Kerry: [00:00:00] Late in narcissistically abusive relationships, we start to wonder what's wrong with me? Why can't I leave? Today, Lisa Sonni joins me to talk about cognitive dissonance. What is it, how it creates a dual reality, and the steps to take to resolve the confusion so that you can take the next best step for you.
This is Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse, and I'm your host, Dr. Kerry McAvoy, a mental health specialist with over 20 years of counseling experience. Each week we're going to take a deep dive into the dynamics of narcissistic abuse. As a listener-supported podcast, thank you for considering becoming a subscriber for less than the cost of a cup of coffee.
My anniversary to the marriage is coming up. It's the end of June. The most agonizing experience of that relationship was the inability to make a decision and to know, especially as a psychologist, that I sat on a precipice. That's what it felt like, literally like I was on the edge of a cliff. And I actually walked to the edge of a cliff and stood at the end [00:01:00] of one and thought about it. Not thought about jumping off. It was in Barbados, and the water had been wearing away the stone underneath it. So I'm sure it dipped in underneath; there was a big hollow underneath me. So I was standing out on this edge. And I stood there looking out at the ocean and the waves coming in and said, "This is what this relationship's doing to you. It's wearing the very foundation beneath your feet. And at some point, you're dropping. You're going to crash. You have to make a decision." I had never been in such psychological pain in my life than I was in that relationship, where I knew that something was terribly wrong, and I couldn't leave. It wasn't until I heard of cognitive dissonance. It's called chronic and persistent cognitive dissonance, and Dr. Kristen Milstead, in her book Why Can't I Just Leave, does an incredible job of describing it. There are three stages to this, and I remember clearly each stage, and I bet you do too.
The first [00:02:00] stage is you have this massive aha. It's often precipitated by a betrayal where you think to yourself, "I don't know who this person is. They're a stranger. What the hell just happened here?" And then the second stage is you start to ask yourself, "Is this relationship savable? I want it to be, but is it salvageable?" And then the third stage is, "I know this is a train wreck. This relationship's bad. I know this is unhealthy for me. Why can't I leave? What's wrong with me?" And I remember each of those stages and hitting them. And when I got to that third stage, I felt so much shame. Like I felt like I couldn't face anybody. I certainly wasn't telling anybody. I stopped talking about what was happening in the relationship because it exceeded the point of civil conversation, but it felt like I was telling on myself. I might as well just be hanging out my underwear. I felt broken when I hit that stage. I [00:03:00] felt broken.
Lisa Sonni: I absolutely did too. It's such a hard feeling. Going through cognitive dissonance is insane and absolutely awful. But there's something about that third stage because you know now it's not savable, and you're standing there on the railroad tracks, and a train is coming at you, and you're just standing there paralyzed. I felt so paralyzed. And I think for me, what drove it was the fear that I was wrong. I was like, "I know that I need to leave, but what if I'm wrong?" There was so much self-doubt that kept hitting me because I could hear his voice, right? "You're the problem. We're only arguing because of you. We're only splitting up because of you. This is all because of you." So I kept thinking, "Is it me?" And I always say this to people. It's not that the victims and survivors of these kinds of relationships are perfect. It's all the abuser and the victim has absolutely no bearing or no responsibility. We have responsibility for what got us in, what kept us there, but we're not [00:04:00] responsible for the abuse. And he kept persisting that I was responsible for the way he treated me. It was me that caused it. I made him act that way. I used to get so sarcastic too. "Wow, I'm all-powerful. I can make you do anything. That's incredible. I'm amazing." It was so shocking to me because it made no sense. But ultimately, we've been through all of this, and I'm standing here now, and I know that this relationship needs to end. So why don't I just say the words? Why don't I just do the thing that makes this end? And I couldn't. And in hindsight, it's a trauma bond. Sure. Not everybody's experiencing one who's in these relationships, but I was. But it was that little piece of self-doubt. I knew and didn't know at the same time that I needed to leave.
Kerry: I kept thinking if I make a decision, it's going to be irrevocable. There's going to be no takebacks on this. This is not a person who's merciful. So if I'm wrong, I'm permanently wrong. And what if this is savable? What if this could be the best possible [00:05:00] relationship I ever had? Because the good parts are so amazing. You keep hoping somehow you can get back there. And you said something in another episode where you and I had an interview where you talked about how we keep holding out hope for it. We keep wanting the love bombing back. But here's the thing that happened in my relationship, and I think it happens maybe not in all of them, but some of them is that the abusive person also creates a sense of hope. They talk about, "Why can't we be like that? Why isn't it like it used to be? Or where did the person I met go?" Did you hear any of those kinds of comments?
Lisa Sonni: All the time.
Kerry: Yeah, I did too. I did too. So to me, hearing that, it's like we both want that. I thought we're both invested. I didn't realize this was just
Lisa Sonni: Games.
Kerry: Yeah, games, but it's also I don't think he was always being gamey about it. I think sometimes it was just his own idealism. He isn't changing. He wasn't going to change, but I think there was a part of him that wished that he could be who he is and that we could [00:06:00] have this idyllic relationship. As if both those realities could coexist. No, they cannot coexist because that's an impossibility. But I do think that some people have this unrealistic expectation, sort of magical thinking about all of it. So I didn't realize I took it as this we both want this, but I knew at the end that if I made a decision to leave, especially if it came from me, because we're talking about a narcissist. A true blue narcissist who leaving is an injury. It's a narcissistic wound. So it's a form of abandonment and rejection, and this type of person doesn't get over that. If your partner acts like they're getting over it, it's a lie. They're holding that back as a card, and they intend to use it against you later, and they're going to get even with you for what you did. I was smart enough to know this and to know that if I did that, this was done. There was no comebacks from this, and I just couldn't make a decision. I stayed literally on that precipice for months, and I know I hear people talk about years and years. What's so terrible about [00:07:00] this is that state of mind is damaging.
Lisa Sonni: It is.
Kerry: Actually, we're not meant to live there, and yet we're living there for long periods of time.
Lisa Sonni: I'm lucky too that when I think about it, that late stage, it really was months for me as well, not years. And I'm so lucky to have found my way out of it and resolved that even before I'd ever heard the phrase cognitive dissonance. But yeah. It's really hard to identify and then hard to take the actions. And you said something to me once that was so profound, that we always want the feelings to be like, "I know I need to leave so that you can take the action." But sometimes you need to take the action, and the feelings will follow. That was hard because what I'm hearing is, "You need to leave so that you can feel good about leaving, but we want to feel good about leaving so that we can leave."
Kerry: Dr. Ramani talks about a “breaking shelf” moment. That's how she puts it. We often, in most areas of our life, we want to have clarity. Say that you decide you're going to have a new health [00:08:00] plan. You're going to go out, and you're going to exercise every day, and you're going to eat clean or whatever it is that you decide, and you think, "Okay, I will implement this when I have the energy, the motivation, and the drive to do this." The problem is, when's that ever going to happen? It's never going to happen. Motivation comes from action, not from feelings. But we think feelings drive actions
. We all believe that. And it's not actually true. So we have to take the action, and then we watch our feelings catch up. Here's the other piece about cognitive dissonance that makes it even trickier. And this is the part I think most people don't fully appreciate. But we know because we've been talking about it. Like even in the podcast about trauma bonds, talk about the fact that they're the pain and the comfort. They're the knife and the band-aid. What are we saying when we say that? And by the way, that's literally accurate. That's what we're describing. These people are playing both roles. So what happens in cognitive dissonance is there is a duality. There isn't one reality; there is a dual reality. There is the reality of the person you thought you met [00:09:00] and that exists in your mind. If I were to ask you, Lisa, describe your partner when you first met them and who you thought you were marrying, you would describe this amazing person that you thought you had fallen in love with. And then if I said, now describe the person that terrorized you and you never for sure if you're going to have that person walk through the door at night, then you would describe somebody that actually doesn't match. And I bet you you'd even say their habits don't match, their preferences don't match, the way they dress doesn't match, even what they do with their free time doesn't match. I know for me, that's the case. The person I met actually didn't exist. He never existed. He was a construction of my ex's mind based upon what he thought I wanted to see. That's who I fell in love with. I didn't fall in love with my ex. I have a pretty decent picture of who my ex is today. If that person came to me and said, "Hey Kerry, let's have a relationship," I'd say, "No, I'm not interested." We don't line up. There's no alignment in our beliefs and our [00:10:00] values and our goals, even how we spend our time. No alignment. I'm not interested. So this dual reality gets created inside of us, and we then become split. We literally become split ourselves. We have the person that knows how to deal with the great part. We have the person that knows how to deal with the bad part. So we're not whole anymore. We've created these two sides of ourselves. And then we're asked, our mind to make a decision out of a dual reality. How crazy is that? I don't know if you've ever watched the, there's a sci-fi show called Fringe, where you shift into an alternate universe. Can you imagine if you're trying to stand one foot on both universes and then say, "Now tell me which world's the real world?" They both are real. And you're supposed to make a decision off of that? The mind just says exactly. I can't. There's no answer. We sit there and make no decision at all. And then meanwhile, we know we're not making a decision because we [00:11:00] actually don't split. Our mind isn't two pieces. It sits with both realities and says, "This doesn't compute. This doesn't compute." And it makes no decision at all, which is why the damage is happening because it can't compute.
Lisa Sonni: Making that final decision, it just felt so permanent for me that I was like, "If I make the wrong choice, this is it." And when you think about the other things that it impacts, like family and money and just massive decisions, I get why people are paralyzed. So how? It's the question, right? How do you resolve cognitive dissonance? How do you deal with it? There is no step one, do this, step two. There is and there isn't, of course. It's massive. It's a massive heavy weight to carry to start thinking about how to get yourself out and make the decision.
Kerry: I do think there are some practical steps that help though, and I'd be, I think that's a great kind of segue. We can start moving into talking about how can you resolve the two realities. You have to decide what is the true reality. And I know even that's what you talk about with your clients. You [00:12:00] talk about what's actually true. It's as if we are standing with somebody who is a thief or an intruder who stabbed us and continues to hold the knife, and then we try to hold them close and act as if they're also our partner. They're not our partner. They don't have our best interest at heart. But coming to see that, and that's where people like, I see the greatest level of confusion, is that we can't accept that this isn't a changeable situation. It's fixed. This is who this person is. They don't intend to change. Neurologically, their brains are now different. It's hardwired different. They have a low capacity for insight, a low capacity for empathy, and they have really not a big desire for intimacy. And there's not a tremendous degree of moral codes inside these people. These are fixed traits. They're not like decisions. "Today, I just want to wear boots instead of my sneakers." It's not that kind of a decision. This is part of who this person is. So part of what I suggest, and I'd love to know what you [00:13:00] suggest too, but I suggest people take an example, take a very painful example out of your history and to actually then look at it practically and ask yourself, based on this, what does this tell you about the relationship with this person? You can extrapolate. I bet people don't realize you can extrapolate enormous amounts of information from someone based upon how they live, their preferences, how they talk about other people, how they spend their time, what gives them purpose, what makes them find joy. It's called ontological questions. The first question is, who are they? Try to answer, who is your partner? If you were to describe them and think of it like the worst parts, who are they? Then what's, what they're passionate about? What are they about? What gives them meaning? What gives them drive? And you'll find with most narcissistic individuals, they're lost. They've jumped from topic to item, hobby to hobby, job to job, people to people. They're not defined. Then you ask yourself, what's their view of people, of human [00:14:00] nature? Do they believe people are good? Do they believe people are changeable? If you listen to someone speak, you can get a pretty good sense of this person writes everybody off, and he's contemptuous and sarcastic and snarky. This is not a person that believes people are basically good. Or, in my case, of my ex, he regularly talked about people, women in particular, as if they were objects. This is a person who doesn't see people as people. He sees them as assets, resources. But by looking at that, then we begin to really start to define this individual.
Lisa Sonni: I see a lot of people though take that kind of question or that framework and start to say, "He's honest. But sometimes he lies." But it's like, there it is, right? He's honest, and he lies. Can those two things be true at the same time? So for me, I talk to people at the beginning stages, "Let's identify the beliefs that conflict," right? And using a broad example, "He is good, and he is bad." Now, give me the evidence that supports that he is good and give me the evidence that [00:15:00] supports he's bad and start using the evidence even when he's good, let's say. What made him good? He brought you flowers. How sweet. What did he do the day before that made him bring you flowers? So does that serve him in some way? Was he trying to get an apology so that you could have a good weekend together so that he could ask you for something so that he could get some intimacy? Is there something driving the good that is actually bad? Because I say this a lot, right? The good facilitates the bad. They're only kind so that they can keep abusing you. So when you can blow through that good version, destroy that mask, at least in your own mind, destroy that version, you can push yourself more towards, "I see them as just bad."
Kerry: Here's another thing that trips people up all the time, and I know you and I hear it all the time. "Yes, but you have to understand this person doesn't have a good background. They had a really hard time, and their life hasn't been fair to them. If you experienced that kind [00:16:00] of trauma, you wouldn't be a healthy person either." I almost picture the violins are out, and we're playing some broken victim's theme song. Essentially, what you're saying, because again, I love what you just said, cut through the parts of this that we're making excuses and justifications for pretty horrific behavior. And what you're also essentially saying is, "They can't help themselves." That's what you're saying. You can't help yourself. So is that true? Are they actually a marionette, and the trauma is dictating behavior, and they have no free will?
Lisa Sonni: No.
Kerry: Oddly, I know. And oddly, you're being traumatized. Are you now a marionette who can't stop herself or himself from doing things? Because chances are you're still walking on eggshells. You've been traumatized, but you're still in control of your behavior. You're still in control of what you're saying. That doesn't line up. It makes no sense. And here's the other argument I make to really blow it apart. I'll say, "Do you know the United States," and I got
to hear actually [00:17:00] the leading expert in the whole world say this in person, Dr. Van der Kolk, said, "80 percent of Americans have been traumatized." I find that an astonishing fact. He said, "But only 40 percent develop PTSD." And the question he then wants to know as a researcher is, why does 60% recover? Okay, but let's just use his percentage of 80% of the United States to the United States, which means the rest of the world's higher because we're pretty safe for the most part. Eighty percent of the Americans have experienced a highly traumatic experience. Then why are the rates of narcissism not closer to 80%? If trauma caused narcissism, we should see rates be at all-time records. It should be horrific. So why are the best numbers the government's putting out lately around 7%? Seven percent to 80%? That's a massive discrepancy.
Lisa Sonni: One that...
Kerry: There's no...
Lisa Sonni: Requires a lot of questions, for sure, right? Why aren't you...
Kerry: There's no correlation. So it comes back to, okay, if trauma is the fault here, you then [00:18:00] should be behaving horrifically bad as well, and you're not. And on top of it, we all have a reason to be this way, and we aren't. We're only 7% of us. So it comes back to, then, really, what is the issue here? And interestingly, we've all observed this one, is that they can manage it really well. They don't do it at work, and they don't do it with certain friends. They just come home and do it to you. So please explain that to me. If they have no control, they'd be doing it...
Lisa Sonni: I say that all the time, right? He doesn't assault you at the gas station or verbally abuse you in the produce aisle. Although, I've definitely... There are some people that are like, "Mine does," but I think, as a whole, broadly speaking, they don't do that, which means it is controlled. And even in Lundy Bancroft's book, *Why Does He Do That?*, he talks about how abuse is controlled. This, "He just never learned how to control his anger," that's garbage. It is the most controlled thing. Otherwise, it would be for everyone. It actually comes more from this worldview that you deserve it, that they are entitled to have that kind of power [00:19:00] and control over another person, and you start to realize the intentionality of it all. For me, that really helped me break free and see him as one person. I tried to find ways to reinforce in myself, "This is on purpose. He knows what he's doing." I spent close to a decade trying to convince him that what he was doing hurt me because I took the position that he didn't understand. So my whole thing was, he doesn't understand, Kerry. If he understood, because he would say, "I don't understand," I'd take him at face value. He doesn't get it. He doesn't think this is abuse. And I admit I wasn't thinking that word abuse either when I was in it, but he didn't think it was bad. He didn't think it was wrong. And it's the most obvious thing now that I'm out. Try pulling what they do to you on them. Don't actually, because that can put you in an unsafe situation, but put yourself in that little mental exercise. If you did to him what he did to you, what would the reaction be? Because that's where you can start to see the intentionality and the [00:20:00] entitlement that they get to do those things. The double standards start to really come out. And then you realize, "Oh, this is just a rule that applies to me." They know it's bad. And I'm being a little sarcastic, but I say to clients too, "Does he see tears flowing from your eyeballs? Does he hear the words coming out of your mouth?" He knows. I'm not saying they wake up with the intention to cause harm, although some do and some don't, but when you say X hurts me and they do X, they know that it hurts you, and they do it anyway. Therefore, it's intentional. Oversimplified, I know, but I think for me, that was the beginnings of how I really started to get it.
Kerry: The way I started to get it was when I suddenly had the realization that I somehow thought I deserved less love and compassion than other people did. How could you not know that? But a lot of us think this. Really, when you listen to the typical person in this kind of a relationship, if you were to distill what they're telling you, they always say [00:21:00] it's my job to put up with this. I'm being loving to put up with this. But they never ask themselves, "Is it loving of you to experience that? Are you being shown the same concern that you're showing your partner?" No, of course not.
Lisa Sonni: Why do you deserve less?
Kerry: Exactly. Whoever asked you to be a martyr? Okay, I know the toxic person wants you to martyr yourself. Absolutely. Because they expect the whole world to martyr themselves for the sake of that individual. But why did you volunteer? Why are you doing it to yourself? And it was that realization. Of course, this is really harsh. I didn't say it harshly to myself like that. What I said was, "Would I be okay if someone treated one of my sons this way? If he married a person like this and I watched her do to him what was being done to me?" Hell no, absolutely not. Now, not everybody has the luxury of being able to identify with a parent-child. Maybe you could ask, "Do I feel okay if I saw a sibling treated this way? Or my parent treated this way?"
Lisa Sonni: Yeah, your best friend, it's a little cliché, but it's true. If your best friend said, "Hey, [00:22:00] my partner is doing this," what would you say? I used to stand over my daughter's crib and cry when she was asleep and just apologize. "You're going to see this. You're going to witness this. This is going to be something that you think is normal. And I'm only just realizing this is terrible and not normal."
Kerry: That was my breaking shelf moment. I looked at him, and I watched what he was saying, and I watched what was happening between us and said, "There's no way. I would be horrified if my kids were going through this." And then the follow-up question, which is what we don't ask ourselves, is, "Then why is it okay for you?" It's not okay. It's never okay. And I'll tell you when I talk to victims, and I say this to them, and even saying to them, even to our listeners, if someone is doing this to you, it is not okay. You are worth so much. You are worth more than this. It is not okay. And that, for me, was a wake-up. Then I thought, "Okay." It was literally like I could see [00:23:00] like someone pulled the rose-colored glasses off my eyes. And I remember later that day we sat at the table, it was a picnic table, and I looked at all the families around me, and I could see them laughing and loving each other. And I looked at him, and I then said, "He has never felt this way for me. Why did I think that he had? How could I have missed this? I have seen love. Love doesn't look like this." And I was done. So I'm thinking, and I'd love to know what you think, it's this stage is hard. It's not like you can just step out of it. It's not like you can just say, "Okay, I'm turning the page, and I'm going to think differently." It's a process. But both of us are talking through our processes, how we got there. And that's the thing I guess I want to leave people with, and I'd love to know what you think. But I think if you find yourself saying, "What's wrong with me? I gotta leave. What's wrong with me?" I would really urge you to push back. Why are you not seeing it? What is it that you're not seeing? For me, it was, "How could I [00:24:00] think this is okay behavior? Why did I think I deserved any of this?" You had a different thing that you questioned yourself, and that was, "My daughter's going to see this." And maybe even ask yourself some other questions too, but we pushed back on this and started to fight for clarity.
Lisa Sonni: Yeah, the clarity. I knew that I felt confused, and you hear people describe it as the fog, and it does. It's such a perfect way to describe it because it's like you're just standing in the space, and there's fog around you, and you can't see, and you don't know which direction to go in. So you just stand still because you're nervous or terrified in this case, but it's just a perfect way to describe it. I'm all about evidence, for me. When he does this, when she does this, how do I feel and what does this tell me about the kind of person they are? Like, what does this tell me about their values? Because you want to break away from the, "They're good and bad at the same time." So the more you can step away from this belief that there's two things happening, it's hard though because you have to first recognize that there are two things happening. And if you don't know what cognitive [00:25:00] dissonance is, you're at a disadvantage.
Kerry: Yeah. So let's talk about that over on the podcast extra. Let's talk about the practical ways of combating the duality that gets established that creates the confusion. How do you establish what the truth is? That's really the question. How do you know what truth is? So we'll hop over and talk about that. But thank you so much. This is...
Lisa Sonni: Hard.
Kerry: It is. It's one that I relate to very much, so thank you so much, Lisa.
Well, that's a wrap for this week's episode. Are you following me on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube? Find me at kerrymcavoyphd. And whether you're in, considering leaving, or have left a narcissistic relationship, find community support at my Toxic Free Relationship Club. You can learn about this resource as well as others at kerrymcavoyphd.com. And I'll see you back here next week.
