Ep.5: From Disempowered Victim to Thriving Survivor and Reconnecting with your child

In this episode, I connect with the truly awe inspiring Jill Wise @the_enlightened_target, about her harrowing journey, from the child of a malignant narcissistic father to the wife of a narcissistic abuser, who later colluded with her father to fracture her bond with her son. Over a decade in the court system; having her ex and her father join forces; and experiencing her son be alienated from her. 

All of this could easily break a person. While Jill found herself at rock bottom, isolate, broke, and without her son, she slowly, but intentionally climbed her way out from the bottom. Putting on her own oxygen mask on first, was crucial in her reconnection with her son. This is a story of pain, heartbreak, betrayal, but more importantly, of hope, healing and empowerment. 

You can find Jill Wise on IG @the_enlightened_target or via her website at: www.jillwise.com

Visit: https://chantalcontorinescoaching.com to learn how to work with me.

Grab my free parenting resource:

https://chantalcontorinescoaching.myflodesk.com/free-how-to-guide

Join my monthly membership for protective parents: https://chantalcontorinescoaching.com/monthly-membership

Follow me on Instagram: @chantal.contorines.coaching

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice.

Transcript

0:02

Welcome everybody to The Survivor's Playbook. This is the podcast for every survivor. If abusers can have a playbook, then why can't survivors also have a playbook so that we can learn to live lives we love, despite what the abusers in our lives do or don't do? I'm your host, Chantal Contorines, and I'm so excited to have the amazing Jill Wise on today, you might know her better as the Enlightened Target. She's all over social media. She has a very strong following and platform. She is a narcissistic abuse recovery coach. She's experienced abuse herself. So she's that beautiful combination, unfortunately, of survivor turned expert and so she can talk about it personally as well as professionally. So Jill, thank you so much for taking the time out of your full schedule and life to be on here today. Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure. So for those who may not know you or may not have heard or might not understand who you are right now, how did you get into coaching? It was actually ironically enough, I started my social media accounts during when, at the kind of the tail end of my alienation years. And I was really doing that just so that my son, if I didn't ever see him again, or we never reconnected or managed, something happened to me, who knows? There would be some, he would have somewhere to go to learn the truth of what happened. It just evolved into this. But, I've spent 15 years in family courts battling my ex-husband. My divorce took six years and then, another 15 in family courts. It's just been. Crazy. Yeah, so it just evolved from years of experience and then from just trying to throw my son a lifeline out into the abyss to going into this and I. I so wish that you didn't have to experience this because honestly, as we said prior to hitting record, this is the worst possible thing for a parent to go through, other than, as you mentioned, the death of a child. But this is the death of a relationship. It feels like it when you're in it and you're grieving a child who is still alive. Oh, yeah. And and they know subconsciously, deep down, that there's no reason, there's no validation, there's no real reason as to why they no longer come back to you. They might have an excuse and it's typically very superficial, and if you ask them questions, they can't, expand upon it. That you've been the parent that they needed, that you've poured love into them with, which is why this is so difficult and so painful for parents who are navigating this. Can we rewind a little bit again for those who don't know your story, how was your childhood? I was raised by my father was a malignant narcissist. He actually died in 2024, but it was I have three sisters. I'm the second. He tried over 17 years for a boy and got four girls and violent rager abuser, fear, intimidation, it was his way or the highway. And I grew up believing. I guess the best way to put it is that because he financially supported me or did certain things that a father, a parent do, the bare minimum. I interpret it as he has a right to abuse me. This just goes, love and abuse, got very confused in my upbringing and it was two sides of the same coin because with most narcissistic abusers, they go through their cycles. So the intermittent reinforcement. So there'd be times my father would be wonderful to me. Tell me he was me, be there, generous, kind, all of these things. And then other times where he was just raging at me. Foaming at the mouth telling me what a, I'm talking like 7, 8, 9 years old, telling me how he's gonna tear my head off and, all the other things that he's gonna do to me. And then, when it's over, you gotta act like nothing happened. And, it was, I wouldn't do that if I didn't love you so much. And that's the very definition of an abusive family dynamic, yeah. Is we. You are love bombed. You are, cajoled. You are showered with the affection and attention. You're so desperate because every child wants their parent to love them. And so every child works harder. They don't work less. They work harder to try to get that modicum of attention and affection, those breadcrumbs from their parent. Oh, and it gives them to you. And then he takes them away. And you never know when, what's gonna happen and you're constantly working. That's the cycle of abuse. That's the very definition of the cycle of abuse. And then as every toxic family system works, we don't talk about it. Yeah, we sweep everything under the rug. We don't talk about it. It never happened. There's no apologies. There's no repair. No repair, no admission, no nothing. You just pretend. He used to say to us like, truly after just a horrific hours of rage taking, tearing the house apart, we'd be hyperventilating, crying so hard, and then he'd say, go wash your face. And that's when I knew it was over and we had to go upstairs, wash our face, and then we'd come down and act as if nothing happened. Happened like the last eight hours. Just never. Never. Yep. And as a child, we as adults, we understand as adults, if you haven't experienced abuse in your childhood, you understand that abuse does happen, that abusers happen. But children don't understand that abuse exists. They don't understand that their parents abuse them. And when you conflate love and abuse when that's what grow up in and you equate the treatment that you're experiencing, both the good and the bad is love. That is so very confusing, which is why also so many children raised in these households typically partner with abusers later in life, because your body goes with what it knows you. That is your definition of love. That's all you've experienced. That's all you know is love. Is that intermittent reinforcement, the cycle of abuse, the non apologies, the sweeping everything under the rug. And when you find people who are just like your mom or your dad, boom. It feels comfortable. Feels comfortable. It feels like real love. It feels, I if you, if for me it was like if I had somebody who actually treated me nice all the time, I thought something was wrong. Yes. I didn't receive it. I remember, my first boy's abusive boyfriend was at 19 and the first time he hit me, I go, he loves me. He really loves me and and I really thought I believed that. Yeah. Yeah. And he's, this one's a keeper because he must really love me if he got that upset to hit me. Yeah. And that is. The dysfunction of the family and how could you not equate that with love? That's how you grew up, that's what you were told was love. And which is why when we're protective parents, it's so important that we do not gaslight our children into believing what they're experiencing, what their other parent is love. We don't have to disparage them. But we certainly don't say, oh yeah, mommy or daddy loves you right after they've just yelled at you. Or, done whatever they do in their abusive ways. Not every abuser yells and screams. Not every abuser raises a hand or a fist. There's so many ways to abuse people quietly, covertly, insidiously. Absolutely. And it's such a good point because, and God loved my mother. She left my, she was very young when she had my sister and I, and she left him when I was one. She was only 22 years old. But. He would come over and terrorize us and do all these things and then he'd leave and she would tell us, we, he, he does, he really loves you. Underneath it all. He loves you. And I talked to her. That was a wrong thing to say. That was it. And I understand she, wasn't educated or didn't understand. Even five or 10 years ago, people didn't know what this was. Oh, and so you and I are probably in the same age bracket, so you know, back then there was no talk about this. There was no, oh, nothing. There wasn't these kind of enlightenment that we have, the kind of education and the kind of understanding we have as to what abuse really is. And there wasn't the same knowledge. So your mom did the best she could with what she had, but she didn't have the right knowledge or the right tools, and she was young. Oh, absolutely. She's a baby herself. Point, and point to to point out that we don't tell our kids when they're, if and when they're being abused by however covertly or overtly, that we don't say that as love. No. That they really love you under there. Yeah, it's, that's not love. And it's that is the easiest thing for us to do as protective parents is to be very clear, right? And we don't have to, like with my own clients, I say you, you talk about what love is in your house. You make a love board, and you brainstorm what love actually looks like, what it feels like, what it sounds like. Again, you never have to disparage their other parent because children don't need to hear that. They already hear enough about that when they're with their abusive parent about you. But by showing what love is, by talking about what love is, what it feels like in the body, when people are safe, what your body actually feels like when you're with people who love you and respect you, children are smart and you add in some critical thinking. And children can actually discern for themselves what is good and what is not good, what is healthy, and what is unhealthy. And again typically children feel it in their bodies, but until they're old enough to actually come to the same realization that adult victims of abuse come to Hey, this person is actually abusive, but it's my mom or it's my dad. So your childhood horrible, and I'm so sorry you endured that. Thank you. And, but you've, but you're healing. I don't say that you're healed. We don't heal it. It's not a destination, it's a journey. We're it's, that's right. I say it's not a destination, it's a lifestyle. I believe that it'll be, I'll be healing the rest of my life from this. Yeah. And especially because this was your childhood, this was your foundation of the life. This is why being a protective parent is so important and equipping ourselves with the right tools and the right strategies to raise our children despite what the other parent does. We have no control over what that other parent does, if they're abusive, and even if they're not, if you have split, if you have two homes, whatever your ex does in their home, you have no control over, but you can control how you show up for your children. So your son, your relationship with him was fractured intentionally and maliciously by your ex. And again, that is exactly what so many abusers do, because it is the worst thing to do to a loving, engaged parent. It actually, he teamed up with my father. Of course. Of course he did. Of course. Honestly, how many times have I heard that? It's disgusting. Yeah. It was it, yeah. It was awful. Yeah. Yeah. And that was. A chapter of your life. But the good news, because I do follow you on social media, as I said, I'm a fan girl and I watch what you do, and I think that what you do is so helpful for people and it's so well received because you are exposing yourself, you're being vulnerable, and you're doing that in order to help other people understand that they're not alone and they're not helpless and they're not hopeless. Even despite how you might feel at this particular moment in your life, you might feel like you are rock bottom and you might actually be rock bottom. Yeah. But there's ways for you to extricate yourself to Absolutely. It's more hopeless. No, and I'm sure that you felt when you had no contact with your son, when your ex-husband and your dad, collaborated to both hurt you, you must have felt like you were in the pit. You were at the bottom. There was so hopeless and helpless and feeling disempowered. How did you not only help yourself to take action and to get out of that, stagnation and that survival mode, but also then to reconnect with your son, because this is the twist for those who don't know, Jill, is that. Her and her son have reconnected. Yeah. So it was once felt hopeless and helpless that it was just over, you'd lost your boy and that was that. I have friends and I have family, and I have clients this, and they feel the same way. I've just, I've lost my child. Yeah. I, and I certainly felt that way. It was, and I don't know that it was like one event that happened. It was several things that I think happened, but it started it's, after, and this was it when the alienation was just terrible. He was like just seeing me. He would break out in hives or panic just from literally laying eyes on me. But I was, in a very dark place. I, was bankrupt from family court. They had smeared me to every, anybody and everyone who would listen. My son wanted nothing to do with me, and I literally got to the point where it felt like. My organs were shutting down and I, and it scared me and I thought this is gonna kill me. I'm gonna lie. I literally I'm gonna die from this. I don't do something different. And truthfully, that would've been. Perfect for your ex. Oh yeah. That's the goal. That is the goal is to literally break you. To break you down. So you like, they, they don't even have to do the dirty work. They don't have to kill you themselves with their own hands, but their actions, their behavior, the relentlessness, the viciousness of their fight, suicide is what it's, yeah. Ly. And I think that was the goal of my father, aunt, and my ex-husband and I, there's no doubt in my mind about that. But it scared me. And I think I had a. Moment of clarity and I thought, I can't help my son. I can't do anything if I'm not here. And in that kind of head space, I made a pact to a deal with myself that I was going to give this a hundred percent. I was gonna do everything I knew to do to try and heal this and fix this to the, to whatever. So that I, if I were to die, I can, I could die knowing I did everything I knew to do. And. That was the turning point, and then just loads of years of hard work after that. But really trying to, it started with basics. Like I had to get my thoughts out of ruminating about the trauma. I'd lost three years to doing nothing but ruminating about things. I didn't know that was the name of it. I didn't know it was a consequence of trauma. I didn't know it was further traumatizing me, but I had just been consumed with it. And it was just eating me alive. So started off with just getting control of my thoughts and then just making, small little breakthroughs with my son, demonstrating behavior. Any exposure that I could have with him that was in direct opposition to the, this mirror campaign they had, told him, which was, you're, she's crazy. She's unstable, she's dangerous. All the typical things that they say. I also went to, family, friends who were instrumental in providing us with a safe place. I went to I finally figured out after all these years, no one in my family was going to help me. And that right there, I mean that, I think that truly is the difference. Some people are able to heal faster because they have the right support, and when you do not have family support, in fact, not only did you not have family support, you had a father who was actively coupling with your ex in order to hurt you. Yeah. But the levels of trauma, the levels of betrayal for you as a child, as a mother, and also as an ex-partner. And yet, here you are. You know what and when you say it that way, that makes me feel good. But I'll tell you what, when you get to a place like that, when you have that kind of betrayal. And there's one of two ways it's gonna go. And I truly believe that it's either going to consume you or you're going to have to you're just gonna have to pull yourself up out of it. But there, I don't think there's a third option. Yeah. And that is the reality. Yeah. But for a lot of people, they get stuck and there's no shame in being stuck because No, there's no shame in being stuck there. Everybody's journey is different. And everybody's level of education, as you said, once you actually understand what you're going through, you were ruminating, there was a cycle of abuse. You can actually label. What you've experienced and what you're experiencing and you're not crazy anymore because so much of abuse and abusers, be they parent or partner, it's in gaslighting your reality and making you feel crazy, and you add in all the micro criticisms that they throw at you and you start to internalize their monologue, their narrative of you becomes, especially if it's a parent. Oh yeah. Oh my God. Just my inner critic was awful. Just terrible. I was, I've been, until I like learned about all this, but I've been abusing myself since I was little. Of course. How could you not, because the person who's supposed to be imprinting is supposed to be guiding you and serves as your internal monologue. What are what parents say to their children becomes your child's internal monologue. If it's positive, your child feels great about themselves and they're launched. Yeah. You did not have that gift. In fact, you had the opposite. And then you had a husband, an ex-husband. Who did this, and then you had a son, bless your son. He didn't know he was an innocent victim of abuse as well. Yeah. And which is so traumatic for the developing child's mind. And it. I have clients who say, but they, they're so cruel to me. You know what they don't mean to be, I know. They're literally, first of all, indoctrination and brainwashing are very effective tools. Ask any adult member of a cult, this is just like a micro Yeah. It's the same tactics. It's the same tactics. You control the narrative. It's us versus them. You isolate them. You have the repeated messaging on repeat, and a child becomes very confused. Yep. And also in order to survive, they have to align with this abusive parent they see no other way. Yeah. That's surviving. They see what the parent has done to us. Yep. Which is also why it's so important. And this again, is not trying to shame parents who are at the, like the bottom and they're just feeling so helpless and exhausted because abuse is supposed to exhaust you an exhausted person is so much easier to manipulate than a person who is rested and quite clear. But it's so important for our children to see us thriving. Yeah. And so when you said you had to take care of yourself, not only was that something that you actually literally had to do for yourself because you were at the bottom. You had to put on your own oxygen mask before you could take care of anybody else, but it was so important for your son. Yeah. See you on the other side. This is what escape actually looks like. There's actually hope for a life on the other side of escaping something. And as as an adult, escaping your abuser is very scary. You've been conditioned to acquiesce. You've been conditioned to submit, you've been conditioned to do whatever. And this is the ultimate boundary is you don't have to change, but I'm no longer gonna put up with your behavior. Yeah. And but if you are broke, if you are in rock and you stay stuck, your child looks at that and goes, wow, it's too scary to leave. Oh, definitely. Definitely. And so it does, and it is a like putting your oxygen mask on first. I finally figured that out. If I had to save myself first. I could not help him until I did. And that is just, you know how it is. I was honestly, with as broken as I was and the efforts that I was putting forth during that time, I was really contributing to my own alienation. And I certainly wasn't intending to do that. I was just so desperate that I was, I literally like walking right into their smear campaign of what they were saying about me. I looked like I was crazy, and so I had to retreat and really do some deep healing. And like I said, I went to some family friends who were instrumental in providing a safe, neutral home for my son so we could start rebuilding our li our relationship again. So anyway, it was many different things. But yeah, it definitely starts with saving yourself. So for those who are listening, because there's sadly, and unfortunately there are so many parents who've experienced exactly what you've gone through. Obviously with different, dynamics and narratives and group systems. But the underlying premise is the same fracture, the bond, the connected bond between a child and their loving parent. Again, this is a parent who historically has been engaged and loving. This is not a, a parent who's abusive and the child says, Ooh, they're actually being cognizant of the fact that they're being abused. This is a child who has no reason to stop seeing this parent or feeling safe around this parent, other than the narrative that's been constructed behind the scenes. So from your bottom, how many years approximately did it take for you to get to a place where you felt, okay, life is actually worth living. I can actually do this. Oh boy. Let's see. From, from when, from the moment that I said I can actually do this it's been, oh, a solid, 10 years. And this is important. It's not going to be a quick fix. It's not gonna be a month, and you're like in and done, you. Oh no. It took a long time to get there and like I said it's an, it's still evolving. It's still going. I work on my healing every single day. My healing has been my number one priority for, I think this is the 12th year now. And you truly do. I still put it as my number one priority, and even though my son and I are in a wonderful place now, i'm not gonna do anything to jeopardize the healing work that I've done. I sit on top of it. I do things every, I still am doing inner child work. I'm still reprogramming my subconscious. I'm still doing, daily affirmations or whatever I need to do in order so that I keep going in the right direction. You are working your program. Whatever that might be. It's like an alcoholic going to aa. You have to work it every day. It's not just you. You do it and you're done. Nope. Especially, you were abused your entire life from your infancy all the way still to now. Your ex is still on. He's not dead, so he is still there and he can rear his ugly head. So you. And this is so important, you really have to invest in yourself, both the time and the energy as well as the financial right. You have to, you really, everything starts with you. And if you are a protective parent who has a child or children and their other parent is an abuser, so much depends on you. Yeah. And if you are completely dysregulated because you're in the thick of being abused and all the ways that they abuse, which is oftentimes using the legal system because that's a, that's all the abuse forms wrapped into one pretty package. That's financial abuse. That's emotional abuse, psychological abuse, mental abuse. It's also physical abuse because the stress, wrecks havoc on your system, on your body, on your health. Yeah. If you don't take care of yourself. You cannot show up as the kind of parent your children need, and if you can't do it for yourself, oftentimes if you've been a victim of abuse and you've, escaped abuse you, you're really the bottom. You don't, you've not invested in yourself in any way. Everybody else comes before you, but if you have to flip that part of your healing. After the education is to understand that you need to prioritize your own self-care in all the ways. And I'm not just talking like like a little bubble bath or a 20 minute pedicure. I'm talking like the inner work. Oh, for sure. It's so important and I will tell you that's probably was the biggest factor in the beginning for kind of my son opening up a, a little bit of openness to be back. I think he had to see me taking care of myself. He had to see me making myself a priority. I think that was critically important for him to feel safe around me as well. And that is also, despite how safe we are as protective parents, if your ex is still on the scene, if your ex is an abuser, they're making your child feel that you're unsafe and your child, and then. Because of the abuse that you endure, you oftentimes do show up exactly the way that your abuser is portraying you to be, and it just solidifies in your child's vulnerable mind. Oh, dad or mom is right. My mom or my dad as survival mode. It's, we vibrate like that. We can sit there and try and cover it up to the best of our ability, but they can still feel that. So it's, you've gotta, you just, you ha I could have never gotten to where I'm at unless I made my healing my first priority. I think that's the most important message, if you can take anything from today's episode, is you have to prioritize yourself. It's not selfish, it's self-care. And self-care is the gift that keeps on giving. You show up better for yourself. You show up better for your partner, if you have a new partner, for your children, for your colleagues, for your friends, your family, whoever's in your life, you show up better. Yes. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. Do you have any last tips or insights or anything that you could impart upon people who are feeling, I've lost my child. I don't see any hope. There's just, there's no hope. I don't know why I would keep going. And sometimes, sometimes if you. Put it this way, sometimes the alienated parents or parents who are going through this may need to take a break. I do think that there are times where maybe some space is needed. I don't if you are in a just really terrible place where the child or even your adult child is acting, just. Atrocious to you maybe some time, and then re, connect, trying to connect at a later date. You have, it's a balancing act and so I don't want, I don't wanna come across and say you've gotta go. And there's always hope. Sometimes you have to put your mental health first. Sometimes you have to take care of, just your sanity if your child is being abusive to you. I've had to, I've had to lock myself in my bathroom for up to five hours because my son was on the phone with dad and he was going to beat me up if I walked through the door. So there, there are times where, a break may be necessary, and I don't want any parents out there who are feeling hopeless to, to not be able to give themself that. But having said that, I do. I do believe while there is no hope, that the narcissistic parent, the narcissistic ex, the narcissistic, whoever it is in your life, is going to change. I do not believe there's any help for that. Yeah, no, you and I are both. Narcissism that's a hopeless situation, but for your life, for your healing, for your children, there's endless hope. There's endless hope. But it's a, it's not a, it's not an event, it's a process. It's a daily action. And it will though, if you will give it some time and energy. And space, it will start to gain momentum slowly but surely. And you can find your way out of this there, I sincerely believe that there is always hope for your life and where you can go. I also am on the same perspective. I think there's always so much hope despite what the abusers in our lives do or don't do. When you start to focus back on what you can control and for anybody, anybody that you don't even have to experience abuse, the only thing in life that you can ever control. Is yourself. Yeah. So when you start to focus on what you can control on yourself and you take care of, and you prioritize every part of yourself and your healing, there's always hope. Yes. And when our children see us thriving, they feel safer. They feel more connected. They feel more Hey, I can actually escape and there is a life on the other side of this abuse that I'm enduring right now. And my mom or my dad can help me, they can be my guide to, creating boundaries with my parent. Absolutely. Absolutely. And be sure for those of you who have endured this too, that you start talking to yourself and treating yourself like you are a human being, you unconditionally love. I think it starts there too, and I think the internalized narrative of our abuser gets in there and with our children's rejection also, my internal narrative was, oh my God, your son doesn't want anything to do with you. You're a horrible parent. You're a waste of space. All of these things, you have to stop that. None of that is true. None of that voice is telling you the truth. It is not an accurate understanding of who you are. Reality, and you have to start, you have to shift the way that you're talking and treating yourself. I think it truly starts there. It so imperative because you start you believe what you say. Oh, no. So when you tell yourself that you're a horrible human being, when you internalize your abuser's narrative of you, which is always false. Always love they. They need to make you feel this way so that you feel indebted to them, that you feel like you can't do anything, that you're incapable, that you are stupid, that you are crazy. When you actually internalize those narratives, they've actually won. It's the number one reason why when we get away from our abuser that we don't get better. That is the number one reason. So I will tell my clients all the time, your internal dialogue, if you have an inner, a nasty inner critic that is a bigger enemy than every narcissist in the world, that is your number one enemy, and it must be either befriended or overpowered, however you wanna look at it. You've got to it's gotta go. And you've got to start treating yourself like somebody that you love and care about and respect. And that's so very important. And most people who have experienced abuse are actually very compassionate empathetic people. And if you had a bestie or a friend or family member who came to you and told you what they were enduring, say they had the same story that you actually have, would you talk to them that way? Would you say, Hey, you're a lousy parent. You are a piece of shit. You are like, you're crazy. You're waste to space. Yeah, you're crazy. So you have to stop yourself and say, if I wouldn't say that to somebody that I actually love, why would I talk to myself that way? I tell my clients that too, and I'm like, I, if you wouldn't say it to your children, I don't want you saying it to yourself. Literally that type of unconditional love. If you don't have it for yourself, like right now, utilize the love that you feel for your children and pull that in to, to guide you and how to learn to love yourself again or possibly for the first time. But it starts with it truly does start with learning to unconditionally love yourself. And the thing with this is that especially if you've had an internal critic your entire life, if you were raised by an abuser, that is your internal critic. Yeah. It's the first step is to being cognizant that you have this inner critic. Yeah. And the next one is when you start to go down that path, you've created this trench for however many years you've been going down the same path. Stop yourself. You stop yourself and in your tracks and you say, no, that's actually not the reality. This is who I am. You can write this down, you can have it on your phone, on a piece of paper, on your mirror, however. And this becomes your new mantra. I am loving. I am lovable. I am capable. I am fierce. Yes. And you replace it. You actually memorize this mantra up and replace, even my, you can write out, yeah, you can write out your like biggest ruminating thoughts your biggest self-defeating, ruminating thoughts, and you can. Come up with a counter thought so you don't even have to think about it. When the inner critic pops in, you've got automatically, you know where to go, but you have to stop and replace. And pretty soon that'll gain momentum and you'll start building new neuro pathways and you'll be off and running. And this is the thing, it's not going to be again, overnight. Is, you know how many, every years you've been talking to yourself this way it's going to take, lots of time to be able to reprogram yourself. But yes, you have to take action. You have to be intentional. You have to stop yourself, and it may not be perfect. You may let in some negative thoughts, but then you replace them with a positive. It's progress, not perfection. That's it. That's it. That's it in a nutshell for sure. So I'm gonna have every way that you can connect with Jill professionally in the show notes so that if you are experiencing any of what we've just talked about, Jill can absolutely help you and guide you through. And thank you so much, Jill, for, again, I'm sure I said it while it's been recorded, but also prior to I so appreciate the fact that have been vulnerable for people because that's really hard. But in being vulnerable, in telling your actual story from childhood through to adulthood, you've really helped other people feel less alone and more connected and more validated and supported. And so I so appreciate the work that you do behind the scenes to help people. And also the fact that you took time outta your very full schedule to be here today. Thank you. That's so you to say. And like I said, we're all in this together. And it, there is power in numbers. And this is the thing is abusers always have their troop of enablers, In these families especially, they all hate each other. They can't stand each other, but they band together quicker than you can say narcissistic family. Oh yeah. When an outsider, oh yeah. Infringe. So they operate as a team. Yeah. Yeah. They're all the flying monkeys. So if they can have that level of support, we also deserve that level of support. And if, and we're here on social media trying to support you, but there are people who understand, you don't even have to explain or justify your behavior. We get it. We understand. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Jill. And everybody. I will let you know exactly how to connect with Jill in the show notes. Thank you for listening to the Survivor's Playbook. If today's episode help you feel less alone, more confident, more empowered, and more educated, please share it with others who may also need the same validation. And if you're ready for deeper support, you can join me in my monthly membership or grab free tools and resources on my website. Link is in the show notes. Remember, your clarity is your power. Your calm is your resistance. You are not crazy. You are not alone. You are not powerless. Until next time, keep going. I see you.