How Rebecca Humphries Found Her Voice

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(00:23):
episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people.
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Heart Media, or their employees. I walked out that night

(00:45):
that those pictures are in the newspapers. I didn't have
a boyfriend, I didn't have a home, I didn't have
a job, I didn't have any income anymore. But what
I did have was, it turns out, more self respect
than I would ever have given myself credit and a voice,
and my wife all of a sudden, It's amazing to

(01:07):
me how often survivors say I had an intuition that
something wasn't right, and between my partners gaslighting other people
telling me that maybe I'm overthinking it, and me telling
myself I am too sensitive, I pushed it away and
I ignored it. Now, imagine that you have this intuition,

(01:27):
you have this feeling in your gut that was gaslighted
by your partner many times, and you find out not
only that you were right all along, also that it
gets confirmed by a picture of your partner cheating on
you on the front cover of every newspaper in the country.

(01:48):
Welcome to the story of Rebecca Humphries. Rebecca is a
writer and actress from the UK and has been on
shows including The Crown and Ten. Her best selling memoir
Why Did You Stay? A memoir about self worth maybe
one of the very best I have read on gaslighting, infidelity,

(02:11):
and the slow burn and confusion of emotional abuse. Her
Twitter post on emotional abuse in gaslighting might be one
of my most favorite Twitter posts of all time and
ended up putting her in a role she never expected advocate,
and since then, Rebecca has become a thoughtful and empathic

(02:32):
voice on emotional abuse, gas lighting and their impact on
self worth and well being, as well as the importance
of recognizing these patterns in crafting policy. While Rebecca's public
story was easy tabloid fodder, her deeper exploration of how
a person finds themselves in the complicated dance of a

(02:53):
relationship that twists between gas lighting and invalidation and comfort
and charisma pro vibes a framework for understanding why so
many people get into emotionally abusive relationships and find themselves
stuck in them. Let's hear Rebecca's story beyond just what

(03:14):
was in the tabloids we have, Rebecca Humphries, you are
the standard bearer of one of the ultimate relationships stories.
And what's so interesting is though, although your story played
out on such a public stage, what you shared was
the experience of so many survivors who often feel as
though they're under the radar because it doesn't register as

(03:37):
what we sort of traditionally consider sort of the physical
injuries and wounds of domestic abuse. A lot of people
don't even want to call it abuse. I want to
call it a difficult relationship. So what you've done is
you've given voice as people are trying to do more
and more now. But you've done it in a voice
that made me laugh and cry. And we'll talk about
your book endlessly because everyone immediately read Why Did You Stay?

(04:01):
One of the best memoirs of this So some people
have heard about your story, But can you take us
from the top and before we even get into the
tweets and dancing and all of that, can we get
into your book and into your story, talk to us
about your relationship. Okay, So in twenty I met a

(04:22):
man on the set of a television show that he
and I were both cast in, and I was with
someone else at the time. Very quickly it became clear
that we had chemistry, and even quicker off the off
the back of that hot on the heels of that,
it sort of began this pursuit of me, which sounds
like I was reluctant in that I absolutely wasn't. I

(04:44):
mean it was. It was presents and gifts and voyages
to different countries all over Europe, and it really did
feel like, for a brief moment of my life that
the sun was shining on me and that romance was
playing out and exactly the way that I had always
been told that it would do my whole life, from
countless movies and period dramas and everything that I've ever

(05:06):
been promised was sort of handed to me by this person.
And then, really, when I think back on it, quite quickly,
well extremely quickly, we we moved in together within three weeks.
We had bought a house within three months, and quickly
after that it started to become complicated in a way
that really I had never I had never expected, sure,

(05:29):
but I had never been warned about, or had never
been encouraged to see those things as signs that this
was an emotionally abusive relationship. I just thought it was
a relationship. I just thought it was one that had,
you know, teething problems and required compromise and all of

(05:49):
these really like unhelpful roller decks of soundbites that I've
been taught about relationships and what love looked like. And
that relationship went on for five and a half years,
and it was at the end of it when it's
sort of exploded in a media bin fire, and at
which points I sort of got this amazing wash of

(06:11):
validation from the national press, and also because of the
public nous of the breakup, lots of women contacting me privately,
letting me know that essentially this person had been one
person to me and the tire another person to all
of these other women who he had several affairs with,
and dismissed my suspicions as me being crazy for years.

(06:35):
So the publicness of it, which we're going to get
to in a minute. While you were in the relationship, Rebecca,
were you aware that this wasn't good, this wasn't healthy.
Like you said, three weeks in was sort of intense,
and the I love you. Three months in, we're buying
a house. I mean, that's fast, which is already a

(06:55):
big red flag. But beyond that, five and a half
years is a long time. Yeah, it's a really long time,
Like it was even I was by the end of
this relationship, I doubted myself to such an extent that
it even feels strange to say five and a half
years is a long time of my life, because when
we got out of the relationship and I was stealing
with the way that I felt I had been treated

(07:18):
and the things that had happened, I was sort of
asking people like, that's a long time, right, that's too
long for this to be going on, you know, just
that kind of validation. Even now, it feels strangely, you know,
sort of brilliant. It's a long time to suffer like that.
It's interesting. Five and a half years and a happy
relationship is an eye blink. Five and a half years.

(07:38):
In an emotionally abusive relationship is like an epoch. It's
an entirely different game. So while you were in it
in those five and a half years, how are where
were you becoming that this isn't right? Or how did
you manage what was happening in the relationship. Well, the
fact is that I was relatively inexperienced when it came
to relationships and what healthy relationships looked like. To be honest,

(08:01):
I come from a background where actually there isn't that
much emotional language and that we don't really have a
dialogue in that sense. So my first relationship was with
somebody who also didn't do that and also didn't communicate
in that way, and it became clear that we were
quite young and that we were sort of going on

(08:22):
different paths, and to me, that just felt really confusing.
And so when I met this person who the person
that we're talking about, who I was in this emotionally
abusive relationship with, I really just saw all of the
things that my first boyfriend was missing. And because really
I'm I'm also from a background that is dare I

(08:43):
say it? And I don't mean to be derogatory when
I say this, but it's patriarchal and love and marriage
and children is a priority. And whether I liked it
or not, I was conditioned from an early age to
prioritize romantic love over everything else, including myself. So when
I'm in a relationship with somebody, I'm going to try

(09:06):
and keep it going no matter the cost. And in
the case of this relationship, that cost was my self esteem,
my opinions, my voice. And so how did I work
around that? Well, I just stopped voicing myself as much.
I sort of allowed my opinions to be watered down
to the extent that actually I sort of you can
ask me what I wanted for dinner. I wouldn't been

(09:28):
able to answer you. I would have texted my boyfriend
and asked what he wants? Is all of the things
really that I now know I really do value about
myself and that I really love and enjoy about who
I am, they were the first things to be thrown
out of the window in the name of love. Rebecca
highlights three patterns here that have come out throughout this

(09:48):
podcast and that she puts a finer point on. First,
we again see this idea of how a narcissistic relationship
can so often feel like a correction from a prior relationship,
especially when that prior relationship lacked something. In her case,
it was communication. When someone comes up with just lots

(10:11):
lots of talking and contact and all of that, especially
if we came from a relationship when we didn't have that,
we can make the erroneous assumption that the intensity and
sort of the extra of it all is good and healthy.
Then she gets into something that we don't talk about enough,
which is the tyranny of romantic love, and that love

(10:34):
and marriage and baby carriages are the be all and all.
Healthy relationships are a magnificent and essential part of a
healthy life. But the script and the idea that someone
is coming up short if they aren't living in that
script rushes too many people into toxic relationships, and they

(10:56):
don't give themselves to be discerning when they choose a
partner or stay in a relationship and say I am
better than this. And then she makes a really important point.
She says that when I am in a relationship with someone,
I am going to try and keep it going no
matter the cost, and that right there is a perfect

(11:20):
definition of what a trauma bonded relationship looks like I
will give up on myself. I will disconnect from who
I am and what I need to do to keep
this going. Rebecca is describing a one two three punch
here that I do not think anyone could ever be
immune to, and it is the perfect setup to get

(11:43):
into and get stuck in a manipulative, toxic, and invalidating relationship.
I want to even go further back, so prior to
this unhealthy, emotional, abusive relationship, how many boyfriend like longer
term not just dates, but like longer term relationships. Wasn't
just the one just one? Yeah? Okay, yeah? And in
that one it wasn't like this. Firstly, it was a

(12:07):
completely different time. We started going out in around TI
thousand and nine. Now, at the same time as this,
he had girlfriends that he told me that he'd broken
up with. Now he hadn't. He was a cowardly dude,
this guy, he hadn't. But of course, at that time
it all came out about the pair of us, and

(12:28):
the way that pop culture and society was working at
that point was to cast the women in two very
clear roles. One is the one who was the girlfriend
or the wife who was the innocent party, and the
other is the sort of siren porter, the madonna really
and so as such, this guy was let off the
hook by absolutely everyone that knew us, including myself. So

(12:52):
as far as I was concerned, during this relationship, i'd
sort of stolen him from his girlfriend, which you know,
now I look back on and I think, hang on,
this is this really has Scie has got a lot
to answer for in that respect, because had I have
been able to shine a light on his behavior in
that way, who knows whether I would have found myself

(13:13):
in a relationship with this other guy, because I probably
would have recognized a lot of the same behavior. But
actually I took on a lot of that blame at
the beginning of that relationship with this guy. I really did,
and I did a lot of apologizing at the beginning
of that relationship. That actually meant that when I met
this new boyfriends, I sort of felt like everything about

(13:33):
our beginning was very clean and felt almost almost pure,
and and like love was supposed to be, which is
just arriving and I stepped into something free from blame,
judgment and attack, which I hadn't previously. Does that make sense?
It makes so much sense, and you just said a mouthful,
let's a bit of that way, Because, first of all,

(13:56):
you said back in two thousand nine women were either
painted as a on a horror siren or the steady girlfriend.
I think in two is exactly the same. I don't
think we've made progress on that front whatsoever. Frankly so,
I think we're still very much stuck in that. But
what was interesting to me you said that in childhood
you were raised to believe romantic love took primacy. Marriage

(14:18):
was the goal. Marriage family In the United States, we
talked about the picket fans, the whole thing, Right, that
was the goal. Right. Yeah, it's a little shop of
horrorce dream sequence, but but you're absolutely right. It is
the dream sequence of I'm going to have that domesticity,
and that means everything else in my life can be
put on hold as long as I'm working on this.

(14:38):
But what's fascinating is you say, in that first relationship,
you had to take a role of the siren, as
the bad one, as the person who came in as
a bad actor, as it were, because you got into
the relationship that he lied about being in with somebody else,
and people perceived you as well. Of course she knew
and she did this willingly, So you had a role

(14:59):
there and you took the role on. But what's fascinating,
and this happens all the time, Rebecca, is when a
person moves into a new relationship and the new story
is different than the old story, and in this case
it was that clean beginning. It almost becomes what we
call a halo effect in psychology, which is this idea

(15:19):
that now this is going to be a good relationship
because that piece was moved out of the way. Once again,
you're blowing my mind even just saying the halo effects.
I'm like, because so much of our relationship that we
had over those five years, I just took it straight
back to that angelic beginning. So what's interesting is that's
all his His main virtue I'm hearing so far, is

(15:43):
that he happened to be single when you met him.
So you had this one relationship and then that ends.
How long did that first relationship last. I'd say about
two years too and a half years, okay, still not
a short period of time. You wouldn't call it toxic, No,
I wouldn't have called it toxic relationships? No, Okay, okay,
and you were young. Yeah, I was young. I was

(16:04):
twenty three. How much time elapsed between the end of
that first relationship and the beginning of the second relationship,
I mean a day. So you you met the new
guy almost right away. I met the new guy when
we were both working on this TV show and I
still had a boyfriend. But yes, me and the new guy,

(16:24):
we were friends. We finished the TV show that was
his TV show actually, and he said that he wanted
to take me and the lead writer out for dinner
and drinks at this club in London. And when I
turned up, the writer wasn't there. And we had some
drinks and I said to this guy, he was never coming,
was he? And he said no? And I said, can
I need to tell me why? And he said, because

(16:46):
I'm madly in love with you. She shouted it in
this club, you know, and yeah, and I sort of said, okay,
leave it with me because as well, you know this guy.
This is also part the tailor effect that you're talking about,
which is this guy that my first boyfriends. You know,
there was a there were many, many months of a

(17:06):
tussle and a back and forth about him not being
able to leave his girlfriend and telling me that he
had left her and then telling me that it wouldn't
work and for whatever reason, and me never quite figuring
out whether this was true, and the whole thing was
a tussle, and then suddenly it felt honestly, after years
as well, and not just with this first boyfriend, but
my teenage years are feeling like a secret from so

(17:29):
many boys and men, and feeling like lots of men
were ashamed to say that they were with me. And
then suddenly I'm with this new guy and it's like
the clouds part and the sunshines with me, and someone
just turns around to me and goes, no, no, no,
no no. I want you how you are, and I
want everyone to know about it. And suddenly it just felt,

(17:50):
you know, after all of this secrecy and shame for
years and years and years, this was, as I say,
totally clean, and I was like, this is meant to happen.
It felt like, yeah, it felt like some face thing.
Really well, it's such an interesting sort of passing of
the baton. You know, all of those prior relationships. You
were choosing these men, and like you said, it was

(18:11):
almost like they wouldn't commit. You were felt you were
kept in the shadows, you know, which is an interesting
kind of a triangulated trauma bonded pattern where people will
be what someone were and they may not even be
that they're competing with another person, but they're competing with something,
even if it's the desire to not be in a
relationship for the for the for the man. Then when

(18:31):
you transition to new guy to this I'm gonna call
him number two for lack of a name, but you
know this, this new guy, he chooses you. But what's interesting, Rebecca,
and what I'm hearing is that you were still in
a somewhat disadvantaged position because you were still the bad one.
You hurt number one. Yeah, that's right, I did. So

(18:53):
you still were in this this position of Rebecca not
as good And I find that interesting because that would
probably make you more likely to endure more of Number
two is bad behavior, because even though he chose you,
you still came in from that disadvantage spot. That is
absolutely fascinating. Yeah, that's really really interesting. So now though

(19:16):
you end the relationship with number one, number two and
it goes fast, it goes first, and also you know,
there's there's something else to add to this, which is
that we went on this day, we went to Brighton
on the south coast of England, and I'm about having
a big conversation and I said to him, I don't
know if I want to be in a relationship that
have been it. I think I just need time. And

(19:36):
it was almost as though it was a red rag
to a ball that moment. It was, well, I want
you to be my girlfriend, and that's what I want.
And of course, you know all the work that I've
done ever since on myself and on thinking about myself,
and what that moment was that I really have come
to terms with the fact that I didn't take into
account my own needs at all in that scenario. I

(19:58):
heard what he wanted and I sort of like, it
chills me to the bone really that I was so
prepared so instantly to fulfill his needs in that sense
rather than ground myself in my own in any sense.
It was as though, honestly I just turned my back
on it within two seconds because I saw it as

(20:18):
my chance. I saw at this moment as my chance,
which obviously has a lot to do with my own
self esteem at that point in my life, but it
also sounds like the message you've got is to be
in a relationship meant that you you fully had to
almost sacrifice all your needs to the other. That was
love totally. The sequence Rebecca described meeting somewhere new, things

(20:40):
moving fast, but then asking for a minute because she
wasn't sure she was ready for a relationship. She likened
it to a red flag for a bull, which is
an apt metaphor. Toxic and antagonistic folks love the game,
the chase, and the win. Many people actually do set

(21:01):
the boundary and communicate that they may need time or
may not be ready, and all the other person heres
is game on. I know that lots of people look
back at these relationships and say, how could I have
missed it? And I remind them that you probably did
try to set a boundary, but you just didn't know

(21:23):
what you were up against. So as this relationship went on,
and if anyone reads the book, and like I said,
the book lays it out in such excruciating but unbelievably
lyrical detail, can you give listeners a sort of a
glimpse at what some of the more toxic patterns were
in the relationship, and you know how that played out

(21:43):
for you? Internally these things would happen, you were clear
that they were uncomfortable. Yet it was a cycle like
as we often see in these relationships, of it falling apart,
coming back together. What were the kinds of things that
would happen and what was your process within the relationship?
Patterns include did the obvious one is the breadcrumbing? So
is the really being distant physically and emotionally? For I

(22:11):
would say seventy to nine of the time until there
was just enough resistance from me that I would then
be bombarded or swamped with love and with attention and
affection just enough to stop me from walking out the door.
And there were several moments within our relationship where I

(22:32):
really had had enough and said I can't do this anymore,
I really can't, And at which point suddenly there would
be this man who was everything that I had been
missing for months and months and months right there willing
to give me everything that it was I had said,
enough is enough. I can't do without this in my life.

(22:55):
So that was one thing. Other things, you know, like
suddenly there'll be sudden thoughtfulness, like sudden gifts of things
that I had mentioned in passing that it suddenly felt
as though he had them thoughtful enough to kind of
log that away, and suddenly there would be this gift,
and I would think, well, things are going to be
better now, and then two days, three days later, suddenly

(23:17):
there we go, sinking back in. But I'm there remembering
that gift, to remembering that thoughtfulness and almost feeding myself
from it through that. And also, you know, I was
a thrilled seeker in that relationship in that sense. I
really was, because I've said in the book that this
kind of a relationship is like someone pushing you from
a fifteen story building and then catching you an inch

(23:38):
above the pavement. And then when they catch you an
inch above the pavement, all you can say is thank
you so much for catching me, because you're so relieved
to not have hit the grounds that you forget that
they're the person that kicks you off that building in
the first place. And it was it was like that
in the initial stages, every few months, and then it
became every few weeks, and then it became every a

(24:00):
few days towards the end, by which point you're so
accustomed to that cycle you don't even realize that you're
in a cycle. You just think that this is how
the relationship is. And also you know full well that
no matter how bleak it gets, chances are it will
probably take a couple of days for something good to
happen and you can laugh together again. And so you

(24:20):
ride it out, You ride the wave of difficulty, because
my favorite place to exist was the moment where the
relationship was freshly salvaged, and that's where I got my
life forced from every every single time. So I would
say that that was really the main one. And those
instances that again I speak about anecdotally in the book,
like you know, I'm crying in a pizza Express in

(24:44):
a West London shopping center, in a Westfield, you know,
feeling bleaker than I've ever felt in my life, and
you know, there's waiter above me with big pepper grinds,
and me crying my eyes like going, oh god, this
is so human, easing and leaving and saying you know,
enough enough, I can't do this anymore and I deserve
better than this. Suddenly this empowerment comes out with me.
I'm leaving and I'm going and I'm going home. And

(25:05):
then suddenly how it comes, which is that I need
you and I don't know what I would do if
you left. And suddenly we get into the territory of
responsibility and me taking responsibility for this person who's I
know full well has had difficulty in their lives, because
that gets brought up to and in moments where I

(25:27):
have my own sense of power and my own sense
of autonomy, difficulties that this person he has been through
in his life and his childhood and things that I
can't possibly imagine, And suddenly there I am saying, but
he needs me, and without me, he's saying he doesn't
know what he do And I don't know what it

(25:48):
is to have had a childhood, a teenage life, and
adult life like him. So maybe if I had had
that then I would understand it better, but I don't.
But all I know now is that if I left,
he'd have nothing, and I love him, so I don't
wish that on him. There are so many things like that.
They just creep into your veins in relationships like this,

(26:12):
and you're living with them in your body, not even
realizing that this is anything other than a normal relationship,
because because it is your normal, it becomes your normal.
One thing you've laid out here is we talk about
the architecture of a narcissistic relationship and ant toxic relationship,
and it's love bombing, devaluing, discarding, and hoovering. They suck

(26:33):
you back in starts again, and the gift and then
the devalue and then the discard, which can also be
with withdrawing. It doesn't mean the end of relationship. It
just means that they withdraw or they spend time with
other people or other pursuits, and then they hoover you back.
A lot of people think that that that's a one
time cycle and it's not. Yours was an example what
was happening weekly, monthly, and I think that that's what

(26:56):
I want. I want folks to hear that. People think
it's at one time, and I'm like, no, no, no,
this happens over and over and over. The cycle is
not a one cycle. It's a constant cycle. But yours is.
It's a classic trauma bonded cycle. That idea of over
time the cycle became more frequent and that analogy you give,
which is just brilliant, of falling out of the building

(27:16):
and being caught an inch from the pavement and then
sort of getting really hooked into the ecstasy of the
being caught of the what is the coming together going
to look like? Again? That that becomes the hook that
right there is the trauma bond. And I think that
so many people say, Oh, I'm trauma bonded. What's wrong
with me? I'm like, what's wrong with you? You're basically

(27:37):
holding out for this thing that feels like a reward
that's actually human nature, but it's human nature caught up
in this really toxic cycle. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Just to
add to that too, I think a lot of people
think that when you hear things like toxic cycle, it's
a mistake to think that a toxic relationship is toxic

(27:58):
all the time, right because within that cycle, there were
the most amazing glimpses and moments of real intimacy and
romance and pleasure and all of these things that suddenly there,
I am, you know, seeing the sea and brighten from

(28:19):
that first weekend that we went away together, and it's
it's there and it's real. And that was peppered throughout
those five and a half years, those beautiful, truly beautiful moments.
But that doesn't mean that it wasn't a toxic relationship.
It means that that's part of the cycle of it
correct and it's in a way what happens is those

(28:41):
memories almost become these etchings in those parts of your
brain where you're also trying to manage emotion. And that
gets challenging because it's like having beautiful family pictures on
the wall and thinking I'm in an unhappy family, but
the pictures don't tell that that story, and so you're
always looking up at this big gallery of photos. They
just happened to be in your mind all the time.

(29:02):
Our session will continue after this break. One thing you
brought up a lot in your book and when you've
talked about the relationship is that you constantly felt gas
lighted in the relationship. You know, so in addition to
the bread crimbing, it sounds like gas lighting was a dynamic.
So when things weren't going well, that would show up.

(29:23):
How would gas lightings show up in your relationship? I
don't think I could count on one hand how many
times my hurts, trauma, sadness, disappointment was credited or was
listened to in a sensitive, responsive way. What I can

(29:46):
remember a lot of is what's wrong with your psychopath
a lot? And I mean examples where this withdrawal would
happen and I could feel that's from me, I'm telling you.
I could feel my body. I could feel the voice
of my body is saying to me something is wrong.
This person is lying, and not only that they're a

(30:09):
slap dash liar, because the way that they're even talking
to you isn't convincing. And I would express that and say,
I don't believe what you're saying, or why do I
feel like you're putting away from me? Or why do
I feel like there's something going on with this woman?
Or why do I feel like you want where you
said you were? And I would get because you're crazy

(30:33):
or because you're psychotic. And then, of course that's so complex,
because what happens is when you hear that enough in
your relationship, you learn not to voice your opinions because
you're just going to get met with that. A gaslided
and narcissistic relationship is a slow silencing. You may begin
by sharing concerns, fears, intuition, and be told so many

(30:57):
times that you were crazy or paranoid or psychotic that
you simply stop, which was exactly her experience. Your intuition
is always on the abuse is what turns it off.
Rebecca also lays out so clearly here what gaslighting does
to a person. It shifts our identity and our sense

(31:18):
of who we are and how we go through the world.
Many people in these relationships, who always saw themselves as
well regulated, thoughtful, well considered people, will begin to believe
that they're reactive, unhinged, and out of control of their emotions.
And so we play the game out in our head.

(31:40):
If I say this, then they'll tell me I'm crazy.
If I do that, then they'll tell me I'm paranoid.
And in Rebecca's case, it was even worse. He was
using his narrative about her behavior to validate his own
acting out. Gaslighting doesn't just deny reality, it is ultimately

(32:01):
a denial of the self. Also, once you are met
with that answer, and once that narrative is written for you,
that you're the psychotic one who can't control their emotions,
and suddenly there you are feeling sad all the time
because you think your brain doesn't work and there's something
wrong with you, rather than you know, respect sing and
listening to what you actually feel, which is that your

(32:23):
partner is doing something untoward you start a gas like yourself.
Before you even opened your mouth, you're saying, well, there's
no point in saying that, because you're doing that crazy
thing that you do again. And then before you know
what's happening, you're living inside of prison, your own head,
your own body, and that of course suits this person
because that is facilitating their own bad behavior. I mean,

(32:43):
that was constant. And then of course what happens, as
we mentioned with the publicness of our breakup was I
had this wash of validation because the very person that
that my partner was photographed with and that was on
the front page is of the UK tabloid Press one
Sunday morning was the very woman that I had accused

(33:05):
him of having an affair with, and he had told
me that I was a psychopath. And then more and
more women came forward because of the publicness, and I
was like, oh, I remember that Manchester, I remember that
that was no I remember when he came back from
taur and all of these instances just you know, like
a montage in front of my head out I was like, oh,
it felt like honestly as well, lots of people have

(33:27):
said to me that must have been really difficult. I
was like, honestly, honey, like it felt like a wish
of validation. Every single time I felt like I had
had my brain handed back to me by default. It's
relatively rare for survivors of gas lighting to get their
gas light turned off. To have the experience, you had
to have somebody come and provide the evidence and tell

(33:51):
you you were not wrong. The fantasy for many people
is that that would come from the guess later. That's
never going to happen. But the idea of getting your
brain back there is no greater. It's almost like when
those home shows where someone comes in and clean your
whole house and you're like, everything's so organized. Each time
somebody comes in and ungas light, you're like, oh, look,

(34:13):
everything's where it needs to be. This is right right,
It's like everything's tidy and clean, and I actually feel
like a good function in this space again. And so
when you would find like you would have these suspicions
and you would say I'm concerned about this, or this
doesn't add up, or where were you or why don't
you want me to be here? Or why do you
want me to join you? Whatever the reasons were, and

(34:34):
he'd pull back and push back and say you're paranoid,
you're a psychopath, or something wrong with you. During the
relationship before the big public breakup, did you ever catch
him out in the lies, like, for example, I'm hearing
that he's shut you down by telling you're a psychopath.
But did he ever attempt to rationalize his bad behavior? Yes, well,
I mean he's he was a stand up comedian, So

(34:57):
there was lots of touring. There was lots of being
away from home. There was one instance where I found
a phone number in his jacket pockets. And I used
to have these really strange, like vivid fantasies when I would,
you know, be as I, you know, my most maday
alike because I've put it before, sort of you know,

(35:18):
desperate for some kind of validation and revenge in it
out for blood really, And I found this thing in
this jacket pocket, and there was lots of what am
I supposed to do if women throw themselves at me
when I'm on tour? You know, that's not my fault.
There was lots of that, and I was like, you know,
at the time, thinking, I said to him, but he
don't take the number, and you say, I have a

(35:40):
girlfriend's and there was some kind of back and forth
about how that makes him feel awkward and embarrassed because
what if it's that that's not what they meant. And
the thing that really strikes me is one instance, many
many years ago, which was only about nine months into
our relationship, when we were living together, we bought this
house together, and I found some explicit messages on Facebook

(36:03):
that he had been sharing with a woman. He was
out one Saturday night and we had a shared laptop
and I went onto Facebook and he must not have
logged out. He didn't log into Facebook very often, but
I did, and he must not have logged out from it,
because it just came straight up on the screen and
I found a heap of explicit messages to this one woman,

(36:24):
And I mean, I called him up and I said
to him, who's her name? And he said who? And
I had detail exactly what I saw that you know
that trigger memory, and straight away I was like, we're done,
I'm done, let's go. I left. He really really pursued

(36:48):
me to hear him out. He had a bit of
an apathetic assistance. So he had a good mate who
was a really really good guy and who is a
really good guy. He's sort of a family man and
with children and very you know, and he and he
really reasoned with me on behalf of on behalf of
my boyfriend and when we met up. It was a
one off, drunken mistake, he said, which I'm truly sorry for.

(37:11):
And everyone is allowed to make a mistake. This is
an interesting sequence and not uncommon in toxic relationships, getting
someone else to do their bidding, and it's even more
powerful when the person doing the bidding for the toxic
person is legitimate in some way. In this case, it
was because this guy was a family man. The narcissistic

(37:34):
person will often mobilize other people to come to their rescue,
and since they're always surrounded by enablers and people can't
see what these patterns are, people will step up. It
makes it really hard for someone in one of these
relationships because when other people are using tried and true

(37:54):
defenses like everybody makes a mistake involving another person will
often raise more doubt for the person harmed by a
narcissistic person. And this sense that, well, other people think
my partner is cool, so maybe I'm the one who's
being too stubborn or demanding. It's not lost on me

(38:15):
that her ex, in this cowardly way had a friend's
step in when he had clearly done something wrong. It
put Rebecca in an untenable position and sadly got her
stuck for longer. I just thought, you know what, Yeah,
they are they are allowed to make mistakes, and what
am I going to be? Stubborn? For stubborn's sake? I've

(38:36):
got this man right opposite me, and he loves me,
and I love him, and I'm prepared to forego any
kinds of insecurity that I feel about this and try
and make this work. And let me tell you something,
very quickly after that instant, I can't tell you quite when.
Very quickly after that instance, me finding explicit messages is

(39:00):
to another woman on Facebook became why are be spying
on me on Facebook? Anyway? Which then very quickly became
separate laptops and passwords and sermons on the importance of
privacy and lectures on why it's very important for the
two of us to lead separate lives and have secrets,

(39:24):
you know, And it would all and imparted to me
in sort of very elevated, holier than that ways self
righteousness is just so it's so powerful. One thing that
I'm hearing here, and I know a lot of people
have said this to me. They said that the gas lighting,
Why are you so sensitive? Why are you so paranoid?
Why are you so this? You know you're you're a

(39:45):
psychopathist and the other right, And people over time will
internalize that because this really is a These relationships aren't
about falling in love. They're about being indoctrinated into the control,
all in abusive system of the narcissistic person. And what
people do over time is they equate strength with not

(40:08):
having emotional reactions to being betrayed. I cannot put that
out of myself, right, I'm being betrayed, I'm being shamed,
I'm being humiliated, I'm being pathologized. But I'll show him.
I'm not going to say anything, right, So that idea
of dissociating yourself from yourself is look how strong I am.
I'm like, that's like the worst most unhealthy thing that

(40:31):
could You are talking my language. Honestly, I've said it
so many times to friends over you know, God knows
how many glasses are saving your belong that I am.
I just cannot believe that I allowed myself to use
my strength like something that I have prided myself on,

(40:52):
you know for years. It's like there was a version
of me that my strength stepped out of my body
and turned slowly around like in a horror film at me.
You know, I was at war with myself, and I
thought that it was my greatest asset in this relationship.
But I was using my strength against myself in order
to enable him. Correct because what you were doing is

(41:14):
your strength meant I'm going to cut off all parts
of Rebecca. So really all that's left is this shell
of myself that lives in his service. Oh my gosh. Yeah, absolutely,
in his orbit and his exactly. So he was the
Sun and all human beings in his life, with the
planets or a bitting around him, and that was it.
There was no other function for anyone, absolutely no, The

(41:34):
world only only existed as far as he could see it, correct,
and it was that that self serving, that ecocentric. And
then what he would do is he would weaponize his backstory.
I went through this, I went through that, I've been
through this, I've been through that, so that that sort
of you know, taking out the victimization and using it
as a weapon, effectively ending the conversation. Oh, I mean,

(41:56):
what could I say that that's him? You know, what
could I What can I possibly say to that? There's
there really is no argument, I mean, and I didn't
have the at the time, well self love really or
self nurturing to say that's not relevant to this conversation,
because I'm still entitled to my feelings and I'm entitled
to how I feel irrespective of what it has we've

(42:19):
been through. Because as there's different it's a different facet,
it's a different lane, and it reminds me actually quite
a lot of during that time and that relationship, I
stepped away from so many conversations like the ones that
you and I are having now, which I take a
huge amount of pleasure in having it stepped away from women,

(42:39):
well women full stop really, but because throughout that relationship,
especially at the end of the relationship, it's like I saw,
I saw every woman through his eyes, and I could
identify within the first three seconds whether they were a
threat or safe, truly, because I just saw what he saw,
and I especially found unimaginably threatening women who were most

(43:02):
like my full self and most like the person that
I was before I met him, because on some level,
it's as though I knew that if I continued the
conversation with these women, if I, you know, developed myself
in the way that they were, you know, free to
develop because they had nothing at stake, or so I believed,

(43:24):
I would find out that I shouldn't be in this relationship.
So I just stopped having those conversations and I stayed
where I was. I stayed in the same place. Many
survivors know, at some deep, unspoken level that if they
stop shrinking themselves to stay in the relationship or actually

(43:44):
explore it honestly and deeply, that they will find out
that they probably have to leave it. As a result,
survivors may avoid therapy, avoid talking to friends who will
tell them the truth, and even avoid the people that
allow them to grow because there is a fear that
then they would have to act on that information. It's

(44:07):
sort of the ignorance is bliss model, but in this
case it's not so much bliss as self sabotage meets
self protection. Part of your book that really was so
striking to me. You're in Denmark with your friend and
in fact you do this beautiful beautiful, equating the original
Hans Christian Anderson story about the Little Mermaid. And you know,

(44:30):
the piece we forget is in the original telling of
the story is that she makes all those sacrifices and
and her legs feel like knives are going through them,
and she loses her voice and all of that, and
the Prince still rejects her. That part of your book
gave me chills. But on that trip, at that point,
your partner had already been chosen to be on the

(44:52):
next season of Strictly Come Dancing, which for listeners it's
like Dancing with the Stars in the States. And then
you said to your friend, I don't feel good about this.
I can already see where this is going to go.
And even your friend there's been nothing but a support
as like you're already thinking ahead to that, almost like
you're you've created the story in your head. But as
I read that part of the story of your instincts

(45:13):
were spot on, like you knew him better than he
knew himself at this point, right, And then you were like,
I don't feel comfortable with this, But in the same breath,
you're like, I want to be the supportive girlfriend, so
I need to support him doing the very thing that
I know is going to harm me. Oh yeah, absolutely.
It was such a feeling of helplessness because, as we've said,

(45:35):
you know, what was at stake for me was everything
that I've ever been told that I needed and how
I am a valid adult woman, and so there I am,
and I mean this extreme state of helplessness where I
can choose to follow my instincts here and lose my relationship,

(45:59):
or I can put my instincts to one side and
choose to be supportive and lose myself. And at that
point in my relationship, losing myself felt like, well, if
I'm totally candid, it felt like the only option at
that point for me, because I was so as you
pointed out, trauma bonded with this person that I couldn't

(46:20):
imagine a life without him. I really couldn't. And I
just I would sit in this relationship and I would
sit in bed at night and I would you know,
be up not being able to sleep. And I love sleep.
So that's how I always know that I I, you know,
something's really really wrong here. But I would just think,
I can't believe that this is my life. I can't

(46:41):
believe that this is what my life is. But there
was always a part of me that was saying to myself,
but if you left, it could be worse. You know,
think about what you have got. Think about what you
have got. You've got this partner who is successful and
has an incredible income. You have a flat age, you know,
twenties seven years old. That's you know, that's it's completely

(47:04):
impossible in London. But that doesn't happen. You have a
successful partner who's famous, and every single person in your
life thinks she landed on your feet. Why what's wrong
with you? Why don't you? And yet the thing you're
missing and there is is Rebecca getting to be her whole, full,
authentic self and be loved for her. And that wasn't
on the table under it, no flatten the world that

(47:26):
can be better than that, and yet we tuck ourselves
out of it. So he goes on Districtly Come Dancing.
He starts dancing with this partner where this doesn't feel good.
But you would show up to the tapings week over
a week as his girlfriend. Yeah, I was there every
single week. Yeah, sitting in the audience waiting to be

(47:46):
acknowledged in thinking back on it now, it's such a
funny thing to speak about it, because you know they
say that when you look back on your life and
it looks like a film and you're over it. And
I really do feel that way, you know, the way
that I speak about this person who was turning up
to these recordings oft come dancing in her pretty dress
and nice new shoes and nice new makeup, which is
waiting to be told that I looked nice by my partner,

(48:08):
because really that was how logo bar was set at
that point. You know, if he had said you look nice,
it would have felt like, you know, the sun had
come through the class. But I think about her as
a completely different woman, and she she is a completely
different woman to me now that she's She's entirely different.
She would turn up to these recordings and be so
proud and also so delighted. I remember there was one

(48:33):
week where he had done so well on this show
and he had got some great marks for a passadoblay
with his partner and I stood, I jumped to my
feet and I was applauding and I was crying. In
a big camera got innostantly wheeled in front of my face.
To like have a full HD shot of all this

(48:57):
emotion from this girlfriend. And I was standing and applauding
and clapping because I felt so relieved from seeing with
my own eyes that they had been rehearsing like they
said they were up until nine pm. They hadn't been
doing what I thought they'd been doing, which is having

(49:17):
an illicit affair. And I was clapping and applauding in
that audience because I felt so relieved that, yeah, I
was a psychopath. This is such an apt metaphor that
when we look back at ourselves in our narcissistic relationships,
that it feels like a film and we are often
a character that we no longer recognize. That's not a

(49:39):
bad thing. It's a reminder that growth can and does
happen after these relationships. And when we look backwards, the
key is to nazi it from a place of shame,
but rather from how far we have come, you know.
And I was just there going to thank God my
brain doesn't work and that there's something wrong with me,

(50:00):
rather than be right about this and lo and behold.
That was the very evening where in that car park
he'd had to turn around and tell me that actually
the following day that they were going to be in
the papers, because I was right all along and they
have been having an affair. We will be right back
with this conversation. Lay that evening out for listeners, because

(50:24):
I before as held on too. I can't believe I'm
sitting here talking to you because I watched every word
of that story. Oh my gosh, this is such a
this is such a narcissistic story. But if you could
you go from the pasodouble clapping. Thank goodness, they actually
were rehearsing. I was wrong. I'm the paranoid one. There's
something wrong with me. Take us to what happens after that.
So I'm there in the audience and the recording ends,

(50:48):
and there's a gazebo in a car park outside the
studio where the guests of the performers can go and
get a glass of wine and champagne and wait for
their partners or the people that are in the show.
And I'm there at the bar getting a glass of champagne,
one for me and one for him, and I see

(51:11):
his agent run through the gazebo, and I think that's strange.
I am. I didn't know he was going to be
there tonight, and everyone looks quite fasted. So I'm just
sort of like totter out, you know, my cute little
shoes with my prosecco one for me and with my
boyfriends say well done. And I see the two of
them having what looks like a crisis talk, and I
go up to my boyfriend and I say, what's going on?
And his agent just goes completely silent, and he looks ashen.

(51:35):
This guy, you know, my boyfriend, this is well, both
of them really completely ashen, and there's just silence, and
I say, this is Are you ready for what I said?
What have I done? Were my words? And his agent
just looks at him and he goes, I think you
better take her over there and tell her. We go
over and this guy can't look me in the eye

(51:57):
and he is fuming. I mean, he's absolutely livid. And
at this point I have no idea why, and I
just we're just standing there in complete silence, and I
said to him, what's wrong? And he says, where are
you sleeping tonight? I say, um, at home and he goes, no,
you're not, so what is going on? You have to

(52:19):
tell me what's going on? And he just laws at
the sky, and then there's this pause and he says,
the sun have got pictures of me and the dancer kissing.
He doesn't look at me, like he's looking over my shoulder,
and I just I'm telling you. And when I relay

(52:43):
this next part of the story, it sounds like I'm
writing a screenplay or something, but I'm absolutely not. It
was as though a line of white light like a
photocopier started at my head and went through my body
and filled me with what I now know to be
complete empowerment. And I just smiled and said, oh. In

(53:08):
my head, all I could hear is he's not good
enough you and he never has been. And you were right,
you were right all along. But I didn't need to
say anything. I didn't need say anything at all. I
just went oh. And then he just and then he
said I have to get them out of here before
her husband hits me. And I said, I'm coming with you.
You know you're not, and I said I am. And

(53:30):
then I turned to his agent and I said, don't
let him go anywhere, because he owes me this. And
that was the evening. And PS. What I should also
state was that the night that those pictures were taken.
Pictures of the two of them kissing in the street
were taken. Was three days earlier, and it was my

(53:51):
thirty second birthday, and I had been waiting for him
to come home where I had prepared dinner. And I
called him because he texted me saying we'll go out
for drink and I said, I don't know what's going on,
but I called my best friends that I feel like
there's something wrong here. I feel like it's not okay.
Am I Am I being precious about this? Am I
being you know, a brats to think that it's not

(54:13):
okay for my boyfriends to go out with another woman
on my birthday, especially a woman that he knows that
I'm already paranoid about. When we are in a narcissistic relationship,
we even start to doubt that two plus two is
four and we need reassurance about really fundamental truths. Her
boyfriend went out with another woman, a woman that Rebecca

(54:39):
had shared her concerns about. He went out for a
drink with another woman on Rebecca's birthday. And Rebecca is
the one who was wondering if she is being too neurotic,
too needy, and too sensitive. That's what these relationships due
to us. Her instincts were always right. But after we

(55:01):
have been gaslighted long enough, we will inevitably gaslight ourselves.
And I called him up and I said please come home,
and he shouted at me, and then he got home
that later that evening and eight half of the cold
lasagna that I had prepared, and said in the doorway
of my bedroom, I just wish you could see the

(55:21):
servers together and you would be able to see with
your own eyes what psycho you are. So this whole thing,
I mean you talk about the dream. I mean, in
a way, it is the dream. It is like Bobby
from Queer, I, you know, coming in and sorting my
brain out for me and giving me a whole new,
you know, load of soft furnishings and space that I
never knew existed. But that was the evening, and then

(55:43):
the Sun on Sunday ran with this headline and it
was on the front pages about this affair that had happened.
And what actually happened was that I got asked for
comment by a lot of journalists who offered me a
lot of money to sell my story and to have
my say. As they put it to me. You know,
it's we thought it was only fair, and I was like,
how good of you. I guess that I knew that

(56:04):
whatever I had to say would be on their terms
the second that I gave it to anyone else. So
I released a statement on Twitter and said, prompted by
the fact that my boyfriend made a public apology and
didn't acknowledge me at all in it at all, Yeah,
we'd love for you to read the statement here so
because some people may and I have seen it and

(56:24):
in your voice, I want people to hear the statement
because honestly, we could have just had you read the statement,
and this could have been the whole episode. It's that good, Okay,
I'll read it to you. So my statement read, hello there,
my name is Rebecca Humphries, and I am not a victim.
I wasn't sure whether to respond to events from the

(56:44):
past week, but I feel the narrative has missed a
couple of crucial elements that I would like to clear up.
It's incredibly good of my boyfriend and his dance partner
to apologize in the media. I've received nothing other than
the support of my family, friends and a host of
strangers on the internet who all wanted to make sure
I was okay. But I have also kindly received are

(57:05):
many offers to sell my side of the story, but
I would prefer for it to be on my own terms.
Those pictures were taken on October three, it was my birthday.
I was alone at home when he texted at ten
pm saying the two of them were going for one
innocent drink. We spoke and I told him, not for
the first time, that his actions over the past three

(57:25):
weeks had led me to believe something inappropriate was going on.
He aggressively and repeatedly called me a psycho, slash nuts,
slash mentor, as he has done countless times throughout our
relationship when I've questioned his inappropriate, hurtful behavior. But this
whole business has served to remind me that I am
a strong, capable person who was now free and no victim.

(57:48):
I have a voice, and I will use it by
saying this to any woman out there who deep down
feels worthless and trapped with a man they love. Believe
in yourself and your instincts. It's more than lying is controlling.
Tell some very close friends who if there are anything
like my wonderful network will swoop in and take care
of the logistics and a view. It's important also to

(58:08):
recognize that in these situations, those who hold power over
you are insecure and fragile, and their need for control
comes from a place of vulnerability. I think it certainly
does in his case, despite everything. I hope he gets
what he wants from this. I'm not sorry I took
the cat. They love Rebecca. It's the best Twitter post
actually ever in the history of Twitter post. And I'm

(58:31):
not sorry I took the cat though actually could have
been the title of the memoir, which was actually where
I'm like, Okay, I love this woman. You always you
always take the cat, you always take in vain. So
this statement gets posted and then what you just did?
You post it at night and just go to sleep.
You know what happened was I had a huge crisis

(58:53):
of confidence throughout that day. I wrote it on the Monday,
so the day after the papers came out and consulted
with almost everyone, including my therapist, who took one look
at it and said, Rebecca, you have to post this
because you have a voice. And I took that very
very seriously, and I just had this moment where I
was sitting at this kitchen table and my friends were

(59:14):
making me dinner, you know, and she was sort of
taking all of the roast potatoes and the greens into
the other room and said, you know, whenever you're ready,
and I went okay, okay, and I sat there and
I just when I'm too scared, and then I just
had this moment where I was like, Rebecca, I don't
want to look back on my life and see any
moments where I had an opportunity to assert myself and

(59:37):
didn't take it. I don't want that for myself. And
with that thought, I just went in clicks end and
ran into the other room and I just went I've
done it, and they went okay. And then not thirty
seconds later, I could hear my phone vibrating in the
other room and I just didn't stop. It just didn't stop,

(59:59):
and I and I leaped up and I ran and
I looked at my phone and everyone I knew messaging me,
calling me. I opened up the laptop and I actually
threw it at my friend Bell. I was like, just
look at it, look at it. I can't look at it.
And she looked and she said, it's had three thousand
likes and this was within ten minutes, and honestly, it

(01:00:21):
was wild. It was on the news at ten in
the UK and it was a moment really like. People
were retweeting it, women's charities were retweeting it saying, you know,
you might have noticed that in my statement, I very
very deliberately didn't use the word gas lighting because I
just wanted to lay out the behavior and I wanted

(01:00:43):
to not be accusatory. I wanted the world to the
world to call it not me, and that's exactly what happened.
People were headlining this is what gas lighting looks like,
this is what this means. And the following day I
woke up and I was on the front page of

(01:01:04):
every newspaper in the UK saying this is empowerment, this
is this is what this means. And it was a
real It was just most amazing. It was the most
amazing example for myself of when you step into your authenticity,
people hear you, people really do. It was beyond viral.

(01:01:26):
It was the manifesto we wanted to hear and in
many ways very powerful from you. You're an incredibly accomplished actress, writer.
I mean, you're looked upon as like, Oh, she must
have her life together. She's wonderful, she's perfect, she's cool.
And when you put that statement out there, you're like, Okay,
if this happened to her, it happened to me. It's

(01:01:47):
not because I'm less than or foolish, like she has
it all together and I this happened to me, And
it happens to people at all. People. It happens to
women who are profoundly powerful and women who have no
power at are the universality of it. I think you
really gave it voice. Everyone else might be empowered, and
I understand at that moment something shut down for you.

(01:02:08):
But at this point he didn't catch you two inches
above the pavement. So this is going on. You're having
your own personal experience. What were the initial days and
weeks like after this post went out and the relationship ended. Well,
it's it's interesting that you say that, because really, at
that point that was and I really wasn't in the
public eye at that point at all. He and I

(01:02:30):
met on a sitcom. So we met on a TV show,
where may I say, because you know why not? I
had I had a bigger role than he did at
that time I was. I was more constable at that
moment in my life. Well, that was one of the
first things to go well, because I allowed him to
diminish me and my career in order to elevate his

(01:02:53):
own for such a long time, and it felt like
there was only room enough for one career in that
house and it had to be his. So my career
was gone. Mean I walked out that night that those
pictures were in the newspapers. I didn't have a boyfriend,
I didn't have a home, I didn't have a job,
I didn't have any income anymore. But what I did
have was, it turns out, more self respect than I

(01:03:14):
would ever have given myself credit for, and a voice
and my worth all of a sudden, And it's like
you said earlier, there's no flat in the world that
means as much as that. And I really truly felt
what that was like during that period of time, and

(01:03:35):
it didn't matter. I also saw for myself truly during
that time, because of how dramatic it was, because of
how much I had lost and and how it was
many people's worst nightmare what happened to me, And so
what I really really got to take stock of was

(01:03:55):
what love actually looked like, which was the love of
my family and my friends, who showed the hell up
for me in that moment and flooded me with respect, honesty,
open and honest communication, their trust, their support, their affection,

(01:04:18):
their care, all stuff that I had been missing in
a relationship that I was labeling love. And suddenly I
was like, oh my gosh. I felt so emotional living
with my friends during that point, because it was truly
unfathomable to me that I could live under the same
roof as people who behave as though they enjoyed my company,

(01:04:40):
and honestly, I felt completely enriched by by that experience,
and of course I had a broken heart. And of
course this is something that people don't really speak about
enough about when you leave those kind of relationships and
leave emotionally abusive relationships, which is that there were points
where I was just like, for no reason, for no
apparent reason, I'm standing here and it's bonfire night in

(01:05:02):
the UK, and there are fire what's happening. I've got
hot dog in my hands and I miss him and
I'm missing and I know he's an ass and I
you know, I know that he did all these awful
things to me. But good God, I wish he was here.
And I can't tell you why that is, but those
moments appears and I felt like I could handle them.
I felt like I could, Yeah, because of because of
the love and support of everyone around me, and the

(01:05:23):
love and respect for myself that I had after asserting
myself in that way. That's a profound point. I'm so
happy you had it, and I couldn't agree more because
as a psychologist who weighs in and works with folks
on this every day, it's hard to create a social
support network for someone. So some people would go through
something not as public as you did, but certainly that
moment of revelation and they don't have support. And it's

(01:05:46):
because they often become quite isolated in these relationships. So
your story shows us the profundity in many ways how
important support is to get to the other side, because
you have accurate mirrors, you have people who validate you,
you have people who help you keep that gaslight turned off.
Your story is sort of an incredible example of that,
and that there's that moment sometimes in these relationships you suffer,

(01:06:09):
you suffer, you get confused, you you sort of believe
this hype, you go on the roller coaster ride. So
when the entire cover is pulled off and it's shown
for what it is, in a way, you've actually kind
of been doing the disconnection from the relationship for a
long time. You were just waiting for that final piece
of evidence, and then there it was, and so you
had that support. And how has life been since? Because

(01:06:33):
you've actually become a really important voice for this kind
of emotional abuse and within relationships that often hasn't had
a voice, and your your work has been really really
powerful to those of us who act in this world's
advocates a therapist. So, how have you been doing? How
is how is your process of healing been unfolding? Well,

(01:06:54):
it's been It's been hard walk, It's not been easy, kids.
You know what I realized quite early on that a
lot of my healing process was going to take a
lot of looking in the damn mirror. And for those
of us who feel insecure and you know, have a

(01:07:15):
low sense of self esteem as it is, you know,
looking in the mirror can feel almost scarier than just
making the same mistakes until we die sometimes, you know.
But you know, it took a lot of boldness and bravery,
and of course that support network to step up and
do that. And it has been the most challenging and
rewarding four years of my entire life. I mean, my

(01:07:36):
work has has flourished, no question, because I no longer
go to auditions with a person going well doing doing
their best to make me aware that my best probably
won't be good enough in that meeting, you know, And
now I you know, suddenly I didn't have that anymore.
And lo and behold, there I am being handed work

(01:07:57):
and and of course the revelation sations that I am
discovering about emotional abuse and about like you say that
it comes for strong, sexy, intelligent, cool women as much
as it does for women that we want to label
victims in our society or the way that pop culture
presents victim hoods. I'm making all these discoveries that, oh man,

(01:08:22):
that's wrong, and no one's talking about that, so I
guess I will, you know, I guess that's that's my job,
because I needed to know that when I was in
that relationship and no one was talking about it. So
now I need to say it because the idea that
people don't know about this is just doesn't make any
sense to me at all. So you know, lots of
my work has been about uncovering those things and finding

(01:08:44):
ways to speak about them. I've spoke in the House
of Commons in the UK about gas lighting in the
media and the media's portrayal of victim hoods. And obviously,
you know, I wanted to write this book, and I
had this idea to write the book. It was actually
during the pandemic when I just had this or my
moment of going, what's happening in this world. I don't
have any work, of course, but I'm they're going, thank god,

(01:09:06):
I'm not in that flat anymore. Thank God I'm not there.
And when I had that thought, I thought, how many
women in this country are living with partners and they
have no idea that they are experiencing emotional abuse and
someone needs to do something. Rebecca is sharing the classical
story of thriving after a person gets out of one

(01:09:29):
of these relationships. Narcissistic relationships are often a block. We
stop taking risks, we hold back, We're afraid of their criticism,
and we are afraid of our own success. Not only
do our careers and pursuits often get diminished in these relationships,
but so many people thrive when they are finally over.

(01:09:51):
I think everyone in these relationships says, I know, this
isn't right. It's probably my fault, and people around them
may also be thinking well of relationships or just tough,
so it's complicated. There's a point in the book where
you questioned, if you were becoming a narcissist, why did
you think that? Well, I suppose the reason I thought
that was because when I came out of the relationship,

(01:10:13):
I was so unaccustomed to thinking about myself and my
needs and my experiences, my feelings. I was just learning
that language. And I look back on that now and
I think, no, I wasn't obsessed with who I was.
I was just developing a healthy relationship with myself and

(01:10:36):
my intellectual self and my emotional self. And I was
developing a dialogue. But for me, a healthy dialogue looked
like self obsession because I never I never had it before. Ever,
I agree, yeah it is. And suddenly I'm there, going, oh,
I can all I can think about is myself and

(01:10:56):
you know whatever, And all I seem to be talking
about is myself, you know, and my own narcissists, so
my friends, and that's sort of going oh. I think
so many survivors have this experience of thinking that they
themselves may be a narcissist when they are in these relationships.
Whether it's because the other person is saying you are,

(01:11:17):
because you are constantly ruminating about the relationship, because you
find yourself talking about it all the time, or because
you are thinking about what you need or what you want.
That internal obsessive rumination is a classical part of the
fallout of narcissistic abuse and gas lighting. And no, it

(01:11:37):
does not mean you are narcissistic. Do you have any
questions for me? I do have a question for you,
And great, I suppose that there's a chancel. I'm coming
at this with too much empathy really, given what we
know about narcissists. But my question is is that it
has to do with a narcissist born or made and
is narcissism? Uh? Can it? Can it be put down

(01:11:59):
to being a coping mechanism for something fortum? Narcissism in
many ways is a set of defenses that protect the
core insecurity of the person who has those defenses. Being grandiose,
being arrogant, being entitled, gas lighting, manipulating. In essence, everything
is to maintain their sense of power and domination so

(01:12:20):
they don't have to have that uncomfortable shame of having
all of that percolate up. It's all an unconscious process.
Here's where it gets tricky, Rebecca. I love your empathy,
but the fact of the matter is, is is your number
two that that person in your life he was able
to turn on the charm and then very quickly when
he had you by yourself, called you a psycho. He

(01:12:44):
wasn't doing that in front of other people. He was
doing that when he was alone with you, so he
wouldn't look like a bad guy. That's a choice. A
person who was really that disregulated would do it in
front of everyone. Okay, that that's a definite definitely a
different process. But he was very calculated, and that calculation
requires a relatively high level of functioning. So he really

(01:13:06):
was living in service too. I want my way and
I'll do whatever I need to do, and it's open
season on my partner. I can say whatever I want
to Rebecca because she's going to keep coming back. So
rather than saying I shouldn't say to someone, I could
hurt them, I could lose them his schema as I
can always pull her back. I would say those defenses
are a way of protecting the narcissistic person. Narcissism is made.

(01:13:29):
There's a temperament narcissistic people have. There's a certain temperament
as children they likely had, but not even that in
every case. But the environment shapes them. And some narcissistic people, yes,
are shaped by trauma and chaos and invalidation and issues
with attachment. But some narcissists are shaped by simply being
overindulged and being told you're more special than anybody else.

(01:13:52):
And because some people do grow up with trauma and invalidation,
in fact, most don't grow up to be narcissistic. There's
something else up reading there. It also can be that
temperamental piece. So it's complicated. It's very complicated, but it's
not fully a trauma reaction. There's enough people out there
who didn't have that backstory. But ultimately many, many people
who go through trauma. Again, I'd argue most don't end

(01:14:15):
up narcissistic. But this idea that it's a coping mechanism,
it is a defensive mechanism but they know better because
he would not have treated you the way he would
have treated a casting agent. Right. The fact that he
can make that discrimination mean he knew, he knew damn
well what he was doing. Well, I mean, it's fascinating.

(01:14:39):
Thank you, Rebecca, Thank you so much for sharing your story,
your experience with it, not just the public story we saw,
but what happened to you and how it is such
a universal experience for so many people. Many people say, well,
maybe it was something about me I attract these people.
I say, now, the charm, the charisma, the stuff that

(01:15:00):
drew you in with this guy would have drawn in
anyone and anyone in that situation being manipulated. It's a
game of cat and mouse. The mouse never wins. Here
are my takeaways from my conversation with Rebecca. First, in
a narcissistic relationship, our heart breaks long before the relationship

(01:15:20):
actually ends. The day to day of the relationship with
the alternation between idealization and devaluation, rescue and abandonment, leaves
a person who was in one of these relationships confused
and hurt. It's a bit like breaking your leg in
the same place every month. In Rebecca's story, the ultimate end,

(01:15:42):
and the moment of clarity when she realized that she
had been gaslighted and devalued was actually a moment of clarity,
not devastation. She had done the hard work of heartbreak
over the years she was in the relationship. When she
finally got confirmation of what it really was and saw it,

(01:16:06):
that clarity carried her forward into her healing. In this
next takeaway, these relationships only work when we make ourselves small,
and that means abandoning our aspirations, our goals, selling ourselves short,
and giving up on our own interest. To support the
narcissistic person's pursuits, we have to diminish our successes so

(01:16:31):
as to not threaten them or harm their fragile egos.
For many folks in or coming out of narcissistic relationships,
they will find that they actually couldn't achieve what they
wanted even if they tried. While they're in these relationships,
it's as though the relationship is a toxic blockade. And

(01:16:53):
yet once people get out of these relationships, they find
themselves pursuing goals, making things happen, and going for it.
Rebecca's story is not unusual of finding herself and thriving
and finding her voice. After she got out. We shrink
ourselves so they can feel big, and sometimes getting out

(01:17:18):
means a chance to finally fully occupy ourselves and shine.
In my next takeaway, in Rebecca's book and in the interview,
she shares the real original story of the Little Mermaid
as told by Hans Christian Anderson. It's not the Disney
version where the mermaid gets her voice and they live
happily ever after. In the original, the mermaid gives it

(01:17:42):
all up, including her voice, and lives in pain to
win the prince over, just to be rejected and die.
Hans Christian didn't know he was writing the template for
a narcissistic relationship. In the original stories of snow white
and sleeping beauty, men in power fall in love with
or have non consensual sex with sleeping women who also

(01:18:03):
have no voice. In modern times, we have sanitized these
fairy tales in a manner that romanticizes, ignoring red flags
with the promise of the happily ever after. Maybe keeping
the fairy tales and they're terrifying and tragic original formats
may be more honest. Ultimately, these watered down fairy tales

(01:18:26):
create distorted expectations on what relationships are supposed to be.
Perhaps we will one day have fairy tales that involve equity, respect, compassion, empathy,
and kindness in the relationship, with everyone awake and nobody
having to give up their voices to be in love.

(01:18:47):
In a way, Rebecca's tale is a modern fairy tale.
By getting away from the pseudo prince, she gets her
voice back. And in my last takeaway, Rebecca, like many survivors,
had empathy for her partner's backstory, a childhood that was
more difficult and bleak than her own, and in a

(01:19:08):
compassionate way, would attribute his manipulative behavior to his tough
backstory and give him a free pass. And this is
something that many a toxic person also does for themselves.
I just had a tough childhood. That's why I do
these things. It's always hard to hear that someone had
a tough start in life, but you aren't responsible for that,

(01:19:32):
and using that as a justification for their bad behavior
in the relationship misses the larger picture that the majority
of people with difficult childhoods do not behave badly in relationships.
Be careful at how much you let their backstory be
a place where you justify behavior that is harming you,

(01:19:57):
because this can be a cycle that is almost impossible
to break out of. A big thank you to our
executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valen Jethro, Ellen Rakaton and
Dr Rominey Dr Vassila, And thank you to our producer
Matthew Jones, associate producer Mara Dela Rosa, and consultant Kelly Ebling.

(01:20:22):
And finally, thank you to our editors and sound engineers
Devin Donnaghy and Calvin Bailiff.

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Dr. Ramini Durvasula

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}How Rebecca Humphries Found Her Voice