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July 26, 2025 15 mins

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Sleepless In Granada Episode 15 

Financial Abuse..

addicted to my emotions..

Chatting About My Nex..My Narcissistic Ex..

please email me sleeplessingranada@yahoo.com

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hello and a huge big Scottish welcome.
I'm sitting at my kitchen tablesipping ice cold latte.
It's delicious and so refreshingon this hot day.
It's overcast and it's stilloutside, so still.
Even the cheerful birds have nosongs for me.
Today I'd like to chat about myneck's That's my narcissistic

(00:24):
ex.
Back then, he always seemed sopowerful, untouchable, yet he
was constantly on edge.
He was a complete conundrum tome.
He was addicted to control.
Everything had to be his way,every conversation, every idea,
every emotion, and everyoutcome.
Control to him was power.

(00:45):
This was his safe place.
Anything unpredictable sent himinto a spiral of panic and fury.
Image was everything and fuckthe truth.
It was all about performing.
He was completely obsessed withhis image and what people
thought of him.
It must have been so, soexhausting, constantly acting.

(01:06):
He was ever fearful that hewould be found lacking in any
way.
I had to constantly reassure himthat he was the smartest guy on
the planet.
His constant need for validationwas exhausting for me.
He hungered for it and feastedon the attention, the
admiration, the praise.

(01:28):
When these began to dry up, itwas famine and he would go
spiralling into a panic mode,pacing the room, talking to and
even arguing with himself.
Then the explosive retorts wouldstart I've tried so fucking hard
and this is how you repay me?
And this was a favourite.
I work so fucking hard for us,you don't appreciate anything I

(01:52):
do.
Without constant validation andpraise, he visibly shrank.
He wasn't grounded, not at all.
He even spoke in his sleep andwould argue with himself then
too.
He was always very reactive,defensive, anxious, angry and so
stressed.
He was trapped in a world wherecontrol at any cost was his

(02:14):
survival.
And my authenticity and energywere simply the enemy.
His identity was built on lies.
I never knew this man that Ishared my bed with for a decade.
It was akin to living with atime bomb.
I never knew when the detonatorwould be pulled.
I just had to wait it out.
He blamed all his stress andanger on me, but I was simply

(02:37):
the mirror he couldn't face.
Under his huge ego, he was adeeply insecure, angry, troubled
man.
His stress levels skyrocketedwhen he was not the smartest,
funniest, or most controlledperson in the room.
He could not regulate hisemotions no matter how many

(02:58):
times I tried to help him.
He never learned to sit withsadness, vulnerability, or
shame.
Every tiny trigger felt likeWorld War III.
rage, threats, blame, and theywere all rained down on me.
Then it was the completeshutdown, the silence.

(03:18):
The silent treatment alwayscontinued until I apologised,
even when to my knowledge I didnothing wrong.
One of his favourite weapons wasfinancial abuse.
Most people believe that abuseis loud, violent and obvious,
but sometimes this can be amyth.
Financial abuse is quiet andquite deadly.

(03:40):
So what is financial abuse?
It's when one person controlsthe other's access to money.
He had complete power andcontrol over my mind, body and
soul.
I had never been dependent onanyone before in my life.
In fact, I bought my firstapartment when I was 21 years
old and I had worked my entirelife.

(04:02):
He told me, you don't need towork.
I'll look after us both.
And I fell for it, hook, lineand sinker.
This kept me completely trappedand stuck for years and years.
I couldn't leave.
I had no money.
He wouldn't allow me to earnmoney of my own.
Every money making scheme I cameup with was peaheed and thwarted

(04:24):
as stupid.
Don't be so bloody stupid.
That's never going to work.
You're just going to cost memore money.
He was the boss, the provider,the hero, always in charge and I
began to shrink, shrink, shrink,so small, so powerless, so weak,
no self-esteem, no pride,nothing, zilch, zero.

(04:47):
I really did become invisibleyou know.
Isolation was all part of hisbig plan for me.
I was never allowed to goshopping, I wasn't even allowed
to go to the supermarket on myown.
Every item I placed in the cartwas screened and scrutinised.
It was humiliating, embarrassingand terrifying.

(05:08):
He would bark at me in his bigbooming sergeant major voice.
What's this?
We don't need this.
Put it back.
I had to beg for the most basicnecessities.
He kept all the financialdetails a secret from me.
I was never allowed to know howmuch was in the bank, how many
bank accounts there were theinvestments or the pensions on

(05:30):
reflection i was a tiny littleobedient mouse then now i look
at myself and i can see how fari've come and now i'm a fucking
powerful unstoppable lioness iam woman hear me roar at times
healing was agonizing i had towash scrape and peel all the

(05:51):
damaged layers that i didn'teven know were there scrubbing
away all the lies he told me,all the false beliefs that I
internalised over the years, allthe traumas and the pain that he
caused me.
A few of my layers were thickwith guilt, others I shed
easily.
Each and every layer I peeledback.

(06:14):
The shame, the self-blame, thefear, the stinging pain at times
made me cry uncontrollably.
The more I peeled, the more Iremembered, the more I
remembered, the more I realizedI was never broken.
I was buried, buried very, verydeeply.
I began taking my power back onelie at a time.

(06:35):
I began to Be me again, the realme, the funny and witty me, the
kind and optimistic me, the onehe tried so hard to erase, but
he failed and he failedmiserably.
You see, I was groomed andbrainwashed for years and years.
They were all his projections,all his insecurities, his guilt,

(06:56):
his shame.
None of this shit was ever true.
What is trauma bonding?
Trauma bonding is when you bondto the person who's hurt you and
abused you.
It's not just emotional, it'sneurological.
Trauma bonding is an attachmentaddiction that forms through
something called intermittentreinforcement.

(07:20):
I know this sounds a little bitpsychobabble, so let me break it
down and make it real.
It's the unpredictable rewardsand the unpredictable pain.
One day, they're warm, lovingand so attentive and you get
that fuzzy feeling inside andyou think, oh, it's going to
work this time.
Next day, they're distant, butthey're still polite to you.

(07:44):
You then start to think, did Ido something?
Next day, You're completelyignored by them.
Next day, there's tension andarguments.
Next day, they explode.
Next day, they say sorry.
The next day, things feelhopeful again, and the entire
thing resets.

(08:05):
Rupture, repair, rupture,repair, rupture, repair.
It's never stable enough tobuild safety, and it's never
painful enough to fully walkaway.
You just keep saying, I'll tryharder, maybe one more time.
It's just enough love to keepyou chasing the feeling because
unpredictability is moreaddictive than certainty.

(08:29):
This is why on social media,doom scrolling, as they call it,
becomes so addictive.
Doom scrolling is when youendlessly scroll through all the
negative, distressing shit onyour socials.
You're not guaranteed to getsomething good, but every once
in a while, you'll land on avideo that makes you sit up
straight and go, wow.

(08:49):
I really needed that.
It's why slot machines work too.
And it's why your socials keepyou hooked.
It plays off the brain'schemistry.
It's searching for your next bigdopamine hit.
The feel-good factor.
It's the same reason we stay inrelationships that confuse us.

(09:10):
The same reason we stay in jobsthat drain us.
They pay just enough to stop youfrom quitting.
It's so stressful and you hateit.
You dream of leaving, but maybenext week it'll be better.
Our brains are addicted to theuncertainty.
You're not crazy.
Can I ask you something?
Do you know who you are?
I mean, the real you.
Do you know the answer?

(09:30):
It took me six decades toresurrect the woman who lay
buried, bleeding and barelybreathing.
But she's alive now.
He always told me, you're alwayssick.
But do you know something?
I've never had an illness in mylife before I met him.
Well, that's apart from myallergies, my hay fever.

(09:53):
Yet when I was with him, I hadall sorts of ailments.
I had muscle aches, headaches,colds, sweats and terrible
stomach cramping.
My nervous system didn't healbecause I now understood the
past logically.
It began to heal when my bodystopped expecting history to

(10:13):
repeat itself.
I was addicted to the feelingsthat kept me weak.
And after years and years of mymonster telling me this, my body
simply began to believe him.
And I haven't had one day'sillness or discomfort since we
parted.
Our body's reaction to anemotion fades within 90 seconds.

(10:36):
I didn't know this before.
But if the emotion is suppressedor unprocessed, it stays in the
body for up to seven years.
This is why we get gut problems,lower confidence and breakdowns.
I always found myself returningback to the same old emotions.
Even when life was great,somehow I would slip back,

(10:58):
feeling anxious, feeling Iwasn't good enough, feeling
overwhelmed.
It was as if no matter how muchprogress I made, my inner self,
my negative of thoughts wouldpull and pull and pull me back.
It wasn't because I was brokenor because I was lazy or because
I had no willpower.

(11:18):
No, it wasn't.
It was because I was emotionallyaddicted to these feelings.
You are now saying to yourself,how the heck can you be addicted
to feelings and emotions?
How is that even possible?
It's because I have felt allthese emotions so often that My

(11:38):
nervous system has normalisedthem.
Even when I wanted peace ofmind, confidence, etc.
My nervous system that was wiredto expect chaos, doubt, guilt,
shame.
Oh, I hated all these feelings.
But I was comfortable with them.
It was the norm for me.
When something feels familiar,it feels safe.

(12:01):
Now let that sink in.
I always grew up feelingstressed about family, school,
money.
Stress became my friend.
It was my normal.
Even as an adult, even when lifeslows down and it gets calm, my
subconscious mind would createproblems just to get that stress

(12:23):
hit because without stress in mylife, something felt very off.
Like, this is too easy.
It's just too weird.
It sounds crazy, doesn't it?
And then on top of all that, Iwould procrastinate on purpose.
I would add unnecessary pressureand I would then overthink all

(12:43):
my decisions, big or small.
And for what?
It wasn't because I was stupid.
It was because my body waschasing that feeling and that
feeling It felt like home, itfelt safe and comfortable.
Each time I made a big change,set a new goal, I felt this
resistance.

(13:04):
It wasn't because I didn't wantchange.
It was because emotionally Ifelt it was unsafe.
I eventually broke this cycle.
I began asking myself, whatemotions do you always return to
no matter what's happening inyour life?
Is it guilt?
Is it anxiety?
Is it fear?
Is it shame?

(13:25):
I practiced feeling newemotions.
I sat with them.
At first, it felt so weird.
but I taught my body thatfeeling new emotions was okay
and that these were safe.
This takes repetition andpractice.
I noticed when I was chasingafter my old emotions, I would
begin shrinking again.

(13:45):
When I told myself, you'reamazing, stop that, I started
saying, This is your braintrying to go back to what it
knows.
I slowly began acceptingcompliments.
My biggest threat wasn'tfailure.
It was my nervous systemdragging me back, dragging me
back to that emotional baselinethat kept me feeling safe.

(14:07):
But it also got me so stuck.
I was so loyal to all thesewrong emotions.
But when I said, fuck you,everything began to change.
Do you know...
My home isn't just the place Ilive in.
It's a living container of myenergy, the vibrant, happy me, a

(14:27):
mirror of my inner self.
The colours all carefullychosen, objects placed precisely
so that the bright light, whenit comes flooding through my
huge windows, it just enhancesthem.
All of this speaks to mysubconscious, shaping my
emotions and my focus.
When you surround yourself withchaos, clutter, mess or noise,

(14:50):
your nervous system stays onhigh alert, constantly on edge.
When your space feels calm andlight and loved, all your energy
soft You begin to feel safe.
It's not just about perfection.
It's about presence.
When your home is aligned withlove, your reality really does
begin to shift in responsebecause your environment is not

(15:12):
separate from you.
It is you.
Take care of your home as youwould your garden.
What you grow inside growswithin you.
And remember, magic isn'tsomething you do.
Magic is something you are.
Thank you for listening to mypodcast, Sleepless in Granada.
I would absolutely love to hearfrom you.

(15:33):
Please email me atsleeplessingranada at yahoo.com.
Next episode follows shortly.
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