Ep 124 - How to Break Free and Heal from an Emotionally Abusive/Toxic Relationship

Transcript

Hello, and welcome back to real, brave, & unstoppable. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve dropped a new episode and if you’re a loyal listener, I apologize for that. Life has been a little “lifey” lately! Today I’m going to talk about a topic that is really close to my heart. I’m going to talk about breaking free and healing from a toxic, or abusive relationship.

This topic is important to me because I recently left a toxic, emotionally abusive relationship and until I left, I didn’t realize it was abusive and I didn’t see how much being in it had changed me - in ways that really weren’t serving me. At the end of the relationship, I was assaulted - it was minor, but it was still one of the scariest things I’ve experienced. Along with the manipulation, gaslighting, lying, and other emotionally abusive tactics, I felt really alone and I even thought it was my fault at times. I had a lot of shame for staying in it for so long and it was really helpful for me to connect with other women who had been in the same type of situation - it helped me realize that I wasn’t alone, that I wasn’t crazy, and it wasn’t my fault.

Trigger warning; I acknowledge this topic is a bit of a heavy one, and it could be a triggering for some, so if you think this topic could trigger you, listen with a trusted friend or make sure you feel safe enough or are in a safe place  to listen.

As I go through this episode, I invite you to reflect on your own experiences. I’ll be sharing sighs of emotional abuse, the struggle in leaving, steps to breaking free, thoughts on healing as well as some helpful resources. Remember,  You are NOT alone.

And one more thing - if you aren’t in an abusive relationship, i invite you to listen anyway, as learning some of the signs may be helpful in recognizing a friend or loved one might be experiencing a relationship that’s abusive.

The definition of emotional abuse includes any behavior intended to control, manipulate, threaten, or belittle another person. It takes an incredible toll on a person’s well being, even though it doesn’t leave marks like physical abuse. That’s also one of the things that’s frustrating about it is that this makes it easy to disguise, especially for an abuser who is very manipulative.

many survivors of emotional abuse experience diminished self-worth and psychological trauma that can last for years after the abuse has ended. First, some statistics. Intimate partner violence alone affects more than 12 million people every year. (national domestic violence hotline - national intimate partner and sexual violence survey). Almost half of all women and men in the US have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime (48.4% and 48.8% respectively). And, just so you know, psychological aggression is defined as the use of verbal and non-verbal communication with the intent to harm a partner mentally or emotionally or to exert control over a partner (CDC). I’m going to refer to this as emotional abuse throughout this episode.

Abusers rely on power and control and this becomes a cycle. First, tension builds. Then, there is an incident of violence, whether that is emotional or physical violence. Next up there is reconciliation and finally, things go back to status quo, or calm. A lot of times the abuser will promise to change or participate more in working to improve the relationship. Rarely does this pan out, which is why the cycle continues. These stages don’t have to happen in the same order every time, and how the abuse manifests is different for everyone.

If there’s one thing you take away from this episode, whether it’s you in an abusive relationship or someone you know in one, the abusers are crafty and very good at what they do. They will make you feel like the problems in the relationship are your fault. They’ll lie to you faster than you can question their lies and when you do question them, they’ll tell you how awful it is that you’re accusing them of lying. They’ll make themselves the victim. 

You’ll doubt yourself and what’s really true. You’ll find yourself confused, and every time you start to find clarity, you’ll get pushed into the center of the confusion pool again just as confused as you were to start. They give these intermittent rewards in teh form of love and attention and You’ll fall for them. You’ll make excuses for them. 

But before I dive deeper into the aftermath of it, I want to share some signs of emotional abuse since it can be tough to recognize. I have one caveat - the person I was in a relationship displayed traits of narcissism or cluster-B personality … while I am in no way qualified to diagnose this, what i experienced aligns to a “T”. So some of this you may not resonate with but i think a lot of it you will I’m going to share some examples from my own experience with each “sign” . These are not necessarily in any particular order. 

The first one though is the big red flag. Love bombing. Idealizing. They will tell you taht you are the center of their world. You’re the most beautiful person in the world. You’re the hottest woman (or man) they’ve ever met, you’re perfect, you’re so natural together, they want to marry you someday. It’s meant to reel you in, and how can you NOT fall for that? But then…

But then, after they hook you, things start to deteriorate… you can never do anything right even if you try; discussions about what’s not working get flipped back on you, it’s always your fault

Maybe those words aren’t explicitly used,  but everything was always my fault. I was too self-centered, I didn’t make him feel welcome, I complained too much, I criticized his job… he could always do everything better than me (or so he thought)

A lot of the things that follow are forms of manipulation - and this is a way of controlling victims subtly. It’s hard to notice because these people are good at it. Gaslighting, threats, controlling who you spend time with, financial manipulation, using attention and love-giving and withholding to mold desired behavior
 are ways of controlling  or influencing another person, usually in an underhanded or unfair manner which facilitates one's personal aims.

Gaslighting is manipulating someone psychologically into questioning their own sanity. It’s when someone changes the facts of what happened to fit their narrative, leaving you confused and in doubt of what really happened.

I’m still confused about the many ways my ex gaslit me … some examples:

My ex used to insist that I said something that upset him, or forgot to tell him something when I was pretty sure that he was misremembering. But it caused me to feel a little crazy because I felt like I was always forgetting things. If I stood up for myself and held my ground taht he was misremembering, he would tell me how I could never be wrong.

A couple of times I wondered if there was another woman (turns out there were several, including the one he just got married to and had an affair with for the 2  years before we broke up) and questioned him - not in an accusatory way… just sharing that sometimes I felt like he might be interested in someone else. He told me I was jealous, paranoid and insecure and that I traumatized by accusing him of cheating. When I argued that I didn’t accuse him, he would find another way to deflect the conversation back onto me. I felt trapped and confused with no avenue to even have a conversation about it.  Our conversations or arguments seemed to dart from one end of one spectrum to the other end of an entirely different one or be stopped altogether when he felt uncomfortable or threatened

Basically, I would want to talk about something that was concerning and he’d lie or twist things to blame things on me.

Walking on eggshells. 
Focuses on your mistakes and ignores their own. If they do something that irritates you, they won’t let you forget that you once did something that upset them. If you point out the inappropriate behavior, they’ll be quick to turn this back on you. If you try to do the same thing it’s a huge problem because you’re not owning your actions. I was always having to monitor my words - being careful not to bring up something that would be too upsetting, walking on eggshells afraid that I wasn’t going to be perfect -  I was very aware that any mistake would be used against me. 

You fear every fight could be the last one. So you avoid them. Partially because you don’t want to leave, but also because entering into an argument usually means leaving it feeling confused and disempowered.

In the same category as walking on eggshells, you feel on edge around them but still want them to like/love you. So, you end up writing off most of their questionable behavior as accidental - they didn't mean it. You make excuses for them by attributing their poor behavior to something bad that happened to them in their childhood as if they don’t have a choice in how to behave. You get the feeling that you’re in competition with others for their attention and praise. Or, you notice that they don’t seem as “into you” as they once were, so you blow off their bad behavior in order to try to make them happy. I felt like I was walking on eggshells most of the time, and all I wanted to do was make him happy and feel loved. Little did I know that was never going to even be possible.

Jealousy, and controlling or manipulative behavior. My ex accused me of cheating on him a couple of times with friends who are guys. I just happen to have a lot of guy friends. He demanded I stop all contact with them and I complied. He had a pretty rough upbringing - a lot of things happened to him that were really traumatic.  I had so much compassion for him, and he used all of this to manipulate me into taking ownership of things that were really not my fault. 

They slowly and steadily erode your boundaries and eventually just don’t care that you have any.  An example from my situation was that He would criticize me with a condescending, joking kind of attitude. Teasing really became the predominant form of communication, where He’d subtly belittle my intelligence and abilities.  and if I pointed out that it bothered me, he called me oversensitive, too serious - that I can’t take a joke. I began to feel resentful and upset but I learned over time to push away those feelings so that I could maintain the peace. Fighting about it got me nowhere - it would always end up being my fault anyway.

They withhold attention and undermine your self-esteem. In the beginning, my ex showered me with attention and admiration. It felt good to be pursued and adored! He told me all the time how beautiful I was, that I was perfect, how natural we were together, and that someday he was going to marry me. But at a certain point, that went away and he seemed bored by me. When I would push on deepening our connection or complain that he didn’t initiate sex enough, he would make up excuses and get really annoyed that I wanted to deepen the passionate relationship that he led me to believe he wanted, and was cultivating in the beginning. It seemed like it was a chore to him.

If there seems to be an unusual number of “crazy” people in their past…. Any ex-partner or friend who didn’t come crawling back to them will be labeled as crazy, insane, bipolar, jealous, mentally unstable or some other smear. It’s guaranteed that they’ll talk about you the same way to their next target. My ex painted a picture of his last ex that made her sound like a terrible person who treated him so horrible. The same exact thing happened to his last two exes. I also saw evidence that my ex started laying the groundwork for what a crazy person I was pretty much when he started his 2-year affair. That hurts a lot, and if you’re experiencing this, I recommend listening to episode 123 about holding your head high when people are saying mean things about you.

So now, you’re the crazy, unstable one and now the qualities they once said they admired in you are glaring faults. At first, they appeal to your deepest vanities and insecurities. They observe and mimic exactly what they think you want to hear. Once you're hooked, though, they start to use those things against you like I just mentioned. You’ll spend a lot of time trying to prove your self-worth to the same person who once said you were perfect.

An example of this is when I met my ex, one of the things he noticed and liked about me was that  I had so many interests and really excelled at them. Later in the relationship I mentioned that I wanted to learn how to box or kickbox. This is just who I am - when something interests me, I’m not afraid to just try it. But he got upset with me because while this is a part of me that makes me feel alive - trying new things especially doing things that are active, he said that “it doesn’t work for the other people in my life” and that I could never be happy, because I was always searching for something else, the next thing. Untrue.

They use your insecurities against you. In the beginning, they gain your trust through love bombing or idealization, so you feel safe with them and share things about yourself that are vulnerable. When they start to devalue you, they prey on these insecurities. I got to the point at the end where I sadly realized that I couldn’t trust him with anything. It would always get used against me later.  He also shared some things I told him in confidence with other people when he was tearing down my reputation.

Preventing or discouraging you from spending time with others, Insulting, shaming or demeaning you, especially in front of other people. Controlling finances without discussion, or taking your money or refusing to provide money for necessary expenses. 

He didn’t control my finances  because he couldn’t - I have no doubt that if our money was pooled, he would have. But two things that relate here: first, he owed me a pretty large sum of money. Every time I brought up him paying me back, he manipulated me into dropping it for a while. And, I knew that if I made a big deal about it, it would create a problem.  This went on right up until he moved out. I did eventually get my money. But every time I’d bring up an expense it would turn into a fight. It makes me tired just to think about it. So exhausting and dramatic

Intimidation - through threatening looks or action. 
Examples
This is embarrassing to admit, but once when I locked myself in my bedroom because an argument was going nowhere and I expressed that I didn’t want to continue it in that moment, he got a screwdriver and took the doorknob off. He entered the room yelling at me even though I had a pillow over my head.

Intimidating you with weapons like guns, knives, etc.

I didn’t experience this (except on his last day here when he hit me with a liquor bottle and destroyed my kitchen trash can and some glass), but if you’re listening and this resonates, please seek help.

Insulting your parenting or threatening to harm or take away children or pets.

He would insult my parenting sometimes, and he’d also sometimes insult my kids. The most annoying one was that my kids didn’t make him feel comfortable.

Pathological lying and excuses

They make up lies faster than you can question them, and when you do question them, they tell you you’re imagining things or paranoid, jealous, insecure, or they make themselves the victim.. They constantly blame others - it’s never their fault. They constantly rationalize and justify their behavior rather than improve it (they don’t see any of their behavior as a problem). Even when caught in a lie, they don’t seem to have any remorse,  embarrassment or guilt. 

I didn’t learn the extent of my ex’s lies and deception until after he left. But the web of lies was intricate. He told the woman he was having an affair with a ton of lies. She knew about me, but he told her we once dated but were now just roommates. There were dozens of other ridiculous lies that I can’t even believe that she bought into. But that’s the thing. These people are masters of deception and they will manipulate your mind into believing whatever they want you to believe. And they’re really good at it.When you think about it, it’s really scary how much control they have over your mind.

Hypocrisy - abusers tend to have high expectations for fidelity and respect, attention, etc  but after the initial honeymoon phase where they shower you with love and attention, they give none of it back to you. They’ll cheat, lie, criticize and manipulate. You’re expected to remain perfect, otherwise you’ll be replaced and/or deemed unstable.
Accuses you of being unstable for reacting to emotions that they are intentionally provoking (but gaslighting you into believing otherwise). 

This one is hard to recognize because they are really good at making you believe that you’re
They also tell everyone else how crazy or unstable you are.
You notice that they seem to have a “fan club” and everyone seems to adore them but behind the curtain they’re a jackass to you.
You’re the only one that really seems to know who they really are. (but when you leave, I promise you that you’ll learn that more people don’t like them than you ever dreamed… that was my experience at least)

They are easily bored unless something revolves around them. For example, my ex was really uncomfortable in social situations unless he was talking about himself. He had no interest in small talk or showing interest in someone else. Even me. He didn’t really even ask me about my internal world, or external world for that matter. And, he always had to be better than me at everything. It sucked, because I’m a smart, capable person and quite truthfully am probably better than him at a lot of things. Most of the time I just let it go, but sometimes I would assert myself and it would turn into an argument because I was being competitive and “you’re not supposed to be competitive with your partner.”

Triangulation. Many times abusers surround themselves with people who give them added attention. This includes people that they may have previously talked shit about and declared you were superior to. This is confusing and creates the perception that they’re in high demand all the time. Triangulation also happens when they are laying the groundwork for their new target to believe you’re crazy.  This can be a tough one to deal with because you need to really believe that the people who believe the abuser is the sane one aren’t your people… but it still hurts. I had to do a lot of thought work on this one - it’s something I’ve had to work on in my life - being ok when people don’t like me.

This person becomes your entire life. You start to spend more time with them and less with your own support network. You might isolate yourself so that you can be available for them - they manipulate you into doing this.. The relationship seems to involve a lot of sacrifices on your end, but very few on theirs. My friends never really liked my ex, so we didn't spend a lot of time with them (plus, remember how he didn’t like to talk about anyone other than himself… ). And I’d also be really careful with who I talked to about my relationship problems so that other people wouldn’t tell me what I didn’t want to hear (i.e. you’re in a toxic relationship… leave!). I wanted it to work out. I’ll talk about why people stay in a minute.

Arrogance. Air of superiority. They talk to you like you can’t possibly be as smart as them.

The mean/sweet or hot/cold cycle, intermittent reward.  Sometimes they give you attention, sometimes they ignore you, sometimes they criticize you. They treat you differently in public than behind closed doors. They might talk about marriage one day and breaking up the next. You never know what you’re going to get. My ex would always lay on the attention when I talked about leaving the relationship. Otherwise, I got the daily I love you and peck on the lips when he left for and came home from work but that’s about it. So the cycle is things get tense → eruption → reconciliation (+ reward) → things go back to “normal” → repeat. And the thing that’s important to realize is that the reward is intermittent so it keeps you coming back for more.

Pity plays and sympathy stories used to manipulate you. Their bad behavior always has sob-story roots. They claim to behave this way because of an abusive ex, an abusive parent, or past trauma. They’ll use these stories to manipulate you. My ex had a really tough childhood. Now, I have no idea if what he shared with me is even true after I learned about all the other lies, but he took advantage of the empathy and compassion I had for him.  I was always excusing his behavior because maybe he just wasn’t capable due to his upbringing. He also refused to go to therapy for it, saying that he couldn’t “always be in his trauma”. So essentially, because he has trauma (we all do to a certain degree, some more severe than others), everything was my fault because he couldn’t work on improving himself. I can’t even express how much grace I gave that guy for his traumatic upbringing. I excused a lot of things I shouldn’t have.

Most of us understand physical mistreatment and blatant verbal abuse. But with people like this, the abuse isn’t so obvious. You probably won’t even understand your relationship was abusive until it’s over.  This process of manipulation over time  can effectively erode the identity of any chosen target. From an outsider’s view, you’ll look like you’ve lost it, while they walk away calmly, completely unscathed, seemingly living their best life.... It’s hard. If you’re there or have been there, I’m right there with you and I’m glad you’re here listening to this podcast. 

Section 2: What Damage Looks Like 

Now that we’ve talked about a lot of signs (I know that was a lot!), I want to talk about how this damages victims.. Emotional abuse impacts you in a lot of different ways. There’s the changes in your brain - mechanisms it puts in place to protect you from further pain. It affects how you see yourself in relationships - long-term abuse can make you feel as if your needs aren’t as important as everyone else’s, causing you to ignore your own needs and boundaries, people please, or a tendency to get into relationships in the future with abusive partners.

You might develop a fear of abandonment after an emotionally abusive relationship. Feelings of loneliness can be really triggering. I know that I had a hard time being alone for a while after my ex left.  Trusting others can become really hard too. I struggle with that. I thought I knew my ex really well in a lot of ways… and I really trusted that he would never cheat on me. When I learned the truth, that gap in what I thought to be true and actual reality hit me hard. How could I not see it? Why did I so blindly trust?

Over time, you also can have a hard time being authentic. This is because everything you do gets nitpicked. So, you start to ignore your own needs and boundaries and just shut up so you don’t create any problems.  It can feel hard to open up to people after all of that. 

People who have gone through emotional abuse also can suffer low self-esteem, self-doubt and shame. I experienced all of these things. The put-downs and criticism created - I wouldn’t say LOW self-esteem but a degradation in self-esteem. Self- doubt came from the gaslighting - I was always so confused on what my perception vs his was… it never made any sense and much of the time I doubted myself to the point I’d take responsibility for things I never should have. I also became very unsure of myself around him and other people. I lost the confidence I had before I met him.

The shame I experienced was really around feeling embarrassed that I stayed for so long, that I trusted him, and that there was something about me where he felt that he needed to get sexual fulfillment in other places. But also, there were things about me that he criticized that I became ashamed of. 

After effects of emotional abuse can also include social anxiety, depression, eating disorders and PTSD as well as physical symptoms.

Section 3: The million dollar question - why not leave?
There are so many different reasons. 

The reasons I share here won’t encompass all of the reasons and they might not be the same reasons that you (or someone you know) didn’t or doesn’t leave but I think one of the biggest ones is that we get kind of brainwashed. 

When someone controls, intimidates, manipulates and gaslights you, it’s hard to stay grounded in your reality. You start to believe that you’re the problem and if only you could just change, things would be fine. It’s confusing, it creates doubt. And for me, it would have been much more convenient if things were to work out - leaving a long-term relationship is complicated and hard! So, if things were really my fault and I could work on myself, maybe I wouldn’t have to go through that. 

It’s also really easy to brush aside the abuse because they’re “just words…” I know I blamed myself for a lot of things. I thought it was me who triggered him. I also didn’t realize that he was abusing me. 

Some women feel like they deserve it - and brush it off because it’s not physical. 

At an extreme, it can be scary to leave - some women are literally afraid for their safety.

A really big one is addiction to the cycle of abuse… when we met, he showered me with attention and compliments - he made me feel like a queen… but when that waned and the cycle started, after an “explosion”, which was many times me telling him I was done, he’d say all the right things and it was so validating. It felt a little like when we met. And that felt good. So I’d stay.

Kids can be a factor.

Some women want to be rescuers. Thinking that they can save their abuser - there was a part of me that identifies with this - he had a really traumatic childhood (at least that’s what he told me) and I thought maybe if I could just give him the love and compassion that he lacked as a child, things would be ok and he’d be happier. 

Our families’ attitude toward divorce can also impact staying. Some people have a narrative about divorce that their family will look down on them, or something like that. It may or may not be true, but the thought of being an “other” is too much to bear.

Not having a support system can be a factor as well.

For me, things weren’t ALL bad. So there were all of those happy memories too. It’s nice to have a person, a companion to share your day with, snuggle with. Hug, kiss, and to be close with in other ways.  A lot of people are afraid they’ll never meet anyone better or they don’t want to be alone.

The sunk-cost fallacy. “I’ve invested all this time”... I can’t leave it now and have it all be for nothing… that’s a common one.

Residual loss. I loved my ex’s family. They were great and it’s really sad that I don’t get to see them anymore. 

There are lots of reasons. 

Section 4: Healing
The aftermath is really hard. I had to deal with a lot of trauma and it really upset my life. The physical assault was scary. I experienced flashbacks and even though I have a protective order, I was still terrified of running into him. Hypervigilance, depression, anxiety, feelings of isolation and loneliness because no one really understood what I was going through were all things I had to deal with. I had a bit of a struggle with worthiness for a little while  as well. What was wrong with me that he chose to cheat on me for so long and so extensively? I eventually learned to reframe that and the question became ‘what’s wrong with him? He’s sick’. I had other relationships in my life damaged as a result as well.

But healing is a lot of work. How do we do this work?

First, Allow your emotions.
There is a book called Whole Again that talks about this. We have to heal through unconditionally loving ourselves. And in doing that, we love ourselves through feeling the hard feelings. Being self-compassionate. Our protective self tries to protect us from having those bad feelings, but they’re p[art of the process. In the book, he talks about how the question “why do I feel like this” should be “what is this feeling?”. It’s a space of curiosity and openness. Making space for what is really uncomfortable.

It’s important to let yourself cry. Don’t fight the crying or the feelings. If you feel rage, rage on into a pillow - go to a rage room or a screaming room. Just let it all out. Notice how your emotions feel in your body. Observe how they change and shift. Describe them. WHat if the emotion you’re feeling is a physical object? What would it look like? Does it have a shape or color? Texture? Is it big or small? Is it moving or stationary? Does it have a smell or taste? Ask it what it needs or if it’s trying to tell you something.  

Tara Brach’s RAIN meditation is great for this

Recognize

Acknowledge

Investigate with curiosity

Nurture

You can find this online if you google it. There are several audio meditations that are amazing. Her voice is super calming

And maybe you’ll notice taht you’re not noticing a lot of emotion. That’s ok, and good to notice. Just keep checking in with yourself to see what you do notice.

When we’re healing from an emotionally abusive relationship, we have to find our joy again. We’ve shrunk ourselves to be so small that we need to get out and meet new people, try new things, reconnect with old friends and hobbies. It’s common for people that get involved with narcissistic personalities to isolate and not hang out with certain friends anymore. In my case, the friends I hung out with didn’t really like my partner, so we kind of gradually grew apart. I’m now trying to reconnect with some of those people.

Journaling helps. I’ve been making a lot of connections between this relationship and the other romantic relationships I’ve had in my life as well as the relationship I had, and have, with my father. Our childhood wounds show up in our relationships! Writing out what’s in your brain can be really helpful in making sense of things. 

Learn to validate yourself and to give yourself love instead of relying on an external source for that. When we look outside of ourselves, our happiness will always be at the effect of someone else… and that’s totally out of our control. And, ask yourself how you feel when you don’t have control… for me, it’s anxious. And that’s how I showed up in the last couple of months of my relationship. Completely anxiety-ridden because I was seeking validation from him, not giving it to myself.

Above all, we have to take care of ourselves as we heal. Self-compassion, self-care. I read that when we lose an attachment, it activates the same pain centers in our brain that are activated when we break a bone. If you were to break a bone, would you take care of it and nurture it back to being whole again, or would you just power through and ignore it. Duh.

What are things that you can do to nurture and care for yourself like you’d care for someone you love? 

Section 5: believe + resources

if you are experiencing or have experienced any of this, there are resources for you. See a therapist for sure… you likely have trauma that you need to heal and there are several modalities that can help.  Even better if you can find someone who has a background working with victims of abuse. If you’ve experienced domestic violence, please be safe and lean on your support network. There are a TON of resources for victims of domestic violence including legal support, counseling services, safe havens and more. If you’re in Maryland, you can contact the family justice center or abused persons program for help. They can direct you to free services that can support you

There are also a few books that I found very helpful:

It’s Not You by Dr. Ramani

Psychopath Free

Whole  Again

There are a lot of facebook groups, meetup groups and stuff like that that are  centered around abuse. It’s sometimes really useful to connect with people really “get it”.

Section 6: You are not alone, believe you are worthy of love

The last thing I want to say here is that you need to believe that you are worthy of love. You SO are!

You need to believe that you are lovable and perfect just the way you are. Narcissistic personalities don’t really have feelings. They rely on attention and adoration from others to create good feelings for them. And since they need to experience both ends of the spectrum of emotions, they need to constantly have someone “behind the curtain” who they can treat poorly and someone “new” that they are love bombing (and getting attention from in return). What happened is NOT about you. It’s about them. 

The work is in acceptance of the experience. You got into this because your abuser likely prayed on things (strengths like empathy, compassion, caring) that make you vulnerable. That’s not on you. You’re a beautiful human who just happened to care a lot about someone and they lied and manipulated you into believing that you should be different to make the relationship work. Be grateful that you aren’t that cold and heartless of a person that you could treat others so poorly and have no remorse for it. Accept the experience as a teacher.

Above all, know that you are enough, there is nothing wrong with you, and this was NOT your fault!

Friends, I hope this was helpful, either for yourself or someone you know, and I’d love to know what you thought about this episode. Hop on over to the website at Realbraveunstoppable.com and drop me a line. Always looking for feedback and requests!

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Until next time.