Ep. 33: David Vs Goliath

In this episode, we talk about how so many protective parents feel like they are David, up against Goliath. Spoiler alert: David won, against every single odd, by not playing the way Goliath expected him to. 

A must listen for every protective parent navigating this all. 

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

Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants 0:01

Welcome everybody to the Survivor's Playbook. I'm your host, Chantal Contorines, and this is the podcast for every survivor of abuse. 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. Every protective parent who feels exhausted, who feels defeated, and perhaps even feels completely outmatched. The parent who feels like they are David standing in front of Goliath. Because if you are, quote-unquote, co-parenting with a narcissistic, coercively controlling counter parent, chances are you've had moments where you've looked at the system, looked at your ex, looked at the damage being done, and thought, "How am I supposed to beat this?" Maybe you've lost motions in court. Maybe your children have come home dysregulated, angry, confused, or repeating narratives that sound nothing like them about a person that sounds nothing like you. Maybe you've lost holidays, time, money, sleep, friendships, reputation, possibly even your peace. Maybe you're watching someone who lies, manipulates, intimidates, and performs for an audience seemingly get rewarded over and over again. And maybe you've started to internalize the belief they always win. I need you to hear me very clearly today. Just because you are losing battles does not mean you are losing the war. And honestly, one of the greatest psychological traps protective parents fall into is measuring success the same way narcissists do. Narcissistic people measure success through control, image, domination, and optics. Protective parents measure success through truth, safety, connection, and integrity. Those are two entirely different scoreboards, and if you keep using their scoreboard to evaluate yourself, you will always feel like you're failing, like it's never enough, like you're always losing. But let's talk about David and Goliath for a minute because people love that story, but I think they mi- many misunderstand it. David was not physically stronger than Goliath. He was not more intimidating. He was not more powerful socially or politically. On paper, David should have lost, and honestly, that's exactly how many protective parents feel walking into family court Being forced to co-parent with an active counter parent. You walk in carrying evidence, concern, fear, trauma, documentation, and hope. Meanwhile, your counter parent walks in carrying charm, confidence, manipulation, performative victimhood, and often an incredible ability to distort reality convincingly. And it feels impossible, improbable. But David did something incredibly important. He refused to fight the way Goliath expected him to, and that matters. Because one of the biggest mistakes protective parents make is trying to beat people at narcissism, trying to out-argue them, out-expose them, out-react them, out-defend themselves to every flying monkey, every professional, every family member, every social media spectator. But narcissistic people thrive in chaos. They want emotional reactions because reactions become ammunition, becomes fuel for them. They want you dysregulated because dysregulation clouds judgment. It forces you to react and not respond. They want you exhausted on every conceivable level because exhausted people make mistakes and are far easier to manipulate. And many protective parents are unknowingly dragged into a battlefield designed by the abuser. But what if winning doesn't look the way you think it does? What if winning is actually preserving you, your nervous system, your integrity, your ability to remain emotionally safe for your children, your capacity to love without turning cold and bitter and resentful? Because here's what I need protective parents to understand. Children do not only absorb information, they absorb energy, they absorb regulation or dysregulation, they absorb emotional safety. And over time, children learn who feels emotionally safe and who does not. Especially in coercively controlling dynamics. Children adapt to survive, and sometimes survival looks like aligning with the more powerful, volatile, manipulative, or emotionally unsafe parent. And that is heartbreaking for so many of you protective parents, because many of you are grieving while still actively parenting. You're grieving children who are physically alive but emotionally pulled away from you. You're grieving memories you should have had and could have had Connections that feel very strained, moments that were stolen. And there is a unique kind of pain in watching your child bond with someone who harms you and harms them, and uses and manipulates them. But survival responses are not loyalty. Let me say that again. Survival responses are not loyalty. Children may comply with coercive parents because compliance creates safety, even if it's temporary. Children may mirror the beliefs of controlling parents because attachment and survival are deeply intertwined. Children may reject the protective parent temporarily because psychologically it feels safer than confronting the frightening reality that one parent is manipulative, abusive, and incredibly unsafe. Like, how long did it take you to come to that reality yourself when you were an adult? This is just a child. And this is why protective parents must stop interpreting every moment as the final outcome, because trauma distorts attachment. But safety leaves breadcrumbs. Consistency leaves breadcrumbs. Truth leaves breadcrumbs. And eventually, many children begin reconnecting those dots for themselves on their own, not because you forced them to, not because you manipulated them, not because you pressured them, not because you won, but because regulated love feels different than conditional tra- transactional love. Children eventually notice the difference between, "I love you when you obey me and do what I want," and, "I love you unconditionally, no matter what, simply because you're you." And that difference matters more than you know. Now, I also wanna speak honestly about something else. Protective parents often carry enormous justifiable rage, and honestly, it is completely understandable. You're watching injustice happen in real time over and over again from various sources. You're watching systems fail not only you, but also, perhaps more importantly, your vulnerable, innocent children. You are watching people reward performance over substance. You are watching manipulation work and the bad guy win over the good guy. And there is grief in realizing that fairness is not guaranteed. But if you allow that rage to consume you, your counter parent is still winning because coercive people often want one thing above all else: to turn you into someone you are not, reactive, unstable, obsessed, consumed. They want your identity organized around them and revolving around them And healing begins when your life stops revolving around proving your pain to people committed to misunderstanding you. Listen to that again. That does not mean you stop advocating. It does not mean you stop documenting. It does not mean you stop protecting your children. It means you stop abandoning yourself in the process because some of you are surviving the abuse but abandoning yourselves daily. You are hypervigilant twenty-four seven. You cannot rest. You cannot experience joy without guilt and shame. You feel like if you relax for even one second, something terrible will happen. And while some vigilance may absolutely be necessary in high-conflict, coercively controlling situations, you still deserve and need and require moments of peace. You still deserve to live a life. You still deserve relationships that are not built around crisis management. You still deserve laughter and playfulness and happiness, pleasure, calm, creativity, and rest because surviving is not the same thing as thriving and living. And I think many protective parents have forgotten that. Now, here's the other thing I need you to hear today. History often remembers the truth differently than the present moment does. In the moment, manipulators can appear powerful. In the moment, performance can look convincing. In the moment, truth can feel buried under noise. But over time, patterns expose people, especially when one person remains grounded and the other requires constant chaos to maintain control. And children grow up. Children develop perspective. Children compare experiences. Children begin recognizing emotional safety versus emotional control. And while every story is different, I cannot tell you how many adult children eventually come back and say, "I see it now. Thank you for not pressuring me but always loving me." Not because the protective parent spent years bad-mouthing the other parent, but because authenticity is sustainable and manipulation is exhausting. One requires constant maintenance, the other simply exists. So if you're listening today feeling defeated, I want you to remember this: David was never supposed to win according to conventional standards, but he won because he adapted strategically instead of emotionally. Protective parents need strategy more than they need vindication, documentation over emotional reactan-- documentation over emotional reacting, regulation over retaliation, consistency over chaos, boundaries over endless defending. And most importantly, you do not need to become hard to become strong. You do not need to become cruel to protect yourself. You do not need to become cruel to protect yourself. You do not need to lose your humanity to survive someone else's lack thereof. And that's the real victory, not becoming what harmed you. So if today you feel like David standing in front of Goliath, remember this. Goliath looked unbeatable right up until the moment he fell. And sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is refuse to fight the battle the way the narcissistic person wants you to. Stay grounded. Stay strategic. Stay connected to who you are. Because children remember who felt safe and who felt unsafe. And eventually truth has a way of becoming impossible to outrun. If today's episode made you feel more educated, empowered, and more confident, please share it with somebody else who may also need this lesson today. Remember, all links are in my show notes. You are your calm. You are your clarity. You are not crazy. You are not weak. And just because the battle is hard does not mean you are losing. You might lose some battles, but you will win the war. Until next time, I see you. Keep going.