Latest / Heal Yourself Podcast / Episode 20: Healing After Narcissistic Relationships
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: Welcome to the Heal Yourself Podcast, where we dive deep into all things healing.
- 0:08Speaker 1: I'm Denise, a speech-language pathologist and a self-love coach for adults and teens.
- 0:15Speaker 2: And I'm Kira, a traditional naturopath and functional nutritionist, and we are here to guide you through the transformative process of healing your body, mind and soul.
- 0:25Speaker 1: From the latest in functional medicine to nurturing your relationship with yourself, healing trauma and even transforming your money story.
- 0:33Speaker 1: We're here to empower you with the knowledge and tools to create lasting change.
- 0:39Speaker 2: So, whether you're looking to heal physically, emotionally or spiritually, join us as we explore the many paths to wholeness and wellness.
- 0:46Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode Today.
- 0:57Speaker 2: It's just me.
- 0:57Speaker 2: I'm sorry Denise could not join us, but I do have a special guest for you.
- 1:03Speaker 2: Her name is Michelle Spexarth.
- 1:05Speaker 2: I hope I said that right.
- 1:06Speaker 2: She's a trauma-informed coach who helps people who've been through narcissistic abuse and toxic relationships.
- 1:14Speaker 2: She's the leader of an online community that focuses on healing and breaking the cycle of abuse, and I have to say, this is so needed.
- 1:22Speaker 2: So welcome Michelle.
- 1:24Speaker 3: Thank you.
- 1:24Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
- 1:25Speaker 3: I'm so excited to be here.
- 1:27Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited to chat about this.
- 1:29Speaker 2: First I'm just going to say I have been very lucky, I've never been in a toxic relationship, so I'm coming at these questions from a different angle, pure curiosity.
- 1:41Speaker 2: But first I want to ask, because I know most listeners want to know how did you get into this space?
- 1:47Speaker 2: Cause usually there's a story behind it.
- 1:49Speaker 3: Oh, yes, I believe that there's always a story behind anybody that goes into this, just like, they say, a psychologist goes into it, because they have their own mental garbage that they need to work through.
- 2:00Speaker 3: Um, so basically my parents divorced when I was four and my dad was physically abusive, and then my mom remarried when I was eight and I believe she married a narcissist.
- 2:13Speaker 3: At the time everybody kept saying he's so amazing, you're going to be so glad he's your stepdad, but grew up in that toxic relationship with my parents feeling very much abandoned, neglected not physically neglected, but emotionally and mentally neglected.
- 2:31Speaker 3: As I grew up, I chose relationships that were not good for me.
- 2:39Speaker 3: Most of them were addicts or, you know, alcoholics or abusive.
- 2:44Speaker 3: So when I am trying to remember how old I was, my first marriage was to an alcoholic.
- 2:51Speaker 3: He was also physically abusive and I got out of that rather quickly.
- 2:57Speaker 3: But so then, when I had a couple more relationships, alcohol drugs were involved.
- 3:03Speaker 3: I had a couple more relationships, alcohol drugs were involved.
- 3:07Speaker 3: And then I met my second husband and my thought was well, he's better than anybody else I've dated, so this is going to be okay.
- 3:14Speaker 3: Married a narcissist and we were married for 18 years, had five children together and just didn't have that word narcissist.
- 3:24Speaker 3: When I left, I just thought this cannot be what a healthy, good relationship is.
- 3:29Speaker 3: You know, I felt crazy.
- 3:31Speaker 3: I felt like unheard again, felt the abandonment and then neglect from him, not physically but emotionally.
- 3:40Speaker 3: And so it was six years ago that I left and divorced, and since then I've been on this journey of healing and I feel like it was very challenging for me.
- 3:52Speaker 3: I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know where to go, and so I want to provide other people with the opportunity to do it better than I did, and so that's why I do what I do is because there's a better way.
- 4:08Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 4:09Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 4:10Speaker 2: And you obviously want to help people, because that's not.
- 4:13Speaker 2: It's not an easy situation I can imagine, but especially not with kids.
- 4:17Speaker 2: I mean, I've got one kiddo and just thinking about being like on my own scares the living hell out of me, about being like on my own scares the living hell out of me.
- 4:30Speaker 2: Yeah, um, this one's kind of a funny question, but I feel like it's actually not a funny question because so many women get stuck in these toxic relationships.
- 4:35Speaker 2: Are there signs, are there clues that people ignore in the beginning?
- 4:42Speaker 3: There are here's, the here's.
- 4:44Speaker 3: The interesting thing, though, is that, if that's all you grew up with, you don't even know what to look for, and I'll speak just for myself is that there were plenty of red flags, as they call them, but I was oblivious, or I just didn't understand, like that that was a thing that should make me run away.
- 5:08Speaker 3: I was grateful somebody wanted me, and so that made any red flags like not even show up for me.
- 5:16Speaker 3: Things that you can look for are them criticizing you, gaslighting where they're, like oh no, that didn't really happen.
- 5:28Speaker 3: Um, that it was, you know, or how could you think of it that way?
- 5:31Speaker 3: That's not, you know, that's not what this is.
- 5:34Speaker 3: Um, anytime where there's manipulation, um, these kinds of things are the things that you can look for.
- 5:41Speaker 3: Um, I think about, like the like, the courting and stuff like that.
- 5:47Speaker 3: Like, one thing that happened is I drove a friend home, and it was a guy friend that I worked with, and I just dropped him off at the curb.
- 5:55Speaker 3: He lived in an upstairs apartment, and I told my at that time fiance, um, that I had done that, and, um, he, at that time, didn't say anything, but he said did anything else happen.
- 6:12Speaker 3: You know he likes you and I'm like it doesn't really matter whether he likes me or not, that's not the space I'm in.
- 6:19Speaker 3: He can you know whatever.
- 6:21Speaker 3: Um, and he's like are you sure you didn't go into his apartment?
- 6:25Speaker 3: You know those kinds of little things and I was just like, no, I didn't.
- 6:30Speaker 3: We'll later come to find out.
- 6:32Speaker 3: Years later he he's like I know you went up there.
- 6:36Speaker 3: I know that you slept with him.
- 6:38Speaker 3: I know you did all these things.
- 6:39Speaker 3: He'd held that all those years, till we were married 15 years to come out with all the thoughts that he had about it that weren't even true.
- 6:48Speaker 3: But so these little tiny things where they are questioning you and accusing you of things that you're, that you haven't done and aren't trusting you and you know that you're trustworthy, these are the things that you really, really have to watch for.
- 7:04Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's super helpful, and you said something that I think is so powerful and this has become a theme of our podcast because it seems to come up.
- 7:13Speaker 2: But it's how we grow up.
- 7:15Speaker 2: You know, those first seven years of your life are so formative.
- 7:19Speaker 2: If all you know is you know relationships that don't serve you and unhealthy ones, of course that's what you're going to be drawn to, because that's all that's been modeled for you, and that's a piece of why we do this podcast is we want people to look at healing in all aspects, so you don't end up in a horrible place and you can start to heal all those little pieces of you that need it.
- 7:43Speaker 1: Right yeah.
- 7:46Speaker 2: So I'm curious how does it look to work with you?
- 7:50Speaker 2: Because I know you work with women who were out of these relationships, but what does it look like if they're in the relationship?
- 7:57Speaker 2: Cause it's not like you can be like, okay, just go leave.
- 8:00Speaker 3: Right, you know, you should just go, just sit out, don't have the coaching.
- 8:04Speaker 3: That's it.
- 8:04Speaker 3: It's not.
- 8:06Speaker 3: It isn't that easy and it's.
- 8:08Speaker 3: It's one of those things where, um, looking back, I just wanted to get the heck out, because it was like once, you know, you know and you can't not see it anymore, and it's like I have to get out of here.
- 8:20Speaker 3: I'm going crazy, I cannot stay in his space anymore, and so, financially, I did not prepare.
- 8:27Speaker 3: I was a stay-at-home mom for 18 years, so I had no income of my own, but I didn't even think about that, and so I leaned heavily on my parents as I left.
- 8:38Speaker 3: However, if you are in a place where you do not feel like you can leave, there are still things that you can do to help yourself, and the first thing I would highly recommend is to educate yourself on what narcissistic abuse looks like and to read books, to listen to podcasts, to.
- 8:59Speaker 3: You can be a part of my free Facebook group that I have.
- 9:03Speaker 3: That provides tons of information as to how to cope.
- 9:08Speaker 3: I would also get yourself into therapy and make sure that you choose a therapist that is trauma informed, because if you just choose a therapist, some of them can cause more harm than good, so you want to be very careful about that.
- 9:24Speaker 3: Some of them can cause more harm than good, so you want to be very careful about that.
- 9:26Speaker 3: But that's going to help you to cope with where you are and to understand what's going on.
- 9:30Speaker 3: And then, if when you did decide that you needed to leave, make sure that you are financially positioned for success and that you choose a really good attorney, because that makes a world of difference too.
- 9:44Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, unless you're dating, of course, then you don't have to deal with it, that's right and you can just walk away.
- 9:52Speaker 3: You want to go.
- 9:52Speaker 3: If you want to go.
- 9:53Speaker 2: Yeah, um, this one's a bit of a loaded question, so I know we can only go into it so much.
- 9:58Speaker 2: But what does the healing process look like?
- 10:01Speaker 2: Like, let's say, you leave that and you don't want to get into another relationship, like that, what's?
- 10:08Speaker 3: and maybe it's just your healing process, but so what I have witnessed over time over this time, is that the major issue is that, as a child of that trauma, of that abuse, is that we are constantly looking outside of ourselves for validation, for measuring, and when I talk about measuring I talk about I look outside myself.
- 10:39Speaker 3: How do I need to adjust, how do I need to shift myself in order to create peace or to keep things peaceful or to make sure everybody's happy, so that I don't get into a place of danger?
- 10:52Speaker 3: And so what that creates is the always looking outside of ourselves position.
- 10:59Speaker 3: So we don't even know what we're feeling, we don't even know what we are thinking, we don't even know what we like, what we don't like, because we have lived outside of ourselves our whole lives.
- 11:11Speaker 3: And so the biggest thing is to start just having your own agency, and I say it like it's just like, oh yeah, you know, just have your own agency.
- 11:23Speaker 3: But it really is a huge journey to get there.
- 11:29Speaker 3: And so the things that I always tell people is to journal and to read your journal when you, after you've written it, and you can go back, and maybe you only do it once a month or something like that, but you're going to be able to see the patterns of what's happening with you, or you'll be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe.
- 11:49Speaker 3: I thought that.
- 11:50Speaker 3: And even sharing that with somebody that is healthy, or a coach or your therapist or something, so that you can help piece that apart to see where your pitfalls are.
- 12:02Speaker 3: Um, that's one.
- 12:04Speaker 3: The other thing is to get in into connection with your own body, and you can do that by grounding, by meditation.
- 12:13Speaker 3: Um, I highly encourage people to start going out and figuring out what you like, what you don't like and not really like I'm.
- 12:22Speaker 3: I'm.
- 12:23Speaker 3: You know, I went into that situation.
- 12:25Speaker 3: I absolutely hated it.
- 12:26Speaker 3: That was disgusting.
- 12:27Speaker 3: I'll never do that again.
- 12:28Speaker 3: Not like that, but as huh, okay, well, I had that experience and be very analytical about it.
- 12:35Speaker 3: Did I like it?
- 12:36Speaker 3: Did I not?
- 12:37Speaker 3: Are there pieces of it that I liked and pieces of it that I didn't?
- 12:41Speaker 3: And the reason you do that is because you're learning about yourself and you're learning you know your things too.
- 12:51Speaker 3: And the other thing is boundaries, because for the majority of us that have been through that, we don't even we don't.
- 12:59Speaker 3: We have zero boundaries.
- 13:00Speaker 3: We just totally are on whatever everybody else is doing.
- 13:05Speaker 2: Yeah, those are the big things, would you say it's safe to say that when you're in one of those relationships, then you lose your sense of identity Absolutely?
- 13:15Speaker 3: Absolutely you do.
- 13:16Speaker 3: I could see that.
- 13:18Speaker 2: So yeah, it is.
- 13:19Speaker 2: It's relearning the things that you like, the things that you don't like.
- 13:22Speaker 2: It's rediscovering yourself.
- 13:24Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm curious with that, there seems to also be some isolation, right, because or at least I imagine so do you think isolation plays a role in narcissistic abuse?
- 13:40Speaker 3: It plays a bigger role than I think that we give value to.
- 13:45Speaker 3: And so the thing is is that if they, when they get you isolated, then you don't have any other measure of healthy, you don't have a measure of what is normal or what is unacceptable, because you're living just in that space of that person and of the whatever, Like mine was my family and my children and my husband and we.
- 14:15Speaker 3: I was allowed to have one other friend that he approved of and anything beyond that.
- 14:21Speaker 3: If I wanted to be friends with them, they were, um, trying to, you know, invade our space.
- 14:28Speaker 3: They were not good for us or I was too good for them.
- 14:31Speaker 3: These are things that I was told.
- 14:34Speaker 3: Or did you see the way they were looking at you?
- 14:37Speaker 3: Or I heard them talking bad about you in order to not want you to have those outside friends and to stay in the isolation.
- 14:45Speaker 3: And that happens with the families too, you know, I mean they, they can, they do a good number of isolation in order to be able to continue to control and manipulate you.
- 14:56Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say it seems like it's a powerful tool for control.
- 15:00Speaker 2: Not in a good way, obviously, but Right, not in a good way.
- 15:04Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you think prevents some of these women from leaving or even opening up about their situation?
- 15:13Speaker 2: Because I don't feel it now as much as in the past, but I do feel like for a while it was very taboo.
- 15:19Speaker 2: There's shame, there's guilt.
- 15:20Speaker 2: Is that the only reason?
- 15:24Speaker 3: There, there are a myriad of reasons.
- 15:27Speaker 3: Okay, I am Catholic, I became Catholic so that I could be the same religion as my husband, and so I wanted to be a good Christian Catholic wife.
- 15:39Speaker 3: And so that means submit, that means that you know, you let him lead, you do all of these things, to, to to do that, and so that was the.
- 15:51Speaker 3: That was a big part of me staying as long as I did was because I wanted to be the good wife I wanted to to do all the things.
- 16:03Speaker 3: Let him be the leader.
- 16:04Speaker 3: You know, if he said we're going to do this, okay, we're going to do this, even if it went against everything within myself, I still, you know, wanted to do that.
- 16:14Speaker 3: Um, what were some other things to say?
- 16:17Speaker 3: Say the question again, cause I kind of feel like I got off track no Um and it.
- 16:23Speaker 2: Sorry, my question was also twofold, so that probably threw you off.
- 16:26Speaker 2: First part of it was like what do you think prevents people from leaving?
- 16:29Speaker 2: And the other part is why don't more women open up about what's going on?
- 16:35Speaker 3: Okay.
- 16:35Speaker 3: So the other, the other part of that with the the, the Christian or Catholic wife, is that I don't want to talk bad about my husband, I want to honor him, and so when all of these things are happening, you don't want to go ask for help because you don't want to ridicule him or embarrass him or or have the society or our community think less of him by saying anything bad about him at all, by saying anything bad about him at all, and so that creates that isolation.
- 17:09Speaker 3: Also, there is there's so much shame and there's so much guilt, also because they they basically just, you know, like the drip of water on the rock, it slowly changes the rock and changes the shape of the rock, and that is the way that they work on you to beat you down.
- 17:30Speaker 3: And so if you do want to leave, then how could you, how could you destroy your family in order to, you know, have your independence, because you're so selfish.
- 17:42Speaker 3: So these are all of the things that that will prevent women from leaving is because of all the other emotions it's going to, it's going to come with that.
- 17:52Speaker 3: And there's also the financial piece of it too, because it's terrifying to just be like I've been a stay at home mom for 18 years and now I'm going to, like, go out.
- 18:01Speaker 3: I had no idea how I'm going to make money.
- 18:03Speaker 3: Who's going to even want me?
- 18:04Speaker 3: And I mean, there, there we, we go again down the hole of who's going to want me.
- 18:08Speaker 3: Well, a woman that has homeschooled five children, run two businesses, for her husband, kept the house, there's going to be a million people that want you.
- 18:18Speaker 3: Yeah, you can't see it because of all the shame and guilt that you're feeling about.
- 18:23Speaker 3: I'm just a lowly housewife type thing.
- 18:26Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 18:26Speaker 2: So, it's so interesting too.
- 18:29Speaker 2: So Denise and I both grew up Catholic.
- 18:31Speaker 2: Okay, so it's interesting to add in that layer.
- 18:36Speaker 2: I feel like that's another podcast episode that needs to happen, and I'm not speaking poorly about Catholicism or any religion, but I feel like that adds another layer and that can be.
- 18:46Speaker 2: There can be religious trauma of like, well, I can't leave this relationship because I might go to hell, my priest might look down on me, whatever it might be.
- 18:55Speaker 1: Right.
- 18:56Speaker 2: How did you?
- 18:56Speaker 3: move so we can.
- 18:58Speaker 3: Let me add to my piece of the story on that is that his brother is a priest, his nephew is a priest, he has cousins that are priests, so they are very enmeshed in the catholic church, um his parents are.
- 19:14Speaker 3: They were very, um, um, prominent in the community through the catholic church, and so I was asked to go see his brother and his nephew for counseling when I was considering leaving, and they both were like this does not give you a good reason to leave.
- 19:35Speaker 3: Your marriage is the most important thing and you cannot leave that.
- 19:42Speaker 3: And it was all on me to make everything better.
- 19:46Speaker 3: There was nothing about what he was doing or the behaviors he was having.
- 19:50Speaker 3: It was all on my shoulders to make it better, and so that was.
- 19:56Speaker 3: That was just another layer, like you're talking about the spiritual abuse that goes you know now there were other priests that were in our community that were very supportive of me and saw exactly what I had been going through.
- 20:08Speaker 3: So they were very supportive of me and saw exactly what I had been going through, so they were very good.
- 20:10Speaker 3: So they're not you know, that just do better than.
- 20:19Speaker 2: Well, and if it's his family members too, I mean they might not be able to see it.
- 20:23Speaker 2: I don't know.
- 20:24Speaker 2: Right, or they are too.
- 20:26Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, yeah.
- 20:31Speaker 2: So adding to that then, because let's say, we have listeners that are like okay, that's not me, I'm not in a toxic relationship, I don't know any narcissists, but you have a friend that does, or a family member.
- 20:43Speaker 2: Are there clues as outsiders that we can look for?
- 20:49Speaker 2: And then, if there are, how do we support someone?
- 20:52Speaker 2: Because obviously I'm not going to just walk up to my best friend and be like hey, I think you're married to a narcissist.
- 20:57Speaker 3: Right, and that won't help either.
- 20:59Speaker 3: Yeah, um, so how can you support them?
- 21:04Speaker 3: You love them.
- 21:06Speaker 3: You love them.
- 21:08Speaker 3: You, um, you know, invite them out to things and if they can't go out to things, you know, just try to to to be around them.
- 21:18Speaker 3: You know when you can, or like in my case, I have children and let's say that you know I do have a friend, that she's chosen to stay, and so you know we'll get together for a coffee every once in a while or we'll we'll do a play date, because if you can do a play date, then you know it's better At least that was the situation for me is it was better.
- 21:46Speaker 3: But just to stay in contact with them and just to be that nonjudgmental friend, um, you never, in my opinion, you never want to be the one that says you need to leave.
- 22:01Speaker 3: That is not your decision to make.
- 22:04Speaker 3: That is 100% their decision to make.
- 22:07Speaker 3: Make, yep, that is 100% their decision to make.
- 22:12Speaker 3: Um, but you can support them, but it's also probably not going to be the best thing for you to just be like I think you're married to a narcissist.
- 22:16Speaker 3: You need to read this, or you need to read, you know, or you know listen to this because they're not in the space to hear it either.
- 22:23Speaker 3: They're not, they're not they, they just aren't there yet.
- 22:27Speaker 3: But just be there for them and be the loving friend and and the rest will happen.
- 22:35Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's going to be hard.
- 22:38Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure, um.
- 22:41Speaker 2: Do you have any other words of wisdom or anything else you want to share around this?
- 22:48Speaker 3: I think probably the thing that comes to my mind as you asked me, that is that I want everybody to know that not to give up hope and, even if you have just begun on this journey and you feel so hopeless and such despair right now, that you will come out of this and that you can keep working on yourself.
- 23:20Speaker 3: You can heal, you can have all of the dreams that you want, but you have to just keep going and just know that all the work that you're putting in and all the feelings that you're having, um, they are for you, for your healing and um, that that it's.
- 23:41Speaker 3: It's possible.
- 23:41Speaker 3: It's possible to to get free of that and to be okay.
- 23:48Speaker 2: I love that.
- 23:49Speaker 2: It's such a powerful message and, again, a theme running through the podcast.
- 23:53Speaker 2: Everyone says the same thing, because we talk so many different aspects of healing.
- 23:57Speaker 2: There's healing relationships, relationship with yourself, with others, so many dynamics, and that it keep going.
- 24:04Speaker 2: There is always hope.
- 24:06Speaker 2: Don't just give up, and the more you work on yourself, the easier it gets to do some of those hard things.
- 24:14Speaker 1: Right.
- 24:15Speaker 2: Yes, well, how can people find you if they want to connect?
- 24:19Speaker 3: Okay, I am on Facebook.
- 24:21Speaker 3: I'm on Instagram, um.
- 24:23Speaker 3: I am on LinkedIn, tiktok, all the things.
- 24:28Speaker 3: I have a Facebook community that is private and it's called Soul Survivors and basically in there, every week, I have a class so that we can address some, something to help you heal I.
- 24:48Speaker 3: I am not a space where I just want to bag on everybody and I want to complain about all the narcissistic stuff or whatever.
- 24:56Speaker 3: I want to grow forward and I want to help you to grow forward too.
- 25:00Speaker 3: So that is our focus is that, um, I have a, a program that is a 90 day program called heal you.
- 25:09Speaker 3: You Heal your Kids, and in that I have a workbook.
- 25:13Speaker 3: We do weekly group coaching calls and I have a class weekly in there also, and we do deep diving to take you from what is it you're dealing with all the way through to how to create healthy boundaries, how to cultivate healthy relationships, how to set goals for yourself, um, and just rediscovering your own self, um, so that you can feel, after those 90 days, you just feel like you are way farther.
- 25:46Speaker 3: I don't want to say completely healed, because I really think that stops.
- 25:50Speaker 3: We stopped the healing process when we die.
- 25:52Speaker 3: Yeah, we do, it's a lifelong thing.
- 25:55Speaker 2: That's right.
- 25:56Speaker 3: It's lifelong but this is going to.
- 25:58Speaker 3: It's so so much more progressive than the six years I spent doing it, and I just want that for everybody to just make it through there.
- 26:07Speaker 3: So awesome.
- 26:09Speaker 2: Well, we'll make sure all that's in the show notes.
- 26:11Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
- 26:13Speaker 2: Such an important conversation.
- 26:15Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
- 26:18Speaker 2: All right, guys, we will see you on the next episode.
- 26:22Speaker 2: As always, subscribe, leave us a review, shoot us a message on Instagram.
- 26:27Speaker 2: We would love your feedback.