June 10, 2024 • 33 mins
Dr. Wendy is talking money and why we love to see wealthy people suffer. She also just watched Baby Reindeer so we are talking codependency, loose ties that bind tight, and being stalked. It's all on KFIAM-640!
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(00:00):
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you'relistening to kf I Am six forty,
the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show on demandon the iHeartRadio app kf I Am six
forty. You have doctor Wendy Walshwith you. This is the Doctor Wendy
Walls Show. Can you tell him? Does that have my coffee? Kayla?
Seriously, you just came out ofthe gate swinging. I came out
of the gate stret I don't knowwhat it is about. Caffeine is my
(00:22):
drug. There could be worst drugsout there, I think, so.
Caffeine is the thing that just tweaksmy neuro transmitter. Whatever they're doing.
Yes, and then I get homeand I'm talking Julio's head off until midnight
because I'm still on caffeine. LuckyJulio. He's probably learning a lot.
I know. Okay, he is. He likes to listen. Actually,
(00:42):
all right, producer, Kayla,you're with us? Who do we got
in the news room? Heather Brooker? Brooker, She's the best in the
world. I love Heather's very much. How are you hello? I saw
you running. She was running tothe room because she's suck No. I
was standing up to stretch for asecond, and I was like, oh
name, I do that on theplane too. It's a good every once
in a while. Otherwise you havesit down jobs. Yes, and Raoul,
(01:03):
we have you on the board.How you doing excellent? Good,
good good. I'm just I'm pullingeveryone in because they just have a question.
Has anyone here in this room,while we're in a number of rooms
here, ever had a stalker?Yes, Gay Lizzy, Yes, anyway,
Raoul, No, come on,you look so like like a morsel
for a stalker. You do.No. I was like, where's she
(01:26):
going with this? Have you Ihave not? No, have any of
us been a stalker? There?We got a different question, you know,
social media account. I don't knowif this counts, but you know,
back when I had my anxious attachmentstyle and I was obsessed with my
on again, off again playboy,I didn't. I didn't personally stalk him,
(01:49):
but I would send out envoys inthe form of girlfriends to see who
he was with at various clubs orrestaurants, and then they would report back
that's nice. Next, that's nextlevel stock talk to me. That is
that's involving others. So I knowfrom experience that you know, it is
an anxious attachment style thing. Iwill say that. So anyway, after
(02:10):
I first want to talk about somethingelse, but we are going to talk
deep about Baby Reindeer. So Iget up this morning trying to do a
little research on Baby. I watchedthe whole series, right, but then
I heard there's a real life womanwho came out and said she's going to
sue Netflix because he said all thesethings about her that are not right.
So I watched the entire hour ofthe Pierce Morgan interview with her with my
(02:31):
morning coffee. It was so interestingbecause she's so smart, she's well spoken,
shes got like a bunch of degrees, including a law degree, and
so she has such good rationalizations foreverything. First it's like I did not
send forty three thousand emails, andthen it's like, okay, well there
were a few, just a handful, maybe twelve, and all of a
(02:53):
sudden, like you know, shecould just stick to none. I would
start to believe her, but thenit just starts to get slippery. And
I didn't write twelve letters. Iwrote one. Maybe right, anyway,
we will get to that because Iwant to break down and I know I'm
making light of this, because thetruth is somebody who stalks somebody is in
a great deal of pain. Somebodywho is being stalked is even more in
(03:15):
more pain, I'm sure. Andso I want to break down what happens
in those relationships, and not juststocker ish relationships. What about these unrequited
love, one sided relationships, situationships, friends with benefits being put in the
friend zone. There is this feelinglike you're still tied. It's like a
loot. I call them loose tiesthat bind in some way. But we'll
(03:36):
get into that. First of all, I want to tell you I had
an interesting story a conversation this weekwith a friend who is enormously wealthy.
Isn't it nice that you could havea friend like that? Actually it's a
friend, you know. This isLa And here's what I want to say
about me. I'm I'm Canadian andI was raised very middle class. My
dad was in the military, andmy mother was that kind of a welcoming,
(04:00):
open loving Catholic mother. Every Sundaydinner we'd have whoever we picked up
at church home and she never caredabout social class. So my family's friends
ran the gamut from you know,people who struggled or were farming in rural
communities to people who were high upranking in the military. And sometimes my
(04:24):
mother would be having an elegant cocktailparty with rear admirals. I didn't know
what that was. But it's notabout the rear anyway. So so I
am the same way. I havefriends across the social spectrum, across the
cultural spectrum, and I like thatabout me, and I treat everybody equally.
So I happen to have one ortwo of the hump and and be
wealthy. So it's on the phonewith one of the wealthy ones, and
(04:48):
you know, I don't suffer fromthis thing and I'm gonna explain it to
you in a minute called shot andFreud. Shot and Freud. Do you
know what that is, Kayla,No idea. It's a thing and Freud
is getting pleasure from someone else's misfortune. Oh and here in America there's a
(05:09):
cultural trend of shut and freud towatch, particularly the wealthy suffer. I
saw that with the whole uh Titanicthing where they where people went down,
the billionaire that went down and thelittle tiny capsule and didn't come back exactly.
They were like, well, that'swhat they get for spending that much.
(05:29):
I actually saw a tweet from somebodythat said, I think we should
sacrifice one billionaire every year to thesea people. These are people's although I
will say when Donald Trump had topay e Gene whatever, uh like whatever,
all the millions of dollars he's gottapay, Like, well, that's
satisfying. He's not dead or Ididn't have joy. I didn't have joy,
(05:50):
but I was kind of like,okay, okay, that's it.
It's fine, that makes sense.There were some people celebrated O. J.
Simpson's passing. Uh I forgot ogSimpson died. I'm like, oh
J. Simpson's dead. Yeah.Well, when I went to see Tina
Fay and Amy Poehler, they weredoing you know, they did the SNL,
(06:12):
a mock up of the SNL news. They used to read the news
together on I guess, so theywere doing all this funny takes on the
news and it was all bad orwhatever. And then Tita Fay goes and
in good news, oh J.Simpson died today, and the place just
cracked up and cheered yikes. Yeah, okay, but think about films.
Do you remember the movie Parasite wherethe poor people who were the servants lived
(06:35):
like in the basement and it wasa wealthy Korean family. You didn't see
that won the Academy Award. Oh, I gotta check that out. It
was really good. Parasite. Orthe menu where rich people were on the
menu. Okay, So I washaving conversation with my wealthy friend and she
was talking about her money problems.Now as I listened to her cash flow
and money problems, I would dieto have those same problems. By the
(06:57):
way, the only difference I realizedbetween her money problems and mine were the
number of zeros at the end.The amount of stress was the same,
the emotional pain was the same.So my little advice before I get into
Baby Reindeer is if you suffer fromshut and freud, stop it, because
guess what, nobody gets out alive. Nobody gets out without emotional pain and
(07:21):
money does not buy happiness. Right, So we need to not rejoice in
anybody else's downfall just so that wecan feel better about our lives. Why
don't we look around our own livesa little bit and feel some gratitude for
the things that are wonderful, allright, when we come back. Yeah,
I watched the seven episodes of BabyReindeer. I tried to analyze them
(07:44):
with my own little brain and triedto figure out what was true and what
wasn't and who was really at faultand who was the stalker? Was it
him or was it her? Let'stalk about you weren't looking confused at me,
Kayla. I didn't watch it,but you're making me really want to
like, oh no, I didn'tknow that many questions marks. I thought
it was clearly really yeah, it'sgood, it's Good's there's a there's a
psychological flip in there. And thenI started watching him the actor, writer,
(08:07):
director, whatever on the Today Show. Later, I'm like, oh,
maybe he was a stalker. OhI bet you had a field day
with this show, because then yougot addiction in there. You have got
like sexual sexual assault in there,love, addiction, mental health issues,
personality disorders. Yeah, let's talkabout it when we come back. You
are listening to the Doctor Wendy WallsShow on KFI AM six forty. We
(08:28):
are live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on
demand. From KFI AM six forty. KFI AM six forty. You have
doctor Wendy Walsh with you this heis the Doctor Wendy Walsh show. Okay,
so I sat through it seven episodes. They call it a thriller.
(08:50):
I don't know. Baby Reindeer isa thriller. Thriller more like psychologically fascinating
because Netflix begins the series with afull screen that says this is a true
story. It does not say thisis based on a true story, or
this is based on some real events. Say this is a true story.
(09:13):
I know. So all I cansay is they must have so much evidence
to be able to say that.So if you don't know what I'm talking
about, Baby Reindeer is Netflix's sevenepisode thriller, as they call it,
and it has now reached the topten of TV shows in ninety two countries,
including places like Saudi Arabia, Yeah, and other Middle Eastern countries where
(09:37):
they're very conservative. Yep, arethese people American? The maybe Reindeer a
people? He wait, he's English, He's English, and she's Scottish a
stock arm. It has become anunexpected hit and it has very intense themes
for the I would say, thefirst time that I'm aware of in a
(09:58):
big popular show, we see maleon male rape done in a very graphic
way. We see female stalker ofa man. Usually the stalkers are the
men stalking the women. Right.It literally has become this year's most talked
about TV show, and for it'sjust fallen off its pedestal at number one
(10:18):
in the US barely so it wasthe most watched show for an entire month,
which is a big thing. Right. So here's what it's about.
It's a mini series. It centerson this main character whose name and the
thing is Donnie Dunn, and he'sa bartender at a small little pub in
London, and he's also a strugglingcomedian who is not a good comedian.
(10:39):
And I will say I saw himon the Today Show and Hoda said,
what's the meanest thing people say toyou in public? And he goes,
oh, all the time. Theysay, hey, I went back into
looked at some of your YouTube videosof your early comedy and Martha was right,
you were really bad. So hemeets a woman who's a customer who
(11:01):
comes into this bar and he feelssorry for he's a well of compassion she
doesn't have any money, but shesays she's a lawyer. So he buys
her a cup of tea or something. He pays for it. And in
the series, if you quote thewoman who says the character is based on
her, she said she never gotanything for free there, but okay,
and she starts coming in daily.Somehow she gets his email. Somehow she
(11:26):
starts facebooking him, Somehow she getseverything, and apparently by the end of
it, she sent forty three thousandemails. They're very some of them sexually
aggressive. But here's the thing,despite the fact that he's being constantly harassed,
he maintains this codependent relationship with her. At the beginning, he tries
(11:50):
the stuff that many people try.Instead of being mean to her and hurting
her feelings, I'll just slowly weanher off. I'll just give there are
a few little breadcrumbs till she goesaway. You are shaking your head,
Kayla, because you know that doesn'twork, right. That's what I try
with my stalker. It does notwork. Know what breadcrumbs do? Make
them follow you? Make them followyou exactly. So this character, Donnie
(12:13):
Dunn, is played by an actornamed Richard Gadd, who actually wrote the
show, because it's all based onhis own real life experience. So the
actor in the show is the guy, and the woman is the one that's
suing Netflix. Then she's a privatecitizen and she's suing Netflix, but there's
an actress playing her. I understandthat it has an uncanny resemblance, but
(12:33):
the guy is playing the guy whois the real guys playing himself. Got
it exactly. I think we havesome sound here. In fact, he's
the writer and star, Richard Gadd, and he told hot Acopy on the
Today Show that creating the series itactually began as a bunch of live shows,
was an act of healing for him. It was almost a personal therapy.
(12:54):
And at first I did these shows. I couldn't say that in a
festival. And I got a greatdeal of healing from floring, from writing
stuff down, from putting out onthe stage for people to feed back to.
It led to such a huge catharsisand a huge self acceptance that I
just kept doing it. And youknow, I've been through these huge,
two huge traumatic things in my life. I did two live shows that when
Netflix came to me and said,hey, do you want to make this
(13:15):
into a TV show. I thought, well, maybe that leads to a
bigger Catharsis on an even bigger scale. But there's another side of this story.
There's that woman I mentioned, claimingthat she is being unfairly portrayed and
that she's the real life Martha.Her name is Fiona Harvey. She says
she's suing Netflix for calling this atrue story. In fact, she told
(13:37):
Pierce Morgan that at many points thisrelationship was the other way around, that
Richard Dad was into her. Byhis own admission, he has said that
he led you on at times,and he gave in the brushaw fiasked me
to sleep with him, with abig green sport in his face one day.
(13:58):
I said, no, I'm sorry, I'm not interesting. He asked
he asked me to sleep with him? He said, would I like my
curtains fixed? And I laughed andhe said that's a euphemism. You want
me to come home with you?And I said, I've got a boyfriend.
I gave him the brush off bigwell, big time. I think
you know it's subtly, subtly so, But the bottom line is I think
(14:18):
this is behind him. No,I don't fan see him. I don't
fancy little boys without jobs. Ohno, you don't have a job.
But he was a bartender and hegave he gave her free tea, according
to she said she didn't get afree tea. Anyway. What's interesting to
me about the media that she's doingis she keeps claiming she's suing Netflix,
(14:43):
but she has no attorney sitting withher on any of these sets. And
when they say have you hired attorney, she said, well, I'm considering
a few. I haven't decided yet. Now, if she was really suing,
she would have an attorney to say, shut up, don't go on
TV, let's just see. Andthen you know, it was things like
how could anybody ever forty three thousandemails? I mean I wrote a few
handful. How much is a handful? He says like, I don't know,
(15:05):
twelve maybe? So anyway, itkeeps changing. So question, is
this a codependent relationship? Well,let's explore whether it hits the criteria for
a codependent relationship. A codependent relationshipis when each person involved is either mentally,
emotionally, or physically reliant on eachother. It can exist between romantic
(15:26):
partners, but also family members andeven close friends. You know. The
term actually came about way back inthe nineteen fifties with alcoholics anonymous, when
a psychologist in New York came upwith this idea because he was seeing that
people who were suffering from addiction oftenwere intertwined in the world of somebody who
(15:48):
was supporting them and propping them up. Right now, I do want to
say codependency isn't a clinical diagnosis.It's not a formally categorized personality disorder.
But what it is is somebody whodoesn't have a strong sense of self and
may have a personality disorder and alsohas extreme attachment to anxiety. You put
this together and you get a perfectstorm of longing and wanting. When we
(16:15):
come back, I'm gonna explain whatcauses it, and then I want to
talk about the kinds of relationships thatyou and I might have been in in
our lives that are kind of alittle bit codependent. You're listening to the
Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AMsix forty We Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio
app. You're listening to Doctor WendyWalsh on demand from KFI AM six forty
(16:38):
KFI AM six forty. You havedoctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is
the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. We'retalking about codependent relationships. You know,
one time I was in a dinera cafe in Santa Monica and there was
a couple sitting in the booth behindme. I could not see them because
they were behind me. I don'thave eyes in the back of my head.
But they were bickering, and thebickering lasted for a solid hour until
(17:00):
I finally left. But what wasinteresting is nobody gave up and they were
just egging on each other. AndI thought to myself, why do they
stay in this relationship? There's noresolution, it's not going anywhere. And
I thought, they're codependent, Likethey're emotionally dependent on each other and they're
attached through conflict. So research suggeststhat having a codependan relationship is partly biological,
(17:30):
partly psychological, and there are socialpieces to it. Right. So,
biologically, some researchers think that youknow, the front part of our
brain, the prefrontal cortex, itmight fail to suppress empathetic responses. Here's
the thing. We are supposed tohave empathy. We are supposed to really
(17:52):
care for other people. However,we're also supposed to do it not at
a detriment to ourselves. We aresupposed at boundaries. So you know,
you can't be a doormat. Youcan't be somebody who gives and gives and
gives to depletion. But this isa big piece of the codependent relationship is
that somebody just overgives. Right.Also, it's psychological. If somebody had
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a childhood where they were a victimof neglect or abuse, and they have
an insecure attachment style, they're goingto latch onto somebody with even the slightest
little hint that they're liked, andthey can't get rid of it. And
also social right, sometimes I willsay, I'm not saying I was a
stalker. Okay, let's be veryclear about this, but I did send
(18:37):
two girlfriends one time into a restaurantto spy on a guy I had a
crush on. Does that make mea stalker? Just saying however, he
was of a higher social status inmy mind, and I socially thought he
would be perfect for me, Andthat was all my imaginations. When your
girlfriends went there to the restaurant,to go spy on him. Was he
there with another woman? Did theyfind anything yet? Here's the worst part
(19:00):
is before cell phones, So wewere just we had beepers and I kept
beeping them saying when are you comingout? Whatever? And then he left
the girlfriend and started flirting with myfriends and sat with their table, and
so they stayed. They thought theywere doing due diligence and getting more information.
But I was sitting out in thecar the baseball cap on slunk low
at my seat for like an hourand a half. I hope they're no
(19:23):
longer your friends, doctor Wendy,because that is not good friendship. They
had one job, okay, Iknow they were visiting from Canada. They
had a good time. I madetheir vacation nice. They got to treat
it well, got flirted with byyour guy exactly, all right. So
I mentioned that sometimes there are relationshipsthat we may be in in our lives
that are kind of one sided.They're not full on codependent. They're not
(19:48):
Stockerish for sure, but they're looseties that bind it tightly. Example,
I cannot tell you how many womenwrite to me because they're in a quote
unquote situationship. They say to themselves. You know what, I'll just keep
it light and fun and sexy.I won't put pressure on him to commit,
(20:10):
and as a result, he willturn around one day and say,
hey, you are the fun girland you are nice, let's get married.
Does that happen? No? Ever, never, never. I could
switch the genders too. They arereally nice guys who go after girls who
are out of their league. Sothey think I am going to fix her
car, I'm going to bring herbreakfast, I'm going to do everything for
(20:33):
her, and she is going touse all his kindness and never turn around
and go, you know what,I'm going to marry you. Not gonna
happen, right, So these situationshipscan usually leave one person feeling at a
loss unrequited love. Now, evolutionarypsychologists would say that it is healthy for
(20:56):
us to keep backup mates. Thisis great if you're not the backup mate.
Right. So, what a backupmate is is this person in our
orbit, whether it's a work friend, whether it's someone you know socially.
It might even be somebody you knowonline that you send the little flirty messages
(21:17):
to every once in a while,but being careful not to cross the line.
Right, But in the back ofyour mind, you're thinking, you
know, if something ever happens tomy relationship, what would I do?
Oh, I got two or threeother people I could rely on. And
evolutionary psychologists say that if you dohave these backup mates, backup mates with
boundaries, it's actually good for yourmental health. Unfortunately, if you're the
(21:41):
backup mate and you're sitting there waitingwith unrequited love, that is not a
happy place to be in. Nowhere's the reason they bind so hard.
We touched on this earlier, Kaylawhen we talked about breadcrumbing. So humans
don't like to be mean to eachother. Humans don't like to be firm.
Some people do. There are somepeople who, mostly people who have
(22:03):
a secure attachment style and a lotof self esteem, they're able to have
firm boundaries, and they meet somebodywho likes them more than they like and
they sit the person down and go, I'm sorry, this is not happening
for me. I think you're agreat person and it's never gonna happen.
And then they back that up withbehavior. But what the rest of us
do, or the old Wendy usedto do, is you know, maybe
(22:26):
I'm kind of busy this week.Well, that leaves the door open to
next week, doesn't it. Orwell, I'm seeing somebody right now.
Oh, so you're not just seeingthem right now. When I hear somebody
say, I've heard guys say this, well, i've got a girlfriend right
now, right now? What Imean, addies, like next week,
(22:47):
I might having an opening for you. Yeah, it's sort of like leaving
the door open. Those are breadcrumbs, right. If you want to
have a firm boundary, you needto clearly say to the person it's not
happening. I need you to hearme. And then you can't keep in
touch with them. You can't bein their orbit, you can't be responding
(23:07):
to their dms. Even if you'remaking longer periods of time go between your
texts or your emails or whatever itmay be, you think, well,
i'll stretch out the time, ormy text will be a one word text.
Cool, whatever. This does notmake the person go away. I'm
mean a healthy person, Yes,healthy person goes. Oh, they're not
(23:27):
into me, I'm leaving. Infact, one time, when I was
looking for my Julio, I didn'tknow he existed yet, and I was
on the dating apps and I washaving a few dates. There was a
guy who was a very high statusguy. He was just a little bit
younger than me, and he wasa little bit taller than me, and
he was real good looking, andso you know, we had a little
(23:48):
bit of back and forth on thedating app with the messages, and then
he was taking longer and longer toreply and writing less. And I didn't
get upset. I said, oh, out of my league. This guy's
got twenty women in the thing.I'm not going to try moving on.
I love monitoring growth in real time. It's like old old Wendy would have
send her girlfriends. I would havesat him a sexy photograph of me,
(24:11):
Come on better now. I wasjust like, nope, he's too busy.
Good. I want someone who literallyand Julio's first text to me was
Wendy, all in caps with fourexclamation marks, where have you been?
I matched with you three times andyou never even And it was the energy
that I was like, Okay,that's what I want. Someone who just
(24:32):
focuses. Okay, so you don'tbread crumb. The other reason why some
of these loose ties where people gethooked and you can't get them off you.
They're cling on is because of somethingcalled the random interval reward system.
What that means, It's like howa Vegas slot machine is. Every once
in a while you give them justenough hope, like a slot machine,
(24:52):
paying off and giving them a littlebit that it keeps them sticking harder random
interval you give them a ten inrandom intervals of time, and the reward
also varies. So the reward mightbe a text one time. Another time
you run into them somewhere and youjust want to be nice, so you
buy them a drink. There's abig reward, right, And then another
(25:15):
time it might be you know,you just say, oh, we're going
out with a bunch of friends toa movie you can join right, and
then think, oh, I'm ona date with this person. Right.
So that's what happens, is whenyou're trying to wean someone off bread crumbing
them away, you accidentally fall intoa random interval reward system. And Las
Vegas knows this is the way toget humans addicted to a slot machine,
(25:40):
a craps table, blackjack table,and the boyfriend or a girlfriend as it
may be. All right, let'sget serious now, Well, We've been
serious, but I want to getreally serious. If you are currently being
stalked, if you currently have someonein your life who is obsessed with you,
(26:00):
I want to tell you exactly whatyou should do when we come back.
You are listening to the Doctor WendyWaalsh Show on KFI AM six forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh
on demand from KFI AM six forty. I Am six forty. You have
Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. Thisis the Dr Wendy Walls Show. I
(26:22):
would like to welcome my TikTok viewers. How are you. I'm just letting
you know that after this segment,I'm going to be taking telephone calls live.
If you've got relationship questions, you'llbe able to call in. I
will give the number out at theend of this segment. But if you
want to listen to the whole showand the callers, you're going to have
to download the iHeart Radio apps.You can hear both sides of it.
(26:45):
But welcome TikTok. All right,we've been talking about baby Reindeer. What
a phenomenon it is. We've beentalking about who's talk who where? Actually
he was leading her on in manyways. He was breadcrumbing her. He
was trying to be nice bye,supposedly buying her drinks, by being saying
kind things to her, by flirtingwith her every once in a while.
(27:06):
And this tends to make somebody whohas an obsession more obsessed. So what
should you do if you are beingstalked by somebody? First and foremost,
you need to keep your safety inmind. Your safety should be come above
all. Now, one stalker isnot all stalkers, right. Some are
(27:32):
never violent, They're never going tobe violent. Others might be violent very
very quickly, all right, Butyou don't get to assess that. You
have to assume that they're always dangerous, which means you should report each incident
of stalking to your local law enforcementagency. I should tell you I have
(27:52):
been in the media for decades,we'll just say decades, and I was
a local news anchor, I wasa report I hosted extra, I hosted
Doctor Phil's show The Doctors. Andbecause I'm a psychology professor, I tend
to attract followers and viewers, someof whom may have some mental health issues
(28:14):
because they're looking to try to healthemselves. So there have been times over
the years where people have become somewhatobsessed with me, not necessarily romantically,
but just you know, too manyemails, too much personal stuff, no
boundaries, right. I have hadto report certain people to law enforcement,
and in one case, as somebodyat the LAPD was able to determine who
(28:40):
this years ago, who this personwas, and whether they were a threat,
they have a thing called threat assessment. The important thing is, even
if they haven't threatened violence or turnedup your house, et cetera, you
need to start documenting. You needto show that you've reported it. Now,
if you do say anything to thisperson who has an obsession with you,
(29:03):
you need to be firm and clear, no innuendos, no, you
know, just sort of leading themon in some way. If you're not
firm and clear, then it isgoing to basically their brain is not working
well and so it's going to makethem think that they should continue. You
might want to consider getting a protectiveorder if it's possible. But even if
(29:27):
they haven't gone to that stage wherethey're physically showing up at your workplace or
your a place, of home.They're just sending you a million emails.
You need to start logging all thebehaviors, the dates of when you saw
them, the times and places whereit all occurred, a detailed description of
their behavior, and retain all therecords of the communications. The wonderful world
(29:51):
about Gmail is it is our memories, and it keeps us forever and ever
and ever. So keep all theemails, keep the texts, keep the
phone calls, and also keep criticalphone numbers near for you to call,
whether it's law enforcement. Also,I mean, I hate to say this,
but depending on if your soccer hasshown up your house in the past,
(30:14):
keep some necessities for you to runout the door, cell phone,
whatever, keep it. I remembera horrific story when I was a news
anchor. I covered a story ofa local rapist who his fun was in
the weeks prior to the rape tojust follow the victim around to get to
know all her patterns. And heparticularly liked to find ooh this so terrible
(30:38):
single mums at the grocery store becausehe knew that nobody would fight back if
there was a child in the house, and he would break into the house
during the day while the person wasat work and even do things like see
which steps were creaky or not andfigure out his entrance and his extra It
was discovered that he had been inthe houses of his victims at least four
(30:59):
or five times before he actually showedup in the middle of the night to
rape them. So I mean,I don't want to get scared about it
all, but have some necessities incase you need to run. Here's what
you for sure. Oh. Ialso just want to add this. If
your stalker is a former intimate partner, and if that intimate partner back when
(31:21):
when things were going great, purchasedyour cell phone for you, uh huh,
guess what they might be able touse GPS to find out where you
are. So find out about technologyto keep yourself safe. Here's what you
should not do. I want youto listen to me. It is very
important do not ever respond to them. Let me explain. What stalkers want
(31:45):
is contact with you. They wantto be acknowledged. They want to be
heard. Now, just like achild that wants attention. If they can't
get positive attention, they'll take negativeattention because it's still attention from you.
And so what they'll do is intheir contact, whether it's text or emails,
they will send a whole bunch oflies. And what you'll want to
(32:07):
do is clarify that's not true.That's just our natural instinct is to clarify
all the delusions. But it's notlike they're going to go, oh,
I'm sorry, you're right, Ihad it wrong. They're just going to
be thrilled that you responded. Soyou must never ever respond. Secondly,
don't blame yourself. It's not yourfault. You didn't lead them on.
(32:30):
Stalkers are going to impose their willon any aspect of your particular life,
and they hope that if they canmake you feel bad because of your empathy
for them, then they will win. All right. They don't have shame
or embarrassment, and you shouldn't haveto to. None of this is your
fault. And the other big thingof what not to do is do not
(32:52):
keep it a secret. Tell somebody, tell somebody that there's somebody out there.
Okay, very very important. Allright. When we come back,
I am going to be answering yourrelationship questions. Remember I'm not a therapist.
I'm a psychology professor. But I'vewritten three books on relationships and I'm
obsessed with the science of love.The number is one eight hundred five two
(33:14):
zero one five three four. That'sone eight hundred five two zero one.
KFI producer Kayla is going out tomonitor the phone lines now. She's going
to be opening them in just aminute, so give me a call.
You're listening to the Doctor Wendy WallsShow on KFI AM six forty. We're
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Waalsh,
you can always hear us live onKFI AM six forty from seven to nine
(33:37):
pm on Sunday and anytime on demandon the iHeartRadio app.
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you'relistening to kf I Am six forty,
the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show on demandon the iHeartRadio app kf I Am six
forty. You have doctor Wendy Walshwith you. This is the Doctor Wendy
Walls Show. Can you tell him? Does that have my coffee? Kayla?
Seriously, you just came out ofthe gate swinging. I came out
of the gate stret I don't knowwhat it is about. Caffeine is my
(00:22):
drug. There could be worst drugsout there, I think, so.
Caffeine is the thing that just tweaksmy neuro transmitter. Whatever they're doing.
Yes, and then I get homeand I'm talking Julio's head off until midnight
because I'm still on caffeine. LuckyJulio. He's probably learning a lot.
I know. Okay, he is. He likes to listen. Actually,
(00:42):
all right, producer, Kayla,you're with us? Who do we got
in the news room? Heather Brooker? Brooker, She's the best in the
world. I love Heather's very much. How are you hello? I saw
you running. She was running tothe room because she's suck No. I
was standing up to stretch for asecond, and I was like, oh
name, I do that on theplane too. It's a good every once
in a while. Otherwise you havesit down jobs. Yes, and Raoul,
(01:03):
we have you on the board.How you doing excellent? Good,
good good. I'm just I'm pullingeveryone in because they just have a question.
Has anyone here in this room,while we're in a number of rooms
here, ever had a stalker?Yes, Gay Lizzy, Yes, anyway,
Raoul, No, come on,you look so like like a morsel
for a stalker. You do.No. I was like, where's she
(01:26):
going with this? Have you Ihave not? No, have any of
us been a stalker? There?We got a different question, you know,
social media account. I don't knowif this counts, but you know,
back when I had my anxious attachmentstyle and I was obsessed with my
on again, off again playboy,I didn't. I didn't personally stalk him,
(01:49):
but I would send out envoys inthe form of girlfriends to see who
he was with at various clubs orrestaurants, and then they would report back
that's nice. Next, that's nextlevel stock talk to me. That is
that's involving others. So I knowfrom experience that you know, it is
an anxious attachment style thing. Iwill say that. So anyway, after
(02:10):
I first want to talk about somethingelse, but we are going to talk
deep about Baby Reindeer. So Iget up this morning trying to do a
little research on Baby. I watchedthe whole series, right, but then
I heard there's a real life womanwho came out and said she's going to
sue Netflix because he said all thesethings about her that are not right.
So I watched the entire hour ofthe Pierce Morgan interview with her with my
(02:31):
morning coffee. It was so interestingbecause she's so smart, she's well spoken,
shes got like a bunch of degrees, including a law degree, and
so she has such good rationalizations foreverything. First it's like I did not
send forty three thousand emails, andthen it's like, okay, well there
were a few, just a handful, maybe twelve, and all of a
(02:53):
sudden, like you know, shecould just stick to none. I would
start to believe her, but thenit just starts to get slippery. And
I didn't write twelve letters. Iwrote one. Maybe right, anyway,
we will get to that because Iwant to break down and I know I'm
making light of this, because thetruth is somebody who stalks somebody is in
a great deal of pain. Somebodywho is being stalked is even more in
(03:15):
more pain, I'm sure. Andso I want to break down what happens
in those relationships, and not juststocker ish relationships. What about these unrequited
love, one sided relationships, situationships, friends with benefits being put in the
friend zone. There is this feelinglike you're still tied. It's like a
loot. I call them loose tiesthat bind in some way. But we'll
(03:36):
get into that. First of all, I want to tell you I had
an interesting story a conversation this weekwith a friend who is enormously wealthy.
Isn't it nice that you could havea friend like that? Actually it's a
friend, you know. This isLa And here's what I want to say
about me. I'm I'm Canadian andI was raised very middle class. My
dad was in the military, andmy mother was that kind of a welcoming,
(04:00):
open loving Catholic mother. Every Sundaydinner we'd have whoever we picked up
at church home and she never caredabout social class. So my family's friends
ran the gamut from you know,people who struggled or were farming in rural
communities to people who were high upranking in the military. And sometimes my
(04:24):
mother would be having an elegant cocktailparty with rear admirals. I didn't know
what that was. But it's notabout the rear anyway. So so I
am the same way. I havefriends across the social spectrum, across the
cultural spectrum, and I like thatabout me, and I treat everybody equally.
So I happen to have one ortwo of the hump and and be
wealthy. So it's on the phonewith one of the wealthy ones, and
(04:48):
you know, I don't suffer fromthis thing and I'm gonna explain it to
you in a minute called shot andFreud. Shot and Freud. Do you
know what that is, Kayla,No idea. It's a thing and Freud
is getting pleasure from someone else's misfortune. Oh and here in America there's a
(05:09):
cultural trend of shut and freud towatch, particularly the wealthy suffer. I
saw that with the whole uh Titanicthing where they where people went down,
the billionaire that went down and thelittle tiny capsule and didn't come back exactly.
They were like, well, that'swhat they get for spending that much.
(05:29):
I actually saw a tweet from somebodythat said, I think we should
sacrifice one billionaire every year to thesea people. These are people's although I
will say when Donald Trump had topay e Gene whatever, uh like whatever,
all the millions of dollars he's gottapay, Like, well, that's
satisfying. He's not dead or Ididn't have joy. I didn't have joy,
(05:50):
but I was kind of like,okay, okay, that's it.
It's fine, that makes sense.There were some people celebrated O. J.
Simpson's passing. Uh I forgot ogSimpson died. I'm like, oh
J. Simpson's dead. Yeah.Well, when I went to see Tina
Fay and Amy Poehler, they weredoing you know, they did the SNL,
(06:12):
a mock up of the SNL news. They used to read the news
together on I guess, so theywere doing all this funny takes on the
news and it was all bad orwhatever. And then Tita Fay goes and
in good news, oh J.Simpson died today, and the place just
cracked up and cheered yikes. Yeah, okay, but think about films.
Do you remember the movie Parasite wherethe poor people who were the servants lived
(06:35):
like in the basement and it wasa wealthy Korean family. You didn't see
that won the Academy Award. Oh, I gotta check that out. It
was really good. Parasite. Orthe menu where rich people were on the
menu. Okay, So I washaving conversation with my wealthy friend and she
was talking about her money problems.Now as I listened to her cash flow
and money problems, I would dieto have those same problems. By the
(06:57):
way, the only difference I realizedbetween her money problems and mine were the
number of zeros at the end.The amount of stress was the same,
the emotional pain was the same.So my little advice before I get into
Baby Reindeer is if you suffer fromshut and freud, stop it, because
guess what, nobody gets out alive. Nobody gets out without emotional pain and
(07:21):
money does not buy happiness. Right, So we need to not rejoice in
anybody else's downfall just so that wecan feel better about our lives. Why
don't we look around our own livesa little bit and feel some gratitude for
the things that are wonderful, allright, when we come back. Yeah,
I watched the seven episodes of BabyReindeer. I tried to analyze them
(07:44):
with my own little brain and triedto figure out what was true and what
wasn't and who was really at faultand who was the stalker? Was it
him or was it her? Let'stalk about you weren't looking confused at me,
Kayla. I didn't watch it,but you're making me really want to
like, oh no, I didn'tknow that many questions marks. I thought
it was clearly really yeah, it'sgood, it's Good's there's a there's a
psychological flip in there. And thenI started watching him the actor, writer,
(08:07):
director, whatever on the Today Show. Later, I'm like, oh,
maybe he was a stalker. OhI bet you had a field day
with this show, because then yougot addiction in there. You have got
like sexual sexual assault in there,love, addiction, mental health issues,
personality disorders. Yeah, let's talkabout it when we come back. You
are listening to the Doctor Wendy WallsShow on KFI AM six forty. We
(08:28):
are live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on
demand. From KFI AM six forty. KFI AM six forty. You have
doctor Wendy Walsh with you this heis the Doctor Wendy Walsh show. Okay,
so I sat through it seven episodes. They call it a thriller.
(08:50):
I don't know. Baby Reindeer isa thriller. Thriller more like psychologically fascinating
because Netflix begins the series with afull screen that says this is a true
story. It does not say thisis based on a true story, or
this is based on some real events. Say this is a true story.
(09:13):
I know. So all I cansay is they must have so much evidence
to be able to say that.So if you don't know what I'm talking
about, Baby Reindeer is Netflix's sevenepisode thriller, as they call it,
and it has now reached the topten of TV shows in ninety two countries,
including places like Saudi Arabia, Yeah, and other Middle Eastern countries where
(09:37):
they're very conservative. Yep, arethese people American? The maybe Reindeer a
people? He wait, he's English, He's English, and she's Scottish a
stock arm. It has become anunexpected hit and it has very intense themes
for the I would say, thefirst time that I'm aware of in a
(09:58):
big popular show, we see maleon male rape done in a very graphic
way. We see female stalker ofa man. Usually the stalkers are the
men stalking the women. Right.It literally has become this year's most talked
about TV show, and for it'sjust fallen off its pedestal at number one
(10:18):
in the US barely so it wasthe most watched show for an entire month,
which is a big thing. Right. So here's what it's about.
It's a mini series. It centerson this main character whose name and the
thing is Donnie Dunn, and he'sa bartender at a small little pub in
London, and he's also a strugglingcomedian who is not a good comedian.
(10:39):
And I will say I saw himon the Today Show and Hoda said,
what's the meanest thing people say toyou in public? And he goes,
oh, all the time. Theysay, hey, I went back into
looked at some of your YouTube videosof your early comedy and Martha was right,
you were really bad. So hemeets a woman who's a customer who
(11:01):
comes into this bar and he feelssorry for he's a well of compassion she
doesn't have any money, but shesays she's a lawyer. So he buys
her a cup of tea or something. He pays for it. And in
the series, if you quote thewoman who says the character is based on
her, she said she never gotanything for free there, but okay,
and she starts coming in daily.Somehow she gets his email. Somehow she
(11:26):
starts facebooking him, Somehow she getseverything, and apparently by the end of
it, she sent forty three thousandemails. They're very some of them sexually
aggressive. But here's the thing,despite the fact that he's being constantly harassed,
he maintains this codependent relationship with her. At the beginning, he tries
(11:50):
the stuff that many people try.Instead of being mean to her and hurting
her feelings, I'll just slowly weanher off. I'll just give there are
a few little breadcrumbs till she goesaway. You are shaking your head,
Kayla, because you know that doesn'twork, right. That's what I try
with my stalker. It does notwork. Know what breadcrumbs do? Make
them follow you? Make them followyou exactly. So this character, Donnie
(12:13):
Dunn, is played by an actornamed Richard Gadd, who actually wrote the
show, because it's all based onhis own real life experience. So the
actor in the show is the guy, and the woman is the one that's
suing Netflix. Then she's a privatecitizen and she's suing Netflix, but there's
an actress playing her. I understandthat it has an uncanny resemblance, but
(12:33):
the guy is playing the guy whois the real guys playing himself. Got
it exactly. I think we havesome sound here. In fact, he's
the writer and star, Richard Gadd, and he told hot Acopy on the
Today Show that creating the series itactually began as a bunch of live shows,
was an act of healing for him. It was almost a personal therapy.
(12:54):
And at first I did these shows. I couldn't say that in a
festival. And I got a greatdeal of healing from floring, from writing
stuff down, from putting out onthe stage for people to feed back to.
It led to such a huge catharsisand a huge self acceptance that I
just kept doing it. And youknow, I've been through these huge,
two huge traumatic things in my life. I did two live shows that when
Netflix came to me and said,hey, do you want to make this
(13:15):
into a TV show. I thought, well, maybe that leads to a
bigger Catharsis on an even bigger scale. But there's another side of this story.
There's that woman I mentioned, claimingthat she is being unfairly portrayed and
that she's the real life Martha.Her name is Fiona Harvey. She says
she's suing Netflix for calling this atrue story. In fact, she told
(13:37):
Pierce Morgan that at many points thisrelationship was the other way around, that
Richard Dad was into her. Byhis own admission, he has said that
he led you on at times,and he gave in the brushaw fiasked me
to sleep with him, with abig green sport in his face one day.
(13:58):
I said, no, I'm sorry, I'm not interesting. He asked
he asked me to sleep with him? He said, would I like my
curtains fixed? And I laughed andhe said that's a euphemism. You want
me to come home with you?And I said, I've got a boyfriend.
I gave him the brush off bigwell, big time. I think
you know it's subtly, subtly so, But the bottom line is I think
(14:18):
this is behind him. No,I don't fan see him. I don't
fancy little boys without jobs. Ohno, you don't have a job.
But he was a bartender and hegave he gave her free tea, according
to she said she didn't get afree tea. Anyway. What's interesting to
me about the media that she's doingis she keeps claiming she's suing Netflix,
(14:43):
but she has no attorney sitting withher on any of these sets. And
when they say have you hired attorney, she said, well, I'm considering
a few. I haven't decided yet. Now, if she was really suing,
she would have an attorney to say, shut up, don't go on
TV, let's just see. Andthen you know, it was things like
how could anybody ever forty three thousandemails? I mean I wrote a few
handful. How much is a handful? He says like, I don't know,
(15:05):
twelve maybe? So anyway, itkeeps changing. So question, is
this a codependent relationship? Well,let's explore whether it hits the criteria for
a codependent relationship. A codependent relationshipis when each person involved is either mentally,
emotionally, or physically reliant on eachother. It can exist between romantic
(15:26):
partners, but also family members andeven close friends. You know. The
term actually came about way back inthe nineteen fifties with alcoholics anonymous, when
a psychologist in New York came upwith this idea because he was seeing that
people who were suffering from addiction oftenwere intertwined in the world of somebody who
(15:48):
was supporting them and propping them up. Right now, I do want to
say codependency isn't a clinical diagnosis.It's not a formally categorized personality disorder.
But what it is is somebody whodoesn't have a strong sense of self and
may have a personality disorder and alsohas extreme attachment to anxiety. You put
this together and you get a perfectstorm of longing and wanting. When we
(16:15):
come back, I'm gonna explain whatcauses it, and then I want to
talk about the kinds of relationships thatyou and I might have been in in
our lives that are kind of alittle bit codependent. You're listening to the
Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AMsix forty We Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio
app. You're listening to Doctor WendyWalsh on demand from KFI AM six forty
(16:38):
KFI AM six forty. You havedoctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is
the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. We'retalking about codependent relationships. You know,
one time I was in a dinera cafe in Santa Monica and there was
a couple sitting in the booth behindme. I could not see them because
they were behind me. I don'thave eyes in the back of my head.
But they were bickering, and thebickering lasted for a solid hour until
(17:00):
I finally left. But what wasinteresting is nobody gave up and they were
just egging on each other. AndI thought to myself, why do they
stay in this relationship? There's noresolution, it's not going anywhere. And
I thought, they're codependent, Likethey're emotionally dependent on each other and they're
attached through conflict. So research suggeststhat having a codependan relationship is partly biological,
(17:30):
partly psychological, and there are socialpieces to it. Right. So,
biologically, some researchers think that youknow, the front part of our
brain, the prefrontal cortex, itmight fail to suppress empathetic responses. Here's
the thing. We are supposed tohave empathy. We are supposed to really
(17:52):
care for other people. However,we're also supposed to do it not at
a detriment to ourselves. We aresupposed at boundaries. So you know,
you can't be a doormat. Youcan't be somebody who gives and gives and
gives to depletion. But this isa big piece of the codependent relationship is
that somebody just overgives. Right.Also, it's psychological. If somebody had
(18:17):
a childhood where they were a victimof neglect or abuse, and they have
an insecure attachment style, they're goingto latch onto somebody with even the slightest
little hint that they're liked, andthey can't get rid of it. And
also social right, sometimes I willsay, I'm not saying I was a
stalker. Okay, let's be veryclear about this, but I did send
(18:37):
two girlfriends one time into a restaurantto spy on a guy I had a
crush on. Does that make mea stalker? Just saying however, he
was of a higher social status inmy mind, and I socially thought he
would be perfect for me, Andthat was all my imaginations. When your
girlfriends went there to the restaurant,to go spy on him. Was he
there with another woman? Did theyfind anything yet? Here's the worst part
(19:00):
is before cell phones, So wewere just we had beepers and I kept
beeping them saying when are you comingout? Whatever? And then he left
the girlfriend and started flirting with myfriends and sat with their table, and
so they stayed. They thought theywere doing due diligence and getting more information.
But I was sitting out in thecar the baseball cap on slunk low
at my seat for like an hourand a half. I hope they're no
(19:23):
longer your friends, doctor Wendy,because that is not good friendship. They
had one job, okay, Iknow they were visiting from Canada. They
had a good time. I madetheir vacation nice. They got to treat
it well, got flirted with byyour guy exactly, all right. So
I mentioned that sometimes there are relationshipsthat we may be in in our lives
that are kind of one sided.They're not full on codependent. They're not
(19:48):
Stockerish for sure, but they're looseties that bind it tightly. Example,
I cannot tell you how many womenwrite to me because they're in a quote
unquote situationship. They say to themselves. You know what, I'll just keep
it light and fun and sexy.I won't put pressure on him to commit,
(20:10):
and as a result, he willturn around one day and say,
hey, you are the fun girland you are nice, let's get married.
Does that happen? No? Ever, never, never. I could
switch the genders too. They arereally nice guys who go after girls who
are out of their league. Sothey think I am going to fix her
car, I'm going to bring herbreakfast, I'm going to do everything for
(20:33):
her, and she is going touse all his kindness and never turn around
and go, you know what,I'm going to marry you. Not gonna
happen, right, So these situationshipscan usually leave one person feeling at a
loss unrequited love. Now, evolutionarypsychologists would say that it is healthy for
(20:56):
us to keep backup mates. Thisis great if you're not the backup mate.
Right. So, what a backupmate is is this person in our
orbit, whether it's a work friend, whether it's someone you know socially.
It might even be somebody you knowonline that you send the little flirty messages
(21:17):
to every once in a while,but being careful not to cross the line.
Right, But in the back ofyour mind, you're thinking, you
know, if something ever happens tomy relationship, what would I do?
Oh, I got two or threeother people I could rely on. And
evolutionary psychologists say that if you dohave these backup mates, backup mates with
boundaries, it's actually good for yourmental health. Unfortunately, if you're the
(21:41):
backup mate and you're sitting there waitingwith unrequited love, that is not a
happy place to be in. Nowhere's the reason they bind so hard.
We touched on this earlier, Kaylawhen we talked about breadcrumbing. So humans
don't like to be mean to eachother. Humans don't like to be firm.
Some people do. There are somepeople who, mostly people who have
(22:03):
a secure attachment style and a lotof self esteem, they're able to have
firm boundaries, and they meet somebodywho likes them more than they like and
they sit the person down and go, I'm sorry, this is not happening
for me. I think you're agreat person and it's never gonna happen.
And then they back that up withbehavior. But what the rest of us
do, or the old Wendy usedto do, is you know, maybe
(22:26):
I'm kind of busy this week.Well, that leaves the door open to
next week, doesn't it. Orwell, I'm seeing somebody right now.
Oh, so you're not just seeingthem right now. When I hear somebody
say, I've heard guys say this, well, i've got a girlfriend right
now, right now? What Imean, addies, like next week,
(22:47):
I might having an opening for you. Yeah, it's sort of like leaving
the door open. Those are breadcrumbs, right. If you want to
have a firm boundary, you needto clearly say to the person it's not
happening. I need you to hearme. And then you can't keep in
touch with them. You can't bein their orbit, you can't be responding
(23:07):
to their dms. Even if you'remaking longer periods of time go between your
texts or your emails or whatever itmay be, you think, well,
i'll stretch out the time, ormy text will be a one word text.
Cool, whatever. This does notmake the person go away. I'm
mean a healthy person, Yes,healthy person goes. Oh, they're not
(23:27):
into me, I'm leaving. Infact, one time, when I was
looking for my Julio, I didn'tknow he existed yet, and I was
on the dating apps and I washaving a few dates. There was a
guy who was a very high statusguy. He was just a little bit
younger than me, and he wasa little bit taller than me, and
he was real good looking, andso you know, we had a little
(23:48):
bit of back and forth on thedating app with the messages, and then
he was taking longer and longer toreply and writing less. And I didn't
get upset. I said, oh, out of my league. This guy's
got twenty women in the thing.I'm not going to try moving on.
I love monitoring growth in real time. It's like old old Wendy would have
send her girlfriends. I would havesat him a sexy photograph of me,
(24:11):
Come on better now. I wasjust like, nope, he's too busy.
Good. I want someone who literallyand Julio's first text to me was
Wendy, all in caps with fourexclamation marks, where have you been?
I matched with you three times andyou never even And it was the energy
that I was like, Okay,that's what I want. Someone who just
(24:32):
focuses. Okay, so you don'tbread crumb. The other reason why some
of these loose ties where people gethooked and you can't get them off you.
They're cling on is because of somethingcalled the random interval reward system.
What that means, It's like howa Vegas slot machine is. Every once
in a while you give them justenough hope, like a slot machine,
(24:52):
paying off and giving them a littlebit that it keeps them sticking harder random
interval you give them a ten inrandom intervals of time, and the reward
also varies. So the reward mightbe a text one time. Another time
you run into them somewhere and youjust want to be nice, so you
buy them a drink. There's abig reward, right, And then another
(25:15):
time it might be you know,you just say, oh, we're going
out with a bunch of friends toa movie you can join right, and
then think, oh, I'm ona date with this person. Right.
So that's what happens, is whenyou're trying to wean someone off bread crumbing
them away, you accidentally fall intoa random interval reward system. And Las
Vegas knows this is the way toget humans addicted to a slot machine,
(25:40):
a craps table, blackjack table,and the boyfriend or a girlfriend as it
may be. All right, let'sget serious now, Well, We've been
serious, but I want to getreally serious. If you are currently being
stalked, if you currently have someonein your life who is obsessed with you,
(26:00):
I want to tell you exactly whatyou should do when we come back.
You are listening to the Doctor WendyWaalsh Show on KFI AM six forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh
on demand from KFI AM six forty. I Am six forty. You have
Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. Thisis the Dr Wendy Walls Show. I
(26:22):
would like to welcome my TikTok viewers. How are you. I'm just letting
you know that after this segment,I'm going to be taking telephone calls live.
If you've got relationship questions, you'llbe able to call in. I
will give the number out at theend of this segment. But if you
want to listen to the whole showand the callers, you're going to have
to download the iHeart Radio apps.You can hear both sides of it.
(26:45):
But welcome TikTok. All right,we've been talking about baby Reindeer. What
a phenomenon it is. We've beentalking about who's talk who where? Actually
he was leading her on in manyways. He was breadcrumbing her. He
was trying to be nice bye,supposedly buying her drinks, by being saying
kind things to her, by flirtingwith her every once in a while.
(27:06):
And this tends to make somebody whohas an obsession more obsessed. So what
should you do if you are beingstalked by somebody? First and foremost,
you need to keep your safety inmind. Your safety should be come above
all. Now, one stalker isnot all stalkers, right. Some are
(27:32):
never violent, They're never going tobe violent. Others might be violent very
very quickly, all right, Butyou don't get to assess that. You
have to assume that they're always dangerous, which means you should report each incident
of stalking to your local law enforcementagency. I should tell you I have
(27:52):
been in the media for decades,we'll just say decades, and I was
a local news anchor, I wasa report I hosted extra, I hosted
Doctor Phil's show The Doctors. Andbecause I'm a psychology professor, I tend
to attract followers and viewers, someof whom may have some mental health issues
(28:14):
because they're looking to try to healthemselves. So there have been times over
the years where people have become somewhatobsessed with me, not necessarily romantically,
but just you know, too manyemails, too much personal stuff, no
boundaries, right. I have hadto report certain people to law enforcement,
and in one case, as somebodyat the LAPD was able to determine who
(28:40):
this years ago, who this personwas, and whether they were a threat,
they have a thing called threat assessment. The important thing is, even
if they haven't threatened violence or turnedup your house, et cetera, you
need to start documenting. You needto show that you've reported it. Now,
if you do say anything to thisperson who has an obsession with you,
(29:03):
you need to be firm and clear, no innuendos, no, you
know, just sort of leading themon in some way. If you're not
firm and clear, then it isgoing to basically their brain is not working
well and so it's going to makethem think that they should continue. You
might want to consider getting a protectiveorder if it's possible. But even if
(29:27):
they haven't gone to that stage wherethey're physically showing up at your workplace or
your a place, of home.They're just sending you a million emails.
You need to start logging all thebehaviors, the dates of when you saw
them, the times and places whereit all occurred, a detailed description of
their behavior, and retain all therecords of the communications. The wonderful world
(29:51):
about Gmail is it is our memories, and it keeps us forever and ever
and ever. So keep all theemails, keep the texts, keep the
phone calls, and also keep criticalphone numbers near for you to call,
whether it's law enforcement. Also,I mean, I hate to say this,
but depending on if your soccer hasshown up your house in the past,
(30:14):
keep some necessities for you to runout the door, cell phone,
whatever, keep it. I remembera horrific story when I was a news
anchor. I covered a story ofa local rapist who his fun was in
the weeks prior to the rape tojust follow the victim around to get to
know all her patterns. And heparticularly liked to find ooh this so terrible
(30:38):
single mums at the grocery store becausehe knew that nobody would fight back if
there was a child in the house, and he would break into the house
during the day while the person wasat work and even do things like see
which steps were creaky or not andfigure out his entrance and his extra It
was discovered that he had been inthe houses of his victims at least four
(30:59):
or five times before he actually showedup in the middle of the night to
rape them. So I mean,I don't want to get scared about it
all, but have some necessities incase you need to run. Here's what
you for sure. Oh. Ialso just want to add this. If
your stalker is a former intimate partner, and if that intimate partner back when
(31:21):
when things were going great, purchasedyour cell phone for you, uh huh,
guess what they might be able touse GPS to find out where you
are. So find out about technologyto keep yourself safe. Here's what you
should not do. I want youto listen to me. It is very
important do not ever respond to them. Let me explain. What stalkers want
(31:45):
is contact with you. They wantto be acknowledged. They want to be
heard. Now, just like achild that wants attention. If they can't
get positive attention, they'll take negativeattention because it's still attention from you.
And so what they'll do is intheir contact, whether it's text or emails,
they will send a whole bunch oflies. And what you'll want to
(32:07):
do is clarify that's not true.That's just our natural instinct is to clarify
all the delusions. But it's notlike they're going to go, oh,
I'm sorry, you're right, Ihad it wrong. They're just going to
be thrilled that you responded. Soyou must never ever respond. Secondly,
don't blame yourself. It's not yourfault. You didn't lead them on.
(32:30):
Stalkers are going to impose their willon any aspect of your particular life,
and they hope that if they canmake you feel bad because of your empathy
for them, then they will win. All right. They don't have shame
or embarrassment, and you shouldn't haveto to. None of this is your
fault. And the other big thingof what not to do is do not
(32:52):
keep it a secret. Tell somebody, tell somebody that there's somebody out there.
Okay, very very important. Allright. When we come back,
I am going to be answering yourrelationship questions. Remember I'm not a therapist.
I'm a psychology professor. But I'vewritten three books on relationships and I'm
obsessed with the science of love.The number is one eight hundred five two
(33:14):
zero one five three four. That'sone eight hundred five two zero one.
KFI producer Kayla is going out tomonitor the phone lines now. She's going
to be opening them in just aminute, so give me a call.
You're listening to the Doctor Wendy WallsShow on KFI AM six forty. We're
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Waalsh,
you can always hear us live onKFI AM six forty from seven to nine
(33:37):
pm on Sunday and anytime on demandon the iHeartRadio app.
Dr. Wendy Walsh on Demand News
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