Hey everybody, welcome to episode 104 of Waking Up to Narcissism.
I am your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.
And please go check out the link tree and subscribe to all of the podcasts in
the Virtual Couch Network and take my marriage course.
And let's just get to the topic at hand today because we're talking about,
it's a little bit of a new, it's not a new concept. It's a, I'm talking about
emotional whiplash and it's something that I can't believe we haven't talked
about in 103 other episodes of the podcast.
And I think you'll notice that this is something that's pretty common in emotionally
immature relationships, narcissistic relationships.
So let's just start with a story. It is story time and the following is absolutely
based on a real life couple.
So imagine Sarah, she's a stay at home mom. She's juggling the chaos of raising
very energetic kids and managing a household.
Her husband, Mike seems supportive, but there is a twist.
Mike is from the planet Zoltor. Sorry, that would be a completely different podcast.
But Mike, as we will soon see, is on the emotionally immature side.
And one week, Mike, who often travels but who is spending more time at home,
notices that, man, the kids are quite a bit. They're a lot.
So he tells Sarah that she's not spending enough time with the kids and that's
why they are so wild. So Sarah, she is very thankful for the feedback.
And she adjusts her schedule and she pours her heart into playtime and crafts
and bedtime stories and trying to be the mom that Mike wants to see. Thank you.
But then the script flips. Suddenly Mike's upset that she's not doing enough
around the house, not to mention she hasn't even asked him about his day and
she has been exhausted when they go to bed together.
Sarah's super confused. So the very projects that she put on hold to be with
the kids are now a problem.
And of course, she's more exhausted because she's going and doing and being
everything she can be for everybody, especially the kids.
And she thinks about explaining it to Mike, but she's hesitant because she's
tried that in the past and it really hasn't gone so well. And it doesn't stop there.
Mike often then will praise Sarah for being a great mom, but then out of the
blue, he accuses her of resenting the kids. Why?
Just because Sarah shares the day's struggles with him and she's frustrated
and she's looking for a bit of empathy, maybe even some support.
And then there are the houseplants, Sarah's little oasis of calm and green and a hectic life.
Mike used to love them, or so he once said, but now he dismisses them and he
calls them stupid and he says that they are just another distraction that you
have from the kids and her creativity, which was something that might claim to adore,
especially when they have had people over as they would compliment the decorations
and the overall vibe in the home is suddenly too much for him.
He said, she's very impulsive. She's too unpredictable.
And even she talked about family movie nights, how they aren't safe from Mike's
changing moods. They laugh together at kids' movies one night.
And then the next time that this movie or one that's similar is on,
he can't stand it. And he says, this is ridiculous.
And I And I don't even know why we watch these things. It's unfit for the family.
And if Sarah tries to point out these sudden changes in his opinions.
Mike's response is the same.
Well, I do not know where you heard that, but I didn't say it.
And this story isn't just about a husband's changing moods.
It's about a concept, though, that I refer to as narcissistic emotional whiplash.
And while I want to say that we could use the acronym NEW, but in this case, it is anything but new.
It gets really old and fast. But emotional whiplash is definitely something
that people in narcissistic or emotionally immature relationships experience,
and they experience it often.
You can be on top of the world one minute, and then the very next,
you can be brought to the ground.
And ultimately, it's part of the trauma bond or the intermittent reinforcement
where the same person who provides the reward in the relationship is also the
one who provides the punishment,
leaving you carrying around just bags and buckets full of eggshells to spread
before your feet wherever you go around the emotionally immature or the narcissistic
person in the relationship.
And you can also imagine that Sarah is going to lose her sense of self because
she's continually spending every moment she can trying to manage the kids'
relationships and as well as buffer for Mike and trying to figure out how to
make sense of his inconsistencies.
Because as you can see with Sarah and Mike, Sarah is constantly trying to adjust
to Mike's ever-shifting expectations, never quite sure what version of Mike
that she's going to encounter. Right.
So let's shift gears a little bit. Let's do a quick review of a couple of concepts
that I think are going to be really important and come into play a lot today.
First, let's talk about whole object relations.
It is the ability to see people, including yourself, as they really are,
with both their good and their not as good sides.
It's like knowing your best friend is great at listening, but they're terrible at being on time.
But you see the whole picture of who they are. It's not an all or nothing.
It's not a black or white. So that's whole object relations.
Then there's object constancy.
And this is the ability to keep feeling good about somebody that you like,
even when they do something that bothers you.
It's like still loving somebody even when they forget your birthday,
or they didn't text you in a moment where you thought that they were going to.
But here's the deal with narcissists or those who are emotionally immature.
They struggle big time with these concepts of whole object relations and object
constancy because they tend to see things in black and white.
And in their world, people are either then amazing or terrible.
There's not a lot of in between, if any. any.
So one minute, they might think that somebody is the very best thing that ever
walked the face of the earth.
But as soon as that person does something that they don't like,
then boom, they are suddenly the worst.
And this kind of flip-flopping is emotional whiplash.
One day you are on a pedestal and the next you are in the doghouse.
And the crazy part is it's not because of something big that you even did.
It can be as simple as saying no to a request are not emphatically agreeing
with the emotionally immature.
So suddenly you are not the hero anymore. You become the villain in their eyes.
But later, if you do something that they like, then just like that,
you're back to being amazing. It's that concept that I call,
hey, do you want to ride bikes?
They could have just decimated you because you suddenly were somebody that just
frustrated them and you went against them.
But that makes them feel better. That alleviates their discomfort. Right?
And so they're good. Where do you want to go to dinner? And it's a really tough
cycle, especially for somebody in a relationship with a person like this,
because you never know where you stand.
And one minute you are the very apple of their eye, then the next you're on their bad side.
And it's like trying to ride a, I don't know, a seesaw that's moving way too
fast. It's disorienting. It's exhausting.
And you really don't know when you're just going to get thrown off of the thing.
So that's what we're going to try to unpack more of today is how do you deal with this?
How do you protect yourself from this emotional whiplash? And I have some examples
from the Private Women's Facebook group that will be equally harrowing,
that will be equal parts bad.
And then also people are going to feel heard and understood today because this
is one of those concepts that I see in my office all the time.
So, let's now go back to Sarah and Mike.
And I'm going to take a look at from both of their points of view,
from Mike's and then from Sarah's. We'll start with Mike.
Because if you look more at Mike's view, Mike, as we'll see,
I think is a classic example of somebody deeply affected by emotional immaturity.
And most likely, it stems from a pretty turbulent childhood.
He probably never really saw emotional consistency while he was growing up in his parents.
Parents and his household was probably more
of a patchwork of a lot of unpredictable moods and reactions so
mike as a kid probably never knew what he
was going to get so love and attention were given one moment and then withdrawn
the next and this lack of stable emotional modeling then most likely left mike
with a shaky foundation then as an adult he develops a series of unhealthy coping
strategies but these are his tools and what's fascinating is there's tools even
though though they're flawed,
for navigating the emotional complexities of life.
This is, in Mike's world, how he gets rid of his discomfort,
how he gets a command of a situation or control.
But his self-esteem is like a house built on sand. It's unstable and it's constantly shifting.
And Mike relies heavily on external validation to feel good about himself.
And he needs constant reassurance from others, especially Sarah,
to prop up his self-worth.
And this can be so foreign when this is an adult human being.
I often say that when you step back and see the emotionally immature narcissist,
it's like a little kid playing dress-up in a suit.
But then that little kid has the power to be extremely violent or emotionally abusive. Yusuf.
He needs constant reassurance from others and back to especially Sarah to make him feel of worth.
It's this false self. And then this need for external validation,
that is a calling card of somebody who didn't receive consistent emotional support
during their formative years.
And then empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of another
is incredibly low in Mike's emotional toolkit.
And this lack of empathy is not necessarily intentional, but it is a byproduct of his upbringing.
He's so focused on managing his own emotional turmoil that he struggles to recognize
and respond to the emotional needs of others, including Sarah and his kids.
And then another significant aspect of Mike's emotional immaturity is his inability
to sit with any discomfort whatsoever.
He can't stand feeling flawed or at fault. And by nature, we're wired to get rid of our discomfort.
So it takes a lot of intention and work to be able to to sit with that discomfort
to try to say, what are my feelings trying to communicate to me?
But then when you are trying to get rid of that discomfort, avoid discomfort,
then that aversion to discomfort, it leads him into this defensive stance.
And then he is going to deny his own shortcomings. He's going to shift blames to others.
And then when he's faced with a situation that might paint him in a bad light,
then he's very quick to rewrite the whole narrative because it's easy for him
to say, I didn't say that.
Then to confront the possibility that he might have said something that upset
somebody else or that might have contradicted what he had said earlier.
Because in Mike's world, people and things are either all good or all bad.
And this goes back to where that concept of whole object relations and object
constancy comes back into play.
Mike struggles with these concepts because he can't hold this nuanced view of
people, including himself.
In his eyes, Sarah is either the perfect wife and perfect mother or a complete failure.
And his opinions, his feelings, they swing wildly back and forth because he
can't integrate the good that she is and who she is.
And then his, I don't even like saying in bad, but the things that he does not
like or appreciate, he can't integrate those into a cohesive whole person.
I do feel like understanding Mike's background, it will start to shed a little
bit of light on the emotional rollercoaster that Sarah experiences.
I'm not trying to justify Mike's behavior.
And this is where in my pillar one of my four pillars of a connected conversation,
in a healthy relationship, I say that we need to assume good intentions,
that no one wakes up in the morning and says, I can't wait to hurt my partner.
But I put a part B into that or a 1.5 with regard to the emotionally immature narcissistic people.
Or there's a reason why they show up or behave the way they do.
And a lot of it might be because of the things that I've shared here about Mike's background. ground.
Because his lack of consistency is about this deep-rooted emotional turmoil
and challenges that he's had.
Challenges that stem from a lifetime of coping with unstable self-esteem and
a craving for external validation and a profound difficulty in facing personal faults.
And this story, I think it's a real window into the struggles faced by many
in relationships with emotionally immature individuals.
Because it's a journey of trying to navigate and make sense of of these unpredictable
emotional landscapes, trying to understand the roots of these behaviors and finding a path forward.
Bless your heart, those who are in that world. And if you are that pathologically
kind, because it will feel like it's something that you are doing wrong.
But hopefully this brings awareness to help you understand that it's not a you
issue, it's a them issue. you.
And so often one of the best things you can do, and I'm not even saying that
you have to get out of the relationship because I know that's difficult as well.
But if you are in a spot where you are still feeling like you are going crazy,
trying to give that other person the aha moment or the epiphany that maybe this
episode today will help you drop that rope of the tug of war and be able to
just sit and be and understand that maybe I am okay just being and doing.
So now, let me jump over and look at where Sarah is coming from.
Because if we step into Sarah's shoes, here's a woman whose kindness and desire
to do the right thing put her in a challenging dance with Mike's ever-changing
moods and demands. Because they are ever-changing.
And we can look at this again as either the Mike or Sarah in this situation
as the pathologically kind or the emotionally immature.
Mature, that it isn't always the man who is the more emotionally mature,
and it isn't always the woman who is more pathologically kind.
But for the sake of this example, this is where we're going.
So, now let's go back and take a little deeper look at Sarah.
She is ever the empathetic and caring partner.
She's deeply committed to her family's well-being. And here's one of the big
keys. She trusts Mike, and she believes that he has her best interest at heart.
So, when Mike says that she's spending too much time with the kids,
Sarah takes his words to heart. She thinks, okay, okay, maybe he's right.
Maybe I'm missing something.
So she adjusts her schedule. She cuts back on kid time. And she's honestly trying
to strike or find this right balance.
But this shift comes at a cost because Sarah then feels guilty for not spending
as much time with her children. She absolutely loves being a mom.
And then as kids do, they start to act up and they crave more of their mom's attention.
And then this new behavior doesn't sit well with Mike. He sees it as a sign
that Sarah isn't managing the kids properly.
So it's a no-win situation for her. She's caught in a whirlwind of trying to
please Mike and care for her children and manage her own feelings of inadequacy.
And then Mike, again, we already talked about, he's shaped by his emotionally
inconsistent consistent childhood, then he's operating from this deep,
deep need just to interact with another human being to affirm his own existence.
And I know that can sound so kind of out there or deep, but to the emotionally
immature, sometimes when people say, why did they do that?
And I really believe it comes from a place of they just need to interact with
another human being to know they exist.
Once they interact with that other human being, now they know what to do with
that. Okay, now I can tell you you're wrong and I'm right.
Or I can put you in that one down position. position. Because that's what Mike
often finds himself doing, trying to find himself and put himself in a one-up
position in any of the interactions, using everything from question and criticize
as tools to then assert his control.
Because in his mind, questioning Sarah's choices isn't just about finding fault.
It's a way to alleviate his own discomfort and assert his presence.
So each time Mike challenges Sarah, it's as if he kind of comes a little more alive.
He temporarily eases his own inner turmoil and he leaves the conversation as
almost feeling like, well, okay, we're resolved, ready to move on to the next
activity. But Sarah is left reeling.
She then is left filled with doubt and confusion. What's wrong with me? Am I the crazy person?
And she's constantly second guessing herself and she wonders why she can't seem
to do anything right in Mike's eyes.
His approval, which she has sought for a long time, feels like this elusive, just moving target.
So, in this dynamic, Sarah embodies the struggle of so many who find themselves
in relationships with emotionally inconsistent people.
She's the one perpetually in the one down position, airing all the emotional
weight of Mike's shifting needs and his perceptions.
And then every interaction that they have, not every, most all the interactions
that they have, they leave almost like a little scar, this lingering question
about her own worth and capabilities.
She starts to lose her sense of self. so this
isn't just about the challenges that sarah faces but
it's really you got to look deeper into how kindness
and empathy can sometimes lead us into cycles of self-doubt
and emotional turmoil emotional whiplash so it's about letting the journey of
recognizing these patterns and then finding the strength to seek a balance that
honors both our need for kindness and our own well-being there's no part of
me that wants somebody that is kind by nature that that's a of value they have of kindness to think,
okay, I guess I need to not be kind anymore because now all of a sudden we're
going against our very own sense of self.
But who do I offer that kindness to?
Because that's a gift that I'm giving to somebody and I really think that they
need to treat that like such.
We're going to continue to dive a little bit deeper into the,
you'll see a lot of examples of the complexities of these relationships.
And then hopefully you will be able to pull out some takeaways that might help
you feel more heard and understood.
And then I will try to comment along the way of just what maybe is going on
here or what are some of the best things that you can do.
So the origin story of this episode comes off of last week's episode where I
talked about the quote from the book Rethinking Narcissism. I ended up doing
a Facebook Live within the Facebook group and it became the podcast that went out last week.
But there was something that I shared on there about, and I used the phrase
emotional inconsistency, and there was someone there that said they wanted to hear more about it.
And it's something that I've been making a large piece of my upcoming men's
group in particular was trying to show up and be more emotionally consistent.
And so then I went out to the Facebook group and I asked for more examples of
where people see this examples of emotional whiplash.
And I'll be very, very upfront. The death by a thousand cuts episodes,
I often hear people feel so seen and so heard.
And so I know that there might be a little bit of similarity in emotional whiplash
with some of the death by a thousand cuts, but I really feel like the emotional
whiplash is significantly different.
The death by by a thousand cuts can just be a series of just tiny little things
that eat away at somebody where then this emotional whiplash is where I don't
think that the emotionally immature realize that they can say to their,
their partner, you are a horrible person.
And I don't even know why I'm with you one minute. And then later just feel like, Hey, we're good.
Because that, that takes something out of the person, the kind person, it really does.
So if you hear these these examples today of emotional whiplash and you have
some of your own, please send them in to contact at tonyoverbay.com because
I would really love to get those on a future episode as well.
So let me just read some of these. The person said, what you said in your recording
about emotional consistency was gold and provided even more clarity.
She said, when your spouse is okay with you going out with friends one day,
then accuses you of cheating the next time you go out or gets angry that you
forgot the milk at the store.
And then two weeks later is exceptionally exceptionally gracious that you forgot
the eggs and offers to go out and get them.
She said that contributes so heavily to the cognitive dissonance and the crazy making.
So welcome to the world of emotional whiplash. Another person said,
in regard to making decisions about the house we own and having questions for
the mortgage company, he very rudely said, well, you're the one that wants to
assume the loan. You email him.
And an hour later, he wants to be cooperative and offers to send the email.
And another person said that he was okay with me taking the kids on a vacation
without him then randomly said, yeah, I've been thinking about that.
And I don't really think that's a good idea anymore.
I'm going to call legal office and find out if you can even do that. this was
during i think a divorce so in text a week later
then he said he won't be fighting me on
taking the kids anywhere this summer another person
said that her husband says all the
time that he's supportive of her going out with friends and says yeah i can
watch the kids but she said then when i tell him the plans or i'm getting ready
to go then he says i thought you don't stay out past your bedtime or how much
do you plan on drinking or why don't you just stay home and drink with me anymore.
Are you going out single tonight?
And then she said, the back and forth has begun. And she said, it is relentless.
Another person said that when they finally decided to go out with friends after
years of isolation, then I warned him weeks in advance, then the week of,
and then a few days ahead of time.
And then the night of that I would be staying out late and he needed to put the kids to bed.
As soon as I was gone, I got multiple angry texts from him asking,
when was I going to be home?
And when I got ahold of the kids later that That night, they said dad was asleep
and they were still awake.
Another person said they had something that's been on their mind now that they're
divorced and having to cover all their own expenses.
She said, I'm afraid to do car repairs and maintenance. I've been financially
dependent on this person for almost the last 20 years.
So I would always run it by him when I needed maintenance or repairs done.
Over the phone, when I would ask him about doing maintenance on a car.
I would run the numbers by him and everything would be hunky-dory.
Yeah, yeah, no problem. Do whatever you need to do. The car needs to be safe for you and the kids.
But she said, inevitably, that evening or the next day after it's been done,
then I would feel attacked with so much guilt of spending all his money and
my driving gets brought up.
She said, mind you, I do drive like a bit of a grandma.
But she said that then it's my fault that certain repairs need to be done.
She said, when I eventually talked to a mechanic, I was told it's just regular
repairs needed for the life and mileage of my vehicle.
I've even had a very experienced mechanic tell me that the engine sounds great.
And I've been taking care of my car. But she said, I digress.
I get a kind, caring person who is all for doing these repairs to then him yelling,
berating and guilting me for doing the repair and spending his money.
She said the most memorable quotes from him, it's just great that we can spend
all this money on your car and not even put one payment on my car.
She said we had plenty of money and at that time hardly struggled.
And it's almost like you're stupid or something and don't know how to maintain a car correctly.
She said, I did a lot of my own regular repairs with my own hands for years
before it got this bad with him.
I have been fearful for many years to call them and just say,
hey, the car needs the oil change. Is that all right?
Leaving that person that you care about in this state where they're afraid to
even make a call because they don't know which version they're going to get.
That is that emotional whiplash.
Another person said one week he ripped me up and down about going $20 over a
grocery budget to the next.
He was extremely kind when I called him in tears because I went $10 over and
was asking what I could return to make budget.
And he was tender saying things like, hey, it's okay.
Don't worry about it. We're okay on bills. and then mixed in little comments
like, where's this all coming from? Why are you emotional?
It's really not a problem. Are you okay? And she said, this cycle would repeat every week.
I think one of the famous phrases that I hear from the narcissist or the emotionally
immature people that enter my office from time to time are, well, you know me.
I love that because you can always see the person that is with them saying,
I have no idea. I don't know who you are.
Whatever is about to come out next is going to be completely inconsistent.
Another person shared that they love to paint and they would be excited over
something they painted.
One day, her spouse would say, hey, good job, babe.
To the next day, well, that's just great that you get to sit around all day
and paint and none of the other house projects get done.
And will you stay up late and paint and you don't want to spend any time with me?
And she said, I lost my desire to paint and now it's really hard to bring it back.
Another person said, having just moved countries again for a husband's job,
we started the process of discussing how to be allocated a monthly allowance for me and the kids.
For weeks, he's been saying how excited he is to finally open a joint bank account with me.
Well, the day comes and we are in the car park on the way to the bank.
And he looks at me and says, you know what? I don't even know if you love me
enough. Do you love me enough? Can you show me that you love me?
She said, I am then stuck looking dumbfounded and confused watching him walk back to the car.
About a week later, he leaves for a work trip and I ask how I'm going to pay
the bills and feed the kids while he's gone. Do I get cash?
And he turns and he says, what a shame. You couldn't answer my question.
I would love to open a joint bank account with you, but let's do that when I get back.
But now she said, we've done this dance for way too long. And she said,
just to be clear, he assures me that this is not financial control or abuse.
It's just him not feeling like I love him enough.
Side note, she said he works away and has been only home for just little bits at a time.
And trust me enough to be the full-time primary a married parent for our kids,
but I'm apparently not loving enough to have access to the money,
but he would love to open that account with me.
Again, that's the kind of thing that breaks my heart. Love or control in an
adult relationship? Which one?
Another person said, I was once told that we didn't have enough money for pizza
on a Friday night. She said, we definitely did.
And I was berated for always wanting to spend money that I never cook.
And an hour later, a friend calls of his and wants us all to go to the city overnight.
And we do it. Everything. Hotel, sightseeing.
We go out to eat. to this day, my kids and I will still ask about the magic
checkbook that all of a sudden allowed this trip to happen.
But just shortly before, it did not have enough in it for pizza.
Kind of reminds me of the Harry Potter tents where you walk in and now it's a whole house.
Another person said, I remember once going to a barbecue in our neighbor's backyard.
When I went to sit down, I left a seat for my ex. He decided not to sit by me,
saying there wasn't enough room and went up to to their kitchen to eat.
And of course, later then, I was accused of having an affair with the neighbor.
Another person said that their teenage daughter with her ex said that her dad,
said she's not welcome back into his house until she can respect him.
This is the 15-year-old. Respect him, but then told her that he can't pay for
her to do some things this summer that she desperately wants to because he's
saving to add additional rooms onto his house.
And she said that he has been just a real
pain in the rear the last few weeks
but then also had messaged a couple of days ago and
said that he had saved some rib bones for her dogs so she said she did not stop
and get the bones some of these can be very drastic a person shared that their
their ex had decided to quit his job and didn't discuss it with her she said
i really tried to to be supportive.
And then he set up a meeting with someone that he knew to then help me meal
prep for our very large family.
This woman took care of everything. She baked her own bread.
She grew a garden. Very admirable woman.
But she said it was a real big fluctuation to have had this really high income
and then to plan to live off savings and things like food storage for who knows how long.
But she said, I was game. I tried to adjust.
And the next thing you know, though, one of his friends put his house up for sale.
And all of a sudden, he wanted to buy a new home, a trophy home,
as a matter of fact, way beyond our means, especially because he had no job.
Now, all of a sudden, he wanted to liquidate all the assets to buy it.
She said, I literally just gotten into grinding wheat and food storage mode.
She said, it just felt so extreme.
And then she said she was accused of not supporting him or letting him lead
because she said she was reluctant about the purchase.
She said, I felt like that truly was decision-making whiplash.
Someone else said their ex counted everything. If one cracker was missing,
then he would go ballistic.
One night he got extremely mad at the kids because somebody ate two ice cream bars that day.
I reminded him that our daughter had had a friend over. That wasn't acceptable
to him. He just knew it was my son and my son was lying to us.
He had my son so screwed up in the head that he finally just admitted to eating
two ice creams that day. So his stepdad would stop screaming and punishing everybody.
The next morning I got up super early and I used our grocery budget for that
week and I bought every last one of his ice cream in the store's freezer.
I didn't say one word to him, but I told my kids to not eat any more ice creams
and we would just be eating ramen and PB&J that week.
They were fine because they knew it would calm the storm. But that afternoon
when my ex finally got out of bed to get one of his precious ice creams,
he saw all the boxes and told me I was insane for doing that.
Because now, he said he was just joking the night before and he doesn't care at all.
He likes that he can buy special treats for the kids.
My kids and I never ate another one of those ice creams. And yes,
since I referenced the crackers earlier, earlier he
would count everyone's cracker intake during dinner and
to make sure none of us ate more than him another person
said i was told many times that he was a big boy
and he could do his own laundry yet if i didn't have him a clean work shirt
or pants then i would be woken up at 4 a.m by clothes being ripped apart drawers
being thrown shoes being kicked across the room because he was being quiet looking
for something clean to wear so then i finally got to a point where i would would
wait till he fell asleep,
and then throw in clothes on quick cycles so that he had them the next morning,
only to be told he hated that shirt.
Mind you, for the last three months, it had been his favorite.
Another person said, one morning before school, I had scripture study with the
kids because my hubby was pouting.
He was so angry that he knocked a glass 9x13 pan of cinnamon rolls off the stove
to the floor. There was a mess everywhere.
He yelled and he demeans and then takes a shower.
Shaking and upset, I leave the mess and take the kids to find fast food for breakfast.
I call in my boss to cover work for me for a few hours, just saying I have an emergency.
The hubby and I work at the same place. Now after eating, they want to go to
school so I can take them. him. I wait a while and I get home and I clean up and I get dressed.
Hubby isn't there. The mess is partially cleaned up. I hurry and I get ready to go to work.
As I'm pulling out of the driveway, he drives up and parks. I start to pull
out and I see him waving at me to stop in my rearview mirror.
He looks calm, so I stop. I roll my window down about two inches and I start
shaking at the sight of him standing by the window.
He very gently says, are you okay?
Your boss is covering for you and they're super worried about you.
Are you sure you don't need to just stay home and rest?
And she said, what? I just said, did you tell her why I'm upset?
And then he said, no, I don't think she needs to know the details.
I just told her that you had had a rough morning. Don't you wanna stay home and rest?
Staying busy is better for me. Another person said, oh, this is such a good topic.
My husband will act super loving and say all the nice things and give so much gentle touch.
And then later we'll cross physical boundaries, random groping or sexual coercion.
And then when I gently assert my boundaries and try to move away,
he will automatically switch to silent sulky mode and stay that way for days.
I definitely feel the whiplash even knowing what's coming and bracing for it.
I know we've touched on this on some of the previous episodes and I want to
get more into this in future episodes, but that is that sexual coercion or there's a price to pay.
And then when someone then withdraws, they become sullen, sulky,
that I know often that the pathologically kind person feels like,
well, I know what he's wanting and I can take care of this and then he will
not take it out on the kids or me.
And then all of a sudden, it's another view of now he wants to ride bikes.
He's fine. Another person said about a year or two ago, I was considering going into real estate.
He was initially encouraging, telling me that he thought I'd be great at it.
Then a few months later, I was on a work call while working from home and he was within earshot.
When I got off the phone, he said, are you sure you want to go into real estate?
Because you're really good at what you do.
I was really confused because it seemed like it should have been a compliment,
but I feel like he was really just planting seeds of doubt.
He had decision whiplash a lot and it often related to purchases.
Purchases i think he bought and returned his apple
watch about 10 times he also never had a car more
than two years he would purchase what i believe to
be impulsively and then decide he likes something better and then
form some type of phony excuse as to why he needed to get a new
car he would then often make the car purchases without discussing with me and
he would just come home with a new vehicle often the new car purchases would
come on the tail end of complaining about not having money then when the kids
got old enough to catch on they would ask me why is he buying a new car if he
didn't have any money. She said it's all just crazy making.
Another person said that they would wake up before my ex and feed and let the dogs out.
That morning routine was enough to drive a person out of their mind because
he constantly moved the goalpost.
She said, see, one of the dogs would sometimes bark to be let inside or when
they were excited about food.
So I did my best to keep that to just a real quick woof or two when it happened.
But my ex would become enraged, claiming I was incompetent and careless.
So then he would outline a new protocol for me to follow. This is an adult human being.
She said, I would follow it even though I knew the dog would still bark and
the dog would bark and he would become enraged, claiming that I was careless,
et cetera, and on and on like that endlessly.
Another person said he loves to quote ride bikes so often that I definitely
experienced emotional whiplash.
He frequently lectured me for being late, yet I was the only one who got up
early to take kids and to get ready and then to get the kids ready and take
care of other things, prep the household. old.
He'd be in a bath until the last minute and then lose it and lecture me when I wasn't ready.
He and the kids will wait in the car and then call me a slow poke when I finally
make it out with all of their coats, their water bottles, their snacks,
and necessary change of clothes for each child.
If I say I don't like being called out, then he would say, well,
I'm just too sensitive or we can't take a joke.
After just having scolded and insulted me, he then wants to to hold my hand
while we drive to our destination.
And his tone of voice is if nothing happened. She said, this happens so often
that I have chronic pain from all the whiplash.
And another one, she said, I'm told all the time that the kids need to eat better.
I agree, but I think I also deserve credit for making them well-rounded meals.
When he's taking care of them, he can't bother to take the extra step of adding
vegetables or more than one thing to their meal.
His hypocrisy always felt like a slap in the face or whiplash.
Another person said, I have a very large family. and we're really close.
My siblings are my best friends and I'm very close with my parents.
Both his parents have passed away and he has no friends or family, just me.
One minute he will say he's so thankful that our kids have that family support
and all that comes with it. And then the next, it will be used as a guilt tactic.
And I'll hear things like, well, some of us don't have any support or any help at all.
Or if I spend time with friends and family, then he will encourage me to do whatever I want.
And then other days he will be ticked off at me and guilt me because he He never
gets to do anything and he couldn't even if he had people because I'm always
out and he has to watch the kids.
She said, another one I thought of is how he will never eat the homemade meals
that I make, and he will get fast food for himself.
Then the next minute, he'll be upset that there's nothing to eat or made,
and also expect the kids to eat whatever I make.
Another huge one is for four years, he didn't work and relied on me financially completely.
And now that we're separated, I am still paying most of the bills and taking care of things.
Some days he tells me he appreciates all I do, and he can't make it without me and he needs me.
Then when I question anything he's doing financially or I buy something,
he yells at me and says that he has his crap together and doesn't need my help at all.
Until he does again. Another person said, I never felt as crazy as during our
last year living together. He had had an emotional affair and was in the discard phase.
He would jump from being nice and loving to mean within minutes.
I had no clue what I was dealing with and thought that he was his real self
whenever he was nice and loving.
But when he was mean, it was so bad that I couldn't hold on to any of the good.
The craziness made me start writing down what he said when he was nice so I
could remember when he was mean or when he would withhold love and stonewall.
I tried so hard to hold on to the positives that I still have pages and pages
of the notes on my phone with any nice things that he said.
Thinking back now, I know that if I had known what I know now,
I should have been taking notes when he was not being nice to make sure I remembered
and got myself out. but the cognitive dissonance and the confusion is very real
and I felt like I was truly going crazy.
And that is so true because I think we've talked on some of the previous episodes
about taking notes or scorekeeping, and it feels like the wrong thing to do
except for when it's not.
And too often, that pathologically kind person keeps going back to the,
okay, but there are some good things.
And when we have to convince ourselves that there are some good things in the
relationship, then that's not a healthy relationship. Somebody said.
Like this in my marriage. And I'm sitting here with my coffee.
My mind cannot remember a single thing.
She said, isn't it amazing how our memory recall gets damaged by all this?
She said, thanks for talking about this subject, Tony. It is validating and I'm not crazy.
And you're not. And I think that that is a pretty amazing concept where when
people get out of emotionally unhealthy,
narcissistic relationships, then they get out of that complex post-traumatic stress disorder,
That CPTSD and the brain can start to heal and the central nervous system can
start to calm and you can start to tap into parts of the brain that have just
been continually in a fight or flight mode for a long time.
So if you have examples of your own, please share them.
I'm sure that we'll do a follow up episode of this, but I appreciate the support
and I hope that you all have an amazing week and I will see you next time on Waking Up to Nurse.