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24 | The “Oh Hell No” Phase of Healing: When All You See are Red Flags · 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.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, I'm back, and let's get into it.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is, I'm calling it, when you start seeing red flags everywhere, and that is what it is about.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's a point after you've learned about manipulation and coercive control and all of the stuff we talk about where something else kicks in.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's always something, isn't there?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: It can feel like you've swung too far the other way from being somebody who didn't see many of the red flags or any of the red flags and didn't really realize what was happening to you at the time.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can go from that to feeling like you see red flags everywhere.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: You notice them, you have a reaction, like a visceral reaction in your body when people are talking, you are anticipating every comment and thinking, ooh, that's not right, that's not right.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like that.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: It feels off.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody loves to dive into the YouTube rabbit hole, the internet rabbit hole of learning and naming all of the things you went through.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a really important rite of passage, and I don't want to deny anyone that.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: It can feel empowering, like you've finally got your eyes open, and yay, right?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yay for that.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then it can start to feel a bit exhausting because suddenly everyone looks questionable, and it's so much work just meeting someone, or bumping into someone, or even seeing your regular crew.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking around thinking, hmm, I've never noticed that before, but that's a weird thing to say.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And everyone has something, and you can end up in this place where you're not sure if you're being discerning or if you're just shutting everything down and shutting everyone out.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: High hypervigilance, high overcorrection.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty rough out there.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: This phase is a little rough.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a difference between noticing something and feeling unsafe.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when your nervous system has been through a lot, those two can blur together a little bit.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so many things can feel like a threat.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you might notice someone interrupts you, or someone makes a slightly off comment, or someone's a bit inconsistent early on, and your body reacts like danger, danger.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And again, that reaction isn't wrong, it's protective, it's doing the sweet thing that your nervous system does all the time, its very job, which is to keep you safe.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: But not everything you notice needs to be escalated to.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is who they are, this is gonna end badly.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I need to get out now, run.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it just needs to be noted, observed, and held for a bit longer, perhaps.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is where the self-trust beginning to retrust yourself.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that thing I'm always talking about when the time comes that you will know what to do and trust yourself that you can hold this information and you can still look at flags further down the road if they appear.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a difference between a pattern versus a moment, and this is a really big shift that people make in this phase after they practice a little, and that's learning the difference between a moment and a pattern.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone can have an off moment, anyone can say something a bit clumsy, a bit shitty, misread a situation, but what matters is what happens around it.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Does it repeat?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Does it escalate?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Does it get dismissed when you bring it up?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or is there some awareness?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Importantly, is there accountability?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Is there adjustment?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about human rights type violation comments here.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about general conversation that makes you raise your eyebrows a little.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, if somebody is spouting awful things like misogyny and racism, you would want to get the fuck out of there anyways.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: But these are good things to to know and to understand, whether it's a pattern or whether it's a moment.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: So when you've been in something where patterns were denied or they were flipped back on you, most likely, it makes sense that you'd want to call things early, right?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that real clarity uh often comes from just watching over time.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I know I've said this before, but even if dating isn't really your thing on the apps or whatever, even if it's just going on apps for friendships, it's such a good way to observe not just the people that you're meeting, but yourself.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Observe, grow your discernment, learn more to trust yourself on who is in front of you and what your feelings are actually doing.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: A great way to discern is this a pattern or is it a moment?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: It happens with practice and awareness, and I know you can do it.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: You've got it, I promise.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the pressures that shows up here also is this feeling that you have to decide really quickly, is this safe or not?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is this good or not?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do I need to go now?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that urgency can come from what you've been through, of course, because before staying too long had consequences.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when you think about how much shame the world piles on to the victim survivor, not on the perpetrator, mind you, but it's always how did you stay that long?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't you leave?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: All of this crap that makes you feel really ashamed for either not seeing it or not being able to extricate yourself.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And if you know better, like I do, and people who work in this space do, and you now do, then nobody who knows better would say any of that bullshit because it is so difficult to leave these kind of relationships, and usually you're leveraged up to the hill on purpose, by the way, so that it is really tricky to leave.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to know that shame doesn't belong to you, which has been a theme lately, thank goodness.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And staying too long, of course, did do some harm, but it's until you have that tipping point moment where you know you have to go and you do it and you stay gone.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you might go back and forth a little bit, but in the end you do it and you stay gone.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So now it feels like I need to get this right early because you want to be that person, right?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't take any bullshit that society approves of, do they ever really?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: But you do not have to have that answer straight away.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: You do not.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can stay in the space of I'm noticing this, I'm not ignoring it, but I'm also not rushing to define the entire person from it.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: That middle space, not only is there emotional maturity in that middle space, but this is where discernment really develops.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: I am definitely not saying put up with any bullshit, by the way.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Please do not.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel like somebody is putting you down, if you're a woman going on dates and men are negging you, because if you don't know what that is, look it up.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel like they're putting you down because they've got this air of jealousy, which happens a lot, especially when you are successful and they make you think you're not as great a commodity as you actually are.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Fuck that.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: If all of that's happening, get the fuck out of there anyway.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: But this middle space is just developing discernment and being patient and trusting yourself.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens in your body is really important.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: As we always say, it can help to separate out two things, what you're noticing and what your body's doing with it.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes your body is reacting to the past, it's not actually reacting to that present moment.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: It reminds it of something.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you might feel tight, alert, slightly on edge, even if what's happening in front of you isn't actually escalating.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean ignore it, it just means get curious, get really dialed in on what is happening in your body.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: What does it make you feel like?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: What does it remind you of?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is it familiar?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's again every chance you can get to get to know yourself on a deeper level and what is inside of you and all the versions of you that are inside of you, take that opportunity every time.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing more powerful in this life.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And something that can feel a bit uncomfortable at first, understatement of the year, is letting things play out a little longer than your instinct says.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not in a way where you override red flags and clear discomfort, by the way.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, if it's blatant, no way.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: But in a way where you allow more data, data to come in.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you cut things off immediately, every time something feels off, you don't always get to see.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Was that a one-off?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Are they actually a douche canoe?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or was it just a weird off comment?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Or is that the weird sense of humor that they think is appropriate and you can kind of talk about that?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that information's actually really useful sometimes.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's an exercise in letting yourself see more, letting yourself absorb more, letting yourself trust you more, trusting your magic eat ball in your pocket.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you know this, but not everyone is your ex.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank goodness.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this is an obvious thing to say, I know.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Fucking good job, Captain Obvious, but it doesn't always feel obvious in your body because your system is trying to protect you.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it scans for similarity, right?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's always thinking that familiarity is safe, and now you're trying to teach it that it isn't.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it scans for that similarity: tone, energy, phrases, dynamics.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when it finds something that looks even vaguely similar, it flags it.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: It flags it hard.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean it's the same.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: It just means your system's learned to recognize certain shapes as it would, because it's smart.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And discernment is a skill.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Make no mistake about it.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: You are learning something completely new.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: You may be relearning, in fairness, because you may have had a good level of discernment before somebody tried to control you with coercive, emotional, and all kinds of different abuse.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it is a skill that you'll relearn, and after what you've been through, you're learning that skill in real time.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: That means there'll be lots of moments, I would imagine, where you pull back too quickly, moments where you give something too much time, and that's all part of the process.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's back and forth and up and down and all over the freaking map.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the difference now that you have is that you're engaged in it, you're not asleep to it anymore, you're wide a fucking weight.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to know that, and I want you to trust yourself.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is you switched on.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: So trust yourself.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: The same thing is not gonna happen to you over and over when you've done these kind this kind of work.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if you feel like you're seeing red flags everywhere right now, it doesn't mean you've become negative or some kind of bitch.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: It means your awareness has expanded.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's all.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And now you're learning how to work with that awareness in a way that actually supports you, it's actually good for you, but it's doing something for you, it's not shutting your life down, and you don't need to ignore what you see.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: You have free agency.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: You are a lovely, divine human being, all of your own.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: There is no copy of you.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: You have agency to do whatever the fuck you want now, and you also don't need to turn every moment into some big conclusion, some big will I, won't I?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: You can just chill on it.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: It ain't that deep, as my boys say.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it is not.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can stay right in that space of noticing and you can let the patterns reveal themselves because they will, because how they do anything is how they do everything, these people, you know it.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And also know that when you've had and are now realizing, extremes of a thing, your system can naturally just move toward overcorrection to make sure it keeps you extra safe now.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: So what you can do in those situations is the thing that I'm always telling you to do.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Boring, I know, but that's put your hand on your heart, put one on your tummy, put your feet on the floor, put your shoulders down and back, spine straight, eyes forward, close them, and break do some square breathing, do some tongue on the roof of your mouth, quietening your mind.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank your sister.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Tell it that you know this will settle down.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're so grateful for it doing everything in its power to keep you safe.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And now that you have wisdom, the two things are gonna fuse and you're going to be on fuck with it.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Trust yourself because it will settle and you will do this.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where all that lovely real clarity and that lovely self trust that I'm always banging on about comes from.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's yet another stream to your butt of how you Phoenix like you've always got this.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: As always, I'm sending you so much love.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Please submit your questions to me, and I will dedicate an episode to all of your questions really soon.