Breaking the cycle of generational trauma and abuse is no small task, and can be made even more difficult with the loss of your support system, intentional efforts to isolate you, smear campaigns and love-bombing. We get into all of it in this week’s episode of It’s Not Normal.

0:00 The Journey of Getting There

3:29 Perspective Outside of the Closed Family System

12:14 Stepping Into the Unknown

14:55 Losing Your Support System

17:56 Smear Campaign and Love-Bombing

27:38 Family Functions

33:34 Learning to Sit with Discomfort

In this week’s episode, we talk about how, as you get older and start to tap into your individuality, your parents’ unhealthy behavior might intensify as you become harder to manipulate. These behaviors can be dehumanizing and challenging to navigate as we start to recognize them.

0:00 Intro

1:11 Intensifying Behavior As You Get Older

17:28 Dehumanizing

18:27 Learning From Our Mistakes

21:18 Craving Closure

25:01 Uncomfortable Conversations

27:48 My Feelings Matter

33:25 Weaponizing Vulnerabilities

If you’re like me, you might find it challenging to refrain from explaining yourself, especially in light of controversy or disagreement. In this week’s episode we address the question, “why do we overshare?” in an attempt to better understand the behavior, what it is and where it comes from, so we can learn to let go of the discomfort that comes with disagreement and the fear of being misunderstood.

0:00 Episode 30!!

0:29 Disagreement and Disconnection

8:13 Emotional Neglect

9:59 Intentional Misunderstanding

13:28 Navigating a Minefield

15:41 Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn

18:54 Fawning and Oversharing

I learned about separation anxiety for the first time in my early twenties. The more I researched, the more I started to realize that this behavior was just a glimpse into what I had experienced throughout my childhood. In this week’s episode, we’re talking about anxious attachment and fear of abandonment, what they are, how they’re connected and my experience with them.

0:00 About Attachment

4:58 Connection Through Self-Sacrifice

9:27 Tracing It Back

14:36 Triangulation

19:00 Fear of Abandonment

35:02 Things That Can Help

I had a bit of a moment. In this week’s episode, we’re talking about spontaneity, self-love and having a breakthrough.

0:00 Intro

0:45 Thursday Night Release

3:53 Spontaneity 

5:18 A Sense of Responsiblity

7:57 I Had a Bit of a Moment

13:00 Forgiving Myself

13:59 Approval

17:58 Self-Love

19:06 Letting Go of Negativity

21:33 The Person I Refuse to Become

22:06 Knowing What Not To Do

23:34 Disapproval

It can be hard to filter through the constant stream of content that’s thrown our way on social media to find creators who are in it for the right reasons. In this week’s episode we’re talking with Nicole Bendayan, a Certified Holistic Nutritionist & Women's Health Expert on a mission to educate and empower women on holistic menstrual health. Having experienced negative side effects while on hormonal birth control myself, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to speak with Nicole about women’s health and normalizing a newer narrative on social media. 

Nicole’s Socials:

www.thesyncsociety.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicole.bendayan

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nicole.bendayan

Washington Post Article:

"Women are getting off birth control amid misinformation explosion"

By Lauren Weber and Sabrina Malhi

Chapters:

0:00 Intro

1:34 Nicole’s Ah-Ha Moment

5:27 The Four Phases

11:55 The Article

15:30 The Combination Pill

19:45 Informed Consent

28:56 Normalizing a Newer Narrative

42:23 Do Your Own Research

47:27 What Can We Do?

52:50 Copper IUD

55:40 Outro

Let’s talk about siblings! Navigating a relationship with a narcissistic parent can be hard enough. What happens when there’s a younger sibling involved? In this week’s episode, we talk about everything from sibling relationships in adulthood and how your roles might change overtime to why a narcissistic parent might promote divisiveness throughout your childhood and what you can do to maintain a healthy relationship with your younger sibling(s) even after you’ve taken a step back from your parent. 

0:00 Sibling Relationships

5:01 Golden Child v. Scapegoat

8:00 Projection and Projective Identification

11:50 Capitalizing on Others’ Mistakes

14:00 Promoting Isolation

18:14 Taking a Step Back

20:05 Feeling Abandoned

23:01 Changing Behavior

27:01 The Smear Campaign

32:23 My Best Advice

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson… this book was recommended to me more than once and, after sitting in my cart for far too long, I decided to buy it. I’m a little more than halfway through it, and, in this week’s episode, we take a look at Chapters 1-5 and dive a bit deeper into some of the hardest hitting concepts. 

0:00 Intro

1:21 Lack of Emotional Intimacy

6:54 Instincts and Relationships

10:43 Seeing Them Accurately is Not Betrayal

16:11 ‘If You Loved Me, You’d Just Know…’

20:13 Role-Self v. True-Self

30:36 Outro

In this week’s episode, we get into what it’s like when you find yourself in the position of having to tell someone in your life the truth about your narcissistic parent. Adding to the laundry list of responsibilities we take on as children of narcissistic parents, so many of us have to decide whether to uphold the image of our parent or be honest about our experience with them. From letting others in to ignoring birthday texts, so many of us are often put in a position that, on the surface, can be easily perceived as the ‘bad guy.’

0:00 Intro

0:26 Emotionally Abuse Is Easily Hidden

7:12 Running Into My Teacher

11:11 The Uncertainties of Speaking Out

14:02 Changing Their Opinion

16:24 Reclaim Your Narrative

18:20 Letting Go

24:39 Transparency in Relationships

28:28 Responsibilities and Birthday Texts

38:10 Drawing the Line

39:10 My Question to You