June 7, 2024 • 36 mins
What if the person you trusted most turned out to be a stranger? Jenna takes us through the riveting journey of discovering her true biological parentage and the devastating impact of being raised by a narcissistic father figure. Her story is one of resilience and courage, revealing how her understanding of love was profoundly distorted and how she is now navigating the road to healing through therapy.
Family dynamics can be a minefield, particularly when narcissism and favoritism are involved. Jenna opens up about the emotional torment of living in the shadow of a 'golden child' sister and the struggles of establishing boundaries with a manipulative parent. Through her narrative, we gain insight into the heart-wrenching reality of a narcissist's manipulation and the stigmatization of mental health within families, issues that often leave deep, lingering scars.
Raised in an environment where love meant extreme emotions rather than safety, Jenna's early relationships were marred by abuse. She recounts her tumultuous teenage years, from encountering a stalker to enduring a physically abusive relationship that began at just 17. Her tale is a powerful reminder of the importance of self-awareness and therapy in breaking free from the cycle of abuse and redefining what it means to truly be loved. Join us for an episode that not only sheds light on the dark aspects of narcissistic abuse but also celebrates the strength and resilience of survivors like Jenna.
Family dynamics can be a minefield, particularly when narcissism and favoritism are involved. Jenna opens up about the emotional torment of living in the shadow of a 'golden child' sister and the struggles of establishing boundaries with a manipulative parent. Through her narrative, we gain insight into the heart-wrenching reality of a narcissist's manipulation and the stigmatization of mental health within families, issues that often leave deep, lingering scars.
Raised in an environment where love meant extreme emotions rather than safety, Jenna's early relationships were marred by abuse. She recounts her tumultuous teenage years, from encountering a stalker to enduring a physically abusive relationship that began at just 17. Her tale is a powerful reminder of the importance of self-awareness and therapy in breaking free from the cycle of abuse and redefining what it means to truly be loved. Join us for an episode that not only sheds light on the dark aspects of narcissistic abuse but also celebrates the strength and resilience of survivors like Jenna.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This episode of Dismissed True Stories is
brought to you by Persephoneai.
Persephoneai is an innovativeand disruptive discreet app
where you can more securelystash your evidence of abuse,
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(00:21):
translation.
Transcription and languagetranslation.
Then export your full evidence,report on your timeline, sos
the police or even use it incourt after your safe exit.
You are not alone, andPersephone is here when you
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Find Persephoneai on GooglePlay or the App Store.
(00:42):
In this episode, we will behearing directly from a survivor
as they recount their personaljourney.
Dismissed True Storiesrecognizes that discussion of
abuse and trauma can evokestrong emotional responses and
it may be triggering for somelisteners.
Listener, discretion is advised.
Hey, I'm Elissa and this isDismiss True Stories the podcast
(01:05):
.
This podcast was born from theidea that when I was a little
girl, I wanted to be a warreporter in the sense that I
just really wanted to talk aboutthe things that matter in the
world.
And when I ended up walkingaway from my professional
broadcasting career and into anabusive relationship, I realized
that victims and survivorsreally do fight their own wars
(01:28):
at home.
I volunteer with a localdomestic violence shelter in my
city and as I was putting on avigil for the lives lost to
domestic violence last year, Istumbled upon a story that will
forever stick with me.
I did the research to find thisvictim's family, since she is
no longer with us, and onesentence kept rattling around in
(01:52):
my brain Let them tell theirstory.
And while I haven't worked upthe confidence to get in touch
with her family just yet, I wantthis podcast to not only be
about the survivors who livedand escaped, but the stories
from the family members ofvictims who, unfortunately, are
(02:14):
no longer with us.
I sat on this idea for almost ayear before I decided to
randomly make a TikTok videoasking for survivors to come
forward and share their storiesof survivorship, and what
happened next was completely andtotally unexpected.
(02:35):
Women came forward sending metheir stories of survival,
telling me that they were sosick and tired of being quiet,
because what happens so often isthat survivors are silenced,
people aren't ready or equippedto handle their truth or
sometimes simply they just don'twant to make the time.
(02:57):
But now, on Dismissed TrueStories, we're making the time.
Are you ready?
Are you nervous?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yes and no.
I think that there's going tobe pieces of my story that I
probably haven't thought aboutin many years, even with all of
the therapy.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So just, anticipating some of those moments.
How long have you been intherapy?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
So I have actually been in and out of therapy for
as long as I can remember.
I had mentioned in my originalmessage I was raised by a
narcissist and so one of histools to control the family was
to tell us that we were crazyand put us in therapy.
And then kind of just use thatas one of his supports is like,
(03:53):
well, she's been in therapy forfive years and she's not getting
any better, and so, yeah, I'vebeen in it for as long as I can
remember.
And then I kind of fizzle outand then you know events
happened and I would get back in, and so, yeah, right now I've
been seeing the same therapistfor a little over a year now and
it's been the most consistenttherapy I've ever had, and so
(04:18):
I'm in a really good space inregards to all of that at least.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Welcome back to Dismissed True Stories.
This is episode seven.
I'm your host, Elissa, andtoday we're going to hear from
Jenna, and Jenna addresses avery common theme that I see
very often in the stories thatyou send me.
It's the idea that yourchildhood and being raised by a
narcissistic parent or parentsdefinitely affects who you pick
(04:49):
as a partner in life later ondown the road, once you start
dating, how what you have beenmodeled as love in your
childhood isn't healthy and howit is so easy for a victim of
abuse to think that the love orthe breadcrumbs of love that
they are given is acceptable.
(05:11):
I guess we can start from thebeginning.
You had said I saw your post andlove the idea of sharing my
story.
Here's a little bit.
I'm a survivor of narcissisticabuse, like you just said, by
(05:32):
the man who I thought was myfather until I was about 25.
And my question is the man whoyou thought was your father?
Can you explain that, Like hadhe been in your life since you
were a baby?
Were you too young to rememberhow?
How did that situation play out?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
He was actually um with my mom when she found out
she was pregnant, um, and so itwas never really a secret
between, uh, my mom and him thatum, that it was a 50, 50 chance
on whether or not I wasbiologically his Um, and so he
was with me throughout the wholepregnant or with my mom
throughout the whole pregnancy,um.
(06:15):
And when I was born, um, theydid the DNA test um found out I
was not biologically his um.
He did leave for two weeks andthen, after processing, I guess,
he did come back and find usand we were with him ever since
and then they actually ended uphaving two other kids together,
(06:36):
which are my two siblings thatI'm very close to, luckily.
And then, yeah, about 25 yearsold, my mom kind of sat me down
and told me.
And then, yeah, about 25 yearsold, my mom kind of sat me down
and told me that the man who Ithought was my father was not.
I was raised believing he wasmy father and you know, there
was no differences between meand my two siblings outside of
the differences.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
What was that like Was?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
there any relief that he wasn't, or was it like a
mixed bag of emotions?
Actually, initially I lived ina very sick home where this man
he was a tyrant and he ran thehome and he brainwashed me and
my siblings to believe that hewas this amazing thing, while my
mom was less than it has alwaysbeen absolutely insane to me
(07:27):
how narcissists will use theirchildren as a pawn.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
They use their children as tools to hurt the
other parent.
By manipulating the child intosiding with them, by planting
negative ideas about the otherparent, negative ideas about the
other parent, it's providingthe child with false or
exaggerated information just sothe child will then begin
(07:52):
idolizing them and then actingout toward the innocent parent.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And so when my mom originally told me, I thought my
mom was playing games to getback at my dad for something.
They had been going through adivorce so I thought this was
just a continuation of theirnonsense from the divorce and
just like a tit for tat kind ofsituation and I was actually
really hurt that my mom wouldtell me such a thing.
(08:19):
In that moment I was still verymuch like under this man's
spell and very much believingthat he was an amazing father
figure.
And over time and after a lotof other events I started
shortly after that I startedgetting into these abusive
relationships and over timeworked on myself and started to
(08:41):
realize that he is not theamazing man I thought he was.
We've actually been no contactfor almost two years now, but at
the time I was actually reallyhurt and just couldn't
understand why my mom would tellme such a thing and try to
destroy our happy family.
I think is kind of what myinitial reaction was.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
And so did that hurt you and your mom's relationship.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Very much so.
My mom and I did not have aclose relationship growing up
Again just due to these, thesetactics in the household.
My mom was very much isolatedfrom us kids.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
This has a name, and it's called parental alienation.
It really just goes hand inhand with the idea that a
narcissistic parent will thenturn a child against an innocent
parent or party.
However, as far as psychologystandards go, this isn't a
diagnosable disorder orcondition and, as far as my
research goes, you also can'tuse the term parental alienation
(09:46):
in a court of law.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
And we weren't in a good place, but it just made it
worse.
And because this man was likein my ear and telling me like
that was such a hurtful thingfor me to find out and he would
have never done those things tome, I kind of fed into it more
and it put a pretty big wedgebetween me and my mom for a very
(10:09):
long time.
He definitely was just anarcissist through and through.
It didn't matter what type ofrelationship.
There wasn't much that wasauthentic about him.
He was very abusive to mymother and you know I witnessed
a lot of the verbal abuse it was.
(10:30):
It was only verbal abuse.
There was physical intimidationtactics, but he never put hands
on my mom, nor did he put handson us, and I think that that's
going to be really important forlater in my story.
But there was, they argued alot and it was very toxic and
there was a lot of screaming, alot of breaking things.
(10:51):
He would often, I guess, tellmy mom she should just kill
herself and get it over with.
And so it was.
It was.
It was a lot towards my mom.
I think out of the kids meaningme and my two siblings I got it
the worst I had.
Growing up I attributed it tome being the oldest, and I was I
(11:12):
always.
I'm now finding out later, as alate diagnosed autistic person,
that I was very like intojustice and so if you're saying
one thing but you're doinganother thing, it upset my
nervous system in a way that Iwould always stand up for as a
kid and so I was kind of paintedas this problem child and
(11:33):
disrespectful and I got hisabuse the worst, like he would
scream at me for six, seven,eight hours straight, no break,
just demeaning and kind of liketrapping me in like the basement
to keep me there so he couldjust keep going.
My siblings didn't get it asmuch and now that I know he was
(11:57):
not my biological father, Ithink that that had a huge
factor in things and the way Iwas treated.
But again, growing up I didn'thave that insight as to why I
was treated so differently.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Can you explain the relationship between you and
your two siblings?
Has the severing of yourrelationship with him made you
guys closer in any way?
Do they see him as a narcissist?
Speaker 2 (12:31):
So it's interesting Growing up.
So I'm the oldest, I have asister who's the next oldest,
and then we have a baby brother.
He's not a baby anymore, but mysister and I growing up could
not stand each other.
I always joke that if I couldhave just pushed her in front of
a moving bus, um, I always likejoke that if I could have just
pushed her in front of a movingbus, I would have slept just
fine every night because we justfought all the time.
Um, but we both got along withour little brother always.
(12:54):
So our little brother was likevery lucky that he didn't have
beef with either of us.
Um, but it was just a lot of.
It was my sister and I.
Um, again, now that I'm olderand I have the insight, my
sister was the golden child.
She was his first child.
He was she's his first babygirl.
She was even named after ourgrandmother, his mom, and so she
(13:17):
was always treated so muchdifferent.
But I always just assumed likeshe was always sweeter, she
tried harder, she cared moreabout what people thought, and
so that's kind of why she wasthe golden child, because I was
okay with being that rebel kidand my sister was very
mainstream best friends.
We're inseparable.
I cannot do life without her.
(13:48):
Our brother we're still veryclose to our brother, but he
doesn't live in the area anymore.
He's been lucky enough todistance himself from our chaos.
My sister unfortunately, sister, unfortunately um still has
(14:10):
very close ties to that family,um, and so when, um, I cut ties
with um, the man who raised me,her father, um, it was really
hard on our relationship.
We couldn't talk about it.
It started, uh, it startedarguments.
Um, I was not.
I was struggling to verbalizewhat I was not.
I was struggling to verbalizewhat I was going through and the
abuse that I was enduring.
Even at 32 years old, I don'teven think I acknowledged yet
(14:37):
how abusive it was until I hitmy breaking point and I took
steps back.
And again, this was only twoyears ago, and so when that
started happening, my sisterjust so desperately wanted us to
have this happy family right.
She wanted it to be the way italways has been.
It always was our father, theman who raised me, and, like us,
(14:58):
two, and so the three of uswere always super close, and so
that dynamic shift, just shetook it really hard.
I and we ended up having tohave an agreement that we could
not speak on those thingswithout checking in with the
other person and gettingpermission and then being
specific about the topic,because I wasn't speaking on my
(15:20):
side, but he's speaking a lot.
He needs to tell people hisside of the story.
He needs to start spinning itin a way that makes him look
good, because there's so muchthat makes him look terrible.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Oh this, the fact that a narcissist cannot handle
someone making them look bad,even though they do that work on
their own.
I can't even imagine what a dayin their head is like.
The narcissist has to be right.
They have to be the good guy inevery story, no matter how
(15:54):
factually false that may be, andthey will convince themselves
of this and then attempt toconvince you and anyone else who
will listen to their distortivenarrative.
Think of this as, like, thenarcissist is the one living in
a glass house while throwingstones at others.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And you know, because of that like imbalance of
information, he was able to getthrough to my sister and my
sister's like you're right,she's being crazy, how dare she?
And so it was really tough atfirst.
I think over time and the moredistance and the more I've just
stood firm and, like you'regoing to see for yourself who he
(16:35):
is, I can say everything I wantuntil I'm blue in the face.
But words like he's just he'sgoing to tell on himself, it's
going to come to the surface atsome point and I'm just not
going to waste my energy tryingto convince people of my
experience and I can tell mysister's starting to see things
Again.
We don't really talk about it,but there's a huge acceptance of
(17:00):
my distance and it's celebratedin my family now and that's not
something that was celebrated.
It was taboo and I was justsuch a bad family member for
doing this and my family took itas a victim mindset of like how
dare you do this to our family,this is happening to us, and so
, like I said, it's a very sickfamily.
(17:22):
You've come a long way, thoughyou said, when you reached your
breaking point, what pushed youto that point, the thing that
shifted my relationship with mysister um, back when we were
kids, um, when she got pregnantin high school, um, and in that
moment, like I just knew my,this, this baby, is bigger than
(17:44):
all of us.
Right, like this is bigger thanme and my pet sister's petty
stuff Stop stealing my clothes,you know whatever.
Um.
So my niece is our savior inthis circumstance.
She shifted our narrative somuch, um, because, coming from a
family of this, this illness,my sister and I have made it a
point to never be those peoplearound.
(18:06):
My niece, um, and so fastforward, um, she was kind of
having some struggles at schooland my sister was talking about
getting her tested specificallyfor ADHD at this point, and the
man who raised me and I weretalking about it, and we both
work in the mental health field,specifically with children,
(18:29):
children advocacy.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
She laughs here and my eyes almost literally fall
out of my skull because I'm justgoing to say what we're all
thinking here.
This man works with children,but unfortunately, I think this
is something that we see a lotis that narcissists do put
themselves in positions of power.
They put themselves in, theyput themselves into different
(18:53):
professional careers that arenormally like idolized, or to
make someone look at them and belike oh, they're just a good
person because of the careerfield that they chose.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
And he spent the whole time saying that there was
nothing wrong with our niece.
And the way he was speakingabout or my niece, his
granddaughter, the way he wasspeaking about it was if she had
this diagnosis.
That I was pretty sure therewas a diagnosis there.
We later found out it wasautism, but it was very obvious
there was a diagnosis.
And he kept talking about itlike if she was diagnosed, like
(19:27):
she's less of a person, there'ssomething wrong with her, that
there's just like somethingfundamentally wrong with people
that have diagnoses, andspecifically with ADHD pardon my
French, she said people withADHD like that's a diagnosis for
people who can't do shit.
My husband has ADHD.
(19:47):
I have lots of loved ones withADHD.
Again, I am an actual childadvocate.
I have lots of loved ones withADHD.
Again, I am an actual childadvocate.
That was kind of the thing andI was like and I because,
because I knew my niece probablyhad this diagnosis or a
diagnosis I was kind ofdefending her in a sense and it
kind of just enraged me and wekind of got into it he pocket
(20:10):
dialed me and was talking aboutme in this voicemail and I had
tried to confront him and hedidn't answer and I text him and
I was just like hey, listen,I'm disappointed.
Like the way you spoke aboutpeople with ADHD was just like
not OK, I think you need to kindof explore those things.
And his gut reaction was tocall me and leave me a voicemail
(20:32):
reminding me of how terrible ofa child I was.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Raise your hand.
If you're not surprised, that'sbecause the narcissist go-to is
to deflect and project.
It's the I didn't do it, youdid and I'm not bad, you are
mentality.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
And telling me that, like I'm just such a horrible
person and just like all of that, like all of the explosiveness,
the same lines, you know thatit just kind of loses its
sparkle after a while.
You know, like I'm I'm in my30s, telling me I was a terrible
teenager, which is literallylike what teenagers are supposed
(21:11):
to be.
They're supposed to be like,chaotic and making mistakes.
That's, that's the purpose ofthat age, and that was just kind
of what started.
It was just me like this, likeenough is enough, like I'm
trying to just tell you you needto be better in general, and um
, so I just took some space andjust decided I didn't want to
communicate with him for a while.
(21:32):
And after a while I was likeyou know what?
I'm going to write him a letterand just kind of explain how
that conversation triggered meinto a lifelong of things,
because I was at a point whereI'm cleaning out all this
toxicity in my life and he'spart of that, and I don't.
I want him in my life, I lovehim, but I can't have this part
of him in my life.
It's not good for me.
And so I wrote him a letter.
(21:53):
Hey, when you said this, itreminds me of all the times that
you did that and when you didthis, that, and you know, I just
kind of sent it and I got oneof those fake apology letters.
I'm so sorry that I was such abad parent and I did this and I
did that.
And you know, there's noaccountability in anything.
(22:14):
There is nothing authenticabout it.
And then he just tried todeflect and say that he didn't
need help and I just told himthat's fine, we can't, until you
can either go to therapy or wego to therapy together.
This that's.
This is what this is.
This is there's no more contact, and that was it.
I mean it just it kind of Iwasn't even in a play, I wasn't
(22:39):
even in pre contemplation Likemaybe I need to get rid of him
from my life.
It just one big blow up and Iwas like this is it.
I can't do this.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
And that therapy has never happened Um actually it.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
It did have kind of um.
So six months go by and he'sstill reaching out and he's
still telling everybody thispity party story of like I don't
understand why she won't talkto me and kept trying to reach
out and I was like, great, doyou got therapy?
No, okay, and he kept trying toblame it on like the wait lists
for therapy.
Wait lists for therapy this iscoming shortly out of like the
(23:12):
COVID and like all of that stuff.
And so there were huge waitlists.
But I knew he wasn't doing thework.
I knew he wasn't trying to finda place and putting us on a
wait list.
I knew he was waiting for me tobreak, because this is not the
first time we went no contact.
It's the longest time and it'sthe most stubborn I had been.
But I knew his game.
(23:32):
I knew he was going to try towait me out.
I kept holding him accountable.
So finally he hits me withabout one year of when I
originally started going nocontact.
He said, oh, I finally got anappointment.
Here's our first appointment.
So I show up, he didn't eventell the therapist we were there
for family therapy appointment.
So I show up, he didn't eventell the therapist we were there
(23:54):
for family therapy.
She was shocked to see me andvery confused and spent the
whole time telling her about howI ruined our family.
There was no talk of we've beenno contact.
There was no talk of we needthings like, we need to work on
things.
It was just Jenna ruined ourfamily.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Narcissists don't care too much for the truth.
They will literally tell theirlies over and, over and over
again.
It's like when you listen to asong and repeat until you
finally know the lyrics and cansing them out loud.
That's how narcissists willtell their lies, and sometimes,
in certain situations, theythink so highly of themselves
(24:37):
that they are flawless andthey're like a god that, like in
this situation, they're justgoing to completely omit the
truth and eventually kind ofmanipulate you to like, lure you
into their warped sense ofreality.
And that is a dangerous andscary place to be because
(24:59):
eventually it's going to slowlyerode your psyche.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
And it was just Jenna Jenna.
Jenna Jenna did everything, andso I was truly there, um, and
so I was truly there, um, to gothrough the motions.
I think internally, like I, Iknew he can't get better in the
plate, as who he was, in thatmoment I knew he couldn't get
better.
Um, I hope for my siblings hedoes find the help that he needs
(25:27):
.
But, um, I don't think he will,um, but I was there just cause
I, that was what I said I wasgoing to do.
I don't think he will, but Iwas there just because that was
what I said I was going to do,and I think that that's the
closure I needed was to give itthe one last good old college
try.
So we went to a few sessions.
The first session was reallyrough, so the second and third
(25:50):
sessions we had to go separately, and then the fourth session,
we came back together.
She had asked us to come with alist of boundaries, basically,
so we could start kind ofbreaking down what, like, the
big issues were, because westill weren't even agreeing
about what the issue was, and soI just was like, okay, well,
here's my boundaries when youcall, you cannot call repeatedly
(26:13):
until I answer that's like you,don't like.
He's one of those people thatbelieves he deserves access to
people 100% of the time andthat's obviously not appropriate
ever.
And I even told him I have atrauma directly related to
repeat phone calls.
When I was 16 years old, mybest friend died in a car
accident directly behind myhouse and I missed the phone
(26:35):
call.
So missing phone calls for meis like traumatic.
It gives me a lot of anxiety.
And so when you call repeatedly, people automatically assume
it's an emergency.
That's what normal people dowhen there's an emergency.
And it's never an emergency,it's just like oh, I was just
thinking about you, you or youknow, whatever.
And so I even revisited that,because that was something we
tried to work on previously, andhe was just like that doesn't
(26:58):
happen.
And I was trying to tell himlike I feel like you believe I'm
your equal until it'sconvenient for you.
I'm his punching bag, I'm theperson that he vents to.
I'm the person that'spreventing him from stalking his
ex-wives and getting arrested.
I'm the one when he is gettingexplosive and embarrassing
(27:20):
himself, I'm the one calming himdown and reeling him in.
And I was just trying to tellhim like I can't do that for you
anymore.
I am your daughter, you'resupposed to take care of me and
I'm done taking care of you,like I'll take care of you when
you're like old.
One of the big reasons or one ofthe big things that came out
when we went no contact for thatfirst year, was that he was
(27:41):
throwing around and tellingother people that he's not going
to do X, y and Z because I'mnot even his daughter.
And that's a weird insecurity.
That I well, not weird.
It's not weird.
That's very valid insecurity.
But it's a weird thing for himto throw around Um and so and he
like, whether or not he likeknew, knew how much it affects
(28:02):
me.
Like you, you're not doing itfor fun.
That's a very purposeful,calculated thing to say.
And that was another thing Iwas like you got to stop saying
that Like I can't trust somebodythat's going to just decide
when they will and will not bemy dad.
That's not fair.
Um, and in that boundariessession, um, the therapist
challenged him and reminded himhe's the father, I'm the
(28:25):
daughter and I'm not responsible.
He was trying to blame me forsomething that happened the year
I was born, and so thetherapist was like no, no, no,
that's between you and yourex-wife, that has nothing to do
with her.
And he was like, well, shecaused it.
So, like my existence causeshim pain is basically kind of
what he was getting at, I guess,who knows.
(28:45):
And she challenged him.
He got irate because whochallenges him?
And as he was storming out hesaid I don't even want to be
your dad anyways, um, and again,that was something we covered
in that exact session, and so atthat point I said that's it, um
, you can't take that back.
This is the exact reason we'rehere, um, and that that is the
(29:06):
final straw.
And so we have not spoken since.
There's been no contact andliterally he hasn't even reached
out.
He knows, he knows what he did,he knows he should be extremely
ashamed.
For a while I was still incontact with his side of the
family and he was telling peoplehe has no idea why I have not
(29:27):
spoken to him.
In two years he will die onthat hill.
I know he will.
He's got some pretty bad healthproblems, all probably because
of the amount of stress he putshimself through, because of his
narcissism and the lack ofaccountability, because this
man's been destroying his ownlife for his whole life.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
So you said that because of the abuse that you
experienced in your childhoodfrom your stepfather.
You said that this led to youchoosing abusive partners when
it came to dating, and you saidthat you had been physically
assaulted in each relationship.
How many times did that happen?
(30:09):
How many relationships did youfind yourself in repeating this
cycle?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
So I would say, um, with the exception of my husband
, um, and one man I dated forlike three, four months.
Um, every relationship I havebeen in has been, um, toxic to
some degree, some varying degree.
My first stalking, my firststalker, I was 16 years old and
nobody protected me, and so Ithink it's important, again,
being raised in narcissism, Iobviously didn't have a good
(30:46):
compass of what love is.
I was shown that love was thesebig emotions, whether it was
the love bombing or the anger.
So love is big.
It's never these subtleties.
It's never safety, right, LikeI was never safe or I never felt
safe, and so I was alwaysseeking out relationships that
(31:07):
made me feel comfortable, whichmeant there was big emotions
always.
And I would say, my firstphysically abusive relationship,
I met him when I was 17 and hewas 23.
And we dated for a very longtime.
We were together for about fiveyears and it didn't get abusive
until about four and a halfyears.
My big thing because, again, Ididn't have that compass of like
(31:32):
what's right and wrong Um, myline was, if they put their
hands on me, that's when it'swrong.
Um, nothing else is wrong, it'swhen they put their hands on me
in a in a violent way, and Ithink that that's also important
because, um, I was prone tobeing coerced into sexual things
(31:53):
that I was uncomfortable with,and so the first time he put his
hands on me, that was when Iwas like, ok, this isn't right,
I need to start thinking aboutleaving.
But it didn't happen again, andso I think I was just like, oh,
he was just having a really badday.
He did just lose his fathersomewhat before that, so I just
(32:13):
assumed it was like theseheightened emotions, but he was
spiraling and he was cheating onme a lot and it got to a point
where I was trying to leave theapartment.
He wouldn't let me leave.
He stood in front of me andwouldn't let me leave and I took
out my pepper spray and I waslike, if you don't get out of my
way, I'm going to do this.
And I gave him several warningswith it in my hand and finally
(32:35):
did it and he lost it.
And then it was my fault and Ifelt bad.
I felt really bad because hewas sitting in the shower
sobbing, and then I stopped.
I didn't even end up leaving, Iended up taking care of him and
(32:59):
then, like a week later, twoweeks later, he like threw me up
against the wall because I camehome from work late by like 10,
15 minutes Like it wasn't likea big deal and he like kind of
threw me up against the wall bymy throat and that point I was
like okay, I've got to, I've gotto start doing this.
But I didn't know how to dothat because we had a lease
together.
I was so young I didn't reallyunderstand all of that and I
didn't feel like I had anywhereto go unless I went home to the
man who raised me and I knew hewould see that as a failure.
(33:24):
He wanted me to stay in theserelationships pretty
consistently.
His favorite boyfriends of minewere the most toxic
consistently.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
His favorite boyfriends of mine were the most
toxic.
I want you to marinate onJenna's conversation today.
A lot of the times, you may notbe able to identify narcissism
as it's happening.
It can be covert or insidiousand sneaky.
However, one of the things thatI've definitely seen since
releasing this podcast ismessages from women who have
(34:00):
been listening religiously, whohave been able to identify
either a current or pastrelationship that they had or
have is actually abuse.
So I just think that this is areally good stopping point.
I don't want to tell you how tothink or to feel or what to do,
but I think this is a goodopportunity to kind of unpack
(34:26):
what you've heard today.
Hey, I'm Alyssa, the host ofDismissed True Stories, and if
you like what you heard today,give me a five-star rating and
hit that notification bell,because I do upload every Friday
.
If you are a survivor or youknow someone who this podcast
(34:47):
episode may resonate with, I askthat you share this with them.
There is nothing quite likehelping a survivor or a victim
of abuse feel seen and heard andvalidated.
It is extremely healing andhelpful to the journey and the
process after abuse.
Ready to share your truth,please follow me on my socials.
(35:14):
I've included them in thefooter of this episode.
Send me your story, the CliffNotes version, and I will get
back with you and, as always,thank you so much for being here
.
The world is truly a betterplace because you are in it.
Thank you.
This episode of Dismissed True Stories is
brought to you by Persephoneai.
Persephoneai is an innovativeand disruptive discreet app
where you can more securelystash your evidence of abuse,
make static notes, uploadattachments, import audio-video
files and even requesttranscription and language
(00:21):
translation.
Transcription and languagetranslation.
Then export your full evidence,report on your timeline, sos
the police or even use it incourt after your safe exit.
You are not alone, andPersephone is here when you
don't know who to tell.
Find Persephoneai on GooglePlay or the App Store.
(00:42):
In this episode, we will behearing directly from a survivor
as they recount their personaljourney.
Dismissed True Storiesrecognizes that discussion of
abuse and trauma can evokestrong emotional responses and
it may be triggering for somelisteners.
Listener, discretion is advised.
Hey, I'm Elissa and this isDismiss True Stories the podcast
(01:05):
.
This podcast was born from theidea that when I was a little
girl, I wanted to be a warreporter in the sense that I
just really wanted to talk aboutthe things that matter in the
world.
And when I ended up walkingaway from my professional
broadcasting career and into anabusive relationship, I realized
that victims and survivorsreally do fight their own wars
(01:28):
at home.
I volunteer with a localdomestic violence shelter in my
city and as I was putting on avigil for the lives lost to
domestic violence last year, Istumbled upon a story that will
forever stick with me.
I did the research to find thisvictim's family, since she is
no longer with us, and onesentence kept rattling around in
(01:52):
my brain Let them tell theirstory.
And while I haven't worked upthe confidence to get in touch
with her family just yet, I wantthis podcast to not only be
about the survivors who livedand escaped, but the stories
from the family members ofvictims who, unfortunately, are
(02:14):
no longer with us.
I sat on this idea for almost ayear before I decided to
randomly make a TikTok videoasking for survivors to come
forward and share their storiesof survivorship, and what
happened next was completely andtotally unexpected.
(02:35):
Women came forward sending metheir stories of survival,
telling me that they were sosick and tired of being quiet,
because what happens so often isthat survivors are silenced,
people aren't ready or equippedto handle their truth or
sometimes simply they just don'twant to make the time.
(02:57):
But now, on Dismissed TrueStories, we're making the time.
Are you ready?
Are you nervous?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yes and no.
I think that there's going tobe pieces of my story that I
probably haven't thought aboutin many years, even with all of
the therapy.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So just, anticipating some of those moments.
How long have you been intherapy?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
So I have actually been in and out of therapy for
as long as I can remember.
I had mentioned in my originalmessage I was raised by a
narcissist and so one of histools to control the family was
to tell us that we were crazyand put us in therapy.
And then kind of just use thatas one of his supports is like,
(03:53):
well, she's been in therapy forfive years and she's not getting
any better, and so, yeah, I'vebeen in it for as long as I can
remember.
And then I kind of fizzle outand then you know events
happened and I would get back in, and so, yeah, right now I've
been seeing the same therapistfor a little over a year now and
it's been the most consistenttherapy I've ever had, and so
(04:18):
I'm in a really good space inregards to all of that at least.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Welcome back to Dismissed True Stories.
This is episode seven.
I'm your host, Elissa, andtoday we're going to hear from
Jenna, and Jenna addresses avery common theme that I see
very often in the stories thatyou send me.
It's the idea that yourchildhood and being raised by a
narcissistic parent or parentsdefinitely affects who you pick
(04:49):
as a partner in life later ondown the road, once you start
dating, how what you have beenmodeled as love in your
childhood isn't healthy and howit is so easy for a victim of
abuse to think that the love orthe breadcrumbs of love that
they are given is acceptable.
(05:11):
I guess we can start from thebeginning.
You had said I saw your post andlove the idea of sharing my
story.
Here's a little bit.
I'm a survivor of narcissisticabuse, like you just said, by
(05:32):
the man who I thought was myfather until I was about 25.
And my question is the man whoyou thought was your father?
Can you explain that, Like hadhe been in your life since you
were a baby?
Were you too young to rememberhow?
How did that situation play out?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
He was actually um with my mom when she found out
she was pregnant, um, and so itwas never really a secret
between, uh, my mom and him thatum, that it was a 50, 50 chance
on whether or not I wasbiologically his Um, and so he
was with me throughout the wholepregnant or with my mom
throughout the whole pregnancy,um.
(06:15):
And when I was born, um, theydid the DNA test um found out I
was not biologically his um.
He did leave for two weeks andthen, after processing, I guess,
he did come back and find usand we were with him ever since
and then they actually ended uphaving two other kids together,
(06:36):
which are my two siblings thatI'm very close to, luckily.
And then, yeah, about 25 yearsold, my mom kind of sat me down
and told me.
And then, yeah, about 25 yearsold, my mom kind of sat me down
and told me that the man who Ithought was my father was not.
I was raised believing he wasmy father and you know, there
was no differences between meand my two siblings outside of
the differences.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
What was that like Was?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
there any relief that he wasn't, or was it like a
mixed bag of emotions?
Actually, initially I lived ina very sick home where this man
he was a tyrant and he ran thehome and he brainwashed me and
my siblings to believe that hewas this amazing thing, while my
mom was less than it has alwaysbeen absolutely insane to me
(07:27):
how narcissists will use theirchildren as a pawn.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
They use their children as tools to hurt the
other parent.
By manipulating the child intosiding with them, by planting
negative ideas about the otherparent, negative ideas about the
other parent, it's providingthe child with false or
exaggerated information just sothe child will then begin
(07:52):
idolizing them and then actingout toward the innocent parent.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And so when my mom originally told me, I thought my
mom was playing games to getback at my dad for something.
They had been going through adivorce so I thought this was
just a continuation of theirnonsense from the divorce and
just like a tit for tat kind ofsituation and I was actually
really hurt that my mom wouldtell me such a thing.
(08:19):
In that moment I was still verymuch like under this man's
spell and very much believingthat he was an amazing father
figure.
And over time and after a lotof other events I started
shortly after that I startedgetting into these abusive
relationships and over timeworked on myself and started to
(08:41):
realize that he is not theamazing man I thought he was.
We've actually been no contactfor almost two years now, but at
the time I was actually reallyhurt and just couldn't
understand why my mom would tellme such a thing and try to
destroy our happy family.
I think is kind of what myinitial reaction was.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
And so did that hurt you and your mom's relationship.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Very much so.
My mom and I did not have aclose relationship growing up
Again just due to these, thesetactics in the household.
My mom was very much isolatedfrom us kids.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
This has a name, and it's called parental alienation.
It really just goes hand inhand with the idea that a
narcissistic parent will thenturn a child against an innocent
parent or party.
However, as far as psychologystandards go, this isn't a
diagnosable disorder orcondition and, as far as my
research goes, you also can'tuse the term parental alienation
(09:46):
in a court of law.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
And we weren't in a good place, but it just made it
worse.
And because this man was likein my ear and telling me like
that was such a hurtful thingfor me to find out and he would
have never done those things tome, I kind of fed into it more
and it put a pretty big wedgebetween me and my mom for a very
(10:09):
long time.
He definitely was just anarcissist through and through.
It didn't matter what type ofrelationship.
There wasn't much that wasauthentic about him.
He was very abusive to mymother and you know I witnessed
a lot of the verbal abuse it was.
(10:30):
It was only verbal abuse.
There was physical intimidationtactics, but he never put hands
on my mom, nor did he put handson us, and I think that that's
going to be really important forlater in my story.
But there was, they argued alot and it was very toxic and
there was a lot of screaming, alot of breaking things.
(10:51):
He would often, I guess, tellmy mom she should just kill
herself and get it over with.
And so it was.
It was.
It was a lot towards my mom.
I think out of the kids meaningme and my two siblings I got it
the worst I had.
Growing up I attributed it tome being the oldest, and I was I
(11:12):
always.
I'm now finding out later, as alate diagnosed autistic person,
that I was very like intojustice and so if you're saying
one thing but you're doinganother thing, it upset my
nervous system in a way that Iwould always stand up for as a
kid and so I was kind of paintedas this problem child and
(11:33):
disrespectful and I got hisabuse the worst, like he would
scream at me for six, seven,eight hours straight, no break,
just demeaning and kind of liketrapping me in like the basement
to keep me there so he couldjust keep going.
My siblings didn't get it asmuch and now that I know he was
(11:57):
not my biological father, Ithink that that had a huge
factor in things and the way Iwas treated.
But again, growing up I didn'thave that insight as to why I
was treated so differently.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Can you explain the relationship between you and
your two siblings?
Has the severing of yourrelationship with him made you
guys closer in any way?
Do they see him as a narcissist?
Speaker 2 (12:31):
So it's interesting Growing up.
So I'm the oldest, I have asister who's the next oldest,
and then we have a baby brother.
He's not a baby anymore, but mysister and I growing up could
not stand each other.
I always joke that if I couldhave just pushed her in front of
a moving bus, um, I always likejoke that if I could have just
pushed her in front of a movingbus, I would have slept just
fine every night because we justfought all the time.
Um, but we both got along withour little brother always.
(12:54):
So our little brother was likevery lucky that he didn't have
beef with either of us.
Um, but it was just a lot of.
It was my sister and I.
Um, again, now that I'm olderand I have the insight, my
sister was the golden child.
She was his first child.
He was she's his first babygirl.
She was even named after ourgrandmother, his mom, and so she
(13:17):
was always treated so muchdifferent.
But I always just assumed likeshe was always sweeter, she
tried harder, she cared moreabout what people thought, and
so that's kind of why she wasthe golden child, because I was
okay with being that rebel kidand my sister was very
mainstream best friends.
We're inseparable.
I cannot do life without her.
(13:48):
Our brother we're still veryclose to our brother, but he
doesn't live in the area anymore.
He's been lucky enough todistance himself from our chaos.
My sister unfortunately, sister, unfortunately um still has
(14:10):
very close ties to that family,um, and so when, um, I cut ties
with um, the man who raised me,her father, um, it was really
hard on our relationship.
We couldn't talk about it.
It started, uh, it startedarguments.
Um, I was not.
I was struggling to verbalizewhat I was not.
I was struggling to verbalizewhat I was going through and the
abuse that I was enduring.
Even at 32 years old, I don'teven think I acknowledged yet
(14:37):
how abusive it was until I hitmy breaking point and I took
steps back.
And again, this was only twoyears ago, and so when that
started happening, my sisterjust so desperately wanted us to
have this happy family right.
She wanted it to be the way italways has been.
It always was our father, theman who raised me, and, like us,
(14:58):
two, and so the three of uswere always super close, and so
that dynamic shift, just shetook it really hard.
I and we ended up having tohave an agreement that we could
not speak on those thingswithout checking in with the
other person and gettingpermission and then being
specific about the topic,because I wasn't speaking on my
(15:20):
side, but he's speaking a lot.
He needs to tell people hisside of the story.
He needs to start spinning itin a way that makes him look
good, because there's so muchthat makes him look terrible.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Oh this, the fact that a narcissist cannot handle
someone making them look bad,even though they do that work on
their own.
I can't even imagine what a dayin their head is like.
The narcissist has to be right.
They have to be the good guy inevery story, no matter how
(15:54):
factually false that may be, andthey will convince themselves
of this and then attempt toconvince you and anyone else who
will listen to their distortivenarrative.
Think of this as, like, thenarcissist is the one living in
a glass house while throwingstones at others.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And you know, because of that like imbalance of
information, he was able to getthrough to my sister and my
sister's like you're right,she's being crazy, how dare she?
And so it was really tough atfirst.
I think over time and the moredistance and the more I've just
stood firm and, like you'regoing to see for yourself who he
(16:35):
is, I can say everything I wantuntil I'm blue in the face.
But words like he's just he'sgoing to tell on himself, it's
going to come to the surface atsome point and I'm just not
going to waste my energy tryingto convince people of my
experience and I can tell mysister's starting to see things
Again.
We don't really talk about it,but there's a huge acceptance of
(17:00):
my distance and it's celebratedin my family now and that's not
something that was celebrated.
It was taboo and I was justsuch a bad family member for
doing this and my family took itas a victim mindset of like how
dare you do this to our family,this is happening to us, and so
, like I said, it's a very sickfamily.
(17:22):
You've come a long way, thoughyou said, when you reached your
breaking point, what pushed youto that point, the thing that
shifted my relationship with mysister um, back when we were
kids, um, when she got pregnantin high school, um, and in that
moment, like I just knew my,this, this baby, is bigger than
(17:44):
all of us.
Right, like this is bigger thanme and my pet sister's petty
stuff Stop stealing my clothes,you know whatever.
Um.
So my niece is our savior inthis circumstance.
She shifted our narrative somuch, um, because, coming from a
family of this, this illness,my sister and I have made it a
point to never be those peoplearound.
(18:06):
My niece, um, and so fastforward, um, she was kind of
having some struggles at schooland my sister was talking about
getting her tested specificallyfor ADHD at this point, and the
man who raised me and I weretalking about it, and we both
work in the mental health field,specifically with children,
(18:29):
children advocacy.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
She laughs here and my eyes almost literally fall
out of my skull because I'm justgoing to say what we're all
thinking here.
This man works with children,but unfortunately, I think this
is something that we see a lotis that narcissists do put
themselves in positions of power.
They put themselves in, theyput themselves into different
(18:53):
professional careers that arenormally like idolized, or to
make someone look at them and belike oh, they're just a good
person because of the careerfield that they chose.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
And he spent the whole time saying that there was
nothing wrong with our niece.
And the way he was speakingabout or my niece, his
granddaughter, the way he wasspeaking about it was if she had
this diagnosis.
That I was pretty sure therewas a diagnosis there.
We later found out it wasautism, but it was very obvious
there was a diagnosis.
And he kept talking about itlike if she was diagnosed, like
(19:27):
she's less of a person, there'ssomething wrong with her, that
there's just like somethingfundamentally wrong with people
that have diagnoses, andspecifically with ADHD pardon my
French, she said people withADHD like that's a diagnosis for
people who can't do shit.
My husband has ADHD.
(19:47):
I have lots of loved ones withADHD.
Again, I am an actual childadvocate.
I have lots of loved ones withADHD.
Again, I am an actual childadvocate.
That was kind of the thing andI was like and I because,
because I knew my niece probablyhad this diagnosis or a
diagnosis I was kind ofdefending her in a sense and it
kind of just enraged me and wekind of got into it he pocket
(20:10):
dialed me and was talking aboutme in this voicemail and I had
tried to confront him and hedidn't answer and I text him and
I was just like hey, listen,I'm disappointed.
Like the way you spoke aboutpeople with ADHD was just like
not OK, I think you need to kindof explore those things.
And his gut reaction was tocall me and leave me a voicemail
(20:32):
reminding me of how terrible ofa child I was.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Raise your hand.
If you're not surprised, that'sbecause the narcissist go-to is
to deflect and project.
It's the I didn't do it, youdid and I'm not bad, you are
mentality.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
And telling me that, like I'm just such a horrible
person and just like all of that, like all of the explosiveness,
the same lines, you know thatit just kind of loses its
sparkle after a while.
You know, like I'm I'm in my30s, telling me I was a terrible
teenager, which is literallylike what teenagers are supposed
(21:11):
to be.
They're supposed to be like,chaotic and making mistakes.
That's, that's the purpose ofthat age, and that was just kind
of what started.
It was just me like this, likeenough is enough, like I'm
trying to just tell you you needto be better in general, and um
, so I just took some space andjust decided I didn't want to
communicate with him for a while.
(21:32):
And after a while I was likeyou know what?
I'm going to write him a letterand just kind of explain how
that conversation triggered meinto a lifelong of things,
because I was at a point whereI'm cleaning out all this
toxicity in my life and he'spart of that, and I don't.
I want him in my life, I lovehim, but I can't have this part
of him in my life.
It's not good for me.
And so I wrote him a letter.
(21:53):
Hey, when you said this, itreminds me of all the times that
you did that and when you didthis, that, and you know, I just
kind of sent it and I got oneof those fake apology letters.
I'm so sorry that I was such abad parent and I did this and I
did that.
And you know, there's noaccountability in anything.
(22:14):
There is nothing authenticabout it.
And then he just tried todeflect and say that he didn't
need help and I just told himthat's fine, we can't, until you
can either go to therapy or wego to therapy together.
This that's.
This is what this is.
This is there's no more contact, and that was it.
I mean it just it kind of Iwasn't even in a play, I wasn't
(22:39):
even in pre contemplation Likemaybe I need to get rid of him
from my life.
It just one big blow up and Iwas like this is it.
I can't do this.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
And that therapy has never happened Um actually it.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
It did have kind of um.
So six months go by and he'sstill reaching out and he's
still telling everybody thispity party story of like I don't
understand why she won't talkto me and kept trying to reach
out and I was like, great, doyou got therapy?
No, okay, and he kept trying toblame it on like the wait lists
for therapy.
Wait lists for therapy this iscoming shortly out of like the
(23:12):
COVID and like all of that stuff.
And so there were huge waitlists.
But I knew he wasn't doing thework.
I knew he wasn't trying to finda place and putting us on a
wait list.
I knew he was waiting for me tobreak, because this is not the
first time we went no contact.
It's the longest time and it'sthe most stubborn I had been.
But I knew his game.
(23:32):
I knew he was going to try towait me out.
I kept holding him accountable.
So finally he hits me withabout one year of when I
originally started going nocontact.
He said, oh, I finally got anappointment.
Here's our first appointment.
So I show up, he didn't eventell the therapist we were there
for family therapy appointment.
So I show up, he didn't eventell the therapist we were there
(23:54):
for family therapy.
She was shocked to see me andvery confused and spent the
whole time telling her about howI ruined our family.
There was no talk of we've beenno contact.
There was no talk of we needthings like, we need to work on
things.
It was just Jenna ruined ourfamily.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Narcissists don't care too much for the truth.
They will literally tell theirlies over and, over and over
again.
It's like when you listen to asong and repeat until you
finally know the lyrics and cansing them out loud.
That's how narcissists willtell their lies, and sometimes,
in certain situations, theythink so highly of themselves
(24:37):
that they are flawless andthey're like a god that, like in
this situation, they're justgoing to completely omit the
truth and eventually kind ofmanipulate you to like, lure you
into their warped sense ofreality.
And that is a dangerous andscary place to be because
(24:59):
eventually it's going to slowlyerode your psyche.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
And it was just Jenna Jenna.
Jenna Jenna did everything, andso I was truly there, um, and
so I was truly there, um, to gothrough the motions.
I think internally, like I, Iknew he can't get better in the
plate, as who he was, in thatmoment I knew he couldn't get
better.
Um, I hope for my siblings hedoes find the help that he needs
(25:27):
.
But, um, I don't think he will,um, but I was there just cause
I, that was what I said I wasgoing to do.
I don't think he will, but Iwas there just because that was
what I said I was going to do,and I think that that's the
closure I needed was to give itthe one last good old college
try.
So we went to a few sessions.
The first session was reallyrough, so the second and third
(25:50):
sessions we had to go separately, and then the fourth session,
we came back together.
She had asked us to come with alist of boundaries, basically,
so we could start kind ofbreaking down what, like, the
big issues were, because westill weren't even agreeing
about what the issue was, and soI just was like, okay, well,
here's my boundaries when youcall, you cannot call repeatedly
(26:13):
until I answer that's like you,don't like.
He's one of those people thatbelieves he deserves access to
people 100% of the time andthat's obviously not appropriate
ever.
And I even told him I have atrauma directly related to
repeat phone calls.
When I was 16 years old, mybest friend died in a car
accident directly behind myhouse and I missed the phone
(26:35):
call.
So missing phone calls for meis like traumatic.
It gives me a lot of anxiety.
And so when you call repeatedly, people automatically assume
it's an emergency.
That's what normal people dowhen there's an emergency.
And it's never an emergency,it's just like oh, I was just
thinking about you, you or youknow, whatever.
And so I even revisited that,because that was something we
tried to work on previously, andhe was just like that doesn't
(26:58):
happen.
And I was trying to tell himlike I feel like you believe I'm
your equal until it'sconvenient for you.
I'm his punching bag, I'm theperson that he vents to.
I'm the person that'spreventing him from stalking his
ex-wives and getting arrested.
I'm the one when he is gettingexplosive and embarrassing
(27:20):
himself, I'm the one calming himdown and reeling him in.
And I was just trying to tellhim like I can't do that for you
anymore.
I am your daughter, you'resupposed to take care of me and
I'm done taking care of you,like I'll take care of you when
you're like old.
One of the big reasons or one ofthe big things that came out
when we went no contact for thatfirst year, was that he was
(27:41):
throwing around and tellingother people that he's not going
to do X, y and Z because I'mnot even his daughter.
And that's a weird insecurity.
That I well, not weird.
It's not weird.
That's very valid insecurity.
But it's a weird thing for himto throw around Um and so and he
like, whether or not he likeknew, knew how much it affects
(28:02):
me.
Like you, you're not doing itfor fun.
That's a very purposeful,calculated thing to say.
And that was another thing Iwas like you got to stop saying
that Like I can't trust somebodythat's going to just decide
when they will and will not bemy dad.
That's not fair.
Um, and in that boundariessession, um, the therapist
challenged him and reminded himhe's the father, I'm the
(28:25):
daughter and I'm not responsible.
He was trying to blame me forsomething that happened the year
I was born, and so thetherapist was like no, no, no,
that's between you and yourex-wife, that has nothing to do
with her.
And he was like, well, shecaused it.
So, like my existence causeshim pain is basically kind of
what he was getting at, I guess,who knows.
(28:45):
And she challenged him.
He got irate because whochallenges him?
And as he was storming out hesaid I don't even want to be
your dad anyways, um, and again,that was something we covered
in that exact session, and so atthat point I said that's it, um
, you can't take that back.
This is the exact reason we'rehere, um, and that that is the
(29:06):
final straw.
And so we have not spoken since.
There's been no contact andliterally he hasn't even reached
out.
He knows, he knows what he did,he knows he should be extremely
ashamed.
For a while I was still incontact with his side of the
family and he was telling peoplehe has no idea why I have not
(29:27):
spoken to him.
In two years he will die onthat hill.
I know he will.
He's got some pretty bad healthproblems, all probably because
of the amount of stress he putshimself through, because of his
narcissism and the lack ofaccountability, because this
man's been destroying his ownlife for his whole life.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
So you said that because of the abuse that you
experienced in your childhoodfrom your stepfather.
You said that this led to youchoosing abusive partners when
it came to dating, and you saidthat you had been physically
assaulted in each relationship.
How many times did that happen?
(30:09):
How many relationships did youfind yourself in repeating this
cycle?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
So I would say, um, with the exception of my husband
, um, and one man I dated forlike three, four months.
Um, every relationship I havebeen in has been, um, toxic to
some degree, some varying degree.
My first stalking, my firststalker, I was 16 years old and
nobody protected me, and so Ithink it's important, again,
being raised in narcissism, Iobviously didn't have a good
(30:46):
compass of what love is.
I was shown that love was thesebig emotions, whether it was
the love bombing or the anger.
So love is big.
It's never these subtleties.
It's never safety, right, LikeI was never safe or I never felt
safe, and so I was alwaysseeking out relationships that
(31:07):
made me feel comfortable, whichmeant there was big emotions
always.
And I would say, my firstphysically abusive relationship,
I met him when I was 17 and hewas 23.
And we dated for a very longtime.
We were together for about fiveyears and it didn't get abusive
until about four and a halfyears.
My big thing because, again, Ididn't have that compass of like
(31:32):
what's right and wrong Um, myline was, if they put their
hands on me, that's when it'swrong.
Um, nothing else is wrong, it'swhen they put their hands on me
in a in a violent way, and Ithink that that's also important
because, um, I was prone tobeing coerced into sexual things
(31:53):
that I was uncomfortable with,and so the first time he put his
hands on me, that was when Iwas like, ok, this isn't right,
I need to start thinking aboutleaving.
But it didn't happen again, andso I think I was just like, oh,
he was just having a really badday.
He did just lose his fathersomewhat before that, so I just
(32:13):
assumed it was like theseheightened emotions, but he was
spiraling and he was cheating onme a lot and it got to a point
where I was trying to leave theapartment.
He wouldn't let me leave.
He stood in front of me andwouldn't let me leave and I took
out my pepper spray and I waslike, if you don't get out of my
way, I'm going to do this.
And I gave him several warningswith it in my hand and finally
(32:35):
did it and he lost it.
And then it was my fault and Ifelt bad.
I felt really bad because hewas sitting in the shower
sobbing, and then I stopped.
I didn't even end up leaving, Iended up taking care of him and
(32:59):
then, like a week later, twoweeks later, he like threw me up
against the wall because I camehome from work late by like 10,
15 minutes Like it wasn't likea big deal and he like kind of
threw me up against the wall bymy throat and that point I was
like okay, I've got to, I've gotto start doing this.
But I didn't know how to dothat because we had a lease
together.
I was so young I didn't reallyunderstand all of that and I
didn't feel like I had anywhereto go unless I went home to the
man who raised me and I knew hewould see that as a failure.
(33:24):
He wanted me to stay in theserelationships pretty
consistently.
His favorite boyfriends of minewere the most toxic
consistently.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
His favorite boyfriends of mine were the most
toxic.
I want you to marinate onJenna's conversation today.
A lot of the times, you may notbe able to identify narcissism
as it's happening.
It can be covert or insidiousand sneaky.
However, one of the things thatI've definitely seen since
releasing this podcast ismessages from women who have
(34:00):
been listening religiously, whohave been able to identify
either a current or pastrelationship that they had or
have is actually abuse.
So I just think that this is areally good stopping point.
I don't want to tell you how tothink or to feel or what to do,
but I think this is a goodopportunity to kind of unpack
(34:26):
what you've heard today.
Hey, I'm Alyssa, the host ofDismissed True Stories, and if
you like what you heard today,give me a five-star rating and
hit that notification bell,because I do upload every Friday
.
If you are a survivor or youknow someone who this podcast
(34:47):
episode may resonate with, I askthat you share this with them.
There is nothing quite likehelping a survivor or a victim
of abuse feel seen and heard andvalidated.
It is extremely healing andhelpful to the journey and the
process after abuse.
Ready to share your truth,please follow me on my socials.
(35:14):
I've included them in thefooter of this episode.
Send me your story, the CliffNotes version, and I will get
back with you and, as always,thank you so much for being here
.
The world is truly a betterplace because you are in it.
Thank you.
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