Recognizing and Overcoming Abusive Relationships: Episode 100

I remember talking about this podcast for what my friends would probably say is years that , like every time they talked to me , they would hear about this podcast , that I didn't start and then , eventually , I had got to the point that I just did it One day .

I just was like I'm going to do it today and I recorded my first episode and then the second one , and it was really just based off of things that I was going through and what I was learning and things that I wanted to put into context for other people .

I had been doing this work for some time , but I really didn't feel like my voice could be present amongst all the other voices in this community . I'm so happy that I did . This has been such a great way to connect with people from around the world and to feel like I am truly , truly helping .

Thank you , and to thank you to everybody who has reached out and said that the podcast helped , because that's all I ever wanted it to be . Podcasts are the thing that helped me break patterns , because I would literally find myself listening to them constantly . I would walk home purposely just to listen to an episode rather than driving .

I think it was the thing I needed to hear to keep feeling validated and assuring myself and to have these patterns unpacked and brought to light .

So today , on the 100th episode , I am going to go back to something that was really helpful for me when I was trying to understand if I was in an abusive relationship , and it is the red flags of an abusive personality . And now recently on this podcast , I've been using the word narcissist .

I've been interviewing people that know how narcissists think and how they act , and I want to make something very clear If you are with a narcissist , you are dealing with an abuser . A narcissist doesn't take accountability . They don't have the ability to feel their own shame . They're too afraid of it .

They finger point , they blame All abusive things right , all abusive behaviors . So when we talk about a narcissist , what we're really saying is an abuser . But a lot of people have abusive personalities . They don't always have to be a narcissist . They can be abusive but also self-reflect and see that they're being a piece of shit and treating people poorly .

It doesn't mean they're going to change it , but also doesn't mean that they're a narcissist . And so , that said , when we listen to this podcast , my one request to you is to not ask yourself is it a narcissist , Is it an abuser ? All I really want you to do is to be able to listen to it and say , okay , are these behaviors coming up in my relationship ?

Do I feel safe in my relationship ? Is this podcast more validating for me than not ? It doesn't matter if they're a narcissist , it doesn't matter if they're just an abuser . It doesn't matter if they're a covert narcissist , it doesn't matter if they grew up in the worst childhood immanageable . You are not here to make that person feel better .

If you don't feel okay , you don't feel okay . You don't have to stay in a relationship that's killing you . You deserve to feel something different , even if you don't know what that feels like right now . And so we're going to go back to something that I put together when I was putting together . Am I in an abusive relationship ?

I remember I was trying to put together a document for myself in my journal around what are aspects of an abusive personality . I grew up in an abusive home , so I knew what it felt like .

I don't know that I particularly knew what it felt like when it came into a romantic relationship , and I wanted to understand the signs , because a lot of times we have emotional abuse , we have verbal abuse , we have psychological abuse , but we don't have physical . So then we downplay what we're experiencing because it's not physical , it's not sexual .

Well , emotional abuse , verbal abuse and psychological abuse are all precursors for physical abuse , and if somebody is using their body to intimidate you , I'd argue that is physical abuse . And so today I want to go through that list that I created with you and talk through some of these signs , these red flags to look for in an abusive personality .

There's a lot here , and so , once again , I hope that this podcast becomes something that is validating for you . The first thing that I noticed is that all abusive people have controlling behaviors .

At first they'll say their behavior is due to concern for you , for your safety , or they want you to use your time better or be successful at work or to make good decisions . They might get angry if you're late coming back from a store or an appointment . They get outrageously angry .

You might feel like you're constantly questioned about where you went and who you talked to , and as the behavior progresses , you , the person , start to stop making your own personal decisions . You may choose not to go out to that appointment or to go out with that friend because you don't want to deal with the repercussions of what it's like .

When you come back home , you may dress differently . There's also a big element here that I'm not going to unpack yet , but of financial control .

You may even feel like you need to ask permission to leave and so , like I said , at first , this comes across as a concern for you and , as time goes on , it really is a way to convince you and to coerce you into stop making decisions for yourself .

And you don't realize it at the time , because when someone's like , oh , I'm so sorry , like I know that you were three minutes late coming back from the supermarket , I was just so worried about you , like it sounds worrisome , right , it's like , oh , okay , they care .

But then when you notice that happens every single time , even if you're in traffic , and that there is contempt on the other side , that's when you're really in a controlling space . If you can't make your own decisions , you're being controlled .

If you're not seen as an equal in the relationship , you're being controlled , and control can be an entire podcast on its own , but it's important to look at . Are you able to live and think and do what you please , or is this person putting limits on you that you didn't have before ?

And something else that I want to say about this one is when people are like concerned for your safety or like wanting you to make good decisions . You've been a person all these years , right . I'm in my late 30s . I've been a person for all of these years , right .

Why is somebody else that doesn't know me coming in saying that they know better than what I know , or I need to be safer or more concerned ? It's almost like no , I don't . I trust myself , I got it .

But because in a lot of other ways of controlling behavior and abusive behavior , they throw us off our game so much that we don't even feel like we know who we are anymore . We start to think that they are the expert of our lives , and that couldn't be further from the truth . Another big red flag is jealousy .

At the beginning of a relationship , the abuser will say jealousy is a sign of love , that they just care . But jealousy really has nothing to do with love . It is a sign of possessiveness and a lack of trust in you . And now somebody can be jealous and it can be playful , right .

They can be like , oh my God , like I'm just so jealous , like all those guys are gonna be with you today , but like I , you know . But what's underneath that is trust , trust in you , trust in the relationship . The jealousy that an abuser might show is how they question about who you talk to .

They might accuse you of flirting or having an affair or being jealous of the time that you spend with family and friends . And as this progresses , what typically happens is the abuser will call you frequently during the day or drop by unexpectedly and you once again might start making decisions to limit the conversations about jealousy .

I've even worked with people that the abusive person will go and look at the mileage in their car and see how far they drove and then put together a story and she's like well , I stopped for gas , like on the way to Christina's house . It becomes an argument . But these things should never even be questions .

I'm going to Christina's house , I'll see you later done . A lot of times when somebody is acting that jealous and that controlling , it's because they are doing something and they're trying to cover it up . So just keep that in mind too .

Of like a lot of these , a lot of times jealousy is actually a projection , and now I don't want to say go back and tell them you're the one cheating , but I would say something like if you are constantly accusing me of having an affair , where are your eyes going ?

Another red flag is quick involvement , which we know is love bombing , and a lot of people will say that the relationship moved very quickly . And now that does happen , right , we've all heard stories of relationships moving quickly and people connecting and like things being good .

I think that the difference is is that in an abusive relationship , things are not good and it moves quickly , and then you can't get back to that place of balance . A lot of women that I've worked with have said that they dated or knew their abuser for less than six months before they were engaged or married and most often living together .

And often the abuser will come in claiming you're the only one who understands , you're the only one I could talk to , I love you so much . And then there's pressure on the woman to commit to the relationship in a way that she might feel like she's letting him down , especially if she wants to slow it down or even break off the relationship a bit .

So press reset . He will make that impossible . There will be no resetting , it will be a threat to him . And so if you feel like this , rushed in and now I can't take a step back or breathe , it's probably the sign of love bombing .

And if you listen to the podcast on love bombing , you know that when somebody's love bombed , or somebody love bombing you , they are showing you the best part of themselves that doesn't actually exist . It is a mass that they can put on for a really short time . An important red flag to think about is unrealistic expectations .

Abusive people will expect their partner to meet all of their needs . They expect the perfect wife , mother , lover , friend , coworker in some cases , and the abuser will say things like if you love me , I'm all you need . All we need is us . It's just us .

But the abuser expresses partner to care of everything for him , for the home , for the children if they're involved and for their lives , with no reflection as to what that does to that person . But their own self-care is not involved in this and I think that's a really big thing that happens . It's a really big deal .

It's like all the expectations are put on you and a lot of us that are in this place that attract these abusive people are people pleasers . We are people pleasers , we can be codependent . We want to say yes . We are looking at ourselves and we're like , okay , I guess I could stretch more , or maybe I am being selfish .

Maybe I don't need to work out five days a week . If you need to work out five days a week so that you are in alignment with yourself , you need to do that .

We all have things that are important for us , and if we can't take care of ourselves because we are doing everything for this other person and they expect that and don't want a balance for us , that is a big , big , big , big red flag . What that one connects to is blaming .

They blame others for their problems and they blame others for the way that they feel when somebody blames somebody else for their problems , like if they can't get far in work , or it's always like someone else is doing them wrong and they can't get out on the right side , or when they make mistakes and they blame you or somebody else for upsetting them and

keeping them from concentrating on a task at hand or being able to focus on work . It's just a huge red flag . There's no self-accountability to how those issues happened . They blame you and other people for everything that goes on in their life and more so , blames other people for how they feel .

The abusive person may say things to you like you make me mad , you're hurting me by not doing what I want you to do , or I can't help but be angry when you do this or , even worse , you did this to me . You need to remember he is the one who makes decisions about what he thinks and feels .

He uses those feelings to manipulate you , but we are in control of our own feelings . If we don't like the way that we feel , I'm not going to say we can change it immediately , because we can't , but we can work to understand why we feel that way , what we are doing to cause it and what we can begin to think about to change it .

Maybe 3% of the time it has to do with somebody else . What if you're in an abusive situation ? If you are the victim in an abusive relationship , you are probably in fight or flight or a trauma response all the time when we have somebody who is abusive or even somebody like separate , who is like healthy . We can change the way that we think about things .

We can change the way we feel about things . It's hard work , hard , hard , hard work , but also completely possible and completely in our own ballpark . An abuser will also isolate . The abuser tries to cut you off from all resources and support . If you have male friends , then they're going to challenge that .

If you have women friends , they will probably challenge that too , saying that you're talking about them . If you're close to your family , then they're going to say that you're a mess with your family . They will accuse people who are supporting you as causing problems . I once had an ex-partner say you go to therapy too much .

Your friends don't know what's going on . Your friends don't look out for you . I've also heard this go in a completely overt way , where people will be living in another country , maybe not even have access to a phone , and you may not be able to use a car , or they might prevent you from working , which falls into financial abuse as well .

I also think that there's another version of isolation that comes when they keep making it impossible for us to go to any other commitment , Like if they are picking severe fights with us before we go to work and then we can't get to work on time , then we lose our job .

We then become isolated when we keep having to cancel on friends because they fought with us up until the second that we left and the entire time there and we walk in crying . Our friends are not going to want to hang out with us anymore .

When this is a pattern when we barely show up for family events because the abuser is making our family out to be monsters , we stop going and then we further isolate and then the outsiders don't know what's going on and they think that we're isolating because we don't want to be around them , when the truth is is , in a lot of ways , we can't get ourselves

there . We are in a trauma response , we're frozen , but we can't even verbalize that , which is why something like learning how to set boundaries with abusers is really important . I have a $19 course on my website , emotionalambusecochcom .

You just click on courses , and that helps create space so that we can begin to think for ourselves and to come back to what we really need and what we really want the last one that I'm going to touch on today . You know there's a lot more , so you can treat this as a part .

One is threats of violence , and I remember wording it that way , because what we're talking about here is aspects of an abusive personality , and so threats of violence are meant to control their partner . So they might say things like if you leave , I'm going to smash your car or I will kill you , or you better watch yourself .

Most people don't threaten their partners that way . Abusers will try and excuse their behavior by saying that you think you made them do it , or everybody talks that way . But the threat of violence even punching walls and doors is a violent act . First they will punch things around you before they hit you .

They're showing you that they cannot control and contain their anger . A healthy person will realize that they are bottling up and bubbling up and they will pause and step away for a second and regulate themselves and never let it get to be that point . They might also break cherished possessions of yours . They might break cherished possessions of theirs .

They might beat their hand on a table or throw things near you , and there's this quote from May that says first they'll throw things near you , then they throw things at you .

Just because it didn't hit you doesn't mean that it wasn't an act of violence and any force in an argument is also abuse , and this might involve the abuser , like kind of standing in a doorway so you can't leave a room . They might restrain you , push or shove you or hold you against the wall , saying like you're going to listen to me .

They might scream and yell and terrify you . Those are all acts of violence and I think we often don't see it that way , but that's what it is .

I was with a partner who threw things next to me , not at me , threw things around the room , would break things in front of me , and I remember being like it's just like it's moments before something hits me , moments and he'd be like you're making this up ? I don't think that way . Well , he showed me that . He showed me he does .

He showed me he can't control it , and then he also didn't wanna work to control it . He didn't care about that .

I hope that this podcast was helpful in identifying some of these abusive red flags , and I know that it's really hard when you are listening to something like this and you're like , oh my God , this is my entire relationship , because that was me and I'll tell you this 100 episodes in .

What I've learned is that I never thought that I could be on the other side of abuse . I really thought I would keep finding myself in abusive relationships forever in some way or another , and I have become so inflexible with my boundaries , so sure of what I want and what I don't want , and so committed to giving my daughter the best possible life .

I can that , even if it is the most perfect person in all these other ways if they were not treating you right , I know I would walk away and I have this internal red flag click and I have this internal compass that really does keep me safe . And it is really interesting to be at a place now where I can talk about it .

And I still am connected to what I went through and what we all go through , because I'm in this place of wanting to serve , but also I'm in a place of alignment and I know what helps me feel like my best me and I also know the types of conversations and relationships that I wanna have and I know that in time it can get there . You can get there too .

And , just to be clear , it took a ton of time for me to get here a ton of healing , a ton of tears and a ton of mistakes .

So I get it and I've been there , and when I do episodes like this , all I can think about is being on the other side and listening to it and going holy shit , I'm not that far away from where you were , and so if you need support , you know what to do .

You can find me on Instagram at Emotional Abuse Coach , you can go to EmotionalAbuseCoachcom and you could always email me at Jessica at JessicaNightCoachingcom . If you want to work with me , I do take one-on-one clients . Availability is limited , but I do have one-on-one clients . You can sign up for a clarity call by going on my website , emotionalabusecoachcom .

That is the first call that connects you and I to see if we're a good fit to work together , and then after that we kinda just go from there . If we work together , we design what that looks like and then we start meeting weekly , bi-weekly .

I'm bi-monthly , but my work is highly personalized , and so the clarity call is the first step to seeing if we're a good match . But I'm really committed to helping you get from where you are now to where you want to be , and so thank you for joining me for 100 episodes . I really appreciate it . I really do . It's really serving me well .