Dimming The Gaslight: Our Healing Journey From Narcissistic Abuse

He married four women, kept a secret girlfriend a town over from wife number two, and still cried his way into playing the victim. Then wife number one picked up the phone and called wife number two.

This week, Mac and Phil sit down with Dina and Lizzie, the Matadoras behind the podcast Surviving Toxic Relationships, two women who were married to the same narcissist and became best friends because of it.

🏍️ Two very different love bombings: a 19 year old in a light blue tux walking over to Dina’s KFC job, and a man who took over Lizzie’s grocery runs for her four boys
⛪ How he faked vulnerability at church, cried through worship songs, and used couples counseling to turn himself into the victim
😭 The sobbing childhood trauma story he told Dina, and what he admitted about it later
📖 The phone book incident Dina walked in on, and the “friendly pervert” confession that followed
💸 Locked out of the phone account, cut off from credit cards, and handed $20 for a whole weekend before Lizzie walked out
📱 The Facebook message and phone call that told his secret girlfriend Lizzie existed, and the red coat he said an old lady gave her
🚔 What she did next: a lawyer by Sunday, cops and a restraining order waiting Monday, and an annulment filed for fraud
💍 The woman he married two months later in another state, and the 27 women on his phone

This one is wild, ridiculous, and funny in the way only survivors can be, and proof that two women who could have been enemies became each other’s biggest win.

⚖️ Disclaimer (because our lawyers make us say this): Dimming The Gaslight is based entirely on true events, except for the stuff we totally made up. Names, locations, and other identifying details have been changed. If you think we’re talking about you in this podcast, newsflash, you’re the narcissist.

Watch Surviving Toxic Relationships on YouTube: @survivingrelationships12
Also on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Website: survivingtoxicrelationships.org

Follow us: @dimming_the_gaslight
Join us on Patreon | Discord | DTG Merch Store | dimmingthegaslight.com

A stranger stopped her outside Grand Central. Eleven years later she was broke, trapped, and signing leases for his entire family.

This week, Mac and Phil sit down with Victoria Morgan, a pharmacist and research scientist who runs @one_strong_mother, to hear how a man with a $10 million story and a Wikipedia page turned her escape from one abusive marriage into a decade of financial and psychological control.

🚉 He approaches her the day after Valentine’s Day and says he sold his company for $10 million
🏠 His “house” turns out to be one rented room, and the landlord slips her a note warning her about the other women
📱 Two young women only friended him and commented on his posts, and they turned out to be fake profiles he ran himself
🏪 The cell phone store, the leases, and the lines of credit were all in her name while he kept the commissions
💸 Invitations he said cost $1,200 were $226 and a photographer he said cost $3,000 was $400
👨‍👩‍👦 The wife he swore was his ex lived in the house, and his parents were told Victoria was just a tenant
🚨 A breakup, an order of protection, him outside her door at 2am, and a burner phone text that pulled her back in
🗝️ Ten months in the worst house of her life, a mattress on her back as she left in a U Haul, and the free five step escape plan she built

He told her she would never meet anyone like him if she left. Peace is priceless and freedom is the prize.

⚖️ Disclaimer (because our lawyers make us say this): Dimming The Gaslight is based entirely on true events — except for the stuff we totally made up. Names, locations, and other identifying details have been changed. If you think we’re talking about you in this podcast… newsflash: you’re the narcissist.

Follow Victoria: @one_strong_mother (her free escape plan is linked in her bio)

Follow us: @dimming_the_gaslight
Join us on Patreon | Discord | DTG Merch Store | dimmingthegaslight.com

he was seven years old the first time her uncle called it a game. Twenty years later her own father skipped town on New Year's Day and left her a letter blaming her for it.

This week, Mac and Phil sit down with Sofia Moreno, survivor turned author and founder of a nonprofit supporting survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

🚨 What happened when Sofia's mother walked in on the abuse firsthand, and the local police response that amounted to nothing but a piece of paper

👨‍👩‍👧 How her father's side of the family closed ranks around her abuser while blaming a seven year old for "dressing promiscuously"

🎭 The Jekyll and Hyde covert narcissist playbook her father ran for years, beloved by everyone outside the house and a completely different man behind closed doors

💸 The secret second mortgage, the drained accounts, and the affairs her father tried to pin on her mother instead

📺 The Dear John letter waiting on top of the television the day he disappeared, and who he blamed for making him leave

⚰️ Finding out her grandmother's memorial had happened without her, and the email that finally severed the relationship for good

📚 How Sofia turned decades of trauma into two published books, a nonprofit, and a biweekly support group for survivors still finding their words

This one goes to some of the darkest places the show has covered and still lands somewhere hopeful, proof that the story doesn't have to end where the abuse did.

⚖️ Disclaimer (because our lawyers make us say this): Dimming The Gaslight is based entirely on true events — except for the stuff we totally made up. Names, locations, and other identifying details have been changed. If you think we're talking about you in this podcast… newsflash: you're the narcissist.

Check out Sofia's books, "I Am a Survivor" and "A Message to My Abuser" (available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble)

Follow us: @dimming_the_gaslight
Join us on Patreon | Discord | DTG Merch Store | dimmingthegaslight.com

She spent years trapped in a cycle of love bombing, addiction, and violence with a man who once strangled her unconscious. Then one night, scrolling Facebook on her back porch, she watched his death unfold live on her screen before anyone told her.

This week, Mac and Phil sit down with Randin Steed, who writes as Sunshine Faye, author of Dance With the Devil and The Manipulation Whisperer, and cohost of the podcast Stories We Weren't Supposed to Tell.

🕯️ The night she said goodbye to her abuser, not knowing it was the last time she'd see him alive
📱 How she found out he'd been murdered, not from a phone call, but from a Facebook Live video of the scene
🚓 The time police drove her to jail instead of him, after he choked her unconscious and dragged her by the hair
✍️ Why she wrote her first book raw and unfiltered, and what happened when she realized how many people needed it
🧠 Her breakdown of the hook, the love bombing and future faking that gets survivors stuck before they even see it coming
♟️ The difference between gray rocking and what she calls yellow rocking a co parent who won't disengage
💬 Why she believes healthy people gaslight too, and where the real line between normal conflict and manipulation actually sits

This one is heavy, unfiltered, and honest about the messy, nonlinear road out. Randin doesn't hand you a bow on top. She hands you the truth and tells you to stand up.

⚖️ Disclaimer (because our lawyers make us say this): Dimming The Gaslight is based entirely on true events, except for the stuff we totally made up. Names, locations, and other identifying details have been changed. If you think we're talking about you in this podcast, newsflash, you're the narcissist.

Books: Dance With the Devil and The Manipulation Whisperer by Sunshine Faye, available on Amazon
Podcast: Stories We Weren't Supposed to Tell
Follow Randin: @sunshine_solitude_softball_

Follow us: @dimming_the_gaslight
Join us on Patreon | Discord | DTG Merch Store | dimmingthegaslight.com

After years of therapy before she even had a word for what happened to her, Jenny Rudd built an AI that could see it plainly — and it started with her own decade-plus marriage.

This week, Mac and Phil sit down with Jenny Rudd, founder of Dispute Buddy — a platform that scans years of text messages with an abusive ex and surfaces the patterns of coercive control survivors can't always name themselves.

🔍 What happened when Jenny finally ran her own texts through her own app, and it handed back a decade-plus documented pattern of coercive control she'd normalized for years
⚖️ How the system finds tactics like being accused of the exact thing your abuser is doing, disparaging family to isolate you, and disguising financial abuse as "consequences"
📵 Why responding to messages out of order isn't disorganization — it's a deliberate way to control the narrative and keep you confused
🧠 Jenny's take on why 25% of Dispute Buddy users are men, and what that number reveals about who's actually suffering coercive control and staying silent
♀️ Her view on feminism as fundamentally about emotional equality for men — and why she believes that's the missing piece for real economic equality for women
👨‍👩‍👧 How the app approaches parental alienation, and why she believes both sides of that debate are carrying real, valid pain
🏛️ Why she built Dispute Buddy to close the access-to-justice gap for people without the money, time, or safety to document their own abuse

This one is validating, sharp, and unexpectedly funny — proof that the patterns you couldn't explain to anyone finally have a name, and now, receipts.

⚖️ Disclaimer (because our lawyers make us say this): Dimming The Gaslight is based entirely on true events — except for the stuff we totally made up. Names, locations, and other identifying details have been changed. If you think we're talking about you in this podcast… newsflash: you're the narcissist.

Learn more about Dispute Buddy: disputebuddy.co
Follow Jenny: @[handle]

Follow us: @dimming_the_gaslight
Join us on Patreon | Discord | DTG Merch Store | dimmingthegaslight.com

Last week, Taelor told us her story for the first time. It was heavy. It was raw. And we promised we wouldn't leave it there.

She's back.

This week isn't about what happened to her. It's about everything she built after.

🪞 The moment she realized her own body had been keeping score for years, and finally let it stop
📓 Reading her abuser's old Facebook posts and recognizing every classic narcissist tactic in real time
👊 The exact moment her abuser stopped being a bully, the second she started fighting back
💉 A senior year "diet" involving an unregulated hormone injection and 500 calories a day, orchestrated by her own mother
🧠 A viral question she asked the internet that stopped people cold: is the "good" parent in an abusive home actually safe?
🔥 What it actually took, over a decade of inner work, to go from surviving to leading a community of other survivors

This is the episode about what comes after the worst chapter. Not closure. Not a bow on top. Just Taelor, fully herself, telling the rest of the story on her own terms.

⚖️ Disclaimer (because our lawyers make us say this): Dimming The Gaslight is based entirely on true events — except for the stuff we totally made up. Names, locations, and other identifying details have been changed. If you think we're talking about you in this podcast… newsflash: you're the narcissist.

Follow Dr. Taelor: @sos.with.doctor.taelor (Instagram/TikTok) | Podcast: Overcoming: The Podcast

Follow us: @dimming_the_gaslightJoin us on Patreon | Discord | DTG Merch Store | dimmingthegaslight.com

Five years ago, Mac was couch-surfing, sleeping in his car, and scrolling Instagram from his dad's basement — and one page stopped him cold: a woman healing out loud from complex trauma. That woman is here today.

We sit down with Dr. Taelor — Doctor of Occupational Therapy, trauma advocate, and founder of Survivors Overcoming Silence (SOS) — for a story she has never told publicly before. This is complex trauma at its most complex: a childhood built on walking on eggshells, a "golden child" competition with a parent who saw her as competition, a national news scandal, false restraining orders, death threats, a grandmother who called her a devil child, a faked cancer diagnosis, and a parent's transition that Taelor says was less about identity and more about becoming her.

We go deep on gaslighting, "destiny swapping," psychological conditioning, and what it actually takes to reclaim your identity after someone spent a lifetime trying to erase it. Fair warning: there's a voicemail in this one that will haunt you.

This one's heavy, it's raw, and it's only 10% of the iceberg — so buckle up, because we're already bringing her back for Part 2.

⚖️ Disclaimer (because our lawyers make us say this): Dimming The Gaslight is based entirely on true events — except for the stuff we totally made up. Names, locations, and other identifying details have been changed. If you think we're talking about you in this podcast… newsflash: you're the narcissist.

Follow Dr. Taelor: @sos.with.doctor.taelor (Instagram/TikTok) | Podcast: Overcoming: The Podcast

Follow us: @dimming_the_gaslight
Join us on Patreon | Discord | DTG Merch Store | dimmingthegaslight.com

Back in episodes 144 and 145, Christina told us about her toxic ex, her toxic childhood, and a four-wheeler ride that never should've happened while pregnant.

This time she's back for a very different reason.

Her parents found the podcast. They didn't love what they heard. And their solution wasn't a conversation — it was a demand: take it down, or else.

So Christina came back to "continue lying." Allegedly.

🛏️ Being forced to sleep in her mom's bed until she was 15 — and punished for wanting her own

😶 A childhood abuse disclosure met with "what did you do for him to do that to you?"

👗 A mother who dressed her provocatively, then called her "nasty" for being looked at

📞 Fake party invites used to guilt her back into the house every single holiday

🏥 A 14-year-old daughter and grandmother teaming up behind closed doors

🚨 Six DSS calls in four years — every single one unfounded

🤡 Parents insisting SHE'S the liar for finally telling her own story out loud

By the end, Christina isn't spinning anything. She's not apologizing. She's just done staying quiet — and everyone around her can finally see exactly who's been lying the whole time.

This one's the where-are-they-now everybody needed — chaotic, dark, and honestly one of the funniest episodes we've recorded.

JOIN US ON DISCORD!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to join us on Patreon!

For all things DTG, visit 👉 ⁠www.dimmingthegaslight.com⁠

⚖️ Disclaimer (because our lawyers make us say this): Dimming The Gaslight is based entirely on true events—except for the stuff we totally made up. Names, locations, and other identifying details have been changed. If you think we’re talking about you in this podcast… newsflash: you’re the narcissist.

Last time, JP left us on a cliffhanger: her ex reported their own 18-year-old daughter to a federal watchdog agency, claiming she committed fraud on her FAFSA — all to keep his daughter out of a four-year college and off his child support bill.

This week, the investigation reaches a verdict.

But getting there means JP pulling an all-nighter in a hotel room, uploading three years of receipts down to the last 50 cents, while her daughter sleeps beside her on what's supposed to be a graduation celebration trip.

📋 A federal fraud claim filed against his own teenage daughter

🚗 A $7,000 car he claims costs $1,000 a month in "maintenance"

📧 Subpoenaed emails showing him getting cozy with college staff behind the scenes

🖼️ His new wife quietly removing their daughter's photo from the family mantle

📝 A handwritten list of reasons their daughter wanted to leave — one she made JP promise never to bring to court

💵 A courtroom standoff between a $700 "nuisance" offer and a six-figure settlement

🦋 A butterfly, a chrysalis, and the first time in years JP feels like she's actually landed on her feet

This is the finale of JP's four-part journey — and the moment she stops asking to be believed, and starts being believed.

JOIN US ON DISCORD!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to join us on Patreon!

For all things DTG, visit 👉 ⁠www.dimmingthegaslight.com⁠

⚖️ Disclaimer (because our lawyers make us say this): Dimming The Gaslight is based entirely on true events—except for the stuff we totally made up. Names, locations, and other identifying details have been changed. If you think we’re talking about you in this podcast… newsflash: you’re the narcissist.

Back in episode 154/155, JP told us about her marriage to a man she now simply calls "exhole." We left that story mid-sentence — she was still deep in the trenches of her divorce, and we promised to bring her back once it was over.

It's over now.

But "over" doesn't mean what you'd think.

What follows is a year-long descent into a family court system that JP says is built to protect abusers, not survivors — and a masterclass in exactly how far a narcissist will go to win.

⚖️ A biased judge who tells the victim to pay HER abuser
📧 A three-page email calling her "delusional" — with an insult hidden in the password
💍 A secret joint tax filing designed to dodge financial disclosure
💰 A $19,000 "incentive" that was really a manipulation tactic
🏦 Bankruptcy, maxed-out credit cards, and a legal fight funded by her late grandmother's inheritance
🎓 Her ex reporting their own 18-year-old daughter to the federal government for "fraud" — over a college financial aid form
🏡 A breakdown in the backyard that becomes the turning point of her entire fight

And just when she'd given up completely, salvation shows up in the most unexpected place: a jacuzzi at a cancer survivors' retreat.

This is the episode about what happens after the divorce is "final" — when the paperwork ends but the manipulation doesn't.

JOIN US ON DISCORD!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to join us on Patreon!

For all things DTG, visit 👉 ⁠www.dimmingthegaslight.com⁠

⚖️ Disclaimer (because our lawyers make us say this): Dimming The Gaslight is based entirely on true events—except for the stuff we totally made up. Names, locations, and other identifying details have been changed. If you think we’re talking about you in this podcast… newsflash: you’re the narcissist.