Live in The Healing Room: The "H" Word is The Silent Killer

We are taught from the time we are children that hope is a good thing. Hope is in the Bible. Hope is positive. Hope is what keeps us going. So what happens when the very thing we've been told is beautiful becomes the thing that is silently destroying us?

Tonight in The Healing Room, we are talking about the "H" word. And yes, it's going to be uncomfortable. Because hope — the hope we hold onto in a narcissistic relationship — is not the hopeful, faith-filled, keep-going kind of hope we were raised to believe in. It's the kind that keeps us trapped. The kind that whispers "maybe this time" while we lose years of our lives waiting for a change that is never coming.

We're diving deep tonight. We're talking about why hope is what I call the silent killer — and why someone else has even called it slow motion suicide. We're getting into the neurochemical trap that makes hope feel exactly like love, why your brain is literally wired to keep you hooked into the cycle, and how hope and denial are not two separate things — they are the same thing wearing different outfits.

But don't worry. We're not just tearing something down tonight. We're also talking about what to replace it with. Because if hope isn't the answer, then what is? Tonight we're trading hope in for something far more powerful — and it starts with you.

This is not about the narcissist. This is about you. 

Transcript

Welcome back to The Healing Lounge. Tonight's episode is one that I have been looking forward to sharing with you for a while now, because tonight we are going to talk about something that nobody wants to talk about. We are going to talk about the H word. And no, it is not hate. It is not hurt. It is hope. Yes, hope. The very thing we have been taught our entire lives is a beautiful, positive, necessary part of life. Tonight, we are going to unpack why hope, when it is attached to a narcissist, is not saving you. It is actually keeping you stuck. So get comfortable, get your tea, get your water, and let's get into it.

As we have been focusing on healing from the trauma bond, first understanding what it is, understanding why it is so hard to leave a narcissist, you would think that with all the information that we are gathering about the narcissist, their tactics, the manipulation tactics, and the impact that it has on us, body, mind, and spirit, and soul, and everything else, that would be enough. But no, because the trauma bond says no. Your heart says go, the trauma bond says no, and the trauma bond is here in your head.

The topic tonight. I want to talk to you about the H word. So there are a lot of words that we do not like to talk about. Two of them in particular are the A word and the V word.

It took me twenty-nine years of my thirty-year marriage to start using the A word. Abuse. We hate that word. If we admit that we are being abused, that is something that is hard to turn a blind eye to. That is a level of awareness that makes you say, oh my gosh, I cannot believe I am staying in an abusive marriage or relationship. That is really hard to say. And in fact, it is exactly the realization and the awareness that we have to come to in order to move forward on this healing journey.

Now the second word that we hate. I mean, I get hate mail for this word, and I know y'all know what this word is. That is the V word. The V word. We hate that word. I get hate mail if I say we are victims. And guess what? We are not a victim as long as we are aware. So we are all survivors. We are all survivors because we are aware. But we were victims. The narcissist preyed on our vulnerabilities. That makes us a victim. But once you understand what is happening to you, you are no longer a victim. But at some point we were. We were.

So tonight, I am going to give you another word that is the opposite of victim and the opposite of abuse, but it is equally harmful when misused. The H word is hope. Sit with that for a moment. The H word is hope. When you hold on to hope with a narcissist, you are in trouble. Automatically in trouble. The reason why is what I am going to talk about tonight.

Let us talk about why hope is so dangerous with a narcissist. Let us start with this. We are taught that hope is good. Hope is in the Bible. Hope is positive. Giving up on hope? My goodness. That is like giving up on love. Who wants to give up on love? Like nobody. I mean, we strive for love in our relationships amongst other things, but who wants to give up on hope? Nobody.

But if you hold on, it becomes this. Y'all are not going to like this. This is what I call hope. It is the silent killer. Someone else called it slow motion suicide. That is deep.

So here is what I want you to know. We stay because we hope. What did you stay for? What was your hope? What was the reason you stayed? What were you hoping for? You are not alone. Let everybody know we are exposing this stuff. No more secrets, no more shame, no more guilt. We are exposing the narcissist. We are exposing ourselves.

Forget the narcissists. I am done with talking about the narcissist. I want to talk about you, because you are the only one that you have control over. We have spent enough time trying to save them from themselves, trying to change them, trying to help them.

We all struggle after we have held on to hope for so long. We hold on to hope for good reasons, y'all. However, hope in a relationship can be your worst enemy. Worst enemy. Now this is going to be uncomfortable because I am keeping it real. You know I am hot with you guys. Honest, open, and transparent. Always will be because the truth shall set you free.

Now the funny thing about it is the truth is smacking us in the face every day, all day in this relationship. Talk about that ping pong ball. That is what we do with the truth. Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. Truth. Boom, boom, boom, boom. We become the jiu-jitsu experts. Listen, we are not doing that anymore. We are facing the truth. We are embracing the truth.

Hope is supposed to be beautiful, right? It is supposed to be such a good character trait. Someone who is hopeful. It is what keeps you going. It is what keeps you moving forward. Having hope, having faith, believing in the unseen. But in narcissistic relationships, hope ends up being the chain that binds you. We are not talking about hope in general. Let me make that very clear. We are talking about the hope that keeps you trapped. When you know you are not happy, you are not safe, you are not experiencing peace, you are not experiencing genuine care and concern and respect and love and all of the things that you deserve, and we are trapped in a relationship that does not allow us to experience that. That is where hope becomes the chain that binds you.

So this is what hope actually does in these relationships. Here is the reality check. Hope tells you maybe they will change. Maybe they will see. Maybe they will finally get it. Maybe they will finally hear me. Maybe they will finally see how they are treating me and how wrong they are. Meanwhile, you are losing years of your life waiting for something that is not coming.

Because narcissists do not change. And this is why hope is a silent killer. You are hoping for something that is not possible.

When we keep looking for love on the outside of us, we will never find it. We have to find it inside first, and then we will attract. Because right now, I was, everybody else is or was, we are attracting how we feel about ourselves. How powerful is that? If we do not love ourselves, we will be attracting someone who does not love us. That is deep. If you love yourself, you can only attract someone who loves you as much as you love yourself.

Do not be discouraged. I am here to elevate you. If you stick with me, I promise you. I was married to a narcissist for thirty years. I have been a therapist for twenty-three years. Do the math and you can see those two worlds never collided because denial was my very best friend. And when I finally woke up, had my rock bottom moment, because the narcissist instead of changing for the better continues to get worse, or better at doing what they do, I finally saw the light and realized that I was fifty years old when I left my marriage and thought that half my life, technically half my life, was over. I just thought I wasted all this time. I was so mad at myself. You talk about being discouraged and disappointed in yourself. I was there too, for a minute. That is okay.

But I need you to know that that needs to just be for a minute, because life is too short as it is. I did not waste thirty years. Not wasted, because I have three beautiful boys. And I do not consider it a waste. It was a lesson, it was a blessing, and it catapulted me into my best life. Do not be disappointed in yourself. Look at yourself in the mirror and say, wait a minute, my life is not over. The relationship may be over. There was no time wasted because you had to learn something about yourself, whether you recognize it or not. And if you do not recognize it, you need to be in therapy so that you can get it. Understand what you learned about yourself so that you can apply that and move forward with your life to find the best version of yourself. Because I did it. So I know it can be done, and I know you can do it.

Hope keeps you focused on them instead of changing you. Listen to what I am saying. Hope keeps you focused on them. But what about you? You want them to focus on you, but you will not even focus on you. Come on now. You want somebody else to do the work for you? You want somebody else to validate you when you cannot validate yourself? That is cheating. Like, that is literally cheating on the test. You are literally looking over at somebody else's paper and trying to get the answers.

What can I do to get them to love me? What answer did they put? What should I say? What answer did they put? You are cheating. That is cheating. You cannot cheat your way through this. You have got to study. You cannot look at the answers on someone else's paper to find out what you are worth.

See, now this is not even what I wrote, but I am coming from the heart. I am coming from the heart right off the top. Cheating. Can anyone admit that you are cheating? I cheated for thirty years. And before that, because that is another thing. It is not all about the narcissist. They did not make you the way you are. They found you the way you were, and then they made it worse. Yes, they did. But they found you being the people pleaser that I was. He found me being the caretaker that I was. He found me being the one who was willing to put my priorities lower than anyone else's. So low that I did not even have any. I did not have any needs. My need was to take care of him. He found me needy and with low self-esteem. He found me that way. That is not his fault. Is it his fault that he weaponized it and used it for his good? Yes, that is his fault. But if I do not look at me, I would still be in that relationship peeking, trying to peek at the answers of what to do to get self-worth from him, what to do to get love from him. I would still be peeking over at his paper. And his paper is full of lies. So I am cheating with a dummy. The insanity. Have you ever cheated by looking at a dummy's paper?

We have to focus on ourselves. It is not all about the narcissist.

I just want to tell you there is a neurochemical trap in the H word. The neurochemical trap is that every time you hope, you are feeding the same dopamine loop as the trauma bond. Neurochemical trap. Hope creates the maybe this time mentality that keeps you coming back.

Your brain gets a hit of possibility. Just enough to keep you hooked. Your brain. It is the same pattern as gambling. Maybe the next time I will hit a flush or a straight or whatever the winning thing is. Maybe the next time I pull the lever on that slot machine, I will see all the lights and how much money I won. Hope. Meanwhile you are spending your rent money. Come on, y'all. Work with me.

Here is the hard truth. Hope, in this context, it is not hope at all. It is denial. Now I am going to have to sit with that. Do you hear what I am saying? Hope is not hope. It is denial. You think you are hoping. You are denying what is right smack dab in front of you. Hope is denial.

I hope y'all hear me. And that is the good kind of hope. I hope y'all hear me, because I am going to keep talking, because I am not talking to narcissists. So I get to hope. And here, hope is free. Hope is good. Hope is positive. We get all the hope we want to in here. Because guess why? You can hope in yourself.

Y'all may have heard my topic that I talked about. Lie to yourself with the truth. Say I do not want him back. Period. I do not want her back. Period. Even if you only believe it for the two seconds that it took you to say it, it does not matter. Say it with conviction. Because listen, you are talking to your brain. Your brain is going to take time to catch up. But that period still goes after the end of that statement. Before the but, not after. This is how you change, by focusing on yourself. This is how you heal. Say it. Loud and proud. Put a period after it, and then go ahead and feel how you feel. Sad, lonely, you miss them. I do not care. It does not matter. Right now we are focusing on the brain. The heart can wait. The heart can wait. Let the heart do what it does. It is okay. Right now, it is all about the brain.

Shame is negative energy. And you do not have to feel ashamed for being tricked, for being lied to, for being manipulated, for being a V word, I am going to say it, victim, for being an A word, I am going to say it, abused. Where is the shame in that?

We have got to challenge our shame. And it is a part of this journey, but I am still going to challenge it. And I want you to challenge it. That is all a part of the process.

Staying after we know. It is stage two, where we have all this information, but we are still stuck. That is stage two. It is a thing. It is to be expected. But you need help when you feel stuck. You cannot do this without community. Just like what you are experiencing right now. You cannot do this without support. Support of people who get it. Even family and friends do not get it. You need to be around people who get it. And that is what my program provides. So please, please, please, please look into that for me. For you, and for me to be honored to support you.

It was a process getting in, and it is a process coming out of it. Just come out. Easier said than done. I am going to put a caveat to that. But you do have to just do the thing that you do not want to do. You do have to just do the hard thing. And like my colleague and friend Michelle said in the interview, choose your hard. Choose your hard. This relationship is hard. Choose your hard. Do you want the hard that frees you? Or do you want the hard that keeps you stuck? Choose your hard. That is powerful.

So the real question that I want to leave you with. What are you actually afraid of happening if you let go of hope? I want you to think about that. That is your reflection prompt for the week.

When you see it, you can never not see it. I want you guys to know the truth. It is harder to stay than leaving. You think leaving will be the hardest thing you ever do, but you are already living in the hard. You are just doing it with a bunch of extra steps that are taxing your brain, taxing your heart, taxing your body, your physical body.

Staying means constant whiplash. Walking on eggshells. Emotional whiplash. Losing yourself piece by piece. That is what staying does to us. Leaving is grief, rebuilding, uncertainty. But at least you are moving forward. Which one do you choose?

Slow motion suicide. Which is hope. The silent killer. The hope that keeps you in a relationship that is killing you slowly. The hope that whispers just a little bit longer while you are disappearing.

I want you to know that what you need instead of hope. I want you to trade your hope in for clarity. Now, clarity does not feel as comfortable as hope, but it is reality. And you are living in reality, but you are just denying your reality. Clarity says, this is what is. Not what I hope it could be. Clarity gives you power because it is based on reality. We live in reality, whether you want to accept it, acknowledge it or not.

I want you to trade hope in for practical planning. Instead of hoping they will change, plan for the reality that they will not. What does your life look like if nothing changes from today? These are truth bombs that I am like darts. Do not be dodging. Do not be weaving and dodging. Do not do it. Stay right here. Right here. The only question is, are you ready to keep living this way or not?

Hope keeps you stuck. Acceptance sets you free. Which one do you choose? Let me help you. I promise you my seven-week program is guaranteed.

It is still a journey. I want you to get this support. Become a part of this community. If you are a woman who is still in a relationship or married to a narcissist, I have a group for you called Women's Hope. Not the hope that keeps you stuck, but the hope that sets you free.

I devoted thirty-five years of my life to a narcissist. I am five years divorced. I have accomplished more in the past three years than I did in thirty-five years being married to a narcissist. I want you to come get some of this. I cannot keep it to myself. I will not keep it to myself. I did that for you, so that you can do it for the next person. So the next person can do it for the next person. We are healing the world together. 

I am a narcissistic abuse recovery coach. I am a licensed therapist. And I am here to help you. Better late than never. It takes time, everybody. It takes time to get there. But you will. You will get there.

Thank you so much for being here. I greatly appreciate each and every one of you. I will see you next Monday. I am here for you every day. Reach out to me, DM me, go to my website, thepassage2peace.com. Email me at info at thepassagetopeace.com. I am here for you always.