Welcome to Narcissist Apocalypse, everyone. I am Brandon Chadwick and today we'll be doing a follow-up,

a debrief on Val's story. And for those of you who have not listened to Val's story yet,

here's a little bit of context for you. Val grew up already recognizing dysfunction in her mother, especially

the feeling that someone else's mood could take over the whole family system. And when Val

met her future husband, it didn't begin with love bombing. They were friends first. It felt

natural. And over time, this relationship got more serious. They started dating. They got married. And then this relationship started to shift. The abuser in Val's life used withdrawal, silent treatments, mood changes, and just emotional punishment. And he made her accomplishments about him. He was

always undercutting her. He ruined birthdays and important events. And along the way, Val started to

notice these things as a pattern. She started to actually write these things down. She understood

the pattern that was in front of her. She had the cycles

down to, I think it was like six weeks, how these cycles work. She showed them to her abuser. He agreed

that he could see these cycles too and that there could be change, but the change never actually

occurred. It just kept things going because the change just

never happened. There was promises of this change. And Val was living in this environment for so

long that eventually she just got exhausted. And that exhaustion turned into her being a little bit less functional

than she was before. And once that started happening, she had to really look at what really

was causing all of this. And she went to a therapist. It was called abuse out loud. And from then on, Val then started to listen to podcasts, read books, saw that everything was

really fitting a pattern, a textbook pattern from what she was reading.

And it took a long time, but eventually Val did leave this relationship and stayed away, far away, so she wouldn't go back

because she knew the trauma bond to this person was really huge.

So that is the context for Val's story.

And today we're not going to be going into the fear, obligation, and guilt of Val's story.

Because as Val mentioned, the trauma bond was really the biggest thing that was keeping her there.

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