What does it take to work through trauma and be on a path towards healing and empowerment? Emmy Marie, a certified trauma-informed coach, joins us to discuss complex PTSD and her journey towards reclaiming her power.
Emmy articulates the complex relationship between trauma and personal relationships. She emphasizes how the fog of abuse can blur the lines between love and respect, impacting our sense of self-worth. She offers a practical approach to recognize and express emotional needs, create healthy boundaries and cultivate self-compassion.
You can learn more about Emmy and connect with her here: bloomingwithemmy.com
Website: Emotional Abuse Coach
Instagram: @emotionalabusecoach
Email: jessica@jessicaknightcoaching.com
{Course} Identify Signs of Abuse and Begin to Heal
{Free Resource} Canned Responses for Engaging with an Abusive Partner
What does it take to work through trauma and be on a path towards healing and empowerment? Emmy Marie, a certified trauma-informed coach, joins us to discuss complex PTSD and her journey towards reclaiming her power.
Emmy articulates the complex relationship between trauma and personal relationships. She emphasizes how the fog of abuse can blur the lines between love and respect, impacting our sense of self-worth. She offers a practical approach to recognize and express emotional needs, create healthy boundaries and cultivate self-compassion.
You can learn more about Emmy and connect with her here: bloomingwithemmy.com
Website: Emotional Abuse Coach
Instagram: @emotionalabusecoach
Email: jessica@jessicaknightcoaching.com
{Course} Identify Signs of Abuse and Begin to Heal
{Free Resource} Canned Responses for Engaging with an Abusive Partner
Welcome to the Relationship Recovery Podcast hosted by Jessica Knight, a certified life coach who specializes in narcissistic and emotional abuse. This podcast is intended to help you identify manipulative and abusive behavior, set boundaries with yourself and others, and heal the relationship with yourself so you can learn to love in a healthy way.
Speaker 2:On today's podcast I have Emmy Marie. Emmy is a trauma survivor, certified trauma-informed coach, a norm practitioner, an educator, with the mission to help others reclaim their power, reject shame and walk boldly toward the life of balance, freedom and joy. I found Emmy through her Instagram. She had posted or and she still posts frequently a lot of content for survivors of abuse. I remember finding a lot of her content and feeling like somebody was talking to the part of me that I didn't see anymore, that I wanted to see, that I wanted to get in touch with, and I've consistently followed her for a long time as I've learned to be in a healthy relationship. I've absolutely loved talking with Emmy and I think that you're going to receive a lot of nuggets from this podcast. I hope that through listening to it, you'll be able to have an idea of what getting healthy looks like.
Speaker 3:Hi. Yes, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:Do you mind introducing you and the work that you do?
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely yeah. So I'm Emmy Marie for folks who don't know me, and I run the Instagram account Blooming with Emmy and my work is as a certified trauma-informed coach as well as a norm practitioner. So I mostly work with folks who have been through some form of trauma in the past, whether it's a toxic or an abusive relationship or a family or yeah, there's a whole wide variety of things. But I help folks look at their present life and determine, maybe, what obstacles are in the way from them meeting their goals, whether it comes to relationship goals, career goals, just overall feelings of wellness goals. So as a coach, I focus primarily on the here and now and the future a little different than therapy, although there's a lot of overlap and I also create a lot of content and free resources and courses and all stuff like that to try to reach as many people as possible and, overall, just help people heal in whatever way I can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know from the work that I do that nobody gets into this work without having an experience that has led them to unpack this giant onion. So can you tell us a little bit about your story and what led you? I read a little bit on your bio so I know that you did have an abusive relationship, so take this through what brought you here?
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely so. When I was a teenager, in high school, I got into a relationship that from the beginning was very like all consuming and really like fast, and I was super excited for that like emotional intensity and connection. But over time it became. It started to shift from this like tremendous amount of love bombing to sort of subtle forms of emotional, verbal abuse. That happened really slowly over time and gradually got worse and worse over the course of three years.
Speaker 3:So yeah, lots of, like I said, emotional, verbal, sexual, some physical abuse. That all was really contrasted by lots of promises of love. And you know you're the only one that'll ever understand me and so I was really just completely hooked on this person and this relationship and, from my perspective, felt like there was absolutely no escaping. First because I thought we were meant to be together and we were so in love and later because I was being threatened that you know, if I tried to leave, you know, something bad was going to happen to me. So, yeah, I had that experience of being in a really abusive relationship as a teenager, which I think is a really interesting time between sort of like childhood developmental trauma and like adult domestic violence.
Speaker 2:And your first experience.
Speaker 1:Like love, like an air quotes, right, yeah, exactly, you know those.
Speaker 2:I mean, I still think about my high school ex often because of how traumatic a lot of things were, even though it wasn't. I wouldn't say it was abuse, I definitely say toxic and it's like I can't imagine, like you know, you're that young and like that's what your brain is imprinting, what love is.
Speaker 3:Totally. Yeah, you're like brain is still developing, your body is still developing and, yeah, just learning so much about, like you said, the definition of love and what that's supposed to feel like, and yeah, so that really did a number on me, as you could expect. And so after that happened, I pretty much just tried to move on and kind of ignore what I had just been through. I really internalized the message of just get over it, just move on, just forget about it, and at the time that felt really possible to me. I was in sort of this period of like complete joy and like bliss, because I liberated myself from such intense entrapment that I was just like flying high. And so I went to college and just thought, oh, this will last forever, like I'll always just be just cruising through life now, and everything's fine yeah like, yeah, exactly, and at first I sort of, you know, started dipping into like depression and anxiety.
Speaker 3:And that was all very familiar to me because during that relationship I was very mentally ill because of what I was going through. So I didn't really connect it to the trauma. And then I ended up being in another relationship that was pretty toxic, very emotionally unavailable, just like a poor matchup in general, and that went on for two years and there was a lot of me ignoring red flags, pretending I was okay, when I wasn't just masking and trying to hide what I was going through and sort of through that. And shortly after that one ended, I started really getting hit with symptoms of complex PTSD, where I would have a lot of paranoia and fear and horrible nightmares and just it was getting more and more difficult to function. So that was very frustrating because I thought, you know, this was three years ago. I was in that relationship. I don't understand why it's hitting now. What's going on? I mean, that really took me down the path of going to therapy and starting to like really intensely research PTSD and healing and yeah, so that was, you know, around 2016,. Right now it's 2022.
Speaker 3:So I've been kind of doing the healing work myself for six or seven years now and that was really intensive. For a while it was really something that it was hard for me to focus on anything else other than healing and like trying to get rid of some of the shame I felt over being a survivor and try to feel safe in my body again. And about three years ago I started to notice that I was getting to a point where it's not like the healing was over and I still don't say it is but I was able to be more regulated generally and kind of hold space for other people. And then in 2020, I decided to become certified and start this work as a trauma informed coach. It was kind of like my pandemic baby, but yeah, it's been incredibly fulfilling to help other people who have been in similar positions that I've been in and approach it through a really like human first, non pathological approach to, you know, trauma recovery and just like wellness. So, yeah, that's kind of what brought me here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's one of the things that drew me to. I found you on Instagram that's how this all started was around like it was not blaming yourself for the abuse. You know there was a lot of content about that. You don't like don't blame yourself, because I think it was a message I needed to hear 100 times to really like let it begin to seep in. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah. Sometimes I feel like, oh, my content's like repetitive and it's like, yeah, but we all need to hear these things repeated over and over, because there's so many other messages that are saying like take responsibility for what you've done, or like I don't know just stuff that doesn't apply.
Speaker 2:You had a role to right. Yeah, like there takes two, it takes two people and none of that's helpful.
Speaker 2:Right, it's like I understand that not every message can be made for all of us, but I'm just here to provide messages that are specifically for survivors, so yeah, when you were talking about your, the relationship that you had, I guess, like that relationship of feel like I don't know it's like before 2016, ish, it reminded me of my first relationship after my marriage ended, which was definitely, you know, had a lot of threads of abuse in it, and it was two years after I thought I did all this healing and I was great. It was like, oh good, like entering relationship now. I entered directly into that anxious avoidant dance with somebody and you didn't say those words, but that's what it sounded like Totally. You know. He was like barely there, sometimes there, breadcrumbs, yeah, and you were giving more. And so why do you think that if we don't do the work, we end up falling into that kind of relationship?
Speaker 3:That's such a good question, yeah, so I think when it comes to abuse, we, our brains, our bodies, they're always adapting to whatever circumstances we're going through.
Speaker 3:So, whether it's an abusive relationship or like an abusive home, family, upbringing, we adapt to really extreme situations and so our nervous systems can get used to chaos and dysfunction and pain and suffering and we still might, logically, and we feel the pain and we know I hate this, I don't want this anymore.
Speaker 3:But at the same time, if there's no escape or we don't feel like there's an escape, we have to adapt to that and find a way to survive. So we can get so used to living in these patterns that when we, you know, break out and we go out into the world and we're like I'm like leaving that behind me, our body is still sort of subconsciously looking for what's familiar to us. And so I, for my example, I chose someone who didn't scream at me, didn't, you know, call me a worthless horror or whatever stuff, like that stuff that was really obviously abuse but was still kind of ticking those boxes my nervous system was used to of like never really feeling like I could be totally open, totally myself, but still getting those kind of like crumbs of love and affection here and there to like keep me hooked, so to speak. So yeah, that's kind of one perspective that comes to mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did something like, I think, very similar, and I'm glad that you said it clicked the boxes that your nervous system was used to, because that's what I realized when I reflect back on it. Because when we broke up, I remember my coach at the time said she's like you're more upset that this five months situation ship ended than you were for your marriage and I was like I am like, yes, I am like I really am and it was, but it was so strong because I also wasn't valuing myself at all Like all I wanted was somebody that was fun. You know I didn't want all these other things.
Speaker 2:It was like someone that's fun. Then, when it was not fun anymore and I was or rather I had expectations of a real relationship is when it shifted. But I don't think I didn't work and I also don't think I was understanding, like, where trauma has showed up, like was showing up in these other areas, and you talk a lot about that on your Instagram. So one of the questions I had for you was can you tell me a little bit, or tell us a little bit, about how trauma or like the threads of trauma from the abusive relationship or showing up in your life, yeah, okay, gotcha.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is a big question, which is cool. I'll just run with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wherever it goes, you know, let it flow out Cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so sometimes I think about the way that abusive relationships and families and systems and you know, cultural stuff can become a form of brainwashing that we almost can associate with like cults.
Speaker 3:You know, I think that's the most common place we hear brainwashing. But I think back to how someone manipulated me so extremely that I really like the entire way that I viewed myself. My entire sense of who I was was completely like shattered and reworked into something that allowed me to stay within his control. So what I mean in more practical terms is like I had no sense of self worth, self respect, self love. I was really made into this sort of like object that really was only worth anything if I could provide or do things for him. And so what is left behind?
Speaker 3:When you kind of move out of that or something changes or you decide I'm done with this, we're still left with this sense of self that is so deeply ashamed or, yeah, just kind of drowning in feelings of like I'm not good enough, there's something wrong with me, I'm too much, like who I am is never enough, and so for me that's definitely shown up in lots of ways, like kind of eating disorder tendencies, once again, relationships, choosing people that would kind of match that energy of like I'm only loved and accepted when I'm providing for someone.
Speaker 3:We can take that to work and feel like I need to overwork myself and always say yes and never have boundaries. That can show up in friendships and family. So kind of that like deep rooted sense of unworthiness I think can come out in many different ways and until we really consciously decide to work with that and try to like, heal that and create a new narrative for ourselves that is really rooted in self compassion or even like neutrality or just something other than deep shame, we can just keep showing up in every area of our life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that, when you touch on each touch on all these other areas of life, that it could be coming up and we could be like overcompensating in these ways and people pleasing and not having any boundaries, yeah, exactly, and I see that so often. Yeah, and I see it with my clients. They focus mostly I mean, and I know that I've done this myself too mostly on the relational issue, not all these other areas that the relationship is affecting.
Speaker 3:Totally, yeah, absolutely, and I mean everyone's kind of got something that's maybe prioritized in the moment. And so for me I'm thinking about how the last couple of years I felt super stable and content with my personal relationships of all kinds, but then a lot of the work I've had to do is having boundaries around work and how much I tend to overwork myself or get so attached to the results of my business, stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. One of the things that I've noticed and every time I say anything about my clients, I'm really also talking about myself, like something that I've noticed over the journey, and I know you have too was that I needed to learn I'm still learning this that having needs is not being needy and that it's okay to have needs and I'm sure you were in the space of feeling like you may be asking for too much or you had too many needs, but every time I zoomed out I was always like I'm asking for like the bare minimum of like a human experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so can you talk a little bit about like understanding what our needs actually are and embracing them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love this question, so into this because it's still something I am totally working on, where I've noticed in some areas of my life I am like very confident with making boundaries and asking for what I need, and then there's still times when I'm like it's so hard. But yeah, when it comes to needs like what I would kind of explain that as, or think about, is we got to think of our basic human needs like water, food, shelter, like safety, and all of that is incredibly important. But I do think people generally know about that, so I don't really need to spend a lot of time touching on that. But when it comes to needs that we don't really think about, it's sort of more of those like emotional connection needs. So things like, yeah, connection is one, also privacy, or being attuned to, feeling like someone sees you, feeling like you're heard, feeling like you can be your authentic self, and so a lot of these things we can once again using that word brainwashing or manipulation, or conditioned to believe that we don't deserve to be our authentic self or we don't deserve privacy or we don't deserve connection, and we should just suppress any of those needs, any of those desires that we have for ourself and just settle for whatever we can get, and so that can work as far as survival goes, we can survive getting those bare minimum little crumbs and sort of settling for less than what we really desire.
Speaker 3:But we might notice that showing up like over and over again, this like repeated feeling of like isolation, loneliness, depression, anxiety, like just not good in all sorts of ways. And so sometimes, yeah, I feel like with my clients, with myself, probably, you, your clients like we have to kind of look at like where am I not allowing myself to want more or to need more? Or where am I saying, oh, I don't have needs, I don't need this, but we really do because we're human beings. So a lot of times I just try to normalize the fact that we all have these emotional needs, as children and as adults, and it's, yeah, it's kind of a radical choice to decide like I get to need things, I get to ask for things, I get to receive things in the emotional world.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, yeah, like you know, I've had more than one abusive relationship and I think one of the things that feel scary sometimes is like how do I begin to express my need? And like the other person may not agree, but I can still hold that space for myself, you know. So, for example, I'll actually use a client example from this week. It was about reliability, like if they say they're going to be somewhere, I want to trust that they're actually going to show up and that I'm not going to be yelled at when they don't and I'm upset. And so you know, with yeah, and it's like staying in that power of I'm allowed to have, I'm allowed to feel this, yeah, yeah. So I guess how do you help people get in touch with their needs and what they actually want?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a really good question. Well, yeah, sometimes we got to play with this idea of like the ideal scenario, like if we just get rid of all reality right now and just think like what are you really deeply craving? What is it you actually want, you know? And that can be really tricky and sometimes it requires kind of this back and forth around, like what resistance is showing up to that question, like what doesn't feel safe about answering that question or letting yourself desire something, and maybe you notice what you really don't like you know, sometimes that's a better avenue is like okay, I really don't like when someone's not on time or when someone doesn't show up, and so it's like okay, so maybe that means that you value reliability or you're really desiring to trust someone and that's great, you know.
Speaker 3:So that's an interesting question, but kind of yeah, it's your gentle question like creating that safe container of like you can speak your mind fully here, I'm not gonna force you. I think another thing is, as Lisa's a coach and like a practitioner is not like forcing an agenda on anyone and being like okay, so if you name right now that someone being unreliable is a red flag, and that red flag shows up and you need to leave this guy or a girl or a person, exactly exactly, we don't do that but we're just like, let's just get curious about like what feels really upsetting about this and what that means about your needs or your desires for a relationship.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's kind of what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really like that. That's definitely something I practice with my clients too, like if we thought about what you wanted in a relationship. You know what you'd need in a relationship, and it's not against this other person, right, it's not like you know. Sometimes we can make that list and it's like everything that we don't want and what we have right now it's like, okay, so we have that. Put that over here and now, like we have the full expansive, I don't know idea of what's possible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly Right, and like kind of finding middle ground between this, like incredible ideal, and then reality, and seeing like, okay, is there, like a little step forward, because it's unrealistic to expect you to just, you know, go from here to there 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and so I think one of the hardest things is learning how to Actually have a healthy relationship and what healthy means. Yeah, how did you begin to teach yourself what healthy meant?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that's a really good question. I think for me personally, a lot of it came from Literally just looking at the exact opposite of that abusive relationship and honestly, that kind of framework has served me really well in Lots of different areas when I felt confused or lost, when it's like I don't know really what I need right or where healing is ready to take me next, or what I need to do for myself right now, sometimes just thinking like what would the abuser want for me, what would the abuser tell me and how can I do the exact opposite of that or how would the abuser treat me, and it's like, hmm, okay, the opposite of that is what I'm gonna look for in a relationship now, in a friendship with my family, with work, you know. So if you have this like horrific experience in the past of being treated horribly Like you can take that and look at you know, what did that teach me about? What I do not want and what is the opposite of that or what is? You know? Certainly a very contrasted part of that.
Speaker 3:So a big part of me, part of me when it comes to shifting from unhealthy to the extreme to healthy relationships, was differentiating between love and respect. That was a big one that I thought about a lot because I was constantly told how much I was loved by these two guys I dated the one that was really abusive in high school and the other one that was just like it was an unhealthy relationship, you know. They told me they loved me all the time and when I left them they were very upset and threatening you know harm and stuff I'm not gonna get into. They didn't want me to go. They loved me so much but they didn't respect me at all like as a human being. As a person, I was an object for them to use and exploit as they desired. So, moving forward from that, I was like, okay, I don't really care if you love me that much, sure, I do. You know my attachment definitely wants that. But I've been through so much shit that now it's like if you don't respect me, I'm out of here, like immediately.
Speaker 3:So I actually became kind of like rigid with my rules a little bit when it comes to relationships or I'm like yo, I gotta like look out for myself. I can't be messing around anymore. So that's one thing that I really focused on was, like do I get a sense that they're treating me with respect, or do they just love me because of what I can do for them?
Speaker 2:That's a really good point. I actually said that to my partner a few weeks ago. I said he was like, oh, but I love you, like you know, I love you so much and I was like I don't give a shit if you love me. And he was like what, yeah, but I was right. I mean I was pissed and like I was triggered, you know, and but it was exactly. You said it like so much better than I think I even said it in my own head. Of the love doesn't sometimes matter anymore. It's more about like is there respect? Is there value? Like a Revalued, is there? Are you seeing me as a person? You know all of that stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. And especially because I think, like in long-term healthy relationships, the sensation of love is gonna wane and you know it's gonna go up and down, like we're not always gonna be infatuated with this person. There's gonna come a time where it's so normal to see them every day that you don't just feel like, oh my god, I'm so in love, but do you still respect them, do you honor their humanity? Like that's what really matters to me?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I try to live with that, yeah, yeah, when in a new relationship or I know this for a lot of my clients will start dating and they start to get triggered quickly and I think the triggers are probably very old in some capacity, but they're also most likely directly related to the abuse, yeah, and I know that in my history it would like shut me down a lot of times, like where that rigidity that you just kind of talked about would come into play, like the wall would go back up and it didn't allow this like softness that I was trying to lean into or or at least embrace a little bit, like I didn't want to be a sponge but I wanted to also not be the great wall. Yeah, so when you have clients that are dealing with, like their emotional triggers, whether they're from childhood or from the past relationship, how do you help them? I guess, make peace with them or befriend them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, one way that I really like approaching the concept of triggers and how trauma shows up in our bodies is through the Polyvagal Theory, which is a theory that was created by Stephen Porges, just credit. But yeah, it really goes into how our nervous systems are impacted by trauma, and so you know to like condense this into that, answer this question. When we're triggered, our bodies do like no longer are within our window of tolerance and we no longer are feeling what would be called like the safe and social nervous system state. And we need to be in that safe and social nervous system state to connect with other people, like period, you know. So if we are jumping out of that into fight or flight or what you're describing as like freeze or shutdown, we've kind of lost the physical capability to feel open, receptive, connected. We are now armoring, we're going to start a fight, maybe we're going to try to get the hell out, we're going to shut down, and just you know.
Speaker 3:And so I try to really like not take away our sense of agency and choice Of course I want to always think about our agency and choice, but to kind of just name that like if you're going into fight or flight, or freeze or shutdown.
Speaker 3:That's not like a moral failure you can't like will your way out of it. You don't need to pretend you're okay when you're not. So I think when you're feeling like truly triggered and something is activating you, that's the time to find a way to take care of yourself. And so there's a lot of different ways to do that, depending on, like, what kind of state you're in, and there's ways that we can do that with our partners or friends or family, and there's ways that we can tend to ourselves, you know, by ourselves, and then coming back, like you know, when you tend to that, when you move through that, then finding a time when you're back in that safe and social nervous system state to approach connection, repair, repairing the conflict, working through it instead of trying to force yourself to be, you know, open and vulnerable, and connecting to them. When you are, your whole body is saying get me out of here, this isn't safe, I'm going to die, whatever. So, yeah, that's something that I talk about a lot and it's really helped me a lot personally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think, as when we are stuck in that trauma response, or at least you know, definitely when I was in that like my. So my last relationship before the one I'm in now was highly, highly emotionally abusive. It's like that's how, actually, how I learned what emotional abuse really was like and what it felt like when a trauma bond was and I talk about it a lot because my marriage was more of a when I left it. I have a one. I at that time I had a one year old. She's now six but it was like this survival mode, you know, kind of like what you talked about, like oh, I'm fine, I'm good, I'm just this is over here. And then it was like, jesus Christ, well, last one.
Speaker 2:And what I realized was that when I'm in conflict, or if my partner and I now get into conflict, I really do have a part of me that wants to run, like there's a, there's a large trigger that comes up, that's like on out, which I've never really had before. Until he pointed out, like you keep saying you're going to leave the relationship, and I was like, oh shit, do Right, yeah, but it's like you know, and that pause, I think, can feel so traumatizing at times because when we've experienced the silent treatment, it's, like you know, or the silent treatment or like purposeful long pauses to make us uncomfortable. It can feel like Right, mm Hell, mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just like really respect your openness and vulnerability, like on your podcast, and just you know, with me as well, because I just think that is how we serve others is by saying like look, you're not alone with this.
Speaker 3:For real Like you literally go through this too, and it's still possible to have a good relationship and a good life, even when you're dealing with this stuff, like everyone has stuff they're working on. But yeah, to me, what you said specifically, I totally relate and that feeling of like I need to get out of here is just like I try to respect it as like, damn, that is my body trying to take care of me and yeah, it kind of sucks, that it's, you know, hurting someone else or like we're. You know it's not ideal, but okay, like it's not. I'm not being, I'm not punishing myself right now for a response that I can't control, but let's try to find a way to like.
Speaker 3:For me it's like, okay, like let's go walk around the block by myself just like get it out, you know, and then come back and like, oh, like, okay, now we can talk, but it's tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, like part of being in a healthy relationship, but I'm still learning. This is that like, sometimes those pauses in that space to re-regulate is so important but we don't really have that in an abusive relationship. Like we don't like if you go away, you're scolded for it, right. Like if, like you interrupt the silence that they're demanding you're you know. It's like there's all these ways that you have to sit in this discomfort and for me, I actually, for a while, was actually blaming my partner for the silence. Like I was, like, you know, like my current partner, who would be closer on the healthy, you know all really tough issues, but he's definitely healthier, you know he's not.
Speaker 2:But I would say you know, I need, like I can't do this, you know. But first, like I think the first time I ever said it was like you can't be silent was probably what I said, and then it turned out to be like no, I can't, I can't sit, I can't handle it, Exactly. Yeah, I need to go for a walk and I'll come back, Right, oh I hear you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I also. I've been in a relationship for six years and he, he is much more of like an internal processor. So even when we're not in a conflict, what more like need to make a decision about dinner or whatever? This man is going to get quiet, he is not going to talk and I am over here like what's wrong. What's wrong? Why are you talking?
Speaker 3:You know just like frantically trying to like figure out what I did or whatever. So I definitely feel you on that. It is so uncomfortable and yeah, so like I've developed all sorts of ways to try to cope with that over the years. But I do think that as you stay with someone and you feel more comfortable to like name like this is how I'm feeling you don't need to change who you are.
Speaker 3:I just want you to know like or you find ways to like, sometimes even just like fidgeting with my hands, like doing something like do the dishes like just do something, so you're not just like sitting there waiting because yeah it's, it's horrible what abusers do to us and our nervous systems and teach us that we're safe all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a few questions for you, but I want to make sure that we get in because they are. They were sent in on the Instagram, so, okay, I'll just go with the first one. So what are signs to like out for or things to do differently next time to avoid getting into a relationship with an emotionally abusive partner?
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, great question. Yeah, oh, that's a big one. So I would say, before you go out into the dating world, kind of come up with almost like a personal manifesto or some sort of maybe written document, or maybe it's on your phone or whatever like a brainstorm where you go over what you want in a relationship, what feels like a yes to you, what feels like a no to you, what is like a yellow flag of like I'm not sure, and it can be really kind of hard to do that, and I recognize that. So don't feel like you need to just come up with that out of your brain. Like I was naming earlier, you can look at past relationships that were perhaps traumatic or just not. They just didn't work out and thinking, what about those relationships? So it's like a hard no. Like what do I look back on now and say, oh man, like I didn't notice it at the time, but that was a huge red flag. You know, get that written down and then you know, maybe exploring like TV shows, books, movies, places where you do see healthy relationships shown you don't necessarily have any in your life for know what that's like for you and just see, ok, what tells me. This seems healthy, like what feels safe about this. Why do I love watching this couple like, and you know, believe that they're healthy. And then you can also do, of course, research with books, articles, online. Start researching what does a healthy relationship look like? Obviously, that's a big part of my course as well, so there's lots of free resources about that too. But, yeah, starting to name those things for yourself and get acquainted with that in your brain instead of just diving in which, granted, I pretty much just dove in.
Speaker 3:I'm speaking out from a lot of perspective, but I think the more clarity we have over what we want this is true for job hunting too honestly the more we are comfortable naming. I want someone who respects my boundaries. I want someone that doesn't do this, this and this. It sets us up for success, because the second we start dating and interacting with people, all our attachment stuff, all our triggers, all our conditioning is going to be like hey, remember me and yeah, and that's fine. But if we have something to lean on and look at, it can also be something you talk about with a professional, or even just a friend or someone that you really trust or feel like is on your side. Sometimes, I think when we tell someone else about the plans we have or the goals we have, it can help us stay connected with them, even when we're going out into the dating world and things are getting messy.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah. I always say we don't really think about what you want. And then, if the person you're dating doesn't have that, don't draw these squiggly lines to the other side of like oh, he sort of has it.
Speaker 2:So we get a dotted line. It's like right, is it there or is it not? Or is it that not that important to you, as you first realized? Exactly? It is that we can't play these games. Yes, exactly, love that. The other question was how long does it normally take to figure out if you're dating somebody who is abusive?
Speaker 3:Ooh, that's a really good question. That one's a tough one because I don't know.
Speaker 2:Like you really don't know, so maybe, like I wanted to ask it the way that they worded it, just in case that did bring up something to you. But what I really think they're asking for, like what are some signs to look out for?
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah, what I was going to say is I think three to six months is something like I've heard is like when people are going to start showing their true colors. So I personally would make a rule with myself of like I am not moving in with someone until a year or something. Like I am not tying my life together with someone in any way that is difficult to untangle for like a year, I would think I would say now, because you need time to see them in lots of different situations and like for those masks to come down if they are abusive. But yeah, some signs I would look out for is like how you feel in your body when they make certain comments or like I don't know, just hanging out with them.
Speaker 3:In general, like so many times, our gut instinct is completely overruled by trauma, but I do think that as time goes on, we can start to really sense like, oh, like that little jab they made it me didn't feel good and like when I brought it up, they made me feel like I was stupid for caring, like, okay, like that's a red flag, you know, and it's not as simple as them being like super mean or whatever, but it's just like this subtle sign of like ah, like that didn't feel good, and I think that I constantly bring up is like it's not necessarily about the red flags, like written in stone or like written books or articles.
Speaker 3:It's more about like, if you personally feel a red flag whether it's because of your past trauma or because it's literally a red flag and you bring it up to them, how do they respond? Do they respond with taking you seriously, giving a shit, making you feel better? Or do they respond with, oh, you're crazy, or oh, you're being too much or whatever, like it's not a big deal Like do they guess it's always something with you.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3:And so like that's the shit to like keep, like look out for and like sense into. And then I just feel like, if you're asking this question, working with someone like one of us or a therapist or something is so helpful, because then you don't need to like do all of the like math in your head. You have someone there that has a more objective view of like you know I can help. You see, does this bring up a red flag for me? Because when you're in that, you might be once again used to all sorts of chaos and dysfunction and not able to see it. So you deserve support person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, which I mean. And also, like I think, if it's hard to talk about it to somebody else, there's probably something going on inside too. Totally.
Speaker 3:Exactly, yeah, which is valid, but you know, breaking the cycle is like you don't have to do it all on your own anymore, as hard as it is to reach out, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've loved talking to. I feel like we could do this for like another like two months or so, I know. Can you go over just your offerings, how people can find you, and all of that stuff?
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks for giving me the space to do that, and it's been wonderful to talk to you too. Yeah, and then kind of like, the hub where everything can be found is my website, which is emmymarycom. I offer lots of different things, so I do one-to-one coaching. I also do two different courses that are offered kind of throughout the year. One is about relationships, one is about like authenticity and being your most true self, and then I do have a low cost membership community as well for Toronto survivors, where I do workshops every month and we have community calls, and so that's sort of like my special, like community, and then I also have a lot of free resources on my website, as well as my Instagram and Tik Tok. So, yeah, that's a bit about me and where you can find me Awesome.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Yes, thank you, it was wonderful and I'll talk to you soon. Bye.