Healing From Emotional Abuse

Healing From Emotional Abuse: Tips To Save Money: With Rob Wrubel

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Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to be a five year process either. Millions of other survivors around the worlds entire lives have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Marissa: Welcome back to Healing From Emotional Abuse. Today we're joined with my friend and colleague, Rob Wruble. I met him at a retreat in California, and he is awesome. I'm so happy to have him here today. Rob is the award winning and bestselling author of Financial Freedom for Special Needs Families. He speaks regularly to family organizations, serving people with developmental disabilities, as well as two groups of professionals serving adults with developmental disabilities and their families. Hi, Rob. Thank you so much for being here today. I'm so excited to talk to you.
 
Rob: Marissa, I am too. When we first discussed this, maybe a month ago or so three weeks, I can't remember. I've been looking forward to it pretty much every day. So, I'm glad to be on and thanks for all the work that you do.
 
Marissa: Oh, my gosh, thank you for everything that you do. And that's really nice to hear. So, thank you, I was really excited as well. I've been talking about this a lot. I don't know if you know too much about financial abuse, and I know I've mentioned it in an earlier podcast episode. But a big reason why people survivors do not leave domestic violence situations is because of fear of finances. And a lot of them have endured financial abuse, which can range from either being told they're not allowed to have a job by their narcissist or being forced to work but not having any access to their household money. And that presents a huge problem for people to leave, because it requires a lot of money to leave to be able to get an apartment, especially if you have children. And to be able to feed yourself and your children. So, have you dealt with or worked with people who have had any sort of situation like this or any fear regarding having enough money to survive?
 
Rob: I have it's come up in so many different ways. And certainly, money is for so many people, a meaningful and stressful area of their lives. And I've definitely come across people who really don't have any access to money in the relationship at all. I haven't met that many and I don't have a specific way that said, Gee, I've got no access, I don't have any money. But I've definitely run across people who are who have hinted at that that all of their paycheck goes to their partner or spouse or whomever it is that they're currently living or afraid with. And I've met lots and lots of other people who just feel like they haven't ever been able to put two pennies together, let alone to have a few $100 or a few $1,000 to establish themselves and life. So, it's a huge issue, frankly, for a lot of different people. And the more I've thought about our upcoming talk and talk to some other experts in the field, realize what an issue it is for somebody who feels a little bit hopeless and doesn't necessarily know where their way out is. And so, I look forward to talking to maybe some strategies that can help people out a little bit.
 
Marissa: Awesome. What advice, have you given the people that you've worked with already? Who have dealt with similar situations? Is there anything that you can that you just off hand advice that you give them?
 
Rob: Yeah, there's probably three or four really different areas to think about. And there, they're obviously related, but they're very different. One is, and maybe we can come back to it is how do you have conversations with the person that you live with that you want more access to information about or control over the financial piece, but that's probably the very end because that's probably the biggest, hardest piece to get over. And obviously, for people in abusive relationships, when that may never, that conversation may never happen. There's a bunch of other things that people can do first, what I see a lot is that people just don't think that they can ever even have any money. And it doesn't necessarily come from the relationship partner, it may come from, how they were raised, or how they've always handled money in the past. And so, one way to think about is how are people successful with saving some money versus people that haven't had a chance to do it. And a lot of it when I when I meet and talk to people has to do with the messaging they got when they were younger. Some people were encouraged to you know, take their pennies and put them in a little piggy bank on their desk as a symbol of, hey, you've got some extra put it away. Other people grew up in situations where there just wasn't any extra money to go around. And so, they never got that piece. And so, a lot of times they have to think about what is it that you can do on personal behavior, to find ways to save money. And if you're in a relationship or you don't have a partner you can trust it's a little bit harder. But if you have access to any actual cash, and very often the easiest way to save the first little bit of money for people, and especially for people that are being watched, is to just have some cash available. And so, if you're the person that may be buying groceries and have some money and hopefully, you're not turning in the receipt, you know, is there an extra $5, $10, or $20 a week or a month that you can take and put into pocket. And so, there's a way sometimes just with the change that you get from, from your cup of coffee or a sandwich or something where you can start to accumulate, again, a few dollars is not going to be a lot. But really, I guess one of things that I see is for people who have never been able to put any money aside for anything, it's changing that behavior pattern. And so even if it looks like it's only 50 cents here, and $1 there and $5 there, watching that money add up in a safe and secure place, it might be in the glove compartment of a car, it might be at the bottom of a sock drawer, which is kind of an obvious place, so maybe not the best place. But it's changing that behavior pattern of saying, Okay, I'm the kind of person today that can actually take a little bit of the money that I have access to, and put it in a place where I can keep it, get it when I need to, and see that it's growing on a weekly, daily or monthly basis. And we see that, for people that might even be say saving into a retirement plan at work for the first time, that first paycheck, the second, third and fourth paychecks or money has come out a lot of times, it's the first time anybody's ever saved any money. And after a couple of months, there's a confidence level to the fact that they could put it to the side, that's so important for somebody to save for long term. And I think in the group of people that you talk to and work with, it’s so important to gain some confidence and control by taking very, very small steps. But taking those steps,
 
Marissa: I love the idea of taking little bits of money at a time and hiding it in a place where the narcissist won't find it a lot of the time in these abusive relationships, the abuser will have full access of the money, so won't really have the survivor won't really have cash on them, and if they do, it's very little. And if they do ever have access to any of the money, it's usually very highly secured or monitored by the abuser. So, I love the idea of little by little, even if it's just 50 cents, hiding it somewhere like in a shoe you don't wear is something that's pretty popular. Something that I've been doing, And I know that not a lot of survivors have this ability, because a lot of them don't have access to their money. But I've been bartending for 13 years and every $5 bill I get I put in a drawer. And so, at the end of the year, I have a ton of money saved up that I forgot about or didn't touch, and it ends up paying for a vacation.
 
Rob: No, I love that idea. And it's somehow creating some mental accounting for the thing, like you said, this $5 bill, they're going in the drawer, my daughter used to love Hamilton or still does love Hamilton. And for the first time she ever had a $10 bill on her hand, she's like, I am never spending that. And so, on some level, that's a different one, when people have access to the money is finding some tricks to say that money, I'm not going to touch that money, I'm not going to touch and then it's there. And so that's a different situation for you, or in that case for my daughter. And for somebody who really doesn't have any access at all. But it is finding those little ways, and what we see so often is that it's the really small changes at the beginning, can have really big impacts. And that impact may not be for a month or two or in some cases a year or two.
 
But it's the person that we become by making those small changes. And so, for the group that we're talking to today, I would imagine that so much of it is gaining a little bit of confidence that slowly, again, I don't know all the dynamic particularly well. But that feeling that I, “Hey, I can't hold down a job and should be allowed to do that I can have my own money. And there's nobody that can take that away from me. I can maintain family relationships, and social relationships," that have all been whittled down from what I understand so often and in abusive relationships, the freedom really starts with having that seed of independence. And that comes from having something in somewhere where people can be confident. And one of the great things about money as much as it can be a pain in the neck all the time. And there's never enough of it. And some people seem to have lots and lots and lots of it and don't good, do good things with it. But one of the things about money is it's very tangible and very countable. And so, while we might want to become a better person in some way, or might want to exhibit time, and independence and freedom in some way, that's a little bit harder to measure. Even there, you can come up with metrics but money like if it's 50 cents here, $3 there and $8 there, we can go and count it and we can even say this, it was on this many days, I was able to put the money away. And it lets us as people start to feel like we're making some progress in a very tangible and very measurable way.
 
Marissa: I love that I think you're totally right on being able to be financially independent, even in a very small way, saving little by little but knowing that it's growing, it really does build confidence. That's a really good point. The cost to leave an abuser, let’s just say you're starting from nothing. And you might not know the answer to this question, but what would you think would be a good goal for them as a financial planner to be able to effectively leave?
 
Rob: No, and so often we look at what is that goal, what's it going to take in every city is going to be different. I'm in Colorado, where an apartment probably for two, or three or four people is going to be, gee keeps going up, it's going to be $1,000 a month to $1,800 a month. Whereas 10 or 15 years ago, you could probably move to someplace for $600 a month, it just gets a little bit harder to do that. So, as you know, a lot of apartment places you need to have first month and last month rent, that's probably not the right way to think about it, because there's also a lot of other places that are out there that tend to be on by individuals that tend to be smaller apartment buildings, one or two-family type houses that have been divided up into a couple of different apartments. And you're just looking for something to get by for the first period of time. And so really, I'd want somebody to have one, two, probably three months of rent, there's some other strategies, and we're going to get to about that. But that's probably, you know, in an ideal world, somebody could have two or three months of rent ready to go, and then enough money to put food on the table for the family. And then enough money for utilities, we're just trying to build a life quickly, and get out quickly and find a place to go. So, you're looking at few $1,000 probably get somebody out in almost city in almost any city in the country. But there's a lot of other strategies people can put in place that don't require as much money. And these are, again, confidence building exercises that somebody could start with, that aren't specifically financial in, in Colorado Springs where I live. And I know pretty much in every community of a decent size around the country. There are lots of nonprofits that serve people who have abusive relationships. There are lots of organizations that serve people that are homeless. And I would say for the most part that a single parent who is homeless with children can probably find an organization that's going to get them housing and even pay for that housing, often for 90 days into one of the other things that somebody could do, if they have any access to the internet, obviously, you're going to want to hide browser histories from somebody, but in your community, take a look go to the homeless organizations online. Very often they are having a specific program for families who are on the streets, or who might be on the streets, and they can use them. Every community has a women's not even just women only but an organization that serves people who are abused. And I know again, there, it's very hard for people to make that first call and get there. But these organizations are so good about coaching people on how to be more confident, what steps to take how to get out of a place. And they often have housing for a period of time as well. So those aren't long term solutions, but it's making that initial contact with the outside world can be so fruitful and can reduce the amount of money that somebody actually needs.
 
Marissa: You mentioned that you learned a couple strategies. Would you mind sharing?
 
Rob: Yeah, so one of them was, you know, just starting to save a little bit of money at a time. So, some of these strategies really are about the people we become as we start to change and look for something else. So how do you reduce your financial need to get in touch with nonprofits, there are usually friends or family that people have lost contact with through abusive relationships that I know of personally, that happens. And it's very hard for people to pick up the phone and make that call to somebody to say, “Hey, I'm in trouble, or I need help,” or, “here's what I need,” and it may be that they don't have anybody, most people have somebody they can go to. And there again, somebody may have an extra room in their house for a couple of weeks or a month, where somebody can get out pretty quickly and reduce the financial need that’s going to get them there. You mentioned very early that people are often controlled to where they aren't even allowed to work. And so, one of the other bright spots in our world today is that there's a very, very low unemployment rate. And so, there's a lot of people who think they can't get a job, that they don't have any skills, they haven't worked for six months, a year, two years. But the reality is when I walk around, there are for hire signs just about everywhere. And it may not be the ideal job, but it's usually enough for somebody to get moving and get started. So, a lot of the strategies are less about specific financial side, we'll come back to the financial a little bit and more on what opportunities are there. And can somebody start to feel a bit confident about what they're going to do. There's another strategy on the financial side that I do want to talk about. And this is for people that would be working, if they're working in a place where there's a retirement account, and they can put money into that retirement account that starts to money that is outside the control of anybody else. Now if they're in abusive relationship and somebody is monitoring every transaction in every paycheck that's going to be found pretty quickly. A lot of companies match these days. Somebody could be saving into a retirement account and depending on whether they're going to change jobs or not, if they leave that company, they may have access to money into we've worked with people who were just out of one of the companies that work with had a lot of people were actually just out of jail. And none of those people had ever saved any money before. In some of those people, after they'd worked in that company for years, started putting money in. And several of them made the comment, this was the first time I've ever had money in my life. They didn't have a lot of money but it was the first time they had money on the sidelines that they couldn't touch while they were working there. And some of them had moved on to another job, but or we're going to lose their apartment, and needed access to the $500 or $1,000 that they had saved, to be able to live until they were able to use a retirement account as a way to escape whatever else has happened for them. It's not the world's best strategy. But again, it's another place of just trying to find out, where is it that I can put some money together. And so sometimes you can use a 401k at work. And there may even be a match maybe free money from the employer on that, to start to stash some money away, that might be able to use be used in the right circumstances to buy a period of time of freedom.
 
Marissa: Do you know of any accounts outside of 401k’s that are like that. So high interest, like I know money market accounts sometimes have higher interest and banks like Capital One 360 and Ally Bank that don't actually have any brick or mortar banks have higher interest rates. But do you know of any accounts or anything like that any banks that would be good to use to stash money away little by little with higher interest rates?
 
Rob: Yeah, you know, when somebody is just getting started, or just trying to put some funds together. For the first few months of living, or even the first year of living, in the basics of financial planning, we like to have people have what are called emergency funds. So, if something wrong happens, there's money there. For somebody in the situation, who's just trying to get out and establish themselves with whatever kind of living situation, put food on the table and pay their basic utilities and gas bills, interest rate doesn't matter at all. So, it's nice to get a little bit of interest and if you put money into a bank, and you put it into a checking account, usually those checking accounts don't pay you any interest. But if you put it into a savings account, or like you said, if you can find a high yield savings account, whatever money you having in that account might earn half a percent or 1%. And so, your money just sitting there is earning a little bit of extra money for you. And it's a great thing to have. Don't ever discount that interest being paid is just extra money for you down the road. But it's really secondary, the purpose of having those emergency funds in place at all. The purpose, there is easy access to money. And whether it's paying you a quarter of a percent, half a percent or 1%, the bigger piece of it is, can I access it today when I need it. And so sometimes when you get into higher interest accounts, they may have a little bit of restrictions on it. But even if they don't, it's not so important whether you earn a little bit more a little bit less on your emergency funds. The most important thing is I can go to the ATM or to the bank or write a check and that money is there immediately. And so, while it's good to get those, it's not something I get too caught up in because again, I just want instant access when I need it. And that's you know, getting into the situation of financial abuse is one of the nice things today is somebody can go online, they can open up an account online, they can, if they can figure out how to get money there, which is sometimes the problem would be online systems and things, they can get all their statements delivered electronically. Or they can often in some cases, even turn them off, or set up a phantom email address to get it. So, there are ways to not have quite the same degree of paper trail that are out there, and so that's not a bad way to go for somebody who's just building these up and needs to keep a degree of secrecy around it. Obviously, in a better relationship, everybody knows where you know, who's got what and how it's all working. But because of the ability to do everything online today, it's not a bad way to go and even there's some app-based accounts now that, again, depending on the situation, some of them I believe, round up. So, if you're paying with a debit or credit card, and you pay $3.95 or something for five cents can go into a savings account. And if you pay $2.10, the 90 cents would go into a savings account. And I know somebody who is using one of those services, who ended up saving far more than she expected. Not enough to, you know, take a trip anywhere or anything big like that. But she was surprised at how quickly just rounding up actually added up for her. And that's how she built a little bit more actually than her emergency fund.
 
Marissa: That's a really good idea too, because then it's not like you said there's no paper trail, and it's automatic. So, it's not like you have to hide the change. It's off a debit card.
 
Rob: And it may I don't know how it would show up on the debit card statement, if somebody is really looking at it, you know that, hey, 45 cents once to XYZ app company, but somebody could explore that a little bit more and let you in, let me know, I'd be interested to hear. Yeah. So where can you squirrel away money. And cash is still the best way to do that. getting access to, like I said, trying to find other ways to save money, whether like an online bank account, one of these apps, money into a retirement account at work. Those are kind of three different ways I think that people might be able to think about, how do I start to put some money aside that I can just get to when I need it, for one case, can't always get to when you need, it's not the best strategy, but it can work in certain circumstances.
 
Marissa: But 401K's are great if the person is working or able to hold a job, as per their narcissist, like you said, because you're surviving without that money anyways, it's like it doesn't exist. And then one day, you get a letter in the mail saying that you have X amount of money saved up that you can move to an IRA or something if you needed to.
 
Rob: If you leave the employer, you can actually access into that, again, looking at a strategy, how do you get out? How do you build up a nest egg that if you need a couple of months of living expenses, you might be able to access it, the 401k could do that for certain people? And so that's an option. It's much better as a long-term strategy. But I'm just looking at ways ahead of you get money side-cared outside of the household where the abuser lives that maybe they don't even know about. And so that's one, I'm banks, or bricks and mortar banks, again, because you can actually walk in and make deposits. And even now you can turn off all the statements, and they can all be delivered electronically, I think from probably every bank, I think actually could prefer it. So those are just a couple of different ways where you could put money. The other piece competes have financial conversations with somebody who's trying to control you.
 
Unfortunately, there's probably no way to have that as a Healthy Working conversation. But if somebody has not yet been had all of their power, and all of their access, and all of their ability to have a say, taken away, and somebody starts to see that happening, a real clear way to find out whether this is healthy or not is to start to say, “Hey, we need to have a regular meeting about money.” And so, for somebody who's kind of going in that direction, where things aren't working, and start to say to their partner, let's have more clear-cut goals and conversations around money. And if that answer is, “No, I do all of this and you can't do it, you shouldn't do it, you're not capable of doing it.” It's just such a huge red flag in any relationship, that something isn't right. And so hopefully, if people use that, on the earlier side, they may recognize, oh, I've got to take some different steps here, I'd be there got to continue to advocate for that. I've got to get into a therapeutic relationship for me, and maybe this relationship as a whole or maybe, hey, this is just not going to work And I'm lucky I found out. Now, before this case got worse over time. And again, a lot of relationships don't do a good job of talking about money. But if you're in one, and you're not sure if it's in his relationship or not and you start to say let's talk about money, and I want to be involved in it. And you get shut down really, really quickly, and then also denigrated along the way, that's just such a clear sign and take it as a clear sign that something is not right. And you don't have to put up with it.
 
Marissa: That's awesome advice. And very true. There is a whole cycle of abuse, and I'm sure you're aware of but it starts off in the honeymoon phase and then travels to the tension building phase where you're walking on eggshells, and the survivor doesn't know what they can or can't say to piss off the narcissist and then an explosion happens. And once the explosion happens, that's when the cycle restarts and it keeps restarting. And I know I have a whole other podcast episode about the cycle of abuse and all that it entails. But once you start to see red flags, I think this goes back to confidence, like you were saying as well as you have to trust your instincts, you know, look for the yellow flags and the red flags and trust them. And if it doesn't feel right, then leave. If it doesn't feel right, then then take that as a clear sign.
 
Rob: Yeah, and if you don't have access to money to live your life, to me, that's a huge clear sign as well. It's just it's a fundamental way of how we all work in society that people can if they can afford it, want to go buy a cup of coffee, whether it's at the local deli or you know a $5 Frappuccino someplace depending on what they can afford, and they're taken to task for it and brought down in the in a not a positive way. And the conversation isn't, “Hey, we're trying to budget and that was outside of our budget. What can we do to fix this?” and it's all negative, negative, negative? Yeah, it's a huge issue in any relationship, and one that bears having significant conversations about whether it's really yourself or finding a therapist or a family member and saying how am I going to get this to change and if it doesn't change, probably not a relationship that’s ever going to work.  And again, little bits of confidence, putting a little bit of money away, frankly, having the confidence and I know, it's very difficult to say, I'd like to be involved in the conversation, because you're going to find out with that simple question, whether you're going to get a positive response, you're going to get that fair to middling responses could be a person that doesn't matter, you're going to get a really negative response. And so, the conversation around money, that behavior around money is very, very telling. And whether or not a relationship has a chance to really go anywhere or not. Now it can be fixed in a healthy relationship, and it just can't be in a toxic relationship. Again, one of the things about money is it's very tangible. It's very obvious what's happening with it, and so it can be used as a benchmark for the bigger relationship that might not be functioning well, like you talked about in the cycle before to the honeymoon phase, you're going to find out pretty quickly in the with the money part are you in the honeymoon phase is it all being taken away. And as opposed to, hey, let's go out to dinner, you know, and other things that might be more fulfilling and satisfying emotionally. Again, the money's a little bit of a dry part. But it's a huge area that you can gauge what's happening.
 
Marissa: You mentioned at the beginning, and so I don't want to get off of people who are still in abusive relationships and move to people who have left and find that they're struggling a little bit. A lot of the tips and tricks that you mentioned before where you know, the roundups in your bank account and saving the extra change in like a piggy bank or something and just watching that money grow and grow and grow, that would be really effective for people who have already left as a means of saving money. Because chances are, if you left an abusive relationship, where there was a lot of financial abuse, you're starting from ground zero, do you have any other ideas for people like that in those situations that can help them outside of the ones that we've mentioned already?
 
Rob: One of the things when people are just starting out, and for somebody who's gotten out of the relationship, they're now standing up on their own. Hopefully, they're talking to everybody to know what resources are available, whether that's section eight housing, or food stamps, or whatever it's called in your community just to cut the expense side of it a little bit. And then like I said, it's in today's environment, it's not always easy to find work that can support a full household, but it's usually fairly simple to find some work. And then so one of the things people have to do is, again, change that mindset to say, “How am I going to start to put little bits away?” and it's that round up. When my kids were younger, we had a big jug. And anytime we had some extra change, it all went in there and went into a place where we could see it, because it was that same piece of how do we make money tangible? And how do we know we're putting some away. So, whether you do it that way, a little bit into a bank account, probably one of these apps is even better than a bank account, because banks tend to charge a decent amount to people who don't have enough to keep in there right away. So those really don't change, it just becomes even more important than somebody that on their own, to build emergency funds. So that if a job is lost, or there's a health issue that comes up, there's some money there and credit cards aren't being used, and debt isn't there, and they don't have to go back to somebody else and ask for money. And so, money again becomes a symbol of when I start to have it in the bank, I'm starting to gain some independence. What we see also, and not everybody budgets, because budgeting is just people don't ever seem to like it, is every time you get paid, taking a little bit of it, and putting it someplace is a huge piece. So not just rounding up from change and not just throwing pennies into a big jug. Thinking out of every paycheck I get, I'm going to put 1% or 5% or $25 or $50 into the bank at the beginning and then into long term savings afterwards, is how people start to be able to step up a little bit.
 
We also see that people are carrying lots of debt, until I would I've come to understand sometimes an abusive relationship to that the debt is all carried by the person who's being abused. And so, they're even if they do move out, they may have car payments that are on cars they don't even actually own or don't have access to. And so somewhere along the way, and this is not a first couple of months issue, but it's a first year or two issue is just listing out everybody and every organization that you owe money to and how much it is every month and starting to focus on what's most important or not. And in some cases, it makes sense to not pay debt, and pay utility bills and housing bills and food first. So, sometimes we see people that are really struggling with debt, and they're just never going to make it and they're going to have to lose that car or if they own a condo or a house, they're going to have to lose that condo or house because they won't be able to feed their family otherwise. And we see a lot of times with debt collectors, or I've heard many, many times they're very vocal on the phone. And I've even talked to people that said I'm paying my car payment of $400 a month that I can't really afford. And I'm not, you know, I'm not turning the lights on in my house except for at night for an hour or something, because I can't pay my utility bill either, once. So, in that, in those cases, sometimes people have to really look at what are their fundamental core expenses to live as independently as possible, may not be a great style of living. That is what has to be paid first, food, utilities and place to live, and probably health insurance. The lender on your car probably doesn't need to be paid before you go to the grocery store. And so, people sometimes have to shift their priorities, because they're, they're responding to a loud person on the phone is saying they have to make a $250 payment. Instead of realizing no, they actually need  $150 of that to feed their kids. And so again, a lot of is just a mindset mind set shift that people have a hard time making, and understandably so. So, when they realize take care of food, utilities, and house first, put a little bit of money on the side. Next, all that other stuff is noise, and it's going to work itself out one way or the other.
 
Marissa: That's so true. And I just have two pieces that I want to snowball off of what you just said, because I think that what you just said is super important. First and foremost, when you said that you can take a percentage or a financial number, and kind of skim it off of the top of your weekly or bi-weekly or daily paycheck, you can actually set up bank accounts that will auto do that, like it'll auto deposit $25 of your deposit into a separate account. So, I do that actually, all the time, where x amount, or I did when I had my full-time job at the army, I think I did 10% or 15% of every paycheck would go into a bank account and Ally Bank that I just kind of forgot about and I didn't have to think about it. So, when I'd look at my bank statement, that money was already gone And I forgot about it. And it didn't exist in my budget. So that money was just being saved. And I'd have to budget around that money not being there.
 
Rob: Yeah, that a lot of people call that pay yourself first, take some money, like said right off the top that goes somewhere else, you can't touch it. And then you don't plan on it every month for your spending, and you've just saved some money, it's great way to go and if you can automate it even better.
 
Marissa: I know a lot of banks do. I don't know about every bank or anything. But that was a good point. So, thank you for bringing that up. And the second thing was, I love that you said the loud people on the phone, because I hate when they call because they are, they're loud, and they yell at you and they make you feel bad. A lot of the time, you can tell them, “Listen, I've had a change of finances, and I can't afford this payment, is there any way we can reduce the payment or is there any way that you can give me like a 60 day on hold or something, hold for 60 days or something,” and they'll call you back in 60 days, and then you can start paying again. But it gives you an opportunity to gather money, it gives you an opportunity to, like you said before prioritize, and it gives people an opportunity to not have to stress about so many things at once. Because I mean, you're totally right. A lot of the time the debt does follow the survivor because it's a mechanism of control from the abuser.
 
Rob: Yeah, and you're stuck with it. And those people are just going to have to wait, you know, and that goes back to that confidence, little pieces at a time competence just doesn't come overnight. But one of the things people can remember is, if you can't pay something, you can just tell them you can't pay it, and that you don't intend to pay it as well. And by the way, you don't want to be harassed over the phone. And so, it's just another way where we get to exhibit some self-determination and control, we may have to pay that debt at some point. And we may actually have voted. And so, I'm not saying if you can pay it just turn away from it. But it's this sort of looking for strategies and then also telling people who are not being kind to, you know, take a walk is always feels good to me. So, again, nothing financial about that one. But it is another financial strategy where it's Take care of yourself and the most important parts of yourself first. And then you can start to work on those things that are really around the edges from a survival point of view.
 
Marissa: That's a good way to build your confidence tell the telemarketers and the people that are that are hounding you for money to piss off.
 
Rob: You don't know them. I mean, they may be very nice people but you don't know they don't know you they're making judgments about you, you can make a couple of judgments back so.
 
Marissa: It’s a good plan. I think next time I get a phone call like that I'm just going to take a long walk off a short pier.
 
Rob: And I always try to be kind too, but sometimes you get people that you know, they're just never going to be nice and it might be the same person and sometimes you you've got to bring up your attitude level to match theirs unfortunately, but…
 
Marissa: Standing up for yourself is a big leap forward in healing from emotional abuse.
 
Rob: So, you know, I just don't think there's any when I think about it, like how you get started on savings and building some Financial Peace there's no like super-secret way of doing it. That's complicated that the regular people don't know about that's not it all comes down to very, very simple to talk about sometimes hard to do behaviors. And it is that little bit at a time, build the confidence. And then it just starts to bloom over time. And so, you know, as you're thinking about it, and people listening or thinking about it, you don't have to make it any more complicated than taking $25 out of every paycheck, or 5% out of every paycheck, or all of your change shows, or three, just simple to think about ways to do it. And you'll see it happening as you do it. And it's just exciting to watch when it happens.
 
Marissa: There are times where I forget that I automatically put money in an account. And I'll open that app and be like, Oh, my God, I have $500. Where did that come from? And it's in the grand scheme of life, It's not that much, but it's like a happy surprise for me.
 
Rob: Yeah. And then as you get further along, that either those will grow, or you'll say, Oh, I can use that $500 now to do something that I want to do, and not have to have, you know, don't have enough emergency funds in other places. And so, yeah, just it really ends up being a great thing, if you can just do a little bit at a time.
 
Marissa: The last thing I want to get back to in the very beginning, you said, a lot of people don't believe that they will have or deserve to have money. What do you tell those people when they say that?
 
Rob: Yeah, and it's interesting, because I don't always know where it's coming from, when that comment gets made. I think there's, again, a couple of things people can do about it.
 
One is, look around the people who you hang out with. And very often the conversation among those people is, I don't have anything, I'm never going to have anything. You know, the little guy can't get ahead in today's world. And people tend to hang out with people that have that same conversation who don't ever get anywhere, And because it's a self-fulfilling piece. So, part of it is where's all that messaging coming from? Is it coming from family, when you grew up? Is it coming from the people that you hang out with? Those are the two biggies. And if you can just recognize that those messages are coming from everybody around me, and I don't have to put up with it anymore. Again, we're talking mind shift here, or attitude shift to saying, I'm not going to do that. I want to live a better life than that. And I'm going to make some changes starting this week, this month, and next month to get there. That is always the starting point for how people go from that never have any money to I'm building money, reserves, wealth, retirement, whatever they want to call it. And so, the messages that are around you every day, that's a big piece of it. The other piece of it is we live in a world where we are messaged all the time on ways to spend our money. And so, like I always want the new phone or I want the new plan or the new shoes or I want to eat it Applebee's instead of eating at home. And so, people make lots and lots of decisions that they don't really think too much about, because they've been pulled in some direction or other. Jia has to have this to be happy, or I don't want to do this. So, I'm going to just spend money to make it happen. And I see that I can eat at home, I can eat healthier at home, and far less money than by eating out. And so again, depending where somebody is and their process of putting some money together, there are many ways that we spend money that we really don't have to. And so, we're again, for somebody starting out who's not got enough necessarily to do a lot of extra, that's a little bit harder to do. But as it starts to be a little bit more, what people tend to do is they make more, they spend more, and they're still in that exact same spot, no emergency funds, no money going into retirement account. So, for somebody who's getting out of an abusive relationship and may have gotten into their first job, and maybe now has like, you know, just enough to make things happen. It's bare bones and whatever you have to do, you have to but then six months from now a year from now you get a raise, or you move to a different place, and you get a little bit more money. When most of the time happens, people just spend that money. And what they don't say is I can spend a little bit of that money but more of that needs to go to savings more that needs to go to pay off debt, or some of that needs to go to retirement accounts. And so, it's those critical decisions, and people are just starting to move from that bare bones to that next level that really will make the difference over the next 5-10 -20 years.
 
Marissa: That's awesome. Thank you so much for all that. Is there anything else you want to talk about any programs or anything that you're working on that you want to shout out?
 
Rob: So, I'm a you know, a financial planner, and part of my specialty is families who've got a member with down syndrome or autism or some kind of intellectual developmental disabilities, although really, I work with all kinds of people around the country. And if people want to find out more about me, they can go to RobWrubel.com, and just kind of see what we're about, if it's a good fit. Like I said, I'm so excited that you decided to have me on and had lots of conversations and thinking through, see when somebody is really just getting started and how do they get out of the relationship and have a get some control and power back. I just realize it's such an important topic, not just for people who are in abusive relationships, but really for just about everybody. Because those very, very basic behaviors don't change. Now, somebody's ability to own it and feel good about it, are obviously different. And, and so I just really want to say thank you for the work that you're doing, and encouraging people to get out there and have happy and more positive on the financial side lives and just, you know, blossom as people. It's unfortunate that so many people have the need, but it's exciting that you're out there helping them.
 
Marissa: I really appreciate that. Thank you. And if we collectively help one person get out and not go back, I think the percentage right now is 80% of people that leave abusive relationships go back, and a large percentage of that is financially based, then I think that we've succeeded, you know, and thank you for everything that you've shared. You've given a lot of awesome tips to save money, you’re just such a good person and I encourage anyone who's interested in financial planning or finding out more information to reach out to rob. He is friendly and fun and he's a wealth of knowledge. You can find his book Financial Freedom for Special Needs Families is available on Amazon, as well as his website, www.RobWrubel.com and feel free to reach out to him with any financial based questions. I'm sure he'd be happy to work with you and answer them for you.
 
Hey! If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching.  Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!

Healing From Emotional Abuse: Abuse and Narcissism During Covid

Get Your FREE COPY of  my book, 3 Signs of A Toxic Relationship, Now...
Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to be a five year process either. Millions of other survivors around the worlds entire lives have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Welcome to a special episode of Healing From Emotional Abuse.  I know that we’ve all received email blasts about Covid-19 from every mailing list we’ve ever signed up for, at least I did, about what every company is doing to take precautions.  That’s great.  I’m joining those people, but more as a PSA. 
 
In the midst of this craziness with Corona-pocalypse, I want to spread a Kindness PSA.  Abusers and Narcissists are most likely working from home now, as most people, at least in various states are confined to their homes.  And even if they're not, the world is in a chaotic state.  That became really apparent when people started fighting in supermarket aisles over toilet paper, and I almost got run over in Walmart by another shopper to get to the gatorade first.
 
The heightened stress will typically increase abusive explosions and survivors don’t have anywhere to go. Everyone is quarantined, self-quarantined, or just encouraged to stay in their homes.  Leaving is hard when the world is not in financial ruin and slowly crumbling to the ground around us.  However, now, when everyone is afraid of Covid / Coronavirus and trying to manage and reduce the spreading of it, it will be more difficult for survivors to leave their abusers.  For a few reasons.
 
Shelters might be stricter on taking in new people for fear of infecting the safe house and other survivors living there.
 
There will be less of a chance or opportunity for them to flee safely, because the abuser will always be home. They will be monitored.
 
Gathering and securing any money to leave will be more difficult, because there are limited resources for securing  income.
 
The chance for fatalities becomes heightened from both Mob Mentality, and from Abusive Explosions.
 
The healthcare and hospitals that survivors would go to after an incident will most likely be full, or limited in the medical care that they can provide.
 
 
 
For all of these reasons, I wanted to try and do my part in spreading kindness and empathy towards each other.  We are living through a scary time.  If not for us personally, then for friends and family members who will be more aggressively affected by this covid virus.   
 
People become selfish, and aggressive, with an “every man for themselves” mentality.  THAT is the most dangerous part.  The fact that there are videos of people fighting over a roll of toilet paper makes me sad.  This  is the most opportune time to deny psychologists the explanation that stressful situations tear communities apart, and instead come together and help support each other.  We are more likely to survive and thrive in times of stress and hardship when every man is for everyone - sharing resources, and support.  Those of us that have outside the home battles in addition to the inside the home battles, like abuse, need empathy and comfort more than ever.  And I hope that this strong and beautiful community can come together and give them that.
 
But, that does not mean to put your family at risk.  Some things you can do for survivors at this time, that won’t put you or your family in jeopardy are:
 
Give the survivors in your life love and support to know that they aren’t alone, and have a place to run or people that will empower them when they are ready and able to leave.
 
Safety Planning Guide
 
Help them research shelters and nonprofits that are available when the time is right.
 
Safety Planning Guide
 
Help them find places to secure money, maybe into a separate bank account where their abuser cannot access it or see it.
 
That doesn’t mean to give them money, but helping them keep their money safe. A lot of times people will hide change or hide money throughout their house, and that might pose a problem when the abuser is always home.  Financial abuse.
 
Safety Planning Guide
 
Help to create a safety plan with them of where and how they can get out and go when the quarantines are over, and they have a safe opportunity to leave.
 
The reason I do not recommend invite survivors into your house in times like this is, the abuser will have plenty of time to search for them, and that could put you and your family in danger.  You do not want the abuser to come break down your door and hurt you or your family.  To be proactive in keeping everybody safe, I would follow these four guidelines in helping, so that when quarantines are over and when people can leave their houses again, they’re very prepared.
 
Safety Planning Guide
 
I also think it’s important to mention that in crisis situations and natural disasters, the rate of emotional abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, rape and sexual assault also increase.  That could be being displaced, in a shelter, staying in an unfamiliar place, or even in your home.  But people are losing control of their reality.  Everything in the routine is different - so people lose their minds and, abusers grab for control where they can.  I am by NO MEANS justifying any sort of violent act — not rape or sexual assault, emotional abuse, physical abuse, financial abuse, or any sort of abuse.  I just wanted to help bring situational awareness. 
 
Be aware of your surroundings.  If you’re in a shelter or know someone in a shelter, be cautious and aware or encourage them to do so.  If you’re staying with someone, anyone, a stranger, a friend of a friend, a friend of yours, a family member, or anyone outside of your normal housing situation, you can be at an increased risk of emotional abuse, sexual assault, physical abuse.  Take precautions to keep yourself safe. 
 
I can’t stress enough the importance of evading the mob mentality.  In crisis situations, there are more fatalities from looting, riots and chaos, than there are from the actual virus. If everyone could reach out to someone they know that might need a little bit of comfort, that could make the world a better place, and make this scary situation a little easier to handle. Reach out to the elderly people in your family and in your neighborhood.  See if there is anything you can do to help them, or make this easier.  A lot of elderly people are walking around supermarkets just trying to get the bare minimum, and there’s nothing left for them.  Do you party, do what you can, do what you can to make this easier for the people who are at a heightened risk.  And if that means giving up one roll of toilet paper, do it.
Keep yourself, your family, and your community safe.  Wash your hands with soap, not just sanitizer.  And drink a lot of water.
 
Talk to you soon!  Send loving energy out there!  That way, we can all get through this together.
 
Safety Planning Guide
 
Hey! If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!

Healing From Emotional Abuse: Signs of A Toxic Relationship

Get Your FREE COPY of  my book, 3 Signs of A Toxic Relationship, Now...
Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to be a five year process either. Millions of other survivors around the worlds entire lives have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Today, I wanted to read a couple of the stories from my books: Breaking Through the Silence, the Journey to Surviving Sexual Assault and Breaking Through the Silence: #Me(n)Too. Both of these books are compilations of survivor stories, told from their voices, in their words, including my own.  To help all survivors become champions and take their lives back, feel empowered and feel relatable to other survivors.  I want every survivor to know that they are not alone, and what happened to them was not their fault.
These are real stories from real people that have endured and overcome their abuse and assaults. These stories are in the words of the champions, so there may be some inappropriate language or triggering content. Be mindful while to listening to keep yourself safe.  Thank you so much for listening and supporting champions of abuse.
 
All the stories being told today can be found in my books, Breaking Through the Silence, the Journey to Surviving Sexual Assault and Breaking Through the Silence: #Me(n)Too, available on my website at www.marissafayecohen.com/the-books or on Amazon.  Like I mentioned before, these are all from the voices of the survivors.  They had complete control over their stories. Every champion that signed on to help me with the Breaking Through the Silence series, voiced their intention to use their stories to help other survivors feel empowered by knowing that you are not alone.
 
The first story I’m going to read is from Breaking Through the Silence, the Journey to Surviving Sexual Assault. It’s called, Will You Become One of My Friday Night Regulars, on page 62.
 
Will You Become One of My Friday Night Regulars?
I’ve talked about my abuse with my daughters, but not with my son or husband. I’ve never told him, because I felt it would be so hurtful for him to know. I told my daughters that this is uncomfortable, but I wanted them to know what happened to me to make sure they knew how to take care of themselves. Yes, you should be able to do what you want and be safe, but in this world, you just never know who’s a predator.
I was a freshman in college, and it was my first time away from home. I was naive; I was not a virgin, but I was very naive about how things worked in the world. I was much more trusting than I became in the end. I went to a party with a male friend of mine, hosted by his friend who was on the soccer team. I had too much to drink, as often happens in school your freshman year, and apparently, I passed out. My friend was hanging around the party waiting for me to be awake enough for him to try and get me home. The host of the party (my friend’s friend) said, “Don’t worry, just leave her here. I’ll take care of her when she comes to.” Of course, my friend thought nothing of it. After all, he was an athlete, a buddy, and a good boy from a good school.
I came to, completely out of it, and knowing that something was going on. This guy was on top of me. I was so confused because I was drunk, and I wasn’t sure about what was happening. Then I felt extreme pain, and boy, that sobered me up. He was about 6’6 or 6’7. I was not aroused in the slightest. He ulcerated my vulva. I yelled for him to stop, but he continued to do it anyway. Afterward, I was still drunk, but also in shock. There was blood on the sheets. He said, “I didn’t know you were a virgin.” I said, “I wasn’t,” to which he responded, “I better take you home.” 
When I came in, my roommate was still up. She looked at me and said, “You’re bleeding.” There was blood on my legs, between my thighs. She thought I had my period and was trying to warn me, but I just started freaking out, wailing, and crying. She couldn’t get out of me what was happening, so she called my friend that I went to the party with. He came over and managed to calm me down, and get out of me what happened. When they realized what had happened, we didn’t even know what to do. Who knew? There was no guidance; there was nothing -- this was the 1970’s. He took me to the Health Services building, and the doctor asked me if I wanted to call the police. At this time, self-preservation had kicked in, and I said no. I just wanted to make it all stop somehow. The doctor said, “I will say this was obviously not consensual. This was not willing, you don’t have tears in your vulva from nothing.” I just said, “No, no, I want to go home. I just want to go home. I just want to go home.”
Then, the harassment started. The whole thing couldn’t have taken two weeks, maybe more. Everyone had whiteboards on their doors, and the next day when I came back from class, somebody had written that I was a slut on my door. Then notes started being pushed under my door. Notes that called me a dirty whore, and if I say anything they will tell everyone that I’m a dirty slut. I had no idea what to do. There was a knock on my door one time, and when I opened the door, there was my attacker. He wanted to know if we could go out and talk. I told him, “No. I never wanted to see your face again.”
He was just standing there looking ashamed and uncomfortable, and then he said, “So, my coach says that he knows that you had another boyfriend and that your old boyfriend (who was also a soccer player), is willing to testify that you’re a slut and you would sleep with anybody.” I just looked at him and told him, “You just get out of my face. Just get the fuck away from me and stay the fuck away from me.”
He tried to see me one more time after that. He called me and said that he had to talk to me. I called up two male friends of mine who were on the track team, big guys, in an absolute panic. Why didn’t I call the police, campus security, call my dorm, I don’t know. The guy showed up, and my two very large friends were just sitting there. They stood up and said, “If you didn’t understand her, she said she never wants you to contact her again.” I never heard from the guy ever again. Thankfully I got past that, and I was lucky enough to have no sexual problems as a result. I’m thankful to have had support, not just from women, but also from male friends.
When I was 23 or 24, I had a boyfriend who was violent toward me. He was quiet and seemed unassuming. He had a lot of interesting stories from being a roadie with my favorite rock band. Things seemed fine at first, and then he started having what began as little hissy fits.
For example, once we were going to a concert and when we got to our seats, he didn’t like the view from the seats. I remember saying, “Well, it doesn’t matter. These seats are fine. We can see fine.” All of a sudden he got up and stormed off. Now, had I been a different woman, I would have thought, “what the fuck, asshole?” stayed, watched the concert, got a cab home, and never saw him again. Because I am how I am, I asked, “What, what’s happening?” I started grabbing my coat, followed him and kept asking what happened and what was wrong. Of course, I was thinking, “What did I do?” because he made it seem like my fault.
From there, it progressed. He would be overwhelmingly lovey-dovey and romantic one moment, and then would be the smack-down. It was a lot of emotional abuse. One moment he would say, “I love you, I love you,” and then “I don’t want you to do that, and you’re going to do it anyway, and I’m not going to speak to you.” For example, one night, my friend asked me to be his date to a wedding. My boyfriend didn’t want me to go, but I told him, “Look, he has been one of my best friends since high school. I’m not going to tell him no. He’s my friend, you know he’s my friend.” He still didn’t want me to go to the wedding, but I assured him I would come home immediately after. We weren’t living together, but I spent much time at his place.
On the night of the wedding, I was wearing a short dress and sandals (keep in mind that this is in December, but it was a cute, appropriate outfit for an indoor wedding). When my friend dropped me off and I walked up to my apartment. I had this really wonky lock, and usually you could pull it, and jiggle it to open it up. This time, however, it didn’t open, and there I was in my short dress with my bare legs and sandals, unable to get into my apartment. It wasn’t that late, maybe midnight. My boyfriend lived blocks away — within walking distance. I walked all the way to his apartment, and I rang the doorbell, and I said, “It’s me. My lock won’t open again. The damn thing won’t open!” He said, “Too bad.” I rang again and said, “I’m in a dress, in sandals, and it’s snowing out. Let me in!” but, he wouldn’t let me in. I was starting to panic, and I had to beg to be let in. The next morning, it was like nothing had happened. I asked him why he wouldn’t let me in, and he said he was tired.
He only hit me twice during our relationship. I know, the word “only” is not great because it shouldn’t even happen once. The first time was after we had broken up. I went out with someone else, and he called me when I got home. I could tell he was very upset. He begged to speak with me and came over. He started asking questions about whether the guy had kissed me during our date, and was digging for information. In my mind, it wasn’t any of his business -- he broke up with me, and I can kiss whoever I want. Then he slapped me. I looked at him and told him, “Get the fuck out, and I never want to see you again.” He called, and called, and cried, and called, and begged, and cried and showed up with roses. He said, “What was I thinking?” and, “If you take me back, I’ll make it up to you!” Why did I take him back? The guy who I was out with that night called me, and I told him I had gotten back together with my boyfriend.
He was a nice guy, and I didn’t tell him what had happened, but he said, “You know, you’re a nice girl. But I gotta tell you; you’re being really stupid. And it’s not because you’re not going to date me. It’s because you’re putting up with this and you don’t have to.” I made excuses for him. I don’t seem like that kind of person now, but being with someone like that chips away at your self-esteem. And yet, I was with him for another year. The first six months because I wanted to be, and the second 6 months because I was afraid of him. He started complaining about me spending time with my male friends, but then it became my female friends too, and then my family. He didn’t want me to spend time with my parents. “Why do you have to spend so much time with your family? Why do you have to spend so much time with your parents? Aren’t you a grown-up?” Of course, I would keep doing it, because I was not going to step away from my friends and family. That would lead to these punishing hissy fits. I was unhappy. I was not myself, and people saw it.
There was one wonderful woman at work, this wonderful, old, grandma- like lady with white hair who was always sweet to me, who said, “Something’s not right. You’re always so cheerful and happy. What’s wrong?” I told her everything. I told her what was going on, not realizing how bad it was. She was not sweet this time. She looked at me very sternly, and she said, “You need to stop. You need to stop this right now. You need to stop this.” I believe she even used the word abusive.
Oddly enough, the thing that finally made up my mind was when I got my first cat. I didn’t want to be at my boyfriend’s anymore; I wanted to be at home with my kitty cat. And I began to realize if I want to be with the animal more than I wanted to be with the man, that was saying something. He didn’t want to sleep at my apartment because of the cat. When he came over to my place, and we were starting to get intimate, my kitty jumped up on the bed because he was used to sleeping in bed with me. Without even stopping, my boyfriend scooped him up and tossed him off the bed. And for the first time, I kicked him, and pushed him off the bed, and said, “Get Out! Get out! Get the fuck out!” I was screaming, “Don’t you ever touch my cat! Don’t you ever touch him! Get! The Fuck! Out!” And he did. And I thought, “If he could abuse me, but he mustn’t touch my cat, what does that say about me?”
I thought this was it, and I was done. I should have let it be over, but the next day, I told him I needed to talk to him. So, the next day I went over to his place to end it. As soon as I spoke the words, “This is over, I’m done!” he started walking towards me...and I knew. I just knew. I ran for the door to try and get it open, but he got me at the door. He hit me so hard that he knocked me out. It sounded like a “thunk,” almost like the sound that you make when you hit a watermelon. The next thing I knew, my shirt was torn, I was bleeding, and I wasn’t by the door anymore - I don’t know how I got to where I was. I started screaming and screaming and screaming at the top of my lungs, “Help, help, someone call the police, help!” By this time, my boyfriend had gotten himself together, because he saw that I was hurt and bleeding and hysterical, and he was trying to calm me down. He asked to let him take me to the hospital, and I let him drive me to the E.R. I just wanted everything to stop, for it to be over.
When we got there, the nurses did an intake report to see what happened. I told them I fell and hit my head. So, after I was stitched, the doctor asked me what happened because it said that I tripped and fell. The doctor said they had to give me some stitches, and they needed to stabilize my jaw because it was unhinged. I had three stitches on the side of my head. “Who hit you?” the doctor asked. I didn’t say anything. He said, “This is not a falling accident. This is an impact accident. This is what you get when someone hits you. Was it your husband, your boyfriend, your father? Who is it?” I still didn’t say anything. He said, “Do you know how I know this? I know this because every Friday night, they come in here, these beaten women. It’s the same ones over and over again. And each time, it’s a little worse. It’s a black eye. Then it’s a black eye and a broken nose. A broken cheek. Stitches in the head, it’s a concussion, and some of them eventually die. They have police out in the waiting room. I’ll have them come in, I’ll file a report, you’ll file a report, and they’ll arrest him. So, are you going to become one of my Friday night regulars?”
With that, I was able to meet his eyes, and I said, “NO! Never again”.
I left the hospital and went home, where my boyfriend was standing, crying and apologizing. I told him that he was not staying, and he was not coming in, he was leaving. At this point, I was so calm; I was just trying to keep control. I went into my apartment, shut it and locked it. I went into my room, and thought, “I’m safe now.” I felt overwhelming relief because I was never going to see him again, ever...or so I thought. He called and called, trying to apologize. He would go through phases. He would call begging and pleading. He would call in the middle of the night screaming and cursing at me. One night, he was down in the courtyard of my apartment complex, banging on the door and screaming, and the girl upstairs called the police on him. He sent roses to my office one time. I looked at the card, went into the lunchroom, threw the roses in the garbage, and went back to my desk. Two years later, I was in a new relationship with my now-husband. I told my husband about the phone calls, and how I would just hang up. One day the phone rang, and my husband decided to pick it up. He said, “Yep, hello? Nope. Nope. She doesn’t want to talk to you. Go right ahead. It’s a whole lot harder to beat up another man than it is to beat up a woman. Come right on.” and he hung up. I hyperventilated and thought I was going to hear my doorbell ring, and he would be tracking me. But thankfully, I never heard from him again.
What helped me at first, were my friends. Women didn’t talk about assault, or domestic violence very much, but if you did share, somebody would share back if they’d experienced it. It was really helpful to hear another woman say, “Don’t you put up with that shit.” Especially older women. I got a fair bit of counseling, which also really helped. I never spoke to my parents about the rape, and I don’t know if I told them about the abuse. I mean, obviously they saw it. They aren’t stupid, and they probably knew something was going on, and you could see that I had been beaten up. I think that the hardest part was looking back and thinking, “Good Lord, what was I missing in me, that I would take that?” It isn’t my fault. I know it isn’t my fault.
You can’t let it define you; what you did, what you didn’t do, how you fought or didn’t fight, is not who you are. Someone else did you wrong. How it felt, what you did at the moment, and how it felt in the moment is all so confusing for a decent person who doesn’t want to hurt anyone else. It’s really hard to comprehend. Someone else fucked up, and you got the sharp end of it, but it’s still your body and still your life. It’s still your sexuality. It doesn’t belong to them. I don’t know how we make it stop. I don’t think we can make it all stop. Women can’t do this on our own, because women want to be loved and desired and wanted. In addition to wanting to be respected, they want to be desired. That’s why women with brains and guts and education and ambition will go somewhere and have their pubic hairs ripped out by their roots with a bikini wax. Why? Because somebody told women, it makes them sexier. You have to have men join you as part of the effort to stop abuse. All it takes is for good people to do something.
 
 
Thank you for listening today. I hope you enjoyed the story.  I know they’re a little dark, and they’re hard to hear, but it’s really important that more people speak out about their abuse and what they’ve experienced in order to help other people feel comfortable doing the same thing.  The whole purpose is to empower other survivors.  We want a world where nobody feels isolated and stuck because of a situation they are or were in.  I want everybody to have the comfort and support of a community that empowers and loves and validates them. And I think that by writing these books and sharing these stories, is a really important and effective way to let people break through their silence, and heal from their emotional abuse.
 
Hey! If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!

Healing From Emotional Abuse: Narcissistic Abuse Cycle

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Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to be a five year process either. Millions of other survivors around the worlds entire lives have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Welcome back toHealing From Emotional Abuse.  Today, I want to address the Cycle of Abuse, and the 6 types of abuse that are most prevalent.
 
There are three parts to the cycle of abuse.  There is the Honeymoon Phase, the Tension Building Phase, and the Explosion Phase.  This is often referred to as the power and control wheel.
 
Abusive Relationships, like every relationship, start off with the calm honeymoon phase.  The abuser is charming, and kind.  Makes you feel comfortable and loved. Mine would bring snacks to my desk at school and we would watch Glee, because he knew I love that show.  And he would send me cute messages and tell me how beautiful, smart and witty I was. 
 
Once he had me smitten, he began to make occasional, seemingly out of character remarks to me.  He started to push my boundaries with verbal abuse.  Telling me that things I was saying were stupid, or that I was stupid.  My opinions were invalid.  Or that the major I declared in college was dumb.  You name it, he said it.  It made me feel really insecure.  I began carefully selecting things to tell him.  Things that wouldn’t make me look stupid to him.  Things that would avoid any conflict. I felt like I was walking on eggshells, and anything I said to him could be used against me, or used to make me feel bad.
 
Have you ever experienced a friend, partner or colleague that treated you like this?  It might have confused you, because once you were once so close, or they were so nice.  And all of a sudden, it started to creep in that they became a little hurtful. And then, very hurtful.  They would make little jabs that threw you off or confused you. And then you felt insecure or uneasy sharing things with them?    This is the tension building phase of abuse.
 
Finally, the last phase of the cycle is the Explosion phase.  The explosion phase is when the big blowout happens.  When the abuser snaps and creates a big act of control.  It could be causing a scene, or yelling.  It could be a blowout of verbal or emotional abuse.  It could be physical or sexual abuse.  The recent trend we’ve been seeing is strangulation, over the last couple of years.  The explosion phase is usually when friends or family will be called or asked for help, or when the police will be called.  Or when the survivor tries to leave.
 
The problem is, that brings us back to the beginning of the cycle.  The honeymoon/reconciliation phase. This is when the abuser comes back and apologizes.  Makes promises that they’re not going to keep. Like that they’re never going to hurt them again.  Or makes a million excuses for their behavior.  “Oh, but honey, I was just drunk, and I was angry.” Or, “I have so much stress at work, and there’s something going on with me.” And sometimes, they’ll bring gifts and chocolate, and are extra affectionate and attentive. 
 
And the cycle continues.  Everything is great for a short period of time, and then tension builds again until we hit another explosion.  And things don’t get better.  They will always continue to get worse and worse, because throughout the tension and explosion phase, the abuser is pushing boundaries.   Seeing how far they can push their control over the survivor. 
 
There are 6 major types of abuse.
Emotional abuse / Psychological abuse
Verbal abuse
Financial abuse
Spiritual abuse
Sexual abuse
Physical abuse
 
Verbal abuse is when someone says mean things to you in order to belittle you and make you feel insecure.  It’s a way to break your confidence down, so you’ll submit to what they say about you.  It can be cursing, yelling, calling mean or derogatory names.  Anything that is said with the intention to hurt someone else.
 
Emotional abuse and Psychological Abuse is used to break down your self-worth, and push boundaries.  For example, the emotional abuse that my abuser said to me was that I was lucky to have him because nobody else could ever love the damaged person that I am.  That I had no value and no worth, and I would never aspire to be anything.  I would always depend on him to take care of me.  He knew that was my biggest fear, because I grew up so independent, and being taught how I need to be an independent person and take care of myself. And he exploited that by trying to make me feel like I would never achieve that.
 
Financial Abuse is very common, but not often talked about.  There are a few scenarios that depict financial abuse.  Either the abuser does not allow the survivor to work, so they won’t have any access to money, and won’t have work experience, which impacts someone’s ability to leave their abuser.  And the other type is forcing the survivor to work, in order to sustain the household, while the abuser has full control over the finances, and often times stays at home.  They usually monitor the bank accounts to make sure that the survivor isn’t spending any money, or lying about where they are.  And also, not allowing the survivor any access to the money they’re bringing in, so they cannot leave. 
 
Spiritual abuse, also not commonly talked about, is refusing the survivor the right to their beliefs.  It can be the abuser forcing the survivor to believe in the abusers religion of choice, or just not allowing the survivor to practice the faith or religion that they want.  It cuts survivors off from their communities, and is also a method of control. 
 
Physical abuse is the most commonly talked about.  It’s actually what people usually envision when talking about domestic violence.  It’s the pictures of people with black eyes, making the excuse that they’ve walked into a doorknob, or tripped and fell down the stairs.  It’s any physical contact that is meant to hurt someone, or control someone, or have them submit to the abuser.  Like I mentioned before, choking and strangulation have been very common in the last few years.  I personally think it’s because cutting off someones air supply is horrendous, but it’s also complete control over their life.  And fingerprints are easier to hide behind hair.  Pushing people down stairs, biting, scratching, hitting are all different examples of physical abuse.
 
And sexual abuse.  This can range of making an off-putting sexual comment, or behavior - like touching someones leg, or butt or any part of their body that makes them uncomfortable, to full on rape and sexual assault.  Harvey Weinstein was just convicted on this. Two people came forward and said that he had forced himself on them, and that’s sexual abuse. It is any unwanted or unprompted sexual advance where no consent is given. 
 
Abuse doesn’t typically start out physical.  If you meet someone, you start to like them, and then they punch you in the head, chances are you’re going to leave, right?  What they’ll do is build trust and affection and love.  And in the midst of your relationship building, they’ll insert small jabs and boundary pushes to see what they can and can’t get away with. And like climbing a staircase, they’ll start with verbal or psychological abuse.  Push boundaries and see how much they can get away with. Then, they will move up to the next step.  They may touch on financial or spiritual abuse, and sometimes both. Then, when they have that full mind control over you, they’ll move up to the next step and may push to become physically and sexually abusive.    Not every abuser follows the exact same pattern, and not every relationship becomes physically abusive.  But it’s not as simple as, they punched me in the face, so I’ll leave. It’s little-by-little steps, building up the abuse as they go, after the survivor is already smitten.  Or after the survivor already feels trapped.  People would not stay in abusive relationships if there wasn’t some semblance of love.  If they didn’t see good in the abuser. Or if there weren’t times of beauty and kindness and love.  They wouldn’t stay. 
 
I mean, would you? If you were with somebody that you truly loved, and they started acting really bad towards you, you would wish for the good times back. That doesn’t mean you enjoy the abuse.  It just means that you know that they can be better, because they have been.  So survivors will hold out for that to come back.  Maybe they’ll justify it by saying their narcissist is just stressed at work or this is a phase. Or they’re going through a lot.  But at the end of the day, the bad habits and the bad traits and the bad actions don’t go away.  The bad behavior is what stays.  And it’s the good times that become fewer and farther between.
 
Have you ever heard the song Love the Way You Lie, by Eminem and Rhianna?  I really appreciate that song for how lyrically gifted Eminem is.  That song does a phenomenal job of depicting the cycle of abuse.  He highlights a few different types of abuse, and the lyrics are cyclical.  They take you on a journey around the cycle of abuse a few times. Rhianna depicts a survivor, who is conflicted because she loves her partner so much but doesn’t like the abuse, and Eminem depicts the abuser, and the cycle.
 
I’ve picked out a few excerpts from the song to break down, but I urge you to listen to the whole song and try and find the different parts of the cycle.  I’m not even going to try to rap, I’m just going to read the lyrics.  That is so not my forte.
 
This is the explosion.
 
Where you going, I'm leaving you
No you ain't, come back
We're running right back, here we go again
 
Honeymoon / Reconciliation
 
It's so insane 'cause when it's going good, it's going great
I'm Superman, with the wind at his back, she's Lois Lane
Tension:
But when it's bad, it's awful
I feel so ashamed,
Explosion:
I snapped, who's that dude
I don't even know his name, I laid hands on her
Honeymoon:
I'll never stoop so low again, I guess I don't know my own strength
....
You ever love somebody so much
You can barely breathe, when you're with them, you meet
And neither one of you, even know what hit 'em,
Got that warm fuzzy feeling, yeah them chills, used to get ‘em
 
Tension Building
 
Now you're getting fucking sick, of looking at ‘em
You swore you've never hit 'em, never do nothing to hurt 'em,
Now you're in each others face,
Spewing venom, and these words, when you spit ‘em
 
Explosion
 
You push, pull each other's hair, scratch, claw, bit 'em,
Throw 'em down, pin 'em, so lost in the moments, when you're in 'em
It's the rage that's the culprit, it controls you both
 
 
If you listen to the whole song, it rounds the cycle a few times, like I said.  And there are a ton of other songs that reference abuse or the cycle of abuse. Wasted and Blown Away by Carrie Underwood, My Immortal by Evanessence, Better Man by Little Big Town (that’s a really good one) — because it references that want to go back from the survivors perspective, but having to fight yourself to recognize that going back is a mistake.  I could do an entire podcast episode on just music about abuse and sexual assault.  If that is something you would want to hear, leave me a comment and I’ll absolutely do that!In the meantime, I hope this helped you understand more about the cycle of abuse, and the types of abuse that are out there.  It’s way more than just hitting someone.  Abuse destroys you psychologically and emotionally until you feel completely trapped and isolated.  It’s a horrible place to be.  But we’ve built a community here that is in place to help support and empower survivors to leave, and feel confident growing into their strongest selves.
 
Hey! If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!

Healing From Emotional Abuse: Movies About Narcissism : With Mike Sellari (Part 2)

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Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to be a five year process either. Millions of other survivors around the worlds entire lives have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Marissa:
Hey everyone!  Welcome back to Healing From Emotional Abuse. This is part 2 of my conversation with Mike Sellari.  Writer, director, producer and movie expert. With Mike’s insight, we were able to pick apart a bunch of movies with depicted sexual assault and discuss the necessity of those scenes, in relation to the themes of the films.  If you haven’t heard part 1 yet, go check it out on Youtube, iHeart Radio, Spotify, Podbean, Stiticher, iTunes, basically any platform that hosts podcasts.  In this episode of Healing Through Emotional Abuse, we dive a little deeper into the world of cinema.  And just a heads up, some of these depictions of sexual assault may be graphic and potentially triggering.  And there will definitely be movie spoilers.
 
Marissa:
I think that rape and sexual assault and domestic violence have been used as slapstick comedy for a really long time because it was not something that was really questioned.  Every time somebody came forward about domestic violence through the late 90s, the police would show up, they would tell the narcissist or abuse to take a walk around the block, and they’d question the victim about what they did to piss off the abuser.  That’s how it was handled.  It wasn’t handled. That’s the problem.
 
Mike:
Yeah, and you see that.  You see that in the first season of Veronica Mars, and it kind of carries on into the second season of Veronica Mars. It is about a rape, and she goes to the police to report it, and his response is, “You know, I think you should go see the Wizard, and ask him for some guts.” Or something like that.  I don’t remember exactly what he tells her to ask for. 
 
Marissa:Because that still happens today, in real life.  But also, I don’t know if you’ve seen the Netflix show, Unbelievable. 
Mike:Yeah, I love it.
 
Marissa:
Okay, Awesome!  So, Unbelievable is based on true stories.  It’s about several people who have been sexually assaulted or raped in various places around the country.  And with the first case specifically, she goes to the police right away, she makes her report.  They ask her the same question 55 times. And then they find one small detail that she mixed up, because it’s really easy for us to forget the exact order of things - who she called first was the thing she mixed up- and then they get her on that, convince her what happened didn’t happen, made her believe that the police were never going to help her.  So she just admits defeat, says it was a lie, even though it wasn’t.  And then she get ostracized for it.
 
That’s the kind of stuff I’m hoping becomes more common in film and tv - just like you were saying before.  We have to see the uncomfortable stuff to really feel it and understand it, and take the severity of it to heart.  If we don’t see it, if they were doing it off screen, or they do just soundbytes or it’s just a black screen or whatever, it takes the power and the discomfort away from us.  And it makes it easy to excuse.
 
So even in the show 13 Reasons Why, which I know you’ve seen. When that show was released, the National Suicide Hotline said that their phone calls blew up 40x.  So, 40x the normal number of calls were made to the hotline.  Which is a phenomenal, but also awful, because you don’t know if those same people were already suicidal or if it was something they felt glorified suicide.  The statistics were never conclusive.  One thing I did really appreciate - I watched a little bit of the second season and it really felt like it was trying to bank too much on the #MeToo Movement, which pissed me off a lot - but I really appreciated the cinematography of the rape scene because it’s so, you just, it just.  Oh god. The closeup of her face, and you just see her.. the life leave her eyes. 
 
Mike:
Yeah
 
Marissa:
The humanity just falls out of her.  And it lingers like 10 seconds too long.  And they did that on purpose so that you could truly see the dehumanization of a person when they’re being raped.
 
Mike:
I’m going to move away from movies for just a second to mention a book that I just recently finished and I recommend to you and your listeners.  It’s covering a lot of topics here. And what it’s called is Talking To Strangers. It’s a Malcom Gladwell book.  The thesis of the book is that we as a society do not know how to talk to strangers.  We do something called “defaulting to truth,” meaning that as soon as somebody says something to us, even if we haven’t met them before, our inclination is to believe that person.  And the reason we do that is because if we don’t, society can’t function.  That’s how society functions is because of default to truth.  If everybody is super suspicious of every single person, we can’t trust anybody, society can’t function.  The whole premise of the book is, we don’t know how to talk to each other.  We don’t know how to make decisions regarding each other.  We really don’t know how to read people.  And because of that, problems arise. You can’t tell comfortability, or if you are, you’re not sure about it.
 
You look at people who have made these apologies and stuff like that in real life.  And you can find the difference between the people we like and the people we don’t like.  Dan Harmon comes to mind, where Megan Ganz accused him of sexual harassment.  It’s what I mentioned before. He was always asking her out.  He was her boss, she was afraid to do certain things.  There was this sexual harassment thing, and she called him out on it and it became a whole situation.  I highly recommend everyone to listen to his apology.  It’s a masterclass of apologizing, how he did it on his podcast, talking about the situation.  That’s why he’s still doing Rick and Morty and still able to do stuff.  He has his show Harmontown.
 
Alright, we’re talking about abuse and all that stuff, we have to hit the main ones.  There are two movies that we haven’t talked about that we’ve gotta talk about.  First is, The Last Tango in Paris.  Marlon Brando, there’s that infamous scene where he rapes her with butter. She talks about how that has affected her as a person and as an actress.  Last Tango in Paris was a move, though, that was highly revered. People still talk about how much that movie has influenced them. Now, this girl was traumatized by this.  She was 19 years old, they didn’t have it in the script.  She showed up on the day, and they said, in this scene, he’s going to rape you and use butter as lubricant. It’s obviously not really happening but she was crying.  The tears you see in the movie are her real tears.  And Bertolucci and Brando defended themselves throughout the years, and it became contentious.  I think that’s why the Last Tango in Paris doesn’t come up in the conversation of great cinema anymore, which is fine.  There are movies that we revere at a time and then we can say, “We’re done with that.” And we can move on. 
 
It can still exist and we can watch it for  posterity.  But we don’t always have to revere something because it was revered in the past. And I think we’re learning that more and more.  And I think that’s something that, it took a while for people to treat women the right way, or at least closer to the right way.  Movies we have to talk about.  Last Tango in Paris, it’s a brutal thing, and we didn’t see it as brutal in the time.
 
On the flip side, there’s a movie that we do see as brutal and it was seen as brutal at the time.  And that’s The Last House On The Left, and that’s Wes Craven’s first movie.  I just watched it for the first time a couple months ago.  I’d been putting it off for a while.  I knew what it was about. They remade it recently, not as aggressive. And I mean, it’s a staple in horror cinema.  When you watch it, you can see the moments of Wes Craven’s talent.  I mean, you can see his talent in there.
 
The premise of the movie is, these two girls are going to a concert in the city.  They meet this guy, he is like, “Hey, come hang out.” and stuff like that.  Him and his family are actually escaped convicts.  And they torture them, they keep them hostage.  They rape one of the girls.  It’s very brutal.  And this one girl dies just walking into water, just defeated.  It feels very much like an Ophelia moment, and she’s dead.  And it’s just brutal watching it.  And to a point, you can say it’s gratuitous. And early Wes Craven movies did that. And there are movies that put rape in their movies that I don’t think they need to.  Recent one that comes to mind is Don’t Breathe.  But Last House On The Left I think needs it in there, because it goes back to that brutality thing.  It shows that these are the most debased people ever. 
 
And theres a reason people watch that.  There’s a reason wired in us that is kind of okay with violence.  And maybe that’s because society told us it’s okay with violence.  PG-13 movies with blood are okay, but not a little sex. 
 
There’s a great movie documentary called This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which is about the MPAA,  the Motion Picture Association of America.  The people who rate movies.  And they talk about, if there are two similar things in two different movies, one gets rated PG-13, one gets R.  And a lot of times it has to do with sexual orientation.  Gay stuff ends up being R, Hetero stuff ends up being PG-13. Again, a lot of this changes.   There is violence to a certain extent.
 
Marissa:
A lot of the things you say are based on perspective.  But also, based from your experience.  And that’s totally okay.  I actually just want to shift gears just a tad, and go to pedophilia.  For some reason, while you were talking, what popped into my head was American Beauty.  And I’m not a Kevin Spacey fan anymore.  I’m actually quite devastated at the destruction he caused, because I was a big Kevin Spacey fan, and then found out he’s a pedophile in real life.  And Anthony Rapp is one of my favorite Broadway actors. So, I have a real issue.
 
Mike:
You are the big Broadway girl.
 
Marissa:
BIG Broadway girl.  So, for him to have hurt somebody who I have never met, and have so much love for… and hurt anyone in general. To rape somebody and assault somebody in general…
 
Mike:But specifically Anthony Rapp
 
Marissa:
Specifically Anthony Rapp. it makes him such a horrible human being.  But American Beauty, growing up was one of my favorite movies.  I just thought it was so creative. And looking back I’m like, No no, this is an adult male, 40-something or 50-something, having an over sexualized infatuation with a 15 year old.  Now, in some states, like Mississippi, that’s actually okay, because the age of consent is 14.  But in most states, I think pretty much every state but Mississippi, that’s SO not okay. And that is SO wrong.  So I just want to focus on that for a minute, and see if you can think of any other movies or examples of movies that have that kind of theme, and okay and almost glorify pedophilia. 
 
Mike:Well, I will in a sense, I mean, I’ll get you there in a second. I don’t know if there’s a lot of stuff that glorifies it. But, we looked at things in different ways.  First off, you’ve gotta remember where we come from.  We were okay with Elvis Presley marrying, how old was she? Like 13 or 14 years old?  And I mean, you see it for forever.
 
Look at The Professional. Natalie Portman and John Reno are fantastic in it.  And it’s about the relationship between a grown man and a young girl. Now, he sees it more as a Father-Daughter relationship, and she obviously tries to flip it around.  And you can kind of look at that relationship and think, how is that not related to Besson’s own relationship with Maïwenn Besco? She was this french model, but she was really young when she was dating Luc Besson.  And I know people have had conversations about why Drake is friends with Millie Bobby Brown. That seems weird just because they’re both actors or famous or something. 
 
And we again, default to truth, and want to hope that people are the best that they are, and we’re all just trying to pick each other up, and meet cool people.  And I mean, look, I work in the entertainment industry.  I’m a talent manager.  I have clients and I’ve worked with clients who are kids; I’ve worked with clients who are older. And I would call some of them friends.  Is it weird that I have an 18 year old friend? It’s someone I work with.  So, it becomes complicated in this kind of industry because I work with them, but at the same time, they are kids.  And then it’s like, what are we saying “work” is? And it becomes complicated.  I think it’s just ultimately looking at it at a case-by-case basis.  If you want to look at movies, Manhattan was always one that always put me a little off.  The premise of the movie is Woody Allen is dating this really young girl.
 
Marissa:
Wasn’t Woody Allen sleeping with his step daughter? Not his step daughter, his adopted daughter, or his foster daughter?  No, his adopted daughter.
 
Mike:
Yes.  And it’s also not glorified.  It’s not meant to be a good thing. People call him out on it.  But it seems like a funny movie. People praise this movie, and stuff like that. The movie charms us.  In the world of the movie, we’re there.  And I haven’t seen Manhattan in a very long time. I believe it’s not used… they don’t say this is a good thing, I think people really do call him out on it.  I’m trying to think of other movies.  There’s definitely tons of movies where young girls have been sexualized. 
 
But you’re talking about pedophilia.  I mean, movies that really do explore it in interesting ways.  I mean there’s Little Children, which is a fantastic movie.  There’s Mysterious Skin, which is about how two people have coped with being sexually abused as children by their baseball coach.  There’s also Mystic River, plays on dealing with a pedophile, and how does it affect you.  Here’s the thing, a lot of the examples I’m coming up with don’t say this is a good thing. And to an extent, American Beauty doesn’t say it’s a good thing.
 
Marissa:
I just think they do a really beautiful job of creating a positive character arch for Kevin Spacey’s character. He goes from being this miserable, horrible dad, totally removed, piece of crap human being, to  then he just sees this girl in a skimpy outfit as a cheerleader, at 15 or 16 years old, and his whole world changes.  He starts being happier, and sticking up for himself.  He quits his job and starts working out.
 
Mike:Well, okay. So this is something about American Beauty, which again, I think further along will change.  I mean, 90s and you probably remember this, were such a different time with everything.  And so good. And also, it’s a pre-9/11 movie.  And it’s weird when you see pre-9/11 movies and you see peoples problems.  It’s like, our problem was, we were too bored with our lives.  Look at Fight Club.  Look at American Beauty. I mean, Revolutionary Road, which was kind of a sequel to American Beauty in a spiritual way in my mind, because they were both directed by Sam Mendez and they both are explaining the boringness of suburbia and how it kills us.  Little Children does the same thing.  And I don’t think that they’re saying that he’s… I don’t even think they’re saying in American Beauty that Lester Burnum was a bad dad.  He is a person that is now bored with his station in life. He’s in the suburbs, he did everything he was supposed to. And then, yes, he gets an injection of, “Maybe I need to start living my life.”  And has this mid-life crisis thing, where he starts smoking weed, and working out, and doing all this stuff.  And working at Burger King, and stuff like that.  And he knows his wife is having an affair.  And that’s part of the thing that pushes him.   And what’s one of the most mid-life crises things, you date a younger woman. 
 
And I know… Marissa just made the biggest grimace face… Everyone, just so you know.  But that was something seen as stereotypical.  Stereotypical thing in the 90s, when some guy would go through a mid-life crisis, they would buy a motorcycle or a hot-rod or corvette.  They would go on some vacation.  They would maybe have an affair with a younger woman.  It’s seen in so many movies.  It’s really cliche, and that’s what American Beauty kind of plays on.  And then what is to make that even worse? And that’s where he stops.
 
When he has that moment to have sex, and then right before he dies, he has that content moment where he’s looking at that photo of his family, and he realizes, “You know, I had it all along.” Again, I haven’t seen it in a while.
 
And this is where you and me differ.  I can separate art from the person. It’s difficult sometimes because you say, well this came from this persons mind. Yet, this mind is also that.  And what I’ve noticed from people is, people are complicated. And people have different layers to themselves. It’s an onion, it really isn’t just one thing.  Kevin Spacey can be a good actor and can also be the biggest piece of shit ever.  And I can still say he’s a good actor.  Woody Allen has written some of the best screenplays of all time.  And has been a shitty person.  Louis C.K. is gross.  But, Hilarious is a great comedy special.
 
Marissa:
I’m going to definitely comment on the Louis C.K. thing. Because I went and saw him at Madison Square Garden before the accusations came out, and I remember him making a joke about masturbating in front of his assistants or employees.  And it was so gross that it was funny because of the way he said it, and the way he worded it.
 
Mike:
Exactly.  It’s meant as a matter of fact thing to play on our ideas of society, and hold a mirror to it in a weird way.  Obviously, he was commenting on real things, but when you’re not looking at it in a context, it plays differently.
 
Marissa:
But that to me rang differently because he knew he was doing something wrong, and disgusting, and made a big joke about it. So not only was he doing the bad thing, but then he was mortifying the people he was actually doing bad things to, knowing they couldn’t hurt him. I would say he, I remember he waited a year after the accusation came out to come out and start doing comedy again, and apologize.  I’m still kind of conflicted about it. I do think that his comedy is good, but like you said, I just have a difficult time differentiating the art from the person.
 
Mike:I know.  And there are some episodes of Louis that are just out of this world fantastic.
 
Marissa:
Thank you so much for doing this with me Mike.  Oh my gosh, I’m happy we got to have this chat and you are so knowledgeable and awesome to talk to. And you’re very funny.  I really hope we get to do this again soon. I love the idea of us watching a movie and then discussing it. I definitely have al list now of movies I have to watch.
 
Hey! If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!
 
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Healing From Emotional Abuse: Movies About Narcissism : With Mike Sellari (Part 1)

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Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to be a five year process either. Millions of other survivors around the worlds entire lives have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Marissa: Hey Everyone! Thank you so much for joining us this week on Healing From Emotional Abuse. Today I’m so grateful and excited to introduce my friend Mike Sellari to talk about sexual assault and domestic violence and how it’s portrayed in movies and tv. Mike has an amazing background with film. Right now, he lives in LA as a talent agent, but I do have to say that back in 2006, I starred in his first student film that he wrote, produced and directed, called Man Seeking Woman.  So we go back a long. time. He’s an awesome person with a great personality and I’m so excited to have him here.  So, let’s get started.
 
So, lets’s talk about some movies. You’re a huge movie buff, you love talking about movies and I love looking at your posts on Facebook.  Every single time you watch a movie, you kind of critique it and every season, I love looking at your lists of best movies of the year. So, I’d love your perspective on movies with domestic violence and sexual assault themes, and what you think about them.
Mike:
Okay, I mean, right at the top, I feel like I’m already going to be treading into dangerous waters with whatever I talk about. Mainly because it’s a complicated issue.  There’s a lot of different ways we can discuss this.  There’s a lot of different points of view, and I think everyone thinks different.  So, I guess it’s hard to talk about, because you’re saying domestic violence, abuse and stuff like that.  And a lot of that also goes back into misogyny and a lot of that goes back into the distribution of power between men and women.  Especially from pre-60s, because there was that whole “housewife” ideal of the 50s and stuff.  And you can see that with older movies with women, “Being in their place.” And men as the aggressor.  Even in the 30s there were still powerful women.  You look at stuff like the Philadelphia Story or His Girl Friday, or Lady Eve.  You’ll see strong women characters besting the man. But you also see people looking at women in a way that was more, “Of the time.” And I guess right at the top, we really can’t look at things from the past with 2020 eyes. We’re going to look back at a lot of stuff, because probably every single one of these movies has happened in the past.  And some just come from different generations. And I’m going to talk about movies that I also love, and will watch still.  It’s kind of like you have to just be able to say, look, that was a different time.  50 years down the road, we’re going to look at the stuff we’re doing on a normal basis and our kids are going to be like, “What? What are you doing? How could you just let that happen?” And we’re going to say it was just a different time, and they’re going to tell us that’s a bullshit answer. And we’re going to say, look, I know, we just didn’t realize it. 
 
I mean, if you look 5 years ago, the stuff that we were laughing at in comedies that now we’re looking at and we’re pulling on our collars and going yikes because it’s hard to watch.
 
Marissa:
Superbad is a great example of that, actually.
 
Mike:
And honestly, a fantastic movie.  And something that we’re going to get into is the idea of what is art, and how far can we push our art? And what’s subversive vs. expletive vs. gratuitous. And then, also, if we’re going to show reality, shouldn’t we have to show the dark sides of reality? Because if we hide it, then what are we saying about our history, and stuff like that?  For instance, talking about the civil war and the stuff that did or didn’t happen.  Talking about our history and movies about slavery.  Haven’t we said all we’ve needed to say, or are we hiding stuff from our past that we don’t want to talk about? But we’ve got to keep it.
 
Something to just start off the top, and this is definitely an abusive thing.  Let’s talk about Michael Jackson for a second.  Obviously, we’ve known about his quirks and his weird things, and I truly believe he had a mental illness - and I believe a lot of this stems from mental illness.  There’s a whole thing we can talk about with Michael Jackson and his family. And also just what were people doing in just letting their kids be around him? And also stuff we just decided to turn a blind eye to because of certain things. And it keeps going, then Leaving Neverland comes out and that was an intense documentary.  And after that came out, James L. Brooks announced that they were puling an episode from the Simpsons from all internet, rerun, syndication, and now it’s on Disney+ but that episode is not on Disney+.  And it’s not even that Michael is in it.  You’re not seeing his imagery.  It has nothing to do with off-color thing.  The premise of the episode is Homer goes to a mental institution and meets an inpatient who calls himself Michael Jackson.  He’s clearly not Michael Jackson, but he’s voiced by Michael Jackson.  It’s weird that we pull that form our history, because we have to look back and see that we see that.  However, James L. Brooks says, “This is my stuff. I get to make the decision over what I want out there. And I don’t want it to seem like Michael Jackson is getting more residuals, or his estate getting money from this.” So, when we start taking things out of our history and out of our films,  I worry that we have the ability to repeat ourselves in dangerous ways.  It’s important to see that stuff. It’s important to acknowledge that we were off base and learned from it.  We can watch those movies in a different way.  We can see that they were made in those times.
 
For instance, let’s go into now talking about this. There was a time when rape was a joke.  It was kind of funny.  It was played off as not a big deal.  It was played off in comedies in particular as something that could just happen. Let’s talk about specifics here.  There’s a movie if you think back into the early 2000s, there’s a movie I really like that a lot of people don’t called 40 Days and 40 Nights. It starts Josh Hartnett and Shannyn Sossamon, who I just love. And the premise of the movie is, this guy is experiencing a breakup.  He’s experiencing this obsession with sex and stuff.  So he decides to not masturbate or have sex or do anything sexual for Lent. For 40 Days and 40 Nights. And everyone says he can’t do it. It’s impossible.  And he starts losing his mind… it’s a comedy. Meanwhile, his friends are all betting on the day that he’s going to “bust”.  And people try to take advantage of that.  At the end of the movie, his ex girlfriend bets a lot of money on the final day, and then rapes him while he’s asleep.  It’s seen as just a plot point.  And then the other girl, the girl who likes him, is like, “I can’t believe you had sex with her.” It’s not, she did it against his will. He was pinned down. He didn’t want it. But that doesn’t matter in the context of that story.  But if we look at it there, it’s really weird that she just rapes him and we’re not going to talk about that? And the same thing happens in Get Him to the Greek. Jonah Hill is raped by Carla Gallo.  You mentioned Superbad, with the period blood girl. That’s like the reversal of that scene in a way.  So there’s this playfulness. There’s this moment in Revenge of the Nerds where Louis puts on this Darth Vader costume that the jock was wearing.  And the hot girl, thinking it’s the jock has sex with him. And he pulls off the mask and she’s like, “You’re that nerd!” But she’s like, that was wonderful. And she forgets it.  Like he’s “sexed her” into it’s okay.
 
If we at that and we look back into the 80s the 70s, moments in the 60s, and even in the 90s and 2000s, and late 2010s. We see these moments.  It was before being really aware of what we were doing. 
 
There’s a philosophy I have and that’s: What we put on TV really feeds into society.  And then society feeds it back. It’s a cycle.  You see movies and I can’t think of any specifics, but the guy pursues the girl.  She says no.  And the idea is, it’s romantic to keep going and push, push, push.  Keep doing that. You see it in tons of high school movies.  You see it in movies like American Pie.  You see it in to an extent, When Harry Met Sally. That teaches us at a young age that “A No just means you have to keep going, and push past the no. And one day, she’ll give you a shot.”  And so that feeds back into it.  And that becomes problematic. 
 
However, we’ve also romanticized a certain thing. There’s a term from How I Met Your Mother which I love and use in my own daily life.  It’s called Dobbler-Dahmer effect. It means an act could be construed as romantic or psychotic based on how the person feels about the other person.  It’s not an easy explainable situation that we’re talking about here.  And because of that, we get these movies that show us grey areas.  I mean, 16 Candles, there’s definitely that weird moment where the guy is like, “Here, just have my girlfriend.” That’s another thing of older movies, is women being treated as objects.  And stuff like that.
 
Obviously, throughout all the history of cinema, and television, we’ve seen people who combat that.  We’ve seen Lucille Ball fight back, and Mary Tyler Moore be these stronger women on TV.  You see and take over what we have.  But you also see the Honeymooners where Ralph is always threatening to beat his wife. “One of these days, Alice. One of these days.”  And even though she’s the power-play in that relationship, there’s still that. I mean, people grew up with that.  But at the same time, comedy is what we’re doing to comment on society in a way.  And like it or not, the bad parts are in society.
 
Let’s talk about stuff kids watch.  Animal House, a movie that I love.  My dad showed that to me.  I love Animal House. And there’s that scene where John Belushi is on the ladder looking at the sorority girls. And they’re just all taking off their tops and having a pillow fight.  Everyone remembers that scene.  And there’s the moment that, that girl walks into a different room, and he hops with the ladder.  Okay, it’s hysterical because it’s Belushi hopping on a ladder to see what this girl is doing.  Let alone that he’s peeping on her.  Even the idea of a Peeping Tom was charming in a way, in these older days. 
 
In Back To The Future, I mean, they call him a perv, but George McFly is spying on his soon-to-be future wife getting changed with binoculars from a tree.  And he falls from the tree and that’s how he supposedly meets his wife.
 
We see certain things as, “Oh, that rascal,” sort of thing. And Belushi is the most rascally of rascals.  We see him do the eyebrow thing. We see his face. He’s got this baby face. We’re inclined to laugh.  At the end Animal House, there’s that moment where the girls clothes get ripped off by happenstance, and the chaos of the whole thing, and John Belushi, dressed as a pirate, swings down and picks her up and puts her in a car.  And she’s screaming and her legs are kicking, and then the last moment we see, he drives off with her.  Then later, it cuts and he has her arm around her.  She’s sitting in the car, she’s happy, and later, you realize she becomes Senator and Mrs. Bluto Blutarsky. He stole her and she became his wife and everything worked out. 
 
And we know that’s not real life. That’s not how life works. And we know to an extent that Animal House isn’t real life.  We know that Revenge of the Nerds isn’t really how college goes.  We look at Porky’s and we say that’s not how real life is.  I mean, Porky’s, is a really great example. That’s a movie that’s played for laughs all the way through. Weird.  And also, talking about going back to a different time. Here’s the Rotten Tomatoes critic consensus for Porky’s:
 
“Gleeful in its misogyny and celebratory of bad behavior, Porky's is an intermittently funny farce that will leave audiences feeling in need of a shower.”
 
And that’s weird.  That’s just weird. And I mean, the most famous scene of Porky’s is the shower scene.  It’s the scene where a group of girls, completely naked, and to that extent, we look back in the past, it seems very gratuitous and those TNA movies were just meant as softcore porn to show kids.  It’s why Porky’s isn’t meant to be taken seriously.  Although, it’s problematic.  There’re these guys and they’re peeping on girls. What does that teach other guys?
 
There’s a hole in the shower and they’re looking. The girl gets in the way and they yell to move.  And the girls laugh.   Like it’s charming that these guys are spying on us. We laugh at that.  There’s also in Scary Movie, people were just beating up women and it’s played for laughs.  It’s kind of like when you see a Naked Gun movie and Leslie Neilson punches an old woman or something.  Or even in an Austin Powers movie, where he’s very hyper-world sexual. We laugh. is it funny to punch an old woman? You think about it, and it’s weird but the answer is.. in the right context.  He knocks the girl to the ground and jumps like a wrestler on his elbow off-screen and you hear a noise.  It’s these things that are played for funny.  And it actually wouldn’t be funny if it was a guy.  The reason it’s funny is because it’s taken to such an extreme. It’s not even that, that’s a plot point of the movie.  It’s meant as almost slapstick comedy.  It’s mean as a hyper-realized version of Marx Brothers.  Or Stooges or something like that.
 
If you want to move away from the playfulness and talk about it as as serious subject, we can do that. Rape and abuse is used as a weapon. Let’s talk about the ones that use it better. The ones that use it traumatically.
 
There’s things that are also books that became movies.  Let’s talk about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  The whole premise of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, or I guess I shouldn’t say premise, I should say themes, is about the violation of women and the violence against women.  You have this guy investigating this family and the death of this girl, and who killed this person.  At the same time, he’s teamed up with this woman whose life has been shaped by abuse. She is a lesbian. She’s being raped by her parole officer who she is forced to give blowjobs to in order to not land in prison, because he controls her and it’s this power dynamic.  You watch these scenes and they’re visceral.  There’s a scene in his office and you see his hand just around her head.  You’re not seeing anything really, it’s very close up, but it’s hard to watch.  And you say to yourself, do we need to see that? Can it be implied? And the problem with implying it is, this is what happened in the older movies.  You’d see stuff happen off screen. You would hear people say things.  And it becomes not that bad if we’re just saying words.  When we start seeing stuff, it then become more visceral.  And something about a movie, there’s something about art even.  It’s supposed to invoke a feeling.  And there’s a reason why we still talk about these movies today.  It’s not because we think, “Awe, can you believe they did that?” No.  There’s something artistic here.  There’s something that’s trying to be said.
 
Also, rape is used to show savagery.  There’s that mentality that we put that on the savagery.  One of the most universal movies that people have seen that showcased rape in a savage way was Deliverance. Do you know Deliverance?
Marissa:
Again, I know of it, but I haven’t watched it.  I’m not as cultured as you are.
 
Mike:I wouldn’t call myself cultured. I just call myself someone who watches a lot of movies.  Deliverance is a John Boorman movie that is honestly, it’s good.  This is an Oscar-caliber movie. The movie has Ned Beatty, of the Beatty’s, Sean Connery, John Voight.  It’s basically these four friends that decide they’re going to go down a river canoeing.  They’re going to live in the wilderness, and Sean Connery is this really man’s-man who knows the wilderness.  One of the guys is more of a white-collar guy.  And there’s these locals that are played up as these rednecks, and they are of their own area.  Almost like their own law and stuff.   They’re in two different canoes,  and they get separated. And one of the canoes crashes and the two guys happen upon these two rednecks who basically beat them, tie them to a tree, force one of the guys to strip naked, squeal like a pig, and then they rape him.  They kill these locals and now all the other locals are after them.  And it becomes this fight for survival.  By the end of the movie, you see what happens, and you’re like, this is this ordeal these people have gone through. And it is an ordeal.  It’s crazy.  How almost primal it becomes.  And I think that’s part of what Deliverance becomes.  It’s showing that primal-ness.  Some people say, did we need to have that rape scene there?  Couldn’t it just be violent? And I don’t know the answer to that honestly.
Marissa:
Thank you so much Mike, I always love talking to you about this stuff because you’re so insightful and so well versed in the world of movies and cinema and all that.  So, I just wanted to thank you for being here and talking with us.  And we will talk again next week about more of the history of how sexual assault has impacted cinema and movies.  And truthfully our culture.  I look forward to talking to you again next week, Mike.  We’ll see you soon!
 
Hey! If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!

Healing From Emotional Abuse: Reclaim Your Life : with Dr. Leonie H. Mattison

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Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to be a five year process either. Millions of other survivors around the worlds entires lives have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Marissa:
Today we’re joined with Dr. Leonie Madison. She’s an organizational and talent development practitioner, Author of the books The Thread: The perfect Steps for a God Ordained Purpose, and Beside Still Waters: 21 Days to Developmental, as well as the creator of Threads: 6-Step System to Help Survivors Free Themselves from Past Trauma and Live An Abundant Life.  She earned a doctorate in organizational leaders from Argosy University, A Masters in Business Administration from Georgian Court University, and A Christian Life Coach Certificate from Light University.  She’s a recipient of 2018 8th Annual Pacific Coast Business Times 40 Under 40 Award - Recognizing the 40 best and brightest transformational leaders on the central coast under the age of 40.  Thank you so much for joining us today.  I’m so excited to chat with you.
 
Dr. Leonie Mattison:
I am so excited about our conversation today as well.  Thanks for having me.
 
Marissa:
Of course! So lets get started.  Would you mind telling me a little about your story and what brought you to where you are today?
 
Dr. Mattison:
Sure! Thank you for asking! So, My name is Dr Leonie H. Madison.  I like to consider myself an impact storyteller.  I’m a trauma survivor, and I was chosen to be able to do this work of pioneering what we’re calling The Thread.  It’s a project, it’s a book, it’s a devotional, it’s a 6-step system; all in the spirit of helping survivors to achieve intentional transformation.  Helping survivors to rise from the trauma that they’ve experienced and to do some work.  Take the steps forward to really force your life forward. 
 
I am a single mom.  I have three beautiful daughters and a dog.  And they are all the highlights of my life, and I love them dearly.  I love my job.  It’s part of my calling;  I am an organizational and development practitioner, where I get to really help organizations to shift strategy, improve performance and grow revenue.  I always say that’s how I use my superpower in the marketplace.
 
And beyond all of those things, I am just one grateful girl speaking to another survivor, saying, “Hey, I survived.”  Also speaking to your listeners saying, “I survived.  And after survival, I had to do some work to survive.  To thrive beyond the trauma.”  So that’s a little bit about who I am and why I got here. 
 
I have a background about my experience being a victim of abuse.  I’m not sure if you hear my accent, but I was born on the beautiful island of Jamaica.  The west indies.  I suffered quite a number of years of abuse as a child.  Sexual abuse, spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse.  I immigrated to the US when I was about 15 years old.  I am also the product of parents who, my father abandoned us.  My mom had to leave the island to get work and so we grew up being bounced around from one city to the next in Jamaica.  And that’s where a lot of the abuse started.  And then when I came to the US, it didn’t stop.  I thought it would, but it didn’t.  I unfortunately suffered abuse in the faith-based community.  I was abuse by a priest minister, sexually and spiritually.  And so I have that traumatic background, and I didn’t allow the background to keep my back on the ground.  I listened to quite a number of your podcasts and it was really using the power of my voice and my words to elevate myself from out of those situations.   It’s one thing to get up, but it’s another to create a new mindset and to adapt new behaviors to truly live this abundant life that we were created to live.  So, that’s in a nutshell who you’re speaking with today.
 
Marissa:
You gave a lot of really good information, so thank you for sharing. So, your book is called Thread: A 6-step System to Help Survivors Free Themselves From Their Past Trauma.  If you wouldn’t mind maybe giving us a little taste of the six steps, or what you learned while writing the book.
 
Dr. Leonie:
I love that question.  So, the 6-step system was developed as a result of my experience while I was on my healing journey.  And I remember particularly, in addition to the abuses that I’ve gone through, endured, suffered, whatever word you want to use there, I am also a survivor of Delspalsy and a stroke.  I had finally made the decision, it was almost like my awakening journey, I finally made the decision after hitting rock bottom that I was ready for change. 
 
There was a dissonance between the girl I was living or the woman I was living, versus the woman that I deeply down in my soul thought I should become.  And so I started questioning a lot of theories, philosophies, and just life on a whole.  And my big question was to God.  I wanted to know why I had gone through what I was going through (Why am I going through what I’m going through). I wanted to know why he abandoned me.  I wanted to know why God chose this path for me. I had a lot of questions and I just felt like, books were great, and I would read and gain new knowledge, but I felt like I wanted to challenge God to give me the answers to the questions I was asking. 
 
And so, I’m on this journey, and I felt so many times while I was on this journey, there were times where my back was literally on the ground.  And somebody had to come pull me up, because I just couldn’t get up on my own. While on this journey I was bitter.  I was angry.  I was lost.  I had no courage or energy to live at one point.  And I remember distinctly.  I was on, what I call, one of my excursions.  And I remember I was sad, and I was crying.  The sun was hot.  And I had a radio, and I turned the radio on. When I turned the radio on, there was a minister on there, and I distinctly remember him talking and he said, “The prodigal son come home.”  And I turned it off because I didn’t want to hear anything religious.
 
Then I went inside the living room and I remember turning the television on.  And on came this woman.  Her name is Juanita Bynum.  She’s a female minister.  And she started the whole, “Prodigal son come home.” again, thing.  And i knew exactly the story in the bible.  And at that point she got my attention.  And I listened.  And at the time, you have to understand, I had just gone through a physical abuse by a partner with someone I was dating.  They had abused me physically, kicked me, I fell on the ground, knocked my head.  There was an iron and the ground, and I burned a part of my leg.  So, I was in a very bad situation, and I was self-blaming as well.  So when she said that, I knew I needed help, but I didn’t trust anyone around me to help me.  And I definitely didn’t trust God because I was blaming him.  And so when she started speaking and she said, “There’s a woman watching and the Lord said to tell you, if you turn to Him, He will turn your life around.”  And I turned the television off and said, “I don’t believe that.”  I just don’t believe it.  And I remember I just started crying and screaming and I got to the point where my mind felt sick and tormented.  I took all of this glassware and I just smashed the house.  I couldn’t hit him because he wasn’t there.  And I took the television off of the wall and I smashed it.  I was just so angry, I felt so alone.  I screamed.  I cried to the point that my neighbors called the cops because they thought something was wrong. Like I was being abuse.  And when they came, they couldn’t believe how I had trashed the home.
And it was at that point I realized that I really needed help.  And it was at that point that I started sharing my story.  I actually got up and went and got help from a therapist.  And I started sharing my story.  I didn’t know, I had forgotten some of what I had been through.  At this time, I was in my 20s, and I had forgotten some of what I’d been through, but she was asking the right questions, that triggered the memory.  And i started connecting the dots of what happened to me in my past as a little girl, and being molested.  From being inappropriately touched.  From being raped when I was sick in bed. I started connecting the dots and I realized that these were patterns in my life. These were things that were happening to me every 5-10 years.  I would go through a huge traumatic injury.  And so i started documenting everything that I could remember. And the first thing I remember doing was, when the therapist asked me what is it that I want.  “What do you want your life to look like?”  I didn’t know what I wanted, because I was never given that option before.  But I remember I went home and started thinking and dreaming of the best life ever.
So part of my system, the first step is to Think of the outcome you want.  Think of that outcome.  That’s the T.  And the H is to Harvest the lessons you’ve learned and heal your heart.  And what I know for me, the lessons that I’ve learned on my journey, one of the biggest ones was I was a big people -pleaser.  In  my book I refer to myself as, I was a “giving harlot.”  I would give, give, give because that’s what I thought God wanted me to do. I give up myself, I’d give up my time, I’d give up my resources.  I would give without being conscious of what I was doing.  And I was doing that because I wanted, I needed, I so needed for love.  I was so needy for affirmation and acceptance.  Step 3, R for release.  Release fear and break the painful pattern.  And there are questions that are associated with each of these steps.  And step 4 is Enlist. Enlist allies to become the person you lost inside.  And what I love about E step.  This is where I do what you’re doing.  I empower women to speak up.  To share your story.  To release and get it out.  Talk about what you’ve been through without changing or blaming.  Share your story.  Release it from out of you.   So that’s the E.  So, step 5 is A for Adopt.  Adopt new mindsets and create new healthy patterns.
 
I see help as an equivalent to medicine. So if you’re taking medicine, you have to allow it to work. You have to give it time to take effect.  And while it’s working, something is breaking apart or falling apart, and it’s okay.  And this one of the most difficult steps because it forces us to step away from those behaviors. Or to step away from the things that we’ve been told.  I remember listening to your podcast and you were talking about how victims are often times blamed. They blame us while saying you were wearing.  Or it’s something you were doing.  Maybe you said something to trigger a reaction from the person. So this is the step where we’re saying, you’re gonna demolish those accusations.  You’re going to let go off of them because they’re untrue, and they do not power the better and most highest version of who you’re created to be.    And the last step, step 6, the D. That is Design your joyful life. And it’s almost like I’m saying to women Dream Again.  You get to dream of a new you, and design your joyful life with intention.  Design that life that you really want.  Design the life that will allow you to fulfill your mission and take the step.  Take action.  Be bold enough so say, I deserve to free myself of trauma.  Those memories.  Design that life that says, I will rise and go for the win, and be okay with that without feeling guilty.  Without having to justify anything to anyone.  To taking charge, taking your power back, and to really feel passionately about women taking your power back out of the hands of trauma.  Reclaim your life and live it. And living with intention.
 
Marissa:
You are so inspirational, and you can just hear the passion in your voice. I loved listening to you, I didn’t want you to stop talking. 
Dr. Mattison:
Thank you.
 
Marissa:
Thank you for doing the amazing work you’re doing. I think THREAD, those 6-steps are perfect.  It’s like rewriting your story.  It’s speaking it.  It’s what I say.  You have to Break Your Silence.  You have to speak your truth.  Because if you stay silent and don’t speak your truth, you can’t heal.  You’re still not accepting it.  And you’re still letting it weigh you down.  And i think it’s so important that survivors always speak about it and break their silence because that’s the only true way to heal. 
 
Dr. Mattison:
Absolutely. I  couldn’t agree with you more. Well said.  I have found healing writing a book.  I have found healing just talking to you and sharing my story. The emotions I feel is one of joy and liberation.  And that’s why I wrote the book. I wrote the book to create an avenue for women just like, just like you. Designed by abuse, and are desperately wanting to work through the past, so they can live the life that God envisioned.
 
This book is really a reminder to survivors that you’re not alone. You’re not alone on your healing journey. And I want them to know that God can heal them, to control their stories. To take control of your story. To rewrite it and to rewrite it with their own voice.  To rewrite it out of gratitude because they survived. We’re survivors. 
 
I was listening to one of your podcasts where you were talking about, again, the whole victim shame thing.  I was angry.  I listened to it and I wasn’t angry at you, but I was just so angry knowing that so many women never share their story.  And either they’re living as victims in the space and the world of guilt and shame, or some of them have passed on never feeling that freedom that you and I feel today.  And I want to help millions of women, even if it’s just through writing and sharing your story with me.  Or we jump on my podcast and share it as a revamp in my podcast.  And if even just one chapter of that story, I want you to share it.  Share it without retribution. Share it without the guilt and the shame. Share it out of your spirit of survivorship. Out of that gratitude-ness.  Out of that liberation.  Knowing that you’re no longer a victim.  You survived the hell that life put you through. Girl, rise! Rise. Share your story so we can help others to do the same.
 
Marissa:
I am so in agreement with you. Everything you just said. There are so many of us.  One of these campaigns that I started a couple of years ago with a friend was called I’m a Statistic because the connotation of being a part of a statistic is so negative.  You’re just a number.  But if you think about it in terms of survivors, you’re a statistic, you’re one of a million, or one of one hundred million.  Of this huge number of people that can all relate to you and empower each other to speak our truth.  To let that weight get lifted off our shoulders and help us heal.  So, I love that. I love everything you’re saying. When you started seeing your therapist, and I also saw that you used a healing coach, what techniques or tools did they teach that you helped you with your anger, and your bitterness, and also with your healing.
 
Dr. Mattison:
Number 1, breakthrough for me happened when I was taught to speak to the little girl when she shows up.  That little girl was always ignored.  She was always told to shut up.  She was abandoned. She never felt like she mattered.  So when that little girl shows up now, I don’t ignore her.  When she wants to be acknowledged for how she’s feeling, I stop and I pay attention.  So that was a breakthrough for me was to recognize acknowledge and pay attention to the little girl, Little Leonie when she shows up.  And what that looked like for me while i was on my healing journey, an example is, I was diagnosed with breast lumps, and I remember I was angry.  And I wondered why this happened to me.  So when I went into the surgery, it left a lot of marks. The wounds and the things to deal with.  And I wouldn’t touch my breasts. I felt shame, I wouldn’t touch it.  And I remember the second tool that I learned was to do mirror work.  And I remember, I’m in front of my mirror, and I didn’t want to look at myself.  I was looking away.  And finally, I said, I’m going to face her. I’m going to face me.  And I looked in the mirror at myself, and I looked at myself and I said, “I’m not going to ignore you. It’s not fair.  You gave my children, you breastfed my children, and now that you’re not well, I’m going to ignore you? No!” And I just started putting lotion all over my body.  And I started lotioning myself and just thanking my breasts for what it has done and how far it has come with me.
And I lotioned my body and thanking my body, and thanking my organs and my hands and my feet. I just started being grateful.  And then I said I love myself.  I remember I looked at myself in the eyes and I say this to women, “Leonie, I love you.  I love you.  I’m not going to abuse you.” Because that’s what a lot of us as survivors do, and we don’t know we’re doing it.  We end up abusing ourselves.  We end up ignoring ourselves.  We end up being so negative. And in the book, there’s a chapter in the book where I actually went through a whole exercise for what I learned.  It's around page 181.  I remember listening to Lisa Nichols, she’s also a motivational speaker, and while I was attending on of her conferences, I learned this.  About speaking forgiveness over yourself.  And I wrote in my book, after hearing Lisa Nichols speak during one of her seminars, I started speaking words of forgiveness to myself in the mirror.  Every day for 21 days I would look myself in the eyes, place my hands over my heart, and with no self judgement, would learn to speak forgiveness over myself.  And affirm the value of my God-ordained existence.
 
Now here’s what I wrote, and replace your name with mine. 
 
[Leonie] I forgive you for forgetting who God says you are, and for not accepting yourself completely.  [Leonie] I forgive you for allowing others to corrupt your mind into thinking you weren’t good enough.  [Leonie] I forgive you for lowering your standards and seeking love and acceptance in all the wrong places.  [Leonie] I forgive you for letting people take advantage of you, and letting bitterness cause you to miss mistake lust, lies and loneliness for love.  [Leonie] I forgive you for ignoring the warning signs.  For not trusting your discernment. 
 
I also honored my commitment to the woman I’m becoming through positive self-talk.  So that’s another tool I learned and I wrote. 
 
[Leonie] I commit to valuing myself and that my Yes will be a true YES.  And my No will be a firm NO.  [Leonie] I commit to pressing stop completely on the negative self talk. [Leonie] I commit to letting go of living in torment from living in past failed relationships. [Leonie] I commit to loving you always and will be okay with you when you’re crying, and when you feel sad.  [Leonie] I commit to lightening up and not coming down so hard on you.
 
The next part, I wrote:
I celebrated with Love, the woman who is taking steps to write a better next chapter in her life.
[Leonie] I celebrate you for getting out of bed this morning.  [Leonie] I celebrate you for showing up and operating with excellence at work. [Leonie] I celebrate for seeking help to heal, and I celebrate you for writing and sharing your story with the world. [Leonie] I celebrate your model in self-care, self love and healthy boundaries.  [Leonie] I celebrate you for  knowing, believing and appreciating the fact that your very existence is enough.  You can rise above your limitations ands self defeating thoughts. To stand in the space of possibilities.  In that space there’s plenty of room for pioneers of the possible.  History makers.  Navigators of the unknown; Change agents, and trail blazers. 
 
God remains the same.  He is the creator of life, the author of purpose, and the remodeler of old into new. 
 
Marissa:
I love that.  I think mirror work is so strong and so underrated.  And your affirmations are phenomenally written.  They are so powerful.  You are such a powerful speaker and I really do enjoy listening to you.  I think you should make your book an audio book so I can listen to it. Your voice just adds something to it.  Your passion and your true love towards helping survivors and through telling your story is really infectious, and I just catch myself drifting off listening to you.  Envisioning what you’re saying.  I love it.  So, thank you very much for sharing all of that.
And going back to mirror work.  Mirror work is so important.  It’s all about telling yourself how much you love yourself, and forgiving yourself and looking at the parts of your body and the things that happened to you, that hurt you.  And learning to truly embrace them, because it’s all just a part of you and it’s a part of your story.  I love it.
 
Dr. Mattison:
Thank you. Thank you very much.
 
Marissa:
What advice would you give to survivors that are still either on their healing journey or not yet on their healing journey.
 
Dr. Mattison:
Mmm. That’s a great question.  So, if you’re a survivor of trauma, and you're desperately seeking help and thinking about fulfillment in your life, and let me say there are a lot of people out there who aren’t, I think the best thing the woman or men who love us who are listening today can do, is to listen to your soul. It has a voice.  I mean, really stop and listen to the wisdom of your soul that’s crying out for healing.  That was what caught my attention.
 
You’ve got to make the decision to reclaim your life. You just have to.  And take the determined steps to make sure that you do.  That’s where I remember I got stuck.  I spent my childhood pretending to be someone else, while I was hiding behind the pain of my past.  Much of my adult life, I was hiding behind the childhood pain, while I was retreating back into darkness.  And i remember I thought I was living up to what society expected of me, and I wanted to be something other than who I really deeply felt in my soul I was created to be. I made my soul sick.  And when the soul is sick, it’ll vomit all over you.  When the soul is sick, it shuts down.  When the soul is sick,  you’re confused about your purpose.  When the soul is sick, then the body eventually manifests itself off the sickness.  The mind manifests itself on that souls sickness.  And so, I remember having to just pause, because I was realizing these symptoms, you know the bitterness, the anger, the sicknesses that I was experiencing, were all symptoms of a soul that was sick.
 
And so that would be my number one advice to victims and survivors. Listen to your soul. Listen to it. And because it’s during those moments that your soul will actually help you to see what you’re wanting and needing to help it to get better. It is during those moments that we will see that, “you know what, I need to listen and I also need to take steps to becoming better.”  So embrace the wisdom of your soul, and turn off the noise of everything else that is unnecessary. 
 
Marissa:
That’s great advice.  One of the chapters in my second book, Breaking Through the Silence: #Me(n)Too, was “You’re Only As Sick As Your Secrets.” And I love that.  You really are.  You’re only as sick as your secrets.  If you hold on to your abuse, and you don’t let it out, and you don’t heal, you’re truly killing yourself from the inside out.  Is there anything else you’d like to share?
 
Dr. Mattison:
My book is now available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, almost everywhere books are sold.  And in March, actually, I’ll be preventing at the Best You conference in Los Angeles and I’m inviting folks if you’re in the LA region to come on out and hear more about my book.  The topic of the talk is Rise From Trauma and Reclaim Your Life.  So, I’m really inviting as many women as possible to come out to March 20th at 5pm to attend to really important intentional conversation that I’ll be having with women.  And my website is being revamped.  My podcast will be ready around the April timeframe, and so I’m also welcoming guests who want to share their story of trauma and how they’ve achieved intentional transformation. And also, together we can learn so we can help more women to rise to become the women that they were created to be.  So, you know, that will be my last little tidbit for our listeners.
You can follow me on Instagram: Leonie H Mattison
I’m on facebook: Leonie H. Mattison,
 Twitter @LeonieMattison.
 
I really look forward to engaging with as many women as I can this year because I am on a mission to impact millions.  And one of the last things I’ll share with you about how my book took another turn, too, I’m actually doing some work in the local county jail here in Santa Barbara. So the book is actually in the jail here, and the women are reading the book and they have tons of questions. So i’ll be starting a 12-week program online and also on-site to really be looking at how to achieve intentional transformation.  SO people can check out my website, I’ll have more information in the coming days on how I’m really on this mission to reach a million women with a message of intentional transformation.
 
Marissa:
Great goals and thank you so much for sharing your story, and your work with us.  You’re such an inspirational person and I’m so happy that I got to talk to you today.  Thank you very much for being here today.
 
Hey! If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!

Healing From Emotional Abuse: Is This Love?

Get Your FREE COPY of  my book, 3 Signs of A Toxic Relationship, Now...
Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to be a five year process either. Millions of other survivors around the worlds entires lives have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
There is a lot of misconceptions regarding the fine line between a loving, healthy relationship, and toxic, abusive relationships.  On my facebook Page www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, I had a little campaign going where I would describe a behavior ask whether that behavior was love or abuse.  For the most part, I would say that I used a lot of leading language, so people generally got the answers right.  But there were a few points of contention that shocked me.  So I wanted to explore this concept.
 
What is love? Some people characterize love as an intense feeling of deep connection.  Or, feeling deep romantic, and sexual attachments to someone.  What is your definition of love?  What are actions and characteristics that you expect from someone who loves you?
 
Mine definition of love is the trust and respect towards someone that you have strong, affectionate feelings for.  I truly believe you cannot love someone without wholeheartedly trusting and respecting them.  Just like you can’t hate someone without loving them, you also can’t love someone without trust or respect.  Think of someone that you love.  It could be a family member or friend.  Do you also respect that person?  Do you respect opinions, their goals? Their wants and needs?  I know that I ask my friends for advice all the time, because I trust them and respect what they have to say.  Now, think of someone that you love but you don’t respect or trust. You don’t appreciate their opinions.  You don’t think they’re a good person, making good decisions and doing positive things with their life.  You don’t think they’ll keep your secrets?  You don’t feel comfortable or safe sharing your thoughts, feelings, opinions or experiences with them because they might judge you.  Anyone?  Bueller?  Bueller?  Probably not.  And I expect anyone who loves me to also trust and respect me.  They go hand in hand.
 
“Love” without respect and trust in my opinion is just sexual tension.  That’s why friends with benefits often don’t end well. 
 
Abuse is treating a person or animal (but in this case a person) with cruelty or violence, regularly or repeatedly.  There has to be a pattern of abuse in order for it to be considered domestic violence, and intent to make the survivor feel badly. 
 
You wouldn’t normally think that these two concepts could get confused, right?  I mean they are so specific and so opposite. But think about this: You and your significant other, friend or family member, just pick one, are out to eat at a restaurant.  The meals you ordered come out and are set in front of you.  You excitedly dig in! The person you’re with looks at you, cringes and says, “You’re eating like a pig!”  How do you feel?
 
Here is where the controversy is.  Some people will hear that and think, “Well that was unnecessarily rude and judgmental. I’m hungry, and their intention was to make me feel uncomfortable, small or fat.  That’s not love.”  Meanwhile, someone else will hear that and think, “They were just looking out for me because they love me.”   Which one did you hear?
 
Obviously, there is an element of perception, but on paper, that is classic emotional abuse.  There are ways to convey a message about eating habits that aren’t low-key making someone feel uncomfortable, insecure, or judged.  The only purpose of staying that was to have control of you and what you’re eating. The less you feel good about yourself and your decisions, the more control they have over you.
 
And this is where the misunderstanding on abuse vs love comes in.  In this example, the abuser lacks RESPECT.  Can you think of another example, hopefully not personal, where someone you respected said something to you to intentionally make you feel insecure?  Write me a comment. 
 
Along the same lines is jealousy.  Jealousy is not love.  Jealousy is a trait portrayed by abusive people.  If your partner or friend tries to isolate you from other people because they don’t like you around other boys or other girls, or don’t “trust” you around people, that is an emotionally abusive and manipulative move.  The purpose isn’t to keep you safe.  It’s to keep you insecure and away from people that could undo the control they have on you, or empower you to feel good about yourself and your decisions.  Your Narcissist want to to feel like they are doing this for your benefit, when it’s truly and honestly not.  Someone who is jealous will typically put you down because they want you to be on their level.  This is toxic.  You should be surrounded by people who encourage you and boost you up.
 
I have a friend who told me a story that I think will help to clarify this.  My friend, Jess, had a best friend, Ally.  Ally was very needy, and constantly needed Jess’s attention.  When she didn’t get that attention, she would blow up Jess’s phone, until Jess answered her. Then, Ally would use Jess’s disappearance to make Jess feel like a bad friend because Jess wasn’t there for Ally when she needed her.  The problem was, this happened all the time.  And usually, the situations that Ally would try and make Jess feel guilty about, either weren’t related to Jess at all, or weren’t that important.  Jess just wasn’t allowed, by Ally’s standards, to have a life outside of their friendship.  If they didn’t talk in a couple of days, Ally would harass Jess and call her a bad friend.  Ally would make Jess feel guilty for spending time with other people, and engaging in hobbies without inviting her along.  And it was toxic.  That kind of control and abuse, although might seem flattering on the outside, was a way for Ally to have a controlling hand on Jess.  After Jess told me that story, I encouraged her to start to cut ties, because Jess didn’t feel like she could do anything anymore without running it by Ally first, or without starting a fight. That’s abusive, manipulative and controlling behavior.  Have you ever had a friend like that with a friend or family member?  Someone who would make you feel guilty or uncomfortable for spending time with other people, or harass you until you answered the phone?  That’s not okay. And it’s not flattering.  It’s abusive.
 
Regarding the aforementioned facebook posts, I wanted to run them by you, and let me know if you think whether these are abuse or love?
 
Your partner feels insecure or jealous over your achievements. Love or Abuse?
 
2. Your partner checks your text messages and social media accounts.  Love or Abuse?
 
3. Your Partner monitoring your eating habits. Telling you what you can and can't eat.   Love or Abuse?
 
Hey! If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching.   Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!

Healing From Emotional Abuse: What Stalking Looks Like

Get Your FREE COPY of  my book, 3 Signs of A Toxic Relationship, Now...
Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to be a five year process either. Millions of other survivors around the worlds entires lives have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
January is stalking awareness month, so I thought it would be fitting to make the last January episode about stalking. 
 
The term “stalking” as defined by the Department of Justice, means engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her safety or the safety of others or suffer substantial emotional distress.  Making someone feel unsafe in their surroundings or environment.  Stalking occurs when someone repeatedly harasses or threatens someone else, causing fear or safety concerns. According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS), about 1 in 6 women and 1 in 17 men have experienced stalking in their lifetimes, reported by the CDC.
 
I was chatting about this with a colleague of mine last week while having some coffee, and we were talking about harassment and stalking, and how common it is.  And I began to speak about experiences I have had with stalking, in college and in workplaces, and had this overwhelming sensation that, these are not experiences I have discussed much.  I rarely speak, in detail, about the three times I was aggressively stalked, and figured it was because stalking isn’t a common topic. In fact, it’s rarely given the same weight as rape or assault — people will generally overlook it until something physical happens.  But, stalking is extremely psychologically damaging.  You don’t feel safe anywhere.  Even if they never touch you, you feel unsafe in all areas of your life.
Have you ever experienced anything like this?  That subtle feeling that you’re being watched? The tension in the pit of your stomach that something isn’t right?  That unconscious need to peer over your shoulder consistently, but you don’t know what you’re looking for?  That’s the residue of the psychological impact that stalking has on a person.  When I go to my alma mader, Rowan University to visit my old campus, or speak, I always find myself going to the one bar in the town for food.  Landmark.  Landmark is a big place.  It has 3 separate rooms and a “nightclub”.  I love the food there, but I find myself having this undeniable need to always be looking at the doors, or the entrances to the room I’m sitting in.  I can’t have anyone sitting behind me, or I peer over my shoulder a million times. 
 
And that goes back to a boy I dated in college for roughly one month.  After we broke up, he would find out where I was, using his Fraternity brothers and other greek life resources on campus, and then show up.  He would have his brothers stand in every corner, or by every exit of Landmark, watching me and monitoring everything I did.  He would position himself outside of my classrooms after all of my classes, or have his friends outside my classrooms or outside of the building to watch where I go, and make sure I wasn’t with anyone else. He would use his fraternity brother’s facebooks to stalk me and see where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing.  I was never one for posting all of my personal information anyways - but it really deterred me from even using social media.  It even boiled down to me asking my friends to cut down on posting or tagging me in things, for fear he’d show up.  Usually drunk. Always irate or crying.
 
I haven’t seen him since I graduated in 2014, and he hasn’t seen me in person either.  But I still have this unconscious need to see the front door at all times.  I remember one night after class, my friend had to sneak me out of my classroom, and we maneuvered around through back doorways to get out of the building, because he was standing outside the room on a day that he texted me over 75 times in one hour, and didn’t answer.  I was scared of his reaction.  I was terrified of what he would say or do.  His behavior was erratic.  So, we snuck out the back-way, my friend came with me to my apartment so I could pack a bag, and we went back to his dorm where I stayed for a couple days while I made a safety plan.  And that’s just one example of one experience I had with him, one time.
 
If you haven’t watched the Netflix series, You, I recommend it.  Season 1 is painfully accurate regarding how the mind of a stalker works, as well as, signs and red flags that are commonly ignored or overlooked by stalking victims.  Season 2 is great too, it just has more of a “serial killer” vibe, and less of a stalking vibe.  The stalking is still there, but he’s more violent aggressively in Season 2.  So I’m going to focus mainly on season 1.  And this is a Fair warning, there will definitely be spoilers: SPOILERS!  For example, when Peach starts to notice that Joe is always around, or was conveniently at the train station and other places that Beck was at, but Beck ignored and justified it.  Overlooked weird things that Joe just knew about her, and how he would say the perfect thing.  And how he was always right there, at the festival and in the park.  Those are all big red flags. 
 
Joe’s obsession isn’t really about making Beck feel loved and comforted, it’s about taking full control of her life and surroundings, and isolating her, so nobody can penetrate the wall he’s building around her.  By encouraging her to stop spending time with her friends, and making her feel guilty or upset about wanting to spend time away from him, he is manipulating her free-will and controlling her life.  When you’re on the inside of it all, it’s difficult to see.  Especially with someone as coy and sneaky as Joe.  But those yellow and red flags, the uneasy feeling in your stomach that tells you something isn’t right, are huge warning signs, and shouldn’t be ignored. 
 
Penn Badgley, Joe,  is not an unknown actor.  He has been in hit films and shows like “John Tucker Must Die,” Gossip Girl, and Easy A. But after Netflix bought YOU from Lifetime, his twitter following blew up!  Great for him!  I’m really happy.  But the messages he was receiving on twitter were horrifying.  People would tweet at him and ask Joe to kidnap them, and that they wish someone would fight for them like Joe fights for Beck.  THAT IS NOT OKAY!  And Penn addressed this situation by trying to correct people’s mindsets about stalking.   Here a couple examples:
 
@PennBadgley kidnap me please
Penn: No thanks
Said this already, but @PennBadgley is breaking my heart once again as Joe.  What is it about him?
Penn: He is a murderer.
I’m telling you it’s your face that does it.  You’re gorgeous.  I can see past that crazy shit.
Penn: But you’re supposed to see past my face TO the crazy shit!  It’s the other way! The Other Wayyyyyy Ugh!
The amount of people romanticizing @PennBadgley’s character in YOU scares me.
Penn: Ditto!
 
And I have to agree.  The amount of people that are romanticizing stalking is sick.
 
Close your eyes and try to imagine this… or if you’re driving, don’t close your eyes, but imagine this scenario.  Have you ever been out at a bar or a coffee shop with a friend, where  you guys are sitting and catching up.  And you start to feel this burning sensation on the back of your neck, like someone is watching you?  You get a chill down your spine, and you can feel someone staring at you.  You know the feeling.  The chills roll down your back, and you look behind you, but nobody is there.  You can take a deep breath, and continue your conversation, and enjoy the rest of your time there.  Has that ever happened to you?  If you’re a victim of stalking, that feeling doesn’t go away.  Imagine living life always looking over your shoulder, and feeling like someone is watching.  My stalker stopped trying to find me in 2016, and I still find myself looking over my shoulder.  Even in places that he would never truly be in.  My guard is always up now. 
 
A common misconception that NEEDS to be addressed again, is being stalked isn’t romantic or flattering.  I wasn’t stalked because I’m cute or have a great personality.  I was stalked because a person who is controlling and manipulative worked his way into my routine, and did everything in his power to make me feel uncomfortable, vulnerable and scared.  I was stalked because this person was sick.  After I broke it off, he used to sit in his car outside my house at 2 in the morning and watch me.  I lived on the first floor, and I would see him staring into my window at 4am.  I had my best friend sleep over for 3 weeks so I could hopefully get 1 hour of sleep per night. This image of him standing outside my window as burned into my eyelids.  Until I finally lost my mind, and started sleeping at other peoples dorms or houses, I did not get any sleep.  I would pace around my room all night trying to find ways to get him out of my head.
 
At one point, He convinced my landlord that he was interested in real estate, and asked for an internship, so he could be in my house when I wasn’t there.  And her office was across from my room.  So he was always in close proximity to me.  He would get intoxicated and call me asking if he could stay over because he was too drunk to drive home.  And obviously, there was no reasoning with him.  He would show up, throw tantrums, yell and scream until I let him in the house, and then would stomp around, kick, cry throw things, and cause a big scene until I gave in.  Before you ask, I didn’t want to call the police because I felt bad for him, and was also scared of the backlash for him and myself.  And finally, he would fall asleep on my floor.  And I would wake up, and he would be in my bed.  Manipulative and  Controlling.
 
When I worked for the Army, I had a co-worker who was a friend, and never anything more, that began to stalk me as well.  He would harass me with text messages all the time, make really forward and uncomfortable comments at me, and imply that he, his wife and I should have a 3some.  Those are not stalking… that’s just inappropriate, disgusting behavior.  The stalking began when he started commenting on the pillow I was laying on at home, when he wasn’t there.  Or when he would comment on my surroundings or the people I was with, without him having any prior knowledge.  He hacked into my phone camera and was watching me.  I thought I was going insane.  And when I went to the police about it, they told me that it’s impossible to hack into my camera and that they think he is just a really good guesser. 
 
So, I was alone on this one.  I even made a report to the commander of the base, and she told me just not to go near him.  I ended up covering my phone camera with a post-it note and was always looking over my shoulder at work and at home.  It didn’t help that he knew where I lived.  So, I registered for my FOID card, because this person has a history of aggressive, threatening and stalker tendencies.  He has, in the past, threatened to kill himself and the person who he was stalking.  She even transferred to a base in another state, several states away to get away from him, and he followed her there.  And because of the 7 PRIOR reports that went un-investigated, I become paranoid that he would come to my house, or break into my house while I wasn’t home and kill my dog.  If he’s willing to fly states to stalk someone, I think he’s willing to drive 45 minutes. So, I got a FOID card, and learned to shoot well.  Luckily, it never had to use it, and I transferred to a different base.  Not that he stopped trying to get to me… but it didn’t last much longer than that.
 
Anyone who has any social media, I’m sure, knows the term “facebook stalked,” or “Cyber Stalked”.  It’s a soft way of saying that you dove deeply into someone’s facebook page.  And that’s totally fine.  My concern with it, is the act of cyber stalking loses its meaning when it’s watered down like that.  Cyber stalking is what Joe does.  He digs so deeply into someone’s social media, and connects dots to find out where Beck lives, who her friends are, everything about her friends, everything about her dad, where she was at that festival.  Learns everything he can about her and everything around her, so he can systematically control her and all of them.
 
Cyber stalking is not a funny joke.  I’ve seen lives completely turned upside down for a decade from being cyber stalked.  Always watched.  Always intimidated.  Being threatened and sent candid pictures of yourself taken from your computer camera while you’re not actively taking pictures.  I’ve had several friends who were being watched and then blackmailed with pictures taken from their computer camera’s, by someone who hacked into their computers, of them changing, or naked or after a shower, or in bed with someone.  And those pictures were used against them.  That’s such an invasion of privacy, and it’s terrifying!  You’ve lost control of the comfort of your home!
 
Imagine being in that position.  Imagine being sent pictures of yourself that you didn’t know were taken in compromising situations.  That are now being held against you and threatened to be posted to someone who shouldn’t see them.  That’s a real invasion of your privacy.
 
To prevent stalking, CDC promotes the importance of early prevention and support efforts, which can include:
Empowering everyone to understand, recognize, and address stalking.
Mobilizing men and boys as allies in prevention efforts.
And supporting safe environments within relationships, schools, and communities through programs and policies that reduce risk and promote healthy relationships.
 
So to recap: Stalking is dangerous.  It’s a loss of control of your life and your surroundings.  It makes a person feel uneasy in their homes, offices, streets, anywhere and everywhere.  It can result in physical harm and death, as seen on YOU.  And it psychologically traumatizes victims for years, sometimes for ever.  I can never say that i’m 100% over it.  I still have nightmares, I still am paranoid in public places.  I still look over my shoulder.  I still like to be sitting facing the front doors at restaurants.  I still wonder if someone is watching me through my phone or computer camera every day.  The chill still runs down my spine when I think about it.  And it’s been a few years since I’ve been in contact with either of these people. So, bottom line, before you write-off stalking as a minimal crime, just keep in mind that external damage heals, but internal damage doesn’t go away.  It stays with you and inside you for a long time.
 
Hey! If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching.  Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!

Healing From Emotional Abuse: Self Esteem Activities

Get Your FREE COPY of  my book, 3 Signs of A Toxic Relationship, Now...
Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to be a five year process either. Millions of other survivors around the worlds entires lives have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Abuse is debilitating, and the feeling doesn’t just go away.  Domestic Violence, emotional abuse, narcissism, and Sexual Assault, aside from physical damage, leave severe and lasting emotional and psychological repercussions on its victims.  In sexual assault situations, our personal space and body are violated.  We lose control of our bodies, and are instead met with shame, guilt and the feeling of being worthless and devalued.  Our crime scene is our bodies.  We never have the luxury to leave it. 
 
And with domestic violence, something everyone needs to understand, it never starts out with someone punching us in the face.  They need to hook us first.  It’ll start with charm and love and kindness.  Then slowly but surely start to verbally and emotionally abuse us, and that branches into physical and sexual abuse.  It’s a cycle that never ends, sometimes even after we leave.  But the verbal abuse and psychological abuse depletes our confidence and self-worth.  We begin to lose ourselves.  And when that happens, we convince ourselves that everything our abusers said to us was true.  And tear ourselves down and make us feel worse and worse.
 
We often search for ways to forget, or pretend it never happened.  And that doesn’t help either.  You can’t escape your past.  When it comes back to haunt us, the first thing survivors grab for are quick fixes.  That can be anything from abusing substances or promiscuity, to total reclusion and anything in between.  According to the Center On Addiction dot Org, a common psychological factor that attributes one to becoming a drug addict is having endured,  “physical, sexual or emotional abuse or trauma.”  The best way to take control of your past abuse is to build yourself up in a healthy way.  And that starts with your confidence.  Someone who values themselves  and has a strong sense of worth, typically won’t turn to drugs or alcohol to numb the pain.
 
So, let’s keep you safe and build you back up.  Give you your power back.  The most important way to build your confidence is by changing the way you talk to yourself.  And this goes for everyone - not just survivors of abuse.  For whatever reason, it became a societal mantra that we are our harshest critics - which encourages us to trash ourselves, to ourselves.  We as people should always push ourselves to be better and do our best.  But not at the expense of our self-esteem. 
 
In high school, typically we look to the athletes and the honors students as the high achievers.  The ones with the highest sense of self, that push themselves the hardest and will go on to achieve the most.  Right?  For my high school, it was the soccer players.   And what made our soccer team so successful is that they, and their coach, demanded their best from them at every practice.  At all times, they were pushing themselves to do their best.  But not at the expense of their confidence.  The coach and team would bolster their sense of confidence, and they would supplement it by talking themselves up.  Statistics show that high school students with more confidence are less likely to take part in risky behaviors.  The two least susceptible populations in high school for trying drugs or teen pregnancies are : Athletes and Honors Students.  Because these activities provide the students with confidence.
 
For me, I attended a magnet program for theater and performing arts for high school.  So instead of having gym and electives, I had a secondary schedule filled with dance classes, voice and acting. And it was always the same people. And it was a lot of fun.  But, I always felt isolated from my classmates.  They were a clique, and I didn’t belong.  Now, they never said I didn’t belong or wasn’t invited.  It was what I told myself, everyday.  That I wasn’t pretty enough, that I wasn’t cool enough, or that I wasn’t talented enough to hang out with them.  And without them having to say a word, I completely took myself out of the running to be included in their group.  At the time, I didn’t realize what I was doing.  I felt like what they were doing and saying was what kept me isolated.  But looking back, because I was telling myself that I wasn’t worthy of being a part of their group, I didn’t even try to be their friends.  I had myself completely convinced that I was not good enough.   
Have you ever had an experience like this?  Think back to a time where you felt left out or isolated from a group or an event.  Did anyone ever say anything about you not being invited or welcome there?  Or was it you that told yourself?  Was it you that convinced yourself that you’re not good enough to be there?  Or that nobody there likes you? 
 
I wanted so badly to live with the confidence they had, but I didn’t realize that I was the one tearing myself down constantly.  With the help of my teachers and peers, I was handed more than enough evidence to prove to myself what a piece of crap I was, but it was really just me tearing myself down.  Have you ever noticed yourself doing that?  Reiterating what someone else that you respect says about you?  When others say it, it hurts, but not as much as when you say it to yourself.  Think of a time that someone you loved or respected told you some horrible quality about you. Even if it was in a fight. What did you say to yourself after they said it?  Did you tell yourself that it wasn’t true, or did you agree and feel even worse about yourself?
 
There are innumerable benefits to building your confidence.  First and foremost, you won’t feel bad about yourself anymore.  You won’t blame yourself or beat yourself up.  You won’t feel powerless or like a small floating blob in the big, big universe. Instead, you could be the person that inspires others. Finding love within yourself, and being able to share your journey with others is inspiring.  Recognizing that you’ve overcome obstacles, whatever that means for you, and helping others to do so makes you a leader. 
 
What I want you to do today, is recognize all of your amazing qualities.  Like I said, it’s easy to beat ourselves down.  So let’s work on building self esteem.  Let’s take some time and reflect on all of our amazing, strong qualities, and start putting more emphasis on those, than on the negative qualities that we judge and criticize ourselves for.
 
In the comments, make a list of your favorite qualities about yourself. It can be something physical, like, “I love my eyes,” or “I love my smile.” Or something emotional like, “I really care about my friends.” or “I am a kind and generous person.”  It won’t seem conceited or egotistical.  It’s confident.  If you’re beating yourself up because you can’t think of anything, just ask your best friend or a family member.  Somebody you trust whose kind and whose opinion you respect. Ask them what your 5 best qualities are and write them down.
 
Within the next few weeks, I will be launching a program called 5 Days to Confidence (Now, Healing From Emotional Abuse: Confidence Building Exercises for Survivors of Narcissism https://marissafayecohen.thinkific.com/enroll/1064727?price_id=1184204 ), where I take these ideals and more, to help you build confidence back up after abuse. Changing your self-talk is just one small step to increasing confidence.  In 4 days, you’ll learn tools tips and tricks on how to build yourself up, and stay confident while healing from your trauma.
 
Thank you guys for tuning in today! You’re taking big strides to becoming a more confident you! Next week, we’ll be talking about Stalking.  The dangers, the show You, and maybe a special guest!
 
Hey! If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Thats www.M-a-r-i-s-s-a-F-a-y-e-c-o-h-e-n.com backslash private-coaching.  Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!