Coercive Control, Narcissism & Trauma Bonds: How Emotional Abuse Rewires Your Reality

What happens when love, manipulation, control, and confusion all exist in the same relationship?

In this deeply validating episode of Beyond Mommy Dearest, Noelani sits down with counselor and criminologist Shalina Lodhia to unpack the hidden realities of narcissism, coercive control, intergenerational trauma, and emotional abuse. Together, they explore how subtle manipulation slowly erodes self-trust, why survivors often blame themselves, and how the body keeps score long after the abuse begins.

Shalina shares how her own lived experience witnessing domestic violence and coercive control in her South Asian community led her into counseling and advocacy work. The conversation dives into trauma bonds, gaslighting, narcissistic family systems, emotional invalidation, and the exhausting cognitive dissonance survivors experience when kindness and cruelty coexist in the same relationship.

This episode also explores:

• The connection between narcissism and coercive control
• Why survivors constantly question themselves
• The subtle signs of emotional abuse most people miss
• How trauma shows up physically in the body
• Why self-blame becomes a survival mechanism
• The difference between healthy conflict and manipulation
• The long-term effects of chronic emotional stress
• Why narcissists rarely seek therapy
• How to begin rebuilding self-trust after abuse
• The importance of journaling and external anchors
• Why healing starts with internal validation

We discuss cultural silence around abuse in Filipino, South Asian, and immigrant communities, and why these conversations are critical for breaking intergenerational cycles.

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering:
 “Is it me?”
 “Am I overreacting?”
 “Why do I feel anxious all the time around this person?”

This episode is for you.
 
 https://www.instagram.com/counsellorshalina

https://www.facebook.com/counsellorshalinalodhia/

https://tr.ee/SxQNVoVxt9 - Free Guide: Narcissism & Coercive Control

Beyond Mommy Dearest 

beyondmommydearest.com 

https://checkout.square.site/merchant/MLVPR1DTKQG4P/checkout/IHYS6DJ4XJCQKFSKT5ROOVXH - Drop in Session - $19.99

https://www.facebook.com/BeyondMommyDearest/

https://www.tiktok.com/@beyond.mommy.dearest

https://www.instagram.com/beyondmommydearest/

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

You're listening to the Beyond Mommy Daris podcast, where we talk about growing up with narcissistic moms, how it shapes your nervous system, your relationships, and your sense of self, and how to heal without shame.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

I'm your host, Nelani Pearl Hernandez. This episode is sponsored by the Happy Cannabis, body products designed to help you on your healing journey by supporting your nervous system with every application.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

In today's episode, we're diving deep into narcissism, coercive control, trauma bonds, and the hidden ways emotional abuse impacts both the mind and body. I'm joined today by counselor and criminologist Shalina Lodia. This conversation is validating, eye-opening, and incredibly healing. Shalina, thank you so much for being here. And I love what people don't see is the banter that we get to have before I hit record. So I loved getting to know you. And for those who are just meeting you on the podcast, can you share a little bit about your work as a counselor and a criminologist and kind of what drew you to this intergenerational trauma and the coercive control?

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Um, so I yeah, so I work as a counselor and a criminologist. I'm based in Sydney, Australia. And um yeah, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. What we're gonna be talking about today is something that needs to be said because many people are going through, you know, coercive control, domestic violence, abuse. Um that's the reason I got into counseling, is because of well, my own lived experience. Um my mum went through domestic violence with my dad in the many forms of domestic violence uh that some people aren't aware of, things like immigration abuse and financial abuse. We don't talk about that enough. Um, so that was the reason I started getting into counseling because I realized a lot of women in my community, um, I'm Indian, South Asian, they're going through domestic violence and coercive control and all forms of abuse, and they don't realize it, they don't know. And when I came to realize that there's a knowledge gap, and it's it's I personally believe that intergenerational trauma and domestic violence are linked, you know, intergenerational trauma that you know get passed down from generation to generation, and it comes out in the form of parenting and abuse and addictions. When I realized the connection to that, to domestic violence, I then realized what women in my community were going through, and as a result, that led me to doing what I do now, as well as my own lived experience, and uh criminology was just an interest of the human mind. I'm very curious about why people do what they do and leads them to commit crimes, you know, like killing and raping, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Why is my question? I'm always asking that. So I guess that was the reason I chose criminology as my degree. Um, and I guess it intertwines with counseling and violence and domestic and domestic violence. And yes, that's pretty much why I do what I do now, but it it stems from my uh lived experience, my mom's lived experience in what I saw growing up that got me here.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

You know, it's so interesting that you that you talk about that because I know for me, one of the things why we started the podcast was because it was so unspoken. So for you, it's unspoken in the Southeast Asian culture, and for for us here in the US, and especially because I'm biracial in the Filipino community, there is this um abuse that goes on by mothers that is really prominent. And because there's this idea that you know mothers are supposed to be motherly and all these things, when anybody brings up this abuse, it's ignored. And so, very similarly, it sounds like we kind of approached where we ended up in our careers, the work that we're doing, the advocacy in that same way. And I really I appreciate that because one of the things that we're, you know, my husband and I own our own consulting business, and we're really adamant about in regards to that business is that there's people who look like you at all of the conversations, because if you don't have that, you're not really being like you're not creating this belonging and this diversity, like this diversifying the conversation and approaching it in all the different ways. And so for us, that's really, really pertinent. And I think that you know, your guide, both professionally and with your deep lived experience with your family, is really important. And what it brings to the table is that experience. So, what was the moment that you where you knew that this needed to be something that you put out in the world, that you needed to make sure that you talked about this?

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Oh, I think it wasn't just one moment, I think it's a pattern that I saw that I I couldn't ignore. Like, you know, you you see the same language come up again and again that I don't know what's real, is it is it me? Uh bad, I I but I feel terrible, and they're not isolated experiences, they're quite systematic. And I realize that people are suffering without a framework to understand narcissism and coercive control and how it exists, like people don't understand that. And I think up until recent, people didn't have the language to um express that it was coercive control because sometimes it doesn't have so many layers, and it's it's hard to understand when you've got harm, but you also have love going on at the same time, you've got like right, narcissism can be shown through, like there'll be your partners will be like loving and caring and kind, but it doesn't matter. But then they're like manipulative, it's it's that cognitive dissonance that happens between the two, and it's so confusing. And I was like, Okay, I know that narcissism and coercive control are quite linked, and I thought the most basic way that I could start this conversation would be to start with that because most of my clients, most of the women who I speak to are actually going through that, but narcissism is such a buzzword, like everywhere, everyone's oh my gosh, yes, you're they're an arc, they're anarch, you're gaslighting me.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Oh my god, it makes me it makes me insane because I feel this might be my own conspiracy theory, but I feel like it's narcissists that have put all of that out in the trend so that they can like hide under the shroud of it being trendy, but that's a whole you know, that's a whole nother thing. But I agree with you. I think the I think that especially, you know, we have teenagers, but what I've heard recently from teenagers is like, don't gaslight me. I heard that recently, and I was like, Oh, that's interesting that you're using that term, um, in regards to you know, them um like someone not believing them, they're using it the correct way, um, but just that one individual thing is not the only thing that comes with narcissism, or the coercive control, right? So that I think is really important.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

That and the fact that narcissism, there's like eight, ten different types, yes, yes, and um the fact that it's also on a spectrum mild, moderate, severe, and clinical, but most of the time narcissists don't get diagnosed with any. No, they don't, right?

SPEAKER_03 8:22

Right, they don't go to therapy, they send the other person to therapy. That's right, we have to go to therapy because a lot of people should have gone. I know, and you know, it's so funny because I shared the story about the first time like I told a professional that my mom was a narcissist, it was in when I was in high school, and I was the counselor at high school who was not trained. Like, I understand that she was trying to help, but she was not trained at all in regards to this. And I said, you know, I'm just having some trouble at home. My mom does, you know, X, Y, and Z, or she's doing X, Y, and Z. And she said, Well, why don't we have your mom come in? And my mom's a covert narcissist, so she like only is horrible at home, like gives me all the special gifts, but doesn't, you know, to anyone else. And so she came in and she's like, Oh no, honey, I don't do that. I was like, Are you fucking kidding me? Like, I live the life, and so I was like, I'm never going to a therapist again in regards to this. Therapy out in the US has changed and come a long way. There's people who specialize in this work, and then there's people who are like me who do like trauma-informed narcissistic coaching abuse or abuse coaching. I don't abuse, I don't teach people to abuse, I help people who have been abused. Um, and and that really comes from the space of what do we need to do to like gain clarity over this stuff? And it sounds like you and I are on the same page in regards to that labeling clarity. So why is it so important to you?

SPEAKER_01 10:04

I just feel like labels create more confusion than clarity, you know, it's you're you're stuck in the space of labeling when people focus too much on is this person a narcissist? What type of narcissist are they? Like when you start doing that, you get stuck on a loop of trying to diagnose and prove just right that this person is a narcissist, and then you move away from the most important question, which is how does this impact me? Like, yes, you know, how does this impact who I am? So when we get clear on this, when the clarity shifts the focus from the person's identity to your own lived experience, that's what we're trying to do here. This is about your lived experience, regardless of what type of narcissist they are. This is about your um lived experience, and then once you get clarity, you can assess the person's behavior, um, their emotional impact on you, the related consistencies, and without needing a clinical label to validate it. So it's yeah, it's very important that we don't go too heavy on this whole narcissism. Like if we get too heavy, it gets really confusing. But however, it is very important to figure out what type of narcissist they are because when you do that, you deal with each narc each form of narcissism rather, according to in accordance, right? So narcissists different to a grandiose narcissist versus a vulnerable narcissist, you're gonna deal with each of them differently, so it is, but at the end of the day, they are still narcissists, yeah. So I think they won't, yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

I mean, I think that's a really the big thing is um once a narcissist, always a narcissist. It's not like you know, like uh someone who's drinking, like that choice of like I look at alcoholism as in I'm making a if someone's an alcoholic, I'm making a choice not to drink or not to drink, and then I have a drink and I become an alcoholic. I can't stop that alcoholism. Whereas a narcissist is just a fucking narcissist all the time, like it doesn't stop. There's no stopping that narcissist. Yeah, there's no like, oh, I'm gonna make the choice. My mom never made the choice, she was always a narcissist. Like when I talk about that, like she always hated the idea of me. She might have loved certain parts of me, but the idea of me was always like super crap. Like, she was like, This is crappy. I'm gonna do all the horrible things to abuse you, and that is crazy for a child to have to deal with. You know, one of the things, so you were talking about the different narcissists, you were saying, you know, malignant narcissists, um, hysteronic narcissism, which I think is the funniest thing, uh, covert narcissists, all of the types of things. And one of the things that I heard you also say that was really grounding is that it exists on a spectrum, right? So can you kind of walk us through that in a way that people can like understand? Okay, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Well, narcissism, people understand that to be like some sort of a fixed identity that that's it, they're a narcissist, that is it, but as exists on a spectrum. So on one hand, you one end you'll have like healthy narcissism, or I could just say mild narcissism, right? Right, right. Normal people aren't narcissists, so I don't know if I agree with the term healthy narcissist, but some people label it that. I'm not sure. Personally, I'm like, I I don't know, I don't, but you've got you and I are in agreements, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:58

You and I are in agreements in regards to that. Oh, that's good. Oh, sometimes I'm questioning myself, I'm like, like, I think there is a sadisticness that comes with narcissism, so you can't be a healthy narcissist. You might have narcissistic tendencies, like maybe you have one or two tendencies from the DSM five, but you're not a full-blown narcissist. A full-blown narcissist is not healthy. Like, let me like you and I are there, we're there on the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Because you've got the mild, moderate, severe, and then clinical. So mild would be like occasional, like you said, narcissistic traits. Yeah, yeah. During like stress or feeling insecure, yeah, yeah, they might show up. And they're more situational rather than uh consistent, it's more flexible. But then you've got moderate, which is more persistent in the patterns, patterns, um, more more to do with your own self-focus, defensiveness, uh, lack of accountability, emotional invalidation, and those sort of create like an ongoing relational strain or confusion or emotional distress. Yep. And then moderate, moderate is like you know, ongoing as well. That that's just like one step up from the mild, you got the moderate, you got the severe, which is when you're rigid, you're more rigid in it. I think I think those are the forms of narcissism that are very detrimental. So you've got the the mod the severe, which is rigid and patterns of behavior that's they significantly impact your relationships, and that's manipulation, that's the lack of complete lack of empathy and regard, um, a lot of control, exploitation over time, and then clinical. If if you're lucky enough that the person you're with is a narcissist and goes to therapy, now we've got a clinical diagnosis here, which is rarely, but when it does, it's like, oh, we can really officially label this.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

Well, and and I think what I want to say in regards to that is the reason why narcissists so rarely get diagnosed and go to therapy is because they think it's not me, there's nothing wrong with me, it's the other person. And that I think is a real important thing because a lot, um, I I admin a group of like just over 7,000 women who have who are saying that they are daughters of covert narcissists. And a question that we get probably I would say every couple weeks is hey, I did X, Y, and Z, am I a narcissist? And our response always is, uh, if you're asking, you're not a narcissist. Like if you're concerned about it, you're not a narcissist. You might have tendencies, and I think that that is, especially as a child who grows up in that kind of space, there are certain tendencies that you might get or you might display, but it doesn't mean that you're a narcissist. A narcissist never changes.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

No, and they don't admit that they're wrong, which is why they don't end up in therapy. Like when it's a narcissist, like I have a problem and that and I'm wrong, and you'll never get that. This is why they're never in therapy, and this is why you think you're crazy. Like, yes, exactly. They're like, No, you're the problem, not me. That's not projecting everything onto you, and I'm the innocent, you know, not guilty. So this is why it goes undiagnosed, and they don't get help because narcissists have a false sense of ego, they've got a false reality is created with a false sense of their their heightened ego. So they go to therapy, their ego gets broken.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Why would you I'm smarter than the therapist? That's usually I can trick the therapist into believing that I'm not a narcissist. And you know, I think that that is really important thing because when we talk of and when you talk about that coercive coercive control as a form of that DV that always isn't obvious, like that that the coercive control is a tactic that narcissists often use. So can you like talk a little bit about like what are some of those subtle ways that coercive control shows up? So that someone who might be in this situation might say, you know what? I think that this is happening to me.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

See, coercive control is more accumulative than um one single incident, it's it accumulates over time. So it's not always about like overt aggression, it's more about patterns that slowly restrict a person's autonomy, you know, and their sense of self. So it can look like sudden monitoring, um, questioning your decisions about in a way that you create self-doubt. Um, it's framing control as concern, which is one of the most common things, and it's always needing to know where you are for your safety. It starts up like that, and it's really minimal, but it accumulates over time, and then then it starts showing up as like emotional withdrawal or unpredictable reactions or creating an environment where you have to manage their mood. Like when you get to that, you know something's not right, and over time it leads to um behavioral adaptation. So you start changing the way you speak, you behave, what you share, how you act. All of this you do in order to avoid conflict, and that's pretty much the key marker. Like when somebody's behavior is shaped by the need to prevent the other person's reaction when you're doing that, yeah, yeah, yeah. Rather than authentic, you know something's not right here, something's wrong. You have to change your entire self because it should not be like this. You should be free, not trapped. This is not free. This is you being trapped, and it's confusing because the narcissist sometimes shows you the love and the care, care, and the concern. Yep, then you're fighting that because it's becoming too much. So it's all about the context and where, who, what, when, where, why, and how. Like, when is this happening? How do you think but it's like I said, it's accumulative, it happens over time. This is why it goes unnoticed for a while.

SPEAKER_03 20:43

Yeah, often, yeah, because well, and I think that that's a really important thing because, like, I uh for me personally, I could I never felt comfortable in my own skin. And I I would I would even say that, and I'm gonna knock on wood that because I'm testing fate here, that if my mom was to show up at my door now, and she doesn't know where I live, she didn't have my address, doesn't know any of that, in order to keep me safe. But if she were to that I would immediately stop acting the way that I I do now, that that self-confidence would start to crumble, that that um like I'm very goofy, like I'm super like I'm just goofy. Um, all of that would go away because that was not something because the attention was drawn from her, that wasn't something that she particularly liked. And and I think that is also very similarly, that's mixed with that love because she would act like, oh, well, don't do that because people might not like you. And then what I learned going out in the real world is that people did like that part of my personality. And you talk about how this harm and love is mixed together, right? And it creates a push and a pull dynamic. Can you talk a little bit about how that might impact someone's ability to trust themselves?

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Well, care and concern is not inherently harmful, but it depends on the context and the frequency and the underlying intent that ends up shifting meaning. So checking on a partner can be very caring. Wanting assurance, reassurance is very normal, but when it becomes excessive, intrusive, when it becomes tied to control, and then it takes on a different function, you know. Like if I'm like if I start harassing my boyfriend being like, Where are you? Why didn't you text me when you get home? You know what state you put me in, blah blah blah. When I start turn turning myself into the victim, something's not right, you know, and then that confusion causes the inconsistency. So when the person going through narcissistic abuse and coercive control, when they experience like warmth from the person, but harm at the same time, warmth because they're caring, but harm because like intrusive, it's like this psychological, like they're trying to reconcile with the two, so they focus on moments of care as evidence that oh, the relationship is good, they care about me, like the relationship is great is good, but then they minimize the impact of how the control is and the intrusiveness is taking over, and then and it's also because the fact that coercive control starts very like internally, yeah, yeah, very subtle, and then it builds up gradually. So it makes it sometimes it makes it harder to figure out when the dynamic has shifted from normal to intrusive because of how confusing it can be. Yeah, but absolutely normally a person, you know, my partner sell tells me, text me when you're home. If I forget, he's not gonna get angry at me and start and do this, you know, it'll be like, oh, okay, I'm glad you're home. But somebody with these tendencies are gonna be like, I was where were you?

SPEAKER_03 24:15

Yeah, uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Where are you? Yeah, yeah, it's all about me. Like, I'm so concerned. It it's yeah, it gets to a point of it.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

It's a lot of it.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Yeah, it's so overwhelming.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

So that's you know, um, we just did an interview and we released a podcast with the um producers of I Love You My Narcissist, which is uh it's a documentary but also slash fiction, where it goes through and like Dr. Romani is in it, Carrie McAvoy is in it. There's all these different therapists and um psychologists that are in it, but then the fiction part is these relationships. And so it shows like a relationship and the power structure. It's uh it's actually really interesting, and this coercive control that you're talking about, that subtle buildup of control is definitely very predominant in both of the relationships that they follow. So I I think that this is a really important thing, um, especially when we talk about like immigration abuse. Like I think about that and a lot of people who have um immigrated to the US. So I'm in the US, you're in Australia, but people who have immigrated to the US, and I mean, the immigration abuse is going on right now throughout our whole country. So that like coercive control is something that is is damaging. You're dealing with someone's like foundation when you're talking about immigration abuse or financial abuse.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 25:57

You are you know, someone for someone who's feeling constantly confused, either in a romantic relationship or a parental relationship, what might their body already know if their mind is still questioning it?

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Your body keeps the score, yes, like yeah, honestly, that's the first thing that comes to my mind. Your body keeps the store. So, you know, your mind, your body sort of already knows and registers what your mind is still trying to figure out, I think. Right. Um in your body you will you will feel like unease or your your chest tightening or difficulty relaxing, insomnia, maybe eating too much, not eating enough, um, feeling on edge. Um, even in moments where things are calm, you know, your body's still in that hyper, hyper state. So there's like an underlying tension because you're just not feeling at ease. But then because your nervous system, it's sort of tackling patterns, not just isolated.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

It's not like a one-off thing that has happened. This is a over time, constant, gradual thing. So it picks up on inconsistent inconsistencies and unpredictability, even emotional threat. Your body knows, you know.

SPEAKER_03 27:15

So one of the books I have back here is The Myth of Normal by Gaber Mate, and he talks about the how what trauma does to your body. And I can speak from like a very like real place. Um, and hopefully this makes uh hopefully our listeners get a little laugh about this, but often after my podcast, I have a little tummy ache because we're dealing with traumas that were really, really pertinent to me. And so my tummy will start to hurt because of that. And I think that you know, we've had other guests on that talked about intuition or various things, and like you said, the body keeps a score, you know, it's not just a book, it's also like a real thing. And you know, we talk about ACES, the adverse childhood experiences, and like my I my score is through the roof in regard to that, and so your body remembers that, and if it's intergenerational, like you said, then that DNA travels from me to my daughter. I mean, one of the things that I think our bodies are amazing things, and all of my eggs came from my mom, all of my daughter's eggs like were inside me as she was growing as a baby, and so that DNA and that trauma are something that it passes down. So whether it's like that urgency or like um anxiousness, like I was talking to my daughter the other day, and I said something like I was asking her a bunch of questions, like in and like rapidly, like on text, and she's all mom, I'm I'm working. I was like, Oh, sorry. I said, So sorry, you know, I'm just getting information. We were doing something, and she said, uh, and I said, I'm just a little anxious of trying to get some info. And she's like, Oh, I said, sorry. And she's all you've always been really anxious. I'm all what are you talking about? And she's got an anxiety disorder, and it was very interesting for me to hear that from her. And I was like, What are you talking about? Because I don't think, and I don't know what it was like for you, but art my generation, because that I I'm actually a lot older than you are, I think. So my generation, you know, we weren't allowed to be anxious or to, you know, any of those things. And so it it was an interesting thing for me to to hear from her, you know. Um, one of the things that I want to talk to you about was how these dynamics are really destabilizing when someone's internal sense of reality are is confused. So, what does that actually feel like from the inside out? Like what might, you know, we kind of briefly touched on it, the body keeping score, but what might someone in a familial or a romantic relationship start to feel?

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Um, I was just gonna add to the point before our body. Um, sometimes we have unexplained pains like shoulder pain, pain. Um, I sometimes get really bad like shoulder pain and lower back pain. And sometimes you can't explain it, you know, like where is this coming from? It's because your body keeps the score, so your trauma is stored in your body and it comes out in different parts of your body, yes, in forms of pains that may be unexplainable, but really it is the trauma. So, yeah, so that's very important to you know, sometimes you think I didn't do anything, why is my back hurting? Yeah, yeah, it's that goes through, yeah. Like what happened, and maybe that might answer your question like of are you in a terrible relationship right now, or are you something like that, and that might answer where all the pains are coming from. Yeah, yeah. But to answer your question on how it de sta how it can destabilize a person's sense of reality, well, it also it constantly feels like you're living in a state of second guessing. You're always second guessing everything. You you might you might replay questions, you question your memory, uh, you feel unsure about what actually happened versus what you've been told that happened. There's a mental fog. Sometimes people end up with mental fog and they can't plan a solid understanding of their own experience. Um, emotionally, it can be quite disorienting, very exhausting. Uh, there's a push to try and make sense of things to find clarity. Every time you think you're you're getting closer, something shifts. Yeah, and you're not able to get it. It's like you're chasing, it's like you're feels like you're chasing like stability, but you can't find it. And it's just fighting. So then it's sort of um parts of you feel like something's not right, and then other parts of you you're trying to hold on to the relationship and hold on to the good. So you're living in that tension, but you know, your your intuition, your gut, it's it's there for a reason. It's your your higher self versus your lower self. Your yeah, your higher self is always trying to protect you. So when you yeah, when something's telling you to leave, something's not all right. You that's your your I don't know, your your inner inner, your higher self, your gut, your situation, yeah. It's telling you something's not right. You don't need to, you know, like sometimes you're trying to find proof of it, you don't need proof of it when it's your own body telling you that.

SPEAKER_03 32:53

Right, right. Well, and a lot of times in that narcissistic relationship, and I know, like for you know, when we're talking about mothers and daughters or mothers and sons, oftentimes that like inner feeling, they like drill it down and they make it, they make it erased so that you then are don't even question yourself. A lot of the clients that I have, um, when they are starting to go no contact, they say, I feel like I'm in trouble. I was like, Why do you feel like you're in trouble? And they will say, Oh, well, because I haven't talked to my mom today. I was like, Well, you are almost 60 years old. You don't need to talk to your mom every day. And so, like, that we have this like inner dialogue, and they it's really interesting. They say, I feel like I'm gonna be in trouble. I feel my stomach hurts. Um, what was the other one I just got recently? Like, I my heart rate is, you know, it's starting to, I'm starting to beat faster because of that. And and I always that my thought process is always like, how do I get them off this ledge? They're always walking on the this, you know, teeter-totter, and they're on the ledge when they they start to feel like this. And what I have found is they start blaming themselves, and uh yes, and yeah, right, and so this dynamic, a lot of people start to blame themselves. So, what why does this happen so often in this type of control?

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Because self-blame is a form of survival for people.

SPEAKER_03 34:23

That's that's it, that's the line, that's the line for the for the politics is a form of survival. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

I used to do this a lot, like not um, like with my dad's absence in my life. I was like, blame myself because it was easier. If I can blame myself and I'm the problem, then it's easier to control the situation. And if I change, everything's gonna get better. But right, right, it's really like so that belief makes you feel safer than acknowledging that there's an actual problem. So I think that's the reason why people blame themselves when they're in these relationships. It's easier to it's a form of like psychological survival for a person to help someone have to actually you know attend to the reality because the reality is very hard to deal with. So yeah, and then when it's yeah, yeah, when it's reinforced by the dynamics of coercive control where the responsibility, you know, shift it shifted onto the other person, so the person suffering, it's like it's suddenly allowed their responsibility now to deal with everything, and and then this sort of messaging of I'm to blame, it's just it becomes like an internalized belief, and that's that's the way people start operating, and then because they have this empathy and the desire to maintain the connection with their partners, they start to you know that that they want to believe that they actually genuinely want to believe that because they stay in the relationship, they don't want to end the relationship, so this is just yeah, I think I think people start to over-identify with this role of yeah, yeah, themselves being the one to blame.

SPEAKER_03 36:13

Yeah, you know, it's really interesting. I I've said this a couple times. I remember sitting on our stairs here in our house, in my um, in our house, and I was having a conversation with my husband, and it was after like my mom, something I think I think it was after my car got repoed. She said she was paying paying for my car payment, and she wasn't. So that that was very interesting. And I remember talking to my husband saying, I don't understand why my mom's like this. If I could just figure out a way to be better, I mean, and for for us, for especially for Filipinos, like, if I could be lighter, if I could be skinnier, if I could be, you know, whatever it is that she wanted, and then I said, I you know, I just think that my mom hates me. And my husband was like, You're probably right. And I was like, Oh my god, that like that thought process of like all the the questions of why would anyone who loves someone treat someone like this, like all that like just disappeared out into the air. And I was like, of course she hates me. Of course, that makes sense because what why would you ever do that to a child? Why would any of those things that you're doing, why would you do that to child? That's not what I do to my child, my children. Like, I don't I don't ever do any of the things that my mom did. And so I think that is a really important thing to talk about, is that I nothing what they're doing, the coercive control, the narcissism, any of that is out of love. None of that is, and one of the things that you talk about, and I think this is really important to talk about, is you outline both the short-term and the long-term impacts on mental and physical health. And so we talk about this often. We talk about the nervous system and the effects of it. So, what are some of the signs that might not be immediate to people that are connection like right?

SPEAKER_01 38:26

I would say increased anxiety, difficulty concentrating, you've got disturbed sleep, constant sense of mental fatigue. Um, and it's because these symptoms are not linked to a specific incident, it's over time, but we dismiss it as stress or burnout or just or personality traits, like I've always been actually or always overthink, or you know, but then the short-term things, I think we we don't connect the short-term effects of coercive control. Uh, we don't like link that to it being to do with coercive control. Instead, it's more like on a long term, it's we just dismiss it like I'm just tired this week, or I just didn't sleep properly this week. But really, your mental and your physical are connected. So if you're going through abuse, everything's gonna come out on you mentally and physically. Like you just can't have one without the other, and then long-term becomes more somatic. So it's like chronic headaches, and then you've got digestive issues, you've got hormonal imbalances, you've got exhaustion, you've got, you know, my when my mom and my dad separated, the extreme stress she went through caused her to have heart palpitations for life. So, like months on medication every day because to control her blood pressure and her heart palpitation, because of something that she went through some 30 years ago. Yeah, yeah. So your your body, like I said, it keeps the DAMS.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

Well, yeah, it does. I think that that is I think that's a really important thing because you know, when we talk about ACES and the adverse uh childhood experiences, the reason why people of color score higher on that just automatically are because there's you know certain things that happen for people of color that don't happen to white people, like they just don't. It doesn't happen. And so what we found is that there are certain things that that you just score as a person of color a little bit higher, and some of that comes from you know, privilege, some of that comes from innate wealth, whatever it is. But because of that, your body is like keeping score of what's going on, and you know, it's if I could like create a little image of like an internal, like an internal little from like uh what's that Disney movie that has all the feelings, like a little person, you know, keeping score of the um of each time you get angry, you know, any of those things because that's I it's a hundred percent bad.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

But it's also um you can have um digestive issues and nausea, you get stomach pain and heartburn, and then other long-term things are like you face depression or or helplessness. Um, you can even have like blood sugar changes, weight gain, weight loss, your immune system suffers so much when you're under level of stress. Um, obviously, then you and you also end up with complex trauma or PTSD, low worth, shame, self-blame, persistently having self-doubt and confusion, not being able to trust yourself, like so many things you know continue and and they just build up in layers. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:11

Well, and the thing about it, and I think that is really important, and one of the reasons why I'm doing the podcast is that when people come out on the other side, uh, whether it's the coercive control from a um a romantic relationship or this narcissistic um relationship that they've had with um a parent figure, uh specifically moms, um, I think that there is like it doesn't you can repair yourself from it. I think that's a really an important thing. And one of the things I really appreciate about your focus on that internal validation is that it's kind of that first step, right? So why is this so critical when it comes to healing?

SPEAKER_01 43:02

Because internal validation is is critical because coercive control erodes a person's sense of their own perception because you stop, you can't you really feel like you can't trust yourself. So when a person has been repeatedly questioned or dismissed or made to feel like they're wrong, dumb, small, whatever it is, they begin to outsource their sense of reality. So they'll rely on other people, so they'll rely on friends, everybody else, and that's cool. Like you you need that validation when you're going through abuse, obviously, but at some point you have to look within yourself to trust yourself because you can't do that, you can't live your life like that without being able to trust yourself. So you're rebuilding your internal validation, you are reversing what has happened with in these coercive control and narcissistic dynamics. So it's learning to Acknowledge your own thoughts, your own feelings, your own experiences without questioning them or minimizing them. You know, it doesn't mean that you reject everybody's external output and just don't listen to anybody, but it's more like slowly you come to the realization that you don't need external agreement to legitimize your reality. Um, because if you don't learn to um you don't learn to trust yourself, um it's very difficult to make to set boundaries, to trust yourself, to move forward, to make decisions, to do anything in life, really, if you don't trust yourself. Like it's every step um has to be filtered through doubt, every step that you you take. So you really have to build yourself up and and reverse the damage that has been done. And that's why it's so important to learn to start trusting yourself, your your your gut, like I was saying before, yeah, your gut, your higher, your sixth sense, whatever you want, yeah, is there to help you.

SPEAKER_03 45:10

Yeah, for a reason. That's good. Yeah, you get a tummy ache, get out of there. Not just because you have to use the bathroom, but because some some heavy, crazy shit's about to go on.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Like the hollowness that you might feel in your chest and your body, like that's all there for a reason. You'll know if what you're doing and um what you're about to do is the wrong decision or not. Your butt will tell you quickly before your mother will.

SPEAKER_03 45:34

Yes, it totally will. You know, you also talk about um limiting that emotional disclosure. So, can you kind of tell me why this feels counterintuitive for people who are used to overexplaining? Can you talk a little bit more about that?

SPEAKER_01 45:50

I think people genuinely want to be understood and they want to be met with empathy. So sometimes we end up overexplaining ourselves with the hope that we'll be met with that type of validation. But when you're in a situation where there's coercive control and narcissistic abuse, it's going to be used against you. So 100% like limiting your emotional disclosure. I'm not saying don't talk to anybody, it's like be very careful of who you share your inner thoughts with, your problem with if you're with somebody who likes to manipulate, right? You're gonna be in trouble after that. So it's your vulnerability will be used against you. So it's not about shutting down or being guarded. Um, it's more about like exercising discernment and recognizing when a space is not emotionally safe for you and choosing not to like invest in trying to make yourself feel understood all the time. Um, you'd rather turn to a friend who can keep you grounded, a family member, a therapist. Like these are the things if you need to vent and talk, go talk to people you know you can trust and won't distort your reality, but don't talk to the abuser. The main point here is don't confide in the abuser the things that you don't want them to throw back on your face and manipulate you with. So that's what I mean by limiting emotional disclosure, it's limiting with the wrong person. Sometimes they'll they'll act like they're nice and and they'll they'll show you that empathy, and it might make you believe that, oh yeah, I can open up to them and talk to them. Don't get fooled, don't get trapped.

SPEAKER_03 47:33

Like we call it circles in our family. It's for a reason, like we call it um circles, like we have circles, right? So we so our inner circle is me and my husband, like that's it. And we forge the path, we have the you know, where we're going, we have all of that together, and then outer and outer and outer and outer. And I think that's a really like another way to explain this because it's really important that if ever you disclose something emotionally and then it's thrown right back in your face, you know, that is something to be a little bit wary about. And that definitely when you're talking about narcissists, is something that is it's common, right? Maybe you you're like worried about your weight, and you say, Oh, I feel like I've gained a little weight. First thing they're gonna do, throw that in your face. Like, that's that always the first thing. Whenever I would see my mom, she would be like, Oh, you look great, but you look like you gained a little bit of weight. And I'm like, Really? Like, is that really what you're gonna say? Okay, like that's not how you talk to your daughter, like, come on, right? Um, it's so to me, it's so crazy that you would even say that. Like, that to me is not something, it's not okay. And terrible, yeah. You know what? It is terrible. That's terrible. What a what a freaking bitch. I can't believe she did that. You know, like we forget. Yeah, I mean, you know, what what is for you like what do you what do you tell your clients? Like, what does starting to rebuild a sense of safety or like rebuild their life within themselves really look like? Like, what are some things that you might suggest to a client to say, okay, you are now starting, you're stepping away from this coercive control. It's gonna be a little weird. It's gonna not feel like it it like it normally does. But what would you suggest to them to start rebuilding that sense of self and safety?

SPEAKER_01 49:36

I would say that you'd need to it begins with very small but consistent actions that signal to the nervous system that you are now safe. So I mean, in it's just predictable routines. So your body knows it's you know, from morning till evening, just predictable routines, um, setting gentle boundaries, uh, allowing yourself to pause before reacting. So it's it's all about creating it's not about changing like dramatically, yes, more like slow baby steps, baby steps, like reinforcement that your internal world is is is a safe place to be, and and and also reconnecting with your own signals, so your emotions, your instincts, uh, your physical responses, and learning to respond to them with care, uh rather than just them. So, you know, if you're conditioned to overriding yourself, it might feel unfamiliar when you start doing this time when you are self-attuned, it starts building trust, and then trusting yourself, the foundation becomes deeper, it's more stable, and then your your sense of um safety and uh sense of self isn't dependent on external variations because you know within yourself, you know, you've got this, you can control it, but yeah, baby steps because if you do too much at once, you're gonna get so overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_03 51:03

Yeah, yeah, and then you're gonna think it's a bad thing, you know. I I think that I think you know, for what I've experienced with some of my clients is they just want it to be done, right? They want this to be done. And what I I always try to let people know is this it takes time and you might end up taking like a a a step back, and that's okay. Like, don't beat yourself up when that stuff happens. And you know, you mention maintaining kind of those external acres, right? Yeah, so tell me what some of this looks like in real life. So if someone's going through this, they can say, okay, that there's an acre right there.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

Um, yes. So external anchors are stable grounding points outside of the relationship that helps somebody maintain this perspective and in connection to reality. So trusted friendships, therapeutic support, um, journaling practices, structured retreats, all of those things, they um they serve as a counterbalance to the instability of the dynamics you've been through. So it's like having you know one or two people that you can speak to about your experiences without them distorting your reality or engaging in educational resources to help you name and I understand what you're experiencing, like pretty much like my ebook. Um interactions can become an anchor. I usually tell people who are going through um narcissistic abuse always journal everything that happened, like say you have an argument with them, journal your version of what happened, journal everything that happened, what was said, who said it, when it happened, where, why, because if the person tries to distort your reality and your you go back to your journal and you're like, no, wait a minute, this is what happened. It reinforces you know your your reality back onto you, and you know that you're not tripping, like it's the other person tracking. Right. So, you know, like document these things.

SPEAKER_03 53:12

It's really interesting that you bring that up. There's this other woman in Australia, actually, that we're gonna be doing an interview with on a podcast, and she created this application called the Herd App, H E A R D, and she she created it as a result of being in a narcissistic relationship with her partner. And one of the things that it talks about is it has this like jot down what happened in like a fight or whatever, so that you remember, okay, this is what this is what it is, because that gaslighting or that you know control will start to come out, and then you start to question yourself. And then, but if you write it down, at least you know, okay, that that is something that's there. You know, you talk about the acres, and I remember when I first um dropped down and went low contact with my mom before the no contact, one of my biggest acres was uh my daughter, my my oldest daughter, she's 30 now. But her being young and my mom starting that process of creating the same type of relationship my mom had with me with her. I was like, no, that's not happening. I didn't want her to have to experience that. There was some medical abuse that went um on with my mom, with me, like the factitious disorder by proxy. Um, that happened, and that was something that she was starting with my daughter. And I was like, no, that's not, I don't, that is I'm not okay with. And so that she was definitely that first kind of anchor for me. And then secondly, my husband, when he experienced my mom, something that happened with my mom, and I was like, I know I'm not crazy. You totally saw that, right? And he's like, Oh yeah, I did. And so it was that like that's something that's really important because oftentimes people who are going through coercive control are are that narcissistic abuse have that. And we are definitely going to have your ebook link in the show notes so people can download it. And anybody who is looking for someone in Australia to work with, we also will put all that information there for them to know too. Because narcissism does not just stay in the US, although some of us who are in the US might think that it's just here because of everything that's going on. Again, a whole nother podcast. But I think that you know it's important to know that this is something that's happening all over, yeah. Whether it's in um it is in the Philippines, it's in India, it's in Australia, it's in China, it's in Russia, wherever it is. So, however, we can help those people who are in any of these familiar are uh familiar familiar or romantic relationships, I think it's really important that if they're like, ooh, that sounds like something that's happening to me, download your book, like take a look at it, and you know, do those things so that you can figure out what to do. And for someone who might be stuck, stuck either in the relationship, stuck in like our work and trying to move forward, what's a small shift that they can make to begin to move themselves back towards them themselves and who they actually are?

SPEAKER_01 56:38

I would say that pausing before trying to correct yourself. So, for example, when you start noticing things like you're saying, Oh, maybe I'm overreacting, maybe it's my fault, maybe I'm the one to blame. Instead of accepting that thought, instead of that, create some space and then be like, actually, wait, what actually really happened? How did I actually feel? Don't dismiss your feelings and don't try and override it as that you know psychological survival of oh, maybe it's me, self-blame, do deal with it. So remove the self-blame and actually experience it for what it is, you know? Pausing before trying to correct your thoughts because you are allowed to feel you know upset. Yeah, you're just allowed to feel. So don't try and stop that and and blame yourself by saying I'm overreacting, it's my fault, I shouldn't have done this, I know. Instead of it be like, I'm allowed to feel this way, and if somebody else went through what I went through, they were also are allowed to feel in the hurt. Don't try and stop that because when you're in a narcissistic uh and coercive control dynamic relationship, it's easier for you to just start blaming yourself, right? And and and trying to be like, oh, it's my fault, trying to be the fixes everything. So unlearning these behaviors, yes, we are feeling yes, feeling the fields, that's an important thing.

SPEAKER_03 58:14

I you know, and for a lot of for a lot of women who have narcissistic mothers, they have been taught not to feel and to like push their feelings aside. So as we like close up, one of the things that I like to ask um my guess is what's one thing that you would say to someone who is going through this kind of relationship for them to understand and then start to move forward in out of that relationship.

SPEAKER_01 58:50

I would say that I would want you to understand that the impact of what you went through, like people can't see it, but if people can't see it, it still matters. The the visibility matters, like you know, the experience matters just as much as the visibility. So, you know, the harm is not defined just by the extremes, it's it's defined by what it has done to you, you know. So if you're feeling diminished or or anxious or disconnected from yourself, if you're unsure of your reality, that is significant, and you don't need to reach a certain threshold of something being bad enough to take your experience seriously. It already is bad enough if you're not feeling comfortable in your own skin, like if you're not happy, it's it's already bad enough, it's already bad enough, yeah. Yeah, like questioning it, it's already there, so don't try and sort of compete. You know, sometimes we compete like, oh, maybe it's not bad.

SPEAKER_03 59:53

Oh, yeah. Well, you know, it was so bad for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:57

You're trying to minimize it, but you know, healing doesn't require proof, you don't need proof of everything that this person did, it requires honesty. You know what this person has done, yeah, and you're left altered in a way that doesn't align with who you are, and that in itself is enough to pause to reflect and begin to understand it more deeply. And you know, that should be enough for you to be like, okay, I need to make a a change in my life. So um, yeah, just say don't don't minimize your experience because you know the magnitude of the magnitude of it is clearly visible by the way that you feel.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:41

Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much. I can thank you enough. I I have been um very intentional in making sure that we hear from different voices from different countries from different experiences because it makes this more accessible for everyone when they see someone like themselves um talking about it. So thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it. And um, all the information about working with you, um, your book, all those things are going to be in the show notes. So thank you again. And um, I can't wait to have you back on.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:21

Oh, thank you so much. It's been it's been so good to be able to sit here and talk about like something so um profound that all across the world it doesn't discriminate, you know. We're we've all everybody's so many people have gone through it, and now there's a term for it. Now you can identify it and find ways to cope that once upon a time did not exist. So if platforms like yours didn't exist, we wouldn't be able to reach people.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:49

So thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:50

Well, it's important. So thank you, and we'll we'll definitely be in contact soon. Looking forward. If today's conversation helped you feel seen, understood, or less alone, please share this episode with someone who may need it. And for all of Shalena's information, resources, and links will be in the show notes. And remember, if your body is telling you that something isn't right, listen to it. Thank you for listening to the Beyond Mommy Daris podcast. You're not broken, you adapted. Healing from a narcissistic mother is real, possible, and you never have to do it with shame. I'm your host, Nelani Pearl Hernandez, and until next time, take gentle care of yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:35

Your skin is a part of your nervous system, and taking care of it is essential to overall balance. Our products are specifically formulated to nourish your skin and bring you closer to homeostasis with every use. Start feeling better in your body today with the Happy Cannabust.