Not That Girl Anymore

Leaving an abusive situation is only part of the story. What comes next—and how do you learn to trust yourself again?

In this episode of Not That Girl Anymore, Dawn welcomes podcast producer Brooke Haynes for an honest conversation about narcissistic abuse, religious trauma, and rebuilding a life that feels like your own. Brooke shares her personal experience with domestic violence, while Dawn discusses her growing advocacy work and the importance of connecting women with compassionate, practical support.

Together, they explore how control can hide behind familiar beliefs, why healing continues after leaving, and how support can help you move beyond survival toward confidence, connection, and your dreams.

Your voice matters. Your story matters. And your future is still yours to create.

Learn more at embraceyourbrave.org.

What happens when you stop trying to save the people you love and finally begin to see them?

In this deeply personal episode of Not That Girl Anymore, Dawn celebrates her parents’ 50th wedding anniversary by sharing the story of how they found their way back to one another. She opens up about the religious beliefs that taught her to judge her parents, the grief of years spent confusing fear with love, and the safety she found in their arms when her own marriage fell apart.

Through honest reflections on her father’s choice to change, her mother’s steady love, and her family’s willingness to grow alongside her, Dawn explores boundaries, healing, accountability, and the beauty of getting another chapter together.

This is a heartfelt tribute to the people who kept showing up—and an invitation to be fully present for the love we have today.

Subscribe and join the community at embraceyourbrave.org.

What if you’re not supposed to “find yourself”—because you’re finally getting the chance to choose who you want to become?

In this episode of Not That Girl Anymore, Dawn explores what happens when healing moves beyond understanding what happened to you and becomes an invitation to discover who you are now. After years of being the good girl, keeping the peace, ignoring your own needs, and becoming who everyone else needed you to be, choosing yourself can feel unfamiliar—and even dangerous.

But healing isn’t only about becoming softer or less triggered. Sometimes healing gives you your fight back. It reconnects you with the part of yourself that says, I matter too.

Dawn talks about boundaries, listening to your body, using your voice, changing your mind, trying new things, and letting yourself want more. Because there are still people you haven’t met, places you haven’t been, things you haven’t tried, and versions of yourself you haven’t discovered yet.

You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just get to keep choosing yourself—one decision, one boundary, and one brave little “hell no” at a time.

You are allowed to change. You are allowed to surprise yourself. You are allowed to build a life that actually feels like yours.

You get to become her.

Embrace Your Brave Website

What happens when girls are taught that being “good” means being nice, forgiving, selfless, obedient, and endlessly understanding—even when something inside them is screaming that they aren’t safe?

In this deeply personal episode of Not That Girl Anymore, Dawn explores how women can be conditioned to override their instinct for self-preservation. From religion and purity culture to marriage, sexuality, and motherhood, she examines how these messages can lead to self-abandonment—and create fertile ground for narcissistic abuse and coercive control.

This is a conversation about boundaries, anger, consent, sexuality, and learning to trust yourself again. Because healing isn't only about recognizing the person who hurt you. It's about recognizing yourself again—your instincts, your body, your voice, your boundaries, your no, and your yes.

Maybe healing isn't becoming a different woman.

Maybe it's remembering the woman you were before you learned to abandon yourself.

embraceyourbrave.org

In this raw and deeply personal episode, Dawn is joined by Meg and Misha for a powerful conversation sparked by the documentary Death of a Pastor’s Wife. What begins as a discussion about the story quickly becomes something much bigger: an exploration of religious trauma, narcissistic abuse, purity culture, coercive control, and what can happen when women are taught to sacrifice their own identity, instincts, and safety in the name of being a “good wife” or “good Christian.”

Misha, a trauma-informed coach and somatic healing practitioner specializing in narcissistic abuse, brings both professional insight and her own experience growing up in evangelical culture. Meg shares an intensely personal perspective on life as a pastor’s wife, the loss of identity she experienced, and the difficult process of recognizing and unlearning beliefs that shaped not only her relationships, but also what her children learned about relationships and womanhood.

Together, they examine how spiritual authority can be weaponized, why abuse can become normalized inside religious communities, how shame and submission can silence women, and why leaving an abusive environment doesn't automatically undo years of conditioning.

This conversation gets emotional because these aren't simply stories from a documentary. For many women, this is real life. Dawn, Meg, and Misha remind listeners that recognizing abuse, reclaiming your identity, and questioning what you've been taught can be part of finding your way back to yourself.

Content Warning: This episode contains candid discussion of religious trauma, narcissistic and emotional abuse, sexual coercion, domestic violence, mental health, and other potentially triggering experiences.

What is narcissistic abuse—and how do you know if it’s happening to you?

In this episode, Dawn goes back to the basics to explain what narcissistic abuse actually looks and feels like. Narcissistic abuse isn’t simply dealing with someone who is selfish, difficult, or hurtful. It is a pattern of emotional and psychological abuse that can slowly undermine your ability to trust your own reality, feelings, boundaries, and instincts.

Dawn breaks down common narcissistic abuse tactics including gaslighting, blame shifting, DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender), projection, triangulation, silent treatment, coercive control, intimidation, isolation, and emotional manipulation.

But recognizing narcissistic abuse isn’t always about knowing the terminology. Sometimes the biggest clues are found in how the relationship makes you feel.

Do you constantly question yourself?

Do you replay conversations wondering what really happened?

Do you walk on eggshells or monitor someone else’s moods?

Are you afraid of what will happen when you disagree, say no, or set a boundary?

Do apologies actually lead to changed behavior?

Do you feel more like yourself in this relationship—or have you slowly disappeared?

Dawn also explores why leaving an emotionally or narcissistically abusive relationship can be incredibly complicated, especially when love, children, finances, fear, isolation, religious conditioning, custody concerns, and cycles of pain and connection are involved.

You do not have to prove that someone is a narcissist before taking seriously what is happening to you.

Start by paying attention to the patterns—and listening to yourself.

✨ RECLAIMING YOU

Reclaiming You is a group for women healing from narcissistic and emotional abuse, as well as women who are still trying to understand what they have experienced.

Together, women learn about gaslighting, DARVO, projection, triangulation, coercive control, boundaries, nervous system responses, and—most importantly—how to begin trusting themselves again.

📍 In Person: Mondays, 6:00–7:30 PM in Lafayette, Louisiana

💻 Online: Wednesdays, 6:00–7:30 PM Central Time

You don’t have to have everything figured out before you come.

Your experience matters. Your feelings matter. Your voice matters. And you matter.

Maybe reclaiming yourself begins right here.

Because remember: You’re Not That Girl Anymore.

Reclaiming You Group

#NarcissisticAbuse #EmotionalAbuse #Gaslighting #DARVO #CoerciveControl #NarcissisticRelationship #NarcissisticAbuseRecovery #EmotionalAbuseRecovery #ToxicRelationships #HealingFromAbuse #TraumaRecovery #ReclaimYourself

What happens when you stop looking at your past only through the lens of what happened to you and begin recognizing the strength that was inside you all along?

In this raw and deeply personal conversation, Dawn and Meg continue exploring Meg’s journey of healing from emotional abuse, manipulation, complex PTSD, and painful relationship and family dynamics. Meg shares how EMDR therapy is helping her process traumatic memories differently—including one breakthrough that completely changed the way she viewed one of the most painful experiences of her previous marriage.

They talk openly about PTSD nightmares, trauma responses, emotional abuse, gaslighting, family boundaries, religious and church trauma, self-betrayal, and what it means to finally trust yourself again.

Meg also reflects on the enormous difference between the woman she was months ago and the woman she is becoming now—a woman learning that healing isn't simply about “taking her power back.” Sometimes it's realizing the power was there the entire time.

This episode explores:

• EMDR therapy and trauma recovery
• Complex PTSD and recurring nightmares
• Healing after emotional and psychological abuse
• Recognizing manipulation and gaslighting
• Setting boundaries with difficult family members
• Religious and church trauma
• Releasing shame and self-blame
• Rebuilding self-trust after abusive relationships
• Recognizing trauma responses in everyday life
• Moving from survival mode into actually living
• Rediscovering your voice, identity, and personal power

If you’ve ever wondered who you might become when you stop living according to everyone else’s expectations, this conversation is a powerful reminder: healing can change not only how you see your past—but how you choose to live your future.

Meg opens up about what it looks like to rebuild your life after abusive relationships, religious trauma, and years of being taught to put everyone else before yourself. She shares what she is learning about self-love, freedom, boundaries, and giving herself permission to create a life that actually feels like her own.

The conversation goes deeper as Meg discusses her experience with EMDR therapy and how it is helping her reprocess painful experiences from her past—including her complicated relationship with her father. She shares the powerful realization that changed the way she saw their relationship: she could stop trying to fix someone who continued to choose himself and finally say, “And I choose me.”

Dawn and Meg explore the difficult process of unlearning shame, releasing the need for approval, rebuilding self-worth, and recognizing that choosing yourself isn't the same as being selfish. They also talk about motherhood, the impact of healing on Meg's relationship with her children, and what it means to create joy and new memories after survival.

This is the second half of Meg's story—not simply about leaving an abusive relationship, but about what comes after: healing from emotional and religious trauma, breaking old patterns, learning to trust yourself, and discovering who you are when you stop living for everyone else's expectations.

And for the women listening who are afraid of what choosing themselves might cost, Meg leaves them with a message she fought hard to learn:

“Baby, the well is deep, and go love yourself.”

Part 2 is about freedom, healing, and finally becoming Not That Girl Anymore.

n Part 1 of this powerful conversation, Dawn sits down with her longtime friend Meg to unpack a story that began years ago in seminary—and eventually forced Meg to question everything she had been taught about marriage, faith, womanhood, and herself.

Meg opens up about life inside an abusive marriage, the religious expectations that kept her trying to make it work, and what happened when she finally turned to church leadership for help. What followed was a painful reckoning with the systems, beliefs, and messages that had taught her to stay quiet, endure more, and put herself last.

Together, Dawn and Meg explore purity culture, spiritual authority, shame, control, and the complicated process of realizing that choosing yourself doesn't make you selfish—it may be the very thing that saves you.

This is a story about what happens when the life you were told to build begins to fall apart—and you finally start asking whether you're willing to keep being that girl anymore.

embraceyourbrave.org

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself: Who taught you not to trust yourself?

In this powerful episode of Not That Girl Anymore, trauma therapist and coach Dawn Bouillon explores one of the deepest wounds many survivors carry—the loss of self-trust. Whether you've experienced narcissistic abuse, emotional abuse, religious trauma, childhood trauma, gaslighting, or codependency, healing often begins by reconnecting with the voice you've learned to ignore.

Instead of asking, "What's wrong with me?" Dawn invites you to ask a different question: "Where did I lose myself?"

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why self-doubt is often learned—not inherited.
• How narcissistic abuse and gaslighting deepen existing wounds.
• The connection between codependency and self-abandonment.
• Why people-pleasing is a survival strategy, not a personality flaw.
• How religious trauma and childhood conditioning can disconnect you from your intuition.
• Practical insights for rebuilding self-trust and reconnecting with your authentic self.

If you've ever questioned your instincts, struggled with boundaries, or wondered why unhealthy relationships keep repeating, this conversation offers compassion, clarity, and hope for your healing journey.

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Dawn Bouillion: Website

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#NarcissisticAbuse #EmotionalAbuse #TraumaHealing #Gaslighting #Codependency #ReligiousTrauma #PeoplePleasing #SelfTrust #HealingJourney #ComplexTrauma #InnerHealing #MentalHealth #Recovery #TraumaRecovery #NotThatGirlAnymore