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Breaking the Bonds of Emotional Abuse with Dr. Heidi Brocke · Surviving-ISH Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello everybody.
0:01
Speaker 1: My name is David Keck and this is Surviving Abuse Podcast.
0:05
Speaker 1: You took what I thought I could never get back.
0:34
Speaker 1: I can't hold it on to the anger I roll down just to begin again.
0:41
Speaker 1: I'll never be any longer.
0:44
Speaker 1: I'm back.
0:46
Speaker 1: I can't look good.
0:49
Speaker 1: Kiss in the back, goodbye.
0:51
Speaker 1: Now I'm back and I'll pray for you.
0:58
Speaker 1: I'm done hurting.
0:59
Speaker 1: I'll be the only one who's in anger.
1:02
Speaker 2: I won't let you win any longer.
1:03
Speaker 2: Then we begin again.
1:05
Speaker 2: Now I'm back and I'll pray for you.
1:13
Speaker 2: I'm done hurting.
1:18
Speaker 1: You know, we are getting close to ending season two and we've covered so many different forms of abuse and people's recovery and I finally got to the point where I wanted to find an expert that could come on and talk to us.
1:36
Speaker 1: And so I reached out to a few and I found the wonderful Dr Heidi Brocky, who we will call Dr Heidi, and she is a toxic relationship awareness and healing specialist.
1:53
Speaker 1: So, from the research I've done, she has went through her own journey through narcissistic and abusive relationships that led her to where she is today.
2:06
Speaker 1: So, with that said, dr Heidi, thank you so much for being with us.
2:12
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you for having me.
2:14
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
2:15
Speaker 2: I love being able to tell parts of my story that aren't on my podcast, because I have a feeling there's certain people that listen to my podcast so I have to be a little bit careful.
2:26
Speaker 2: So I guess we're excited when I can just be Heidi.
2:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and I'm glad that you already know that you can.
2:33
Speaker 1: My goal with this is to provide people with a safe place where the victim can speak as a victim, because I feel like, especially if your story is public, everyone gets so interested in the attacker versus the victim and we find that, especially when courts and stuff are involved, that the attacker has more rights, it seems, than the victim, and so my goal is to provide a place where people can come on and share their story.
3:07
Speaker 1: For myself, it felt like a little bit of damage control, and I've had people tell me that they felt the same way, that they actually got to come on and speak to kind of save their name a little bit and speak up for themselves, which I love.
3:21
Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear about you and your journey, because you know, just reading your bio, like you went through some unhealthy times and decided to take control.
3:32
Speaker 1: So, with all that being said, miss Dr Heidi, please take over and tell us about your journey.
3:40
Speaker 2: So the first thing I always make sure people know is I am not a licensed mental health professional, I'm not a doctor.
3:47
Speaker 2: That says it in my bio.
3:48
Speaker 2: I am a chiropractor, acupuncturist, by trade.
3:51
Speaker 2: So I don't do any diagnosing, I don't do any treating, I do a ton of education.
3:56
Speaker 2: Is is what I do, and so I don't want people to misconstrue anything that I say and quit their therapy or right or anything like that, because I do a completely different job than them.
4:09
Speaker 2: So the story where do I begin?
4:15
Speaker 2: I grew up in a little Christian community on a dairy farm in Bozeman, montana, and and I never really got out of the community because my dad was a dairy farmer, so we could never leave because we had to melt twice a day.
4:31
Speaker 2: I was in one of those situations where we all went to the same church and we all went to the same school and I saw the same people for the first 18 years of my life, you know, every day, and so my perception of the world was that, you know, very sheltered, very taken care of by everybody in the community, you know, and, and so when I left to go to grad school, I believe that I thought everybody was was like that community.
5:01
Speaker 2: Obviously, now, looking back on the community, I have a little bit different perspective.
5:07
Speaker 2: But you know, growing up in it you don't see all that right.
5:10
Speaker 2: So I didn't, I didn't know that there would be people out there that wouldn't have your best interest in mind or that would try to manipulate you or try to trick you or try to trap you like that.
5:18
Speaker 2: Just, it would just have never crossed my mind.
5:22
Speaker 2: And it was in grad school that I met my former husband.
5:25
Speaker 2: I can honestly say I did not want to go on the first date, like there was something about that that that I didn't feel comfortable with.
5:33
Speaker 2: But it was a continual ask seven times and oh, please, just once.
5:39
Speaker 2: And okay, so, fine, fine, fine, fine, I'll go, I'll go With.
5:44
Speaker 2: That being said, I did not want to go on second date and then it was oh, just come on, we'll do this and what?
5:49
Speaker 2: And I have a personality, that is, I went into healthcare.
5:54
Speaker 2: So me, going into healthcare already says I have an empathetic personality.
5:59
Speaker 2: I'm the kind, caring, loving, giving, fixer, supporter, conflict avoid or peacekeeper, right, I want to keep everybody in my life happy and so I didn't want to be the bad guy or mean or anything.
6:11
Speaker 2: And of course, it went on the second date and, as as things progress.
6:15
Speaker 2: Now, looking back, it says plain as day what happened.
6:20
Speaker 2: It was a very fast moving.
6:22
Speaker 2: At the beginning of the relationship he wanted to get married, he wanted to move in, he wanted you know all of this and convinced me that I was the love of his life.
6:29
Speaker 2: Like he loved everything about me.
6:32
Speaker 2: He loved my hair, he loved that I was independent, he loved that I was short, he loved that.
6:36
Speaker 2: You know, love, love, love.
6:37
Speaker 2: This is this.
6:38
Speaker 2: I'm your soulmate that I've lived my whole life.
6:40
Speaker 2: Well, I had never experienced anything like that, so maybe I just don't know how that's supposed to feel.
6:45
Speaker 2: So, okay, if he's so in love with me, here we go, right, and again, this is more of my story than I've told on any podcast at all.
6:55
Speaker 2: But I knew I had to break up with them, because there was a lot of red flags, there was a lot of things that I was uncomfortable with, compromising my values.
7:05
Speaker 2: I was accepting things that I wouldn't have normally accepted, but just just to not have conflict or just to keep the peace or not to disappoint him, I would go along with it.
7:14
Speaker 2: And I knew.
7:16
Speaker 2: I knew he had an engagement ring and we were headed home for him to meet my family and I told my dad he has a ring, I do not want to marry him.
7:24
Speaker 2: So when he asks you, tell him I don't want to marry him.
7:27
Speaker 2: Okay, fine, my dad did.
7:29
Speaker 2: And, bearing it all out here, I found out that very night that I was pregnant and and so, growing up in that little community, I knew exactly what the answer was.
7:40
Speaker 2: Now it's a you made your bed, you got to lie in it, type of situation.
7:44
Speaker 2: And so we finished the Christmas vacation and I left with him with a ring on my finger and my mom started planning the wedding and two months later I told her.
7:55
Speaker 2: I said mom, I cannot, I cannot marry him.
7:58
Speaker 2: There's something that.
7:59
Speaker 2: So my mom canceled the whole wedding.
8:01
Speaker 2: You know, whatever, I moved into my own apartment, I would did my whole pregnancy by myself, and two weeks after my oldest was born, he basically begged me to marry him.
8:13
Speaker 2: Begged, begged, begged me to marry him, and I kept saying I'm not comfortable with it, I'm not ready, and he pulled out the well then, I'm going to take her and you'll never see her again card.
8:24
Speaker 2: So I married him.
8:25
Speaker 2: The next day I called my mom and I married in the next day and I am, I am a I am a Tuffy like I can make it through a lot so I thought you can do this, you can do this, you can do.
8:35
Speaker 2: This is what you're supposed to do.
8:36
Speaker 2: You know, this is the path that's been laid in front of you.
8:39
Speaker 2: So obviously this is the direction you're supposed to be going and I did try to make the best of it and it wasn't bad 100% of the time.
8:48
Speaker 2: That's what's confusing about these type of relationships they're very unpredictable, they're very inconsistent.
8:53
Speaker 2: So on Tuesday it's bad, but on Wednesday it's not bad.
8:56
Speaker 2: So then we forget what happened on Tuesday because Wednesday is not so bad, you know.
9:01
Speaker 2: And within two years I had another daughter.
9:03
Speaker 2: We had a practice together.
9:06
Speaker 2: By then, we had a ranch together.
9:07
Speaker 2: You know it was.
9:08
Speaker 2: We got very intertwined and our lives were together.
9:13
Speaker 2: Through all of that, I was really missing my family.
9:17
Speaker 2: But I noticed anything that took my time and attention away from him.
9:21
Speaker 2: He made it very difficult.
9:23
Speaker 2: I quit talking to my family.
9:25
Speaker 2: I didn't have any friends.
9:26
Speaker 2: I had given up all my hobbies.
9:27
Speaker 2: I was basically in his back pocket just in case he needed something.
9:31
Speaker 2: You know, that was my perception.
9:32
Speaker 2: If he needs something, he needs me.
9:34
Speaker 2: I'm his wife, you know, whatever.
9:36
Speaker 2: And it continued and continued.
9:39
Speaker 2: And there were several girlfriends through the marriage.
9:43
Speaker 2: He never admitted to one of them.
9:44
Speaker 2: But I got so good at knowing I knew he had a girlfriend before he knew he had a girlfriend because, because I could just sense it, you know, and I was always be devastated because what does she have that I don't have?
9:57
Speaker 2: And how come I'm not good enough.
9:58
Speaker 2: And because he would never admit to it, he would say stuff like well, if you would just read this book on codependency and you could fix that, then our relationship will get better.
10:07
Speaker 2: Or, you know, if you would just be a better wife and you wouldn't be so insecure, then you wouldn't always be thinking that that I'm cheating on you.
10:15
Speaker 2: So if you could just jump on this treadmill and try a little harder, you know things will be good and I would.
10:21
Speaker 2: I would jump on the treadmill and, okay, I can do this, I can be a better wife.
10:24
Speaker 2: I'm a hard worker, I can and I would change everything, everything about me.
10:28
Speaker 2: I don't know.
10:29
Speaker 2: 10 years, 11 years into it, I looked in the mirror, as you can see I don't know if you use the video for anything I have black hair.
10:35
Speaker 2: I looked in the mirror one day.
10:36
Speaker 2: I was blonde.
10:38
Speaker 2: Because three weeks after we got married, after him convincing that he loved everything about me, he told me he had always planned on marrying a blonde and for the next 12 years it was.
10:47
Speaker 2: Can you put more highlights in your hair?
10:49
Speaker 2: Put more highlights in your hair.
10:50
Speaker 2: Put more highlights in your hair.
10:52
Speaker 2: And Dr Heidi is very extra bird.
10:54
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm the first one on the bar dancing with a spatula.
10:57
Speaker 2: I'm, you know, I am a lot, I'm funny, I'm loud.
11:01
Speaker 2: And he smashed all of that by the time I left which we'll talk about that I had blonde hair.
11:08
Speaker 2: I never spoke, I never laughed, I did not even walk with my head up, and it was a lot of emotional abuse, but I didn't know.
11:19
Speaker 2: That's what it was.
11:21
Speaker 2: I divorced him over I don't know what number girlfriend, but that was a trick, also because he didn't really want to get rid of either of us.
11:29
Speaker 2: And now that I know what I know and I do want to get into the toxic personality a little bit we were both feeding him with what he needed.
11:37
Speaker 2: So his life was perfect.
11:38
Speaker 2: He was, you know, he had control and power over me.
11:41
Speaker 2: I was a workhorse.
11:42
Speaker 2: I, you know, saw patients, I worked on the ranch, I took care of the kids, I took care of the house, so of course he didn't want me to go anywhere.
11:48
Speaker 2: And over here she's giving him all this attention and admiration, which is another thing he needs to feel secure.
11:53
Speaker 2: So of course, it was this back and forth thing, back and forth thing, back and forth thing for two years.
11:57
Speaker 1: So why you were given him or quote unquote, not given him.
12:03
Speaker 1: He was getting from her.
12:06
Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't that I wasn't getting it, but let me explain this.
12:09
Speaker 2: So I chose the word toxic because it's a blanket phrase.
12:13
Speaker 2: It is not a diagnosis, sure, you know.
12:15
Speaker 2: And toxic can be on any level.
12:16
Speaker 2: It can be anything from the bully on the playground all the way up to this guy, or the things we're seeing on Netflix right now.
12:21
Speaker 2: Right, but what drives the toxic personality is insecurity in themselves.
12:27
Speaker 2: So so their drive in their life is to find security in themselves.
12:33
Speaker 2: But you and I both know, because you and I have both gone through the shit, I'm sorry if we're not supposed to say that on your part.
12:39
Speaker 1: No, we can.
12:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all open.
12:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, no worries.
12:42
Speaker 2: We know that our self security comes from the things we put into our own life.
12:47
Speaker 2: You know, we have a good group of friends, our family's doing good, our kids are good, we've been in the gym, we've lost five pounds.
12:52
Speaker 2: We get rewarded by self confidence and self worth when we put things into our own life.
12:58
Speaker 2: Okay, the toxic personality can't do that.
13:01
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter how much they put into their own life, they can't put enough in to make themselves feel secure.
13:09
Speaker 2: So it doesn't matter how much money they have or what shape they're in or what job they hold or how many friends they have, it's still not enough for them to feel secure.
13:17
Speaker 2: So the toxic personality has to place people in their life that supply them with the things that make them feel secure.
13:27
Speaker 2: And in my work and what I teach is it's basically four things.
13:31
Speaker 2: It's control, power, attention and admiration.
13:34
Speaker 2: So if you are in the life of a toxic person, you are supplying them with one or more of those four things to make them feel secure, cause if you weren't, you wouldn't be in their life at any significant level.
13:45
Speaker 2: So at that point you know it's like the dictators in history.
13:48
Speaker 2: They don't go, conquer one country and go eh, that's enough.
13:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah Right.
13:53
Speaker 2: They feel power and they feel control and they have admiration, and so they want more of that.
13:59
Speaker 2: So the toxic personality is gonna take as many people as they can supplying them.
14:04
Speaker 2: So they're completely fine having a girlfriend and having a wife.
14:07
Speaker 2: They know it looks bad, but they're never gonna admit to it anyway.
14:11
Speaker 1: So when they conquer these things and they get that burst of excitement or whatever title you wanna put to it that gets them to go deeper into their manipulations.
14:25
Speaker 1: And when they're having these separate lives a wife and a girlfriend or whatever the case may be do you think in their mind that they know that they're doing something wrong?
14:37
Speaker 1: Like, is it wrong to them in their mind, or do they just know that it's wrong to society but not wrong to their beliefs?
14:46
Speaker 2: So I am very non-toxic person bashing I am.
14:50
Speaker 2: They are people too, and a lot of them have a diagnosis.
14:55
Speaker 2: So I like to respect that Absolutely.
14:57
Speaker 2: This is my point of view and that could mean nothing to some of the listeners.
15:02
Speaker 2: But you and I and I'm just guessing because I have heard some of your story because we are so emotionally wired we only can see the world through our emotion.
15:12
Speaker 2: We interact with people through emotion.
15:15
Speaker 2: So when we're in relationships like this, we look at these people and go how come you can't just act normal?
15:20
Speaker 2: You know, we think why can't you just be nice?
15:23
Speaker 2: And we keep thinking, if we just tell them how they hurt us and we just show them what the effect they're having on us, that they're gonna wake up some morning and act like us, right, right.
15:34
Speaker 2: And the truth is they're not, because they are wired completely differently and what motivates them is completely different.
15:41
Speaker 2: So when you say, do they mean to do this?
15:44
Speaker 2: Do they know this?
15:45
Speaker 2: There are definite things that are put into place purposefully to get what they want, but on a day-to-day basis, I think it's very second nature, because they are so driven for that feeling of insecurity that the things that go on on a day-to-day basis is like you bumping into somebody in the grocery aisle.
16:05
Speaker 2: You don't bump into somebody and go.
16:07
Speaker 2: Let's see, was that my fault?
16:08
Speaker 2: Am I supposed to apologize?
16:10
Speaker 2: You go.
16:10
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm so sorry.
16:12
Speaker 1: Right, just natural.
16:13
Speaker 2: Right, it's just second nature to do that, and your day-to-day interactions with them, I believe, are very second nature, because that is what their life is about is feeling secure.
16:24
Speaker 2: You know, when they loop you into a conversation or something, of course they're gonna win.
16:29
Speaker 2: Their conversations are verbal competitions because, if you think about it, a verbal competition they win makes them feel powerful, which makes them feel secure, right.
16:39
Speaker 2: But when we go back to my story, okay, so we have this back and forth thing for two years and finally I ran away.
16:48
Speaker 2: So when people hear me talk on my podcast about the day I ran away, they don't realize I had already been divorced for two years and absolutely nothing changed, except that we had two houses on the same property so he could stay entwined enough with me to stay in control.
17:05
Speaker 2: The only thing it really did was now he can have a girlfriend without worrying about being married and have a girlfriend.
17:12
Speaker 1: So was the kids the leverage.
17:16
Speaker 2: Well, he wouldn't allow me to sell my half of the business.
17:19
Speaker 2: He wouldn't buy my half of the business.
17:20
Speaker 2: So we were financially stuck together.
17:22
Speaker 2: We had property.
17:24
Speaker 2: He refused to do anything with that.
17:26
Speaker 2: He refused to sign a parenting plan.
17:28
Speaker 2: He said 50-50, but with no schedule in there.
17:31
Speaker 2: Nobody's held accountable.
17:32
Speaker 2: So I had divorce papers in my hand and literally nothing changed.
17:37
Speaker 2: And after two years of that I thought I was going to lose my mind.
17:41
Speaker 2: Now, I never felt like I was going to harm myself.
17:44
Speaker 2: I was always very, very mental and I had to be there for my girls and there was a misconception because I kept thinking I have to protect my kids, I have to protect my kids.
17:54
Speaker 2: And one day I woke up and I thought you are here and you're not protecting them.
17:59
Speaker 2: You can't protect them when you're here.
18:01
Speaker 2: They are getting the same treatment you are, because kids, sadly, are just two more people placed in these people's lives to feed them with the things that they need.
18:12
Speaker 2: And what I ended up doing is I ended up signing my half of the practice over.
18:17
Speaker 2: I gave in my patients, I gave in my accounts receivable, I left all the property.
18:20
Speaker 2: I took one piece of property that I could sell and I left my kids and people.
18:25
Speaker 2: I know that sounds absolutely horrible.
18:29
Speaker 2: It was the worst time in my life was to leave my kids there.
18:34
Speaker 2: I left them when they were 11 and 13.
18:36
Speaker 2: Now they had been in it just as long as me.
18:38
Speaker 2: They were very aware they had learned to survive in it.
18:41
Speaker 2: But when I looked at the example of the relationship that they would think was normal, that was all they had.
18:49
Speaker 2: And when somebody is emotionally abusive, their goal is to say or do something to get an emotional reaction out of you.
18:58
Speaker 2: So if I can say or do something to make you happy or to make you sad or to make you cry or make you feel guilty or to make you upset, my girls learn to survive in that and we were trained to react how it would best avoid conflict.
19:13
Speaker 1: Well, and what's also scary with that, too, is you're training your daughters that it's okay to accept a man to treat them this way.
19:21
Speaker 2: Or anybody.
19:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, anybody, yeah, absolutely.
19:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, because toxic relationships aren't just intimate.
19:28
Speaker 2: They're in family circles, they're in friendships, they're in social circles, they're in co-worker situations.
19:32
Speaker 2: But we have to remember they're going to target our personality because the kind, caring, loving, giving, supportive, conflict avoider is going to be the one that supplies them with those four things.
19:44
Speaker 2: So, moving forward, we all have to realize we have to protect ourselves because they're going to target us.
19:50
Speaker 2: But so I'll quick summarize my story.
19:53
Speaker 2: I ended up leaving.
19:54
Speaker 2: I moved four hours south.
19:56
Speaker 2: He kept my kids from me for five years.
19:57
Speaker 2: I didn't have them during my teenage years, other than when things got really bad.
20:03
Speaker 2: They'd run away and come to me and then he would offer to buy him a new truck or you know, and he would buy him back when they were 17 and 19,.
20:11
Speaker 2: They did the same thing I did.
20:13
Speaker 2: They waited till he went to work, they loaded their stuff and they left, and every single girlfriend and wife that he's had since has left the same way.
20:22
Speaker 2: He literally just needs someone in his life supplying him with those things, and when they leave they just plug somebody else in.
20:30
Speaker 2: But for us emotionally based people, it's very hard to accept that that's what the relationship was, because at the beginning we thought we were working towards the same goals, because they have to pretend they are.
20:41
Speaker 2: If they say, oh, I'm just in it for security and myself, we would go yeah thanks, but no thanks.
20:46
Speaker 2: So they pretend our goals are the same, and so that's kind of how my you know, in summary of my story five years without my kids about destroying me, I really, really had to.
21:01
Speaker 2: You know, I said I was blonde.
21:02
Speaker 2: I didn't talk, I didn't laugh.
21:03
Speaker 2: I had to dig deep to figure out who I was, because at some point I wanted my kids to see the mom that they were supposed to see from the beginning, you know.
21:11
Speaker 2: So I put a lot of work into myself during those years.
21:15
Speaker 2: I mean, I used to walk into a room and be so panicked because nobody's going to like me and you know, my self-worth was gone.
21:22
Speaker 2: My self-confidence was gone.
21:23
Speaker 2: I was as insecure as you could get.
21:26
Speaker 2: I panicked about everything all the time, and you can probably hear it in my voice.
21:31
Speaker 2: My voice is shaking.
21:33
Speaker 2: I still after 14 years and I still deal with triggers from this type of thing.
21:39
Speaker 2: And my girls are good now they're 24 and 26 and they're both living their own life.
21:44
Speaker 2: And I started a new practice here and built a chiropractic office, and then I, like everybody in their job, I started feeling burnt out.
21:53
Speaker 2: I felt like I was like, yeah, yeah, whatever, get on the table.
21:56
Speaker 2: And so I thought I've got to do something.
21:59
Speaker 2: I got to do something different.
22:01
Speaker 2: And so I started coaching and making yourself a priority, and the people that were coming to me were coming out of relationships just like this, and that's what started what I do now, and I retired from healthcare two years ago and I do the toxic relationship recovery full time now.
22:17
Speaker 1: Oh, wow, Wow.
22:18
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
22:19
Speaker 1: I excuse me, I know this is maybe backtracking a little bit, but a couple of things I wrote down on my notes while you were talking that I found very interesting is you said that he had convinced you that you're the love of his life and I could tell that when you were using those words, you, those words were calculated.
22:44
Speaker 1: That's exactly what you met, and some of the people that I've interviewed or research that I've done, documentaries that I've seen, they want to say that that that person convinced them that they were the love of their life you know that he was a love of your life, but he convinced you that you're the love of his life and that he can't go on without you.
23:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so you know what that did.
23:09
Speaker 2: That was emotional abuse.
23:11
Speaker 2: That made me feel guilty.
23:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, it made me feel guilty and I'd never been in love before.
23:15
Speaker 2: So how did I know?
23:17
Speaker 2: Right, right, but but you know that goes back to I don't I don't use a ton of therapy terms, but if you've heard the word love bombing, it's in the beginning, when, when they convinced you that everything is perfect because they can't tell you that they just step into it for security and you feel a shift.
23:36
Speaker 2: Everything is going good, and as soon as they know enough about you and they know they can get emotional reactions, you will feel a shift in the relationship.
23:44
Speaker 2: They'll start calling you names, or things will get uncomfortable, or you just won't.
23:48
Speaker 2: You won't hear those compliments anymore, and that's you know.
23:52
Speaker 2: In the beginning of the relationship you're feeding them with a bunch of attention and admiration, because the beginning of any relationship is good, whether it's toxic or not.
24:00
Speaker 2: It's right and and most people will describe theirs like that, like it seems so good.
24:07
Speaker 2: I personally didn't feel like that.
24:08
Speaker 2: I knew that there was something there that I didn't like.
24:11
Speaker 2: I just didn't listen.
24:12
Speaker 2: I just didn't listen to my intuition, but he kept convincing me.
24:17
Speaker 2: This was it, this was it.
24:18
Speaker 2: This was it.
24:18
Speaker 2: And I thought, well, if this is it, I guess I'll try it.
24:21
Speaker 2: But as soon as I felt that shift, I knew something was wrong.
24:24
Speaker 2: And you know, these relationships are usually very quick.
24:29
Speaker 2: They're quick to get engaged, they're quick to move in, they're quick to have a baby.
24:32
Speaker 2: They're quick to, because the more invested the emotional person is, the more guilty and hard it is for us to leave Absolutely.
24:41
Speaker 1: You know, and then when you put the kids into it too, like so many people think well, I can't.
24:48
Speaker 1: I'm a mother, I can't leave the children.
24:50
Speaker 1: I'm a mother, I can't uproot the children.
24:52
Speaker 1: But you know, what's very important for people to realize is, absolutely, you're a mother, but that's not everything that you are, and that's If you are keeping yourself in these unhealthy situations, then that's teaching your children that it's okay to be in these unhealthy situations, that that is what is normal.
25:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know I think one of the hardest things for me which also drives my work is people who have not been in an emotional abuse of situation do not understand it.
25:23
Speaker 2: You know my family knew it wasn't good and they wanted to understand it.
25:28
Speaker 2: But they say things like well, why don't you just leave?
25:32
Speaker 2: Or if it's so bad, how come you're still there?
25:36
Speaker 2: Well, the emotional abusive person trains you to be emotionally dependent on them.
25:42
Speaker 2: If they're continually telling you how you should feel and taking your emotional support systems away, we look to them like okay, how am I supposed to feel?
25:51
Speaker 2: And the perfect example of this is they get up in the morning on Wednesday and they're in a great mood and they pat you on the butt and they give you a kiss on the cheek and they tell you to have a good day.
25:59
Speaker 2: I always had a good day that day.
26:02
Speaker 2: Thursday morning they get up, they step on a Lego, the floor's not vacuumed, they don't like the color of your hair, they leave without saying anything.
26:09
Speaker 2: I have a horrible day.
26:11
Speaker 2: So my emotion was based on how they were feeling, not how I was feeling, and there becomes something that's called a trauma bond.
26:23
Speaker 2: We don't know how to feel we lose our identity, we don't know what hat to wear, unless they're telling us Right.
26:30
Speaker 2: And that's why your normal toxic relationship people leave seven times.
26:35
Speaker 2: I left six times and went back because of guilt or because what if he finds somebody and he's happy?
26:42
Speaker 2: And I'll just prove I'm enough.
26:44
Speaker 2: And you're constantly wanting acceptance and approval because all you've ever heard is what you need to improve, what's wrong with you.
26:52
Speaker 2: And if you could just do this, our relationship would be good.
26:55
Speaker 2: So our attention is on them 100% of the time.
27:00
Speaker 2: So you have no time for self-care, you have no time to make your own life, you have no time to follow your dreams or your passions, because what do they need me for?
27:08
Speaker 2: I'm right here.
27:10
Speaker 1: Right.
27:10
Speaker 1: And another point that you made that I found very interesting is when you spoke of one day was a good.
27:20
Speaker 1: It wasn't a consistent bad time.
27:23
Speaker 1: One day would be great and the next day would be bad.
27:26
Speaker 1: And when they're telling you that this is what relationships are not everything's perfect Like sometimes you have hiccups and if we get through it together, then we're doing great.
27:39
Speaker 1: And if you abide by these rules, that means we get through it together and you're doing great.
27:43
Speaker 1: And so when you get into that cycle like it's so scary because I know that when I was younger, my first boyfriend was a lot older than me and there would be times that he would tell me where he would play on me being naive to things and he would say this is just real life, this is just adulthood, welcome to it, this is just-.
28:08
Speaker 2: I always got normal couples fight Just because your mom and dad didn't fight in front of you.
28:13
Speaker 2: Normal couples fight.
28:14
Speaker 2: So then I'm like, well, maybe normal couples fight.
28:16
Speaker 2: The other thing that we have to watch out for is because we're conflict avoiders and they instill fear in us.
28:24
Speaker 2: Fear is an emotion.
28:25
Speaker 2: It's not always fear for your physical safety.
28:29
Speaker 2: I had times in mind that I feared physical safety and I feared my life.
28:33
Speaker 2: I feared physical safety for my kids, but it's more fear of disappointing them, fear of upsetting them, fear of having conflict with them.
28:42
Speaker 2: And so if you have a really bad day on Tuesday and on Wednesday they get up in a good mood, you're not gonna bring up what happened on Tuesday and talk about it, because now we're on to Wednesday and when we're constantly trying to stay out of trouble and stay away from conflict, all we can pay attention to is what they say and what they do, because we have to have a plan A and a plan B, and so you end up in survival mode.
29:08
Speaker 2: Okay, if they do this, I'll act like this, and if they're in a bad mood, kids, go to your room and don't fight.
29:12
Speaker 2: Tonight.
29:12
Speaker 2: You're constantly doing this kind of thing, so you never have time to even think what motivates this behavior.
29:17
Speaker 2: I would have never thought, oh, it's because he's insecure.
29:20
Speaker 2: When I was in it, that would never cross my mind, because all I was thinking is what's he gonna do next and what am I gonna do to respond to it?
29:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there was a part too, and I can't remember exactly what words you used, but you were victim blaming yourself.
29:34
Speaker 1: It was what can I do to make it better?
29:36
Speaker 1: Maybe my hair should have been a little blonder, maybe the floor should have been vacuum better.
29:42
Speaker 1: And then, even through your stories, I noticed that some of the things you would say is well, he would come to you and say, well, if you would have just done this or if things would have happened this way.
29:52
Speaker 1: And then that is training you to also victim blame, and people don't realize that it's happening when it's happening a lot of times.
30:02
Speaker 2: you know, and I go ahead and take my place.
30:05
Speaker 2: I think the word victim blame I don't like that word because I didn't feel like I was a victim, because I didn't know any different.
30:13
Speaker 2: It was normal behavior to me.
30:14
Speaker 2: I didn't know it was a toxic relationship, I didn't know it was abusive, so I didn't even know I was a victim.
30:20
Speaker 2: But when he's telling me, this is what you need to do to fix the relationship, I was just like okay, I'll do it.
30:28
Speaker 2: Like you know what.
30:29
Speaker 2: I don't know that I've ever even one time thought of myself as a victim.
30:33
Speaker 2: Sure, you know.
30:34
Speaker 2: Now that you say that I don't know that I ever did.
30:38
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:39
Speaker 2: Because I didn't know what I was in until four years later and I started looking back, going, oh my gosh, you've got to be kidding me.
30:45
Speaker 2: It's 14 years of confusion and, honestly, figuring them out is really easy After you know how they operate.
30:53
Speaker 2: You're like what?
30:54
Speaker 2: Super easy.
30:56
Speaker 2: But I do know that going through that because the toxic personality is never gonna take blame, they're never gonna take responsibility.
31:03
Speaker 2: So if we are gonna make it better, we need to change who we are, to become what they need so the relationship runs smoother, you know, and they take our identity away.
31:12
Speaker 2: You go to the beauty shop to get your hair trimmed and while you're there you think yeah, I've had the same ugly, messy bun for eight months, I'm just gonna cut it off.
31:18
Speaker 2: So you cut it off and you're feeling all good and they say you know, I like your hair long.
31:23
Speaker 2: Okay, the next time you go to the beauty shop you don't go.
31:27
Speaker 2: How does Heidi wanna wear her hair?
31:29
Speaker 2: You go, how do I think he wants me to wear my hair?
31:32
Speaker 2: So the decisions you should be making as an adult, you don't even realize you're giving those up.
31:38
Speaker 2: But we're trying to avoid conflict.
31:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, when I left I couldn't order off of a menu.
31:44
Speaker 2: I could not sit down and order off of a menu without about having an anxiety attack.
31:49
Speaker 2: Wow, and it wasn't because he was telling me what to order.
31:52
Speaker 2: It was how come you're having chicken, or don't you think that's too expensive?
31:56
Speaker 2: So I would wait.
31:57
Speaker 2: At 35 years old, I would wait to see what he was ordering, to see what the price point was Are we having cocktails or is it water?
32:04
Speaker 2: And then I would order something I didn't even want, because hopefully I wouldn't get criticized and I wouldn't get all this bashing for eating what I ordered.
32:12
Speaker 1: So you never got a chance to analyze him and his behaviors.
32:16
Speaker 1: You were only able to analyze you and your behaviors to make everything kind of smooth selling, at least for the night Right.
32:26
Speaker 2: And because you know, when you're in it we make excuses.
32:28
Speaker 2: Well, he just had a bad day, he had a really bad upbringing.
32:30
Speaker 2: Well, everybody in his life left him.
32:32
Speaker 2: That's just how he is.
32:34
Speaker 2: So the three of us would just walk on eggshells around him to accommodate to his personality and just continually change who we are so that we fit, so we wouldn't cause conflict.
32:46
Speaker 1: Now did you feel comfortable leaving your children with him because he wasn't?
32:50
Speaker 2: as I didn't feel comfortable leaving my children.
32:52
Speaker 2: One minute, not one minute.
32:54
Speaker 2: I just knew that that was my only option.
32:56
Speaker 2: And I knew that my kids were tough, they were exactly like me and if they needed me they'd get ahold of me.
33:02
Speaker 2: But if I was gonna save any of us, I had to get out.
33:06
Speaker 2: And now, when you talk to I, carried so much guilt, sure, and now they'll go.
33:13
Speaker 2: Mom, if you wouldn't have left, we would all still be there, or one of us would be hurt very badly or maybe not even here I've been feeling guilty about it.
33:21
Speaker 2: We knew why you left and we did just fine.
33:23
Speaker 2: We made it.
33:24
Speaker 2: Everything's fine.
33:25
Speaker 1: And I'm so glad that they know that, because they're 100% correct, because eventually those forms of abuse escalate.
33:32
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
33:33
Speaker 2: Oh and it did.
33:34
Speaker 2: And the other thing that brought me peace not when I didn't have them, but I knew that if I kept staying there and covering up his behavior and making excuses, that they wouldn't see his true colors.
33:50
Speaker 2: And I wanted, when they were 18, I wanted them to be able to make the decision on the relationship they had with him, and if I kept making excuses they wouldn't be able to do that.
34:01
Speaker 2: And one of them talks to him every couple months and one of them hasn't spoken to him in five years.
34:07
Speaker 1: I love when you know you're not the first mother that we've had on the show that has said in order to save myself, I had to leave my children with their father, and I know that there's always negativity in society and I'm like, oh well, a mother would never, but to me that shows how good of a mother you are.
34:30
Speaker 2: I know that it was to save myself, but it was also if I didn't save myself, they had no hope.
34:35
Speaker 1: Well, and that was the point I was gonna make, it's kind of like what your Flutterton and tells you when the air mask falls down, you have to put yours on first or you're not gonna be any help to anybody else.
34:46
Speaker 1: And so you were kind of in that situation.
34:49
Speaker 1: You had to go put your air mask on to help someone else.
34:54
Speaker 1: And the fact that you said I want my children to make their own decision on the role that this man plays in their life and they're welcome to pick whichever they want, but I want it to be theirs that alone shows me how amazing of a mother you are, because so many people want to use children as that crutch and that leverage of.
35:16
Speaker 1: Well, your dad's this and your mom's that, and that's their jabs and their way to continue to abuse and hurt the person that they're really mad at, for whatever reason, and it damages the children you.
46:43
Speaker 2: So it's nothing wrong with you.
46:44
Speaker 2: We just need to reprogram you.
46:46
Speaker 2: It's not that big a deal.
46:48
Speaker 2: Your attention's been on them.
46:49
Speaker 2: We just need to retrain you to put your attention on you Right, and it makes it so much safer feeling than you better go somewhere.
46:58
Speaker 2: You need help.
46:59
Speaker 2: You probably have a diagnosis.
47:00
Speaker 2: Well, we've already been hearing that for 14 years.
47:02
Speaker 2: We already know there's stuff wrong with us and I don't believe it.
47:04
Speaker 2: I don't believe that, and people may have a diagnosis, but when we're dealing with this, they've programmed you exactly what they need you to be and think and do.
47:12
Speaker 2: So we just need to reprogram you Right, right, I think too, with that, going back, people look at the recovery and the healing and the moving forward and all they see is this huge, ginormous mountain and they think, oh, my goodness, that is gonna be so hard and I don't know where to start.
47:33
Speaker 2: So I'll just stay here because this is easier, right, because you hear people say, david, you just need to love yourself more, and you're like, okay, thanks, got any tips?
47:46
Speaker 2: You have a list I love to do that, I love to do Right, and you just need to treat yourself better.
47:52
Speaker 2: You just need and when we're sitting in those relationships, we don't even know how to do that.
47:57
Speaker 2: So when we think about getting out and taking care of ourselves and making decisions, and what if it's the wrong one it's just easier to stay.
48:04
Speaker 2: Besides that, we feel very insecure when we remove ourselves and we don't know what the toxic person is doing.
48:12
Speaker 2: Right?
48:13
Speaker 2: We feel safer because we've been in survival mode so long.
48:16
Speaker 2: At least if we're around them, we can anticipate their behavior.
48:20
Speaker 2: If we are cut off from them, we don't know what they're saying about us, what they're doing, if they're gonna show up, and we just feel safer when we're around them.
48:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, one thing that I have said throughout the show that people have actually had a really cool response to is when I tell people that the best thing that ever happened to me personally is when I got to that point to where I started to enjoy the ride.
48:45
Speaker 1: So and I was triggered with that when you were talking about the mountain and you were so intimidated about that mountain it's how am I ever gonna climb that?
48:53
Speaker 1: Let me, I'll just say where I'm at, because I'm not ever gonna be able to climb this mountain, and I've been there, we've all been there.
49:05
Speaker 2: How did we climb the mountain Right?
49:06
Speaker 2: We quit thinking about the mountain and we just concentrated on the first step Right.
49:11
Speaker 2: And when we got to the first step, we could see this we don't have to see the whole staircase.
49:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and you don't realize that, because you didn't do it all in one day.
49:20
Speaker 2: It was a one-stop-in-a-time thing, you know.
49:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Another question that I have for you and you had kind of touched on this a little bit but one thing that we find so common, especially like in every time I hear this question, I think of Oprah, when Oprah's talk show was on years ago, and but people would always wanna say, why did you say, if that was me, I'd left a long time ago?
49:47
Speaker 1: What is your response?
49:50
Speaker 2: to that.
49:50
Speaker 2: Anybody who says why didn't you leave has not experienced emotional abuse.
49:56
Speaker 2: And, like with clients, I just tell them they're trying to help in their defense.
50:00
Speaker 2: Sure, they're trying to support you the best that they can.
50:04
Speaker 2: They just they don't know the depth of the emotion, that the emotional ties that have you tied together.
50:10
Speaker 2: And I actually did an episode of my podcast for people to forward to their support systems and I really tried to explain the situation that they're in.
50:21
Speaker 2: So if you have parents that are worried about you that just keep saying how come you're staying there, how come you're not leaving, I really tried to explain a little bit better how that works so people don't have to explain it to their support system.
50:32
Speaker 2: They can just let them listen to me, because that was my hardest thing, my parents wanted to support me and they I mean they moved me out twice.
50:39
Speaker 2: What more could they do?
50:39
Speaker 2: And I would, I would go back.
50:41
Speaker 2: So they just, they just don't.
50:43
Speaker 2: They don't know the internal workings in an abusive, toxic relationship is the problem.
50:49
Speaker 1: Wow, one of the biggest responses that I get with people is in regards to you know that question.
50:56
Speaker 1: So I would love to send people your way on that episode of your podcast.
51:02
Speaker 1: I wanna hear it myself Because you know you're right, like people, I think, are meaning it in a lovely loving, supportive kind of way.
51:12
Speaker 1: But it's not as easy.
51:14
Speaker 1: There are so many times.
51:16
Speaker 2: You're right, because I remember when I was in it I was so frustrated that my sisters didn't understand it and I couldn't explain it.
51:21
Speaker 2: And now I'm like, well, thank God they didn't understand it.
51:25
Speaker 2: Yeah Right, you know, and I am very careful with my clients too, because the people who come to me are emotionally wired.
51:34
Speaker 2: Like you and I, we are driven by emotion.
51:37
Speaker 2: So I always have to say I understand that this person you have loved, they're the father or the mother of your kids.
51:46
Speaker 2: You've invested time, you've invested your life, you've put a dream together that you thought was gonna be this.
51:52
Speaker 2: So we're gonna take the time that you need, because this person does have a huge place in your life, and I'm not just gonna go in there and go oh, this person is awful and you need to get rid of him.
52:04
Speaker 2: Because I was there, I learned to care about him because I spent so much time with him and he was my kid's dad.
52:11
Speaker 2: So I didn't wanna see him hurt, I didn't wanna hurt his feelings, I didn't wish any ill on him, and I think that's the part that people miss.
52:21
Speaker 2: Well, they're awful to you, just like, yeah, it's easy to say and, honestly, I think that's why this.
52:28
Speaker 2: I had no idea that my business would do what it did, but it's because as soon as I talk to a client and I 100% guarantee you do the same thing soon as I talk to a client I find out where they are in their journey and I automatically put myself back to that same exact spot, because that's the only way I can walk them through it.
52:52
Speaker 1: Sure, like you were saying earlier, you didn't know that you were even being abused until you knew.
52:58
Speaker 1: You know.
53:00
Speaker 2: And, if you think about it, I had a doctorate.
53:02
Speaker 2: I mean I've been through all the psychology.
53:04
Speaker 2: I've been through all that.
53:05
Speaker 2: I mean I thought I was gonna work with wives that were leaving emotionally abusive husbands.
53:09
Speaker 2: That's really what I thought I was gonna be doing.
53:11
Speaker 2: And now I work with everything Friends, families, coworkers, situations, same sex, intimate partners Because the toxic person, regardless of the relationship, is after the same thing.
53:25
Speaker 2: Their drive is the same, regardless of what type of relationship it is.
53:28
Speaker 2: And once you understand it there, once you know how to handle one toxic person, you know how to handle them all.
53:35
Speaker 2: Right, and you know too, with my podcast I get emails all the time.
53:39
Speaker 2: I swear you're watching my life, Because when I listen to your podcast, you are literally telling my life story.
53:45
Speaker 2: Okay, well, that just tells you.
53:48
Speaker 2: They use the same tactics, they use the same manipulations, they use the same thing because they're all after the same Right.
53:54
Speaker 2: I've gotten very good at predicting their behavior.
53:57
Speaker 2: I know what's gonna happen next.
53:58
Speaker 2: Okay, well, this weekend he says he's gonna move out, but don't be surprised if he doesn't.
54:02
Speaker 2: Really, yeah, he's not.
54:03
Speaker 2: And he's not gonna sign the divorce papers next Thursday either, and so it's just a matter of.
54:10
Speaker 2: Not that we wanna put a ton of time into it, but as soon as you understand them, you take your power back.
54:15
Speaker 2: That is the only thing that's gonna take your power back and get you into a place where the decision is right for you.
54:21
Speaker 2: There is so much foundation that goes with understanding the toxic person and I just throw a little bit out there.
54:29
Speaker 2: So if anybody is like I need to learn this, there's a lot more we just can't.
54:34
Speaker 2: We can't cover it all on podcasts, and so my website is coaching with Dr Heidi.
54:39
Speaker 2: There is something called a TPA on there, the Toxicity Profile Analysis that you can take just to validate.
54:48
Speaker 2: It's 106 questions, but it may make you realize that some of the stuff you've been living with might not be normal.
54:54
Speaker 2: My podcast is called it's Not Normal, it's Toxic.
54:58
Speaker 2: It's on all the major platforms.
55:00
Speaker 2: I have a support group online on Facebook, a very positive forward motion support group.
55:06
Speaker 2: I help at whatever stage that people need me.
55:13
Speaker 1: I'm back.
55:13
Speaker 1: I can't be good, can't stand the fact that I'm bad.
55:16
Speaker 1: Now I'm back and I'll pray for you.
55:24
Speaker 1: I'm done hurting.
55:25
Speaker 2: I'll be the one who's an anger won't let you win any longer.
55:29
Speaker 2: Then we begin again.
55:31
Speaker 2: Now I'm back and I'll pray for you.
55:39
Speaker 2: I'm done hurting.