If you've watched an action movie featuring a tall actress in the last twenty years, then you have seen Kimberly Shannon Murphy. One of Hollywood's top stunt women, Kimberly is the go to stunt double for Cameron Diaz, Uma Thurman, Sandra Bullock, Angelina, Jolee Blake, Lively, Sharon Stone, and Moore. Her day job sounds terrifying, jumping off buildings, crashing cars, but it pales in comparison to Kimberly's real life childhood. Starting when she was just two years old, Kimberly experienced
severe childhood sexual abuse by a family member. Kimberly's extraordinary and heartbreaking new memoir Glimmer, a story of survival, hope, and healing, reveals that the abuse went back generations. Her mother, aunt, and numerous other women in her family were also preyed upon. In this emotional and eye opening episode of Navigating Narcissism, Kimberly bravely shares the devastation of suffering silently and the bold moves she's making to break the cycle for her daughter.
From Red Table Talk Podcasts and iHeartMedia, I'm Doctor Romney and this is Navigating Narcissism. This podcast should not be used as a substitute for medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue, or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This episode discusses abuse, which may
be triggering to some people. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, iHeartMedia, or their employees. Kimberly, I had the opportunity to read your book, and it's so powerful. Your experience of intergenerational child sexual abuse and trauma is it happens so much more than people know, and it's
not talked about enough. One of those conversations that still remains in the shadows, which is another reason your book is so powerful. These conversations are so important on navigating narcissism. We're really focused on the survivor and to that end, because it's your experience, I want you to begin sharing it with us wherever you want to begin it.
Okay, Well, The abuse started probably around two or three with my grandfather, my mother's father, and ended when he died when I was eleven. The entire time, four times a week, so it was a constant thing. My grandmother was complicit and was very aware of what was going on and didn't do anything about it. My mother was also a victim, and some of her siblings, and I'm sure all of her siblings. That's what I came into
the world knowing. I didn't know any different. I just thought that that's how things were done.
Yeah, So, as you experienced a nine continuous years of sexual abuse perpetrated by your grandfather, did anyone in your family speak out about what he was doing.
My aunt tried in the fifties, my mother's sister, which is who I dedicate the book to, because she was probably the reason I'm sitting here right now. She gave me so much strength to do this. She was a phenomenal writer and wanted to write a book herself so badly. She died of Alzheimer's, but she told on him when she was nine yearyears old. Oh, and it was brought to the family's attention and he denied it, and that was it. And everything went on.
What happened to her within the family.
The abuse stopped once she told on him with her, but continued on with others.
Continued on with others. It was denied. How is your grandfather regarded by your family?
Amazing? He was amazing, Yes, the best person on the planet. Everybody loved him. He was successful in the eyes of he made money, he supported his family. During that time of that generation, it was very much respect your elders. What they say goes. You don't ask questions. This is how things are done. And so I didn't.
Of course, I mean you couldn't. Yes, it's not even that you didn't. I think it's you couldn't.
Yes.
This person was that you was so valued. Your grandmother was complicit. She knew it. Others knew it, Yes, because they were abused and for a variety of reasons, had to remain completely unseeing or unacknowledging of it, and having to know that another generation of children were being perpetrated against.
So by cultivating that persona it's part of the larger concept of grooming right because then it gives him sort of free access to everybody because he's implicitly trusted by everybody completely, and it completely silences all of the people who are perpetrated against and since he was choosing miners, they are already going to be silenced by virtue of
being miners exactly. So, from the age of two to eleven, the entire period you were abused until he died, did you ever tell anyone about what was happening.
I didn't feel like there was any safe adults around me, and even your aunt because I didn't know at the time about her. I didn't find out until later that she was abused and she had come forward. I didn't know any of this information, so I was terrified for my life. Yeah, he made it very clear that if I ever said anything that he would kill me.
So that's it. You were effectively imprisoned in silence. When you were taken in for pediatric examinations, was it ever noticed there, because there are sometimes telltale signs of sexual abuse in children.
He gave me her bees when I was eight, and that was sort of swept under the rug as well. I was taken to the doctor, but it was not accepted that that's what it was, and so I was never given medicine for it.
So the doctor knew it. Doctor says something, and the unwillingness to acknowledge it meant that you also went untreated for an illness. Yeah, Kimberly, how was school going for you?
I didn't do well in school. It didn't feel important to me. I felt like I had this thing that was happening in my life, and going to school and learning math was to me. I was like, Okay, but I have this thing that I knew in my heart wasn't right because it didn't feel right even though everyone around me wasn't doing anything about it. I've come to become good friends with doctor Matte through all of this, and he said something to me which really resonated with me.
He said, your primary trauma was not the abuse. Your primary trauma was you never had adult support, because if you did, the trauma would have never happened in the first place.
Yes, or if it did happen even once, it would have been validated. I couldn't agree with that more because for a child to not have the sense that any attachment needs could be met and there's no safety, that's the trauma. So we see, as he put it, the lack of protection. Doctor gabor Mate is a physician with expertise in trauma, childhood development, addiction, and stress. So then your grandfather dies, how did you feel at that point?
Very good?
Okay, Okay, thank you for saying that. Can you say more? I think it's really important for people to hear that. Yeah, I got to tell you, I felt very good to you when I had that happening.
An Yeah, I felt like I could finally figure out who I was. He was My identity didn't have one without him, at least that's how it felt for me. So when he died, I felt this just overwhelming sense of who am I now? I can finally figure out why I'm here. I knew it couldn't have been that. I know a lot of survivors and a lot of people that go through this kind of trauma when they're young. It stifles them in a lot of ways, and it
did do that for me. But I also it gave me this odd strength which I've carried with me through my life. And so when he died, it was such a relief to me. And I remember, you know, being at a funeral and not crying and not feeling sad and feeling just relief.
So important for people to hear that, because that kind of real at the time of someone's passing, were told, that's terrible if you feel that way. But I'm a reader of the book, and I felt relieved.
I felt like I left my body during his funeral, and I felt like I didn't want to be around people who were praising him, which is what they were all doing. They were all getting up there and telling amazing stories about how incredible he was. And I never knew that. Man. My mom tells these stories about these amazing things that he did as a father, I didn't know that man. I hated him. I never had love for him. There was never that confusion for me, and
I think some of his children have that confusion. Yeah, but I always despised him.
It's so complicated because many other people have gone through this kind of interfamilial abuse don't know what emotion to have. Am I supposed to hate this person, I'm supposed to love this person. His other victims within the family system, like your mother, like your aunt, and I'm sure many others had to tell themselves a different story in order to stay in the family system. If somebody spoke out, they were going to be firmly silenced and ostracized. Most people can't.
Tolerate that, yes, which has happened to me.
Yes, okay, So how much of that was ostracism and how much of that also was free will and choice? Because ostracism is something that happens to us. But there's also a point for survivors where you say, you know you don't need to kick me out. I'm out. Don't think this is some grand punishment for me. I have made the choice to step away, and I do want to unpack that with you, because I think that's a really important piece to tell.
We speak of a fictitious character in the book as my sister. I actually have three sisters.
Oh okay.
My one sister, as soon as she found out I got a book deal, completely ghosted me. Haven't talked to her in three and a half years, and my youngest sister did the same thing. My middle sister was supportive, but I think she felt like she sort of had to choose a side. And there were things happening within our family system that as I got older and as I started healing, I realized we're extremely toxic and that we were all moving in this toxic way. We always
called it. But we're just ameshed is what we would say. But there were never words then like there are now. We're just an a meshed family. We're just a meshed Well, no, we just didn't have boundaries. I don't think I learned what a boundary was I was thirty.
A family system that is enmeshed is a family system with very poor boundaries and unhealthy emotional sharing and expectations cut through the family. There may also be lots of triangulation, gossip, and breaking of confidences. Parents may share inappropriate information with children, and when the children become adults, the parents may over rely on their children. There is a real pressure to keep everything in house, meaning people are discouraged from seeking
help outside of the family. And mesh min doesn't mean that the family is deeply connected or committed. It really does mean that the boundaries are so blurred that the individual identities, safety, and needs of the people in the family get lost.
So once I started really doing the work, I realized that having certain people in my life was not healthy for me, no matter how much I love them, and that how they chose to deal with their trauma was not how I was choosing to deal with my trauma, and I could not have a relationship with them, one of them being my father and one of them being my sister.
That's a big moment. Yes, it's almost like you're talking about a family mass so in mesh that it was just like this toxic clump and that intergenerational cycle of protecting the system but not the individuals within it seemed to persist. There's no safety, but it's almost like strength in numbers. Okay, where a family we're all together. And I guess that was the real test. You get the
book deal, you're going to speak your truth. And that's when they said, no, this family system has no room for truth.
Correct.
You said You're sisters chose to deal with their trauma differently, How did they deal with their trauma?
They didn't?
They didn't. Okay, so your sisters were abused to they chose not to deal with them.
Correct.
You said you knew what was happening wasn't right. But when did you recognize or realize that this was abuse?
When he died, I think I felt safer. My parents were in a very safe space for me. Ever, my mom, because of her abuse, just was there but not there. And my dad, he was in Vietnam very young and didn't come from the most functional family, and so his idea of fatherhood is very different than my idea of fatherhood. But I started having flashbacks that were debilitating for me. I would see him, or I would uncontrollably shake and not understand why, and then things would flash in my head,
and then I'd hide in my closet. And when that started happening, I knew that something was really wrong. My mom had this encyclopedia of diseases which I looked through every day and diagnosed myself with every sort of everything, which now I can see was I just needed to find something concrete that was wrong with me because there was so much wrong that nobody was acknowledging. I cried every day. I remember thinking, Okay, this can't be normal. I'm a child, I'm crying every day. Why am I
crying every day? There's nothing that I can really hang on to. Even though there was abuse going on in my own home, as far as narcissistic abuse, as I've come to know now, but then I did not because for me, there was such this massive abuse that I had endured that what was going on in my house was nothing.
Yeah, of course, of course, yes, it was like, oh, this is just dad, Dad. Well, I mean and listen, Even when there's not that other simultaneous sexual abuse happening in a family, people still do think that this is just dad. But their body holds that this doesn't feel good, this doesn't feel comfortable. It's risky for me to be myself, it's dangerous to express needs that all gets internalized. But
that's the only reality, you know. So I think thinking that it's just dad, I think that's part and parcel of what childhood narcissistic abuse survivors would all say, Well, was there a point at which you did share with someone in the family you had been abused or learned more about these cycles of sexual abuse within your family.
I told my mother and she immediately left the room in a panic and came back and said, we're going to go see my therapist tomorrow. You're not going to school. And I was like, you have a therapist. She said, yes, someone hurt me too, and then she just went to bed. Then the next day I was in the office with her with her therapist, and I didn't feel safe there either, because I, of course it's a total stranger and she was really pushy, and I didn't even know what I was experiencing.
Four years since your grandfather's died. You tell your mother, she has you go talk to a therapist. But that was a little bit abrupt. You really needed your mom to not split away. It sounds like you understand enough about trauma to understand why your mom just split away and what her trauma response was. But her motherhood didn't supersede that response. It never had. She had never kept you safe. She knew this was coming, and she didn't do anything about it. So that's your mom. Let's talk
about your narcissistic father. I want to understand that a little bit. So do I Okay, well you know what yeh? Come to the right place, yes, yes, So tell me a little bit about dad.
So he didn't believe me when my memory surfaced.
So that's just the ultimated validation. I don't know that you move forward from that.
I think from my father, him having to admit that this happened on his watch was way too overwhelming for him, and so it was easier for him to just say absolutely not, this couldn't happened, and the abuse happened when the adults were all present, like this was Christmas, this was parties, this was you know. That's why I always say, like, know where your children are all the time, because it was happening under their feet literally, and I'm not belittling
anybody's abuse, but it was very severe abuse. So for a long time, it was really confusing to me. How you know my mom never saw, or my dad or no one ever saw. That was something that I really struggled with because I just know now as a mom, my daughter doesn't leave my sight for thirty seconds without
me knowing where she is. And then once I started writing and really excavating and really pretty much having to go no contact with my family, I remember that my mom actually did walk in on a few occasions, and I think.
That he had.
Grimmed her so much and she was so afraid of him that the minute he told her to get out, she did. And I didn't matter.
Yes, and you weren't protected. I'm so sorry, Thank you for sharing that. Sorry, don't you ever say sorry for crying? Please?
You know your your condition to apologize.
When I know your conditions. Yes, I almost wish we had kind of like a little bit of a buzzer.
Hi.
Sorry, we don't say I'm sorry. Navigating narcissism or navigating narcissism means never having to say you're sorry. But just like you said, you can't rank trauma higher or lower, yours was very severe. I read the book It's very severe. That's an objective clinical opinion that it was very severe. Trauma affects everyone differently, and the way your mother and
father responded to it. Your mother witnessed it, and then you have someone like your father who it's interesting how you framed that to me, Kimberly is that he didn't want it to have been happened on his watch. How did he feel about your grandfather while your grandfather was alive?
Did he loved him?
He loved him.
My dad came from a very poor family, and my mother's family had money, and I think that was very attractive to him, and he felt like they could do no wrong. And even stories I heard later on in
life that would make me question as an adult. You know, my dad told me a story once, Oh, I had to pick your grandfather up and talk about having inappropriate conversations with your child at a strip club in the middle of the day, and I'm you know, now in the space I'm at now, Okay, well, no one found that odd on the middle of a work day that he's at a strip club and he's in his sixties. I did a lot of digging because I needed to understand how this survived and how he was able to
get away with it for so long. It was really important to me for a long time to try to just wrap my head around how I could have been so hurt around so many adults that were supposed to protect me.
What did your process of exploring this.
Reveal that everybody sucked?
Okay? You know what, though we could use all kinds of fancy words like they were all enablers and you know, intergenerational this and this is how they managed betrayal and they couldn't process it, but it really does come down to everybody sucks. All right. I want to go back again to your mom, because your mom went through this, your mom had witnessed it. You find out at the age of eight, at a doctor's office you have a
sexually transmitted infection. There's only one place that could have come from from another adult, And at fifteen, she runs out of the room when you tell her, and then she gives you a therapist, you don't know anything about, no other place to process it. At the age of fifteen, How did you start working through that? How did your relationship with your mother evolve?
It didn't.
It didn't. I could see that.
It's hard because she was abused up until the day before her wedding, So is her entire life.
Your mother was abused the day before, and then after a wedding it stopped.
Yeah, I think. I mean, who knows.
You have a father who was in complete denial that his daughter was harmed.
Here if he was sitting here, he'll say, I don't know what you're talking about. I believed you.
He harmed you. Twice. He harms you on the front end when he says that didn't happen, and then he harms you again when he says, I did say that happened.
I never not believed you, is what he'll say to me until and I know the day when my other sister came forward with her memories when we were older, in our twenties, is when I was actually validated by my father.
Why do you think he what was what did he turn on?
I was the drama queen in the family.
That's how they characterized.
Yes, so I think for him having someone else acknowledge it. My sister he has a different relationship with, and so that's when I was actually believed by him.
So you're labeled the drama queen of the family, you're not believed. Your sister comes around, it still doesn't feel like you were believed. It feels like your sister was believed and you kind of just got sort of swept in. What was that feeling like that he would believe her and not you.
My dad and I had a very tumultuous relationship because I called him out on his shit. I haven't spoken to in eight months, and that was my decision.
Okay.
I couldn't keep having the same conversations with him on the phone, which were all about him and all about the only thing that he would ever say about my grandfather was, you know, if he was alive, I'd kill him, which is not comforting for me. It was just felt like a merry go round all the time. I couldn't be in the toxicity anymore, and he was very toxic in my life.
Narcissistic relationships, especially long standing family relationships, can feel like merry go rounds. As Kimberly just described, you share how you feel, they come back with their same response around
you go, and nothing ever changes. If you find yourself in this merry go round pattern, I often advise folks to either get a timer for when they are going to talk with the narcissistic person, or to make a promise to themselves that the first time the narcissistic person says the same invalidating thing, For example his comment about her grandfather that you find a way to end the conversation. Sadly, we often need to ride this carousel for a long
time before we can finally decide to hop off. We will be right back with this conversation.
So I sat down and I wrote him a seven page letter about my feelings and how I never felt supported by him in so many ways, and just my choice of career and so many things that he never supported me on until he saw me on television, and then everything changed because he could show his friends that his daughter was on television. And I also said, there's options, we can heal, we can change, we can grow, we
can work on this. And I never heard from him again. Wow, everything with my father, every mean horrible thing, he would say to me, which was many always ended with I'm just kidding.
Ah, the ultimate guess, like, yeah, I'm just kidding. You know it's a big guest lighty thing to do. Right, So you've had a real reaction to something, because it's cruel, your reactions witnessed. Narcissistic person knows what's right and what's wrong. They're just always trying to keep people off balance. You register hurt, then it's I'm just kidding, which makes you look crazy for having a reaction to something when they were just joking. And now it's back to Kimberly's dramatic yes,
that whole I'm just kidding. It's just blood sport, and that seems to be how he had his interactions. So from age fifteen, your mother and you hid an impasse. At that point, your father's your father. So what happens then? How does your life move forward? I left you? Oh, you moved away? Okay, yeh?
At what?
Age eighteen eighteen?
I'm from New York. I moved to California to mourn. But I wasn't handling things in a healthy way. I was bleamic, I was cutting, I was doing all the things really just as I say, like I was just trying to survive, Like every day was just a survival day for me. I never looked forward to things. I was never excited about things. I was just living.
And that's complex. It is just living as survival. Yeah, there's a word we have called anna hoidonia, which means you no longer get pleasure or joy from any of the activities that maybe have ever given you joy or would ordinarily give people joy. A beautiful day, dinner out with friends, a funny movie, whatever. It mean nothing, It's just sort of this flat, kind of gray sort of
feeling around life. Anne Hedonia is something we do see people going through post traumatic stress complex post traumatic stress. It's a big part of that picture for sure.
I mean and even still now I feel like that I have that because my husband's come out and look at the stars, am I I don't, So it's still there, it's yeah, definitely, definitely.
And at this point, Kimberly, so now you're eighteen, are you talking with anyone about what's happening? How are you getting through the days.
At twenty five, I actually started writing a book with all the women in my family, my mom, my aunt, my sisters at the time, and everybody was really I wouldn't say it was a book of It was more of just us journaling and sort of getting everything out. At that time, we felt that it was healthy, but looking back, I think it was actually really an unhealthy way to process what had happened, because I think we needed to process it apart from each other and not together.
And I say this because I do speak to my mom. It's different, but my mom does try, she's in therapy, she does her best. And you know, that's a very difficult thing for me because there is a split side of knowing that she was a victim as well of him. Yes, and so I do have that in my heart. That's
very hard. But we soon became grouped together, and that was uncomfortable for me because I didn't feel like being grouped with my mom was fair, or being grouped with any other adult that was in my life when I was a child was fair, because even and if the same thing happened to us, they still never protected me.
Correct. I agree completely with that.
Yes, looking back, I know that it wasn't a healthy way to process my abuse. There's an interesting story that's not in the book. I was abused on my first Holy Communion, and my mother knew this always from the time I was fifteen. It was one of my first memories. And about two years ago she came to my house because we all wore the same communion dress, all of the siblings. So, oh, your sister asked for the communion dress for her if she ever has a daughter, which
she now has. So I got them pressed, and I'm just sitting there in my head, going, are we actually having this conversation? And I sent them to her, and now you know she has them and she's so happy, and so she ever has a daughter, she'll have her communion in this dress. And I tell that story because I just think it speaks volumes of where everybody head is. Yes, I wasn't talking to my younger sister at the time.
I still am not, and I sent her an email and I just said, I just want to let you know if you didn't know that something really horrific happened to me in that dress, and I don't think you want it, Can you please mail it back to me because I'd like to burn it. And I never heard back from her, and about four months later, my mom came to my house after visiting her, and she had my communion dress wrapped up in a Starbucks bag like garbage. Not that it's not garbage, but to me, it was
a very significant, painful part of my life. And she just goes, oh, here's.
Your thing, here's your thing.
And thankfully I have an amazing husband and he burned it with me. But if I never said anything, my niece would be wearing that dress on her communion. And that same sister, when she found out I was writing the book, told me I was going to ruin all
of the children's lives by doing this. And what was so ironic about that to me was over the summer, we all just happened to me in New York, and I reached out to one of my sisters, who I had talked to more than anyone, and I just said, look, my daughter really wants to see her cousins because she had grown up with them, and I said, can you please include her? This isn't fair to her. We can all go to the beach. I'm protecting her, which I would never do right now in the space I'm in now.
But at that time, I just felt like she's asked me to see her cousins, and she first said absolutely, and then they all got together and they never included my daughter, And so my daughter said to me, what did I do? Mom? And that to me was such a moment for me to step back and say, I'm saving you from them.
Yes, yes, absolutely, And that is such a painful realization because you were doing the right things right. She loves her cousins. You wanted her to have that contact, but now she's being brought into a toxic system where the child immediately goes to is this my fault? What have I done wrong? And that you immediately detected as no, I'm not putting into a system where she's questioning herself.
Your family, in some ways is so not unique in the sense of you're going to harm all these children in the family by telling the truth right, which you know could actually keep those children protected or understand.
For me, it was never an option for my daughter not to know my story, because it's going to explain to her so much about me and so much about why I parented the way that I did, and why I'm not perfect, and why I get triggered and why I'm impatient or why I overreact about certain things. And that to me is the biggest gift I can give her because I can't take away.
Yeah, yeah, no you can't. And I think that it is a gift for a child to know where they come from and it not all be a secret, because it can actually be even if no further sexual abuse happens to your various nieces nephews as they come up,
but this story is kept from them. There is also a trauma and grief that comes from recognizing way down the line when you learn these things about your family that I believe and this is rather metaphysical for a scientific a GALSI, we do carry these in traumatic inheritances within our bodies, even if we've never become acquainted with the players. It's in there, yes, and we feel it and in some ways knowing it it makes it all fit.
We don't feel crazy. It's so fascinating because the willingness of your sister to remain faithful to a fictional characterization of a family was greater than wanting to have a relationship with her lips breathing sister. Yes, Unfortunately, what we're learning from you and this is sort of the painful truth. Nobody wants to talk to breaking into generational cycles does
often mean breaking ties. Yeah, because as long as people are still sort of buying into that false narrative, being near them is dangerous, especially after what you've been through, having had a history of complex trauma. Complex trauma treatment is also protecting yourself from dangerous situations. That's what you do forever, That's what you're doing. And all the pushback
people say, well, I don't know family estrangement. Nah, it's going to keep someone safe, like you want to say stranger, and it's a dirty word for me, it actually happens not to be.
Yeah, and it's been interesting for me. I have connected with so many amazing doctors through for all of this you included to get validation. It's sad that it's taken this long. You know, people that study this and this is what you do for a living, and to get validation that I'm doing the right thing. It's sad that it couldn't come from my family. But I'm really happy about the way that it's all happening.
I'm so glad you're getting that. But you know, I'm sad it didn't come from my family. It almost couldn't come from your family. It goes back to that they couldn't keep you safe, and they still can't keep people safe. That doesn't just change overnight. The decks almost have to be cleared. With the family you've created with your husband, you have a daughter, the inheritance kind of gets a little cleaned up with her and she gets to go and fall in love one day and have her own family,
and that will feel different. Yeah, that's how these cycles end. And I do tire of people saying we'll be sad if we end these cycles. I don't know. I think if the family earns the right to remain in that, I think very divine seat of being family. That's an earned right. It's not just a birthright being family. To be safe. We had a guest named doctor Jennifer Frida who calls it the duties of a relationship, And the foremost duty of a relationship is safety.
Yeah.
It is to create safety. It's to protect the vulnerabilities of another, it's to keep children safe. If people can't do those duties, I don't give it. If they're your family, Yeah, I have to tell you, Kimberly, in the years I've been doing all of this, is that for some people it was literally the only path forward.
I've learned a lot of just dialogue around you know, no contact and things that I didn't know existed but I was living.
Yes, it has a name, no contract. I mean, it's so obvious no contact, but people like that you can actually do. Yeah, it's a thing. Yeah, absolutely, and no contact could literally describe to people just don't have contact. It's very intentional. Kimb believe no contact in a family system is rare. People will say there's at least one person and that's this I want to be in touch with me, which means I have to get the whole family blob coming along. It's not that common, and so
when people do finally pull it off, it works. I'll tell you what's very interesting sort of a sideline here. I was looking at a group of people's data a few years ago. The data was collecting people all over the world, and they were asking them, what are the things that have worked best for you to help you with your narcissistic abuse. At the time I had looked at that data, the number one thing was actually no contact.
It's not a strategy accessible to everyone, especially for example, if you're co parenting with someone and you have custody of a minor child, you have to stay in touch with that parent. But for people who have it as an option, you're getting away from a toxin. There's no but it has a name and it's a thing, and it's powerful, and you did it, and you're saying you notice the difference.
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. And my husband had a very normal life. Don't ask me how we wound up together. I'm not really sure, but I'll say, if you feel like you want to call your dad, I said, I don't. I don't. I feel grief around it. Brief yes, which was surprising to me that I felt as much grief as I did, because when I finished the book and all these amazing things happening with it, and how proud I am of just the outcome of it and how it's written, and how many people I know it's going
to help. You want to call your family, that's who you want to call and tell them look at this thing I did. But I couldn't do that because they wouldn't have been proud of me, and it would have been the same conversation we've been having my entire life. The one thing that I will say that is, I think, really difficult when you do have a narcissistic parent, especially one that's not supportive of you. Because my father was never anything that I did. Everything was the wrong thing.
I would dance with Alvin Alli for years. And it's really interesting because I was sending my book out to somebody yesterday, and as I was mailing it and putting it together, I heard my dad's voice in my head back when I was in my twenties and I had to live with him for a very short period of time. And I was mailing my headshot and resume out to everybody, and I remember my dad walking in and looking at
me and going to waste of time. As I was mailing at my book, I just, you know, had this moment where I just broke down and I just thought, well, not only were you wrong, so wrong about my career besides this, but now I wrote about it. You know.
It's what's so interesting is that narcissistic parents are dream killers, right, and you have to have Is that really a thing? One hundred thing?
Yes?
Because what it means, then, Kimberly, is you are exerting an identity and a process outside of that narcissistic parent. Because of them, they sort of subjugate the identity of everyone around them. Children are an extension of them, and so you sort of exist in their service, right, So if you have a need outside of them, they resent that. But it's the ultimate and arrogance if you think you're going to go do your own thing. But it also brings up their insecurity. At the core of the narcissistic
person is deep, deep insecurity. So my guess is he probably had much more grandiose visions for himself, none of which happened, correct, But even the sense of it's the I'm going to make you feel as small as I feel. So it's a waste of time when they see the pictures going out, that dream killing element unless the dream
is fully aligned with what the parent wants. Because sometimes you'll hear like the stage parents, who was like, you have to go to all the auditions, But then they'll criticize the child mercilessly as they go through the process. No one wins at this. So what you're describing there is on point, but so too is the grief, and I think people are struggling. I want to go no contact.
I'm going to be relieved. I am relieved, but the wave of grief can be quite astonishing, because not only is it a painful reminder that they didn't protect you, every child craves that attachment and connection to a loving parental figure or figures and recognizing that's never going to have them. And it's not about the father, the man you've long since given up on. But it's the symbol, it's the thing, it's the safety, it's the primal need. It's the grief that that can't happen.
It's a big grief completely. And it's interesting because I went no contact with my dad a few years back for a short period of time. When I did it the first time, my sister called me and said, I didn't even say hello, I don't think And she said, I, well, I know you're not talking to Dad, and I hope you're okay with the fact that he's second he's probably gonna die, and are you happy with like the last conversation you had with him? And I just thought, God, this family's so fucked up.
It is the manipulativeness to keep a person on the hook the person's dying. Is this what you want your last conversation to be and you're thinking yourself, I had that lost conversation a long time ago.
Twenty years ago. Yeah, and you know, we'll be out to dinner years ago and he has all of my stunts in his phone, so he'll show the waiter, he'll show everybody, look, my daughter doubles ABC and then he'll say, you know, she used to be a gymast. She was never very good. It's so interesting because from the outside world, my father is this incredible human. Everybody loves my father. He does all of this stuff for the poor. He does everything that he doesn't do for his family, he
does for the outside world. So if you're my father's friend, they'll tell you he is the best guy on the planet.
It's actually something we call communal narcissism, which is a form of narcissism where the narcissistic person gets their sense
of validation by actually doing these things for other people. So, whereas narcissitt to be people in general just want people to show up and tell them they're great, or they walk around proclaiming their greatness, these are folks who do things that look nice, so nobody picks it up that way until you realize, actually, this is a terrible person who is unempathic and entitled and arrogant and all these things. They keep doing these things, but the payout on it
it is transactional. You need to praise the heck out of them. But a person who's getting what they want may praise them. Okay, whatever you've done for me, thank you, thank you, thank you. He's so great. But it's also that dynamic of your grandfather. He's such a great guy. He's such a great guy. So you're in these environments where,
in a way, these are all very transactional relationships. It's like people are buying like a really cheap and dirty version of someone saying, oh, they're great because they helped me out. They're great because they were nice to me once. And you're seeing that parallel process which doesn't feel good.
No. Yeah, and with men, especially.
With men, yes, exactly.
Yeah.
So you then you go into adulthood. How did you get into the stunt world. There's no like stunt school or stunt application.
And a lot of people that I was performing with were doing it, and so funny enough, they said, well send your resume to this guy. He's you know, the biggest guy in New York and like an agent called me a coordinator. Yeah, And he called me a week later and I was on a movie doubling for Uma Thurman. And that was my first film and I never stopped working since. Wow.
Yeah, what was your process of healing successfully working twenty years in this industry? How was your healing process unfolding in parallel to doing this work and stunts.
I think part of it was sadly, I was finally happy that my family was proud of me and that I was doing something that mattered to them, because I never mattered to them.
So it sounds like there was a complex mix of emotions. There was a gratification in a way that I'm finally being seen, Yeah, and not because I'm dramatic, but because I'm succeeding. But there's a sadness at being seen, because all that any of us ever want is just to be seen for us, not because we're doing something that's sort of spectacular, but simply because we are.
Yeah. And also that I was really good at it, yeah, And so that felt really good to just be good at something and for people to recognize that and tell me that I'm really good and big actors to put me in their contracts and want me there because I was good and getting this external validation from everybody but my family was something I think that I really needed.
It helps a lot, and there's also a sense of agency of I can go out and do this thing. I'm good at this thing, feeling good at something, because going through complex trauma and going through narcissistic abuse is all about invalidation of yourself, gaslighting yourself, being riddled with self doubt. You really can't have self doubt if you're a stunt person because you've got to do things kind of perfectly. There's a precision, and you can't have self doubt.
No, And I've literally never made a mistake at work. Never.
That's amazing.
I mean injuries that were not my not because things happen, but I have never made a mistake.
Doesn't surprise me, because I think that over control that trauma survivors often have, narcissistic abuse survivors often have, is just that you got to use that in the practice and art of what you did. A lot of people don't have that, so that could end up starting to look like OCD, that could look like other kinds of overcontrolled behaviors. It could also flip to the other side and become things like binging and purging food. It could
become addiction, it could become dysregulated sexuality. Like we could see it play out both ways.
I think there was always something in me, which is why I name the book Glimmer. That was just although all of these horrific things had happened to me, that I knew that I was here for a higher purpose and I couldn't make sense of the pain if there was a purpose for the pain. And I always felt like my purpose was to help people, because if I don't, then what was it? Awful?
Right to find the meaning and the purpose and the suffering is the way to come out the other side, because without that, the suffering will swallow you up, and it does swallow many people up. You shouldn't be here. The severity of what you endured and the lack of support you had after it happened. You are a living monument to resilience and strength because so many people don't get the support they need through mental health, or they
don't give themselves permission to harness their gifts. Because I think everyone has their gifts and they don't find the meaning and purpose, and the trauma swallows them and they go into the void.
Yeah. Completely. I read something where they say you're what your ancestors have been waiting for, and that's what I feel with me.
It's beautiful.
And I think that my aunt really tried to break the cycle, and she was shut down by the people that she trusted to tell and she wasn't able to fulfill our story. And I really truly believe that that's what I'm here for.
That's amazing. I've never heard that line, you are what your ancestors have been waiting for. It's really profound, and it's a inturger generational cycles and when they end right, and in some cases in your family, they may be continuing because some of your family members don't want to see it.
And you have to be willing to let go of what's pulling you back. Like a friend said to me, Kim, it's like you have one leg over the hill, but you're letting your family still tug on your other leg. You've got to let them go so that you can get over the hill right right, which is exactly what I needed to do. It's exactly right because staying split doesn't.
Work in the metaphor I've often used with clients as a hot air balloon, right they I mean back in the day the car tooon. They cut the little sand bags out, but they let the weights out. But using the sandbag analogy, it is very often cutting out those toxic people and just snip, snip, snip. Balloon's not going to float. Otherwise you're just sitting in this balloon that's just sitting on the ground. There's no point but to sore. You do need to cut that stuff off, whatever it is.
It's not always people. It's a whole lot of other things too that you have to be willing to do it.
I think a lot of it too is Unfortunately, there's a lot of therapists out there that shouldn't be therapist.
Girl, you just said a mouthful.
I'm just saying, and I've seen a lot of them because when I didn't have money to pay for a good therapist. That's a real big problem. Because even with my mom, she has this thing in her back pocket where she's like, I've been in therapy for twenty years, So what if you're not seeing the right person, If you're not getting the right therapy, you're going to stay in the same place. You're never going to move forward.
Things are never going to shift for you. And writing this book, I think it took from beginning to end about three years. Almost I've grown more than I have in my entire life. And the catalyst of all of that was my daughter.
How old does she know she's a and you want her to know your story? How much does she know? And how do you envision that unfolding with her?
Well, she's, thankfully, an extremely confident, amazing.
It doesn't surprise me soul.
And unfortunately I had to have a conversation with her earlier than I wanted to because of her being left out of the family. I had to address that with her, and I wanted to be as honest as I could with her, and I didn't want her to carry around this feeling of even if I said it's not you, it wasn't enough. And she even said to me, she said, Mommy, I want an example of what you're talking about, because something up of that school. You want an example, So
I want you to give me an example. And my husband was with me, thankfully, and he just said, you know how, mommy, and Daddy's number one job is to protect you. I'm not going to apologize and she said yes, and he said, well, mommy wasn't protected when she was your age and she was really hurt. And she says, well, who hurt you, mommy? And I said Mena's dad, because that's what she calls my mom. And she said did he hurt your heart? Or did he hurt you with
his hands? And I just said both, and she just hugged me and she said she was sorry, and then she walked away into a puzzle.
I was chisten too. What a beautiful question, she asked, Yeah, that's a question most adults wouldn't think with his Did hurt your heart? Did he hurt you with his hands?
Yeah?
Wow, what an insightful And.
I was like, check, mommy's doing something right.
Oh yeah, clearly, clearly. And each one of these things is building a brick in a wall of safety that she has in the world. And she securely attached to you, she securely attached to her father, yes, and every day that secure attachment is practice. When you're being open with her and she is protected, she will never be the child who not watched at the party, and that will make her confident in herself in the world. Yes, not foolhardy, but confidence.
Yes. And there's something that I'm living out now, which is the truth is so easy. Why don't we say it more? And in that moment with her, and when she walked away, I said, this is exactly what I mean. It's so easy. She can take this. Of course, she's eight. I'm not going to sit there and tell her things she does not need to hear. But she needed to
hear something and she needed to be validated. And I also said to her, just because people are adults does not mean that they're making the right decisions, and does not mean that they aren't caring around pain, and does not mean that their pain is not bleeding out into other people. And unfortunately, that's what's happening in Mommy's family. Mommy's family's had a lot of pain, and they're not dealing with the pain properly, and so it's coming out
in other ways. And I'm sorry that you were hurt by that, because I don't want you to ever feel that that has anything to do with you.
That idea of always letting children know that the pain of the adults around them is not their fault is so absolutely crucial that it also explains their behavior and them not coming around is not your fault. That's all that any child ever needs to hear. But also what I love is because this is very different than the message you got as a child was that adults are fallible,
adults are flawed, adults aren't always right. You weren't told that you were like, well, adults right, where everything we're doing is right. No, we're not harming you. You're the one who's the problem. You're the one who's wrong, holding space for that idea that no, adults always don't do the right thing. We're a safe space. You can tell us it's okay, that's huge. My conversation will continue after this break. You're breaking through each of those things one
at a time. But you know, why don't we tell the truth. It's so easy. Listen, You told the truth to your sister and she walked. You told the truth to other family members and they shamed and judged you. So maybe saying the words is easy. What comes back at you is not to tell the truth is actually to blast through a lot of what you believed for social relationships in your life. And I think a lot
of people listen. When you become authentic, when you heal, when you push through this, your social circle gets a lot smaller.
Oh yeah, fast, Yes, And I like that.
Yeah, no, no, no, I because it's a true safe place. Otherwise it's an illusion.
Right.
It's like having a fully stock kitchen and all the boxes are empty. You're like, I'm still hungry because this actually isn't food.
Yes. And I think when you step away from the family or the system that is the dysfunction, I can see things so much clearer. Yes, Yes, because when you're in it and you're having daily conversations on the phone and you're doing these things, you're still, you know, moving in that toxicity with them. So in order to really see it for what it is, you have to step away from it.
Yes, And you can't see it clearly. There's no version of this, Kimberly where you see it clearly and you stay in the system. So to stay in the system means you don't see it clearly, see it clearly. Don't stay in the system. It's a dynamic system like that. And I think what people try to create is like, can't I both know it doesn't work. They're just they's two bullys and so man, a lot of people, it's just too scary.
We shame people. I mean, I can't begin to tell.
You how many times I've read stuff when somebody's a strange from their family, Well, what's wrong with you? How about maybe they're the most courageous person in the room that they were able to do that. But that societal level shaming of people who set that distance boundary or cut out all together. Yeah, I actually think it's remarkably courageous when people can do that.
With my sisters, I realized, not quick enough, but that their trauma was bleeding out into their parenting and I was not going to have that for my daughter. And I also was not going to let her witness it either. I don't want her to have one sliver of my childhood, and unfortunately she will in the sense of this is who I am and this is where I come from.
But I want her to just be around strong, loving women who have all of the best intentions and can say I'm not perfect and I'm not human and I know I need to work on this, and I do that with her, I lose my patience. I'm not a perfect mom. Mommy's had stuff, Mommy's doing her best, Mommy's
gonna work harder. I'm going to try harder, which gives her the gateway to tell me when I've heard her, you know that hurt my feelings, Mommy when you said that in that way, right, right, And it gives her permission to have that conversation with me, which is so important because I never had that conversation with my parents.
I'm going to do something that sometimes happens with our guests because I'm a shrink, and that's how I hear things. Is you When you were saying what you just said, you were saying the things you want to tell your daughter, And one of the things you said is I'm not human.
Oh I'm not human. I did say that I'm doing a lot of inner child.
Work, and it's great. That's great.
And she's probably going to be really mad at me for saying that. Why because I was very disconnected with her for a long time. I saw us as two people. I saw her as the victim, as the person who didn't do anything. Why didn't you speak up? Why weren't you strong enough? I blamed her, I put the blame on her.
I'm not human again, And through.
My work that I've been doing on myself, I have reconnected with her and feel finally that we're living in the same body, because I didn't realize how much we actually weren't. So I literally have a picture of her on my mirror and I talk to her, and I can see when I put a picture of myself as my daughter's age and a picture of my daughter next to each other, there is this pain behind my eyes that my daughter doesn't have.
That has to be such a profound feeling, grief for your inner child, the joy for your own child, and the wish for the child you were that she should have never had had that pain behind her eyes.
And I think when you come from a strong survivor space where you want to be this strong survivor, I often did this thing in my head where I was said, you're fine, always trying to power through it or not make her relevant enough, when truly she survived the worst of it.
She did, She did, she did, She carried that burden. That integration becomes so important in that attunement so we can all be in one body, yeah, right, Because it's the more we dissociate that stuff out, the more, it can actually command us and control us and pull us away. But you said it's okay to make mistakes. You want
to teach your daughter it's okay to make mistakes. That pressure to not because the idea is if I don't make any mistakes, if I'm perfect, then I don't have to be plagued by that self blame and self doubt.
Yes, and I think there is so much shame around it that I always felt I didn't have, which I've learned that I have a lot of. I don't know what it is about that, the shame part that feels so vulnerable, I guess because I think I felt like I shouldn't have shame because it wasn't my fault. But it just doesn't work like that.
No, it doesn't work that way. Another thing i'd love to hear, first of all, and talk a little about your husband, because one thing as I was reading your books, like, oh my goodness, how is Kimberly ever going to enter into healthy adult relationships? Your husband sounds amazing, by the way, absolutely amazing is and your relationship with him together the two of you sound amazing. Was it always healthy?
Relately?
Like, did you just go through and meet healthy man.
Like lucky. I'm alive. God. No, no, I was married before my husband. Oh okay, okay, and I married my father in a very similar way, and it was very unhealthy and he was a good person. He was a survivor as well, and so we kind of bonded on that. And I think the moment that he said to me, I think we should start trying to have kids, that was like my dead stop and I divorce them.
Okay, all right. I would almost call that a psychological palate cleansor let's just get that one out of the way so you can go into healthier relationships. Unfortunately, sometimes people get stuck in those. You know. The other thing I want to say about your husband those One thing I love about the relationship the two of you've created is you have been through something, You've experienced that complex relational trauma, and he protects your vulnerabilities, he never weaponizes them.
That's an important part of that survivorship is that for many people who've been through any form of especially familial trauma, is that they feel protected that once someone learns that about them, that that's never thrown in their face, that they're never called dramatic or any of these things. But rather this is the most fragile, vulnerable part of this person in the role of loving them, the duties of the relationship and the role of loving them. I must
protect this above all else. And so even in the worst fight that a person has the mindfulness to keep the reins back to say, We'll have our arguments. People who love each other argue, but that absolutely not I love this person. What I really love about that story, Kimberly, is that many people who go through severe intrafamilial sexual trauma feel that they'll never have a normal, healthy relationship. Absolutely they can. You didn't land there at the first time,
but you got there. Were there other relationships where you saw some of these themes that you would relate to your trauma through.
My twenties, throughout your twenties. Yeah, it was one after another after another. Yeah. I think the really difficult thing when you've been abused is your idea of intimacy. Well, there is no intimacy because you don't know what that is. So you have to teach that to yourself. And that's a real bitch. And I still feel like I struggle with that still to this day. I don't think that's something that will ever go away. I think when you're introduced to sex at an age that is just unfathomable,
you can't comprehend what it's supposed to be. And I went through that period of time for a long time.
I know you had a journey with more than a few bad therapists, but as was therapy a useful part of the experience of sort of getting into a healthier sense of your body sexually or did that come to you in other ways?
My therapist that I got in my late twenties that I still have, she really was a life changer for me and really helped me. She's the one who really was a catalyst for my divorce, kind of really shed the light on me and sort of what I was going through and what was healthy for me and not healthy for me. But there needs to be something done for people that don't have that, and I have. You know someone in my family right now who just came forward to me who my grandfather abused, and she's in
her forties and she is a mess. You know, as far as she wants to heal and she wants to get better, she doesn't necessarily have all of the means to do so. And so it's like, where did these people go that sort of fall through the cracks, that have been through something so traumatic and don't have the means to get really good therapy, and what does that look like? And I remember seeing a trauma therapist and this was actually quite recently. I went to see this
person with my mother. Doctor Matte and doctor Bruce Perry and doctor Richard Schwartz are all doctors who I've been working with, and so I asked her if she knew of any of them, and she goes, no, I haven't heard the names. And I thought to myself, Okay, well, you're not a trauma therapist because they're this is what they did, this is what they do. Are not a doctor. But I think that that's something that is becoming more
available because of the Internet. Like I was able to say to my cousin, go to YouTube and put in doctor Gilbormate and just listen to his videos and how he feels about trauma and how it resonates in your body. And I'm watching it live out in real time with my mother, her siblings. You know. I get a phone call a few months ago, this aunt beat up this uncle. You know their siblings and they're in their seventies, and my mom's like, can you believe it? Yes, I absolutely can believe it.
Can believe. I don't see how any other way it would go if these people have never had the proper intervention as to how are we going to get this reached out? It's a big, big nut.
To crack, right, Yes, but what you're doing here is huge. You know, I follow you on Instagram and just listening to you explain things when you live it, but you don't have the names for it, so it feels like you're the only one who's living it. So it feels very lonely, confusing all these things. So to have that and to have you spell it out is so helpful, and I think that that's something that is really such a useful tool.
No, I appreciate that, and I think takes me back to something you said, because I think it's just an important thing for people to hear that idea that family gatherings and families that have this, that there is these intergenerational cycles is actually where this often does happen. It could be a grandparent, could be an aunt or uncle, It could be an older cousin somebody are not usually seeing, and then they come into these family gatherings and then
there's a lot of chaos. Right. So it's funny we say this around pool safety. Right. If you were ever at a large gathering of people and there's a swimming pool and you've got a child, the only responsibility you have that day is to keep eyes on your child. It's the same thing. And I think some people say, well, that's going to seem strange. So if that seems strange,
you're protecting your child. And it doesn't mean you don't leave the house, but it does mean that once you bring a child into the world, you have a singular role in the world, and that is to keep that child safe in every means that is within your power. And I think that's one thing I've very very much learned from your story, that those kinds of awarenesses in large groups. I think it's a really important thing. You had pointed out what has worked for you in terms of.
Healing, journaling, journaling, writing, writing your feelings down, validating yourself being with someone who validates you. I mean my husband, it took him time with me. It's not like we got together and it was this perfect thing. When we first got together, I was still having a lot of flashbacks and body memories and I had to sort of have that conversation with him, Okay, during this time, I might just need to be alone. So we got really good at him saying Okay, do you need me here
or do you need to be alone? Do you want me to walk out of the room, Like what do you need right now? And from the moment he heard my story, he always was confused as to why I talk to my family. That was always his question, how can you talk to your parents? How do you talk to your parents? But he never not supported every decision that I made and every step that I made to get where I am now. So he never belittled me for talking to my mom, or my dad or my siblings,
and he would come with me and support me. And what I soon realized is that I needed him around when I was around my family, which made me realize that I wasn't safe around my family because I needed somebody safe with me to feel safe around my family. And he let me figure that out on my own, and that was necessary because I wouldn't have been able to do it with him, telling me to do it, because I would have resented and felt like he told me to do this thing, and I did this thing.
I had to learn it on my own. I think you just have to be really forgiving of your self. And it's such a cliche to say it's not your fault. Everyone always says that it's so easy to say that. It doesn't mean you don't feel like it's your fault.
Correct, correct exactly, And you know it's a to never spend time with anyone who wants to, you know, magnify that belief that well, of course it was your fault or why didn't you leave or whatever nonsense people come up with. But there is no magic eraser where people say this wasn't your fault.
Yes, And I think recognizing who isn't safe in your life on any level, and that doesn't mean, you know, sexual abuse. It just means that you leave their house and you don't feel fulfilled or you don't feel those are the people that shouldn't be in your life.
That's a huge one. And I think that when we say safety, I do think a lot of people do think of frank abuse like, well they didn't hit me, or abuse, I said no, no, no, no, exactly what you said. When you leave that encounter, and some people experience that is a depletion as an exhaustion as I don't feel like myself. It's almost like that you're not fully like snapped into you pay attention to that. You know, your book's remarkable. Everyone, you have to read this book. It's
so good. And I'm not just saying it because Kimberly is here, because if Kimberly said I'm not coming on your show, she could have easily done done. I would have been so blessed to have read this book. I think it's a great book not only for anyone who survived trauma, but who loves somebody who's been through trauma and often is not sure. How can I reach to them? How can I be there for them? How can I
be present with them? I think it's also a real gift if you fall in love with someone who's experienced that or love I have a dear friend or family member.
I appreciate you and just validating me and my story, and you have no idea how much it means to me.
So thanks well. I appreciate you so much. Honored by your willingness to bring your story to this platform so we could talk about it. You know, people talk about trauma and it sometimes doesn't always hit the tone if you will, and I think that this is very real, it's very raw. You don't make it sound like, oh, five easy steps. There are no five easy steps. Some days are hard, some days are nightmares, some days are good. But it also doesn't mean that you don't find love.
It doesn't mean you can't be a wonderful mother. A daughter sounds amazing. It sounds like she's inherited a lot of instincts you never got to express, and you've created safety. That's all to pay it forward one could ever hope for in this life. So again, thank you, so.
Much, thank you, thank you much.
Here are my takeaways from my conversation with Kimberly. First, the Crimes Against Children Research Center reports that one in five girls is a victim of child sexual abuse, and the Department of Justice reports that in ninety three percent of cases, the perpetrator is known to the child. What happened to Kimberly is unforgivable and tragically all too common. The harms of child sexual abuse reverberate throughout a person's life.
Kimberly shared some of this. In her story, we see a permanent loss of trust and sense of safety in the world, impacts on her pure relationships, difficulties in school, physical harm, difficulties in adult relationships, and a wide range of psychiatric fallout, including complex post traumatic stress disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, self harm, eating disorders, and
substance use. When a child is sexually abused, it changes the trajectory of their life, and when we consider that so many children are not believed, that re traumatization magnifies all of this fallout. In my next takeaway, Kimberly was incredibly honest and shared that when her grandfather died when she was eleven, her emotion was relief, and she recalled feeling dissociated during his funeral the day when people were supposed to be sad, and her family, so good at
playing at appearances, did just that. But I am grateful to her for sharing her relief on that day. It is an emotion that many abuse survivors share and that can bring up internal conflict, even though it is completely normal to feel relieved when a perpetrator dies. For our next takeaway, family systems with shroud abusers and don't protect children, allow self interest and status quo to be valued over
the safety of children. She cited doctor Gabramatte, who noted that her deeper trauma, above and beyond the abuse, was not being protected. In Kimberly's case, it was a complex web of multiple traumatized adult family members and other members of the community who benefited from their alliance with her grandfather. Silence was kept in place by fear and doctor Fried's concept of betrayal blindness to see it meant the system
came crashing down. Another punishment that these kinds of systems uses ostracism and they will close out anyone who dares speak out. Kimberly took back some of that power by going no contact, but it took her a long time to get there. For other systems out there, this operates in different ways, but the message is often clear, especially to children. If you speak out, the fallout could be
worse than what you are enduring. In this next takeaway, while Kimberly's family system was more congruent with a psychopathic family system, a remorseless, brutalizing, and abusive patriarch in the form of her grandfather. These kinds of harmful systems often
have a truth teller within the system. It was once her aunt, and in the next generation it was Kimberly, and by speaking the truth of the family system, she was labeled a drama queen, which is a form of gaslighting designed to silence and pathologize women and girls who see it. Clearly. In my next takeaway, going back to betrayal blindness again, Kimberly experienced intergenerational betrayal blindness. Her story of the communion dress is a clear example of that.
Their lack of acknowledgment of what had happened and her family engaging in behaviors that revealed that unseeing of what had happened. However, in this case, when betrayal blindness is happening within multiple people, it is deeply invalidating and magnified Kimberly's pain and sense of distance from her family. For our next takeaway, there is a day when a survivor of intrafamilial abuse has to protect their own children. The
catalyst for this can come in many ways. In Kimberly's case, it was the exclusion of her daughter from an activity with cousins. Many survivors who were not protected face a call to action when it is their own child. There is also a recognition of how different a trauma survivor's experience may be from their own childs. Kimberly captured this eloquently when she talked about the pain behind my eyes
that my daughter does not have. These intergenerational cycles can be broken, but many generations often have to suffer to get there. For our next takeaway, Even though Kimberly had been making the choices to distance and disengage from her family, there are the ongoing griefs that often never quite dissipate. As she started achieving her success professionally in writing her book,
she just wanted her family's validation and pride. Family is often the first place many people want to share the successes we are eternally that child holding up the good grade or picture we drew and wanting to be seen. Even when people have mentally quit their families, that emotional and primal pullback can remain, and working it through is
the hard work of healing from trauma. As Kimberly put it, she says, we must let go of what is pulling us back and in our last takeaway a recap of what Kimberly said worked for her is an overview of what works in healing from any form of trauma. A good therapist whom you trust and who gets it, journaling and writing, being with people who validate you and protect you,
and self forgiveness. No matter how severe the trauma, there can be a path forward, but it is often a circuitous and painful process to get there.