[SPEAKER_08]: The first trauma bonds we ever knew.
[SPEAKER_03]: Primary trauma bonds don't look all the same, but they all create similar wiring, love equals pain, closeness equals danger in your nervous system, learn to navigate and possible contradictions just to survive.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's break down some of the most common types.
[SPEAKER_03]: The raid remorse cycle parent.
[SPEAKER_03]: This parent erupted with rage yelling smashing things sometimes worse than apologize with tears, leaving you terrified yet craving the relief that felt like love.
[SPEAKER_03]: You learn to dodge their anger, hiding your needs to avoid conflict, as love meant surviving their outbursts, the relational paradox.
[SPEAKER_03]: I need closeness to survive, but closeness is a minefield.
[SPEAKER_03]: Love and fear get tangled, conflict becomes the path to connection, the apology is where intimacy lives.
[SPEAKER_03]: Your own needs?
[SPEAKER_03]: They take a back seat to prevent the next blow up.
[SPEAKER_03]: The abandoning neglectful parent, vanished physically or emotionally ignoring your needs, then offered rare warmth teaching you to survive on scraps.
[SPEAKER_03]: You learn you weren't worth staying for, becoming self-sufficient to avoid rejection, yet feeling too much and not enough.
[SPEAKER_03]: The relational paradox is, I need people to stay, but everyone leaves, and the harder I cling the faster they run.
[SPEAKER_03]: You learn you're not worth sticking around for self-sufficiency becomes your armor.
[SPEAKER_03]: asking for help feels like waving a red flag deep down your convinced you're both too much and never enough.
[SPEAKER_03]: The critical impossible to please parent.
[SPEAKER_03]: This parent criticized relentlessly, insulting or dismissing your efforts, then offered rare praise pushing you to chase approval through perfection.
[SPEAKER_03]: You learned love was earned, never enough, the critical voice in your head seen, you always fall short.
[SPEAKER_03]: The relational paradox is I need to be perfect to be loved, but perfect to myth so I'm always falling short.
[SPEAKER_03]: Love became a transaction, you had to earn it and you never quite did.
[SPEAKER_03]: The critical voice moved to your head whispering you're not enough no matter what you do.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Pruntified and Mesh Parent.
[SPEAKER_03]: Lined on you as their therapist or friend, unloading woes without boundaries, making your needs feel like betrayal.
[SPEAKER_03]: You learned love meant sacrificing yourself your identity shaped by their demands leaving no room for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: The relational paradoxes I only get love by giving myself away, but if I give it all, there's no me love to love.
[SPEAKER_03]: Needs always come second.
[SPEAKER_03]: Relationships meant in-meshment your identity to shape by what they needed you to be.
[SPEAKER_03]: The addiction mentally ill parent.
[SPEAKER_03]: Swung widely, loving one moment, then lost to addiction or mental illness, leaving you waiting for their good version.
[SPEAKER_03]: You learned love was unreliable, normalizing, their absence while fearing your needs would push them away.
[SPEAKER_03]: The relational paradox is the person I need most keeps vanity me and I can't control when they'll show up or disappear.
[SPEAKER_03]: Love become a game of chance, asking for what you needed might make them leave.
[SPEAKER_03]: You normalize their inconsistency, holding out for the good version you knew was in there.
[SPEAKER_03]: The narcissistic golden parent child is parent praised you when you boosted their ego, but rejected you with silence or rage when for any flaw teaching you to perform for love.
[SPEAKER_03]: You learned love was conditional earned only by reflecting their greatness, hiding your true self to avoid rejection.
[SPEAKER_03]: The relational paradoxes, I'm only loved when I'm a perfect reflection of someone else, but being myself risk losing everything.
[SPEAKER_03]: Love was a spotlight you had to earn and it flickered out the moment you stopped performing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Your true self felt unlovable so you buried it to stay in their glow.
[SPEAKER_03]: System questions would be, which parent type do you see reflected in your own childhood?
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it one or a mix of them?
[SPEAKER_03]: Where have you seen these Sam dynamics playing out in the past or currently?
[SPEAKER_03]: If you could name the core belief about yourself at this dynamic created, what would it be?
[SPEAKER_03]: When you think about the relationship with yourself, are you a have you treated yourself in the same way your parent treated you?
[SPEAKER_03]: And what does healthy love and self love look like to you today?
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm having like a major, major vulnerability hangover today.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've never experienced this before.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I've always been somebody that's like, this is me, like,
[SPEAKER_03]: this is me and take it and I've always just like owned and embraced my story and never really felt much shame in it and I don't regret sharing it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm glad that I did and I feel good about what I put out but I'm feeling really exposed in a way that I've never felt before and a lot of parts are like extremely activated and there's a part of me that's like feels like a sense of grief
[SPEAKER_03]: There's grief and just the time I feel like I lost, not just being in that relationship, but all the functional freeze that I was stuck in before.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's grief and sharing the story.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's some disappointment that came up for me today, and I wasn't quite sure what it was connected with, and I had IFS this morning.
[SPEAKER_03]: And something came up that I, from this whole experience that, that I don't think that I
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's like, oh, like, while I was in the midst of this, my mom one day sent me a text message and she told me that and she was drunk when she was sending it and she sent me a text and told me that I was such a disappointment as a daughter because I was dating an alcoholic.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that there's that is a part of it that there's a part of me that feels like because I went through this experience that I'm no better than them that I'm just as fucked up as they are.
[SPEAKER_03]: because that really stung and it really makes me feel yucky when I think about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just want to just to thank Mary Francis for the, I think you for all the comments that you made, but specifically for Mary Francis making a comment about how that she's been like a part of a group where like the leader has gone through a crisis and just like vomited it out on everyone.
[SPEAKER_03]: And while I definitely was not.
[SPEAKER_03]: my best throughout the experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do have to say that I'm proud of myself for not letting it totally wreck the ship and keeping it afloat.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I am proud of myself for that because it was like really fucking hard like going through this whole experience and then like being in this role and doing the podcast still.
[SPEAKER_03]: So
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm feeling really exposed and just raw.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I just thank you all for being here and for still accepting me.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's all.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're allowed to share about whatever you want to share about.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can share about anything that came up free in the episode or what the rating was about or something completely not related to that.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm having this feeling of protection of you, which is weird, but I'm kind of mad at your mom.
[SPEAKER_09]: You know, it's like, I love you and I will, I'll add your car for you if you want.
[SPEAKER_09]: Just tell me where she lives.
[SPEAKER_09]: But seriously, like that, there is no place for that bullshit.
[SPEAKER_09]: But I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_09]: I don't want to talk about your mom because you can, I mean, nobody wants their mom anyway.
[SPEAKER_09]: So for me, my deal is narcissistic and the golden child one.
[SPEAKER_09]: And I,
[SPEAKER_09]: My core belief is I am not worthy, but I don't even have an eye, like that's what I've realized is that the performance of the eye is not worthy, not even the fucking eye.
[SPEAKER_09]: And so I listen to, I listen to mother hunger right now, and I listen to the fawning one, and so I'm having a lot of conflicts at work.
[SPEAKER_09]: No one's happy or like I'm not I can see this pleasure in other people and I'm trying not to like like give away a part of myself to kind of smooth things over but it's very I'm just in that discomfort and I don't like it.
[SPEAKER_09]: But it's fine, but I don't know if it's fine because it's a boundary, but it's also like am I I don't know I'm just in a little bit on the struggle aspect of I don't know like professionalism and just seeing other people but but these people are assholes so like let's not you know.
[SPEAKER_09]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_09]: So anyway, I loved your episode and that's fantastic, and I'm learning what my eye is, but I think that the reason why I was struggling to understand the eye is because I didn't want to feel this discomfort.
[SPEAKER_09]: And I'm not sure if it's a performance or if it's who I really am.
[SPEAKER_09]: but anyway, so I'm working with just this comfort of just not trying to fix everything all the time.
[SPEAKER_09]: So anyway, thank you for letting me share both my parents.
[SPEAKER_01]: They had that rage remorse that is exactly what they were all way to screaming yelling and then for me was the beatings.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one one thing my old mayor said amazing, let the beatings begin.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, and I mean, it really like placed in my head, I'm ready to be hit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm ready to be attacked at all times.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one of those ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the other one was the addicted and melee.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's my head.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the mentally and ill really got my parents to become physically violent, and it was quite good.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, and for that core belief, it's, Christian, you said you said, you said, right, I'm out, who am I?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have self love.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still working on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do have a little bit more self love than I did have.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before, then that's what six years of doing therapy for.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I've been doing for all the therapy for last six years now, I'm like, a lot of it takes a lot of just close through me, but trying to have a self-compassion.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where you do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where that.
[SPEAKER_01]: hopelessness and what resides at.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that shame that I would carry out the trauma that I deal with all of it on the D.M.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bailey basis, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's not just, it's not just thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You think about it now?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's every day and it's every day and all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we can social media and whatever else you're involved in.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always around us, I don't know, it's probably what we're all going through, but what is, you know, the healthy love and self love looked like to me, I'm still looking for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I don't believe the stuff love is going to be there, then Andrea, I've been here for almost four years, right, there's people that's been around use for many years for all the need to be here, some come and go, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: that's the majority of the state of the area.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come here with you, all right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's other people that are here with me too, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: So being that vulnerable all the time, you know, it takes the toll ones, it takes the toll on some people, and being the captain of the ship.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it's, you gotta breathe it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: It gives us a lot, and it's a lot of your shoulders, but on the other hand, you know, this is one L of what's one, me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I ain't going to wear it seeing times seven, so.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what sharing things for let me share, guys.
[SPEAKER_04]: She's trying to survive.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey everyone, growing up in a house with five adults, I feel like everyone has their own caricature that kind of coincides with these different types.
[SPEAKER_04]: I would say the abandoning and neglectful parent is my mom for sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: And,
[SPEAKER_04]: My grandmother was also really close to, it's like a cross between like the narcissist, golden child parent and impossible to please and really I married a man who wonderfully encapsulate all of those all of the like dysfunction that just felt normal to me, you know, so how that's played out in my marriage is, you know, it's been very transactional.
[SPEAKER_04]: and my partner, my husband, is emotionally unavailable and just all of these things and just like reinforced all of the beliefs of like, I need to be overgiving and perfect and take on as much as possible, sacrifice myself because what I do for others is more important than anything else.
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, if I can't need help,
[SPEAKER_04]: And I definitely can't ask for it, but if somebody thinks that I need something, it's I need, it's like that I need too much, or that I'm not doing enough.
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, it's not that it's probably new to anybody, but you definitely marry somebody who reflects or you potentially can marry somebody who reflects your dysfunctional family.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I guess I got a plus on that one.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think over the past couple of years, I've done a really
[SPEAKER_04]: good job of after reaching my bottom of kind of moving slowly in order to learn who I am and what matters to me.
[SPEAKER_04]: It took me almost two years to be able to write down what my values are and not from kind of without any influential voices that aren't my own.
[SPEAKER_04]: It took me two years to
[SPEAKER_04]: and it's something I'd revisited quite a few times over those two years.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's been a slow process, kind of like learning what is for me and what isn't for me, like being able to like admit those things out loud, and something I've been reflecting on a lot the last couple of days is maybe like a year and a half ago my husband's saying to me, actually I think he are going to too much therapy because like you're not even like it seems to be
[SPEAKER_04]: But what he was referring to was that I didn't want to do.
[SPEAKER_04]: I wasn't just willing to go along with what he wanted to do anymore.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that really stuck in the moment and it just lingers with me.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it hasn't gone away because he thinks, you know, and a lot of ways there be ruined me, but really just kind of awakened me to the dysfunction in my life and helped me find myself.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I guess, you know, looking at it from his perspective, yeah, I did ruin the people pleasing so sacrificing person that I acted like or was for so long.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I like this one.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going to be much better.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you all.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks, Carl.
[SPEAKER_04]: God Christen.
[SPEAKER_06]: I just wanted to say Andrew, I'm thinking of you.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's my condolences, that's tough.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, this episode, Andrew, was like seriously hands down, probably the most impactful episode for me.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I really needed it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, when you said, I hope there's one person out there listening that this helps on that one person.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, you helped me so much when you had talked about, it was really jarring for me to realize that I am in a trauma bond with myself.
[SPEAKER_06]: and I never saw it about that and like acknowledging it was hard, but it was necessary.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I just appreciate you talking about that in your episode and in the reading tonight, you know, one of the reflection questions, because it's something that I, as part of the trillion things that I feel like that I'm working on, especially recently, when there be, it's just that relationship with myself and what does that look like?
[SPEAKER_06]: And
[SPEAKER_06]: and realizing that it's toxic and I am my own worst enemy, I'm my own worst critic.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I don't know what self-love is.
[SPEAKER_06]: It doesn't like what is like that, that's not real.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like that's how my mind thinks, you know, I don't know what love, like real love looks like.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm still searching for it as well, too.
[SPEAKER_06]: But it's just the shit hasn't been so hard, they land so much.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I hate that my mom has been like sneakily coming back into my life for the last couple weeks because when the nice thing about being, you know, no contact, even though they lived just ten minutes away from me.
[SPEAKER_06]: So there's always that fear about going to the store and running into them.
[SPEAKER_06]: But like when they're removed, it's almost, it's like a cop out there, I guess.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like I'm, it's out of my mind, I feel a little bit more calm, and then it's like, you know,
[SPEAKER_06]: It just activates everything, and it throws me for a loop, and it makes me face the reality that I need to address it, that there is such a core wound there.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so this topic is helping me a lot with that.
[SPEAKER_06]: And the abandoning a gutful parent was definitely my dad.
[SPEAKER_06]: He's multiple.
[SPEAKER_06]: He's also the critical and possible to please parent, and his big thing was that, you know, him and my mom fought all the time.
[SPEAKER_06]: And a lot of it was put on me because I was sticking up for her.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I was like her bodyguard and I was too much and he would always, like I have so many vivid memories of him like packing up and yelling and saying I'm going to go find family that loves me more that's going to treat me better you want to appreciate me I'm leaving
[SPEAKER_06]: and he would leave and then I'm like hysterical and my mom is hysterical and she's not at me because like why couldn't I just be quiet or just go along or why do I have to say anything and that's confusing as a kid because it's like I felt like I needed to protect her which again she's clearly the parent terrified and meshed parent I mean I really have realized now like that's not a responsibility for a child to have.
[SPEAKER_06]: It never should have been.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I was her therapist.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was her spouse.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was her best friend.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was everything.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was definitely not the child in my relationship with her ever growing up.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was the adult.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I never realized that.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think that's such a hard pill for me to swallow because she was my world.
[SPEAKER_06]: She was my hero.
[SPEAKER_06]: This she was imperfect in my eyes.
[SPEAKER_06]: And seeing her in such a different ways really, really hard.
[SPEAKER_06]: And it's like, I always knew it was there, you know, like in my gut.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I guess that's why I just kept trying to go back and go back and okay, well, if I protect her more, then maybe she'll protect me from him.
[SPEAKER_06]: and I never did, you know, and I see that now.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then, yeah, so I have a huge abandonment when my realist wound from my dad because he would leave and it was always my fault.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then it was always like, we should be so incredibly grateful that he returned, like, we are so lucky, you know.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then it would just be like, everything was nothing was ever,
[SPEAKER_06]: you know, it just went about our business and then they would just argue again later.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I remember this one time so vividly, it was after one of the times that he had left and my mom, I was consoling her in her bed and she looked at me and said, Kristen, do you think that I should leave your dad?
[SPEAKER_06]: I was definitely mental.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, sorry, elementary school age.
[SPEAKER_06]: And she asked, do you think I should leave your dad?
[SPEAKER_06]: And I told her, yes,
[SPEAKER_06]: Please, and she said, okay, and then he came back and she took him back like nothing it happened and that was just like a remembering so confused and I felt like betrayed like what the hell I thought this was like a plan I thought we were you know, and now as an adult I understand that
[SPEAKER_06]: She just didn't have it the ability to because she had her own trauma from growing up and her, you know, she was in an abusive relationship.
[SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, it's completely destroyed my view on relationships and how I,
[SPEAKER_06]: in our interact with people.
[SPEAKER_06]: So yeah, thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is a great, a great topic.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for all the shares.
[SPEAKER_05]: Mine was actually because I mean, my position is like my debt died when I was two years old and my mom was in Capalove.
[SPEAKER_05]: being a mom like she was lack of compassion.
[SPEAKER_05]: And not necessarily a bad person, but like she's definitely she was born to be a mom, I would say.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then I think accompanying a lot of mental health issues that I try to, you know, like address when I become like 13, 14 years old and I'm like,
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, there's something wrong and I started going therapy when I was like nine literally so yeah, but she never accepted and then she ended up being a hoarder as well, you know, like it's just like on top of it, probably on top of it, probably on top of it and I was yeah, it's to never being able to a child.
[SPEAKER_05]: I remember myself just like taking care of my mom all the time her emotional well being taking care of my brother, which is like 10 years older than me.
[SPEAKER_05]: And when I come from the culture there is just like if you're a child, you don't have a voice, because the older people always know, you know, better than you.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you have to be the third rating one.
[SPEAKER_05]: You have to tell the rate.
[SPEAKER_05]: And of course, my poor mom was a widow, you know, lost my dad.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like nobody was like concerned about that.
[SPEAKER_05]: I lost my dad such a young age or my brother,
[SPEAKER_05]: her entire life, and never ever ask to me.
[SPEAKER_05]: Or my brother probably, she asked him actually love more that she asked me because she never asked me like, how am I doing?
[SPEAKER_05]: She didn't ever remember my, sometimes age, like, when they asked her like, which school, you know, like, which grade I'm going, she would answer, like, she answered like seven grade for like three years, not giving.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and then she wanted to decide to pick a boyfriend who was an alcoholic.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we had to live with him.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's just horrible.
[SPEAKER_05]: When, well, I am 36 right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: And when I look back and think, it's, yeah, I'm just like crying the last two days because like, I am sober and I quit nicotine as well for two weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I'm like, I'm crying and crying and crying because it's just like, coming, it's coming.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's coming and I cannot stop it.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I don't know where to put them because the trauma,
[SPEAKER_05]: is just like, I open my eyes like in the morning and I remember something from past.
[SPEAKER_05]: There it is, like, my whole day I have to think about that little thing happening in my past and affected my whole adult life.
[SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, parent to find, I couldn't be a child and I think that it's so important to be a child, to have that luxury, to be a child and to feel that safety net.
[SPEAKER_05]: Without that it's just it's it's hard, but I know that I can do it for myself.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm getting help, you know, and so happy to be here and I feel like you guys are my people and I feel I feel good.
[SPEAKER_05]: And thank you so much for being here.
[SPEAKER_05]: I really appreciate you.
[SPEAKER_08]: my parents are multiple of these things.
[SPEAKER_08]: My dad was the alcoholic, and he passed away when I was 12.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I think he was mostly like the addicted mentally ill parent and the abandoning the collectible parent.
[SPEAKER_08]: But I really appreciate the way you wrote something that I haven't thought about in that way, under the addicted parent was that I normalized their inconsistency holding out for the good version
[SPEAKER_08]: I really super relate to that because it really shows up in probably 99% of my relationships romantic relationships, especially then my mom is more like the critical.
[SPEAKER_08]: impossible to please parent and purantify it a much parent which I appreciated like the way it's sat in there that that they give you they give you a little bit and it's unpredictable because like when I when I think of abandoning a lot of times I think of just like completely not being there at all and when I'm looking at what the way it was written it was like no there was little bits in there where they were loving it it was unpredictable and that's why like you know
[SPEAKER_08]: it was even more confusing.
[SPEAKER_08]: So I just appreciate how it was described.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I listened to your last episode and it really was like, because I just like, I don't even remember how I found you to be honest and I just found you this last weekend.
[SPEAKER_08]: I can't even remember how I stumbled upon it to be honest.
[SPEAKER_08]: So I have to, that's something I have with trauma and memory.
[SPEAKER_08]: Like, it just blew some things gone.
[SPEAKER_08]: But I really related to the part of, I've done so much brain work and I know and I can explain everything.
[SPEAKER_08]: I've done my whole family tree and I know we're all the stuff lives and why this happened and why that happened and it's just really, I don't like, I understand in my brain but there must be some other level of somatic body, nervous system stuff that I have to do
[SPEAKER_08]: couldn't keep replaying the same things, the same patterns, and even in this last relationship that I just got out of a few months ago, it was like a new version of it, you know, and I was like, okay, I'm ready.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then it's like a new version of a bandening and like everything that you shared in the episode.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm another one of the people that I was like, yes, this was for me.
[SPEAKER_08]: I was like, you said things and I was just like, that is what
[SPEAKER_08]: Like, there isn't some other level of healing that I want and need to do, that's beyond just knowing, yeah, and I also like, I first like listen to one of your episodes and one of the first episodes I listened to you, you said multiple times up being an emotional vampire and with my friends.
[SPEAKER_08]: So you know, I really related to that as well.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I just don't like, I, when you asked that last question in the reading about like, what does healthy love like, what does I don't even know?
[SPEAKER_08]: Like, I know really well how you explained how the trauma bond happens.
[SPEAKER_08]: I know why I bond to people, why I like people.
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't even know how to know how to like, and be with people, especially really intimately.
[SPEAKER_08]: And even sometimes when you ask people to be getting at the episode, what do they like?
[SPEAKER_08]: Their favorite condiment.
[SPEAKER_08]: Their favorite thing is I'm like, I don't even know.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's been just so used to getting along, like being flexible with whatever else is there.
[SPEAKER_08]: So I know there's other levels after being like done, like I've done a therapy for 20 something years and ACA for eight years and all has been great, but
[SPEAKER_08]: I feel like there's more so I'm happy to be here.
[SPEAKER_08]: Thank you for listening.
[SPEAKER_08]: I do hear too.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey fam, have I told you lately that I love you all so much and I love this space and I love the shares and I love just this space and like shout out to you Captain
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for everything that you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it is so important for us to have this place to come and you do so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have such a big heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you care so much and you fight and you keep going.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the reminder to all of us that we just keep going.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't stop for too long.
[SPEAKER_00]: We ate the shit and were by ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we don't have to do that anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, by my way, sorry, emotional, but in a good way, in a very good way.
[SPEAKER_00]: This weekend was the Rocky Mountain Roundup and it went really great.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a big silver queer recovery conference we have.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we had 126 people.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the most we've ever had.
[SPEAKER_00]: It all went really well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Speakers were great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Drag Queen Bingo was great.
[SPEAKER_00]: The workshops were good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to speak at one of them about sex and recovery, which is on my favorite topics.
[SPEAKER_00]: to bring up and get to talk to people about because I don't think we talked about it enough in the sober community or the queer community.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was just a really great experience and I did it with two other people last year I did it by myself, which was hard and it's a great lesson in that we don't have to do this alone and it's so much easier when you can relate to other people and bounce off each other and not just have it all on your shoulders but to ask for help
[SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of emotional hangovers, Sunday night, I was just John, I was absolutely done.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like six o'clock, I was talking to my boyfriend, and I was just like, I gotta go.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, what do I'm gonna come with you?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, no, I need to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, okay, okay, that's cool, I get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I really hope you understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I trusted that he would understand that it was nothing about him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it was not like, I'm secretly harboring
[SPEAKER_00]: But that I just needed to be off and by myself and reconnect with myself and my higher power and I did it and that was a great little win to be able to do that and just turn it off and then not make up problems and my mind started to do that and wanted to make problems and I was able to stop myself because of program because of the tools I've learned from this program how to not take it that not follow the rabbit trail down.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I called my sponsor and I was like, hey, here's this small thing that I'm turning into something big.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm watching myself want to be crazy and actively work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was really cool to actually get a win.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like not have to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: To be like, I don't have to run.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a great weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like my mind was like, what if people hated their end up?
[SPEAKER_00]: And what if no one actually got anything for a month?
[SPEAKER_00]: You fucking know that's not true at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stop it.
[SPEAKER_00]: from the place that my goal, my higher power, like a loving adult.
[SPEAKER_00]: And being like, I know we used to think that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are too loved.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're too valuable.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we don't have to do that anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I used to just do it because I just had to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm taking that into this next weekend, a week from tonight.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will be back at home in California with my family for the first time since.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last time you all heard about it, which was like a year and a half ago and it went so bad and it's funny now was not funny in the moment, just like last year, it was able to use the screw, I was able to lean on people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was able to, I, you know, when you, your therapist says like you can call me outside of hours if you ever need the only time I've ever done that and I called him on his off time and he answered and where I was just like, hey, here's the deal and it's not going to be like that this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to go exactly how it is going to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can be strong.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can be my loving inner parent to myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have to parentify them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't have to either save you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't save them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're beliefs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have to save them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't save them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not like a moral obligation of mine to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I need to save myself and be OK and be my own piece.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is what I need to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I keep hard line, no politics, whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if it happens, I'll just get up and leave the room like literally physically remove myself because I'm like, we cannot go there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will start a fight and I don't want that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I get to choose to be an adult that's not avoiding it, but that is purposely being I am not gonna go there and lose my peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I will see you all next week at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, California, probably.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, I will.
[SPEAKER_00]: So wish me luck with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate you all so much, thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess the first thing I want to say to you, Andrea, is this community is the place where I don't feel alone.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this community is the place where I read and came to realize how alone and lonely I've always felt this far back as I can remember, but this is the place where I don't feel that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yet I'm also scared to be in this place at the same time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I want to share about the reading.
[SPEAKER_02]: So my mom scored a six out of six.
[SPEAKER_02]: She definitely was a major.
[SPEAKER_02]: A couple days later, I would find a gift in my room that was her room worse.
[SPEAKER_02]: She was abandoning in the sense that she was withholding.
[SPEAKER_02]: She would be present, but she wouldn't give anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: She was incredibly critical.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the thing I realized most recently is about the parentified and enmeshment.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't realize that she would rely on me emotionally, but she did.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not like she would confide in me.
[SPEAKER_02]: She'd make any confessions for share any deep-seated thoughts or feelings about something or someone.
[SPEAKER_02]: she was a covert narcissist so she did it in a very subtle and manipulative way and definitely she created this environment between my sisters and I and she where we were very enmeshed and the way I describe it is like each one of us was so far up each other's ass no one knew where one person started and one of the worst and another person stopped and she would triangulate I didn't know about that either until after she passed away
[SPEAKER_02]: and that created a lot of problems for my sisters and I.
[SPEAKER_02]: My mother, yeah, mental illness, you know, she has narcissistic personality disorder.
[SPEAKER_02]: My father was an addict.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my mother was a narcissist.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was an author-gold-in-child.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought I was, I guess I needed to believe that I was, but honestly, I was always the scapegoat.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I found ways to convince myself that in her eyes, I was her favorite.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was the easy one, I was the sweet one.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I actually did, in not giving our problems, I gave our problems.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I know I need to do this, I don't like to do this, like, to think about it and even to share, but I know I need to.
[SPEAKER_02]: And some of the things that I came to believe about myself were, I don't believe any more that, you know, like, I'm not capable, I'm not competent.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a burden, I'm too much.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know these things aren't true, but they do rare their head every once in a while in my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Also, I'm not wanted, I'm not worthy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the last one is I can't help myself and no one is going to help me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I say that for last because for me that is,
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't like, that's the one to me that says that learned helplessness, that no one is going to help me.
[SPEAKER_02]: It renders me powerless.
[SPEAKER_02]: It keeps me in a victim state, and that's the one that's hardest to meet, probably because I judge myself, you know, for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure you all can relate.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to be a victim to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a bad thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: The truth is, when I was a kid, I was, but sometimes as an adult, I still feel that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I feel that way, and I don't monitor that feeling, I start thinking that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes I catch myself and don't judge myself for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes I catch myself and beat myself up for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Feels like there's just all these layers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's one thing I want to work on, but in that one thing, there's another thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I got to work on that one too.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can't work on them all at the same time.
[SPEAKER_02]: work in one at a time and whatever I choose, all the other ones are going to be going to be that way and can I just be more compassionate with myself about all of this, you know, me and my struggles, the consequence of all this these six things, you know, all emanating from my mother and her mental on us.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I realized which is again incredibly hard for me to even acknowledge, but I'm going to say out loud that my mom was not she was also an abandoned neglectful parent and I still go hard for me to accept that and seeding it on paper is like just got wrenching.
[SPEAKER_06]: But it's true and I have to accept that because it's the only way to move forward and telling what you said that we work like I struggle with the victimization and the feeling of health is this and I've worth that kind of right on and I feeling like a victim I just it makes me speak physically sick and it's so like I just appreciate you saying how as a kid we were victims and so true.
[SPEAKER_06]: And because I was and she neglected me every day, even though yes, I was that I had a risk over my house.
[SPEAKER_06]: I had all of these incredible materialistic things because that's how they showed us love, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: It was constant love bonding, constant.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that my God, she abandoned me and she abandoned me when I needed her the most when I came to her about my sons and maybe said they endured what I needed her to protect me from my dad from uncles, she abandoned me and she still will always abandoned me I think and she's also the critical possible parent to please.
[SPEAKER_06]: Again, I don't see it because it's just like when I got that box of stuff and it was my pageant gowns and my prom dress that the first thing I said was, well, she would be so disgusted if she's on me now.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, I'm so much heavier than what I would never be able to fit into that dress.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you see now that she was also critical, but in a different way.
[SPEAKER_06]: And just yeah,
[SPEAKER_06]: I just, it's, it's hardest.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's not like it.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's easy.
[SPEAKER_06]: And it really is shitty.
[SPEAKER_06]: But again, I'm so thankful for you guys.
[SPEAKER_06]: And thank you for listening and just wanting to say space for me.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's all for my chance.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to stand for a quick one, Andrea.
[SPEAKER_07]: I haven't listened to the episode yet.
[SPEAKER_07]: And after hearing everyone, I'm really looking forward to that.
[SPEAKER_07]: And yeah, some of you just tell my story when you share, I just feel so much love and gratitude for this group for all of
[SPEAKER_07]: This is really a special place.
[SPEAKER_07]: There's nothing else like it in the world, and I was dysregulated and kind of dissociating when the meeting started.
[SPEAKER_07]: I kind of took in some of the reading, but I intend to sit with that and do some writing because Feeling a lot of identification with what a lot of you shared in what I did take from the reading.
[SPEAKER_07]: So I
[SPEAKER_07]: I am going to be ready to go on my trip early Saturday morning.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's going to be interesting to not have my connection to my recovery people.
[SPEAKER_07]: I go to like an ACA meeting every morning.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm listening in while I'm getting ready to start my day.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's just my routine and then I come to these meetings.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I'm going on this trip with people that I really don't know or have any connection with.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, try not to have any expectations or project anything about that.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to be in a beautiful place doing some amazing things, seeing some amazing things.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I'm going to enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm looking forward to seeing you all this, much as possible.
[SPEAKER_07]: And yeah, I'm just going to let it unfold.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to just be present.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to let it go.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't care what you're doing, because I am enough, I have enough and I do enough.