Latest / The Messy Middle Podcast / 26 | The 'Was it really that bad?" Thought Spiral..

Transcript

26 | The 'Was it really that bad?" Thought Spiral.. · 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.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: This episode here is very fresh in my mind from my lovely client that I was with today.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all about that spiral of was it really that bad?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oof.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So there is this point after you leave, or you might be out of it, but not fully grounded yet, where your brain starts doing something really weird.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: You start softening it, all the things that happened, the relationship itself, the interactions, how you were treated.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even mean to.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: You just sometimes remember things differently.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: You'll be going about your day, maybe feeling a bit lonely, or maybe a bit tired and overwhelmed, or maybe even just in a quiet moment, and a thought comes in.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Was it really that bad though?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't come in with a huge drum roll.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's just quite gently it enters, almost like a reasonable question.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And how it usually starts is it doesn't start with the worst memories.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're not sitting there thinking about the big moments, the blow-ups, the cruelty, the manipulation, betrayal.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what your brain pulls up.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: It pulls up the holidays that were okay and you had really good times.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: The times that you laughed, where you felt really loved and seen and special.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: The version of them that felt softer than what you know to be the norm.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the moments where it almost felt like you had what you wanted.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And your lovely little brain there starts building a case.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not consciously, but it's almost like your mind starts saying, it wasn't all that bad.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: They did try sometimes.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I was a bit hard on them.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: If I hadn't done this, maybe that wouldn't have happened.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And before you know it, you are in it.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this spiral tends to hit hardest when you're alone, not just physically alone, but when you fill that gap, the absence of a person.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that loneliness factor does definitely play a part.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you're in chaos and flux still, even if you've got a million things going on, often it's that kind of laying your head on somebody's chest, metaphorically laying your worries aside for a bit, too.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the absence of a person, even if that person caused you pain, you still find yourself wanting and missing that.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because the truth is, you did not just lose the bad parts of them, you lost a lot more.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: You lost the routine, the familiarity that someone is there feeling.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think about the way we're conditioned to think we need a partner to be like worthy or complete, it is a powerful cocktail to start to eventually minimize the experience that you had in your abuse and manipulation and control.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And your brain doesn't really separate that out neatly, it just knows something is missing, so it goes back to the last place that filled that space.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And there's another thing happening here.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, this is gonna be like something that piles on and on and keeps growing, but I promise that's good news.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: This something is that the gaslighting you experienced in your relationship doesn't just end when they leave, unfortunately.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: That is the part that I have to explain a lot.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I it took me a while to understand that that it doesn't just happen in the relationship, it leaves an imprint.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you were repeatedly told that it didn't happen, that what you're saying did not occur, that your experience is not valid, that you're overreacting, or you're too sensitive, and if you hadn't done blah blah blah, this wouldn't have happened, that you did this.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain learns to always question itself.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: So even if you're out, and even after you're long gone, you continue the job of the second guessing, the second guessing of your memories, the job of the gaslighting, thoughts that have been put in your mind, and you start editing your own experience, sifting through all the ways that you might have, indeed, as they say, have told you so many times that you caused this, and you start wondering if you exaggerated it.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is it you being confused?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the conditioning still playing out.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: If I had a dollar for every client who has been in an abusive relationship that I've either met in support groups or I have private clients, say, Am I the narcissist?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would have a lot more money than I do right now.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that is your brain trying to actually help you.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's a strange way, but it's an editing process.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: It is trying to reduce your discomfort.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And one way it does that is by smoothing things out, by taking the edge off the past.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because holding that full truth can feel heavy, and you might not be ready to absorb that huge weight of just how serious what you went through was.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's also really hard to come to terms with, even though you know you don't want to be with them because they suck, even when you know that, it's quite hard to come to terms with the fact that it's done, that it's really over, and it's quite a delayed reaction, like a shock almost, especially if you were the one that was blindsided by betrayal, cheating, or whatever.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is so jarring, and your brain just starts to edit.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: It keeps the parts that are easier to hold, and it softens the parts that are harder, which can seem like you end up rewriting your reality, but there is method in that madness, and what pulls you back in.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is often that stage where people go back to their relationships, and it is not because they're weak, it's not because they don't know what happened, it's not because they're dummies, it's because they are no longer anchored to it.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: You've drifted usually just far enough from the pain and suffering that the memory of it isn't as sharp anymore in your whole body, and the loneliness can feel more real than the harm did, and that is that dangerous little window.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's not because you're weak, it's just because you're human, and it actually feels like an addiction.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: They are the same kind of desperate feelings, they are the same kind of chemicals.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Your nervous system is doing its sweet little job again, trying to keep you safe by keeping you in what is familiar.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And do not punish yourself for it, please.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Counterbalance it, if you can, with being that wise adult parent to your craving.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like talk to your younger self, do more personal and intimate nervous system practices that go inward that will help protect yourself from succumbing in that dangerous window where you're just that little bit removed that it doesn't seem so awful.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you listen to all the bullshit that they're coming out with to try and get you to go back.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And by asserting that worth that you have, that can be really hard to find after abuse.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to dig deep, you have to be very connected to yourself, you have to be like a great parent who doesn't want any harm to come to all of the younger versions of you.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, what do you do with all of this?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because the answer isn't keep reliving the worst moments over and over.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: You do want to anchor, but you don't want to keep re-traumatizing yourself because going over everything that was awful isn't going to help either.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's helpful sometimes, mind you.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: I actually do have my clients write out notes in a diary or on their phone of the very worst moment so that if they are feeling that pull, they can sit and read that and remember why the fuck they left and for themselves to stay gone.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: But you do need some kind of anchors, real ones that will bring you back to the truth without dragging you through it, and that might look like writing down what actually happened in plain language.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I was talking about in what I do with my clients often.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: It not in a dramatized way and not softened either, just real.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just it might be remembering how you felt in your body, what you were really fearful for, what did you think could have happened had you stayed in that abuse?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because your body does not lie the way memory can.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: It might be noticing patterns instead of isolated moments, and it's not he was nice that one time, but what was the overall experience of being in that relationship?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: That question can cut through quite a lot of the bullshit.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And there is also room for complexity, let's not forget that.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because letting two things be true is a very good practice to get into.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: We really do get stuck thinking, if I admit there were good moments, does that mean it wasn't that bad?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Both things can exist.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: There can have been great moments of connection, the overall dynamic can still have been really fucked up and very harmful.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to flatten your experience into one clean little packaged-up narrative.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: You just don't lose sight of the whole picture.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do find yourself in that spiral wondering if it really was that bad, pause.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to rush to answer that question, but you do need to stay connected very much so to your own experience, not the edited version or the softened one, or the one that everybody around you wants you to have so they can just stop asking you if you're okay all the time, but the real one, because that's one of the ways that protects you moving forward.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that helps some of you.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: I do get this question a lot.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why am I thinking now maybe it wasn't so bad?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I do sift through with so many of my lovely clients and the people in my support groups, sift through the things that they are remembering and noticing this slant on minimizing and editing it to look not so bad.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: That is a very common thing.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope this helps somebody out there.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sending you loads of love.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: I will see you next time.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, do send me your questions and I will answer them in due time.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Stay safe.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.