Episode 318: The Messy Truth About Healing with Kerry McAvoy, Ph.D

The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast

Kate Anthony

Relationships, Education, Self-improvement, Society & Culture

4.4 • 573 Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr. Kerry McAvoy returns to talk about what it means to heal from narcissistic abuse. Not just from an intellectual standpoint, but healing your nervous system, in your relationships, and in your relationship to yourself. Healing is not quick, it's not tidy, and it's definitely not linear.

Dr. Kerry and I talk about how women have been conditioned to serve, to disappear, to manage the emotions of everyone around us just to maintain the illusion of peace. We explore what emotional fusion looks like, what healthy relationships look like, and what it means to reconnect with Self throughout your healing journey.

Here's what else we get into, in this episode:

How and why so many of us learned to believe our needs are "too much" (3:59)
Discerning between, "Are you being loved and respected or just useful?" (18:03)
What healthy love actually looks like (spoiler alert it includes messiness and mistakes) (28:04)
Healing doesn't have a finish line and why that's okay (29:35)

Learn more about Kerry McAvoy, Ph.D: Dr. Kerry, a retired psychologist and author, is an expert on cultivating healthy relationships and deconstructing narcissism. Her blogs have been featured in Mamami, YourTango, Scary Mommy, and The Good Men Project. In Love You More, Dr. McAvoy gives an uncensored glimpse into her survival of narcissistic abuse, and her workbook, First Steps to Leaving a Narcissist, helps victims break free from the confusion common in abusive relationships. She hosts the Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse podcast and offers trauma-related advice on social media.

Resources & Links:

Thank you to today's podcast sponsor: Our Family Wizard
Unbreakable – the Divorce Recovery Retreat, Sedona, AZ in April 2025
Submit your questions here for possible inclusion in future Q&A podcast episodes
Focused Strategy Sessions with Kate
Phoenix Rising: A Divorce Empowerment Collective

Dr. Kerry's website
Dr. Kerry on Facebook
Dr. Kerry on Instagram
Dr. Kerry on YouTube
Dr. Kerry on TikTok
Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships, David Schnarch PhD|

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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY, COACH, OR THERAPIST IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN ADVICE WITH RESPECT TO ANY PARTICULAR ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Transcript

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0:00.0	is it too much to ask someone to respect you, to treat you with compassion, to see you as equally
0:07.3	important in the relationship? Is that too much? No, I don't think that's too much. And I think a lot of,
0:12.6	especially women, I'm not saying men don't get caught in this. I know they do, but especially as
0:17.4	women, I think we've been, we have been told that our feelings don't matter, that our needs
0:23.0	shouldn't be primary in the relationship, that our job is to serve the emotional health of the
0:29.1	house. And I think that we need to start out with serving the emotional health of ourselves first
0:34.2	and then all the other relationships that come in our lives, including our family
0:38.3	and our loved ones.
0:43.4	Welcome to the Divorce Survival Guide podcast, where we have open and honest conversations about
0:50.0	co-parenting, separation, divorce, and the hardest question of all, should you stay or should you go?
0:57.3	I'm Kate Anthony, your divorce survival guide, and I'm here to help you navigate some of the
1:03.1	roughest waters you've ever swum in and answer some of your toughest questions.
1:08.0	I've been to hell and back, and now it's my mission in life to help you get
1:13.0	to the other side of this process with your sanity and your heart intact. Hey everyone, welcome back.
1:24.0	So today, Dr. Carrie McAvoy is returning to the show.
1:29.4	And this is a favorite when she's been on in the past.
1:33.7	And so I wanted to have her back to talk about what it really means to heal from narcissistic abuse.
1:41.4	Not just from an intellectual standpoint, but healing your nervous system
1:45.2	and your relationships and your relationship to yourself. I love having these conversations
1:52.6	with Dr. Carey. One of the things we talk about in this episode is how women have been
1:57.5	conditioned to serve and to disappear and to manage the emotions of
2:02.9	everyone around us just to maintain the illusion of peace.
	...

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