On this episode of Narcissist Apocalypse Q&A, everyone.

I am Brandon Chadwick, and today we are going to discuss the normalization of problematic or toxic

behavior. But before we get to that, if you want to be a guest on our Survivor Story episodes,

please do go to our website at Narcissistapocalypse.com. Top of the page, there's a

button that says guest form. When you click on that button, it takes you to our guest form page.

There, you can read all of our instructions and either send us an email at Narcissist Apocalypse

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ask for. So today we are going to talk about the normalization of problematic behavior. So to start it

all off, this definition is going to be coming from the book Out of the Fog by Dana Morningstar.

So normalizing problematic behavior is what we do and we try to justify and minimize

or normalize problematic behavior. And we try to convince ourselves that what our partner is doing

is somehow justifiable or workable. And the first sign of problematic

behavior is always confusion and we are confused not only because we are being manipulated,

but because on some level we know what we are experiencing is a problem, but we don't want to actually believe it.

And when it comes to abusive relationships, the normalization of problematic behavior is meeting

some sort of very strong need, either emotional or physical investment in sting.

So if we are lonely or scared to be

alone or we are overwhelmed at the thought of, let's say, being single or starting over,

or you might have children with an abuser, this type of change can be very scary and that means a lot of shakeup might be going on in your

emotional world, in your financial world, and that is why there could be this real strong

emotional attachment to staying and for normalizing problematic behavior.

So the normalization of problematic behavior refers to a process in which behaviors or

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