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Speaker 1: professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
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Speaker 1: Heart Media, or their employees. I walked out that night
Speaker 1: that those pictures are in the newspapers. I didn't have
Speaker 1: a boyfriend, I didn't have a home, I didn't have
Speaker 1: a job, I didn't have any income anymore. But what
Speaker 1: I did have was, it turns out, more self respect
Speaker 1: than I would ever have given myself credit and a voice,
Speaker 1: and my wife all of a sudden, It's amazing to
Speaker 1: me how often survivors say I had an intuition that
Speaker 1: something wasn't right, and between my partners gaslighting other people
Speaker 1: telling me that maybe I'm overthinking it, and me telling
Speaker 1: myself I am too sensitive, I pushed it away and
Speaker 1: I ignored it. Now, imagine that you have this intuition,
Speaker 1: you have this feeling in your gut that was gaslighted
Speaker 1: by your partner many times, and you find out not
Speaker 1: only that you were right all along, also that it
Speaker 1: gets confirmed by a picture of your partner cheating on
Speaker 1: you on the front cover of every newspaper in the country.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the story of Rebecca Humphries. Rebecca is a
Speaker 1: writer and actress from the UK and has been on
Speaker 1: shows including The Crown and Ten. Her best selling memoir
Speaker 1: Why Did You Stay? A memoir about self worth maybe
Speaker 1: one of the very best I have read on gaslighting, infidelity,
Speaker 1: and the slow burn and confusion of emotional abuse. Her
Speaker 1: Twitter post on emotional abuse in gaslighting might be one
Speaker 1: of my most favorite Twitter posts of all time and
Speaker 1: ended up putting her in a role she never expected advocate,
Speaker 1: and since then, Rebecca has become a thoughtful and empathic
Speaker 1: voice on emotional abuse, gas lighting and their impact on
Speaker 1: self worth and well being, as well as the importance
Speaker 1: of recognizing these patterns in crafting policy. While Rebecca's public
Speaker 1: story was easy tabloid fodder, her deeper exploration of how
Speaker 1: a person finds themselves in the complicated dance of a
Speaker 1: relationship that twists between gas lighting and invalidation and comfort
Speaker 1: and charisma pro vibes a framework for understanding why so
Speaker 1: many people get into emotionally abusive relationships and find themselves
Speaker 1: stuck in them. Let's hear Rebecca's story beyond just what
Speaker 1: was in the tabloids we have, Rebecca Humphries, you are
Speaker 1: the standard bearer of one of the ultimate relationships stories.
Speaker 1: And what's so interesting is though, although your story played
Speaker 1: out on such a public stage, what you shared was
Speaker 1: the experience of so many survivors who often feel as
Speaker 1: though they're under the radar because it doesn't register as
Speaker 1: what we sort of traditionally consider sort of the physical
Speaker 1: injuries and wounds of domestic abuse. A lot of people
Speaker 1: don't even want to call it abuse. I want to
Speaker 1: call it a difficult relationship. So what you've done is
Speaker 1: you've given voice as people are trying to do more
Speaker 1: and more now. But you've done it in a voice
Speaker 1: that made me laugh and cry. And we'll talk about
Speaker 1: your book endlessly because everyone immediately read Why Did You Stay?
Speaker 1: One of the best memoirs of this So some people
Speaker 1: have heard about your story, But can you take us
Speaker 1: from the top and before we even get into the
Speaker 1: tweets and dancing and all of that, can we get
Speaker 1: into your book and into your story, talk to us
Speaker 1: about your relationship. Okay, So in twenty I met a
Speaker 1: man on the set of a television show that he
Speaker 1: and I were both cast in, and I was with
Speaker 1: someone else at the time. Very quickly it became clear
Speaker 1: that we had chemistry, and even quicker off the off
Speaker 1: the back of that hot on the heels of that,
Speaker 1: it sort of began this pursuit of me, which sounds
Speaker 1: like I was reluctant in that I absolutely wasn't. I
Speaker 1: mean it was. It was presents and gifts and voyages
Speaker 1: to different countries all over Europe, and it really did
Speaker 1: feel like, for a brief moment of my life that
Speaker 1: the sun was shining on me and that romance was
Speaker 1: playing out and exactly the way that I had always
Speaker 1: been told that it would do my whole life, from
Speaker 1: countless movies and period dramas and everything that I've ever
Speaker 1: been promised was sort of handed to me by this person.
Speaker 1: And then, really, when I think back on it, quite quickly,
Speaker 1: well extremely quickly, we we moved in together within three weeks.
Speaker 1: We had bought a house within three months, and quickly
Speaker 1: after that it started to become complicated in a way
Speaker 1: that really I had never I had never expected, sure,
Speaker 1: but I had never been warned about, or had never
Speaker 1: been encouraged to see those things as signs that this
Speaker 1: was an emotionally abusive relationship. I just thought it was
Speaker 1: a relationship. I just thought it was one that had,
Speaker 1: you know, teething problems and required compromise and all of
Speaker 1: these really like unhelpful roller decks of soundbites that I've
Speaker 1: been taught about relationships and what love looked like. And
Speaker 1: that relationship went on for five and a half years,
Speaker 1: and it was at the end of it when it's
Speaker 1: sort of exploded in a media bin fire, and at
Speaker 1: which points I sort of got this amazing wash of
Speaker 1: validation from the national press, and also because of the
Speaker 1: public nous of the breakup, lots of women contacting me privately,
Speaker 1: letting me know that essentially this person had been one
Speaker 1: person to me and the tire another person to all
Speaker 1: of these other women who he had several affairs with,
Speaker 1: and dismissed my suspicions as me being crazy for years.
Speaker 1: So the publicness of it, which we're going to get
Speaker 1: to in a minute. While you were in the relationship, Rebecca,
Speaker 1: were you aware that this wasn't good, this wasn't healthy.
Speaker 1: Like you said, three weeks in was sort of intense,
Speaker 1: and the I love you. Three months in, we're buying
Speaker 1: a house. I mean, that's fast, which is already a
Speaker 1: big red flag. But beyond that, five and a half
Speaker 1: years is a long time. Yeah, it's a really long time,
Speaker 1: Like it was even I was by the end of
Speaker 1: this relationship, I doubted myself to such an extent that
Speaker 1: it even feels strange to say five and a half
Speaker 1: years is a long time of my life, because when
Speaker 1: we got out of the relationship and I was stealing
Speaker 1: with the way that I felt I had been treated
Speaker 1: and the things that had happened, I was sort of
Speaker 1: asking people like, that's a long time, right, that's too
Speaker 1: long for this to be going on, you know, just
Speaker 1: that kind of validation. Even now, it feels strangely, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of brilliant. It's a long time to suffer like that.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. Five and a half years and a happy
Speaker 1: relationship is an eye blink. Five and a half years.
Speaker 1: In an emotionally abusive relationship is like an epoch. It's
Speaker 1: an entirely different game. So while you were in it
Speaker 1: in those five and a half years, how are where
Speaker 1: were you becoming that this isn't right? Or how did
Speaker 1: you manage what was happening in the relationship. Well, the
Speaker 1: fact is that I was relatively inexperienced when it came
Speaker 1: to relationships and what healthy relationships looked like. To be honest,
Speaker 1: I come from a background where actually there isn't that
Speaker 1: much emotional language and that we don't really have a
Speaker 1: dialogue in that sense. So my first relationship was with
Speaker 1: somebody who also didn't do that and also didn't communicate
Speaker 1: in that way, and it became clear that we were
Speaker 1: quite young and that we were sort of going on
Speaker 1: different paths, and to me, that just felt really confusing.
Speaker 1: And so when I met this person who the person
Speaker 1: that we're talking about, who I was in this emotionally
Speaker 1: abusive relationship with, I really just saw all of the
Speaker 1: things that my first boyfriend was missing. And because really
Speaker 1: I'm I'm also from a background that is dare I
Speaker 1: say it? And I don't mean to be derogatory when
Speaker 1: I say this, but it's patriarchal and love and marriage
Speaker 1: and children is a priority. And whether I liked it
Speaker 1: or not, I was conditioned from an early age to
Speaker 1: prioritize romantic love over everything else, including myself. So when
Speaker 1: I'm in a relationship with somebody, I'm going to try
Speaker 1: and keep it going no matter the cost. And in
Speaker 1: the case of this relationship, that cost was my self esteem,
Speaker 1: my opinions, my voice. And so how did I work
Speaker 1: around that? Well, I just stopped voicing myself as much.
Speaker 1: I sort of allowed my opinions to be watered down
Speaker 1: to the extent that actually I sort of you can
Speaker 1: ask me what I wanted for dinner. I wouldn't been
Speaker 1: able to answer you. I would have texted my boyfriend
Speaker 1: and asked what he wants? Is all of the things
Speaker 1: really that I now know I really do value about
Speaker 1: myself and that I really love and enjoy about who
Speaker 1: I am, they were the first things to be thrown
Speaker 1: out of the window in the name of love. Rebecca
Speaker 1: highlights three patterns here that have come out throughout this
Speaker 1: podcast and that she puts a finer point on. First,
Speaker 1: we again see this idea of how a narcissistic relationship
Speaker 1: can so often feel like a correction from a prior relationship,
Speaker 1: especially when that prior relationship lacked something. In her case,
Speaker 1: it was communication. When someone comes up with just lots
Speaker 1: lots of talking and contact and all of that, especially
Speaker 1: if we came from a relationship when we didn't have that,
Speaker 1: we can make the erroneous assumption that the intensity and
Speaker 1: sort of the extra of it all is good and healthy.
Speaker 1: Then she gets into something that we don't talk about enough,
Speaker 1: which is the tyranny of romantic love, and that love
Speaker 1: and marriage and baby carriages are the be all and all.
Speaker 1: Healthy relationships are a magnificent and essential part of a
Speaker 1: healthy life. But the script and the idea that someone
Speaker 1: is coming up short if they aren't living in that
Speaker 1: script rushes too many people into toxic relationships, and they
Speaker 1: don't give themselves to be discerning when they choose a
Speaker 1: partner or stay in a relationship and say I am
Speaker 1: better than this. And then she makes a really important point.
Speaker 1: She says that when I am in a relationship with someone,
Speaker 1: I am going to try and keep it going no
Speaker 1: matter the cost, and that right there is a perfect
Speaker 1: definition of what a trauma bonded relationship looks like I
Speaker 1: will give up on myself. I will disconnect from who
Speaker 1: I am and what I need to do to keep
Speaker 1: this going. Rebecca is describing a one two three punch
Speaker 1: here that I do not think anyone could ever be
Speaker 1: immune to, and it is the perfect setup to get
Speaker 1: into and get stuck in a manipulative, toxic, and invalidating relationship.
Speaker 1: I want to even go further back, so prior to
Speaker 1: this unhealthy, emotional, abusive relationship, how many boyfriend like longer
Speaker 1: term not just dates, but like longer term relationships. Wasn't
Speaker 1: just the one just one? Yeah? Okay, yeah? And in
Speaker 1: that one it wasn't like this. Firstly, it was a
Speaker 1: completely different time. We started going out in around TI
Speaker 1: thousand and nine. Now, at the same time as this,
Speaker 1: he had girlfriends that he told me that he'd broken
Speaker 1: up with. Now he hadn't. He was a cowardly dude,
Speaker 1: this guy, he hadn't. But of course, at that time
Speaker 1: it all came out about the pair of us, and
Speaker 1: the way that pop culture and society was working at
Speaker 1: that point was to cast the women in two very
Speaker 1: clear roles. One is the one who was the girlfriend
Speaker 1: or the wife who was the innocent party, and the
Speaker 1: other is the sort of siren porter, the madonna really
Speaker 1: and so as such, this guy was let off the
Speaker 1: hook by absolutely everyone that knew us, including myself. So
Speaker 1: as far as I was concerned, during this relationship, i'd
Speaker 1: sort of stolen him from his girlfriend, which you know,
Speaker 1: now I look back on and I think, hang on,
Speaker 1: this is this really has Scie has got a lot
Speaker 1: to answer for in that respect, because had I have
Speaker 1: been able to shine a light on his behavior in
Speaker 1: that way, who knows whether I would have found myself
Speaker 1: in a relationship with this other guy, because I probably
Speaker 1: would have recognized a lot of the same behavior. But
Speaker 1: actually I took on a lot of that blame at
Speaker 1: the beginning of that relationship with this guy. I really did,
Speaker 1: and I did a lot of apologizing at the beginning
Speaker 1: of that relationship. That actually meant that when I met
Speaker 1: this new boyfriends, I sort of felt like everything about
Speaker 1: our beginning was very clean and felt almost almost pure,
Speaker 1: and and like love was supposed to be, which is
Speaker 1: just arriving and I stepped into something free from blame,
Speaker 1: judgment and attack, which I hadn't previously. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: It makes so much sense, and you just said a mouthful,
Speaker 1: let's a bit of that way, Because, first of all,
Speaker 1: you said back in two thousand nine women were either
Speaker 1: painted as a on a horror siren or the steady girlfriend.
Speaker 1: I think in two is exactly the same. I don't
Speaker 1: think we've made progress on that front whatsoever. Frankly so,
Speaker 1: I think we're still very much stuck in that. But
Speaker 1: what was interesting to me you said that in childhood
Speaker 1: you were raised to believe romantic love took primacy. Marriage
Speaker 1: was the goal. Marriage family In the United States, we
Speaker 1: talked about the picket fans, the whole thing, Right, that
Speaker 1: was the goal. Right. Yeah, it's a little shop of
Speaker 1: horrorce dream sequence, but but you're absolutely right. It is
Speaker 1: the dream sequence of I'm going to have that domesticity,
Speaker 1: and that means everything else in my life can be
Speaker 1: put on hold as long as I'm working on this.
Speaker 1: But what's fascinating is you say, in that first relationship,
Speaker 1: you had to take a role of the siren, as
Speaker 1: the bad one, as the person who came in as
Speaker 1: a bad actor, as it were, because you got into
Speaker 1: the relationship that he lied about being in with somebody else,
Speaker 1: and people perceived you as well. Of course she knew
Speaker 1: and she did this willingly, So you had a role
Speaker 1: there and you took the role on. But what's fascinating,
Speaker 1: and this happens all the time, Rebecca, is when a
Speaker 1: person moves into a new relationship and the new story
Speaker 1: is different than the old story, and in this case
Speaker 1: it was that clean beginning. It almost becomes what we
Speaker 1: call a halo effect in psychology, which is this idea
Speaker 1: that now this is going to be a good relationship
Speaker 1: because that piece was moved out of the way. Once again,
Speaker 1: you're blowing my mind even just saying the halo effects.
Speaker 1: I'm like, because so much of our relationship that we
Speaker 1: had over those five years, I just took it straight
Speaker 1: back to that angelic beginning. So what's interesting is that's
Speaker 1: all his His main virtue I'm hearing so far, is
Speaker 1: that he happened to be single when you met him.
Speaker 1: So you had this one relationship and then that ends.
Speaker 1: How long did that first relationship last. I'd say about
Speaker 1: two years too and a half years, okay, still not
Speaker 1: a short period of time. You wouldn't call it toxic, No,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have called it toxic relationships? No, Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: and you were young. Yeah, I was young. I was
Speaker 1: twenty three. How much time elapsed between the end of
Speaker 1: that first relationship and the beginning of the second relationship,
Speaker 1: I mean a day. So you you met the new
Speaker 1: guy almost right away. I met the new guy when
Speaker 1: we were both working on this TV show and I
Speaker 1: still had a boyfriend. But yes, me and the new guy,
Speaker 1: we were friends. We finished the TV show that was
Speaker 1: his TV show actually, and he said that he wanted
Speaker 1: to take me and the lead writer out for dinner
Speaker 1: and drinks at this club in London. And when I
Speaker 1: turned up, the writer wasn't there. And we had some
Speaker 1: drinks and I said to this guy, he was never coming,
Speaker 1: was he? And he said no? And I said, can
Speaker 1: I need to tell me why? And he said, because
Speaker 1: I'm madly in love with you. She shouted it in
Speaker 1: this club, you know, and yeah, and I sort of said, okay,
Speaker 1: leave it with me because as well, you know this guy.
Speaker 1: This is also part the tailor effect that you're talking about,
Speaker 1: which is this guy that my first boyfriends. You know,
Speaker 1: there was a there were many, many months of a
Speaker 1: tussle and a back and forth about him not being
Speaker 1: able to leave his girlfriend and telling me that he
Speaker 1: had left her and then telling me that it wouldn't
Speaker 1: work and for whatever reason, and me never quite figuring
Speaker 1: out whether this was true, and the whole thing was
Speaker 1: a tussle, and then suddenly it felt honestly, after years
Speaker 1: as well, and not just with this first boyfriend, but
Speaker 1: my teenage years are feeling like a secret from so
Speaker 1: many boys and men, and feeling like lots of men
Speaker 1: were ashamed to say that they were with me. And
Speaker 1: then suddenly I'm with this new guy and it's like
Speaker 1: the clouds part and the sunshines with me, and someone
Speaker 1: just turns around to me and goes, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. I want you how you are, and I
Speaker 1: want everyone to know about it. And suddenly it just felt,
Speaker 1: you know, after all of this secrecy and shame for
Speaker 1: years and years and years, this was, as I say,
Speaker 1: totally clean, and I was like, this is meant to happen.
Speaker 1: It felt like, yeah, it felt like some face thing.
Speaker 1: Really well, it's such an interesting sort of passing of
Speaker 1: the baton. You know, all of those prior relationships. You
Speaker 1: were choosing these men, and like you said, it was
Speaker 1: almost like they wouldn't commit. You were felt you were
Speaker 1: kept in the shadows, you know, which is an interesting
Speaker 1: kind of a triangulated trauma bonded pattern where people will
Speaker 1: be what someone were and they may not even be
Speaker 1: that they're competing with another person, but they're competing with something,
Speaker 1: even if it's the desire to not be in a
Speaker 1: relationship for the for the for the man. Then when
Speaker 1: you transition to new guy to this I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: him number two for lack of a name, but you
Speaker 1: know this, this new guy, he chooses you. But what's interesting, Rebecca,
Speaker 1: and what I'm hearing is that you were still in
Speaker 1: a somewhat disadvantaged position because you were still the bad one.
Speaker 1: You hurt number one. Yeah, that's right, I did. So
Speaker 1: you still were in this this position of Rebecca not
Speaker 1: as good And I find that interesting because that would
Speaker 1: probably make you more likely to endure more of Number
Speaker 1: two is bad behavior, because even though he chose you,
Speaker 1: you still came in from that disadvantage spot. That is
Speaker 1: absolutely fascinating. Yeah, that's really really interesting. So now though
Speaker 1: you end the relationship with number one, number two and
Speaker 1: it goes fast, it goes first, and also you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's something else to add to this, which is
Speaker 1: that we went on this day, we went to Brighton
Speaker 1: on the south coast of England, and I'm about having
Speaker 1: a big conversation and I said to him, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I want to be in a relationship that
Speaker 1: have been it. I think I just need time. And
Speaker 1: it was almost as though it was a red rag
Speaker 1: to a ball that moment. It was, well, I want
Speaker 1: you to be my girlfriend, and that's what I want.
Speaker 1: And of course, you know all the work that I've
Speaker 1: done ever since on myself and on thinking about myself,
Speaker 1: and what that moment was that I really have come
Speaker 1: to terms with the fact that I didn't take into
Speaker 1: account my own needs at all in that scenario. I
Speaker 1: heard what he wanted and I sort of like, it
Speaker 1: chills me to the bone really that I was so
Speaker 1: prepared so instantly to fulfill his needs in that sense
Speaker 1: rather than ground myself in my own in any sense.
Speaker 1: It was as though, honestly I just turned my back
Speaker 1: on it within two seconds because I saw it as
Speaker 1: my chance. I saw at this moment as my chance,
Speaker 1: which obviously has a lot to do with my own
Speaker 1: self esteem at that point in my life, but it
Speaker 1: also sounds like the message you've got is to be
Speaker 1: in a relationship meant that you you fully had to
Speaker 1: almost sacrifice all your needs to the other. That was
Speaker 1: love totally. The sequence Rebecca described meeting somewhere new, things
Speaker 1: moving fast, but then asking for a minute because she
Speaker 1: wasn't sure she was ready for a relationship. She likened
Speaker 1: it to a red flag for a bull, which is
Speaker 1: an apt metaphor. Toxic and antagonistic folks love the game,
Speaker 1: the chase, and the win. Many people actually do set
Speaker 1: the boundary and communicate that they may need time or
Speaker 1: may not be ready, and all the other person heres
Speaker 1: is game on. I know that lots of people look
Speaker 1: back at these relationships and say, how could I have
Speaker 1: missed it? And I remind them that you probably did
Speaker 1: try to set a boundary, but you just didn't know
Speaker 1: what you were up against. So as this relationship went on,
Speaker 1: and if anyone reads the book, and like I said,
Speaker 1: the book lays it out in such excruciating but unbelievably
Speaker 1: lyrical detail, can you give listeners a sort of a
Speaker 1: glimpse at what some of the more toxic patterns were
Speaker 1: in the relationship, and you know how that played out
Speaker 1: for you? Internally these things would happen, you were clear
Speaker 1: that they were uncomfortable. Yet it was a cycle like
Speaker 1: as we often see in these relationships, of it falling apart,
Speaker 1: coming back together. What were the kinds of things that
Speaker 1: would happen and what was your process within the relationship?
Speaker 1: Patterns include did the obvious one is the breadcrumbing? So
Speaker 1: is the really being distant physically and emotionally? For I
Speaker 1: would say seventy to nine of the time until there
Speaker 1: was just enough resistance from me that I would then
Speaker 1: be bombarded or swamped with love and with attention and
Speaker 1: affection just enough to stop me from walking out the door.
Speaker 1: And there were several moments within our relationship where I
Speaker 1: really had had enough and said I can't do this anymore,
Speaker 1: I really can't, And at which point suddenly there would
Speaker 1: be this man who was everything that I had been
Speaker 1: missing for months and months and months right there willing
Speaker 1: to give me everything that it was I had said,
Speaker 1: enough is enough. I can't do without this in my life.
Speaker 1: So that was one thing. Other things, you know, like
Speaker 1: suddenly there'll be sudden thoughtfulness, like sudden gifts of things
Speaker 1: that I had mentioned in passing that it suddenly felt
Speaker 1: as though he had them thoughtful enough to kind of
Speaker 1: log that away, and suddenly there would be this gift,
Speaker 1: and I would think, well, things are going to be
Speaker 1: better now, and then two days, three days later, suddenly
Speaker 1: there we go, sinking back in. But I'm there remembering
Speaker 1: that gift, to remembering that thoughtfulness and almost feeding myself
Speaker 1: from it through that. And also, you know, I was
Speaker 1: a thrilled seeker in that relationship in that sense. I
Speaker 1: really was, because I've said in the book that this
Speaker 1: kind of a relationship is like someone pushing you from
Speaker 1: a fifteen story building and then catching you an inch
Speaker 1: above the pavement. And then when they catch you an
Speaker 1: inch above the pavement, all you can say is thank
Speaker 1: you so much for catching me, because you're so relieved
Speaker 1: to not have hit the grounds that you forget that
Speaker 1: they're the person that kicks you off that building in
Speaker 1: the first place. And it was it was like that
Speaker 1: in the initial stages, every few months, and then it
Speaker 1: became every few weeks, and then it became every a
Speaker 1: few days towards the end, by which point you're so
Speaker 1: accustomed to that cycle you don't even realize that you're
Speaker 1: in a cycle. You just think that this is how
Speaker 1: the relationship is. And also you know full well that
Speaker 1: no matter how bleak it gets, chances are it will
Speaker 1: probably take a couple of days for something good to
Speaker 1: happen and you can laugh together again. And so you
Speaker 1: ride it out, You ride the wave of difficulty, because
Speaker 1: my favorite place to exist was the moment where the
Speaker 1: relationship was freshly salvaged, and that's where I got my
Speaker 1: life forced from every every single time. So I would
Speaker 1: say that that was really the main one. And those
Speaker 1: instances that again I speak about anecdotally in the book,
Speaker 1: like you know, I'm crying in a pizza Express in
Speaker 1: a West London shopping center, in a Westfield, you know,
Speaker 1: feeling bleaker than I've ever felt in my life, and
Speaker 1: you know, there's waiter above me with big pepper grinds,
Speaker 1: and me crying my eyes like going, oh god, this
Speaker 1: is so human, easing and leaving and saying you know,
Speaker 1: enough enough, I can't do this anymore and I deserve
Speaker 1: better than this. Suddenly this empowerment comes out with me.
Speaker 1: I'm leaving and I'm going and I'm going home. And
Speaker 1: then suddenly how it comes, which is that I need
Speaker 1: you and I don't know what I would do if
Speaker 1: you left. And suddenly we get into the territory of
Speaker 1: responsibility and me taking responsibility for this person who's I
Speaker 1: know full well has had difficulty in their lives, because
Speaker 1: that gets brought up to and in moments where I
Speaker 1: have my own sense of power and my own sense
Speaker 1: of autonomy, difficulties that this person he has been through
Speaker 1: in his life and his childhood and things that I
Speaker 1: can't possibly imagine, And suddenly there I am saying, but
Speaker 1: he needs me, and without me, he's saying he doesn't
Speaker 1: know what he do And I don't know what it
Speaker 1: is to have had a childhood, a teenage life, and
Speaker 1: adult life like him. So maybe if I had had
Speaker 1: that then I would understand it better, but I don't.
Speaker 1: But all I know now is that if I left,
Speaker 1: he'd have nothing, and I love him, so I don't
Speaker 1: wish that on him. There are so many things like that.
Speaker 1: They just creep into your veins in relationships like this,
Speaker 1: and you're living with them in your body, not even
Speaker 1: realizing that this is anything other than a normal relationship,
Speaker 1: because because it is your normal, it becomes your normal.
Speaker 1: One thing you've laid out here is we talk about
Speaker 1: the architecture of a narcissistic relationship and ant toxic relationship,
Speaker 1: and it's love bombing, devaluing, discarding, and hoovering. They suck
Speaker 1: you back in starts again, and the gift and then
Speaker 1: the devalue and then the discard, which can also be
Speaker 1: with withdrawing. It doesn't mean the end of relationship. It
Speaker 1: just means that they withdraw or they spend time with
Speaker 1: other people or other pursuits, and then they hoover you back.
Speaker 1: A lot of people think that that that's a one
Speaker 1: time cycle and it's not. Yours was an example what
Speaker 1: was happening weekly, monthly, and I think that that's what
Speaker 1: I want. I want folks to hear that. People think
Speaker 1: it's at one time, and I'm like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: this happens over and over and over. The cycle is
Speaker 1: not a one cycle. It's a constant cycle. But yours is.
Speaker 1: It's a classic trauma bonded cycle. That idea of over
Speaker 1: time the cycle became more frequent and that analogy you give,
Speaker 1: which is just brilliant, of falling out of the building
Speaker 1: and being caught an inch from the pavement and then
Speaker 1: sort of getting really hooked into the ecstasy of the
Speaker 1: being caught of the what is the coming together going
Speaker 1: to look like? Again? That that becomes the hook that
Speaker 1: right there is the trauma bond. And I think that
Speaker 1: so many people say, Oh, I'm trauma bonded. What's wrong
Speaker 1: with me? I'm like, what's wrong with you? You're basically
Speaker 1: holding out for this thing that feels like a reward
Speaker 1: that's actually human nature, but it's human nature caught up
Speaker 1: in this really toxic cycle. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Just to
Speaker 1: add to that too, I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: think that when you hear things like toxic cycle, it's
Speaker 1: a mistake to think that a toxic relationship is toxic
Speaker 1: all the time, right because within that cycle, there were
Speaker 1: the most amazing glimpses and moments of real intimacy and
Speaker 1: romance and pleasure and all of these things that suddenly there,
Speaker 1: I am, you know, seeing the sea and brighten from
Speaker 1: that first weekend that we went away together, and it's
Speaker 1: it's there and it's real. And that was peppered throughout
Speaker 1: those five and a half years, those beautiful, truly beautiful moments.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that it wasn't a toxic relationship.
Speaker 1: It means that that's part of the cycle of it
Speaker 1: correct and it's in a way what happens is those
Speaker 1: memories almost become these etchings in those parts of your
Speaker 1: brain where you're also trying to manage emotion. And that
Speaker 1: gets challenging because it's like having beautiful family pictures on
Speaker 1: the wall and thinking I'm in an unhappy family, but
Speaker 1: the pictures don't tell that that story, and so you're
Speaker 1: always looking up at this big gallery of photos. They
Speaker 1: just happened to be in your mind all the time.
Speaker 1: Our session will continue after this break. One thing you
Speaker 1: brought up a lot in your book and when you've
Speaker 1: talked about the relationship is that you constantly felt gas
Speaker 1: lighted in the relationship. You know, so in addition to
Speaker 1: the bread crimbing, it sounds like gas lighting was a dynamic.
Speaker 1: So when things weren't going well, that would show up.
Speaker 1: How would gas lightings show up in your relationship? I
Speaker 1: don't think I could count on one hand how many
Speaker 1: times my hurts, trauma, sadness, disappointment was credited or was
Speaker 1: listened to in a sensitive, responsive way. What I can
Speaker 1: remember a lot of is what's wrong with your psychopath
Speaker 1: a lot? And I mean examples where this withdrawal would
Speaker 1: happen and I could feel that's from me, I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: I could feel my body. I could feel the voice
Speaker 1: of my body is saying to me something is wrong.
Speaker 1: This person is lying, and not only that they're a
Speaker 1: slap dash liar, because the way that they're even talking
Speaker 1: to you isn't convincing. And I would express that and say,
Speaker 1: I don't believe what you're saying, or why do I
Speaker 1: feel like you're putting away from me? Or why do
Speaker 1: I feel like there's something going on with this woman?
Speaker 1: Or why do I feel like you want where you
Speaker 1: said you were? And I would get because you're crazy
Speaker 1: or because you're psychotic. And then, of course that's so complex,
Speaker 1: because what happens is when you hear that enough in
Speaker 1: your relationship, you learn not to voice your opinions because
Speaker 1: you're just going to get met with that. A gaslided
Speaker 1: and narcissistic relationship is a slow silencing. You may begin
Speaker 1: by sharing concerns, fears, intuition, and be told so many
Speaker 1: times that you were crazy or paranoid or psychotic that
Speaker 1: you simply stop, which was exactly her experience. Your intuition
Speaker 1: is always on the abuse is what turns it off.
Speaker 1: Rebecca also lays out so clearly here what gaslighting does
Speaker 1: to a person. It shifts our identity and our sense
Speaker 1: of who we are and how we go through the world.
Speaker 1: Many people in these relationships, who always saw themselves as
Speaker 1: well regulated, thoughtful, well considered people, will begin to believe
Speaker 1: that they're reactive, unhinged, and out of control of their emotions.
Speaker 1: And so we play the game out in our head.
Speaker 1: If I say this, then they'll tell me I'm crazy.
Speaker 1: If I do that, then they'll tell me I'm paranoid.
Speaker 1: And in Rebecca's case, it was even worse. He was
Speaker 1: using his narrative about her behavior to validate his own
Speaker 1: acting out. Gaslighting doesn't just deny reality, it is ultimately
Speaker 1: a denial of the self. Also, once you are met
Speaker 1: with that answer, and once that narrative is written for you,
Speaker 1: that you're the psychotic one who can't control their emotions,
Speaker 1: and suddenly there you are feeling sad all the time
Speaker 1: because you think your brain doesn't work and there's something
Speaker 1: wrong with you, rather than you know, respect sing and
Speaker 1: listening to what you actually feel, which is that your
Speaker 1: partner is doing something untoward you start a gas like yourself.
Speaker 1: Before you even opened your mouth, you're saying, well, there's
Speaker 1: no point in saying that, because you're doing that crazy
Speaker 1: thing that you do again. And then before you know
Speaker 1: what's happening, you're living inside of prison, your own head,
Speaker 1: your own body, and that of course suits this person
Speaker 1: because that is facilitating their own bad behavior. I mean,
Speaker 1: that was constant. And then of course what happens, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned with the publicness of our breakup was I
Speaker 1: had this wash of validation because the very person that
Speaker 1: that my partner was photographed with and that was on
Speaker 1: the front page is of the UK tabloid Press one
Speaker 1: Sunday morning was the very woman that I had accused
Speaker 1: him of having an affair with, and he had told
Speaker 1: me that I was a psychopath. And then more and
Speaker 1: more women came forward because of the publicness, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I remember that Manchester, I remember that
Speaker 1: that was no I remember when he came back from
Speaker 1: taur and all of these instances just you know, like
Speaker 1: a montage in front of my head out I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it felt like honestly as well, lots of people have
Speaker 1: said to me that must have been really difficult. I
Speaker 1: was like, honestly, honey, like it felt like a wish
Speaker 1: of validation. Every single time I felt like I had
Speaker 1: had my brain handed back to me by default. It's
Speaker 1: relatively rare for survivors of gas lighting to get their
Speaker 1: gas light turned off. To have the experience, you had
Speaker 1: to have somebody come and provide the evidence and tell
Speaker 1: you you were not wrong. The fantasy for many people
Speaker 1: is that that would come from the guess later. That's
Speaker 1: never going to happen. But the idea of getting your
Speaker 1: brain back there is no greater. It's almost like when
Speaker 1: those home shows where someone comes in and clean your
Speaker 1: whole house and you're like, everything's so organized. Each time
Speaker 1: somebody comes in and ungas light, you're like, oh, look,
Speaker 1: everything's where it needs to be. This is right right,
Speaker 1: It's like everything's tidy and clean, and I actually feel
Speaker 1: like a good function in this space again. And so
Speaker 1: when you would find like you would have these suspicions
Speaker 1: and you would say I'm concerned about this, or this
Speaker 1: doesn't add up, or where were you or why don't
Speaker 1: you want me to be here? Or why do you
Speaker 1: want me to join you? Whatever the reasons were, and
Speaker 1: he'd pull back and push back and say you're paranoid,
Speaker 1: you're a psychopath, or something wrong with you. During the
Speaker 1: relationship before the big public breakup, did you ever catch
Speaker 1: him out in the lies, like, for example, I'm hearing
Speaker 1: that he's shut you down by telling you're a psychopath.
Speaker 1: But did he ever attempt to rationalize his bad behavior? Yes, well,
Speaker 1: I mean he's he was a stand up comedian, So
Speaker 1: there was lots of touring. There was lots of being
Speaker 1: away from home. There was one instance where I found
Speaker 1: a phone number in his jacket pockets. And I used
Speaker 1: to have these really strange, like vivid fantasies when I would,
Speaker 1: you know, be as I, you know, my most maday
Speaker 1: alike because I've put it before, sort of you know,
Speaker 1: desperate for some kind of validation and revenge in it
Speaker 1: out for blood really, And I found this thing in
Speaker 1: this jacket pocket, and there was lots of what am
Speaker 1: I supposed to do if women throw themselves at me
Speaker 1: when I'm on tour? You know, that's not my fault.
Speaker 1: There was lots of that, and I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: at the time, thinking, I said to him, but he
Speaker 1: don't take the number, and you say, I have a
Speaker 1: girlfriend's and there was some kind of back and forth
Speaker 1: about how that makes him feel awkward and embarrassed because
Speaker 1: what if it's that that's not what they meant. And
Speaker 1: the thing that really strikes me is one instance, many
Speaker 1: many years ago, which was only about nine months into
Speaker 1: our relationship, when we were living together, we bought this
Speaker 1: house together, and I found some explicit messages on Facebook
Speaker 1: that he had been sharing with a woman. He was
Speaker 1: out one Saturday night and we had a shared laptop
Speaker 1: and I went onto Facebook and he must not have
Speaker 1: logged out. He didn't log into Facebook very often, but
Speaker 1: I did, and he must not have logged out from it,
Speaker 1: because it just came straight up on the screen and
Speaker 1: I found a heap of explicit messages to this one woman,
Speaker 1: And I mean, I called him up and I said
Speaker 1: to him, who's her name? And he said who? And
Speaker 1: I had detail exactly what I saw that you know
Speaker 1: that trigger memory, and straight away I was like, we're done,
Speaker 1: I'm done, let's go. I left. He really really pursued
Speaker 1: me to hear him out. He had a bit of
Speaker 1: an apathetic assistance. So he had a good mate who
Speaker 1: was a really really good guy and who is a
Speaker 1: really good guy. He's sort of a family man and
Speaker 1: with children and very you know, and he and he
Speaker 1: really reasoned with me on behalf of on behalf of
Speaker 1: my boyfriend and when we met up. It was a
Speaker 1: one off, drunken mistake, he said, which I'm truly sorry for.
Speaker 1: And everyone is allowed to make a mistake. This is
Speaker 1: an interesting sequence and not uncommon in toxic relationships, getting
Speaker 1: someone else to do their bidding, and it's even more
Speaker 1: powerful when the person doing the bidding for the toxic
Speaker 1: person is legitimate in some way. In this case, it
Speaker 1: was because this guy was a family man. The narcissistic
Speaker 1: person will often mobilize other people to come to their rescue,
Speaker 1: and since they're always surrounded by enablers and people can't
Speaker 1: see what these patterns are, people will step up. It
Speaker 1: makes it really hard for someone in one of these
Speaker 1: relationships because when other people are using tried and true
Speaker 1: defenses like everybody makes a mistake involving another person will
Speaker 1: often raise more doubt for the person harmed by a
Speaker 1: narcissistic person. And this sense that, well, other people think
Speaker 1: my partner is cool, so maybe I'm the one who's
Speaker 1: being too stubborn or demanding. It's not lost on me
Speaker 1: that her ex, in this cowardly way had a friend's
Speaker 1: step in when he had clearly done something wrong. It
Speaker 1: put Rebecca in an untenable position and sadly got her
Speaker 1: stuck for longer. I just thought, you know what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are they are allowed to make mistakes, and what
Speaker 1: am I going to be? Stubborn? For stubborn's sake? I've
Speaker 1: got this man right opposite me, and he loves me,
Speaker 1: and I love him, and I'm prepared to forego any
Speaker 1: kinds of insecurity that I feel about this and try
Speaker 1: and make this work. And let me tell you something,
Speaker 1: very quickly after that instant, I can't tell you quite when.
Speaker 1: Very quickly after that instance, me finding explicit messages is
Speaker 1: to another woman on Facebook became why are be spying
Speaker 1: on me on Facebook? Anyway? Which then very quickly became
Speaker 1: separate laptops and passwords and sermons on the importance of
Speaker 1: privacy and lectures on why it's very important for the
Speaker 1: two of us to lead separate lives and have secrets,
Speaker 1: you know, And it would all and imparted to me
Speaker 1: in sort of very elevated, holier than that ways self
Speaker 1: righteousness is just so it's so powerful. One thing that
Speaker 1: I'm hearing here, and I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: have said this to me. They said that the gas lighting,
Speaker 1: Why are you so sensitive? Why are you so paranoid?
Speaker 1: Why are you so this? You know you're you're a
Speaker 1: psychopathist and the other right, And people over time will
Speaker 1: internalize that because this really is a These relationships aren't
Speaker 1: about falling in love. They're about being indoctrinated into the control,
Speaker 1: all in abusive system of the narcissistic person. And what
Speaker 1: people do over time is they equate strength with not
Speaker 1: having emotional reactions to being betrayed. I cannot put that
Speaker 1: out of myself, right, I'm being betrayed, I'm being shamed,
Speaker 1: I'm being humiliated, I'm being pathologized. But I'll show him.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say anything, right, So that idea
Speaker 1: of dissociating yourself from yourself is look how strong I am.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's like the worst most unhealthy thing that
Speaker 1: could You are talking my language. Honestly, I've said it
Speaker 1: so many times to friends over you know, God knows
Speaker 1: how many glasses are saving your belong that I am.
Speaker 1: I just cannot believe that I allowed myself to use
Speaker 1: my strength like something that I have prided myself on,
Speaker 1: you know for years. It's like there was a version
Speaker 1: of me that my strength stepped out of my body
Speaker 1: and turned slowly around like in a horror film at me.
Speaker 1: You know, I was at war with myself, and I
Speaker 1: thought that it was my greatest asset in this relationship.
Speaker 1: But I was using my strength against myself in order
Speaker 1: to enable him. Correct because what you were doing is
Speaker 1: your strength meant I'm going to cut off all parts
Speaker 1: of Rebecca. So really all that's left is this shell
Speaker 1: of myself that lives in his service. Oh my gosh. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: in his orbit and his exactly. So he was the
Speaker 1: Sun and all human beings in his life, with the
Speaker 1: planets or a bitting around him, and that was it.
Speaker 1: There was no other function for anyone, absolutely no, The
Speaker 1: world only only existed as far as he could see it, correct,
Speaker 1: and it was that that self serving, that ecocentric. And
Speaker 1: then what he would do is he would weaponize his backstory.
Speaker 1: I went through this, I went through that, I've been
Speaker 1: through this, I've been through that, so that that sort
Speaker 1: of you know, taking out the victimization and using it
Speaker 1: as a weapon, effectively ending the conversation. Oh, I mean,
Speaker 1: what could I say that that's him? You know, what
Speaker 1: could I What can I possibly say to that? There's
Speaker 1: there really is no argument, I mean, and I didn't
Speaker 1: have the at the time, well self love really or
Speaker 1: self nurturing to say that's not relevant to this conversation,
Speaker 1: because I'm still entitled to my feelings and I'm entitled
Speaker 1: to how I feel irrespective of what it has we've
Speaker 1: been through. Because as there's different it's a different facet,
Speaker 1: it's a different lane, and it reminds me actually quite
Speaker 1: a lot of during that time and that relationship, I
Speaker 1: stepped away from so many conversations like the ones that
Speaker 1: you and I are having now, which I take a
Speaker 1: huge amount of pleasure in having it stepped away from women,
Speaker 1: well women full stop really, but because throughout that relationship,
Speaker 1: especially at the end of the relationship, it's like I saw,
Speaker 1: I saw every woman through his eyes, and I could
Speaker 1: identify within the first three seconds whether they were a
Speaker 1: threat or safe, truly, because I just saw what he saw,
Speaker 1: and I especially found unimaginably threatening women who were most
Speaker 1: like my full self and most like the person that
Speaker 1: I was before I met him, because on some level,
Speaker 1: it's as though I knew that if I continued the
Speaker 1: conversation with these women, if I, you know, developed myself
Speaker 1: in the way that they were, you know, free to
Speaker 1: develop because they had nothing at stake, or so I believed,
Speaker 1: I would find out that I shouldn't be in this relationship.
Speaker 1: So I just stopped having those conversations and I stayed
Speaker 1: where I was. I stayed in the same place. Many
Speaker 1: survivors know, at some deep, unspoken level that if they
Speaker 1: stop shrinking themselves to stay in the relationship or actually
Speaker 1: explore it honestly and deeply, that they will find out
Speaker 1: that they probably have to leave it. As a result,
Speaker 1: survivors may avoid therapy, avoid talking to friends who will
Speaker 1: tell them the truth, and even avoid the people that
Speaker 1: allow them to grow because there is a fear that
Speaker 1: then they would have to act on that information. It's
Speaker 1: sort of the ignorance is bliss model, but in this
Speaker 1: case it's not so much bliss as self sabotage meets
Speaker 1: self protection. Part of your book that really was so
Speaker 1: striking to me. You're in Denmark with your friend and
Speaker 1: in fact you do this beautiful beautiful, equating the original
Speaker 1: Hans Christian Anderson story about the Little Mermaid. And you know,
Speaker 1: the piece we forget is in the original telling of
Speaker 1: the story is that she makes all those sacrifices and
Speaker 1: and her legs feel like knives are going through them,
Speaker 1: and she loses her voice and all of that, and
Speaker 1: the Prince still rejects her. That part of your book
Speaker 1: gave me chills. But on that trip, at that point,
Speaker 1: your partner had already been chosen to be on the
Speaker 1: next season of Strictly Come Dancing, which for listeners it's
Speaker 1: like Dancing with the Stars in the States. And then
Speaker 1: you said to your friend, I don't feel good about this.
Speaker 1: I can already see where this is going to go.
Speaker 1: And even your friend there's been nothing but a support
Speaker 1: as like you're already thinking ahead to that, almost like
Speaker 1: you're you've created the story in your head. But as
Speaker 1: I read that part of the story of your instincts
Speaker 1: were spot on, like you knew him better than he
Speaker 1: knew himself at this point, right, And then you were like,
Speaker 1: I don't feel comfortable with this, But in the same breath,
Speaker 1: you're like, I want to be the supportive girlfriend, so
Speaker 1: I need to support him doing the very thing that
Speaker 1: I know is going to harm me. Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: It was such a feeling of helplessness because, as we've said,
Speaker 1: you know, what was at stake for me was everything
Speaker 1: that I've ever been told that I needed and how
Speaker 1: I am a valid adult woman, and so there I am,
Speaker 1: and I mean this extreme state of helplessness where I
Speaker 1: can choose to follow my instincts here and lose my relationship,
Speaker 1: or I can put my instincts to one side and
Speaker 1: choose to be supportive and lose myself. And at that
Speaker 1: point in my relationship, losing myself felt like, well, if
Speaker 1: I'm totally candid, it felt like the only option at
Speaker 1: that point for me, because I was so as you
Speaker 1: pointed out, trauma bonded with this person that I couldn't
Speaker 1: imagine a life without him. I really couldn't. And I
Speaker 1: just I would sit in this relationship and I would
Speaker 1: sit in bed at night and I would you know,
Speaker 1: be up not being able to sleep. And I love sleep.
Speaker 1: So that's how I always know that I I, you know,
Speaker 1: something's really really wrong here. But I would just think,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that this is my life. I can't
Speaker 1: believe that this is what my life is. But there
Speaker 1: was always a part of me that was saying to myself,
Speaker 1: but if you left, it could be worse. You know,
Speaker 1: think about what you have got. Think about what you
Speaker 1: have got. You've got this partner who is successful and
Speaker 1: has an incredible income. You have a flat age, you know,
Speaker 1: twenties seven years old. That's you know, that's it's completely
Speaker 1: impossible in London. But that doesn't happen. You have a
Speaker 1: successful partner who's famous, and every single person in your
Speaker 1: life thinks she landed on your feet. Why what's wrong
Speaker 1: with you? Why don't you? And yet the thing you're
Speaker 1: missing and there is is Rebecca getting to be her whole, full,
Speaker 1: authentic self and be loved for her. And that wasn't
Speaker 1: on the table under it, no flatten the world that
Speaker 1: can be better than that, and yet we tuck ourselves
Speaker 1: out of it. So he goes on Districtly Come Dancing.
Speaker 1: He starts dancing with this partner where this doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1: But you would show up to the tapings week over
Speaker 1: a week as his girlfriend. Yeah, I was there every
Speaker 1: single week. Yeah, sitting in the audience waiting to be
Speaker 1: acknowledged in thinking back on it now, it's such a
Speaker 1: funny thing to speak about it, because you know they
Speaker 1: say that when you look back on your life and
Speaker 1: it looks like a film and you're over it. And
Speaker 1: I really do feel that way, you know, the way
Speaker 1: that I speak about this person who was turning up
Speaker 1: to these recordings oft come dancing in her pretty dress
Speaker 1: and nice new shoes and nice new makeup, which is
Speaker 1: waiting to be told that I looked nice by my partner,
Speaker 1: because really that was how logo bar was set at
Speaker 1: that point. You know, if he had said you look nice,
Speaker 1: it would have felt like, you know, the sun had
Speaker 1: come through the class. But I think about her as
Speaker 1: a completely different woman, and she she is a completely
Speaker 1: different woman to me now that she's She's entirely different.
Speaker 1: She would turn up to these recordings and be so
Speaker 1: proud and also so delighted. I remember there was one
Speaker 1: week where he had done so well on this show
Speaker 1: and he had got some great marks for a passadoblay
Speaker 1: with his partner and I stood, I jumped to my
Speaker 1: feet and I was applauding and I was crying. In
Speaker 1: a big camera got innostantly wheeled in front of my face.
Speaker 1: To like have a full HD shot of all this
Speaker 1: emotion from this girlfriend. And I was standing and applauding
Speaker 1: and clapping because I felt so relieved from seeing with
Speaker 1: my own eyes that they had been rehearsing like they
Speaker 1: said they were up until nine pm. They hadn't been
Speaker 1: doing what I thought they'd been doing, which is having
Speaker 1: an illicit affair. And I was clapping and applauding in
Speaker 1: that audience because I felt so relieved that, yeah, I
Speaker 1: was a psychopath. This is such an apt metaphor that
Speaker 1: when we look back at ourselves in our narcissistic relationships,
Speaker 1: that it feels like a film and we are often
Speaker 1: a character that we no longer recognize. That's not a
Speaker 1: bad thing. It's a reminder that growth can and does
Speaker 1: happen after these relationships. And when we look backwards, the
Speaker 1: key is to nazi it from a place of shame,
Speaker 1: but rather from how far we have come, you know.
Speaker 1: And I was just there going to thank God my
Speaker 1: brain doesn't work and that there's something wrong with me,
Speaker 1: rather than be right about this and lo and behold.
Speaker 1: That was the very evening where in that car park
Speaker 1: he'd had to turn around and tell me that actually
Speaker 1: the following day that they were going to be in
Speaker 1: the papers, because I was right all along and they
Speaker 1: have been having an affair. We will be right back
Speaker 1: with this conversation. Lay that evening out for listeners, because
Speaker 1: I before as held on too. I can't believe I'm
Speaker 1: sitting here talking to you because I watched every word
Speaker 1: of that story. Oh my gosh, this is such a
Speaker 1: this is such a narcissistic story. But if you could
Speaker 1: you go from the pasodouble clapping. Thank goodness, they actually
Speaker 1: were rehearsing. I was wrong. I'm the paranoid one. There's
Speaker 1: something wrong with me. Take us to what happens after that.
Speaker 1: So I'm there in the audience and the recording ends,
Speaker 1: and there's a gazebo in a car park outside the
Speaker 1: studio where the guests of the performers can go and
Speaker 1: get a glass of wine and champagne and wait for
Speaker 1: their partners or the people that are in the show.
Speaker 1: And I'm there at the bar getting a glass of champagne,
Speaker 1: one for me and one for him, and I see
Speaker 1: his agent run through the gazebo, and I think that's strange.
Speaker 1: I am. I didn't know he was going to be
Speaker 1: there tonight, and everyone looks quite fasted. So I'm just
Speaker 1: sort of like totter out, you know, my cute little
Speaker 1: shoes with my prosecco one for me and with my
Speaker 1: boyfriends say well done. And I see the two of
Speaker 1: them having what looks like a crisis talk, and I
Speaker 1: go up to my boyfriend and I say, what's going on?
Speaker 1: And his agent just goes completely silent, and he looks ashen.
Speaker 1: This guy, you know, my boyfriend, this is well, both
Speaker 1: of them really completely ashen, and there's just silence, and
Speaker 1: I say, this is Are you ready for what I said?
Speaker 1: What have I done? Were my words? And his agent
Speaker 1: just looks at him and he goes, I think you
Speaker 1: better take her over there and tell her. We go
Speaker 1: over and this guy can't look me in the eye
Speaker 1: and he is fuming. I mean, he's absolutely livid. And
Speaker 1: at this point I have no idea why, and I
Speaker 1: just we're just standing there in complete silence, and I
Speaker 1: said to him, what's wrong? And he says, where are
Speaker 1: you sleeping tonight? I say, um, at home and he goes, no,
Speaker 1: you're not, so what is going on? You have to
Speaker 1: tell me what's going on? And he just laws at
Speaker 1: the sky, and then there's this pause and he says,
Speaker 1: the sun have got pictures of me and the dancer kissing.
Speaker 1: He doesn't look at me, like he's looking over my shoulder,
Speaker 1: and I just I'm telling you. And when I relay
Speaker 1: this next part of the story, it sounds like I'm
Speaker 1: writing a screenplay or something, but I'm absolutely not. It
Speaker 1: was as though a line of white light like a
Speaker 1: photocopier started at my head and went through my body
Speaker 1: and filled me with what I now know to be
Speaker 1: complete empowerment. And I just smiled and said, oh. In
Speaker 1: my head, all I could hear is he's not good
Speaker 1: enough you and he never has been. And you were right,
Speaker 1: you were right all along. But I didn't need to
Speaker 1: say anything. I didn't need say anything at all. I
Speaker 1: just went oh. And then he just and then he
Speaker 1: said I have to get them out of here before
Speaker 1: her husband hits me. And I said, I'm coming with you.
Speaker 1: You know you're not, and I said I am. And
Speaker 1: then I turned to his agent and I said, don't
Speaker 1: let him go anywhere, because he owes me this. And
Speaker 1: that was the evening. And PS. What I should also
Speaker 1: state was that the night that those pictures were taken.
Speaker 1: Pictures of the two of them kissing in the street
Speaker 1: were taken. Was three days earlier, and it was my
Speaker 1: thirty second birthday, and I had been waiting for him
Speaker 1: to come home where I had prepared dinner. And I
Speaker 1: called him because he texted me saying we'll go out
Speaker 1: for drink and I said, I don't know what's going on,
Speaker 1: but I called my best friends that I feel like
Speaker 1: there's something wrong here. I feel like it's not okay.
Speaker 1: Am I Am I being precious about this? Am I
Speaker 1: being you know, a brats to think that it's not
Speaker 1: okay for my boyfriends to go out with another woman
Speaker 1: on my birthday, especially a woman that he knows that
Speaker 1: I'm already paranoid about. When we are in a narcissistic relationship,
Speaker 1: we even start to doubt that two plus two is
Speaker 1: four and we need reassurance about really fundamental truths. Her
Speaker 1: boyfriend went out with another woman, a woman that Rebecca
Speaker 1: had shared her concerns about. He went out for a
Speaker 1: drink with another woman on Rebecca's birthday. And Rebecca is
Speaker 1: the one who was wondering if she is being too neurotic,
Speaker 1: too needy, and too sensitive. That's what these relationships due
Speaker 1: to us. Her instincts were always right. But after we
Speaker 1: have been gaslighted long enough, we will inevitably gaslight ourselves.
Speaker 1: And I called him up and I said please come home,
Speaker 1: and he shouted at me, and then he got home
Speaker 1: that later that evening and eight half of the cold
Speaker 1: lasagna that I had prepared, and said in the doorway
Speaker 1: of my bedroom, I just wish you could see the
Speaker 1: servers together and you would be able to see with
Speaker 1: your own eyes what psycho you are. So this whole thing,
Speaker 1: I mean you talk about the dream. I mean, in
Speaker 1: a way, it is the dream. It is like Bobby
Speaker 1: from Queer, I, you know, coming in and sorting my
Speaker 1: brain out for me and giving me a whole new,
Speaker 1: you know, load of soft furnishings and space that I
Speaker 1: never knew existed. But that was the evening, and then
Speaker 1: the Sun on Sunday ran with this headline and it
Speaker 1: was on the front pages about this affair that had happened.
Speaker 1: And what actually happened was that I got asked for
Speaker 1: comment by a lot of journalists who offered me a
Speaker 1: lot of money to sell my story and to have
Speaker 1: my say. As they put it to me. You know,
Speaker 1: it's we thought it was only fair, and I was like,
Speaker 1: how good of you. I guess that I knew that
Speaker 1: whatever I had to say would be on their terms
Speaker 1: the second that I gave it to anyone else. So
Speaker 1: I released a statement on Twitter and said, prompted by
Speaker 1: the fact that my boyfriend made a public apology and
Speaker 1: didn't acknowledge me at all in it at all, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'd love for you to read the statement here so
Speaker 1: because some people may and I have seen it and
Speaker 1: in your voice, I want people to hear the statement
Speaker 1: because honestly, we could have just had you read the statement,
Speaker 1: and this could have been the whole episode. It's that good, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll read it to you. So my statement read, hello there,
Speaker 1: my name is Rebecca Humphries, and I am not a victim.
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure whether to respond to events from the
Speaker 1: past week, but I feel the narrative has missed a
Speaker 1: couple of crucial elements that I would like to clear up.
Speaker 1: It's incredibly good of my boyfriend and his dance partner
Speaker 1: to apologize in the media. I've received nothing other than
Speaker 1: the support of my family, friends and a host of
Speaker 1: strangers on the internet who all wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: I was okay. But I have also kindly received are
Speaker 1: many offers to sell my side of the story, but
Speaker 1: I would prefer for it to be on my own terms.
Speaker 1: Those pictures were taken on October three, it was my birthday.
Speaker 1: I was alone at home when he texted at ten
Speaker 1: pm saying the two of them were going for one
Speaker 1: innocent drink. We spoke and I told him, not for
Speaker 1: the first time, that his actions over the past three
Speaker 1: weeks had led me to believe something inappropriate was going on.
Speaker 1: He aggressively and repeatedly called me a psycho, slash nuts,
Speaker 1: slash mentor, as he has done countless times throughout our
Speaker 1: relationship when I've questioned his inappropriate, hurtful behavior. But this
Speaker 1: whole business has served to remind me that I am
Speaker 1: a strong, capable person who was now free and no victim.
Speaker 1: I have a voice, and I will use it by
Speaker 1: saying this to any woman out there who deep down
Speaker 1: feels worthless and trapped with a man they love. Believe
Speaker 1: in yourself and your instincts. It's more than lying is controlling.
Speaker 1: Tell some very close friends who if there are anything
Speaker 1: like my wonderful network will swoop in and take care
Speaker 1: of the logistics and a view. It's important also to
Speaker 1: recognize that in these situations, those who hold power over
Speaker 1: you are insecure and fragile, and their need for control
Speaker 1: comes from a place of vulnerability. I think it certainly
Speaker 1: does in his case, despite everything. I hope he gets
Speaker 1: what he wants from this. I'm not sorry I took
Speaker 1: the cat. They love Rebecca. It's the best Twitter post
Speaker 1: actually ever in the history of Twitter post. And I'm
Speaker 1: not sorry I took the cat though actually could have
Speaker 1: been the title of the memoir, which was actually where
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, I love this woman. You always you
Speaker 1: always take the cat, you always take in vain. So
Speaker 1: this statement gets posted and then what you just did?
Speaker 1: You post it at night and just go to sleep.
Speaker 1: You know what happened was I had a huge crisis
Speaker 1: of confidence throughout that day. I wrote it on the Monday,
Speaker 1: so the day after the papers came out and consulted
Speaker 1: with almost everyone, including my therapist, who took one look
Speaker 1: at it and said, Rebecca, you have to post this
Speaker 1: because you have a voice. And I took that very
Speaker 1: very seriously, and I just had this moment where I
Speaker 1: was sitting at this kitchen table and my friends were
Speaker 1: making me dinner, you know, and she was sort of
Speaker 1: taking all of the roast potatoes and the greens into
Speaker 1: the other room and said, you know, whenever you're ready,
Speaker 1: and I went okay, okay, and I sat there and
Speaker 1: I just when I'm too scared, and then I just
Speaker 1: had this moment where I was like, Rebecca, I don't
Speaker 1: want to look back on my life and see any
Speaker 1: moments where I had an opportunity to assert myself and
Speaker 1: didn't take it. I don't want that for myself. And
Speaker 1: with that thought, I just went in clicks end and
Speaker 1: ran into the other room and I just went I've
Speaker 1: done it, and they went okay. And then not thirty
Speaker 1: seconds later, I could hear my phone vibrating in the
Speaker 1: other room and I just didn't stop. It just didn't stop,
Speaker 1: and I and I leaped up and I ran and
Speaker 1: I looked at my phone and everyone I knew messaging me,
Speaker 1: calling me. I opened up the laptop and I actually
Speaker 1: threw it at my friend Bell. I was like, just
Speaker 1: look at it, look at it. I can't look at it.
Speaker 1: And she looked and she said, it's had three thousand
Speaker 1: likes and this was within ten minutes, and honestly, it
Speaker 1: was wild. It was on the news at ten in
Speaker 1: the UK and it was a moment really like. People
Speaker 1: were retweeting it, women's charities were retweeting it saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you might have noticed that in my statement, I very
Speaker 1: very deliberately didn't use the word gas lighting because I
Speaker 1: just wanted to lay out the behavior and I wanted
Speaker 1: to not be accusatory. I wanted the world to the
Speaker 1: world to call it not me, and that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: People were headlining this is what gas lighting looks like,
Speaker 1: this is what this means. And the following day I
Speaker 1: woke up and I was on the front page of
Speaker 1: every newspaper in the UK saying this is empowerment, this
Speaker 1: is this is what this means. And it was a
Speaker 1: real It was just most amazing. It was the most
Speaker 1: amazing example for myself of when you step into your authenticity,
Speaker 1: people hear you, people really do. It was beyond viral.
Speaker 1: It was the manifesto we wanted to hear and in
Speaker 1: many ways very powerful from you. You're an incredibly accomplished actress, writer.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're looked upon as like, Oh, she must
Speaker 1: have her life together. She's wonderful, she's perfect, she's cool.
Speaker 1: And when you put that statement out there, you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if this happened to her, it happened to me. It's
Speaker 1: not because I'm less than or foolish, like she has
Speaker 1: it all together and I this happened to me, And
Speaker 1: it happens to people at all. People. It happens to
Speaker 1: women who are profoundly powerful and women who have no
Speaker 1: power at are the universality of it. I think you
Speaker 1: really gave it voice. Everyone else might be empowered, and
Speaker 1: I understand at that moment something shut down for you.
Speaker 1: But at this point he didn't catch you two inches
Speaker 1: above the pavement. So this is going on. You're having
Speaker 1: your own personal experience. What were the initial days and
Speaker 1: weeks like after this post went out and the relationship ended. Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting that you say that, because really, at
Speaker 1: that point that was and I really wasn't in the
Speaker 1: public eye at that point at all. He and I
Speaker 1: met on a sitcom. So we met on a TV show,
Speaker 1: where may I say, because you know why not? I
Speaker 1: had I had a bigger role than he did at
Speaker 1: that time I was. I was more constable at that
Speaker 1: moment in my life. Well, that was one of the
Speaker 1: first things to go well, because I allowed him to
Speaker 1: diminish me and my career in order to elevate his
Speaker 1: own for such a long time, and it felt like
Speaker 1: there was only room enough for one career in that
Speaker 1: house and it had to be his. So my career
Speaker 1: was gone. Mean I walked out that night that those
Speaker 1: pictures were in the newspapers. I didn't have a boyfriend,
Speaker 1: I didn't have a home, I didn't have a job,
Speaker 1: I didn't have any income anymore. But what I did
Speaker 1: have was, it turns out, more self respect than I
Speaker 1: would ever have given myself credit for, and a voice
Speaker 1: and my worth all of a sudden, And it's like
Speaker 1: you said earlier, there's no flat in the world that
Speaker 1: means as much as that. And I really truly felt
Speaker 1: what that was like during that period of time, and
Speaker 1: it didn't matter. I also saw for myself truly during
Speaker 1: that time, because of how dramatic it was, because of
Speaker 1: how much I had lost and and how it was
Speaker 1: many people's worst nightmare what happened to me, And so
Speaker 1: what I really really got to take stock of was
Speaker 1: what love actually looked like, which was the love of
Speaker 1: my family and my friends, who showed the hell up
Speaker 1: for me in that moment and flooded me with respect, honesty,
Speaker 1: open and honest communication, their trust, their support, their affection,
Speaker 1: their care, all stuff that I had been missing in
Speaker 1: a relationship that I was labeling love. And suddenly I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my gosh. I felt so emotional living
Speaker 1: with my friends during that point, because it was truly
Speaker 1: unfathomable to me that I could live under the same
Speaker 1: roof as people who behave as though they enjoyed my company,
Speaker 1: and honestly, I felt completely enriched by by that experience,
Speaker 1: and of course I had a broken heart. And of
Speaker 1: course this is something that people don't really speak about
Speaker 1: enough about when you leave those kind of relationships and
Speaker 1: leave emotionally abusive relationships, which is that there were points
Speaker 1: where I was just like, for no reason, for no
Speaker 1: apparent reason, I'm standing here and it's bonfire night in
Speaker 1: the UK, and there are fire what's happening. I've got
Speaker 1: hot dog in my hands and I miss him and
Speaker 1: I'm missing and I know he's an ass and I
Speaker 1: you know, I know that he did all these awful
Speaker 1: things to me. But good God, I wish he was here.
Speaker 1: And I can't tell you why that is, but those
Speaker 1: moments appears and I felt like I could handle them.
Speaker 1: I felt like I could, Yeah, because of because of
Speaker 1: the love and support of everyone around me, and the
Speaker 1: love and respect for myself that I had after asserting
Speaker 1: myself in that way. That's a profound point. I'm so
Speaker 1: happy you had it, and I couldn't agree more because
Speaker 1: as a psychologist who weighs in and works with folks
Speaker 1: on this every day, it's hard to create a social
Speaker 1: support network for someone. So some people would go through
Speaker 1: something not as public as you did, but certainly that
Speaker 1: moment of revelation and they don't have support. And it's
Speaker 1: because they often become quite isolated in these relationships. So
Speaker 1: your story shows us the profundity in many ways how
Speaker 1: important support is to get to the other side, because
Speaker 1: you have accurate mirrors, you have people who validate you,
Speaker 1: you have people who help you keep that gaslight turned off.
Speaker 1: Your story is sort of an incredible example of that,
Speaker 1: and that there's that moment sometimes in these relationships you suffer,
Speaker 1: you suffer, you get confused, you you sort of believe
Speaker 1: this hype, you go on the roller coaster ride. So
Speaker 1: when the entire cover is pulled off and it's shown
Speaker 1: for what it is, in a way, you've actually kind
Speaker 1: of been doing the disconnection from the relationship for a
Speaker 1: long time. You were just waiting for that final piece
Speaker 1: of evidence, and then there it was, and so you
Speaker 1: had that support. And how has life been since? Because
Speaker 1: you've actually become a really important voice for this kind
Speaker 1: of emotional abuse and within relationships that often hasn't had
Speaker 1: a voice, and your your work has been really really
Speaker 1: powerful to those of us who act in this world's
Speaker 1: advocates a therapist. So, how have you been doing? How
Speaker 1: is how is your process of healing been unfolding? Well,
Speaker 1: it's been It's been hard walk, It's not been easy, kids.
Speaker 1: You know what I realized quite early on that a
Speaker 1: lot of my healing process was going to take a
Speaker 1: lot of looking in the damn mirror. And for those
Speaker 1: of us who feel insecure and you know, have a
Speaker 1: low sense of self esteem as it is, you know,
Speaker 1: looking in the mirror can feel almost scarier than just
Speaker 1: making the same mistakes until we die sometimes, you know.
Speaker 1: But you know, it took a lot of boldness and bravery,
Speaker 1: and of course that support network to step up and
Speaker 1: do that. And it has been the most challenging and
Speaker 1: rewarding four years of my entire life. I mean, my
Speaker 1: work has has flourished, no question, because I no longer
Speaker 1: go to auditions with a person going well doing doing
Speaker 1: their best to make me aware that my best probably
Speaker 1: won't be good enough in that meeting, you know, And
Speaker 1: now I you know, suddenly I didn't have that anymore.
Speaker 1: And lo and behold, there I am being handed work
Speaker 1: and and of course the revelation sations that I am
Speaker 1: discovering about emotional abuse and about like you say that
Speaker 1: it comes for strong, sexy, intelligent, cool women as much
Speaker 1: as it does for women that we want to label
Speaker 1: victims in our society or the way that pop culture
Speaker 1: presents victim hoods. I'm making all these discoveries that, oh man,
Speaker 1: that's wrong, and no one's talking about that, so I
Speaker 1: guess I will, you know, I guess that's that's my job,
Speaker 1: because I needed to know that when I was in
Speaker 1: that relationship and no one was talking about it. So
Speaker 1: now I need to say it because the idea that
Speaker 1: people don't know about this is just doesn't make any
Speaker 1: sense to me at all. So you know, lots of
Speaker 1: my work has been about uncovering those things and finding
Speaker 1: ways to speak about them. I've spoke in the House
Speaker 1: of Commons in the UK about gas lighting in the
Speaker 1: media and the media's portrayal of victim hoods. And obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to write this book, and I
Speaker 1: had this idea to write the book. It was actually
Speaker 1: during the pandemic when I just had this or my
Speaker 1: moment of going, what's happening in this world. I don't
Speaker 1: have any work, of course, but I'm they're going, thank god,
Speaker 1: I'm not in that flat anymore. Thank God I'm not there.
Speaker 1: And when I had that thought, I thought, how many
Speaker 1: women in this country are living with partners and they
Speaker 1: have no idea that they are experiencing emotional abuse and
Speaker 1: someone needs to do something. Rebecca is sharing the classical
Speaker 1: story of thriving after a person gets out of one
Speaker 1: of these relationships. Narcissistic relationships are often a block. We
Speaker 1: stop taking risks, we hold back, We're afraid of their criticism,
Speaker 1: and we are afraid of our own success. Not only
Speaker 1: do our careers and pursuits often get diminished in these relationships,
Speaker 1: but so many people thrive when they are finally over.
Speaker 1: I think everyone in these relationships says, I know, this
Speaker 1: isn't right. It's probably my fault, and people around them
Speaker 1: may also be thinking well of relationships or just tough,
Speaker 1: so it's complicated. There's a point in the book where
Speaker 1: you questioned, if you were becoming a narcissist, why did
Speaker 1: you think that? Well, I suppose the reason I thought
Speaker 1: that was because when I came out of the relationship,
Speaker 1: I was so unaccustomed to thinking about myself and my
Speaker 1: needs and my experiences, my feelings. I was just learning
Speaker 1: that language. And I look back on that now and
Speaker 1: I think, no, I wasn't obsessed with who I was.
Speaker 1: I was just developing a healthy relationship with myself and
Speaker 1: my intellectual self and my emotional self. And I was
Speaker 1: developing a dialogue. But for me, a healthy dialogue looked
Speaker 1: like self obsession because I never I never had it before. Ever,
Speaker 1: I agree, yeah it is. And suddenly I'm there, going, oh,
Speaker 1: I can all I can think about is myself and
Speaker 1: you know whatever, And all I seem to be talking
Speaker 1: about is myself, you know, and my own narcissists, so
Speaker 1: my friends, and that's sort of going oh. I think
Speaker 1: so many survivors have this experience of thinking that they
Speaker 1: themselves may be a narcissist when they are in these relationships.
Speaker 1: Whether it's because the other person is saying you are,
Speaker 1: because you are constantly ruminating about the relationship, because you
Speaker 1: find yourself talking about it all the time, or because
Speaker 1: you are thinking about what you need or what you want.
Speaker 1: That internal obsessive rumination is a classical part of the
Speaker 1: fallout of narcissistic abuse and gas lighting. And no, it
Speaker 1: does not mean you are narcissistic. Do you have any
Speaker 1: questions for me? I do have a question for you,
Speaker 1: And great, I suppose that there's a chancel. I'm coming
Speaker 1: at this with too much empathy really, given what we
Speaker 1: know about narcissists. But my question is is that it
Speaker 1: has to do with a narcissist born or made and
Speaker 1: is narcissism? Uh? Can it? Can it be put down
Speaker 1: to being a coping mechanism for something fortum? Narcissism in
Speaker 1: many ways is a set of defenses that protect the
Speaker 1: core insecurity of the person who has those defenses. Being grandiose,
Speaker 1: being arrogant, being entitled, gas lighting, manipulating. In essence, everything
Speaker 1: is to maintain their sense of power and domination so
Speaker 1: they don't have to have that uncomfortable shame of having
Speaker 1: all of that percolate up. It's all an unconscious process.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets tricky, Rebecca. I love your empathy,
Speaker 1: but the fact of the matter is, is is your number
Speaker 1: two that that person in your life he was able
Speaker 1: to turn on the charm and then very quickly when
Speaker 1: he had you by yourself, called you a psycho. He
Speaker 1: wasn't doing that in front of other people. He was
Speaker 1: doing that when he was alone with you, so he
Speaker 1: wouldn't look like a bad guy. That's a choice. A
Speaker 1: person who was really that disregulated would do it in
Speaker 1: front of everyone. Okay, that that's a definite definitely a
Speaker 1: different process. But he was very calculated, and that calculation
Speaker 1: requires a relatively high level of functioning. So he really
Speaker 1: was living in service too. I want my way and
Speaker 1: I'll do whatever I need to do, and it's open
Speaker 1: season on my partner. I can say whatever I want
Speaker 1: to Rebecca because she's going to keep coming back. So
Speaker 1: rather than saying I shouldn't say to someone, I could
Speaker 1: hurt them, I could lose them his schema as I
Speaker 1: can always pull her back. I would say those defenses
Speaker 1: are a way of protecting the narcissistic person. Narcissism is made.
Speaker 1: There's a temperament narcissistic people have. There's a certain temperament
Speaker 1: as children they likely had, but not even that in
Speaker 1: every case. But the environment shapes them. And some narcissistic people, yes,
Speaker 1: are shaped by trauma and chaos and invalidation and issues
Speaker 1: with attachment. But some narcissists are shaped by simply being
Speaker 1: overindulged and being told you're more special than anybody else.
Speaker 1: And because some people do grow up with trauma and invalidation,
Speaker 1: in fact, most don't grow up to be narcissistic. There's
Speaker 1: something else up reading there. It also can be that
Speaker 1: temperamental piece. So it's complicated. It's very complicated, but it's
Speaker 1: not fully a trauma reaction. There's enough people out there
Speaker 1: who didn't have that backstory. But ultimately many, many people
Speaker 1: who go through trauma. Again, I'd argue most don't end
Speaker 1: up narcissistic. But this idea that it's a coping mechanism,
Speaker 1: it is a defensive mechanism but they know better because
Speaker 1: he would not have treated you the way he would
Speaker 1: have treated a casting agent. Right. The fact that he
Speaker 1: can make that discrimination mean he knew, he knew damn
Speaker 1: well what he was doing. Well, I mean, it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Rebecca, Thank you so much for sharing your story,
Speaker 1: your experience with it, not just the public story we saw,
Speaker 1: but what happened to you and how it is such
Speaker 1: a universal experience for so many people. Many people say, well,
Speaker 1: maybe it was something about me I attract these people.
Speaker 1: I say, now, the charm, the charisma, the stuff that
Speaker 1: drew you in with this guy would have drawn in
Speaker 1: anyone and anyone in that situation being manipulated. It's a
Speaker 1: game of cat and mouse. The mouse never wins. Here
Speaker 1: are my takeaways from my conversation with Rebecca. First, in
Speaker 1: a narcissistic relationship, our heart breaks long before the relationship
Speaker 1: actually ends. The day to day of the relationship with
Speaker 1: the alternation between idealization and devaluation, rescue and abandonment, leaves
Speaker 1: a person who was in one of these relationships confused
Speaker 1: and hurt. It's a bit like breaking your leg in
Speaker 1: the same place every month. In Rebecca's story, the ultimate end,
Speaker 1: and the moment of clarity when she realized that she
Speaker 1: had been gaslighted and devalued was actually a moment of clarity,
Speaker 1: not devastation. She had done the hard work of heartbreak
Speaker 1: over the years she was in the relationship. When she
Speaker 1: finally got confirmation of what it really was and saw it,
Speaker 1: that clarity carried her forward into her healing. In this
Speaker 1: next takeaway, these relationships only work when we make ourselves small,
Speaker 1: and that means abandoning our aspirations, our goals, selling ourselves short,
Speaker 1: and giving up on our own interest. To support the
Speaker 1: narcissistic person's pursuits, we have to diminish our successes so
Speaker 1: as to not threaten them or harm their fragile egos.
Speaker 1: For many folks in or coming out of narcissistic relationships,
Speaker 1: they will find that they actually couldn't achieve what they
Speaker 1: wanted even if they tried. While they're in these relationships,
Speaker 1: it's as though the relationship is a toxic blockade. And
Speaker 1: yet once people get out of these relationships, they find
Speaker 1: themselves pursuing goals, making things happen, and going for it.
Speaker 1: Rebecca's story is not unusual of finding herself and thriving
Speaker 1: and finding her voice. After she got out. We shrink
Speaker 1: ourselves so they can feel big, and sometimes getting out
Speaker 1: means a chance to finally fully occupy ourselves and shine.
Speaker 1: In my next takeaway, in Rebecca's book and in the interview,
Speaker 1: she shares the real original story of the Little Mermaid
Speaker 1: as told by Hans Christian Anderson. It's not the Disney
Speaker 1: version where the mermaid gets her voice and they live
Speaker 1: happily ever after. In the original, the mermaid gives it
Speaker 1: all up, including her voice, and lives in pain to
Speaker 1: win the prince over, just to be rejected and die.
Speaker 1: Hans Christian didn't know he was writing the template for
Speaker 1: a narcissistic relationship. In the original stories of snow white
Speaker 1: and sleeping beauty, men in power fall in love with
Speaker 1: or have non consensual sex with sleeping women who also
Speaker 1: have no voice. In modern times, we have sanitized these
Speaker 1: fairy tales in a manner that romanticizes, ignoring red flags
Speaker 1: with the promise of the happily ever after. Maybe keeping
Speaker 1: the fairy tales and they're terrifying and tragic original formats
Speaker 1: may be more honest. Ultimately, these watered down fairy tales
Speaker 1: create distorted expectations on what relationships are supposed to be.
Speaker 1: Perhaps we will one day have fairy tales that involve equity, respect, compassion, empathy,
Speaker 1: and kindness in the relationship, with everyone awake and nobody
Speaker 1: having to give up their voices to be in love.
Speaker 1: In a way, Rebecca's tale is a modern fairy tale.
Speaker 1: By getting away from the pseudo prince, she gets her
Speaker 1: voice back. And in my last takeaway, Rebecca, like many survivors,
Speaker 1: had empathy for her partner's backstory, a childhood that was
Speaker 1: more difficult and bleak than her own, and in a
Speaker 1: compassionate way, would attribute his manipulative behavior to his tough
Speaker 1: backstory and give him a free pass. And this is
Speaker 1: something that many a toxic person also does for themselves.
Speaker 1: I just had a tough childhood. That's why I do
Speaker 1: these things. It's always hard to hear that someone had
Speaker 1: a tough start in life, but you aren't responsible for that,
Speaker 1: and using that as a justification for their bad behavior
Speaker 1: in the relationship misses the larger picture that the majority
Speaker 1: of people with difficult childhoods do not behave badly in relationships.
Speaker 1: Be careful at how much you let their backstory be
Speaker 1: a place where you justify behavior that is harming you,
Speaker 1: because this can be a cycle that is almost impossible
Speaker 1: to break out of. A big thank you to our
Speaker 1: executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valen Jethro, Ellen Rakaton and
Speaker 1: Dr Rominey Dr Vassila, And thank you to our producer
Speaker 1: Matthew Jones, associate producer Mara Dela Rosa, and consultant Kelly Ebling.
Speaker 1: And finally, thank you to our editors and sound engineers
Speaker 1: Devin Donnaghy and Calvin Bailiff.