FIRE IN HER EYES PODCAST
A podcast about women who persevered! Stories and conversations with and about resilient women.
FIRE IN HER EYES PODCAST
Understanding Narcissistic Behavior
Sarah Lacy is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC) with a Master's degree in Clinical Mental Health. She is certified in EMDR therapy. Sarah is passionate about helping others achieve post traumatic growth, overcoming their struggles and becoming their best selves.
Hello and welcome to Fire in Her Eyes. This is a podcast about women who persevered through pain to find peace and purpose. So if you're looking for a little inspiration and motivation to sustain you through difficult times, join us as we share stories of women who were empowered through pain and transformed struggles into sweet success. I'm your host, Tanya Skowronski. Welcome to Fire in Her Eyes, a space where women's stories spark healing, transformation, and truth. Today's guest brings both clinical expertise and lived experience to one of the most difficult and often misunderstood topics we face as women, toxic relationships and narcissistic abuse. Sarah Lacey is a licensed professional clinical counselor and trauma survivor who now empowers others to find healing through EMDR therapy, coaching, and her deep commitment to creating a calm, safe space for her clients. Her work is rooted in empathy, resilience, and the belief that healing is already within us. Sometimes we just need someone to talk and walk beside us as we uncover it. Today, we're going to talk about what narcissistic behavior really looks like, how to spot the red flags before they become emotional scars, and how women can begin to rebuild their identity and self-worth after leaving toxic relationships. Sarah, welcome to Fire In Her Eyes.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:What are the key traits of narcissistic behavior that often go unnoticed in the early stages of a relationship?
SPEAKER_00:so when i think of narcissism where i usually talk about it i actually flip to the example of guest stone from beauty and the beast so to answer your question you know if we look at guest stone in that movie the locals if you will the other girls are they love him. He could do no wrong. They just worship the ground he walks on. But it's Belle who's like, I'm not having this. Her head's in the book. She's not even paying attention to him. But what he brings up is one, he's controlling. He wants Belle. He's doing what he can to get her attention. He's disrespectful. He comes into her house and puts his feet up onto the table and so forth. But really what is underlying there and what happens with Gaston as well is he comes across as very charismatic. And so that's what we see with a lot of narcissists, right? Is this idea of like, they're so charming and they're so funny and look how he gets along with so many people and so on and so forth that we don't really see, oh, well, he put his boots on my table. I don't really like that, but look how funny he is. He really can capture a room. And so we start to just overlook what's really happening there. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. So how can a woman differentiate between someone who's just emotionally immature versus someone who is truly manipulative and abusive?
SPEAKER_00:So I liked this question. I first want to say that I feel like a lot of, unfortunately, our culture is lacking emotional intelligence. I really wish that the schools as a whole would do a better job with mental health and so on and so forth. So it's a little tricky. The thing with narcissism is they typically have a fragile sense of self-esteem, but they don't show it that way. And it might come across as jealousy or what have you, but it just can look like, oh, well, he really cares about me. And we don't think about the fact of like, no, I am allowed to have other friends outside of him. They also can seem, and this is where kind of the emotional intelligence and like, or like manipulation comes into play. They can seem dismissive or say like you're being too sensitive to something. And it's really just like, they aren't taking accountability for whatever their action is. And so when it comes to the emotional intelligence versus manipulation, one thing I think about When I was with my abuser, I remember talking to my mom about different scenarios, and I don't remember the details of it, but what I remember is her saying, do you really think he's that smart to calculate this out? And I said, no, it's not that. It's that the manipulation comes so naturally to him that I have to think ahead of how is this going to play out so that I can stop the manipulation from happening. I can see it in its tracks. And kind of like an example of manipulation is. So I was actually watching the show recently and this girl was kind of like, oh, I'm like kind of ditzy and I'm not really smart. It's a reality show. And the boy was like, called her a dummy. And right there, it plays into her insecurities. Now, disclaimer, I'm not saying that. this man is a narcissist based on this show. I'm just using this as an example. But it played into her insecurities and he basically confirmed like, yep, see, you're not, I also think you're not smart. And then what can happen with manipulation is let's say something comes up And she's kind of unsure. Well, now the perpetrator can then say, I'll rephrase that as like the narcissist can then say, oh, honey, remember, you're not so good at this. Let me take care of this for you. And so when it comes to things like doctor's appointments, even plans with girlfriends, that's where the narcissist starts to make the partner question themselves. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I feel like an empath and narcissist are drawn to each other like a magnet. I don't know if they have some sort of That's right. Mm hmm. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:And to that point, it's, you know, there, I would assume there's some sort of insecurity that's already there. That's like, he, you know, it's like, it's just reinforcing it over and over. See, I make him mad. Gosh, I shouldn't have done that. You know, I remember one time someone saying, you know, like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you come home and your partner paints the entire house purple. that's no reason to become violent with them or to become aggressive with them. If you come home, you can be like, whoa, purple, we didn't talk about this. You know, like, can we talk about it now? Like that's a normal reaction, but anything explosive and then the blaming will, you know, then, you know, and the kind of the criticism and maybe a little gaslighting starts to come into play there too.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Speaking of gaslighting, can you talk about the signs of it and how it can warp a woman's reality over time? I think it seems, and I use the word cautiously, easier to define physical abuse. If he hits me, that's physical abuse. I feel like the mental, the emotional, that narcissistic behavior is harder to identify because it's open to interpretation. You know, I I said it this way, not that way. I meant it like this, not like that. It's there's no nothing concrete. Like he hit me. He made contact with me physically. So I think in some ways that makes it that much harder to walk away because it ends up warping the woman's reality over time. So what are signs of gaslighting and how does it warp her reality over time?
SPEAKER_00:So they say that the origin of the word gaslighting comes from This movie in which the husband periodically was turning down the gas lights and the wife was like, it's getting darker in here. And the husband's like, no, it's not. You're crazy. And he just kept turning it down until it was like dark. And she's like, it is dark in here. But she had but there was no one there to validate her. Like, yep, you're right. It is dark. And so she felt that craziness like creeping in. So gaslighting is tricky. Key things with it. One, it's a denial of events. That never happened. Or it could even be like, I would never do that to you. And they might play off of like, oh, I remember you said your ex did that, but I would never do that. And so that denial is there. They might twist the facts a little bit where let's say that a person is upset that their partner didn't come home at a certain time, hypothetically. Then the twisting of events could be like, well, we talked about this. I told you about it. I told you I'd be home at five. And maybe the partner is like, no, you said two. Nope, I didn't. And just kind of twisting it in certain way to their favor. And then maybe another component rather is minimizing the feelings where that partner is upset for whatever reason. Like, no, no, no, that didn't happen. You shouldn't feel that way. You're being too... sensitive did you get enough sleep last night did you take your meds you seem to be unstable all of those things are kind of like key phrases that happen with gaslighting gaslighting also can be like a way of like spreading rumors in which i will say like the narcissist or the perpetrator might spread false information about the victim or the partner and then when that partner goes to talk to people they already have a preconceived notion based on what the narcissist said, which even further debilitates them.
SPEAKER_02:So how can a woman protect herself? So it doesn't warp her reality over time. So if she says, I told you, I'm going to be home at five. And he says, no, you told me too. So then it's, he said, she said, so how do you, how do you navigate through that? So it doesn't end up affecting you. I
SPEAKER_00:think the trick here is, is the health, is the relationship healthy or not?
UNKNOWN:Hmm.
SPEAKER_00:If it's a healthy relationship, the response would be, oh, we must have misunderstood each other. Right? Right. That's it. Really simple. If it's anything more than that, then that becomes like a yellow flag or red flag. You know, is my partner just having an off day? Is there something going on? Or is this like, whoa, dude, you know, it's two hours difference. Who cares? You know, it should be something that you're able to just move on from. I will say that some of it, though, is a lot of subtleness to it. You know, like you don't realize that it's happening in the moment and you wanna please your partner. And as you were saying, there's like, there is kind of a connection between narcissists and empaths for whatever reason. They just like oil and water, right? But we don't know it, but we need both of those to make a nice cake, right? With the gaslighting and the subtleness of it all, They can be just subtle put downs and kind of building. So to answer your question of building up someone's competence within themselves and like, how can they know? These are things to watch out for. Are they feeling put down when they speak with a narcissist? Do they feel respected or not? Are they changing? Is the partner changing their behavior to better please their partner? So this like five o'clock, two o'clock difference, maybe they say, all right, well, you're right, honey, I should have been home sooner rather than kind of standing their ground about it. Another one too, that is a little bit more subtle. This is a story that I heard and it just really, really stood out to me. The story goes that it was a newlywed couple and though they were hosting Thanksgiving dinner, And the wife had spent all day doing prep work in the kitchen and getting everything ready. And right before guests were about to come, there was a fight that happened between the husband and her, and he destroyed Thanksgiving dinner. He just went ballistic. And then he said, you better call the guests and tell them that it's canceled. And the story goes that he never touched her. He never was physical with her. He never anything, but all he had to do for the rest of the relationship, it goes, do you remember our first Thanksgiving? And then she knew it was time to get back into line. And so I think if you think of those things, and so if you, you know, even when I say that story, it gives me a little bit of nausea, you know, to be able to check in with ourselves and be like, this doesn't feel right. If I'm feeling manipulated, I'm feeling controlled. That's enough of a reason to go seek therapy, to go seek support. If I'm feeling put down, if I'm feeling disrespected, these are all signs. A healthy relationship is one of love, loyalty, respect with each other. And so you have to have that mutual understanding with each other. Kind of bounces back to your question of like, is it emotional? intelligence or is it manipulation? There should be an area of growth happening too.
SPEAKER_02:Right. I think it's hard, especially when you've invested in a relationship and, you know, it's everybody knows you're together, you love them. And let's say you're engaged or you're getting married. You've already walked down that path. How do you now backtrack? It's that much harder when you're married. It's that much harder when you're married. Now you have kids and your decision is going to impact all these people. So you try and smooth things over and make yourself believe that what you really believe isn't the case. You try to put a positive spin or he was stressed. He didn't mean to say that. Or maybe I'm stressed and I misunderstood. I think the verbal exchange is so much harder to identify as abuse or narcissism. I mean, think of even something as simple as a text message, right? Yeah. three people can read it and interpret it differently, even though they're the same words that are being spoken. So I feel like a lot of these women justify it rather than see it for what it is.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yeah. And I think that that's connected to the point of like, we, a couple of things. One, it's not going to happen to me, right? We, that's where trauma comes from is that we don't expect it to happen, right? whether it's a car accident, an abusive relationship, what have you, we never think it's gonna be me. And so that's where we fall into the, well, he just had a rough day. You know, even if what he said was emotional abuse, like you're stupid, you're crazy, you're, well, he's just going through a stressful time. The bottom line is that language is actually never appropriate. It's just a matter of, are you willing to take it? Or is it something in which you say, I really don't appreciate you speaking to me like that. And can we rephrase this conversation? Are
SPEAKER_02:there any statistics? Two questions. One is, are there any statistics about women who are involved in these toxic relationships? It's more likely to happen in your 20s versus 40s. It's more likely to happen if you have a college degree versus a graduate degree versus a high school degree? Is that more likely to happen in a specific demographic or is it all over the place? So that's one question. And the other question is, is it possible to change a narcissist's behavior through therapy? No disrespect intended to you. I'm a little bit skeptical about that. I feel like You know, we're wired a certain way. And who you are at the core, I'm not sure that that's going to change.
SPEAKER_00:I'm with you. So first part of the question, exact numbers, I'm not sure. But I think like anything, there's really no discrimination with it. You know, I think that you can be, there are successful narcissists who probably make millions. you know who are six figure at least there's narcissists who make 30 000 a year you know like there's no it just happens right um i do think that education can play a role in knowing what we will and will not tolerate it can play a role in like what are our boundaries what are our deal breakers It can help us identify red flags, yellow flags, and so forth. But I do, you know, I don't want to like spark fear, but I do think it can happen like at any time to any person. It's just a matter of like having those guidelines for yourself to know what you are willing to do and not do. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02:Right. Absolutely. Is it possible to change a narcissist through therapy?
SPEAKER_00:I... feel that it would strongly depend on their willingness to take accountability. I think it would also depend on where does what they symptomatically are showing comes from.
SPEAKER_01:Now,
SPEAKER_00:if you look at narcissism, it is a personality trait, like a personality disorder. And so if you think about it in that way, personalities are pretty set. but that doesn't mean that we can't help the symptoms of it. So for example, like a fragile sense of self-esteem, yes. Does therapy help people build up their self-esteem? Yes. Do I think it's something that would take a lot of work and maintenance? Absolutely. And like another trait of like a narcissist is like kind of like, as we said, like that emotional intelligence manipulation, maybe working through therapy, a therapist would be able to say, it feels a little manipulative to me, you know, like, and work through with that client of like, what happened? Why did you do it this way? And maybe, maybe help them see. And that's what I'm saying. The first thing is, are they willing to take accountability? Or is everything everybody else's problem?
SPEAKER_02:How does being in a relationship with a narcissist affect a woman's mental health and sense of self?
SPEAKER_00:Definitely going to raise up anxiety. depression and that low self-worth. I think you gave the example of like, did I make him mad kind of a thing? That's an anxious thought that's there. And piggybacking off of that, it's a little complicated because we are a product of our own household growing up. And perhaps You know, let's say that there is a family in which it's, you know, it's perfect. Mom and dad always communicate. It's super healthy. It's, you know, so on and so forth. And then boom, this person, you know, a grown child of that family meets a narcissist versus a family in which, you know, there is narcissism going around in the family. The children grow up. Also, with that nauseous feeling, if dad comes home angry or mom comes home angry, you know, they're unsure which way it's going to go. So it's hard to say that if, you know, based on the person's background, once they're in this relationship, is their reaction a product of their home life or is it a reaction to what's to their partner's true needs and wants? Does that make?
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:When you talk about red and yellow flags, you've mentioned them a couple of times. What's the difference between them? Can you give us examples?
SPEAKER_00:Red flags are, I would say, extreme defensiveness, lack of accountability, obviously physical abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse. But I think red flags are also... they are a little bit more subtle. You know, for me, I think it's a little bit different now, but it's actually probably not with how strong technology is for teens and so forth. But it's like, if you look at the person who's constantly texting their partner, on one hand, it's like, oh, that's really cute. Like they care about me. They're always wanting to talk with me. And on the other hand, that's a lot of contact. You know, it's just like nonstop and you don't see it. And so that's where I think the yellow flag is. Is this person texting me all the time because they're really excited and it's a new relationship and it's fresh? Or is this a behavior that could turn hostile and controlling? So to me, yellow flags are things where it's like, I'm not quite sure. They get home and they're really fluffed up and they're being disrespectful and so on and so forth. Let's say it's the beginning of a relationship. To me, that's a yellow flag. Did they just have a bad day and they're not handling it well? Or is this a pattern that's gonna continue? If it's a pattern that continues and they become aggressive, that's more of a red flag. So to me, I like to use that difference of, you know, absolute red flags is like, like I said, the physical abuse, financial abuse, those are very apparent. This is telling me I should stop. But the yellow ones are the ones in which I'm questioning. I'm not sure which way it's going to go yet.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. What role does isolation play in a toxic relationship? So I've known individuals whose partner tried to pull them away from family or friends. What role does that play, that isolation?
SPEAKER_00:I think it takes away their... I don't think, actually. I know it takes away their support. but why that is significant is there's no sounding board. So if there is a partner who is being abused or who is with a narcissist and they're being isolated, who do they call? Who do they
SPEAKER_01:see,
SPEAKER_00:right? So in the example of the husband turning down the oil lamps, she didn't have somebody else to go, no, it is getting darker in here, you're right. And so that's where like that role of isolation unfortunately plays a role in all of this. And when I was reflecting on this question, I actually wrote down Gabby Petito came to my mind. She had great intentions. Like what a wonderful thing to want to do, you know, travel with your partner, live out a van. That sounds amazing. But it was also extreme isolation. And when I watched the documentary, that's kind of what came to my mind was like, There's minimal cell phone service. You literally can't go see your friends. You are just with this one person 24 hours a day. So there's no way to vent. How do you walk away? You're also in the wilderness. You can't just be like, I'm going to go take a walk. I'm going to go up to the store real quick. There's no coping, not to say there's no coping skills, but they look different out there.
SPEAKER_02:Why is it so difficult to leave even when the relationship is clearly toxic? So I find it to be a privilege when a woman, a friend trusts me and tells me about what she's suffering from. And we talk about it and I stand by her and I support her and she sees it's toxic and she says, that's it, I'm walking away. I can see it clearly. And I think, okay, finally, we're making progress. And then she turns right back around and stays with him. So why is it so difficult to leave?
SPEAKER_00:There's many reasons. and there was a couple years ago there was like a social media thing about you know instead of asking women like why didn't you leave you know it's like why did you stay those answers range from kids you know i didn't want my kids to grow up in a broken home too financial i financially couldn't to self-worth i didn't think i could you know it just varies and i think a lot of it too and just personal experience here, for me, I didn't have any of those. I was a teenager at the time, he was a young adult, and the only thing that really kept me going was the ups. When it was good, it was really, really good. And this is another trait of narcissism is like the love bombing. He would just shower me with gifts. He would shower me with attention. He would shower me with compliments. And so I wanted that back. And in the times that it was bad, I was able to say, oh, well, he's had a rough past and he's going to grow from this. And even further, he had promised me that he would. I'm going to change. I'm going to start going to therapy. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. And I believed him. And I think for me personally, when it came to actually leaving, I was like, I'm sick of this cycle. You've promised so many times that this is going to happen and it hasn't happened. But I think part of the reason why I personally stayed as long as I did was because through his own manipulation, his own emotional abuse, I really did believe that he was the best I was going to get. he just whittled away at my confidence enough. And hence that point of like, why do we stay sometimes? It's because we don't think that we can leave. What if it's worse than this?
SPEAKER_02:Sadly, I'm not even a therapist and yet your story is so familiar to me. I've heard it so many times from so many women and it's heartbreaking. It's so hard for me when I see it and I try and pull them away from that relationship and it feels almost like an impossible task every time we think, okay, there's progress. They go right back. So I don't know if there's an effective way to pull them away or you just have to wait until that person is ready to walk away herself.
SPEAKER_00:It's a combination. And I want to share this insight for you as well. So Bringing Back My Beauty and the Beast, what I think is interesting about that movie is Gaston is very much apparently the narcissist in this film.
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:But it's the beast that shows the narcissistic traits, the controlling, the anger. He intimidates her. He sparks fear within her. But what does that movie show us? That if we stick around, that he'll become a prince and that everything will be okay.
SPEAKER_02:Right. She heals him. She heals him. Yes. And they live happily ever after and they fall in love.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. And so that's where I think the ups and downs is what makes... the biggest impact is they're seeking out that up. They want that high again, if you will. And they say too, that it takes people an average of seven times of trying to leave a relationship before they actually do. So it's multifaceted.
SPEAKER_02:How do we as family, friends, acquaintances of a person who's involved in a toxic relationship, how do we best support them? to help them walk away? Listen,
SPEAKER_00:validate, and I would encourage their strengths because they're gonna believe, basically it comes down to like rebuilding their worth. You deserve better than this. You're worth more than this. And it kind of came to me too. I was like kind of in a fun, it's like in an ironic way, that the narcissist is there to break us down to the point that we believe that we're not worthy, but yet they go at such lengths to make sure that we stay theirs. So if we look at it, not in a human kind of a way, but just in an object kind of a way, why would we keep something that doesn't have worth? Why would we protect something so strongly if it doesn't have any worth? It's very clear by how the narcissist behaves that they need that partner. They need to have that person in their lives. And so I think highlighting their good qualities, what they are good at, and just kind of reemphasizing what is healthy love, it helps that person to be like, okay, maybe this isn't appropriate for me anymore. And to do the work to hopefully free themselves of it.
SPEAKER_02:You've talked about achieving post-traumatic growth. What does that look like for women who are just beginning their healing journey?
SPEAKER_00:Post-traumatic growth is definitely one of my most favorite things. For me personally, I was at the point of this, I had ended it with my abuser, but I was very much in the, like, why me? Why did I have to go through this? And I was watching a documentary and this quote came up by Kurt Flood. And it said, I am pleased that God made my skin black. I just wish he had made it thicker. And I really loved that quote. It really stood out to me because to me, my interpretation of that was like, you know, I am black. This is how I am. But like, would have been nice to have had a little bit more cushion with everything that I had to endure. And in that reflection, it came to me too, that if hypothetically my higher power were to ask me, you know, you or someone you know has to go through this, who do you choose? I would choose me every time.
SPEAKER_01:And
SPEAKER_00:with that is where I got the strength to be is where I got the strength to make sure that I wasn't going to let this be a tragedy. I wanted to take what I had experienced and give back, hence why I do what I do, and hence why you do what you do. I
SPEAKER_02:love it. For women who have left a toxic relationship and are struggling with guilt, with shame, with confusion, what's the first step?
SPEAKER_00:I would say therapy and support. Support can also be contacting the local domestic violence shelter. Even if you're not living with your abuser, it's still a great resource, somebody to talk to at least or anything like that. I know therapy doesn't always feel accessible to people and so that's always a free resource. Support might even look like maybe you know, Facebook groups or social media groups in which there's other women, let me rephrase that, there's other people who have gone through similar circumstances and can kind of have that voice of wisdom and a little encouragement to it too. For me, when it came time for me to end my relationship with my abuser, I was questioning a lot of things. I needed validation that what I was seeing was a true pattern. I needed to hear it from somebody else. And so before I had even broken up with my abuser, I had gotten into therapy and my therapist helped me see things I hadn't seen before and verified that the pattern I was seeing was in fact there and helped me to define like what a healthy relationship was. And that gave me the encourage to exit but they also helped me come up with a safe way to do it too.
SPEAKER_02:So what made you seek therapy? Whereas other women don't, I don't know. Maybe they're afraid that it's going to be too painful to go meet with a therapist and unpack all that. So they shy away. What made you say, no, I'm going to go get therapy versus somebody else who doesn't.
SPEAKER_00:It's a good question. Yeah. I believe that I knew that it was just a resource. And I will say, too, my mom from pretty much the get-go was very much against my abuser. And I didn't feel that I could necessarily talk to her about In that way, I could talk to her about many things. I talked to her about the relationship and so forth, but it was almost like I needed to hear it from somebody else. What if my mom just doesn't understand kind of a thing? What if my support just doesn't understand? And so I needed to hear it from somebody else. I couldn't really go to my friends and talk through these things because they didn't see it. To them, he was very charismatic. They couldn't even imagine that he had done the stuff that I said he had done. And so for me, I needed that party that was totally not involved to kind of like slash the gaslighting, if you
SPEAKER_02:will. Right. I think there's something powerful about getting a perspective from a professional who has training combined with the fact that they're emotionally neutral towards us. It's not like they're emotionally invested in us. So that the advice and guidance they offer is very powerful compared to that, that may come from a family member or friend. What is EMDR? I'm just now starting to learn about it. And how does it help women heal from relationship trauma?
SPEAKER_00:EMDR is, I'm sure this comes as no surprise and one of my favorite things ever. So for me, just I'll circle into that. When I met my abuser, I was 15, right?
SPEAKER_01:And
SPEAKER_00:so that's a very influential age and so forth. And even honestly, if I would have met him when I was 25, this next statement wouldn't be true. But there's a lot that goes into the emotional abuse and into the physical abuse, financial, sexual manipulation, all of it plays a huge toll onto somebody. A couple of things that can come from that are Maybe negative beliefs like I am not lovable. I am not worthy. I am not intelligent. I'm not safe. I can't trust other people. I can't trust myself. The list goes on. And I know I gave a bunch of I statements there. It's not always I statements. It could be like my body is ugly or something to that effect, but it's always about this person. With my experience with my abuser, After I left, I felt a huge lack of confidence in myself on top of the fact that I was dealing with PTSD symptoms that were not identified. And I should better rephrase that as not accepted by myself. My therapist had mentioned it and I just carried on not paying attention to what she had said. And I think there was a huge component of denial for me. So EMDR is a therapy in which you take the negative beliefs and you turn them into positive beliefs through the therapeutic process. For me, I had done talk therapy for many years in which I felt very validated. I felt empowered. I gained a lot of coping skills. But at the end of the day, if you will, there was something not quite clicking and I still was having a lot of symptoms of my PTSD, of my anxiety and of my depression. And I wanna kind of brought it out there and say too, like EMDR is not just for PTSD, it is for anxiety, it is for depression, it's for a multitude of mental health disorders. And why it works for everything is because all of us carry negative beliefs of some sort. so EMDR tackles the trauma that we go through and trauma is just whatever open wound there is it could be an abusive relationship it could be that your parents didn't go to your baseball game right it varies
SPEAKER_02:what does the EMDR stand for
SPEAKER_00:yeah it stands for eye movement desensitization reprocessing and a little fun fact um It's a pretty long word there. The Francis Shapiro who founded it, she had thought at one point about changing the name, but decided to keep it just to keep its like authenticity to it. So what EMDR does is let's say that all of a sudden a bear were to burst into the door. We would fight, flight, freeze. We would escape. Probably we would be talking to animal control. We would go home. We would make our dinner, we would go to bed and we carry on on our day. But what would happen is we would notice that I'm still expecting that bear to kind of burst through the door. And that's where EMDR comes into play where, you know, like how, how do we stop feeling like I am not safe? And what we do is we tackle the negative beliefs. We first have to identify them and then we figure out where do they come from? Whereas the first time, the worst time, the most recent time in which you felt this negative belief, we ask questions that engage the emotions, the images, and the body sensations attached to those memories. And then we process it through bilaterals. What that process does is if we were to take the mind and split it in two, the bottom part there is the brainstem, which is our fight, flight, freeze. And we have our limbic system in the middle, which is kind of the emotional component. And then we have our frontal cortex, which is where everything's input. When we go through trauma or that open event, our brainstem goes fight, flight, freeze, sends it up to the limbic system. And the limbic system, if there's no trauma and everything's good, will send it forward to the frontal cortex. But what happens is the limbic system goes, uh-uh, I think we're not safe and shoots it back down to the brainstem and the fight-flight-freeze continues. Brainstem goes, there's no bear, we're fine, continues back up and it kind of circles through there. So through the EMDR process, it tackles that loop and truly allows the limbic system to target through the emotions, images, and body sensations and truly release that energy. And as it goes to the frontal cortex, we landed our positive belief. They actually did a brain scan while someone was receiving EMDR and they could see the brain activity move from the limbic system across the corpus callosum and land in the frontal cortex, which I think is really
SPEAKER_02:cool. Wow, that is cool. Is there, I'm hesitant to ask this because I realized that trauma and healing is different for different people. There is no specific timeline. But is there an average of, oh, you have to be an EMDR for six months or a year or two before you start to see progress? Or is it completely different from one person to the next?
SPEAKER_00:In my experience, it's completely different from one person to the next.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:I'll speak personally. For me, I personally started to feel the beneficial effects from EMDR just even after my first session without actually closing a target. So closing a target means that the positive belief is there fully. It resonates. There's no distress from the original memory and so forth. What I discovered too is that kind of a little bit of like almost a little bit of fun with it so once i had done the ptsd component of my emdr if you will then i was like well let's see how this works with anxiety so i i personally wanted to like keep coming back for it what i've seen in my clients is sometimes you know a target will take multiple sessions when that happens it's usually i would identify as like a heavy memory a heavy negative belief or a negative belief that's strongly attached to other negative beliefs. I've seen clients go through a target in a session and it's completely, it's good. Positive is there, everything seems fine. So it just really varies. One thing that we are encouraged to do when we do MDR is start with the negative belief that holds the most fire or feels the heaviest. And what happens is naturally all the other ones kind of like wither away
SPEAKER_02:too,
SPEAKER_00:which is nice.
SPEAKER_02:How can survivors rebuild their self-worth, especially when that worth has been chipped away over years? Self-care and self-love. So I feel like self-care is such a buzzword. Everybody uses it. Yeah. Tell me what self-care is. Is it you go get a manicure? You go get your hair done? Is it meditation? Is it yoga? What does self-care look like?
SPEAKER_00:It is all of those things. It is also maybe giving yourself a couch day. It's also a cup of tea. It's your favorite show. It's laying out in the sun, talking to friends, like the list goes on and on. To summarize it, I think it's doing what feels good for you. And so I'm bouncing back to this idea of like it's your morning coffee or your afternoon tea. Are you having it to enjoy it or are you having it just to have it? And so one thing I encourage like my clients to do is to set that intention, even if it's watching your, you know, it's time for my show. It's your show and it's your time. Like this is my cup of coffee. And to like set that time as part to actually enjoy it, not just hopefully have it while you're running errands, you know, take that extra time for yourself.
SPEAKER_02:So when a woman is trying to rebuild her self-worth, she's coming out of this abusive relationship and after some time decides that she'd like to be in another relationship with How can she learn to trust herself again? Because oftentimes, you know, we point the finger at our abuser, but we can't help but ask, how did I get myself in that situation? How did I not see the signs? Or if I saw the signs, why is it that I chose to brush them away or justify them? So it starts to put a little bit of self-doubt, like, can I trust my judgment again? So How does a woman learn to trust herself again? We got to listen
SPEAKER_00:to the intuition. This is part of where EMDR can play a role. You know, if you're really believing I can't trust myself, that's hard. How do you trust your intuition? You know, and I feel inclined to share this little humor too. I saw something where it's like, how can I trust my gut? It doesn't even trust gluten. You know, like how, you know, like how do I know how to listen to it if it can't even do this kind of a thing? That, is where we can have, we can even write it out. We can write down what are our deal breakers? What are red flags? What are yellow flags? And another way to kind of raise yellow flags is like, what are some things that I'm willing to maybe overlook? For example, when I first met my husband, he was pretty active on some fast food.
SPEAKER_01:That
SPEAKER_00:is not my lifestyle. Now, for me, you know, that's something I was willing to overlook. And to me, not that eating fast food has anything to do with abusive relationships, but it could indicate like how well do you take care of yourself? You know, and so being able to kind of differentiate as you look at the relationship as a whole, what are some things that you want to qualities you want in your new partner. And from that base off of your red flags, your yellow flags and your deal breakers. You know, I don't want to be with somebody who's physically abusive. Those are deal breakers for me.
SPEAKER_02:I've always told my kids that you will not go wrong as long as you don't silence your instinct. It's your internal compass. Sometimes there's so much static that it's hard to hear that instinct. Sometimes fear paralyzes you to the point that it it suppresses that instinct or you want to suppress it, you get confused. So it's great to know that you with your, from your professional opinion, you believe in the power of listening to one's instinct.
SPEAKER_00:And I'll say too, that one thing that's helped me is meditation. If you're, as you said, that static, if you're uncertain, maybe do some meditating. And there's guided meditations. You can even just throw in some classical music or just go on a walk and talk to yourself out loud and see what comes up. And I think those kind of steps can help us like eliminate that white noise.
SPEAKER_02:That is great. Thank you so much for that. I would have never thought about it. And hence why you're the expert. What advice do you have for someone who suspects that they're in a toxic relationship, but isn't sure enough that it's quote, bad enough to walk away. You know, it can always be worse. Sometimes you compare, oh, I know so-and-so, her husband beats her. At least mine doesn't. Mine, he just, you know, once in a while loses his temper.
SPEAKER_00:This is where I want to fall back on to deal breakers and boundaries and also healthy relationship qualities. We all, we're human. We all go through rough times. You know, whether it's our own mental health, a loss of job, maybe there's something physical going on we haven't quite discovered. It makes us more irritable. There's all these things that are going on. But if there's any kind of physical abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse going on, I would say those are definitely things that I would not say should be like, oh, it's not that bad. And this is tricky. It's very tricky and it's per person. Is it financial? Is it something that you are going to overcome as a couple within six months to a year? Okay. Maybe that's different. It's per person. But if anybody ever feels unsafe in their own home, I think that that would be a strong indicator of like, it is bad enough. when there's things going on of maybe the partner comes home and is you know let's say they're struggling with their mental health and so they're more irritable because they're more irritable they're they have a silver tongue maybe you know they're not being as gentle with that that is where it's a matter of their partner setting boundaries please don't talk to me like that i don't appreciate that and kind of seeing how it plays out if they're and again like it's it's per person You know, there's people out there who do endure physical abuse and stay. Maybe it was a one-time thing and they're willing to overlook it. I would hope that they don't actually sweep it under the rug, overlook it, but they're willing to see how it plays out. There are other people out there who that's it. You know, same thing with cheating. There's people who stay in relationships in which there's been infidelity. There's people who leave right away. It's very, very personalized. And so it's complicated. And I think too, to further your question is like a matter of like support and therapy, you know, having that outside opinion. And I specify therapy because as we both know, if you're talking to family or friends, their perspective on stuff might be a little skewed to your favor.
SPEAKER_02:What does empowerment mean to you now? And even more importantly, what does it not mean?
SPEAKER_00:To me, empowerment is just, you know, building up others in multiple ways. And disempowerment is when you break down somebody. And so I think that this is what comes to my mind. When I volunteered at Marshall, actually, I worked there as well. When I worked at this domestic violence shelter, we were instructed as employees that we could not tell our employees clients how to live or what to do. So if they would come to us and say, I don't really know what to make for dinner. What do you think? We couldn't be like, oh, make tacos. We had to be like, well, what are you craving? What do you think would feel good? What would you like to have? And I think that that's the empowering component of it, where it's helping that person rebuild their sense of self, their intuition, and so forth. And so anything opposite of that is that disempowerment.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for that. Sarah, thank you. Thank you for your honesty, your insight, and the way you share your own personal story with such vulnerability. So many women stay quiet about these experiences because of shame, confusion or fear or external pressures. But your work gives them a language, a light, a permission to begin again, a safe space where they can feel seen, heard and understood. So thank you for all the ways you empower victims of abuse and victims of trauma and help them to lead better, healthier, meaningful lives.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thank you. I appreciate being asked to join.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for spending time with me today. If you enjoyed this content, please make sure you subscribe to this podcast and leave a quick review to help us share the message.