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43 | What If You Don't Want To Be The Bigger Person · 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 unfuckwithable.
0:15
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.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: Subheading the hidden cost of being told to take the high road.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: So let's get into it.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: There is a phrase I've developed a bit of an allergy to over the years, and I'm sure if you've come to my support groups, you will understand this or worked with me because I am constantly banging on about it.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: The phrase is be the bigger person or take the high road.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: Because it sounds lovely, doesn't it?
1:20
SPEAKER_00: Very evolved, very emotionally mature, very linen trousers and excellent boundaries.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, to be fair, being the bigger person means don't send the text you're gonna regret in the morning or don't get dragged into an argument with somebody who could start a fight in an empty room.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Don't spend six hours of your life proving something to someone who has absolutely no intention of understanding you.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: And fine, I'm all for that, for sure.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: But I've worked with women coming out of abusive and high control relationships and men for a very long time now.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: And I've started to become really interested in what we actually mean when we say this kind of shit.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: And we tell the person who's been harmed to be the bigger person.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: Because strangely enough, we don't seem nearly as preoccupied with whether the person doing the harming is being big enough, or being anything enough, actually.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: So somebody lies to her, betrays her, humiliates her, controls her, frightens her, cheats on her, drains the bank account, manipulates the children, refuses to follow agreements, and drags her through court.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: And somewhere along the line the conversation very quietly becomes about how she's responding to it.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: Is she angry?
2:39
SPEAKER_00: Is she bitter?
2:41
SPEAKER_00: Is she making things difficult?
2:43
SPEAKER_00: Is she being reasonable?
2:45
SPEAKER_00: Could she perhaps be a little bit more flexible?
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Is she putting the children first?
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Hasn't enough time passed?
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't she be over it?
2:53
SPEAKER_00: Why can't she just take the high road?
2:55
SPEAKER_00: And it was all happening for a reason.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting there thinking, hang on a fucking minute.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: How did she end up on trial?
3:04
SPEAKER_00: What in the name of everything is this shit?
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Because once you start noticing it, you see versions of it everywhere.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try and keep my blood pressure down, I swear.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: This gets me heated.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: And I've started thinking about it as a hydra.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, the mythical creature.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: You chop off one head and another one just regrows.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: So if you chop off be the bigger person, up pops, take the fucking high road, and you get rid of that one and suddenly don't be bitter pops up then.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: You need to forgive.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: Think of the children.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: Don't stoop to his level, don't give him the satisfaction.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to ruin his life.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Why can't you just move on?
3:44
SPEAKER_00: All these different heads.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: But I think there's something underneath all of them that we don't talk about nearly enough.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: And by we, I don't mean me, because I literally yap about this non-stop.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Just ask my children who are constantly rolling their eyes.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Ugh breathe, but they'll miss me when I'm dead.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: Heart! Did your grandmas ever use to say that shit to you?
4:06
SPEAKER_00: Hmm, just me then, fine.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in London, it ain't for the faint of heart.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: But I digress.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: The thing that everyone doesn't talk about is this idea that your goodness is somehow measured by how much of somebody else's bad, shitty behaviour you can absorb without becoming inconvenient.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: And I have a fucking problem with that.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: I really do.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And so should you, frankly.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: Who breath?
4:35
SPEAKER_00: One of the places that I see this most intensely is with women going through post-separation abuse.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And I want to be careful with language here because, you know, I love a disclaimer.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Not every difficult divorce is abuse, right?
4:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, critical thinking, it's not.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: Not every contentious custody case is one abusive person.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: A lot of them are, mind you, and one victim.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: Human beings are complicated.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Relationships are complicated and divorces are fucking awful.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: But there are absolutely situations, and I see more than most probably, is where one person continues patterns of coercion and control after the relationship ends.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Because all they have available to them then is post-separation abuse and the legal system, which often acts as state-sanctioned abuse.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't care what you think about that.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: I've been in it day in and day out for more than a decade, and I can tell you that is often what it's used for, a weapon.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: And the relationship is over, right?
5:32
SPEAKER_00: But the control isn't.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that arena just simply changes.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: It's different for her now.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: She's left.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: But it's the same.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Now it's money, court, custody, scheduling, communication, legal fees, repeated motions, vexatious litigation, threats, the children.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: And I've sat with women who are trying to navigate that while also being acutely aware that almost every response they make is going to be scrutinized, which creates this completely surreal situation where a woman who's just spent years monitoring herself for her safety around one person now has an entirely new audience to monitor herself around.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: And the stakes seem to be getting higher and higher.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: Because before she left, it might have been more her trying to protect herself in the relationship, but now it is actually her kids on the line and custody of them.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: It's the first thing abusers go for.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: And she might have been thinking while she was in the relationship, how do I say this without setting him off?
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Or should I bring this up now?
6:41
SPEAKER_00: How angry am I allowed to look?
6:43
SPEAKER_00: If I push back, what's going to happen later?
6:46
SPEAKER_00: And then she gets out, and you think that particular job would be over.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: But no.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: Now she's thinking about what to wear to mediation.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: Whether her kids are going to be able to remain with her if she lets them stay home for a morning because they're sick with a temperature of over 102.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: And I actually mean that literally.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: I've had conversations about this, about what to wear to court, what to wear to mediation.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: Not too sexy, not too stylish, nothing that could possibly be read as flashy.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Don't look frivolous, don't look angry, don't look cold, don't look over-emotional though.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: Don't look under emotional, because then apparently you're just calculating you're like a robot.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Don't be too confident, but don't be too meek because then it looks like you're putting it on.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: Don't have too much fucking personality either, and God forbid if you wear something colourful.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: Basically, if you could somehow arrive looking like a beige cardigan that has experienced moderate adversity, that would be ideal.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: What the fuck are we even doing?
7:44
SPEAKER_00: And she's doing all this while potentially terrified that someone's trying to take her kids from her.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: No shit, she's emotional.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: She's in a situation where the stakes may include her home, her finances, her relationship with her kids, the custody of them, her safety and her future.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: That's not even including the social capital that she loses once he's badmouthed her for all the shit that he's actually done.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: And yet she's aware that the expression of the completely understandable emotion created by those circumstances can itself become evidence against her.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: What fucking world is this?
8:20
SPEAKER_00: What alternate reality is this?
8:22
SPEAKER_00: That's what gets me.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm really trying, but again, my blood pressure is up there, man.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: Just thinking about this.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: The audience changed, right?
8:32
SPEAKER_00: But the self-monitoring didn't.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: And somehow, somehow, even her own attorney will be telling her, don't bring that up, don't use that language, don't ever use the the abuse word, don't make waves.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: We need you to look reasonable.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: We need you to be cooperative.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: We can't do that.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna fly.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: And again, sometimes that genuinely good legal strategy, and fine, I am not a lawyer, and I'm certainly not telling anyone listening to this to ignore their attorney because I got pissed off on a podcast.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: Please don't do that.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: But what I am interested in is what happens inside the woman while she's doing all of this.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: Because she's already had years of learning that the safest response to somebody else's behavior may be to control her own reaction to it.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: And I know that sounds fine in theory.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: And I also know that most of the people I work with doing this over time get serious health problems.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: And now the wider system can appear to be asking her to do exactly the same thing.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: There's this horrible feeling of being let down, especially when you get an attorney who you think is going to help you and bat for you, and they are either compassion fatigued or just greedy, wanting to churn for fees, and they don't really give a shit, but they act like they do to get your business.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: And it's another betrayal, it's another you standing on your own against a system that feels exactly the same as the one when you were in relationship, and it sucks.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: The wider system is now asking her to do exactly the same thing that she was already doing in the relationship, and nobody gives a fuck, by the way.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: And that can be incredibly disorienting and disappointing.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: I've had so many women who thought leaving would finally mean somebody will see, somebody will hear me, somebody will understand, there will be a place where reality matters and somebody calls this nonsense.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: Ha ha.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: But instead they find themselves being told to communicate better with someone they have spent years trying to communicate with.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: And they're described as being in a high conflict situation when their experiences that they are repeatedly responding to conflict they did not initiate, and everyone slaps the 50-50 on it, even when the litigation is completely the other party's fault.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: It's so disappointing and it's so reactivating of the kind of way that your experience is never really believed or attended to or even empathized with.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: By the way, when they say high conflict divorce, I don't believe it's that at all.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: It's usually one abusive person.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: At least.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: One.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Maybe two, maybe more.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the ex, maybe the ex's new partner.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: They bond over their shared hatred of you, make your life miserable, try and muscle in and take over your parenting duties.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: I've seen it all, and I see it on a daily basis, and a huge middle finger to all people involved in that bullshit.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Breathe again, Erica.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Breathe again.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: And I think we have to be careful with language like that.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Two people being in conflict doesn't automatically mean two people are equally creating the conflict.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they are, but sometimes they are not.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: Especially in my work.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: A lot of the times they are not.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: But if we flatten everything into these two people just can't get along, which the courts often do, we can completely miss a power dynamic.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: And then we give both people the same instruction.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Communicate better, lower the temperature, be flexible, put the children first, stop fighting.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: And one of them is screaming internally, thinking, I am trying to get the fuck out of this fight.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: I have been for so long.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: And that is a really important distinction.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: It will land on you more if you've actually been through it.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't, you probably wouldn't know.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: It's a whole nother world that thankfully you'll never experience.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: But my hunch is if you're listening to this, you know something about it.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: And then there are the children.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: And this is where things get really sensitive because of course I don't want children recruited into adult conflict.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't want them used as messengers or spies or therapists.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: It sucks.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't want them interrogated after they've been with the other parent.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: I don't want six-year-olds carrying adult information that their little nervous systems can't and shouldn't be asked to carry.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: But there is a difference between protecting a child from adult conflict and asking a child to reinterpret their own experience in order to protect an adult, especially a harmful adult.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: If a child says, Daddy scares me when he does that, and our automatic response is, oh, but daddy loves you.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: He just gets frustrated.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: What exactly did you just teach that child?
13:30
SPEAKER_00: Because this is something I do care about enormously.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: I don't want a child taught that love is the explanation that makes frightening or harmful behavior acceptable.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: Because in my work every day, I deal with the adults that are a product of that.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: Sailing seamlessly and unconsciously into abusive or high control or harmful relationships because they were taught that's what love is.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: Take that and shove it up your ass.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: One day that child is going to be an adult trying to work out what love is supposed to feel like.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: And I've spent enough hours sitting opposite adults who say, but I know he loves me.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: And what else is happening?
14:11
SPEAKER_00: Because love cannot be the word we use to make every other piece of information irrelevant.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes children need language that is both age appropriate and truthful.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: Something can be unacceptable without requiring the child to hate the parent.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: Those aren't the only two options.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: Parents are supposed to mentor behaviors that they want to foster in their children.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: No amount of telling your kids to be good people is going to work.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: You have to live and breathe that behavior yourself for them to emulate it.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Have we all forgotten that?
14:44
SPEAKER_00: Fucking think so.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Calm down.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: Those aren't the only two options, by the way.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes adults become so frightened of saying anything that could be interpreted as negative about another parent that the child ends up being ghastly about what they're actually experiencing.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: And then mom's in another impossible position, or dad in some cases, she sees her child suffering.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: She tries to give a school or another professional some context.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly she's worried that giving the context, will it be interpreted as disparagement or trying to get people over to one side, which is insane.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: So now everybody is discussing the child's behavior while she feels completely unable to speak honestly about the environment in which that behavior is occurring and is actually being fostered.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: We become very comfortable asking what is wrong with this child.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the more useful question in these situations are what is happening to this child?
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Those are really different questions.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: Then Mom goes to work because apparently after all that, Karen still needs that spreadsheet by three o'clock.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: And she's had an email from the attorney at seven, and something happened with one of the kids at school at eight, and her ex has sent a message that's made her stomach drop.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: You know the feeling.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: She's mentally calculating whether she can afford another five grand in legal fees to achieve absolutely fuck all.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: She slept like shit.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: She's trying to remember whether today is the day somebody needs football boots or a costume or twelve fucking cupcakes that don't have any nuts or anything else in them.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Or a fucking diorama of the solar system.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: And at 9 02, just circling back on this, says the Outlook Hydra.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: And again, what is the expectation?
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Contain it.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: Contain what's happened to you sufficiently.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: Contain what is happening to you right now sufficiently.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: So that the institution around you doesn't have to experience the consequences of it.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: That it created, by the way.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: And women get extraordinary good at this.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: So good that sometimes they barely notice they're doing it.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: And that's the part I see over and over, and it's been wearing on me to the point where it's I'm just so mad.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: I think my rage is stronger than caffeine.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: I get out of bed every day and it fuels the shit out of me.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't think be the bigger person is really one idea.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: I think it's one head of that hydra I mentioned.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: And once you see the creature, you start seeing the other heads.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: Families have one.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Don't upset your dad.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: You know what your mama's like.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: Just let it go for Christmas.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: We don't want any drama.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Churches and religious communities have a hydra head too.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Forgive.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Turn the other cheek.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Pray.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: You're completely absolved if you say these hail Mary's marriage is sacred.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: Don't repay evil with evil.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Now obviously, I'm not saying every religious community teaches abused women to stay in abusive marriages.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: Plenty don't.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about the use of religious ideas to turn endurance into virtue, and that I see all the time.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: Because I've always found something deeply disturbing about any moral system that can become very interested in the injured person's capacity for forgiveness, while showing considerably less, if nothing at all, curiosity about the behavior requiring forgiveness in the first place.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: So much scrutiny on the victim.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely none on the perpetrator.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Why is that, do you think?
18:21
SPEAKER_00: And religion is just one head.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: You find versions of this in families, school, workplace, relationships, institutions, court systems, different language, similar underlying message.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Contain your response.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: Don't embarrass him, don't expose him, don't tell people, don't make a scene, don't be difficult, don't be angry, don't be vindictive, don't be high conflict, don't ruin his life.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: And here's that thing.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes containing your response is exactly the right thing to do.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Let's not get it twisted.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: But I want us to stop automatically calling it maturity.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: Because there is a world of difference between self-command and imposed restraint.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Self-command says like I could respond to this, but I'm choosing not to, because responding doesn't serve me.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: Imposed restraint says my response is the problem.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Those might look identical from across the room, same woman, same silence, right?
19:15
SPEAKER_00: Completely different internal experience.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: And this matters enormously after abuse because she may not know which one she's doing yet.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Her body may have spent years learning that other people's bad behavior is safer than her reaction to it.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Something happens, jaw tightens, stomach drops, chest goes hot, palms go sweaty.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: And before she's even properly registered what she's feeling, she's already managing it.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Don't react, don't react, it's fine, don't make it worse.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Think of the kids, just get through this.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't wake up in the morning and think, today I shall suppress my rage.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: It feels normal to do it.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: She's learned it.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: That's why these adaptations are so difficult to see.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: Eventually the hydra doesn't even need to tell you to be quiet.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: It grows one of its voice heads inside you, and then you start policing yourself.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: I see this in women's bodies all the time.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: I want to be careful here, by the way, another disclaimer, because I'm not telling you that swallowed anger causes autoimmune disease or that you could journal your way out of a medical condition.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Please don't take medical advice from my podcast.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: But I cannot tell you how many women I've worked with who are simultaneously dealing with enormous, prolonged stress and things manifesting like GI issues, chronic health, such as autoimmune conditions.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: And it can't be a coincidence.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: And I've been thinking this for more than a decade now, and I feel like there's starting to be things coming out now that support that.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: So yay.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: What fascinates me from the work I do is how often the woman has become so accomplished at appearing fine.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: So much so that she expects her body to participate in the performance.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: But your body doesn't necessarily care that everybody at mediation thought you were very composed.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: Your stomach was there, insane mediation, your jaw was there clinched, your heart was there, beating really fast.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Your nervous system was in the fucking meeting too.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one of the dangers of constantly telling women that the healthiest response is the response that looks calmest from the outside.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: In a mediation in court, with attorneys, with exes, that's totally right.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes calm is regulation, and sometimes calm is shutdown.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes silence is power, sometimes silence is fear, sometimes walking away is freedom, and sometimes you're walking away because somewhere very deep inside you, you still believe you're not allowed to turn around and say, that was fucking wrong.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: We have to become much more curious about what's happening inside the behavior.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: And this is where I think women's anger has been profoundly miscarriage.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Misunderstood.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't think there's enough of it, frankly.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: If you're a woman right now and you're not angry, then you're not paying attention.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm not frightened of women's anger at all.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm frightened of what happens when women become so frightened of their own anger that they cannot hear what it's trying to tell them.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: Anger can contain incredibly useful information.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: It also, as I've said multiple times, I'm sorry for repeating myself, but kind of not.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Anger is like gas in your tank.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: Something crossed a line.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: This is unjust.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't consent to this.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: I deserved better.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: I want this to stop.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean anger gets to drive the car into someone's living room, although that is quite a nice thought when you're really in it.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: But feeling something and acting on it are different things.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: We've done this bizarre thing where we often judge the feeling according to whether we approve of the behaviour that could potentially come from it.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: A woman can want to send the message and choose not to.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Right?
22:55
SPEAKER_00: She can fantasize about revenge and never take revenge.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: She can think something absolutely fucking appalling about someone who hurt her and all the ways that she would punish them and still behave impeccably.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: She can hate him today.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: She can wish him explosive diarrhea immediately before an important presentation.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: I think that's quite tame actually.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: The healing police are not coming.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: Thoughts aren't subpoenas.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Feelings aren't instructions.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: And I think women need much more permission to experience the full truth of their internal response without immediately asking, is this healed of me?
23:31
SPEAKER_00: Is this mature?
23:33
SPEAKER_00: Am I becoming bitter?
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're just fucking furious.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: And I am 100% with you.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: So let's start there.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: Because here's another place the Hydra gets really clever.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: A woman leaves an abusive relationship and then starts trying to win the breakup morally.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: I've seen this all the time.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: She's going to be absolutely fucking impeccable.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: Because people are telling her she should be too.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: Even her own attorney, it's really irritating.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Perfect boundaries, never reacts, never jealous, never raises a voice.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: She's always regulated.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: She's going to co-parent like a Buddhist air traffic controller.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: And then she loses her shit one Tuesday because she's been poped sixteen times and hasn't slept and somebody's fucked with the custody schedule again.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: And now, oh my god, I'm just as bad.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: And so she shames Spirals.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: No, baby doll.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: You just had a reaction.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: And that is why I firmly also reject the term reactive abuse.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: There is no such thing.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: It is no such thing.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: It is a self-preservation reaction to years of abuse.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: It is healthy when you finally had enough and you fight back.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Shove that term up your ass.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Media and scholars alike.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: We can look at whether the behavior was useful, sure.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: We can repair something when it needs repairing.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: We can learn from it.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: But there's no Olympic podium at the end of divorce where somebody hands you a gold medal for emotional regulation.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: If only.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: And more importantly, if every response you make is designed to prove that you're better than him, he's still the reference point, isn't he?
25:09
SPEAKER_00: I don't want that for you either.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: I don't want your life organized around phew you're the sane one.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: Or the heeled one or the kind one or the bigger one.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: I want your choices to start belonging to you.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: You So what the hell do we do with all this?
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm absolutely not gonna sit here and tell a woman in active post-separation abuse, speak your truth, babe.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: No.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that's terrible advice.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're in litigation.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes somebody is collecting screenshots and has your neighbors and friends watching your every move and unknowingly recording you when you even go out of your house with their stupid ring camera.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're dealing with someone who enjoys provoking you because your reaction gives them exactly that supply they want.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they want that emotional hit of knowing they can still affect you.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're baiting the shit out of you.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're building a story about you being unstable or impossible or unhinged or too emotional, high conflict, whatever the word of the week is.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Do not hand somebody ammunition because a woman on a podcast told you authentic expression was empowering.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: Ha ha ha, that's me by the way, but that's not empowerment.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: It's a shitty strategy.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: So I teach something much closer to two channels.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: There's the channel the situation gets, and there's the channel you get.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: The first one is strategic.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: What serves the actual objective?
26:34
SPEAKER_00: If you're in a legal process, talk to your lawyer, right?
26:37
SPEAKER_00: Do keep that face of calm neutrality.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: If there's a parenting agreement, know it.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: If communications may be scrutinized, behave accordingly.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: Always write.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: Never do in person.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Never do phone calls.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: Always act as though a judge will read your communication.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: If somebody sends you a message clearly designed to detonate your nervous system, maybe the response they receive is just received.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: I will pick the children up at six.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Boring as fuck, but beautiful.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: Because you're not doing that because he's entitled to your sweetness.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: You're not don't worry about that.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: You're doing it because you've decided he isn't entitled to your nervous system either.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Or your emotional control.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: That is power.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: But then we have channel two.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: And channel two is where I do not want you performing sainthood.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Channel two gets the truth.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: You're allowed to feel the rage and express the rage in any healthy way that you've learned to do or will learn to do.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: You're allowed to say the hideous thing somewhere safe.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Write the letter you'll never send.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: Burn it.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: Write the full gory story.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: Put every obscene thought into it.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've had a few.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: Move the feeling through your body.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: Use whatever somatic practices actually work for you.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: Scream somewhere appropriate, into your pillow or your mattress, punch your mattress, cry, shake, run, dance, punch a cushion if it helps.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: Burn the letter that you wrote.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Or bury it.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Do voodoo witchcraft for all I care.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: And if during the process you briefly fantasize about signing him up for micropenis monthly, I don't care.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm not calling the authorities.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: Just don't actually give his attorney any exhibit fucking A, okay?
28:19
SPEAKER_00: That is the distinction.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to act out your rage in order to honor it.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: And you don't have to suppress your rage in order to control your actions.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Those are not the only choices.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: And this is what I mean by agency.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: The feeling gets to exist.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: It can fuel you even.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: You decide what comes becomes behavior.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's much healthier than telling women to transcend feelings and bypass them that they're still very much having.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Because be the bigger person is creating bypassing.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: It jumps over, I'm furious, straight to how should a good person behave?
28:55
SPEAKER_00: It reminiscent of a misogyny cult.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to skip that middle bit.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, keep sweet, pray and obey.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: Kip fucked.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: I want you to know what you actually feel before you decide what you're gonna do with it.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you haven't necessarily chosen anything.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: You've complied with an internalized instruction, and that's very different.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: And once you begin doing this, something else becomes possible.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: You start distinguishing between real restraints and old restraints.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: And this is where I keep thinking about that old story about the elephant and the stake.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, a baby elephant is tethered to something it genuinely can't pull away from at the time because it's tiny, it's a stake in a row.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: It can't do it, and it eventually stops trying.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: And later, when it's enormous and it weighs tons and tons, it's vastly more powerful.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: The old restraint that it has can still represent something psychologically inescapable, even though it could literally just pick that stake up and walk away with it dangling.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't want to turn that into some motivational poster bullshit about how your limitations are imaginary, because no the fuck they're not.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: Some stakes are extremely fucking real.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Like family court, by the way.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: That's real.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: Financial abuse is real, vexatious litigation is real, employment is real.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: Your employer recognizing and promoting a married man who has kids and actually keeping it as a downside for the mom who is married and have the kids.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: That's real.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: The pay gap is real, the safety risk is real.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: Post-separation abuse is real.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: If there is a genuine consequence attached to something, I want you making informed, strategic choices about it.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: But not every state you're still obeying is necessarily holding you anymore.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are old rules.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: Nice women don't say that.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: Good mothers keep the peace.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Don't upset people, don't talk about what happened, don't embarrass them, don't be difficult, don't be too much, don't make people uncomfortable.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: So when you feel yourself becoming smaller, I want you to get curious.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Is this restraint protecting me now?
31:06
SPEAKER_00: Or am I obeying a rule whose power came from teaching me that resistance was dangerous?
31:12
SPEAKER_00: That question is enormous.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes the answer genuinely is yes, but this restraint is protecting me right now.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: Great, use it strategically, then go somewhere safe and tell the fucking truth.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes you'll realize, oh, oof, there isn't actually anyone holding this rope anymore.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: And that is a different moment.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: There's a wider piece to this as well, which I can't ignore.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: Because one of the reasons abusive systems survive is that people experiencing them are often isolated from one another on purpose.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: Everybody thinks this is happening because I did something wrong.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm not smart enough for this, or he bests me all the time.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: He just knows more than me.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: He's more worldly, whatever.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Then women start comparing notes and suddenly everyone's so validated.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: They're saying, wait, your ex did that after you left too?
32:05
SPEAKER_00: You were told not to mention the abuse by your attorney too.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: They called you high conflict when you started enforcing the agreement too.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Your family told you to forgive because everyone was tired of the awkwardness.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that happened to you too.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: You were told to make your child's experience sound nicer than it actually felt to them.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: Me too.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly what looked like a collection of isolated personal failures starts looking like something else.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this isn't just my rope.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: That's why I don't like people telling women to shut up and I don't do it.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean everyone should disclose everything publicly because safety matters and privacy matters, God knows, with the kind of stalky bullshit that happens post-separation.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: And legal strategy matters.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: Children deserve privacy and your story belongs to you.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: But historically, silence has been very useful to abusive people and abusive systems.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: If nobody says what happened, everybody gets to pretend nothing is happening.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes we confuse peace with the absence of somebody naming the problem.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: They aren't the same thing.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that's just quiet, and quiet can be extremely comfortable for the person benefiting from that arrangement.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: Hence why I have been running secure and free support groups for this exact thing for the last eight years.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: It used to be every week and now it's every two weeks.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: And this is why I keep coming back to the Hydra metaphor, because you could have spent years fighting one particular head, the abusive relationship, and then you leave and encounter another.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: The family expectation, then court, then school, then work, then religion, then the internal good girl who lives in your head and says, Don't be like him, be better, be bigger.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: And you think, fucking hell, how many heads does this thing have?
33:57
SPEAKER_00: But once you recognise the creature, something does change a little bit.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: You stop assuming every head is telling you the truth.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: You can listen and decide.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's useful information in there.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's a genuine consequence you need to consider.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's a strategic reason to keep your mouth shut today.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's just another old voice telling a woman that passivity is goodness.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: And I don't believe in that at all.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: Passivity is not a moral virtue, no matter what they say.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: Aggression isn't one either.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm much more interested in agency.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: Can you know what you feel?
34:32
SPEAKER_00: Can you trust yourself enough to look at it without immediately sanitizing it?
34:37
SPEAKER_00: Can you decide what action serves you rather than what action proves you're good?
34:44
SPEAKER_00: Oofs.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: That's what I want.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: Not a bigger person.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: I want a woman who belongs to herself.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: And before you go, here's what I want you to play with this week.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: The next time you hear some version of Be the Bigger Person, uh, don't punch them in the face.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: Maybe somebody actually says it, or maybe it's just that good girl voice in your head.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: Don't immediately obey it.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Just ask.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: Bigger for whom?
35:11
SPEAKER_00: Who benefits from me responding this way?
35:14
SPEAKER_00: And then is this restraint protecting me for silencing me?
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Because it can be protecting you.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: I want that possibility left wide open.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Then ask one more.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: What do I actually feel about what happened?
35:28
SPEAKER_00: Not what should you feel?
35:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's different.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: Not what would a healed person feel.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Not what would look mature, but what is actually there?
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Is it anger?
35:41
SPEAKER_00: Grief?
35:42
SPEAKER_00: Disgust?
35:43
SPEAKER_00: Fear?
35:44
SPEAKER_00: A completely inappropriate desire for someone's penis to fall off?
35:48
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do anything with it yet.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: Just let the private channel tell the truth.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: But then you decide what the public channel gets.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: Maybe nothing.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a three sentence email, maybe a boundary, ritual, spell, oops, maybe a legal action, maybe a conversation, or maybe you just walk away.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: But now the silence, if you choose silence, it belongs to you.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: You chose it, and that is very different from being silenced.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: I think it's nuanced and it would need practice, but it does.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: I think that's what I ultimately want you all to understand about this whole bigger person bullshit.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: It seems to me to be so aligned with enabling abuse and abusive systems and protecting perpetrators of harm.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: And even if you don't know me well, I hope you can guess that I would say get fucked to that always and forever.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to prove your goodness by demonstrating how beautifully you can absorb someone else's harm.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to make yourself easier to digest because your anger makes somebody uncomfortable, and you sure don't have to confuse the absence of resistance with maturity.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is to say absolutely nothing, and sometimes it's telling the truth and saying everything.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's pursuing the consequence, and sometimes it's allowing someone to discover you're no longer going to rescue them from the consequences that they created.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: What matters to me is who chose it.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: Because after you've lived in a system where someone else has had far too much influence over your behavior and your emotions and your choices, and even your perception of yourself, I'm not interested in handing that authority straight over to another system.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: I want it coming back to you.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: And yes, there may be times when you're still tied to something real.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: You may need strategy and you may need restraint.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: You may have to sit in a fucking mediation looking like the human embodiment of that beige cardigan, while internally imagining acts that would get this podcast removed from Apple.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: Fine.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: That's not weakness.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: That's knowing which battle you're actually fighting.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: But when you find an old stake that isn't holding you anymore, I want you to notice that.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: One day, you are going to discover you're not a baby elephant anymore.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: You grew, you learned, you got stronger, you found your anger, you found your voice, you tapped into it, you learn how to tell the difference between reaction and choice.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: And the next part perhaps isn't ripping every stake out of the ground or charging through the village.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just knowing I could.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: And that does matter.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Especially at first, it matters.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: When enough women begin naming the heads of the Hydra, when we compare notes and realize we're not each individually failing some test of womanhood, that creature becomes much easier to see.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: And things that are visible can be questioned.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: Right?
38:44
SPEAKER_00: If you shine a light on something, people have to realize it's there, its presence.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: You can always bullshit if it's always pitch black.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: Things can be questioned, can eventually be changed.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: So no, I don't particularly care whether you're the bigger person.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: I care whether you're your own person.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: And if today that means taking the high road, take it because you choose that fucking road, not because somebody convinced you that being a good woman means standing quietly at the side of it while everyone else drives over you.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Oof, let's breeze.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: And it gets me heated.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: And if you're listening to this thinking, fuck, I don't actually know which restraints are strategic anymore and which ones are old fear because that is tricky.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: That is exactly the kind of thing I would be delighted to walk you through and work with you about.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: Because this does get complicated after abuse.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: There's so much to separate and pick apart.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: And it's really hard when you're not objective because you're new.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you need help separating that that stuff with what your body learned to do to survive from what you actually want to choose now.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: It's work I deeply love and do every day of my life.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: And not telling you what your response should be, but helping you get quiet enough underneath everyone else's instructions that you can hear your own judgment again.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: Discernment again.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: There are the links there for our laser sessions and one-on-one coaching and all the other hurrah in the show notes, as usual, if you want to work with me in any capacity.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: And in the meantime, I want you to keep an eye out for that Hydra.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: Because once you see that bastard, you start recognising him everywhere.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: And when one of the heads leans down and maybe whispers to you, be the bigger person, you are entirely welcome to smile sweetly and think bigger for fucking whom.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: Let's burn it all down.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
40:44
SPEAKER_00: As always, I'm sending you so much love and thinking of you.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: If you want me to answer any questions for you in future episodes, leave them in the comments.
40:53
SPEAKER_00: Loads of love.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: Take care of yourselves.