You Are Not Crazy

If you've ever felt like you're doing everything right — showing up, advocating, holding it together — and still somehow ending up as the problem, this episode is for you.

Int his episode, I get honest about what it actually feels like to be in the cycle: the exhaustion of defending yourself against false narratives, the way every act of good parenting gets twisted into evidence against you, and the invisible toll of a system that wasn't designed to recognize coercive control. 

So many protective parents are living through isn't just "a difficult co-parent." It's post-separation abuse — and it has a name.

I break down how coercive control shows up after separation: the counter-parenting, the gotcha moments, the forced engagement loops, the way silence doesn't end the cycle — it just changes the channel. 

I also talk candidly about my own experience navigating this, what keeping myself regulated actually looks like, and why being the safe parent is one of the heaviest gifts you can carry.

Support the show

*Please Note: there is a long intro that explains my services. If you do not want to listen, just fast-forward 5 mins past. This intro will be changed in future recordings to be shorter. I am not paid to record this podcast and it is a free offering. Offering my work is the only way I can sustain the podcast*

Join the Patreon: https://patreon.com/Youarenotcrazy

*New Course*: Unhooked: Map the Cycle of Abuse in your Relationship

Website: Emotional Abuse Coach and high-conflictdivorcecoaching.com
Instagram: @emotionalabusecoach
Email: [email protected]

{Substack} Blog About Recovering from Abuse

{E-Book} How to Break Up with a Narcissist
{Course} Identify Signs of Abuse and Begin to Heal
{Free Resource} Canned Responses for Engaging with an Abusive Partner

If you've ever thought "what is wrong with me?" after leaving a toxic relationship — this episode is for you. 

I break down why the anxiety, hypervigilance, and panic that show up after you leave aren't signs that you're damaged. They're signs that your nervous system did exactly what it was trained to do. 

I walk you through the difference between anxious attachment and trauma-conditioned hypervigilance, why healing feels worse before it feels better, and what it actually looks like to slowly teach your nervous system that the threat is over.

Support the show

*Please Note: there is a long intro that explains my services. If you do not want to listen, just fast-forward 5 mins past. This intro will be changed in future recordings to be shorter. I am not paid to record this podcast and it is a free offering. Offering my work is the only way I can sustain the podcast*

Join the Patreon: https://patreon.com/Youarenotcrazy

*New Course*: Unhooked: Map the Cycle of Abuse in your Relationship

Website: Emotional Abuse Coach and high-conflictdivorcecoaching.com
Instagram: @emotionalabusecoach
Email: [email protected]

{Substack} Blog About Recovering from Abuse

{E-Book} How to Break Up with a Narcissist
{Course} Identify Signs of Abuse and Begin to Heal
{Free Resource} Canned Responses for Engaging with an Abusive Partner

BPD is often misunderstood, reduced to stereotypes of moodiness or drama — but if you've loved someone with unmanaged borderline personality disorder, you know it feels nothing like that. 

In this episode, I break down what it actually looks like to be in a relationship with someone who splits, who swings from adoring you to discarding you in an instant, and how you slowly begin to disappear in the process. 

This isn't about demonizing people with BPD. It's about naming the impact of their unmanaged behavior — and why compassion for their pain does not require you to destroy yourself.

Support the show

*Please Note: there is a long intro that explains my services. If you do not want to listen, just fast-forward 5 mins past. This intro will be changed in future recordings to be shorter. I am not paid to record this podcast and it is a free offering. Offering my work is the only way I can sustain the podcast*

Join the Patreon: https://patreon.com/Youarenotcrazy

*New Course*: Unhooked: Map the Cycle of Abuse in your Relationship

Website: Emotional Abuse Coach and high-conflictdivorcecoaching.com
Instagram: @emotionalabusecoach
Email: [email protected]

{Substack} Blog About Recovering from Abuse

{E-Book} How to Break Up with a Narcissist
{Course} Identify Signs of Abuse and Begin to Heal
{Free Resource} Canned Responses for Engaging with an Abusive Partner

People ask me how I healed all the time, and the honest answer is that there is no clean framework I can hand you. 

In this episode, I share the specific practices that actually made a difference for me — and they are not always the ones you would expect. I talk about why I stopped healing on everyone else's timeline, how I gave myself permission to grieve on a schedule as a single parent, and the journaling practice that helped me separate what was real from what had been distorted. 

I also share why I stopped bringing my situation to my friends, what I did instead, and how I learned to stop outsourcing my recovery to other people's opinions. Your healing does not have to look like mine. 

I hope something here helps you give yourself permission to do it in the way that you actually can.

Support the show

*Please Note: there is a long intro that explains my services. If you do not want to listen, just fast-forward 5 mins past. This intro will be changed in future recordings to be shorter. I am not paid to record this podcast and it is a free offering. Offering my work is the only way I can sustain the podcast*

Join the Patreon: https://patreon.com/Youarenotcrazy

*New Course*: Unhooked: Map the Cycle of Abuse in your Relationship

Website: Emotional Abuse Coach and high-conflictdivorcecoaching.com
Instagram: @emotionalabusecoach
Email: [email protected]

{Substack} Blog About Recovering from Abuse

{E-Book} How to Break Up with a Narcissist
{Course} Identify Signs of Abuse and Begin to Heal
{Free Resource} Canned Responses for Engaging with an Abusive Partner

Before I knew what a trauma bond was, I was hiding my phone under my mattress. I deleted his number, wrote it on a piece of paper, folded it into a journal, and made myself work to find it. 

At the time I thought I was being ridiculous. Looking back, I was surviving. In this episode, I talk about what it actually looks like to break a trauma bond when you can't go cold turkey — the messy, imperfect, sometimes embarrassing strategies that create just enough friction between the craving and the action. 

I also talk about what to do with the evidence, why archiving is different from deleting, and how to write yourself a letter that protects you when your rational mind goes offline.

Support the show

*Please Note: there is a long intro that explains my services. If you do not want to listen, just fast-forward 5 mins past. This intro will be changed in future recordings to be shorter. I am not paid to record this podcast and it is a free offering. Offering my work is the only way I can sustain the podcast*

Join the Patreon: https://patreon.com/Youarenotcrazy

*New Course*: Unhooked: Map the Cycle of Abuse in your Relationship

Website: Emotional Abuse Coach and high-conflictdivorcecoaching.com
Instagram: @emotionalabusecoach
Email: [email protected]

{Substack} Blog About Recovering from Abuse

{E-Book} How to Break Up with a Narcissist
{Course} Identify Signs of Abuse and Begin to Heal
{Free Resource} Canned Responses for Engaging with an Abusive Partner

If you've ever felt adored one moment and suddenly on the wrong side of a wall you didn't see coming, this episode is for you.

I open with my own experience of being in a relationship where warmth could vanish in an instant — where I replayed conversations trying to find the moment I slipped, and where I slowly became someone whose entire focus was managing another person's emotional state.

In this episode, I break down splitting — what it is clinically, what it feels like to be on the receiving end of it, and how it moves from a psychological defense mechanism into a tool of control. I walk through the patterns I lived: idealization to devaluation, emotional shifts with no warning, the refusal to repair, and the way my own distress was turned against me.

This isn't just about understanding a term. It's about recognizing the cycle that made you question your perception of reality, shrink yourself down, and chase approval you were never actually going to get — and beginning to understand that none of it was yours to fix.

Support the show

*Please Note: there is a long intro that explains my services. If you do not want to listen, just fast-forward 5 mins past. This intro will be changed in future recordings to be shorter. I am not paid to record this podcast and it is a free offering. Offering my work is the only way I can sustain the podcast*

Join the Patreon: https://patreon.com/Youarenotcrazy

*New Course*: Unhooked: Map the Cycle of Abuse in your Relationship

Website: Emotional Abuse Coach and high-conflictdivorcecoaching.com
Instagram: @emotionalabusecoach
Email: [email protected]

{Substack} Blog About Recovering from Abuse

{E-Book} How to Break Up with a Narcissist
{Course} Identify Signs of Abuse and Begin to Heal
{Free Resource} Canned Responses for Engaging with an Abusive Partner

If you've ever wondered why the person who hurt you seems completely unbothered — even convinced they did nothing wrong — this episode is for you.

I break down why people with personality disorders genuinely don't experience themselves as disordered, how shame avoidance rewrites their reality, and why no amount of explaining, evidence, or emotional appeals will get them to "see it."

Understanding this isn't about giving up — it's about stopping the cycle of trying to reach someone who doesn't have the capacity to meet you there.

Support the show

*Please Note: there is a long intro that explains my services. If you do not want to listen, just fast-forward 5 mins past. This intro will be changed in future recordings to be shorter. I am not paid to record this podcast and it is a free offering. Offering my work is the only way I can sustain the podcast*

Join the Patreon: https://patreon.com/Youarenotcrazy

*New Course*: Unhooked: Map the Cycle of Abuse in your Relationship

Website: Emotional Abuse Coach and high-conflictdivorcecoaching.com
Instagram: @emotionalabusecoach
Email: [email protected]

{Substack} Blog About Recovering from Abuse

{E-Book} How to Break Up with a Narcissist
{Course} Identify Signs of Abuse and Begin to Heal
{Free Resource} Canned Responses for Engaging with an Abusive Partner

There's a difference between someone naming a pattern to seek resolution and someone digging up the past to dodge accountability. If you've ever tried to address what's not working in your relationship and ended up defending yourself instead, this episode is for you. We talk about what healthy accountability actually looks like — and how to recognize when someone is rewriting history to keep you stuck.

Support the show

*Please Note: there is a long intro that explains my services. If you do not want to listen, just fast-forward 5 mins past. This intro will be changed in future recordings to be shorter. I am not paid to record this podcast and it is a free offering. Offering my work is the only way I can sustain the podcast*

Join the Patreon: https://patreon.com/Youarenotcrazy

*New Course*: Unhooked: Map the Cycle of Abuse in your Relationship

Website: Emotional Abuse Coach and high-conflictdivorcecoaching.com
Instagram: @emotionalabusecoach
Email: [email protected]

{Substack} Blog About Recovering from Abuse

{E-Book} How to Break Up with a Narcissist
{Course} Identify Signs of Abuse and Begin to Heal
{Free Resource} Canned Responses for Engaging with an Abusive Partner

This month’s Patreon episode dives into a theme that kept surfacing in your questions: When does mental illness explain behavior… and when does it become an excuse?

Before answering your submissions, I break down what we actually mean when we talk about pathological abuse — repeated patterns rooted in personality structure, not just “a bad fight” or poor communication. We explore coercive control, gaslighting, intermittent reinforcement, blame shifting, and the power imbalance that defines these dynamics.

I also clarify the differences (and overlap) between borderline traits, narcissistic traits, and antisocial traits — and why the traits matter more than the label.

Some of the questions I answer:

• Was any of it real, or was I being used the entire time?
• How do I tell the difference between borderline traits and sociopathy?
• Why did they escalate when I got stronger?
• When does mental illness stop being an explanation and start being an excuse?

This is the Instagram video I reference: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DP8CTXVDQ11/?hl=en

This is the podcast I mentioned: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1916632/episodes/10257007

This episode was originally recorded for my Patreon community, where I answer listener-submitted questions in a more direct, unfiltered way. I’m sharing it publicly because the themes felt too important to keep behind a paywall.

Support the show

*Please Note: there is a long intro that explains my services. If you do not want to listen, just fast-forward 5 mins past. This intro will be changed in future recordings to be shorter. I am not paid to record this podcast and it is a free offering. Offering my work is the only way I can sustain the podcast*

Join the Patreon: https://patreon.com/Youarenotcrazy

*New Course*: Unhooked: Map the Cycle of Abuse in your Relationship

Website: Emotional Abuse Coach and high-conflictdivorcecoaching.com
Instagram: @emotionalabusecoach
Email: [email protected]

{Substack} Blog About Recovering from Abuse

{E-Book} How to Break Up with a Narcissist
{Course} Identify Signs of Abuse and Begin to Heal
{Free Resource} Canned Responses for Engaging with an Abusive Partner

In this episode, I share what it’s really like to support clients through the chaos of high-conflict divorce — when legal processes, endless emails, and contradictory communication make it nearly impossible to think clearly. I talk about how I help clients slow things down, organize what’s actually happening, and find stability in the middle of emotional and legal overwhelm.

I also share how confusion becomes one of the main weapons of post-separation abuse, and what I do to help survivors reclaim clarity, confidence, and emotional grounding. If you’ve ever felt like you’re drowning in filings, lawyer emails, or mixed messages from your ex and the professionals involved, this episode will help you see the bigger picture, feel more anchored, and take the next step forward.

Support the show

*Please Note: there is a long intro that explains my services. If you do not want to listen, just fast-forward 5 mins past. This intro will be changed in future recordings to be shorter. I am not paid to record this podcast and it is a free offering. Offering my work is the only way I can sustain the podcast*

Join the Patreon: https://patreon.com/Youarenotcrazy

*New Course*: Unhooked: Map the Cycle of Abuse in your Relationship

Website: Emotional Abuse Coach and high-conflictdivorcecoaching.com
Instagram: @emotionalabusecoach
Email: [email protected]

{Substack} Blog About Recovering from Abuse

{E-Book} How to Break Up with a Narcissist
{Course} Identify Signs of Abuse and Begin to Heal
{Free Resource} Canned Responses for Engaging with an Abusive Partner