Welcome to Narcissist Apocalypse, everyone. I am Brandon Chadwick, and today we're going to be doing an educational follow-up to Lita's Survivor Story.

And in this follow-up, we are going to break down the core themes of Lita's story, the fear, obligation, guilt, and shame that shaped the relationship,

an analogy that explains how Lita X's trauma became tools of control, and what the

healing might look like after you have gone through this, after Lita went through this.

But before we get into that, if you want to be a guest

like Lita was on our Survivor Story episodes, you can go to Narcissistapocalypse.com, click on the

guest form button at top of the page, or email us at Narcissist Apocalypse at p.m.com. And we also

have a free newsletter. And each week, it includes five insights related to the survivor story

episode a reflection worksheet which is a downloadable worksheet from our newsletter and you can sign up

on the front page of our website or through the link in today's show notes and it is all free.

So for those of you that have not listened to that episode yet,

Leida's episodes, I'm going to give some context to you if you have not listened to that episode,

and Lita shared her story of a relationship that escalated from emotional manipulation

into severe psychological abuse and repeated physical violence.

And Lita grew up in an environment where emotional support was inconsistent,

and problems were often met with blame, and her mom did not protect her at all,

and blamed her for everything.

And she wasn't getting help from anyone. And she was

on her own just to figure everything out. And over time, she became someone who believed deeply in

accountability and self-reflection. You know, what did I do wrong? Or what was my part in it? That was part of her thinking. And when she met the man

who would become the abuser in her life, this accountability that she had, this self-reflection

that she had combined with a lot of kernels of truth and blame from the abuser would help keep Lita in the abuse in this course of control for a long time.

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