I desperately love and fear them: The Terrifying Power of a Trauma Bond

Could you be trauma-bonded to a narcissist? Are you battling a strange mix of love and fear?

Lisa Sonni joins me this week to discuss trauma bonds--an intense connection to another person that is very difficult to break. We think we feel love when it's based on fear.

Learn more about how to recognize if you're trauma-bonded and why it's so difficult to leave.

Become a subscriber and get the Podcast Extra exclusive conversation about WHY identifying and breaking a trauma bond is so difficult. substack.com/@breakingfreenarcabuse or https://ko-fi.com/kerrymcavoyphd- Two places, the same cost, and the same great content!


Books Mentioned:
The Betrayal Bond by Patrick Carnes, PhD
The Passionate Marriage by David Schnarch, PhD
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson, PhD
Recovering From Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson, PhD (Appendix contains the 10 Emotional Bill of Rights)

Resources Mentioned:
Strong & Unstoppable Retreat for Women Oct 3-6
Healing Strong 12-Week Group Coaching with Lisa and Kerry
Dr. McAvoy's Toxic-Free Relationship Club
1:1 Coaching with Lisa Sonni

Follow Dr. McAvoy!

• YouTube: @kerrymcavoyphd
• Instagram: @kerrymcavoyphd
• Facebook: @kerrymcavoyphd
• E-mail: hello@kerrymcavoyphd.com
• Newsletter: https://breakingfreenarcabuse.substack.com/ or https://ko-fi.com/kerrymcavoyphd
• Website: https://www.breakingfreenarcissisticabuse.com/
  
  Kerry Kerr McAvoy, Ph.D., a mental health specialist and author, is an expert on cultivating healthy relationships, deconstructing narcissism, and understanding various other mental health-related issues. Her memoir, Love You More: The Harrowing Tale of Lies, Sex Addiction, & Double Cross, gives an uncensored glimpse into the dynamics of narcissistic abuse.

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Transcript

I desperately love and fear them: The Terrifying Power of a Trauma Bond

Kerry: [00:00:00] A trauma bond in the beginning feels like love, but it's based on fear. Today, Lisa Sonni joins me to talk about why we don't see a trauma bond when it's forming and how to recognize that you're getting trapped in one. And you may have noticed a new feature called Fan Mail. At the end of the show, we'll answer three listeners questions.

This is Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse and I'm your host Dr. Kerry Kerr 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.

Lisa, I know your passion is trauma bonds because of how incredibly painful they are, but also mysterious they are. In fact, one of our most popular interviews was yours on the making and breaking of one. But I've been recently thinking about the fact that [00:01:00] trauma bonds, we think it's an incredible relationship, but it's actually not a healthy one.

We don't recognize in the beginning, it's not healthy, but it's actually really unhealthy. What confused you in the beginning that made you think this was a fantastic connection?

Lisa Sonni: I think it was that I was so drawn to him. I felt like this is love. I've never felt this way before. I felt so attached.

Now in hindsight, I think what I felt was dependency. But it felt like love. And I've heard this it mimics love or it mimics what we feel like love should be because it gives you all the feel good things in the beginning. And then we start to kind of rationalize when things go bad, and we make all these excuses for it, not realizing that we're afraid to lose the person.

We're afraid of the person, but it feels like love in the beginning. 

Kerry: Yeah, it did to me too. I mean, it wasn't until the end that I look back and think, he never loved me. How could I have mistaken this for love? Why do you think you missed that it wasn't love? 

Lisa Sonni: Oh, I think I wanted it to be love. And I think, [00:02:00] you know, a lot of people actually sort of put that on the victim, like, why did you believe this?

There's a part of it that is, I think we need to look at ourselves, why we believed it so easily. But I think we discount how much they are good at manipulating and making it look like that, right? We don't talk about love bombing in common practice. I'd never heard of that. Even if you don't call it love bombing, you don't talk about the speed of a relationship.

I made a video recently on the lightning speed of these relationships, and it did really well because a lot of people can relate. It doesn't make the person a narcissist if they push the relationship super fast necessarily, but a narcissist would, and an abuser would, because then you miss all the signs.

You don't see. You're blinded by the feelings. And if you speed into these relationships and things get physical very quickly, or you allow your boundaries to be breached quickly, you get really attached and connected so fast that you do start to forgive the small things. Because you're already so committed that this little [00:03:00] bad thing is just small and it can be pushed aside so easily in our mind.

Meanwhile, it's probably a relatively big red flag that we should be looking for. 

Kerry: What I find highly attractive is the idealization. And we don't talk about that much either. These relationships, you don't realize that they have put you on a pedestal. It just feels really wonderful to have someone think that you're all that.

Wait, who does not want to feel like you're that woman or you're that guy? So when they come at you and think you're the one I've been waiting my whole life for or I have never felt this way with anyone before, it's intoxicating. I did hear those things and, and I had wanted to hear those things.

Were you idealized as well in that early stage. 

Lisa Sonni: Absolutely. All the cliche things that people say, narcissists say, I've never felt this way before. No one understands me like you. I finally met my best friend. You're my soulmate. He would often say like, we're soulies. That was his little thing. You know, we're soulies.

And every time we would do something the same or have the same idea, he'd be like, soulies. So it built this [00:04:00] connection of, I feel it too. And like you said, when it feels so good to be loved like that, to have somebody feel like they see you and love you in a way that you've never been loved, and certainly how they prey on past experiences.

If you told them you used to have a bad relationship or your ex cheated on you, they make all these promises, but it's all to just tie into how they idealize you. And love you so deeply and you're not realizing that this is something, to call it intentional, I know it's a bit of a gray area, but somewhat intentionally that they're trying to make the speed go quickly and they're trying to make you not see who they really are.

Kerry: Well, they intentionally want you to love them. They intentionally want the connection and is it an intentionally predatory relationship right from the get go? I'm not convinced that it always is. I think sometimes it is, but sometimes it's not. I do think there is an intentionality to a degree that they really want you to be as captivated by them as they sort of feel captivated by the fantasy of you.

And I, that was one of the things that my ex said to me near the end that I thought [00:05:00] was pretty profound is he said, I think I have an addiction to fantasy. And I thought, yeah, I think you do too. Because none of this was ever real. I mean, and even the, he would say, I really wish we were more like this stage of the relationship.

Now, granted, we hear all the victims talk about, yes, they do that to make us work harder and make it feel like our fault. But I also think there was a true longing expressed in that. It wasn't all manipulation. I think there was a part of him that thought, that was really beautiful. Why can't it stay that way?

And there was a part of me that's like, yeah, but dude, this is life. Life's not like this. Relationships are not like this. And I felt like he was chasing in an impossible dream. And who does not want to be sold that impossible dream? Seriously, if I thought that that white knight really existed, shit, I would wait forever for this guy.

Lisa Sonni: Same. 

Kerry: But I've now realized that's not realistic. That's not what relationships are, are like. Before I heard of the word trauma bond, I heard of fear bonds. Had you ever heard of a trauma bond defined that way? 

Lisa Sonni: No, never. But the first time I heard the phrase fear bond. I was like, Oh, that makes sense.

Because I think that trauma bonding [00:06:00] is actually very much characterized by fear. Although, strangely, it feels a lot like love. Again, maybe more so in the beginning, but it feels a lot like love. But the truth is, you're afraid. You're so afraid to lose them. I felt at some point, truly even afraid of how much I loved him.

I was just, you, you're so protective of this relationship. I was so dependent. And I was Miss Independent, you know, I would never be dependent on a man, emotionally, especially. There I was, and I was terrified to lose that relationship. When it was ending, I thought, I thought that was it for me. Like, I, I, I truly, I'll admit it, I Googled, can you die from crying?

Kerry: Yeah, I hear so many people describe that kind of intensity where you feel so, I love that word protective, you feel so careful, so almost, it's a form of respect actually, like I want to nurture and surround and comfort. I want to cocoon this person and keep them from all the bad things in the world.

I want to bring out the biggest potential because I know if that person that [00:07:00] I see they could be, could be real. This would be an amazing relationship. The problem with that is that that's not reciprocal. I even think if there was that kind of connection where both people have each other's back like that work.

I got you, babe. You got mine. But it's not, it's one sided in the wild thing is I couldn't see that in the middle of it. And when I listen to you, I don't hear you saw it either. 

Lisa Sonni: Oh, no, absolutely. You know, I saw him as this like broken little boy, almost, you know, not in the beginning, but soon in the beginning of the relationship, he came from a bad family and he complained about them and he gave me all these stories and I felt so bad and I just wanted him to feel better and to, I knew that he had the potential.

I felt so confident that this was this wonderful man. So as he started to change, I chased that version of him, that original person that I met. That I experienced, that I fell in love with, there is no, [00:08:00]that guy didn't exist, I wasn't there yet. Later you realize that because of how badly they want you to love them, they're willing to lie and manipulate, again, some intentionally, some less intentional, but the point is they're still being manipulative, but I just wanted that person back.

And then they tell you that you're the reason that person is gone, so then you start to change who you are to get that person back. And you keep going, and it's this horrible cycle, but you're ultimately so dependent on this person. 

Kerry: Dr. David Schnarch, in his book, The Passionate Marriage, talks about relational differentiation.

It's a big word. It means that two people are wholly, fully themselves in the context of the relationship, and the relationship can tolerate that kind of separateness, that kind of individuality, and that when we feel this intense connection where we feel protective, we even sort of try to save them, we betray ourselves in that process.

He calls that emotional fusion, because there's actually, you're not fully yourself anymore. You have sublimated, you have [00:09:00] stunted, hidden yourself to survive this relationship and to keep the relationship connected. A lot of people probably listening are like, yeah, but that sounds like me.

A lot of us do this in healthier relationships, but the more that it's present, the more dysfunctional this relationship is. And these types of relationship, narcissistically abusive relationship, eventually the victim is, you know, in a trauma bond, a late stage, that person's carved out. They start to cease to exist.

They have submerged theirself. That they feel they have lost themselves. They feel like their voice is gone, their power is gone, their identity is being eroded. And I saw the trajectory when it was happening to me. I didn't know it was emotional fusion and I didn't know that was bad, but I saw the trajectory of it happening and I felt like less and less of myself.

I, I get to the point where I couldn't speak. I was stuttering a lot when I was trying to say something. I would be literally struck mute where I wouldn't say anything at all. I was completely silent, especially when I should have said something. The biggest moments when I should have [00:10:00] defended myself, I would literally, I would have to like say something, say, say something, say something.

I would literally be fighting with myself to overcome this inability because I felt so much terror, and not just terror of him, yeah, terror of his anger, but also terror of the loss, the relationship loss I thought would come if I challenged whatever was happening in that moment. 

Lisa Sonni: I went out of my way not to challenge him, and if it's funny you're saying, say something, I was more like, just let it go.

I was always telling myself, just, you know how he gets, you know how he is, just, he'll be fine tomorrow. Just don't, don't get into it. Don't argue because, frankly, my personality type is fight mode. You know? I don't take crap from anybody. But I took so much from him, but over time, it was like I just took more and more, and I learned to not speak up.

Because he would say things like, what, do you just not want to be together anymore? Fine, I don't care, leave. But then I would call him on it sometimes and be like, you know what, it actually sounds like a [00:11:00] really good idea, let's do that. And then it would be like, I can't believe you're leaving, I can't believe you would abandon me, you're just like my mom, and draw me back in.

But I was so terrified to lose that connection, to lose that relationship. Nothing has ever meant more to me than that, when I was in it. In hindsight, I look back and, you know, you really question, like, why did this mean so much to me? What was I getting out of it? Nothing. Misery, but it felt like the most important thing in my life at the time.

But why do you think that is? Why do you think it felt like the most important thing in your life at 

that time? I think he made himself the center of my world, right? He, he slowly chipped away at everything around me to make it so that I was groomed to answer his calls quickly, to jump when he said so, to just follow, to listen.

He would constantly position himself as. smarter than me and better than me. And to be fair, I don't think I ever really thought he is smarter than me. It was just easier to comply. He made it easier to just go with [00:12:00] it. I blindly trusted him in so many ways and every single way that I trusted him was broken.

Kerry: I felt that submersion to where I had this feeling if I could pour enough of myself in enough of my love in that I would heal him. 

Lisa Sonni: Absolutely. 

Kerry: I really believed that I could do that. 

Yeah. Oh, and it was agonizing. 

Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I felt like he was invested in me doing that too, sometimes, not always, but sometimes.

But I, I had this illusion that somehow we could get into this better place, this perfect place, like back to the love bombing but more stable kind of a thing. That was what I was pushing for. And I didn't realize that all of that, that that, that feeling that I felt that you're describing that so many people describe to us is part of the bond, it's part of the trauma bond, it's intentional. That to me blew my mind when I really like got that. 

Lisa Sonni: I still remember, you know, the very first time that I had ever heard the phrase trauma bond and really learning even where it came from, what that meant, that there's seven [00:13:00]stages. I was blown away, but it also was this really big moment for me that what I was feeling had a name, that this psychological phenomenon made sense to me that he was the pain and the comfort, the knife and the band aid, all these mixed feelings.

It was like the answer. I heard that phrase, and then I read the book, The Betrayal Bond by Patrick Carnes, and I was like, oh, this is it. This. Yeah. And I have to tell you, the reason I've sort of positioned my business around trauma bonding is because for me, when I heard that phrase, it blew up my brain, made everything make sense.

Now, it doesn't mean that you immediately go, Oh, it's a trauma bond and you walk out the door, of course, but it was the beginning stage of me finally going, Oh my God, it's not love. But I hear clients say to me all the time, Okay, fine, I'm trauma bonded, but I love this person. Even when they realize that it's a trauma bond, it's like, Okay, sure, but also.

And it's, it's also not true, but it's hard to say that to people, right? Because you don't want to discount the feelings. I believe that we believe we love them. 

Kerry: Yeah, I [00:14:00] do too. I do believe what we believe that we love them. And I believe most often, most of us think that that's what love is. And I also think this is the other part of the trauma.

Is that when they step away from that relationship and get clarity They realize that the reason it also familiar is because that's what they've known. Yeah, that was a They haven't known any kind of Yeah exactly. Any kind of relationship that was really loving, and I got to set for continue education with Dr. Lindsey Gibson. She wrote the book, Adult children, emotionally immature parents, and at the end of this seven hour training, she said, I want to read my emotional bill of rights. It's 10 bill of rights. Amazing. It's found in the back of her book. I'll make sure I put a link in the notes so that people can find it.

But when I heard her read that, I thought that wouldn't have been allowed growing up. No, that wouldn't have been allowed growing up, or that certainly was not allowed in that relationship. But I, I, I was stunned by these... I felt pushback. I felt inside me like, no, that can't work. That's, that's not safe.

That, that, who would ever allow that kind of autonomy? Who would ever allow that kind of emotional freedom? That's what healthy [00:15:00] relationships look like. And when I was in a, right after I found out he had been cheating and he said he was a sex addict and we went to this intensive, I joined a coaching group, a 10 week support group in the evening with a few other women run by a sex addiction coach.

And she introduced the idea of fear bonds and love bonds and sent a, like a PDF that sort of described them. And when I've read the fear bond descriptions, I was blown away because that had been all my relationships. So I thought love was that you didn't push too much, that you kept yourself manageable, that you didn't stress the relationship with yourself and what you wanted and what you needed. I didn't know that relationships should expand me, not shrink me. 

Lisa Sonni: Absolutely the same. If it's all you've ever known, you're not going to recognize what actually is safe and feels good, or it will feel safe, and I think that word even, it feels like the wrong word to use, but it's not, you feel comfortable in chaos, or you feel comfortable feeling [00:16:00]unsafe and somehow there's safety in that. I know that makes no sense, but it just feels like everything you've always known. So you don't recognize how bad the relationship has gotten, and I think also when, when you're in those stages The relationship's going well, you're in an argument, or there's a threat to leave, or you are in a breakup makeup cycle.

Every time there's a, there's a low or a down in the relationship, you feel like you're gonna die. So you're craving this person, and you think, well, if it was an unsafe relationship, if they really weren't the one, I wouldn't have that feeling. I wouldn't crave this person, because again, if you don't know what a trauma bond is, or you don't know what a fear bond is, you don't see it.

Kerry: That's exactly how it felt. I felt terrified of losing it, terrified of separation. I realize now that that for me is one of the cues that it's not a healthy relationship or partnership is when I'm too afraid to be myself and I'm willing to sacrifice myself to preserve the relationship because I'm afraid of losing the relationship.

That that fear, that separation fear to me is like, Oh, [00:17:00] yeah, this is not good. This person, you can't, you can't show up as yourself. So let's, for the self help tip today, talk about how you would know what love really actually is. Like, let's do a comparison of fear versus love, or maybe another way to think about it of what a trauma bond connection is versus a healthy relationship connection looks like. What comes to the top of your mind, is right at the top of that list. 

Lisa Sonni: Well, I mean, fear, certainly, but I think really it's the fear of losing them and this attachment, the desperation was something really big for me. Yeah. I felt desperate by the sort of midway through the relationship, the thought of losing him.

I felt like my heart would race, my palms were sweaty at the thought of not being with him. And now being able to recognize that as a negative thing where in the relationship I thought, well, that's a sign of love. 

Kerry: For me, it was, I was starting to be afraid to express what I wanted.

My particular needs, my particular preferences, I started to just go along. He [00:18:00] said I want to get such and such for a meals like and I'm thinking, yeah, but we already ate several times this week and I'm tired of it. Like, yeah, sounds great. I mean, I would do stuff like that. I would give in and give in and give in.

And in fact, I even had a picture of what my life I thought should look like. And I imagined that we'd work a bit of the day and then I'd carve out time for me to do some of my stuff. Like I was working on a book. I wanted to finish writing the book and do other things. And yet, I didn't.

I ended up finding that every day would be consumed by him and his needs and his demands. And then the next day I think, oh, it's going to get better. No, it'd get consumed again by everything related to him. Or maybe we're not doing really well. Or maybe he wasn't really doing well. It either was

his issues or his needs, his desires, his schedule, or a crisis that we are managing, flipping back and forth. So I just felt like I was being completely usurped. There was less and less of me instrumentally over time. The more we were together, the less that there was of me. But I think for me, the fear of me showing up and knowing that that would be too risky is a big tip off to [00:19:00] me that there's a big problem here.

Lisa Sonni: I didn't consciously recognize it when I was in it, but I lost myself. All my spare time was also devoted to him, thinking about him, making sure that he was happy. I constantly had to put his needs first. It wasn't safe to put my own needs first. It wasn't safe to show up, really, as me.

Even though, oddly, I was so convinced that he loved me. I think really by the end, I don't think I saw that at all. I felt like I was constantly sacrificing what I wanted and what I thought a healthy relationship was. Like, honesty or, you know, he would stay out all night and, and hang out drinking. And I used to think, Okay, that's not normal for some people, but I guess that's just who he is, and how can I try to accommodate that instead of like, why should I have to?

I didn't even really realize how much of myself I had given, but in a healthy relationship, you have the autonomy to be you. They can be themselves. And you come together and it's this amazing partnership. Doesn't mean that it's perfect, right? I think that the, the mistake that we often make is, hey, [00:20:00] relationships are up and down.

We use a lot of healthy relationship phrases and advice and apply it to an abusive relationship. Like everybody argues. Probably not everybody, though, sure, disputes, but how do they show up to arguments? Mine were explosive and there was a clear winner. 

Kerry: Yeah, or we weren't even allowed to argue because he would walk out. I wasn't even for sure what the walkout would happen to. So it made anything that I brought up potentially dangerous. I, I love that point that you just made that I think it's also really important to watch out that there's an equal investment in the healthiness of the relationship, not just talking about it, throwing words at it, but there's true intentionality, true behavior, true effort

to make this relationship work, to know that this person is very committed to you and very committed to making it work, and that they can tolerate the bumpy stuff instead of feeling like any bumpy thing's going to end it all, or that you're not really for sure, you feel like you're chasing them more than they're really chasing the relationship or you.

[00:21:00] I noticed that imbalance, in fact, near one point in it, I compared it to a children's game where part of the game is you're supposed to put your whole self in instead of an arm or a leg. And I said to him, it's like you never put your whole self in. I just get an arm here, and a leg here, but I never get all of you.

You're not in this with me. You don't have my back . And I, and I think that's so important to, to first of all, know what does that feel like? Because I'm not for sure everybody knows what loyalty like that feels like, but to ask yourself, who do I know that I can't really push away? I would have to do something pretty horrific

to have this person in the relationship with me, but the second thing to ask is this person that I'm in a relationship with, because to me, it's not an intimate relationship if you don't have that, but I think you 

agree with that. 

Lisa Sonni: I completely agree with that. I don't know if you can really achieve that real intimate connection with a person if you constantly have that threat.

That you can't be yourself and they're going to walk out the door. That's part of what makes you stop being yourself and you walk on eggshells as we always talk about feeling [00:22:00] one wrong move and they'll threaten to leave. And it's wild because in an abusive relationship, it seems like I have clients that say, man, I wish he would leave me.

How do I make that happen? Meanwhile, there are tons of people who they do leave you and then you, the victim of actual abuse are seeking out your abuser and trying to pull them back in. And then that just re solidifies, well, if I was being abused, I wouldn't be chasing them. You would if you're in a trauma bond or an unhealthy attachment.

If you're, if, if it is being driven from a place of fear, not love. 

Kerry: Yeah. That's the other part that I know that anybody who's not experienced this doesn't understand. It's a fear, like fear of what? Well, yeah. Okay. Fear of being harmed, fear of terrible conflict and something going wrong. But it's also a fear of not being loved.

Yeah. But the fear of being thrown completely out on your own with no one in the world. And that's the thing, these individuals, this, these types of relationships have so isolated you that you often don't have any other support. You often feel like you are then set a drift at here. [00:23:00] Many people find themselves older, not in great health.

Not in good financial standing they've lost most of their outside relationship. So they feel profoundly Alone, and so that was my fear. My fear was if I leave this relationship as a widow With my whole life kind of blown apart and my relationship my kids are not super close And I don't even have a place to live.

 Where do I go? Am I just going to be drifting alone in the world? And I, I couldn't bear that. To me, and it's sad to say, that when I compared the abuse to that other place, the abuse looked better. 

Lisa Sonni: I didn't recognize 

it as abuse. But I definitely, I felt afraid to be alone. I think for me too, and I see this a lot, is this fear of the unknown.

You're just scared of not knowing what's next. If you leave, will you be alone? Will you find someone? Will you find someone worse? Can you be a single mom? Will you be able to support yourself financially? Everything's more expensive these days. Are they right? Because they often tell you that you're going to die alone.

No one will ever love you because you're [00:24:00] the problem and you're awful and you're just going to continue to have this pattern because the problem was you the whole time. Fear that they're going to meet someone else and go be nicer and kinder to them. The fears are just overwhelming, but it, it really speaks to how this trauma bond is characterized.

Kerry: Yeah, this is what I want to leave people with today is that if we've been describing what you're feeling and if these are the feelings that are keeping you stuck and trapped. You feeling like you're completely alone and there is nothing and nobody for you. I want you to know that healing doesn't feel like that.

That for me, I have now never more found myself than I have after that relationship. I more fully occupy myself and I have become my own friend and that can't be taken away from me. Even that now, if God forbid, I lose everybody important to me in my life, I still have me. And before, I didn't have me. I had nobody but that person who was really awful to me.

So Lisa, we have been getting fan mail, and I'm so [00:25:00] excited about that. That's a new feature that's offered on my particular platform. So I want to quickly do a shout out to those who've written in. Know, however, when you send us a text message, and you can address it to Lisa, to myself, to Ro, but we can't respond through the text.

We can only respond directly by the show. So that's what we're doing. So when you guys do this, we'll try to take time out to stop and say, Hey, we received this. But the first one came from a listener in Deerfield Beach, Florida, who wanted to know about our next event. And I'm assuming she wants to know about.

Wellness Recovery Retreats' next events. So we have two events that you and I are doing together. Do you want to talk about that? 

Lisa Sonni: Yeah, I'll talk 

about strong and unstoppable. So strong and unstoppable is a retreat, an in person retreat for female survivors of narcissistic abuse that we're hosting in Florida, actually in Orlando this October that we are so excited about.

And the driving force behind this is really in regaining your confidence. And Feeling safe in the world again, not repeating the same patterns, right? Because I think we leave these [00:26:00] relationships and we're so scared to find ourselves in another toxic relationship, whether it's romantic or friendship, familial.

Whatever. How do you feel confident in yourself to make decisions in relationships and feel like you can really trust people again? So that's going to be the focus of this retreat. And it's our second one. We're so excited to be hosting this one. But Healing Strong is our, is our online group program that you can talk about.

Kerry: Yeah. Yeah, and that's a 12 week group coaching program that both Lisa and I host live. It starts in August 22nd as one group and then September 5th as a second group. It takes you through the 12 common obstacles that most survivors experience after exiting a relationship.

Like, how do you get over guilt? Or like today we've been talking about letting go of potential. How do you let go of that so that you can actually move on? What do you do with all that rage or unresolved guilt that you have about leaving the relationship? So if you're looking for reflective questioning, active coaching in a small group setting, this is a perfect match for you.

We'd love you [00:27:00] to be a part of our healing strong group coaching program. Okay. Listener number two, They're from Beaverton, Oregon. Who wants to know if there's someone that they could talk to? And I don't take one on one coaching. I do have a club membership where I do provide direct contact with me. So it's called Toxic Free Relationship Club.

But you, Lisa, do provide one on one coaching. 

Lisa Sonni: So I work with people in kind of three different areas. Trauma bond recovery, and that's really for people who are in the relationship or out. But if you feel like you're in an active trauma bond, I also work with people on what I call rebuilding after abuse and that's work on self love and, and your patterns, your confidence, what got you here, how to not repeat the same toxic patterns in future relationships.

And then lastly, on co parenting. So that's really focused on the emotional regulation that it takes to co parent with this personality type, right, that's really, really difficult. Yeah. How to communicate, what kind of language to use. How sometimes we actually contribute to the toxicity. we're [00:28:00]coming out of these horrible relationships And I recognize that the abuser is the primary problem, but we can have responses to that that make it even more challenging So I work with people across those three topics and my website is strongerthanbefore.ca and you can check out my coaching 

options there 

Kerry: The third was a UK listener who wants to know why narcissists don't feel bad for being abusive.

That is true. They don't feel bad. There's a couple reasons why. One is they're low in empathy, which means they have a hard time relating to what you feel and your experiences and how they're affecting you. But the second is that they also don't have much of a conscience. They feel that the ends justify the means.

And they also feel that it's fair, that because life is not fair to them, that whatever they do to get ahead is fair game. And if you'd like to hear a much greater detailed explanation of this, be sure to tune into season two, episode 25 with Dr. Les Carter. He actually goes into a lot of depth about what narcissists do and don't feel and kind of how they act interpersonally.

But thank you so much for this fan [00:29:00] mail. We really appreciate it. These questions were fun. And it's always great hearing from our listeners. 

 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, consider 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.