The betrayal can be one of the hardest things to address and deal with later on in life. It's a grieving process because it's acknowledging the life you had rather than the childhood you should have had and/or thought you had. You spend many years chasing ghosts in the hope of getting it right and being the "good girl/ boy" in order to be loved. You also think at times that they do love you. It's just that you are bad or don't try hard enough. This, then, like you say, goes on into other relationships, and what you think is "normal" or to be expected of your spouse.
Wow, this video nails it! Narcissist mother who sexually abused me and also is extremely wealthy and supported me, financially, as long as I stayed submissive and "asleep." She said she felt "sorry" for me (breaking me) and that is why she kept me close and supported me, while teaching me I could not take carenof myself on my own. I finally "woke up" to the abuse and left at 47. It took me many years to heal from the CPTSD, somatic pain, stockholm syndrome, DID, and such. But at 62, I am FREE. God did for me what I could not do for myself. I finally was led to a beautiful man and we married 9 years ago. Your videos are so important to me❤ Thank you!
I think this also overlooks how the abuser's are usually very good at manipulating the victim by buying their affection in other ways, the dependency usually isn't as simple as 'oh, three's a red flag here"
We have experienced so much of this throughout our lives. We would see the red flags and eventually find the exit, but as there was so much of it during childhood and teenage years, it left a residue that meant it happened a lot through the body's growing older as well. It made our ability to trust completely impossible. We do just enough to help other people feel comfortable, but our inside world stays in fear and chaos. Thank you, as always.
This kind of trauma feels deeply rooted, wrapped around our very beginnings. I can now see how I pursued, how I need(ed) that parental relationship - over and over - and the shame for that weakness. I guess noticing this is a first step to making safer, more healthy relationships. Thank you for your videos. They have a huge impact on my life. You’re the best, Dr Mike!
Thank you so much for this video. It was really validating for me to watch. After growing up in a religious cult, leaving, but ending up in one bad relationship after another, I’m finally starting to see the patterns I keep repeating. I’m learning a lot from your videos!
Would it be possible to make a follow up video on dealing with isolation in this specific context? Once we learn and feel capable of walking away from these relationships, it can be hard to find new ones due to that broken trust/fear of being betrayed again (especially where it's become a pattern), so I feel like a lot of us tend to avoid building new relationships to save the hurt, and find ourselves isolated and alone in the process.
This is legit I've had so much betrayal traumas I refuse to trust anyone ever again lol smh everytime I tried the trusting thing it went super wrong I give up lol
Even though I understand this….still it’s a had thing to deal with. I always felt whatever betrayal (or negative feeling) I had in response to an action…I had no right to “feel any way” and that my negative feelings are indicative of MY OWN badness. (How dare I get upset about trespass to my body, don’t I know I have no right to say no?) This followed me into relationships, and in retrospect I associated the feeling of betrayal as something normal (what wasn’t normal was me wanting it to change).
Thank you for setting this out so clearly, my sister and I both struggle with the "normalness" and every day nature of the betrayal whilst growing up that makes us doubt ourselves, we don't naturally place importance on our own feelings or believe that they are true or relevant.
I'm going through this with my daughter right now. I am elderly and can't just leave. No support from anyone else. I have DID/CPTSD and have been through enough.
Dependence on a parent who hurts you , but its not recognized by others . Its not seen by others . Its very secretive. Its abuse that is just unseen .The parent twists your words , pits others against you , calls you a problem, makes others see it . Slanders you to others . You see it all and no one else does . I stayed in an abusive relationship with my boyfriend only because if I left him I would have had to be with the abuse of the parent again . I escaped from parent , but only found more abuse and betrayal with my partner. It was physical abuse as well as brutal verbal abuse. I stayed fir seven years until this person tried to attack my dog . I would nit allow that . And my brother allowed me to live with him
I understand this as someone with CPTSD who has a mom with mental health issues and her mom, my dad’s mom. It’s like the emotional support layer wasn’t formed.
great content and makes us (me and my system) feel validated. unfortunately, for me as host and trauma holder, I can not even watch the video at once. I need to pause it because even listening to this CPTSD concept triggers me and then I start dissociating so badly. thanks for the informative video, as always!
Great video. I'm still trying to learn what maladaptive relationship patterns I find myself engaging in over and over, so that I can get out of them. I think one is that I'm too eager to please people who don't value me for who I am, and so I'm willing to contort myself to try and be what they want so that they'll like me (or at least not be hostile towards me, if these are more superficial relationships rather than closer ones). I think there's an underlying belief I have that the only way to be lovable or acceptable is to change myself, because who I am naturally is not good enough. I don't seem to believe that I _can_ be accepted as I am. Something I find particularly difficult is how to challenge core beliefs when you don't consciously believe them. Like, I recognize that I have value, that I'm likeable/lovable/good enough, and that it's not my job to get people to like me, but to find people who will like me for who I am. I know it's possible to set healthy boundaries and walk away from people who are not kind or accepting. I understand that intellectually, and I feel like I believe that consciously. But when it comes to my behavior.... well, it's like that belief just flies right out the window. The moment I try to be solid in who I am, I start to feel panic rising, and I don't feel safe. I dissociate and revert back to my masking and fawning behavior. It makes for a very uncomfortable dissonance, because I'm not being the authentic person I want to be, but the fear is too intense for me to behave any other way. I'm trans and only came out last year. I changed my legal name, started hrt, etc. My siblings were all very supportive, though I don't know how my extended family felt (I came out on Facebook, so not everyone was even aware). The last time I saw my family was two years ago at my mom's funeral, just a couple months before I realized I was trans. The other day I attended my brother's wedding (over Zoom, because I'm in another country), and it was the first time I'd interacted with my extended family face-to-face since coming out. The first thing I encountered upon joining the Zoom call was being deadnamed and misgendered by my aunt and uncle (despite the fact my display name was my new name). I corrected them on my name, but didn't bother addressing the misgendering/pronouns. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I wanted to be able to feel confident in myself and who I am, but I felt such a need to retreat because it felt too unsafe. (To be clear, none of these family members in question have ever been abusive towards me, so it's not like I was actually unsafe in any way. They might not have understood me being trans, but they probably wouldn't be hostile or judgmental about it. They're decent people. They immediately switched to the correct name after being told and didn't deadname me again afterwards.) I was glad I could turn off my camera and microphone, so I could regulate a bit better. If I'd been there in person, I think I would have gotten too overwhelmed and possibly needed to leave. Even with being at a distance and essentially hidden, I still had so much anxiety. I really don't know what to do with that. This anxiety is my biggest obstacle in my transition.
OMG 😢 I think I might have a fairly unique experience here. My parents and family were actually very supportive caring and loving and I had a pretty good childhood compared to several of my friends. My parents were kind, respectful and fair. Though it wasn’t until my recent diagnosis of ADHD that I realised how very hard it must have been for my Mum to have raised me back then (more than 50 years ago) because nothing was known about addiction/adhd other than the occasional naughty little boy who had it but would grow out of it one day. My point is, that I felt like I was never wanted because I was always getting in trouble for something I’d done wrong, but never being able to really connect the dots with what ever it was I’d done wrong. And this was then compounded when I started school because my teachers were always upset with me too. Obviously there is a lot more involved than just this, but even though I don’t believe I am dissociative (I’m actually watching your videos because I have someone I care for a lot who I think has DID or something along those lines. But blow me down with a feather I think I have C-PTSD
I feel like the concept of grounding is difficult for me. In my sessions whenever the concept comes up, there is an internal negative reaction to it. I feel like that gets in the way of being able to address traumas (like betrayal or any other type). Has anyone else struggled with that?
Yes, I have D.I.D and struggled with this A LOT. We had to flee the present moment, flee the body, life, the world and go within in order to survive. We could only escape mentally. When our therapist talks about learning to become more present and grounded, it freaks a lot of us out. We're like "Are you crazy? We fled for a reason. The world is bad, evil, dark and dangerous. Same with the body, bad things happened by having a body and being female". It is taking a long time to really understand that it isn't the world, life, the universe, "god" or the "devil, being female or having a body that CAUSED all of our trauma and abuse. We're slowly learning to be more present and grounded in teeny, tiny doses. With this kind of work, slow is fast. It is entirely understandable to have a negative reaction to "being grounded" as it feels like a threat. "Safety" can be a huge threat when one has never had it. Our therapist reminds us that learning to be present, although it is very new, weird and different, doesn't mean it's dangerous.
For me, that term “grounding” has been used against me by others to silence me when I needed to express and it made them uncomfortable (therapists and social workers I’m looking and you) so they would interrupt to tell me to use “grounding” techniques instead of listening to what I needed to do to work through things as an Autistic, multi-faceted being with aphantasia and extreme difficulty at times with verbal expression/situational mutism. I needed a patient person to see and hear what I needed, instead of using psychological terms (and “authority”) to silence me.
I cannot trust , As I only find those that repeat the abuse . After my parent passed on . my sibling took over her abuse of me . Wow , what a betrayal this person did . Its because she went through a trauma in her own life and found me as a very willing scapegoat for her inability to face the reality of what happened to her .I had to live with her for a few months and it was so bad that she , like my mom tried to get rid of me through lying to others about me . I was once again the problem that needed fixing. omg 😱 😢 I had surgery and needed help . and she made my life a living hell . But just gaslighted daily . pretending her behaviour was not a problem.
Put in a nutshell something so hard to contemplate, especially when the so called love was intermittant. A lifetime of grieving for what I didnt have, as the scapegoat in a narcisistic family..
I didn't know how to say "no" and could not explain why I wanted to say no. It has been a struggle to find those words, so that others can understand what I mean, when I am not willing to agree with them. Difficult even now to put into words.
Well, remember this “skill” was forced into us to learn and be really good at-so no shame, no shame. We did EXACTLY what we were made to do for our survival, and we were extremely well trained! I’d say that’s amazing self education ! And it’s not easy to undo. As a former ballet dancer (like over 30+ years ago), I still do things in ways that my body was trained to do as a dancer-that STILL causes me pain…as it is very very hard to undo years and years of training and doing over and over. I don’t shame myself for automatically doing that now, nor should we shame our stories where we showed proficiency and a thorough education in relational survival skills. It is just realizing we don’t want or need those skills anymore and now want something better. You did what you were taught how to do.
Is there any specific treatment or guidelines to help victims of torture? I finally spoke about it to my therapist but so far it has gone nowhere. The very specific tactics used during the torture is terrifying. I feel like no one understands and I don't even know if there is much help out there or knowledge on it anyway. I just hate feeling so alone with the topic.
What happens if your trying to find a therapist who treats dissociative disorders and all the flashbacks of sexual trauma by your drug addicted father before the age three are bombarding you. How do people process this on their own until you find a therapist?
Question: may ask what do you do if suspect your parents were some form of dissociation and your living siblings ??? And none of them have a clue. Meanwhile me newly dx asd along w some form of dissociation is having hard time … Thank you
I get it. The triangulation of the abuser pit my entire extended family against me. No one believed me, or if they did, couldn't bear to stand up to it. I finally just walked away from ALL of them. I realized I was trying to connect with people I don't even like or respect. Now, I am free!🎉
I do not have to accept this! Thank you for saying that 🩷 some of us need to hear it 😊 I'm dealing with the feelings of betrayal now, but I also feel like I am betraying them for walking away. It's very conflicting.
The betrayal can be one of the hardest things to address and deal with later on in life. It's a grieving process because it's acknowledging the life you had rather than the childhood you should have had and/or thought you had. You spend many years chasing ghosts in the hope of getting it right and being the "good girl/ boy" in order to be loved. You also think at times that they do love you. It's just that you are bad or don't try hard enough. This, then, like you say, goes on into other relationships, and what you think is "normal" or to be expected of your spouse.
Thank you, this comment absolutely demonstrates how deep the trauma can run, and the ripple effect that can go on and on until dealt with.
growing up bullied and demonized set me up for years of being in relationships of the same
Wow, this video nails it! Narcissist mother who sexually abused me and also is extremely wealthy and supported me, financially, as long as I stayed submissive and "asleep." She said she felt "sorry" for me (breaking me) and that is why she kept me close and supported me, while teaching me I could not take carenof myself on my own. I finally "woke up" to the abuse and left at 47. It took me many years to heal from the CPTSD, somatic pain, stockholm syndrome, DID, and such. But at 62, I am FREE. God did for me what I could not do for myself. I finally was led to a beautiful man and we married 9 years ago.
Your videos are so important to me❤ Thank you!
I am so, so pleased you have found your own path, and to be a small part of that journey at this stage in your life is a true honour!
I think this also overlooks how the abuser's are usually very good at manipulating the victim by buying their affection in other ways, the dependency usually isn't as simple as 'oh, three's a red flag here"
You are spot on, here. The tactics of hiding the red flags can be extremely clever. Gaslighting is common.
We have experienced so much of this throughout our lives. We would see the red flags and eventually find the exit, but as there was so much of it during childhood and teenage years, it left a residue that meant it happened a lot through the body's growing older as well. It made our ability to trust completely impossible. We do just enough to help other people feel comfortable, but our inside world stays in fear and chaos. Thank you, as always.
This kind of trauma feels deeply rooted, wrapped around our very beginnings. I can now see how I pursued, how I need(ed) that parental relationship - over and over - and the shame for that weakness. I guess noticing this is a first step to making safer, more healthy relationships. Thank you for your videos. They have a huge impact on my life. You’re the best, Dr Mike!
Thank you so much, I hope you do ok!
Thanks for this. This is a very nuanced approach to betrayal trauma and how hard it is to escape these dynamics. they hurt so deeply.
Thank you. The escape from this can be so complicated.
Thank you so much for this video. It was really validating for me to watch. After growing up in a religious cult, leaving, but ending up in one bad relationship after another, I’m finally starting to see the patterns I keep repeating. I’m learning a lot from your videos!
Thank you, and I hope you continue to thrive!
@ thank you! I’m working on it, with the help of a great therapist 🙏
Would it be possible to make a follow up video on dealing with isolation in this specific context? Once we learn and feel capable of walking away from these relationships, it can be hard to find new ones due to that broken trust/fear of being betrayed again (especially where it's become a pattern), so I feel like a lot of us tend to avoid building new relationships to save the hurt, and find ourselves isolated and alone in the process.
It’s a good idea, thank you. I certainly hope you find your way.
As always, thank you greatly for the phenomenonal delivery of need-to-know information. ♡☆
You are so welcome!
This is legit I've had so much betrayal traumas I refuse to trust anyone ever again lol smh everytime I tried the trusting thing it went super wrong I give up lol
You just keep them comming ... one Awesome video after another !!!!!
Even though I understand this….still it’s a had thing to deal with. I always felt whatever betrayal (or negative feeling) I had in response to an action…I had no right to “feel any way” and that my negative feelings are indicative of MY OWN badness. (How dare I get upset about trespass to my body, don’t I know I have no right to say no?) This followed me into relationships, and in retrospect I associated the feeling of betrayal as something normal (what wasn’t normal was me wanting it to change).
Absolutely see myself in this. I fully believed for nearly 40 years that being treated badly is what I deserved, and I was the one who was wrong.
. Me too
So.. there's now screaming inside. I guess this... Hit a spot.
Still. Important.
Thank you.
Needed this today. Thank you.
You are so welcome!
Thank you for setting this out so clearly, my sister and I both struggle with the "normalness" and every day nature of the betrayal whilst growing up that makes us doubt ourselves, we don't naturally place importance on our own feelings or believe that they are true or relevant.
You are so welcome!
ooo another thing to cry about! and just in time for breakfast!! how fun :3
Hope you have something that makes watching this worth it!
I'm going through this with my daughter right now. I am elderly and can't just leave. No support from anyone else. I have DID/CPTSD and have been through enough.
I sincerely hope things work out ok.
Dependence on a parent who hurts you , but its not recognized by others . Its not seen by others . Its very secretive. Its abuse that is just unseen .The parent twists your words , pits others against you , calls you a problem, makes others see it . Slanders you to others . You see it all and no one else does . I stayed in an abusive relationship with my boyfriend only because if I left him I would have had to be with the abuse of the parent again . I escaped from parent , but only found more abuse and betrayal with my partner. It was physical abuse as well as brutal verbal abuse. I stayed fir seven years until this person tried to attack my dog . I would nit allow that . And my brother allowed me to live with him
Thank you Dr. Lloyd
You are very welcome!
I understand this as someone with CPTSD who has a mom with mental health issues and her mom, my dad’s mom. It’s like the emotional support layer wasn’t formed.
great content and makes us (me and my system) feel validated. unfortunately, for me as host and trauma holder, I can not even watch the video at once. I need to pause it because even listening to this CPTSD concept triggers me and then I start dissociating so badly. thanks for the informative video, as always!
Yes, that must be really tough. The video is sort of in three sections, hope that makes it watchable.
Great video. I'm still trying to learn what maladaptive relationship patterns I find myself engaging in over and over, so that I can get out of them. I think one is that I'm too eager to please people who don't value me for who I am, and so I'm willing to contort myself to try and be what they want so that they'll like me (or at least not be hostile towards me, if these are more superficial relationships rather than closer ones). I think there's an underlying belief I have that the only way to be lovable or acceptable is to change myself, because who I am naturally is not good enough. I don't seem to believe that I _can_ be accepted as I am.
Something I find particularly difficult is how to challenge core beliefs when you don't consciously believe them. Like, I recognize that I have value, that I'm likeable/lovable/good enough, and that it's not my job to get people to like me, but to find people who will like me for who I am. I know it's possible to set healthy boundaries and walk away from people who are not kind or accepting. I understand that intellectually, and I feel like I believe that consciously. But when it comes to my behavior.... well, it's like that belief just flies right out the window.
The moment I try to be solid in who I am, I start to feel panic rising, and I don't feel safe. I dissociate and revert back to my masking and fawning behavior. It makes for a very uncomfortable dissonance, because I'm not being the authentic person I want to be, but the fear is too intense for me to behave any other way.
I'm trans and only came out last year. I changed my legal name, started hrt, etc. My siblings were all very supportive, though I don't know how my extended family felt (I came out on Facebook, so not everyone was even aware). The last time I saw my family was two years ago at my mom's funeral, just a couple months before I realized I was trans. The other day I attended my brother's wedding (over Zoom, because I'm in another country), and it was the first time I'd interacted with my extended family face-to-face since coming out.
The first thing I encountered upon joining the Zoom call was being deadnamed and misgendered by my aunt and uncle (despite the fact my display name was my new name). I corrected them on my name, but didn't bother addressing the misgendering/pronouns. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I wanted to be able to feel confident in myself and who I am, but I felt such a need to retreat because it felt too unsafe. (To be clear, none of these family members in question have ever been abusive towards me, so it's not like I was actually unsafe in any way. They might not have understood me being trans, but they probably wouldn't be hostile or judgmental about it. They're decent people. They immediately switched to the correct name after being told and didn't deadname me again afterwards.) I was glad I could turn off my camera and microphone, so I could regulate a bit better. If I'd been there in person, I think I would have gotten too overwhelmed and possibly needed to leave. Even with being at a distance and essentially hidden, I still had so much anxiety. I really don't know what to do with that. This anxiety is my biggest obstacle in my transition.
OMG 😢 I think I might have a fairly unique experience here. My parents and family were actually very supportive caring and loving and I had a pretty good childhood compared to several of my friends. My parents were kind, respectful and fair. Though it wasn’t until my recent diagnosis of ADHD that I realised how very hard it must have been for my Mum to have raised me back then (more than 50 years ago) because nothing was known about addiction/adhd other than the occasional naughty little boy who had it but would grow out of it one day.
My point is, that I felt like I was never wanted because I was always getting in trouble for something I’d done wrong, but never being able to really connect the dots with what ever it was I’d done wrong. And this was then compounded when I started school because my teachers were always upset with me too.
Obviously there is a lot more involved than just this, but even though I don’t believe I am dissociative (I’m actually watching your videos because I have someone I care for a lot who I think has DID or something along those lines. But blow me down with a feather I think I have C-PTSD
I feel like the concept of grounding is difficult for me. In my sessions whenever the concept comes up, there is an internal negative reaction to it. I feel like that gets in the way of being able to address traumas (like betrayal or any other type). Has anyone else struggled with that?
Yes, I have D.I.D and struggled with this A LOT. We had to flee the present moment, flee the body, life, the world and go within in order to survive. We could only escape mentally. When our therapist talks about learning to become more present and grounded, it freaks a lot of us out. We're like "Are you crazy? We fled for a reason. The world is bad, evil, dark and dangerous. Same with the body, bad things happened by having a body and being female". It is taking a long time to really understand that it isn't the world, life, the universe, "god" or the "devil, being female or having a body that CAUSED all of our trauma and abuse. We're slowly learning to be more present and grounded in teeny, tiny doses. With this kind of work, slow is fast. It is entirely understandable to have a negative reaction to "being grounded" as it feels like a threat. "Safety" can be a huge threat when one has never had it. Our therapist reminds us that learning to be present, although it is very new, weird and different, doesn't mean it's dangerous.
For me, that term “grounding” has been used against me by others to silence me when I needed to express and it made them uncomfortable (therapists and social workers I’m looking and you) so they would interrupt to tell me to use “grounding” techniques instead of listening to what I needed to do to work through things as an Autistic, multi-faceted being with aphantasia and extreme difficulty at times with verbal expression/situational mutism. I needed a patient person to see and hear what I needed, instead of using psychological terms (and “authority”) to silence me.
I cannot trust , As I only find those that repeat the abuse . After my parent passed on . my sibling took over her abuse of me . Wow , what a betrayal this person did . Its because she went through a trauma in her own life and found me as a very willing scapegoat for her inability to face the reality of what happened to her .I had to live with her for a few months and it was so bad that she , like my mom tried to get rid of me through lying to others about me . I was once again the problem that needed fixing. omg 😱 😢 I had surgery and needed help . and she made my life a living hell . But just gaslighted daily . pretending her behaviour was not a problem.
Put in a nutshell something so hard to contemplate, especially when the so called love was intermittant. A lifetime of grieving for what I didnt have, as the scapegoat in a narcisistic family..
That grief and loss is so powerful.
Thank you so much for this 🩷 please don’t ever stop making such important videos! You’re changing so many lives ❤️🩹
You got it! Learned from the best…
I didn't know how to say "no" and could not explain why I wanted to say no. It has been a struggle to find those words, so that others can understand what I mean, when I am not willing to agree with them. Difficult even now to put into words.
Ughh. My whole life 😫💔😢. So many mistakes
Well, remember this “skill” was forced into us to learn and be really good at-so no shame, no shame. We did EXACTLY what we were made to do for our survival, and we were extremely well trained! I’d say that’s amazing self education ! And it’s not easy to undo. As a former ballet dancer (like over 30+ years ago), I still do things in ways that my body was trained to do as a dancer-that STILL causes me pain…as it is very very hard to undo years and years of training and doing over and over. I don’t shame myself for automatically doing that now, nor should we shame our stories where we showed proficiency and a thorough education in relational survival skills. It is just realizing we don’t want or need those skills anymore and now want something better. You did what you were taught how to do.
Is there any specific treatment or guidelines to help victims of torture? I finally spoke about it to my therapist but so far it has gone nowhere. The very specific tactics used during the torture is terrifying. I feel like no one understands and I don't even know if there is much help out there or knowledge on it anyway. I just hate feeling so alone with the topic.
If you are in the UK look up Freedom from Torture or The Helen Bamber Foundation
What happens if your trying to find a therapist who treats dissociative disorders and all the flashbacks of sexual trauma by your drug addicted father before the age three are bombarding you. How do people process this on their own until you find a therapist?
Question: may ask what do you do if suspect your parents were some form of dissociation and your living siblings ??? And none of them have a clue. Meanwhile me newly dx asd along w some form of dissociation is having hard time … Thank you
I get it. The triangulation of the abuser pit my entire extended family against me. No one believed me, or if they did, couldn't bear to stand up to it. I finally just walked away from ALL of them. I realized I was trying to connect with people I don't even like or respect. Now, I am free!🎉
I do not have to accept this! Thank you for saying that 🩷 some of us need to hear it 😊
I'm dealing with the feelings of betrayal now, but I also feel like I am betraying them for walking away. It's very conflicting.
It really is, as you say, escape can be made laden with guilt. Awful.