125. FREEING MYSELF from a Lifetime with Narcissists | Dana Diaz

In this episode we explore the grief related to abuse - and more specifically narcissistic abuse. If you have a close relationship with your family - think for a moment what that relationship would look like if they set you for a lifetime of abuse as you were growing up, and then into your adulthood. Instead of giving you the love and support you deserved, they chose to cover their own tracks from possible exposure, by making you out to be the bad guy and supporting your abusive partner instead. Truly, It's enough to send anyone crazy! Having the courage to stand up for yourself and speak your truth becomes the death of your family and loved ones. To all intents and purposes - you are a whistleblower - and that's an incredibly courageous, risky, and heartbreaking situation to be in.

 

To find yourself - the trade-off is to lose your family.  This is what victims of abuse typically encounter when they leave their abusive situations, and there are probably some of you listening right now who will be able to relate to this.

 

So, if you have been set up for this type of situation, how on earth do you go about extricating yourself?

That is what Dana Diaz is going to share with us today. She is the author of Gasping for Air: The Stranglehold of Narcissistic Abuse detailing the many decades she endured this type of abuse. When she finally ended the cycle of abuse, she was exiled and ghosted by friends, family, acquaintances in her son's school and in her church. She takes us through that - including how to identify some red flags for anyone who might be in a similar situation, and why it is so important for anyone who is experiencing this type of abuse to do find their way out.

 

 

 

Dana's Bio

Dana S. Diaz studied journalism and psychology at DePaul University. While there’s no better teacher than life experience and Dana has had life-long experiences with narcissistic abuse, her education did give her the ability to accurately verbalize and express how narcissistic abuse creates confusion and conflict within victims.

Today, Dana is a proud voice for fellow victims who are unable, afraid, or ashamed to share their experiences. She strives to create awareness and understanding to ensure victims are given the support they need t

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
When you say that word victim,you're accepting the role.

(00:05):
And I think once I figuredout, no, I could have taken
this collar off the whole time.
I could have walked out of here anytime.
Now, mind you, some people arein situations, with very, abusive
domestic situations, it's not as easyas just saying, yeah, I can walk out.
It's sometimes safer to stay, but youknow, that's a talk for another day.

(00:30):
But yeah, I think it was justabout realizing that I still had
all those things inside of methat I wanted to do with my life.
And I felt like if I stayed inthat situation with him, life was
just going to keep going as ithad always that hamster wheel.
It had never changed andnothing was going to change.

(00:52):
And I thought to myself, in 40years, 50 years, when I'm on my,
taking my last dying breath, is thiswhat I want to have been my life?
And it's not, but I couldn't have thelife I wanted with a man that refused to
allow me to experience joy, connectionsto other people, family, and friends.

(01:14):
I wasn't allowed family and friends.
He had made sure to separateme from all of them.
I certainly felt very alone.
I thought he was the only one.
He was all I had.
And that's part of alsowhy I held on for so long.
Cause everyone else had left me behind.
And.

(01:35):
It was just a really hard time whereI just had to dig deep down and just
say, is this what I want my life to be?
Today on the Beautiful Side ofGrief, I want to explore the
grief related to abuse, and morespecifically, narcissistic abuse.

(02:01):
If you have a close relationship withyour family, think for a moment what
that relationship would look likeif they set you up for a lifetime
of abuse when you were growingup, and then into your adulthood.
Instead of giving you the love andsupport you deserved, they chose to cover
their own tracks from possible exposure,making you out to be the bad guy, and

(02:25):
supporting your abusive partner instead.
Truly, it's enough to send anyone crazy.
Having the courage to stand up foryourself and speak your truth becomes
the death of your family and loved ones.
To all intents and purposes, youare a whistleblower, and that's an
incredibly courageous, risky, andheartbreaking situation to be in.

(02:49):
To find yourself, the tradeoff is to lose your family.
That is what victims of abuse typicallyencounter when they leave their abusive
situations, and there are probablysome of you listening right now
who will be able to relate to this?
So if you've been set up for thistype of situation, how on earth do
you go about extricating yourself?

(03:12):
That is what Dana Diaz isgoing to share with us today.
She's the author of Gasping for Air,the Stranglehold of Narcissistic
Abuse, detailing the many decadesshe endured this type of abuse.
When she finally ended the cycle of abuse.
She was exiled and ghosted byfriends, family, acquaintances in

(03:34):
her son's school and in her church.
That's a whole lot of grief to endure.
She's going to take us throughthat, including how to identify
some red flags for anyone whomay be in a similar situation.
Where to go to for support and why it's soimportant for anyone who is experiencing

(03:55):
this type of abuse to find their way out.
So a very warm welcome toyou Dana, nice to have you on
the beautiful side of grief.
Thank you so much for having me.
I am, I have actually been on almost200 podcasts, but I've never, ever,

(04:16):
this is the first time that I'm goingto be speaking specifically about that
grief and that mourning that comeswith, all these wonderful things like
breaking cycles and whistleblowing.
It's a very brave thing to do,but there is so much loss, that
has to be reconciled with it.
and it's devastating.
It can devastate anybody.

(04:37):
So thank you for havingme on to speak about this.
I'm very privileged and grateful to haveyou here speaking about this because
I believe it's hidden in clear sight.
There are so, so many people goingthrough this and the more we give
a voice to it, the more that willempower people to, break those cycles.

(04:57):
But firstly, I would like
to begin this conversation withwhat your life looks like here
now with your husband, Doug.
I am so glad that you asked thatbecause that's my happy ever after is
that after 45 years of being abusedby multiple people in multiple ways

(05:19):
and suffering and at some pointsnot wanting to live life anymore.
I'm happy.
I'm so glad that I got through it all,number one, and that I'm still here.
But most importantly, it's interestingthat when I was 45, at that turning
point, at that crossroad, I hadasked myself simply, what do I want?

(05:42):
And the interesting thing is what I'dwanted in the grand scheme of my life
had been the same thing that I wantedI'd wanted when I was 18, 19 years old
and hopeful, I wanted to be a writer.
That's why I went toschool for journalism.
Since 12 years old, I wanted toadvocate for victims of abuse
because I was an abused child.

(06:03):
I minored in psychologythinking I would do something.
Now I am doing that.
I have published a book.
I have two more books coming out in thenext year that I've already written.
and I wanted to be married.
Just not to somebody that was abusiveand in the end tried to kill me.
and that I don't mean to be sooff the cuff about it, but I'm in

(06:24):
a beautiful, loving relationship.
I never thought after all thoseyears of mental and physical trauma,
and with all the baggage that Icame with, I never thought I could
be in a healthy relationship.
I was one of those people thatsaid, I'm broken, I'm damaged.

(06:45):
I have to go be alone.
So I'm not a bother burdento anybody yet here.
This man who I'd known for many years.
I'd known his family 20 years He was thereall along and just at the right time life
brought us together and opened my eyeslike oh Where have you been all my life?
You've been right there, but he was thatcrutch I'm not saying to rely on people is

(07:11):
necessary for healing But I think I neededa little help getting back up on my feet.
So he was that crutch that thepositive person, the encourager, the
support that I needed till I couldwalk on my own again and relearn
myself and rediscover who I was.
So it's been a beautiful thing, butliterally everything I'd ever wanted.

(07:35):
like I said, from 30 some years ago,everything that had been in my heart
has come to fruition in the three anda half short years since I finally
released myself from all those toxicpeople and those abusive relationships.
And it's a very short time for, anybodyto do all these things, but it happened.

(07:55):
It's like a Cinderella story, but I'mjust so glad that I'm in a position now
where I can reach back and help othersto get up to where I am, because it's
not fun to be down in that rabbit hole.
Congratulations.
Firstly, I'm findingyour happy ever after.
That's so important.
But I think the other thing that'sreally important about what you've just

(08:18):
said Is that, you're giving people hopethat they too can go from the situation
that they are currently in to findingtheir own version of happy ever after.
and I think that is so important.
We need that hope and everybodyneeds a glimmer of light.

(08:39):
And so that's what we're going to takepeople through today because they can
get an understanding of where you were at
Before we go into the background ofyour narcissistic abuse, are you able
to define for us just what that is?
What is narcissistic abuse?
Yes.
So there's a few differentfacets I'll cover here.

(09:02):
Narcissistic abuse is whena narcissist abuses you.
It's not a specific sort of abuseper se because it encompasses
any and all forms of abuse.
So victims of narcissistic abuse mightexperience just one or a few of types
of abuse or all, including physical,verbal, emotional, psychological, sexual

(09:25):
abuse, legal abuse, financial abuse,throw in the gaslighting, manipulation,
silent treatment, whatever tactic theycan use to diminish you, overpower
you, control you, and basicallymake you dependent on them for your
every thought and your every action.
that is what they will do.

(09:45):
And, I always say I liken it totumors because I don't want to say
that all narcissists are abusive.
There are some narcissistswho are true to the word.
Narcissist was a Greek God who likedto look at his reflection in the water.
Cause he was so handsome, I guess.
And we see these people on social media.

(10:06):
Taking all their selfies and Godlove them, they really do look
as good as they think they do.
But those aren't thenarcissists bothering us.
So I liken those to likebenign tumors in your body.
They're there.
They're not bothering you.
But on the other hand, there'smalignant tumors, right?
Malignant tumors cause you problems.

(10:26):
They might even kill you.
And these are thenarcissists that are abusive.
These are the narcissists thatanyone who watches these true crime
shows, will, nine times out of 10.
I look at my husband andsay, dare I say the N word?
To me that the N word's a narcissist.
So, you know, it's, it'sactually a very scary thing.

(10:47):
And just to give people some perspectiveon how common this is, one in three
women and one in four men are in anabusive relationship with a narcissist.
That's pretty scary.
Really.
Even scarier is 38 percentof all women murdered.

(11:10):
All women, 38 percent aremurdered by their partner.
That's scary.
That makes me want to not be ina relationship if I'm a woman.
I mean, let's, let's consider that.
That's a very scary thought.
So this is something thatneeds to be taken seriously.
But unfortunately, it doesn'tmatter where you are in the world.

(11:32):
I've talked to people in the UK, inAustralia, here in the U S unless you have
the black eyes or you have bullet holes inyour body, you're, you don't get justice.
You don't get, I had to fight foran order of protection after guns
and knives came into the situation.

(11:52):
So it's something you really just need to,you need to take care of yourself in this.
But I think as a collective society,we need to watch out for each other
because sadly, now that I'm out of thesituation, there have been people that
have come forward that said, Oh, I kindof suspected, or I thought you were
going, but they never did anything.

(12:15):
And I could, I'm not exaggerating.
I could be dead right now by thehands of two different narcissists,
as a matter of fact, not just one.
So talk about looking overmy shoulder all my life.
It's a very real possibility that Icould have been one of those statistics,
but I'm still here because peopleneed to know what this is about.

(12:36):
People need to see what thislooks like because the narcissist,
yes, they're out in society.
They're wearing the mask, they'revolunteering and looking charitable
and generous and they're coaching, thechildren's sports and they're volunteering
at church and they're, they, everybodyloves them and they're so funny and
they're charming and they're respectable.

(12:58):
But boy, if they get mad, ifsomething doesn't go their way, if
you are the person that they havedecided is going to take the brunt
of that, you better watch out.
You better watch out causeit's a very, it's a Dr.
Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde thing, and you neverknow what you're going to get.
I want to take a look now at whatsets us up for allowing ourselves

(13:24):
to be in this type of, situationand relationship and that.
So take us back, Dana, if you wouldn'tmind, to where it all started for
you with your family and what sortof things were happening in your
upbringing that would lead you toaccepting an abusive relationship for
so long or relationships for so long.

(13:46):
Yeah, of course.
This is actually what my second bookis about that will be coming out later
this summer, it's about my growing up.
Because I think that most peopleI've talked to that are in
toxic relationships as adultscertainly went through something.
As children, because let's be real, Ilook at, my biological father, he married

(14:08):
somebody, not my mother and had children.
And, I look at my sister and she'svery, she was raised with the way a girl
should be with the love and support ofher parents with encouragement, taught
to have self respect and self esteem.
She, So she is in a very, I'm sohappy for her and her husband.
They are match made in heaven.

(14:28):
She is not the type of personthat would have tolerated
one minute of my ex husband.
Me, it was a little different.
I was a teenage pregnancy.
My mother certainly didn't wantme, and I didn't grow on her
as I was growing in her belly.
So the odds were stacked againstme before I even got here.

(14:50):
I, so I'm born to a teenagemother that doesn't want me.
In fact, I don't think she wantedchildren because right after I was
born, she had her fallopian tubes tied,so she couldn't have anymore children.
Yes, they did that back in the 70s.
At that young age as a teenager,she had her tubes tied.
So that speaks volumes in itself.

(15:12):
So I lived with my great grandmabecause she was the one that was home.
Grandma decided she would workand pay for everything for me.
So my mother was basically relieved of me.
I didn't, I wasn't going to burdenher or bother her with her life.
However, because she had been a pregnantteenager during a time when that wasn't

(15:32):
acceptable, she went through, I willnever hear the end of all the shame
and ridicule and judgment she endured.
And I don't dismiss that.
I'm sure it was very difficult, but theproblem came in is that even as far back
as I can remember as a little, little,little girl, she put that shame on me.

(15:55):
She was always very emotionally neglectfulof me, physically distant from me,
wanted to make sure that I knew I wasthe reason she had suffered in whatever
ways she suffered, and I'm sorry forthat, but you don't put that on a child.

(16:17):
Unfortunately, when I was around four orfive years old, she found the man that
she decided to marry, a much older man.
The first time I methim, I didn't like him.
He tried to give me a stuffed animal.
I ,threw it back at him.
He just, there was something about him.
I was just a kid, but
he repulsed me and I mean, repulsed me.

(16:40):
I, he, I, he just was vile to me,but that's who mom married when I was
seven years old, they got married.
He moved us of course,typical narcissistic move.
They like to move you away fromall your family and friends
just so they can isolate youand have you all to themselves.
So we were moved outof the city of Chicago.

(17:01):
Out to the suburbs, uppermiddle class, mainly Caucasian.
we were Hispanic or weare Hispanic Puerto Rican.
So, you know, she was tellingme to stop rolling your Rs.
She was straightening my hair.
She, we, I, she was putting me in gapclothes instead of the frilly floral
stuff grandma was buying for me.

(17:21):
I had to be white.
Is basically what I had tobe and stop being Hispanic.
And I wasn't supposed to tellanyone we were Puerto Rican.
And she even, went so far as tochange my last name from Diaz
to his last name, which, had noresemblance to anything Hispanic.
So it's very interesting, how shewas showing me from a young age to

(17:44):
basically deny myself and indicatingin all those, nonverbal ways
that what we were wasn't enough.
We had to be something else to fit in.
We had to conform.
it wasn't okay to be who we were andthat's, I have my issues with that
obviously, because now I'm just bloomingin the full glory of everything that I am,

(18:10):
the good and the bad, it, the problem withmy childhood and what really set me up.
So now.
I just set that up with my mothercause now I'm feeling deficient
and I don't fit in anywhere.
And at school, again, you haveto remember it was the seventies.
They were calling me illegitimate.
And my mom said, I can't play withyou cause you're a bastard child.

(18:31):
It was rough.
It was rough.
So I felt alone and isolatedand I was withdrawn and just.
I didn't know where I did fit and Ididn't even fit in at home because my
mother mainly charged her new husbandwith getting me ready in the morning
and getting me to school and all that.

(18:52):
because like she had pawned meoff to grandma and great grandma.
Now she's pawning me off to this man.
Well, this man, I didn't know whata narcissist was, but let me tell
you, he's the king of all of them.
He's one of these people.
Everybody knows them.
That brags about, look at what I have.
Look at my shiny new car.
You'll never have a house like this.

(19:13):
Look at my fancy watch.
I have all these brandnew, he's one of those.
And if the neighbor gets a TV,he's got to buy one that's two
inches bigger, just so he can sayhe has, the biggest and the best.
it, it was annoying.
I mean, annoying, even as akid to watch this, but with me.

(19:34):
behind closed doors.
He was just a nasty monster.
He would tell me almost everysingle day that, he shouldn't have
to pay for another man's child,that my mother didn't love me.
He would criticize if I was makingtoast for breakfast, that the
toast is going to make me fat.
That I was going to get widehips like a middle aged woman.

(19:58):
I shouldn't eat that spaghettifor that my mother made for dinner
because then I'm going to get fatand nobody's going to want me.
So now I'm getting an eating disorder.
it goes on and on.
if I got on honor roll, I wasn't.
The valedictorian, it was never enough.
I played viola, but I wasn'tjust in one orchestra.

(20:19):
I was in two orchestras and I was infirst chair, but it wasn't enough.
I taught myself to play piano.
I was composing my own classical music.
You don't need to take lessons anymore.
it just.
It was like nothing I coulddo would ever be enough.
And to this day, I'm 48 years old,neither my mother nor stepfather

(20:43):
ever once in my entire life told methey were proud of me for anything.
However, What was I as a child?
What did they make me into?
I was love starved.
I was obviously a people pleasingapproval, seeking codependent, desperate
for any crumb of affection or attention.

(21:05):
So when I left that house at 18 sayingnobody's ever going to treat me that
way again, and I didn't even go intothe physical abuse because honestly.
I've been strangled, thrown downstairs,there was a lot of slapping and
beating me with a phone and stuffthat happened, but that verbal
abuse, that's what affected me.
All that other stuff healed, butthat verbal abuse that sent me out in

(21:29):
the world looking for basically thesame thing, I knew it was wrong and
I knew I deserved better, but whensomebody came along and was aloof and
arrogant and wanted servitude and feltentitled to treat me however he wanted,
cause the rules didn't apply to him.
It was familiar.

(21:50):
And at least with my ex, thedifference was, is that he is
what we call a covert narcissist.
The covert narcissist actuallydoes love you sometimes.
It's just the times that theydon't, it gets really bad.
Cause in my childhood, and I think that'swhat caught me off guard there because

(22:14):
it's not that I didn't see the red flags.
It's not that I didn't sensethat, Ooh, I don't like this guy.
He reminded me very much of my stepfather,but my stepfather just didn't like me.
He didn't even try to.
Whereas my ex, there was that, itwas that same thing I said before.
Sometimes he loved me, he'd caress mycheek sweetly when we'd watch TV and

(22:37):
it was the two of us against the world.
But boy, if he didn't get somethinghe wanted or if I did something
he didn't disapprove of, thingswere flying, doors were slamming,
knives were being pulled out.
it was very dicey, and itbecame a problem, obviously.
Real Jekyll and Hyde material, isn't it?

(22:59):
I want to have a chat with you aboutyour perception of love at that time,
because all you knew was a reallydysfunctional version of love, wasn't it?
And that's what you were searching for.
So you thought you could find it in thesame dysfunctional picture, didn't you?
Yes.
And what's worse is that all thetimes that I went to my mother from

(23:25):
the time I was little all the wayup through my teenage years when I
just finally gave up because I knewshe wasn't going to do anything.
So often she would tell me,well, he gets so angry with you
because he loves you so much.
So anger and love.
Eek.

(23:46):
Eek.
But you know it's because her fatherwas a narcissistic drunk who put her
in the bathtub when she was a littlegirl and put a gun to her head.
He would bring women home from thebar and have sex with them in my
grandma and grandpa's living room.
And my grandma would walk in andfind her husband having sex with

(24:06):
other women there all the time.
They came out of a situation where mymother and she would actually tell me
this, my mother was like, I don't knowwhy you think that you have it so bad.
You have it better than I did.
So to her, it was a comparison.
It was, well he didn't put a gun toyour head, he's not an alcoholic.

(24:27):
So I'm just supposed to take the beatings.
it's okay for her to go toschool with hand marks on my
neck because I was strangled.
it's not okay.
None of this is okay, butshe didn't want to hear it.
She did what I call enableexcuse and tolerate.
She enabled it by excusing it andtolerating it and a lot of the

(24:47):
excusing it was the oh Well, it's you.
If you didn't provoke him.
If you didn't lie about these things Ifyou didn't make him mad by telling such
..Atrocious lies, I wasn't lying it's you.
We're going to have to get you therapynow because you need to see somebody
about all this lying, and that's anotherthing they do is they turn it on you and

(25:09):
make you feel like you're the problem.
So yeah, it's dicey.
I've been through a little bit.
Yeah,
because I went through it in acompletely different way, but the
results were the same and that I grewup and, I allowed myself to be in
these dreadful relationships that,you know, where I was stalked and

(25:30):
all those types of things because youdon't think you deserve any better.
And so you put up with crap, absolutecrap and like you say, that you
hold on to those times where theydo tell you that, you're wonderful
and special and I love you and likethat and you think, Oh, they do.
But then, two thirds of therest of the time, they've just

(25:52):
been absolutely dreadful to you.
You had inklings, like I did, rightfrom an early age that, what you
were experiencing wasn't right,but you kept succumbing to it.
So, you got engaged to Darren, eventhough you knew that it was, like,

(26:12):
the house he was after and yourcontribution financially to get there,
rather than him actually loving you.
and those, the behaviors, you weremaking excuses, even though you
knew in your heart of hearts thatwhat you were doing was wrong.
So explain that dynamic with us, becausethat's like that real having masks on,

(26:37):
taking them off, having them on, takingthem off, So can you just run through
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
Narcissists.
these abusive narcissists andlet's be clear again that these
are the ones I'm talking about.
You are a utility to them.
You are a resource.
They want something from you.

(26:58):
It's just that they know how to play you.
They figure you out really quick.
They, I feel like they evenhave some Spidey sense to
know that you're vulnerable.
I don't know what we omit in our nonverbalcommunication that says, come to me.
I'm a little bird with a brokenwing and I need you to save me.

(27:18):
And so they act like that, they'rePrince charming or they're, Snow White
or what, cause this happens to men too.
And they're perfect and wonderful.
They say everything that you need to hear.
They do everything you need them to do.
As long as you go along with, their endagenda basically, but they always have a
self serving agenda and that's the issue.

(27:38):
Yes.
In my case, as I talked about in the book.
My ex husband, he was my boyfriendat the time, but he was from day one,
always talking about, he wanted to geta house, he wanted a condo, he wanted,
see, he was trying to keep up with hissister because his sister who was four
years older already had a condo andshe already had this car and she was

(27:59):
getting married and all this stuff.
And he was eager.
Strangely, he was eager toseek his own parents approval.
So he wanted to keep up with herand do the same things to get
that approval from their parents.
But he couldn't do it on his own.
He had tried and hedidn't have enough money.

(28:19):
He didn't make enough money, buthere I was, I'm going to college.
I'm working full time.
I'm working part time.
I have my own apartment.
I bought my own car.
I am making my way in this worldfighting through, because when you leave
home at 18 and you're that young andparents are, cutting you off, you're
done, it's a sink or swim situation.

(28:43):
And, I was fighting for what I wanted.
And I think he saw that in me.
I think he saw that, I can't, Idon't make enough money on my own.
I can't this.
And I think there was also thesense, and I think I touched upon
this a little bit in my first.
I hung out with him, but he, I couldtell the first time I talked to him that

(29:05):
he had a chip on his shoulder about theway he'd been treated by girls in the
past and the past, we were so young,I was 19, even recently before meeting
me, there was a girl that, that he.
came to find that he'd known before inhigh school that had previously been
like, eh, you're not good enough for me.

(29:26):
you're not my type.
And then all of a sudden she saw himand said, oh, now you're handsome.
Now you don't have buck teeth andyou're not awkward and everything else.
So he had this.
I had a very clear sons and forgiveme because I'm not conceded in any
way, but to him, he would alwaysmake this thing out about that.
I'm beautiful.

(29:46):
He would always call mebeautiful to that is beautiful
girlfriend, his beautiful wife.
So I was like a trophy to him.
I was like that F you toeverybody in his past.
Oh, you all said no to me,but look at what I now.
So I just felt like for him, he sawme as His redemption in a lot of

(30:09):
ways and to get what he wanted, butthat's what a lot of narcissists do.
And looking back when I realizedwhat kind of a situation I was in,
I saw this in my mother's marriageto the narcissist she's married to.
They started a business together.
And I'm While she would wakeup every single day from 3 a.

(30:35):
m.
and work until even if shehad to work seven, eight, nine
o'clock at night, go into work onSaturdays, sometimes even Sundays.
she never took a break.
All she did was work.
He was out, oh, having lunch hereand working out at the gym for three
hours there and gallivanting andbuying Corvettes and, fancy things.

(30:57):
But.
They ran a business together.
No, my mother ran a business.
My mother is still working thatbusiness to this day and he
is still reaping the benefits.
she chooses it.
Unfortunately, I sensed it.
I still just, I washolding, I was so desperate.

(31:20):
I'm just going to say the word.
I was so desperate though, to havethat love that sometimes love.
It was unfortunately enough for me.
And then you add in that.
His parents were the loveliestpeople you could ever meet.
I absolutely adore it.
And his grandma and grandpa wereeven, but I just, they were the

(31:41):
family that I'd so desperately wanted.
They were the parents, and theytreated me just perfectly well.
They absolutely adored me just the same.
So I figured, eh, we all have tomake a little sacrifice, right?
So my sacrifice to have this lifethat I thought, was I'd have with
the, this family I wanted andthese parents and all this, and the

(32:03):
sometimes love it was going to be okay.
And, and I honestly, rationally, evenwhen we got married, I cringe because
I'll never forget walking down the aisle.
Towards him in my wedding dress witha hundred some people and in my mind,
I'm thinking, what the hell am I doing?

(32:24):
We don't belong together.
We're gonna get divorced.
Why are we getting married?
But I didn't turn around.
I didn't stop it In fact, I had two auntsthat came up to me at the reception,
you stand there and everybody comesin and greets you and congratulates
and they said, boy, we didn't thinkyou were going to go through with it.

(32:44):
We thought you were going to be arunaway bride and I couldn't deny that.
I wished I had the courage to dothat, but I didn't, I married him and.
it's sad what you do for love andI've gotten criticism and shame and
judgment for it, being so open about it.
But at the end of the day, we all haveour thing and none of us are perfect.

(33:07):
And it doesn't make me a badperson that I was hopeful that
at that young age, that maybe.
Maybe by the time he's in his forties orfifties, as we grow older, he'll mature,
he'll learn to love me more, he'llbecome less aggressive, he'll, I had
all these ideas in my head that thingswould be different, but unfortunately,

(33:29):
at the end of that 25 years, he was stillthat 19 year old frat boy that I'd met
that would carry on with whatever womanhe wanted, Regardless of our legal,
connection to each other and regardlessof our son, and he would squander
and spend every penny I made before Ieven spent it or before I earned it.

(33:51):
And it just.
it's a cycle.
I always, I think I refer in the book,I felt like a hamster just running,
trying to get either move forward andmake progress with him or try to escape.
I wasn't even sure which half thetime, but I always found myself in
the same place and I was exhausted.

(34:11):
Yeah, so let's talk about some of thered flags for our listeners that they
should be looking out for what youconsider some of the key things, because
like you say, you were busy justifying.
His behavior saying, okay,they're going to get better later.
If I just put up with themnow, things will change.

(34:31):
Well, that's one of them, isn't it?
Yeah, exactly.
When you find yourself excusingother people's behavior, that's
an accommodating characteristic.
and people pleasers like to accommodatebecause, we don't want to inconvenience
anyone with our opinions or feelingsor, God forbid our thoughts.
They don't want to hear them.

(34:52):
But that is a big one.
And I always say my first redflag indicator, I always say is
not even about the other person.
It's about us.
It's our gut instinct.
If your gut is just cringing at somebody,you don't have to have a reason.
And why we try to, wedo it with ourselves.

(35:14):
It's almost like gaslighting ourselves.
We say, Oh, I don't havea reason to feel this way.
Why do I feel this way?
they haven't done anything.
They haven't, I don't care.
Let me tell you at 48 years old, when Ilisten to my gut, it's usually a reason.
And I usually find out laterand I'm usually glad for it.
My great grandma used to say, it's yourguardian angel whispering in your ear.

(35:36):
So however you want to think about it.
Heed it and heed it very seriouslybecause I guarantee you no matter if
it's a person, a decision, a crossroadyou're at, if you just listen to your
gut instinct without thinking aboutit at all, you will go the right

(35:57):
direction and make the right decision.
And Oftentimes it will steer you away frompeople you're probably better off without.
So that's the first one.
But really, there are, there'sa list I could go down of all
these narcissistic tendencies and
characteristics.
The reality is everybody's got some and Idon't want to, Make anyone think they're a

(36:21):
narcissist just because you know I alwayssay it's like going to the doctor with
the sniffles and a sore throat, lord itcould be covid It could be bronchitis.
It could be you know, so we don'twant to Diagnose somebody with a few
characteristics, but two things that I sayare absolutely Narcissist or not, even if
you don't believe in narcissism becausesome people don't if somebody demeans,

(36:47):
diminishes, insults you, you know, the waythey talk to you, boy, my ex used to call
me an effing, see you next Tuesday, nasty.
He called me that so much, itdidn't even phase me anymore.
By the end, it was likecalling me by my name.
You don't speak to somebody you loveand respect with those vulgar words.

(37:12):
That's not okay.
Now, forgive me for excusing a tinybit of this, but we are all human.
Something might slip out at somepoint, but it should be, there
should be an apology afterwardsand it should never happen again.
You don't speak to somebodyyou love and care about.
So if somebody is speaking to youthat way, or credit, like diminishing

(37:37):
you, insulting you, insulting yourintelligence, telling you're stupid,
whatever, you're stupid to thinkthat why would you, that's not okay.
Because let me tell you.
Maybe that's not your person.
It might not be what you want to hear,but there are other people out there that
think everything you think, see here towhat everything about you is just fine.

(38:02):
It's just fine.
That's just not your person, butit's not going to get any better.
It doesn't matter how many I loves you.
I love you as they say, it doesn'tmatter how many gifts they buy you and
how affectionate they are and how manytimes they sometimes seem to love you.
That is not okay.
That is not a person.

(38:23):
People show you how they feel aboutyou through their words and actions.
I love you doesn't mean much.
in a healthy relationship, Dana,would you consider being able
to set boundaries, a key thing?
Because I don't think you can setboundaries with narcissists, can you?
That's the thing they dictate everything,but see here's, and this is where I talk

(38:46):
about going from point a to point B.
The boundaries were the key.
I didn't have any because I, Iwould not say no to anyone for
anything because the last thing Iever wanted to do was disappoint
somebody and have them displeasedwith me because of my childhood.
So even though, I mean, causewe all still have boundaries.

(39:08):
But it was sad to me that in thebeginning, it's like, they know
they start with little stuff.
He got away with throwingthis thing at me.
Then he got away with.
locking me in a room.
Then he got away with punching holes andin the wall and taking doors off hinges.
Then he got away withswinging a crowbar at my head.

(39:31):
Then he got, how do we get there?
It's because they keep overstepping thebounds just a little bit more each time.
And every time, it's, I say,it's like gaining weight.
You know, five years ago, you weighthis today, you weigh this and you're
like, how did I put on that 10 pounds?

(39:54):
because it creeps on you, every biteof chocolate cake, every scoop of
ice cream, every time you ate just alittle too much at a family gathering.
That's the same thing with narcissism.
It's just a little worse everytime something bad happens
and they got away with it.
You didn't address it because itleft you feeling unsettled and upset.

(40:18):
Not enough that it's a deal breaker.
You know how many times this mancheated on me and told me about it.
He openly told me that he was doing thingswith other women and I was like, Oh, okay.
and they're the masters of pretendingnothing happened, And if you bring
anything up that never happened.
They never said that.
They never did that.

(40:39):
You're back to square one,you're never going to win.
It's their show.
And if you want to play a rolein it, like my mother does with
her husband, then good for you.
I hope you have a nice life,but no, that is not for me.
I did not come here to beanybody's Stepford wife.
I am me.
I am a whole person with myown thoughts and feelings and

(40:59):
beliefs, and they are valid.
I just didn't know itfor 45 years of my life.
Are you feeling lost, anxious,unsure of how to navigate the
loss of your beautiful loved one.
I don't know where to head next.
Yeah, I get that.
Then you may be interested in A Letterof Hope and Aroha to help you find

(41:20):
out who you are right here and now.
And how you can navigate that withoutbeing on that emotional roller
coaster, feeling out of control.
That's a feeling I really dislikedafter Tahl and then Adrian died.
So I've developed an eight weeksupport program where each week you
get an email of what worked for me.

(41:42):
As well as other tried andtrue tools to help with grief.
It's a beautiful calming, meanhealing resource that I think
you're really going to like.
And that you can use in youreveryday life to find out what
works for you and what doesn't.
And the great thing is you findyourself feeling stronger and more in
control, so you can work out what youwant life to look like going forward.

(42:07):
So with this sounds like somethingyou would like to check out, head
over to my website, or check outthe link in the episode notes, you're
looking for A Letter of Hope & Aroha.
I want to read out something thatyou write in your book, because
I feel this is so important andso pivotal to that turning point.

(42:30):
I had an epiphany.
Darren wasn't the one who'dheld me down all this time.
I was.
I had chosen subservience.
Granted, I had my reasons, but Ihad even more reasons to choose
to free myself of the bounds I'dallowed Darren to impose on me.
So I ripped off the hypotheticalcollar and leash and took

(42:53):
back ownership of my life.
Now, I think that's so very importantbecause often we're looking to the
external to change our reality.
It comes back to us.
And us making that decisionfrom within, isn't it?
absolutely.
Share with us now, coming to thatrealization, what then was the journey to

(43:19):
empowering yourself enough that you hadthe courage to eventually walk away from
That was about that point where Iasked myself that question that I
talked about earlier, what do I want?
Because when you're in a lifetimewith narcissists, nobody ever
asked me what I want becausethey didn't care what I wanted.

(43:41):
They only cared what they wanted.
It wasn't about me at all.
I was just there to serve some purpose.
And when I did ask myself that verysimple question, what do I want?
I knew.
And once you see that vision, once youknow in your heart, because we all have
those things, even if it's just onething, we all have something in our

(44:04):
hearts that just, it's even if the firehas gone out, the embers are still there.
The ash, it's somewhere deep in there.
And it doesn't go away.
There's something authenticallyunique about each and every one of us.
and something that just sits insideof us that we don't entertain.

(44:24):
And I think that once I figuredout that I had the power, I
thought he was holding me there.
I thought I'm a victim of abuse.
When you say that word victim,you're accepting the role.
And I think once I figuredout, no, I could have taken

(44:45):
this collar off the whole time.
I could have walked out of here anytime.
Now, mind you, some people arein situations, with very, abusive
domestic situations, it's not as easyas just saying, yeah, I can walk out.
It's sometimes safer to stay, but youknow, that's a talk for another day.
But yeah, I think it was justabout realizing that I still had

(45:12):
all those things inside of methat I wanted to do with my life.
And I felt like if I stayed inthat situation with him, life was
just going to keep going as ithad always that hamster wheel.
It had never changed andnothing was going to change.
And I thought to myself, in 40years, 50 years, when I'm on my,
taking my last dying breath, is thiswhat I want to have been my life?

(45:38):
And it's not, but I couldn't havethe life I wanted with a man that
refused to allow me to experience joy.
Connections to otherpeople, family, and friends.
I wasn't allowed family and friends.
He had made sure to separateme from all of them.
I certainly felt very alone.
I thought he was the only one.

(46:00):
He was all I had.
And that's part of alsowhy I held on for so long.
Cause everyone else had left me behind.
And.
It was just a really hard time whereI just had to dig deep down and just
say, is this what I want my life to be?
No.
So what do I want my life to be?

(46:20):
This, these few things I wantto be married to somebody that
loves me as much as I love them.
I want to be a writer.
I want to travel.
he didn't like to travel.
He didn't want me to be a writerbecause God forbid I have financial
freedom or success or achievement orany sense of esteem and accomplishment.
That wasn't okay.

(46:41):
so I think once you realize that thisperson is not your person, at least not to
me, Meant to be in your life in whatevercapacity they're in your life at that
moment In time you just have to make thatbrave decision to step out of that role
to take a different role You know there'sother ways to live life that don't have

(47:04):
to be you know There's this old saying youIf you always do what you've always done,
you always get what you've always got.
I didn't want any more of what I had.
I was done with it.
So how do you go from that situationto feeling worthy of what you

(47:27):
really think you deserve and desire?
Because that is a big gap and, and noteasy for a lot of people to step into
because you can have all these dreams anddesires but still feel like you're not
Oh, absolutely.
So once I released myself of thatrelationship and all the burdens of

(47:53):
it, the interesting thing happenedthat, and I love cliches, but they
say you are who you associate with.
In my childhood, I was Raised and Iuse the term loosely by a mother and
a stepfather who basically made sure Iwas the nothing they thought me to be.

(48:15):
I'd never thought I could bemore, so I'd never be more.
I tried, but it was never enough.
In my marriage, I feel like Itwas a lot of the same stuff.
I was being dictated andtold how things should be.
But when I figured out that I had thepower and that I could make the change

(48:37):
and I released myself of that, I wentout in the world and it's an interesting
thing when you find that other people.
Are telling you that they're proud ofyou and other people are giving you
compliments and other people like Ididn't know that people thought I was

(48:58):
smart and that I was pretty and thatI was really good at This and I, I
could possibly do that, again, I waslimited and I basically had a part of,
subscribing to my role that I had beenplaying for so long was that I had
internalized all these limiting beliefs.

(49:20):
I had imposed them on myself.
And that's, it's almost abrainwashing that they do to you.
But when that's all you constantlyhear, how could you know any different?
I've used this analogy before.
I felt like at the end there, Ifelt like a flower in a garden.
And I had all these weeds around me thatwere preventing me from getting sunshine.

(49:43):
They were preventing me fromgetting the nourishment of the rain.
They, these weeds were suckingall the nutrients out of the soil.
So I was frail and weak andcrumpling and not so pretty and
just dying inside, but still there.
But once we got to the point where I,when you cut off situations, when you cut

(50:06):
off these relationships with narcissistsand suddenly have boundaries and self
respect, it's amazing how they flee.
So all these weeds, Started pluckingthemselves out of my garden and as
they were removing themselves, orin some cases I had to remove them.

(50:26):
I was getting sunshine.
I was getting nourishment becausethey weren't sucking the nourishment
and the nutrients from the soil.
Then I was saying, Oh, there'sother flowers in this garden.
There's other flowers that think I'mthis beautiful, bright thing that
they'd always been cheering me onand they're telling me, grow, Dana,
grow, be everything you can be.

(50:47):
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
It's crazy, but then that's whathappened because I don't think it's
a coincidence that three and a halfyears now since my divorce from Darren
that I have accomplished everything.
That my heart had wanted.
talk about a passion.
we all have these thingsburning inside of us.

(51:09):
Like I was bursting to be Dana and be meand be a human being, but I am the one.
Who allowed myself to besomebody else for so long.
I even refer to that as my old lifeand this is my new life, or I'll say
old Dana, and now this is new Danabecause it is literally a, and it

(51:31):
takes there, but this is where thatgrief comes in because all those weeds.
As nasty as they were.
my mother and stepfather haven'tspoken to me in several years, So
I had to go through my divorce.
I had to get my son through thedivorce pretending to be okay and

(51:52):
that it was going to be all right,just the two of us, but I had to
do that alone without support.
Then Darren's family, ofcourse, typical narcissist move.
What do narcissists do?
They tell everybody elsehow horrible you are.
All the things they've done toyou, they basically tell everybody.
So I harassed him, I stolehis money, I cheated on him.

(52:16):
he had all these things that hesuddenly was telling everybody.
So he was justified, and it wasgood that, we weren't going to
be together, but his family.
Does not speak to me.
And as a matter of fact, our sontells me that they absolutely hate me.
That was my family for 25 years.
They were my heart.

(52:37):
They were half my reasonfor being with that man.
And they just, it was cold Turkey.
I got no resolution.
I didn't get to go to my mother inlaw who had been more of a mother to
me than my own for 25 years and evenhave an opportunity to tell her my
side of the story, or just simply giveher a hug and say, I'm sorry, I tried.

(52:59):
I had to experience then with mymother and stepfather parting that
most of my stepfather's family.
he's an ass, but his familywas good to me and they were my
aunts and uncles and cousins.
It's literally exiled me.
As a matter of fact, my favoriteaunt called me to tell me

(53:20):
like, happy you divorced him.
Happy you're moving on.
We really are thrilled for you, you'renot part of this family anymore because
it's disloyal, for you to have arelationship with your biological father.
Instead of your stepfather.
And I'm like, I've had arelationship with my biological
father since I was 16 years old.

(53:42):
It's been 30, like you're justpunishing me now because he's
coming to my wedding to, to Doug.
And, so now I lost another entire,and then the kicker on this, which is
coming in my third book, I'm going togive a little juicy detail is that,
Doug's family, my new husband, who I'veknown his family, 20 years, friends

(54:08):
with his sister in law for about 16,17 years before Doug and I even became
a couple and when we got engaged, sheturned his entire family against me.
She spread lies about me and actuallyhad an intervention to stop him for,
she almost did stop the wedding.

(54:30):
So now I lost his family too.
When even our pastor was like, Oh,you'll have the family that you've lost.
So now I've lost my my mom's family.
There's still a few remainingthere, at least my stepfather's
family, my ex's family, and thenDoug's, four entire families.

(54:50):
Let me tell you about, I don't know,two, three weeks before my wedding
to him, I I was so distraught.
I remember curling up in fetalposition in the shower with a
bottle of Malibu coconut rum.
And I'm not saying drinking is the way,but I just wanted to drink the pain
away because it's like everybody died.

(55:13):
Everybody I'd ever known.
Everybody I spent Christmases with andEaster's with and went to barbecues
and watched fireworks with on the 4thof July, everybody was dead to me.
Yet, they were still walking around.
They were choosing to killour relationships and to just

(55:35):
dismiss me and banish me.
And that hurts almosteven more than death.
I dare to say.
And.
I mean, I'm talking dozens of people.
It's a very, very lonely thing.
How do you deal with that, Dana, becauseI can see the impact of just even

(55:58):
talking about this, and I understandit, because no matter how your family
treats you, they are still family.
There is still connection therethat you just can't divorce easily.
But yeah, like you say, if you go downtownand you see somebody and they're just
ghosting you, know, that hurts.

(56:18):
That hurts inside no matterhow strong you're trying to be.
How do you deal with that?
Well I didn't deal with it very well.
I was struggling just to functionevery day because it just, I mean, it

(56:40):
completely disabled me in so many waysto, to feel abandoned and rejected
when I had had so much abandonmentand rejection in my life already.
But what saved me was it wasactually a very good friend of mine.
Um, who happens to be a missionarypriest from Africa, just one of the

(57:04):
most intelligent and wise and amazingpeople I've ever met in my life.
And.
We had dinner here at our house and
I was expressing all my pain tohim, and he held my hand and he
said, Dana, you have this man.
He loves you.

(57:24):
You have a son that loves you.
He says, you and I we're good friends.
I love you.
Your grandma loves You know,you started naming off and maybe
only a handful of people, but.
He's like, open your eyes.
Your family is not necessarily your blood.
Sometimes it's not you know,your marital relations.

(57:45):
Sometimes your family is just whoeveris here and who's loving you and
supporting you and you have so manypeople and, I think we, we hear
this, but we don't really feel it.
And I didn't really feel it until then.
You know, like I look now andI had this conversation with.

(58:08):
A friend of mine, you know,ironically, he's a young man, not
much older than my son, and it'shonestly very strange though.
He's an old but he's he's one of myvery best friends in this whole world.
We talk every single day
and we just had this conversation becausehe's watching his partner's grandma die.

(58:29):
you know, she's going through a roughand, and he said, who's going to be there
when, when it's my time, because he toohad, you know, a lot of issues with.
Um, being abandoned and rejected.
And, you I said, well,I'll be there for you.
never, I mean, I said, unfortunately,I'm almost twice your age, so I
may not be around, but I said,I'll be with you in spirit.
But I you know, God help me.
If I'm still breathing on this earth,I will be next to you by your side.

(58:52):
And I know you'll be by mine.
you know, the thing about it is that evenif he was the only one by my side, that
would be enough because I could have.
know, just like when we got married.
Yeah.
Okay.
You can have 80 people.
I could have had all those familiesthat abandoned me there, for what,

(59:12):
what is, what quality does that give?
You know, we look atquantity versus quality.
I'd rather have those fewpeople, my ride or die people.
Those are my family.
Those are my family.
And that's my friend.
That's my husband.
That's my son.
I have a godmother in Florida and Ihave a cousin, her son, that has always

(59:33):
been like a brother me and and we'vereconnected and I don't feel alone
in this world anymore, but it's sostrange that we, we, it's again, this
self sabotage, you talk yourself intoit you know, I've been accused of You
know, having toxic positivity, but Ithink it is all a matter of perspective.

(59:55):
It is how you look at things becausehow you talk to yourself and how you
tell yourself are, are the way they'reactually going to manifest in your life.
So how I got through it is by replacingall those people who obviously didn't care
about me as much as I cared about them.
That they could so easily dismissme, replacing them with people that

(01:00:18):
showed up just because they did,because there was something about
me that attracted them to me, to myspirit and they weren't obligated.
And I think if somebody loves youand they don't have an obligation to
you, that's more than than I couldever imagine deserving, but it's the

(01:00:38):
most wonderful thing in the world.
I think people often say, phrases liketoxic positivity because they, they
don't know how to relate to that feelingof being positive and attracting around
you people who have the same ilk.
And it's all about energy, isn't it?

(01:00:59):
It's just like you said, rightfrom the outset about trusting your
intuition because know, when you'vegot the right people around you,
because you feel that energy energy.
You found your tribe.
You found that group of people, whetherthe family, whether they're related to
you or not, you found them and togetheryou are supportive of each other.

(01:01:20):
And for people from the outside lookingin on that, they want to take that
down because they're not feeling that.
So that's often why they, know, use those
terms.
yeah.
Hey, Dana, I, I realize the time.
Do you have a little bit longer Ireally want to explore with you the
toll being in a bad relationship,toxic relationship took on

(01:01:45):
your health because that was major and
that nothing else.
That is a reason to get out of the
relationship.
Yes.
And that was the motivator actually.
you know, that's the interestingthing when we talk about
why didn't I leave sooner?
When I was writing my book, Ilooked back and I'm like, wow.

(01:02:10):
I would be so sad if my daughter hada crowbar swung at her head or had a
prescription medication incident whereher partner dragged her body in the
bathroom, hoping she would die andjust left her there, you know, that all
these other awful things I should haveleft, but what actually made me realize.

(01:02:32):
This self respect that I neededto say, okay, that's enough.
I'm done.
That deal breaker moment.
It, you know, it wasn't all thewomen he was carousing with.
It was when my health declined.
So what happened is it was around 2017to 2018, I had started Having just random

(01:02:57):
symptoms and, you know, things thatmost of us just ignore, it's terrible
how we do that to Like, oh, this hasbeen bothering me for three weeks
or three months, but it'll go away.
Hopefully.
I don't know what it is,but you don't explore it.
You're busy living your life.
You're just trying to get through.
You deal with it.
But then it was more and more, and it wassuch random things to give people an idea.

(01:03:20):
Like I couldn't even connect them myself.
There was no pattern or rhyme orreason, know, I, I'd always had a
lot of stomach aches and headachesalways, even since childhood.
But now like my hands were going numb.
Sometimes I'd wake up in the middleof the night and my, it was only
ever my right arm would be completelyasleep where I, I mean, And not

(01:03:42):
just a sleep, but like dead weight.
Like it, there was no bloodrushing through Um, I was having
heart palpitations, shortnessof breath, uh, blurry vision,
blacking out muscle stiffness.
This one was weird...
like rigor mortis.
If I sat for 10 minutes, if I wasjust sitting, I'd look like a hundred

(01:04:02):
year old lady trying to stand up.
And to give people some perspective.
Yes.
I was in my mid fort earlyforties then, but I coached
cross country for nine years.
I ran five miles every morning.
I ate hard boiled eggsand apples for lunch.
I was one of those weirdos, those
health nuts, you know, I wasvery, I should have been in

(01:04:24):
very physically good shape.
I could not understand what was goingWell, at the end of 2018, there was a
terrible arguments between me and mythen husband, And it was no different
than any other argument that we'd had.
It was just another night basically.
You become so unfazed.

(01:04:44):
It becomes your normal, but somethingabout, well, it's actually interesting.
The only difference of that night, thatwas the night that in his drunken stupor,
he admitted to me that he had told hisfamily, his mother and his sister and
his aunts and uncles, vicious lies aboutme, he said, because they like you better

(01:05:06):
than they like me, so I took care of itand I'm like, what did you tell them?
And he said, I'm not going to tellyou what I told them, but I told
you whatever I, I told them whateverI had to, to make them hate you.
So he says, they're notgoing to talk to you anymore.
And we were still marriedat this point, mind you.
So after this whole podcast, you learnthat I'm a little sensitive to to family,

(01:05:33):
know, just, you know, dismissing me.
He knew how to get me though.
He knew how to hurt me.
He couldn't, all these other awfulthings he did to me, I was still there.
So how could he hurt me?
He took his family away from me andthat within two weeks of that night, I
mean, 'cause I was, I mean to say I wastraumatized by that, I was so distraught.

(01:05:59):
Within two weeks after that,I dropped to 93 pounds.
dropped, I I was probably 15to 20 pounds heavier than the.
93 pounds, but 93 skeletalpounds at 44 years old.
You should not be 93 pounds.
Um, it's not healthy andeverything else started to worsen.

(01:06:20):
Like even when I'd go to tear toiletpaper from the roll, my hands, I.
They couldn't grasp thetoilet paper to tear it.
And I remember sitting on the toilet oncecrying like I can't even do basic things.
I'm too young and I'm healthy.
What is going on?
Long and short of it.
I started with the familydoctor, go to this.

(01:06:42):
Specialists go to that.
Nobody knew what was wrong with me.
Some doctors threw their armsin there and said, I don't know.
I mean, you seem to have you know,go to a psychiatrist or maybe you
have some gastrointestinal stuff.
Go to the heart doctor.
Everybody wanted to throw apill at me for the symptom.
We'll try this.
We'll try that.
It'll make this better.

(01:07:03):
And I was like, no, I don't need 20 pills.
I need somebody to figure out.
What is going on andhow this is all related.
Finally get with a neurologistand a functional medicine
doctor who put it all together.
They got me with Mayo clinicpremier medical, know,
facility, for the world, really.

(01:07:23):
They did a cortisol test.
Cortisol is a stress hormone that runsthrough Sort of what I always say.
It's like a sister, uh, hormone toadrenaline when you're under a lot
of stress, fight or flight mode,that cortisol runs through your body.
Well, we did a cortisol test.
Mayo Clinic says, well, wecompromised the labs because
there's no way they're this high.

(01:07:45):
So we have to have you do it again.
Did it again.
They did a urine test as well.
There's different waysthey can test cortisol.
They took 19 vials of my blood atonce, which was daunting in itself.
So they came back and they said,Holy cow, your cortisol levels,
cortisol should be between one and600 depending on the time of day.

(01:08:07):
Mine were two, 2, 540 and up at alltimes of the day, including when they
tested at midnight, when I had to wakeup from sleeping to do the cortisol test.
When you're sleeping, theoretically,you should be at your lowest
point of stress and calm.
And even then.

(01:08:27):
They said, what is going on?
And had, I, I couldn't divulge everythingcause I was scared when you know, when
you're in that situation, the last thingyou want to do is expose what's going on.
You feel shame.
You're worried.
They'll find out you said something.
They'll, you'll you'llsuffer some consequence.
So I kind of gave hints thatI'm in a really bad situation,
really volatile relationship.

(01:08:49):
And I remember the doctor, Iactually, this isn't even in gasping
for air, but the one doctor said.
You're living your whole life in fear.
You're just afraid ofeverything and everyone.
And I said, yes, actually I am.
I am afraid constantly.
She's like, you you have beenin fight or flight mode for
most of your life for decades.

(01:09:11):
So what happened?
All that cortisol, my white bloodcells thought that they had to
eradicate something that I had somevirus or cancer or some foreign
substance that had to be eradicated.
They killed themselves off.
So all these random things going onin my body were autoimmune reactions.
I had no idea stress couldreally do that to you.

(01:09:32):
What was worse was they determinedthat I had a rare lung syndrome called
upper airway resistance syndrome.
The doctor says it's like having COPDand fibromyalgia all at once, you
know, and I had more of a tendencytowards the fibromyalgia symptoms
and feelings and still do the COPD.

(01:09:54):
I mean, my oxygen saturation was fallingbelow the COVID level during COVID.
They wanted uh, they said if you'reOxygen was at 93 percent or lower.
You probably had COVID.
Mine was going down to 83 percentto where I would get dizzy.
I would get feverish, sweaty, and clammywhere I would literally be crawling

(01:10:17):
for a chair, a bed, a couch, anythingto just take an, I was so weak and I
had to have a backpack oxygen machine.
To help me breathe.
And then what happened withinthree months of my diagnosis, we go
into COVID, the shelter in place.
So now the neurologist is callingme from home saying a common

(01:10:39):
cold can kill you right now.
You cannot leave your house.
You need to go.
And well, unfortunatelyI'm the sole breadwinner.
I don't have much work becausenot many people were able to leave
their houses to do any kind of work.
But I had no choice.
I mean, what am I supposed to do?
You know, lose our house, not feed my son.

(01:11:01):
I felt like I had to, and my thenhusband, unfortunately had no care
or concern whatsoever, in the least.
That, that is certainlydepicted in Gasping for Air.
He, he just wanted to make surehe had his house and his food and
his things and his words to mewere, well, you better get to it.

(01:11:22):
And honestly, looking back, he probably.
Hoped that I would get COVID and dieso that he could play the pitiful,
poor me husband, the widower witha, now a single father at my funeral
and collect my life insurance.
So it's a sad thing to you know, that'sone of the things that woke me up to.

(01:11:43):
I think partially getting sick motivatedme, made me realize that I didn't want
to live this life with him anymore.
But I think seeing that.
He didn't go to any doctorappointments with me.
He didn't, when I told him mydiagnosis, I mean, I don't even know
how to, how to express this to people.

(01:12:06):
There was no emotion, noconcern, no care whatsoever.
He was more concerned that he wasmissing part of his television
show that I was interrupting him.
By sharing my diagnosis withhim, he was missing his TV show.
And that's so, I mean, you want totalk about demeaning and insulting.

(01:12:26):
If that doesn't show you how somebodycares about you or truly feels about you.
I don't know what does.
So that was the time I woke up.
That's what did it was getting sick.
But I do want people to cautionthat literally stress, I go to
my cliches, stress can kill you.
That cortisol.
can cause a lot of problems.

(01:12:47):
And, one of the other things I havelearned since then, as a female,
is that your progesterone, which isone of those hormones you know, when
you get to a certain age that, thatseems to be depleted, Cortisol, high
cortisol, depletes progesterone.
I only depicted one miscarriage in Gaspingfor Air because the book was long enough.

(01:13:10):
We couldn't put, there'sthings that I could still tell.
I had, So many miscarriages, Ilost count, but low progesterone
caused by that high cortisol.
It's something I've recently discovered.
It messes your your menstruation, yourability to conceive, your fertility.

(01:13:35):
So then I'm suffering all ofthose losses on top of that.
Everything else.
It's a very nasty thing.
So please, if anybody, if thisresonates, heed my example, because
nobody needs to suffer like that.
Life is hard enough without, uschoosing these terrible relationships
because they often don't get betterand and they're not going to help

(01:13:59):
you or serve your health in any way.
And I want people to know thisraspiness you hear in my voice.
I have never I'm 48 years old.
I've never ever smoked a cigarette.
I've never smoked anything in my life.
This is that lung disease.
This is what you're hearing.
But you're actuallylooking pretty good now.

(01:14:21):
So congratulations and just
Thank you.
us because you're not onoxygen, you're not, you know,
I'm not anymore.
I've, here's the, this is the miracle.
Thank you for reminding me.
Within, I would say a monthor two of my ex moving out.

(01:14:43):
Literally.
I, it's, I had energy, I had colorin my face again, all those symptoms
I had been experiencing just fellaway like they were never there.
Now the, the oxygen and the stomachand, and headache stuff, it's
still there once in a while, butyes, I have regained the weight.

(01:15:04):
Although even that it'skind of interesting.
It took about two and a half yearsfor my nervous system to settle.
and kind of figure out, Oh, okay.
We are actually safe now.
Like we trust this to where Icould, it took me that long to be
able to sleep through the nightand to start gaining weight again.

(01:15:25):
And now it just won't stop.
Now you can barely wake me up inthe morning I'm, I'm a healthy,
normal weight and look, I don'tlook like a Halloween decoration.
So it is a very interesting thingto share with people, to be physical
living proof that they don't haveto put a hand on you, to kill you.

(01:15:48):
I'm also going to say this, it'sjust a little soapbox tangent,
you know, the people that say,let it go, I can't let this go.
Cause I'll have this the rest of my life,but I'm not going to be shamed by it.
And I'm not going to be defined by it,nor am I going to allow my circumstances
to define who I am because I'm just Dana.

(01:16:08):
Like you asked me in thebeginning to introduce myself.
I'm just me.
It's not about me being a victim or asurvivor or an author or a speaker or
anything, I'm, I'm just a girl in thisworld that just wants love and wants to
give love and wants to help other people.
That's all it is.
And, and whatever else comprisesmy life and my daily health and

(01:16:30):
everything else, that's just whoI am just like every one of us is
their own unique individual person.
but worthy and deserving of the same graceand love and respect that any of us are.
That's a blessing of being able togo through a journey such as this,
what you've been through is thatyou can come out the other side

(01:16:54):
and you're not wearing any masks.
You are Dana.
Exactly who you are.
How you are.
How you present to the world, andthat is the most beautiful thing.
I think that's best outcome ever,just to be totally authentically
yourself.
Hey, let's wrap up because we'vejust had this most incredible

(01:17:15):
conversation, and I am so gratefulfor you giving us this extra time.
What is the best thing that hashappened to you so far today?
today.
I I try to be gratefulabout things every day.
Today the thing I am most grateful.
I think it's something Iacknowledge every single day.

(01:17:35):
When my husband comes home fromwork every day, I thank him.
And I tell him, I appreciate him.
That he supports me to the extentthat he's willing to kind of
take, take the load off of methat he just wants me to write.
I'm able to stay home with my two catsand write my, finish up my third book

(01:17:58):
and be on podcasts and save the worldas he says, and I couldn't be doing this
if I had to do what old Dana did, whichwas 12 hours a day, seven days a week,
work, work, work, gotta make money.
Gotta, gotta.
gotta.
He wants me to do what I'm doingbecause he loves me and, and he

(01:18:20):
wants to make this happen for me.
And he is, and he does every day.
So for me, that's the thing everyday when he comes home and I see
his beautiful crystal blue eyesand his smile, and I get his hug.
And I literally everysingle day say, thank you.
Thank you for letting me dowhat my heart's passion is.

(01:18:40):
And it may not be something that makesmoney and it may not be something that
people understand, but it's somethingI mean, to say it's near and dear
to my heart is an understatement.
And the fact that he loves meso much and understands that and
wants it for me is just something I
would have never thought I'd ever have.
So that's the greatest thing that Ihave today and every day, honestly,

(01:19:05):
in this new life that I'm living.
my gosh, that is so so beautiful and Ithe that is the absolute best because I
can't imagine anything more perfect thanbeing able to live your passion and it's
like when we go through this journey Iam compelled to do what I'm doing, to
do this, to be a host of this podcast,to, know, put out resources that are

(01:19:30):
going to help others in grief and tosee grief from a different perspective.
know, it's not something I chosebut it's something I'm driven by
because I just know that I didn'texperience this for no reason at all.
And so that's what we need to be.
We need to be the voice for those whodon't have their voice this moment.

(01:19:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we want to give them the hopeand belief that they can be the
same or, you know, just come intothemselves and be deserving of
being the best they can possibly be.
Yeah, exactly.
When you have moments in your day thatturn to custard that are not going so
well, how do you pivot out of those?

(01:20:16):
Oh, yeah, there's a lot of those aren'tthere, especially writing about my past.
I, I can sometimes go downthose, those nasty roads.
So sometimes I just have to walk away.
I think it's it's an understatement,to say that I breathe, but sometimes
you just have to just shut the screens.

(01:20:38):
I even, I will silence my phone,which people get so offended by.
But sometimes I just need to shuteverything down and just breathe and take
a minute, and and just refocus because Ithink we get so caught up like everything.
We try to be everything and do everythingand force things that, you know,

(01:20:59):
sometimes maybe it's just I'm writingand it's just not, I can't get it
out the way I'm trying to get it out.
here I'm gushing about my husband,We, he has a beautiful property that
we live on and he cut me, he cut downthe grass by the creek in the back.
He calls it my river walk, but I'llsometimes just go back there, but there's
something about just hearing the birdsand hearing even the bugs and hearing the

(01:21:24):
water and just, ah, you know, breathe.
refocus because all thisnoise of life is just noise.
I've always told my son,life is not complicated.
People make it complicated.
And sometimes we just have totake a minute for ourselves.
So when I get to those moments,I just, I always feel like I

(01:21:47):
to like click a reset button.
So maybe I'll go for a walk, even ifit's just five or 10 minutes, just
go for a walk, breathe the fresh air.
If it's cruddy outside, youknow My husband's the best.
He'll make me a fire in the fireplace.
I'll make myself cocoa and I'll justsit by the fire with my hot cocoa.

(01:22:08):
It's just doing these littlethings that I say are deposit a
little something in your happy jar.
Whatever that littleindulgence is, just do it.
And sometimes it's just do yourhair and makeup so that when you're
looking in the mirror, you don't seethe hobo you woke up know, with with
the shoveled hair and everythingand and the bags under the eyes.

(01:22:29):
Sometimes I want to see something know,and it makes you feel a little bit better.
So it's just you know, it's kindof going back to that question.
What do I want?
You know, because usually in thosemoments, there is something you want, and
a lot of times we just need a little love.
And so we have to just give thatlittle love and care to ourselves, but
definitely take a moment to breatheand and, and, know, kind of reconfigure

(01:22:52):
your your mind and your thinking.
It's okay to walk away fromlife for a few minutes.
Gosh, I love breath.
It's such a powerful rebalancerof our nervous system and Gosh,
know, when anything gets a bittough, I do exactly what you do.
I do that breathing andthen I escape into nature.
Just go for a walk

(01:23:13):
by the
water.
Yes.
I love being by water, but yes,breathing reduces cortisol in case
anyone didn't know that if you arein a high cortisol moment, breathe.
yeah, Dana.
Oh my gosh.
So I am very grateful for the time youhave given us today to explain this

(01:23:37):
very complex topic because there'sso many different nuances to it.
And.
To be able to, talk about it in such a waythat other people can perhaps recognize
that they're in that situation and thento know that they can get out of it and
to have that hope and to see and hearabout the life that you are living now.

(01:24:01):
Ah, it just makes it all worthwhile.
This is why I do this.
It's because to have people like you show.
that there can be such beautifulthings that can happen after the
worst you've experienced in lifeand so very grateful to you.
Thank you.

(01:24:22):
Well, thank you so much for having me.
I'm just so glad that hopefully thisresonates with somebody and I do encourage
people to if if any of it resonates,uh, or connects in some way to somebody,
please share this cause it might helpthem see things in a different light.