Transcript

Kris Godinez  00:02

Hello and welcome to We Need To Talk with Kris Godinez podcast. I’m your host Kris Godinez, licensed professional counselor. I help people get out of, and stay out of, toxic relationships. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only the views and opinions stated herein are mine and mine alone. They do not represent the ACA, the APA or any other therapist for that matter.

I want to thank my sponsor betterhelp.com. They are an online therapy company. Whether you are in the US or international. They will set you up with a qualified licensed therapist. Ph.D. level or Master’s level. If you are interested in more information, go to betterhelp.com/krisgodinez.

Kris Godinez  00:27

Okay, so let’s see, what are we talking about today? We’ve got so much to talk about so hold on, just wanna. Okay, Shahida’s book, Love, love, love, love, get Shahida’s book. She’s awesome. She’s got suggestions for journaling in here and I love this and it’s called “The Highly Sensitive Persons Guide To Dealing With Toxic People”. Shahida Arabi. She’s amazing. And when I get back out on the road, and I can get to New York, I am going to see if I can see her and give her a big hug and tell her how awesome she is because she’s awesome and I like her. Also, Suzanna Quintana “You’re Still That Girl” Suzannaquintana.com she’s amazeballs! I love her book! She’s awesome! Hopefully again, she’s having a hard time getting the vaccine so but once she gets vaccinated she and I can start talking about oh let’s do a seminar that would be fun. That would be great. And of course my books are available on Krisgodinez.com or you can get them on amazon.com so this is “What’s Wrong With Your Dad?” and “You Can Lead A Horse To Water, But You Can’t Make ‘em Chacha!” So those are those books. I also do the audible for those I read them because I don’t like some of the readers so I do it myself. Alright, so there’s that oh alright guys, so this is a big topic today. So, we have got, um, we’ve got gaslighting, lying pathological lying and rewriting history so wow! Why do they do that? Well, abusers need to control so the first time they lie and we’re not even aware of it is when they meet us. And it is the love bombing phase. And oh, you like pizza? I like pizza. Oh, you like ice cream? I like ice cream. You like to ice skate? I like to ice skate! You like moose? I like moose! So, it’s just like princess Ana and Hans from Frozen. So, he just lied through his teeth. And if you like this, I like it! When in truth he could care less. So, that’s the first time they lie to us. And we don’t even realize it because they’re love bombing. Love bombing, love bombing, love bombing, love bombing, love bombing. And they’re, you know, making us think that they are just like us, you know, like, Oh my gosh, we’re so similar. We’re soulmates. We’re twin flames, whatever their you know, happy horse. doodoo is, that’s what they tell us. Right?

Kris Godinez  03:13

So that’s the first time they lie to us. Then as the discard, the devaluation and the discard starts happening, you’re gonna start catching them in little white lies. Actually, not white lies, you’re gonna catch them in lies, okay, that’s why I titled this. If their lips are moving, they’re lying. So um, they’re gonna start lying about anything and everything, even things they don’t need to lie about. They’re going to start lying. So why? Why? All right. Well, let’s talk about lying for a second Shall we? So, one of the things that abusers do is they say, “Oh, well, everybody lies.” Okay, well, yeah, everybody does white lies, like you’re not going to be brutally honest. And tell somebody that you know, they don’t look good in those jeans, you’re gonna say the other ones look better, you know, you’re not gonna be mean about it. So those are called White Lies, okay. But what abusers engage in are detrimental lies, harmful lies that, that promote themselves, that aggrandized themselves or that serves some sort of purpose for them, and it usually is to the detriment of others, okay. They also lie by omission. So, they think that just leaving things out, so for example, they’re having an affair, and they get an STD and they don’t tell their partner about it. That’s lying by omission. That’s kind of important, you know, so they lie by omission. They, they lie to aggrandize themselves, they lie to get whatever it is that they are looking for. So Alright, so let’s talk about lying. So pathological lying is a compulsive need to lie and that’s what these people do. So, it’s like, literally they can’t they don’t stop themselves. They could stop themselves. They don’t want to and pathological lying has never been in the DSM five because nobody could agree on what constitutes pathological lying! However, there is more emphasis being put on that, which I think is important I was just reading an article on Psychology Today I can’t remember who the writer was but he was basically saying, you know, we’ve known about this since the beginning of psychology since the beginning of this field. For 130 years we’ve known that there are pathological liars that there are compulsive liars and you know, we need to take a look at this and here’s here’s my definition of it, it was perfect because it was like, you know, it ultimately ends up harming them, it’ll and ends up harming everybody else. It’s for aggrandizement, it’s for this it’s for that lying is a key component of several personality disorders. Isn’t that interesting? So lying is a key component of antisocial personality disorder that’s because the rules do not apply to them and so they lie and they believe their lie and they think if they tell their lie enough everyone else will believe it and it will somehow magically become true it’s also a component of narcissistic personality disorder it can be a component of borderline personality disorder when they have slid further down the road and they are into that witch category so remember there’s like the quiet, then the hermit, then the the Queen who’s the control freak and then there’s the witch who’s just sadistic so when they’ve slid again kind of like dark triad into that end of it Yes, lying becomes a component of it. So, the pathological lying they’re looking at developing a separate thing for it because it is a separate thing that’s just and the funny thing of it is is the researchers discovered that they, the people who engaged in compulsive or pathological lying, did so when they didn’t need to, they just did it just to see if they could get away with it. So that’s antisocial. That’s, that’s really you’re getting into psychopathy at that point. So, they just did it to see if they could get away with it and it was a power thing and it was a it was kind of one of those you know how when the narcissist pulls a fast one and you can just you can see them when they’re when they’re thinking about it or when they’re doing it because it’s kind of like

Kris Godinez  07:11

“I just pulled a fast one on you!  I’m so smart. I’m so this I’m so that..” it’s like, oh my God. So yeah, so it’s a power thing for them. It’s a control thing for them. It’s a “How much can I get away with?” thing, it’s an adrenaline rush. That was the other thing that was in this study on psychology today. And if you want to look this stuff up, type in pathological lying Psychology Today, all of these articles will pop up on it. So, I did pull a couple of them. But, um, but it’s ah it’s an adrenaline rush. And one of them tried to say it was an addiction, and they just couldn’t help themselves. But yet, they were able to stop when it suited their purposes. So, like when they were being examined, or when they were being in a situation where they couldn’t get away with a lie. They were able to stop themselves. So obviously, they could stop it. They don’t they don’t want to. And and this goes back to the question, the perennial, eternal question that I always get, can they get better? No, but no, with a side no, and extra helping them no! Kim Saeed just posted this wonderful blog, you know, with a bunch of data on it, go check out her website, Kim Sayeed it’s S.A.E.E.D. Kim Saeed. And it was all about how in the history of ever no one has ever recovered from narcissism. There is no known cases of somebody who has recovered from this because they don’t want to, I talked about this couple of weeks ago, but she posted a really great article on this and listed some some studies and things like that. So, um, they don’t want to change. They could if they wanted to stop it, they don’t want to. It’s really, it’s how many, like how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb one, but this light bulb has to really want to change, you know, I mean, it’s the same thing. They don’t want to change, they don’t want to get better. So, the pathological lying is for their own aggrandizement. And they do it because it’s an adrenaline hit, you know, it’s like, “Oh, I could get away with this!” All I did was look at that, you know, that rule, that kind of thing. So um, they lie and they lie to create cognitive dissonance. So, this is where we now are sliding into the gas lighting. So, gas lighting lying, kind of the same thing. Gas lighting is very specific, though. So, like, they just lie about pathological lying. They just lie about everything. And in the article I have on let me see understanding compulsive liars. Let me get over there. Robert Reich, MD of New York City, a psychiatrist and an expert in psycho pathology, says compulsive lying has no official diagnosis instead, intentional dissemination and simulation, not the kind associated with dementia or brain injury. So, like, say, for example, somebody’s got a brain injury and they can’t tell the truth because they don’t remember the truth because they’ve got a brain Brain Injury that’s different, dementia. They’re in a different world they’re going into the past they can’t remember the present they can’t remember the short term memory, that kind of thing. Those are very different things is associated with a range of diagnosis is such as antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, when it comes to compulsive liars, says Charles Ford, a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Alabama, Birmingham word seem to flow out of their mouth without them thinking about it. Ford, the author of “Lies, Lies, Lies! The Psychology of Deceit” says that pathological liars may slide easily from the notion that something could have happened to the conviction that it did, when pressed, many will admit that they what they are saying is not true. So, what is going on here is they are creating their own reality; that’s magic thinking. So, if I say something often enough, I’m gonna believe it, you’re gonna believe it, but yet they know, they know that it’s not true. Interesting, isn’t it? So, what they use this for is gas lighting. So, gas lighting is when the abuser comes in and does something unforgivable and horrible says something unforgivable and horrible and then says, ”You mistook! You didn’t hear me right! That’s not what I said. I said this!” when that is totally not what they said. So, they will either do that that’s called gaslighting. Okay, and so what is gaslighting? Where did this term come from? So, the term gaslighting comes from a play that was done in the 1930s. And it was made into a movie with Ingrid Bergman. And she played an heiress and she had some sort of jewels or wealth inheritance. And this really bad guy married her for this inheritance and so he would keep searching the house and every time he searched the house, the gas lights would dim and do other things because he was using the gas on the upper stories to try to search the attic and the walls and things like that knocking on the walls and things like that. And so when she mentioned something he would you know, “No, there’s nothing… What are you talking about? There’s no change in the lights. You’re crazy!” How many of us have been called crazy by an abuser? Whoa, that’s gaslighting. So, that’s, that’s gaslighting and the whole movie was all about that. And the beautiful thing is spoiler alert if you haven’t seen it, don’t listen to this next part. Put your fingers in your ear. The good thing is the bad guy gets it in the end. So that, that makes me very happy. But anyway, in the movie, she thought she was losing her mind because you know, she loved this guy. And she thought he was great. And here’s this person that she loved and she cared for and trusted, lying to her about the gas, you know, the level of lights in the room and she really thought she was losing her mind and thankfully, good guys came in and made sure that that didn’t happen so I love deus ex machina stuff it makes me very happy. So um, anyway, the point being is that gas lighters do it with the intention of altering the targets reality and they know they’re doing it. They know they’re doing it just like I said earlier. So they come in they Gaslight “No, this happened. No, this happened. It didn’t happen the way you remember. You’re mistaken. Your mistake. Okay.

Kris Godinez  13:12

Yeah, you heard me wrong. Oh, you misunderstood.” As soon as somebody says I’ve misunderstood something. I know. I know immediately that they’ve been lying. Because here’s the deal. People don’t usually misunderstand something grand. Does that make sense? You can have little misunderstandings like, Oh, wait, I heard you wrong. But if you’ve got witnesses, or you know what they said, and they’re trying to say You’re crazy. Oh, you’re crazy. You misunderstood me. That’s not what I said. Oh, Houston, huge red flag. huge red flag, because that’s their stock and trade is as soon as you called them on something. Oh, you misunderstood what I said. That’s not what I said. I said this, you must have misunderstood me. Except that in one conversation, they said the exact same thing three times. Hmm. misunderstanding. I don’t think so. I think y’all are lying. Whoa, there you go. So yeah, so that’s what they do. They try to march in with the gaslighting rewriting of history that is called rewriting history. So you have a conversation with somebody, and they lie. They say the same thing three times. And okay, are you sure this is the way it’s going to be? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Uh huh. And then when you call them out, because you checked with somebody else, and they go, Oh, you misunderstood. That’s not what I said. You misunderstood. You’re crazy. You’re, you need help, you need. Does any of this sound familiar? Because it sure as hell sounds familiar to me. So yeah, so this is what they do. So they’re gaslighting. They’re lying intentionally, to distort your reality to distort your sense of self to distort your sense of reality, so that you buy into their reality. And if you resist in any way, shape, or form that’s when the insults start. That’s Oh, you’re crazy. You’re this. You’re that you, you, you, you, you, you, you guns that’s another really good indication you’re dealing with an abuser. So, it creates cognitive dissonance. So here, here’s, here’s reality. Here’s what we know. They come in gaslight, gaslight, gaslight, gaslight… and because we love them, we believe them, you know, and we start second guessing ourselves, we stop listening to our gut. Big mistake, because that’s what they want. They don’t want you to listen to your gut. They want you to listen to them. So let me read this on gaslighting. This is also from psychology today. Let me see who this is by this is by Robin Stern Ph. D. Let me get down to where I wanted to go there it is. Okay, how to know if you’re being gas lit. If any of the following warning signs ring true. You may be dancing the Gaslight Tango dancing with the devil as I like to say take care of yourself by taking another look at your relationship talking to a trusted friend and or trauma therapist. I threw that in, and begin to think about changing the dynamic of your relationship. And this goes for let me be very clear, this goes for romantic relationships. This goes for family relationships. How often do the abusers in a family when the kid figures it out? Go? Yeah, I see the pink elephant taking a dump in the corner of the living room. And then parent will slap them No you don’t. You don’t there’s nothing there our family’s 100% normal. That’s gaslighting! That is gaslighting! When the kid knows there’s something wrong. The father or the mom slaps him and says no, you don’t see anything wrong. This is normal. Every family does that. Oh, that is gaslighting that’s lying. It’s gaslighting. It’s rewriting history. And it’s forcing that kid into believing that dysfunctional family dynamic. So okay, so it goes for it goes for employers. You’ll never find another job. Nobody else is going to hire you. I’m the only one that would hire you. Wow, how similar to no one else is going to love you. You’ll never find another partner. Whoo that sounds real familiar and real similar doesn’t. It sure does. So this goes for bosses, families, friends, siblings, romantic partners. Any of these, if any of these people are saying this that is your clue to get the hell out. Like seriously because they’re showing you who they are and you should believe them the first time seriously like don’t get me started because yeah, okay. Okay, let’s get back to the gaslighting hang on half a tick Okay, so if any of these sound really familiar, you are constantly second guessing yourself Oh, Did that really happen to Did that happen the way I thought maybe I maybe I misstook maybe I am wrong. Oh god. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Kris Godinez  17:47

You trust your gut. Oh, Andrea, Thank you my love. You trust your gut you trust your gut because they want you to start second guessing healthy normal people don’t need to second guess I mean we second guess in that we go Am I doing the right thing? Okay, let me let me really take a look at this do a pro and con list make sure I’m doing the right thing. Okay, yeah, I am doing the right thing. Or Oh, wait, the pro and the con list turned out differently than I thought maybe I do need to do something different. But there’s not this influence. Literally the devil whispering in your ear going? You’re wrong. You’re wrong. You’re wrong. You’re wrong. I’m right. I’m right. Yeah, this is crazy and crazy thing crazy making makes us crazy. So, second guessing, not being able to trust your gut. Most Healthy People are able to have certainty. Certainty. They take away our certainty because they can’t start they start everything that they loved us for everything they love bombed us for in the discard phase suddenly became becomes everything that’s heinous. Oh, well, you’re too this. You’re too sensitive up. You’re too emotional. I swear to God, you hear those words you run. Don’t walk to the nearest exit, you run you get the hell away from that person. Because there is no such thing as too sensitive. There is no such thing as too emotional. Everyone has a right to their perception. Everyone has a right to their emotions and for this person to march in and go, let me tell you what you need to be feeling. Oh, oh, Mother clucker. No. Run. Do not walk to the nearest exit. Absolutely. Okay, hold on. Continuing on. So sorry. got sidetracked. Oh, you ask yourself, Am I too sensitive a dozen times a day because they keep telling us we are too sensitive. You often feel confused and even crazy. I cannot tell you the number of times that people come in. Well, I used to actually see people in person before COVID sit on my couch and go I’m crazy. I feel crazy. I feel crazy. And then we start talking and I’m like, Huh, you are not the problem. Let’s talk you know, and we figure it out. It’s that there’s this gaslighting going on there’s this pathological lying going on. So okay, hold on. Let me go back. Um, you’re always apologizing to your abuser. Always apologizing always. And I hate this because if you read my book I think I talked about I said sorry for everything. I was always appol…I’d run into a mannequin and I apologize to the damn mannequin because I was like, Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I ran into you. Okay, it’s a mannequin. All right, oops. You know, I mean, we are trained to take responsibility because they won’t, for everything, and we end up apologizing all the time. I used to do that. And what kills me is when I see kids that are in the middle of a high conflict, divorce, constantly apologizing to the abuser, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. And it’s it’s as if the abuser has trained. The targets of abuse and the kids to be sorry for even existed. That makes me very angry. Because these people have no right to have children. If that’s the game, they’re going to play, and they do and so that’s why it is so important that if you find your child apologizing, apologize, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for this. I’m sorry for that. Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry. Get them into a therapist. Make sure when you do your divorce decree, it’s in there that you have say on a therapist and that the children get therapy because believe you me, they’re gonna need it. If you have not read this book splitting by Bill Eddie and Randy Kreger get it because the kids are gonna need therapy. Alright, so apologizing for everything. Um, you can’t understand why with so many apparently good things in your life. You aren’t happy? Do you feel like you are walking on eggshells? Another book by Randy Krieger. By the way? Stop walking on eggshells.

Kris Godinez  21:47

Are you walking on eggshells? Are you constantly waiting for the next shoe to drop? You know, are you unable to stay in the moment because the abuser won’t let you? Because the abuser is either living in future happiness all the time? “Well, when we do this, we’ll be happy! When we do that we’ll be happier!”  Or you know, you you you you use stuff or ruining the current moment. That’s a common theme with them. You know, how dare you have fun? How dare you feel? How dare you love when I can’t? That’s their, their thing, too. So, what they do is they start an argument they do whatever. So are you not able to enjoy what you have in the here and the now? And if so, you want to take a look at why. And it probably has to do with an abuser. So there is that? Okay. You frequently make excuses for your partner’s behavior to friends and family. And if the friends and family do not accept those excuses, unfortunately, when we’re in the middle of being in one of those relationships, we tend to run back to the abuser and tell them well, Aunt Martha suggested that this that and the other thing because we desperately want to hear from the abuser, that they’re not the abuser. You’re going to a well that is not only dry, it’s salted and it’s poisoned. Stop, stop, you’re not going to get comfort from them. What they will then do is insist that you give up Aunt Martha that’s what they do they erase, family and friends as soon as the lies are starting to be seen. can’t have that. Let’s get rid of everybody who sees it. Oh, no, you can’t I don’t like Aunt Martha. And Martha doesn’t like me, I don’t like her, you can’t be around her. That’s called isolation. So that’s a part of the gaslighting techniques they start making you think that the people that love you the most are in fact the problem when in fact, the problem is the abuser. And that’s gaslighting. So again, they, they flip everything on its head, they take this aunt that you’ve loved forever, or this parent or the sibling or this friend that you’ve loved forever and start convincing you that they’re evil, bad and wrong, just because they see them for what they are. And they convince us to isolate ourselves. Oh, I didn’t. You didn’t. You isolated yourself. You stopped talking to them? Well, yeah, because you basically said I couldn’t go see him. You see where I’m going with that. So that is that is that is the goal of gaslighting, that is the goal of rewriting history. That is the goal of an abuser is to manipulate and control and this is all about manipulation and control. Okay. You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express it, not even to yourself. So, and that’s why I did a couple of videos about denial is deadly. Denial is deadly. We know something’s wrong, but we’re not even willing to admit it to ourselves when we’re in the middle of it, you know, and we don’t want to investigate it just like we, we don’t want to believe that they’re the bad guy. So that’s when we’re in the middle of it. That’s when we’re in the thick of the abuse. That’s when we’re in the whole abuse clock. We’re probably just coming out of the love bombing phase, we’re probably somewhere in the devalue and discard phase, and we just don’t want to believe it. We don’t want to believe what we don’t want to believe that this wonderful person is not in fact, this wonderful person. Hang on, let’s go back to this. Okay. Ah, this is the worst one. So the abusers want us to be them. They want us to validate what they are doing. So, they tell their target of abuse, everybody lies, well, everybody lies, you should lie too, everybody lies, it’s no big deal. Everybody lies, then the target of abuse starts lying. For two reasons. One, they want to please the abuser so they start lying because the abuser told them to lie. or two, they start lying to avoid punishment from the abuser so they don’t tell the truth. Because they know if they told the abuser the truth that they would get in trouble. And there would be a screaming match, and they’d never sleep and the abuser would keep them up at night, etc, etc, etc, etc. So, the abuser’s goal is to destroy anything good in the target. Seriously, that’s, they want us dead. When I say they want us dead, I’m not kidding you. They either want us to commit suicide, or they want to kill us themselves, or they want to commit soul murder, meaning they take away the moral compass of who we are. And it is replaced with their ability to lie and lie easily, but lies just flow off their tongues, and they want us to do the same thing. So that’s a soul death because your moral compass is now compromised. So that is common in abusers. Um, all right.

Kris Godinez  26:31

Okay, there’s that one. Okay. Um, you have trouble making even simple decisions. So, here’s the thing that abusers do, like I said, they want to take our certainty from us. So how many of us, prior to the relationship, were certain, were happy, were happy go lucky. Were, you know, we knew what we wanted. And we went out and got it and this and the other thing, we started on a relationship with an abuser, and then all of a sudden, we cannot even make a simple decision. Why? Because if we make a decision, they’ll make us wrong for it. And they take away our joy, and they make us wrong for laughing and they make us wrong for being happy and they make us wrong for having a good time and they make us wrong for being outgoing and they make us wrong for all the things that they cannot do. Because they’re jealous. And so when it comes time to make a decision, we’re paralyzed because well if I do this, they’re gonna say that and if they do that, they’re gonna say this and Oh gosh, I really want them to approve of me This is why working on self esteem and working on the Disease to Please by Harriet breaker, Self-Esteem Workbook by Glenn Schiraldi, so hugely important you must get your sense of self back and you must get your boundaries back and you must stop engaging in people pleasing because it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous that’s what these people do. So, then it comes to the point where we can’t even make a simple decision, we’re paralyzed by analysis paralysis. Well, if I do this, they’re gonna say that if I do that, they’re going to do this. Oh my gosh, what do I do? Okay, so it’s, we’re not the person we used to be! If you used to be able to make decisions like that, that’s going to go away if you’re staying in a relationship with that with an abuser um, you have a sense that you used to be a very different person more confident, more fun, loving and more relaxed. Oh, I just was talking about that. You feel hopeless and joyless. You feel as though you cannot do anything right and that is what they do they put us on this pedestal with the love bombing love bomb love bomb love bomb Oh, you’re perfect I love you You’re everything’s great. And then they take utter joy in knocking that pedestal out from underneath us watching us fall to the ground and then they proceed to kick us while we’re down and then they start telling us that all of the things that they said they loved about us they don’t, you know? “You’re too this You’re too that you’re, you’re this you’re that!” they’re telling us who they are. They’re projecting. They’re projecting who they are onto us and unfortunately a lot of us believe it because we’re so in shock from the change from love bombing to the devalue and discard that we’re just destroyed you know, and that’s why get with a good trauma therapist get working on these books. CPTSD From Surviving To Thriving by Pete Walker. The Disease To Please by Harriet Braiker, The Inner Child Workbook by Katherine Taylor. Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach. Radical Forgiveness by Collin Tipping. All of these books will help you through this once you’re out of it. Once you’re out of it! It is incredibly difficult to heal in an environment where you’re being lied to, where you’re being gaslit and were revisionist history where history is being rewritten, rewritten, rewritten. re I never said that. That never happened. Oh no, you said this. Wait a minute. I never said that you did. What? That’s gaslighting, and that is detrimental to a person’s certainty to their core of who they are and that’s intentional. That’s why they’re doing it. Okay, feel as though you cannot do anything right and that hurts self esteem. Awesome. Obviously and that’s what they want, and they want you, they want you in this state of “What, what can I do to please you? What can I do to make this right? What can I do? What can I do? What can I do? What can I…”  Hold on. Nope. If somebody is constantly making you wrong for breathing for existing, there’s nothing you can do to make that right because the problem lies with them. But we don’t realize that as targets of abuse, because we’re so wanting them to love us. So that’s why it’s important to get with a good therapist. As soon as you recognize something’s off, start working on self esteem. And you cannot tell your, your, your partner if they are an abuser, that you’re in therapy, because the second you tell them that you’re seeing a therapist, they’re going to want to come with they’re going to want to know everything that is said in therapy, it’s none of their business, they’re going to start telling you that the therapist that you’re seeing is incompetent and a liar and this that and the other thing because they see you changing and not taking their BS. So yeah, that’s something to think about. Okay. Boop, boop, boop. Where are my? Where am I?

Kris Godinez  30:58

Uh, you feel so you can’t do anything right? You wonder if you are a good enough person. Good enough employee. Good enough friend. Good enough spouse. Good enough sibling. Good enough. Yeah, because they keep telling you, you’re not. So gaslighting is intentional. Lying is intentional. The pathologicalness of it is intentional. They enjoy it, again, it’s part of the, the endorphins, the dopamine, the serotonin, norepinephrine it is the you know, adrenaline, you know? Can they get away with it? Can I make this person believe this? Can I force them to believe my worldview Can I believe you know, that whole thing? Cool. So it is very different detrimental to the target of abuse, because again, the change from I love you, I love you, I love you, too. I hate you. You’re wrong. You’re too sensitive. You’re this you need help. You’re crazy. Ba, ba, ba, it is so radical. It’s literally like your head spins, and is detrimental because we love to them. And we want their love. We want that love bombing that but the reality of it is, in the beginning, they were lying to us. They didn’t care about any of the things we cared about. They didn’t like any of the things we liked. They were mirroring us back to us. And this person was an illusion. The person we thought we knew, simply did not exist. And there’s nothing to get back to. Because it did not exist. And they cannot maintain the mask forever. They just can’t. They won’t. They can’t. So, are they lying on purpose? You bet your bippy! They’re absolutely! Are they doing it to harm you? Yes, they are. The reason being they want to control they want to manipulate and they want to create their own reality. And they won’t change and they won’t respond if you try to call them out on it. I had somebody say well, but you know, don’t you get your backbone back when you call them out on it, what’s gonna happen is they’re gonna Gaslight harder and they’re gonna abuse harder, get away from them, you cannot help them you cannot fix them because you did not break them. The only person that can help or fix them is themselves and they ain’t gonna do it. So Alright, so that is gaslighting, pathological lying, which is not in the DSM five yet I am hoping that it is going to be it’s so funny because they were like, well, we can’t come up with a definite definition. And I’m like, ask anybody who’s survived abuse, they’ll give you a definite definition. Duh. So, there’s that. So gaslighting, lying, rewriting history, it is all for control, manipulation, creating the reality that the abuser wants, you know, creating cognitive dissonance where your reality is now hijacked. And you cannot come back to center so that your sense of certainty is gone so that you’re more easily manipulated. That is why they do this and it is absolutely 110% intensional, don’t kid yourself that it’s not because it is. Okay, let’s hit the questions. Dun dun da Where am I? Okay, ah, my boyfriend was in a toxic relationship with his narcissistic mom and has trouble staying honest. If he thinks he will get in trouble. This is common with kids coming out of an abusive relationship. Absolutely. Remember, please, please, it’s a learned behavior. So, when we’re used to getting in trouble with somebody, we hide things, or we don’t tell the truth, because we don’t want to get in trouble again. So, um, if he thinks, okay, how can I help him feel safe enough to open up, you’re gonna have to suggest therapy, the only way to get rid of fleas is you got to go through and squish them. And that means you got to deal with the family of origin stuff. You’ve got to deal with this original wound over here that created all the fleas over here. Does that make sense? So, I would have a serious conversation if he’s open to it, about getting into some trauma therapy and working on this and reading the books and really being meticulous in his word because that’s going to destroy your relationship, you know, once the trust is gone, it’s incredibly hard to get back. So, it would be it would behoove him to go get some personal work done. So yeah, absolutely. Why do abusers have difficulty accepting that they’ve done abuse? ego?

Kris Godinez  35:18

They are all ego, there is no there, there. So, if you watch the video I did a couple of weeks ago, on why don’t they get help? Why don’t they change? That’s all ego, there is no there, there. If it’s traits of if like they’ve got some, you know, space basically, a therapist can work with them, because there’s enough space in there to get through the ego to help them. But with a full blown all the way down, you know, middle or down spectrum. They’re so invested in their worldview, and they’re so invested in being right and they’re so invested in their ego, that there’s no space to get in there and work on anything they refuse, refuse to admit they’ve ever done anything wrong, you know, my dad used to say something similar to that, you know, I’ve never done anything wrong in my life, and sitting here going, hah, you know? Yeah, he did a lot wrong. So, you know, or I’m never I’m never lost, I’m only temporary, temporarily confused, he would say that when we’re on like a road trip, and we’re out in the middle of the forest, and the car is high, centered on a rock, and I’m sitting here going, we’re gonna die. Great. We’re gonna die. You know, I mean, so they say things like that, because their ego cannot handle them being wrong. Here’s a great example, another one for my dad. We were driving the van, we had an old Ford van, and it had a cruise control. So, we’re going down the road, and the cruise control suddenly went crazy, it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t disengage, so he would put on the brake wouldn’t disengage, he would turn it off, it wouldn’t disengage. And the car is gaining speed and going faster and faster. And he was panicking. And my mom was panicking. And I finally looked at I was 10 years old at the time, and I finally looked over at him and I said, “Turn the car off, put it in neutral, turn the car off. Which I will attribute that one to my to my guardian angels, because how would a 10 year old know that? So you know, he was no, no, no, you’re wrong. What do you know about it? You’re just a kid, blah, blah, blah. And finally, my mother screamed at him  “Just do what she says!” he did it. It disengaged. We were fine. So of course, you know, he was angry the whole way because he didn’t find the solution. And because I did, and of course I got punished for that later on. But you know, I mean, so that’s, that’s kind of an example of how invested they are in always being right. And that they’ll never admit that there’s a problem even when it’s like hurtling down the road at 95 miles an hour, you know what I’m saying? So, they just don’t they’re there is no there, there is just so much ego there. They won’t ever admit that they’ve ever done anything wrong. And this heartbreaking thing of it is, is that even when an abuser, and this has been reported to me by multiple Department of Children’s Services people, an abuser will be sitting there beating the kid and at the same time they’re beating the kid, “This isn’t happening, I’m not doing it, you’re not getting hit!” You know, gaslighting as the event is happening. So it just makes me sick to my stomach. So that’s why they don’t accept that they’re doing anything wrong. their egos are so huge that they are unwilling to see the truth, they are unwilling to take accountability. They’re unwilling to do anything different. So hope that answered the question. Um, because a healthy normal people are willing to go What’s my part? What have I done? What can I do differently? You know, they’re introspective, they’re it’s kind of like, what can I do differently? What can I do better? Have I harmed somebody? Do I need to make amends? Okay, I will make amends. Okay, good. I did make amends. Okay, I forgive myself and I move on, you know, that’s a healthy, normal person. a narcissist will never make amends. And if they do, it’s fake, you know, I’m sorry. Oh, I’m sorry, that didn’t sound like a real apology, did it? You know, or I’m sorry. And then they do the very same behavior over again, which says clearly, they’re not sorry. Because actions speak louder than words. If somebody is constantly going, I’m sorry. And then doing the same thing over again. They’re not sorry. A real apology is I hurt you. I acknowledge that I hurt you. I own that I hurt you. I am mortified. It will not happen again. Please forgive me that is a true apology. And then the action never happens again. amends have been made you do what you need to repair the relationship. And that actually never happens again, Narcissus will never do that. Not on this or any other planet. So there’s that. Okay, best way to tackle a really long goodbye letter without it turning into a mini novel. It’s about six years of worth of things to cover, turn it into a mini novel. That’s perfectly okay. There is no wrong way to do a goodbye letter. And you might just decide to publish.

Kris Godinez  39:59

So There’s really no wrong way to do it. And if there’s six years worth to cover, then write! Take it in sections. Take it, that’s how do you think this came about? This came about by me taking in sections, you know, little kid to about seven or eight years old, seven or eight years old preteen, preteen to teen to adult, you know, excetera, etc, etc. So do it, write as long as you need to, there’s no wrong way to do that. And if it turns into a mini novel, okay, might want to consider publishing, change all the names, make sure that you don’t get sued. But do you see where I’m going with that? So yeah, there’s no wrong way to do that. It’s okay, doesn’t matter. So, like, when my dad died, I had to write him a goodbye letter. And he was probably close to 30 pages long. And I just, you know, let him have it was very emotional. And it was it took me several months to complete, this is not like a quick, let me just jot this all down, and we’re done. This is like, let me dive into this. And let me really work through this so that I don’t have to keep dealing with this. So um, you know, it was probably about 30 pages. And that was the goodbye letter to him and I just let them have it, you know, and I said, everything I needed to say, and I didn’t burn that one because I turned it into a book. So, you do whatever makes you comfortable, you know, turn it into a book, shred it, burn it, whatever makes you, mail it back to yourself, then shred it, mail it back to yourself, then burn it, whatever makes you comfortable. So, it doesn’t matter how long it is, let it be long. If it needs to be long, let it be long. That’s it is what it is. Does that make sense? Don’t make yourself wrong for that. Okay, um, and like I said, at the end of it, you may consider publishing to help other people. Um, because I think a lot of things that survivors of abuse don’t understand is it’s okay to get angry at your abuser, especially if it was a parent. Because how much how much “Oh honor thy mother and father Oh, you can’t get mad at the parent. They’re the parent, they gave birth to you.” Okay, and then they abused you for the next you know, however many years that doesn’t make it right, you have the right to be angry. That’s called righteous anger. So, it’s what we do with the anger that makes it helpful or hurtful. So, getting it out of your head onto paper, expressing it, working through it, getting it out, dealing with the original wound, getting with a good trauma therapist working see PTSD from surviving to thriving by Pete Walker would be a really good idea.

Kris Godinez  42:29

Sorry, that was a huge run on sentence. So um, yeah, so there it is. Okay, ah, my question is about how to hold firm boundaries when you’re trying to set up new healthiness. When I’ve been trying to do this with cousins, I have misplaced guilt and feel bad about myself. Okay, that is codependency. And that is going to be the topic of next week’s show. I want to talk about the difference between helping and codependency, because there seems to be some confusion on that. So, I want to talk more about that. So, codependency is where we feel guilty when we say no, when we draw boundaries. So, any relationship let me just say this, again, any relationship that makes you feel fearful, obligated or guilty is not a healthy relationship. So, in any relationship, you’re going to want to talk about deal breakers, what will you not put up with from anybody? So that should be no disrespect? Absolutely. No, not respecting your boundaries. If they don’t respect your boundaries be done. name calling, you’re not going to put up with name calling, you’re not going to put up with lying, you’re not going to put up with gaslighting, you’re not going to put up with rewriting history. You’re not going to put up with cheating, you’re not going to put up with you know, come up with your own. So those are just kind of the basic ones. So, when you hold firm boundaries with cousins, and you feeling guilty, it would be good to kind of work through this where’s this coming from? Why are you feeling guilty for saying no, you know, is somebody making you wrong for not being a caregiver and who is that who is making you wrong for not being a caregiver and for having good boundaries. So get with a good trauma therapist work those books. “Codependent No More and Beyond Codependent No More” by Melanie Beatty “The Disease To Please” by Harriet breaker figure out where this is coming from whose voice is that? And then as soon as you figure out whose voice that is, write them a goodbye letter, dear. I don’t know. Uh, Aunt Bertha. You know I don’t need to feel guilty for having boundaries. In fact, boundaries are necessary for healthy relationships. Thank you for trying to do a guilt trip on me and control me. Go pound sand. Love me then trot it out to the barbecue. Read it out loud once burn it. Yeah, absolutely. Um, question I escaped my narc and had no contact for ages but he’s slowly reappeared. Oh, that’s scary. Even though I can see it and know it. I’m letting him in my life. Why am I being so stupid. Sweetie, first of all, stop calling yourself stupid. You’re not stupid. This is what happens to us. So how old do you feel? When you’re wanting him back in your life? How old are you? Inner child workbook, Katherine Taylor, CPTSD, From Surviving To Thriving Pete Walker, do a list of every rotten thing this person has ever done to you, and then block them, block them, block them, block them, block them. So, we let them back in our life, on average, seven times. I know it sucks. So, if you look at the statistics of domestic violence, on average, it takes about seven times of having this person come into our life go out of our life, we leave, they leave, we come back, they come back, whatever, before it finally sinks in that they are not going to change ever. So, it takes seven times to get that. So, you’re not stupid. It’s just that there is some resistance to accepting and acknowledging this person is abusive. They’re not good for you. They’re toxic. So, what is that? How old are you? What’s going on? Who does this person remind you of in your family of origin? Who are you trying to amend with? Who are you trying to fix that relationship with because remember, inner children if we come from toxic families, so here’s the original wound, right? What the inner child will do is it will look at this and go oh, I had a horrible relationship with this parent or that parent or that grandparent or whatever. And the little kid, the inner child will look outside and go, Oh, I know. Here’s somebody who kind of sort of reminds me of them. If I can make them love me, I prove these guys wrong. Half of the doodoo sandwich, half of the doodoo sandwich. Total doodoo sandwhich. You

Kris Godinez  46:49

don’t want that. So, I would strongly suggest you work on self esteem. You are not stupid. I don’t want to hear that coming out of your mouth ever again. You are not stupid hon. This is what we do is being driven by the inner child. So, figure out what’s going on with the inner child figure out how old you are, you know what age is trying to get this person back into your life. You know what, what age doesn’t want to believe all the stuff that you as the adult know you went through that’s why I’m saying do a list of every rotten thing they ever did and reread it daily. You know what I’m saying? So um, get with a good trauma therapist CPTSD From Surviving To Thriving by Pete Walker. Inner Child Workbook by Katherine Taylor, The Disease To Please Harriet braoker and start working this stuff. Because there it’s going to, when we get back with the abuser, what what statistically happens is that the abuse, the love bombing cycle gets shortened every single time. So, let’s say the first time it was like this second time, it’s like this, third time, fourth time, fifth time, six times seventh time, right? And the abuse cycle the devalue in the discard, gets longer and longer and longer and longer. So, it, the abuse will be ramped up and they’ll punish you, if you were the one that left they’ll punish you for it. So there that is, be careful, get with a good trauma therapist. Um, I could see a friend being isolated from me, because I saw through her husband, she’s still with him. But talking to me again, how can I get over the hurt of knowing she believed awful things of me, get with a good therapist, work it through. You know, and here’s the thing, if she’s still with him, it’s probably going to happen again, especially if she’s opening up to you and talking about things that are going on. Or even if you start saying, hey, why were you willing to believe this of me, she’ll run back to the spouse and tell them everything that is typically what happens. So um, just know that if she’s still with the abuser, it’s gonna happen again, especially if, if you call her on that stuff. So you got to decide, is this relationship toxic? Is this relationship, something that you can hang with? Or is this a relationship that you need to let go up, you cannot fix everybody. And sometimes, we have to let go of the toxic people, even though we can see what’s going on. And this is going to be something I’m going to be talking about next week. Even though we can see what’s going on. If the target of abuse does not want help, you cannot help them. Because what they will do is they will take everything that’s truthful that you said, run back to the abuser tell the abuser, the abuser will fill their head full of lies. And then they’ll start hating you because you are the safer target. Let me say that again. When somebody who’s been abused starts taking it out on the family and the friends that actually love them. It’s because the family and the friends are the safer target. They can’t take it out on the abuser. So, what they end up doing is they put it on to the family and the friends because the family and the friends love them and they’re the safer target. They won’t punish them, they will hurt them. They won’t, you know, harm them, they won’t abuse them, etc. So that’s that’s part of that isolation and getting rid of anybody who can see the truth kind of thing. So, yeah, just just recognize, it’s probably going to happen again, I would get with a good therapist and start working on boundaries. And if and when you do confront her or talk to her about that, you’re going to have to realize she’s probably gonna run back to the spouse, it’s probably gonna happen all over again. So, is it worth it? Is it worth it? And in some cases, you got to disconnect completely, you know, because otherwise they’re just gonna keep dragging you through this drama. And you don’t need it. So okay, do Narcissus enjoy gaslighting Yes. And do they believe the victim caused this themselves? Yes. You made me You made me lie to you. You made me hit you. You made me how many times we heard that a lot. You know you made me do this You made me so angry. I had to, you did, you, you, you, you, you. They do not take personal responsibility for a damn thing. They don’t. They can’t. They won’t. And it’s more a matter of won’t you know? Um, they do enjoy it they absolutely again when you get down to the dark triad so you’re talking psychopathy, psychopath, narcissist and Machiavellianism.

Kris Godinez  51:12

So Machiavelli, Machiavelli is the prince. So it’s a book by Machiavelli, the prince and it’s all about despotism. So yeah, how do we, how do you despots, you know, so they’re control freaks, and they enjoy the chess game they enjoy “Can I make this person kill themselves?” Seriously, like, some people are like, Oh, you’re being dramatic. And I’m like am I?  Because they do things to get the person to kill themselves. They do. They either destroy their self esteem and take away all their family and friends and fill their heads with so much despair that the victim of abuse, the target of abuse, sees no other way out. And then when the person does commit suicide, they’re gleeful. They’re gleeful about it, they mourn, mourn, while the funeral is going on. And they’ll be involved before the body is buried. That kind of thing. So yeah, they are absolutely psychopathic. They’re absolutely intentional. They’re absolutely they absolutely love it. Can I make this person kill themselves? Can I make this person harm themselves? Can I make this person believe my reality? Can I make this person give up their family? That’s a big one. Can I make them self isolate? Can I make them do it’s a huge ego trip for them huge look at how powerful I am. That’s, that’s their whole thing. They think they’re all powerful. They think they’re smarter than everybody else. And they they know better than everybody else. And it gives them great joy to be able to manipulate the pieces on the chessboard. That’s the anti social part of it. So yeah, they’re dangerous. Absolutely. They’re sadistic. I think I’ve talked about this before their absolutely sadistic. They absolutely enjoy what they’re doing. And they absolutely firmly in their head believe that the target of abuse deserves it. How dare you love me. They can’t handle real emotion. That’s why they have to manipulate and control and they are angry as hell at the person who actually loves them. Because they know they don’t deserve it. They know it. And so they get pissed off at the person who loves them. How dare you love me and they’re going to punish you for it. This is a no win situation, guys, there is. This is the Kobayashi Maru. Okay, I just totally geeked myself out on that one. So Kobayashi Maru is a is a no win situation in Star Trek. So this is the Kobayashi Maru, it’s a no win situation unless you cheat. You know, and there’s no cheating in this because what can you do to cheat? The only thing that would help is if literally, the Deus Ex machina came down, hit the narcissist over the head with an enlightenment stick and suddenly they understood everything that ever happened to them. But even if that happened, their ego is so great that they would grab that enlightenment stick and probably try to beat up the God that tried to save them so it’s just it’s not gonna happen. They don’t change. There’s there’s no way to win this one. It is a Kobayashi Maru, there’s no way to win. There’s no way to win. So, okay, I think oh, no, there’s more questions. I have CPTSD what is the diagnosis that they would use to prescribe medication? I know I have CPD. But my narc mom is convinced I am schizophrenic and is telling everyone. So, the best thing to do would be to go get a psych eval you know, go to get a psych eval get a clear diagnosis. The meds that they use for PTSD are generally anti anxiety meds or anti depressant meds. I do not recommend them unless you absolutely have to be on a psych meds are not to be taken lightly. And it drives me crazy when I have people come in and they’re like, do you prescribe and I’m like, No, I do talk therapy. And they’re like, Oh, well, you know, I have this going on and that going on and I just I just want it to go away. I want a magic bullet. Well, there is no magic bullet and every single psych med has got pretty heavy hitting side effects so a lot of them cause impotence, a lot of them cause weight gain, loss of interest in sex for females as well. They can cause hair loss they can cause… you know, there’s a whole bunch of stuff that goes along with that I only recommend to send them out to psychiatrists. If it’s an absolute last line of defense talk therapy is not working it’s obviously a brain chemistry issue. Okay, now we need to look at psych meds so um, I would not recommend getting on meds unless you had to, I would get with a good therapist, I’d get a definite diagnosis, I would, you know, start start working PTSD CPTSD From Surviving To Thriving by Pete Walker. And there’s a whole bunch of PTSD books out there that are really good as well. One of the things that we find with post traumatic stress disorder is anger. So there’s a lot of short tempers there’s a great Zen book called There’s A Cow In The Parking Lot cannot think of who wrote that one. But it’s called, There’s A Cow In The Parking Lot. So it’s a Zen approach to anger and you know, again, it deals with a lot of where did this come from?

Kris Godinez  56:10

Where did I learn this from who’s who in my family was angry all the time. Why am I angry? What’s happening? What’s the payoff? Where am I getting this? So um, yeah, now schizophrenia, again, would need to be an actual diagnosis as with any psychological issue, it would need to be an actual psych eval done to see if you have PTSD to see if you have schizophrenia to see if you have bipolar if you see the borderline . So you want to just go get a psych eval done and then you’ll know for sure, so there that is. Okay, let’s see if there any more. I think that’s it. Okay. All right, kids, you guys have a great week. Take good care of yourselves. Um, don’t forget, if you are looking for a therapist betterhelp.com/krisgodinez and it should be down in the description. Alright, have a great week guys. I will talk to you where did my cursor go? There it is. Alright, I will talk to you next week. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. You can always listen live on YouTube every week Sunday at noon, Arizona Mountain Standard Time. And if you want to find out more or listen to other episodes, you can go to Chris godinez.com and if you have a chance, subscribe to this show on whatever podcast app you use and let other people know about. I want to thank my sponsor betterhelp.com. They are an online therapy company. Whether you are in the US or international. They will set you up with a qualified licensed therapist. PhD level or Master’s level. If you are interested in more information, go to betterhelp.com/krisgodinez.

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