1: a very large guard I would say, a large field
Speaker 1: or farm with garden shear. Is that we're not taught
Speaker 1: this a therapists right now, psychologist, psychologe were not taught this.
Speaker 1: And one of the hard pieces of understanding narcissistic abuse
Speaker 1: in your relationships is there something that feels defeatist about it,
Speaker 1: like this does not change. It's this radical acceptance, even
Speaker 1: though I think that the messages in many ways are redemptive.
Speaker 1: This isn't you, it's not your fault. And in fact,
Speaker 1: the fact that it doesn't change in truth is so
Speaker 1: freeing because and that's the reason I finally allowed myself
Speaker 1: to use the term narcissistic abuse, because I didn't want
Speaker 1: to just use emotional abuse or psychological abuse, because those
Speaker 1: things in the hands of a narcissist are different. Because
Speaker 1: of the lack of empathy. So even when I was
Speaker 1: getting the pushback early on, is that well, you're using
Speaker 1: this clinical term in a way that's you know, stigmatizing
Speaker 1: and overly pathologizing a mental health disorder. I had to
Speaker 1: come to a place within me where I said, you
Speaker 1: know what, You're right. Perhaps I am, and I think
Speaker 1: it's worth it because survivors have not been seen, and
Speaker 1: I have tried to unpack and uncover this thing in
Speaker 1: every other way possible and it didn't work. So quite frankly,
Speaker 1: this is the last house on the block and it's
Speaker 1: the one that's giving me back to me. And so
Speaker 1: at this point I will do anything to save my
Speaker 1: own life, that's as how I feel about it, and
Speaker 1: to help other people put the pieces together in a
Speaker 1: way that I was finally able to do. I just
Speaker 1: I'm passionate about it now. But you've got to the
Speaker 1: other reason people don't like this. They say, I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm being judgmental, I'm being diagnostic. Will First of all,
Speaker 1: it's not a diagnosis, and I don't even have to
Speaker 1: go on that that rant again. But there's a uniqueness
Speaker 1: to it, right, Narcissisms are making that other forms of
Speaker 1: emotional abuse, maybe generated by people with addiction, may be
Speaker 1: generated by people who might have post traumatic presentations, may
Speaker 1: be generated by even people with other mental illnesses, and
Speaker 1: maybe generated by people who have none of the above.
Speaker 1: Narcissism is its own animal, by which I mean the
Speaker 1: narcissistic abuser is capable of being the most charming, engaging, interesting, human,
Speaker 1: being warm, seemingly compassionate to one person, and literally be
Speaker 1: able to step in the threshold of their home, shut
Speaker 1: the door, and start abusing everyone in that household, which
Speaker 1: makes it impossible for people to get help. And I
Speaker 1: tell people, do you see there's an intentionality They knew
Speaker 1: not to scream at you in front of those other people,
Speaker 1: and that ability to discern that. I said, If they're
Speaker 1: screaming you and berating you in front of other people,
Speaker 1: it's abuse, it's emotional abuse. If they're screaming and berating
Speaker 1: you in private, it's abuse. So while people may be
Speaker 1: willing to call it emotional abuse when they witness the screaming,
Speaker 1: they are far less likely to if that screaming happens
Speaker 1: only in private, and their interactions with the narcissistic person,
Speaker 1: especially in public, are characterized by charm and charisma. People
Speaker 1: want to see the agitated, angry spew anything. They want
Speaker 1: behavior of a narcissistic person to look disregulated, as though
Speaker 1: they can't help it or shut it off. Clearly they
Speaker 1: can if they are picking and choosing when they do it.
Speaker 1: So when they ask, am I own speaker before they
Speaker 1: start screaming, then they know exactly what they're doing. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, that's a voice. It is a choice,
Speaker 1: and I will say this until all my days. It
Speaker 1: is a choice. That's what makes this it's very own,
Speaker 1: unique space. And this isn't about pathologizing the perpetrator, as
Speaker 1: it were. This is about understanding for the survivor. And
Speaker 1: I tell you, if the survivors had much as much
Speaker 1: advocacy behind them as the narcissistic find, wouldn't that be wonderful?
Speaker 1: My session with Ingrid will continue after this break, all right,
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you to less pieces. I
Speaker 1: want to get to one is so your marriage ends
Speaker 1: and you're sort of looking at this in this place
Speaker 1: of Okay, maybe this isn't my story. Maybe this place
Speaker 1: I came from means I don't get my love story.
Speaker 1: I don't get to be a parent, and many survivors
Speaker 1: get backed into that place. How did that all resolve
Speaker 1: for you? Oh gosh, it just makes me want a SOB.
Speaker 1: I was having lunch with friends one morning, and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to convince them of my new idea, which is
Speaker 1: I'm not meant to be a mom or to have
Speaker 1: a partner. I'm just going to mother my clients. Because
Speaker 1: despite all of my difficulties, I did figure out how
Speaker 1: to be a good therapist, how to really hold space
Speaker 1: for other people in a way that I saw was
Speaker 1: making a difference. And so I thought, well, I guess
Speaker 1: that's my calling. I'm going to do that. So maybe
Speaker 1: I'll expand my practice or sub let other office space.
Speaker 1: I'm like trying to make this is you know, if
Speaker 1: this is my life, let me kind of make it
Speaker 1: as big as I can make it. And I saw
Speaker 1: this little girl in this restaurant and she was twirling
Speaker 1: in front of the dessert case, watching herself and her reflection,
Speaker 1: and literally out of the corner of my mouth, I
Speaker 1: said to my friends, that's what I really want. And
Speaker 1: I said what, And I go, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: Remember how old I am, Like that ship is sailed
Speaker 1: it's I didn't even want to open that door. It
Speaker 1: felt too painful. And they looked at me and they said, Ingrid,
Speaker 1: it's okay to want it. It's okay to still want it.
Speaker 1: And of course, as I started sobbing, and I knew
Speaker 1: I couldn't not wanted if I tried. There wasn't like
Speaker 1: you can turn off that tap. And so I said, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to decide in advance that God's plans
Speaker 1: for me are X, Y and Z. I'm going to
Speaker 1: continue to be in my life and do whatever I
Speaker 1: can to show up for myself as wholeheartedly and as
Speaker 1: vulnerably as I can. And so you know, I went
Speaker 1: to an energy healer and she was like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to cut these cords. And I don't even understand any
Speaker 1: of that, but I tell you there's probably not a
Speaker 1: healing method that I haven't found some value in. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, let's do it. And another friend said,
Speaker 1: right down, like write down these patterns and what's happened
Speaker 1: every time, and what you're not going to settle for
Speaker 1: and what it is that you really want. So I
Speaker 1: did another round of sort of this internal work on
Speaker 1: myself and there came a point where I knew that
Speaker 1: I was done with fixing. I was done with fixing
Speaker 1: as a strategy, and I wanted something real. And it
Speaker 1: was after that point the or A next person that
Speaker 1: I met on a date is my now husband. His
Speaker 1: name is Yancey and we've been together over nine years now,
Speaker 1: and meeting him was a brand new experience. It was
Speaker 1: truly like nothing i'd ever experienced where we you know,
Speaker 1: did the thing. It was online dating, and we met
Speaker 1: in person, and I'm sitting across from him, going, this
Speaker 1: feels so easy, Like it just feels it feels so easy.
Speaker 1: I go, oh, maybe we're just meant to be friends,
Speaker 1: because I had confused that chemistry, trauma bonding, ho ho ho,
Speaker 1: it's on. I'm going to prove to you, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to prove to you through my sexuality, through my intellect,
Speaker 1: through anything that I think you might be interested in.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show you. Right that was nowhere to be
Speaker 1: seen at this dinner, and so I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: maybe we're meant to be friends. But I was like,
Speaker 1: but I can't wait to see him again, Like I
Speaker 1: want to hang out with this person. He was so kind,
Speaker 1: he was so genuine, and you know, basically that was it.
Speaker 1: This idea of chemistry is actually somewhat dangerous for survivors
Speaker 1: of narcissistic relationships, especially narcissistic families. Chemistry may speak to
Speaker 1: that emotional draw to a person where the trauma bonded
Speaker 1: patterns of having to win someone over prove ourselves to them,
Speaker 1: a primal working through gets activated. In that way, Chemistry
Speaker 1: may be a sort of psychodynamic familiarity, that toxic soothing
Speaker 1: that comes from being with someone where old wounds are
Speaker 1: being felt. Was like, after that first date, we just
Speaker 1: couldn't sort of stop seeing each other and spending time.
Speaker 1: It's the easiest, most loving relationship of my life. We
Speaker 1: got married in August, we bought a house in September,
Speaker 1: and we got pregnant in October. And I was trying
Speaker 1: to get pregnant with my first husband, like we couldn't
Speaker 1: get pregnant to save our lives, right, And I was
Speaker 1: so sad about it then, sim so grateful about it
Speaker 1: now and for it just to like work out that way,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's almost too good to be true in
Speaker 1: a way. It's not like we don't have our relationship
Speaker 1: stuff everybody does, but I mean it when I say
Speaker 1: it's a night and day different experience. So what shifted
Speaker 1: for you? What shifted an ingrid to make a healthy
Speaker 1: relationship were your identity reality? Your units are recognized and
Speaker 1: loved and adored, and it's not a game. What shifted
Speaker 1: in you to make that day to make the meeting
Speaker 1: of a man like him? You know? I think what
Speaker 1: made the difference before I met Yancy, quite honestly, is
Speaker 1: that I asked my first husband for a divorce. Because
Speaker 1: it was the first time in all of these other
Speaker 1: relationships that I told you about, I never left them.
Speaker 1: I hadn't broken up with a single person since my
Speaker 1: first boyfriend in fifth grade. I get in and I stay,
Speaker 1: and you might treat me like shit and you might
Speaker 1: not really be available, but I'm hanging in there because
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you your favorite phrase, the benefit
Speaker 1: of the doubt, and you're eventually going to choose me back.
Speaker 1: So it was in my marriage in my mid to
Speaker 1: late thirties when I had to leave that I made
Speaker 1: a choice. I will not wait for anyone else to
Speaker 1: choose me over alcohol, whether or not he wanted to
Speaker 1: get sober to choose me as a partner. You're going
Speaker 1: to show up and give me the respect that I deserve.
Speaker 1: I'm going to choose me by walking away. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just this idea of self worth. I had to make
Speaker 1: the biggest decision of my life at that point to
Speaker 1: walk away where I was literally feeling like I was
Speaker 1: saying to myself, Ingrid, when you leave right now, this
Speaker 1: means you are not going to have the things that
Speaker 1: you've always wanted. Most. So the sacrifice was huge, and
Speaker 1: I made it anyway because I was worth it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's just so beautifully put. At the moment,
Speaker 1: I valued myself to learn to walk away, Ingrid, think
Speaker 1: about what the stances relationships in our culture. Staying is
Speaker 1: good relationships that last or long. You've been married sixty
Speaker 1: five years, congratulations, kind of like longevity is somehow better
Speaker 1: and that for you walking out and saying I need
Speaker 1: me back would no matter though I'm leaving everything behind.
Speaker 1: That is a huge moment because a lot of survivors
Speaker 1: don't feel they have the right to do that for themselves. Again,
Speaker 1: it's that moment of recognizing that I am a human
Speaker 1: being on my own, not because I am attached to
Speaker 1: something else. That's where I'm living out something else or
Speaker 1: my needs or identity or or all derived from someone else.
Speaker 1: But I am me and that's a big and it's
Speaker 1: that dichotomy to where I had to face where I
Speaker 1: literally felt like a failure. I had to face all
Speaker 1: that shame because now I have to admit, oh, what happened.
Speaker 1: Oh I am a clinician who specializes an addiction, who
Speaker 1: married an active alcoholic and had no idea like I
Speaker 1: don't want to hang that shingle. It's more defying. But
Speaker 1: by allowing myself to face all of that truth, the
Speaker 1: other thing that happens is the shame that I'm always
Speaker 1: carrying around anyway, that in that secret sort of place
Speaker 1: where shame can just grow and grow in the dark,
Speaker 1: I had to shed light on all of it. And
Speaker 1: now it doesn't really belong to me, this story of
Speaker 1: saying I bought my own engagement ring. I was certain
Speaker 1: I was going to take that one to my grave. Right,
Speaker 1: That's not something that I ever imagined I would tell anyone.
Speaker 1: Now I'm just sharing it on a podcast, and it's
Speaker 1: such a freeing moment because that idea that we're going
Speaker 1: to put ourselves in situations that are almost performative, because
Speaker 1: if it looks good, then it is good, and we
Speaker 1: can convince ourselves. My session with Ingrid will continue after
Speaker 1: this break. So one of the things that happened alongside
Speaker 1: the writing is that I realized I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to other people that were either a part of my
Speaker 1: story or who could shed light on my story. And honestly,
Speaker 1: I can't believe how shameless I became. I called social
Speaker 1: Services and Aspen Colorado. I had someone go to the
Speaker 1: warehouse to try to find the records from the early
Speaker 1: nineties is written records. I called the counselor from my school,
Speaker 1: and then family members. I started looping them in and
Speaker 1: I do want to say Randy has three biological children,
Speaker 1: and from day one they said, Ingrid, tell your story.
Speaker 1: They gave me complete permission and support. And in talking
Speaker 1: to my stepbrother John, I said, you know what, I
Speaker 1: wonder if your mom would ever want to talk to me,
Speaker 1: because she was the one who I knew married Randy
Speaker 1: when she was really young, and so sure enough he
Speaker 1: set it up for me to talk to Terry is
Speaker 1: her name, And the first thing that Terry said to
Speaker 1: me on that phone call and it just blew me away,
Speaker 1: she said, ingrid I was a victim of his two
Speaker 1: I was only fifteen, and she started to tell me
Speaker 1: her story, not knowing that it was like putting tracing
Speaker 1: paper over my own past. The grooming, the way he
Speaker 1: picked her up from school and he took her to
Speaker 1: get Mary in Mexico on her sixteenth birthday, the ring
Speaker 1: that he bought for her. There were so many things,
Speaker 1: the way he lied, the way he tricked her, and
Speaker 1: hearing her story, there was no doubt in my mind
Speaker 1: Randy was the problem. He was the perpetrator, he was
Speaker 1: the narcissist. And if I believe Terry, it's like it
Speaker 1: unlocked something in me that this is real. And I
Speaker 1: had kind of a split experience where part of me
Speaker 1: is feeling more validated and hopeful, almost exhilarated. It was
Speaker 1: literally like her story was pumping life and color into
Speaker 1: these atrophied parts of me, as though I could breathe,
Speaker 1: I could catch my breath that this was real. I
Speaker 1: didn't make it up. I'm not crazy. This happened. But
Speaker 1: sitting right next to that, and this is so common
Speaker 1: for trauma survivors. If this is real and that happened.
Speaker 1: Then I really have to face all of that terror
Speaker 1: and those feelings that I couldn't process as a child,
Speaker 1: and I have to feel them now. And there were
Speaker 1: parts of that part of the process where I would
Speaker 1: turn to my husband and go, this is the worst
Speaker 1: idea I've ever had. What am I doing to myself?
Speaker 1: It felt so painful, and yet I would do it
Speaker 1: all again. Terry gave me the greatest gift by sharing
Speaker 1: her story, and not only that, she connected me with
Speaker 1: a man who saw me in Vegas with Randy. And
Speaker 1: she called him and said, do you remember when you
Speaker 1: saw Randy in Vegas? And he said, yeah, I remember
Speaker 1: when he was with a really young girl named Ingrid.
Speaker 1: He introduced her to me as his girlfriend. So this
Speaker 1: fantasy that I had my entire life of, I wish
Speaker 1: someone saw me there. What did it look like to them?
Speaker 1: Am I making this? It felt like he was parading
Speaker 1: me around like a girlfriend. But I never heard him
Speaker 1: say that. All these decades later, the stranger to me,
Speaker 1: who I've yet to speak to personally, he would only
Speaker 1: speak to Terry, but he told her verbatim that he
Speaker 1: introduced me as a girlfriend. And it just that kind
Speaker 1: of validation. Here's the thing I go. Not everybody's going
Speaker 1: to have that. These feel to me like total miracle
Speaker 1: things that dropped in my lab in this process that
Speaker 1: not every trauma survivor is going to get. But there's
Speaker 1: a reason that I knew that I needed to be validated,
Speaker 1: and that is the piece that I go. If you
Speaker 1: feel that it's true, it's true, it happened. You're not crazy.
Speaker 1: And in this process of coming to believe me, I
Speaker 1: keep hearing from people that they are believing themselves for
Speaker 1: the first time. And like I said, I never wanted
Speaker 1: to write a book about childhood trauma and narcissistic abuse.
Speaker 1: I wanted this to be left in Colorado when I
Speaker 1: graduated high school, and now it's become the biggest subject
Speaker 1: of my waking life. But if it is helping other
Speaker 1: people to heal, I would do it all again. There's
Speaker 1: no regrets. Yeah, I know, I think that you nailed it. Though.
Speaker 1: I think even when people when the stories weren't even
Speaker 1: as harmful and abusive as yours, just to have someone
Speaker 1: have peered into your childhood and said it broke my
Speaker 1: heart to see whatever I saw happen to you. Even
Speaker 1: when we hear that twenty years later, even though there's
Speaker 1: a part of us I said, why didn't you say something?
Speaker 1: Then they may not have, but it validates something inside
Speaker 1: of you, like you said, now that feeling inside of you,
Speaker 1: now you can trust it going forward. There is no
Speaker 1: further gifts of thank you now going from there, though,
Speaker 1: what about your mother? Now? You said that Randy has
Speaker 1: passed away, and I'm sure that was a very complicated experience.
Speaker 1: What is your relationship like with your mother? So we
Speaker 1: have stayed in contact all these years. They were married
Speaker 1: until the day that he died. And so that same
Speaker 1: idea that I had as a kid, which is like
Speaker 1: any moment now, any moment she's going to rally, she's
Speaker 1: going to recognize she's gonna come to is what it
Speaker 1: felt like. I've been carrying around that hope my whole life.
Speaker 1: So in the hope that I carried around, I was
Speaker 1: endowing my mom with a capacity that I don't now
Speaker 1: that she's ever had. And yet it was enough to
Speaker 1: keep the relationship intact. And so it's not a close relationship,
Speaker 1: but we would, you know, talk every couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: and it's very surface level. It's very much about the weather.
Speaker 1: And I didn't at all see that that was harmful
Speaker 1: to me in any way until I wrote my story.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you the first couple of years that
Speaker 1: I wrote it, I'm like, this is like a love
Speaker 1: letter to my mother, Like I'm gonna spell it all
Speaker 1: out and I'm going to make it so clear, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna interview anyone from my past that's willing to
Speaker 1: talk about what happened. It was like my last ditch
Speaker 1: effort to say, here's what happened. I need you to
Speaker 1: see me and Romney. There was not a tiny teeny
Speaker 1: sell in my body that thought that that wasn't exactly
Speaker 1: what was going to happen. I'm not kidding. I really
Speaker 1: well into the writing, I talked to this other woman
Speaker 1: who had done something similar with a podcast, and she
Speaker 1: kind of planted the seed like and your mom might
Speaker 1: still not believe you. And I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, like that's not going to happen here. And
Speaker 1: then I thought, oh God, what if that doesn't happen here?
Speaker 1: And so for most of the writing, my journey was
Speaker 1: about I'm going to get my mom to believe me.
Speaker 1: But once I started understanding what really happened to me
Speaker 1: and the damage that it's really done, and now what
Speaker 1: do I need to do to actually take care of myself?
Speaker 1: I thought, for the first time in my life, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if my mom doesn't believe me. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to wait for her anymore. I believe me. I
Speaker 1: believe I'm worth doing whatever it takes to finally crawl
Speaker 1: out from under this thing that I've been living under
Speaker 1: my entire life. And if she still believes that I'm
Speaker 1: manipulative and that I'm the liar, and that I'm the
Speaker 1: ship stir and that I gave them all this hard
Speaker 1: time and all of that stuff, I think it is
Speaker 1: genuinely fair to say that anyone who knows me, who
Speaker 1: really knows me in my life, would never in a
Speaker 1: million years think those things of me. So just because
Speaker 1: she's my mom doesn't mean she gets this free hall
Speaker 1: pass to sort of think of me in this horrible light.
Speaker 1: And I just go, well, she's my mom, and what
Speaker 1: I always did was she was abused to I know
Speaker 1: she was living in that fog. I know that she's
Speaker 1: a victim, so free pass, free pass, free pass. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: I'm still relating to someone who sees me as the problem.
Speaker 1: And when I stay in relation in that same way
Speaker 1: what I'm telling myself as a part of me believes it,
Speaker 1: that's that's my understanding now. And so I had to
Speaker 1: come to a point, and it was in the very
Speaker 1: very final stages of the writing where I realized I
Speaker 1: can't have my mom in my life right now, because
Speaker 1: it did it did come to light that even if
Speaker 1: a part of her genuinely believes that she doesn't see
Speaker 1: me that way and that she loves me, I think
Speaker 1: she thinks she genuinely loves me, at the same time,
Speaker 1: I'm still to blame for what happened. And so I
Speaker 1: had to tell her that I cannot have you in
Speaker 1: my life. I never ever, I cannot state it enough.
Speaker 1: This was never going to be my story. And I
Speaker 1: hear this a lot from other people, well, like, but
Speaker 1: she's your mom and she's in her seventies, and it's
Speaker 1: forgiveness isn't for them, it's for you, and all these
Speaker 1: things about letting go. If I hadn't have tried all
Speaker 1: of those things, because I did, maybe we could have
Speaker 1: that conversation. But it came to a place where it
Speaker 1: is my survival and my sanity to say I will
Speaker 1: not put myself in harm's way. Even if it's not
Speaker 1: their intention, it doesn't matter. So it's so painful. And
Speaker 1: you know, just last week it was her birthday and
Speaker 1: it's the first time I've ever reached out, and her
Speaker 1: best friend reached out to say, I imagine this is
Speaker 1: a hard day for you, and I'm thinking about you.
Speaker 1: And then she said, I think your mom might be ready.
Speaker 1: And I was like, don't you open that door. Don't
Speaker 1: you open I just figured out how to close the
Speaker 1: door on that hope, don't you open that door. But
Speaker 1: she said, your mom's wondering if you'll send her the book.
Speaker 1: And I thought, my mom's never going to read this book.
Speaker 1: And I said, okay, I'll send it. But I'm forcing
Speaker 1: myself to live in present tense, which is I haven't
Speaker 1: heard from her. I haven't heard that she's read the book.
Speaker 1: There's a lot in there that I know she's going
Speaker 1: to have a hard time with. I know what it
Speaker 1: took me, who was like so willing to do what
Speaker 1: it takes to walk through this. For five years, I've
Speaker 1: been on this journey of unpacking all of this, and again,
Speaker 1: I wanted to do it she had, She's going to
Speaker 1: have to admit essentially that her whole life was a lie,
Speaker 1: and that this man that she was married to is
Speaker 1: not the man that she's held him up to be.
Speaker 1: She has a lot more to lose in that way.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what's possible there. But I said
Speaker 1: to my mom's friend, I said, if she really wants
Speaker 1: to be accountable and get honest, that I'm willing to
Speaker 1: entertain that. But I'm not holding my breath. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that that's the tense balance, and I think
Speaker 1: that that agony. It's not like people say, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: going to cut the people off in my life that
Speaker 1: don't that did this, or that were enabling it or
Speaker 1: were unwilling to see it. It's one of the most
Speaker 1: difficult things you could ever ever do, is it was
Speaker 1: what you did, and you know only time will tell.
Speaker 1: And I know you say, the most difficult thing in
Speaker 1: the world could be her having to face up to
Speaker 1: the fact that her life is a lie. I still
Speaker 1: think that the that the giving back of life is
Speaker 1: living in a truth, whether it's for one year of
Speaker 1: our life, for fifty years of our life, for ten
Speaker 1: minutes of our life that you finally live in truth,
Speaker 1: because if she could read it and recognize it, and
Speaker 1: it would be cataclysmic for her. I mean, but I
Speaker 1: agree with you. To live in that hope would be
Speaker 1: the most dangerous thing you could do. So you have
Speaker 1: am and I would love for you to read it
Speaker 1: for our listeners. So I do just want to give
Speaker 1: a little context for this, because before I knew I
Speaker 1: was writing a book, or started writing things that resembled
Speaker 1: a book, I was driving in my car and heard
Speaker 1: a tape of Harvey Weinstein's voice and it was a
Speaker 1: flashback to my childhood like nothing else had flashed me back,
Speaker 1: where I could hear the cruelty and the manipulation. And
Speaker 1: so I'm driving along and suddenly these pieces of my story,
Speaker 1: It's like they were falling from the sky in this
Speaker 1: bullet point fashion. I'd never written in this style, and
Speaker 1: this is just what I wrote. Is actually what came
Speaker 1: to me in that moment. It didn't change anything. And
Speaker 1: because I was driving, I had to grab my phone,
Speaker 1: which I had also never done, and started dictating it.
Speaker 1: It felt like this was important and I had to
Speaker 1: capture it. And what I later came to understand This
Speaker 1: is the story that I had to tell, and it
Speaker 1: was the story I did not want to tell. I
Speaker 1: said to you on our first call, who wants to
Speaker 1: write a memoir about childhood trauma and narcissistic abuse? It's like,
Speaker 1: not me. But I had to tell it. And this
Speaker 1: to me was like the scaffolding, and it kept me
Speaker 1: connected to the core of the truth that I needed
Speaker 1: to share. So this is this is what came and
Speaker 1: how it came. I didn't exist unless I was serving
Speaker 1: a fantasy or a function for him. In my early teens,
Speaker 1: he secretly professed his love to me, telling me how
Speaker 1: haunted he was about his feelings. I told him I
Speaker 1: was glad he was talking about it, but I probably
Speaker 1: wasn't the appropriate person to tell. This made him angry,
Speaker 1: and once again I was a ghost. When he felt smitten,
Speaker 1: he showered me with attention and gifts, inappropriate gifts jewelry
Speaker 1: that was to expects of club memberships we couldn't afford.
Speaker 1: When he felt guilty, he was too ashamed to look
Speaker 1: at me, and the smallest infraction would invite steep punishment.
Speaker 1: He stole my journals, quoted me back to me, claiming omniscience,
Speaker 1: ripping my vulnerability to shreds. When he came back to
Speaker 1: my room one night, I saw the vacancy in his
Speaker 1: eyes as he went in to kiss me and then
Speaker 1: kiss me again. I yelled his name as I pushed
Speaker 1: him off of me in the doorway. He visibly came
Speaker 1: back into his body and turned to walk away. He
Speaker 1: would time my showers five minutes or less, standing just
Speaker 1: outside the door where my naked body bathed. Did he
Speaker 1: do this to his son? I don't seem to recall.
Speaker 1: He pulled me out of school and took me to
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, Las Vegas without my mother's consent, behind her
Speaker 1: back while he was with her dying father in Texas.
Speaker 1: He lied to my brothers and said we were all
Speaker 1: staying with friends that weekend. He was going out of
Speaker 1: town on business. He told me to lie to my
Speaker 1: brothers and to say the same. He told me to
Speaker 1: pack my bag, but to leave it hidden. We would
Speaker 1: get it later when no one was looking. He told
Speaker 1: me on the plane, I could never tell anyone. He
Speaker 1: told me on the plane he only got one hotel room.
Speaker 1: This trip was costing him a fortune already. He took
Speaker 1: me on a shopping spree told me I had to
Speaker 1: dress older, said I had to hold his hand to
Speaker 1: look older, so they wouldn't kick me out. I think
Speaker 1: if any of us wrote those poems about our survivorship,
Speaker 1: we would just you know, we would hit those notes.
Speaker 1: And I think you, as a therapist, as I, we
Speaker 1: have millions and millions, tens of millions of memories in
Speaker 1: a lifetime. For me as a therapist, is what brought
Speaker 1: this memory into this room? You know why this? And
Speaker 1: so there's a reason for it. And so I think
Speaker 1: as we sort of and here as a psychologist, you know,
Speaker 1: I asked you this as a colleague, how does your
Speaker 1: experience how do you bring that into the room? I
Speaker 1: mean in the sense of how does it affect you
Speaker 1: as you are guiding your clients through whatever they're going through.
Speaker 1: Is it a blessing or curse? Is it a help
Speaker 1: or hindrance? How do you connect those two for yourself? Well,
Speaker 1: the clearer I become, I think it's only a help.
Speaker 1: And I've always been a very relational therapist, So I've
Speaker 1: never been this sort of blank slate just rejected all
Speaker 1: onto me as a childhood trauma survivor, in fact, going
Speaker 1: to see therapist like that was. It was some of
Speaker 1: the most painful therapy I've ever had. So I've always
Speaker 1: self disclosed when appropriate, I've always been very present in
Speaker 1: a room, but particularly after this writing happened and I
Speaker 1: started to realize, oh my gosh, this is what narcissistic
Speaker 1: abuse in childhood can look like. This is how it
Speaker 1: manifests as trauma response for so many decades. Not only
Speaker 1: did I feel a calling in the writing, but I
Speaker 1: eventually took to Instagram to start to share my own experience.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you, I was a bit terrified. I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm about to tank my career because I'm
Speaker 1: not just talking as a clinician. I'm really telling people
Speaker 1: my lived experience. And it's not just in the past
Speaker 1: all buttoned up and now romany I have it all
Speaker 1: figured out and I'm going to tell you how to
Speaker 1: do it. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, this
Speaker 1: is what it looks like to be a trauma survivor
Speaker 1: who has these degrees and lots of information and listen,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of great about my life and I
Speaker 1: still get triggered. I still have emotional flashbacks. This is
Speaker 1: what that looks like. And I was so worried that,
Speaker 1: like I said, it was just going to tank my career,
Speaker 1: I was going to lose all credibility, and in fact
Speaker 1: the opposite has happened. That I've connected with this unbelievable
Speaker 1: community online of people that are so grateful that as
Speaker 1: a clinician that they can project all this wellness onto
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of coaches and therapist do
Speaker 1: that right and we kind of come by honestly, it's
Speaker 1: like it's a good marketing tool, like I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you how I'm going to help you. And yet
Speaker 1: what I'm finding is the most helpful thing is when
Speaker 1: I give a voice to how this thing has lived
Speaker 1: in me. And that's why it's a memoir. It's not
Speaker 1: another self help book or a nonfiction book that's talking
Speaker 1: about the stuff clinically, it's about my story. I'm finding
Speaker 1: that that is the connective tissue. It's the most helpful
Speaker 1: thing because people can see themselves in my story, and
Speaker 1: if they can see what they perceive as their brokenness
Speaker 1: in my story, then maybe they can connect to the
Speaker 1: healing too. And I think it's so beautifully said. I
Speaker 1: really admire how beautifully you've brought that into the room,
Speaker 1: because I think that that there's such a risk and
Speaker 1: a danger for the therapist to be sort of perceived
Speaker 1: as this person who lives sort of neatly and cleanly
Speaker 1: and unproblematically, and that you know, any therapist is not
Speaker 1: claiming to be a work in progress. Yeah not thanks.
Speaker 1: You know you ain't gonna be on my refram a second,
Speaker 1: tell you that right now. So I think that the
Speaker 1: humility I mean, and that if all of our clients
Speaker 1: project onto us, but if they can project onto us
Speaker 1: and say you've been there and that and I can
Speaker 1: see what's possible, then that's you know, and I think
Speaker 1: I just think it's amazing. And what you bring to
Speaker 1: your clients is amazing. And and again I'm just your
Speaker 1: story is remarkable. So thank you so much and Grid
Speaker 1: for being here with us and and sharing your story.
Speaker 1: I'm no doubt how many people are going to be helped.
Speaker 1: Everybody you need to read this book. You're a therapist,
Speaker 1: if you're interested in trauma, if you've been through these experiences,
Speaker 1: please read Ingrid's book Believing Me. It's really one of
Speaker 1: the most profound memoirs on healing from narcissistic abuse I
Speaker 1: have read so I think in reading this you will
Speaker 1: be amazed at how much of your own healing will
Speaker 1: be accelerated. Here are my takeaways from this conversation with Ingrid. First,
Speaker 1: survivors of narcissistic abuse often feel that they have abandoned
Speaker 1: their true self in their adult narcissistic relationships. It makes sense,
Speaker 1: doesn't it, Because when those children showed their true selves
Speaker 1: with a narcissistic or enabling parent, they were abandoned. Many
Speaker 1: survivors feel a sense of shame for giving up on themselves.
Speaker 1: Survivors need to remember that when they did show up
Speaker 1: as their true selves as children, the narcissistic parents often
Speaker 1: gave up on them. Understanding these cycles can be central
Speaker 1: to healing. In this next takeaway, while information is a
Speaker 1: key piece of understanding what happened to people in these relationships,
Speaker 1: this episode reminds us that it's not all of the picture.
Speaker 1: Ingrid wisely said, none of that information could override my
Speaker 1: need for safety and connection in my body. Trauma is
Speaker 1: held in our body, and our bodies feel relational truths
Speaker 1: in a very specific way. Insights great, but we still
Speaker 1: need to feel the feelings. It is for this reason
Speaker 1: that trauma informed therapy is such an important tool for
Speaker 1: healing from narcissistic abuse, and especially when it culminates in
Speaker 1: complex trauma. In this next takeaway, if you are a
Speaker 1: survivor of narcissistic abuse, trauma, or emotional abuse in childhood,
Speaker 1: or all three, feeling chemistry in an adult romantic relationship
Speaker 1: maybe a dangerous thing. Chemistry that unnamed sizzle you feel
Speaker 1: in a new relationship or even in a volatile, ongoing
Speaker 1: long term up and down relationship is often a signal
Speaker 1: of old, toxic familiarity. Chemistry is romanticized and frankly fetishized.
Speaker 1: When we talk about falling in of dating and fighting
Speaker 1: for messy relationships, it's often a sign that a person
Speaker 1: feels the activation of old familiar patterns and perhaps the
Speaker 1: perception that this time it will be different. This time,
Speaker 1: the person that you want to be able to fully
Speaker 1: see you will finally see you. If you cannot articulate
Speaker 1: in clear words beyond chemistry what it is you like
Speaker 1: about someone, then it is quite likely that the trauma
Speaker 1: bond is in the house. Respect, compassion, kindness, and mutual
Speaker 1: growth may not have the Zaza zoo of chemistry, but
Speaker 1: it's what makes a healthy relationship healthy If you aren't
Speaker 1: feeling chemistry but you're enjoying someone's company, don't write it off,
Speaker 1: lean into it for a minute and soak in that warm,
Speaker 1: comforting but perhaps unexciting bath called safety. Ingrid story ended
Speaker 1: with her getting something that many survivors, especially those who
Speaker 1: experienced childhood abuse, do not get. Validation. She encountered someone
Speaker 1: who bore witness and shared a similar story. To have
Speaker 1: someone tell you years later that they had a similar
Speaker 1: experience or they saw it can be like having steel
Speaker 1: bands around your chest. Finally removed, you can breathe. I
Speaker 1: truly believe that even in the absence of this people
Speaker 1: can heal, but even hearing it happen for someone else
Speaker 1: reminds us how important validation is to the process of
Speaker 1: healing and growth after narcissistic abuse. A big thank you
Speaker 1: to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valen Jethrow, Ellen Rakaton,
Speaker 1: and Dr Romeney de Vassila. And thank you to our
Speaker 1: producer Matthew Jones, a So See It producer Mara Della Rosa,
Speaker 1: and consultant Kelly Ebling. And finally, thank you to our
Speaker 1: editors and sound engineers Devin Donnaghee and Calvin Bailiff.