Marissa's Truth

SDK sister Maris tells her story on how she started noticing the signs of the repeated narcissistic men she was dating and how she broke the pattern. She tells her story of getting back to being the woman and mother that got slightly lost in the process.

Marissa's Contact Info

Website:

heymissmarissa.com without the www in the front 

IG is @heymissmarissa

Thank you for listening: If you want to be a guest or want me to tell your story, questions or comments please email me at Shedidntknowpodcast@gmail.com

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My Tiktok page: Katching up with Ash @katchingupwithash

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Oh but she's right because the line wasn't your welcome back to SDK Wednesdays with your girl Ash.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Thanks for tuning in to another episode. We have a guest today, so let's go ahead and get into SDK's story time with the sisters.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Yeah. It's Ash on the track. SDK sisters. Yeah, we back. It's story time now. Real talk, real laugh. Let me show you how SDK sits the story time with Ed. Little life lessons in the flash. SDK sits the story time with Edge.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

And welcome to the show, Marissa.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

Well, thank you for having me, Ashley.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Um, you can go ahead and get into your story. I I know it's very interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

Yeah, thanks. Usually when I start my story, I tell the listeners to please get your seatbelts on. Make sure you're safe and sound because this is this is one hell of a roller coaster. Maybe a bit different than you're used to, but maybe not. We'll see. So let's start somewhere. I'm gonna paint the picture for you. It is um the Europe side of the world, and in a little country where a tiny nation has just broken out to get free from the Soviet Union. So we've got all of these people feeling freedom, and then there's this tiny Marissa. She's a little girl, and she's growing up in a lab because her dad is a famous scientist, and her mom is an amazing singer, and she's the eldest daughter, so she has to do everything by herself. She's shoved in the front, she will take care of her sister, she's gonna take care of the family, she's gonna take care of all of the things that are put on her plate, and and it's not a burden per se, but it's a way to get attention. And when I'm saying she's little, she's about eight or nine. So at age 10, she gets her first camera and her first bite of freedom to create something. I'm gonna fast forward to age 17, where I'm gonna turn the story into me, not her, but me. So at age 17, I got my first camera, and um, at age 10, sorry, I got my first camera and I photographed my first wedding at age 17. And I built my audience to become my own country's best wedding photographer at age 23 and 24, trained hundreds of photographers by the age of 25. Had my son at age 25. My son was diagnosed with autism, and I was diagnosed with postpartum depression, and then that's where the story actually begins. So, as I'm in my postpartum depression, my son is just newly diagnosed with autism. He's six months old, and I'm in this deep hole. I keep on trying to be the best as I was in school with wedding photography. I know what to do. I never had one job, I've always had two jobs. I can do anything. I'm the eldest daughter, I mean. I got the world in front of me, and suddenly I can't because it's too heavy, it's too rich. So, what I do is I go out and search for a solution. I go through the traditional route, I try a psychologist, I go running because what's what's a girl gotta do? She's gotta go train, I try nutrition, nothing works. Okay, I try a psychiatrist, still doesn't work. Then I go down the holistic route up until trying chemotherapy. And holy god, it works 45 minutes through a Skype call, and I feel so much better. And then my brain goes, huh? Well, if this works for me, maybe it will work on others too, because I was growing in a lab, my dad's a scientist. If a solution doesn't have two feet on the ground, then it's not for me, but this is hypnotherapy, right? So it doesn't have two feet on the ground. So how can it work for me? So my brain goes into overdrive, trying to find out, trying to learn it as fast as possible. I find a course that's a year-long course that um shoves me into flying five hours away to be in that course throughout the year. I fly there, I'm back, there, I'm back. While I'm going to therapies with my son to get his speech going, to get his uh movement going. My then husband is having a hard time with me changing so fast, and I'm learning hypnotherapy. And I finish my course and I start spreading the news because I am pretty sure, I was pretty sure at that time that I'm gonna be the best hypnotherapist the world has ever seen. I I either want to be the best in the world or I quit. So that was my premise at the time. And then um magazines start picking it up. I get to do stories with um different artists, trying hypnotherapy through one site, trying show hypnotherapy. My career starts building up slowly but steadily. My son is getting better. And then I get a call that would I be interested in trying out for a TV show? Because they've been looking for a hypnotherapist for a long time. And I get scared. I tell my then husband that I'm I'm not sure, honey, what I'm gonna do. He's just looking me up and down Maurice, Marissa. You can do anything. Yeah, what can you lose? Um I'll just say back that I I can lose my dignity, but that's all. I can always get it back. So I call them back, I say yes to the hypnotherapy show. We do a trial, the camera loves me. The show goes nationwide. Friday night, top spot, nationwide TV. Over 10% of the people in the country are watching it each Friday, and I gain fame overnight. Meanwhile, I'm still going to therapies with my son. We're filming the show three to four days a week, um, where I have to drive each morning two and a half hours and back each evening two and a half hours. I don't have my postbottom depression as bad anymore, but it's still going on. And it takes a toll on my self-esteem, it takes a toll on my health because it's an immense pressure. I've got waiting lines. People to have hypnotherapy, they wait for six months to get an appointment with me because the lines are so long and my free time is limited. And then my marriage starts breaking up and I cheat on my husband, and he finds out it happens once, it happens twice. I was unhappy at that time. Uh, I was unhappy before, and it's the first time I get to actually say to myself that I've been unhappy for a while and I'm sorry this happened, but it happened. We get a divorce, I move into another town, I fall in love, move in with the man, take my son with me, and stay in that relationship while building up my career and doing marketing and doing everything at the same time. He turns out to be a narcissist. I avoided one hole just to go to another one. Okay, so voluntarily, I don't see that he's a narcissist, but I voluntarily give all my money and my free time for him to build his house. Yeah, it's his house, for him to take most of his family and me to trips around the world, for him to shun my son away, and I'm allowing it because I'm so blind to the love. It takes me it gets me a bit emotional as I talk the story through because it was a hard time. Six years later, I decided to end it once and for all because it's been going on too long. My son had the choice to move back with his dad at some point, and he took the chance, and I'm so glad he did. He was, I think, 10 at the time. And since I've been giving all of my money away, once we decide to end it all, I am broke, and I'm downsizing and moving back with my parents. I moved back with my parents, found a new boyfriend. My career took up again. I moved to another place only for the ex-boyfriend to come back and propose to me. Everything's going on at once again, and my son gets into trouble in school. So I'm dealing with multiple things at the time. Uh, my career is all the time getting backlashes because it's hypnosis, people don't trust it. I'm getting death threats weekly and people yelling outside my windows once or twice a month. Um people coming to insult me, but also to praise me on the street. So throughout all of these years, and it's a hell of a ride. And through that journey, I break up with that boyfriend as well. After he proposes to me, I decide to go to school to actually learn something new. I take on two things at the same time. While having a beautiful career as a hypnotherapist and doing social media marketing, which I've also learned in university, my career takes up again. Only for me to get another boyfriend who needs a mommy. And I decide to try out what's it like to be a mommy in a relationship to not only my son who decided to move back with me, but also to a boyfriend and his son. And it's too much. So I end that again. I also poured all of my money into that relationship as well. And now it's been two years since I've broken up with that one. I've been slowly building out my career. I finished two schools, so I've got a neuroscience uh master's, and I'm also a drink technologist now, in addition to being a hypnotherapist and a PR and journalism major. And I'm single and I'm happy finally. So we're at this point today, and I don't know if it was the ride you expected, but it's a hell of a story of um being single right now and not using any apps, just deciding to um run around in the world, trouble, trouble with my son, because I can actually afford it and not giving anything away to anyone, having twice a month therapy uh for the past few years and actually getting somewhere with it, and generally just doing anything that my intuition tells me to, because it's been up and down, up and down through all of the seasons of life, um, from fame to not fame to getting death threats to finally being happy with myself. Along the way, there's also little nudges of um gaining trying to translate it into pounds, um, gaining 20 pounds, then 40 pounds, then another 20 pounds in a month, and then losing some of it, and then gaining more to being happy with myself right now. So there's a lot of layers there, but we are happy, I'm happy right now, and I know that there's still a long way to go.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Thank you for sharing that. Um, I had a question. So is there was there a point in your different relationships where you kind of noticed signs, or you didn't notice that after, like after you're giving them all your money?

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Um in the first relationship uh after the divorce, I did not notice any signs. I was so blind, so in love um with a narcissist, no red signs, no, no red flags. But in the second and third, um halfway through, I was starting to notice signs, and in the third, I stopped um giving away all of my money just before we called it quits, like a few months before. So each relationship I have noticed and learned more and more to notice what I'm doing and what I'm gaining from doing it, and how to get it not giving away the money, but how to get the feeling of whatever I was searching for at the time somewhere else, or just to notice it and then heal it.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Okay. Um is there any advice that you would want to give ladies about signs to look out for?

SPEAKER_03 16:17

Yes. Maybe these land, but maybe they don't. And even if they don't, I'm gonna say it anyway. Listen to your sisters, ladies. Listen to your actual sisters, your spiritual sisters, your friends, your moms, your dads. They see the signs, and they're maybe not just jealous, but maybe they see the signs too. Like just listen.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

And if anyone wants to contact you, how can they get in contact with you?

SPEAKER_03 17:04

Yes. Well, you can go to um hey missmarissa.com. That's the webpage, and you can check out some of the story there in a beautiful polished uh shiny uh exterior. But you can also find me uh in Instagram with at hey miss Marissa. Marissa has double S's.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

And I'll leave all that in the description as well. And with you being in Europe, I know we were like trying to coordinate times, so thank you for having time and making time to be on this show.

SPEAKER_03 17:51

Uh thank you for letting me speak out the whole journey and having me heal that part of myself through talking it and and you holding space.

unknown 18:02

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Oh, thank you so much. And thank you for joining this episode. So, SDK Family, I will see you next Wednesday.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Yo, it's Ash on the mic, we out, that's the end. If you felt this one, hit there, tell a friend. Thanks for riding with me. Every take every dance. See you next Wednesday, SDK fan. See you next Wednesday, talking again. Ash on your air with talking on my friends. Thank you for the day with dance. See you next Wednesday, SDK Fan.