Speaker 1: While promoting her groundbreaking role and HBO's smash hit Westworld,
Speaker 1: actress Evan rachel Wood revealed a painful truth about her past.
Speaker 1: She had been raped and physically abused by a former
Speaker 1: intimate partner while they were together. After years of speculation
Speaker 1: about the identity of her alleged perpetrator, Evan revealed that
Speaker 1: it was Brian Warner, famously known as controversial rocker Marilyn Manson.
Speaker 1: Evan was just eighteen when they began dating, he was
Speaker 1: thirty seven. Throughout their tumultuous relationship, Evan says she was tortured, threatened,
Speaker 1: and terrified for her life. She's testified to Congress and
Speaker 1: played a key role in changing California law. She championed
Speaker 1: the Phoenix Act, which extends the statute of limitations for
Speaker 1: domestic violent survivors. On this episode of Navigating Narcissism, Evan
Speaker 1: shared how she escaped her alleged abuser, the actress who
Speaker 1: encouraged her to open up for the first time, and
Speaker 1: how she's found healing. This podcast should not be used
Speaker 1: as a substitute for medical or mental health advice. Individuals
Speaker 1: are advised to seek independent medical advice counseling and or
Speaker 1: therapy from a healthcare professional with respect to any medical condition,
Speaker 1: mental health issue, or health inquiry, including matters discussed on
Speaker 1: this podcast. This episode discusses abuse and suicide, which may
Speaker 1: be triggering to some people. The views and opinions expressed
Speaker 1: are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating
Speaker 1: in the podcast, and do not represent the opinions of
Speaker 1: Red Table Talk productions, iHeartMedia, or their employees. Evan, I
Speaker 1: can't thank you enough for coming in and talking with me,
Speaker 1: as your perspective as a survivor is remard arkable in
Speaker 1: and of itself, but you also use your platform to
Speaker 1: change laws, and that is such an important part of
Speaker 1: your story and for us to learn from your journey
Speaker 1: of survivorship. To me, that's the focus of the story.
Speaker 1: So to that end, I want to hear from you,
Speaker 1: and you can start talking about what's happened to you
Speaker 1: anywhere you want to begin.
Speaker 2: I almost want to start after the abuse and my
Speaker 2: experience with narcissism in the aftermath, because I remember going
Speaker 2: through a lot of that thinking we don't talk about
Speaker 2: this enough, we don't talk about how this feels. You know,
Speaker 2: when you hear those things like why didn't you say
Speaker 2: anything sooner? Or why didn't you respond this way? Or
Speaker 2: why didn't you do that? Or why didn't you do this?
Speaker 2: It just suddenly becomes so clear when you've said in
Speaker 2: that space, why it just took me so many years
Speaker 2: to feel like I was capable enough, for strong enough,
Speaker 2: or clear enough about what had happened to me to
Speaker 2: be able to face what I knew I was going
Speaker 2: to be up against. I started speaking about my sexual
Speaker 2: assault sort of right before the big Internet Me Too
Speaker 2: hashtag movement happened. And around that time, my nervous system
Speaker 2: and my stress and the weight of it all became
Speaker 2: so intense that I started a seizure.
Speaker 3: I started having stress seizures.
Speaker 2: And when I realized just what a physical impact this
Speaker 2: was having on me, and it was making it nearly
Speaker 2: impossible to just move about my life normally and comfortably
Speaker 2: and safely, that was such a breaking point for me.
Speaker 2: That's when I just knew that I wasn't going to
Speaker 2: be able to stay quiet. I realized that my silence
Speaker 2: was keeping me really sick.
Speaker 1: I always believe that we always should lose names in
Speaker 1: terms that survivors are comfortable with how do you refer
Speaker 1: to this person.
Speaker 2: I refer to him as Brian. He is the one
Speaker 2: that created the name Marilyn Manson, and he was the
Speaker 2: one that.
Speaker 3: Told us all to call him Manson.
Speaker 2: But to me, that kind of feels like a cult
Speaker 2: leader asking you to call them pop up or vanguards,
Speaker 2: like this title that he's giving himself to fit whatever
Speaker 2: image he has of himself, And I didn't want to
Speaker 2: give him that power anymore, and so I just use
Speaker 2: his real name, Brian.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I want to go back to a couple
Speaker 1: of things you said. Is that there's a way we
Speaker 1: think a survivor is supposed to respond when you think
Speaker 1: of it that way, I think it would be useful
Speaker 1: for people to hear what a trope that thing is,
Speaker 1: what was in your mind sort of how one is
Speaker 1: supposed to respond when they're a survivor of sexual assault
Speaker 1: or any form of trauma.
Speaker 2: There's this idea that something bad happens to you, you
Speaker 2: know it's bad, you immediately react, and you immediately respond
Speaker 2: or defend yourself, and it's just cut and dry, black
Speaker 2: and white.
Speaker 3: This is good, this is bad.
Speaker 2: And if something feels bad, then you should say something
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 3: But it just completely erases so much of.
Speaker 2: The human experience and of the psychological manipulation and torment
Speaker 2: that you go through, especially when you're dealing with a narcissism,
Speaker 2: especially when it's an intimate partner, and there's so many
Speaker 2: other dynamics coming into play. I was faced with a
Speaker 2: lot of the narcissistic abuse I suffered. I was a teenager.
Speaker 2: I was so ill equipped. My brain wasn't even really
Speaker 2: done for me. It wasn't I was just speaking to
Speaker 2: somebody the other day and they said, well, surely you
Speaker 2: know when you're raped and you go to the police,
Speaker 2: something happens and they come after the person, and I
Speaker 2: had to stop them and just say.
Speaker 1: Whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2: There's a million other steps, yeah, that come into play
Speaker 2: here before this happens. But people had this idea that
Speaker 2: people just come and take the bad guy away if
Speaker 2: somebody did something bad. And when I say things like
Speaker 2: the system is corrupt, that means the laws. That means
Speaker 2: the courts, that means lawyers, that means law enforcement. A
Speaker 2: lot of times, as a survivor of there's there's no
Speaker 2: easy way out if a.
Speaker 1: Person doesn't say something evan, especially in proximity to the
Speaker 1: thing that happened. The belief is, well, maybe it wasn't
Speaker 1: that bad, because they're not for bad things something right,
Speaker 1: I would have said something right away, right. So that's
Speaker 1: a complete disregard of everything we know about trauma systems
Speaker 1: in the brain and in the body and how healing works.
Speaker 1: Then you add the historical context that most survivors of
Speaker 1: rape and sexual assault are not believed, and that not
Speaker 1: believing gets magnified under a whole host of circumstances. Were
Speaker 1: you drinking, did you go there voluntarily, the race of
Speaker 1: the person making the report, the social class of the
Speaker 1: person making the report, All of those things undercut the
Speaker 1: likelihood that this will ever be taken seriously, which is
Speaker 1: a retraumatization which will put a person back even further.
Speaker 1: And so the entire system is conspired against anybody feeling
Speaker 1: that they could safely make a report. And so there
Speaker 1: was a process for you before you were able to
Speaker 1: come out and speak. And I think people need to
Speaker 1: understand it wasn't that something terrible happened on a Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and by the following Wednesday or the day after you
Speaker 1: spoke up, because when when you first spoke out you
Speaker 1: did not even name your perpetrator. I simply said this happened,
Speaker 1: so starting the story there that I finally spoke out. Okay,
Speaker 1: so then what.
Speaker 2: Or just like finally getting out and at first just
Speaker 2: wanting to the first step was finally made it out.
Speaker 2: I convinced him that it was his idea to let
Speaker 2: me go, because that's essentially what I felt like I
Speaker 2: had to do.
Speaker 3: I really had to study.
Speaker 2: Him for years and understand his gaslighting and manipulation, and
Speaker 2: I just knew that I was never going to get
Speaker 2: out if I was pulling away.
Speaker 3: From him, or if it was my choice to escape,
Speaker 3: I had to.
Speaker 2: Somehow play dead and give him something that was undesirable
Speaker 2: to make him feel like it was his idea to
Speaker 2: let me go?
Speaker 1: How did you do that? There was a.
Speaker 2: Moment when I felt like, I'm so afraid of this person.
Speaker 2: I've been threatened so many times, either with blackmail or
Speaker 2: with force, and if I stay here because I'm too
Speaker 2: scared to leave, I feel like I'm dead anyway. I
Speaker 2: don't feel like a human, don't I feel like a
Speaker 2: shell of a person, and staying kind of felt like
Speaker 2: a death sentence. Leaving also felt terrifying because something could
Speaker 2: happen to me or he could come after me, and
Speaker 2: so I kind of felt like, well, either way, I
Speaker 2: feel dead, so.
Speaker 3: I may as well try to escape. I'd rather die
Speaker 3: trying to get out.
Speaker 2: Then I remember realizing that a lot of what he
Speaker 2: fed off of was my fear that he was going
Speaker 2: to do something like that was the power that he
Speaker 2: had over me.
Speaker 3: I could embarrass you.
Speaker 2: I've got information on you, I've got photos of you,
Speaker 2: I've got you doing things that would humiliate you.
Speaker 3: When that finally clicked, I released any.
Speaker 2: Of trying to have any control over the situation and
Speaker 2: just kind of surrendered to what the situation want to.
Speaker 3: Just look, if you stay, you're dead, If you leave,
Speaker 3: you're dead.
Speaker 2: So I didn't really fight back. I didn't really react
Speaker 2: or seem hurt. I kind of just went. I think
Speaker 2: they call it going gray rock.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I want to break that down. Yeah, gray
Speaker 1: rocking is that process where I mean you render yourself
Speaker 1: to be a gray rock, as dull, as non responsive,
Speaker 1: as unnoticeable. So when you're not responding either with fear
Speaker 1: or trying to appease them or trying to get into
Speaker 1: it with them, or explain yourself. The goal is that
Speaker 1: they would get disinterested and move on to new supply.
Speaker 1: Gray Rock's a tricky strategy because in many cases, what
Speaker 1: it can do is it leaves the narcissistic person unsupplied
Speaker 1: and they get more agitated, and their power over you
Speaker 1: is to get these strong, emotional, almost erratic reactions out
Speaker 1: of the person they're targeting. This is now psychological right,
Speaker 1: they will get more frothed up. Okay, you think you're
Speaker 1: going to play this game, I am going to sh
Speaker 1: share those pictures with the world they did see, which
Speaker 1: they do. And so what happens is if you can
Speaker 1: tolerate the menace and you can come around the other
Speaker 1: side of the bend, they will ultimately get bored because
Speaker 1: now it's just sort of they're exhausting themselves in the
Speaker 1: process of trying to break some and they could just
Speaker 1: move on to new supply. But a lot of people
Speaker 1: cannot weather that sort of gray rock agitation, as I
Speaker 1: call it. But in your case, you did gray rock,
Speaker 1: And how did that get you to the place though
Speaker 1: where it felt like his idea that this was no
Speaker 1: longer working.
Speaker 2: Well, exactly what you just described, I wasn't trying to
Speaker 2: defend myself. I wasn't trying to talk them off the ledge.
Speaker 2: I wasn't doing all the things that I normally did.
Speaker 3: And one thing.
Speaker 2: He was doing with me as well is that reactive
Speaker 2: abuse where he would sort of push me to the
Speaker 2: point of breakdown, where I'd either be having a panic attack,
Speaker 2: I'd be shaking, I'd be screaming, I'd want to reach
Speaker 2: out for help, and then he would tell people something
Speaker 2: else was happening, like anybody, like in his inner circles.
Speaker 2: One time he told somebody that I slipped my rest
Speaker 2: to get his attention, or oh that I cheated on him,
Speaker 2: or like he just kept telling people all these things
Speaker 2: had happened that weren't happening to set me up.
Speaker 3: If I ever did reach out for help, if I
Speaker 3: ever did try.
Speaker 2: To explain to people what was happening, they've already heard
Speaker 2: a completely different story, Like he's already gotten ahead of it.
Speaker 2: Made this mistake with a couple of narcissists in my
Speaker 2: life before I knew they were narcissists. Of if I
Speaker 2: could just show this person how much pain I'm in,
Speaker 2: they'll stop because I'm dying.
Speaker 3: I'm collapsed on the floor. I'm in a pool of tears.
Speaker 3: I'm pulling my hair and I'm screaming, I'm cutting myself.
Speaker 2: I'm clearly in pain, and of course they'll stop, and
Speaker 2: they never do.
Speaker 3: They use it to their advantage even more.
Speaker 1: But when there's no empathy, all the rules are out
Speaker 1: the window, right. See, that's the piece what you described
Speaker 1: is I would show them my pain. I would fall
Speaker 1: to the ground in my pain, in the expectations, not.
Speaker 2: In a performative note, in a genuine joy.
Speaker 1: And yes you're devastated. What happens is that when a
Speaker 1: person goes through any form of narcissistic or psychopathic or
Speaker 1: antagonistic relationship where there's so much in validation, there's so
Speaker 1: little empathy, you're not having that fall to the ground
Speaker 1: panicked distress response the first time. This is after hundreds
Speaker 1: of times of being exposed to this. Right, it's relentless,
Speaker 1: and so there's a point at which it's unendurable, and
Speaker 1: that you think that within this person, I saw it
Speaker 1: for a minute at the beginning. I know it's there.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're not seeing how much pain I'm in, and
Speaker 1: they will see how much pain I'm in. Maybe they're
Speaker 1: not fully getting it. Maybe they just think this is
Speaker 1: an exchange. It's really complete and utter exhaustion and breakdown.
Speaker 1: That's just game on.
Speaker 3: For them exactly. That's what I learned through trial and error.
Speaker 1: Yes, that Eavan is the norm. I think it's so
Speaker 1: important you laid this dynamic out because that's every survivor's
Speaker 1: sort of mantle they wear. Maybe I'm not being clear,
Speaker 1: and if I was clear, they'd get it, because that's
Speaker 1: the hope. That's the trauma bond. When you started gray rocking,
Speaker 1: did you experience the escalation I was talking about? So
Speaker 1: you did, so you were holding back and then the escalation, yes,
Speaker 1: And what did that look like?
Speaker 2: So at one point he was threatening to go over
Speaker 2: to somebody's house that I knew, and I.
Speaker 3: Was scared, but I also knew him well enough with
Speaker 3: that point.
Speaker 2: First of all, he doesn't have a driver's license because
Speaker 2: he gets everybody to do everything for him. So I
Speaker 2: was like, well, first of all, you don't drive, you're
Speaker 2: not going to go anywhere. But I remember him getting
Speaker 2: dressed saying he was going to go to this person's house,
Speaker 2: and it was very threatening. He was demanding the address,
Speaker 2: and I just didn't react I just kept saying, okay, yep, yeah,
Speaker 2: if that's what you want to do, and they ended
Speaker 2: up not doing anything and not going anywhere, and that
Speaker 2: was sort of the first kind of call their bluff yes,
Speaker 2: saying yes, and then I wouldn't laugh at their jokes,
Speaker 2: like they were always incredibly inappropriate.
Speaker 3: And one of the ways they really tested the people.
Speaker 2: Around them and incriminated them in things was by you know,
Speaker 2: there was sort of a code of contact for how
Speaker 2: you needed to act.
Speaker 3: Rule number one was always just keep him happy and
Speaker 3: keep things de escalated.
Speaker 2: And one way to do that was just laughing at
Speaker 2: the terrible jokes, joining in with things that were highly inappropriate.
Speaker 2: You feel like, yeah, I'm on your side, I'm trustworthy
Speaker 2: because I'm joining in with you, and so you're not
Speaker 2: going to come after me because I'm sort of being
Speaker 2: just as disgusting. And after a while I was like,
Speaker 2: I can't do this anymore, and so I stopped and
Speaker 2: I stopped performing in.
Speaker 3: Front of people, which was a big, a big thing
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 2: So like people would come to the house, usually like
Speaker 2: a famous person or somebody that he needed to do
Speaker 2: a job.
Speaker 3: It was either status or servitude. The only way he
Speaker 3: would interact.
Speaker 2: With people, is if he was getting one of these
Speaker 2: two things out of the relationship. He didn't just have
Speaker 2: friends that he hung out with that he connected with
Speaker 2: that we just enjoy each other this company, there's an
Speaker 2: exchange here.
Speaker 3: I'm getting something from this.
Speaker 2: And so it was always a big deal when someone
Speaker 2: came to the house because it was almost like a show.
Speaker 2: It was like we had to put on a show
Speaker 2: for these people. And he liked having me around. I
Speaker 2: think because I brought some status. I could wait on
Speaker 2: them and bring out drinks and do these things, and
Speaker 2: it made him seem very powerful. And if you did
Speaker 2: things wrong, you would hear about it when the people left,
Speaker 2: So everything would be fine.
Speaker 3: When the people were there. You would act like we've
Speaker 3: got this great relationship.
Speaker 2: Sometimes he would say demeaning things or do something and
Speaker 2: literally sometimes it would be so horrible.
Speaker 3: The guests would think he was kidding, yeah, and they
Speaker 3: would lean over to me and they would say, he's
Speaker 3: kidding though, right, And I would just sort of.
Speaker 2: Have to shrug and look at them like no, but
Speaker 2: I can't say anything because he's right there and I'm
Speaker 2: going to hear about it later.
Speaker 1: It's what I call sort of the dinner party paradox
Speaker 1: of the narcissistic relationship. Right, Oh, this is they're great,
Speaker 1: like you guys are great?
Speaker 3: Have you ever seen anything like that?
Speaker 1: Door closes? And the other place this happens in a
Speaker 1: pronounced way is in cars. The event is done, you're
Speaker 1: in the car and the gloves come off and you
Speaker 1: can't get car right. Like a car is the worst
Speaker 1: because if this thing's hurtling down the freeway at seventy
Speaker 1: miles an hour, there's no getting out. That moment is
Speaker 1: such a signature move in any narcissistic relationship, which means them.
Speaker 1: As the evening's going on, there is this sense of
Speaker 1: dread that overwhelmed you and completely clench when you're thinking,
Speaker 1: did I.
Speaker 4: Say that wrong?
Speaker 2: To night?
Speaker 3: You're walking on eggshells.
Speaker 1: This is shards of glass, shards glass at this point,
Speaker 1: egg shells left the room a long time ago. Right,
Speaker 1: But you know what's coming because there's no way you
Speaker 1: would have hit every beat perfectly because you can't read
Speaker 1: someone else's mind.
Speaker 2: Now they're looking for something too. I remember one time
Speaker 2: I got in trouble because I gave the guests water
Speaker 2: when they arrived, but I gave them to them in
Speaker 2: plastic bottles instead of glasses, and it turned into like
Speaker 2: being up all night just getting berated and yelled at
Speaker 2: about how you either don't care or you're making them
Speaker 2: look bad, or this is how things need to be
Speaker 2: when people show up, and here's what needs to change.
Speaker 2: And just like the constant criticism, the constant it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter what you do, they are going to find something.
Speaker 2: It's a game you cannot win, and they're just going
Speaker 2: to keep moving the goalposts and they're just going to
Speaker 2: keep up in the anne to keep you destabilized and
Speaker 2: apologizing and constantly trying to please them so that you're
Speaker 2: not looking at the horrible things.
Speaker 3: That they're doing. And god forbid you ever try to
Speaker 3: like call them out or turn it around on them,
Speaker 3: which I just knew not to do that.
Speaker 1: Evan, you're talking about you're translating into gray Rock. How
Speaker 1: much of it at that point though, was a frank
Speaker 1: trauma response to what you're doing.
Speaker 3: It wasn't even necessarily a conscious thing.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm hearing. It's not even the intentionality that
Speaker 1: gray Rock. And sometimes I didn't know Grayrock was. You
Speaker 1: didn't know what it was a thing, right, So what
Speaker 1: you were experiencing was dissociation and numbness. And when you're
Speaker 1: talking about the most severe levels of narcissistic abuse, that
Speaker 1: definitely was what your experience was. It is traumatic. You
Speaker 1: start getting into the territory of complex trauma, of severe
Speaker 1: relational trauma, and at that point a person is now dissociated,
Speaker 1: their numb It's like the soul has left the body
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Actually, in a way, they've annexed you.
Speaker 1: You're done, Like it's a horrifying sense of disposability as
Speaker 1: they've emptied out the bottle.
Speaker 3: That's exactly how it felt.
Speaker 2: It just felt like he's kind of pawing at me
Speaker 2: while I lay on the growling, Oh, I think this
Speaker 2: one's done.
Speaker 3: Yes, Yes, And then I.
Speaker 2: Definitely noticed him getting bored with me, And then I
Speaker 2: got a partner movie and that's what got me out
Speaker 2: of the house.
Speaker 3: He still tried to call me a few times.
Speaker 2: After that, but I got the nerve to hang up
Speaker 2: on him and change my number. And normally he would
Speaker 2: just keep calling and keep finding ways around that, but
Speaker 2: that last time after I changed my number, he seemed
Speaker 2: to sort of fall back yeah and move on to
Speaker 2: the next supply, Okay, all right, so, which I'm sure
Speaker 2: he already had in the chamber.
Speaker 1: You know, they're always there, always is, these relationships. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, Brian told Spin magazine that the
Speaker 1: day after he and Evan broke up, he called her
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty eight times. He was quoted as
Speaker 1: saying I have fantasies every day about smashing her skull
Speaker 1: in with a sledgehammer, a comment his team later characterized
Speaker 1: as a quote obviously a theatrical rock star interview promoting
Speaker 1: a new record and not a factual account.
Speaker 2: And it's always the same sort of pattern of you know,
Speaker 2: the new supply comes in, he lets her know that
Speaker 2: the supply he currently has is crazy and is really
Speaker 2: hurting his spirit, and doesn't understand him and is very controlling.
Speaker 2: And we have to hide our relationship because they're so erratic.
Speaker 3: Yes, so let's keep doing this in secrecy while I
Speaker 3: try to get the crazy one out. That was his emo.
Speaker 1: I would say that that must be on like page
Speaker 1: thirty two of the Narcissism Relationship, because it's the now
Speaker 1: that that person's gone, it is getting ahead of it.
Speaker 1: If you were to ever speak to this person. Not
Speaker 1: only have you been painted as though there's something wrong
Speaker 1: with you, it's an opportunity to sort of elevate the
Speaker 1: new partner who feels as though, well, I'm going to
Speaker 1: shave you how saying I am, I'm going to show
Speaker 1: you how saviory rescue that great? How fortunate are you
Speaker 1: good that you got rid of.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be so much better than that person.
Speaker 2: I understand you way more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you said something before though that did jump out
Speaker 1: to manage. The language you use was fascinating. You said
Speaker 1: you would get in trouble if you did something wrong,
Speaker 1: you know, bring the water in the wrong cup. First
Speaker 1: of all, in no healthy human relationship, child or adult,
Speaker 1: should anyone ever feel that they were going to get
Speaker 1: in trouble. A child shouldn't feel that they're going to
Speaker 1: get in trouble. They might feel like, I know, Mom
Speaker 1: told me not to do this. A consequence or something
Speaker 1: get in trouble. The gotcha. There's a gotcha feel to
Speaker 1: every narcissistic relationship. It's also infantilizing, evan that I'm going
Speaker 1: to get in trouble. That's very much a child's statement, right.
Speaker 1: So these relationships are designed to leave a person feeling
Speaker 1: as disempowered as a child would in a relationship.
Speaker 3: And it's knowing that something painful is coming.
Speaker 2: Correct, It's like you know that whatever's coming is really
Speaker 2: going to hurt.
Speaker 1: It's really going to hurt. Yes, and that's terrifying.
Speaker 3: It is. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, testifying in front of Congress, Evan explained the painful
Speaker 1: punishment she experienced, saying she was tied up by her
Speaker 1: hands and feet, beaten, and told by her abuser quote,
Speaker 1: I could kill you right now. Here's the thing I
Speaker 1: want to really talk about is you were only nineteen
Speaker 1: when this relationship began, in eighteen. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: use child feels a little heavy handed though adolescent. Yes,
Speaker 1: And this beautiful brain of ours is kind of rocking
Speaker 1: and rolling to you, like summer meter twenty five and thirty.
Speaker 1: A lot of innervating still happening in this frontal lobe.
Speaker 1: It's the last part of the turkey to cook, which
Speaker 1: is why we see adolescents are, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: sometimes all over the map.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and impulsive.
Speaker 1: And it don't mean this word to be like dismissive,
Speaker 1: but to me, you were a child in many ways, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and so to the verbiage and the power and the control.
Speaker 1: You weren't eighteen years old? What age were you when
Speaker 1: the relationship ended?
Speaker 3: Twenty two?
Speaker 1: Okay, so four years And in that whole period of
Speaker 1: time eighteen to twenty two, this never got done.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: I felt was completely stunted. So much catching up to
Speaker 2: do afterwards. I felt like I fell so far behind
Speaker 2: on life skills and communication skills and relationship skills. And
Speaker 2: that was another thing that was really hard to navigate
Speaker 2: after getting out, was having to play catch up and
Speaker 2: feeling like my peers had passed me and not knowing
Speaker 2: how to function.
Speaker 1: And there's grief around that, Oh, so much grief.
Speaker 2: I mean, I grieved like the person I was before
Speaker 2: the abuse, and I hear this a lot with survivors
Speaker 2: of this kind of abuse. It was hard for me
Speaker 2: to watch films that I had done from before. It
Speaker 2: was hard for me to look at photographs. I think
Speaker 2: also because one of their goals was to make sure
Speaker 2: I felt terrible about myself, yeah, and that I felt
Speaker 2: inadequate and broken, and they would tell me constantly like
Speaker 2: that I was broken and no one was ever going
Speaker 2: to love me after this, and after he was done
Speaker 2: with me. No one was going to love me or
Speaker 2: touch me or you know, take me seriously. And this
Speaker 2: is one of the reasons why I tried to kill
Speaker 2: myself before the very end of our relationship, because I
Speaker 2: didn't know how to get back to baseline or where
Speaker 2: I was, not even saying like I was the healthiest person,
Speaker 2: but nowhere near where I was. So I at one
Speaker 2: point felt like the only way through it was to
Speaker 2: die because I didn't know how to get myself back.
Speaker 2: A grief around who you were, what was lost, what
Speaker 2: your life should have been, should have looked like. I
Speaker 2: felt like my life was supposed to have a very
Speaker 2: different trajectory, and the realization of what happened to you.
Speaker 2: The more I learned about it, the more grief comes
Speaker 2: with it. Because when you read a textbook about domestic violencer,
Speaker 2: about narcissism, and you think these things that have happened
Speaker 2: you are so unique and have kept you so isolated
Speaker 2: from people for so long, and then you start reading
Speaker 2: about it and the realization of how common it is
Speaker 2: and all of these red flags that maybe had you
Speaker 2: known or could have looked out for, or maybe it
Speaker 2: was well educated about, maybe you could have seen it.
Speaker 2: But there's also a part of me that just thinks
Speaker 2: everybody susceptible to this.
Speaker 1: Everybody is because with some exceptions, but very few human
Speaker 1: beings are oriented towards attachment and love. And I think
Speaker 1: that I'm sort of on an anti red flag crusade,
Speaker 1: really yes, because I think it's an unsafe framing because
Speaker 1: when we make it about red flags, we're putting the
Speaker 1: onus on the survivor of why didn't you see it right?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: Versus this is unacceptable behavior, right, And then to let
Speaker 1: people know that when the unacceptable behavior descends into something
Speaker 1: where you've already started to form what feels like a
Speaker 1: meaningful attachment, resting your way out of this is not
Speaker 1: something you can do alone. You need either someone to
Speaker 1: throw you the life ring or to tell you out,
Speaker 1: because that's a big, big leap to frame it that way.
Speaker 1: No eighteen year old on the planet is going to
Speaker 1: be able to manage that. Most forty eight year olds
Speaker 1: on the planet are not able to manage it. And
Speaker 1: it's interesting because I do talk a lot about people
Speaker 1: who is more vulnerable, who's more susceptible? Are there things
Speaker 1: that can stack the odds? Sure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I think they say like most domestic violence crimes,
Speaker 2: like the highest rates are between the ages of sixteen
Speaker 2: and twenty four, because that's when you're absolutely you know,
Speaker 2: you're a child and an adult's body at that point.
Speaker 1: It's things like, yes, certainly, things like having a history
Speaker 1: of trauma, having a history of narcissistic relationships in your life.
Speaker 1: But we can even pivot to things like being really positive,
Speaker 1: see see the.
Speaker 3: Good and everyone that was definitely.
Speaker 1: No, being very forgiving, being a rescuer, seeing something in
Speaker 1: someone that you feel the rest of the world is
Speaker 1: not seeing one hundred percent. Then you also have to
Speaker 1: count for things like being less empowered in a system
Speaker 1: or culture or society because of race, because of lack
Speaker 1: of financial support, because of lack of family support. That also,
Speaker 1: almost the privilege of detecting a red flag is taken
Speaker 1: away from you right right Then, on top of all
Speaker 1: of this, you throw in that this narcissistic person is charismatic, compelling, charming, smart,
Speaker 1: and often the reason they grab us is because for
Speaker 1: us in particular, there may be something about this person
Speaker 1: that jumped out of us. When you take all of
Speaker 1: that and shake it up, the milkshake you're pouring out
Speaker 1: of there is dangerous and toxic and confusing, and there
Speaker 1: was a time you truly cared about this person.
Speaker 3: Oh that's the time. That's the hardest to think about
Speaker 3: or talk about.
Speaker 2: Really, it's really the hardest part to access because it's
Speaker 2: so hard to imagine now and it's so sad to
Speaker 2: think about and what I thought I felt. And that's
Speaker 2: the scariest part because for me, it wasn't just about
Speaker 2: like trusting other people.
Speaker 3: It was trusting myself again.
Speaker 2: Because there's a lot of people are like, oh, I
Speaker 2: ignored my gut feeling or ignored red flags. But sometimes
Speaker 2: you don't see red flags. You don't have a gut feeling.
Speaker 3: Everything feels fine, like you feel completely safe. I really felt.
Speaker 2: Like I was lucky to be there, and I was
Speaker 2: being really taken care of, and I was being saved.
Speaker 3: And in the beginning, they.
Speaker 2: Were careful with me, they were slow with me. They
Speaker 2: like they took their time to establish a sense of
Speaker 2: trust and safety and vulnerability. It took a while for
Speaker 2: things to really escalate.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how old was he when he met you?
Speaker 3: He was thirty seven. He was eighteen years older.
Speaker 2: Okay, so he was eighteen years older than I'm still
Speaker 2: not the age that he was.
Speaker 1: Okay, wow, yeah, let's just sit with that for a minute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you are still not the age that he was as
Speaker 1: you approached that age thirty seven, and you witness what
Speaker 1: eighteen looks like in the world.
Speaker 3: This just happened to me. Actually, my little sister just
Speaker 3: turned eighteen. Wow. And I spent a day with.
Speaker 2: Her and a friend of hers that I was around
Speaker 2: the same age, and that is all I could think
Speaker 2: of all day was, Yes, she is so smart and
Speaker 2: beautiful and intelligent, but she's a child.
Speaker 3: That's a child, that's a child.
Speaker 2: She's still so vulnerable and innocent. And that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: I don't have respect for her and think that she's
Speaker 2: not smart. But yes, it was so apparent to me
Speaker 2: that day just how vulnerable I was at that age,
Speaker 2: and imagining somebody like Brian imagining her in his clutches,
Speaker 2: and you know, it helped paint a better picture for
Speaker 2: me too. Why so many people were their alarm bells
Speaker 2: were going off back in the day, but I was
Speaker 2: already set up to really just not trust.
Speaker 3: The adults around me anymore. Why was that?
Speaker 2: Brian definitely put that in my head from the beginning.
Speaker 2: I think because I had struggled a bit in the
Speaker 2: entertainment industry with feeling a bit controlled, feeling stifled, feeling
Speaker 2: like I had to behave and act a certain way
Speaker 2: to be loved or to be liked, and it didn't
Speaker 2: always feel authentic, and I think I felt a little
Speaker 2: trapped and I was struggling with that. That was part
Speaker 2: of the allure of being in his world. It just
Speaker 2: seemed like a place where you were free of judgment
Speaker 2: and it was all about expression and being exactly who
Speaker 2: you are.
Speaker 3: The part of me that wanted to feel.
Speaker 2: Like I was a part of some sort of noble cause,
Speaker 2: Like he felt like really trying to change people's.
Speaker 3: Way of thinking in the world, and.
Speaker 2: It felt like I was a part of something really
Speaker 2: special and really great.
Speaker 3: The part of myself that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a little like no things need to
Speaker 2: be shaken up and fuck the establishment.
Speaker 3: This is rebellious arts, you know, sort of short film.
Speaker 1: And he was capitalizing on a developmental chasm, the chasm
Speaker 1: between eighteen and thirty seven, let's fast forward, that is
Speaker 1: very different than the chasm between sixty and seventy nine.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense, right? Age differences aren't linear. Those
Speaker 1: gaps go steep and less deep depending on how old
Speaker 1: we are. But that is a chasm in at eighteen
Speaker 1: to his thirty seven. That's grooming. So you were talking
Speaker 1: about he was very careful with you in the beginning,
Speaker 1: that carefulness, that drawing you in subsequently creating trust and engagement.
Speaker 1: To me, there's no other word but grooming that could
Speaker 1: be applied there. Yeah, grooming and love bombing, And I
Speaker 1: would say the love bombing is part of the grooming.
Speaker 1: How long did this sort of careful period last before
Speaker 1: his behavior started to shift and change.
Speaker 2: Well before anything even romantic happened. It was at least
Speaker 2: a few months of just hanging out and being friends
Speaker 2: and nothing feeling off or weird, and.
Speaker 3: Everybody was like, what's going on between the two of you?
Speaker 2: And I was like, there's literally nothing going on, Like
Speaker 2: everybody's freaking out over nothing. He's never tried anything with me,
Speaker 2: you know, And I was almost offended that people would
Speaker 2: ask that. And also at the time, I viewed myself
Speaker 2: as a child. I felt very young and sort of
Speaker 2: in over my head, but kind of special to be chosen,
Speaker 2: and maybe there was something special about me that only
Speaker 2: he saw and that everybody else was missing, because that
Speaker 2: is kind of how I felt in my life. So yes,
Speaker 2: it was a few months and then things sort of
Speaker 2: turned romantic, and I remember just being shocked because I
Speaker 2: didn't understand why he was a track me.
Speaker 3: I just felt like.
Speaker 2: I never thought there was even a chance that that
Speaker 2: could happen. I was like, this is like some older
Speaker 2: rock star who's also like married and can have anybody
Speaker 2: he wants, and I'm like, this kind of weird, awkward,
Speaker 2: young kid essentially that's just kind of a nerd.
Speaker 3: And then I.
Speaker 2: Think at the time how I made sense of it
Speaker 2: was like, oh, I'm just you know, I'm really mature
Speaker 2: for my age, and I'm actually really soulful and age
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter, and I'm.
Speaker 3: Like a fluke.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that there were possibly other miners at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: In retrospect, especially when I found out about the alleged
Speaker 2: miners that have come forward and looking at the timeline,
Speaker 2: and then this moment of realization of not only did
Speaker 2: you never know this person never, Like the second he
Speaker 2: said alone to you, it wasn't real, but he picked
Speaker 2: you because you were young. He picked you because you
Speaker 2: were a child. He picked you because you were flat chested.
Speaker 2: There's certain things that I looked back and thought, these
Speaker 2: are things he's looking past to be with me. And
Speaker 2: then in retrospect it was no, this is why you
Speaker 2: were chosen. And that was like a huge switch that
Speaker 2: got flipped.
Speaker 3: The narrative had to change.
Speaker 1: When did you come into that realization that instead of
Speaker 1: these are things that were being looked past, these are
Speaker 1: actually reasons I was being chosen for, because to be
Speaker 1: chosen for those reasons is actually much more pathologic and unsettling.
Speaker 2: Right when, you know, stories started popping up on the
Speaker 2: internet again, you know, I had to stay alleged. People
Speaker 2: started saying this happened to me, and I was this age,
Speaker 2: here's when it happened. That knocked me down so hard
Speaker 2: because I think before that I was still trying to
Speaker 2: convince myself that maybe there were horrible things that had happened,
Speaker 2: but maybe there were good things in between, or maybe
Speaker 2: we had moments of clarity or moments of real connection
Speaker 2: or moments of real love and sprinkled into that were
Speaker 2: just this devastation.
Speaker 3: And then when I found that out and I realized that.
Speaker 2: He was leading a double life essentially, and that there
Speaker 2: was a whole other side to him that.
Speaker 3: I never knew existed.
Speaker 2: Then everything feels like a violation at that point.
Speaker 1: Completely again that now we're back to the grief. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because if you're grieving a thing you thought was and
Speaker 1: I think this is one of the big struggles in
Speaker 1: narcissistic relationships because when you use that grief framework, a
Speaker 1: lot of people say, what, like, no one's dead, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about. If you had a relationship and
Speaker 1: it's done and it wasn't what it was, that's the problem.
Speaker 1: And so you're even grieving that you were in something
Speaker 1: you thought was something and it wasn't that something. It's very,
Speaker 1: very unsettling because you really truly believed it was this
Speaker 1: other thing.
Speaker 3: And then you start questioning everything.
Speaker 1: We will be right back with this conversation. You've questioned everything.
Speaker 1: So what happens with accumulated gaslighting is that you actually
Speaker 1: start to feel psychotic, is that you're no longer in reality.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It's funny.
Speaker 2: There were a couple of projects that I did before
Speaker 2: coming forward that shook things up.
Speaker 3: It was like it shook something loose.
Speaker 2: In my psyche that had been sort of like calcified
Speaker 2: and buried away. First one was when I had to
Speaker 2: do like a pretty brutal sexual assault scene in a
Speaker 2: film called Into the Forest.
Speaker 3: And that was the first day that I.
Speaker 2: Started questioning some of the things that had happened to
Speaker 2: me and that they were possibly assault.
Speaker 3: I couldn't even.
Speaker 2: Say that I was raped for many, many many years
Speaker 2: after the fact, like it wouldn't even come out of
Speaker 2: my mouth. And people started asking me about that scene
Speaker 2: when I was doing press for the film, and I
Speaker 2: really tried to dodge questions about it, just sort of
Speaker 2: deny it, like, oh, no, this has never happened to me,
Speaker 2: but I've got a lot to say about it, and
Speaker 2: that wasn't sustainable. Right after I did that movie, actually
Speaker 2: I went and did West World. There was only a
Speaker 2: day between the two of those projects. I finished one,
Speaker 2: I got on the plane immediately started filming Westworld, and
Speaker 2: then I didn't know what West World was really going
Speaker 2: to be about. They kept everything kind of hidden from us,
Speaker 2: and so I was finding out with the show like
Speaker 2: script by script and as an actor.
Speaker 3: Being put in situations.
Speaker 2: Where you have to be in peril or you're getting
Speaker 2: beaten up or getting dragged or being threatened, or you're
Speaker 2: having to stand up against an abuser. As an actor,
Speaker 2: at least for me, you go back in your rolodex
Speaker 2: and you say, what can I draw from bring real
Speaker 2: emotion to the scene. And of course I had my experiences,
Speaker 2: and it was the first time I think I'd really
Speaker 2: let myself go back and feel certain things because I
Speaker 2: wasn't able to cry about it for about I want
Speaker 2: to say, seven years.
Speaker 3: I didn't cry about anything.
Speaker 2: That had happened to me until I got in a
Speaker 2: trauma therapy like many many years.
Speaker 1: Ago, seven years out of the relationship before you were
Speaker 1: able to cry about it, before I was able to
Speaker 1: shed a tear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then suddenly I'm doing these scenes where it's
Speaker 2: my job, you know, it's like you got to go there.
Speaker 2: And it gave me permission, I think, yeah, and a
Speaker 2: buffer because I was in a controlled situation, so I
Speaker 2: could allow myself.
Speaker 3: In a bit more. And it just like opened up
Speaker 3: Pandora's box.
Speaker 2: Like there's a scene like my character is programmed, she
Speaker 2: can't pull any triggers of any guns, she's trapped, can
Speaker 2: defend herself, and then there's a scene where she finally
Speaker 2: does and she overrides her program and she pulls the
Speaker 2: trigger and she gets up and she runs, And that scene,
Speaker 2: I remember, was a big moment for me, having to
Speaker 2: act the feeling of being held back and then breaking
Speaker 2: through it, and then definitely filming the finale, there's this
Speaker 2: beautiful monologue that I was given about I'm not crying
Speaker 2: for myself, I'm crying for you because I'm going to
Speaker 2: stand up and I'm going to keep going and You're
Speaker 2: going to.
Speaker 3: Perish and fights back.
Speaker 2: And that was a big day too, And that was
Speaker 2: sort of the first time I started telling people like
Speaker 2: I definitely told people on set like people I trusted
Speaker 2: just in case I got triggered or something.
Speaker 3: So I started opening up to people a little bit
Speaker 3: more and.
Speaker 2: Saying, you know, I was in a really abusive relationship
Speaker 2: and I just want you to can you just stand
Speaker 2: off to the side just in case, Like I don't
Speaker 2: want anybody to really know, but I definitely want somebody
Speaker 2: a safe person there in case I get to.
Speaker 3: Her mooned or something.
Speaker 2: And so doing the show unlocked a lot of things
Speaker 2: and got me talking about it bit by bit, and
Speaker 2: then I met.
Speaker 3: Other survivors on that show.
Speaker 2: Oh Okay, you know Tanduway Newton's has come forward as well,
Speaker 2: and she recognized.
Speaker 3: Something in me. Wow, And then she brought me to Evensler.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Eve was one of the first people I
Speaker 2: told my story to and she was one of the
Speaker 2: first people that said I believe you and like that.
Speaker 3: That also kickstarted a lot of things.
Speaker 1: So you said she saw something, she saw something, and
Speaker 1: what was that?
Speaker 3: She said, I could just tell you were still in it.
Speaker 3: There was a buzzing sort of energy to me.
Speaker 2: And I think now talking to some of those same
Speaker 2: people years later and then interacting with me, like everybody
Speaker 2: usually says the same thing. They're like, your whole energy
Speaker 2: has changed, your calmer, You're lighter then, you know, I
Speaker 2: was still kind of chain smoking and still agitated, and
Speaker 2: still like she's numbing something Like I can just tell
Speaker 2: she's trying to keep herself busy. She's got these kind
Speaker 2: of nervous habits. I think she just saw something that
Speaker 2: she identified with. I've seen it too, Like I've connected
Speaker 2: with people not knowing their backstories at all from one meeting.
Speaker 2: I can just tell by looking in their eyes, or
Speaker 2: I can tell by their communication skills or styles that
Speaker 2: they've done inner work and that they've been through something
Speaker 2: and all immediately feel sort of connected.
Speaker 1: I love how you just put it is there's a buzzing.
Speaker 1: I think that's actually probably more accurate than you would know,
Speaker 1: because there is sort of a frizzon, like the crackling
Speaker 1: that's happening in somebody who's viewing everything in your life
Speaker 1: as a threat, and it wasn't being processed, and it
Speaker 1: was being numbed in so many different ways, but there's
Speaker 1: really no putting it away. I think that that's the piece.
Speaker 1: When your relationship ended, Evan, you left, but you weren't
Speaker 1: talking about it, so I mean, it's like a psychological
Speaker 1: pseudo safety. You're away from the peril because obviously there's
Speaker 1: a benefit to no longer having to live under those circumstances.
Speaker 1: But if you don't do the processing, it's like they're
Speaker 1: still in the room with you, right, So it's you
Speaker 1: were not living in the same place, but your nervous
Speaker 1: system didn't get the memo, So as far as you're concerned,
Speaker 1: they're still there. You're still walking on the eggshells. So
Speaker 1: how long was it before Westworld? Before it was at
Speaker 1: about seven years? Seven years what I want to understand
Speaker 1: is you're out, You're physically out, you're not talking about it,
Speaker 1: so psychologically, that's a long period of time. Six seven
Speaker 1: years is a long time. What was that?
Speaker 3: Like, Sorry, I don't know what I'm crying.
Speaker 1: You never we have a rule on navigating narcissism. Nobody
Speaker 1: gets to say I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think I'm getting emotional, just because those
Speaker 2: years were some of the hardest, because that was before
Speaker 2: I knew what was going on with me, and I
Speaker 2: immediately tried to I got back together with an X
Speaker 2: of mine that I was dating when I met Brian,
Speaker 2: and like, I think the was a part of me
Speaker 2: that just wanted to go back, you know, like just
Speaker 2: wanted to.
Speaker 4: Get back to where I was before and to try
Speaker 4: and like fix what was broken. And I didn't know
Speaker 4: how to describe what was happening with me or my body.
Speaker 4: I was definitely still programmed to respond and behave like
Speaker 4: I was in the room with Brian, for sure, and
Speaker 4: I think that really confused my partner because it seemed
Speaker 4: like I was being dishonest about things, and it seemed
Speaker 4: like I was, you know, it wasn't safe to tell
Speaker 4: the truth with Brian, and I think that carried on
Speaker 4: into my next relationship, where I was just programmed to
Speaker 4: like if I felt like I was going to get
Speaker 4: in trouble, or if I felt like I'd done something wrong,
Speaker 4: or if I felt like I didn't say the right thing,
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, well, well, here's the excuse, and
Speaker 4: here's here's me defending myself.
Speaker 3: Here's and here's this, and here's here's this panic. And
Speaker 3: I I think.
Speaker 2: That comes across very alarming to certain.
Speaker 3: People and confusing.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know why I was doing that, why
Speaker 2: I was responding in these ways.
Speaker 3: I didn't know why I was so shut down.
Speaker 2: I didn't know why I was self sabotaging and being
Speaker 2: impulsive and unable to be honest with them about certain things.
Speaker 2: Still could just completely programmed and didn't know that I
Speaker 2: had PTSD.
Speaker 3: I was having night terrors.
Speaker 2: I would wake up screaming next to my partner in sweats.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't until I kept trying to have this
Speaker 2: normal life and it just wasn't working and all of
Speaker 2: these emotional problems and relationship problems and nervous system problems
Speaker 2: started popping up that I realized, like I couldn't run
Speaker 2: for a minute anymore. And it took sort of everything
Speaker 2: falling apart and my marriage falling apart and becoming a
Speaker 2: new mom that really changed everything. So that's what I
Speaker 2: was doing in between, was just trying to move on,
Speaker 2: trying to have a normal life, trying to have a marriage.
Speaker 3: And then once I had.
Speaker 2: My child, I was like, well, you know, if you
Speaker 2: want to be a good parent, you got to work
Speaker 2: on yourself as much as possible. Yeah, whatever issues might
Speaker 2: be in there, and now is the time to sort
Speaker 2: of like face them and get ahead of this as
Speaker 2: much as possible so you're not transferring anything on to
Speaker 2: your kid. And so it became really important to me
Speaker 2: to do self work. Before then, I was just living
Speaker 2: in that. I don't know what's wrong with me. I
Speaker 2: think I'm going crazy. I think my partner thinks I'm crazy.
Speaker 1: Leaving what you did, wanting and craving normal, it's what
Speaker 1: we expect somebody would want after that. But without doing that,
Speaker 1: the processing of the trauma, you're living in a permanent
Speaker 1: state of threat. So what you were describing as sort
Speaker 1: of those agitated reactions you'd have with your partner one
Speaker 1: thousand percent expectable because your system was reacting to these
Speaker 1: situations as though they were dire cataclysmic threats. Everything makes sense, right.
Speaker 1: The funny thing about trauma is, as much as it's
Speaker 1: not us sort of having if you will, normal responses,
Speaker 1: it is given what your system believes is coming at it.
Speaker 1: I always call it it's like a faulty alarm system.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, well, I mean your alarm system did
Speaker 1: think something came in the door. The problem is the
Speaker 1: sensor's not right exactly. She wasn't open. Yeah, Like that's it.
Speaker 1: That's really what it is.
Speaker 4: Yea.
Speaker 1: So for those six seven years, as you threw yourself
Speaker 1: into normal, if you will, and it gave you the
Speaker 1: gift of your child. So I don't believe there are
Speaker 1: ever any lost experiences that said, there's no packing this
Speaker 1: away and forgetting about it. Yes, it can become incredibly dissociated.
Speaker 1: But somehow something wafts into our life and it turns
Speaker 1: that light on and illuminates what happened to us. For you,
Speaker 1: it happened while you were making this show.
Speaker 2: And simultaneously my marriage and everything was falling apart.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, So Westworld feels so significant in terms of an
Speaker 1: insight moment. It's so important for us to learn from
Speaker 1: that because that was sort of like your penny drop
Speaker 1: moment in terms of awareness that led you into a
Speaker 1: new twisted the road for you. Can you share what
Speaker 1: you really ultimately learned from that experience.
Speaker 2: I was moving through life and I was entering relationships
Speaker 2: with the very firm belief there was something wrong with me.
Speaker 3: It was for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for those years in between leading up before that,
Speaker 2: I was like, you are the problem.
Speaker 3: Something's wrong with you.
Speaker 2: I think in my marriage and things, I walked into
Speaker 2: that thinking I was completely inferior, that I was lucky
Speaker 2: to be with this person. I think sometimes that was
Speaker 2: sort of the yeah, the vibe of like, you know,
Speaker 2: she's a lot, but I deal with it because I
Speaker 2: love her. People would look at me and say, don't
Speaker 2: fuck this up. It was always just kind of like, right,
Speaker 2: I'm the fucked up one, and if anything goes wrong,
Speaker 2: it's my fault.
Speaker 3: And I took responsibility.
Speaker 2: For everything that went wrong in that marriage everything. I
Speaker 2: never stood up for myself. I never you know, questioned anything.
Speaker 2: It was always just like it's me, it's me, it's me.
Speaker 2: And so that's how I was moving through the world.
Speaker 1: Self blame is the universal pattern of anyone who experiences betrayal, trauma,
Speaker 1: betrayal of any form in a relationship, relational trauma, and
Speaker 1: narcissistic abuse. That's where you go because it serves so
Speaker 1: many functions. It maintains a sense of control. Okay, if
Speaker 1: this is me, then I can change it. It allows
Speaker 1: the attachment or the relationship to persist. It allows your
Speaker 1: worldview to persist that the world is somehow safer or
Speaker 1: more just than this relationship is teaching you. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: it's a lot. So the self blame is this incredibly unhealthy,
Speaker 1: self destructive thing that happens that has slowly eroding us
Speaker 1: to the point where we almost don't know where we
Speaker 1: end in the.
Speaker 3: World begins, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the work of healing is for
Speaker 1: you to understand that there was this experience that happened
Speaker 1: outside of you, that another person was responsible for this behavior,
Speaker 1: that behavior was unacceptable, and there was nothing you could
Speaker 1: do to change that, and nor would it ever change.
Speaker 2: I think before I even got to the place of oh,
Speaker 2: here's the tactics, and here's the thing this person did
Speaker 2: the first step for me, it's just somebody validating that
Speaker 2: what had happened to me was awful like that was
Speaker 2: the first step. That was the thing that made me
Speaker 2: cry for the first time. I put myself into trauma
Speaker 2: therapy because while I was doing West World and I
Speaker 2: was noticing these things and certain things were trying to
Speaker 2: get shaken up, I also noticed that I was talking
Speaker 2: to somebody that I was collaborating with creatively. All I
Speaker 2: needed to do was tell them that I wanted to
Speaker 2: change something like a pretty common thing to just have
Speaker 2: in a creative conversation. And I was terrified to say
Speaker 2: that I needed something or wanted something, and I was
Speaker 2: working up the courage to do this, and this person
Speaker 2: stopped me mid conversation.
Speaker 3: They're like, are you okay? And I was like, what
Speaker 3: do you mean, And they're just like, you're gripping the chair.
Speaker 2: And I didn't even realize I was wrapped around this
Speaker 2: chair and I was white knuckle. I was holding onto
Speaker 2: it for dear life. And they looked at me and
Speaker 2: they said, I'm not going to hit you, like as
Speaker 2: a joke.
Speaker 3: Almost I like slowly sort of released the chair, and
Speaker 3: I realized that I was that.
Speaker 2: Scared to just give an opinion right, And that's when
Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, this is trauma therapy time. And
Speaker 2: I'd had a therapist before then say that I was
Speaker 2: exhibiting symptoms of PTSD. So I started trauma therapy and
Speaker 2: I think the first session, I just started telling her
Speaker 2: some things that had happened to me, and that was
Speaker 2: all she said.
Speaker 3: Was that sounds really awful. That sounds really awful. That
Speaker 3: sounds awful.
Speaker 2: And I think that was one of the first times
Speaker 2: i'd spoken to somebody about it, but also spoken to
Speaker 2: somebody that understood and was trauma informed and didn't blame me,
Speaker 2: because I had people ask oh, well, was this just
Speaker 2: a game you guys were playing, or oh was this
Speaker 2: a weird sex thing? Or oh was this like they
Speaker 2: immediately follow up with question, well, why were you drinking? Well,
Speaker 2: why were you doing drugs?
Speaker 3: Why are you doing this?
Speaker 2: And so anything before then it felt very shaming, and
Speaker 2: this was just the first time it was validating, and
Speaker 2: that was the first step for me to start to
Speaker 2: realize maybe it wasn't all my fault.
Speaker 1: And it takes a long time to get there because
Speaker 1: to take that a way that the idea that it
Speaker 1: wasn't your fault is actually a very very tricky psychological process,
Speaker 1: even for a therapist to do, because that's your scaffold
Speaker 1: for so long that if we just pulled down the
Speaker 1: whole scaffold, the facade is going to fall. It's not
Speaker 1: as simple as like, no, this wasn't your fault and
Speaker 1: this is what it was in prison, Like what you
Speaker 1: can't just dismantle realities. That's not how therapy, a psychology,
Speaker 1: any of that work. It's a tentative dance. Somebody dismantled you.
Speaker 1: Putting you back together again is a process too, which
Speaker 1: requires support and compassion and therapeutic love. And in your process,
Speaker 1: not only were you blaming yourself, but you as a
Speaker 1: survivor were being blamed.
Speaker 3: And already been blamed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so can you break that part because that was
Speaker 1: a very important parallel process that's happening in your Traumay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, while.
Speaker 2: I was being groomed by him, and while our relationship
Speaker 2: was becoming public in the beginning, people's response to it
Speaker 2: was very shaming and very blaming, and all of the
Speaker 2: attention was focused on me, none was on Brian. The
Speaker 2: story everybody was focusing on was like, here's this like
Speaker 2: sort of young Harlot Lolita type home wrecking party girl
Speaker 2: that's come in and ruined everything, and none of the
Speaker 2: focus seemed to be about the fact that I was
Speaker 2: that young and he was so much older. This seemed
Speaker 2: somewhat inappropriate, or that he was the married one cheating
Speaker 2: on his wife. It wasn't that he's doing these things,
Speaker 2: it's that she's doing this to this woman. So I
Speaker 2: was really shocked at the onsought of hate that I got,
Speaker 2: mainly from women. It felt like very scarlet letter, and
Speaker 2: he seemed to sort of kind of get off Scott
Speaker 2: free in that situation. Nobody was posting his picture online
Speaker 2: and writing horror across it.
Speaker 3: That was me.
Speaker 2: The joke was like, well, she's clearly crazy, because you
Speaker 2: would have to be crazy to date somebody like him
Speaker 2: or that looked like him, And that reinforced the idea
Speaker 2: that I had of like, wow, see, like people just
Speaker 2: don't understand. They're saying things about me that aren't true.
Speaker 2: They're saying I'm crazy just because he looks the way
Speaker 2: he does and I look the way that I do.
Speaker 2: And it made me turn on the world even more
Speaker 2: and run even deeper into Brian's arms because it just
Speaker 2: reinforced what he was saying, which was the world's against you.
Speaker 2: It's an unsafe place. The world doesn't understand you, the
Speaker 2: world doesn't understand me. It's me and you against the world.
Speaker 2: In fact, that was the saying that he says to me,
Speaker 2: and that he said to a few of the other girls,
Speaker 2: is together is one against all others.
Speaker 3: It's us and that's it.
Speaker 2: And so as he's telling me these things and saying,
Speaker 2: you can't trust your parents, you can't trust the adults
Speaker 2: in your life because they've been controlling you and they're
Speaker 2: making you miserable, and you need to stay with me
Speaker 2: because I'm the only safe place. And then simultaneously the
Speaker 2: world is coming after me and saying that I'm this
Speaker 2: horrible person that's done this horrible thing by being with
Speaker 2: this person.
Speaker 3: Then yeah, then like where are you going to go?
Speaker 1: Well, he makes himself your only safe space, yes, which
Speaker 1: is so classical a dynamic in these relationships that he
Speaker 1: can keep taking you apart, so he's the only one
Speaker 1: who has the instruction manual to put you back together, exactly,
Speaker 1: and that dismantling and then myth that I'm the only
Speaker 1: one who can put you together, and when the world
Speaker 1: is coming at you and you're as young as you were,
Speaker 1: it's as though it's so manifest to me. Speaks also
Speaker 1: to things like patriarchy and the anti woman sentiments that
Speaker 1: cut through our world. That somebody is labeling an eighteen
Speaker 1: or a nineteen year old girl a homewrecker without any
Speaker 1: developmental recognition of what this is. And in fact he's
Speaker 1: the one who made the vow to the wife, not you,
Speaker 1: and you're swept away in something. You know, It's interesting
Speaker 1: because you said early in the relationship, other people around
Speaker 1: you were sounding alarm bells and freaking out, still doing
Speaker 1: his sort.
Speaker 2: Of in gathering the rooming process, right, they were freaking
Speaker 2: up by the age difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, who were these people? Were these your supports?
Speaker 5: Like, yeah, yeah, my mom, my mom really really had
Speaker 5: a hard time my partner at the time, of course,
Speaker 5: just having a really hard time my agents and publicists.
Speaker 2: I have a different agent and publicist now, So at
Speaker 2: the time everyone just seemed very worried, but nobody was
Speaker 2: really saying we're worried that he's taking advantage of you
Speaker 2: or praying on you.
Speaker 3: Or grooming you. It was just like we're worried you're
Speaker 3: on drugs.
Speaker 2: We're worried, you know, this person's corrupting you or this
Speaker 2: person you know. It was sort of framed in a different.
Speaker 3: Way, and so I just couldn't hear it. It just
Speaker 3: felt like more noise, like more this is just more
Speaker 3: people don't understand.
Speaker 1: Me, right, And because of his look and his persona,
Speaker 1: it was very easy I could see to get swept
Speaker 1: away in that people aren't getting this, which pulled the
Speaker 1: lens away from this process is unhealthy. Yeah, slowly, but surely.
Speaker 1: The way you were being treated was unhealthy. It fostered
Speaker 1: plausible alternative narrative that shielded you from actually doing a
Speaker 1: deeper look at the other problematic dynamics. Correct not unusual
Speaker 1: in a malignant narcissistic relationship at all. I'm going to
Speaker 1: come back to your youth again and again because there's
Speaker 1: a process of individuation that's happening in adolescence. I need
Speaker 1: to separate from the you know, the structures aren't letting
Speaker 1: me grow to the next space. It's a very healthy process.
Speaker 1: Yet the problem is if you're trying to flee the
Speaker 1: nest into a situation where someone that is this toxic
Speaker 1: is on the other side. That's when it's a disaster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was part of the grief too, of just
Speaker 2: like I had just gotten out of my mother's house.
Speaker 3: I'd had my driver's license for two years.
Speaker 2: I was just getting out into the world, and the
Speaker 2: first place that I end up was with this person.
Speaker 3: That's devastating.
Speaker 1: How were these other important relationships in your life, like
Speaker 1: your relationships your mom affected by you sort of remaining
Speaker 1: in this relationship with him.
Speaker 2: So she had a nervous breakdown. We were very ameshed,
Speaker 2: and I think that's another one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: I pushed back so hard and why it was easy
Speaker 2: for Brian to sort of isolate me from my parents.
Speaker 2: I was already slightly isolated up from my father because
Speaker 2: he lived it in different states. I love my mother
Speaker 2: very much, and she was a single mom. She did
Speaker 2: her best, but I was ready to have my independence
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: And meshed is another one of those words we hear
Speaker 1: very often these days. Let me break down exactly what
Speaker 1: it is and why it is a toxic dynamic and
Speaker 1: Meshman refers to any emotional relationship where emotional boundaries are
Speaker 1: poorly defined can result in emotional over involvement and can
Speaker 1: block emotional autonomy for people in these systems, and mesh
Speaker 1: systems can foster unhealthy dependencies, and people trying to break
Speaker 1: out of in mesh systems may find they overcorrect and
Speaker 1: completely cut themselves out of their family system because it
Speaker 1: feels impossible to find a middle ground.
Speaker 2: I think he saw that, and I think used that
Speaker 2: to his advantage. And she had a really difficult time
Speaker 2: with it. And I know there was at least a
Speaker 2: year while I was with him where her and I
Speaker 2: didn't speak. It was as long as we'd ever gone
Speaker 2: without speaking, and she was really, really, really struggling. But
Speaker 2: I had also felt that sort of kind of shaming
Speaker 2: energy from her, which you know, she's acknowledged and like
Speaker 2: has caught herself a few times realizing like, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: doing the thing.
Speaker 3: I had a conversation with.
Speaker 2: Her once like years later, where I had gotten rooffeed
Speaker 2: or drugged at a bar and I had realized it
Speaker 2: and managed to have my friends get me out of there.
Speaker 3: Before I you know, could move my arms essentially.
Speaker 2: So I was telling her about it, and I was saying, yeah,
Speaker 2: I had one drink and lost control of my arms
Speaker 2: and realizing that there had to have been.
Speaker 3: Something I drink, like, I only had one drink in
Speaker 3: the Her first response, why were you drinking?
Speaker 1: Was a mom, I get that question exactly.
Speaker 3: I understand exactly, and I get it too. But I immediately, because.
Speaker 2: Of all the work that we had done and everything experience,
Speaker 2: I stopped her and I went mom and she realized immediately.
Speaker 3: She was like, oh my god, I just did the thing.
Speaker 2: I just immediately I jumped into that protective mode and
Speaker 2: the societal brainwashing. Yeah, I went straight to the shaming
Speaker 2: part instead of oh my god, I'm so sorry. That
Speaker 2: should never have happened. I don't care how much you drank.
Speaker 2: Nobody has the right to put.
Speaker 1: Drugs in It's interesting you said you were enmeshed with
Speaker 1: your mother. Was that something you did believe to be true?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I felt responsible for her. She was a single mom.
Speaker 3: It was really kind of the two of us on
Speaker 3: our own.
Speaker 2: I was working and she was supporting my career and
Speaker 2: seeing her going through the divorce and wanting to take
Speaker 2: care of her. I think I just immediately just jumped
Speaker 2: into a caretaker role and this idea that well, if
Speaker 2: I'm just the perfect child and I never give her
Speaker 2: any problems and she'll be really happy, and I'll put
Speaker 2: my needs aside, and I'll make myself as small as
Speaker 2: possible and as good as possible.
Speaker 1: Make myself as small as possible and as good as possible.
Speaker 1: That dynamic with your mom did that predate this relationship?
Speaker 1: It did. That's interesting because we're talking about vulnerabilities that
Speaker 1: kind of somewhere along the line getting the message that
Speaker 1: Evan needs to make her needs smaller and that's a
Speaker 1: means of support. Right, that's a dangerous precedent. Right, there's
Speaker 1: a million explanations for that. Psychologically, I mean, I'm your
Speaker 1: soul sister, and that I'd have done always that exact
Speaker 1: same thing. So I have an appreciation for that. When
Speaker 1: we cut it up, it's culture, it's how we view women.
Speaker 1: It's actually how a young person keeps a sense of
Speaker 1: control in a relationship. And to me, that's even more
Speaker 1: more terrible that a perpetrator could do this, because they're
Speaker 1: taking advantage of a situation precisely when you needed to
Speaker 1: be protected.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 2: And I always wondered if by sharing with him these
Speaker 2: things about my home life and the way I felt
Speaker 2: that he did and take note of it and think, well,
Speaker 2: this is like the perfect breeding ground because I've thought
Speaker 2: about that, and you don't know that's what you're doing
Speaker 2: as a parent.
Speaker 3: I don't think any of it was done with malice.
Speaker 2: It just sort of the hand that I think my
Speaker 2: mother and I were both dealt and are able to
Speaker 2: look back on now and go, oh, yeah, this was
Speaker 2: the perfect sort of breeding ground for my voice to
Speaker 2: be very stifled and for me to feel like I
Speaker 2: had to act a certain way to be loved.
Speaker 3: And of course that would.
Speaker 2: Then feed in immediately to this situation with Brian, because
Speaker 2: I was already sort of conditioned to do that, especially
Speaker 2: with an older person.
Speaker 1: The grooming process is an assessment process, right, So it's
Speaker 1: like looking at a plot of land and saying, can
Speaker 1: we build a house here? It's assessing something for its viability.
Speaker 1: Is this ripe territory for me to be able to
Speaker 1: do what I want get what I need? There's no
Speaker 1: recognition of the human being. And then what's so imbalanced
Speaker 1: and asymmetric about the relationship is you're going into it
Speaker 1: thinking it was a get acquainted process. Someone's learning about me.
Speaker 1: I'm learning about that.
Speaker 3: Someone cares about me so much.
Speaker 1: Listening exactly.
Speaker 3: They care about my experience in my inner world.
Speaker 1: And that's powerful, but that's it's asymmetric because they're not
Speaker 1: doing that. They are actually doing assessment and evaluation and
Speaker 1: is this worth the time and trouble. So you're not
Speaker 1: playing the same game. And that's why grooming is so
Speaker 1: dangerous because the other person is also more disempowered and
Speaker 1: they're learning every which way you are disempowered. So that's
Speaker 1: the other treachery. So as you're going through this in
Speaker 1: these four years you're in this relationship, how is your
Speaker 1: relationship with your mother unfolding? And not just your mother
Speaker 1: but other supports.
Speaker 3: I became very angry. I think I got more and
Speaker 3: more angry with.
Speaker 2: My mother because to me, it felt like she was
Speaker 2: losing control and that scared her.
Speaker 3: And the more.
Speaker 2: Autonomy I gained, the more nervous she became. So I
Speaker 2: think that's how I made sense of it, and it
Speaker 2: certainly and how Brian was framing it to me, She's
Speaker 2: controlled you your whole life. She's not able to do
Speaker 2: that anymore, so now she has to make it seem
Speaker 2: like you're crazy yep, and that you're in a bad situation,
Speaker 2: and she's going to say bad things about me and
Speaker 2: bad things about you to try to get you to
Speaker 2: leave so.
Speaker 3: That you go back to her.
Speaker 2: I didn't always subscribe to everything that he was saying,
Speaker 2: but I knew that if I pushed back, he.
Speaker 3: Wasn't going to accept it. My relationship with my mom.
Speaker 2: Just slowly eroded because the deeper I got into the
Speaker 2: relationship and the worst things got, the more paniced she got,
Speaker 2: the harder she would kind of come down on me,
Speaker 2: and then the more I would push away, and so
Speaker 2: it just became like this vicious cycle until I finally
Speaker 2: told her that I didn't want to talk to her anymore.
Speaker 2: But Brian was standing right next to me the whole time,
Speaker 2: and he would kind of listen in on my conversations,
Speaker 2: and under the guise of like, I'm going to help
Speaker 2: you navigate this, he was kind of puppeteering it, and
Speaker 2: so like he'd write things down on a piece of.
Speaker 3: Paper for me to say.
Speaker 2: He would record the commations that I was having, and
Speaker 2: so I'm thinking, Wow, this guy's giving to be like
Speaker 2: really good advice, you know, when really he really set
Speaker 2: it up so that it came to a head and
Speaker 2: he said, he just said, you know, tell your mother
Speaker 2: you don't wan talk to her anymore, like just be
Speaker 2: done with it, you know, and hang up on her.
Speaker 3: And that's what I did.
Speaker 1: So it was coercive because it was isolating, which is
Speaker 1: always the play.
Speaker 3: Right there, he was always right there over sea.
Speaker 1: See that's the thing. So that was a it's like
Speaker 1: a coerced confession. Plus the isolation, you now have no
Speaker 1: more touchdoones back into reality. He gets to entirely dictate
Speaker 1: the narrative, the reality, everything, that's exactly, And that's every
Speaker 1: narcissistic relationship. I think that we have this depiction of
Speaker 1: isolation as being I'm locked off from the world and
Speaker 1: I don't have credit cards, and I don't have a phone,
Speaker 1: and I can't communicate. There's versions of that that certainly happens.
Speaker 1: But isolation is also the seeds that get planted in
Speaker 1: our mind that create doubt about the motivations of the
Speaker 1: people around us. So you may still have contact with them.
Speaker 1: Isn't just a loneness. It is the psychological loss of
Speaker 1: trust in what were traditionally and could still be your supports,
Speaker 1: but they cannot do their puppeteering with those supports.
Speaker 2: Yeah, cults do the same thing, you know, and they're like,
Speaker 2: you know, don't read anything about the cult online, and
Speaker 2: just like society trying to brainwash you and all these things,
Speaker 2: and we've got the answer, and like it's the same
Speaker 2: kind of psychology of up is down and down is
Speaker 2: up and everything that you've known previously was actually the
Speaker 2: thing holding you down. He did the same thing with
Speaker 2: my best friend, the friend that I had had since
Speaker 2: I was eight years old.
Speaker 3: We were living together. He had me kick her out
Speaker 3: of my house.
Speaker 2: He had me go over there, and he sent one
Speaker 2: of his flying monkeys with me, one of his assistants,
Speaker 2: and she recorded everything that I did to show him
Speaker 2: to make sure that I was doing what he had
Speaker 2: asked me to do.
Speaker 1: Flying monkeys is a term we used to describe the
Speaker 1: most toxic enablers of narcissists. Just like the Wicked Witch
Speaker 1: from the Wizard of Oz sent winged monkeys to do
Speaker 1: her bidding, Narcissistic abusers often utilize a there's to carry
Speaker 1: out tasks and help maintain the narciss's overall sense of
Speaker 1: power and control.
Speaker 2: So even when he wasn't with me, he had eyes
Speaker 2: on me or bring some sort of proof that like
Speaker 2: what I was doing was what I was saying, and
Speaker 2: which also made it hard to get out. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: he had me kick her out, and he was watching me.
Speaker 2: Same thing with my brother, like anybody that cared about
Speaker 2: me or anybody that said, hey, I'm worried about those
Speaker 2: people immediately were kicked out. Of course, yeah, they were
Speaker 2: against him and the brainwashing that would take place too,
Speaker 2: Like at first it was under the guys of care,
Speaker 2: and then it became incredibly paranoid and incredibly like these
Speaker 2: people are literally out to get us, right, you know,
Speaker 2: and I have to defend myself against these people, and
Speaker 2: this is like a dangerous situation. And it escalated more
Speaker 2: and more and more to the point where my mom
Speaker 2: and my brother showed up at the house one day
Speaker 2: because I just wasn't returning phone calls and they hadn't
Speaker 2: seen me in a really long time, were getting worried,
Speaker 2: and so I guess they thought.
Speaker 3: You know, we should be able to just go over
Speaker 3: and see her whenever we.
Speaker 2: Want and just knock on the door, like what's going on,
Speaker 2: And so they didn't know that I had just been
Speaker 2: trying to talk him off the ledge for like two days.
Speaker 2: One of the hardest things that he would do is
Speaker 2: essentially isolate you in the house for at least two days,
Speaker 2: just you and him and like a mound of cocaine,
Speaker 2: and he would keep you up and he would stay awake,
Speaker 2: just berating you, telling you everything that was wrong with
Speaker 2: the world, what was wrong with the people around you,
Speaker 2: everything you were doing wrong, all the ways you were
Speaker 2: failing him, you were failing yourself, the suspicions he had
Speaker 2: towards you.
Speaker 3: He would start wrecking the house. And it was just
Speaker 3: like this non.
Speaker 2: Stop onslought of words and monologues and like it was
Speaker 2: just this constant stream of negativity that I felt like
Speaker 2: I couldn't escape and couldn't stop. And that's where like
Speaker 2: the relentless sort of like psychological like brainwashing and abuse
Speaker 2: started taking place where he just wouldn't stop, and he
Speaker 2: wouldn't stop until you you gave him what he wanted,
Speaker 2: or you gave in or you started agreeing with everything
Speaker 2: he was saying, or if you just started doing whatever
Speaker 2: he wanted you to do, or making the phone calls
Speaker 2: he wanted you to make, or it just wouldn't stop otherwise.
Speaker 2: And so I had just kind of talked him off
Speaker 2: the ledge of one of these onsloughts of I don't
Speaker 2: know what else to call it. And so, yeah, my
Speaker 2: mom and my brother showed up to the house, and
Speaker 2: he thought I had called them, and it just restarted
Speaker 2: everything that I had just been through. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: that's two more days. And yeah, he started freaking out
Speaker 2: and thinking that it was all like a plot against him,
Speaker 2: sort of pleading and begging like I didn't call anybody,
Speaker 2: didn't do anything.
Speaker 3: I didn't But you know, by then I thinks were
Speaker 3: really bad.
Speaker 1: My conversation will continue after this break, but then that
Speaker 1: series of emotional reactions starts to come out of the perpetrator.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, we talk about narcissism, we talk about psychopathy,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you've heard this. Framing of the dark
Speaker 1: tetrad is a really elegant theoretical model developed by a
Speaker 1: guy named Paulus and his colleagues, and it's this idea
Speaker 1: of narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavelianism, and sadism, and Machiavellianism is more
Speaker 1: of an exploitativeness that all hang together, like it's all
Speaker 1: just sort of fits. I would argue paranoia belongs in
Speaker 1: there too. In a relational context, you can see the
Speaker 1: way it creates this kind of this madness in thinking,
Speaker 1: this relentlessness, this exploitativeness, this willingness to take advantage of you,
Speaker 1: to isolate you, to have no empathy, for you, to
Speaker 1: be cold, callous, calculating. You take everything that all of
Speaker 1: these things are because they all work together. Not only
Speaker 1: impossible to maintain a relationship, the other person is always
Speaker 1: going to be harmed, but for you, it was setting
Speaker 1: in these cycles where no one could support you because
Speaker 1: if they did, their support of you was now cascading
Speaker 1: into more.
Speaker 3: Who was an attack? Yes, yeah, it was an attack.
Speaker 2: It was seen as an attack, correct, and that would
Speaker 2: set him off and to also attack me because I
Speaker 2: must have.
Speaker 1: Tripped the alarm, correct the alarm. And doctor Jennifer Fried
Speaker 1: has a model called DARVO, which is deny attack, reverse
Speaker 1: victim offender. Right, that's exactly what you're talking about. Although
Speaker 1: this person's a perpetrator, is coming back to I'm the victim.
Speaker 1: I'm the victim. I'm the victim, and that would be
Speaker 1: a very almost soothing place. And then it puts you
Speaker 1: in the place, put you on your back foot to
Speaker 1: have to sort of fix the situation, and those cycles
Speaker 1: can go on for decades in these relationships.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the worst part actually, was the kept
Speaker 2: up for days, the downloading of information is what it
Speaker 2: felt like. Yeah, and just the being worn down to
Speaker 2: the point of submission.
Speaker 3: Like, right, I have a question.
Speaker 2: I've heard different types of narcissists and maybe like different levels,
Speaker 2: but I don't know what your take is on it,
Speaker 2: of like, do you think there's different forms of narcisism,
Speaker 2: different levels of it, like narcissism that can show up
Speaker 2: and maybe be put in check and fix, or like
Speaker 2: narcissism that can't.
Speaker 3: Like, I'm always kind of curious about that.
Speaker 2: I know there's like col narcissism, and there's like milignant narcisism,
Speaker 2: and there's maybe like narcissistic traits, but like, I don't
Speaker 2: know what your take is on that.
Speaker 1: So Narcissism's a personality style, right, And like all personality
Speaker 1: styles that exists on a continuum or a spectrum. Right,
Speaker 1: at the mildest levels, we're talking about someone who's sort
Speaker 1: of annoying, grandiose, a little entitled and selfish. This is
Speaker 1: the person who might make a little bit of a
Speaker 1: persnicketty fit at a restaurant or kind of throw a
Speaker 1: bit of a call me the manager kind of thing,
Speaker 1: like they may not be a good friend, they can't
Speaker 1: put their own stuff aside to be available to someone.
Speaker 1: But it feels like an emotional stuntedness. It certainly doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like a menace or anything like that. Right, Once
Speaker 1: you get into the moderate range of it, of the
Speaker 1: narcissism spectrum, you're really talking about someone where it's not
Speaker 1: healthy to be in a relationship. But it's not terrifying.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: It's uncomfortable, it's unsatisfying, it's not deep, it's not mutual.
Speaker 1: You definitely are gaslighted from time to time. You feel manipulated.
Speaker 1: It's not a happy relationship. It felt like this parent
Speaker 1: was never there for you. This is a friend that's
Speaker 1: really self serving and maybe taking money from you. It's
Speaker 1: leveled up when you get to the far end of
Speaker 1: the spectrum. Here's where we're talking about that. It's our tetrack,
Speaker 1: that malignant narcissism. Actually, in my book that's coming out
Speaker 1: next year, I say malignant narcissism is sort of the
Speaker 1: last stop on the train before you veer into psychopathy.
Speaker 3: Station.
Speaker 1: Now here's what happens in malignant narcissism. They're not the same.
Speaker 1: There is a division point between malignant narcissism and psychopathy.
Speaker 1: Narcissistic people at the core of themselves are somewhat anxious,
Speaker 1: They're insecure, they feel inadequate. There's this sort of shame
Speaker 1: that's always bubbling right up at the surface of almost
Speaker 1: being found out. And all of these defenses randiosity and
Speaker 1: intimidation and all those sorts of things draw the person
Speaker 1: draws around them as a suit of armor to keep
Speaker 1: that shame at bay. Controlling and dominating people, that's what
Speaker 1: we see in the malignant narcissism. Malignant narcissism is where
Speaker 1: we see the coercive control. But there's always still that
Speaker 1: sort of that anxiety. There is some fear of consequence.
Speaker 1: Is there's some fear of being found out, and there's
Speaker 1: some level of insecurity. Now when we get to psychopathy,
Speaker 1: there's differences in their brains. There is no sense of remorse.
Speaker 1: Now in a malignant narcissist, this sense of remorse still
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like it's fully authentic. The remorse is more
Speaker 1: like I got caught. Now I've got to pay for it.
Speaker 1: The psychopath almost builds the consequences into sort of as
Speaker 1: part of the model. They're never going to stop psychopathing,
Speaker 1: as it were. And so usually it's a criminality and
Speaker 1: a violation of social norms. We see from a very
Speaker 1: young age five, six, seven, definitely before the age of fifteen, right,
Speaker 1: violating the rights of others from a very young age.
Speaker 1: And then psychopathy. Listen, not all psychopathy is a person
Speaker 1: who's like, you know, an assassin or it's going to
Speaker 1: know at them. They could be just white collar criminals.
Speaker 1: They can not be like they're really confident, they're very authoritative,
Speaker 1: but they're menacing. Yeah, and I think with malignant narcissism,
Speaker 1: the overlap is so much that unless you really spend
Speaker 1: time with them, you may not fully get to that
Speaker 1: sort of that bay, this kind of anxiety and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Now, what you called a covert narcissist, it's
Speaker 1: probably better captured by the term vulnerable narcissists. Okay, here's
Speaker 1: where we see the resentfulness, sullen, aggrieved, angry, vindictive narcissistic person.
Speaker 1: But the vindictiveness is more like, how come the world
Speaker 1: didn't see that I'm a genius? The grandiose person like
Speaker 1: I'm a genius. Of course, you all see it, right,
Speaker 1: But the vulnerable person's like, how come nothing ever worked
Speaker 1: out my way? Grumble, grumble, grumbled, grumble.
Speaker 3: This is what I have a.
Speaker 2: Hard time describing to people because they think are obvious attention.
Speaker 3: To any people.
Speaker 1: I would say all narcissistic people have some level of covertness.
Speaker 1: And this is a big distinction because a big pushback
Speaker 1: you get is, well, maybe they can't help it, Like
Speaker 1: you want to know how I know they can help
Speaker 1: it because he waited till the guests were gone to
Speaker 1: go off on you. That's exactly right, right, So then
Speaker 1: you get into all these other subtypes. You have communal
Speaker 1: narcissists who get their validation by portraying themselves as somebody
Speaker 1: who's helped full and is saving the world. Your self
Speaker 1: righteous narcissists who are hyper ethical, hyper moral, very judgmental,
Speaker 1: I know better than others, and very harsh to somebody
Speaker 1: who's going through a hard time. Well, if they'd only
Speaker 1: live life the right way, they wouldn't be in this
Speaker 1: cattle of fish, would they? They can feel judge. You
Speaker 1: can see this in religious communities. You'll see it in
Speaker 1: cult leaders because the communal communal meets malignant is your
Speaker 1: cult leader, and what you're describing feels like we're malignant
Speaker 1: means vulnerable. Yeah, that's what we're seeing. And it's a
Speaker 1: very dangerous combination because of the victimhood. Because of that,
Speaker 1: I was never understood by the world. It's like WHOAE
Speaker 1: is me? Nobody wants to appreciate me. That can pull
Speaker 1: for a rescuing vibe from other people, then people are
Speaker 1: drawn into it, and then the malignant piece happens to
Speaker 1: meets the most deadly of the combination.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that all makes so much sense.
Speaker 2: One thing I feel like, because I feel like I've
Speaker 2: had interactions with different shades of narcissism that you're kind
Speaker 2: of describing, but one thing I always one defining characteristic
Speaker 2: that I found in all of them. That was usually
Speaker 2: the moment that I realized maybe they were a narcissist,
Speaker 2: was the feeling of they're in a completely different reality.
Speaker 2: Like there's always a moment where I feel like I'm
Speaker 2: either recalling something that's happened that I remember clear as
Speaker 2: day and they either don't remember it at all, remember
Speaker 2: completely differently, or they're retelling of something or their view
Speaker 2: of the world or situation either just never happened or
Speaker 2: they just refuse.
Speaker 3: To acknowledge it correct.
Speaker 2: And that's where I feel like the gas lighting starts
Speaker 2: to come into play, like because you suddenly are at
Speaker 2: a standoff with a narcissist and you're like, well, this
Speaker 2: is my reality, and they're saying, well, this is my reality,
Speaker 2: and you're either going to join me in my reality
Speaker 2: or I'm going to punish you where gaslight you into
Speaker 2: agreeing or running away.
Speaker 1: So the only way to keep the relationship going is
Speaker 1: to fully surrender to their reality, and over time you
Speaker 1: actually get indoctrinated to believe that is the only reality.
Speaker 1: That's where you see in cults. That's what you see
Speaker 1: in these relationships if they go on long enough.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it becomes a means of survival too.
Speaker 1: And know and to the world the two people, the
Speaker 1: narcissist and the non narcissist, they look like they're in sync,
Speaker 1: not because they're in sync, but because you are now
Speaker 1: in survival mode. And so people are like, oh, they're fine,
Speaker 1: Like and you look for what Thandow saw on you
Speaker 1: that look, there's a look and I mean, I've done
Speaker 1: this long enough, and I'm like, oh, I see the look.
Speaker 3: It's a look.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit far away, it's not fully there.
Speaker 1: And you know, now, all of a sudden, you're in
Speaker 1: the Manchurian candidate. You're like, okay, woo, let's bring you back.
Speaker 1: But it's not as simple as waving your hand over
Speaker 1: someone's eyes. It's about a very slow process of reacquainting
Speaker 1: someone with reality. And some of the work I do
Speaker 1: with survivors is I want you like three times a day,
Speaker 1: am I hungry right now?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Literally, start from basic. It's like plugging into bodily sensation.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: Yes, you have to start from scratch. You have to
Speaker 3: start percratch. That's how it felt.
Speaker 2: Rebuilding myself felt like I had to go all the
Speaker 2: way back to the beginning, to the point I was
Speaker 2: so worn down.
Speaker 3: I had to like relearn how to walk.
Speaker 1: Yes, you are, you're really, it's beyond really. At least
Speaker 1: a baby knows when it's hungry.
Speaker 3: And part of your healing process has to come from
Speaker 3: being in.
Speaker 2: Tune with your body and getting back into it is
Speaker 2: like the first step. It felt like I was watching
Speaker 2: my life from behind a pane of glass, and it
Speaker 2: was absolutely terrifying.
Speaker 1: You know how if you've ever seen an old colonial home,
Speaker 1: they have that letty glass which is like distorty. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not just glass, it's distorty glass where
Speaker 1: you can't quite make out the images on the other side.
Speaker 1: You know that there's a thing back there, and there's
Speaker 1: some light, and there's a plan, maybe there's a person,
Speaker 1: but they're distorted. You're starting from scratch, and you had
Speaker 1: to start from scratch. Oh yeah, no, I mean it
Speaker 1: with everything.
Speaker 2: I felt like I had to relearn empathy too, because
Speaker 2: I think after my experience with Brian, which one of
Speaker 2: the reasons I felt like I had fallen into that
Speaker 2: was because I was overly empathetic, like what you were
Speaker 2: saying of like I see the good in everybody, and
Speaker 2: like I'm going to be the one that stays.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be the one that sacrifices everything for you.
Speaker 2: Maybe empathy is the wrong word, but at the time,
Speaker 2: it felt like when I got out of that situation,
Speaker 2: that empathy was dangerous and I felt like if I
Speaker 2: cared about people, then I was going to become vulnerable.
Speaker 2: And so I think without realizing it, I kind of
Speaker 2: shut that part down when I started disassociating, and I
Speaker 2: couldn't allow myself to care for people in the same
Speaker 2: way because it felt unsafe, And so I also had
Speaker 2: to relearn how to do that because otherwise you repeat
Speaker 2: the cycle right.
Speaker 1: Well, there's also an overcorrection when you come out right
Speaker 1: because right empathy does feel dangerous because you're immediately working
Speaker 1: the angles, like how am I going to be taking
Speaker 1: advantage of? And I tell survivors, I'm not mad at that,
Speaker 1: Let's stay there. This is why it is a slow process,
Speaker 1: that overcorrection that initially happens. We'll see what's happened to me,
Speaker 1: am I now like them. It's not that you lose
Speaker 1: your empathy. It's actually now a period of discernment. It's
Speaker 1: a very slow creeping into what does trust look like?
Speaker 1: And a lot of folks will say this is taking
Speaker 1: me forever, and I'll say, so what if this person
Speaker 1: is able to see your gifts? True love, genuine love
Speaker 1: is when you're the custodian of another person's vulnerabilities, and
Speaker 1: that means there hurts their wounds and their traumas. And
Speaker 1: so if you've been through this and someone meets you
Speaker 1: and in a loving way, and you've been through this,
Speaker 1: then that's going to take a long time. And somebody
Speaker 1: who loves you and cares about you will let it
Speaker 1: take as long as it takes. But when they start
Speaker 1: hitting with you, why am I paying for the sins
Speaker 1: of the person who came before me?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not that person. I've heard that a lot.
Speaker 1: And you say, because the process that brought me to
Speaker 1: you has brought many many wounds but also some gifts.
Speaker 1: That's the nature of trauma exactly. But that's going to
Speaker 1: take a minute, and there is an overcorrection. It's like
Speaker 1: when after you're in a surgery, you're walking very tentatively
Speaker 1: so you don't put too much weight on the line
Speaker 1: exactly right, and then you slowly can put more and
Speaker 1: more weight on the leg that you don't go run
Speaker 1: on it right away. And if we can do that
Speaker 1: for a leg, we can do it for our soul.
Speaker 3: M h. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Whenever I had like a new partner, I would always say, like,
Speaker 2: you have to approach me like you would a shelter dog.
Speaker 2: You know, when you first adopt a dog and they
Speaker 2: tell you we don't know what happened to them, but
Speaker 2: we know something happened. They're very afraid of people, they're
Speaker 2: very afraid of touch, they're afraid to come out of
Speaker 2: their cage. And you see like all these success stories
Speaker 2: online of people just taking it really slow with the dog.
Speaker 2: Every day, the bowl gets a little closer every day,
Speaker 2: maybe they get the leash on the day, maybe they
Speaker 2: get a little pet here and there, and then like
Speaker 2: over time and yeah, over about a year, suddenly the
Speaker 2: dog's outside running around, playing, licking their.
Speaker 3: Owner's face and all these things.
Speaker 2: But it takes time, and it takes time to build
Speaker 2: that trust because something has happened to that dog. And
Speaker 2: for some reason, we're like more active to believe it.
Speaker 3: About dogs than people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was a public story, so you continue
Speaker 1: to be castigated and criticized and abused from that large,
Speaker 1: ephemeral internety space of all.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the Suria campaign is still in full effect,
Speaker 2: and it's even scarier now. It's like everybody I talked
Speaker 2: to is a potential person that could take advantage of
Speaker 2: me or use me, or use something against me or whatever,
Speaker 2: and it is really scary, and yes, that does continue
Speaker 2: to happen. When I decided to do this, I had
Speaker 2: to make peace with the idea that a lot of
Speaker 2: things could go away and I might have to be
Speaker 2: okay with that, and a lot of the things that
Speaker 2: could go away are things that I feel like the
Speaker 2: narcissist holds near and dear, and I kind of told
Speaker 2: myself that I was just going to have to let
Speaker 2: things go, like reputation and money and career and public
Speaker 2: perception and all of these things that, like, I know
Speaker 2: to them like these are the worst things that you
Speaker 2: can lose or that I can take away from you.
Speaker 2: And for me, I just immediately kind of said, like,
Speaker 2: I think one of my only defenses here is going
Speaker 2: to be letting go of any attachment I have to
Speaker 2: these things, because then I don't really know what they're
Speaker 2: going to have over me anymore. I don't know if
Speaker 2: that's the right way to go about it or not,
Speaker 2: but it felt like the only way to suspend that
Speaker 2: kind of fear was just saying, like, Okay, I have
Speaker 2: a backup plan in case all of this goes away,
Speaker 2: and I can't be afraid of these things, and I
Speaker 2: can't be afraid of the lies people are going to tell,
Speaker 2: or the smear campaigns or the assassinations on my character
Speaker 2: because a that happens to every survivor that comes forward
Speaker 2: against a powerful person or a person.
Speaker 3: That was beloved or has a following or whatever. It's
Speaker 3: gotten a lot worse with the Internet. I don't want
Speaker 3: to say worse, but different.
Speaker 2: There's like different plans of attacks because it's always been
Speaker 2: pretty bad at least I'm not getting the bottomized now
Speaker 2: or something, you know, so I don't even want to
Speaker 2: say worse, but there's just different kind of forms of
Speaker 2: the same thing. It's like you get stone in the
Speaker 2: town square or you get called crazy stereocille bottomized, and
Speaker 2: now it's like I can't even go online anymore, Like
Speaker 2: I can't, you can't.
Speaker 3: I've lost that privilege. That's done, Like my social media
Speaker 3: days are completely over.
Speaker 2: There's this quote I love that somebody said, whenever somebody
Speaker 2: speaks out against abuse, eventually your tone is exaggerated. Your
Speaker 2: tone being exaggerated is such a big thing. They take
Speaker 2: things you've said out of context and they try to
Speaker 2: like shame and scare you into silence. And that's what
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm experiencing now, and it's working because
Speaker 2: I've wanted to talk less and less and I've censored
Speaker 2: myself more and more until the point where I'm almost
Speaker 2: non existent on social media anymore inside of just like
Speaker 2: maybe here's a show or a job that I'm doing,
Speaker 2: but other than that, like I don't feel like I
Speaker 2: can share my opinion anymore.
Speaker 3: And so I feel like that tactic absolutely is working.
Speaker 1: And when you say that tactic free, that tactic is
Speaker 1: working for whom.
Speaker 2: Well, I do feel like that the media can be
Speaker 2: complicit in some ways. I think Roon and Pharaoh spoke
Speaker 2: about this a bit in Catch and.
Speaker 3: Kill and that it wasn't just about Weinstein.
Speaker 2: It was also sort of uncovering like a mass conspiracy
Speaker 2: to protect predators and high profile I want I agree
Speaker 2: with that, and I think that is absolutely a thing.
Speaker 1: But you said something very important, which was me having
Speaker 1: to sort of give myself to detach from things that
Speaker 1: might have been important to me if I I'm either
Speaker 1: going to speak out or show up the way I
Speaker 1: want in this situation. So you spoke out. What was
Speaker 1: his reaction to you speaking out.
Speaker 2: Brian's Well, first, I was speaking out without naming him
Speaker 2: that he was trying to say with other people in
Speaker 2: my life and kind of like, oh yeah, well, she
Speaker 2: told me about so and so, or it must have
Speaker 2: been this person or that person. And then he started
Speaker 2: getting questioned about it because people were putting two or
Speaker 2: two together and ended up hanging up on the on
Speaker 2: the interviewer because they were getting a little too close,
Speaker 2: and that sort of caused a bit of an uper
Speaker 2: So I know he was just trying to kind of
Speaker 2: downplay it at first, and then we, you know, me
Speaker 2: and a few other survivors came forward, and the first
Speaker 2: thing I noticed was he started setting up the narrative
Speaker 2: with some of the words he used, like these are
Speaker 2: horrible distortions of reality. And whatever I've done, it's been
Speaker 2: with you know, like minded partners or things like that.
Speaker 2: So I'm immediately understand like, Okay, he's already setting this
Speaker 2: up that these were all consensual interactions and we just
Speaker 2: maybe misunderstood or got in over our head. And because
Speaker 2: he's a powerful man who has built a career off
Speaker 2: of being shocking and disturbing, is going to get away
Speaker 2: with it because his right to being weird and kinky
Speaker 2: will get defended in court and we will get shamed
Speaker 2: forever even stepping foot in there or participating.
Speaker 3: And so it's been used a million times.
Speaker 1: Hours after Evan publicly named Brian as her alleged abuser,
Speaker 1: he issued the following written statement. Obviously, my art and
Speaker 1: my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these
Speaker 1: recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality. My
Speaker 1: intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like minded partners,
Speaker 1: regardless of how and why others are choosing to misrepresent
Speaker 1: the past. That is the truth.
Speaker 3: But there were.
Speaker 2: People popping up on the Internet that were saying there
Speaker 2: were miners, and I was like, well, how are you
Speaker 2: going to defend that? You know, you can't say that
Speaker 2: those things were consensual, And more stories.
Speaker 3: Started popping up, and slowly.
Speaker 2: He stopped talking. He just stopped talking completely. And now
Speaker 2: his lawyer just kind of says things for him.
Speaker 3: He's kind of fallen away.
Speaker 2: And I think it's the only reason why it's more
Speaker 2: disturbing and scary right now, is I think we're at
Speaker 2: a weird precipice.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, people are very scared.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really really scary.
Speaker 1: First of all, when a person is in a groomed relationship,
Speaker 1: there's never consent. No, it's not possible for there to
Speaker 1: be consent at any point in time, because it was
Speaker 1: how the developmental structure of the relationship, right, So no
Speaker 1: consent ever, so let's just lift that right from them.
Speaker 1: When there's menace at any point in a relationship, that
Speaker 1: kind of gaslighting, the consent must left the station a
Speaker 1: long time ago. Then we forget that. While these feel
Speaker 1: like individual relationships, these are societal issues. Like patriarchy, like
Speaker 1: hierarchy is like oppression in all the structures, which means
Speaker 1: you have a perma perpetrator. Now, okay, they're not gonna
Speaker 1: not do this. This is how they wrecking crewe themselves
Speaker 1: through life. I mean, every day people come at me,
Speaker 1: you are a cruel person. How dare she? She's going
Speaker 1: after people with the personality style. Call it whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it, Give it a different name, give
Speaker 1: it another damn name I call That's why I use antagonism.
Speaker 1: That seems to be a little bit more palatable. But
Speaker 1: it's a style that is resistant to change. And once
Speaker 1: they're done with you, they go on to the next
Speaker 1: ext and the next and the next, And there is
Speaker 1: no YELP for people. No, there is no review guys.
Speaker 2: No. And that's why I don't want to speak for
Speaker 2: all survivors. But that is why I felt like I
Speaker 2: had to come forward. It wasn't to I mean a
Speaker 2: lot of people think this narrative.
Speaker 3: It bothers me that like all we.
Speaker 2: Want is like bloody revenge or like it's about hurting
Speaker 2: the person that hurt us or sticking it to them
Speaker 2: or whatever, and it's like, no, it's us realizing Look,
Speaker 2: what they did to me was awful and I hated it,
Speaker 2: but I was ready to go to my grave with
Speaker 2: it because I thought it was just me. But when
Speaker 2: I realized there was a pattern and it was happening
Speaker 2: to other people exactly the same way was happening to me,
Speaker 2: and it was going to keep happening. Like that's when
Speaker 2: you take to social media. Law enforcement can help me.
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't know how else to protect people.
Speaker 2: I don't know how else to protect people or warned
Speaker 2: people except to put my ass on the line.
Speaker 1: That's right and that, but that took a toll on
Speaker 1: to you. That took a toll on you. So, speaking
Speaker 1: of the toll on you, how is your healing going.
Speaker 2: There's good days and bad days. It's still really hard
Speaker 2: some days, like everything feels really normal, and then you
Speaker 2: get hit with another legal attack or an attack on
Speaker 2: your character in the press or something coming and you're
Speaker 2: just like, oh, right, I'm still in tango with this person.
Speaker 2: I don't think this person's ever going away until they
Speaker 2: pass away. Honestly, I don't know how they're ever going
Speaker 2: to stop. I agree, that's an awful feeling because it's
Speaker 2: like I've been going through this half of my life.
Speaker 2: I was eighteen when it started. I'll be thirty six
Speaker 2: this year, and I'm still going through it. And that's a.
Speaker 3: Bummer to say the least.
Speaker 2: But my nervous system for the first time, feels like
Speaker 2: it's calmer than it's ever been. But I've had to
Speaker 2: make decisions for my life so that I can be
Speaker 2: an optimal health and that I can thrive and I
Speaker 2: can be happy and I can be clear headed. And
Speaker 2: one of the hardest decisions was leaving Los Angeles because
Speaker 2: this is where my child is and I have to
Speaker 2: make this impossible decision of do I stay and stay
Speaker 2: in fight or flight and have my nervous system always
Speaker 2: be overacting and always looking over my shoulder. And believe me,
Speaker 2: I tried, I really really tried to hunker down, and
Speaker 2: I fought as long as I possibly could. I was
Speaker 2: just like, I don't know how to be the best
Speaker 2: version of myself and to thrive and to fully heal
Speaker 2: if I don't leave this place. That was one of
Speaker 2: the hardest moments of realization for me, of just like,
Speaker 2: the only way I can be the best mother is
Speaker 2: if I leave, and that's been the hardest. Of course,
Speaker 2: I still have a wonderful relationship with my child and
Speaker 2: I always will and I will always remain connected with
Speaker 2: them and I will see them, but they can't live
Speaker 2: with me all the time.
Speaker 3: We have to live in different states now, and I don't.
Speaker 2: Feel like I had a lot of understanding and compassion
Speaker 2: in that area. But all that being said, once I
Speaker 2: again just had to think about the things I could
Speaker 2: control and make peace with the things that I couldn't.
Speaker 2: Forgive myself for the things I couldn't control, or the
Speaker 2: things I felt like I couldn't overcome or wasn't strong
Speaker 2: enough to Overgod be like, no, you know what, A
Speaker 2: lot of this isn't your fault, and all you can
Speaker 2: do is the best that you can with the situation
Speaker 2: that you have. Be your best self, be the best
Speaker 2: mom you can be, and that's being as healthy and
Speaker 2: happy and also showing my child that you don't have
Speaker 2: to stay in unhappy and unsafe situations. I want them
Speaker 2: to be happy in their best selves too, so I
Speaker 2: hope one day they understand why I felt like I
Speaker 2: couldn't stay. I know a lot of people have been
Speaker 2: in the same situation, and my heart goes out to
Speaker 2: all of them.
Speaker 3: An awful position to be in.
Speaker 2: However, the other side of the coin, I'm happier than
Speaker 2: I've maybe ever been in my life. And that took
Speaker 2: a lot of work, a lot of consistency, because for
Speaker 2: so long you're chipping your trauma. You're trying to relearn
Speaker 2: how to move through the world in a healthy way
Speaker 2: and reparent yourself and make sense of your life. And
Speaker 2: it feels like, when am I going to see the results?
Speaker 2: You know, when are things going to start feeling normal?
Speaker 2: When it's going to stop feeling like a constant battle,
Speaker 2: a constant fight. I'm constantly having to monitor myself. And
Speaker 2: now I feel like, you know, my grip is loosening
Speaker 2: a little bit, and I feel relaxed in my body
Speaker 2: and in myself. I trust myself, I trust my instincts,
Speaker 2: and I think a lot of that came from being
Speaker 2: alone really really hard to do, and really sitting with
Speaker 2: myself and the uncomfortability, in the loneliness, in the grief
Speaker 2: and wading through it and just letting it take as
Speaker 2: long as it needs to take. And now I do
Speaker 2: feel a sense of peace and a sense of calm
Speaker 2: and capable of being in happy, healthy relationships. And I'm
Speaker 2: a better mom and I'm.
Speaker 3: More present with people.
Speaker 2: I feel like I can be there for people more
Speaker 2: like I'm not so caught up in all of my
Speaker 2: stuff that i have nothing to give anybody else because I'm.
Speaker 3: Just trying to survive, you know.
Speaker 2: And so like feel like I'm at sort of the
Speaker 2: light at the end of the tunnel, and I armed
Speaker 2: myself with enough tools now that like I know how
Speaker 2: resilient I am, and like, you know, I think they
Speaker 2: say there's like post traumatic stress, but there's also post
Speaker 2: traumatic resilience.
Speaker 3: But I definitely feel like that. And now all I want.
Speaker 2: To do is what you're doing, which is now I
Speaker 2: just want to try to help other people and draw
Speaker 2: attention to it and just keep learning.
Speaker 3: But I just want to kind of hide, like I
Speaker 3: that's understandable.
Speaker 2: It's funny because some of the naysayers, they'll say, like,
Speaker 2: whe they're just doing this for money and attention, And
Speaker 2: it's funny because like, I'm hemorrhaging money and all I
Speaker 2: want to do.
Speaker 3: Is hide, hide.
Speaker 2: And it's made me pay more attention to the things
Speaker 2: that I really feel like madder in life, which are
Speaker 2: safety and connection and love and family and like just
Speaker 2: kind of a simple life. So yeah, my healing journey
Speaker 2: is good. There's still really difficult things, but I do
Speaker 2: feel like I'm doing my best and I do feel
Speaker 2: like I'm happy. I'm like, yeah, feeling safe in my
Speaker 2: body again.
Speaker 1: How would you compare how you were doing before speaking
Speaker 1: out versus your life now?
Speaker 2: I felt like a prisoner in my body and in
Speaker 2: my mind, Yeah, it just felt like I was a
Speaker 2: prisoner of my trauma, my nervous system, my PTSD, and
Speaker 2: it just felt like an avalanche and a deep hole that.
Speaker 3: I was never going to get out of.
Speaker 2: And I felt crazy, like you're watching the world go
Speaker 2: on without you, and you're being left behind, and you're
Speaker 2: kind of left questioning like why did all these things
Speaker 2: have to happen? Why did this have to be harder.
Speaker 2: Why do I have to sort through all of this now?
Speaker 2: And why am I left with the wreckage? And why
Speaker 2: does nobody believe me? It's one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: one of my triggers is calling me crazy, of course,
Speaker 2: because I feel like I've been made to feel that
Speaker 2: way for so long.
Speaker 3: It was horrifying. I couldn't sleep, I would act out.
Speaker 2: I definitely like was in a bit of like a
Speaker 2: thrill seeking phase for a second, especially when I was
Speaker 2: really disassociated in the beginning.
Speaker 3: It was just like, how can I feel something? So
Speaker 3: I was a little all over the place.
Speaker 2: I think it definitely hurt my job. I wasn't always
Speaker 2: able to show up for work. I would get sick
Speaker 2: a lot easier. Some days I would show up to
Speaker 2: do a photo shoot and just being in from the
Speaker 2: camera was too triggering, and like I would just like
Speaker 2: break down in.
Speaker 3: Tears and have to leave.
Speaker 2: It's a hard thing to explain to people, and it's
Speaker 2: hard to keep your reputation intact when you're going through
Speaker 2: that and people don't know what's happening. They just think
Speaker 2: you're unreliable or I felt like that for a while,
Speaker 2: and I think I think I do still fight against
Speaker 2: some of that in the industry.
Speaker 1: I think we need a more trauma informed world. And
Speaker 1: to the radical acceptance is the radical acceptance these folks
Speaker 1: with these personalities don't change, and these relationships don't change.
Speaker 1: But the radical acceptance is also about ourselves, as I've
Speaker 1: been through something and I need to hold myself close,
Speaker 1: I need to care for myself. Everyone who's ever gone
Speaker 1: through one of these relationships has a very similar set
Speaker 1: of reactions. And you know why, because that's how human
Speaker 1: beings react when the reality is stolen and they are invalidated,
Speaker 1: and they are not seen, and they are exploited, and
Speaker 1: they are taking advantage of a finite, consistent set of reactions.
Speaker 1: And since that's the case and it's happening to all
Speaker 1: of us, you can keep calling people crazy all you want,
Speaker 1: for as long as you want. It's just not true.
Speaker 3: It's utter devastation.
Speaker 1: It's utter devastation does kill people. And I've had far
Speaker 1: too many documented cases of people sharing me, people who
Speaker 1: have ended their lives, especially people who don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of support exactly.
Speaker 2: And that's why I consider myself one of the lucky ones.
Speaker 2: And I almost died multiple times I've tried to kill
Speaker 2: myself twice.
Speaker 3: It could have easily been me, and I have much.
Speaker 2: More privileged than things at my disposal. And so that's
Speaker 2: when that's something so terrifying to me to think about,
Speaker 2: how do people fight this without money?
Speaker 3: How do people fight this without mental health support?
Speaker 2: They?
Speaker 3: How do people survive this?
Speaker 1: They you know, there's people who are suffering, struggling out
Speaker 1: of financial necessity, they have to stay. Out of cultural
Speaker 1: necess they have to say, out of safety necessity, they
Speaker 1: have to say stay. There's not a day you could
Speaker 1: not open up the news somewhere and find out that
Speaker 1: one more person was killed because they tried to leave
Speaker 1: an abusive relationship.
Speaker 3: They tried to leave.
Speaker 1: People don't get it. And even it's not just.
Speaker 3: You're assuming everybody has a place.
Speaker 1: To go, No they not only do they not? Did
Speaker 1: they not have a place to go? Somebody's done such
Speaker 1: a number on your brain. But Evan, frankly, it's not
Speaker 1: just about the survivors understanding what's happening to them, but
Speaker 1: it's the people out there where they could get this.
Speaker 1: They could be that voice that says, I believe you,
Speaker 1: How can I be here for you? I hear you.
Speaker 1: I see you. You may not be ready to go,
Speaker 1: and I understand that, and I'm here waiting for you
Speaker 1: on the other side and alongside you as you go
Speaker 1: through this. That's what people need to do, is we
Speaker 1: need to educate people just as much on how to
Speaker 1: be supporters and not naysayers.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I cannot thank you enough. Do you have any other
Speaker 1: questions for me?
Speaker 2: Well, you kind of answered some of them, like like
Speaker 2: this doesn't change.
Speaker 1: Let me put it this way. You know, when you
Speaker 1: and I leave here today, might I see a unicorn
Speaker 1: galloping down the road I drive. I suppose sure, Jamie.
Speaker 1: As a chance tell you this, you'd have to have
Speaker 1: an extraordinarily motivated individual who has enough support on the
Speaker 1: outside of therapy, who has access to the highest quality therapy,
Speaker 1: probably multiple times the week for many years. We're talking
Speaker 1: six figures now that you've got available for therapy probably
Speaker 1: over your time, that you are able to engage in
Speaker 1: some self reflection on what you did to someone, all
Speaker 1: that stuff, all those conditions present, and you might be
Speaker 1: able to make a horse race out of this. I've
Speaker 1: been doing this. I've been doing this about twenty five years,
Speaker 1: once maybe twice. And what I have seen in some
Speaker 1: cases where a person says, oh, in order to be
Speaker 1: good at a relationship, I need to do this whole
Speaker 1: empathy thing and self aware and kind of be nice
Speaker 1: to them thing and listen to their problems thing. What
Speaker 1: I've seen more often is I don't want to hurt anyone.
Speaker 1: I'm not a bad person, but I don't want to
Speaker 1: do that other stuff. So I'm going to cut bait.
Speaker 1: I consider that a win. But that person's personality is
Speaker 1: never changed, right, you see what I'm saying. That's it.
Speaker 1: So that's where it doesn't really change. It's never going
Speaker 1: to evolve into healthy. So that's what I mean. These
Speaker 1: are tough things. Tell people. I've got a personality it's
Speaker 1: not going to change. Is it really realistic for me
Speaker 1: to expect that someone else's will? So yeah, thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Evan. Thank you for bringing your story that
Speaker 1: I keep talking. Yeah, you have to keep talking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And your story reminds people that there is healing. I
Speaker 1: think that that's the big important piece to take away.
Speaker 1: So thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Here are my takeaways from my conversation with Evan. First,
Speaker 1: narcissistic and abusive relationships can leave us feeling stuck in time,
Speaker 1: and as people come out of them will often feel
Speaker 1: like they lost years in their psychological development. These types
Speaker 1: of relationships offer no place for growth. Evan shares that
Speaker 1: this was the case in her relationship. When all of
Speaker 1: your resources go towards survival and just getting through the day,
Speaker 1: it can slow psychological growth way down, which only adds
Speaker 1: to the grief and struggles people face when they leave
Speaker 1: these one sided and harmful relationships. Next one thing Evan
Speaker 1: shared was that as she reflected on that time and relationship,
Speaker 1: that it is difficult to look back at her life
Speaker 1: and many survivors find that just having to look at
Speaker 1: images of themselves from the time they were in these
Speaker 1: relationships leave them sad and regretful. In this way, narcissistic
Speaker 1: relationships really do steal time, and for people in more
Speaker 1: severely narcissistic abusive relationlationships, there is so much pain in
Speaker 1: revisiting these relationships, and as such, the time and the
Speaker 1: memories can get set aside to avoid the pain for
Speaker 1: our next takeaway. As she shared her story, Evan said
Speaker 1: that after she got out of her relationship, she distanced
Speaker 1: herself from her experience for nearly eight years, and in
Speaker 1: her quest for what felt like a normal life, she
Speaker 1: had not only distanced herself but attempted to avoid dealing
Speaker 1: with all that had happened. Unfortunately, we cannot outrun our pain. Grieving,
Speaker 1: processing the trauma and losses, and talking it through are
Speaker 1: all crucial. While routine and a normal life can create
Speaker 1: a sense of safety without addressing trauma and having experiences validated,
Speaker 1: it can and will show up in many ways or
Speaker 1: be brought up by triggering experiences. Evan had this happen
Speaker 1: on film and television sets and found that it affected
Speaker 1: her professionally. Trauma informed therapy as a place to work
Speaker 1: through these kinds of experiences is essential. In this next takeaway,
Speaker 1: a trauma bond can be generated by a partner who
Speaker 1: not only manipulates in gaslights, but Evan shares how her
Speaker 1: partner took the stance of it's us against the world,
Speaker 1: casting them as misunderstood misfits in a world that wanted
Speaker 1: to ostracize them. By creating a bond in this way,
Speaker 1: it cannot only make a manipulative partner feel like an ally,
Speaker 1: but further cement this dangerous dynamic of isolation. Next, we
Speaker 1: have discussed coercive control in multiple episodes of Navigating Narcissism,
Speaker 1: but one dynamic Evan highlighted in her relationship was her
Speaker 1: partner getting in her face repeat heatedly until she would
Speaker 1: agree just to make it stop. This dynamic can have
Speaker 1: a gaslighting feel to it, but in some ways it
Speaker 1: conforms to something called negative reinforcement, which is when a
Speaker 1: person is rewarded for a behavior by something aversive being
Speaker 1: taken away. Evan would give in to her partner's criticisms
Speaker 1: and accusations, even if they were wrong. It would make
Speaker 1: his relentless rage stop, and the relief of that would
Speaker 1: mean that she would do it again in the future.
Speaker 1: This can create a treacherous dynamic where it looks to
Speaker 1: the world that the person being harmed in the relationship
Speaker 1: is agreeing with the abusive person, when in fact they
Speaker 1: are just capitulating and giving in to make the verbal
Speaker 1: abuse stop. And for our last takeaway, as Evan shared
Speaker 1: what worked for her in her heeling, she highlighted trusting
Speaker 1: herself time alone, allowing herself to process the grief, being
Speaker 1: patient and giving it time, and this culminated slowly into
Speaker 1: her feeling safer in her own mind. After her relationship,
Speaker 1: Evan entered another relationship and became a mother, and she
Speaker 1: has found, like many, that motherhood also becomes instrumental to healing.
Speaker 1: Time alone is often crucial to processing grief, and while
Speaker 1: it can be scary to be alone with these feelings
Speaker 1: and sensations, it is often the only path forward