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27 | Why Healing Doesn't Feel the Way You Expected · The Messy Middle Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Messy Middle, the podcast for women navigating the raw, confusing, lonely aftermath of narcissistic abuse and emotional control.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Erica Leon, trauma-informed abuse recovery coach, mom of five, and creator of the six keys to unfuck with the ball.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you're picking up the pieces, questioning everything, and trying to remember who the fuck you were before you were so carefully erased, you're in the right place.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back, everyone.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is about if you feel like you might be faking your healing.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: So this is something I hear about a lot.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I personally went through, so I thought it might be interesting to you.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a point in all of this where you start to function again, right?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: You're getting up, doing things, holding conversations, stringing sentences together, not wanting to bury your head in a jar of Nutella and lay on the sofa.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: You might even be laughing now and again.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Stranger things have happened.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: But from the outside, it can look like you're fine.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that is obviously some of the intention.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: But inside it doesn't always match.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where this feeling creeps in of I think I'm faking this.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I'm really underneath it happy.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what we're going to talk about.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of a split.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: It can feel like there are two versions of you running at the same time.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: We all have a ton of windows up at the same time running in the background, but there is a private you, and then there's the version that people see out in the world.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the one who shows up, who handles things like normal, says the right words, and keeps things moving, checking on everyone, moving like clockwork.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's that version underneath that you only really express on your own, or maybe some really good friends if you have them.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: But that version is very different.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's messy, it's confused, it's still affected by triggers and activations of hearing things or seeing things or feeling things or even smelling things, and still thinking about things you thought you should be quote unquote over by now.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the gap between those two can feel really uncomfortable, like you're performing at being okay, which comes with its own shame of all of the yucky things you were probably taught during the relationship.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: All those things that were said to you, like you're not really a nice person, people think you are, but you're horrible on the inside.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is the stuff that's direct projection from abusive people.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, a lot of the world really wants to see you functioning so they feel less uncomfortable with your feelings.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the time in this culture and this world right now, functioning does get mistaken for healing.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: People are very relieved if you notice.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: They take a big exhale when you get back to quote unquote yourself.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that just means the kind of dynamic they've known you in.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of women are really good at functioning, men too, right?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably had to be.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: You've kept things going through stress and fuckery and chaos, through situations where you didn't really have the option to fall apart because you might be a parent or have a big job or any of the things that we all have to buck up when we really don't want to.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And when you come out of something like this, your system often just does what it knows, it keeps functioning.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: You go to work, you do take care of things, you handle all your responsibilities, and often you're still bearing a lot of responsibilities that aren't really supposed to be yours, also.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And there is this assumption sometimes from other people, sometimes from yourself, that you must be further along than you actually feel.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: But functioning is not the same as healing.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a part of it, sure, but that's not what healing looks like.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that you can go and do all of the things you used to do.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: It just means that you're still capable, and of course you are.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a great conscience, you have muscle memory to do all of the things that you do, and you probably have that thing about not letting anyone down, which is absolutely huge, especially if you're in a situation where you have kids and you've split from the person, and the person is crushingly disappointing as a parent and a partner and an ex, and so you're goggling all the balls, but you're also trying to do double time and make up for maybe the emotional immaturity of that person, or the fact that they don't seem to have any conscience about anything or any empathy.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you find yourself being empathetic for both parents to however many kids you have.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely exhausting.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And often it's the moments that nobody really sees, the part that doesn't get witnessed about you, the moments in between when you're on your own.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: I remember this very well, ugly crying and sliding down the wall, with you know, when your mouth is stuck in that open position and you aren't breathing either.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's the wildest thing.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I do not miss those days.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: But when something small might set you off, when you're on your own, or you suddenly just feel flat for no clear reason at all, or when you're unconsciously replaying something again, and then you realize you're doing it, or when you feel activated by something that seems relatively minor, and certainly would seem minor to people who haven't been there or don't understand.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then you might catch yourself thinking, I thought I was doing better than this, and I literally hear this every day in my work.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: People start the conversation.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: My sweet, adorable, lovely, gorgeous clients, they say, I really thought I was doing better, and now I feel like I've gone back two steps.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: It never fails.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I spend a lot of my week telling people that this is absolutely not accurate and not how it works, and that thought can really land hard.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: People really worry about it, and I remember worrying about it too, because it makes you question everything, that pressure to be better by now.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: How many times have we heard that?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: It drives me insane, and there is often this quiet timeline, it's running in the background, and it's not just your timeline, it may be not yours at all, but you hear it a lot.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you've been divorced a long time, shouldn't you just move on?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And even if you haven't said it out loud, there's this sense of I should be further along than this, I should feel more healed by now, I shouldn't still be affected in this way, and that pressure creates this strange dynamic.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because now instead of just having feelings, which everybody has, and you absolutely need to look at, feel, and move through, by the way, you're judging the feelings, which adds another layer on top of everything else.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: It is a huge weight, and people who aren't versed, and I always say this all the time, and I'm sorry if I'm boring, but people who aren't versed in either abuse recovery or emotional maturity often offer well-meaning, but let's face it, unsolicited advice that say just those things, like, oh god, you've got to get past this, start dating again, or get over it, or he's moved on, or she's moved on, or it's been ages.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't you?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: They think that this is helpful, but it echoes the horrible feelings of shame that you've likely been taught in your relationship to feel that whole, oh, you're obsessed with me, you're so dramatic.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Why does this still bother you?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that stuff.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of compounding on each other, both out there in the world and internally in your nervous system, and your thought loops, and all of the stuff is all rushing in at once, and you do in the end start editing yourself.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's what this is all about.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is where that faking feeling kind of kicks in.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: You just start adjusting how you present, and you don't say everything you're thinking.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: You downplay how much something affected you.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: You keep certain things to yourself because you don't want to seem like you're going backwards.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And none of that is malicious, it's protective.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be seen as stuck, you don't want to be the person who is still talking about it.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: You get to be that guy, don't you, where everybody thinks the only thing you could talk about is your divorce or your separation.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't want to feel like you're not moving forward too.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you tend to start only showing the parts of you that look like progress to the outside world, and you keep the rest much quieter.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a definitely a price to pay for that.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And imprint this in your brain for me.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I wish someone had told me this.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Healing is not a personality.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think that trips a lot of us up is this idea that healing looks like a certain kind of person.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Calm, centered, unbothered, together, clear.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like you eventually arrive at this version of yourself that's just sorted.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And anything that doesn't match this feels like a big fat failure.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: But healing isn't a personality you step into, it is a process you move through.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: It is definitely not linear, and you just don't wake up one day and think, that's it, I'm healed now.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Look at that.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: It does not work like that.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: The back and forth is a huge part of it, and you can have a really quote-unquote good week, which you can feel steady, you can feel clear, you can feel like things are finally starting to make sense, and then something small happens and you feel like you've gone backwards, but you haven't.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you haven't.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're just seeing another layer, and every time you move on, whether that's in consciousness or you grow your maturity or your understanding, or you come to terms with what actually happened to you, you're then a new version of you, and other things will come in and occur to you, and you'll process them again as this new version, and that is not going to stop.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that didn't surface before, and that is all part of it.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: You have different tools, different levels of wisdom and consciousness, and you will look at things differently.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is why you might have to revisit things several times in all of these versions that you've become.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what is actually happening here, a lot of what you're experiencing is not you faking it at all.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is you holding two things at once.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: You are functioning and you're still processing, and both of those things are able to happen at the same time.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: You are moving forward, and you're still affected.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: These things do and can exist together.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: But please take a deep breath.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Put your shoulders down and back, put your head up and look with a level gaze or close your eyes, put your feet on the floor, put your tongue on the roof of the mouth, and just breathe.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: You are doing this.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Two things can exist together.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is all a great big fucking mess, anyway.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: What do we expect?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're always looking to the person that survived the nightmare to present in some kind of way, while the perpetrators just go out there and do whatever the fuck they want and be whatever the fuck they want.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let it be messy because it is.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: You have to let it be messy.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: There is something that shifts when you stop trying to make your healing look a certain way.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Try it.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: When you stop needing it to be neat, when you allow for the fact that you might have a good day sometimes and you might still feel sad later.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: You might feel furious when you've also thought you were really calm the rest of the time.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: You might feel strong in one moment and completely unsure and messed up in another.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: You might say something out loud that sounds confident and still question it afterwards and shake when you get in your car or cry when you get in your car.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: How many of us women are crying in our car, by the way?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like it's a huge number.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean you're being fake at all.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: It means you are merely human.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it is also, I want you to know, quiet progress.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of healing happens in ways that aren't obvious.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's in those little things you don't tolerate anymore.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: It might just start really small.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: The way you catch something earlier than you used to, and it clicks a red flag in your brain.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, nope.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: It might be the way you pause before you react to something where usually it would have meant so much to you, like a kick in the gut.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: You would get all sweaty and have to go to the loop because you're scared to have to confront someone.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: It may be any number of these things.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: It could be the way you start trusting your own read on stuff without having to consult all of your friends and the mailman, you know?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Even if it's still shaky, that progress is very real.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't look dramatic and huge often.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's the small things, it's incremental, consistent progress.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've been feeling like you're faking, I just want you to know.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like the outside doesn't match the inside that you are not doing it wrong.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I say this an awful lot, don't I?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: You are just in the middle of it, and the middle is not neat.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a shit show.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's not often consistent either.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's a shit show.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't always make sense.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: You are not always going to make the right choices.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're not always going to be the best version of you.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're not always going to look back and think, oh, I was so awesome.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: I handled all that well.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Fuck no.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone that tells you that is delusional.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard it out of a lot of attorneys' mouths about you want to look back and be proud of who you were during this divorce.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you try it.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Especially as we're likely paying uh the attorneys to send their kids to college when ours won't end up going.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: But that's a story for another day.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you do not have to perform it.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to keep moving through it.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to know this.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Take it to heart.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: As always, give yourself a lot of love and grace through this and be that parent, that protective, loving parent, the wise adult that the little you and all of the versions of you which have been beat down in these relationships needed.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: I am sending you so much love and please send me your questions.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Pay care.