You Are Not Crazy

Family Court Awareness Month: What Tina Swithin Said in 2022 and What the Law Says Now

In this episode I'm resharing my 2022 conversation with Tina Swithin, founder of One Mom's Battle and co-founder of Family Court Awareness Month, because so muc

He Never Hit Her: What Maid Reveals About Emotional Abuse

Every October during Domestic Violence Awareness Month I come back to Maid, and in this episode I look closely at Sean and why he is one of the most accurate portraits of

I Kept Trying to Leave a Relationship Built to Pull Me Back

In this episode, I talk about why leaving a relationship built on coercive control almost never happens the way people expect it to, in one clean break that sticks the fi

Why People With Personality Disorders Rarely See Their Own Harm

In this episode, I break down something that confuses almost everyone who has loved a person with personality pathology. We assume that if someone caused real harm, some

Will They Change?

"Will they change?" is the question I get asked more than almost any other. In this episode I give you the honest answer up front: probably not.  I walk through why real

The Cost of Being Someone Else's Nervous System

I'm sharing a pattern from my own past relationship with a partner who had borderline traits, the slow erosion of any separate identity, where a walk to pick up my d

Knowing Your Pattern Isn't the Same as Changing It, with Stefanos Sifandos

I've been listening to Stefanos Sifandos for years, long before this podcast existed. I first came across him through Mark Groves during the stretch of my life when

Why Confusion Is the Real Damage in Coercive Control

In this episode I look at why confusion, not fear, is often the clearest sign that a relationship is built on coercive control. I walk through four patterns that show up

Are They Trauma Bonded to You Too?

In this episode, I'm answering a question I get asked constantly: are they trauma bonded to me too? People ask this when the person who hurt them starts falling apar

The Lying Isn't an Accident: A Conversation with Anne Blythe from BTR.org

This week I'm joined by Anne Blythe, founder of BTR.org (Betrayal Trauma Recovery), an organization that has supported over 9,000 women navigating a partner's l

Why I Stopped Trying to Decode Them

In this episode I talk about why emotionally abusive and coercive controlling relationships feel so disorienting, and why you end up spending so much time trying to decod

Withdrawal, Not Grief: Understanding the Trauma Bond

This episode is a reframe. If you have already learned what a trauma bond is and how it forms, this is not that episode. This is about the specific pain of healing from o

Dating After Abuse: Why My Answer Is "Traumatized"

Someone recently asked if I'm dating, and my honest answer was "traumatized." In this episode I talk about why that word fits better than a simple yes or no, why a r

When Co-Parenting Isn't Safe: The Case for Parallel Parenting

I break down why parallel parenting is a communication strategy built specifically for high-conflict dynamics, not a failure of one. I talk about what it actually looks l

Why Closure Is a Myth with Najwa Zebian

Najwa Zebian returns for a second conversation, and this one picks up exactly where the first left off. Her new book, The One Who Broke You Can't Heal You, comes ou

Pattern Blindness: Why No One Believes You Until It's Too Late

In this episode I break down pattern blindness, one of the least talked about reasons survivors stay stuck in self-doubt. I explain why family court and even well-meaning

The Angry Daughter in Love

In this episode, I return to the angry daughter — but this time, I look at what happens when she tries to love someone. The survival skills that kept her intact in her fa

The Angry Daughter

In this episode, I reflect on what it actually means to be the angry daughter — the scapegoat, the truth-teller, the one who names what others refuse to see. Drawing from

Why You Keep Saying Sorry (Even When You Did Nothing Wrong)

In this episode, I'm talking about why self-blame becomes almost automatic when you've been in an emotionally abusive or coercively controlling relationship, an

You Were Never the Problem with Najwa Zebian

If you have ever walked away from a relationship, or a parent, or a childhood, and still found yourself waiting for the person who hurt you to finally acknowledge what th