Welcome to Narcissist Apocalypse, everyone. I am Brandon Chadwick and today we're going to be doing an educational follow-up to Catherine's Survivor Story. We do these now after every survivor story that we're putting out, or at least every new Survivor story that we put out, we might start doing it after

our re-releases as well. And in this follow-up, I'm going to break down the core themes of Catherine's

story, the fear, obligation, guilt, in shame that shaped the relationship. And before we get into

any of that, if you want to be a guest like Catherine was on our

Survivor Stories, go to our website at Narcissistapocalypse.com, click on the guest form button at

the top of the page, or email me at Narcissist Apocalypse at p.m.m. And we also have a free

newsletter each week, which includes five insights related to the previous

Survivor Story episode. A reflection worksheet is in it. It's a downloadable resource that you can have.

And everything is free. You can sign up at our website at Narcissistapocalypse.com or just click on

the link in our show notes today. So for those of you who haven't

listened to that episode yet, and maybe you will listen to it, maybe you won't listen to it,

you're going to need context for that survivor story. So we're going to give you some context.

So this episode right here, this follow-up episode makes sense,

and you can use some of the things that are going to be mentioned in this episode as a tool

of validation for yourself in the future and education as well. So for anyone who has not listened,

Catherine shared her story. And it began with trust. Things move quickly through love bombing,

engagement, things escalated into coercive control, physical violence and then continued

for years through post-separation abuse centered around her son at that point.

So going all the way back, Catherine grew up in a very chaotic home.

It was shaped by emotional detachment, alcoholism, violence, gaslighting.

And when the harm happened, it was denied.

And when she was hurt, she was told that she was being dramatic.

...