Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse
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Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse
Why Narcissists Use Pet Names Instead of Calling You by Your Real Name
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What if the sweet pet name your partner calls you isn't affection at all — but rather designed to keep you off balance?
In this episode, Dr. Kerry and co-host Lynn Strathdee unpack one of the strangest and most overlooked patterns in narcissistic relationships: the use of pet names.
Learn why some narcissists even speak about themselves in the third person, and the chilling moment when a "compliment" reveals exactly what they really think of you.
Podcast Extra Exclusive Segment
Want to go deeper?
🔹 What does it actually take to heal when the abuse has shaped how you see yourself? In this members-only bonus, Lynn and Dr. Kerry discuss why recovery requires building a stronger sense of self.
Find the exclusive second segment and weekly newsletter here.
LYNN STRATHDEE is a UK-based psychodynamic psychotherapist specializing in echoism, narcissistic abuse recovery, and the unconscious patterns that keep survivors stuck in repeating relationship cycles. A former educator turned therapist, Lynn brings both clinical training and lived experience to her private practice, where she works with clients online and in person. Her approach goes beyond surface-level psychoeducation to the deeper identity work that creates lasting change.
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Resources
- ReclaimYou: Dr. Kerry's AI-powered coaching app
- The Complete Recovery Collection: Narcissistic abuse resources
- First Steps to Leaving: Online self-paced digital course
- Toxic-Free Relationship Club: Live coaching & community support
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Kerry Kerr McAvoy, Ph.D, a retired psychologist & author, is an expert on cultivating healthy relationships and deconstructing narcissism.
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This podcast/video is for educational purposes only. It does not constitute therapy, counseling, or professional mental health advice. If you are in crisis, please call 911 or your local emergency number.
Why Narcissists Use Pet Names Instead of Calling You by Your Real Name
Dr. Kerry: [00:00:00] What I should have said to myself, "This person is sick. It's not my problem, and I'm not gonna be the punching bag he gets to work out his anger about women and how women look." The degree that things can go terribly wrong, like catastrophically wrong, we're actually fortunate we don't experience more of that.
We're very fragile.
Lynn Strathdee: Can be so mistaken, misguided to spend too much time thinking about someone else, the abuser, because ultimately it misses the point that a lot of this stuff is beyond our control
Dr. Kerry: Well, Lynn, have you noticed how people who are emotionally mature, particularly narcissists, have a lot of difficulty around proper names, use of names?
Lynn Strathdee: Yes.
Dr. Kerry: I don't, I, I know you, I don't know if you've read Love You More or not, but what happened with me is, and he did this with everybody that he met, my ex [00:01:00] would give a woman a nickname, and he would use the nickname a lot, and I tried to give a, co- convey that in the story.
Mm-hmm. So h- the nickname for me was Gorgeous. Now, here's the thing that I usually don't say out loud, but I'm gonna go ahead and say it out loud. I knew it was, um, there was contempt in the use of that name I knew that he had somehow latched on real fast to one of my core insecurities, which is I'm the oldest of three girls.
We're all actually n- nice-looking women, and but my sister, my middle sister is exotic looking. Mm. So it isn't that she's gorgeous, it's she looks different. Mm. She's... We're a little bit Indian, and she looks Indian. Mm. So when you meet her, she's got black hair, almost black eyes, her skin is olive. Mm-hmm. And when she's close to, you know, countries that have that look, she's either mistaken as Latin American or Indian.
Mm-hmm. She gets asked if she's Indian. And growing up with that, and my parents, my father had issues with his loss of heritage around being a part of the Chippewa tribe, [00:02:00] and being raised by a grandma who was a quarter of Native American.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kerry: That was really important to him, so they hyper-focused on my sister's appearance to the exclusion of my other sister and I, which made us feel like we weren't as pretty.
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah.
Dr. Kerry: So we almost got, our focus was I was the smart one and my youngest sister was the funny one.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm.
Dr. Kerry: So I w- yeah, I always walked through like, yeah, I knew I was bright, but I didn't think I was particularly good-looking.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm.
Dr. Kerry: So somehow he picked that up, and I don't know why, 'cause I, it wasn't something I shared with him.
I, I probably never, this is probably the most in-depth I've ever gotten into it before.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm.
Dr. Kerry: But he would say gorgeous, and he would use it almost in, I'm not kidding, every sentence. "Hey, gorgeous, do you think we should o- go over there, gorgeous? What do you think about that, gorgeous? Do you think that's..." Like, literally peppered- Mm
the conversation to the point that it felt like ad nauseam. Mm. It was way over the top, and it bugged me.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm.
Dr. Kerry: But when things would go bad in our relationship, suddenly, like really bad, I was Kerry.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kerry: And I knew that I had been demoted- Mm ... in that moment. Mm. From [00:03:00] s- even though it was like it felt special and people hearing it might think, "Oh, how sweet, he thinks she's gorgeous," I didn't quite feel it that way.
It didn't hit that way for me, but I felt like I still got, I lost that. Mm. Whatever that privilege was, though it was very a mixed bag, I lost it when he was enraged with me.
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah.
Dr. Kerry: Have you noticed this funny pattern?
Lynn Strathdee: With names- Yeah ... specifically, absolutely. Similar but not quite the same, I noticed that the guy that I was with would say, "Uh, Lynn."
Ooh. Uh, like, um, he, so he-
Dr. Kerry: Like it's like going through a catalog ... would
Lynn Strathdee: give the sense of searching, which in the first month I kind of thought, "Okay, I don't know why he's doing that, but it's still early days and we've only seen each other a few times over the course of this month, so all right." But it went on and on and on, and I realized that either he was doing it because he genuinely was thinking, "Hold on a minute, who am I with?"
[00:04:00] You know, I bet because I was not the only person, but I didn't know that then.
Dr. Kerry: Yeah.
Lynn Strathdee: Who am I with? But it has the, it has the kind of secondary benefit of creating that sense of, God, he doesn't even seem to really know my name. And back to, you know, what we said in other conversations, because I didn't wanna be, like, rude or moody or difficult, rather than saying, "Actually, I find that really offensive," like, "Is there any reason that you can't just say my name?"
I didn't say anything. Which feeds into the whole thing, doesn't it? Because then they kind of know that they've- Sort of got you where they want you because they are deliberately undermining you by doing that for one of, uh, any reason. But they also watch you not saying anything about it, so therefore kind of abandoning yourself.
Yeah. So they've kind of co-opted you into the process by you not saying anything about it. And, uh, yeah, so that was, that was a definite ... Searching for my name was a real thing, and I found [00:05:00]it extremely irritating. '
Dr. Kerry: Cause here's what I found that I thought was fascinating and surprising to me about working with people.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kerry: I worried when I was gonna start to see clients and saw, and I knew I'd be seeing six to eight a day if I was working full time, that I would forget who they are and forget their history.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm. '
Dr. Kerry: Cause to me it was like I was worried it was like shelving library books- Mm ... and that I might not remember- Mm-hmm
where that book belonged. Mm-hmm. I would have to look or re- recall their, that I would need their history in front of me to be with them. But here's what it was actually like. It was a, as if you were my neighbor or my friend.
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah.
Dr. Kerry: And when you came in and told me your story, I got to know you, and then when I thought of you, I thought of all the pieces that went with you.
Yeah. I didn't need an index card in front of me or the, the history sheet in front of me. I knew you had three kids- Mm ... and that you were struggling with a marriage and that your oldest kid was the problem. You know, I already knew all of that when you sat down because it would be like picking up with my neighbor across the street- Mm
when I have coffee with her or whatever.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm. [00:06:00] Mm.
Dr. Kerry: What hits me about this issue with names is it suggests that that's not what's happening for these individuals.
Lynn Strathdee: Well, exactly. There's a, a learning you in a very different way to a sort of relating to you. Yeah. 'Cause when you're relating, none of that is, you don't have to think about any of that stuff, do you?
Dr. Kerry: Right.
Lynn Strathdee: Whereas when you're sort of running a catalog of different people, which is very often the case, isn't it? Would you agree with that? That- I s- I
Dr. Kerry: do,
Lynn Strathdee: yes ... it's very often the case. Then that's pretty complicated, and you do have to kinda think pretty carefully about which one's which, who's doing what.
You know, it's a completely different ballgame, and it's not really relating. It's a kind of, you're acting-
Dr. Kerry: Right ...
Lynn Strathdee: aren't you?
Dr. Kerry: Yeah, yeah. Or, or role assigning.
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah.
Dr. Kerry: You're not even relating, you're assigning a role. In fact, y- 'cause people said to me, "Oh, the reason he called you gorgeous, he called all the women gorgeous."
It's like, you know the guys that call every woman babe or baby? Oh,
Lynn Strathdee: baby, baby.
Dr. Kerry: Yeah. Yeah. No, but this wasn't- Yeah ... the case with my ex. No. He had a name for every single woman. It was a different- So it wasn't like he [00:07:00] just had this universal of, "Oh, I'll never, like, slip and say the wrong name because I'm just using the same pet name for everybody."
Mm. No, that actually wasn't what he was doing. No. He was ... had a different pet name for every person. His
Lynn Strathdee: preferred strategy was to sort of label you- Yeah ... that one is g- we call her Gorgeous. Yes. That's what we call her.
Dr. Kerry: Yes.
Lynn Strathdee: And she goes back up on the shelf in the box file.
Dr. Kerry: Yes, behind Gorgeous. G- And that one is- Yeah
another name, the one, the w- girlfriend he was seeing was Laurita. Now her name was Laura- Mm ... but he would, you know, she was Hispanic, and he, it was Laurita. And he did slip with that. He met another Laura, and he called her that same name, but I knew he was, 'cause is he's thinking of Laurita. Mm-hmm. He wasn't thinking of her, he was thinking of the other wo- I
And so I knew it wasn't that he was just universally covering the fact that he was seeing lots of wo- Mm ... which he was. Mm. He was seeing so many women, he had cliff notes, literally. Mm-hmm. Yeah. He kept in his note, in his phone, a page designated to identifying women, the name of their kids, the ages of the kids, what they did for a job.
Mm. I mean, he, and w- you know, things that he would [00:08:00] told them. He had a history, so he could, like, refer to it. So he did have problems with, like, "Um, what, who was who?"
Lynn Strathdee: Who
Dr. Kerry: are you? Yeah. But he dealt with it differently by actually having a h- list.
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah.
Dr. Kerry: So, yeah.
Lynn Strathdee: But any, any opportunity to sort of, you know, quite apart from the sort of the Gorgeous box on the shelf, any opportunity to sort of, as George Simon calls it, keep you in that one down position.
And I heard you talking- Yes ... about that the other day with one of your other interviewees. You were talking about the way that you're, you've gotta be kept just slightly unbalanced.
Dr. Kerry: Yes.
Lynn Strathdee: And what quicker way and easier way of doing it than by not using your name in a conventional sense, because that's, like, the gift that just keeps on giving.
And I, I understand that, uh, it would be fair to say, well, th- but no one's thinking about it to this extent. I don't believe that these individuals are thinking about it. I think they behave that way because it's, that's in them to behave that way. Like-
Dr. Kerry: Yeah, I think this is habituated. It's with- Yeah ... comes with tons and tons of practice.
Yeah. I [00:09:00] think it, it's almost instinctual for them.
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah. You know, more at depth, there's something about denying basic humanity as well, isn't there? It's a kind of dehumanizing- Mm ... thing. So there's that superficial irritation and embarrassment, hurt feeling, but actually underneath of that is a very fundamental thing, and it's pretty dehumanizing, I think.
Dr. Kerry: Yeah. Yeah. To
Lynn Strathdee: not know somebody's name. I remember going for a walk one time, and we bumped into his neighbors, and he didn't introduce me, so I just stood there while they chatted. And afterwards, he said, "I wonder now if I should have introduced you." And I thought, yeah, see now, now I know exactly what that was.
Whereas if he hadn't said anything, I'd have just thought, "Well, he chose not to." Yeah, yeah. But afterwards I- Or he didn't know
Dr. Kerry: better. Yeah, you would excuse it ...
Lynn Strathdee: I realized afterwards that was all just to, again, just to make sure that I was really uncomfortable is what-
Dr. Kerry: Yeah. Yeah. Y- you also reminded me of another thing that they often did.
I wonder if you saw this as well, is they [00:10:00] often referred to people to their roles- Mm-hmm ... more than they actually referred to them by their names. Like, "This is my wife." So when we would meet somebody new, he would say, "This is my wife," end of story. He wouldn't say, "This is Kerry, my wife." He'd say, "This is my wife," and then he would move on.
Or he would talk about his son a lot, like repetitively his son, but he wouldn't say his son's name. He would say, "My son." You know, he had this way of referring to people. I, I didn't
Lynn Strathdee: notice
Dr. Kerry: that. You didn't notice that? No. Referring to people by roles in- instead of referring to them as a person. Yeah,
Lynn Strathdee: yeah, yeah.
Almost like this is what they do f- for me. Yes. This is how they relate to my life.
Dr. Kerry: Exactly. Exactly. And then the last thing that I noticed that was super weird... There's two, actually two more things that was super weird about him. He named all of his sons his name. Oh,
Lynn Strathdee: that is weird.
Dr. Kerry: So he had more than one son, and they both had the same name as his name, first name.
Different middle names, that's how they differentiated. One was Junior, and the other, he used his second name, which that son didn't like his second name- Mm ... and preferred that he didn't use it.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm.
Dr. Kerry: That he, he liked his first. And I thought that was strange that he loved his name so m- he was so much in love with his name that he [00:11:00] had to, like, pass it on t- forever to everybody.
Lynn Strathdee: It's not like there's a shortage of names. Do you know
Dr. Kerry: what I mean? I know.
Lynn Strathdee: I know. Did he, did he talk about himself in the third person?
Dr. Kerry: I've... That was the other thing I
Lynn Strathdee: was gonna say. That was, that was a very real thing.
Dr. Kerry: Yes. I, he didn't, but somebody else that I knew did. I met another guy that I was kind of re- I, it just kind of felt like ick from him-
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah
Dr. Kerry: from him. Thank goodness. I think I missed a, dodged a bullet on that one. But-
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah ...
Dr. Kerry: he always referred to him as if, almost like a r- not the royal we, but also, like, the royal third person. Mm. Like, as if he was outside of him, like talking about himself, like apart, like a separate. Yeah.
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah, no.
Dr. Kerry: How did it show...
Yeah.
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah, no, absolutely. Would l- l- literally talk about himself, you know, "So-and-so does this," you know?
Dr. Kerry: And it's him. So-and-so is him.
Lynn Strathdee: He, so-and-so is him. But talking about... Yeah, I'm just trying to think of an example, and I probably won't be able to off the top of my head, but speaking about himself in the third person almost as if, "Well, you know, this is how he is.
This is how he does things."
Dr. Kerry: Yeah. And [00:12:00] mine, the guy that I met used both names. Like, let's just pretend he was John Brown. John Brown opened a new sho- shop, and like, yeah, but you're John Brown.
Lynn Strathdee: It was weird.
Dr. Kerry: Nice Like, "This language feels so stiff. I, this is- Mm-hmm ... I don't even know what to do with this."
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah, it is.
That's really odd. That's odd.
Dr. Kerry: Yeah, so what do you make sense of that? What do you think- I- ... that's about? Do you have some guesses?
Lynn Strathdee: I think, well, it seems quite grandio- it seems quite grandiose. I mean, I'm not quite sure of the psychology of it. I've never looked into what is the psychology of talking about yourself in the third person.
There's a remoteness to that, isn't there? There's a kind of distancing, but it's quite a, it's quite grandiose. I'm not sure. I'd love to know more about that, actually. I'd love to do a bit of homework on that.
Dr. Kerry: It does definitely suggest... I know we spent a lot of time in graduate school talking about the I-thou relationship.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kerry: And it feels like there's a brokenness to the way- Mm-hmm ... in which they connect to themselves, but they connect to other people.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kerry: That you're right. I, there's... [00:13:00] I don't know any more than that either, but it just felt like there's something deeply disturbed with the way in which they experience themself in the world.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm. It almost, when I think about it just off the top of my head, it kind of feels like, you know, this person is an entity. You know, there's gravitas there. This is a, this person is, exists, and you know what I mean? It's a kind of, it's a kind of doubling down or an underscoring of, of, you know, just being.
Like, I don't know. I find it interesting.
Dr. Kerry: It's almost as if they're anchoring themselves, like trying to give themselves self-importance in- Mm
in, but, but at the same time, there's, like, a disconnection with self.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm.
Dr. Kerry: Because to me, a- and it goes back to what you said, you've talked about sort of spirituality, like, so I'm thinking about it from that, um, realm, is that when we're in connection with ourselves, we cease to see ourselves as separate.
Mm-hmm. We're in the being experience.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kerry: And when you're do- doing this referencing, to me, [00:14:00] that's, that's not in a state of being. It's in a state of observing or referencing.
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah- You know what I'm saying? It's- ... but I think you've, I think you've kind of probably got us there actually, because I think what, if we think about this in terms of existential psychology, the idea of, uh, the self existing distinct from me- Means it's not mortal.
It's not- Mm ... fallible. It's not, it's untouchable, isn't it? It's kind of over here existing as a thing in its own right, and therefore is kind of om- is gonna live forever.
Dr. Kerry: Yeah, see, I see what you're saying. It, there is a, there is a, a form of grandiosity to that.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm.
Dr. Kerry: Because then you can, it can become an idealized representation of what you wish it to be.
And it cr- 'Cause you cr- it's almost like you created it to be
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah, you sug- and it suggests that you're thinking of yourself as this entity that you kind of look at from the outside, and you kind of curate it in your own mind. Like, "This person, this is what they do. This is how they are," you know?
Dr. Kerry: Yeah.
Look at this.
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah, and- [00:15:00] It, it sort of shows you what might be going on w- within their own head.
Dr. Kerry: Yeah, I'm grinning because on my, my ex's Skype account, he had a statement, his sort of, like, his motto, "I am the architect of my own destiny."
Lynn Strathdee: Mm.
Dr. Kerry: And I thought, see, is, to me is like, really? Really? I don't think that's true.
That's a little grandiose. I don't, yeah, I don't think we all have that kind of control. I think you're, first of all, you're lying to yourself. Yeah. But second of all, I think that's a, that's more of a, a wish than it is actually a truth.
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah. There's a brilliant Sam Harris video. It's, um, short. Do you like Sam Harris?
Do you ever watch his stuff? I don't know if I know who
Dr. Kerry: he is.
Lynn Strathdee: Is- He's a philosopher and a neuroscientist. Okay. He does a lot of stuff. He's, he's pretty big, and he does a lot of meditation stuff. Anyway, he talks about how ridiculous the notion that anyone who thinks they're, like, a self-made person, that nobody makes themself.
None of us. Nobody does, and that we're all lucky if we don't have some sort of serious-
Dr. Kerry: Mm ...
Lynn Strathdee: brain issue or mobility issue. That's [00:16:00] luck. You know, if we were born with intelligence and without, you know, with a decent family or, you know, with reasonable health, those are flukes. You know, if we, if we had the brains to achieve at school, that's luck.
It's not because we made it, you know Yeah,
Dr. Kerry: yeah. I agree On that brilliant Yeah, I've always thought, yeah, I love that 'cause I've always thought that too. It's like when I realize even the, this is especially when I was dealing with my late husband's cancer and then my oldest son's cancer, the degree that things can go terribly wrong, like catastrophically wrong.
We're actually fortunate we don't experience more of that. We're very fragile.
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah, but I think this taps into something else you were saying, we were both saying in a separate conversation about how it can be so mistaken, misguided to spend too much time thinking about someone else, the abuser, because ultimately it misses the point that a lot of this stuff is beyond our control [00:17:00]
Dr. Kerry: Mm.
Lynn Strathdee: By fact of being human in the world, a lot of this stuff is beyond our control. But if we think about it and study it, it gives us a sense that we can change it. We could have chosen differently. We would have chosen differently. When a lot of the time, if it could have been different, it would have been different.
Yeah. But it wasn't because- Yeah ... it was always gonna go that way.
Dr. Kerry: Yeah. Do you know what
Lynn Strathdee: I mean?
Dr. Kerry: I do. Yeah. I am prone to being anxious. That's one of my sort of like vulnerabilities. Mm-hmm. And when I really push that sort of cognitively out to the limit, I realize that I'm not in control of much at all. No.
Almost nothing.
Lynn Strathdee: No.
Dr. Kerry: You know, when we ask who's in control of life, it is not me. I am- No ... and, and coming to terms with that is where I actually find the most peace, because then I stop trying to control all the things that I can't. Yeah.
Lynn Strathdee: We don't even know what we're gonna say next.
Dr. Kerry: No, I know.
Lynn Strathdee: I know. We don't.
Dr. Kerry: Yeah.
Lynn Strathdee: Can I come back to something you said about, um, that gorgeous- Mm-hmm ... and your vulnerability? I had my eyelids done. I think I told you this. I, before I had them done, the skin hanging [00:18:00] from here was really, I was, it was aging me pretty badly, and I, so I had that blepharoplasty years ago. But that became something that would be commented on, was my lovely eyes by-
Dr. Kerry: By this guy
Lynn Strathdee: this guy. And because I knew that that wasn't really naturally me, you know, naturally me, I had to kind of really do this to make my eyes look open.
Dr. Kerry: Yeah.
Lynn Strathdee: But commenting on things that were enhanced- was really painful, but like you're saying about that compliment, you know, it sounds really nice, but actually it's just a source of pain.
Dr. Kerry: Yeah.
Lynn Strathdee: Do you know what I mean?
Dr. Kerry: I do. I know. It's horrible. Mine did the same thing, but in different ways. He would... Again, I ha- I have, my biggest vulnerability I'm still trying to heal from, and I don't know if I ever will heal, but I'm working very hard on it, is my self-image. Mm-hmm. I, I'm very self-confident in the sense that I know what I'm capable of and I know what I'm not, and I'm kinda comfortable with all [00:19:00] of that.
Mm-hmm. And I, and I, I like who I am. I don't have a whole- Mm-hmm ... lot of problems with that. But when it comes to how I perceive to myself being viewed- Mm-hmm ... I have significant issues. Mm-hmm. And, and it's very long-standing. Mm-hmm. Like, o- very old history. And so being an overweight woman, which I've always thought I'm overweight, but if you saw very, me in various stages of my life, there are periods in which I wasn't at all.
Mm-hmm. But I, I always felt like I existed in a very overweight body, and people told me that I did. So it wasn't just simply dysmorphia in the sense of- Mm-hmm ... I thought that I was because I couldn't see myself accurately. No. Mm-hmm. At the time, it was Twiggy was popular, when I'm not- Mm-hmm ... I'm never gonna be a Twiggy.
If I was existed today, although now with the Ozempic look, I, no, I, that's very- Mm-hmm ... whole nother c- topic. Mm-hmm. But i- in the ab- we have more permission with women just looking healthy- Mm-hmm ... than we used to. Mm-hmm. Um, I would say I fit perfectly. Mm-hmm. But I, but I didn't live in a time like that. So my culture saw me as overweight- Mm-hmm
even though [00:20:00] I was not overweight.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kerry: So I say all that to say, he, what he would do is he knew that, and he would go into stores and then pick out outfits that first would never look good on me. Mm-hmm. And then second of all, asked if they carried them in my size in front of everybody. A- call the cashier over and ask.
Mm-hmm. And to draw attention to m- my sensitivity to it. Mm. Which I tried to play off as if I wasn't sensitive, but meanwhile, you know, I'm interior wishing I could die or that the ground would open up and swallow me. Mm-hmm. And that's continued to play on me. It's been very, very hard for me to- Mm-hmm ... heal from that.
But it, it's amazing how they sort of identify these vulnerabilities and then use things like calling me gorgeous as a way... It's, it's, it's like a negging, you know? Mm-hmm. Or I, reminds me of what Gavin de Becker talks about, typecasting, where they're- Mm ... they're deliberately calling out a thing on purpose to create insecurity so that you will then work or resist it or have to do a lot of, like, psychological processing.
It creates pain. That's what he was doing. He's creating [00:21:00] psychological pain every time he used that word. Mm-hmm. 'Cause I would go like, "Does he really think that about me?" Mm-hmm. Or is he just saying that 'cause he knows that he doesn't and it's sort of a, it's a, it's a, a pun. Mm-hmm. It's our inside joke.
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah.
But it's also, isn't it, a way of recruiting you onto their team? Because then you've got, they've got you doing it-
Dr. Kerry: Yeah ...
Lynn Strathdee: as well. There's two people- Yeah ... abusing you.
Dr. Kerry: Yeah.
Lynn Strathdee: Them and you. You're right.
Dr. Kerry: Yeah. Yeah, and that's the hard part about all of this is, is stop participating in that
Lynn Strathdee: Which comes back to something else we talked about, about why if it, it really has to be an inside job.
For example, you know, if somebody kept commenting on my eyes and I knew that they knew that they were not, that the skin wasn't naturally like that, now I would instantaneously, regardless of how amazing I thought this person was, what great sex we're having, what holidays we have booked, I'm going. Like-
Dr. Kerry: Mm
Lynn Strathdee: I- there's not even a shred of doubt-
Dr. Kerry: Mm ...
Lynn Strathdee: that, that, that, that, that would be [00:22:00] a, a deal breaker, and I wouldn't need evidence either. It would be purely based on how that, how that felt.
Dr. Kerry: Mm. I love that. That's fascinating. I've been having an interesting experiment for me, and, and that is I, I mentioned to you off-air that my oldest son has decided he's ready to date, and it's taken him a while to be ready- Mm
to do this, and- Mm-hmm ... all my kids are autistic, so it's, they're just at different stages of... They get to these stages at different stages.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm.
Dr. Kerry: And he and I were at a concert. It was a very large concert. We were sitting next to each other, and he said, "I don't think you know who I'm attracted to. I think you have, in your head, the wrong perspective of the kind of woman I'm looking for or how broad my, my category actually is," 'cause s-
Lynn Strathdee: What was your...
Was he right? Did you have a, a-
Dr. Kerry: Oh, I did. Here's the backstory with my son. My son at one point weighed a lot, and he, on purpose, lost more than 100 pounds.
Lynn Strathdee: Wow.
Dr. Kerry: And so who you see today, he's skinny today. He's a thin- Mm ... man. Mm-hmm. Not even normally average. He's thin today.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kerry: [00:23:00] And so I assume, and he's very careful about his weight, and he's very- Mm
conscientious, and he's put effort into his appearance. So I thought, "Oh, he's going to be s- one of these people who are sort of, like, uptight about this." This is what I assumed. Mm-hmm. 'Cause I f- I'm uptight about it, and, and, and I don't win in that category. He's uptight about it enough, and then he won. You know, he was- Mm-hmm
successful and lost all that weight and kept it off. I thought that he would be as equally particular about the woman he met that- Mm ... she'd have to do the same.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kerry: And then he started pointing women out, and I'm like What? It doesn't fit anything what I thought. There, your category is wide. Mm-hmm. Like, re- he goes like, "Mom, seriously, it's...
I don't frankly care a whole lot- Mm-hmm ... about what she looks like. I wanna meet a certain type of person."
Lynn Strathdee: Mm.
Dr. Kerry: I'm thinking, "Oh, my..." I realize how something's broken inside of me, and that- Mm ... these people outside of me had helped me, and then of course, that I did it myself, it's an inside job, broke something in me about acceptability.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm. I was gonna say, what did that feel like for [00:24:00] you to, to notice that he doesn't care?
Dr. Kerry: I know. Like, he was fine. It was freeing and sc- but scary. Mm. Scary because here's the thing. He's not the only... Not all men are like him. I know that. Mm. Mm. I've met men who actually are, have been cruel to me.
Lynn Strathdee: Mm.
Dr. Kerry: For being...
I, I had a date one time that I showed up. I, I could see across the parking lot when he got out of the car, disappointment flashed, and at that point, I was 30 pounds thinner than I am right now. He was disappointed that I was overweight. Mm. And then he came and he made it a walking date, and he walked too fast, and by the end of it, I had serious blisters on my feet.
And I felt he was fear- he was mad that I wasted his time. But what I didn't say, this is the part that I get really frustrated with. What I should have said to myself, "This person's sick." Mm. "It's not my problem." Mm. "And I'm not gonna be the punching bag. He gets to work out his anger about women and how women look, and he doesn't get to do- Mm
but he doesn't get to work it out with me." Mm-hmm. I should've just like, "You know what, dude? I can tell already this is a no-go. Nice meeting you. Bye." [00:25:00]
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Kerry: But I, but I stuck it out, and ended up with massive blisters on my feet.
Lynn Strathdee: Yeah.
Dr. Kerry: I don't wanna be her anymore. No. I'd like to stop being her.
Lynn Strathdee: So would I.
Dr. Kerry: Yeah.
Lynn Strathdee: And I feel like the universe is gonna keep sending us those people- Mm ... until we finally get the message, you know?
Dr. Kerry: Yeah.
Lynn Strathdee: That's what I'm finding, anyway.
Dr. Kerry: Yeah. So let's jump over to the podcast extra and talk about how do we recognize that we're doing the inside job- Mm-hmm ... in and around this healing of being when we've been objectified, 'cause that's really what we've been talking about, this weird objectification that toxic people do.
Let's talk about how do we recognize that and begin to heal from it. But thank you so much for this really fascinating conversation.
Lynn Strathdee: Good to see you again, Kerry.
