34. I Dated A Narcissist For 6 Years

What is it like to date a narcissist? What happens when you get triggered by other people’s breakup? Living with depression and bipolar, we sometimes wonder if we are the “bad” person in a relationship. So when a narcissist who seems like the “perfect” person comes along and gaslights you, you might end up believing them. Angie shares how she felt during her 6-year relationship with a narcissist and how she was triggered by a famous YouTube couple that recently broke up. 

Takeaway:

• Narcissistic people will always portray themselves as "perfect" so other ppl will be on their side
• Always go with your gut feelings; they're there to protect you
• You can never fully judge the quality of someone else's relationship just by looking from the outside
• Love bombing: when you're being showered with love and affection only to have the person stop so they can manipulate you with their "love". 
• Trauma bonding: bonding over shared trauma without seeking other perspectives can be harmful
• Narcissists use tactics to control you and their own image 
• It's better to offer a friend perspectives rather than always agreeing with them 
• Overanalyzing a situation can cause you more pain

Mentions & Resources:

• Love Bombing - The Narcissist Abuse Cycle (blog)

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Transcript

Kristy Yee: 0:00

He did these things, not for you, even though it looked like it on the surface, but really he did those things for himself to make himself look good. And what's most sly is him telling his friends that you guys have broken up so that when you do call him it's evidence for him that you're the crazy.

Angie Yu: 0:20

absolutely.

Kristy Yee: 0:20

It's like he's setting this up so that he makes you look even worse. So that, that elevates him even more.

Angie Yu: 0:27

Exactly.

Kristy Yee: 0:54

let's welcome our poop troops, back to another episode of shit. We don't tell mom where we get, what do we get? We get comfortable with the uncomfortable. So today I want to get Angie uncomfortable a little bit

Angie Yu: 1:06

Yeah. I'm already uncomfortable. So well done.

Kristy Yee: 1:09

It's a, it's a good start to the episode. Okay. So a few weeks ago. Angie had messaged me on WhatsApp, so there's like, there's a few messages. So here we go. So Angie said, so there's this YouTube channel I used to watch and the couple split up and I've been reading about it on Reddit because it's triggering some bad news because the guy turned out to be a narcissist and their breakup is similar to what I went through with my ex. And it's just one so comforting to know that this is happening to someone else because I can actually see it unfold. And I can really a hundred percent rather than just reading articles about it. But two not sure if it's healthy, because it's bringing up bad feelings and it has seeped into my dreams. And that's when I'm like, mm, not healthy.

Angie Yu: 1:55

That's right. So the good thing is after I talked to somebody about it, like literally just in those few messages, after I spoke to Christie about it, I was able to get a better handle on the fact that I was being too obsessed. Because once I verbalize the fact that like, Hey, I don't know if this is healthy or not. Then when I do do it, I go, Hmm. Do I want to get into that mood today? I know it's only like a minute, less than a minute into our podcast, but that's takeaway number one is talking about it does help. Okay. Bye.

Kristy Yee: 2:26

Can you walk us through the feeling that you had got when you first heard about the couple of splits?

Angie Yu: 2:34

When I first heard about the couple splitting up, I was like, ah, yeah, that sucks. Like shit happens like people break up. So I didn't like really look into it. I was like, okay, whatever. and those of you who know who I'm talking to you, you might know exactly who I'm talking about by the next part that I'm going to dive into it wasn't until the guy released a video to try to claim his side of the story that I was like, fuck this shit,

Kristy Yee: 2:59

what's wrong with that?

Angie Yu: 3:00

because, so it started, okay. So obviously nothing, none of the information I have is. What is it like corroborated by whatever, because a lot of comments have been deleted. So a lot of the things I've been reading has been on Reddit, it's been screenshots. So I'm going to say that most of the stuff that I'm talking about is true, given the fact that I've seen screenshots.

Kristy Yee: 3:21

And for context, why are we talking about a couple from YouTube and why is this triggering for Angie? Because Angie went through a really fucking devastatingly, painful and traumatic breakup. Basically it was a very unhealthy relationship and there was a lot of what does that, what does that, what do the kids call it these

Angie Yu: 3:43

What a lot of

Kristy Yee: 3:44

No like that? Um, no, no, no, no, no. Um, um, oh my gosh, what the kids call it?

Angie Yu: 3:50

what do you call it? I don't know what you're talking on. Codependency.

Kristy Yee: 3:54

Gaslighting.

Angie Yu: 3:55

Oh, gaslighting. Oh my God. Yes. There was so much

Kristy Yee: 3:57

There's a lot of gaslighting to Angie making Angie just feel like this completely inadequate person and that everything is all in her head. Anyways, that's just like a brief little summary of why are we talking about this and some context about why this whole story, this whole YouTube couple's story was triggering for Angie.

Angie Yu: 4:17

So basically, COVID happened. They released a couple of videos during COVID I think, and then it kind of stopped and they started doing their own videos and people were speculating that maybe they had split up, but they never talked about it. They moved back to Canada and. After they moved back to Canada, there was almost no content being released. So some of their supporting audience, like the financial backers started getting irritated. Like what the hell is going on? Why is there no content coming out? And even when there is content, it's just like the girl by herself doing some videos that are somewhat on brand and the guy could just completely disappeared. So people were speculating in the comments and they were kind of like requesting for more information. And of course there's always people trying to defend the couple, you know, and I guess what happened was because people were questioning, a lot of people are going on their Instagram, asking questions here and there and poor girl, it just seemed like she kept trying to answer a question and while not divulging too much information. And then of course they came out with a Instagram post saying like, Hey, like we have decided to part ways, blah, blah, blah. And then people were like, oh my God, you don't like freaking out about it. And I was just like, oh yeah, Sucks. Right. And then, I guess, because they split up, people were like demanding, even more information, like what's going on? Where is he? And then it was this particular video that triggered myself and triggered a lot of people on the internet. And that video was him explaining his side of the story. And that was literally the title of the YouTube video too. And it came out of nowhere because one, she didn't release any videos like that, she has never put up any videos on YouTube, which is where their biggest viewership is about what happened to the relationship. The only time she did. You know, divulge too much information was in the common section of Instagram where she might be like, oh, I don't know, like he's in Hawaii right now. Or like, oh, like we have we're fighting over custody or for a cat or something like that, where she did divulge some information, which he deleted. So people are like, why are you deleting comments? And then people were questioning him and saying negative things and he would delete those comments. And any time it was some sort of a criticism towards him, he would delete the comments. So people are going like, what the fuck? Because every time they ask a question, even if it was not a negative question, question was just a question. Like, why did you go to Hawaii during a pandemic? He would just delete them. So he was trying to make a response video of explaining his behavior, except none of the things he actually talked about in his video actually explained his behavior. And It was basically a 20 minute video of him trying to absolve himself from any responsibilities. And he would explain his side and then he's like, but she did this and did that. So it was like, he wasn't really explaining anything. He wasn't apologizing for anything. He was basically just blaming everything on her. Oh yeah, I did this. But look, this is why I did this and I'm not wrong. And also I did this, but she did this. So, you know, she's a bad person too, but she, he didn't say that of course, but that was kind of the tone of it. and that triggered me so much. Cause I was like, what is the point of this video? It's not like she released the video. She has never talked about their breakup on YouTube. Apparently she mentioned a couple of things here and there in the comments section of their Instagram, which is exposed to like, not that many people, but then he releases a video that's exposed to like over a million people. Trying to blame everything on her. And It just made me so angry because when I was going through the breakup, like every time I would question my ex about something I'm like, so when this happened, I was right. Wasn't that he would just like go around and around and be like, oh, but you did this, you know, it was never like actually having a conversation, never actually being transparent. And he was just acting like he was, oh, like, you know, it takes two people to make or break a relationship. And I'm like, yo, what the hell is going on? So I always felt weird, like looking into what happened with them because I'm like, oh, it's none of my business. But when that video came out, I'm like, I need to get to the bottom of this. What the hell is going on? Like I just got sucked into the drama. So of course, where do you turn for speculation? Reddit! It

Kristy Yee: 8:12

And we're only hearing this from. Angie's perspective her opinion after watching the videos. But what it sounds like for me when I'm getting, is that the girl in this YouTube couple, she seems like she was just trying to protect the both of them the whole time. By not talking too much about their relationship, trying to answer as much questions as possible without going too much into it. I mean, like these are human beings with like personal lives, even though they are YouTube people, right. People, people

Angie Yu: 8:39

UTPB

Kristy Yee: 8:39

know they're YouTube people, they are still human beings. And it sounds like she was just trying to protect whatever privacy that they could still have. And she didn't put out any videos explaining, their situation or, or anything like that. The most public thing that she did was answer some questions on Instagram of which he deleted when the questions were not in his favor, when it makes him look bad, then he will delete. And, and it sounds like, there's a fuck ton of ego or shit, you know, going on over there. And then on top of that, he felt like he needed to. Make a video to explain himself, which I think is a good idea. Like you just disappear off the face of the earth. You have fans, so you should probably say something, but the way that he executed it was what was triggering because he just kept blaming her and kept trying to protect himself.

Angie Yu: 9:30

A hundred percent. That's exactly. That's exactly what happened. And some of her comments did come off very bitter especially because he then got involved with a new girl for very quickly, but he also denied that he was dating her, but there were speculations. So she did come off bitter, but you can also tell that there was a lot of hurt. she was being genuine in the fact that she apologized for being like that. Like she apologized for letting her emotions leak onto those comments, but you know, that's human behavior and people going to be like, well, that's okay. Like you made a mistake and you admitted it and you apologize for it. But he had never actually apologized for anything. And she has this, invisible disease, like. and she also struggles with depression, all these other things, which is what made me really like their page. And he was a very dedicated husband who would always take care of her. so when their split happened, a lot of people jumped to blaming her because everyone saw him as the perfect husband. And some people speculate that it was all her fault because for the longest time, he was able to portray himself as the perfect husband. And that's where I was being triggered because my ex would portray himself as the perfect boyfriend. And even like last week when I bumped into something. I had known back from when I was still with my ex, I told her that we were no longer together. He cheated, it was a bad breakup and she was shocked. She was like, what? But he was such a perfect boyfriend. And I'm like, no, he wasn't like what? I didn't say this to her face. Like, why would you think he's perfect? But, but that was a lot of the reaction from people around me. Like I thought he was perfect, like he was so in love with you, blah, blah, blah, all those things. That was when I realized, well, other people's opinion of him and my opinion of him was very different. And that's where the triggering was coming from because everybody viewed this YouTube for a couple as the perfect couple. They viewed him as a perfect husband because he dedicated his life to taking care of her. And he probably got caretakers. Fatigue, which is totally natural. And people were kind of like blaming her. She kind of became the bad guy. And then when this video came out, everyone's like, oh my God, no, she's not the bad guy.

Kristy Yee: 11:36

I'm kind of glad that this video came out now. You know, I, a slightly triggered as well. I mean, as people who have depression and bipolar, we often feel like a burden to those around us, especially partners, that we are going to share our lives with, and sometimes. It gets into our own heads. So we're thinking like, oh, are we deserving of love? Like, is this person going to walk away from me one day because I'm too much to handle, et cetera, et cetera. So when we see a fellow person who also has depression, we empathize with them so much more. And when we see that, oh, the crowd is going against them, especially because of their illness. That's extra hurtful for us to see, because that could be, it could be.

Angie Yu: 12:27

Absolutely. Like, I could really relate to her struggle of being seen as like potentially the bad person, because everybody saw her ex-husband as like the perfect husband, because I was made to look like the crazy ex-girlfriend actually, in fact, he told people I was a crazy ex-girlfriend when we were still together and he told people we were already broken up. So when I called him, it made me seem like a crazy ex-girlfriend.

Kristy Yee: 12:50

Wow. I did not know that that happened. He told people that you guys broke up when you guys didn't bring.

Angie Yu: 12:58

Yeah. He told his new group of friends who I was never allowed to meet because there was a girl in that group of friends that he was trying to get with. And he had told her that we had broken up so that she would let him make a move on her because she said that he had a girlfriend and she can't date somebody who has a girlfriend, so he told her that we broke up. When in fact we were still together and I could see her pain in those little comments she made where she was trying her best to stay sane, but she was dying inside because she was gaslighted and she was lied to, and she was cheated. I not, as in like physically cheated on, but like she was cheated of her reality. And I, I even just from those few comments that I saw her make, I, I could see it right away and on Reddit. It was very obvious that a lot of other women who went through similar experience where they had a narcissistic ex-boyfriend who gaslighted them, especially near the end of the relationship, all felt the same way. It was almost like a little, you know, like a circle of people going, yes, this happened to me. This happened to me. I'm so

Kristy Yee: 13:58

It's like a support group.

Angie Yu: 14:00

yes. It was almost like a little support group. and I think that's where I was like, oh my goodness. Like, it's socks and so sad that she is going through this, but also for myself from a selfish perspective, it's like, holy crap, someone else is going through this. It actually feels. Reassuring that I wasn't an idiot for not seeing all this.

Kristy Yee: 14:21

What is sad is that I think stories like this are so common

Angie Yu: 14:27

Yeah,

Kristy Yee: 14:28

and we don't talk about it because the folks who get hurt the most. Are the ones should be telling the story, but because they're the ones who got hurt the most, it is also the most difficult to tell that story and I can see that there would be a certain degree of shame.

Angie Yu: 14:46

yeah, exactly. And for me, if I hadn't found actual evidence like actual chat and actually had, you know, connected. The other woman people might have not believed me. And that's the scary part. And there's so many other victims out there who don't have that kind of concrete evidence. And then people might not believe them because they're like, oh, but, but he was so perfect. He was so good to you. Yeah, he was because it made him look good. It's narcissistic behavior.

Kristy Yee: 15:15

He did these things, not for you, even though it looked like it on the surface, but really he did those things for himself to make himself look good. And what's most sly is him telling his friends that you guys have broken up so that when you do call him it's evidence for him that you're the crazy.

Angie Yu: 15:35

absolutely.

Kristy Yee: 15:36

It's like he's setting this up so that he makes you look even worse. So that, that elevates him even more.

Angie Yu: 15:42

Exactly. So we were living together and he said he wanted to move out. And I was like, well, then let's break up. And he, this was the weird part. He refused to break up. He convinced me that by him moving out for a while and then that it would actually make our relationship stronger. He convinced me that that was the case. And even though I had all these doubts, he asked me to give him the opportunity and to take this leap of faith with him. Those were his exact words. And despite how I felt inside, I was like, okay, because I was made to believe that he really truly loved me.

Kristy Yee: 16:19

How did you feel on the inside?

Angie Yu: 16:21

I felt tormented in hindsight I felt that way because my actions and my gut feelings were completely opposite. I didn't listen to my gut feelings.

Kristy Yee: 16:34

if you feel up to it, why don't we have you tell your story

Angie Yu: 16:38

sure. Yeah. I'm at the point now where I'm fine with it. It no longer makes me relive the emotions. But definitely seeing someone else go through it. It's more from a empathetic perspective. So with my experience, basically. I was with this person for nearly six years. the first five years was really tough. we were in a long distance relationship. We met abroad and we decided to give it a try. And most long distance relationships don't work out, but this one worked out and I saw a lot of the behind the scenes, like was not perfect. But he was very gentlemanly. He was really good at that. So everyone thought of him as this like, oh, very Gallant, British boy. And he moved here for me. Wow. What a profession of love? You know,

Kristy Yee: 17:22

what do you mean? What do you mean by gentlemanly? Like, can you give some examples so that our poop troops can paint a picture?

Angie Yu: 17:29

he'll like lend his Jack. To any girls, he will offer to pay food for his friends, like male or female. Like he always comes off very generous. But behind the doors, he was not that generous with me. We split everything 50, 50, but he would pay the bill at the restaurant, even though we would actually split it 50 50 at the end of the month.

Kristy Yee: 17:50

Ah, okay. So he like keeps tabs of these things and, and he'll do it for the optics in front of other people. But, I mean, cause I feel like 50 50 is, is fine. Like lots of people operate 50 50 and it's all good. But I think the difference here is that he makes himself look like it's not 50 50, but then afterwards it's like, yo, so you owe me like 25 bucks for that dinner. I just paid.

Angie Yu: 18:16

Well, like we consolidate all of our expenses together. So I was like, okay, whatever. But the fact that he's always the person like reaching for the bill, like, it just makes it look. But that's like one of very, very minor things. So everyone believed that he was like, oh my God, he like put Angie on a pedestal. He always talks about her. He even made a really weird comment to me one day out of nowhere. He's like, I realized that girls usually want guys with a girlfriend. It makes the guy more attractive. And I remember being like, what? And I was just like, okay, whatever. I just thought it was like a random comment. I'm like, maybe like, I don't know, drives up demand or some shit like that. I don't know. but in hindsight it was like, was he just using me to. Get the attention of other girls, because whenever I met his female coworkers, they would be like, oh my God, like he talks about you all the time is so sweet. Like it's always like how good of a boyfriend he is, but never about how good I am. So it made me believe like, oh, after however many years and made me genuinely believe that that was the case. And I never saw the, the love bombing, which is a word that's used to describe with somebody who just like comes at you with intensity, in showing affection. But it's not healthy because it's an attempt to influence the other person by your behavior, because it's like, wow, those personal loves to be so much or likes me so much that if they stop you feel like, even more confused about why I stopped. And it's actually one of the signs being in a relationship with someone who's a narcissist is you are loved bombed at the beginning. So there was a lot of love bombing in terms of not necessarily like physical gifts, but just like the emotional, the praises that like putting you on a pedestal kind of thing. So obviously when it ended, it was like a huge surprise to me. And it was like a completely different person. Like I couldn't even recognize who this person was anymore. Even the way he looked at me with stuff. But it all happened. So suddenly there was no communication. There was a bit of period before that, that things weren't going super well. Like things were a bit off. And I had even a suggested, what about like an open relationship when we were young? You're in twenties. not too late to try different things to see what works for you. Right. And his response was no, no, I will never be able to be with you if you sleep with another man. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. Okay. Chill. Like, it was just a suggestion, but he ends up going into another relationship with someone else while still with me. And that's the part I never understood until I did more research about narcissist because I'm like, I gave him so many exit opportunities. I gave him so many opportunities to it'd be like, look, let's just end this. Like, this is, it's not going to work. But every time I brought that up, he would like almost beg for me to give him just a chance to give this a chance or in his words, give us a chance. And I was like, okay, well, if you feel so passionately about it, but yet every time we part ways, I would always feel like there's something off about this. Like this just does not feel right. And that feeling I could physically feel it. I felt nauseous and I couldn't eat. I had no appetite and I was constantly feeling anxious. I know. I just like dropped so many things. this whole story could be turned into like a podcast because there were so many things, so many things that I had never even heard of that happened to me. Love bombing and gaslighting.

Kristy Yee: 21:30

I mean, you're in a place where you have since recovered from this trauma. It's really hard not to overthink something that is happening to you in that moment, especially when you discovered that this person that I have been with for six years is not actually the person that I thought I knew. It's really hard not to have it consume you in thoughts. But what I feel like as a bystander to give as an opinion piece is to not try to overanalyze it, to not try to understand why would he say these things? Why did he behave the way that he did? why was he so adamant about, I can never sleep with you if you sleep with another person and then turns around and does the exact same thing like that in itself could have been a deflection because he was already doing it. That could have been so many different things. But I feel like when we go, so, so deep into the rabbit hole of trying to figure out what is it that this narcissist is trying to do or was trying to do to me, could actually end up hurting you even more.

Angie Yu: 22:38

Yes. Yes, that's right. Actually, that's a great point. And I think that the biggest part of recovery is to be like, you know what? He was a narcissist. I will never understand because I'm not a narcissist and a narcissist can not date a narcissist because they would both be trying to suck the energy out of the other

Kristy Yee: 22:55

The world was as implode.

Angie Yu: 22:57

doesn't work. Right. So I, yeah, I guess the, for anybody who's listening, who is recovering from trauma with a narcissist, it's like, Hey, no. Yeah. Like Chrissy said, no need to analyze it because one only holds you back. And two, you will never understood. If you are not an narcissist, you will never understand it. You can, kind of understand that this is the kind of person they are, but you will never understand why, like what prompts somebody to do, stuff like that. And I think that was what I was struggling with. The hardest. It took me a really long time because I was analyzing nonstop because for me, I think we've talked about this. How for me, when I try to understand, if I'm going through some sort of emotion and it's something that I don't like the feeling of, I just try to analyze it until that feeling goes away, which is not processing, analyze over analyzing a feeling and actually processing that feeling is completely different.

Kristy Yee: 23:46

Correct. Sometimes when you overanalyze, it's almost a distraction from actually processing the emotions that you need to be.

Angie Yu: 23:54

absolutely it's like a hundred percent and it's a, it's a defense mechanism. It's, it's painful to feel that way. And I think I saw that in the Reddit comments, like the fans who are longterm, viewers of

Kristy Yee: 24:07

I was going to say fans, the bands who were long term

Angie Yu: 24:14

people have like, they have built a relationship with I'm sure it was like painful for them to hear this too. Right. Like what happened? You know, as viewers, and as these fans are going through the motions of like, holy shit, what happened? they're trying to overanalyze to try to process what happened, but again, it's not the same thing. One of the other, very telling things was that this is where like some of the commenters are just like, whoa, like how do people even get this? But she obviously made her own channel to make her own Instagram, to distance herself from him because he refused to make his own stuff. so while she was doing that, her new page had followed a narcissist recovery, Instagram page, and she had shared resources from them and she has, liked their posts. And when I saw those screenshots, I was like, damn, I've done that. I did that one. You know, of course, one, as I want other people to know what a piece of shit he was. So I wanted to share and be like, this is what I'm going through, which is, you know, not healthy, but when you're in that space, you need to convince other people to convince yourself that you're not stupid for falling. And I think she was doing the same cause they were married for so long and yeah. I think they were married in like, I dunno, 2005, 2006 or something like that. so the fact that she was doing all these things, some people say, well, she's just trying to get attention and you know what? That's probably not wrong because when I did that, I was trying to get attention, but I was trying to get attention in the form of like, look, I'm not crazy. What you see is not a hundred percent the story. And I that's part of it too. So obviously when I saw her do that, I was like, this is why I'm so obsessed with the story of. And I remember messaging my best friend, Christine, about what happened. She's like, oh yeah. I saw the updates and whatever, and I didn't really look into it because I didn't feel like it's my business. And I'm like, that's exactly how I felt until I saw that video. Cause all, all the things that he was doing just reminded me so much of my ex that I was like, oh, triggered.

Kristy Yee: 26:05

it's like you are seeing this poor girl going through pretty much a very similar path that you had once walked on and you related so hard and you had so much empathy for this person. And then on top of that, seeing how the ex had reacted and how he had behaved was an additional triggering layer, because that just reminded you of your own shitty ex.

Angie Yu: 26:31

Yes, that's right. I do hope that from her experience and her going through this and some of her fans, like a lot of her fans are younger people, other people with like invisible illnesses. They will see this and be like, huh? Why is she looking into resources like this? If she can be married to someone like that for so long. And she's smart, intelligent, really creative. Then if I go through this, then that's okay. It doesn't make me an idiot because for a really long time, I felt like an idiot. I always thought I was pretty smart, but like, how could I fall for something like this? Right. But again, they, use tactics to control you, you know, narcissists do all these great things to control you. And. It's not like, I don't know how to say this. Like, I don't want to be like, oh, I wish there was somebody there who told me he was a narcissist, but you know, it's not like that. Cause I, I am glad that I came out stronger from this. but yeah, the whole triggering thing I think is just once you have come out of a abusive relationship with a narcissist, you just become so good at recognizing it.

Kristy Yee: 27:26

I think another pro out of this, specifically about that, girl YouTuber is that hopefully for her fans to see that people aren't perfect on either ends, like he was not what the fans thought he was. And she is also. Being so much stronger than people might give her credit for, by looking into these resources and by sharing these resources. And again, hopefully that these fans, one of the takeaways is like, okay, first of all, these resources exists. Number two is that, oh, wow. This person that I really admire, that I look up to that I follow also uses these resources. So that means like a lot of people need these resources. It's kind of like normalizing the use of resources,

Angie Yu: 28:07

Mm. Yes. Yes. That is a great way to think of it as normalizing the use of a resources. And this is stuff that I had never even known was a thing. You hear like, oh, that person's such a narcissist. It's usually like, oh, they're being like a really selfish person. but now I really understand what a narcissist truly is and I can be like, yeah, you know why he wasn't around.

Kristy Yee: 29:28

Since watching that YouTube video and you know where you are now, I know you're no longer triggered we've had this conversation, you felt a lot better even just by having this conversation, not today, but like with other, I mean, today as well, I'm going to take some credit for that, but also with other people offline, right. That in itself made you feel a lot better. Any other tips for what to do when you do feel triggered? And I know triggering can be caused by so many different ways and the magnitude can be very, very different, but specifically to something that like reminds you of a past relationship or something that was, you know, reminded you of a very toxic behavior from someone, what would you say are some tips on how to go beyond that trigger? What happens post trigger?

Angie Yu: 30:15

I can speak about it from my experience. Right. Cause I guess everyone has a different way of going through triggers. Or moving through triggers for me, I'm a pretty angry, triggered person. So the first thing, the first thing I did when I was triggered was I ranted to Christine and she's like, what? Like, you know, like, and I'm like, it's the video that video, the video made me really angry. And then she, I don't know. Cause she knows me so well. She just kept asking me questions where I'm like, okay, I guess it's not that big of a deal that I'm triggered or whatever. like, so react, however you need to react. it's okay. If you're a trigger, that's your emotions. Don't suppress it just as long as you're not hurting anybody else, just let your emotions out if you are triggered because that's what they're there for. Right.

Kristy Yee: 30:57

let it come out naturally the way that it wants to come out, as long as you're not hurting yourself or other people.

Angie Yu: 31:03

Exactly don't hurt anyone, including yourself. And, the next thing would just to talk to somebody about it. Like I was triggered by this, what the fuck? And usually if it's a good friend, they'll understand what you're going through or what they can at least sympathize.

Kristy Yee: 31:17

And they'll probably give you some perspectives too, because when you're in such a high emotional state, you know, we don't think very clearly, and we don't really have very clear perspectives. So it's helpful when you have this conversation with someone else and they can be like, okay,

Angie Yu: 31:35

Yeah, exactly. And that's exactly what Christine did. I would say that it's really easy to fall into the trap of trauma bonding. If it's somebody who has the exact same perspective as you, and that's exactly what Reddit was doing, it was uniting all these people who felt the same way. Everyone was ranting from the exact same perspective. And after a while, it's not healthy because for those of, for those people who don't know how to stop, they're going to keep digging and keep digging for stuff to feel triggered by. And that's what trauma bonding is. And it's unhealthy as well. So having a friend who. can give you a different perspective. It's a good thing. Obviously, my first reaction to her, like not reacting the same way as me was like, what the hell? You don't understand me. Right,

Kristy Yee: 32:24

you're supposed to be.

Angie Yu: 32:27

exactly. But of course, in hindsight, that's like a better way to respond to a friend's trigger. And hopefully your friend is understanding enough to know that you're not, not siding with them. Just that your PR providing a different perspective.

Kristy Yee: 32:41

So you said that there's going to be no takeaways today. There's a fuck ton of takeaways

Angie Yu: 32:45

Oh my God. There's so many takeaways.

Kristy Yee: 32:46

So, the first one is really to go with your gut, whatever your gut feeling is at whatever situation that you are in to go with that gut and try not to be influenced by what other people are trying to tell you. The other one is appearances can be hella fucking deceitful, and we don't fucking know what happens behind other people's closed doors. Third one is YouTubers or just people. Celebrities are just humans. We all go through similar shit, even though we live, maybe we live different lifestyles, but we all have emotions. We all are going to be hurt and there's going to be some good ones and there's going to be some not so good ones out there. The fourth one is over-analyzing can cause you more pain. So check in with yourself, check in with a friend to see if maybe are you spiraling into some crazy rabbit hole situation. And if you are see if you can get someone to help pull you back out of that, because that can cause more damage. Especially when it's a time to be processing the information or the emotion, rather than try to avoid it by over-analyzing it to. And the fifth one is people are always going to have their fucking opinions, especially if like these YouTubers is going to be people who agree with them and people who don't agree with them. Right? This is today. We're speaking from Angie's perspective about what had happened in this situation. We're just spectators in this. We're just fellow fans watching this drama unfold, and we have our own opinions and other people will have their own opinions as well. And they might not agree with us. And that's okay too. People are always going to have their opinions. So whatever decision or choices that you make in life, it really is not about them.

Angie Yu: 34:29

Yeah. And you know, for me, I relate to her more because I've been through something similar. So I'm biased towards that, but maybe someone else relates to him more so they're there on his side. Right. People take sides and you know, as much as we can say, like, try not to take sides, like I I'm taking a side, obviously.

Kristy Yee: 34:47

there's always.

Angie Yu: 34:49

yes and no side is the same. Is that what you were going to say?

Kristy Yee: 34:55

No, but I don't really know what I was going to say, but that was great.

Angie Yu: 35:00

yeah, I think, okay. So there's this one thing that I read. So obviously like in my post trauma recovery stage, I followed and looked at a lot of those healing, Instagram pages. And to be honest, like as cheesy as they might look or say. They do help for somebody who's going through trauma. They do help because they like a lot of this stuff, stuff they say is the same, but after repeating it and they reiterate like, like you're not broken, you're not dumb. Things happen. Shit happens. It does help. And one of the ones that I read that really resonated with me was that there is no single version of you. And that made me go, whoa, because after what happened, I really, really cared about my image because my image was tarnished so much by this event. Like another fortunate thing was that he had actually admitted that he was cheating to some of our mutual friends. He admitted it in a group chat, like there's a screenshot of it. So, because he had admitted it, my friends were like, you know, It was not good of you to drag Angie through the mud like that. And that made me feel so validated that I wanted the same from everyone else. No matter whether or not I was close with them or not. So I really cared about my image and there was this quote that made me go relax, like chill the fuck out. Not everybody needs to know what happened. Not everybody needs to know. your side of the story. Like it doesn't matter.

Kristy Yee: 36:21

Not everybody needs to like you because not everybody does.

Angie Yu: 36:25

Well, not even like, for me, it wasn't even like when I just want people to know that, like, I didn't, I wasn't, I didn't do anything wrong.

Kristy Yee: 36:30

I wasn't in the wrong, like.

Angie Yu: 36:32

Like, of course I did do things wrong, but it wasn't like, you know, it was like, he actually did this huge thing wrong. Like I just

Kristy Yee: 36:38

But that's like a, that's like an ego thing now. That's almost kind of like, it's almost like what the dude, you do bird dead. It was like, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did these little things wrong, but like she did all these big things wrong.

Angie Yu: 36:51

Yeah, sort of, yeah, kind of. I think for me, it was because he had already come in so many people that I was the crazy one that I wanted to undo that damage. So there was even a mutual guy friend who literally told me that he was convinced that I was crazy until some other friend told him what had actually happened. And for me it was like, that was really like, what the fuck? Like, whoa, he had actually, succeeded in convincing a mutual friend that I was crazy. So after that, I really wanted to do a lot of like damage control. But then when I read this quote, it was like, there's not a single version of you, every person. Version of you is different. And I was like, yeah, you know what, that's fine. And it was only after I read that quote that I learn to relax a little bit about damage control, because it's not the same thing. So I guess I that's, that part is relatable because that's what she did as well. She tried to kind of expose him for what he did because she was of course traumatized and bitter just like I was. But then she ended up apologizing for dragging people into it and she just moved on from it. And when she did that, I moved on to, I no longer looked at what was going on with our drama. I was like, good. Like she's now moving on. And for some reason that made me feel like I could move on to.

Kristy Yee: 38:02

Nice. I think that's a great way to end our episode today. Just fucking move on.

Angie Yu: 38:08

Which is harder

Kristy Yee: 38:09

Always easier to set up than done. Always easier said than done.

Angie Yu: 38:12

but hopefully we have provided some tips on how to do so.

Kristy Yee: 38:16

In our next episode, we are going to be talking about periods because one of our poop troops asked us specifically to talk about menstruation. So tune in for that episode.

Angie Yu: 38:27

Yeah. I'm so excited. I can't wait. I love talking about menstruation.

Kristy Yee: 38:32

I almost want to tailor this episode for Men.

Angie Yu: 38:36

me too.

Kristy Yee: 38:36

because we know we've we already, we

Angie Yu: 38:40

you know, we know, what this? We ask them, tell me one fact about periods and ask me a question about periods. And then sometimes if they tell us a fact that's wrong, that'd be pretty funny.

Kristy Yee: 38:52

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Angie Yu: 38:53

Yeah. You know what? Let's just do my offense. Just ask, ask like an arrange, like a range of male friends. Also ask John and ask Nick.

Kristy Yee: 39:02

Uh, we'll

Angie Yu: 39:02

I'll get, this will be so much fun. Okay. This, this website I actually trust it's the Atlantic. and Cities with the highest density of sugar daddies, uh, distribution per 1000 males, Atlanta, number one at 19 Vancouver, number two at 13, sugar daddies per 1000 males. Yeah.

Kristy Yee: 39:58

that's quite a bit.

Angie Yu: 39:59

Vancouver is above like all the other things is the

Kristy Yee: 40:03

So there's a lot of sugar daddies in Vancouver.

Angie Yu: 40:06

males.

Kristy Yee: 40:07

Dang. So I'm going to move back now. If I needed a reason to move back, it's not because my partner is there. It's not because all my friends and family are there. It's because it has the highest amount of sugar

Angie Yu: 40:20

But then again, it's quantity, not quality, although I don't know if there's such thing as a quality sugar daddy.

Kristy Yee: 40:26

I think what matters is what are they called? Sugar babies, the sugar babies. You want to have low quantity, high quality. And then the, the sugar daddies you want high quantity and high quality.