Why Didn’t They Believe Me w/ Dr. Ingrid Clayton - Part 2

when listening. 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, I Heart Media or their employees. In this process of coming to believe Me, I keep hearing from people that they are believing themselves for the first time. And like I said, I never wanted to write a book about

child trauma and narcissistic abuse. I wanted this to be left in Colorado when I graduated high school, and now it's become the biggest subject of my waking life. But if it is helping other people to heal, I would do it all again. There's no regret. Welcome back to the second part of doctor Ingrid Clayton's story. Ingrid has shared her story of complex trauma as a result of narcissistic abuse. We have heard her story of being abused by her stepfather, her mother's lack of support and denial,

and the fear and menace that characterized her childhood. As Ingrid proceeds through adolescence, she faces the transitions when adolescence need their parents support, such as going to college and moving to a new city largely alone and with the burden of self doubt and confusion continuing to weigh heavily.

We now hear how her story of narcissistic abuse as a child impacts her as she goes into adulthood, of becoming an alcohol all like entering a series of relationships where the same invalidating patterns were repeated, and how she navigated all of that to an unexpected ending. We're talking about narcissistic abuse. You didn't have this framework, obviously, you did not know that when you look back, because now you're saying, I agree, this narcissistic abuse framework fits what

I went through. How do you capture Randy's behavior as narcissistic? What elements of it jumped out to you? So I think the compulsive lying and the different faces for different people, that sort of I can be charming the way that people did find him charming, and yet at home he was this different person. The manipulation. I mean, as I see now, while the trauma bonding certainly fit the love bombing, I never would have known that that's what that was.

So here's the jewelry. Or I got us a membership to the Aspen Club because I know you really want to belong there. And even the word gas sliding romany. I never had that in my personal lexicon. And yet that is the crux of my story, that is the trauma growing up in such pervasive intentional gas lighting. So once I had those terms. But like I said, even after I wrote a book with the subtitle Healing from Narcissistic Abuse and Complex Trauma, so I believed it enough

to put it in the subtitle. I'm not kidding when I say I sent it to you going she might tell me that I'm out of my mind. I mean, it was all there. There was no empathy. How could you have it about me? That's right, That's why that moment on the edge of his water bed where he's telling me I cycle through these things where I love you so much and then I basically have to hate you because you don't love me back. I'm waiting for it to be about me, and I'm going there's never

a time where something was so about me. But this is not about me at all. It's about you. You see, yourself is the victim, and I can see evidence of that in so many of my experiences, and that that lack of empathy is the court. Because some people say this person is entitled, maybe they're narcissistic. Entitlement does not a narcissist make, but obviously there was tons of entitlement in your story. But that complete lack of empathy, that

lack of self reflective capacity, the the victimhood. And you were a child right so to me, that even magnifies that lack of empathy. The arrogance, the grandiosity, the manipulation with money, the manipulation with gifts, the need to control, the punishments, the egocentricity. Everything was about him, everything on his terms, the validation seeking tell me I'm great. You felt the compelled to tell me he's a good singer. And I don't know if you're familiar with Pete Walker's work.

You know what's so compelling about his work is you're talking about that fawning response of the children who really get programmed to praise these parents in this endless way because it's the only way to get safe and attachment needs met. And so then when you extend that to adulthood, now you're fawning over terrible people in adulthood. But it's that same quest for safety. So, I mean, it was all there. So it was thinking like it was all this is kind of like a literal law in case

study on narcissism. So now you've moved to New York, you have faced down that you're struggling with alcohol use disorder addiction, You're going to twelve step and even the feelings that process brought up. What about relationships? How did this, this history and what happened to you affect adult romantic relationships for you? And how did that play out for

you in young adulthood? Well, I mean, right out of the gates, I ended up working at this law firm and the World Trade Center as an administrative assistant, and I ended up working for this man who was married and likely an alcoholic. I've never thought about it that way. But next thing, you know, he and I are going to this bar across the street every day for these

liquid lunches. Like this was before before I got sober, and fast forward to him taking me to these lavish parties, you know, and I was I was twenty, I guess because I moved to New KOs nineteen, so I was twenty at this time. He's mid thirties and like I said, wife and kids at home, and there was this part of me that always thought, oh, he's married, he's safe. I thought that someone's partnership or marital status was a boundary.

I misstook that as a solid boundary, and so I entered in and yeah, maybe we were being a little flirtatious, and you know, he was sort of mentoring me. I'm this young Colorado girl living in the big city and he lived there his whole life, and he's kind of

showing me the ins and outs. But I would always know there was a little something, like I knew that he was attracted to me, But like I said, I perceived his marriage as like a clear boundary, and yet men just like him would cross that boundary time and time again, and it would baffle me. I was truly baffled, and I talked about this so many times with different therapist. I was like, do I have a sandwich board that I'm walking around the city like looking for a corrective experience.

You know, I couldn't understand because the red flags weren't there. It was this natural progression of a relationship that I found myself in over and over. But you mentioned Pete Walker's work. I'm so grateful to him because this piece about fawning is the thing that finally allowed me to make sense to myself as a lifetime fawner. So my trauma responses are a flight and fawn. I'm a free right.

So in fawning, the way that we abandon ourselves in order to try to please other people and take care of other people, I'm gonna be who you need me to be in the hope that you're going to take care of me in return. Basically, what that says is I need to be exploited in order to feel safe. There is this dynamic that is set up. And so this part of me that for decades rominy this, this happened so many times I lost count this part of me that finally understood I wasn't broken, I wasn't stupid,

I wasn't all of these things. My body was seeking safety in the way that it literally learned how to find safety, and I could go, I don't have to be so ashamed. I make perfect sense. My body makes perfect sense. And now that I know that it's about safety, I can enlarge my toolbox of Okay, so what is actual safety? Can I find some flexibility in terms of looking at how to regulate my nervous system and all of these other things? As a trauma therapist, that went,

oh my gosh, this makes so much sense. So it was that boss, it was other mentors, it was professors. This pattern that Ingrid is describing given her childhood experience, isn't unusual. What's unfortunate is many survivors in these experiences may view themselves as manipulative or somehow damaged. Instead of getting to that place that Ingrid describes here of my body making perfect sense trying to find safety. Sadly, for most survivors, they don't make sense of it and merely

extend the negative self talk from childhood. So these were the men that were sort of seeking me with this promise of I'm going to be helpful. I'm going to take care of you, and I was like, oh great, I want to be taken care of until it would go horribly wrong. And next to that is my dating career, which that's where it was sort of if guys were unavailable, active addicts. They all had one ft in the door and would flat out tell me like, no, I don't

really want a relationship. And it ignited that thing in me of I'll prove my worth. You just don't know it yet, but we're it to be together. It was like it lit a fire inside me to try and improve myself. And of course we know what happens with that, right. It never ever, ever ever worked out, So it was deeply painful all the way up until my first marriage

was exactly that scenario. But I was older now and I wanted a family, and I felt like, honestly, there was this part of me that I was just willing to almost do anything to get to the finish line of marriage. Because if I'm coming from a place where I fundamentally know that I was not chosen, I was not chosen by my mom, I was discarded. There must be something wrong with me. The key to my feeling free in the world, to being free in my skin, to being a whole person meant I needed to be chosen.

It was just a math problem in my body, and it either needed to happen by my mom saying I believe you, or by somebody else saying you are worthy of committing myself too. I needed it, and the part of me that knew that I needed it in sort of an obsessive way. I was in grad school and I'm writing these feminist papers and sort of deconstructing marriage.

I'm using all of my faculties to try and make a conscious, healthy choice, But none of that information could override my need for safety and connection in my body. And the only way that I had ever learned how to get it was through these very dysfunctional relationships with the hope that it's going to get better. Right like, if I get him sober, if I whatever, I'll be their therapist, I'll be their mom, I'll be whoever they need me to be in order to take care of

my partner. I'm going to raise them up and then we're going to have a healthy relationship. Right what she says here, I'll be their therapist, I'll be their mom. I'll be whoever they need me to be. That belief that we need to be a one stop shop for the people in our lives. That is such a classical element of the trauma bond. It's that fawning thing. I was literally stuck in it for decades. It is I mean,

I think that people don't fully understand it. And even what you brought up, this issue of being chosen, right, it is a theme I hear over and over again, and a lot of people will equate love bombing, which is a lot of these folks were doing with you. These men who were already in other relationships are just

not ever going to be available. It's love bombing feels like being chosen, and I think you just really positioned it so beautifully and saying that in that moment, I needed my mother to choose me, to choose the truth, and she chose not to, And so then it becomes this quest for being chosen, because I think that's an essential attachment. Need you know, I'm choosing to even look at you, it's that, and then to regard you, to

recognize you, to give validity to your needs. It's all of that, and that many many people I listened to stories over and over again where people will say I felt chosen and that just the profundity of that dynamic is it's so much. And then, like you said, this equation of you know, love and exploitation and safety, it's just that's trauma bonding, everything getting so mixed up. These ingredients that don't belong together get thrown together. And I

think that that that's a big one. So you got married. How did that marriage work out? The first marriage? Not well? Not well, yeah, because not only was it in that trauma bonding cycle, but again, I'm a perfectionist who's working real hard to make it look pretty on the outside because I want to convince all of you that this is a healthy relationship and I'm thriving. I survived all

of these things. Look how well I'm doing. And so the secrecy that that creates for me anyway, created where I'm sort of clocking what's happening with my husband, like, oh, I know that he's lying to me, and I know that he's drinking more than I'm comfortable with, but I can't let anybody else know that because I'm waiting for him to get better, and then we won't ever have to address it anyway, and I really just want to

be in something normal. I didn't ever really realize why I was so like compulsively documenting my life through photographs but capturing this curated, beautiful moment because I needed to believe that that beautiful moment was the most real thing, even though I knew that it was covering up so much other stuff that I just either couldn't see yet

or didn't want to see. So I had this life that on one hand, I really thought, No, we're happy, this is you know, this is what a marriage is, and a marriage is compromise and not everyone's going to be perfect, and we're gonna help each other through our struggles. But he wouldn't work, and he wouldn't contribute to our bills, and I'd come home and he'd be I didn't know he was past out. He just said he was really tired. And there are all these things that sort of started

to add up. And then of course the experience around even our engagement that he proposed, you know, with kind of like a dime store ring and then later said, oh, that's I was gonna We're gonna go shopping for a ring together of course, I want to get you something beautiful. And so when we went shopping for the ring, we're looking down and again curating, and I'm trying to curate this perfect moment of like, how am I going to dress this up? And we see is this the ring?

Is this the one? Oh? My goodness, it's so beautiful, And in front of the sales person, he turns to me and says, so, if you can put this on your credit card, I'll go ahead and make the payments. And I'm stuck in this moment because I need the ring to dress up what I know is not a healthy relationship. So what did I do. I handed over my credit card and he never made a payment, he never brought it up again. And this is just a

microcosm of that entire relationship. Many people in narcissistic relationships, especially if they grew up in these kinds of relationships, will share that they need the relationship to look good, and maybe soothed by the idea that if I can make this look good, then it is good. And sadly, this superficial patina of if it looks good, it is good is a game that the narcissistic people are able

to play so well. So this sequence of Ingrid doing something that inherently felt so uncomfortable to make it look good was a replication of her childhood, where her family system was all about what looked good, but underneath it was anything but. But again, I'm the one who's pushing us towards that finish line as though it's going to

fix it. So it didn't fix it, And it was within our first year I knew that it was wrong, and I eventually got this feeling that I had to go to our hall closet, and I did, and I opened it up, and I saw a suitcase that was tucked, you know, under boxes and boots like a closet, and I pulled out the suitcase and it was just full of empty vodka bottles. And it was like, okay, that's what's that's what's going on, right. He's an active alcoholic

and he's hiding it from me. And now I'm a therapist who works in addiction who married an active alcoholic and didn't even know it, you know. So the shame is just and we were separated before our second anniversary. The only thing that held us together longer is that his father, his father actually died of active alcoholism, and I kind of thought, oh, maybe that's gonna and it didn't.

And so I had to face in my mid to late thirties this real feeling that I had failed, that the one thing that I was going to do was to do it differently, to do it better. I was going to overcome. I was going to prove my worth and I had failed. So not only am I a personal failure, but now I'm never going to be a mom who wants a newly divorced late thirties like it just I truly just thought it was impossible. And the grief at that time in my life was so painful.

I literally couldn't go to friends baby showers because I would go and I would leave and I would just be racked with uncontrollable tears that would not stop for hours and hours and hours. And I just felt like, even if I could meet someone who was attracted to me and I was attracted to them and we at this age wanted to start a family, the chances of me repeating this cycle again, I just truly didn't think I had it in me to find an available, healthy

person to be one. So it was. It was devastating. It was devastating that you know that presumption so many survivors I don't have what it takes to get in to a healthy relationship, and it gets confirmed because you know, there is that sort of first passed through marriage that so many survivors have, and that first passed in last one year, two years, or thirty years. But it's all these difficult, broken places all coming together. But I want

to get married. And one thing that wasn't lost. I mean, I know we didn't talk about it, but as you were talking about the engagement ring and you know him and the credit card, I know that also there was a very significant moment with Randy where he I think it was buying you a ring that was in a store and the idea of even a ring and what that signified, and like Randy was trying to buy you

probably an inappropriately expensive piece of jewelry. That's and it was interesting that it took on a different kind of a meaning and yet it still became a damaged space. That's when another relationship like these patterns really really die hard.

So you you get into a marriage with somebody who is an alcoholic, you know you yourself were in in recovery, And can I ask you that throughout this period, like in your twenties, as you've met your first husband, as you're going through your own professional growth and exploring, exploring you, were you in therapy on and off my whole life, I've been in therapy. Yeah, did any of those therapists bring up the idea of narcissistic abuse or use the

narcissism frame with never? Ever? One time. I don't even know how it came to me, but I heard about a book on narcissism somewhere in my clinical travels, and I bought the book and then I couldn't read it. Yeah, I can see that. And then I bought the audio book, thinking oh, maybe i'll listen to it. I never listened to it. I'm curious about that, actually, that there was this part of me that maybe knew, but it was at least another decade until I started this writing and

could start to piece together the truth of it. It was almost like I didn't I don't know if I was afraid of maybe not fitting in that paradigm and then and then what is it? I know, if you've experienced that with other people where there's like a it's almost like a hot coil, like I don't want to touch it. I don't want to know. Yeah. The answers to that, yes, yeah. How did the people you work

with therapeutically frame your experience? And they look at it largely through the lens of family alcoholism and using the alcoholism model. I think that that's true, that it was seen as just the alcoholic family system. But honestly, I don't recall any other specific terms or sort of psycho education that was used. So they just would hear you, and they would hear your struggles, and there was a

lot of compassion. Right. So, I've always been articulate, and I've always known my story, and so I could go in and say, here's my story and here's my experience. And what I think happened is my ability to articulate something was seen as oh, that's been a fully metabolized experience in her body. It was seen as insight, which was seen as sort of breaking through. And what I was trying to say is, but these feelings are still I am plagued by them today. They live in my

body right now. And so we would talk about that manifestation and I said this in the book. It's as though talking about it over and over and over in this sort of surface level way was just weeding a garden with kitchen scissors, chopping off these leaves over and over and over, when the roots kept branching and getting deeper underground, making me feel even more broken. I love that idea of, you know, trying to trim it in a very large guard I would say, a large field

or farm with garden shear. Is that we're not taught this a therapists right now, psychologist, psychologe were not taught this. And one of the hard pieces of understanding narcissistic abuse in your relationships is there something that feels defeatist about it, like this does not change. It's this radical acceptance, even though I think that the messages in many ways are redemptive.

This isn't you, it's not your fault. And in fact, the fact that it doesn't change in truth is so freeing because and that's the reason I finally allowed myself to use the term narcissistic abuse, because I didn't want to just use emotional abuse or psychological abuse, because those things in the hands of a narcissist are different. Because

of the lack of empathy. So even when I was getting the pushback early on, is that well, you're using this clinical term in a way that's you know, stigmatizing and overly pathologizing a mental health disorder. I had to come to a place within me where I said, you know what, You're right. Perhaps I am, and I think it's worth it because survivors have not been seen, and I have tried to unpack and uncover this thing in

every other way possible and it didn't work. So quite frankly, this is the last house on the block and it's the one that's giving me back to me. And so at this point I will do anything to save my own life, that's as how I feel about it, and to help other people put the pieces together in a way that I was finally able to do. I just I'm passionate about it now. But you've got to the other reason people don't like this. They say, I feel

like I'm being judgmental, I'm being diagnostic. Will First of all, it's not a diagnosis, and I don't even have to go on that that rant again. But there's a uniqueness to it, right, Narcissisms are making that other forms of emotional abuse, maybe generated by people with addiction, may be generated by people who might have post traumatic presentations, may be generated by even people with other mental illnesses, and maybe generated by people who have none of the above.

Narcissism is its own animal, by which I mean the narcissistic abuser is capable of being the most charming, engaging, interesting, human, being warm, seemingly compassionate to one person, and literally be able to step in the threshold of their home, shut the door, and start abusing everyone in that household, which makes it impossible for people to get help. And I tell people, do you see there's an intentionality They knew not to scream at you in front of those other people,

and that ability to discern that. I said, If they're screaming you and berating you in front of other people, it's abuse, it's emotional abuse. If they're screaming and berating you in private, it's abuse. So while people may be willing to call it emotional abuse when they witness the screaming, they are far less likely to if that screaming happens only in private, and their interactions with the narcissistic person, especially in public, are characterized by charm and charisma. People

want to see the agitated, angry spew anything. They want behavior of a narcissistic person to look disregulated, as though they can't help it or shut it off. Clearly they can if they are picking and choosing when they do it. So when they ask, am I own speaker before they start screaming, then they know exactly what they're doing. You know what I'm saying, that's a voice. It is a choice, and I will say this until all my days. It is a choice. That's what makes this it's very own,

unique space. And this isn't about pathologizing the perpetrator, as it were. This is about understanding for the survivor. And I tell you, if the survivors had much as much advocacy behind them as the narcissistic find, wouldn't that be wonderful? My session with Ingrid will continue after this break, all right, So I want to ask you to less pieces. I want to get to one is so your marriage ends and you're sort of looking at this in this place

of Okay, maybe this isn't my story. Maybe this place I came from means I don't get my love story. I don't get to be a parent, and many survivors get backed into that place. How did that all resolve for you? Oh gosh, it just makes me want a SOB. I was having lunch with friends one morning, and I'm trying to convince them of my new idea, which is I'm not meant to be a mom or to have

a partner. I'm just going to mother my clients. Because despite all of my difficulties, I did figure out how to be a good therapist, how to really hold space for other people in a way that I saw was making a difference. And so I thought, well, I guess that's my calling. I'm going to do that. So maybe I'll expand my practice or sub let other office space. I'm like trying to make this is you know, if this is my life, let me kind of make it

as big as I can make it. And I saw this little girl in this restaurant and she was twirling in front of the dessert case, watching herself and her reflection, and literally out of the corner of my mouth, I said to my friends, that's what I really want. And I said what, And I go, no, no, no, no, no, Remember how old I am, Like that ship is sailed it's I didn't even want to open that door. It felt too painful. And they looked at me and they said, Ingrid,

it's okay to want it. It's okay to still want it. And of course, as I started sobbing, and I knew I couldn't not wanted if I tried. There wasn't like you can turn off that tap. And so I said, okay, I'm not going to decide in advance that God's plans for me are X, Y and Z. I'm going to continue to be in my life and do whatever I can to show up for myself as wholeheartedly and as vulnerably as I can. And so you know, I went to an energy healer and she was like, I'm going

to cut these cords. And I don't even understand any of that, but I tell you there's probably not a healing method that I haven't found some value in. So I'm like, okay, let's do it. And another friend said, right down, like write down these patterns and what's happened every time, and what you're not going to settle for and what it is that you really want. So I did another round of sort of this internal work on myself and there came a point where I knew that

I was done with fixing. I was done with fixing as a strategy, and I wanted something real. And it was after that point the or A next person that I met on a date is my now husband. His name is Yancey and we've been together over nine years now, and meeting him was a brand new experience. It was truly like nothing i'd ever experienced where we you know,

did the thing. It was online dating, and we met in person, and I'm sitting across from him, going, this feels so easy, Like it just feels it feels so easy. I go, oh, maybe we're just meant to be friends, because I had confused that chemistry, trauma bonding, ho ho ho, it's on. I'm going to prove to you, and I'm going to prove to you through my sexuality, through my intellect, through anything that I think you might be interested in.

I'm gonna show you. Right that was nowhere to be seen at this dinner, and so I was like, Oh, maybe we're meant to be friends. But I was like, but I can't wait to see him again, Like I want to hang out with this person. He was so kind, he was so genuine, and you know, basically that was it. This idea of chemistry is actually somewhat dangerous for survivors

of narcissistic relationships, especially narcissistic families. Chemistry may speak to that emotional draw to a person where the trauma bonded patterns of having to win someone over prove ourselves to them, a primal working through gets activated. In that way, Chemistry may be a sort of psychodynamic familiarity, that toxic soothing that comes from being with someone where old wounds are

being felt. Was like, after that first date, we just couldn't sort of stop seeing each other and spending time. It's the easiest, most loving relationship of my life. We got married in August, we bought a house in September,

and we got pregnant in October. And I was trying to get pregnant with my first husband, like we couldn't get pregnant to save our lives, right, And I was so sad about it then, sim so grateful about it now and for it just to like work out that way, I mean, it's almost too good to be true in a way. It's not like we don't have our relationship stuff everybody does, but I mean it when I say it's a night and day different experience. So what shifted for you? What shifted an ingrid to make a healthy

relationship were your identity reality? Your units are recognized and loved and adored, and it's not a game. What shifted in you to make that day to make the meeting of a man like him? You know? I think what made the difference before I met Yancy, quite honestly, is that I asked my first husband for a divorce. Because it was the first time in all of these other relationships that I told you about, I never left them. I hadn't broken up with a single person since my

first boyfriend in fifth grade. I get in and I stay, and you might treat me like shit and you might not really be available, but I'm hanging in there because I'm going to give you your favorite phrase, the benefit of the doubt, and you're eventually going to choose me back. So it was in my marriage in my mid to late thirties when I had to leave that I made a choice. I will not wait for anyone else to choose me over alcohol, whether or not he wanted to

get sober to choose me as a partner. You're going to show up and give me the respect that I deserve. I'm going to choose me by walking away. It wasn't just this idea of self worth. I had to make the biggest decision of my life at that point to walk away where I was literally feeling like I was saying to myself, Ingrid, when you leave right now, this means you are not going to have the things that you've always wanted. Most. So the sacrifice was huge, and

I made it anyway because I was worth it. Yeah, I think that's just so beautifully put. At the moment, I valued myself to learn to walk away, Ingrid, think about what the stances relationships in our culture. Staying is good relationships that last or long. You've been married sixty five years, congratulations, kind of like longevity is somehow better and that for you walking out and saying I need me back would no matter though I'm leaving everything behind.

That is a huge moment because a lot of survivors don't feel they have the right to do that for themselves. Again, it's that moment of recognizing that I am a human being on my own, not because I am attached to something else. That's where I'm living out something else or my needs or identity or or all derived from someone else. But I am me and that's a big and it's that dichotomy to where I had to face where I

literally felt like a failure. I had to face all that shame because now I have to admit, oh, what happened. Oh I am a clinician who specializes an addiction, who married an active alcoholic and had no idea like I don't want to hang that shingle. It's more defying. But by allowing myself to face all of that truth, the other thing that happens is the shame that I'm always carrying around anyway, that in that secret sort of place where shame can just grow and grow in the dark,

I had to shed light on all of it. And now it doesn't really belong to me, this story of saying I bought my own engagement ring. I was certain I was going to take that one to my grave. Right, That's not something that I ever imagined I would tell anyone. Now I'm just sharing it on a podcast, and it's such a freeing moment because that idea that we're going to put ourselves in situations that are almost performative, because if it looks good, then it is good, and we

can convince ourselves. My session with Ingrid will continue after this break. So one of the things that happened alongside the writing is that I realized I wanted to talk to other people that were either a part of my story or who could shed light on my story. And honestly, I can't believe how shameless I became. I called social Services and Aspen Colorado. I had someone go to the warehouse to try to find the records from the early

nineties is written records. I called the counselor from my school, and then family members. I started looping them in and I do want to say Randy has three biological children, and from day one they said, Ingrid, tell your story.

They gave me complete permission and support. And in talking to my stepbrother John, I said, you know what, I wonder if your mom would ever want to talk to me, because she was the one who I knew married Randy when she was really young, and so sure enough he set it up for me to talk to Terry is her name, And the first thing that Terry said to me on that phone call and it just blew me away, she said, ingrid I was a victim of his two I was only fifteen, and she started to tell me

her story, not knowing that it was like putting tracing paper over my own past. The grooming, the way he picked her up from school and he took her to get Mary in Mexico on her sixteenth birthday, the ring that he bought for her. There were so many things, the way he lied, the way he tricked her, and hearing her story, there was no doubt in my mind Randy was the problem. He was the perpetrator, he was the narcissist. And if I believe Terry, it's like it

unlocked something in me that this is real. And I had kind of a split experience where part of me is feeling more validated and hopeful, almost exhilarated. It was literally like her story was pumping life and color into these atrophied parts of me, as though I could breathe, I could catch my breath that this was real. I didn't make it up. I'm not crazy. This happened. But sitting right next to that, and this is so common for trauma survivors. If this is real and that happened.

Then I really have to face all of that terror and those feelings that I couldn't process as a child, and I have to feel them now. And there were parts of that part of the process where I would turn to my husband and go, this is the worst idea I've ever had. What am I doing to myself? It felt so painful, and yet I would do it all again. Terry gave me the greatest gift by sharing her story, and not only that, she connected me with

a man who saw me in Vegas with Randy. And she called him and said, do you remember when you saw Randy in Vegas? And he said, yeah, I remember when he was with a really young girl named Ingrid. He introduced her to me as his girlfriend. So this fantasy that I had my entire life of, I wish someone saw me there. What did it look like to them? Am I making this? It felt like he was parading me around like a girlfriend. But I never heard him

say that. All these decades later, the stranger to me, who I've yet to speak to personally, he would only speak to Terry, but he told her verbatim that he introduced me as a girlfriend. And it just that kind of validation. Here's the thing I go. Not everybody's going to have that. These feel to me like total miracle things that dropped in my lab in this process that not every trauma survivor is going to get. But there's a reason that I knew that I needed to be validated,

and that is the piece that I go. If you feel that it's true, it's true, it happened. You're not crazy. And in this process of coming to believe me, I keep hearing from people that they are believing themselves for the first time. And like I said, I never wanted to write a book about childhood trauma and narcissistic abuse. I wanted this to be left in Colorado when I graduated high school, and now it's become the biggest subject of my waking life. But if it is helping other

people to heal, I would do it all again. There's no regrets. Yeah, I know, I think that you nailed it. Though. I think even when people when the stories weren't even as harmful and abusive as yours, just to have someone have peered into your childhood and said it broke my heart to see whatever I saw happen to you. Even when we hear that twenty years later, even though there's a part of us I said, why didn't you say something?

Then they may not have, but it validates something inside of you, like you said, now that feeling inside of you, now you can trust it going forward. There is no further gifts of thank you now going from there, though, what about your mother? Now? You said that Randy has passed away, and I'm sure that was a very complicated experience. What is your relationship like with your mother? So we have stayed in contact all these years. They were married

until the day that he died. And so that same idea that I had as a kid, which is like any moment now, any moment she's going to rally, she's going to recognize she's gonna come to is what it felt like. I've been carrying around that hope my whole life. So in the hope that I carried around, I was endowing my mom with a capacity that I don't now that she's ever had. And yet it was enough to

keep the relationship intact. And so it's not a close relationship, but we would, you know, talk every couple of weeks, and it's very surface level. It's very much about the weather. And I didn't at all see that that was harmful to me in any way until I wrote my story.

And I'll tell you the first couple of years that I wrote it, I'm like, this is like a love letter to my mother, Like I'm gonna spell it all out and I'm going to make it so clear, and I'm gonna interview anyone from my past that's willing to talk about what happened. It was like my last ditch effort to say, here's what happened. I need you to see me and Romney. There was not a tiny teeny sell in my body that thought that that wasn't exactly

what was going to happen. I'm not kidding. I really well into the writing, I talked to this other woman who had done something similar with a podcast, and she kind of planted the seed like and your mom might still not believe you. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no no, like that's not going to happen here. And then I thought, oh God, what if that doesn't happen here? And so for most of the writing, my journey was about I'm going to get my mom to believe me.

But once I started understanding what really happened to me and the damage that it's really done, and now what do I need to do to actually take care of myself? I thought, for the first time in my life, it doesn't matter if my mom doesn't believe me. I'm not going to wait for her anymore. I believe me. I believe I'm worth doing whatever it takes to finally crawl out from under this thing that I've been living under

my entire life. And if she still believes that I'm manipulative and that I'm the liar, and that I'm the ship stir and that I gave them all this hard time and all of that stuff, I think it is genuinely fair to say that anyone who knows me, who really knows me in my life, would never in a million years think those things of me. So just because she's my mom doesn't mean she gets this free hall pass to sort of think of me in this horrible light.

And I just go, well, she's my mom, and what I always did was she was abused to I know she was living in that fog. I know that she's a victim, so free pass, free pass, free pass. Meanwhile, I'm still relating to someone who sees me as the problem. And when I stay in relation in that same way what I'm telling myself as a part of me believes it,

that's that's my understanding now. And so I had to come to a point, and it was in the very very final stages of the writing where I realized I can't have my mom in my life right now, because it did it did come to light that even if a part of her genuinely believes that she doesn't see me that way and that she loves me, I think she thinks she genuinely loves me, at the same time, I'm still to blame for what happened. And so I had to tell her that I cannot have you in

my life. I never ever, I cannot state it enough. This was never going to be my story. And I hear this a lot from other people, well, like, but she's your mom and she's in her seventies, and it's forgiveness isn't for them, it's for you, and all these things about letting go. If I hadn't have tried all of those things, because I did, maybe we could have that conversation. But it came to a place where it is my survival and my sanity to say I will not put myself in harm's way. Even if it's not

their intention, it doesn't matter. So it's so painful. And you know, just last week it was her birthday and it's the first time I've ever reached out, and her best friend reached out to say, I imagine this is a hard day for you, and I'm thinking about you. And then she said, I think your mom might be ready. And I was like, don't you open that door. Don't you open I just figured out how to close the

door on that hope, don't you open that door. But she said, your mom's wondering if you'll send her the book. And I thought, my mom's never going to read this book. And I said, okay, I'll send it. But I'm forcing myself to live in present tense, which is I haven't heard from her. I haven't heard that she's read the book. There's a lot in there that I know she's going to have a hard time with. I know what it took me, who was like so willing to do what

it takes to walk through this. For five years, I've been on this journey of unpacking all of this, and again, I wanted to do it she had, She's going to have to admit essentially that her whole life was a lie, and that this man that she was married to is not the man that she's held him up to be. She has a lot more to lose in that way. So I don't know what's possible there. But I said to my mom's friend, I said, if she really wants to be accountable and get honest, that I'm willing to

entertain that. But I'm not holding my breath. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's the tense balance, and I think that that agony. It's not like people say, oh, I'm going to cut the people off in my life that don't that did this, or that were enabling it or were unwilling to see it. It's one of the most difficult things you could ever ever do, is it was what you did, and you know only time will tell. And I know you say, the most difficult thing in the world could be her having to face up to

the fact that her life is a lie. I still think that the that the giving back of life is living in a truth, whether it's for one year of our life, for fifty years of our life, for ten minutes of our life that you finally live in truth, because if she could read it and recognize it, and it would be cataclysmic for her. I mean, but I agree with you. To live in that hope would be the most dangerous thing you could do. So you have am and I would love for you to read it

for our listeners. So I do just want to give a little context for this, because before I knew I was writing a book, or started writing things that resembled a book, I was driving in my car and heard a tape of Harvey Weinstein's voice and it was a flashback to my childhood like nothing else had flashed me back, where I could hear the cruelty and the manipulation. And so I'm driving along and suddenly these pieces of my story, It's like they were falling from the sky in this

bullet point fashion. I'd never written in this style, and this is just what I wrote. Is actually what came to me in that moment. It didn't change anything. And because I was driving, I had to grab my phone, which I had also never done, and started dictating it. It felt like this was important and I had to capture it. And what I later came to understand This is the story that I had to tell, and it was the story I did not want to tell. I said to you on our first call, who wants to

write a memoir about childhood trauma and narcissistic abuse? It's like, not me. But I had to tell it. And this to me was like the scaffolding, and it kept me connected to the core of the truth that I needed to share. So this is this is what came and how it came. I didn't exist unless I was serving a fantasy or a function for him. In my early teens, he secretly professed his love to me, telling me how

haunted he was about his feelings. I told him I was glad he was talking about it, but I probably wasn't the appropriate person to tell. This made him angry, and once again I was a ghost. When he felt smitten, he showered me with attention and gifts, inappropriate gifts jewelry that was to expects of club memberships we couldn't afford. When he felt guilty, he was too ashamed to look at me, and the smallest infraction would invite steep punishment.

He stole my journals, quoted me back to me, claiming omniscience, ripping my vulnerability to shreds. When he came back to my room one night, I saw the vacancy in his eyes as he went in to kiss me and then kiss me again. I yelled his name as I pushed him off of me in the doorway. He visibly came back into his body and turned to walk away. He would time my showers five minutes or less, standing just outside the door where my naked body bathed. Did he do this to his son? I don't seem to recall.

He pulled me out of school and took me to Las Vegas, Las Vegas without my mother's consent, behind her back while he was with her dying father in Texas. He lied to my brothers and said we were all staying with friends that weekend. He was going out of town on business. He told me to lie to my brothers and to say the same. He told me to pack my bag, but to leave it hidden. We would get it later when no one was looking. He told

me on the plane, I could never tell anyone. He told me on the plane he only got one hotel room. This trip was costing him a fortune already. He took me on a shopping spree told me I had to dress older, said I had to hold his hand to look older, so they wouldn't kick me out. I think if any of us wrote those poems about our survivorship, we would just you know, we would hit those notes. And I think you, as a therapist, as I, we have millions and millions, tens of millions of memories in

a lifetime. For me as a therapist, is what brought this memory into this room? You know why this? And so there's a reason for it. And so I think as we sort of and here as a psychologist, you know, I asked you this as a colleague, how does your experience how do you bring that into the room? I mean in the sense of how does it affect you as you are guiding your clients through whatever they're going through. Is it a blessing or curse? Is it a help

or hindrance? How do you connect those two for yourself? Well, the clearer I become, I think it's only a help. And I've always been a very relational therapist, So I've never been this sort of blank slate just rejected all onto me as a childhood trauma survivor, in fact, going to see therapist like that was. It was some of

the most painful therapy I've ever had. So I've always self disclosed when appropriate, I've always been very present in a room, but particularly after this writing happened and I started to realize, oh my gosh, this is what narcissistic abuse in childhood can look like. This is how it manifests as trauma response for so many decades. Not only did I feel a calling in the writing, but I eventually took to Instagram to start to share my own experience.

And I'm telling you, I was a bit terrified. I was like, I'm about to tank my career because I'm not just talking as a clinician. I'm really telling people my lived experience. And it's not just in the past all buttoned up and now romany I have it all figured out and I'm going to tell you how to do it. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, this is what it looks like to be a trauma survivor who has these degrees and lots of information and listen, there's a lot of great about my life and I

still get triggered. I still have emotional flashbacks. This is what that looks like. And I was so worried that, like I said, it was just going to tank my career, I was going to lose all credibility, and in fact

the opposite has happened. That I've connected with this unbelievable community online of people that are so grateful that as a clinician that they can project all this wellness onto and I think a lot of coaches and therapist do that right and we kind of come by honestly, it's like it's a good marketing tool, like I'm going to tell you how I'm going to help you. And yet what I'm finding is the most helpful thing is when I give a voice to how this thing has lived

in me. And that's why it's a memoir. It's not another self help book or a nonfiction book that's talking about the stuff clinically, it's about my story. I'm finding that that is the connective tissue. It's the most helpful thing because people can see themselves in my story, and if they can see what they perceive as their brokenness in my story, then maybe they can connect to the

healing too. And I think it's so beautifully said. I really admire how beautifully you've brought that into the room, because I think that that there's such a risk and a danger for the therapist to be sort of perceived as this person who lives sort of neatly and cleanly and unproblematically, and that you know, any therapist is not claiming to be a work in progress. Yeah not thanks. You know you ain't gonna be on my refram a second,

tell you that right now. So I think that the humility I mean, and that if all of our clients project onto us, but if they can project onto us and say you've been there and that and I can see what's possible, then that's you know, and I think I just think it's amazing. And what you bring to your clients is amazing. And and again I'm just your story is remarkable. So thank you so much and Grid for being here with us and and sharing your story. I'm no doubt how many people are going to be helped.

Everybody you need to read this book. You're a therapist, if you're interested in trauma, if you've been through these experiences, please read Ingrid's book Believing Me. It's really one of the most profound memoirs on healing from narcissistic abuse I have read so I think in reading this you will be amazed at how much of your own healing will be accelerated. Here are my takeaways from this conversation with Ingrid. First, survivors of narcissistic abuse often feel that they have abandoned

their true self in their adult narcissistic relationships. It makes sense, doesn't it, Because when those children showed their true selves with a narcissistic or enabling parent, they were abandoned. Many survivors feel a sense of shame for giving up on themselves. Survivors need to remember that when they did show up as their true selves as children, the narcissistic parents often gave up on them. Understanding these cycles can be central

to healing. In this next takeaway, while information is a key piece of understanding what happened to people in these relationships, this episode reminds us that it's not all of the picture. Ingrid wisely said, none of that information could override my need for safety and connection in my body. Trauma is held in our body, and our bodies feel relational truths in a very specific way. Insights great, but we still

need to feel the feelings. It is for this reason that trauma informed therapy is such an important tool for healing from narcissistic abuse, and especially when it culminates in complex trauma. In this next takeaway, if you are a survivor of narcissistic abuse, trauma, or emotional abuse in childhood, or all three, feeling chemistry in an adult romantic relationship

maybe a dangerous thing. Chemistry that unnamed sizzle you feel in a new relationship or even in a volatile, ongoing long term up and down relationship is often a signal of old, toxic familiarity. Chemistry is romanticized and frankly fetishized. When we talk about falling in of dating and fighting for messy relationships, it's often a sign that a person feels the activation of old familiar patterns and perhaps the

perception that this time it will be different. This time, the person that you want to be able to fully see you will finally see you. If you cannot articulate in clear words beyond chemistry what it is you like about someone, then it is quite likely that the trauma

bond is in the house. Respect, compassion, kindness, and mutual growth may not have the Zaza zoo of chemistry, but it's what makes a healthy relationship healthy If you aren't feeling chemistry but you're enjoying someone's company, don't write it off, lean into it for a minute and soak in that warm, comforting but perhaps unexciting bath called safety. Ingrid story ended with her getting something that many survivors, especially those who

experienced childhood abuse, do not get. Validation. She encountered someone who bore witness and shared a similar story. To have someone tell you years later that they had a similar experience or they saw it can be like having steel bands around your chest. Finally removed, you can breathe. I truly believe that even in the absence of this people can heal, but even hearing it happen for someone else reminds us how important validation is to the process of

healing and growth after narcissistic abuse. A big thank you to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valen Jethrow, Ellen Rakaton, and Dr Romeney de Vassila. And thank you to our producer Matthew Jones, a So See It producer Mara Della Rosa, and consultant Kelly Ebling. And finally, thank you to our editors and sound engineers Devin Donnaghee and Calvin Bailiff.