Ep. 32: Let's talk about grief

In this episode, we talk about the various forms of grief that so many protective parents feel and experience post separation. It's a powerful reminder that grief and joy can coexist and that just because you carry grief, doesn't mean you can't experience true happiness, peace and joy. 

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

And find it all here at: https://linktr.ee/chantalcontorinescoaching

Follow me on Instagram: @chantal.contorines.coaching

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

Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants 0:01

Welcome, everybody, to the Survivors Playbook. I'm your host, Chantal Contorines, and this is the podcast for every survivor. If abusers can have a playbook, then why can't survivors also have a playbook so that you can learn to live lives you love despite what the abuser in your life does or doesn't do? And today, because we've been talking a lot about this inside of the collective, I've posted about this on my social media quite frequently in the last couple of weeks, we're gonna talk about grief. We are talking about something that protective parents carry every single day, often silently, often privately, and often while still functioning, still showing up, still parenting, still working, and still doing it all with a smile on their faces. We're talking about grief. Not just grief from the end of a relationship, but the layered grief that comes from surviving coercive control, narcissistic abuse, post-separation abuse, and the devastating reality of watching your children impacted by it all and not being able to stop it. Because protective parents don't just grieve one thing. They grieve dozens upon dozens of things at once. It's layered. It's like an onion. You're peeling back layer after layer after layer. And what makes this grief so complicated is that many of these losses are invisible. There's no funeral, no casseroles dropped at your door, no social recognition for what you've survived. In fact, you often have people turned against you by your abuser, those you loved and thought loved you, those you were close and connected to. In fact, many protective parents are expected to just move on while still actively navigating ongoing abuse, litigation, manipulation, financial abuse, smear campaigns, and the emotional labor of helping their children feel safe. So today, I want to unpack the many layers of grief protective parents carry and talk about how healing begins. Not by pretending that the grief isn't there. I never want to dismiss your actual valid feelings and emotions, but by finally allowing yourself to acknowledge it One of the first layers of grief protective parents experience is the grief of the dream. The dream of the family you thought you were building with your soulmate. The dream of what you believed your children would have within this family. The dream of growing old with someone who loved you, supported you, validated you, protected you, and you got the opposite of safety. You weren't just investing in a relationship. You were investing in your future, in your children's future, in your dream. And when coercive control or narcissistic abuse enters the picture, the collapse of that future can feel physiologically disorienting because many protective parents realize they were loving authentically while the other person was operating from a place of power, control, entitlement, image management, and manipulation. Nothing was genuine. Everything was a lie. That realization alone can create profound grief that nobody truly understands. And it's not because you were foolish. It's because you were genuine and you were coming from a place of honesty. And there is something deeply painful about realizing the relationship you were trying to save may never have actually existed in the way you believe that it did. In fact, it did not exist at all. Another layer of grief is the grief of losing yourself. Protective parents often emerge from these relationships disconnected from who they once were. You most likely became incredibly hypervigilant, extremely anxious, overwhelmingly bone-achingly exhausted, absolutely emotionally numb, while also being more volatile and reactive, super over-accommodating. You may no longer recognize yourself or even like who you had to become to survive. Many survivors grieve the version of themselves that existed before survival became their normal. That carefree version. That playful version. The confident version. The rested version. The version that laughed more easily, more openly, and more loudly, who trusted more openly, who dreamed more freely. And here's what I want you to understand. You're not grieving because you became weak. You are grieving because survival has changed you, and there's a massive difference. Your nervous system adapted to chronic stress to survive. Your brain adapted to unpredictability. Your body adapted to emotional danger. That's not failure. That's biology. That's survival. Another devastating layer of grief is the grief connected to your children, your most precious people in the whole wide world. And this one hits differently, hits harder, and cuts more deeply. Protective parents grieve the fact that their children were exposed to dynamics they never deserved. They grieve missed innocence, emotional injuries, confusion, behavioral changes, anxiety, divided loyalties, the impact of manipulation on their little bodies and their minds and their souls, the reality that their children may someday have to untangle their own trauma, and also of the fact that your children did not get the childhood that they could have had, would have had, and should have had, had they not had a coercively controlling parent. And so many protective parents carry enormous guilt here. But I wanna say something very clearly. You are not responsible for another adult's harmful behavior. You were conned by an expert con artist. Protective parents often blame themselves because they are the emotionally responsible parent. But responsibility and blame are not the same thing. The fact that you are grieving this so deeply already tells me something so important. You care profoundly about your children's emotional well-being, and that matters more than you can ever know, more than you realize, more than you give credit to. Research consistently shows that the presence of one emotionally safe, attuned, protective caregiver can significantly buffer the effects of adversity in a child's life. You do not need to be perfect to be healing for your children. You simply need to be safe, engaged, unconditionally loving, and present, consistent, emotionally available Repair-oriented because you will make mistakes. You are under more pressure than the average parent will ever understand. You're gonna make mistakes, but the difference is that you'll repair, and you'll willingly continue to show up no matter how that looks like. And there's also the grief of the injustice. Ugh, that injustice, the unfairness of it all. And this is one people don't talk about enough. Protective parents often grieve the fact that the truth was never acknowledged, that systems failed them and their children, that courts misunderstood coercive control, that friends or family minimized what happened if they even acknowledged it at all, that they were painted as the difficult person for reacting to abuse. There's a deep grief in not being believed, in not being protected, in not being supported, in not receiving accountability because humans are wired to seek fairness. And when profound harm occurs without accountability, it can create what psychologists sometimes call moral injury, a wound that comes not from what the trauma itself, but from the layers of betrayal surrounding it, and healing from that takes time. Many protective parents also grieve time, the years lost, the opportunities lost, the financial losses, the energy lost trying to keep peace with someone committed to conflict. Sometimes protective parents look back and think, "How did I spend so many years trying to convince someone to care about my feelings?" And that realization really hurts. But I want you to hear this. Survival relationships train people to focus on managing danger rather than evaluating whether love is healthy. Many protective parents stayed because they were trying to protect their children. Does that actually resonate for you? Because they believe things could improved if only they worked a little bit harder, because they were trauma bonded, because they were financially trapped, because leaving was dangerous, because they were manipulated, because they were gaslit, because they had hope, endless supplies of hope, because they lacked support, because they lacked a safe escape. And your hope is not weakness. Hope is human Now let's talk about something important, why grief in protective parents often feels stuck. Grief becomes complicated when the source of harm is ongoing, and for many protective parents, the harm doesn't end after separation. In fact, it simply morphs into post-separation abuse, which most survivors will say is far worse than the actual abuse they endured while in the actual relationship. Litigation continues, harassment continues, manipulation continues, and often intensifies. Parenting challenges are amplified and are relentless. Your nervous system may never fully feel like the danger has passed, and grief cannot fully move through your body when the body still feels under constant threat. This is why healing often requires more than positive thinking. It requires nervous system safety, rest, support, boundaries, trauma-informed therapy, community, predictability, moments of peace repeated consistently over time. Healing isn't cognitive, it's physiological. So how do protective parents begin processing grief? First, stop minimizing it. You stop telling yourself, "It wasn't that bad." It was that bad. "I should be over it." No, you shouldn't. "Other people have it worse." They might, but we don't compare trauma. Your grief deserves acknowledgement. Secondly, name your specific losses. Not just I'm grieving, but I'm grieving the family I wanted. I'm grieving lost years. I'm grieving my children's childhoods. I'm grieving financial stability. I'm grieving trust that was broken. I'm grieving who I was before survival mode became my norm. Naming grief often softens shame. Allow contradictory emotions to coexist. You can feel relief and sadness, freedom and loneliness, peace and anger, love for your children and grief for what they've experienced. Healing is rarely emotionally linear, right? Two steps forward, one steps back, but you're going in the right direction. Create spaces where your nervous system experiences safety. Not perfection, safety. That might look like a quiet morning coffee, walking outside, a support group Listening to music therapy, laughter with trusted people. Laughter really is a balm for so many. Rest without guilt. I really needed to focus on that rest without guilt portion. Tiny moments of safety matter. They teach your body that survival is no longer the only state available to you. And finally, protective parents need to understand that grief is not evidence that you are broken. It's evidence that you loved deeply, that you hoped deeply, that you invested deeply. Grief is what happens when reality collides with loss. But grief also changes form over time. In the beginning, grief feels like you're drowning. Later, it becomes waves. Then eventually, it becomes wisdom. Not the kind of wisdom you actually ever asked for or ever wanted, but the kind that changes how you love yourself, how you parent, how you choose peace, how you recognize red flags, how you protect your nervous system so much. How you build a calmer life for yourself and for your children. And one day, many protective parents realize something remarkable. The life they fought so hard to preserve was slowly destroying them. It was killing them. It was a death by a billion paper cuts. And the life they were terrified to build afterward became the place they finally found peace in. And if no one has told you this recently, the grief you carry makes sense. The exhaustion makes sense. The anger makes sense. The sadness makes sense. But so does your healing. And every time you create safety, calm, and emotional steadiness for yourself and for your children, you are interrupting cycles that may have existed for generations. And that matters more than words can ever fully capture. If today's episode helped you feel more educated, empowered, more confident, please share it with somebody else who may need it. All links are in my show notes. Remember, your ex may thrive in chaos, but you can still create peace. Your children do not need a perfect parent. They need a grounded one. And healing is not only possible, it's already happening. Until next time, protect your peace, trust your reality, and keep rising.