Kristal: Breaking Free & Identity Shift After Narcissistic Abuse

(Part 2) VUP hostess, Kristal, reveals practical, faith-rooted path to leave narcissistic abuse and rebuild a grounded identity with peace and purpose. Through ten clear steps, we unpack no contact, forgiveness, radical acceptance, and the daily work of starting over.

• breaking soul ties and removing anchors to the past
• forgiving them and ourselves to end hidden control
• going no contact and refusing emotional bait
• stopping the habit of romanticising rare good moments
• rebuilding identity apart from their narrative
• pausing new relationships to heal patterns
• choosing self-compassion and boundaries
• aligning gifts and purpose for a new future
• using fasting and prayer for clarity and resolve
• accepting reality, releasing debts and apologies
• recognising tactics like comparison and word curses
• seeking validation and safe community support

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Transcript

Ten-Step Roadmap To Break Free

Step 1: Cut Soul Ties

Step 2: Forgive To End Control

Step 3: No Contact And Bait

Step 4: Stop Romanticising The Past

Step 5: Rebuild Identity And Faith

Step 6–7: Pause Dating And Self-Compassion

Step 8–9: Purpose, Fasting, Clarity

Step 10: Radical Acceptance Of Reality

Biblical Lens: Ahab And Jezebel

Control Tactics: Comparison And Despair

No Contact, Independence, And Motherhood

Word Curses And Breaking Agreement

Validation, Boundaries, And Final Thanks

How To Connect And Subscribe

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello and welcome to Voices Unhanded. I'm Christoph Jenkinson. On this show, I give a unique perspective and listening in to voices that often go unheard. I want everyone to know that you are not alone and that your voice is story better. On Voices Unhanded this week, I will be speaking on the second part of the two-part series on how to recognize and how to break free from a narcissistic abusive relationship. I will be going through teams on how I broke free and how they're applicable to any relational form of narcissistic abuse. I hope you enjoy listening to this episode. Hello and welcome to today's episode of Voices Unhindered. I am doing another solo show of how to break free from a narcissistic relationship, which is a part two and a follow-up from my last episode, which was on how to recognize a narcissistic relationship. Please subscribe to my Patreon. You can have a free subscription and subscribe to my YouTube channel, which will be in the description box and the links will be below. I have 10 steps on how to break free from a narcissistic relationship. So I just wanted to say, starting off, this is sometimes can be a process and it can sometimes be like hard. It's really not easy because obviously your your identity has changed because you've been in this relationship for so long. You you believe something about yourself that may not necessarily be true, and your your eyes have to be open to see that your identity is not in wrapped up in this person anymore. You have to see that your identity is actually outside of what this person offers you. Number one is you break the soul tie that you have with the narcissistic person. So if you have anything that this person gave you, for example, like if they gave you jewelry, if they gave you some clothes, if they gave you even like a card or a letter or anything like that, I would throw it away. So for example, when I was in a narcissistic relationship with my daughter's biological dad, he on the the second date, uh, we had a long-term relationship over social media a lot of the time. We met at a working environment and then he kind of had to move away because he was an illegal immigrant and had all these issues. He was working illegally and things like that. And then most of the time it was just conversing through like Facebook. And the second date that he actually came to meet me was the day when he gave me a necklace and two like earrings. I thought, why would you give me that? Like, you know, like it's just not right, like we don't know each other that well. And um, that is usually a good sign that that's called flattery or love bombing at the beginning. Often it's called that. And it is not um, it's not actually healthy because it usually means that that person expects something back and that they are trying to almost like gain something from you. So that was the only like thing he ever gave me, but anyways, to me. And I had to throw those away. I didn't sell them, I just threw them away because I wanted to break the soul tie I had with him. Um, when he was in prison, he was about to be deported. Him, he went into Wycari Prison up north, and he wrote me all these letters while he was in prison, and they're very emotional, very like um futuristic, like we're gonna be together, like if it's God's plan. He'd talk about God a lot in his um, because he knew that I obviously God and Jesus, my faith, is important to me. So he'd play that into all his messages and be like, you know, if God wants us, I'm sure God wants us to be together. I was just kind of sucked into that through that kind of language and things like that. And I couldn't really discern the spirit behind the whole thing. That was number one. Number two is to forgive them. So release them to God and yourself. So release yourself to God, forgive them, and forgive yourself. So this is really easy to say. It's really important part of your healing journey because if you don't forgive this person, they're gonna have a hold of your life, like they're gonna control you in a way. And that's the very thing that they wanted to do in the beginning is control you. So if you don't forgive them, you're holding a part of yourself hostage because of your choice to not forgive them. So you're hurting yourself twice, and that's definitely not God's best for you. If you can't forgive them, ask God to help you to forgive them. And I would also suggest, like, prayer if you believe in God and just to ask God, well, for me, it's Jesus, like ask him to and call out the trauma stored in your it's trauma can actually be stored in your gut, your brain, and your muscle memory. And I just recommend that you actually speak this and say, get out of my, you know, get out of my gut, get out of my brain, get out of my muscle memory, because trauma it actually can live in your body and your soul. So yeah, call out those memories. Pretty much just a desire to just give it to God and He will make your wrongs right. Like if anyone wronged you, this obviously relationship was completely wrong. And yeah, that's the only thing you can do. Actually, we can't forgive on our own. We actually need to be able to receive something to be able to give it. And unless you forgive yourself, obviously you can't forgive this person. So yeah, forgive yourself. And number three is don't allow them to feed off you by responding to the energy. So they may come back around again a few times. Oh like, for example, with my daughter's biological dad, when I blocked him off social media and things like that, every a few years he kind of says, Do you still want to be with me? Um, I want you to reply in a few days' time. If you want to marry me, I've got to think about getting married to someone else. And it kind of gave me this like bait, like he wanted me to say, like, oh no, don't marry anyone else. I want to marry you. Because he's kind of look the narcissist is kind of looking for this um way to keep drawing you back in so they can feed off of you. And I would just suggest like don't allow them to feed off of your energy energy by responding. So they always try to provoke you, they try to provoke emotions from you. And um, I I just yeah, I I recommend playing dead. Like I know it's easier said than done, but like don't show any emotion toward them, like, or they might say, Do you still love me? Like that's what he would say, or um, and it's it's just a trap to try and get you back into their um where they actually don't know how to love, they actually never will. That's what you should assume. They actually never will, um, even though you're always hoping that they'll love you, you kind of have to accept there's this Dr. Romani, she talks about narcissism, she's a therapist, and she talks about radical acceptance. And I think that's a great way to put it. Like you have to radically accept that this person won't change and that you're pretty much better off without them. That's also kind of ties into like the idea that Dr. Romani talks about going no contact with a person can be can accelerate your healing faster than anything else. Because if you think about it, this person is toxic and by cutting them off, you're not feeding into that toxic cycle anymore. You're not feeding their demons anymore, you're not feeding that demonic altar anymore of lies and witchcraft. They're trying to manipulate you. That's all they know how to do. Um, it takes radical acceptance and it's kind of stepping back outside of yourself and thinking, hmm, it can be really hard to do. Um, number four is don't highlight the good times. So I have been guilty of doing this quite often. I have looked back on my d daughter's biological dad, my relationship with him, and thought, oh, but it was so nice when you guys went to the beach, or like like there'd be a few times a year he'd see me when we were dating in New Zealand. I just think about like how I'd look forward to seeing him. And then, you know, he'd be gone for ages because he was obviously illegal and he had to live in a certain area in New Zealand to be able to get fed and things like that and live here undercover, kind of. And that was like kind of it's a it was exciting for me. I was like looking forward to seeing him. I was looking forward to like the thrill of it all, and then he'd be like, Oh, we've got a bright future together, and like I'm gonna give you a home and a family. I think I mentioned this in my last episode. And um, yeah, there's just a real trap and just highlighting the good times and overlooking, kind of denying all the times that you kind of push or disassociate with in a way, or push to the back of your mind that they the times they've abused you, the times they've threatened you, the times they've devalued you, or said, you know, you could you shouldn't like told you not to pursue your dreams, or you don't need to go to uni and finish that degree, or you don't need to work, I'll be the one. He said to me, like, you don't need to work, I'll be earning so much money. And like it was the complete opposite. Like, he was literally taking everything from me, like all my savings financially. He'd like threatened me into paying half of his deportation fee to come back when I was in India. So I was there for eight months. Um, I went back and forth. Um, obviously, I was paying for this all from my savings, and I was living with my grandparents at the time, and he'd pressured me to pay like$5,000. This is so embarrassing, but he pay he pressured me to pay all my savings, like most of my savings, to him so that we could apply for him to come back to New Zealand. And I just remember feeling such a disgusting feeling in my stomach. I was like, did I just give this, allow this person to do this to me? And I was just so depressed after, and I was like, oh God, I know that wasn't right. Like, and I know what he's doing is not right. And I just thought, I'm not gonna get that back. Like, even though he'd promised me, like, you know, we're gonna be together, our money's one, we're one, I'm gonna pay you back. Um, and there wasn't just that time, there was other times, like he'd when I had my daughter over here, he he wanted me to pay for him so he didn't have to work. That is so crazy. Like, he wanted me to pay part of my like benefit that I got on the sole parent benefit to him. When you have a baby, you get like maternity leave. Like part of it was for him. And I can't believe that I did that. But that was how that was how bad the abuse was and how like soul tied I was to him. And I thought that we were one and he was my responsibility, and like I was his mum pretty much. Like that's how that's what I felt like. Like when I was over in India, I was like doing his washing, I was like doing everything that like you know a mum would do, and yet I was getting nothing back. Like it was just crazy. Anyways, so yeah, give yourself time to work on yourself and you'll begin to see the relationship differently. So um I suggest like having some time away from this person and just beginning to self-reflect and think, is this the direction I really want my life to go in? Is what this person promising me, is it like have they ever delivered? Like, have they ever delivered one of their promises or what they've said, or has it always been disappointment? Do you feel a wave of disappointment, like a a steady wave of disappointment throughout the relationship? Or is it like um despite all the highs and lows, like they might give you a little something here and there, or like show a little bit of love and affection, and then like there'd be just like another blow-up? Um, but despite all that, there's this deep kind of depression and feeling like, oh my gosh, am I gonna pursue what you know you know you're good at or what you have always wanted to do, whether it's like playing the piano, whether it's like writing that book or like studying and bettering yourself. Is this person driving you closer to what your purpose or your calling or what you're passionate about is um, do they have an alignment with your values, or are they taking away from what you believe was most important to you? That's a great question to ask when you kind of have a retreat from this person, like have some time out and um, yeah, really think if you can get away from this person. I know it's really hard to say that because in narcissistic relationships, when you're like it's very soon, like you can get quite entangled with them very quick. And I think that's part of their whole plan is like they want to, they want to trap you into their little web of lies so quickly that you can't get out. Kind of like um I'm just thinking of like a spider web and like a fly stuck in there, like they just want you stuck pretty much. Yeah, so I know it's easier said than done, but like where there's a will, there's a way. Like I believe it's so crazy because just before COVID, the whole world locked down in 2020. My grandma died three months after I came back from New Zealand, by the way, in June. I came back in February, two weeks later, the whole world shut down. So I came back in February from India. There were so many times I wanted to leave, and I was like booking flights and cancelling them and then booking them, and then he wouldn't take me to the airport, so there was like money lost and things like that. It was like an eight-hour drive from his house to the airport, and like it was just so hard. I just felt like I'd never be able to leave. But I believed that was God. Like he allowed me to come back three months before my grandma passed, who was like my closest friend and like mom to me. And it was by God's grace that I'm obviously still here alive and still um I'm and I'm living, you know, I I'm wanting to live my best life now. And I kind of knew in my spirit, like, this is the last time I'll see this person. I, you know, there was such a like soul tie to this person, and I was like, I have to leave despite how much it hurts. And there is a grief of losing someone, and then there's a grief of like realizing no, the the fantasy of someone, like this person wasn't who I created in my mind to be. This person wasn't who they said they were, and to come into acceptance with reality, like is a hard thing to do. It's so powerful when you do it. And despite all like the money I lost, and obviously time and things that this person stole from me, they stole my value, they stole relationships that I could have had, opportunities. You can grow from this, you can come out stronger, and you can still you can be even stronger and more motivated in your purpose and in your life by seeing this and having a greater empathy for people. Yeah, so it's never too late to come out of it. Number five is build your identity without them. This kind of ties into number four. So build your identity without them. Replace their lies about you that you believed with the truth. And for me, it's it's pretty Bible-based because I'm obviously a believer and my faith is very important to me. And I don't think I'd be here without I wouldn't be here without Jesus. Like he's saved me from really close to near-death experiences. This person, and not just him, but others that I've been in relationships with, there were times I could have died, like there was a lot of abuse of relationships, not just narcissistic, there was all the other types of abuse as well. And this person was just um kind of like the the cherry on the top, like where I realized like I've got to I've gotta take a good look at my life. And especially when my daughter came, I was like, things have got to change. And um, and it didn't change straight away. Like I still made some mistakes after that. I'd like relapse into like old ways of behavior and believing, and but yeah, I believe it was obviously it's been God that's seen me through. And um I have learned, like I went back to uni, I studied, and then I not that that's not for everyone. Like I'm not saying that's the way to go or anything. I'm just saying you have to do what you feel is on your heart that God put in your heart and your spirit, what you're good at, and pursue that, because that's usually an indication of what you're put here on earth to do. So, yeah, and your identity, just keep building it apart from this person. Like when you're with this person, like this narcissistic abuse, especially if it's like parental and things like that, like growing up with a narcissistic mother, they might have told you like all these lies about you, and you actually have to pull them down and replace them with the truth. And to me, the truth is what the Bible says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that he knew the plans he had for us, he knows the plans he has for us, and he knew every day of our life before we were born. So God always already, before he created you, he had an intention for you, he had a purpose, he knew what you were good at, and he knew why he made you. So, like I always take it back to the Bible on um finding my identity, who I really am, outside of all the other voices in this world. Um, and number six is don't rush into another relationship because this obviously all relationships can impact your identity, your sense of identity, and being with the wrong people feeds into this the cycle of um uh abuse because you're believing um what these people are telling you and acting around you um to be who you are, but you're not that. So relationships are so important when they kind of go hand in hand with your identity. Like as you begin to realize who you are, you'll begin to attract those people into your life. When you don't know who you are, you like for me, for example, when I didn't know who I was, I was just like, I didn't know like who my like real friends were, I didn't know who what I was attracting, like the real the types of guys that I was attracting. I was like, what the heck? Like, because I didn't know who I was, I didn't know my own value. And I think that it's so important to like have that time without anyone else, like where you just kind of work on your own self, self-reflect, therapy, um, if that works for you, writing, journaling. Yeah, and then number seven is accept and forgive yourself. I think this ties into forgiving them. Yeah, so it's really like you have to come to terms. Like there's been time that you that was wasted relationships that were sabotaged and like opportunities that you kind of shrunk back from or said no to because of this person, things you wanted to do in life. Um that's a very huge one, and that kind of comes in with understanding your identity as well. Just having compassion for yourself is so important because like you can have compassion for other people and empathy. And it's I think the most important person to have empathy for is yourself when you've been through a lot of abuse, especially, because it's like everyone else told you like you weren't gonna amount to anything. Everyone else told you, like, you know, you're just here to please me, and that's what you always have done, like learn to please people, and people took advantage of you. And so the most important thing is to love yourself and see all the good qualities about you, and then know your boundaries after that, and um realize it's not you, it's those people, but you're aware of it now, like what has actually happened. And number eight is find your purpose calling and work towards that. So, like I said, just about your gifts and talents, usually pointing you towards your purpose, your higher purpose, your calling, what you were put here on earth to do. What motivates you, sparks creativity in you. So for me, my purpose now is obviously caring for my daughter and then using the gifts that God's given me with like journalism and writing and like just sharing my testimony, sharing other people's testimonies. Okay, so number nine, this leads me to number nine, fasting and prayer, if done by faith. So whether you're like a Christian or not, fasting actually has a lot of benefits that I've recently been tapping into myself. And it's so interesting because um it's so overlooked, but now I think people are becoming more aware of the benefits of fasting. Like it actually it gives your body a whole rest and a kind of like a rest reset. So when you're asleep, your body obviously fasts, and then sometimes like your body needs to obviously fast longer because it actually kills old bad cells in your body. Um, the the process of autophagy, where um when you fast for 24 hours or more, it can um yeah, reverse like damage cells, and you can do that through like exercise, but fasting is one of the main ways to get autophagy. And not only does it have benefits for the body, it has benefits for the soul and spirit. I feel like things become clearer to me when I fast. Like I just have more motivation to to clear out the clutter. It's almost like when your body does that, your whole like focus shifts towards the things that you're supposed to be doing. If your mind's blurry, if you're not really sure where you're going, or you need to like have clarity about things, I believe fasting is a great way to start. And if it's done with prayer and faith, as the Bible says these things only come out by prayer and fasting. I think it's Matthew 1721. I it says that in the Bible. Yeah, Matthew 17, 21 is the one that it says these things only come out by prayer and fasting. And a lot of translations, then you're ones have taken it out, and makes you wonder why. Yeah, and the King James, New King James, they didn't take it out. So um Yeah. Number 10 is accept a new reality. So like this is really hard to do. Like with all the things I said, they're all well and good things, but you actually have to accept that you were living in a fantasy world. Like, I know it sounds har it sounds crazy. It sounds hard to accept that, but like you were living in a reality, a false reality of where you believe like this person probably said, Oh, I'm gonna do this for you. So, for example, my daughter's dad promised like he'd have his own house, he'd have be able to pay for everything. He actually said to the extreme everything, and it was actually the complete opposite. He couldn't pay for anything, and he never has, and I don't want anything from him either. And that's another point I wanted to raise is like there was money that he said that he'd pay me back, right? My daughter's dad. And I felt a bit quite a lot of resentment towards him. I can say that I've forgiven him today because he didn't know what he was doing. Well, I'll just I like to think the best of people, but like he didn't know what he was doing. I like to say he was you know, he's being obviously influenced by darker things. So he I mean, and he's not I don't believe he's in a good place in any way, but I I wish him all the best. But the thing is is that I kind of like he had this tie on me. The last tie was like I always felt like, oh man, I'm only I'm only contacting him because I want him to pay me back eventually. So I'll just keep this little string there in case he does pay me back. I blocked him on other social media accounts, but in the a few years ago, even I was like, oh, I better just, you know, keep being friendly so he can pay me back and things like that. And that was that's wrong as well. Like I had to accept the reality, like I forgive you, I release you, and I'm not gonna speak to you even if you don't pay me back, but I forgive you. And like I'm cool, I don't want anything from you, I don't want to manipulate you. Like, that's just drawing you back into their behavior. So I had to cut that off, like cut off that expectation that like and that false reality that he is gonna pay me back because I'm like, I'm good without that money. I don't need your m that money that I gave you. Like, I'm good, God's taking care of me. Like, when you think about how God's forgiven, like when I think about how God's how much God's forgiven me, like I should be able to just forgive everyone for anything, like no matter the debt they owe me. Like, like I thought I was doing well saving up money, but then obviously like it just went just like that because of the type of relationship that I was in. So my money is not being drained like it was. Yeah, I was saying like cut off those things that those little things like where you feel like they owe you something or they they probably owe you heaps, like an apology, like at least. But like, even if you don't get that, like don't hang around to wait for that day. Just assume, accept the reality that they will never apologize, they may never see the hurt that they've caused you, they may never empathize with you, they may never realize how destructive they were in your life and hurtful and unloving and um abusive, but forgive them and just move on because that's the only thing you can do with these types of people. You can't negotiate, you can't try and come to terms with these people. So, yeah, that's part of 10 is like accept a new reality paradigm shift, new set of assumptions, ideas, and perspectives. So these are the assumptions I was talking about, like don't accept, assume instead of assuming that they will do this, they will do that, assume that they won't. I know this sounds negative, but it's it's reality, like the likelihood is that they won't based on the pattern of the behavior that they've shown you in the past. It's part of who this person is. They don't wanna they don't wanna give, they don't want to pay you back, they don't want to love you. That's who they are. And um, yeah, so pretty much it goes back to like radical acceptance that um their number one point that this person's behavior will not change, and it will not be changed by you. So I had to realize that I'm not the savior of the world, that Jesus is, and I cannot change this person, no matter how much Bible I shove down their throat, no matter how much um any yeah, no matter how much I do for this that person or help them, they they will not be changed by me. Um there's a there's a man in the Bible called Paul he used to be called Saul and he had a radical encounter with Jesus where he met him on the road to Damascus and his something fell from his eyes and before that he was killing Christians. And God can do that with anyone, but assume that that is unlikely to happen, especially if this person um doesn't really have a desire for change or desire for a higher to know, you know, their creator or anything like that. So there's also a little Bible story that I wanted to talk about in the Bible um that I was just dwelling on before I came in. Um in 1 Kings 16 29. I'm sure you guys have heard about Ahab and Jezebel, who's often Ahab's called the enabler often um in Christian Christian language, and Jezebel the narcissist so um this is kind of like what a narcissistic marriage could look like because Ahab married Jezebel, she influenced not only him but all of Israel. So Jezebel wanted to marry Ahab, I believe, because that that narcissistic spirit they want control, power, dominion. Um and she sought and she used and they used fear and threats, false accusations, and even murder to get their own way. So Jezebel manipulated circumstances to get her own way in 1 Kings 21. She used she even used fasting, which is something that a lot of Christians don't really do. There's some churches that do talk about it, which is great, and then there's others that don't really they just leave that whole fasting bed out because they just don't want to do that with their flesh. They don't want to die to the flesh, and that's actually part of what the Christian life is, is dying to your flesh and living for God and letting the spirit come alive. And um, yeah, so she told everyone not to eat for a day. So that's the power of fasting. Like you can get stuff done, like whether it's in the kingdom of darkness or whether it's in the kingdom of light, like they fast too, like the kingdom of darkness. So in 1 Kings 8 to 10, um, Jezebel used two false witnesses, they were liars, and they said that Naboth, this was a man that lived next door to Jezebel and Ahab, and he had a like some land, and Ahab was like real depressed because he couldn't have the land, and she's like, Oh, I'll get it for you. Don't worry, don't be sad. And then um so she got two liars to um publicly say that Naboth had cursed God and the king, and that's exactly what actually she was doing. So often narcissists will accuse you of what they are because that's projection and that's exactly how they feel about their self. Then she signed the letters in Ahab's name, so they'll she controlled, she took control of pretty much Ahab. She overtook him in a way, and Ahab allowed it. And allowing it is just as bad as allowing the behavior to continue is just as bad as the behavior itself. So another few points I wanted to make was that when I talk about Narcissist being threatening. They will often use comparison as well. So, like my daughter daughter's biological dad, he would be like purposely trying to provoke me. Like I'd realize, like he would try and make me act in my flesh all the time. Like he'd never want me to be in the spirit praying or like reading the word or anything like that. He'd try and make me jealous. He'd compare me to others. He'd be like, My sisters would never do what you do to their husbands. Like they never disrespect their husbands and all these things. Just when I, you know, raise things to him, he'd be like, say things like that, or he'd be like, Oh, tell my dad you did that, or things like that. So another, just a few signs also of a narcissistic relationship. I know this ties into my previous episode, but if you're becoming suicidal because of this relationship, like feeling like you can't live without them, literally, like to the point of you wanting to die, this is a good sign that it's not a healthy relationship. Um, because this was what happened to me during lockdown. I felt like I couldn't live without this person. And he was making me believe these lies to the point the police actually came around to my house and um because I was sending immigration stuff and all that, and then um checking if I was actually okay. Um, and then they said you can live without them. And he really liked he hated that that someone else said that he actually was listening on the phone that the police officer was like, you can't live without him, and he laughed. My daughter's biological dad was like, How come you laughed as well? Like, can't you can't live without me, and things like that. Like, that's all like toxic behavior. So I have been in no contact with my daughter's dad for a few years now, and I have been like I've been pretty much as I've been on my healing journey since I stopped contacting him. Like, I I literally feel like I don't need anything from him, and I think that's a powerful place to be. Like um, he wanted me to be able to invest so much in that relationship to the point where I would be dependent on him. I would need him, and he wanted that, and it's like I I don't have that anymore, and that's such a freeing thing to be able to raise my daughter on my own without that um toxic influence. And another sign was like when I was pregnant, this is a bit off topic, but he said to me, Are you going to keep it? I think that's really a telltale sign of like someone's character. He said, Are you gonna keep it? And I was like thinking, obviously, like it's my daughter, like it's my baby. I'm not even questioning whether I'm gonna keep it. So to him, like a child is just like a liability to him. Like a child is just like if he could use it for his own advancement, he would. Like that's all he thought about was himself. He didn't want anything else except himself because he was so he wanted worship he wanted to be worshipped pretty much. Like he didn't want anything that would take his place. So yeah, that was a great sign of narcissism. And um I realized like the trauma bond thing, like I realized that I was not actually responsible for him. Like I was not his mom. I was not in any way um the person who got him into the problems that he was in with, like, obviously, he was living in New Zealand illegally. Um, he was in trouble with immigration. They were like looking for him because he'd overstayed his visa. He'd also got married to some woman that he wasn't actually married, like in a proper relationship with just for residency. So he'd been deported for five years. Um I felt like all of his problems became my problems. And that was a good sign that this was toxic because none of like none of he kind of talked me into like feeling sorry for him and none of the stuff that he told me was any like wasn't my problem. Yet I felt he made me feel like and I allowed him to make me feel like it was my problem. That definitely comes back to like something that happened in my childhood where I felt like I was abused, you know, by those who were supposed to love me. I'm not talking about my my dad, I'm talking about um my biological mom, just her behavior and things like that towards me, where I felt like she was, you know, not a healthy person at all. So um there's another thing I wanted to touch on just before finishing this episode. This person, the narcissistic person, just before when they think that you're about to leave, they may word curse you. So this is what my daughter's dad did to me, and this is not really talked about that much. But there's also a spiritual element to this as well as a natural element. So you have to come out of agreement with anything that they have said over your life, spoken over you that was not true. Before I left, or I was just about to leave this person. Um, you know, like I was showing that I wasn't interested anymore to my daughter's biological dad, just through messages and things like that. He said to me, if you ever marry anyone else again, she will not be my daughter. Talking about my daughter, well, his biological daughter. He's not riff at all, has never been in her life. So he said this to me. So this is an example of a word curse that I had I've had to renounce and come out of agreement with. It was so easy to believe this when I was in his, you know, grip. But then I realized, no, like God has more for me. This is not my reality, this is not my future. I'm not bound to you. Like, even though obviously we spiritually, when you sleep with someone, you're actually bound to them. But um, obviously I've repented for that and um come out of agreement. Another thing is is that people like I mentioned this in my last episode. Being with a narcissistic or toxic abusive person and you're not married, but then someone else outside like says, Oh, you need to get married because then it will be right before God. It doesn't make it any more right before God marrying someone who's abusive. It actually it's if it wasn't God's will for you to be with them, it wasn't God's will. Marrying them is not going to make it any more right. It's actually just dishonorable, full stop, and you just have to leave. Um, so yeah, that's kind of what I was being pressured to do is because often they look like lovely, charming people to others. Um it's all a facade. They're very good at doing it. And then around you, they show their true colours, and then so they were like, Oh, you should marry this person, it'll be the right thing to do. But um, it wasn't. And um, you just kind of have to forgive those people that don't understand and then just, you know, believe and pray that they'll wake up to really what you were going through. They won't always, but um, or just have empathy for you at least knowing um that you or believe you that you were going through this. And it's so important to have people like validation, validate what you actually went through because all that time you like you've been questioning your reality. Like, is this really happening to me? Like, are they treating me like this? And did I really get how did I get myself into this relationship where I feel like I can't get out? Like all these thoughts run through your head. So you've been trained and programmed for so long to think questioning your reality. So, like, how when you come out of that and you're like, someone's like, Yes, that did actually happen to you, and like looks in your eyes and like understands it's so freeing and healing. Yeah, so that was the last thing I kind of wanted to talk about, is like just the lack of empathy, it's all about them kind of thing. Whenever they'd whenever he'd messaged me, was it would always revolve around how can he, how can I help him? How can I do more for him? It'd never be about what can I do for you, or how can I help you, or how are you doing with you know your daughter on your own. There was like none of that. It was there was there was not even a recognition of, you know, what it's like my life. Um, as I'm as I'm a sole sole mother, I don't have basically any practical family, um, physical family support. So like you're so much better off without them. I'm empowered to say that today and to see how far I've come without this person. I'm pleased with myself. I can say that today and developed without this person. I actually felt like they were watching me. I actually felt like they were there, and I think that that's part of their whole system of control. Anyways, I just want to end this episode with saying thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to my YouTube and my Patreon, which is in the description box below. And also tell a friend about this podcast episode if you think, you know, this is something they're dealing with. I look forward to speaking to you guys in my next episode. Bye bye. It's great hearing from my listeners. Reach out with questions and comments through Insta or Facebook. Just search for Voices Unhindered. I'm interested to know what other topics and voices you'd like me to bring on the show. Subscribe to Voices Unhindered on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode.