Healing Betrayal Trauma--Full Version

hi everyone my name is Kristen Snowden I'm a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the state of California but this isn't therapy this is just a live webinar and then a taped video to kind of help you navigate the most extreme and painful relationship crises that that tend to come up so it's not just for those who are struggling with sex addiction which is often why people come into the sex in relationship healing calm webinars but it's also for people who are trying to navigate infidelity in general and other kind of emotional physical abuse stuff that that comes up in a relationship that triggers a lot of pain and confusion so one of the most commonly hit topics on my site is always on betrayal trauma and those are some of my highest viewed videos so I thought I'd spend a little bit more time on that subject because I think we've worked so hard in our community to try to get the word out that betrayal trauma is real so often we'll say in the community in treatment and recovery that your partner's more likely to leave you for the lies that you tell the manipulation that you engage in the gaslighting that occurs rather than the you know the events that you engage in the behaviors you choose because that piece while the other piece is also very traumatizing and hurtful the betrayal trauma of someone who is supposed to be a trusted loved one someone who's supposed to be putting you and your relationship and your family's safety and interest as a priority um suddenly shows you through an uncovered addiction whether it's sex addiction or gambling were there hundreds of thousand dollars in debt to drug and alcohol addiction where they've maybe been emotionally absent physically abusive emotionally abusive uncovering that I thought I knew this person and really they've had this whole double life outside of what I saw our life was you know if if that either there's severe trauma that occurs and I'm going to spend a little bit of time on that but I've also done several videos kind of explaining what betrayal trauma is the symptoms of it so I'm going to encourage you to get more details from that but it's also just kind of thing realizing that if that wasn't real you know from all the lives of manipulation what was real and it really causes people to completely break down and lose everything not just their their safety in a marriage but safety and just confidence in their basic decision-making confidence in Who am I then you know what am i what is this marriage you know if I've been married to this person who's capable of lying and then boozing me then maybe everything that's been a lie you know if his or her addictions run the past three years that we've been married for the past ten years I'm gonna question the entire ten years I'm gonna question all of my relationships because clearly I have bad decision-making you know these are all common shaming voices that come upon us when we uncover the very devastating reality that our partner has been living a double life beyond us and another element besides like sex addiction and other addictions and infidelities which cause betrayal trauma I find that it also exists in any kind of relationship where there's kind of been a highly manipulative person in the relationship maybe you didn't engage in infidelity but they're constantly regularly gaslighting you because they're invested in always being right and you always be wrong and them always staying up here because they don't have the ego strength they're too fragile emotionally to ever own that they're like you know they're just a flawed human being so let's say that that that maybe there's not infidelity but that person tends to have narcissistic traits let's say so that also Kurt occurs there so that's applicable to people as well so today's focus is going to be not defining what betrayal trauma is because I think many webinars have defined that and I hope you all understand that but talking in detail about what the evidence-based treatment options are for clients to get dig their way out of kind of the physiological emotional and spiritual consequences of being betrayed so the book that I always like to hang on a reference a book when where I'm doing my webinar so you guys can always go back and do you obviously anyone who's chiming in here is great at doing their independent study work so you're great about looking things up online this is bar none one of the best trauma educational books for the layman's person right so someone who's not a neurological scientist who just wants to kind of understand what the heck is going on in my body and why do I feel so out of control like none of this stuff is in my realm of control the body keeps score is really great because you can apply all the concepts to to the most recent crisis he he does get a lot in two phases like the adverse childhood at adverse childhood experiences and stuff but I want you to hear that there are lots of people out there who are betrayed partners who do not have like extreme obvious trauma in their childhood you know several things just happen upon the road in their marriage and relationship one thing led to another and now they suddenly by themselves in deep levels of betrayal so don't read from this book that if I find myself in the state of a betrayed apartment and that must mean I had this deeply traumatizing childhood one doesn't necessarily connect the other but one thing I find that rings true to both scenarios is the trauma consequences that happen in the brain so really quick and again this is in more detail in other webinars but sorry I'm getting something that pops up [Music] so let me start again is something that comes up is understanding what happens so basically when you uncover the trauma of finding out that your partner's been lying that there's been some addiction going on that there's been infidelity but all the things that the person's been saying and doing it is a big lie there's gas lighting so gas lighting is when someone is highly invested in highly manipulative and trying to tell you that what your reality is it's not your reality so a really common example is no I'm not having an affair stop asking me why I'm getting these blocked phone calls it's for work because I'm working really hard to pay the bills and how dare you not be grateful of the fact that I'm working my butt off to support this family and no I don't have sex with you because you're a nag like this that's a common story but the truth is is the block calls are his affair partner and he's having an affair so meaning you had these instincts and intuition telling you that something's going on and they regularly are saying no this is the new reality I want you to adopt so anyway the state of what happens in your brain when you are traumatized is you are triggered it's it's as if I kind of basically like stabbed you the same part comes out it's as if I just put a giant grizzly bear in front of you and said okay I'm fine you're way out of the house so you and the grizzly bear are stuck in the house it lights up everything in that back part of your brain that fight flight or freeze that is saying your life is in danger you are being threatened and and guess what when that's on fire when that's highly deeply aroused as you continue to uncover more and you continue to question more and you continue to feel so unsafe as you figure out am i standing with this person am i leaving it's he leaving is she leaving how much money was involved oh my gosh our lives are in ruined our retirements gone as you continue and cover that you stay back there in that involuntary part of your brain which is that fight flight or freeze trying to your brains working overtime trying to make sure that it stays alive you know it thinks it's keeping you alive but unfortunately with also happening is your brain can't operate in two areas and so your prefrontal cortex or the neocortex which is like your rational thought which helps regulate and kind of tell the back of that brain it's okay you know it's gonna be okay and this is how you're gonna figure it out and resourcing and decision making and and calming down a reaction to something so an emotional reaction that cannot be on because it is too busy back here so then the secondary consequence is always this shame of like I feel like my emotions are out of control and there's in it in a moment of crisis there's so many important question questions that had to be answered so many important decisions that had to be made and you can't even pay attention to the information coming in to you and you have almost no memories I mean the common thing is clients years later they'll look at pictures and be like I don't even remember that vacation and I remember that holiday where where was I what's the story you know just talking to another client who is saying that I can't remember people's names I can't hold on to anything and so again in this time where it is the most crisis intensive where the decision-making is so life-altering and you find yourself stunted there can be just so much additional shame on top of it the other thing about the emotional dysregulation is when you go like let's say you and cover that your partner's been having an affair so you go into couples counseling right to an untrained clinician and you walk in and your partner's already you know I've done I have an article that's pretty popular it's called the myths and realities of divorce after betrayal and it's kind of how the partner who's already been cheating and lying and kind of covering it up minimizing it for sure the damage they certainly often come into couples therapy in a much more calm state you know because they even invested in putting up the defenses being completely disconnected from their body and feeling it's because they just are acting without thinking the betrayed partner is the one who's coming in with high emotional reactivity high dysregulation because again they're in that fight I mean the bear is running after them so to an untrained clinician to just the average marriage or couples therapist who does not understand betrayal trauma might make that betrayed partner the identified patient right because they'll they'll look and not understand the concepts of gaslighting and manipulation and no have a framework or a reference point of going Kosh because you know how traumatizing they'd be you have three kids and you unravel that you know your partner's leaving you for the secretary and you don't know what your finances are and you've been a at home mom and understanding of someone lying to your face and the trauma of all that that happens and not having that filter of understanding what betrayal trauma looks like and having the right assessment and questions to ask those people might erroneously skip over to like okay let's talk about healthy communication and let's talk about the relationship dynamics and let's talk about these kind of general marital techniques and treatment that that we're all taught to do in our master's program those could just be more damaging in the immediate kind of months of uncovering unfolding unraveling so I definitely encourage anyone and I always say this to anyone who emails me and asking questions please find a therapist who understands the concepts of relational trauma betrayal trauma we call it lots of different things who has I'd send often people to sex certified sex addiction therapists even if there's just a single infidelity or some poor news uncover E or some addiction issue but you don't feel like requires a sex addiction therapist but I always say look they're the ones who understand these concepts and so they are not kind of gonna be confused or distracted by the fact that you're strongly emotionally disregulated that you have really strong emotional reactions and then your partner just like yeah I wish he or she had had sex with me more complimented me more or you know he or she's just now that I work too much um they are just more deeply and intensely trained to understand the entire framework of what's going on okay so with that said let's dive into the actual healing components so your mind body and spirit have completely been annihilated by uncovering these betrayals so there there's oftentimes an extreme disconnection from your brain and your body they even call it like alexithymia is the idea of like you just know your teeth the confused or in pain or miserable but you can't put words you can't understand you can't connect the two there's there's a lack of language there to be able to come in to like treatment and and properly kind of explain what's really going on and obviously if if you can't explain what's going on and you can't put a language to all that it's gonna be really really hard to treat that um and also it's a it's something important to say before we talk about the healing options right we can never undo what happens right that's never the goal of trauma treatment unfortunately these are things that are going to be part of your life story forever we hope that it's not the trauma and the crisis is not what defines you does find your marriage and we hope that we can just provide you the proper tools to kind of diffuse you know any kind of flashbacks to fuse memories and the reactions that happen to them help you reconnect with your body and reconnect with a full contextual story of understanding all the pieces and all the dynamics that are going on and then also create some state of empowerment you know helping you reconnect with your intuition so you can identify warning signs learn how to speak up how to kind of fight for yourself out of Bend yourself out of have shame resilience in that respect to show up and help to prevent it from happening again and maybe not necessarily being able to prevent it from happening again but certainly feeling more resource and more powered next time because this time you just were like blindsided and thrown on your back so these are the most common things and again if you want to learn in more detail the body keeps score talks but these are the kind of evidence-based research based approaches that he is used obviously he is a proponent of talk therapy you must you know sharing your story lessens the isolation the state of isolation and sometimes again because you have like the alexithymia or you don't have the language or it sometimes betrayed partners might benefit from working out of a workbook like a more structured kind of thing where they're given very specific questions that's like hey open-ended kind of process therapy like how are you feeling how are things going versus like alright let's write a boundaries plan you know what it what's okay what's not okay what's a safety plan what do you need to feel safe how did you feel about this trauma how did you know what's going on here sometimes having a more structured on plan is is more ideal because you're kind of just in a daze often obviously one of the most important things is any kind of way that you've learned to down regulate your emotional response you are gonna experience almost everything even a look from a person at school when you're walking through dropping your kids off as a threat and I'm not saying that in a critic criticism kind of way it's kind of like a way of show yourself some grace and love this is an involuntary part of your brain that's there to keep you alive and it's just on fire because it's so confused about what is safe right now and so any so they use the box breathing is a really common evidence-based things though breathe into count of three hold it for a count of three breathe out for a count of three breathe in for a count of three hold it so it's just this idea that you're reminding your brain you're calming it down breathing in and out will alter your your heart rate and so that's kind of giving you the chance to what I like to say is this takes very little oxygen and blood um so it flares off without you know any kind of hesitation this part takes a lot more oxygen and sought in blood so you have to provide your body that extra oxygen to turn it on bringing that impulse control bringing that emotional rate reactivity one of my favorite browning exercises that clients laugh at when I ask them to do it is um count backward from 100 by seven because you got to think about that one and so what stop basically doing is it's not letting you worry about the grizzly bear that's running out for you potentially and you have to stop and turn on that prefrontal cortex to think okay I'm 193 and onward and so forth and so that turns on your prefrontal cortex other one is my one of my favorite go twos are naming boys and girls names with like particular letter so named for boy boys names with the letter T name three girls names with the letter R and so again it's just kind of turning on that prefrontal cortex crowning you so you can move on to the next situation now and assess okay how big is the threat right now what are we really talking about here um Bethel Vander Kolk is a big fan of EMDR actually he does go into detail about how he feels like some indie are certified therapists do it wrong or aren't properly trained so it's actually really interesting to hear him talk about it but um he I've had other people tell me that um Dr is great for single traumas that you can kind of dive into single traumas versus complex trauma so let's say your whole life you've gone from child abuse to stuff that happened in your teens now you're married to an addict and all that trauma so EMDR might be great for a single infidelity or several very difficult traumas that you're trying to transcend through I'm not so sure about complex over long periods of time trauma but it helps the client basically integrate everything instead of experiencing them kind of in flashes of loud sounds scary moment he said this she said that I drove by that restaurant and that's where that happened it helps you integrate everything so you can kind of I don't know make sense of it all instead of it kind of pieces of the feelings and memories and sensations happening at you and triggering your physiology it helps you put it all together into kind of one coherent integrated experience so you can make sense of it all and your brain likes that your brain likes things to be put in the bento box it's important to know that when you start doing EMDR eye movement desensitization and reprocessing your it's extremely uncomfortable because there is some trauma events exposure so just know that but studies show that if you stick with it at first it's extremely uncomfortable your heart rate goes up your blood pressure goes up you are not comfortable but over the course of several sessions um your stress hormones go down your heart rate goes down etc I will say this look EMDR there's something really important coming up with clients recently EMDR therapists are trained to not do trauma exposure therapy or EMDR work with anyone who does not show the ability to properly down regulate and kind of resource to get back to that safe place because they would be held liable if if they kind of cracked you open exposed you to this trauma and then sent you on your way knowing that you had no skills that you already were on the cusp of feeling suicidal um so you need to show evidence to your trauma therapist that you have some level of being able to do those down-regulation skills and a couple of these other things that I'm going to suggest to you to show that you will take responsibility for putting in the work to try to down regulate the fact that you are definitely going to get a rat hyper aroused by this experience somatic experiencing the idea behind that is that when we get stuck there's I've talked to you before about there's a cycle of trauma when you experience it and when we get maybe immobilized or think our powers taken away or we get held down we're helpless we feel immobilized we don't fully transcend the trauma experience into the recovery part where we kind of shake out the stress hormone and let it like move through us like other animal species tend to do when they're threatened somatic experiencing kind of goes back to those stuck points and helps you kind of get through them in a virtual sense so to speak he also is a huge proponent of art music dance movement those are ways of kind of getting into the flow of your brain and doing some healing with the flow and the synchronicity of dance music art they do things to your brain and I've talked a little bit about that and my talks about like playing creativity and stuff like that neurofeedback is really interesting either he was a fan of that he says it helps a lot with attention deficit due to the crisis and trauma so saying often you can't pay attention cuz you're constantly in that aroused state it helps with traumatized it helps increase your executive functioning from trauma because remember your rush your rational brain turned off because you're hyper aroused and the person who was talking about it that he was referencing was that they hope the neuro feedback basically intervenes in the circuitry of a trauma brain on that promotes that constant state of like fear shame and rage and instead kind of sends feedback to the brain to help the the wiring of it to allow it to stabilize and increase resilience so in those moments of stress you kind of have a longer pause button that allows you to make the next best choice he's a proponent obviously of actually winning things he talks most detailed about his yoga he's said that his initial Studies on yoga and breath work related to yoga has shown on phenomenal responses to actually like brain repair so being able to it can increase active activation of the insula and the medial prefrontal cortex which is basically that self-awareness part of your body that kind of reconnects with the rest of your body because the idea is how do you service a body that you're not even disconnected with you know how do you care for yourself when you're not even connected with what's going on with it and he's basically saying that yoga has shown really great promise in allowing people to to stimulate the parts of their brain that allow that self-awareness and reconnect with their body so I encourage clients all the time to try it out some people are like not gonna do it but I mean studies are showing that's what it does writing spending a lotta time to just freely write we're not talking caring about your grammar or your sentence structure write a letter you know how you're hurting how scared you are write a letter to your partner that you're never gonna send write a letter to your partner's a fair partner that you're never gonna send the point is is to kind of again like the art music dance movement get your brain into this like free flow state where it's kind of coming out um and then internal family assistance he's a fan of internal family systems you want to read more of it it's by it's created by a guy named Steven Schwartz I read I'm a little I'm not training IFS at all but what I could gather from it I did Society of internal family systems of saying there's internal parts of you like a family of opposing needs and wants all the time so something that came up for me is it's this idea like you loved your you love your partner you have these memories and this life with this person and part of you wants that you don't want to lose your marriage your family you have good memories along with these hugely you know traumatising memories and then and but sometimes there's the shame voice that doesn't want to acknowledge that right because it's the same person that's harmed you and hurt you I just want examples that all of these parts of your brain need to be acknowledged need to be given a voice none of them are unreasonable or wrong and to push them away it's just cause more harm lastly there's form healthy relationships connection with community and/or animals if people are too unbearable if the vulnerability of relationships with other people are unbearable that is why like wolf therapy F coin therapy therapy with dogs that is the purpose of it is they are finding that you can start repairing those parts of your brains and be willing to be vulnerable on with these animals in a way that's just as reparative as support groups so I obviously always encourage support groups always always but we're all perfectly imperfect beans and sometimes that can be difficult but for sure the animal therapy is showing a great deal other side options are medication management CBT and DBT dialectical behavioral therapy and also he notes any kind for any basic trauma recovery balanced eating and sleeping are also required you know any kind of working out balanced eating sleeping those are just the kind of basic necessities to to stay healthy and to move forward and the big question to ask yourself too as you're engaging in these trauma recovery processes is is the threat still there it's gonna be really really difficult for you to heal your trauma brain and your emotional state if you are constantly finding more information out if your partner is not engaged in a full you know full wholehearted effort at recovery if you still question if the affair partner is lingering or it's gonna come back around or you're still gosh I know somebody feels that our having had affairs with someone where they go to the same school and every day the woman has to walk on campus where that other woman is and they may be reconciling but that's like exposing yourself to the bear every day whether or not you want that person to have that much power over you that's involuntary that person is considered one of the most dangerous people in your life and you're walking past them every day that's gonna be really really difficult for you to heal from it and so I'm just gonna really encourage you to explore with your therapist or professional what do you need to be safe what do you need to help your brain stop feeling threatened from your partner from your environment from your support system that's those are great questions to be asking yourself in establishing and that's it great information as always indeed you know I started for those of you joining us I started putting some of the things in the chat because you we're sharing some great resources including the article and the book by Bessel van der Kolk and then just kind of the things that you were listing so yoga that blows my mind it is like that I'm happy to go running I'm happy to do whatever but yoga is really challenging for me to do and I'm like you I think I'm gonna look into do it I mean I think it's a really good thing but but I love the the simple just like the breathing the or the three seconds I mean so I but I was thinking you know like you're you talked about like asking your clients to count backwards from 100 by sevens how do you help them even kind of come into that moment you know how do you because i i've seen the deer in the headlights it's like right on so how do you help them find that spot where they can still go i'm gonna count backwards from 100 by sevens like you know i mean yeah i mean what i I can't obviously I'm not sitting next to them in the car when they hear a song that makes them fall to pieces but what I just try to do is do repetition so when I'm in session with them and I see that they're highly agitate agitate 'add will do some of the grounding exercises because I want them to to remember them kind of it's drilling so that the idea is when you leave this office they're still there those options are still there like you have the power right because it's so disempowering how these involuntary physiological consequences to this trauma and I want them to know that no you're still the boss of your body you just have to put way more work into it to kind of rekindle that connection again the EMDR you know and I agree with what you said and you know I've talked to people about to and for the long term you know kind of repetitive trauma and things like that but I think even with that there's some things that are like the the highest level ones and EMDR can help simmer that down I really like that you talked about it's pulling all the pieces together my experience with it personally was like it helped me be able to view it but it was viewing it instead of experiencing it right and one of the things my therapist taught me you know kind of the take-home things was you know like this tapping and because it's tapping but you know one of the things I could do for grounding myself if I was getting triggered with something is just to do the tapping on the shoulders and I think I think a bunch of things happen I think this is valuable but I also think you know it was calming because I was thinking about her and it didn't bring you taught me so it was it was connecting to positive helpful things you know in in the moment rather than oh my gosh you know so so I and I think like you shared a lot of different things and I it's probably a combination of those or finding you know well in this moment you know there's a yoga class at the gym I'm going there you know I mean whatever it is the breathing obviously you know and I know for sure that I find when I'm highly stressed or whatever I've clenched and I'm holding my breath and saying so just breathing changes things for me if I can make myself take a deep breath it starts changing things so but even though like if this part is requiring less oxygen than this part so like like I won't stand a chance if I'm holding my breath of getting anything up into here so exactly so we have yeah yeah okay so we have a question yeah we have a couple yeah when my husband was actively looking at porn I would try to initiate sex and he would sabotage pick fights and behave passive aggressively I would try day after day to understand what was going on until I would be so hurt and angry that I would yell and cry and feel out of control he would then use this against me saying we weren't intimate because I was always angry we did that dance until all the way until I figured out that it and just stop wanting to have sex now he he is upset because we aren't having sex as often as he would like so now that has been used against me since I don't know what is going on it's easier to deflect the shame he tries to put on me right so I mean I think that's one of those classic examples of what I was saying about betrayed partners um you would take that into a typical marital therapist who's done it has a master's degree and has really great you know training but if they don't understand pieces of sex addiction or porn addiction and what it does to a marital dynamic you meaning the betrayed partner who wrote might show up being that being this very angry rageful person and not mention the porn anywhere and the therapist would just go well we need to work on you know let's try having date nights and um let's try talking about our feelings more and maybe you need to validate him that you know he's a hard worker and you guys need try to get to bed earlier to have sex you know things like that which are like these behavioral things when again the real crisis that first and foremost has to be dealt with is that you know the poor news needs to be assessed it needs to be identified whether or not this is you know something that needs to be completely abstain from and eliminated how much of an addiction is happening there and understand and then also repairing the the gas lighting the minimization that happened in the betrayal betrayal trauma part to kind of help you down regulate feel safe again etc and that I hear all the time from people who have gone to I think well-meaning therapists only you know but they didn't get to help in fact often the report just like you're sharing that it made things worse and you know I've shared with a couple people lately I said you know when I had my sinus surgery I went to a specialist I didn't go to my GP and go could you just hack this stuff up you know for me you know I went to somebody that was really qualified in that area you know my husband at knee surgery he went to the knee surgery specialist again you know so finding somebody who's really qualified you to to help with these particular situations you know is is really critically important now you know I also here you know on you know there are there is unwillingness and some people you know so you you know and you kind of talked about identifying is this situation safe and there are people that absolutely refuse to get into recovery and so in my opinion these these partners are trying to navigate a world where they go this isn't safe I have to create some boundary that will be relatively safe for me but the danger never goes away you know and so it's the bear might be locked in the basement but the bear is still there and could break through the door you know whatever so to use your bear analogy but you know I mean I think one of those things where you know you can only be somewhat safe you know based on your circumstance of reasons why not or won't or whatever but you know so identifying you know what you can do you you know enter and and have a plan within that context you know to provide as much safety as you possibly can so so there's a comment I used to set alarms to do a body emotion scan and belly breathing I would give myself five minutes it can be done anywhere even driving that way when I found myself getting into emotional flashback my body would automatically know what to do I that's it yeah I think that's all part of that mindfulness that you you're kind of doing you're talking about to with the yoga but like you're being you're being intentional about being mindful about what's actually going on you know within yourself yeah and I'll say to um I like the cheap there's those apps that are like calm which are kind of expensive actually but there's also these guided meditations on yoga or sorry on YouTube that I think they're really great sometimes there's some free options and I will tell you every person that's going through betrayal trauma you are not gonna be able to do this okay so don't try it one time and say sorry dad you know bad guidance not doing it you will not I'm telling you I'm promising you right now because your brain is in crisis mode and you can barely pay attend to what your kids names are let alone this guided meditation but the idea is is that God is a a muscle that can be built up over time so if you do a five-minute guided meditation and you could not spend any moment about five minutes focusing that the idea is hopefully next time it'll be thirty seconds and then a few more times later it'll be two minutes and and that is why they encourage the consistency and doing it over and over again it's the same thing as if I just showed up and I said okay you're gonna run a marathon there's no freaking way you could do a marathon today um just out of nowhere but the idea is you tack on one mile here two miles three miles and you build it up and that is that is exactly what I'm asking you to do with this trauma treatment it's not overnight you know what works for you what doesn't work for you multiple iterations of what I'm suggesting but but even that I think just saying I'm taking five minutes for myself Huw you know like and it isn't about being successful you know um you know it is I'm taking five minutes for myself I'm wanting to do whatever I want to get out of this whatever I get out of it but I'm taking this five minutes and I'm gonna be intentional about what's going on within myself you know I mean you know I'm really good at running from one thing to the next thing and not paying attention to any of that stuff so being intentional that that's a victory so next question living a double life for years and domestic spouse abuse why is the physical beating deemed criminal behavior in the eyes of the law it's the way past time for betrayal trauma recognized equally damaging partners would say even more so the addicts are getting away with this just like Harvey Weinstein these abusers must be held accountable what does seeking integrity stand on this issue so I I I don't think I can answer I mean obviously we think this is a huge issue and we are me I mean if you read dr. Ravis book about Pro dependence it's not about I mean it really is about supporting you know those of you that have been that our loved ones and you know you're in trauma you're in crisis so so taking that out of there I you know right now addiction is not I mean so your insurance policy will will for mental health it's this for addiction is that like they are not even connecting that addiction mental health I mean there's so many layers of how wrong all the stuff is in society so you know I feel like you know that analogy with the starfish you know like all these starfish they're on the beach and we're just you know we're throwing one in at a time and somebody's going we aren't really gonna make it difference than we're like we're making a difference for that starfish that's how I kind of look at this is like yeah I can't save the global you know whatever but for everybody who's reaching out you know and looking for help and looking for support we want to be here we want to give you qualified resources we want to give you places to connect you know that are safe for you so so on a more global basis you know yeah and it sucks but you know you you're right you don't you know if somebody's all beat up and they're coming in black and blue that's physical and you can see it you know and all this other stuff that you know the damages you know as and I think you're right you're probably even deeper and you know and repetitive and all of those things but it isn't as obvious and and their shame I think there's a lot of people that you know live in the shame you know and that's true with physical abuse too but you know that live in the shame of being you know you know why did I let that happen to me yeah yeah and you know so it's so very challenging Kirsten your thoughts you know the thing that comes to mind well I spent a lot of my career trying to educate people on what trauma is because I think again I agree that I always used the term ironically speaking of criminal cases judge and jury would say okay dad beat me anyone like everyone in the group agree that that's traumatizing and everyone raise their hand and then I say okay well dad was working full time was a single father and he would pick me up two hours late from school every day is that trauma and everyone be like you know because I think we feel more comfortable sinking our teeth into the tangible of a bruise a cut hitting violence things like that are just so obviously like that's not okay the intangible of emotional abuse of emotional neglect of abandonment rejection shame as you mentioned those are internal and they're so intangible that we have a really hard time putting a measurement system I mean the story that comes to mind with me with that that I just frustrated the heck out of me is after the route 66 like mass shooting in Vegas you know they were given several hundred million to disperse and they all decided that the mutton the predominant around the money was going to go to the families who's who lost a loved one then the rest of the money was going to go to anyone who sustained a physical wound and nothing to the people who watched it all go down because again they're lawyers and they're you know science people and they're trying to use like hey okay here's money these are the people that get it because there's true obvious damages that can be paid out and I'm just like cut isn't that like a perfect reflection of our society is that we just are so willing to sink our teeth and these like we see it and it's evidence and then we believe it versus like no but I just feel horrible like it just was so invalidating and so discounting to emotional abuse trauma watching secondhand trauma watching it all go down and yeah grief loss all of that so so the next question fabulous info my spouse had an emotional affair that I know of with his ex-wife all the years I was with him I wonder why he even divorced her if he could not quit her I gave him everything but I it still was not enough for him he said she was out of out on getting him back with me but he only stopped this behavior not when I asked if something happened over there I set boundaries because I wanted to get back together as nothing happened now we have no contact anymore for over a month and thoughts are tormenting me because I have no full disclosure of what happened please advise is he a narcissistic personality those those ones are always hard I think it's extremely traumatizing to never get validation of what exactly was going on and that's very common right that that you find out the partners cheating or has some kind of addiction or some kind of nefarious behavior and then you find out when they're out and they're gone and then you're just kind of left there with the pieces of your life crumbled in front of you with no again tangible kind of testimony this is what's happened so you can kind of wrap your head in like oh my my intuition was correct about that oh the thing that I say in tamii you can always give a different perspective but what the way I advise clients like that is I kind of help them connect with they they have instincts and intuition and they've had them the whole time so whether or not that person ever came in and gave a full disclosure or full confession of everything you thought was accurate um you still know what your instincts and intuition we're telling you like you still know you were secretly checking his phone or computer because you constantly had this state of feeling unsafe and and and like something else was happening so I just always encourage you to kind of turn it into yourself and and know what you know yeah and I agree and force on I'm you know terribly sorry because I know how painful that is but you know a full disclosure only works when the person is able to be truthful and you know and I don't see that he would be able to so you know I think you know I think it is you know connecting with yourself and you know validating yourself and your experience you know I know it this isn't about you I mean it feels like it isn't you know so not minimizing that but but you this is about him and her you know you know in the dysfunction with all of that so I mean it's cruel you know I mean that he he and she are both doing this you know you know to you or in spite of you or whatever you know you know is hurtful but but honestly you know I you know I really really believe that you know at some point you'll look back at this and go I mean you may go I dodged a bullet you know good good riddance or whatever I don't know but you know like with every painful thing that has happened in my life you know I've been able to turn that around and use it for something else and in even if it's personal growth and and you know resiliency and I survive this and but like I don't want to just survive I want to thrive and I saw you know I'm really dedicated to you know taking those really painful things in in how how can I use this you know for myself and for others so so I'm thrilled you're here you know thanks for for being here and you keep asking questions and things but and get support from so today there's a betrayed partner group at 12:30 Pacific Time Protocol aligned so you know I invite you to do that drop-in group as well so next one and we partners need to join forces like wine science rape assault victims like the victims of yeah how many innocent Brides today must be shattered you know yeah but but but there's lots of people that but that you know I are in really good healthy relationships though so it isn't all or nothing and you know if you're feeling that way I'm sorry and I'm glad you're here but but honestly there's lots of people and even with the pain of this stuff you know the people I mean I can tell you amazing stories I had a partner that called last week her husband came to treatment as you can every Los Angeles she said I don't know what you guys did she said I could that I did not get the same man back that I sent and they are awful thing I know I got goose bumps again every time I share this you know I shared it with the team and stuff too I get goose bumps but she said you know when you sit down and talk for a half an hour every night I mean she she's sharing you know like they she likes him again she didn't think that was ever possible they're committed to he's doing what he needs to do so so for all of those you know for all of us P and there are female sex and love addicts that are you know our perpetrators you know so so it isn't just men out there you know so so with all that pain out there there's lots of people that really do want to connect and healthy way to other people so sorry and I mean can I can we add to I mean I I ran a men's drug and sex addiction program with Rob Weiss several years ago and it was a high-end treatment center so many of these people it was a men's drug and sex in short it was all men all their women struggle in the same way and so these people had money access entitlement and they had dragon sex addiction issues from the outside looking in it looked like they were living their lives and like like Yolo like you only live once live in the life gallivanting around using and abusing people and not thinking twice that's really from the outside looking in if you just read their story on paper that's what it would look like I knew differently I had them in those groups and they were the most miserable broken self-hating people I've ever encountered ever and so I know not all of these perpetrators of you know emotional physical abuse etc some of them never gained the level of self reflection contra self consciousness of kind of accountability of what they've done but many on the outside look like they have no remorse and that they're just kind of using losing people but they are miserable lives yeah yeah and you know we're not making excuses but many of them have all kinds of you know trauma in their past and it doesn't justify it it's not an excuse nope yeah but but you know but yeah it's it's way more complex of this is so complicated and really needs to be looked at on an individual basis so you know and then you know I'm you know in my perfect world you have all all mental health care would be fully covered by insurance so that everybody could get the help that they need but that's a whole nother thing so so so oh this is great so this person says I emailed you a month ago and you showed me the way to the webinars thank you so much it really helps I could not do this alone none of us can do this alone I mean that is now specifically why we created you know all of these things you know dr. Rob in the seeking integrity team you know we're committed to having safe places for people to come and share and learn and you know connect and you know that that's what it is and we talked you know whether it's the addict or the partners you know it you need connection to other people I mean you know dr. Rob talks about the opposite of addiction is attachment well a healthy attachment you know right somebody emailed me today and was asking about mother unless men and you know and how can how can you know what you know how can any mesh person you know you have sex with prostitutes and look at porn and all that it was like because that's not intimate that that makes perfect sense to me because you know if this is the relationship you know and you know and we need to preserve this well that's just body parts and you know it's not any kind of intimacy or connection so then it's not a betrayal but if I'm in a committed relationship and I think you're really a wonderful person and I love you and I want to you know be with you and all that would be a betrayal so so all of this stuff is super complicated which goes back to what Kristin was saying earlier about finding the right qualified there it's finding somebody who actually knows what they're doing with this stuff you know and unlike you know a broken leg where the doctor goes oh you broke your leg we'll take x-rays and whatever there's no one that you know can scream you know we do assessments and things like that but you you can't look at somebody's bringing well I guess you know somebody can you bring it's changing Danny yeah but but when somebody's coming into a therapist the therapist isn't going to let me do a scan of you quick and they'll know exactly what you say and you you know and so is far far more complex than that and and when you were talking to Kristin to about not even having the the words to be able to use you know like like again you need someone who can help you find those words can help you you know go I mean I get it you're you're betrayed person you know that has to hurt tell me where you feel there whatever you know but you know they can help you get those words they can help you connect with you know with the things that you need so so we're always committed to having you know to providing you on this platform a safe free space but you know if you're looking for qualified therapist I know lots of therapists and there are some that I would refer family and friends to and there are others you know even though they've got letters behind their name you know that you know I wouldn't and so and even within that you know there are therapists you know that kind of specialized this is you know this is an area that they specialize in so you know if you're if somebody needs that level of specialty you know I mean I really do try to help them find the right resource I'm not a hundred percent I'm not you know I don't know it all but you know I really do try to help find the right resource so that you can heal so and I want to applaud maybe the commenter is I send people almost every day to these webinars so sex and relationship healing calm I get email like that all the time but obviously as we can see only a tiny percentage of people actually follow through so I just want to really applaud the people who take that really uncomfortable scary vulnerable step of engaging in these webinars I've come going to the trade partners groups of being the the addict who's in the attic recovery groups it is one thing to be asking for resources to be asking for help to be listening to these things it a whole other story that takes crazy amounts of courage and vulnerability to go out and do these things to start altering your life to start incorporating these suggestions and guidance into your life into your everyday life to recover so I just I'm gonna applaud all of you I love that you said that to me and it's so true because there's lots of people that call and go oh you know I need help and then like I'll follow up with them or whatever yeah I haven't heard from you I know I said I talked to them some information oh well you know I'm not right now and I'm thinking oh my gosh you know how bad does it have to get before you're willing you know to get the qualified help so yes I'm always grateful and ask questions and you know and share I mean that's really you know yeah that's why we're here or so so speaking of being here so Kristin I won't see you I have great holidays and yeah welcome in 2020 and so next week Eddie Khepera she will be on he's got a series he's continuing but watch the calendar because during the holiday some of the groups will be on and some of them won't so watch the calendar to make sure you've got the latest information but thank you all for being here and joined the other opportunities and Kristin will see you in 2020 happy holidays Happy New Year

Channel: Kristin Snowden

Views: 18,143

Keywords: healing trauma, betrayal trauma, ptsd, love addiction, emdr, somatic experience, yoga, bessel van der kolk, sex addiction, rob weiss, neuroscience, neurobiology, codependency, healthy relationships, divorce, gaslighting, avoidant attachment, anxious attachment, internal family systems, infidelity, attachment style

Id: jIjrKY4lwYo

Length: 57min 26sec (3446 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 09 2020