You Are Not Crazy

エピソード

• How Manipulators Use Words to Maintain Control 10.06.2026 13分

  I break down some of the most insidious and subtle ways abusers use language to dominate the narrative and erode your sense of reality. I walk you through five distinct patterns of weaponized communication: emotional manipulation disguised as vulnerability, defensiveness used as a silencing tool, blame-shifting hidden behind false equivalence, coercion dressed up as ultimatums, and silence deployed as punishment. Each example reveals the same underlying strategy — redirecting accountability, ...
• The Underpinning of All Abuse: Coercive Control with Dr. Christine Cocchiola 03.06.2026 56分

  Dr. Christine Cocchiola is back, and this conversation goes deep. Dr. Christine is a coercive control specialist, therapist, TEDx speaker, and author who trained under the godfather of coercive control, Dr. Evan Stark. In this episode, we get into what coercive control actually is: not a form of abuse, but the underpinning of all abuse. That distinction matters more than most people realize, especially inside a family court system that still does not know what to do with it. We talk about the...
• When Co-Parenting Becomes Coercive Control 27.05.2026 24分

  If you've ever felt like you're doing everything right — showing up, advocating, holding it together — and still somehow ending up as the problem, this episode is for you. Int his episode, I get honest about what it actually feels like to be in the cycle: the exhaustion of defending yourself against false narratives, the way every act of good parenting gets twisted into evidence against you, and the invisible toll of a system that wasn't designed to recognize coercive control. So many p...
• I'm Not Fucked Up, I'm Detoxing 20.05.2026 16分

  If you've ever thought "what is wrong with me?" after leaving a toxic relationship — this episode is for you. I break down why the anxiety, hypervigilance, and panic that show up after you leave aren't signs that you're damaged. They're signs that your nervous system did exactly what it was trained to do. I walk you through the difference between anxious attachment and trauma-conditioned hypervigilance, why healing feels worse before it feels better, and what it actually looks lik...
• Walking on Razor Blades: Life with Someone with BPD Description 13.05.2026 20分

  BPD is often misunderstood, reduced to stereotypes of moodiness or drama — but if you've loved someone with unmanaged borderline personality disorder, you know it feels nothing like that. In this episode, I break down what it actually looks like to be in a relationship with someone who splits, who swings from adoring you to discarding you in an instant, and how you slowly begin to disappear in the process. This isn't about demonizing people with BPD. It's about naming the impact o...
• How I Actually Healed (And Why It Didn't Look the Way I Expected) 06.05.2026 14分

  People ask me how I healed all the time, and the honest answer is that there is no clean framework I can hand you. In this episode, I share the specific practices that actually made a difference for me — and they are not always the ones you would expect. I talk about why I stopped healing on everyone else's timeline, how I gave myself permission to grieve on a schedule as a single parent, and the journaling practice that helped me separate what was real from what had been distorted.&nbs...
• What I Did When I Couldn't Trust My Own Mind 29.04.2026 11分

  Before I knew what a trauma bond was, I was hiding my phone under my mattress. I deleted his number, wrote it on a piece of paper, folded it into a journal, and made myself work to find it. At the time I thought I was being ridiculous. Looking back, I was surviving. In this episode, I talk about what it actually looks like to break a trauma bond when you can't go cold turkey — the messy, imperfect, sometimes embarrassing strategies that create just enough friction between the craving an...
• BPD Splitting in Relationships: What It Feels Like and How to Heal 22.04.2026 23分

  If you've ever felt adored one moment and suddenly on the wrong side of a wall you didn't see coming, this episode is for you. I open with my own experience of being in a relationship where warmth could vanish in an instant — where I replayed conversations trying to find the moment I slipped, and where I slowly became someone whose entire focus was managing another person's emotional state. In this episode, I break down splitting — what it is clinically, what it feels like to be on the receiv...
• Why They Never See It: The Psychology Behind Why Personality-Disordered People Don't Know They're the Problem 15.04.2026 15分

  If you've ever wondered why the person who hurt you seems completely unbothered — even convinced they did nothing wrong — this episode is for you. I break down why people with personality disorders genuinely don't experience themselves as disordered, how shame avoidance rewrites their reality, and why no amount of explaining, evidence, or emotional appeals will get them to "see it." Understanding this isn't about giving up — it's about stopping the cycle of trying to reach someone who doesn't...
• Pattern Recognition vs. The Blame Game 08.04.2026 7分

  There's a difference between someone naming a pattern to seek resolution and someone digging up the past to dodge accountability. If you've ever tried to address what's not working in your relationship and ended up defending yourself instead, this episode is for you. We talk about what healthy accountability actually looks like — and how to recognize when someone is rewriting history to keep you stuck. Support the show *Please Note: there is a long intro that explains my services. If you do n...
• When Mental Illness Becomes an Excuse for Abuse 01.04.2026 27分

  This month’s Patreon episode dives into a theme that kept surfacing in your questions: When does mental illness explain behavior… and when does it become an excuse? Before answering your submissions, I break down what we actually mean when we talk about pathological abuse — repeated patterns rooted in personality structure, not just “a bad fight” or poor communication. We explore coercive control, gaslighting, intermittent reinforcement, blame shifting, and the power imbalance that defines th...
• How I Help Clients Untangle High-Conflict Divorce 25.03.2026 14分

  In this episode, I share what it’s really like to support clients through the chaos of high-conflict divorce — when legal processes, endless emails, and contradictory communication make it nearly impossible to think clearly. I talk about how I help clients slow things down, organize what’s actually happening, and find stability in the middle of emotional and legal overwhelm. I also share how confusion becomes one of the main weapons of post-separation abuse, and what I do to help survivors re...
• “No One Sees It” — The Pattern of Covert Abuse (And Why the System Misses It) 18.03.2026 14分

  “No one sees it. They just think he’s nice.” If you are in a high-conflict divorce or co-parenting dynamic, you probably feel this in your bones. One of the hardest parts of covert abuse is that the “nice” isn’t safe. The "helpfulness" isn’t genuine. It’s strategic. When you are the only one seeing it and reacting to it, you start questioning yourself. In this episode, I talk about what it’s like to live inside a pattern that other people can’t see. Courts, lawyers, evaluators — they ar...
• Wanting Them to Change Isn’t Abuse - Interview with Paul Colaianni 11.03.2026 42分

  One of the most painful and confusing questions survivors ask is this: “If I want them to change… how is that different from them wanting me to change?” On the surface, it sounds the same. Two people. Both asking for change. But it is not the same. In this episode, I’m joined again by Paul Colaianni of The Overwhelmed Brain and Love and Abuse to unpack the critical difference between wanting harm to stop… and wanting control. We talk about: The difference between self-protection and self...
• “Why Do I Feel Crazy?” — Life Inside a Trauma Bond 04.03.2026 44分

  This episode puts words to what a trauma bond feels like before there is language for it. The quiet erosion. The logic loops. The way your needs slowly become “too much.” The way calm, rational explanations are used to invalidate your emotional reality. The way you start rehearsing conversations, monitoring your tone, silencing yourself, and shrinking—just to keep the peace. This is not a story about explosive fights or obvious cruelty. It is about subtle control, emotional superiority, and t...
• When Leaving Feels Impossible: The Hidden Reality of Loving Someone With Untreated BPD 25.02.2026 20分

  Leaving a relationship with someone who has untreated borderline personality traits can feel less like a breakup and more like trying to escape a locked room while being told you’re the one causing the fire. In this episode, I speak directly to the people who are rarely centered in these conversations: the partners who have been living inside someone else’s emotional emergency. The ones who learned to scan tone, timing, silence, and mood shifts just to survive. The ones whose nervous systems ...
• Why They Feel Fine After the Blowup—and You Don’t 18.02.2026 11分

  In this episode, I talk about what happens after the fight, the discard, or the emotional explosion, and why the aftermath hits you so much harder than it seems to hit them. I break down a pattern I see constantly in emotionally abusive, high-conflict, and narcissistic dynamics: one person unloads their rage, shame, blame, or dysregulation, and then walks away feeling lighter—while the other person is left carrying it. I explain why this isn’t about resolution, communication, or vulnerability...
• Emotional Whiplash, Hypervigilance, and the BPD Cycle of Abuse 11.02.2026 20分

  How do you survive—and eventually recognize—the BPD cycle of abuse, especially when you are already exhausted, confused, and questioning yourself. In this episode, I break down the cycle as it actually unfolds in real life: The intense honeymoon phase, the sudden emotional whiplash, the accusations and character attacks, the breakups and reconciliations, and the long stretch of chaos that keeps you hooked through intermittent relief. I talk about why this dynamic is so hard to recognize while...
• When They Say You Can’t Communicate 04.02.2026 20分

  If you’ve ever been told you “can’t communicate” — especially by someone who constantly twists your words or refuses to take accountability — this episode will help you see what’s really happening. I break breaks down how abusers weaponize communication to destabilize you, create confusion, and control the narrative. You’ll learn why phrases like “you’re too blunt” or “you don’t make sense” are often not about clarity at all — they’re about power. You can view my courses here: https://j...
• Letting Go of the Why 28.01.2026 16分

  When you’ve been in an emotionally abusive relationship, the need for clarity can feel all-consuming. You want to know why they did what they did — why they lied, withdrew, or turned cold. You believe that if you can just understand their behavior, you’ll finally be able to find peace. Clarity from someone who manipulates and distorts reality rarely exists — at least not in the way survivors hope it will. The search for answers becomes part of the trap, keeping you focused on their motives in...