Light After Trauma

Alyssa has stepped away from the podcast this week while she works on a very exciting project for you all! This week, we are reaching back into the archives with a timely episode as summer heats up in the Northern Hemisphere!

REDUX: Live your best life this summer as Alyssa offers advice to those of us grappling with a fear of wearing shorts, tank tops, and bathing suits this summer. Tune in for some inspiration so that this summer can be one where you embrace the incredible body you have - at any shape and size!

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/lightaftertrauma

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari: Hey,how's it going? You know what time it is. We are back out it with another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. You know the deal. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari and life is pretty good right now. Just wanted to take a moment to kind of check in with all of you. And sometimes I feel like with the interview episodes, sometimes I feel like my personality or my connection to the audience can get lost in translation, just because I think there's a lot of obviously getting to hear and understand and process the stories and the information from the guest speakers.

[00:01:27] So while I absolutely love having guest speakers, I also really want to maintain an authentic connection with all the listeners out there. So, today I was supposed to have a guest speaker come on and unfortunately there was just some kind of confusion in scheduling. So we had to reschedule and I have some free time and I was like, you know what:

[00:01:53] "I actually have some things I wanted to talk about." So it's kind of nice to be able to do a solo episode. I have not done one in a while and that is not because I haven't wanted to, but life has been a little bit, how would you say this: wild, insane all over the place, aah I shouldn't say insane. One of the things I've really been trying to work on is trying to avoid the use of certain words.

[00:02:25] When we talk about the concept of linguistic evolution, right?.We don't use certain words anymore. I think one of the words that I'm really trying hard to stop using is crazy and insane. So my reactions to things, because I'm such an animated person, my gut response is to always be like, "oh my God, that's crazy."

[00:02:45] Or, "oh my God, that's insane." But you know, it can be offensive calling somebody crazy. You know, the word crazy itself has a very negative connotation and was, I think a lot of people who struggled with mental illness were called crazy and I've been called crazy actually. And it's, it cuts pretty deep.

[00:03:07] So, that's just my own personal preference. Some people may be listening and may be like, "oh my gosh, that's way too much of a stretch," but that's just something I've been trying to work on. So that was a little tidbit, but life has been so wild. We are in the process of house hunting. And if any of you know anything about this market, it is...

[00:03:29] I mean again, I'm not going to say crazy, but it is unlike anything I've ever seen before in my life. People are coming in and offering literally a hundred thousand dollars over asking price for homes, because there's such a high demand for homes. And there simply aren't enough sellers. And we know we've been looking for homes for....

[00:03:50] I want to say coming up on a year now. And it has been a really defeating process. The last couple months in particular, we thought that we had found something and we're still actually not entirely sure if it's going to go through, we don't know. So we may be moving. We may not be moving, but our lives have really been house hunting every spare minute that we get.

[00:04:13] And I live in New Jersey as many of you know, but we are looking to move to a different state. So, we're looking to move to Pennsylvania. So I would still be able to commute to my office in New Jersey. It's been so tough and every second has been spent traveling to another state to look at homes and making offers on homes and getting your hopes up and getting deflated essentially when you're told that somebody else came in and offered a hundred thousand dollars over asking price. And it's just, I don't know, it's very defeating. I have wanted to get out of the town that I live in for quite some time. It doesn't hold the best memories for me.

[00:04:58] And it's, I think very triggering to live in the same town where a lot of your trauma occurred and no, that's not to say I haven't had some good times in this place. I certainly have, but it's really hard living in a place where you've had traumas because I am reminded every day of my life. So. I really have been itching to get out of this town and get out of this area.

[00:05:28] And sadly, it's just not working out, which I have a very hard time with being told no. Or with having to wait. I'm not very patient. I kind of want what I want when I want it, which is something I'm working on. So yeah, it's just been...it's been rough and we want to have a bigger yard for our dogs and it's been, it's been a hard time, you know, things could certainly be worse.

[00:05:58] Thank God. My health is improving. I'm healing. I'm getting better. My autoimmune disease is, it appears, knock on wood, to be in remission. I hate to even say that out loud because I'm terrified that I'm going to get a flare up again. You can, if you're curious to hear more about the auto-immune issues that I've been having, you can tune into episode 41.

[00:06:21] I believe it is where I talk a little bit more about the autoimmune disease I was diagnosed with. So with all of that said, it's just. It's been a little hectic. So I have not, I feel given my own, I haven't really put the personal touch on a lot of what I do because I really just haven't had the space to do that.

[00:06:46] So I appreciate all of your understanding and that I am really working on getting back to adding a little bit more of a personal touch. I was really excited about all the feedback I got for the mini-sode series, the Survive and Thrive stories. It's been so fun and such an honor to be able to read everybody's story.

[00:07:08] So please, please, please. If you feel called to do so. Please send in your story to [email protected]. I really, I am just so honored. And so, so many are so funny, those emails that you send and I love it cause I'm a big fan of humor therapy. So I love being able to kind of take what you've been through and take things that are really, really dark and very serious and find kinda some light or some humor in them. Again, that doesn't take away from the seriousness of what happened, but some of y'all just have a really good sense of humor. So I appreciate, hearing your your stories. So with that said, I wanted to come on to talk about an experience that I had today, which felt so liberating. And I think now's a really good time to share this experience. I went to the beach today and that might not seem like a big deal for people who don't struggle with body competence. But for me, that was huge. And I went by myself. First of all, because of the pandemic, I really haven't been to the beach in over a year.

[00:08:25] So I have not had to like do the whole bathing suit situation in quite some time. And second of all, I was alone, which is always extra hard for me because it's one of those things where, when you're alone, I think you're more in your head and you feel more like people are looking at you.

[00:08:48] So today is, it's a Wednesday. I don't see clients on Wednesdays. It's my day off. And I decided, you know, the weather is beautiful. I'm heading to the beach today. And I packed my stuff up. And I went to the beach all by myself and I struggled. I went with shorts and like kind of an oversized t-shirt and I struggled with whether or not I was going to take my bathing suit off...take my bathing suit off!?!?

[00:09:17] Yeah, no, I was not going to do that. Hoping to not end up in jail for public indecency. What I was trying to say is I was debating whether or not I was going to take off my shirt and my shorts and just kind of be in my bikini and it was really a battle. Of course, I had to like look around at the people next to me and kind of size them up and be like, well, are they looking at me?

[00:09:45] You know, what are they going to think? But then I just did it, right. I tried to get out of my head and into my body and I was like, what would feel good right now? And what would feel good is to be able to lay down on this huge beach blanket that I have that I think my aunt got me when I was in the fourth grade is still have it because it's amazing

[00:10:06] All I want us to do is just chill out on my beach blanket and have that like warm sensation of the sun on your skin, glorious. Well, obviously I can't do that when I'm covered from head to toe and, you know, clothing and not a bathing suit. So I was like, all right. Screw it taking off my clothes. So I did it.

[00:10:28] I was in a bikini and. Just as an aside, it was a bikini that I enjoyed. Right. It wasn't a bikini that I bought because I was like, oh, well this is going to cover up the most. So let me just buy this one. This one was so fun. It was like a light blue, like a sky blue with like gold throughout. And it was strapless, which like....

[00:10:57] why am I talking about the details? So I'm talking about the details because I love the bikini and I'm allowed to love the bikini. And I don't think it hit me that I was allowed to love a bathing suit that I was in until today. When I was just laying on that blanket with my toes in the sand and the sun on my body.

[00:11:17] And I was like, wow, I really liked this bikini. It's really comfortable. It's really cute. And I'm allowed to like it and you know what you're allowed to like your bathing suit too. So it was, I think really a transcendental moment for me, where I shifted from I'm just gonna wear whatever hides the most of my body to I'm going to wear whatever feels fucking fabulous.

[00:11:47] And so I did it now. I struggled a little bit when it came time to like sit up. Right. And I know that there are people out there who can relate to this. So when it came time to sit up, I'm like, oh God, who's going to be looking at the rolls on my stomach. Now, I'm like looking around to see who's looking.

[00:12:08] And in fact there was a guy who was, I don't know. He honestly, he was probably like 50 feet away from me. And I noticed that he got up and actually moved his chair further away at one point. And do you know what my eating disorder brain did? Right. Get a load of this shit. My eating disorder brain was like, oh, he probably got up and moved because he couldn't stand the sight of your body.

[00:12:34] That is what my brain did. And it's horrible. And it's so body dysmorphic and it's so like eating disordered, but I was able to recognize it and I was able to talk back to it. And I told myself two things. I'm like one...well, I told myself a couple of things. One that's your fucking eating disorder, right.

[00:12:57] Two, look at the tide, the tide had significantly risen, so there was much less beach and he probably didn't want his ass sitting in the water because his chair was very low to the ground. So he probably picked up his chair and moved it back so the water didn't hit him. It's still the middle of May. The water in New Jersey is still freezing.

[00:13:20] That makes the most sense. What really doesn't make sense is the fact that he would take one look at me from 50 yards away and be so repulsed that he had to get up and move his chair. Like what come on, what is my eating disorder doing? Right. So, you know, at that moment I kind of just laughed at myself and I was like, honestly, Ed, I call my eating disorder, Ed.

[00:13:42] It's a little tip that I got from a book that I read called Life Without Ed, by Jenny Schaefer, highly recommended by the way. So I call my eating disorder, Ed, and I was just like, you know what Ed, like, fuck you. Fuck you. Because you're not ruining my perfect day at the beach. And I sat up and that is a very hard thing for me to do.

[00:14:05] I used to struggle and take like five minutes to sit up because I would have to have the towel wrapped around my stomach so that nobody could see my rolls because I was so embarrassed. Well, guess what? Today I just fucking sat up and it was so liberating. I sat there and I looked into the ocean and I could feel my stomach rolls, right.

[00:14:32] Because who doesn't have a stomach roll when they're bending over or sitting like, that's what our bodies do. Right. Our skin rolls, the fat that we have in our stomach, like rolls, stomach rolls, aren't bad. And I just breathe and I was very, very in tune with my body. I was very in tune with my surroundings and I just didn't care if anybody was looking at me, you know, I ended up having a couple that came and sat actually somewhat close to me closer than what I'm comfortable with for sure.

[00:15:11] And honestly, closer than what was necessary, because there was so much space on the beach. I don't know why they needed it to be that close to me, but whatever. I was uncomfortable and I was really just, I, at one point I just stopped caring and I became so much more infatuated with my body and sitting down and processing all of the turmoil.

[00:15:36] My body has helped me to survive over the last year of the pandemic and then a whole bunch of things that happened in the middle of that pandemic that were pretty traumatizing. And I was filled with such gratitude, such gratitude for my body. Such gratitude for the tree trunk thighs that I've had my whole life that I have hated my whole life.

[00:16:06] I found myself sitting in gratitude for these legs, for my stomach, my belly, for all the scars on my body, the stretch marks that are so natural that almost any body has quite frankly. I was just in gratitude and I felt so at peace with this body, I kind of just sat criss cross applesauce on the beach blanket, which I've never done before at a beach.

[00:16:39] I truly, I've never done that before. And it hit me that I have lost so many valuable beach years because I spent time hating my body. There was a time where I would claim that I hated the beach because I simply didn't want to go because I didn't want to be seen. So I would be like, oh, I don't like the sand or I don't like the salty ocean water.

[00:17:07] It makes me feel gross. That's such a load of crap. I love the sand, what a wonderful exfoliant. And I love the saltwater. It feels so healing to me. And I used to say for years that I hated the beach because I was terrified of being seen. And I just wasn't today. I was alone with myself, with my body, with nothing to distract me, and I felt completely at ease and there are people who come in my office and they ask me, or there are people who I connect with on social media.

[00:17:48] And they ask me questions like, well, Alyssa, why am I doing this work? Why bother trying to recover from an eating disorder? Why bother trying to recover from trauma and it's so that you can have days like I had today where everything just feels okay inside of you, because at the end of the day, that's all that really matters, is that you feel good inside. And when you feel good inside, you care less about what other people are thinking. What other people are saying. It was the first time that I didn't spend my entire trip at the beach just looking at the people around me, wondering what they would think. If I dared to get up and walk over to the water and put my toes in the water, I just did it. I just got up and did it because it was what I wanted to do. And it's so beautiful. And, you know, I know that this will resonate with a lot of you.

[00:18:58] And I want you to know that you can get to that spot too. It's a beautiful spot to be in. And I'm not saying that I will never struggle again. I think I absolutely will struggle again. I think that's just part of life, but all the hard work that I've done in trauma and in my eating disorder recovery has helped me get to this moment of truly loving the flesh that I was given, the meat on my body, the weird feet that I have, the you know, crooked smile that I have that some people probably have never noticed. And I notice all the time, I love all of it. And I might not tomorrow, I might wake up full of self-loathing, but today. It was a really, really healing moment for me.

[00:19:53] And I want you to know that wherever you're at right now with your body and with yourself, you deserve to wear a bathing suit that you fucking love, and you deserve to go to the beach and to sit and to not have to look around and make sure that people aren't looking at your rolls, you deserve to be able to get to the beach and to take your shorts off.

[00:20:18] And to not have to hide your thighs, be so thankful for this body that has gotten you through, if nothing else than just the last year alone of immense loss and sickness and fear and all the other horrible things that the pandemic has brought. Your body has kept you alive throughout it all. And if nothing else go to the beach and celebrate that and rock whatever body you have, because it is glorious, you are glorious and you deserve happiness.

[00:21:00] And that's all I have to say about that really. I mean, I know that's a long winded speech. It's a long winded spiel, but I hope that it can help inspire at least one of you in knowing that this summer you literally do not have to suffer or hide yourself. You deserve to be seen on the inside and the outside.

[00:21:24] So if this resonates with you, whether you are he or she or they, or anywhere in between, this is your sign that every single body is a beach body. And go where whatever bathing suit you want, have a wonderful summer. Everybody I'm still going to be here. I'm not going anywhere. Still going to be rolling out podcast episodes, but I love you all.

[00:21:53] From the bottom of my heart. I am so incredibly thankful for your support, for your loyalty, for listening, for being on this journey with me, the highs and the lows of recovery I am with you, you are with me. I feel it every day. And I just feel like I have thousands of new friends and. I'm really grateful.

[00:22:17] So thank you all. I love you all. If you haven't done so yet, please feel free to subscribe and leave a review and rating. Most important of those is a rating and subscription to the podcast. And yeah, that's all I got. Have a wonderful week. Go enjoy some sunshine and let's get a pop in the summer and our beach bodies. Love you all. Take care.

[00:22:47] Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to light after trauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram. We are at light after trauma and on Twitter. It is at light after pod. And if you're on Facebook, please be sure to join our Facebook group.

[00:23:07] It is a private community where trauma survivors are able to connect and chat with one another. That Facebook group is called light after traumas. So just look us up on Facebook and be sure to join. Lastly, please head over to patrion.com/light. After trauma to support our show, we are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

[00:23:32] So please head on over again. That's patrion.com/late after trauma. Thank you. And we appreciate your support.

Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media.

On Instagram. We are at @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter. It is @lightafterpod. And if you're on Facebook, please be sure to join our Facebook group. It is a private community where trauma survivors are able to connect and chat with one another. That Facebook group is called light after traumas. So just look us up on Facebook and be sure to join.

Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show, we are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over again. That's patrion.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you. And we appreciate your support.

Happy Pride Month! The month of June (and every month!) is a great time to celebrate the beauty of the LGBTQPIA+ community. In this week's episode, Alyssa notes that while we certainly have come a long way in gaining rights for the LGBTQPIA+ community, there is still very far to go in terms of achieving true equality. For example, many of our states still recognize the lethal "Gay Panic Defense". Alyssa also includes a personal note on her own experience with coming out for the first time this year.

Source Material:

https://people.com/human-interest/pride-month-explained-pride-month-facts/

https://lgbtqbar.org/programs/advocacy/gay-trans-panic-defense/

Donate to the Human Rights Campaign

Donate to The Trevor Project

Donate to the National Center for Transgender Equality

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/lightaftertrauma

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:24]:

Everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I'm your host Alyssa Scolari. Super excited to be here because it is Pride Month. And that is exactly what we are talking about. This episode, we are talking about Pride. We are talking about the importance of Pride, and we are talking about why we need to continue to advocate for the LGBTQ community. I'm really, actually, a little bit anxious about today's episode, because I am going to be talking about things that I have never spoken about before. And so I'm a little bit nervous as we get into it, but we are just going to dive right in. Although before we do that, just some housekeeping stuff. So if you have not done so already, please leave a review for the podcast. Reviews, ratings go such a long way in terms of helping the podcast to reach a greater audience. And I really feel strongly that everybody deserves some kind of access to free mental health education, information, and support.

Alyssa Scolari [01:43]:

So the more reviews and ratings we have, the greater access people can have to this podcast. And it would mean the world to me. So if you have not done so already, please do so. I would greatly appreciate it. Also, if you are interested in becoming a Patreon member, you can check out the show notes where you can just click right on the link and you can donate as little or as much as you would like to the podcast. You can become a monthly Patreon member, or you could just do a one time donation, anything would be greatly appreciated. And all of the money that you donate goes directly in to helping fund the podcast and helping to keep the machine going, essentially. It costs roughly anywhere from $800-$900 a month to fund this podcast, between all of the software that we have to pay for and the editing. That is what it costs. So, again, this is not me complaining about the price. I am really fortunate enough to be in a place where I can do this, but if you are able and willing to give any amount would be greatly appreciated.

Alyssa Scolari [03:04]:

I hope everyone is off to a grand old week. I am doing pretty good, had a good day today. It's kind of late when I'm recording this, it's about 9:30 at night, which is pretty late for me to be doing any sort of work. But I had a burst of energy and I felt like I had a lot to say. And I was like, "I'm just a little anxious about this discussion today. You know what, we're doing it." So I made myself a cup of hot tea and here we are chatting today. So I think that as I get into this conversation, people are going to have one of two thoughts. And I think the first thought people might have is, "Why are we talking about Pride and the LGBTQ+ community on a trauma focused podcast?" And the second question people might have is, "This podcast has been going on for almost two years and I've not heard anything like this. We've never talked about this on this podcast before. Why now? Why now?"

Alyssa Scolari [04:22]:

And I'm going to answer that question, but first we're going to answer the question of why is this topic on a trauma focused podcast? Truthfully, I don't know the background that you come from wherever you're listening from. I don't know. I do know this though. Some people think, they have this thought of like, "Oh, okay, it's 2022 and all LGBTQ+ people are accepted and there's no need for any of this Pride or anything like that." And then other people, I think, live in environments and communities where it's in their face every single day, just how far we still have to go in terms of getting equality for this community. Now I want to address the people who might feel like we do have equality because unfortunately we just don't. Things are becoming maybe a little bit better, although in some ways I absolutely question even that. It feels like we are going back decades.

Alyssa Scolari [05:40]:

I know that we're a little bit better in terms of representation, but we're still not there. Growing up, how likely are we to see, when we watch movies we see straight families. When we read books, it's about straight families. Everybody identifies as either male or female. The male and the female get together. They get married, they have children, they usually have one boy, one girl. Anytime we so much as maybe pick out Christmas cards and we're looking at stock images online and we see the same kind of family members in stock images. We see a man, we see a woman that we presume are the husband and the wife and then we see their very straight children. Non-gender, queer, male, female. What have you? It is so rare for any of us, even today to pick a movie out and have it be a movie where there are two dads or a movie where there are two moms or a movie where a child is transgender.

Alyssa Scolari [06:57]:

It's so rare to go on the internet and search family photos and see families that look any different than a man and a woman and their children. We still have churches who are vehemently against the LGBTQ community. I actually, today, saw an image surface as a reaction to Pride Month. Somebody who doesn't believe that LGBTQ folks should have rights, drew this photo and it's a response to the Pride rainbow flag. The rainbow that is the symbol of Pride and the symbol of LGBTQ folks. Somebody actually drew a picture of a man and a woman.

Alyssa Scolari [07:47]:

And in between the man and the woman, they're holding hands with their two kids. They're little stick figures and they're holding an umbrella and they're shielding themselves and their children from basically a rainbow flag, rain that looks like it's coming down. All that image is to say, "We don't believe in this. We don't respect these people. And we are going to do everything in our power to shield ourselves and our children from the LGBTQ community." It is still so dangerous out there for folks who identify as LGBTQPIA+. Homophobia and transphobia and the like have dated back for centuries and part of the reason, well, the main reason that we have Pride Month is because of what happened in the Stonewall Uprising. So for those of you who don't know, the date was June 28th, 1969 in New York City's West Village.

Alyssa Scolari [09:01]:

The police raided a very popular gay bar that was called the Stonewall Inn. Now this was super normal for the time. This was super normal. Police did raid gay bars and gay facilities and they got arrested and this time the patrons of the Stonewall Inn fought back. And what this started was a series of riots that went on for days of people protesting these riots, from people that were saying, "I deserve to have my rights. I deserve to be seen and heard. I deserve to have equality. And I matter." This was historic. And in fact, President Barack Obama in 2016, declared the Stonewall Inn a historic landmark, which is so cool because these Stonewall Riots were historic and they paved the way for people in the LGBTQ community to achieve their equality.

Alyssa Scolari [10:11]:

And then the year after the uprising was when the first Pride parade began and it was in June so that is where the tradition of Pride comes from. So it is so much more than just people getting together and saying, "Oh, Hey, we like the month of June." No, this is a yearly celebration. It's a yearly remembrance. It is an honor for the people who fought for LGBTQ community members to have their rights. So nearly 10 years after that was when the Pride flag was first created and it was created by a man named Gilbert Baker. And Gilbert was asked to create a symbol of Pride by a man whose name is Harvey Milk. Now Harvey Milk was the first openly gay elected politician in the United States. So he asked Gilbert to create a flag that symbolized Pride and we have the rainbow flag. Now the rainbow flag actually started out with a few more colors and then had less colors. Today, each of the colors stands for something very specific.

Alyssa Scolari [11:23]:

So according to a People article, red is the symbol of life. Orange is the symbol for healing. Yellow is symbolic for sunshine. Green is symbolic for nature. The blue is representative of harmony and the purple is representative of spirit. I believe the original flag was eight colors, but it is now six. As far as we've come, though, we still have so much further to go. I want to talk to you about something called the gay panic defense, and this is going to help you really get an understanding for just how far we have to go in terms of equality and just basic human rights for LGBTQ folks. So what is the panic defense, the LGBTQ panic defense or the gay panic defense? It is a freaking legal strategy and get ready because if you haven't heard of this is going to knock your fucking socks off. The gay panic defense is a legal strategy.

Alyssa Scolari [12:43]:

So basically what that strategy does is it asks a jury to take into account a victim's sexual orientation or their gender identity and take into account that their orientation or their identity is to blame for a defendant's violent reaction. Victim blaming much? And yes, you heard me correctly. Basically, gay panic is a legal strategy that is asking the jury to consider the fact that somebody being gay or somebody being transgender or non-binary is the reason and a good enough reason why somebody may have attacked them in a hate crime. It's basically like the offender is saying that they went like temporarily insane. They had a gay panic or a trans-panic that caused them to violently attack the victim. Tell me that's not abso-fucking-lutely insane.

Alyssa Scolari [13:57]:

And what's even more fucking insane is that this gay panic defense actually fucking works. It works. It has been used to get people off in the courts. People can attack people simply because they are lesbian or gay or transgender. They can then show up in court and they can say that they panicked because of somebody's gayness or because somebody's transgender and the jury can go, "Oh, okay. That sounds reasonable. You're off the hook because you had a gay panic." It makes my blood boil. It makes my blood boil. And the worst part about it is that the gay panic defense is only banned in 17 states in the United States. Meaning the rest of the country's, or I'm sorry, the rest of the states in the United States of America, if they aren't considering passing the gay panic defense, they've already passed it. The majority of the states in this country are perfectly fine with the gay panic defense. And that right there goes to show you why we need Pride Month and why we are talking about this on a trauma focused podcast.

Alyssa Scolari [15:22]:

Because people in the LGBTQ community are being murdered, are being targeted, are being killed simply because of who they are and our laws are basically saying that it's okay. According to lgbtqbar.org, in 2019 alone, there were 1,656 hate crimes. And this is just what we know of because there are so many more that go unreported. But just in 2019, there were 1,656 hate crimes against people for either their sexual orientation or their gender identity. And this statistic makes up 18.8% of hate crime incidents, like single bias hate crime incidents. According to research, also from lgbtqbar.org, one out of five lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the United States will experience a hate crime in their lifetime. And more than one out of four transgender people will. We know that transgender people are targeted and they're even more likely to be targeted if they are part of a non-white race. And I got to say, lately, it just feels like things are getting worse for the LGBTQ community and we need Pride more than ever.

Alyssa Scolari [16:51]:

I mean, look at what's happening in Florida with the 'Don't Say Gay' bill. And in Texas, where it is now considered a social services call to have a child seek transgender affirming care. It is just an absolute nightmare. And with greater and greater access to what's going on in the world through social media, kids are bearing witness to all of this and it is very clear to so many kids that it is still not safe for them to be who they are. We need Pride because there are kids and adults out there who would rather take their own lives than be out and proud about who they are because of the hate that exists and I see it every day in my practice. I see it. It is absolutely heartbreaking. There is little to no representation in schools. Teachers will get reprimanded if they say anything about it because it's considered a taboo topic, which it absolutely shouldn't be.

Alyssa Scolari [18:05]:

And overall, kids just feel so isolated, growing up feeling like there is nobody who represents them, feeling like it's not okay to be a part of the LGBTQ community and it is devastating. So we need Pride more than ever. And now I think to address the second question that I talked about in the beginning of this episode. The question being, why have I waited two years to talk about this? In August, the podcast will have been alive for two years, which boggles my mind to even say, and I haven't talked about this. And trust me, it's not because I don't care and it's not because it's low on my priority list. Anybody who knows me knows that the LGBTQ community is actually top priority for me. But what I'm going to say is this, and this is going to come with a warning. So if you are listening to this and you know me personally, I would think very carefully about how much you want to know about me, because I'm going to share some stuff.

Alyssa Scolari [19:35]:

So think about it. Feel free to hit pause and talk to me about it, because I know I have a lot of wonderful people in my life who listen to the podcast who know me personally, and you're going to learn some stuff. All right, there is your fair warning. If you are continuing to listen to this and you know me personally, you better come talk to me about this. So anyway, part of, I think, the reason why I haven't talked about this yet is you are going to notice a pattern with me, not really a pattern, but I only talk about things as I'm ready to talk about them. I bring to this podcast a level of vulnerability mixed in with my expertise and that vulnerability is really hard for me. And I have to be comfortable sharing, I have to be comfortable. And I haven't been comfortable because I have been grappling with basically where I fall in terms of the LGBTQ community.

Alyssa Scolari [20:50]:

Because quite honestly, I can't deny that I'm part of it. And I think it's taken me a long time to get to a place where I've been comfortable talking about it. And so I knew that one day I would share this, but I needed to give myself time to be ready and to feel comfortable and safe and secure. I grew up in this really small conservative Catholic town. Where it is so not that okay to be gay and looking back on the way I grew up, I would've never in a million years have admitted or even given myself the opportunity to explore the fact that I might be anything other than a straight, blonde girl, who's going to find a dark, tall, handsome husband and live happily ever after. I really didn't get to explore the different parts of me until I left my hometown.

Alyssa Scolari [22:14]:

And then I really got to reflect back on my childhood and as I did so, it really hit me that I am so not straight, so not straight. I definitely was interested in both women and men my whole life. I remember being a kid and being interested in women, but kind of writing it off and just ignoring that part of me because in my brain it was only okay to be attracted to men. And so looking back on it, I'm like, "Oh man, I was not straight. I liked women and I liked men." I was absolutely bisexual. And I remember being in high school and playing around a little bit with my gender. There was a time in high school, I think I was a sophomore. And I went to school dressing masculine and I changed my name.

Alyssa Scolari [23:31]:

And people were calling me Sam and I think I was definitely experimenting at the time. I remember it being like a joke with my friends and my friends were all calling me that. And I was just pretending to be a guy, whatever that means. I was acting more masculine, listen, it didn't last long. It maybe lasted a week before I was like, "Okay, this isn't me." But looking back on it that actually wasn't a joke. I was definitely experimenting with my gender. And I think that after that, I became pretty firm in my identity as a woman, with pronouns that feel comfortable to me, which are she and her, but I was still super unclear about my sexual preference. And looking back, I did some really questionable things in my childhood and my teenage years and my young adult years that I could look back on it now.

Alyssa Scolari [24:41]:

And I'm like, "Yeah, I don't know how nobody saw that one." Maybe people did. I don't know. I really don't know. I don't think so. But I just think it's so funny to look back on and like, "Man, there was no part of me that was a straight woman. I definitely swung both ways and I'm okay with it. I'm okay talking about it." That's the other thing we have to talk about. [inaudible 00:25:10] I'll touch on when it comes to bisexuality. Yes, I married a man. So me coming on here and talking about my preferences and who I'm attracted to doesn't make me any less in love with my husband. My husband is the person I am a 100% committed to, 110%. There's never a question of that. So I think that a lot of people have this idea in their heads that, "Oh, you know, you're already married, but then you're coming out as bisexual. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean that you don't want to be with your partner?"

Alyssa Scolari [25:45]:

None of that is true. Just because you find somebody and you get married doesn't mean that your sexual preference changes. I was bisexual before I got married. I just didn't know it and I'm still the same way. But the person that I choose to spend my life with is my husband. Doesn't mean that my sexual preferences or that who I'm attracted to has to change because I've gotten married. Just because you marry somebody doesn't mean you stop finding people attractive. No, that's not the case at all. So all that's to say, people who come out a little bit later in life as being bisexual after they're married or whatever, it doesn't mean anything about their marriage.

Alyssa Scolari [26:37]:

It doesn't mean anything at all. People who are bisexual, if they want to get married, well, chances are they're either going to marry a man or a woman or a non-binary person. But just because they marry a non-binary person doesn't mean all of a sudden they're no longer attracted to women. Just because they marry a non-binary person doesn't mean that they're no longer attracted to men. So I hope that makes sense. It has absolutely nothing to do with my marriage. David is the best thing that ever happened to me. I think that the importance of this kind of coming out for me is about claiming or reclaiming who I was when I didn't get the opportunity to be that person. I didn't get the opportunity to come to terms with that when I was younger, but I get to come to terms with it now. And it's really exciting and anxiety provoking. And it just feels like I'm letting the inner child in me have the freedom to label herself however she wants for the first time. And that is a beautiful thing. And that is part of why Pride matters.

Alyssa Scolari [28:09]:

That is part of why we fight to have equal rights. That is part of why we fight to be seen and heard and respected. So that's why it's taken me a little while to talk about this. I do things at my own paces. I have a lot of respect for myself and my process. And that is why it is not because I haven't cared or acknowledged it. Again, the people who are closest to me know how passionate I am and have always been about the LGBTQ community. And now I understand why, now I understand why. So, with that being said, what can we do? We know that people in the LGBTQ community are experiencing trauma and being denied their rights every single day, still we've come a long way. We have a lot further to go. I just encourage you to get involved and I don't know what that means for you. Maybe that looks like further education and research on this community. Maybe that looks like attending town halls.

Alyssa Scolari [29:24]:

Maybe that looks like attending parades or marches. Maybe that looks like donating. If you are able to donate, there are some amazing organizations that you can contribute to and they include the Human Rights Campaign, The Trevor Project and the National Center for Trans Equality, just to name a few. I will link those three in the show notes and I am also going to link the two articles that I used in today's episode. You can find all of that in the show notes. I hope that you enjoy today's episode. It was a tough one for me. It's hard to be this vulnerable. I thank you for listening. I thank you for being here. I hope you have a fantastic week and I am holding you in the light.

Speaker 2 [30:17]:

Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @lightaftertrauma, and on Twitter it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. To support our show, we are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you and we appreciate your support.

This week brings the final episode in a series of discussions on setting boundaries. Pulling from Nedra Glover Tawwab's book, Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself, this week's discussion centers on the following:

- 6 areas where setting boundaries is necessary - 3 steps to set healthy boundaries -What to do after setting boundaries -How to manage people's reactions to your boundaries

Order Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Tawwab Nedra Tawwab's Instagram: @nedratawwab

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/lightaftertrauma

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari:

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast, the full episode this week. I'm your host Alyssa Scolari, and I am so happy to be here for a full episode. If you listened to the mini episode that I put out last week, well, it wasn't even an episode. It was just a brief announcement. My husband and I have been recovering from COVID. We both went all this time without getting it, and then we went to a wedding. One of our really good friends got married, and the wedding was so much fun. But the next day, part of the wedding party had woken up and tested positive for COVID. And then a few days after, David tested positive for COVID, and then I tested positive.

Alyssa Scolari:

So it was not fun. I will say I am very glad that I have had the privilege of being both vaccinated and boosted, because I do not want to know what COVID would've looked like if I did not have the vaccine. It wasn't scary, but it was almost just like, "Whoa. I can't believe this feels this bad even with the vaccine." It felt like the flu. Thankfully, neither of us had to go to the hospital. Neither of us had any issues with breathing or anything like that. And we are both on the mend.

Alyssa Scolari:

Today is actually one of the first days that I have my voice back. And my voice might sound a little bit off. I don't know. It doesn't to me. But I had lost my voice and couldn't really work or do anything. So it's been a little relaxing, but also boring, but also just irritating being sick when it was Memorial Day weekend and then it was a really beautiful summer weather. And there was just so many things we wanted to do. And we were supposed to have a house warming party with all of our friends, and we had to cancel that. And it's just been a bummer.

Alyssa Scolari:

But again, I'm just very happy to be healthy and I'm very thankful that we are both on the mend. So thank you for bearing with me. There was no way I was going to be able to put out an episode, because I was just feverish and had no voice. But we are back with another part, well, another episode on boundaries. So it's like a three part series or a three episode series. I am fairly certain this will be the last one. We're going to see how much we get into today.

Alyssa Scolari:

But if you have not listened to the other two episodes, you can go back and listen. We are talking about boundaries. And a lot of the information that I am sharing today is going to be based off of Nedra Tawwab's book Set Boundaries, Find Peace. And that is the same book that I used in the previous two episodes. Boundaries, as I've said before and I'll say it again, I believe, are the most important tool for not just healing from trauma, but for honestly just existing and living a peaceful life.

Alyssa Scolari:

That's more of a personal belief. I think a lot of people would agree with me, honestly. So we're talking about it, because as important as they are, it's also incredibly difficult for us to set them.

Alyssa Scolari:

So in the first episode that we did about boundaries, we talked a lot about what are they and why are they so important and what types of boundaries exist out there. And then in the second episode, so the episode that went out two weeks ago, we talked about why it is so difficult for us to set boundaries and how we can look past that, how we can push past our fears and our anxieties that come up around setting boundaries.

Alyssa Scolari:

Today, we are going to get a little bit more into the nitty gritty of how specifically do I do this with the people in my life. All right. So let's get right into it.

Alyssa Scolari:

So in the first episode that we did, we talked about how there are three different types of boundaries, right? There's rigid, porous, and healthy. Well, in addition to that, there are six different areas in life where it's very important to be able to set boundaries, right?

Alyssa Scolari:

Now, number one, and this is going to come as no surprise to many people, it's important to set sexual boundaries. That is very important. Now, of course, I should note this. You cannot set sexual boundaries where there is a crime occurring. So a child cannot set a sexual boundary with an adult when there is sexual assault or rape going on or child sexual abuse.

Alyssa Scolari:

That is not what we are talking about. We are talking about consensual sex. Boundaries are important. Being able to communicate with your partner or partners what you do, like, what you don't like, or even just saying, "No, thank you. I am not in the mood to have sex right now," or even just being able to ask the other person, "Can you tell me what you like? Do you like it when I do this?," right? That is a discussion of, "Hey, what are your boundaries, so that I know what they are, so that I don't cross them?" So sexual boundaries.

Alyssa Scolari:

Then there are time boundaries. So this is, I think, a huge one for so many people, right? Classic example is the person who is constantly picking up the phone for everybody else, but then, at the end of the day, has no time left over for themselves. Time boundaries.

Alyssa Scolari:

And then physical boundaries. This, I often think of as even public displays of affections. Some people don't mind. Some people hate it. I'm not a huge PDA person. I don't particularly enjoy it, right? So let's say you're in a relationship with a partner who is always kissing you in front of everyone and always wants to rub your back. It's very important to be able to set those boundaries and say, "Please do not rub my back in public. It makes me uncomfortable."

Alyssa Scolari:

And other physical boundaries can also just be, even when it comes to children, right, for allowing your child to say when they want to hug somebody and when they don't. Or even as adults, there are times where I will see the same group of friends, and I love them, but I might not necessarily be in the mood for hugging or physical touch. So sometimes, I will hug everybody in the room. Sometimes, I will not. And it's okay. Nobody really bats an eyelash either way, because everybody is cool with respecting one another's boundaries. So those are physical boundaries.

Alyssa Scolari:

We have sexual, time, physical, and then we have intellectual boundaries. Intellectual boundaries, this can be a little bit more complex. But the best way I can put it is by giving examples. So an intellectual boundary can be crossed with a child if an adult is having an inappropriate conversation with a child, right? If a young child is learning about something sexual before they are ready to hear that, or even in the case of oversharing, right? If parents are fighting and the one parent turns the child and starts venting to the child about the other parent, that is crossing an intellectual boundary.

Alyssa Scolari:

Now, between adults, this can look a little bit differently. So this can look like belittling people for what their beliefs are, mocking people for their beliefs. I've seen a lot of people mock Christianity. And while I personally do believe that parts of Christianity can be harmful depending on the interpretation of the Bible, because everybody interprets the Bible differently, that's an episode for another time. But a lot of people mock Christianity and they mock Christians, and that can be an intellectual boundary. Or I've seen it reversed. I've seen people who are Christian mock people who have no belief. A lot of people like to mock people who are Jewish. They belittle their faith.

Alyssa Scolari:

So it happens across the board. Whether you believe in something don't believe in something, no matter what religion you are, this happens. And that is an intellectual boundary violation, as is when people will shut down over disagreements. So let's say that you're in a disagreement with somebody, and let's say you're in a little disagreement over what restaurant you want to go to. And the one person's like, "Oh, I want to go to Applebee's." And the other person's like, "Well, I want to go to Wendy's." And you talk for a little while and you decide, "All right, we're going to Applebee's." Well, you get there and you sit down with the other person and they're completely quiet, and they're on their phone the whole time, and they're not looking at you, and they're making zero communication. They're just completely shut down. That is an example of an intellectual boundary violation. I am denying you the right to have communication with me, to have an intellectual discussion with me, because I'm mad at you. It's a passive aggressive boundary violation.

Alyssa Scolari:

So there are also emotional boundary violations where people can dismiss your feelings, or people will turn around and spill your secrets. You share something, you share the way you feel with somebody, and then they tell you they're not going to say anything, but then they go home and then they call their friend right away and they tell their friend. And before you know it, half the world knows your secret. Those are emotional boundary violations. Gossip is an emotional boundary violation, things like that.

Alyssa Scolari:

And then there are material boundary violations. So people going through your journal or destroying your property, or people borrowing your car and not filling it up with gas when they return it to you, or people using your kitchen and making an absolute mess that you have to go clean up, those are material violations. You holding something in your hand and somebody wants to see it, so they just snatch it out of your hand without asking you when that thing belongs to you, that is a material violation.

Alyssa Scolari:

So those are some of the categories. Well, those are the main categories that boundaries can fall into when it comes to setting them. So let's talk about what it means to set a boundary.

Alyssa Scolari:

In order to set a boundary, you have to have good communication. And there are four different ways that you can communicate. You can communicate passively, passive aggressively, aggressively, or assertively.

Alyssa Scolari:

Now, passive communication is you really don't say anything. What passive means is you sit on the feelings and you eat your own feelings and sit with them because you don't want those feelings to come out. So you just keep it to yourself and deal with it and don't say anything.

Alyssa Scolari:

Passive aggressive is when you do things to get the other person to notice that you are upset, or you try to deny the other person something. You harm the relationship without directly saying exactly what's wrong. We've talked about passive aggressive behaviors in the other two episodes, so we're not going to really get into examples. But I'm pretty sure we all know what passive aggressive behavior is. It's that person who is trying to communicate that something's wrong, but they'll never actually come out and say something's wrong. They will just act in different ways or say different things that let you know that there's an issue.

Alyssa Scolari:

And then there's aggressive communication, which can be threatening and can involve yelling or cursing, or it can even become physical.

Alyssa Scolari:

And then there's assertive. This, again, I'm sure is a no brainer. We want the assertive communication. Assertive communication, it's not passive, not passive aggressive. It's not aggressive. It is none of those things. But instead, it is clear, it is firm, and it is unapologetic, and it is also respectful. And that is something that I think people struggle with a lot when they're triggered. It's really, really hard to come across as assertive when they are upset or triggered. I know it is for me, which is why I think taking time, when you're getting ready to set a boundary with somebody, taking time, jotting down, what you want to say, thinking about it, maybe tweaking it a little bit, I think that that is helpful for me when I have to set a boundary, because if not, then my words can come out...

Alyssa Scolari:

I'm trying to think. I feel like I want to say I could be aggressive, not in a physical way, but probably in a verbal way, because all my emotions flood out of me. So assertive behavior is the way to go.

Alyssa Scolari:

So how do we do that? Step one is all about your tone and your use of language. So again, it is so important to have a neutral tone. You don't have to be super animated. And I think this is where I struggle, because I'm a little bit more animated. And sometimes, that can come off as aggressive or too much. It is so important to be neutral, but also very, very clear.

Alyssa Scolari:

And you don't want to have too much jargon. You want to be really, really concise. Some people, because they get so nervous when they're setting boundaries, they tend to just talk and talk and talk. And I absolutely used to do this, right? If somebody asked me if they could borrow my laptop and I didn't want them to, I would say, "Well, I spent a lot of money on this laptop. And in order for me to really feel comfortable giving it away, I have to know what you're going to be doing on it. How long are you going to need it for? If you're going to need it for more than 30 seconds, it's going to be really hard for me, because I have to do this and that." And I would just go on and on and on, as opposed to being straight to the point.

Alyssa Scolari:

And when you go on and on and you have too much jargon, people might not get it, or people are going to see loopholes. People are going to say, "Okay, well you said this. So if I do this, then can I have the laptop?" So you want to be concise. You want to cut the jargon. You want to have a neutral tone.

Alyssa Scolari:

And here's the other thing, and this is a hard one for some people. You don't want to say things like, "Maybe," "Kind of," "I don't know," right? This goes into step number two, right? And step number two is directly stating your need. So number one, being clear and neutral and concise. Number two is directly stating your need. And in doing both of those things, we really want to leave out the language that suggests that you could possibly change your mind. I really like to let people down easily. So I am famous for being like, "I don't really think so," or "Not at this time," or, "Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we'll be able to go, or, "Maybe not now. Maybe some other time. I am famous for that, because I don't want to sound mean by setting a boundary.

Alyssa Scolari:

But here's the thing that I need to remember and that you need to remember, and that is that setting boundaries, it's not a mean thing at all. It is a way to give you the peaceful and happy life that you want. And if somebody can't respect your boundaries, that is a sign that you needed to set those boundaries in the first place.

Alyssa Scolari:

So I have really been practicing on this one. And I set a boundary with a family member a few months ago. They asked me to go somewhere, and I didn't want to go. I didn't feel comfortable. I didn't feel safe going. And so normally. I would feel the need to be like, "Oh, well, we have plans and we can't go because blah, blah, blah." But instead, I directly said, "Thank you for the offer. We can't make it. Have a good time."

Alyssa Scolari:

Now, this person did not respect my boundary in the slightest. And this person said some pretty nasty stuff back. But it doesn't matter, because I did what I needed to do to keep myself safe. And quite frankly, this person reacting the way they did was really no surprise, because I needed to set that boundary a long time ago.

Alyssa Scolari:

So let's go into a few more examples. How about somebody, the person in your family who's constantly talking about weight and in front of you, right? You go out to dinner with somebody and they're like, "Oh, I got to get back to it tomorrow. And Monday, I'm going to step on the scale again." You can say something like, "I feel uncomfortable when you talk about weight. Please stop."

Alyssa Scolari:

Let's say you have a roommate or a friend or even a child who borrows your car, and they come back and they never have the tank filled up. You can say, "I need you to fill my car up with gas after you use it." That's it. You're not even asking, right? You don't even want to ask, because then you give people the option of saying no. Some people will try to set boundaries by being like ... And by some people, I totally mean me, right? Some people will be like, "Oh, well, do you think that you could please fill up my car with gas?" You give them the option to say no. There should not be an option to say no when it comes to you setting a boundary for yourself. You are directly stating your need or your request, or you're directly saying no.

Alyssa Scolari:

So again, this might sound harsh, especially for those of us who struggle with setting these, but these tools are life saving. And you have to remember and tell yourself over and over and over again that you are not being mean.

Alyssa Scolari:

Let's say you have a family member who loves to talk. Let's say your mom. Let's say your mom. Let's say you have a brother, and your mom loves to talk to you and gossip to you about your brother. Your mom's always complaining about your brother, your brother this, your brother that, "Your brother never comes around anymore. I haven't seen your brother in weeks," things like that. And you don't want to hear it anymore. All you have to say is, "Mom, I really don't like it when you talk to me about my brother. Please stop." And that's it. That is it. You are not at all being mean when you say those things.

Alyssa Scolari:

The biggest fear here, when you make a request, when you say no, when you state a need, the biggest fear is in how people are going to respond, which is why step three is dealing with the emotions that come after setting the boundary, whether that be guilt, whether that be anxiety, whether that be fear or awkwardness or discomfort.

Alyssa Scolari:

And Nedra makes a really good point in her book Set Boundaries, Find Peace. She makes a really good point of saying, "It's almost impossible to set boundaries without guilt, because we live in a society that has just set us up to feel like we need to give of ourselves all the time, because when we give of ourselves, we have nothing left over for us. And therefore we get sicker, and therefore this world profits off of us. So it really is like a win-win situation for the world that we live in for us to not have boundaries."

Alyssa Scolari:

So in a society that teaches us that boundaries are mean, it's not really likely that you're going to be able to set them without guilt. I have yet to set a boundary without feeling some level of guilt, and I always have to work through it. Guilt, awkwardness, fear, discomfort, it's so important to work through that. And how do you do that? By telling yourself a lot of what we're talking about, by reminding yourself of what we are talking about here today.

Alyssa Scolari:

Another thing that really helps for me is to talk to my therapist about it, because my therapist is really good at reassuring me. So talk, if it's not to your therapist, talk to somebody else who really understands boundaries and who gets it. But for the love of God, please don't talk to somebody who isn't good with boundaries, because if you do that, you're only going to feel worse. I would make the mistake all the time of talking to somebody.

Alyssa Scolari:

I would set a boundary with somebody, and I'd feel really guilty. So I'd pick up the phone and call somebody who also was terrible at setting boundaries. And then they would be like, "Oh, well, why did you do that? That sounded a little bit mean." And then I would feel horrible and I would backtrack in my boundary setting.

Alyssa Scolari:

So think about if it's bringing stuff up from childhood. Talk to your therapist about it. Ask yourself, "What does this mean about me? Where is this coming from? Did I get yelled at when I was younger for setting boundaries? Was I allowed to have boundaries when I was younger?" For a lot of us, this boundary work is childhood trauma recovery, because a lot of us wouldn't know a boundary if we fell over it when we were younger. The majority of us have had our boundaries violated over and over again as children. So it's so important to seek support when you are setting boundaries.

Alyssa Scolari:

If the boundary ruins the relationship, I hate to say this, but the relationship was doomed anyway. It really was. I have set so many boundaries, especially this past year. And in some cases, those boundaries have worked out just fine and I've gotten through it. And in other cases, those boundaries ruined the relationship. And you know what? I'm not even surprised, because that relationship was doomed anyway. The important thing is to not assume that it's your fault.

Alyssa Scolari:

But here's the thing. Don't assume that people in general aren't going to honor your boundaries. Go into this with the attitude that, "Why wouldn't people respect my boundaries?" Assume people are going to honor your boundaries and act normally, because when you start assuming people are going to behave weirdly, then you almost set yourself up for another self-fulfilling prophecy. And we've talked about self-fulfilling prophecies in a previous episode. You set yourself up to then you almost end up making the situation uncomfortable, because you think it's going to be awkward. So then you bring a level of awkwardness to it. So then it is awkward.

Alyssa Scolari:

So don't go into it assuming anything. If anything, try to go into setting boundaries completely detached from how people are going to react. Try to detach yourself. Try to not take any kind of responsibility or even give a whole lot of energy to people's reactions, because if you do keep giving energy to it, it's going to make you not want to set the boundary. And then it's going to just keep you in a relationship that isn't fully serving you. So try not to be so tied to the way other people are going to react, because you're not setting this boundary to see somebody's reaction. You're setting this boundary so that you can feel safer in the relationship. So you don't need to give your energy to how people are going to react. Easier said than done, I know.

Alyssa Scolari:

But it's also important to just be okay with how people react. Like I said, it's not personal. Their reactions, their emotions, they're entitled to. They're entitled to all of it. Everybody's entitled to their opinion. Everybody. But it doesn't mean that their emotions are or opinions is something that you need to take on.

Alyssa Scolari:

Now, when you set a boundary, it is so important, because honestly, setting the boundary, just setting it, I hate to say this, but that's actually one of the easier things to do when it comes to boundary work, setting it first. All right. Great. You did it. The real hard work comes in in upholding the boundary. You need to religiously uphold your boundary, right?

Alyssa Scolari:

If you have a friend that's like, "Hey, can you come out tonight?" "No, thank you. I want to stay inside tonight. I'm not really in the mood to go out." Your friend's like, "Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?" You need to say no time and time and time again. Or in the case of a friend who is borrowing your car, when you say, "I need you to fill the car up with gas when you return it to me," let's say this person says, "Okay. No problem." They borrow the car the next week. They bring the car back, and there's no gas in it. Do you let it go? No. Not even just for one time do you let it go, because, remember, people thrive off of you not having boundaries. If you give people an inch, they will take it a mile. That is just human nature. It doesn't mean they don't love you. It's just human nature. So if you set a boundary and somebody violates that boundary even one time, you need to call it out immediately.

Alyssa Scolari:

You try not to take it personally, right? Because for a lot of people, boundary violations, it's not about you. It could be about other people living out some other childhood stuff, right? Testing limits, kids love to test limits. So do adults. We never grow out of that. It's not personal. But it is your responsibility to religiously uphold that boundary.

Alyssa Scolari:

"Hey, Mom. I know I told you last week when we talked on the phone that I don't want to hear you talking about my brother anymore. I have to ask you again to please stop." Now, if that person still doesn't respect that, "Hey, friend. I asked you when we were at dinner last week to please refrain from talking about weight. It makes me uncomfortable. I also asked you two weeks ago. And you're still doing this."

Alyssa Scolari:

Well, now, what do you do? Well, now, you kind of ... Not kind of, right? There I go again with my indirect language. You put in a consequence, not necessarily punitive, right? Not really punitive sounding, but a consequence that's going to protect you. "Jim, if you return my car again and the gas tank isn't full, I'm not going to let you take my car anymore," "If you continue to talk to me about my brother while we're on the phone, Mom, I'm going to hang up the phone. And that will be the end of our conversation," "If, Susie, you continue to talk to me about weight while we're out to dinner, I'm going to get up and leave the restaurant." That is when you bring those consequences in.

Alyssa Scolari:

And again, you have to reinforce them and uphold them. That is one of the hardest parts about boundaries, because people might say yeah when you set that boundary the first time, but people almost always love to test limits in some way, shape, or form. Not everybody.

Alyssa Scolari:

So that is where we are at. If somebody's not respecting your boundary, you have to call it out, "I asked you to do this. You are not doing it. And if you continue to not do that, this is what's going to happen." People might react in all different ways, right? People might get defensive. They might start questioning you. They're going to test the limits. People might be passive aggressive. They might ghost you. They might give you the silent treatment or just give you very short responses. And again, it's so important to remember that their reaction is not about you. It is never about you.

Alyssa Scolari:

Ultimately, boundaries can solve a lot of relationship problems, but both people have to be open to listening and meeting the other person's each other's requests, really. If that's the case, then boundaries can be so beneficial in relationships.

Alyssa Scolari:

Again, right, Brene Brown has said it best. The temporary discomfort that you experience from setting boundaries is so much better than the long term resentment that will come from not setting them.

Alyssa Scolari:

So with that said, that wraps up our boundary talk. I'm so excited. I thought that was really, really good and really fun to talk about. And I hope that it is so helpful. It's really helpful for me, really helpful. And I'm very happy to be back and recording. I've got some other good episodes this month.

Alyssa Scolari:

It is Pride Month. I didn't say that in the beginning of the episode, but happy Pride Month. I hope it's a great Pride Month for everybody.

Alyssa Scolari:

And I hope that everybody is doing okay. I know that if you are living in the United States, you are probably devastated and still healing from learning of the shooting in Texas of the school children and teachers. I'm just speechless. And I'm at a loss for words. And I feel helpless and hopeless. And it feels like the only thing that I can do is donate money and vote when it comes time. But I don't know. I just feel really hopeless living in this country right now. And there's a big part of me that wants to move. And the gun violence just terrifies me and I'm terrified for the future children of this world. And I could go on. I could go on. I just have a lot of anxiety and a lot of grief. And my heart is so heavy, and I'm so angry. And I know so many of us feel this way.

Alyssa Scolari:

So I'm with you. We stand together, and we will hold each other up. And thoughts and prayers don't really do anything for those victims. Thoughts and prayers aren't doing it anymore for the continued mass shootings in this country. It's just heinous. I don't know what the answer is, but I know I will be voting and I will be donating to who I can. And if there's anything else that anybody can think that we can do to help or that I can do to help, please let me know. You know where to find me.

Alyssa Scolari:

And if you don't know where to find me, it's on Instagram, or you can go to the website, which is LightAfterTrauma.com. And the Instagram handle for the podcast is Light After Trauma. We've got some good content on there, so come check us out. If you message me, I will respond to you directly, because I do get the messages. So, yeah. Come say hi.

Alyssa Scolari:

I hope you enjoyed this episode. I will be back next week with another episode. And until then, I am holding you in the light.

Alyssa Scolari:

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information, please head over to LightAfterTrauma.com, or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @LightAfterTrauma, and on Twitter, it is @LightAfterPod.

Alyssa Scolari:

Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/LightAfterTrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/LightAfterTrauma. Thank you, and we appreciate your support.

Speaker 2:

(Singing).

This week was scheduled to be another episode in the series on setting boundaries, however, Covid seemed to have other plans.

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/lightaftertrauma

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Light After Trauma podcast. Although we do not have an episode for you today. I am so sorry. I know we were supposed to continue the conversation about boundaries and I had some great things to share with you, but David and I partied a little too hard this weekend and by partied, I mean, we had a wedding. One of our closest friends got married and it was the best time ever, but we both got COVID. So we have been sick and I have not been up for recording a full length episode. We are recovering, we made it all this time without getting COVID and now we have it. Luckily so far, our symptoms are pretty mild, so it's nothing too bad, but we are just resting and recovering. So there will be no episode today, but I will be back next week, hopefully better than ever excited to talk to you some more about boundaries. So take good care. I hope you have a wonderful week and I am holding you in the light.

In this week's episode, Alyssa continues the important discussion from last week surrounding boundaries. Pulling from Nedra Glover Tawwab's book, Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself, this week's discussion centers on the following:

• Different ways people might react to setting boundaries
• Why we are often afraid to set boundaries
• How we can push past our fears around setting boundaries

Nedra Tawwab's Instagram: @nedratawwab

Order Set Boundaries, Find Peace — Nedra Tawwab

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/lightaftertrauma

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:00]:

Hey everybody, what's up? Welcome back to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I'm your host Alyssa Scolari, talking about boundaries today. This is the part two of a series that we are doing on boundaries. In the first episode, which if you haven't listened to, I highly recommend you go back and check that out. In that first episode, we talked about what are boundaries and why do we need them, why are they so important. We also talked about the different types of boundaries: porous, rigid, and healthy. And we also talked about some of the biggest areas in which people tend to struggle with boundaries the most.

Alyssa Scolari [01:08]:

As I mentioned in last week's episode, so much of this information is taken from a book that I highly recommend. It is called Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Tawwab, and you can also listen to it on Audible if you're not a big reader and you'd rather listen. I listen to the book on Audible. You can go look in the show notes, if you want access to the book, or if you want to follow Nedra on Instagram. She's absolutely amazing therapist and does awesome work with boundaries. And I said this last week, but it is worth repeating, I personally believe that boundaries are the most important tool that you can have with you, not just for healing from trauma, but throughout your entire life.

Alyssa Scolari [01:58]:

That being said, I also personally believe it's one of the hardest things to do, and it brings up a lot of feelings for people. I feel like I should probably say that. It's really, really hard, particularly for survivors of trauma who have been taught that our needs don't matter. And again, I speak about all of this in the last week's episode, so feel free to go and check that out if you haven't already. That being said, if you haven't listened to it, I don't think that you necessarily do need to listen to it in order to benefit from this episode. I think you can kind of just dive right in today with the rest of us.

Alyssa Scolari [02:39]:

So just some housekeeping things. I actually know, I started off last week's episode by talking about how I had gone no contact with my family. I know that I've been talking for the last couple of weeks about how I've been struggling a lot with depression, and then some things happened and I went no contact with my family and just wanted to follow up and say that I am hanging in there. I'm doing all right. I think that I'm better than I've been in a long time. I'm taking space and time to grieve and to give myself grace. But overall, I think I am better than I've been in a really long time. So feeling good, feeling energized, excited to be out of that depressive funk. It was awful. So really excited to be out of that, really excited to just have a new kind of zest for life.

Alyssa Scolari [03:44]:

It's been really hot here where I live, so I've been staying hydrated, trying to stay cool, but I've also gotten a chance to really enjoy the outdoors. I've been posting pictures on my Instagram, so if you have an Instagram and you want to go check it out, my Instagram is Light After Trauma. And our backyard is looking amazing. We have been building it into this little like oasis and we have tons of plants with really bright, happy flowers. And then we made this giant... Well, not giant, but we made this patio space and we have a little waterfall and we got a fire pit and we got furniture. And then we got string lights that hang above the patio. So at night, you sit out there with a fire on and the sounds of the waterfall and the beautiful lights, and it is just dreamy. It is so dreamy.

Alyssa Scolari [04:45]:

I have been having the most fun with David making our backyard the perfect oasis. We have a very small yard. I, by no means, want to come across as acting like we have this giant yard because we really don't. It's super tiny, but we have absolutely made the most of the space, and I just couldn't be more thrilled. So I highly recommend that you go check it out. I mean, if you're into that sort of thing.

Alyssa Scolari [05:15]:

So that's been really fun. And then on the EMDR front, because I have not given anyone an EMDR update in a while. So those of you who might remember, a few months ago, I had told you that I was getting ready to start EMDR. And if that is a new word or a new acronym for you, I do an episode with LCSW Melissa Parks on the podcast, that you can go check it out and see what EMDR is. It is a treatment for trauma, and it's supposed to be a highly effective treatment for trauma, one in which you aren't necessarily required to talk about your memories bit by bit. And it really, as far as I understand, helps to rewire your brain. I have heard from so many people that EMDR is absolutely life changing and I am starting it for myself. And if I love it and I feel that it's really effective and really great, I am going to go ahead and then get trained in it for my clients.

Alyssa Scolari [06:19]:

Speaking of which, I am accepting new clients right now. So if you are living in the states of Florida or New Jersey, and soon to be Massachusetts, feel free, you can reach out to me. If you are interested in working together, or if you know anybody who needs therapy, feel free to reach out. I'd love to work with you. I'm excited to finally be accepting new clients, but I digress.

Alyssa Scolari [06:44]:

So back to the EMDR, I had started with a guy a couple of months ago at this point, I want to say like March and he kept... Well, first of all, he didn't show up for our second appointment. But aside from that, he kept messing up the times of our appointments. He would text me and say, "Hey, what time are we meeting?" Like, several times. Once in a while, of course, whatever, all therapists are human, but this was several times right out of the gate when we started working together. And it was starting to stir up some abandonment stuff in me, because I'm like, why doesn't this person care enough to write down when we're meeting? So I ended my treatment with that person and I was really proud of myself because I didn't just ghost. It's easier, I think in some ways to ghost, but I actually stated very clearly what my issue was. So I was really proud of myself for doing that. And then I found another therapist that I met with and it just wasn't a good match at all.

Alyssa Scolari [07:57]:

This therapist had said something that I found offensive, and I tried to give that person the benefit of the doubt. But then as the session went on, this person wasn't necessarily fully listening to my answers to the questions that I was being asked. They would ask me a question, but then as I would answer it, they would be not even looking at me, on another computer, typing out the answer to the previous question. So then they would get done typing, I've already answered their next question, and then they would look at me and be like, "Oh, what'd you say again?" And I was like, "Ooh, ooh, I don't... I don't like this." It just didn't feel good. It's a personal preference. I don't like when somebody's looking at a computer screen the whole time when I'm sharing intimate details of my trauma. I don't like it. It makes me feel unsafe.

Alyssa Scolari [08:58]:

So I found somebody new and I met with this new person on last week, I don't know, one day, but I absolutely loved her. There were no red flags for me. I felt comfortable and I'm really looking forward to working with this person. So I am really hoping that it works out. And honestly, this just goes to show you that you are allowed to be super picky when it comes to a therapist. I know I've done episodes like this in the past, but I just want to reiterate, you can and should be picky with your therapist. Do not settle. If there's something in you, that's like, "Hey, this isn't quite right." You have to go with that feeling. And because I went with those feelings in my gut, I have now found somebody who I think is going to be a really, really good fit for me.

Alyssa Scolari [09:53]:

So I'm really excited about that. So I will keep you all posted. I haven't officially gotten into the EMDR stuff yet, but I will let you know how that process goes. It's supposed to be really difficult and really tiring. It gets a lot worse before it gets better, but I'm really looking forward to it nonetheless. So I will keep you all posted.

Alyssa Scolari [10:16]:

Okay. So getting right back into it today, we are talking more about boundaries and just some more information why people don't set boundaries, what the fear is around setting boundaries, and how to appropriately deal with that fear. As I talked about in the last week's episode, there are so many reasons why we need boundaries. And people experiencing burnout and stress and conflict in their relationships, they are just a few of the many, many reasons. One thing that I did not mention last week is we talk about burnout and how burnout is a direct... Well, not always direct, but it is more often than not, a sign of having poor boundaries. And one of the places where people tend to experience burnout and difficulty with boundaries in general is in the work field, the workforce, particularly when we talk about doctors.

Alyssa Scolari [11:24]:

So according to Nedra Tawwab in her book Set Boundaries, Find Peace, burnout from doctors and surgeons costs this country $4.6 billion a year, $4.6 billion. How does that happen? You might be asking, how does burnout cost money? Well, it cost money because as a result of burnout, doctors are making medical mistakes and misdiagnoses that will then go on to cost, whether in the form of having to redo tests or rewrite prescriptions, or even in the form of lawsuits. It will cost $4.6 billion. So there is no question here like, are boundaries important? Can we live without them? We can't. We ultimately can't live a healthy life without them, quite literally. It can cost some people their lives. It can cost some people their careers. It can cost people their relationships.

Alyssa Scolari [12:36]:

Boundaries are really uncomfortable to set. They are really, really scary. But as Brené Brown has once said, and this is also taken directly from Nedra's book, "Sometimes we need to choose that temporary discomfort over eventual long term resentment." So yes, boundaries will create this temporary discomfort, but it's preferred over this long term resentment where you start to resent your job, or you start to resent your partner, or you start to resent your friend or whatever it may be. The short term discomfort is much more desired, quite honestly, and experiencing that temporary discomfort is only one of the many reasons in which for why people are afraid to set boundaries. There are other reasons that people are afraid of setting boundaries. And one of those reasons is like, I have a fear of being rejected. This one is definitely true for me. I think that I am afraid of every reason for not setting boundaries that you could possibly have. Like, I have all of them. Fear of rejection or possible abandonment. Is this person going to leave me? Is this person going to reject me? Are they going to walk away from me?

Alyssa Scolari [14:03]:

Another reason is assuming it's not going to work, "Ah, it's not going to work. You don't know this person." I often get this response. When I talk about setting boundaries with people, I often will get this like, "Ah, you don't know this person." Like, they've been stuck in their ways for years and there's no use in asking them to change now. It's not going to be effective. I personally think that that's a cop out. I really do. Because you can't predict how somebody's going to react, and you can say that they're not going to change, but ultimately you don't know unless you start reinforcing that boundary.

Alyssa Scolari [14:51]:

So I sort of think that this one is a little bit of a cop out. Like I can see that this is a genuine reason why, and I too have said to... You know, I have found myself saying to my therapist like, "Oh, you know, this person's never going to change. There's no point in trying to set a boundary." And honestly, when I look back at it, I'm like, that was such a cop out. I just was afraid. I was just afraid.

Alyssa Scolari [15:14]:

So that is another reason. An additional reason is you get your value from helping others. This is going to ring true for my people pleasers out there. If you get your value from helping others, we need to look at that. We need to reevaluate. I find this to be true with so many folks, especially those who didn't get their needs met in childhood. We have been taught that it is our job to serve others, to be there for others. And eventually, we learn that our worth lies in what we can do for other people. If you get your value from helping other people, it's definitely something to look at. That's not to say that you shouldn't enjoy helping others. You can, but when you get to a point where you feel like you're not good enough, as long as you are not helping somebody, then we've got to talk about that because you are worthy just as you are. You're worth does not depend on what you do.

Alyssa Scolari [16:23]:

Another reason people don't set boundaries is because they feel mean doing it. They feel like people are mean, or they feel like what they're doing is going to be mean. It could be that they feel like other people are mean, but that kind of falls under the same category as rejection. This is more like, you know, I feel like I'm being mean by saying, "Hey, I can't pick up the phone right now. I know it's 10:00 o'clock. I know you're having a panic attack. I'm sorry, I can't pick up the phone." That is so hard to do, and I completely understand why it feels mean. I too have been there. Being a therapist, people will reach out to me for advice all of the time. Well, a little less so now, because my boundaries are so much better.

Alyssa Scolari [17:12]:

But I remember one time, I had a friend who was in a very abusive relationship, and this person would call me all the time or text me all the time and ask me for advice, for support, or help. Would even ask me to talk to their partner. Like, "Hey, please talk to this person, please. You know, you're a therapist, please try to knock some sense into this person." And you know what? Back then, years ago, I felt like I had to. When this person would text me at 10:00 o'clock at night, telling me that they had to leave the house because their partner was throwing an abusive fit, I felt like I had to pick up the phone and talk. When this person would say, "Hey, can you please talk to my partner? My partner really needs help, they're being abusive." I felt like I had to. I would pick up the phone, I would talk to my friend, I would talk to their partner. I would quite literally be doing like couples therapy things, which I should have never done.

Alyssa Scolari [18:18]:

Again, I wasn't really doing therapy, but it was just like, I was giving advice. I was filling a role that they should have had a therapist fill. And I started to feel a lot of resentment. I started to feel like I was only useful to this person so long as I was giving them some kind of advice on what they can do with their partner. And guess what? That person never took any of my advice, never, ever took any of my advice. Over time, I started to feel a ton of resentment, but I could not set that boundary because I felt mean. I felt mean. Eventually, the level of resentment that I had outweighed any fear I had of being mean and I finally set that boundary and was like, "Hey, I can't do this. You know, I've been doing my best, but like, I can't. I'm burnt out, I'm spent." And you know what? I felt really mean doing it and guess what? That person, we don't actually talk anymore. But the reason we don't talk isn't because I was mean. Setting limits for yourself is not a mean thing.

Alyssa Scolari [19:33]:

As I said in last week's episode, you have to set those limits because people thrive off of you not setting boundaries. People love that because then you give and give and give, but nobody can look out for you more than you have to look out for you. Saying no is not mean. And oftentimes, we can kind of trace this back to our childhoods, where we are taught that other people's needs matter more than ours. I know that's certainly the case for me. Therefore, I felt like I couldn't tell anybody no, and I know that's the case for many trauma survivors.

Alyssa Scolari [20:15]:

That being said, this is much easier said than done, but it is not mean to set boundaries. It's important to remember, and this is also a brilliant little nugget of wisdom from Nedra's book. People are only going to treat you as well as you treat yourself. So if you're not having good boundaries, if you're not taking care of yourself, other people are not going to treat you that well either. In the case of this friend that I was talking about, I wasn't treating myself well. I was picking up the phone in the middle of the night. I was talking to this person for hours on end, knowing that this person never once sort of like returned in the favor and never once said, "Oh, hey, you know, tell me about you." I wasn't taking good care of myself. And because I wasn't, because I didn't say how I felt or call things out right from the get-go, I kind of opened the door to let this person take full advantage of me essentially.

Alyssa Scolari [21:23]:

And then one of the other ways that I think that causes people, or one of the other things that I think causes people to not set boundaries, and I can't quite remember if this got talked about in the book, I'm sure it did, but this is something that I've noticed a lot just simply within myself or within my practice or just my day to day life is that a lot of people assume that other people should already know something. A lot of people say like, "Oh, well, it's common sense." Like common sense would tell you, especially a lot of maybe business owners or really anybody. Let's say you're out to dinner on a Friday night with your friends and your friend keeps getting this call from her boss, "Oh, my boss keeps calling me. My boss keeps calling me." And the friend gets frustrated and she's like, "Well, common sense would tell my boss not to call me on a Friday night when I'm off the clock." A lot of people often do this with children too. "Common sense should tell my teenager not to ride their bike on a busy highway."

Alyssa Scolari [22:35]:

But the thing we have to remember is that common sense isn't common. Common sense is very much dependent on how you grew up, the messages that you were raised with. There really is no such thing as common sense. Common sense isn't common to people. And we can't assume that other people can read our minds, and I think that's where a lot of us get tripped up, including myself. I see this especially happening with partners and relationships. I will do this to David. I'll be like, well, common sense should tell him when I'm upset if I had a really long day at work.

Alyssa Scolari [23:13]:

The other day I came home and I was really hurting over all this stuff with my family, and I came home pretty late and he is home and he gets ready to go outside and start doing a project in the backyard. And in my head, I'm getting so mad at him and I'm feeling abandoned because I'm like, "Dude, common sense would tell you, like I worked literally all day. I'm so upset. You know I'm so upset. Like, common sense would tell you that I actually really need you to sit with me tonight and just like be with me." But again, common sense isn't common. It means nothing because when my husband is upset, what he likes to do is get lost in a project. So common sense for him is to start doing a project, start trying to work through some of these emotions by building something or working on something outside or taking care of the garden. That's common sense for him.

Alyssa Scolari [24:22]:

So it's different. We cannot assume that other people can read our minds. It was unfair of me to assume that he can read my mind. I never once said, "I really need you." I wanted him to just know, but that was the part of me that was wanting a parent. That was that childish yearning in me. Like, I just need a parent to simply know what my needs are. So something that's very important to keep in mind.

Alyssa Scolari [24:54]:

Now, in terms of how people might react to boundaries. There's really no way of knowing for sure, but there are a couple different ways according to Nedra Tawwab's book, Set, Boundaries, Find Peace, that we can categorize people's reactions to boundaries. Now, people might get defensive. I think if you've been in this relationship for a long time, it's very likely that somebody might get defensive and be like, "Well, where is this coming from?" Or they try to justify their behavior and they try to convince you that their behavior's okay. So that could be one way people might react to you setting boundaries.

Alyssa Scolari [25:36]:

People might question your boundaries. People might have a lot of questions, well, again, "Why is this coming up right now? Like, why? I've been doing this for years with you? This is the relationship we've had for years. Like, why do we have to change it now?" People will also test the limits. You bet they will. It's in our human nature. Our human nature is to rebel, is to test the limits. Nobody likes to be told no. I get it. I hate being told no. Part of the reason why setting boundaries is so hard for me is because I know I don't like to be told no. It's really difficult for me. So people are going to test the limits. It is something that absolutely is to be expected.

Alyssa Scolari [26:28]:

People also might engage in passive-aggressive behaviors, like ghosting. Ghosting is when people just stop responding to you. So you set a boundary and then you don't hear from this person at all. They don't talk to you. I have this happen frequently within my workspace. That actually happened twice over the last week. It doesn't happen often. It always isn't often that I have to kind of set firm boundaries. I do, of course, but these boundaries that I had to set were really, really difficult and really firm. And as a result, I was ghosted and it's okay, it happens. It's part of how people respond and react in treatment and in the world. Therapy is literally like a little microcosm of how people behave in the world. I set a boundary, I was ghosted. That's one passive-aggressive behavior that people do in response to boundaries.

Alyssa Scolari [27:45]:

Another passive-aggressive behavior is the silent treatment. So very short responses, especially if you live with this person or even maybe through text. This person once used emojis to talk to you and exclamation points, but now all of a sudden, they're responding with like, "Yes, no, okay, good night." I see this happen so often, especially in my teens who are in relationships with other people or with our best friends. They get mad at their best friend and instead of saying how they feel, they'll be like, "K." Send. That's the text. And it is well known in the teen world that when you write K. and you send that text, that means that you are really pissed off, but that is a passive-aggressive behavior. That is considered the silent treatment. You know, this person doesn't answer for days, whatever it might be, it's passive-aggressive.

Alyssa Scolari [28:50]:

And then another thing that I see that often can be very passive-aggressive is people sort of throwing your boundary in your face a little bit. So people will say things like, "Oh, well, I was going to ask you to come out with us." Okay, let's say, for example, you don't want to drink and you have a friend who is always pressuring you to drink. Whenever you go out, they're like, "Hey, come on, have a drink, have a drink." And you're like, "No, no, no, no, no. I really don't want to." And it makes you uncomfortable. So let's say after a few months of this, or a few weeks of this even, you go and you set a boundary with this person and you're like, you know, "Hey, I really don't appreciate it when you keep pressuring me to drink when we are out in public. You know I don't like to drink. Please do not pressure me anymore. If you continue to pressure me, I'm just going to leave, so I am not sitting there feeling uncomfortable." And this friend's like, "Okay, all right, sure. I get it."

Alyssa Scolari [30:03]:

And then the next week later, let's say, it's the weekend, you log onto Instagram and you see that this friend is out with a bunch of other people, a bunch of your mutual friends, and you did not get invited. So you go to this friend and you say, you know, "Hey, why didn't you invite me?" And this friend goes, "Oh, well, you don't like to drink and you didn't want to feel pressured so I just figured I wouldn't put you in that situation." That is so passive-aggressive. When people use your boundary against you, it is so passive-aggressive. This is something that was done to me all the time, all the time when I was younger and even in my earlier adulthood. To this day, even talking about it, it just drives me nuts.

Alyssa Scolari [30:58]:

The other thing is like all of these responses and reactions that people have, they're really difficult. It kind of seems like, "Okay, well, why am I setting this boundary in the first place?" If people can react in all types of bad ways, you have to remember that you setting a boundary is for your peace. It's about peace for you. It's about health for you. You can't control how other people react. In fact, if somebody reacts in a negative way, that is likely a sign that you needed to set that boundary in the first place. And it's so important to remember that other people's reactions are not about you. The way that other people respond to boundaries has nothing to do with you. The fact of the matter is that boundaries can solve a lot of relationship problems, but they can only be solved if both people are open to listening and meeting the other's requests.

Alyssa Scolari [32:11]:

Now, I do also want to say this, relationships where boundaries are extremely difficult is where there is abuse happening or abuse that happened. It is so difficult to set boundaries where abuse took place, because it's the ultimate violation. It is the ultimate violation. So it sort of feels like a little bit strange for somebody to kind of violate you, especially if it's like physical abuse, sexual abuse, continued emotional abuse. This person has violated you in some of the worst ways. It's very hard to build boundaries after that. I'm not saying that it can't be done. It absolutely can be. I've seen it be done. I've seen loads of people where there's been some sort of tragedy or trauma or abuse, and then people have rebuilt that relationship and have had really good boundaries, but it's extremely difficult.

Alyssa Scolari [33:17]:

And I wouldn't recommend trying it without the help of a therapist. I really wouldn't because we just don't know. We just don't know what's going to happen. You don't know what's going to come up for you. So I really don't recommend trying it without the help of a licensed professional who can support you in this process and who can help you to see if boundaries are even possible. Because the thought of setting boundaries with somebody who was abusive, it can bring up so much. And depending on how that person reacts, it could potentially open the door for further traumatization. Again, I'm not saying always, but I do think it's something that we must keep in mind when it comes to boundary setting, is that it's sort of a whole different ball game when you're dealing with somebody who has been, or is abusive.

Alyssa Scolari [34:11]:

All in all, this is what we are working with right now. We know what boundaries are, we understand why they're important. Now, we understand why people are so afraid to set them. We understand how people might react. The worst case scenario is that this relationship is over. That is the worst case scenario. I am not going to sit here and say that, that never happens because it does. And it has happened to me multiple times where I've tried to set a boundary and the relationship has been over as the result. It does happen. It doesn't happen all the time. I think that you would be surprised at how well people are able to respect your boundaries when you start setting them. People will respect you more because they see that you respect yourself more. People see that they have no choice, but to respect you. And that is going to help you live the most beautiful, most peaceful life.

Alyssa Scolari [35:22]:

If somebody leaves because you have set a boundary, it's heartbreaking, it's devastating, but that too is temporary. And it is better than the long term resentment and anger that you will deal with by not setting the boundaries and by feeling like other people are walking all over you. Again, this is truly one of the hardest things I believe, but it truly is the key for living a good life. And that is what we want, baby. That is what we want.

Alyssa Scolari [36:05]:

So that is a wrap for today. We are still going to keep talking about this because we've got a lot more to talk about. Again, the majority of this information is taken from Nedra Tawwab's Set Boundaries, Find Peace. So it's a really good read. If you want to read it, you can go check out the show notes. Everything that you need is in the show notes for today. I hope that you all have a wonderful week. I will see you next week. And until then, I will be holding you in the light.

Alyssa Scolari [36:35]:

Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com, or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @lightaftertrauma. And on Twitter, it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over, again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you and we appreciate your support.

This week on the podcast Alyssa discusses a brand new, multi-episode topic. Pulling from Nedra Glover Tawwab's book, Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself, Alyssa discusses what boundaries are, why we need them, and some of the most prominent areas in which people struggle to set boundaries.

Nedra Tawwab's Instagram: @nedratawwab Order Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Tawwab

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/lightaftertrauma

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hi everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari. Glad to be back here today. We are talking about boundaries which is in my opinion, one of the most important tools too, and not just healing, but also one of the most important tools that you can use in your everyday life as you go throughout your entire life. You need boundaries all of the time.

Alyssa Scolari [00:50]:

So before we get into that, just a few housekeeping things. If I have not gotten back to you yet, I know a few of you have reached out to me on Patreon. If I haven't gotten back to you yet, please forgive me. It's been a little bit hectic. I know that in the last episode, I talked about how I have really been struggling with depression. And at the time that I recorded that episode, I was saying like, "I just don't know why I feel this way, and I have done absolutely everything I can do to try to make myself feel better. I've tried to take care of myself to the best of my ability, and yet still, here I am so depressed."

Alyssa Scolari [01:31]:

Now in the time between when I recorded that episode, and when I am recording this episode, I have a lot more insight into why I was feeling the way that I was feeling. I thought that I understood maybe a part of why I was feeling really depressed with the anniversary of my mom getting really sick, but now that I've ... Well, I should say now that certain events in my life have unfolded, I can confidently say that I know more about why I was feeling so depressed, and I think that emphasizes the importance of hanging in there and riding the wave even if you don't understand what's happening because sometimes we don't understand what's happening, but it's important to hang in there anyway because I am on the mend.

Alyssa Scolari [02:24]:

Well, somewhat. I will continue to get better, and I now understand that I was gearing up for a goodbye. And I'm just going to briefly touch on what has happened. I will more than likely do an episode where I go into a little bit more depth about it, but I don't know for sure yet, I'm still trying to process what happened. And I'm still trying to grieve and figure out for myself what life is going to look like now because this truly was the hardest decision that I have ever made in my life.

Alyssa Scolari [03:09]:

I have made the decision to go no contact with my family and briefly, I had a falling out with my brother shortly after I recorded last week's episode. And due to the falling out with my brother, I terminated that relationship because I realized that it was not healthy for me at all, and hasn't been healthy for me for probably 30 years. And so I terminated that relationship. And as a result of terminating that relationship, my mother and I had a falling out about that. And it was really at that point that I knew for me that these relationships aren't going to work in my life no matter how much I wish that they would.

Alyssa Scolari [04:12]:

So I realize that it's time, it's time to walk away, it's time to say goodbye. It's time to step back from all of this, and as much as it hurt me, I don't question whether or not I did the right thing. I know that I have done the right thing. I don't question that because it was so harmful for me to continue in relationships where I can't be my authentic self, and so I had to walk away and it's ironic I think that this episode, we are talking about boundaries because this was a result.

Alyssa Scolari [04:57]:

This incident was a result of me trying to set boundary after boundary that just wasn't working and when it comes to family conflict or any kind of conflict, going no contact like right now, I think we are really in cut you off culture. "Well, you're not doing things my way, so I'm just going to cut you off." And a lot of people do that and that's passive aggressive when we're not actually explicitly stating the problem, that can be pretty passive aggressive, but cut off or cutting somebody off, not this cutoff culture that we live in where we're so quick to just be like, "I'm done with you."

Alyssa Scolari [05:41]:

Making the decision to go no contact with somebody or cut somebody off is typically or should be if exercised in the appropriate way, it should be a decision that comes after years and years or not even years, but after multiple failed attempts at trying to repair the relationships or trying to establish boundaries in the relationships, right? That's when we start talking about, "Do I even want to be in this relationship, friendship, et cetera, if things aren't improving?" So when I say that I went no contact, I by no means want to give the impression that this was an impulsive decision or something that I have done without ever really trying to fix the problem.

Alyssa Scolari [06:30]:

This is something that for me personally has been 30 years in the making. And again, I don't question whether I did the right thing or the wrong thing. I know it was the right thing for me, but there is a heavy amount of grief there just because it was the right decision doesn't mean that it hasn't been really difficult for me. There's a lot of grief, there's a lot of pain, there's a lot of anger and it feels like I've been preparing for it this whole last month with how depressed I was feeling.

Alyssa Scolari [07:13]:

I started reading Harry Potter again and mind you, I don't like J.K. Rowling, and I do not buy things now that support her. I have the books Harry Potter is, and always will be one of the most important parts of my childhood and my adulthood apparently. So I don't like Joanne Rowling. She is a trans exclusionary, radical feminist. She is extremely transphobic. She is very, very harmful to the transgender community, so don't support her at all as an aside, but I have been reading Harry Potter and Harry Potter is something that got me through so much when I was younger. So, so much.

Alyssa Scolari [08:03]:

This boy that has been hurt time after time after time and had nobody there or seemingly nobody there, but persisted anyway. And I started picking up those books again recently, and I've been really, really into them and just really drawn into to that world. And I think because emotionally speaking, there are so many parallels with Harry Potter's worlds and mine, and so in a way it feels like I knew this was coming.

Alyssa Scolari [08:38]:

I think my body was just preparing and then it happened, and I feel a lot of things, grief and relief. The whole gamut of emotions is what I feel. So I have been really just taking time to heal and recover and learn how to move through my life, and I guess just heal. That's the bottom line, I'm figuring out how to heal. So if I'm less responsive on Patreon, bear with me. If I'm less responsive on Instagram, also bear with me.

Alyssa Scolari [09:19]:

I am just taking my time to move through all of the feelings as they come, and we will see where I'm at next week. I will, of course update you on how I'm feeling and things of that nature, but that is what happened. I had to go no contact with my family and it sucked. It sucked, bottom line. So enough about that. Let's get into what we're talking about today, and what we're talking about today is boundaries as I mentioned.

Alyssa Scolari [09:50]:

So boundaries is, or boundaries are the one thing that I think so many people hate when it comes to therapy and healing and recovery because they are the hardest things to set. I believe, especially for trauma survivors who have typically had some part of our bodies or minds controlled by somebody else, trauma survivors who have been made to feel like their body isn't their own or their voice doesn't matter. We really struggle with boundaries, and I really struggled with boundaries.

Alyssa Scolari [10:31]:

I once had a supervisor tell me several jobs ago that I had terrible boundaries. Actually, she didn't say I had terrible boundaries. She said I had shitty boundaries, yelled at me and told me that I had boundaries. I was horrified by that. I was super young. I was super new in the field, and I look back at that and I'm like, huh? She was right. Now, don't get me wrong. She was so, so wrong to say that, and it was so inappropriate of her to say that, and I was so angry at how she said that to me, but she was right, she was absolutely right.

Alyssa Scolari [11:15]:

And I have had to work so hard over the last several years to make my boundaries healthier. I believe that boundaries are a work in progress. I think we are always working on them, and I don't think we ever get to the space where we're like a hundred percent perfect in all of our boundaries. I don't know, maybe we do, but I've never met anybody who's a hundred percent perfect in all of their boundaries, but it's something to always be worked on because at the end of the day, boundaries are the gateway to healing, they are the gateway to peace.

Alyssa Scolari [11:53]:

They are the gateway to good and happy and healthy relationships with ourselves, and others. Boundaries are everything. I firmly believe that, and so many other therapists out there also believe that. So we are talking about this right now. What are boundaries? Why do we need them? How do I know if I have poor boundaries? What do I do if I have terrible boundaries? How do I get better? Why is this so scary for me? How do I move past the anxiety around setting boundaries?

Alyssa Scolari [12:30]:

We're talking about all of it, and we are not going to be able to fit all of it into one episode. So this is going to be a multiple episode topic, but we're getting through it because I think that this is one of the most useful tools to have in your tool belt. Dare I say it is the most useful tool, at least for me, it's been the most useful. Absolutely. So over the course of the next few episodes, I am going to be pulling a lot of information from one of my favorite books about boundaries, and the author of this book is Nedra Glover Tawwab, and if you don't follow her on Instagram, you absolutely should.

Alyssa Scolari [13:21]:

She is incredible. She has 1.5 million followers. She is phenomenal, a phenomenal therapist. So I will link her Instagram as well as the book in the show notes. So you can feel free to go and check that out, but the title of her book is called Set Boundaries, Find Peace, A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself. This book is amazing. It's not super long. I have listened to it several times on Audible, so I just listened to it in my car when I'm driving.

Alyssa Scolari [13:58]:

I highly recommend this book. It was truly life changing for me, and I think that this book was part of the reason why I was able to get to a place where I said no more to my relationship with my family. So let's get right into it. The first question being, what are boundaries? And I think this is one of the first chapters in Nedra's book Set Boundaries, Find Peace. What in the world are boundaries? How do we define boundaries? Right?

Alyssa Scolari [14:30]:

That word in itself when I bring it up to people, a lot of people, they know what they are, but have trouble putting words to it. So we're going to break it down very simply which is boundaries are rules or expectations that need to be met in order for relationships whether that relationship is with ourselves or with other people. Rules, expectations that need to be met in order for relationships to operate in a healthy manner. In order for us to be happy, boundaries are required.

Alyssa Scolari [15:15]:

So let's break that down a little bit, right? It might make sense at first to be like, "Okay, well, I understand why boundaries might be needed with other people, but what do you mean myself? How do I set boundaries with myself?" And sometimes, that looks like getting on a schedule, having a routine, making time to detox from technology, right? Getting off the phone, getting off the computer. All of these little things that we do are self-boundaries.

Alyssa Scolari [15:49]:

They're boundaries that we have with ourselves to keep ourselves happy and healthy. So why do we need them? Why on earth do we need boundaries? Well obviously, it keeps us happy and healthy, but what happens when we don't have them? What happens if we don't have boundaries that are strong enough or boundaries that are too strong? Well, according to Nedra, relationships that are complicated or relationships that don't have great boundaries are among the leading causes of anxiety.

Alyssa Scolari [16:29]:

So poor relationships, relationships that aren't healthy, relationships that need improvement on boundaries are one of the biggest causes of anxiety. And that makes so much sense because so many people come to therapy, not just in a vacuum, right? People don't come to therapy and just say, "Well, I am struggling with depression." Or, "I have an eating disorder." No, behind the depression, behind the eating disorder, behind the anxiety disorder is typically, "Well, I have problems with this person and I have issues at work, and my boss is making me work 60 hours a week, and my mother won't stop calling me and my partner won't let me talk to other people of the opposite sex."

Alyssa Scolari [17:19]:

People come to therapy with problems that involve more often than not other people. I have never sat down with a client who came to me with a problem, and the problem was just a little, just about them. This problem almost always encompasses other people. So when we don't have boundaries, we don't have healthy enough boundaries, we tend to fail in our relationships or our relationships don't serve us, and this can exacerbate mental health disorders, and especially for somebody who has trauma, has a history of trauma, this can really exacerbate PTSD symptoms.

Alyssa Scolari [18:05]:

So how do you know if you are somebody who doesn't have great boundaries? Well, a lack of boundaries in itself can trigger an onset of tons of negative things, right? Including resentment and anxiety and depression and avoidance can also include overwhelm, feelings of burnout. These are all signs that boundaries are poor. I learned in grad school, I think one of the most important things that I learned in grad school and a tool that I keep in my back pocket to this day is my professor said it, Dr. Jim Hall who is amazing, love Dr. Hall.

Alyssa Scolari [18:57]:

He said to us one day in class, "If you are feeling burned out, if you are feeling stressed out, if you are starting to resent some of the clients that you are working with, that is a sign that you need better boundaries in your life." And I have never forgotten that. So this day, if I find myself getting not necessarily resentful because I don't really resent my clients, but sometimes if I get frustrated, if I feel like I'm working really, really hard, and this person isn't necessarily like meeting me halfway, or if I start to get burned out and I start to feel really, really overwhelmed, I know that that problem is my problem.

Alyssa Scolari [19:46]:

That's not a problem for my clients. The problem isn't my clients, it's never my clients. If I'm feeling some kind of way, that is because my boundaries aren't good enough or because something is going on within me, it's not the client's fault at all. That is a sign that my boundaries aren't as great as they could be. And so to this day, every time I felt this way, I have made it a point to readjust my boundaries, tighten them up a little, and then I feel so much better, and I enjoy my job so much more because here's the thing, right?

Alyssa Scolari [20:22]:

We live in this world where we almost shame selfishness in some ways. In some areas, we shame selfishness, right? Oh, you're being so selfish. Oh, why don't you care about anybody else? And then of course, in other ways, I feel like we live in a very, at least in the United States, right? It's very every man for himself, every woman for himself, every person for themselves. But in some ways, I find when it includes mental health and relationships, interpersonal relationships, it is more along the lines of we get shamed for putting ourselves first.

Alyssa Scolari [21:11]:

Oh, well, how could you not pick up the phone when that person needs you? You're not a good person. Why aren't you, why aren't you helping them move this weekend? And the thing about that is at the end of the day, you cannot save anybody else if you don't put your oxygen mask on first. You can't help other people if you can't help yourself and you will continue to have relationships where you feel resentful, or you feel like your needs aren't getting met until you decide that you have to come first, until you decide that you looking out for you is not selfish.

Alyssa Scolari [21:58]:

It is self-care. It is a requirement for survival for thriving. You have to look out for you first. Now, this is a really hard concept for people who are chronic people pleasers. I was raised as a people pleaser. I was raised that it doesn't matter what's going on in your life, it doesn't matter what's happening in your world. You need to drop everything and be there for other people, and if you don't, it's selfish, it's not right. It's not okay.

Alyssa Scolari [22:34]:

This is very, very hard to do, right? Because for those of us who are people pleasers, as soon as somebody needs us, or as soon as the going gets tough, the first thing to go on our list is usually self-care. We will put self-care so low on the totem pole because we are trying to meet the needs of everybody else first. This is often really true with moms. Moms, dads, parents. This is so true.

Alyssa Scolari [23:01]:

We will put, I say we like I'm a parent. I'm a dog mom, okay? It counts. We will put our needs so low on the totem pole. I have to feed the kids. I have to get them dressed. I have to take them to their after school sports. And we during none of that make time for ourselves in the slightest. Now listen, I'm not saying it's easy. Being a mom, I think is the hardest job in the whole world.

Alyssa Scolari [23:36]:

Being a parent in general I think is the hardest job in the entire world. Of course because of stigma, right? Because of the patriarchy, women are expected to do much more and often are doing so much more. So I think a lot of that pressure falls more on women and women are more likely to push their self-care to the side. So yeah, it's especially difficult when you have kids, when you have little ones who need you constantly to make time for yourself, but again, you can't show up as your best self to anybody if you're not putting yourself first.

Alyssa Scolari [24:19]:

And when we're not putting ourselves first and we're not getting our needs met, then we start to resent other people. And we feel like, "well, I'm always there for other people. Why isn't anybody showing up for me?" Because the other thing is, is that people benefit from you having poor boundaries, right? Nedra says this in the book and it is so important to remember. People benefit from you not having appropriate boundaries because then they can get more from you, and it's not necessarily an inherently bad thing.

Alyssa Scolari [24:54]:

I'm not saying that the people in your life are like, "Oh, I can see that Jane has terrible boundaries, and I'm going to milk her for everything she is worth." No, but it's nature, right? People test limits. People see, they want to see how much they can get away with. So people are going to take advantage of your poor boundaries and then you're going to feel resentful, you're going to feel overwhelmed, you're going to feel burnt out.

Alyssa Scolari [25:24]:

You're going to start to get very anxious, and you're either going to start to get angry with people, or you're going to become very depressed and you're going to feel lonely, and perhaps might isolate. Maybe you get a lot of anxiety because you don't want to talk to anybody. You don't want to open your inbox. You don't want to look at all your emails. You start to have panic attacks on Sunday nights before work the next day because you don't want to know all the work that your boss is going to put on you. You avoid, right?

Alyssa Scolari [25:57]:

You avoid. You either lash out at people or you avoid and you try to disappear. Now, I took a survey on my Instagram in a way to prepare for this episode because I thought it would be interesting to get all of your feedback. And I asked the question when you are in a conflict with somebody, what are you more likely to do? And the options were avoid conflict at all costs, set boundaries with the person and talk it through or cut the person off completely.

Alyssa Scolari [26:40]:

Now much to my surprise, nobody said cut the person off completely. Nobody said that. A few people said set boundaries, but the overwhelming majority of you, I think it was 88% of you said I will avoid conflict at all costs. And I see this so many times in my practice too. People will come in and they will avoid conflict and avoid conflict, but then their mental health will get worse and worse and worse. And honestly, I think that's what was happening to me over this last month.

Alyssa Scolari [27:23]:

I was avoiding ending things with my family. And so my mental health got worse and worse and worse and worse until I couldn't take it anymore, and I had to decide that I needed to come first. So this happens all of the time. Now there are three different types of boundaries. And first, we have poorest boundaries. Okay? So what are poorest boundaries? These are often people with weaker boundaries like in the sense that they have a lot of trouble setting those boundaries.

Alyssa Scolari [28:03]:

So they're too involved with other people. They will ruin their own day just so they can be there for somebody else. They will cancel their doctor's appointment just because somebody calls them and says, "Hey, I need you. Do you have time to talk?" These people are highly dependent on other people and they have a really difficult time with feeling highly anxious, overwhelmed, very burnt out.

Alyssa Scolari [28:31]:

These are your people pleasers. Very difficult time saying no, always wanting to help others. Yes, I'll help you move. Yes, I'll cancel my plans with my family and I will help you move. Yes, I will drive to your house for the millionth time even though you never drive to my house, and I won't say anything about it, but I am going to feel resentful. These are people who often struggle with like codependency and enmeshment.

Alyssa Scolari [28:56]:

They become extremely attached to other people. In general, they just struggle to say no. I just can't say no to anybody, and then we have healthy boundaries. Healthy boundaries is exactly what it is. It's when you are setting rules and expectations with yourself and other people without your past trauma showing up to the interaction. I hope that makes sense. This is something that I have taken from Nedra's book, and this is what she says, and I think that it's absolutely brilliant.

Alyssa Scolari [29:42]:

You are setting rules and expectations without letting your pain from the past, your trauma from the past show up. Without letting the fact that you have been abandoned as a child, the fact that your father left when you were younger, the fact that you have a history of sexual abuse, that's staying in the past and here you are setting roles and expectations without apologizing, without over explaining, without feelings of immense guilt or anxiety. Those are healthy boundaries.

Alyssa Scolari [30:20]:

That is what we are all striving for, easier said than done. I am much better at setting boundaries, but I sure as heck struggle with guilt and anxiety almost every time that I set them. And I think that this is just something that gets better over time and with practice. So then we have rigid boundaries. This is when your boundaries are just like entirely too strong.

Alyssa Scolari [30:48]:

Strong might not necessarily be the right word. I would say more rigid or inflexible boundaries. So when your boundaries are just entirely too rigid, and this can often look like folks who have like an all or nothing mentality sometimes. It's like I never, ever, ever will allow somebody to borrow money from me, never. And they just take that boundary to the grave. There is zero flexibility, there is zero chance of like, "Okay, well, what if your child is hard up for money and needs gas in their car? Are you going to say no? They need gas in their car to be able to get to work. What are you going to say?"

Alyssa Scolari [31:36]:

These people don't have space for that. They can't think of a gray area. It's like, "I am absolutely not going to do this or I am absolutely always going to do this. This could also be the person who go to the gym every single day. Now that could also be eating disorder related, but if this person's just like every single day, I have to be at the gym from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. and they are so inflexible.

Alyssa Scolari [32:04]:

Something pops up, there's an emergency. I can't come, I'm at the gym. I can't come, I'm at the gym. There's no wiggle room in their boundaries. People who have rigid boundaries will often cut people off. Again, and I said this earlier. They will cut people off without making attempts to set healthy boundaries. They don't want to listen to anyone else's input, and really what rigid boundaries do is it protects people from getting too close to other people.

Alyssa Scolari [32:38]:

It protects from building relationships, it puts a wall between them and other people. So those are the three different types of boundaries. Hopefully if you have listened to this, you can identify which boundary you have and which category that you fall into. Now, Nedra in her book, and I think that this is really important to mention. She also goes on to say that there are a few of the major areas that people struggle with when it comes to boundaries.

Alyssa Scolari [33:18]:

And some of those areas are family, and I think this will make sense to a lot of us on this podcast. It is one of the hardest things to do to set boundaries with your family. Whether that's you can't keep giving money to your sister, or you don't want your brother living with you anymore, or you don't want your mother telling you how to parent your children. You don't want her input, things like that can be very, very difficult for people.

Alyssa Scolari [33:54]:

Work. So many people go to therapy because their work is so stressful. People really struggle to set boundaries with work especially in this new work from home environment that most of us have fallen into since COVID, or not most, many. It can be really, really difficult to make that determination of when am I going to stop checking my emails? When am I going to make a decision that I'm not going to pick up the phone when I boss is calling me? At what time is that going to stop?

Alyssa Scolari [34:34]:

Romantic relationships, this is also another huge one. People struggle if their partners are doing something that they don't appreciate, or that is harmful to them. People struggle, and I think a lot of that is the fear of abandonment. I don't want them to leave. Friends, very similar thing. People really struggle to set boundaries for friends because they're afraid of how people are going to react, and technology.

Alyssa Scolari [35:02]:

This is one that I think before really doing a deep dive into boundaries, I would've never even thought about, but it goes back to what I was saying in the beginning of the podcast where boundaries are really important to be able to set with yourself as well. How many hours a day am I going to be on my phone? How often am I going to check my email? Am I going to pick up the phone every time somebody calls me or am I going to let it go to voicemail, see what they want, and then get back to them when I have the space for it?

Alyssa Scolari [35:36]:

I've had to do a lot of hard work with technology in terms of just not scrolling TikTok at night, because all the blue light will keep you up for so much longer, and I struggle with insomnia. Just spending less and less time on social media because it depresses me. It really does, and also with emails and responding to people, feeling that need to just respond to people all the time versus looking at their texts or their voicemails, and then getting back to them when it's convenient for me.

Alyssa Scolari [36:11]:

If it's not, an emergency that I absolutely have to be there for like a life or death situation. So those are some of the main areas that Nedra Tawwab says that people struggle. And I believe it, I believe it. I think it's really, really fascinating. So that is a lot of information that I just threw at you. If I haven't convinced you already to get Nedra's book, this is me saying you totally should because it's a really, really good book, and I'm sure as I have spoken today, you all have been able to see a little bit of yourselves in what I am saying.

Alyssa Scolari [36:54]:

I am somebody who has poorest boundaries or I did have poorest boundaries. I think I have worked my way towards healthier boundaries, but I am just such a people pleaser. So this is something that I've had to work really hard on. It's been very difficult, but extremely rewarding because my life, my business, my relationships have been so much healthier as a result of working on these boundaries.

Alyssa Scolari [37:25]:

So this is not the end of our conversation my friends. This is only the beginning of us talking about boundaries. We've learned a lot about how people struggle, the different types of boundaries, and now, we are also going to talk about how we set those boundaries, what some of the fears are, how some people might react. We're going to get into more of the practical stuff.

Alyssa Scolari [37:53]:

I am really enjoying talking about this, and I hope that you have enjoyed listening. If you like what you hear, please feel free to leave us a review and a rating. It goes a really long way in helping to increase visibility of the podcast, and if you haven't done so already, you can also feel free to check out the Patreon link in the show notes. There you can donate to the podcast if you are liking what you hear.

Alyssa Scolari [38:22]:

Even a little bit goes a really long way in terms of helping to make this podcast a well-oiled machine. I am so grateful for the Patreon members that we have. Also, if you are a Patreon member, you can make a special request for episode topics. You can feel free to reach out to me and say, "Hi, I would love to hear from you." Take care, have a wonderful week, and I am holding you in the light.

Alyssa Scolari [38:48]:

Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com, or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter, it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you, and we appreciate your support.

Speaker 2 [39:25]:

[Singing].

Depression might be clinically diagnosed as a very specific set of symptoms, but it is often so much more than that. Does your depression cause you to over-function? Does it cause you to under-function? Has your pain ever been invalidated because your symptoms don't look like the stereotypical symptoms of depression? If so, you are not alone!

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/lightaftertrauma

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:19]:

Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Light After Trauma podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari, back with a solo episode, after taking a few weeks of doing a guest episode with Rebecca Christensen. It was a two-part series on narcissistic abuse. If you haven't gotten a chance to check it out, it is very good. Go check it out. I was taking a break, mostly because I haven't been feeling that great and physically I'm feeling mostly okay. But emotionally I have not been feeling well at all. April is just not my month. And so I definitely needed a few weeks off. So Rebecca and I had done this two-part episode and I thought now was a perfect time to be able to share it with you all, because it gave me a little bit of a break just to be able to recuperate and try to recover a little bit. And quite honestly, I am still not feeling good, at all.

Alyssa Scolari [01:33]:

And I think there's a million reasons why. I already know the answer to the why, but the question of how do I get these feelings to go away or to leave? I have yet to answer that because I've been feeling terrible for, I would say at least like a month at this point. I have just been really struggling with depression. And I know that there's a lot going on. Just as an example, this time of year, particularly, is really hard because four years ago was when my mom got really, really sick and she almost died. In fact, we were told that she was going to die and she made it and she survived, but not without months of her being in the hospital and being in ICU and her being up and down and up and down. And one minute she wasn't going to make it. And the next minute she might have a chance.

Alyssa Scolari [02:43]:

It was an emotional rollercoaster for months. And I can't forget it and I will never forget it. And I think this time of year is when it just hits me the hardest. My body... You Bessel van der Kolk said it best, right? Your body keeps the score. And my body has been reminding me that this time of year, four years ago, was really, really hard. I spent like 24 hours a day, just like praying to every God out there, that my mom would live. And she did. But it's hard because I feel like... I don't want to sound ungrateful because I'm very, very grateful for the circumstances, and I know other people don't have circumstances like that. Other people do lose their parents. So I'm trying not to act like this was the worst thing that ever could have happened. But with that being said, I think that I need to acknowledge that it was very traumatic and it's not even just that. It's a million other things, too, that have been going on and changes in my life and shifts in my relationships that have been really, really hard for me.

Alyssa Scolari [04:06]:

And I have been depressed. And it's really interesting to hear myself say that because I have always held... I think prior to becoming a therapist, I have always held such a stigma of depression. And I notice that the people around me, the world around us, people hold such a stigma about it. People are so much more likely to say I have OCD or I have anxiety, right? Anxiety is the big one. Anybody will walk up to you and be like, oh, my anxiety. Oh, my anxiety. But very few people will just kind of start talking about their depression. That is largely in part because of the stigma that we place on depression. It's okay to talk about anxiety, but it's not okay to talk about depression.

Alyssa Scolari [05:00]:

I don't really know why. I could theorize why I think that depression is kind of more serious sounding. And when people think depression, they think suicidal. And when people think suicidal, it makes them very uncomfortable. And therefore, we don't even want to breach that topic. So we're not even talking about it. I think that has a lot to do with it. But ultimately, I don't know for sure. But what I do know is that I even internalized that stigma for a while and had a really hard time talking about my depression. Happy to say, I don't have that hard of a time talking about it anymore. I feel like I've really released that stigma. And so that's what we're talking about today.

Alyssa Scolari [05:45]:

We are talking about depression. I think we really haven't yet just sat down, me and you, the listener, and had a chat about depression. I've had people on the show that I've talked about depression. Depression has been a theme of almost every episode that we've done, but what does it actually look like? And I think that what has really inspired me lately to share about this topic and to speak on this topic is, I think a lot of the judgements that I have received about my own depression, because if you had a conversation with me, you would have no clue that I was depressed. In fact, you would get the impression of the exact opposite. You would think that I was the happiest person in the world. In fact, people often describe me as being bubbly, which blows my mind, because that is the furthest thing from how I view myself... like bubbly me.

Alyssa Scolari [06:53]:

Absolutely not. I've often been compared to... I don't know if anybody's going to remember this, but the Powerpuff Girls with Buttercup, Bubbles and Blossom. That was one of my favorite shows growing up. People often compared me to Bubbles, who was like this very adorable little bubbly blonde. She was my favorite when I was growing up. And people often compare me to her and I don't see myself that way at all. So let's just talk for a second about what depression actually is, because contrary to what I think a lot of folks believe, depression is very, very, very different from sadness and in the DSM, which is that book that has all of the mental health diagnoses, it is really classified by multiple symptoms. And those symptoms are not like sadness. Sadness or a sad mood, is not a symptom of depression. That is how different they are... they're not even close. Sad versus depression... completely different things.

Alyssa Scolari [08:08]:

So some of the symptoms of depression include, a loss of appetite or overeating... so maybe issues with getting in touch with your hunger and fullness cues, or even your hydration cues, your thirst cues. Issues with sleeping... having depleted energy, or maybe being tired all the time, feeling fatigued all the time. Having a low self-esteem, difficulty with concentrating or making decisions. Feelings of hopelessness or despair is another one. The loss of interest and pleasure in a lot of the activities that you used to once find very pleasurable. Problems sleeping... either you can't fall asleep or you wake up throughout the night or you're having nightmares all the time. Perhaps changes in weight. Perhaps not always. We talked about low energy, problems thinking or making decisions, thoughts of guilt or worthlessness. And it can be, again, not always, repeated thoughts of death or suicide or a suicide attempt.

Alyssa Scolari [09:20]:

So basically there's two different kinds of depression in the DSM. There's major depressive disorder. And then there's different severities of that. So it can be mild, it can be moderate, it can be severe. It can be with psychotic features without psychotic features. Or we're not going to go into that today, because honestly, that's just going to bore you, but major depressive disorder... and that is when you have to have these symptoms, at least five of the symptoms for at least two weeks, then you can classify or qualify for having major depressive disorder. Then there's dysthymia. And dysthymia is also known as persistent depressive disorder. Now, persistent depressive disorder, or PDD, or dysthymia as you'll hear me call it throughout this episode, is less severe than major depressive disorder, but it lasts for much longer. So instead of having to meet five of those symptoms that I listed for PDD, you only have to meet two of those symptoms.

Alyssa Scolari [10:31]:

So it's certainly a less severe form of depression. But in order to have dysthymia, you have to have felt this way for at least two years with little to no relief. Whereas major depressive disorder is sort of like extremely depressed, noticeable changes, severe changes, but then you come out of it and then maybe you go back into it again, dysthymia is sort of this lower level or like lower grade depression that is just always there. I got to be honest. I don't love this. I really don't love the way the DSM breaks down depression, because honestly, what the fuck? Like, okay, well, what if somebody has both? What if somebody has low level depression all the time, but then it gets really, really bad sometimes. Or there's just so many loose ends with these with the way that depression is listed in the DSM.

Alyssa Scolari [11:31]:

And I've also almost always seen depression be a part of other mental health disorders. So it's, is this person dysthymic? Do they have PDD or do they have trauma that's taking them years to recover from. And as a result of the trauma, they have depression. Do we keep throwing diagnoses at people and just say, oh, well you have major depressive disorder. Oh, well it's been two years. And now you have PDD... I guess I don't agree with it. I think it's very confusing for folks. And I think it's very confusing even for mental health professionals. But, alas, this is what we're working with here. But I think that it's important to note that this really isn't the be-all end-all for depression. I know I've said this before, but in order to even create these diagnoses, there's no one way to create a diagnosis that's going to be the way for all of eternity.

Alyssa Scolari [12:30]:

Basically what happens is a bunch of mental health professionals get together in a room and decide what criteria needs to be in place in order to meet... in order to get a diagnosis. So humans are fallible. Therefore, I think that all of these diagnoses in themselves can be fallible. And that's what we're talking about today, because the way that depression is listed in the DSM and the way that therapists are trained to spot depression is very, very stereotypical, which is great, but the majority of people don't operate like this. Maybe not the majority, but many, many, many people do not experience these symptoms, but have depression or don't experience these symptoms outwardly, I should say.

Alyssa Scolari [13:28]:

So for example, if we can look at Winnie the Pooh for a second... bear with me. Let's take a look at Eeyore. Eeyore is your classic depression. He is depressed, right? Whether he has major depressive disorder or dysthymia... I would say he could probably have both. He perpetually has a low grade level of depression. I think sometimes maybe he feels a little better, especially after he finds his tail. But I would say that he also can suffer from major depressive disorder. I think that he doesn't function as well as the other members of Winnie the Pooh. And I do think that he could meet... I mean, I don't know for sure, but I think that if we talk to Eeyore, if I had him in my office, I think there's a strong possibility that he could have at least five of the symptoms that also would give him a diagnosis of major depressive disorder.

Alyssa Scolari [14:36]:

When we look at Eeyore, we have no questions about it. We are... Eeyore is depressed, but we can't really look at many people and go, that person is depressed. We just can't. It doesn't work like that. Most people don't walk around acting that way or showing that, and depression has so many different faces. And this is where I tend to get very frustrated because I think that again, as a society, people expect that depression is going to just look like the moping sad person, but it's not. And I have had multiple interactions lately, where, especially in this last month, as I said, I have not been doing well with... my depression has been... it's felt unbearable, to be honest. I don't feel well. And it sucks. And I am doing my best to work through it. And I am engaging in all of the coping skills.

Alyssa Scolari [15:42]:

I am not isolating myself. I'm trying to go out with friends. I am trying to get outside as much as I can, but at the end of the day, I still feel depressed. I still do. And I am just sort of like trying to ride the wave and wait for it to pass. But because I don't look depressed, my depression doesn't get taken seriously. So let's talk about what depression might look like on me, because, well, basically when we look at depression and anxiety and perhaps a few other mental health disorders, we have people who go into really essentially two different categories. We have chronic overfunctioners and then we have chronic underfunctioners.

Alyssa Scolari [16:34]:

I am somebody who is an overfunctioner when I am depressed... meaning I will get out of bed. I will brush my teeth. I will do my hair. I will work the entire week. I will extend myself when people need me. If people reach out to me, I will make sure that I respond immediately. I will answer all my emails. I will prepare all my meals. I will eat. I will drink. I will go out with friends. Like I am go, go, go, go, go, go, go. I appear happy. I appear bubbly. I am laughing. I am cracking jokes. I know I shared on my Instagram story... for those of you who follow me, a couple weeks ago, I shared that I had gone out with friends and I went out to meet them for really the first time this... the one person I knew I hadn't seen her in years, but the other people, I didn't know. And that is really, really scary for me. Especially being in a state where I had been feeling really depressed and really vulnerable.

Alyssa Scolari [17:40]:

I put myself in this situation, which I thought was going to help my depression. And it did. I think that it did, but I went out and I had a good time. Everybody was great. I felt like I was with people who were very similar to me. And I was the life of the party. I was literally the life of the party. I was cracking jokes. I was telling stories. I was laughing. I was engaged. I was making eye contact. I wasn't on my phone at all. I was playing with the animals. I was great. If anybody had been in that room and they had talked to me or they had even watched me, they would say, nope, there's zero risk factor here. What people don't know is that I came home that night and I was getting ready for bed. And I was very much in my head about, oh my God, did they like me? Did I say something stupid? Was I annoying? They probably hate me. I wonder if I'll be invited back. No, I definitely am not going to be invited back.

Alyssa Scolari [18:48]:

And I had a quick exchange with my husband and he said something to me that I interpreted incorrectly as a result of already being on edge. I sort of thought that he was like upset with me and I lost it. Like had a panic attack that lasted four hours. And look, I know that a lot of people love to say panic attacks only last three to five minutes. That is some bull shit, okay? That is some bullshit. If somebody says that to you, that's because they've never had a panic attack before. Panic attacks do not last for only three to five minutes. I could not breathe for hours. I was hyperventilating. I was sobbing. I was disassociated. I was... I was gone. I was gone. I was in a level of emotional pain that felt absolutely unbearable for me.

Alyssa Scolari [19:54]:

And as a result of that chronic breakdown, I barely slept. I woke up the next day feeling emotionally hungover. I was exhausted. And when I'm tired, I get even more depressed. So I kind of like lost my weekend to a meltdown that I had merely hours after going out and appearing like everything was absolutely fine. When I am depressed, and when people who are overfunctioners are depressed, you're not going to see us kind of like laying in bed. You're going to see us going and going and going and going until we break. And that is sort of... that is what I do. That is my tendency. And the more depressed I am, the more high energy I'm going to be. Maybe that sounds a little wild, but here's my reasoning behind it.

Alyssa Scolari [20:50]:

I can't speak for other people, but my reasoning behind it is because the more upset I feel... the more depressed I feel, the more vulnerable I am and I hate being vulnerable. It is really, really terrifying for me. I am working on it, right? The part of this podcast is... this whole episode is me being vulnerable. This is really hard to talk about, but when I'm vulnerable, because I hate it so much, I feel like I need to put on more of a show so that people can't tell that I'm hurting because it almost keeps people at bay, right... because people can't look at me and see my sadness. So they're not going to ask... because I'm like, don't ask me. Please don't look at me. Please don't see through me. I don't want you to see through me and see that I am in agony. I over function. So nobody knows.

Alyssa Scolari [21:44]:

Outwardly I don't display any of those symptoms, but I come home and I fall apart. And every symptom is there. I know one of the sure-fire ways when I am depressed, is that I stop drinking water. I literally just stop. Like I cannot get in touch with my thirst cues at all. And then my hunger cues go away. And then I feel tired all the time and I stop eating. And it's like... this past Saturday, I don't think I ate a full meal until four o'clock. And that is so unlike me, because I'm usually so good at getting all my meals in.

Alyssa Scolari [22:26]:

So depression can look like over-functioning. So please do not look at the people around you who appear to have it all together and say, oh, you don't know what it feels like. You don't know what it's like to be depressed... because I've had several people kind of say that to me this past month where, if somebody asks me how I'm doing, and I'm, honestly, I haven't been doing well. Or I said... I had an event to go to where I actually said hey, I don't think I'm going to be able to make it. I'm not really feeling well. And you know, this person was, oh, are you sick? And I was, no, honestly, just emotionally not doing well. Don't think I want to go. I really think I need this night to myself. And this person was... this person is not a close friend of mine, at all.

Alyssa Scolari [23:16]:

So I didn't really... it's not like this person like knows me really well. And it's not like I really care all that much that this person said this, but it does kind of piss me off... in general, I'm not angry at the person, but just in general, as a society like that, we think this way, because this person was, oh, but you look happy all the time, when I see you. I didn't know you were going through stuff emotionally. And I wanted to be, well, we are all going through stuff emotionally. Have you not been around for the past several years? We are all going through it. What do you mean, I didn't look sad? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't look sad. And I've just had several little comments like that throughout my life of people being, oh, well you didn't look sad or, oh, well, depression... you never told me you were depressed. First of all, I don't need to tell you. I don't need to tell you.

Alyssa Scolari [24:17]:

But second of all, I don't care what I look like. I'm telling you my experience. Why are you invalidating it? And so I think the people who have depression, who over-function really struggle with this, as much as we kind of over-function because it's protective for us and we don't want to let people in. We also feel really, really hurt when people invalidate us. Now, listen, I'm not saying that's anybody's problem to fix. I need to be perhaps not so guarded and I need to learn how to tone down my over-functioning and I have... even telling somebody, hey, no, I can't go to this, I need to take care of myself... that is huge for me because in the past I would've been like, go, go, go, go, go. Because I grew up being taught that it is never okay to inconvenience somebody else for your own personal needs.

Alyssa Scolari [25:13]:

Right? I grew up being taught that all that matters is making other people happy. I grew up being taught that it only matters what you look like to others... doesn't actually matter how you feel. What matters the most is what you look like to others. But some people, when they're depressed, they become underfunctioners. And that is okay. We tend to glorify overfunctioners. And I hate that because overfunctioners, as a result of never letting themselves really feel their feelings and slow down, they tend to develop high blood pressure and high blood pressure is actually considered the silent killer. It is considered the silent killer and studies have found over the years that so many folks with high blood pressure have been able to manage it through stress management. So it is all so linked. So, but here we are glorifying overfunctioners.

Alyssa Scolari [26:15]:

underfunctioners don't necessarily have the same struggle with the high blood pressure. They might, right? They may, but it's not necessarily a result of them under functioning because your underfunctioners are people who have trouble showering. They have trouble brushing their teeth in the morning. They have trouble eating or drinking, or they will not text anyone back for weeks at a time. They won't show up to anything. They sort of fall off the face of the earth and they struggle with even the most basic things. Simply the act of breathing can feel difficult on the days where the depression is really, really bad.

Alyssa Scolari [27:05]:

Now there is also a stigma against underfunctioners. And that stigma is that they are lazy. They are flaky. They are dirty, right, especially when we talk about how hygiene can sometimes go, when we're feeling really depressed. So many people turn their nose up to that. Ew, oh God, Ew. How could you not brush your teeth? I don't understand how you could just not brush your teeth and lay in bed all day. Or I don't understand how you could just not wash your sheets for two months. I get infuriated when people say things like this, and honestly, I have been surrounded by people my whole life who are overfunctioners who disparage underfunctioners. How could you let your house get dirty? How could you do this? How could you do that? It's called depression and we need to stop judging it.

Alyssa Scolari [28:07]:

Now I am not saying that every single person with a filthy home has depression. That's not what I'm saying here, but what I'm saying is these can be signs of depression. If you walk into someone's home for the first time and you notice that it is dirty, that might not be because that person is lazy or doesn't care or wasn't raised right. No, that can be a huge red flag for depression. Somebody's bad breath could be a huge red flag. Maybe it was all they could do just to get to work. So I'm trying to get us to understand that depression doesn't just look like some sad, mopey, Eeyore-like character. Depression can look like the person who comes in with a full face of makeup. You know, they come into work with a full face of makeup and a minty fresh breath, or it can be the person who comes in... they look like they barely put a comb through their hair and their breath reeks.

Alyssa Scolari [29:11]:

We can't call people names as a result of either. We cannot look at underfunctioners and make judgements on their character when we don't know, because that could be the face of depression. The person with a full face of makeup could be the face of depression. I am the face of depression. I am one of the many faces of depression. I struggle with depression on a regular basis. I have been so tired at times that I haven't been sure how I am going to go on. There are days where I under function as well. They are a little bit more rare for me because my tendency is to over-function, but there have been days where I'm like, I can't get out of this bed. I just can't do it. And therefore, I didn't eat. Therefore, I never got to brush my teeth and you know what? I am no less of a person. It doesn't make me lazy. It doesn't make me gross. It doesn't make me unhygienic. My teeth haven't fallen out. I have not hurt anybody as a result of my under functioning.

Alyssa Scolari [30:33]:

So there are stereotypes of both, overfunctioning under functioning, major depressive disorder, dysthymia. Whatever you may be struggling with, whatever anybody may be struggling with, it is still excruciating pain. And I want us to remember that the next time we go to cast aspersions on somebody or make judgements. And I want us to remember that the next time that we are in conversations with people, because I, myself am like a victim of being... or not a victim. I'm not a victim. I am a victim of people kind of looking at me and saying, oh, well, you can't be depressed, but I have been wrong before by looking at other people and being like, huh? Why didn't you shower? Like what is going on here? Right. I have judged people by being like, what the heck happened. That can be a face of depression.

Alyssa Scolari [31:31]:

So this is something for all of us to work on, but this is also something for us to learn about ourselves. Are you an over-functioner? Are you an underfunctioner? What does your depression look like, because what I described coming out of the DSM, that's not all depression can look like. And I think that once we sort of identify for ourselves what it looks like for us, then we are able to catch it much more quickly and can then work to recover from it. It's not always going to look like it does in the textbooks. It's going to look different for each and every one of us. So I think it is really helpful to figure out what it looks like for you.

Alyssa Scolari [32:14]:

And one way you can do that is by journaling, right? What does my depression look like for me? And you can think of all of the examples that I've just given and you can decide for yourself. And maybe there are things that I've left out. Maybe there are things that I am not aware of myself. Hey, let me know. You know where to find me, and, oh, I don't think I mentioned that at the beginning of this episode, but you can give us a follow over at Light After Trauma on Instagram.

Alyssa Scolari [32:42]:

And if you are a Patreon member, and you would like, you can certainly request an episode topic. I know a few of you have done so, and I am working on getting to them. When I get an episode topic, I like to do my research on said topic because I don't want to come in just like making stuff up... obviously that's not helpful for anybody, so I like to do my research. So once you request a topic, it is going to take me some time because I want to look into it. I want to read about it. And I want to feel equipped enough to be able to share with you what I've learned, especially if it's not something that I'm familiar with. So just keep that in mind. The Patreon is in the show notes, so you can feel free to go and check that out.

Alyssa Scolari [33:29]:

And thank you so much for the support as always. If you have not done so already, please feel free to leave a rating or review of the podcast. It helps so much. I hope that everybody's having a good week. I am hoping and I'm praying for a better week on my end. I am just... yeah, I am feeling terrible and I don't have any follow ups... there's no buts after. There's no, oh, I know it's going to get better because... I do know it's going to get better, but it's not helpful for me to kind of say that. Sometimes we just need to be in it. And that's kind of where I am. I just need to be in it. I just need to acknowledge that I am not even a little bit okay, but I am I'm here and I'm doing my best to keep myself moving and enjoying the sunshine and just making the most. But it is what it is for right now until I feel better.

Alyssa Scolari [34:35]:

So I hope that you are all doing very well. I love you all. I am holding you in the light and I will see you next week. Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media... on Instagram we are @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you. And we appreciate your support.

What is covert vs. overt narcissism? What do symptoms of abuse look like in victims? Can an abuser ever truly change? This week brings us part two of a two-part series with Rebecca Christianson, LCSW, on narcissistic abuse.

Learn more about Rebecca Christianson, LCSW

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/lightaftertrauma

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari, and we have part two today of our episode about narcissism with Rebecca Christianson, who you all know very well at this point, is the founder and owner of Rebellious Wellness Counseling in South Jersey. We are just going to jump right into it, pick up where we left off. So if you have not listened to last week's episode, please be sure to do so because we are breaking down narcissism into a two-part episode and this is part two. So if you didn't listen to part one, please remember to go back and listen. And really, we are just picking up where we left off. And where we left off is wanting to talk about the differences between covert narcissism and overt narcissism because narcissism can be glaring and in your face, but it can also be much more subtle. And I think Rebecca and I can probably both agree that both types are terrible, but covert narcissism can be, I don't know if I want to say a little bit more insidious, but it can be much more confusing for the victims. So do you want to take it, Rebecca? What do you have to say on that?

Rebecca Christianson [01:43]:

One of the ways that narcissism can be covert is that sometimes narcissists play this down, depressed ... They elicit empathy and you always end up feeling sorry for them. And so people are like, "Oh no, they're not a narcissist. They're depressed," but certainly there are times where people are depressed and are down and do need empathy and support. The problem is that a narcissist uses that to entice people to feel sorry for them. But those traits of narcissism like selfishness and they're never really trying to help other people, it's always just about getting people to help them. It's always about them.

Alyssa Scolari [02:33]:

Yes. Yeah, I can think in a relationship, a red flag for this could be ... And I guess I should say this and I think we might have said this in the other episode, but if we didn't, then it bears saying now. So Rebecca and I are giving examples, but the loved one in your life that you are thinking may or may not be a narcissist, we are not diagnosing this person. We're not that person's therapist, so we can't diagnose people. And simply because we are giving traits of what a narcissist can look like does not necessarily mean that somebody who has these traits is always going to be a narcissist. So just keep that in mind as you go through this process and just reflecting off of what Rebecca said, I think, a good example might be. The narcissist even tries to elicit sympathy if you are the one with a problem. Right? Would you agree with that?

Rebecca Christianson [03:34]:

Yep. Yes. Right. They elicit sympathy even if you're the one that has the problem, they will turn it around so that you are then taking care of them. They lack the ability to have compassion or empathy for other people. It always has to turn back around them so there's a very selfish nature in a covert narcissist and they keep you in this detrimental cycle. And it's really sometimes hard to see because we typically think of a narcissist, an overt narcissist, who is egocentric and the need for adoration and arrogant, also very selfish and lack sympathy, but very overt about it. And a covert narcissist does that very under the radar. It's hard to see sometimes.

Alyssa Scolari [04:30]:

Yeah. I think a covert narcissist, we can look at Adolf Hitler, I think we could say, was a clear example. And potentially some other political leaders in this world at this very moment, we can clearly identify them as overt narcissists. They are loud and out there about the fact that they really don't care about anybody but themselves and their own personal gains.

Rebecca Christianson [04:58]:

But they're very charming and there's that love bombing stage that we did talk about, I think, in part one, and they have this way of making you believe that even though they have those personality traits, you're the one that sees the real them. You're the one that can change them. You're the one that can help them understand why other people see them that way. They can hook you until you hit the devalue phase and discard phase. But even though the way we're talking about them, it seems like, "Well, who would even want to be friends with them?" they have a way, and that's the love bonding stage. They have a way of making you feel like a million dollars when you're with them in the beginning.

Alyssa Scolari [05:44]:

Yes, they're so charismatic, so charismatic. And I think also another good way to identify a covert narcissist is the one upper. Who's the one upper in your life? You had a bad day, they had a worse one. You got a nail in your tire. Well, guess what? They got four nails in their tire. Your kid is difficult. Well, guess what? The kid that they had is 20 times more difficult. You can't even begin to imagine how hard life is for them. Yeah. It's like the constant one upper in your life.

Rebecca Christianson [06:20]:

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. You're a hundred percent right about that. I think one of the things we talked about in this interview is are all narcissist abusive? Now, I did some research and I thought about that and that's a hard one. I don't know how to answer that. I really don't.

Alyssa Scolari [06:44]:

Yeah. I was thinking about this question too, and it's hard for me to picture a situation in which they're not abusive. I know we're not supposed to really be using all or nothing generalizations about people, but it's really hard for me to picture a narcissist who isn't abusive because they feed off of the attention from others. So it's not like a narcissist would ever just be a lone wolf, that they would never have an effect on other people. Right?

Rebecca Christianson [07:27]:

That's exactly what I thought too, is it's hard to imagine a scenario where that would not be an abusive cycle, where that would not turn into. It's really hard to imagine that. And I think one of the things that piggybacks of what we were saying earlier, as we're talking about, you think, "Well, who would want to be friends with somebody like that? Who would want to be in a relationship?" And as you mentioned, they're huge charmers. Their personalities are bigger than life. You're drawn to them.

Rebecca Christianson [07:58]:

And I think a lot of times, at least when I see people, I'm sure when you see people too, who have been victims of narcissists, they feel ashamed and feel like there's something about them that allowed them to ... They're not smart or they're not self-aware, all these different things, so I thought that was really important to point that narcissists get attracted to people who are intelligent, who have really good qualities. They are empathic and they do have a lot of compassion and they show a lot of heart and they're open. That's who narcissists are attracted to. So if you have those qualities, which are all really good qualities, you're a target for a narcissist. They need their ego fed and they need it fed by somebody who's intelligent and self-aware and open and empathic and can be vulnerable and are mature and have a lot of friends. That's who they need their ego fed, so the qualities that most of us strive to have are all what narcissists target.

Alyssa Scolari [09:09]:

A thousand percent, a thousand percent. They're not going for easy prey because it doesn't do anything for their ego. Relationships are all about feeding their ego.

Rebecca Christianson [09:19]:

All about feeding their ego. People who are all often successful and have many achievements and all those things, because that is who they want to feed their ego. If they can hook them, it just is all the better, too. And I think that's an important thing for people because they break you and they come out of that abusive relationship and you feel none of those things about yourself. That feels like another person. That feels like the former you. Therapy for somebody who's a victim of that is about helping them reattach to that person that they are, that they still are, but they've lost in this abusive cycle. They've lost themselves, but helping them reattach to who they really are and mend friendships that they've lost and mend the relationship with themselves.

Rebecca Christianson [10:17]:

I read this thing about the first step is learning how to observe, be an observer and observe your own thoughts and feelings and that person's thoughts and feelings and actions. And when you can start just observing, you can then start to have some detachment from the cycle, that abusive cycle, and some clarity. And then, obviously once you start to detach, going to therapy and starting to reattach to that former self that you feel like you lost is so important. But I read this thing about, if you don't know where to start, start meditating and be mindful, because meditation teaches you how to detach from your thoughts and feelings. And I always thought that was such a great piece of advice because it's so true. If you just start meditating, just the act of meditating forces you to detach from your thoughts and feelings and observe them, and then you start to observe their thoughts and feelings. And when you can learn to detach them a little bit, then you stop the effect of that abuse momentarily so that you can start to see it for what it is instead of get sucked into it. And I thought that was really good advice.

Alyssa Scolari [11:37]:

Yeah. I love that. And I almost think that can sometimes be the role of what the therapist does if you aren't able to get there in that moment, where you can be mindful and step outside yourself. That's where I think a therapist is so important. As you're talking, I'm thinking about myself and the clients that I've dealt with who have had narcissists in their lives and they haven't been able to do that at first. So it's the thing that us as therapists do because we are literally the outside person and we can say, "Hey, this is what this is looking like," and then we teach you to then be able to do that for yourself. And yeah, I think that is the first big step to healing.

Rebecca Christianson [12:22]:

I do too. I do too. I thought that was really ... And then mindfulness teaches you to be aware of the in the moment and be aware of how you're reacting, what you're thinking, what you're feeling and how you're reacting. And sometimes when I teach mindfulness, as in DBT, that one whole section of DBT, one of the cornerstones of DBT is mindfulness. And sometimes when I teach it, I talk about self-respect and personal integrity and being able to be mindful of what you're thinking, what you're feeling and what how you're reacting and how that's landing and what your intent is. And there's a certain amount of self-respect and personal integrity when you can stay mindful and be aware of those things because you're more likely to react in a way that is congruent with your intent. I thought that was really interesting. Also, the role of a therapist in helping somebody heal from narcissistic abuse, to help people, teach people, mindfulness because you get sucked into that abuse and you become reactive. That's why I say that can break you. You can become somebody that you don't even recognize and ...

Alyssa Scolari [13:48]:

Oh, absolutely.

Rebecca Christianson [13:50]:

Yep. And you can break off friendships, family relationships, whatever you have to do to keep that relationship because it becomes all important to you, so I feel like mindfulness is a really important skill too, in the treatment of healing from a narcissist.

Alyssa Scolari [14:10]:

Yes. No, it's so important. And I think about my own experiences and I remember ... You say you don't even recognize yourself. You don't even know how you end up light years away from who you used to be and you don't know how you got there or how you're even going to begin to get yourself back. I remember when I was dating a narcissist and for the listeners, if you've been a long time listener on this podcast, you all know about my experience with being in a very abusive relationship. I left my home, moved in with this dude. And before I knew it, literally before I knew it, I had cut off my entire family, didn't speak to any of them, and I was looking for apartments for us to live in. I was a college kid. I couldn't afford an apartment. I could barely afford a cup of coffee, but I was suddenly about to pay 50% of the rent for a really fancy apartment in a really ritzy area because he told me that this would make me happy. And I was like, "This doesn't make me happy. I'm going to be alone and broke. And you're going to be living with me and I don't even think I like you."

Alyssa Scolari [15:34]:

You lose yourself. And I think, in talking about the treatment that victims get, mindfulness, absolutely. And I think further along that journey is boundary setting. Whether or not you're still in that relationship, boundary setting. Would you agree with that?

Rebecca Christianson [15:59]:

Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. I think that's, like you said, farther down that journey. I feel like once you can start to detach from the thoughts and feelings that you're having and you can observe what's happening for you and you can observe what's happening for them and you can start to identify the abuse and you can start to become mindful and aware of what your needs and wants are and not just what the narcissist's needs are wants and your desire to fulfill that bottomless well, you can start to, again, focus on what some of your needs are wants are. I feel like then boundary setting is ... And some people were really good at boundary setting and then they got caught up in a narcissistic abuse cycle and they've lost that ability. It's just remembering boundaries are life sustaining. We need boundaries for everything and ...

Alyssa Scolari [16:58]:

Your whole life.

Rebecca Christianson [17:00]:

Your whole life. Boundaries do not make you a selfish person. Boundaries make you a healthy person.

Alyssa Scolari [17:05]:

Yes, and this is important. This is especially important if the narcissist in your life is a parent or is the person who raised you. This is especially important because oftentimes, we have parents or caregivers who are narcissists and it's not so easy to just cut them off because you can't just break up with them. You breaking up with a caregiver doesn't make them not your caregiver. You breaking up with a parent doesn't mean that they're no longer your parent. Now, you could go no contact, but for some people, it takes years to get there. And for some people, that's never an option, so I think especially when the narcissist in your life is a parent, I think boundaries are crucial. Crucial down the road, of course, after you learn how to solidify your voice and take back what was taken from you.

Rebecca Christianson [18:11]:

Yep. Exactly. No, I absolutely agree. Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [18:15]:

Now, we're talking about treatment for the victim of a narcissist, but what about treatment for a narcissist? Can narcissists get treatment? Will they get treatment? And if they do, what does that look like?

Rebecca Christianson [18:36]:

I have, over the years, seen a few narcissists that have gotten treatment, have been successful, I should say, in treatment. So they often do not seek treatment because this is an ingrained personality disorder. And like you said, we are not diagnosing somebody that we don't know in somebody else's life. To be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, you have to meet criteria for a period of time and you have to meet the criteria in the DSM-5, and that has to be over a period of time. It's not just like these personality traits are present in one relationship. They have to be there pervasively for a period of time. But I have seen over the years, a handful of narcissists that have successfully been treated. And in all of those cases, them seeking treatment was brought on by a traumatic event in their life or an illness or accident that was life-threatening. So oftentimes, that is when the consequences of some of these personality traits hit home. When they are facing a life change or an illness, something that could possibly, they would need a caretaker or they're going through treatment, sometimes that is when some of these personality traits, they become aware of some of these personality traits and how they have impacted other people because they've alienated so many people.

Rebecca Christianson [20:22]:

Or some tragedy, so I have seen one narcissist who went through the loss of a child and that really shook him to the core. I think it was some of his family and friends' reactions to that tragic loss that made him seek treatment and want to understand why he was that way and wanted to change.

Rebecca Christianson [20:45]:

And it was years ago, many years ago, but I do believe that he successfully changed. Treatment, for him, was some exposure therapy, learning to sit with the uncomfortable truth of his fragile ego and how he would do almost anything to cover that anxiety or for somebody else to soothe that anxiety. So exposure therapy and DBT, because I think that all people with narcissistic personality disorder really missed some of the cornerstones that DBT can teach you, like emotion regulation, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness. I think they're missing all of those. Mindfulness, I think they're missing all of those. They didn't learn them along the way because they learned very early on to get their needs met. They had to manipulate and that worked for them, so they never stopped manipulating. They never learned how to tolerate distress. They never learned how to regulate their own emotions. They just expect somebody else to feed that fragile ego and they keep manipulating to get that need met. They don't really worry about meeting their own needs. They never meet their own needs.

Rebecca Christianson [22:09]:

So some exposure, where they are sitting, not literally naked, but emotionally naked and being able to force them to regulate those emotions, and learn skills, then, to regulate those emotions ... And interpersonal effectiveness is really fascinating, the few times that I've been able to teach that to a narcissist, because they think they are very interpersonally effective because they always get their needs met. But what they don't realize is that they burn through, it's in an abusive way, so even though they think are getting their needs met, they're just chewing up and spitting out somebody else. They're not actually meeting that need and ...

Alyssa Scolari [22:58]:

Right. They're not fostering any genuine connections.

Rebecca Christianson [23:01]:

Nope. And so that's always fascinating. I think they can. I think typically, it's too painful for them and so I feel like that's why it has to take a life threatening illness or some tragedy for them to get this ... Not always, I mean, but ...

Alyssa Scolari [23:23]:

Yeah. For the listeners out there who might not know what DBT is, that term might be new. I'm trying to think of a good way to summarize what DBT is. I love DBT and I used to hate it, but your girl loves it now. DBT is a type of therapy. It stands for dialectical behavioral therapy and that is really a fancy term for ... Dialectical, that term in itself means that both can exist, the good and the bad, living in the dialectic, where all of it can be true and you can sit with it. Would you agree with that or am I off on that definition?

Rebecca Christianson [24:08]:

Yeah. No, I think that's spot on. It's a set of skills.

Alyssa Scolari [24:13]:

Yeah. DBT is really heavy with skills that, again, teach you how to effectively communicate with other people, how to deal with your emotions if your emotions are feeling so intense and out of control. Anything else? I feel like that sums it up. It's teaching you basic life skills. But when I say basic, things that we really all need because nobody gets enough of it, like learning how to foster good relationships, learning about boundaries, learning about empathy, learning about self-compassion for yourself, taking care of yourself emotionally, things like that.

Rebecca Christianson [24:55]:

And learning how to relate authentically. I think understanding how to relate your intent and have it land the way you want it to land and mindfulness, being mindful. I think lots of things have impacted our ability to be mindful, our phones, social media, immediate gratification, so those have all impacted our ability to be mindful, so that's what DBT is. It's skills training to learn skills related to those concepts that we all need, that we all need to have.

Alyssa Scolari [25:34]:

That we all need, exactly. Exactly. And then so going back to what you were saying about narcissists and what will cause them to get treatment, absolutely. And I work with a lot of teenagers and young adults. I work with people of all ages, but most of my practice is filled with lots of teenagers and young adults. And I will also see that parents who are narcissists will only go to therapy after their child has gone no contact or has said, in a case of parents who are divorced, if the child lives with dad and dad is the narcissist, they're like, "I'm going to live with mom. That's it, I'm done," and that is what will land a parent in therapy. My teens or my young adults will come in and they'll be like, "Well, now all of a sudden, my mom is in therapy. I've been asking her for five years to go to therapy when I was living with her. I move out and suddenly she's in therapy."

Alyssa Scolari [26:34]:

But often what I find, too, with some narcissists is that if they do go to therapy, they will often seek out a therapist who they can also manipulate and who will validate them. I've seen a lot of the parents of my kids go to therapy and then they'll come home and they'll be like, "Well, my therapist thinks that you are being B, B, B, B, B, B, blah." Now, whether or not the therapist actually said that, who knows, but the narcissist's interpretation of therapy can often be to their benefit and then sometimes it can be another tool in their arsenal that they can use against their child. I'm sure you've seen that sometimes, right?

Rebecca Christianson [27:17]:

Yes, absolutely. Yep. It can be another tool that they use, like, "Well, my therapist said," but that therapist is getting one viewpoint. And I always think as a therapist, if it looks really simple, there's probably more to the story. If it looks like, "Oh, this person is the best parent in the world. Why would there be a problem? It must be the other parent or the child or whatever," that I feel like you're probably not getting the whole story. And the other time I think that narcissists show up in therapy is in couples therapy, when they're on the brink of divorce. And the person that they have abused is finally leaving or has left or has filed for divorce or whatever and they're scared, so that is always really difficult to mediate in couples therapy.

Alyssa Scolari [28:27]:

So hard.

Rebecca Christianson [28:29]:

Yep, really difficult.

Alyssa Scolari [28:31]:

It's so hard. So one last question that I'm curious to know your opinion on is if somebody is listening to this out there right now and they're like, "Oh my gosh, I think that I have a narcissist in my life. I think that I have somebody in my life who is a narcissist." Would you recommend that they say it to the person that they think is a narcissist and say, "You need to go get help." Have you ever seen that that has been effective?

Rebecca Christianson [29:08]:

No, I don't. I don't think a narcissist is going to take that and that critique and become suddenly self-aware and less selfish. I think that they're going to be verbally abusive to the person who says, "I think you're a narcissist." So I think that if somebody thinks that they're in a relationship with a narcissist and they want to stay in the relationship, they should consider couples counseling because I would let the professional point that out.

Rebecca Christianson [29:53]:

And I think that's the only time that maybe they might be, if they have a connection to a therapist and feel like that therapist understands or at least has the good of the relationship and is their priority, then there's a chance that they might listen that some of their traits. I rarely think that calling a narcissist a narcissist is a good idea. I really don't think, even as a therapist. I usually just identify the traits, like, "Can you understand how that feels self-serving? Can you understand how that can be really construed as there's a flavor of arrogance in that?" I feel like that's much more palatable to a narcissist than being like, "I think you're a narcissist. You should ..." I just feel like that's aggressive.

Alyssa Scolari [30:53]:

Yes, absolutely.

Rebecca Christianson [30:53]:

So I feel like pointing out the traits ... That's not to say that I haven't said, "I think that you have a lot of narcissistic traits." I just don't always say that till I formed a relationship where they trust me enough that I can say that and they'll actually receive it as constructive.

Alyssa Scolari [31:17]:

Right. Exactly. Exactly. Well, thank you so much for joining [crosstalk 00:31:26] part two with me.

Rebecca Christianson [31:26]:

Yes. Always a pleasure.

Alyssa Scolari [31:27]:

This is one of my, I don't know. I'm very passionate about talking about this. I love it. And I also think that narcissism can be really overused and I think it's one of those words that people just throw out there very lightly, but it's actually really, really damaging. So, just like we talked about, if you are listening and you resonate with this and you feel like you have a narcissist in your life, you could potentially be opening yourself up to being hurt and opening yourself up to more abuse if you do directly confront that person and say, "Hey, I think you're a narcissist." And I think that either couples counseling or if it's a parent or if you're in a relationship and you don't want to continue the relationship or you don't know, get help for yourself because ultimately, that is all we can do, is help ourselves. We can't change people. So I think that's really important to keep in mind because when we are in relationships, we love other people and we want to see that other person get help, but you simply can't and you have to come first.

Alyssa Scolari [32:39]:

So thank you so much for joining me today.

Rebecca Christianson [32:42]:

Absolutely. Always a pleasure.

Alyssa Scolari [32:45]:

Thank you. I hope that everybody has a wonderful week. Hang in there. I know times are tough right now. I will be back next week with another episode. And until then, I will be holding you all in the light.

Alyssa Scolari [33:00]:

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter, it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks, so please head on over. Again, that's paton.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you and we appreciate your support.

What is narcissism and how do we know if someone is a narcissist? Alyssa teams up with returning podcast guest, Rebecca Christianson, LCSW as they tackle this very important topic.

Learn more about Rebecca Christianson, LCSW

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/lightaftertrauma

Transcript

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hello, beautiful people. Welcome back to another episode of The Light After Trauma podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari. This is a two part, well, really a two part series. This is going to be two episodes today, and it is a guest episode. It has been a while since we've had a guest episode. I know that we he had talked about me sort of reeling back on guest episodes and being much more particular with who's coming on the show, just because I know that you all are really interested and have really, really liked the solo episodes that I've done.

Alyssa Scolari [00:57]:

But you all also love today's guest, who is a friend of the family, friend of the podcast, it's Rebecca Christianson. Duh, would it be anyone else? We love Rebecca. She has been on this podcast to talk about grief. She's been on the podcast to talk about guilt and shame, and she's incredible.

Alyssa Scolari [01:19]:

Today she's on the podcast to talk about narcissism. And I know this one's going to be a really big hit for you all because narcissism is honestly a very hot term right now. It is a really hot topic. It is all over TikTok, all over social media. But before we dive right into narcissism, I just want to take a minute to let you know who Rebecca is.

Alyssa Scolari [01:41]:

If you are a new listener, Rebecca really started out as a mentor for me and became, honestly, one of my closest friends. She's absolutely a soulmate of mine. We were absolutely meant to know each other in this life and every other life after that. And she really is the reason why I am the therapist that I am today.

Alyssa Scolari [02:05]:

So Rebecca is the founder of a group practice called Rebellious Wellness Counseling in the state of New Jersey in the United States. And I will, of course, link her group practice. She works with a bunch of wonderful people. She does amazing work. She is, especially you do a lot of grief, right? Like that's like you special when I think of you, I think like you do grief, but you also do couples, right?

Rebecca Christianson [02:33]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [02:34]:

Yeah.

Rebecca Christianson [02:34]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [02:35]:

Rebecca does two of the hardest things that I think any therapist can do. So I will absolutely link her group practice in the show notes for today. So let's just hand it over to Rebecca. Welcome.

Rebecca Christianson [02:51]:

Thank you. Thanks for having me. You always say the nicest things. You are the therapist that you are because you are extremely talented and work really hard, but thank you for giving me credit for that.

Alyssa Scolari [03:04]:

All shucks. Thank you.

Rebecca Christianson [03:05]:

Yeah. So I am always honored to be on the podcast. I love, obviously, I love talking to you. I love tackling some of these topics that I think are complex topics that everybody has to handle, but don't always understand exactly how to handle it or how it affects their lives. So I'm happy to be on it.

Alyssa Scolari [03:27]:

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And we make a really good team, which is why I feel like tackling narcissism today is like, you and I are really, really well suited to do this together because it's a really heavy topic, right?

Rebecca Christianson [03:42]:

Yep. Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [03:43]:

And it's something that I think gets talked about a lot, but also often very misused and overused. And so I think here's an interesting fact for y'all, right? So the word narcissism in itself is at actually derived from the Greek mythological figure, Narcissus. And basically the story of Narcissus is that he fell in love with his own reflection. And what narcissism is at its core is really just self-absorption but pathological self absorption.

Alyssa Scolari [04:21]:

So that's where the name comes from. And I think when it comes to narcissism, there's one way that therapists diagnose it. But then there's an entirely different way that I think you guys can understand it and recognize it in others. And that's kind of a little bit more important.

Alyssa Scolari [04:48]:

So the way that therapists diagnose it is, obviously, you all have heard of the DSM. I've talked about it on this podcast before. It's like the holy grail for mental health diagnoses. It's what therapists turn to in order to diagnose somebody. And there is a personality disorder in there called Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And this is how therapists would really diagnose somebody. And really what it is it's this pattern of grandiosity.

Alyssa Scolari [05:23]:

They just, people, who think that they just have this huge amount of self importance. They often exaggerate their achievements and their talents. They are preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, or ideal love. They believe that they are super special and unique and that they are very high status and everyone else is below them. They require excessive admiration. They constantly need other people to be doting on them and thinking that they are just the bees knees.

Alyssa Scolari [06:01]:

They have an extreme sense of self entitlement, very unreasonable expectations, and they always think that they should be favored above everyone else. They exploit people, especially those who are closest to them. In other words, they try to take advantage of the people around them to meet their own needs. And they lack empathy. They cannot identify with feelings or needs of others and they often can seem very arrogant, right?

Alyssa Scolari [06:33]:

So that's a very brief run through of what those symptoms look like in the book that therapists use to diagnose. But it's a little bit different when we're just in our day to day life. So Rebecca, can you actually talk about, I don't know. I feel like what I just said was a very hoity-toity way of describing narcissism. Can you break this down? What does that actually look like day to day?

Rebecca Christianson [07:02]:

Yes, absolutely. I think that one of the things that's important to remember about narcissist is that underneath it all, it's a very, very fragile ego and that extremely, extremely fragile ego, came from somewhere, right? Oftentimes it comes from childhood trauma. Oftentimes it comes from neglect or abuse where a child doesn't get their needs met. So they have to manipulate to get their own needs met and they build this wall or protection around that very fragile ego. And no one can see the fragile ego at any cost. So they will always externally get their needs met instead of getting their needs met from within.

Rebecca Christianson [07:55]:

That would be... The only thing that was really healing for them is to go in and process through the things that made that ego so fragile. But they, at a very young age, protect that fragile ego at all costs. At all costs. At the cost to anyone else their needs will always come first and that the hallmark of a narcissist.

Rebecca Christianson [08:14]:

So I'm going to quote Shahida Arabi who wrote, Becoming the Narcissist Nightmare, because this is my favorite quote about narcissist. It says, "The first thing you must know about a narcissist is that you will never truly know anything about the narcissist."

Alyssa Scolari [08:30]:

Ugh. Yes, yes. That's it, case closed. End of episode.

Rebecca Christianson [08:37]:

Closed, there you go. You'll never really know. And I really believe that because they don't know. They've created such a false self that they don't even remember why they became a narcissist. One of the questions I get all the time is like, "Can a narcissist heal? Can they get better?" And the answer to that's, yes. Rarely do they do the work that's required to get better, but they can. But that would be going back to the childhood trauma, whatever happened that made them realize that they felt they needed to manipulate their environment to get their needs met, that they were not lovable enough to get their needs met just by being who they were.

Rebecca Christianson [09:29]:

And that's so painful. Usually by the time they show up in our office, that's so painful that they rarely do that. But the times that I've seen narcissists actually do that work is either they have a terminal illness, and because they have never truly been able to connect authentically with anyone, they don't have very many people who are going to take care of them. Or they've had such a traumatic loss in their life that it's shocked them to their core. And they don't want to continue to live that way.

Rebecca Christianson [10:03]:

So, those are the times. But I think how it would show up, you said a lot of the things, I think that when you notice somebody has the inability to empathize with you or with other people at all, like if you have a friend that's a narcissist and you tell them they have the inability to empathize, but they understand people, so they can fake empathy. They can...

Alyssa Scolari [10:30]:

Yes. They're typically very, very charming.

Rebecca Christianson [10:34]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [10:34]:

But when it comes to empathy, it could look like you confide in a friend about something and or you tell a friend something, right? And if that friend goes, "Oh, well they deserved it. They deserved it. They had that coming." Right? Or it could be, this person responds in a way that's like completely ignores what you're talking about and shifts the focus onto them. "Oh, well, when I was that age, it was even harder for me. Babababa."

Rebecca Christianson [11:07]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [11:07]:

Yeah.

Rebecca Christianson [11:07]:

Yep. Or they will fake empathy if they think that's going to get them something. So they'll be like, "Oh, that was a hard day at work." And like this, whatever it is, because they think that they're going to get something out of that. So sometimes they'll fake empathy to get their own need met at the end of the day. And then if that doesn't happen, they get angry. So the inability to authentically apologize, see hallmark up. You notice that somebody cannot take accountability. They will skirt accountability for something that they have done that has hurt the other person or isn't right or whatever. They cannot authentically apologize.

Rebecca Christianson [11:47]:

You said this before, but it will always be somebody else's fault. There will always be a reason why they cannot take accountability and authentically apologize. Also hallmark of when you notice that with someone that you're around or involved with, that's definitely a hallmark sign. And then if you confront them, they become extremely angry.

Rebecca Christianson [12:11]:

In fact, there's a term called Narcissistic Rage. And that's if they perceive their ego as being challenged, some people have narcissistic rage. And then you did a podcast earlier that I listened to about gaslighting. This is where gaslighting comes in. They're unable to take accountability. So they will gaslight at all costs. And it becomes, because they're usually extremely bright and charming, it can become almost impossible to pick up on the gaslighting.

Rebecca Christianson [12:47]:

Some people are so good at that, that your head is spinning and you don't even understand what just happened. It's not until you tell somebody outside of that interaction or relationship that they might be able to see, "I think they were gaslighting you." Because it's real, some people become really good, they become professionals at not taking accountability.

Rebecca Christianson [13:14]:

And the thing about, again, they're very intuitive, very perceptive, very charming, and very bright. So they will learn things about you, your Achilles heel, your soft spots, and that's where they're going to hit. So when they gaslight you, it's not going to be always about the actual thing they're not taking accountability for. They're going to gaslight you and hit where they know it hurts so that you will be blindsided, taken off guard, all these other things. So ultimately they don't have to take accountability.

Rebecca Christianson [13:47]:

I think those, and then you mentioned self-absorbed, always bringing the conversation back to themselves. I feel like if you're in a relationship or a friendship or a work relationship with somebody who has more than one of those characteristics, they are probably a narcissist.

Alyssa Scolari [14:05]:

Red flags, red flags, red flags, red flags. Yeah. And I think gaslighting is the narcissists best friend. Best friend, that is their biggest tool. And as you're kind of saying all this, I feel like now's a really good time to read the Narcissist's Prayer. So this perfectly, for the listeners out there, reflects everything that Rebecca is saying and then some. It's like, The narcissist's prayer is, and by the way I did not write this. And I actually don't know who wrote this. I tried to look it up and there's a couple different versions of it, but I don't know. It says the author is unknown when it comes to this specific version of it.

Alyssa Scolari [14:50]:

But the Narcissist's Prayer is, "That didn't happen. And if it did, it is not a big deal. And if it was a big deal, then it was not my fault. And if it was my fault, well, then I didn't mean it. And if I did mean it, then you deserved it. Now this conversation is over. I am done talking about it."

Rebecca Christianson [15:12]:

I think that says it perfectly. And so many people, here's the thing about narcissists, right? So many people, as you were saying, all of the kind of DSM-IV criteria, I think two things. I think one on a bad day, we all feel selfish, right? It's normal to have moments of time where we feel selfish, that's normal. But we feel remorse and regret when that selfishness might have been at the expense of someone else. But there's remorse, there's guilt or shame.

Rebecca Christianson [15:48]:

Narcissists do not feel guilt or shame for that. They are self-absorbed to a pathological point, and you said that in the beginning and I wanted to reiterate that, they're not just having a selfish day. They're not just self-absorbed about the promotion they want at work. It's a way of living for them. It's to a pathological point.

Rebecca Christianson [16:11]:

And I think we all have narcissist in our lives and it's hard. It's hard because when you get close to, and I know Part Two is going to be more about the relationship with the narcissist, but when you get close to putting up a boundary with a narcissist, they love bomb. And when they love bomb, it feels as if they've heard you and they understand the error of their ways.

Rebecca Christianson [16:36]:

They don't say that because they can't take accountability. It just feels that way. And then you're hooked again. Then you're hooked again. And these characteristics will show up again. So if you think you're in a relationship or have a friend or a work relationship where you're in, or you think they're a narcissist, and you start to point that out or you start to set different boundaries because that doesn't feel good, and they make you feel like they understand the error of their ways they want to change. But these show back up again, run, run because they're a narcissist.

Alyssa Scolari [17:13]:

Run far.

Rebecca Christianson [17:14]:

And they just love bombed you. And now you're going to be right back in the same cycle. And gaslighting is, I think, the number one way that narcissists manipulate, but they also use silent treatment.

Alyssa Scolari [17:25]:

Yes.

Rebecca Christianson [17:26]:

Silence actually sets off the same pain receptors as physical pain.

Alyssa Scolari [17:33]:

Oh, I did not know that. It makes sense.

Rebecca Christianson [17:36]:

It does. Giving someone the silent treatment sets off the same pain receptors as actual physical pain in our brain. It's so painful to be ignored, rejected, abandoned to feel those feelings to suddenly have silence. So it's also a huge manipulation tactic for narcissists.

Rebecca Christianson [17:54]:

Stonewalling, the end of the prayer that you read, "And I am done with this relationship," refusing to talk about things is also a huge manipulation tactic. And then comparison. So they need the attention from everyone, right? So they will often compare what you're giving to what other people, past girl friends, other people that they are in their lives can give them, can feed them. So another huge manipulation tactic is to compare what you're offering to other people, whether that's imagined or real, to get you to up your ante, to get you to do more.

Alyssa Scolari [18:38]:

Yeah. And I also think that another too, well, you mentioned the love bombing, right? And for folks out there who may not have heard of this phrase before or may have heard of it, and don't quite know what it is love bombing is, again, the narcissist isn't taking accountability for his or her or their actions, but they are showering you with gifts, showering you with affection, spending money, maybe money that they don't even have, on you.

Alyssa Scolari [19:06]:

Suddenly you have that Prada bag that you have always wanted. Suddenly they are paying for you to go on a trip. Suddenly, you've been asking for three years to go and visit, I don't know, the state of Vermont in the fall because it's beautiful and guess what? All of a sudden you're going there. And they might be showering with you with words of affection as well, "I love you. You're so important to me." They tell you everything, like Rebecca said, that you want to hear, that makes you think that they have taken accountability and seen the error of their ways. But without them actually having to say that, right? So that's love bombing.

Alyssa Scolari [19:41]:

But then the other thing that I always see with narcissists is their attempt at isolation, right? So yes, also the comparison, but they will also do this thing where they will make you feel like you're alone in the world. And they might say very subtle things like, "Oh, did you see the weird way your friend was looking at you there?"

Rebecca Christianson [20:06]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [20:06]:

Right? "Did you see the way she rolled her eyes when you guys were talking? Do you really think she's a good friend?" When I was in a relationship with a narcissist, he would tell me time and time again, that my family hated me, that they hated me. And after a while, and he wouldn't sit me down and say, "Alyssa, your family hates you." But it was very subtle. It would be, "Huh? Are you sure you're okay with the way your mom said this?" And, "Are you sure you don't feel some kind of way about the way your dad said that." And, "Oh, well, I heard that your friend, so and so, said this about you." These very seemingly small things that suddenly, before you know it, have you feeling like you can't trust anyone else, but the narcissist.

Rebecca Christianson [20:53]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [20:54]:

Do you agree with that? Did I explain that correctly?

Rebecca Christianson [20:55]:

I totally agree. Yes, I absolutely agree. They will... Until they're the only one that you trust, but they never, ever go, it's never going to actually be about you, it's always going to be about them. And the reason they do that is so that they don't have competition so that when you don't have anyone to say, "You know, he said or she said this to me." And for them to say, "That's gaslighting. They're gaslighting you." Or like, "That's not okay. They're breaking you down. You're not yourself."

Rebecca Christianson [21:37]:

Isolate you from everyone that can give you perspective, so that they are your only perspective, because they'll isolate you from anyone who can challenge them. Especially anyone whose smart enough to see what they're doing.

Alyssa Scolari [21:54]:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Rebecca Christianson [21:56]:

Yep. I think that whenever... Another kind of hallmark I feel like I see a lot in people who come in and they're in a relationship with a narcissist is, they want to change. If you feel like you want to change or teach the person you're in a relationship with something, like about being a decent human, if you feel like they just don't understand how to treat people properly or be nice or kind, right? Sometimes people will say, "I just don't think that they understand." It always is a red flag to me. My ears always perk up and I start to listen because you shouldn't have to teach a normal person how to be decent and respect people. If you're in an adult relationship, you shouldn't have to, that's something that you teach toddlers. That's not something that you should teach an adult.

Rebecca Christianson [22:54]:

They should know that. That should be... So if you feel that way, be careful, because narcissists can't learn that.

Alyssa Scolari [23:04]:

Yes.

Rebecca Christianson [23:04]:

They do not get something from being inherently kind. If they're kind it's to feed their ego. It's to get something fed. It's not just about, it's never about the other person. So that's something else. It's like a hallmark in relationships when you feel like, "Oh, I just don't think they... They just don't understand how they come across." They know exactly how they come across and they're being an asshole to your friends because they don't want you to be in those friendships because those people are picking up on the fact that they're a narcissist. So it's all manipulation.

Alyssa Scolari [23:41]:

Absolutely. 1000%. 1000%. I think you make a really good point there. And I think before we wrap up with this Part One today, and we're going to get into more on the next episode about some differences between covert and an overt narcissists and what does narcissistic abuse look like in the victim? What are some of the longterm effects of that? What does treatment look like? We're going to talk about that in the next episode, but I also, before we close out, I really wanted to say that it's important for you guys to remember out there that this narcissism is defined by a pattern. Because you could take any one of these things in an isolated incident, and it might not necessarily mean somebody is a narcissist, right?

Alyssa Scolari [24:27]:

Like Rebecca said, we all have selfish tendencies. Being selfish isn't a bad thing at times, right? We all can be self-absorbed. So in an isolated incident, I don't want you to see this and then think immediately of this podcast and go, "Oh my gosh, this must be a narcissist." Because that's not necessarily the case. It is a pattern, a consistent pattern, so please keep that in mind.

Alyssa Scolari [24:54]:

And with that being said, I think, unless there's anything else you wanted to add today, Rebecca, I feel like this might be a good place to wrap up with this episode. And then...

Rebecca Christianson [25:09]:

I think that's great. I think that in our next episode, I want to touch a little bit on, this is something you and I talked about, the covert versus overt narcissist. I do think a lot of times, there are like closet narcissist and sometimes that gets missed and people are in unhealthy relationships. But we can definitely start with that, pick that up, next time.

Rebecca Christianson [25:32]:

And then start to talk about, there is some interesting characteristics that narcissists look for in people. I think sometimes victims of narcissists feel like there must be something wrong with them, but actually narcissists choose really intelligent victims. And they choose people who have really good qualities that are usually very intelligent. That'll also be a great topic to pick up with next time.

Alyssa Scolari [25:58]:

Perfect. So at that, I think we are going to wrap up and we will be back with the second part of this series next week. And if you are enjoying what you're hearing and you're enjoying the podcast, please do not forget to leave us a review. Reviews are incredibly important. They help us to continue to grow and that is the goal. We can get people to be aware that they have access to free mental health support and education through the podcast. And we do that by continuing to grow.

Alyssa Scolari [26:33]:

And if you are a patron on Patreon, don't forget that you can also message me directly through Patreon and you can make episode requests if there's a specific topic that you would like to hear, please feel free to do that. And if you are not a Patreon member yet, please feel free, if you are able to do so to sign up, to become a member. And anything that you are able to give towards the podcast would go a really long way in terms of helping the podcast to pay for itself and helping us to pay for all the different types of things that we do to be able to make this podcast what it is.

Alyssa Scolari [27:13]:

So thank you all so much. I am holding you in the light and I will see you next week.

Alyssa Scolari [27:19]:

Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com. Or you can also follow us on social media, on Instagram we are @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter, it is @lightafterpod.

Alyssa Scolari [27:36]:

Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you. And we appreciate your support.

Diet culture and weight loss tools thrive off of making us hate our bodies. The good news is that you CAN reject the societal pressure to change your body and choose to love your body instead. In this week's episode, Alyssa breaks down the necessary steps toward loving the body you have.

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

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We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon:

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Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hi Everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I am your host Alyssa Scolari, happy to be here for another solo episode. It is a beautiful day that I am recording. The weather is heating up and with the warm weather, I have noticed not just in my private practice but also really just on social media, in general, and the people around me, the conversation is shifting to how can I get in the best shape possible for the warmer weather for summer, for shorts and skirts and short sleeve shirts and things like that. And so I will likely be putting out an episode like this every year when the weather warms up because we need it.

Alyssa Scolari [01:16]:

We are talking today about how to improve your body image, which is a really hard thing to do. We know that our society pushes thinness, thinness, thinness and diets and eating healthy and losing as much weight as you can. And well, honestly, of course they do. Because it might shock you to realize this but the diet industry alone in the year 2021, grossed $254.9 billion. And even worse than that, by the year 2026, it is projected to gross $377.3 billion. So, of course, they're pushing diets because they are making big bucks off of it. Now, a lot of people will say that this isn't true.

Alyssa Scolari [02:21]:

Diet is in the name of health and higher weight can be correlated with the onset of so many different diseases. And to that, I will say, there is a large body of research out there showing that this simply is not true. And that many of these studies that found that information, the way these studies were conducted were basically set up in a way to achieve that similar result, right? To achieve that result that they were expecting. That yep, that's what we know. Having fat on your body means that you're going to have disease and then eventually you're going to die an early death.

Alyssa Scolari [03:02]:

That is actually not true and we have a very outdated way of looking at things. I mean, for the love of God, our doctors in the United States ... I don't know about other countries but the doctors in the United States are still using the BMI, which is the body mass index, which basically takes your weight and your height and does a calculation and spits out whether you are obese or not and the level of your obesity and how at risk you are. We know now that the BMI is flawed in so many ways. Number one, because it doesn't tell you anything about body composition.

Alyssa Scolari [03:44]:

It is just assuming, based on your height and weight, that you are all fat. If the number on the scale is higher, then that must be fat. Therefore, you are unhealthy and therefore you need to do something. So the BMI has been telling people for years, that people who are healthy need to lose weight and it is something that doctors have not seen a problem with. Well, I should say most doctors haven't seen a problem with. And it is something that our diet industry hasn't seen a problem with because dieting is a huge money maker. Now it might be a money maker but it also was a soul breaker, it literally rips our souls apart.

Alyssa Scolari [04:29]:

Especially for those of us who live in larger bodies like myself. I am a self-identified fat person and I can tell you through years of battling an eating disorder, I have been up 120 pounds, down 120 pounds. And at my thinnest, I felt my worst physically. At my heaviest, I felt my best physically. I feel my best physically right now in my body as a fat person. Yes, I do. I have had blood work. I have been to doctor after doctor, all who have said that my blood work looks healthy. My blood pressure, healthy. Cholesterol, healthy. Everything is good but I am a fat person.

Alyssa Scolari [05:15]:

And this startles people because they're like, "Well, how can you be fat and healthy?" Because we have been taught that the two are opposites, that they cannot exist at the same time. That if you're fat, you must be unhealthy. You must have a problem with eating. This is not necessarily the case. There is so much research that shows that this is not at all true. Now this isn't necessarily the topic of today's episode, right? We are not going to talk about fat phobia today, touching on it a little bit. What we are going to talk about today is how to love yourself in spite of the bullshit that society is pushing on you, about you are only worthy if you are thin and starving.

Alyssa Scolari [06:03]:

How can you love yourself if you are trying to break up with diet culture and you are trying to figure out how to love the body that you are in? This episode is for you because it is one of hardest things when we are living in a society that is seething with fat phobia. It is ubiquitous everywhere you turn, even just social media, right? Even if you're following E! News on Instagram, which is basically the news outlet for all of the celebrities. I mean, they are so quick to post when somebody gains five pounds, loses five pounds, as if it's the only thing that matters.

Alyssa Scolari [06:48]:

So learning to love yourself in the society is hard. And if you are somebody who lives in a larger body or who has been struggling with diets your whole life, then you likely also have a history of food related trauma. And that can also make it really hard to love your body. If you are an abuse survivor, sexual abuse, physical abuse, that can also make it really hard for you to love your body. And the warmer months are upon us depending on where you live in the world and people are wanting to wear things with less material that covers less of their bodies and that is causing so much anxiety. It is causing people to buy into more and more diets.

Alyssa Scolari [07:37]:

And what I want to say is this, if you are going to spend your money this summer, don't spend it on a diet, spend it on learning how to love yourself because that is going to be the most important thing. So how do we do this? How do we love ourselves? How do we love the bodies that we're in? This can be really, really difficult, as I said. It's been a journey for me and it's something that I work on every single day. And this year, in particular, I am really committed to respecting my body and loving my body, regardless of what the number on the scale says. I haven't stepped on the scale in months. I have no clue what it says and I don't plan to step on the scale.

Alyssa Scolari [08:21]:

My goal is to respect and love my body, regardless, even though I have no control over what it's doing. I am just listening to it. I am feeding it when it tells me to, I am moving when it tells me I need to move and I am learning how to be okay with that. And we are going to talk about how you can be okay with that, as well. Now this is a process. You cannot wake up tomorrow and expect that you are going to be like, "Oh wow, I love my body. This is great." No, it doesn't work like that, unfortunately, right? Because we cannot erase years of self hatred and body loathing in a day. And for some people it might feel too overwhelming. The thought of having to love your body might feel too overwhelming.

Alyssa Scolari [09:08]:

So we are going to take this in bite size pieces and help you learn how to respect and love the body that you are in. And first we start with simply noticing. Because I would bet that for so many of us and myself included, we don't even recognize how much negative self-talk exists in our brains. Like we look in the mirror and we're like, "Ugh. Oh, I hate this about myself. Oh my gosh, look at my neck. Oh, look at my arms. Look at that. Oh my gosh. When did that get there?" Or, "Oh, look at my stomach. Oh, I can't wear these jeans," right? This is some of the dialogue that goes on in our head all day long.

Alyssa Scolari [09:50]:

"Oh, I really shouldn't be eating this. I really should not be eating this brownie right now. This is so bad. I am going to step on this scale, I'm going to find out that I gained weight tomorrow." It is constant. It's really hard to have any kind of respect for your body when you are constantly talking like crap to your body, right? And that's what we're going for first and foremost, we are going for a basic level of respect. Because like I said, we can't expect that you're going to love yourself right away. But we do have to have you respect yourself first and foremost, but we can't fix a problem if we don't know the problem is there.

Alyssa Scolari [10:27]:

So first we have to recognize when we are treating ourselves like crap. And so it can just be a goal for you to pay more attention to the dialogue in your head. And if you need a place to start, start with the morning. Start with when you're getting dressed in the morning. I want you to be very, very particular about noticing the thoughts that are popping up in your head about when you're getting dressed. What are you telling yourself about how you look? Are you thinking to myself? "Oh well, I'll look so much better in these pants when I'm five pounds thinner?"

Alyssa Scolari [11:04]:

Are you thinking to yourself, "Oh, I can't wear this." What are you saying to yourself? I know for me, that is something I have struggled with so much. The mornings are hard for me or they used to be really hard when I would go to get dressed, right? "Oh, I can't wear this. I don't look good in this." Fortunately for me, that noise has died down a lot. So I do not struggle with that as much, but that is because I have been working hard on trying to notice when these thoughts are coming up and that is what you have to do. And when you are noticing them, you don't need to judge them, just notice them at first, that's it.

Alyssa Scolari [11:46]:

And if that's all you can do right now, that is okay. I do not want you to try to essentially run before you can crawl, so to speak. You know? So it's going to be really, really hard for you to notice these thoughts and then immediately go into, "Oh no, but I love myself." Because for a lot of people that feels not very sincere and some people, like the fake it till you make at mentality and if that works for you, great. But I find that with body positivity and with improving your body image, that doesn't work so well. So all I need you to do is notice without judgment, that is first and foremost.

Alyssa Scolari [12:26]:

Because, again, we can't change a problem that we don't know is there. So it's very important for you to notice all the ways in which you are disrespecting yourself, disrespecting the body that you live in. So next, once you have spent a couple of weeks or months just noticing how you talk to yourself, you're going to try to respect your body a little bit. Just a little bit, a little bit of respect. Notice the things about your body that you haven't said to yourself. For example, it can be as simple as, I am really appreciative that my body allowed me to move through my day today and spend time with my friends, partner, children, coworkers, colleagues, et cetera. It can be as simple as that.

Alyssa Scolari [13:24]:

Wow, I am really grateful for the way my body feels when I am taking a walk outside in the warm sunny weather. It could be as simple as that. It could also be as simple as, I notice the way that my body has full mobility, if you are somebody with full mobility, right? The way that my feet can hit the ground in the morning and I can get up and I can walk into the bathroom and I can use both of my arms to brush my teeth, right? Things like that, keep it very simple. It is a level of respect. Have you ever had a teacher in school that you didn't really like because they were kind of a hard ass, but you also respected them. So you knew better than to say anything bad about them or mouth off to them.

Alyssa Scolari [14:18]:

That's kind of the way you want to treat your body in these early stages, right? You don't have to like your body. You don't have to look in the mirror and go, "Aw, I love my arms and my ... No, no, no, no. Because for some people that's too much, that's not where you're at right now. But there is a level of respect that you can try to give your body. For me, I think that dialogue looks more like, I am really appreciative body that you helped me to survive so much trauma for all of these years. And I think if you are a trauma survivor, this is definitely going to ring true for you.

Alyssa Scolari [14:58]:

My dialogue also looks like, I am really grateful that I was able to go in my backyard and let the sun warm my skin and to be able to experience that sensation. I'm really grateful that I have the mobility to be able to bend down and plant things in my yard because my yard is going to be looking slamming in a couple weeks. I am really grateful that my body allowed me to enjoy that meal that I just had. We had Chick-fil-A yesterday. It was the first time I've been to Chick-fil-A in six months and we rarely go but we were on the way home from a doctor's appointment and we stopped and we got some chicken and we were waiting in line and there were people around me that were all much thinner than me. Very, very thin.

Alyssa Scolari [16:05]:

And I was really in the comparison game. I shouldn't be eating this. I should not be eating this, right? I'm shoulding myself, like hello, big red flag, Alyssa. So I was not able to love myself in that moment because I was filled with a lot of just body dysmorphia and some body loathing. But I was able to respect myself and I was able to say, "I am really grateful that I was able to even get up and walk in here and I'm really grateful that my body has been able to communicate to me that I'm hungry and that I need food. And I'm also really grateful that I am able to go out and I am able to buy a meal on a whim."

Alyssa Scolari [16:48]:

All of these things of gratitude that I was trying to say in my head, mostly centered around, I am thankful that my body led me to this spot and that my body is going to do exactly what I need it to do. All I need to do is listen to it. And in listening to it, I could understand that in that moment, that food was what I needed. That is what my body was telling me. That is what I wanted. That is what I needed. And therefore I got that and I was able to enjoy my meal so much more afterwards. So it is a basic level of respect. Once you are able to start respecting your body in little ways here and there, then it might be to time for you to move into a stage of reflection.

Alyssa Scolari [17:39]:

And what I mean by that is going back and visiting some of the disrespectful things you have said about your body. Going back and visiting some of the ways that you feel about the body that you live in and reflect on them. Why do I feel this way? Do I feel this way because this is reminding me of an incident when I was younger, where somebody told me that I was fat or somebody told me I needed to lose weight? Is this related to some kind of trauma in my life? Is this related to systemic marginalization against fat people, wherein, I have always felt that I have been stigmatized because of my body and therefore have internalized that? Where might this be from?

Alyssa Scolari [18:34]:

Because sometimes it's helpful to know that and maybe it's not, right? Maybe this is something where you skip that stage. But for me, it was really helpful to figure out, why do I feel this way? Why do I feel like I can't wear this outfit? Is it because I tried to wear an outfit very similar to this back in the day and somebody told me I should never go out looking like this? Is it just because society and the way that they treat fat people as a whole? And when I'm able to identify the source of the disrespect, it's actually easier for me to dismiss because I can tell and it becomes very apparent to me that my self-hatred actually has nothing to do with me. I don't actually hate me.

Alyssa Scolari [19:21]:

I learned that I have to hate myself because of the way I was treated when I was younger or the way that society treats my body, it's actually not me. And when I realized that the problem really isn't me, I am able to move through those thoughts much easier and get back to a place of self love and self respect. So I think that reflection is really important for me. It might not necessarily be for you but it is something to experiment with, reflect. Where did these thoughts come from? Where do I see this at? Am I looking at social media and seeing people constantly talking about how they are working out for weight loss or dieting or wanting to get in shape for the summer? Is that where I'm getting it from? Just some things to ask yourself.

Alyssa Scolari [20:09]:

And then with that reflection comes disputing, right? So again, if you are noticing, "Oh, this actually comes from a time when I was younger." And I know for me, a lot of my fears about eating in front of people comes from when I was younger and people would point out my food assumption when I was a little girl but then also directly related to my body. Like people would smack my hand when I would go to get second helpings at the dinner table at a family party. Or if I would go and get a piece of cake at a baby shower or bridal shower or whatever, somebody would say something, like yell across the room about my weight and my body.

Alyssa Scolari [20:56]:

So when I recognize things like that, I can dispute that and I can say, "Okay, that was a comment that was not about me. That was based on that person's own insecurities, their own internalized fat phobia and it actually has nothing to do with me or my body." If I am exercising and I'm feeling really triggered by my exercise and I'm like, "Oh, I wonder if I lost weight from this workout or whatever," I might be like, "Huh, where does that come from?" And then I can identify where it comes from. And then I'm like, "Okay, but in reality, I know that exercise is not a weight loss tool."

Alyssa Scolari [21:39]:

And I know that when I was being told that it was, these people did not know they were so rooted in their own fat phobia and diet culture that they did not know. And therefore, I can try to let these beliefs go for myself. So I am able to use science and facts about weight to be able to dispute my beliefs. And then the final step is choosing to love yourself. It is a choice and it is a choice that you must practice time and time again. And here is where I can say sometimes a little bit of that, fake it till you make it can work, because there are times where I have a really hard time loving my body.

Alyssa Scolari [22:32]:

But I say, you know what? I'm going to choose to love you today. I'm going to choose to. I don't necessarily feel love right now, but love is what I'm choosing. And then I have to go into starting from a baseline of respect. And then from there I can build up love. What does that look like? What does love look like? It looks like an appreciation. It looks like being able to touch all of the parts of your body, even the parts that you really struggle with the most and say, "Hi." I mean, really, as silly as that sounds, say hi to the parts of you that you have been avoiding for so long.

Alyssa Scolari [23:19]:

Notice it, understand what your body has done for you to be able to get you to the place where you are now and learn to develop an appreciation for it. And almost like a wonder, it is a wonder for me that my body has survived so much. It has gotten me through so much. And what, I'm going to sit here and I'm going to hate it simply because of how it looks because society has told me that I'm supposed to hate myself, fuck that. This body has gotten me through so much trauma, all of the worst days of my life. And yeah, there are times where my body and I have been at odds, right? My endometriosis battle, it's been rough.

Alyssa Scolari [24:07]:

And I am now learning how to love my body after that because what I see now is that my body is the greatest teacher. My body knows all the questions I have, right? Oh well, what weight should I be? You know, what do I need to eat today? How much water do I need to have? My body already has the answers to that. I don't need to be asking those questions. All I have to do is think less, talk less and listen more because my body is so wise and so is yours. And from understanding that, I have learned to develop a love for my body because I'm not going to let stigma be the reason I hate myself. I'm not going to let stigma be the reason I feel like I can't go out and enjoy myself during these warm months ahead.

Alyssa Scolari [25:05]:

And I truly hope it can be this way for you. So these are the steps. Notice, respect, reflect, dispute, love. They are not from anywhere special because I created these steps myself. This is what has helped me. This is what has helped so many of the people that I work with and this is what has helped so many other people who have struggled with their body image. And if you are struggling, I hope that this can help you. It is hard work and these steps aren't necessarily linear. You could finally get to a place of love and then something could happen and you could go right back to self hatred because self hatred is sort of a default for us.

Alyssa Scolari [25:51]:

So these steps aren't necessarily permanent, it's kind of cyclical. And it really depends on where you're at in life but these are the things that have helped me time and time again, to get to a place where I can be confident. And I really want that for you all, too. So I hope you have a wonderful week and I am holding you in the light and I will see you next week.

Alyssa Scolari [26:18]:

Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are at lightaftertrauma and on Twitter, it is at LightAfter pod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightafter trauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again that's patreon.com/light aftertrauma. Thank you and we appreciate your support.

Alyssa Scolari [26:55]:

[singing].