March 18, 2025 • 33 mins
Discover the keys to building healthy, fulfilling relationships with insights from our conversation with Sonnet Daymont, a seasoned marriage and family therapist. Gain a deep understanding of the complexities of toxic relationships and learn to spot harmful patterns that can impede personal growth. Sonnet shares her journey from working with children to specializing in complex trauma and abuse, offering a wealth of knowledge on the "dark triad" of personality traits often linked to abusive behaviors. We emphasize the importance of self-awareness and identifying personal needs to ensure consistent kindness from partners, guiding you toward relationships that uplift and empower.
Our discussion doesn't shy away from the challenges of online dating, especially for older adults. Drawing from Anderson's revelations in "Love Fraud" and "Senior Sociopaths," we highlight the ongoing risks posed by individuals with dark triad traits. Recognizing manipulative tactics like "love bombing" and understanding their roots in past trauma form a crucial part of our conversation. We also explore therapeutic avenues like bibliotherapy and trauma-informed massage therapy, providing actionable steps for healing and growth. With a focus on reparenting and self-care, this episode aims to equip you with the tools to transform your relationship landscape and nurture self-love.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Straight from the Source's Mouth
podcast.
Frank talk about sex and dating.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hello, tamara here, welcome to the show.
Today's guest is Sonnet Daymont.
She's a licensed marriage andfamily therapist and we'll be
talking about navigating toxicrelationships, complex trauma
and then red flags to look outfor.
Thanks for joining me, sonnet.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Yeah, I think this will be agood topic for my listeners.
(00:26):
Always, you know, you hearabout narcissistic and toxic
stuff quite a bit, but I don'tknow if you know just hearing
exactly what to look out for,what it is exactly.
Maybe people are in it anddon't even know, especially like
emotional abuse and stuff.
So we can start with what gotyou into it, like a quick little
(00:46):
you know, just like what causedyou to be so interested in this
.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Sure, I guess I'll just tell you when I first
started out professionally, Itook a teaching fellowship
working with young children, andit was through Pearson, which
is a book publisher, workingwith young children, and it was
through Pearson, which is a bookpublisher, and our goal there
was to obviously teach youngchildren.
(01:12):
And when I was in the classroom.
I kept feeling myself more drawnto the children who needed
extra attention and extra help,and there was one little girl in
particular that touched myheart.
And as the school year came toan end, I decided to go back
post-bachelors and get a degreein psychology so I could work
(01:32):
with people who needed help withtheir emotions more so than
their learning.
And my first job out of collegewas working in a safe house
with trafficked children and inthat capacity we created
curriculum to help themdeprogram from sex traffickers,
(01:53):
house them and kept them safe.
And as I was doing that Ilearned a lot about different
forms of abuse.
And then later after that job,I worked as a personal assistant
to a person who I think mostpeople would agree had was
somewhere on that spectrum andended up getting in trouble and
(02:14):
going to prison and all of thesethings.
So being her assistant, havingworked in those different
environments where I got accessto see the results of abuse and
help people heal, led me to wantto go back to grad school and
become a therapist.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah, I could see where that would.
I was to say was she?
So she was an abuser.
So you saw the tail.
You saw the first end of peopleon that side of it yeah, yeah.
And then it could see exactlywhy it could happen.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, yeah, and I, I've been in a weird position
where I've seen women as theabuser.
Of course men obviously, youknow, are more stereotypically
the abuser when you picture anabuser.
But I did work with a woman whowas abused.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I guess this kind of goes hand in hand with what she
did also.
But in relationships like, whatare some of the?
What would you, how would youdescribe a toxic relationship?
What are some of the thingsthat go on?
So when you?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
find yourself in something that would be called
quote unquote a toxicrelationship.
My view as a therapist would bethat the relationship hinders
the people from growing togetherand learning and enjoying life
and caring for each other, andinstead it takes them backwards.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
They're harming each other and they're feeling held
back.
Yeah, I can see that,Especially when the one person
that's being held back knowsthey want to learn or grow and
the other one isn't maybe tryingto get help or see anything.
Is that more common dynamic, Iguess?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, I would say so.
I mean a lot of times in thesedynamics of a person if you're
dealing with, like a narcissistor sociopath or someone, that's
a dark triad and they'remanipulative.
It's possible that you're goingto see that something's wrong,
that it's holding you back, it'shurting you and you're going to
want to make change and you'regoing to articulate that and try
with them and they won't evensee it or they'll feign if they
(04:06):
go into couples therapy orsomewhere with you.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, I can definitely see that I have a
friend in a situation like that.
And then you said dark triad.
What does that mean?
Is that someone that has abunch of stuff?
I'm guessing.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So the dark triad would be personality disorders
that are more likely to beabusive.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
So you would think like a malignant narcissist or a
sociopath or antisocialpersonality disorder Are some
red flags or stuff, like whenyou're first dating, like is
there something you can tellearly on to prevent you from
even going far Well?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I mean, I think when we're first dating, kind of
knowing what our individualneeds and wants are and being
really clear on that and thengoing out and having fun and
meeting people and seeing ifwe're a good fit and we're
helping each other, is like anice starting point for dating.
And when you're in thatheadspace, as opposed to wanting
(05:02):
to be liked or wanting to feellovable or just wanting anybody,
you're better able to kind ofnavigate, Like is this person
treating me with kindnessconsistently?
Am I being treated with respectconsistently and am I kind of
(05:27):
tuning into what, the way mybody feels when I'm with them
and it feels relaxed and happywhen I leave them?
Do I feel anxious or do I feelcalm?
Did I have like something thatwas relaxing and healthy and
good and energizing andempowering to be around?
And it's really kind of likepaying attention to the self.
And, um, you mentioned red flags.
Like what are actual red flagindicators that the person could
end up being abusive or unkind?
(05:48):
And you know, the main red flagI tell men and women when I
work with them in therapy towatch out for is sort of like
consistency of kindness, Like ifthe person is kind and loving
sometimes and then other timesthey are not, and you're
constantly going back and forth,back and forth, back and forth.
(06:10):
How do you know where to keepyour boundaries and how do you
know what you're dealing with?
And there's a big differencebetween someone who's going back
and forth between kindness andunkindness and a person who gets
emotionally reactive and snarlsor cries or needs something
from you that feels sort ofunkind in the moment because
(06:31):
they're having a hard timeexpressing themselves.
And that big difference is thatwhen you talk about it they are
able to attune and apologizeand then not do it again.
They work to not do it againand you see that happening.
It's not a cycle of over andover again.
Yeah, I hope that was clear.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
No, yeah for sure.
So, yeah, inconsistency and ifthey make you feel bad and or
like, but, like you said, thefirst thing, having boundaries
and knowing yourself and goingout with a mindset of trying to
find someone that fits yourworld, not just desperate to
find anyone and desperate tohave them.
Like you, because I just had anepisode where someone was
(07:16):
scammed and there's a lot ofonline scams now on the dating
sites and because there'ssomeone looking for for anyone
just want to be liked, they'remore inclined to also fall for
something like absolutely.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I feel like those dating apps are just ripe for
that, because people will go onthose apps and they'll they'll
just fill in exactly what theywant and then if you're a
predatory person looking tomanipulate people, well, they
just told you what they yeah.
Yeah, so it's a.
So it's a little ripe, right,and these are strangers on the
internet.
There's a book by Andersoncalled Love Fraud that talks a
(07:53):
lot about the risks of onlinedating because of that, and
there's another book I recommendto clients called how to Not
Die Alone, by Yuri.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
On the show his recommended books.
So I'm glad you mentioned itbecause I hadn't heard of the
first one, Love fraud.
But yeah, definitely LoganUri's is really great.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Anderson wrote another book.
This is a scary title.
It's called Senior Sociopathsand it's about research that's
showing that we used to thinkthat people that were
narcissistic a dark triad rightnarcissistic, antisocial
sociopath that they would getsofter in age, they would be
kinder.
And now there's research thatshows actually that's not true.
(08:35):
A lot of times they are stillabusive and more manipulative.
And in that book, seniorSociopaths, I think she
recommends this is a scary one.
I apologize, but if you're over55, to try to refrain from
dating online because love fraudis just so ripe.
The stats on it are really high.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
That's why I wanted to put that episode out.
It happened to her a couple ofyears ago but she and it was
very sophisticated scam, youknow, she's, like you know, very
intelligent and fell for thestuff.
So, yeah, it's a lot other butand then I guess I mean then you
would be dealing with toxicpotentially but or it's just
like someone fake altogether.
They act so nice and so fakethat, like there's kind of a
(09:18):
weird, the ones that act toonice are the ones that are
actually bad for you.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you've heard that term, love
bombing, which refers to sort ofthe overwhelm of attention and
love and kindness that can comeon in early stages of dating
someone who might end up beingmanipulative.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Do they kind of go hand in hand?
People who were victims or aresurvivors of complex trauma, I'm
guessing are more ex-spouse ormy sibling or whomever is
engaged in a toxic relationshipwith me and I feel abused and we
(10:15):
start doing CBT and EMDR anddifferent forms of therapy to
treat that.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
More often than not, when we look at the childhood,
there's absolutely somethinggoing on where there was either
bullying in school or, um, justflat out abuse and neglect with
with their family of origin yeah, I've read.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
I read a lot, so I read again.
I can't remember.
I know fufu.
I want to say on instagram shewrote a book about complex PTSD
as a survivor of abuse andneglect, and I'm not, if I can.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
I know what book you're talking about.
There's like a.
It's a blue book and there'sflowers all over the cover and
it's like about immigrationtrauma too.
I think Right.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yes, yeah, stephanie.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Fu.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Stephanie Fu yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
That was a great book and so so, yeah, that's a great
example.
If you're familiar with thatbook, what I'll often do, I mean
for the most part I see a lotof women who have gone through
divorces with, with challengingex -spouses, because I host a
divorce group for women, and Ican just tell you what we do in
(11:24):
our curriculum, since you likewe do in our curriculum, since
you like to read.
I mean, it's basically abibliotherapy process where we
sit down and we start with thisbook called Getting Past your
Breakup by Susan Elliott, and Ifirst learned about that book
when I was in grad schoolbecause a client brought it into
me and she said I read thisbook.
I did all of these essayquestions and I just want to
(11:47):
make sure I'm on the right track.
Can you look at it with me?
And it was just brilliant.
You know, it was really smartthat this woman did this, and so
the two of us went through andlooked at it, and one of the
things that book does in chaptersix is it has the reader,
whatever gender they identify,although typically I end up with
a lot of women in my office.
(12:08):
They go through and they do aseries of like 13 questions
where they dissect therelationship they were in.
And the first three questionsare the hardest and those are
because the reader journalsabout what they liked about the
relationship, what worked in therelationship, and then they
have to feel and grieve throughwhat they actually lost or
(12:30):
imagined they were losing.
And then the next 10 questionsin that first section are
basically like what are thebehaviors that you were putting
up with and what was thetriggering in your personality?
What were the ways in which youwere acting that didn't feel
like they were your real self,your grounded, happy, safe,
secure self?
And you end up with this biglist of just kind of bullet
(12:55):
points of what happened.
This is the data of whathappened in that relationship,
and what I do is I'll have womendo two more, pick two more Xs
and do the same thing with them,and then we've got all this
data for three Xs and then wesit there and we look at it and
we circle what they have incommon and then we bring in
(13:16):
another.
I think the next section isabout 12 questions or so and
it's on the people who raisedyou parents, and we do the same
thing on the parents withsimilar questions and then we
circle everything.
What do these people have incommon and I mean, it's just
100% of the time, I would say,of the people I meet where the
things that they weren't havingmet, the needs they weren't
(13:37):
having met, and justregurgitating, regurgitating,
regurgitating, and the toxicrelationship were there in the
childhood.
And it is.
And I am not a psychodynamictherapist, I'm a CBT therapist
and I just wish everything wasas easy as CBT.
You didn't have to bring thechildhood in.
But I mean, every time it'ssomething that's happening in
(13:58):
the childhood and we're justkind of trying to rework it.
So then you've got all yourdata and you can consciously
kind of look at it, it andeverything that's circled.
Those could be your red flagswhen you go out dating again.
You could say, well, if peopledo these things, if they're
moochie or um, they, um, put medown or they, you know, whatever
(14:19):
the thing is that the parentdid, that you're letting the
partners do by staying yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And now it makes me bring up one more book, which
you're probably not done, but Ijust want to get into the love
you want.
That's kind of.
They actually do this as well.
They have, but it's usuallywithin a couple and you both do
go through some things like thistogether in the book and you
write a.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, that would be a great way to do couples therapy
.
Unfortunately, I get people atthe end, but I will definitely
prep them with lots of books oneducating yourself on what a
healthy relationship is, beforeyou go back out there and date
again, and I really encouragethe pause.
Don't date right away, even ifI'll self-disclose I got
divorced at 40.
Even if I'll self-disclose, Igot divorced at 40.
(15:04):
No one wants to get divorced at40.
No one wants to get divorced at55, 65 either.
No one wants to get divorced at25.
Everyone.
I talk to is like, but at thisage even worse.
But it is really easy at any ofthose ages to say, oh no,
there's a race, there's a hurry,I need to find another partner
(15:26):
right away.
No, like that, yeah, just slowand like, really like.
Look, look at your data.
Like what happened in yourchildhood, what happened in your
other relationships and in thislast one, what can you learn
from, from auditing that andcoming up with a strategy for
your own healing so that whenyou go out and date, you are,
(15:50):
your cup is filled and you'rejust finding someone to set your
cup next to you know?
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, no, I definitely agree, Cause it
wasn't until I started doingthis podcast three years ago
that I finally took a break fromdating myself.
Like I had interviewed enoughpeople that I was like you know
what I actually need a break.
And I Like I had interviewedenough people that I was like
you know what I actually need abreak and I took I was going to
be like three months and I didsix and it just yeah, it was
like really helpful.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, people say that that six month mark is like the
golden spot.
Right, I'm trying to rememberthere was one book on this toxic
relationships.
I want to say it was JacksonMcKenzie's Psychopath Free or
Whole Again one of his books.
And someone in there talkedabout waiting six months, that
if you can just get six monthsyou'll be a lot clearer and then
(16:37):
at that point it might be safe.
But don't jump in before then.
Now it's really hard to saythat there's hard and fast rules
, because everybody's life isdifferent.
But if there was ever a hardand fast rule to try, it would
be waiting six months before youdate again, at least Even if
yeah, like dating, dating likemaybe.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Or you're saying like even go on a date for fun or
just not a serious relationshipwithin six months, or you say
dating.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I mean, yeah, I don't know.
I don't know why you would needto be going on dates.
You know, like, date yourself,date yourself, date, make good
friends and really do theinternal work to like read a
bunch of books on the type ofrelationship you were in and a
bunch of books on the type ofrelationship you want.
It is a lot easier to go outthere and date and you know what
a healthy relationship lookslike and you have kind of some
(17:35):
semblance of what you've beenthrough and what you'd like to
go through instead next time.
And then when someone presentsyou with you know, these are my
favorite places to travel, theseare my favorite foods, these
are my favorite kind of movies.
Instead of going, oh, I don'thave any, let me try yours.
You can say, oh, these are mine.
Let's share with each other andget to know each other as whole
(17:56):
people and yeah, and then ifsomeone starts trying to break
down your identity and liketelling you that things you like
are dumb and you're going to dothe things they like, you're
going to notice yeah, and that'sthe bottom line of most
relationships, or everything isjust love yourself, and which is
harder or easier said than done.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, if everyone came from self-love and had
great childhoods and or learnfrom them, and yeah, prosper and
he thrived.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
But there's some benefit to having a challenging
childhood and then growing upand reparenting yourself,
because I firmly believe thatleadership skills come from
figuring out how to do thingsyourself a little late, because
then you can articulate toothers as an adult how to do
those things when they can't, ifthat makes sense.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
No, yeah, definitely.
I mean my parents were raisedto be very resilient and
independent adult.
How to do those things whenthey can't, if that makes sense?
No, yeah, definitely, I mean I,I, my parents, were raised us
to be very resilient andindependent.
Yeah, like figured out, we wereout by 18, like they taught us
how to be adults, like that wastheir goal.
So it wasn't necessarily, asyou know, comforting and soft as
some people would, but wedefinitely, you know, became
great adults good, yeah, yeah,it would have been nice if that
(19:06):
was soft.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
And then you got out into the adult world and all the
people were soft too.
Yeah, the world is not so, no,but there are soft people.
And, um, you know that, on thathealing trajectory, one of the
things I work with people onafter we go through and audit
the past, is boundaries andfiguring out, like you know, how
(19:28):
does someone qualify to be mypartner?
How does someone qualify to bea close friend to me?
How does someone qualify to bea friend to me?
How does someone qualify to bemy acquaintance?
When do I get to say enough isenough and I don't even interact
with a person anymore?
And we really break those downand have a bit of an action plan
(19:51):
for how you know when someone'sworthy to know about your
childhood or your secrets ortouch your body or any of those
things.
Right, like people need tobuild up, uh, trusted.
You have to get to know them.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, and I was actually going to ask you like
what to look out for the otherperson, but you already said it
earlier that it's more about howyou feel and what, what you can
tell unless they're, unlessthey're, I guess, manipulative
kind of stuff to look out for,or, you know, like the ones that
, like you said, we said lovebombing earlier, but more, like
(20:30):
I don't know, the ones that aregood at hiding it until you fall
in love, Like, is there a wayto figure that out earlier than
later?
They do all the right things inthe beginning.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, I mean that's absolutely a thing, right, the
love bombing and being perfectearly on, and then you don't
really see things coming.
It comes later and you know, Ithink the best way to navigate
that is, like you said, toreally know and love yourself.
Because if someone startswhittling away at your um, your
(21:01):
favorite things, and before youknow it you're sort of putting
their life first, you are goingto see it because you're going
to be giving up your favoritethings that you loved doing with
yourself and in terms of, likegeneral overall red flags, like
if we went to, ywca is anamazing resource for women that
are involved in toxicrelationships, abusive
(21:23):
relationships.
I believe that they will seemen too, but it's a tender, more
vulnerable experience for men.
A lot of times when men gethelp, they go to a therapist.
But nonetheless, ywca will havea list of.
Some of the websites will havea list of like these are the
most common red flags.
Like this is how you knowsomeone's abusive or Planned
Parenthood will put out littleblog posts.
(21:44):
You'll see these thingsfloating around the internet all
the time Isolation, namecalling, limiting your access to
money, things like that aresuper common Kind of quote
unquote red flags.
But I, as a therapist, you knowyou've mentioned the word
complex trauma a couple times.
(22:04):
I tend to see that theserelationships can pop up with
multiple partners and I trulybelieve that the way to stop
regurgitating situations likethat is to put that time into
auditing the experiences you'vehad childhood, former dating, um
(22:27):
, like I self-disclosed in mybosses.
Figure out like what am Imissing here?
What are the perfect red flagsfor me to not even see?
And you've got them all onpaper.
And then those.
Those are the things that youwatch for with people.
You really learn about thoseAbsolutely.
If someone calls you a name ona first or second date or puts
(22:48):
you down, that's a red flag.
But someone whose parents havebeen putting them down or who's
been on the social media sincethey were 10, getting put down
because of their looks oranything you know, they might
not even notice.
They might not notice becausethey're used to getting put down
.
So how do you, how do you catcha red flag if you haven't kind?
(23:11):
of looked at everything andfigured out where your no's are
and figured out how to say no,figured out boundaries a little
bit.
You could do that in six months.
People do that in six monthsall the time.
There's a lot of books.
I've named off a bunch.
I'm sure you've named off morebooks than you have just here
with me.
There's a lot of informationout there when you're ready to
start healing and if you don'tlike to read, someone will go on
(23:33):
YouTube and read a book.
You just have to push, play andread to you.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And of course, podcasts likethis are popular.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, this is great.
This is even better than a book, right?
Because you're able to like getin there and ask me questions.
It's like asking a book aquestion.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
And I was on that note what, like?
What's the common thing forsome of your patients or what?
What have you found that works?
I know, obviously probablyself-love and working and
figuring out what those are, butis there anything?
Speaker 1 (24:06):
I really love that, that book.
I was telling you about gettingpast your breakup and doing
that audit and sort ofcommitting to the self that,
like, these are the things I'mgoing to work on giving myself.
These are the things that I washaving challenges with with
previous partners, with myparents.
I didn't get enough of.
Now how am I going to givethese things to myself?
(24:27):
And then you come up with anaction plan and you start giving
them to yourself.
You start healing, reparenting,and you can do that
simultaneously while you haveyour own children too.
It's a good example for yourchildren to see you being really
kind and loving to yourself,separate from all of that.
The actual brain chemistry ofbeing in these relationships
(24:48):
with people that are incrediblystressful to be around, right,
not emotionally safe.
Our physical body reacts whenyou're releasing adrenaline and
cortisol all the time becauseyou're walking on eggshells that
your partner is going to make adecision you don't like and you
don't think.
You have the ability to say no.
(25:09):
You're stressed and it'saffecting your stomach, it's
affecting your brain chemistry,it's affecting how you sleep,
which affects everything else.
So a big piece of healing fromthese types of dynamic is
healthy exercise and healthynutrition and sleep and just
(25:30):
caring for yourself.
So often I mean just soincredibly often people come in
to talk to me after a toxicrelationship with a former
partner or a work experience andthey are not sleeping.
They're just not sleeping andI'll be like how many hours did
you sleep this last week?
I don't know.
Maybe four hours, four hours ina week, is dangerous to your
(25:54):
health.
Um yeah, and so getting back ontrack with sleeping, exercising
, eating healthy there's noshame in going to a doctor and
getting evaluated for medicationso that you can sleep again.
When you figure that out withyour doctor a week or two later,
after you've started sleepingagain, what you want to do with
it.
But making sure you have accessto sleep is so important.
(26:17):
Making sure that you startfiguring out how to connect to
and love your body again is soimportant.
Exercise, even if it's just acouple walks around the block
looking for flowers that areyour favorite color or signs
that are your favorite color.
Whatever you see If you're in acity there might not be many
flowers.
I'm a huge fan oftrauma-informed massage.
(26:40):
Massage therapy is so healingand important and helpful,
getting back into your body andgetting strong again and you
know learning how to say no topeople touching you is so
important.
And yes, and what healthy touchis?
You learn so much fromtrauma-informed massage.
(27:02):
I think it's great.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah, I was actually going to ask is it someone that
knows it and touches you acertain way, or how is it called
trauma-informed?
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Well you, would ask the massage therapist if they
are a trauma-informed massagetherapist, and usually how that
would differ from a normalmassage is they will be more
mindful that you've experiencedtrauma, so they'll have an
awareness that they will startslower when they press on
(27:31):
muscles and that they'll askpermission and that if you
flinch or twitch they'll bepaying more attention and
they'll say are you okay withthis, are you okay with that?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
A massage, but they're more in tune to how you
are reacting.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah, I don't think there's an actual.
There may be somecertifications for that.
I've never asked a massagetherapist if that's something
they were certified before.
But I always ask if they dotrauma-informed massage and I do
refer my clients to massagetherapists that are
trauma-informed massage and I dorefer my clients to massage
therapists that aretrauma-informed.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
So if people can work with you I know you're based in
Los Angeles Can you do onlinestuff with other people and how
can they reach you and whatprograms?
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah, so I am a licensed marriage and family
therapist in California.
So if you have a diagnosis inCalifornia and you want to see
me as your therapist, I can workwith you online.
If you do not have a diagnosisand you're in another state, I
can work with you as a coach.
But if you want to treat likePTSD or CPTSD, it might get into
(28:36):
a position where you want towork with a therapist that's
licensed in your state.
Yeah, I love to work with peopleonline.
The benefit to online is thatyou feel really empowered
because you're kind of doing thebrunt of the work.
There's deficits to onlineYou're not going out into the
world and giving opportunity forfun experiences, interactions,
(29:01):
like you never know who you'regoing to meet if you stop in the
cafe on your way to therapy orwhat you're going to learn and
if you do therapy in person,especially EMDR.
I really like to do EMDR inperson because I can watch the
full body language of the personand I can kind of teach them a
little bit of how to do itthemselves online later.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
And then is there a website, or how do you, how do
you reach?
How can they work?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Oh, if, someone wanted to work with me
personally.
I would love it.
I would welcome that.
Um, my first and last name isSonnet Daymont, so it's just
sonnetdaymontcom.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
And then, um, I know you mentioned your divert
divorce program.
Is that more for um, likepeople that are already your
clients and then you kind ofwork with them as well in a
group setting, or is that?
Speaker 1 (29:45):
something you offer online.
So I have that online and whatI do is I just put little posts
on psychology today and I say,hey, do you want to do a divorce
workshop or a divorce group?
And then people will email meand they say when's your next
one?
And then I email them back andtell them.
So if you wanted to do adivorce workshop with me or a
(30:06):
divorce group, I would say, justget on my website and send me a
message or an email and I'llput you on the wait list.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
All right, well, are there any kind of closing
comments?
You want to make sure peopleunderstand about dealing with
toxic stuff?
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, I mean, I think the most important thing would
be that these relationships, youknow, can be temporary.
You don't have to keep doingthis.
Even if you wake up in your 60sor your 70s going through what
they call a gray divorce, oryou're in your 60s or your 70s
and you're like man, my boss isawful, then you can still learn
(30:47):
a lot and do a lot of work sothat you can have more relief
and fun.
There's not like a too latemark I hear people say that at
every age group and it's totalBS that you can do this work
really, really fast and you canget relief and you can go in
(31:09):
there and have more fun andenjoy your life.
Life is so short and if we tellourselves that we don't have
time to do this work, we're tooold to do this work, we're
missing out on a lot of reliefand fun.
My life is much better than itwas when I was in my twenties.
You know you can have a betterlife.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
For sure, yeah, I definitely agree.
It gets better when as you age,because you care less about
what people think, which isprobably, I think, the most
freeing thing about it.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Yeah, yeah Right, Isn't it?
That's a big part of why why itfeels better.
But, but also just like that,loving yourself piece and um and
learning to say no and um, allof it.
You give yourself the space tocome up with an action plan for
a strategy for life you love,and then you just do the best
(32:00):
you can to trust yourself, toadapt to all these things the
world's going to throw at you,while you keep moving towards
enjoying your experience, makingart, finding people that are
kind to love.
Those are things I likeConnections, friendships, art,
cooking.
Find the things you love andfigure out how to energize
(32:21):
yourself so you can go do them.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah, like I said, and then take that six-month
break to figure that out if youdon't already.
Yeah, yeah, thank you very muchfor being on.
I think people can learn a lotfrom this, and especially how to
navigate and learn aboutthemselves from the books you
mentioned.
So thank you very much and ifyou like this episode, be sure
to tell your friends about itand rate it as well.
And thank you again.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Yeah, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Alrighty Bye everyone , thank you.
Welcome to the Straight from the Source's Mouth
podcast.
Frank talk about sex and dating.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hello, tamara here, welcome to the show.
Today's guest is Sonnet Daymont.
She's a licensed marriage andfamily therapist and we'll be
talking about navigating toxicrelationships, complex trauma
and then red flags to look outfor.
Thanks for joining me, sonnet.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Yeah, I think this will be agood topic for my listeners.
(00:26):
Always, you know, you hearabout narcissistic and toxic
stuff quite a bit, but I don'tknow if you know just hearing
exactly what to look out for,what it is exactly.
Maybe people are in it anddon't even know, especially like
emotional abuse and stuff.
So we can start with what gotyou into it, like a quick little
(00:46):
you know, just like what causedyou to be so interested in this
.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Sure, I guess I'll just tell you when I first
started out professionally, Itook a teaching fellowship
working with young children, andit was through Pearson, which
is a book publisher, workingwith young children, and it was
through Pearson, which is a bookpublisher, and our goal there
was to obviously teach youngchildren.
(01:12):
And when I was in the classroom.
I kept feeling myself more drawnto the children who needed
extra attention and extra help,and there was one little girl in
particular that touched myheart.
And as the school year came toan end, I decided to go back
post-bachelors and get a degreein psychology so I could work
(01:32):
with people who needed help withtheir emotions more so than
their learning.
And my first job out of collegewas working in a safe house
with trafficked children and inthat capacity we created
curriculum to help themdeprogram from sex traffickers,
(01:53):
house them and kept them safe.
And as I was doing that Ilearned a lot about different
forms of abuse.
And then later after that job,I worked as a personal assistant
to a person who I think mostpeople would agree had was
somewhere on that spectrum andended up getting in trouble and
(02:14):
going to prison and all of thesethings.
So being her assistant, havingworked in those different
environments where I got accessto see the results of abuse and
help people heal, led me to wantto go back to grad school and
become a therapist.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah, I could see where that would.
I was to say was she?
So she was an abuser.
So you saw the tail.
You saw the first end of peopleon that side of it yeah, yeah.
And then it could see exactlywhy it could happen.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, yeah, and I, I've been in a weird position
where I've seen women as theabuser.
Of course men obviously, youknow, are more stereotypically
the abuser when you picture anabuser.
But I did work with a woman whowas abused.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I guess this kind of goes hand in hand with what she
did also.
But in relationships like, whatare some of the?
What would you, how would youdescribe a toxic relationship?
What are some of the thingsthat go on?
So when you?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
find yourself in something that would be called
quote unquote a toxicrelationship.
My view as a therapist would bethat the relationship hinders
the people from growing togetherand learning and enjoying life
and caring for each other, andinstead it takes them backwards.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
They're harming each other and they're feeling held
back.
Yeah, I can see that,Especially when the one person
that's being held back knowsthey want to learn or grow and
the other one isn't maybe tryingto get help or see anything.
Is that more common dynamic, Iguess?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, I would say so.
I mean a lot of times in thesedynamics of a person if you're
dealing with, like a narcissistor sociopath or someone, that's
a dark triad and they'remanipulative.
It's possible that you're goingto see that something's wrong,
that it's holding you back, it'shurting you and you're going to
want to make change and you'regoing to articulate that and try
with them and they won't evensee it or they'll feign if they
(04:06):
go into couples therapy orsomewhere with you.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, I can definitely see that I have a
friend in a situation like that.
And then you said dark triad.
What does that mean?
Is that someone that has abunch of stuff?
I'm guessing.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So the dark triad would be personality disorders
that are more likely to beabusive.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
So you would think like a malignant narcissist or a
sociopath or antisocialpersonality disorder Are some
red flags or stuff, like whenyou're first dating, like is
there something you can tellearly on to prevent you from
even going far Well?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I mean, I think when we're first dating, kind of
knowing what our individualneeds and wants are and being
really clear on that and thengoing out and having fun and
meeting people and seeing ifwe're a good fit and we're
helping each other, is like anice starting point for dating.
And when you're in thatheadspace, as opposed to wanting
(05:02):
to be liked or wanting to feellovable or just wanting anybody,
you're better able to kind ofnavigate, Like is this person
treating me with kindnessconsistently?
Am I being treated with respectconsistently and am I kind of
(05:27):
tuning into what, the way mybody feels when I'm with them
and it feels relaxed and happywhen I leave them?
Do I feel anxious or do I feelcalm?
Did I have like something thatwas relaxing and healthy and
good and energizing andempowering to be around?
And it's really kind of likepaying attention to the self.
And, um, you mentioned red flags.
Like what are actual red flagindicators that the person could
end up being abusive or unkind?
(05:48):
And you know, the main red flagI tell men and women when I
work with them in therapy towatch out for is sort of like
consistency of kindness, Like ifthe person is kind and loving
sometimes and then other timesthey are not, and you're
constantly going back and forth,back and forth, back and forth.
(06:10):
How do you know where to keepyour boundaries and how do you
know what you're dealing with?
And there's a big differencebetween someone who's going back
and forth between kindness andunkindness and a person who gets
emotionally reactive and snarlsor cries or needs something
from you that feels sort ofunkind in the moment because
(06:31):
they're having a hard timeexpressing themselves.
And that big difference is thatwhen you talk about it they are
able to attune and apologizeand then not do it again.
They work to not do it againand you see that happening.
It's not a cycle of over andover again.
Yeah, I hope that was clear.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
No, yeah for sure.
So, yeah, inconsistency and ifthey make you feel bad and or
like, but, like you said, thefirst thing, having boundaries
and knowing yourself and goingout with a mindset of trying to
find someone that fits yourworld, not just desperate to
find anyone and desperate tohave them.
Like you, because I just had anepisode where someone was
(07:16):
scammed and there's a lot ofonline scams now on the dating
sites and because there'ssomeone looking for for anyone
just want to be liked, they'remore inclined to also fall for
something like absolutely.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I feel like those dating apps are just ripe for
that, because people will go onthose apps and they'll they'll
just fill in exactly what theywant and then if you're a
predatory person looking tomanipulate people, well, they
just told you what they yeah.
Yeah, so it's a.
So it's a little ripe, right,and these are strangers on the
internet.
There's a book by Andersoncalled Love Fraud that talks a
(07:53):
lot about the risks of onlinedating because of that, and
there's another book I recommendto clients called how to Not
Die Alone, by Yuri.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
On the show his recommended books.
So I'm glad you mentioned itbecause I hadn't heard of the
first one, Love fraud.
But yeah, definitely LoganUri's is really great.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Anderson wrote another book.
This is a scary title.
It's called Senior Sociopathsand it's about research that's
showing that we used to thinkthat people that were
narcissistic a dark triad rightnarcissistic, antisocial
sociopath that they would getsofter in age, they would be
kinder.
And now there's research thatshows actually that's not true.
(08:35):
A lot of times they are stillabusive and more manipulative.
And in that book, seniorSociopaths, I think she
recommends this is a scary one.
I apologize, but if you're over55, to try to refrain from
dating online because love fraudis just so ripe.
The stats on it are really high.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
That's why I wanted to put that episode out.
It happened to her a couple ofyears ago but she and it was
very sophisticated scam, youknow, she's, like you know, very
intelligent and fell for thestuff.
So, yeah, it's a lot other butand then I guess I mean then you
would be dealing with toxicpotentially but or it's just
like someone fake altogether.
They act so nice and so fakethat, like there's kind of a
(09:18):
weird, the ones that act toonice are the ones that are
actually bad for you.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you've heard that term, love
bombing, which refers to sort ofthe overwhelm of attention and
love and kindness that can comeon in early stages of dating
someone who might end up beingmanipulative.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Do they kind of go hand in hand?
People who were victims or aresurvivors of complex trauma, I'm
guessing are more ex-spouse ormy sibling or whomever is
engaged in a toxic relationshipwith me and I feel abused and we
(10:15):
start doing CBT and EMDR anddifferent forms of therapy to
treat that.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
More often than not, when we look at the childhood,
there's absolutely somethinggoing on where there was either
bullying in school or, um, justflat out abuse and neglect with
with their family of origin yeah, I've read.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
I read a lot, so I read again.
I can't remember.
I know fufu.
I want to say on instagram shewrote a book about complex PTSD
as a survivor of abuse andneglect, and I'm not, if I can.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
I know what book you're talking about.
There's like a.
It's a blue book and there'sflowers all over the cover and
it's like about immigrationtrauma too.
I think Right.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yes, yeah, stephanie.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Fu.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Stephanie Fu yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
That was a great book and so so, yeah, that's a great
example.
If you're familiar with thatbook, what I'll often do, I mean
for the most part I see a lotof women who have gone through
divorces with, with challengingex -spouses, because I host a
divorce group for women, and Ican just tell you what we do in
(11:24):
our curriculum, since you likewe do in our curriculum, since
you like to read.
I mean, it's basically abibliotherapy process where we
sit down and we start with thisbook called Getting Past your
Breakup by Susan Elliott, and Ifirst learned about that book
when I was in grad schoolbecause a client brought it into
me and she said I read thisbook.
I did all of these essayquestions and I just want to
(11:47):
make sure I'm on the right track.
Can you look at it with me?
And it was just brilliant.
You know, it was really smartthat this woman did this, and so
the two of us went through andlooked at it, and one of the
things that book does in chaptersix is it has the reader,
whatever gender they identify,although typically I end up with
a lot of women in my office.
(12:08):
They go through and they do aseries of like 13 questions
where they dissect therelationship they were in.
And the first three questionsare the hardest and those are
because the reader journalsabout what they liked about the
relationship, what worked in therelationship, and then they
have to feel and grieve throughwhat they actually lost or
(12:30):
imagined they were losing.
And then the next 10 questionsin that first section are
basically like what are thebehaviors that you were putting
up with and what was thetriggering in your personality?
What were the ways in which youwere acting that didn't feel
like they were your real self,your grounded, happy, safe,
secure self?
And you end up with this biglist of just kind of bullet
(12:55):
points of what happened.
This is the data of whathappened in that relationship,
and what I do is I'll have womendo two more, pick two more Xs
and do the same thing with them,and then we've got all this
data for three Xs and then wesit there and we look at it and
we circle what they have incommon and then we bring in
(13:16):
another.
I think the next section isabout 12 questions or so and
it's on the people who raisedyou parents, and we do the same
thing on the parents withsimilar questions and then we
circle everything.
What do these people have incommon and I mean, it's just
100% of the time, I would say,of the people I meet where the
things that they weren't havingmet, the needs they weren't
(13:37):
having met, and justregurgitating, regurgitating,
regurgitating, and the toxicrelationship were there in the
childhood.
And it is.
And I am not a psychodynamictherapist, I'm a CBT therapist
and I just wish everything wasas easy as CBT.
You didn't have to bring thechildhood in.
But I mean, every time it'ssomething that's happening in
(13:58):
the childhood and we're justkind of trying to rework it.
So then you've got all yourdata and you can consciously
kind of look at it, it andeverything that's circled.
Those could be your red flagswhen you go out dating again.
You could say, well, if peopledo these things, if they're
moochie or um, they, um, put medown or they, you know, whatever
(14:19):
the thing is that the parentdid, that you're letting the
partners do by staying yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And now it makes me bring up one more book, which
you're probably not done, but Ijust want to get into the love
you want.
That's kind of.
They actually do this as well.
They have, but it's usuallywithin a couple and you both do
go through some things like thistogether in the book and you
write a.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, that would be a great way to do couples therapy
.
Unfortunately, I get people atthe end, but I will definitely
prep them with lots of books oneducating yourself on what a
healthy relationship is, beforeyou go back out there and date
again, and I really encouragethe pause.
Don't date right away, even ifI'll self-disclose I got
divorced at 40.
Even if I'll self-disclose, Igot divorced at 40.
(15:04):
No one wants to get divorced at40.
No one wants to get divorced at55, 65 either.
No one wants to get divorced at25.
Everyone.
I talk to is like, but at thisage even worse.
But it is really easy at any ofthose ages to say, oh no,
there's a race, there's a hurry,I need to find another partner
(15:26):
right away.
No, like that, yeah, just slowand like, really like.
Look, look at your data.
Like what happened in yourchildhood, what happened in your
other relationships and in thislast one, what can you learn
from, from auditing that andcoming up with a strategy for
your own healing so that whenyou go out and date, you are,
(15:50):
your cup is filled and you'rejust finding someone to set your
cup next to you know?
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, no, I definitely agree, Cause it
wasn't until I started doingthis podcast three years ago
that I finally took a break fromdating myself.
Like I had interviewed enoughpeople that I was like you know
what I actually need a break.
And I Like I had interviewedenough people that I was like
you know what I actually need abreak and I took I was going to
be like three months and I didsix and it just yeah, it was
like really helpful.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, people say that that six month mark is like the
golden spot.
Right, I'm trying to rememberthere was one book on this toxic
relationships.
I want to say it was JacksonMcKenzie's Psychopath Free or
Whole Again one of his books.
And someone in there talkedabout waiting six months, that
if you can just get six monthsyou'll be a lot clearer and then
(16:37):
at that point it might be safe.
But don't jump in before then.
Now it's really hard to saythat there's hard and fast rules
, because everybody's life isdifferent.
But if there was ever a hardand fast rule to try, it would
be waiting six months before youdate again, at least Even if
yeah, like dating, dating likemaybe.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Or you're saying like even go on a date for fun or
just not a serious relationshipwithin six months, or you say
dating.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I mean, yeah, I don't know.
I don't know why you would needto be going on dates.
You know, like, date yourself,date yourself, date, make good
friends and really do theinternal work to like read a
bunch of books on the type ofrelationship you were in and a
bunch of books on the type ofrelationship you want.
It is a lot easier to go outthere and date and you know what
a healthy relationship lookslike and you have kind of some
(17:35):
semblance of what you've beenthrough and what you'd like to
go through instead next time.
And then when someone presentsyou with you know, these are my
favorite places to travel, theseare my favorite foods, these
are my favorite kind of movies.
Instead of going, oh, I don'thave any, let me try yours.
You can say, oh, these are mine.
Let's share with each other andget to know each other as whole
(17:56):
people and yeah, and then ifsomeone starts trying to break
down your identity and liketelling you that things you like
are dumb and you're going to dothe things they like, you're
going to notice yeah, and that'sthe bottom line of most
relationships, or everything isjust love yourself, and which is
harder or easier said than done.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, if everyone came from self-love and had
great childhoods and or learnfrom them, and yeah, prosper and
he thrived.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
But there's some benefit to having a challenging
childhood and then growing upand reparenting yourself,
because I firmly believe thatleadership skills come from
figuring out how to do thingsyourself a little late, because
then you can articulate toothers as an adult how to do
those things when they can't, ifthat makes sense.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
No, yeah, definitely.
I mean my parents were raisedto be very resilient and
independent adult.
How to do those things whenthey can't, if that makes sense?
No, yeah, definitely, I mean I,I, my parents, were raised us
to be very resilient andindependent.
Yeah, like figured out, we wereout by 18, like they taught us
how to be adults, like that wastheir goal.
So it wasn't necessarily, asyou know, comforting and soft as
some people would, but wedefinitely, you know, became
great adults good, yeah, yeah,it would have been nice if that
(19:06):
was soft.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
And then you got out into the adult world and all the
people were soft too.
Yeah, the world is not so, no,but there are soft people.
And, um, you know that, on thathealing trajectory, one of the
things I work with people onafter we go through and audit
the past, is boundaries andfiguring out, like you know, how
(19:28):
does someone qualify to be mypartner?
How does someone qualify to bea close friend to me?
How does someone qualify to bea friend to me?
How does someone qualify to bemy acquaintance?
When do I get to say enough isenough and I don't even interact
with a person anymore?
And we really break those downand have a bit of an action plan
(19:51):
for how you know when someone'sworthy to know about your
childhood or your secrets ortouch your body or any of those
things.
Right, like people need tobuild up, uh, trusted.
You have to get to know them.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, and I was actually going to ask you like
what to look out for the otherperson, but you already said it
earlier that it's more about howyou feel and what, what you can
tell unless they're, unlessthey're, I guess, manipulative
kind of stuff to look out for,or, you know, like the ones that
, like you said, we said lovebombing earlier, but more, like
(20:30):
I don't know, the ones that aregood at hiding it until you fall
in love, Like, is there a wayto figure that out earlier than
later?
They do all the right things inthe beginning.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, I mean that's absolutely a thing, right, the
love bombing and being perfectearly on, and then you don't
really see things coming.
It comes later and you know, Ithink the best way to navigate
that is, like you said, toreally know and love yourself.
Because if someone startswhittling away at your um, your
(21:01):
favorite things, and before youknow it you're sort of putting
their life first, you are goingto see it because you're going
to be giving up your favoritethings that you loved doing with
yourself and in terms of, likegeneral overall red flags, like
if we went to, ywca is anamazing resource for women that
are involved in toxicrelationships, abusive
(21:23):
relationships.
I believe that they will seemen too, but it's a tender, more
vulnerable experience for men.
A lot of times when men gethelp, they go to a therapist.
But nonetheless, ywca will havea list of.
Some of the websites will havea list of like these are the
most common red flags.
Like this is how you knowsomeone's abusive or Planned
Parenthood will put out littleblog posts.
(21:44):
You'll see these thingsfloating around the internet all
the time Isolation, namecalling, limiting your access to
money, things like that aresuper common Kind of quote
unquote red flags.
But I, as a therapist, you knowyou've mentioned the word
complex trauma a couple times.
(22:04):
I tend to see that theserelationships can pop up with
multiple partners and I trulybelieve that the way to stop
regurgitating situations likethat is to put that time into
auditing the experiences you'vehad childhood, former dating, um
(22:27):
, like I self-disclosed in mybosses.
Figure out like what am Imissing here?
What are the perfect red flagsfor me to not even see?
And you've got them all onpaper.
And then those.
Those are the things that youwatch for with people.
You really learn about thoseAbsolutely.
If someone calls you a name ona first or second date or puts
(22:48):
you down, that's a red flag.
But someone whose parents havebeen putting them down or who's
been on the social media sincethey were 10, getting put down
because of their looks oranything you know, they might
not even notice.
They might not notice becausethey're used to getting put down
.
So how do you, how do you catcha red flag if you haven't kind?
(23:11):
of looked at everything andfigured out where your no's are
and figured out how to say no,figured out boundaries a little
bit.
You could do that in six months.
People do that in six monthsall the time.
There's a lot of books.
I've named off a bunch.
I'm sure you've named off morebooks than you have just here
with me.
There's a lot of informationout there when you're ready to
start healing and if you don'tlike to read, someone will go on
(23:33):
YouTube and read a book.
You just have to push, play andread to you.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And of course, podcasts likethis are popular.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, this is great.
This is even better than a book, right?
Because you're able to like getin there and ask me questions.
It's like asking a book aquestion.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
And I was on that note what, like?
What's the common thing forsome of your patients or what?
What have you found that works?
I know, obviously probablyself-love and working and
figuring out what those are, butis there anything?
Speaker 1 (24:06):
I really love that, that book.
I was telling you about gettingpast your breakup and doing
that audit and sort ofcommitting to the self that,
like, these are the things I'mgoing to work on giving myself.
These are the things that I washaving challenges with with
previous partners, with myparents.
I didn't get enough of.
Now how am I going to givethese things to myself?
(24:27):
And then you come up with anaction plan and you start giving
them to yourself.
You start healing, reparenting,and you can do that
simultaneously while you haveyour own children too.
It's a good example for yourchildren to see you being really
kind and loving to yourself,separate from all of that.
The actual brain chemistry ofbeing in these relationships
(24:48):
with people that are incrediblystressful to be around, right,
not emotionally safe.
Our physical body reacts whenyou're releasing adrenaline and
cortisol all the time becauseyou're walking on eggshells that
your partner is going to make adecision you don't like and you
don't think.
You have the ability to say no.
(25:09):
You're stressed and it'saffecting your stomach, it's
affecting your brain chemistry,it's affecting how you sleep,
which affects everything else.
So a big piece of healing fromthese types of dynamic is
healthy exercise and healthynutrition and sleep and just
(25:30):
caring for yourself.
So often I mean just soincredibly often people come in
to talk to me after a toxicrelationship with a former
partner or a work experience andthey are not sleeping.
They're just not sleeping andI'll be like how many hours did
you sleep this last week?
I don't know.
Maybe four hours, four hours ina week, is dangerous to your
(25:54):
health.
Um yeah, and so getting back ontrack with sleeping, exercising
, eating healthy there's noshame in going to a doctor and
getting evaluated for medicationso that you can sleep again.
When you figure that out withyour doctor a week or two later,
after you've started sleepingagain, what you want to do with
it.
But making sure you have accessto sleep is so important.
(26:17):
Making sure that you startfiguring out how to connect to
and love your body again is soimportant.
Exercise, even if it's just acouple walks around the block
looking for flowers that areyour favorite color or signs
that are your favorite color.
Whatever you see If you're in acity there might not be many
flowers.
I'm a huge fan oftrauma-informed massage.
(26:40):
Massage therapy is so healingand important and helpful,
getting back into your body andgetting strong again and you
know learning how to say no topeople touching you is so
important.
And yes, and what healthy touchis?
You learn so much fromtrauma-informed massage.
(27:02):
I think it's great.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah, I was actually going to ask is it someone that
knows it and touches you acertain way, or how is it called
trauma-informed?
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Well you, would ask the massage therapist if they
are a trauma-informed massagetherapist, and usually how that
would differ from a normalmassage is they will be more
mindful that you've experiencedtrauma, so they'll have an
awareness that they will startslower when they press on
(27:31):
muscles and that they'll askpermission and that if you
flinch or twitch they'll bepaying more attention and
they'll say are you okay withthis, are you okay with that?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
A massage, but they're more in tune to how you
are reacting.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah, I don't think there's an actual.
There may be somecertifications for that.
I've never asked a massagetherapist if that's something
they were certified before.
But I always ask if they dotrauma-informed massage and I do
refer my clients to massagetherapists that are
trauma-informed massage and I dorefer my clients to massage
therapists that aretrauma-informed.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
So if people can work with you I know you're based in
Los Angeles Can you do onlinestuff with other people and how
can they reach you and whatprograms?
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah, so I am a licensed marriage and family
therapist in California.
So if you have a diagnosis inCalifornia and you want to see
me as your therapist, I can workwith you online.
If you do not have a diagnosisand you're in another state, I
can work with you as a coach.
But if you want to treat likePTSD or CPTSD, it might get into
(28:36):
a position where you want towork with a therapist that's
licensed in your state.
Yeah, I love to work with peopleonline.
The benefit to online is thatyou feel really empowered
because you're kind of doing thebrunt of the work.
There's deficits to onlineYou're not going out into the
world and giving opportunity forfun experiences, interactions,
(29:01):
like you never know who you'regoing to meet if you stop in the
cafe on your way to therapy orwhat you're going to learn and
if you do therapy in person,especially EMDR.
I really like to do EMDR inperson because I can watch the
full body language of the personand I can kind of teach them a
little bit of how to do itthemselves online later.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
And then is there a website, or how do you, how do
you reach?
How can they work?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Oh, if, someone wanted to work with me
personally.
I would love it.
I would welcome that.
Um, my first and last name isSonnet Daymont, so it's just
sonnetdaymontcom.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
And then, um, I know you mentioned your divert
divorce program.
Is that more for um, likepeople that are already your
clients and then you kind ofwork with them as well in a
group setting, or is that?
Speaker 1 (29:45):
something you offer online.
So I have that online and whatI do is I just put little posts
on psychology today and I say,hey, do you want to do a divorce
workshop or a divorce group?
And then people will email meand they say when's your next
one?
And then I email them back andtell them.
So if you wanted to do adivorce workshop with me or a
(30:06):
divorce group, I would say, justget on my website and send me a
message or an email and I'llput you on the wait list.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
All right, well, are there any kind of closing
comments?
You want to make sure peopleunderstand about dealing with
toxic stuff?
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, I mean, I think the most important thing would
be that these relationships, youknow, can be temporary.
You don't have to keep doingthis.
Even if you wake up in your 60sor your 70s going through what
they call a gray divorce, oryou're in your 60s or your 70s
and you're like man, my boss isawful, then you can still learn
(30:47):
a lot and do a lot of work sothat you can have more relief
and fun.
There's not like a too latemark I hear people say that at
every age group and it's totalBS that you can do this work
really, really fast and you canget relief and you can go in
(31:09):
there and have more fun andenjoy your life.
Life is so short and if we tellourselves that we don't have
time to do this work, we're tooold to do this work, we're
missing out on a lot of reliefand fun.
My life is much better than itwas when I was in my twenties.
You know you can have a betterlife.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
For sure, yeah, I definitely agree.
It gets better when as you age,because you care less about
what people think, which isprobably, I think, the most
freeing thing about it.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Yeah, yeah Right, Isn't it?
That's a big part of why why itfeels better.
But, but also just like that,loving yourself piece and um and
learning to say no and um, allof it.
You give yourself the space tocome up with an action plan for
a strategy for life you love,and then you just do the best
(32:00):
you can to trust yourself, toadapt to all these things the
world's going to throw at you,while you keep moving towards
enjoying your experience, makingart, finding people that are
kind to love.
Those are things I likeConnections, friendships, art,
cooking.
Find the things you love andfigure out how to energize
(32:21):
yourself so you can go do them.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah, like I said, and then take that six-month
break to figure that out if youdon't already.
Yeah, yeah, thank you very muchfor being on.
I think people can learn a lotfrom this, and especially how to
navigate and learn aboutthemselves from the books you
mentioned.
So thank you very much and ifyou like this episode, be sure
to tell your friends about itand rate it as well.
And thank you again.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Yeah, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Alrighty Bye everyone , thank you.
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