Am I Being Emotionally Abused? [Episode 293]

NATALIE: Welcome to Episode 293 of the Flying Free Podcast. Today, our focus is going to be on what is emotional abuse, what does it look like, all of those things. We had a listener question come in about it. But before we get into the meat and potatoes of that, I want to do two other things. First of all, I want to share a review that came into the Flying Free Kaleidoscope this past week at the time of this recording. It’s from someone who has been in the program for a year and she wanted to share some of her big wins.

And then also there’s another question that I’m going to answer. It’s kind of a follow-up question to the episode that we did… It was the interview that we did with Susan Estringel, who is a life and relationship coach, and she helps Christian women who have had affairs. It was Episode 285, and there was a follow-up question to that, and it’s just a brief question that I can answer very briefly. So we’ll start with that, and then we’ll get into our main topic.

So, first of al, I just want to read to you this review. This came into our private forum, which is a forum that we have for women who are in Flying Free and Flying Higher. And it’s a place where they can interact with one another and get help, get coaching with myself and other coaches. I’m in the forum every single day answering questions. And also, it’s not just the coaches and I who are in there offering help—it’s also one another, the women are helping one another. Some women are further along in the whole process than others, but everyone can relate to everyone else, and it’s a very encouraging place.

So anyway, we’ve got this space in there called “Drop Your Wins and Successes,” and this is what someone just recently wrote, and I am reading this with her permission: “It will be a year tomorrow since I joined Flying Free. I recently completed my year questionnaire, and what joy to see my progress in numbers, and I have just spent time reading my earliest posts. If you have enough in the tank and feel you can face it, I really recommend reading your own previous posts to help you see then and now.  Oh my—how I feel for last year me, who, when I joined, was so confused and fearful, living with my angry soon-to-be ex-husband who’s a pastor who had inside behaviors opposite to his outside behaviors.

And then we separated, but how hugely proud I am of now me. I am in wonder at my courage, determination, honesty, openness, willingness to face lots of pain and work out deep issues from my childhood forward, from being fearful of the steps I needed to take to now living each day knowing the truth has set me free, and amazingly, mostly, accepting my soon-to-be ex-husband’s way of being is all his and I cannot change it, despite the massive circumstantial disruption my children and I are in.

My self-literacy and self-compassion has also increased hugely. Yes, of course, there is more pain to face and process, but I have moved from feeling and acting trapped to deeply knowing I have choice and agency to choose good things for me and my children.

Yesterday, I took the step to engage and pay a lawyer. I was so proud that I had been able to save up money to do this too, and I did so with only a fraction of nervousness. My desire to do it was strong and certain. I could hardly believe how I was gliding through the decision and then acting on it.

So thank you all. You are such a beautiful circle of women. I especially appreciated reading the responses to my previous posts. Such compassion, wisdom, and insight. Thank you to those who have taken the time to reply and pray for me over this past year. I look forward to continually learning from you all, and I say a global prayer for you all each day and weep when I read some of your stories, as we carry the pain and projections of those who have broken their vows to love, cherish, and honor us.

Big shout out, of course, to those who have created this safe, true, and healing space, and to all of the coaches for their ongoing wisdom and care too.”

So I just wanted to read that for you because I want you to see what’s possible for you as well when you join Flying Free and become part of this program. We keep it extremely affordable at only $29 a month or $290 a year.

If you do decide to join for one year, which is really the cost of about two, maybe three therapy sessions, you will also get a digital copy of my book, Is it Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage and a digital, fillable copy of the workbook that goes with that book. So to join, go to joinflyingfree.com. Okay, let’s listen to our first question.

LISTENER: Hi, Natalie. I just listened to your program about a Christian woman having an affair. And what my question is, I was wondering if that’s what is happening to me. I’m actually going through a divorce, but because of all my health issues and needing to have insurance, I’ve had to put it off.

But a couple of years ago I met someone online, and he’s a Christian. We FaceTime, we talk every day, and this has been going on for over two years because every time I try to get with my lawyer, I have some major health issue and have to stay because of the insurance. We have not met because he’s in another state, and we decided not to until my divorce is final.

When I read your book and it led me to other articles, I did see how you met your husband, and it was almost identical to my situation, and I always wondered if it was okay because I feel like the covenant has been broken, and I just didn’t know if God could bring someone into your life while you’re getting a divorce and if that would be adultery. I know this may be a personal subject for you, and maybe you don’t want to share, but I just was wondering, is this possible that this is okay?

NATALIE: Okay, so I just thought maybe we would look at a couple of definitions just to see how we view these different things. But the definition of adultery in the dictionary is “Voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a person who is not his or her spouse.” And I think that we can all agree that that is what adultery is. So in this particular situation you haven’t even met this man in person, let alone had intercourse with him, so no, you are not committing adultery by this definition.

Now, an emotional affair, and this is what Wikipedia, this is their definition of an emotional affair, it’s “A bond between two people that mimics or matches the closeness and emotional intimacy of a romantic relationship while not being physically consummated.” Now, are emotional affairs considered cheating? Some people would say yes, some people would say no—kind of depends on who you talk to. If you ask my opinion, which is just my personal opinion, okay, it doesn’t mean anything more than that, but I think that if you are in a committed relationship, to have a bond between you and another man that mimics or matches an intimate romantic relationship is cheating.

And here’s why I think that. If my husband Tom had a romantic, emotional bond with another woman in our relationship, outside of me, I would definitely feel cheated on. So it’s how the other partner feels about it, and I would definitely feel betrayed and cheated on even if he wasn’t having sex with that person. So if he was like going out with that person or spending hours on the phone with that person or chatting by text with that person, and they had their own inside jokes and they had their own little stuff that they were sharing, I would definitely feel left out and cheated on, okay?

But in this situation, you’re not in a committed relationship. You are in the middle of a divorce. So you are no longer in a committed relationship. So I wouldn’t consider what’s happening right now with you an emotional affair.

I didn’t meet my now husband, Tom, until after I was already well into my own divorce. So we did not know each other… I mean, we knew each other from way back, forty years ago, but even then we didn’t really know each other. I did not consider my friendship with him to be cheating at all. And even when it turned into a romantic relationship a few months later, I did not consider it to be cheating because I was no longer in a committed relationship with the man that I was in the process of divorcing, nor was he in a committed relationship with me.

I know that my husband at the time, while we were going through the divorce process, was on dating apps and was dating because my daughter when she would go over there—I didn’t ask her to do this, but she just did it of her own accord—she would send me pictures, screenshots, of conversations he was having with other women and even pictures of them on the dating apps.

So neither one of us, neither my soon-to-be-ex-husband at the time nor I, thought or considered that we were in a committed relationship with one another anymore. We were in the middle of a divorce. So I did not consider him to be cheating, and I did not consider myself to be cheating. Now, nor did I have sex with Tom. We actually consummated our relationship on our wedding night. And maybe that’s old fashioned, but that was a choice that we both made because of our personal religious beliefs.

If you want to listen to an interview that I did with Tom right here on the Flying Free Podcast a couple of years ago, it’s Episode 207, and you can go to flyingfreenow.com/207 and get most of the story there, I think. But also since that interview, I wrote a book in 2023. I spent the year writing a book called All the Scary Little Gods and really, it’s a spiritual memoir. But towards the end of it, I do have a chapter where I tell all of the details about how I met Tom and how we ended up getting together.

And I didn’t have any guilt then, and I have no guilt now about how that all unfolded. I totally believe, 100% believe, that God brought Tom into my life, and I have never had any doubts that Tom was meant to be my second husband and that that was straight from God.

So I hope that answers your question and I hope you feel a little bit better about your relationship. But at the end of the day, and I’ve talked about this in other places, when we feel guilty about something, it’s usually because we have violated our own moral code in some way, and we just need to figure out, “Is this a moral code that I want to keep, that I feel good about, that I feel has served me well in my life, that I feel honors my relationship with my creator God, and/or do I feel that this moral code is actually not really very honoring because there are times when I have to throw either myself or someone else under the bus and because it is not love?”

I guess my moral code has kind of shifted from rule-keeping to filtering it through the grid of, “Is this loving? Is this loving to everyone in the story? Is this loving to me? Is this loving to God? Is it loving to the other people in the story?” And in the case of my story, when it comes to my meeting Tom, I felt like love was very much a part of all of that. So I am now going to play the question that we’re going to spend the bulk of the rest of this episode on. And here we go.

LISTENER: Hi, question is, I guess I’m struggling. You use the word “abusive” a ton in your podcasts. I’m having a hard time resonating with that. I am a betrayed partner. And I guess maybe my question is more, what is emotional abuse? Like, being gaslit and lied to? Is that enough to be emotionally abused?

NATALIE: All right, so first of all, thank you to everyone who leaves a question. I really appreciate it. I can’t answer all of the questions, and sometimes people just leave comments. They’re not really leaving questions. So of course, I don’t play those. But I get a lot of questions, and I don’t answer all of them. But I do appreciate getting messages from you.

And any of you can leave a question or a comment by just going to any of the podcast episodes on my website, flyingfreenow.com/ whatever the number of the episode is. On every single podcast episode page, there is a little widget where you can press the “play” button and record a message for me, and I will get it.

My entire life’s work revolves around covert emotional domestic abuse. And yes, it is an insidious type of domestic violence because it is perpetrated against the victim in a covert way using emotional abuse tactics rather than physical, sexual, or financial abuse tactics. So emotional abuse is a very big part of physical abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, and every other type of abuse.

But sometimes, and especially in Christian circles, the abuser will not cross the line into those other types of abuse but will feel justified in emotionally and spiritually abusing his partner because of his twisted version of theology, and that is my life’s work, is just exposing that twisted version of theology or of Christianity, if you want to call it, although it’s not just Christianity. There’s a lot of other conservative religious groups that have very much of a bias against women, and you see the incidences of various types of abuse, especially in those kinds of religious circles.

So what I’m going to do to answer this question, because I’ve actually already addressed this in so many places, because this is basically what I do—there are dozens of podcast episodes where I talk about emotional abuse. There are dozens of articles on my website that talk about emotional abuse. And I’ve even written an entire book on the subject for Christian women that you can get on Amazon, and it’s called, Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.

So if you go to my website, flyingfreenow.com, you can sign up for my free weekly newsletter right there at the top of the page, and I will send you a copy of the first chapter of my book and the first chapter of the workbook that goes along with it, for free. And that chapter and that workbook, if you work through it, are going to help you figure out if your relationship is abusive or not.

So how I’m going to answer this question though is I’m going to actually read an article to you that I wrote several years ago. And I’ll put a link in the show notes, but if you go to flyingfreenow.com/covert-emotional-domestic-abuse, you can read this article, but I’m going to read it for you for those of you who like audio and you just like to listen to the podcast, okay?

The definition of covert is not openly acknowledged or displayed. Some synonyms for covert are secret, furtive, clandestine, surreptitious, stealthy, cloak-and-dagger, hole-in-corner, backstairs, backroom, hidden, under-the-table, concealed, private, undercover, underground, hush-hush.  That’s what covert means.

What does emotional mean? Emotional is relating to a person’s emotions. Some synonyms are spiritual, inner, psychological, of-the-heart.

What about domestic? What does that mean? That is related to the running of a home or to family relations.

And abuse—what is abuse? It’s to use something or someone to bad effect or for a bad purpose. To misuse them. It’s the improper use of something. The cruel and violent treatment of a person or animal, especially regularly or repeatedly.

So in this episode right now, you’ll learn what covert emotional domestic abuse is, how it dehumanizes women and children, who participates in its propagation, how to identify covert abuse, why it is rampant in certain religious circles, what the cultural consequences are, and what we can and must do to expose and stop it.

So first of all, what is covert emotional domestic abuse? Using the definitions that I just read to you, covert emotional domestic abuse is the SECRET, regular and repeated, cruel mistreatment of the inner emotions and heart of another person living within the same home.

Most of us know about domestic violence, but what about covert, or hidden, psychological abuse? Whereas overt abuse is easy to identify, covert abuse relies on covert psychological tactics so that even the victim may not realize they are being abused. It is used to gain power and control over victims.

Most emotionally abused victims will not be able to articulate that and actually have a very difficult time even admitting that they are in an abusive relationship. That’s a very scary thing. I remember when I first realized I was in an abusive relationship, I was absolutely terrified. I knew there was something horribly wrong with my relationship for over two decades, but I would never have used the word “abuse” because I didn’t know what covert emotional abuse was.

But when I started learning about it, I realized, “Wow.” I thought that I was the only one. I thought that what I was experiencing was very unusual and no one could understand it. No one I had ever tried to get help from knew what I was talking about or had heard of anything like that. They all thought it was my problem, that if I was a better wife, I wouldn’t be experiencing these things.

And so when I started reading actual books and articles about it, I began to realize that I wasn’t alone and that this is a real thing and that it is actually abuse.

So first of all, covert emotional abuse is secret. When something is a secret, it isn’t known. It can’t be seen. It can’t be observed from an outside glance. It is covered up. Hidden. Concealed. Not easy to identify. You may feel like your marriage is confusing and painful without knowing why.

Ladies, if your marriage is confusing and painful, there is something wrong, okay? Normal marriages, just your run-of-the-mill marriage, are not confusing and painful. It can be annoying, there can be work involved, but it’s not confusing and it’s not painful. And now I know that because I’ve been in a marriage that isn’t confusing or painful now for almost seven years.

So does this mean that it’s not happening? If you don’t know why, does that mean that what you’re experiencing isn’t real? Is reality only what we can observe and note and believe because the majority says, “Oh yes, we all agree that that’s real and that’s happening”? Or is reality something a little more common sense than that?

Because this isn’t an observable thing from the outside, people on the outside are not going to see it all the time. It has the opportunity to flourish, much like mold thrives in dark, closed, damp, and hidden places. When mold is exposed to the sun and air, it dies. When we find mold, we get rid of it. But if we don’t know it’s there, it grows and does unseen, systemic damage to the foundations of homes and the immune systems of humans who inhale it.

So covert abuse cannot be observed from the outside, it usually doesn’t happen in plain sight, and when we are in denial about its existence, it also gets worse and does systemic emotional and physical damage to everyone living in that environment.

Our bodies are not just about bones and blood and skin. Our bodies are connected to our brains. There are chemical processes in our bodies that come into play when we are stressed, when we are experiencing criticism and trauma and gaslighting and crazy-making. Our bodies go into trauma responses that release these chemicals and stress hormones like cortisol that will break down our bodies from the inside out. Entire body systems can shut down because of this over a long period of time.

So I’ve always said it is also physical abuse, but it’s something that happens more slowly and it’s something that happens more covertly from the inside where people can’t see it.

So the second thing about covert abuse is that it’s regular and repeated. All abuse is regular and repeated. It’s never resolved. An abuser is not empathic or sad over the damage he does. I mean, he might act like he is, but he’s putting on a mask and pretending to hook you back in. But instead, an abuser will blame shift, will deny, they’ll minimize what they’ve done, and they’ll emotionally manipulate you regularly and repeatedly, and it will cycle over and over and over again. It’s a never ending merry go round of craziness with no end in sight.

I’ve read this book years ago, but I’m reading it again with the Flying Higher community, which is our divorced community of women. And by the way, if you’re divorced and you want to be part of a community of women and take classes and that kind of thing, you can go to joinflyinghigher.com.

But anyway, at the time of this recording, we are reading Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, and in that book, there is a woman who is experiencing physical abuse in her relationship, but her relationship is amazing. She has this wonderful marriage except that once every few months, just out of the blue, her husband beats her black and blue and she fights back. And so she doesn’t think that she’s in an abusive relationship.

The book is very clever. It’s designed to really expose what abuse actually is from the perspective of someone who is actually experiencing it. And even though she’s being physically abused, even, she doesn’t think that it can qualify as abuse because she’s fighting back, she’s trying to defend herself, and it doesn’t happen that much. And also, he’s a wonderful father, he does it in secret, they have great sex when it’s over, and he’s really, really generous and sweet and kind and loving and attentive all of the other months beforehand and after the abusive incidents.

And so anyway, that story is just really good for showing how it can be regular and repeated. It can just show up even once or twice a year, but if it’s regular and repeated, it’s showing up intermittently, then we’ve got a situation that needs to be addressed.

All right, so emotional abuse is also cruel mistreatment. Emotional abuse is not your run-of-the-mill marriage problem. It’s cruel mistreatment. It is meant to hurt and do damage. In an abusive marriage, the purpose of that marriage is to hurt and destroy one of the partners. It is an improper use of the marriage relationship, which is meant to be a safe haven of love and commitment.

When outsiders encourage an abuse target to stay in her cruel and unusual marriage, they are re-abusing her by enabling her abuser to continue his behaviors unchecked, and also by emotionally pressuring and controlling her to remain a victim with no way out. And often, if these outsiders are Christians or in a Christian community, they will even use the Bible as a weapon of control, and we’re going to get to that in a minute.

Next, it is abuse of the inner emotions and heart. We can understand physical abuse a little bit better just because the damage is often done to the skin tissue found on the outside of the body, or not just bruises, but even broken bones or black eyes. These are things that other people can see and go, “Yes, this is abuse.”

But emotional abuse is damage done to the emotions and the heart and the inner organ systems of a person. If you could peel back the layers and see inside, you would see a shredded, bleeding human being who is unable to truly live a fulfilling life due to the fact that all of their energy is being put into surviving emotionally, spiritually, and yes, even physically as they deal with the breakdown of their body systems.

It is a hidden double whammy because the verbal and emotional abuse is only done when nobody is looking, and this type of abuse is only done to the insides of another person where nobody can see, even if that person does choose to go forward to tell someone else.

Next, covert abuse destroys another person. We are not talking about kicking a chair, ruining a car, or tearing down a house. We are talking about a human life, a person made in the image of God, a person with a heart and feelings and a history and a mind. A person who had hopes and dreams of loving and being loved, knowing and being known. A person created with potential and purpose and meaning—that is what abuse destroys. A living soul.

And then finally, living in the same home. So this is not just any human life, this is the person that someone promised to love and care for, promised to cherish and honor, promised to live in peace with, promised to be safe to. It’s a vulnerable human being who trusted the other person. So it’s taking advantage of that trust and vulnerability and betraying it.

If you are married to someone who is emotionally and spiritually abusing you, you were tricked. You thought you were marrying someone that this person is not, and you were tricked. That’s the bottom line. You didn’t marry the person that you thought you did. You said, “I do,” but you did not say “I do” to the person that you ended up with. That’s not what you bargained for. That’s not who you made a vow to.

I want that to really sink in because none of us, if we had known the truth about the other person and seen what we could see twenty years later, would have said, “Oh yeah, I will love that. I’m totally all in on that.” I mean, maybe someone might, but I think most of us would probably not.

So how does covert emotional domestic abuse dehumanize women and children? I believe God created all humans, regardless of gender, race, or socioeconomic status, equal and equally valuable. Jesus set the pace when He rattled the cages of the religious elite by talking to Samaritan women, hanging out with lepers, and forgiving prostitutes. He didn’t take into consideration anything other than their value to Him as human beings. He humanized the dehumanized by His actions and His words.

But when people hurt other people behind closed doors by belittling them, devaluing them, treating them like slaves and sex objects, controlling them, lying to them, tricking them, pushing their buttons on purpose to make them scream and weep, criticizing them, ignoring them, dismissing them, and then act all loving and kind when they’re in front of other people on the outside, such as many pastors I know, this robs the victim of their humanity, their God-given right to be treated with honor as a human being.

People who do this, who perpetrate this on other humans, who pick on the vulnerable, the children, these people pick on their wives who long to please and win the approval of their husband and their God, they pick on the ones who have deep empathy and don’t want to embarrass their spouse by tattling on them.

Why is it so hard to find help for emotional abuse? These vulnerable ones instinctively know that if they did try to explain to anyone on the outside, they would not likely be heard or understood. And indeed, this is the experience of thousands of wives and children of covert abusers. When they have dared to pull a card out from their house of cards, the house falls, and everyone points in shock and disapproval at the one who pulled the card, not the one who built the card house in the first place.

So the card puller is shamed, blamed, scapegoated, attacked, told she is a liar, told she is disordered, told she is a hysterical female tearing down her own house, told she is a Jezebel, and on and on. Basically, her covert abuser gets his buddies, who are often pastors and other “holy men” together, and they collectively heap upon her the shame that her husband has already piled on her the entire marriage.

It is a double dose of abuse in the name of God. It’s blasphemy in my book, because that is taking the name of God in vain. So many women and children stay silent. And covert abuse, just like that mold, spreads throughout culture.

So who participates in the propagation of covert emotional domestic abuse? The abusive spouse, obviously, but even more so, the collective, quiet agreement of the masses who refuse to stand against it. I frequently post articles on my private Facebook page about abuse issues. And several years ago, I was berated by a family member for choosing “ridiculous cause” to support when there are far greater causes to “freak out about.”

And so our culture continues to collude with covert abusers, giving them free rein to dehumanize women and children without cultural consequences. Worse, there are many churches who actually encourage and endorse covert emotional domestic abuse. We’re going to talk about that in a minute.

So why is covert emotional domestic abuse rampant in specific certain religious circles? Did you know that back in the days of slavery, Christians used the Bible to defend their right to own slaves? Likewise, today there are specific theologies that will twist the Bible to teach that women are subservient to men merely because it is in their nature to be so.

Slaves are black. They should be slaves because of their color. Makes perfect sense, right? The same thing applies for women. They don’t have male body parts, so they should stay home, they should keep their mouths shut, they should stay out of the public square because of this missing piece of anatomy. Makes perfect sense, right?

It’s mind blowing when you think about it. These Christians would say, “Well, we take good care of our slaves.” And likewise, they might say today, “We take good care of our women.” Therefore, they think it’s right and good and godly. And yet, in both scenarios, you have dehumanization happening. And where you’ve got dehumanization, where they are dehumanizing human beings made in the image of God, you’ve got abuse.

I’ve connected with hundreds of women over the last few years. Most of them are coming out of the reformed faith tradition. They gave up careers to have a dozen kids, homeschool, and bake whole wheat bread, and what did they get in return? Criticism, shame, blame, little support, little grace, pressure to perform, and random Bible verses slammed into their heads to remind them what failures they are as Christians, wives, and mothers.

If they go to their religious leaders for help, they get more of the same. “What? Well, your godly husband tells us differently, and since he has man parts like I do, I know he can be trusted. You, on the other hand, are as a dripping faucet on a rooftop corner. I feel bad for your poor husband. When was the last time you gave him the sex he needs? Oh, and how’s that submission coming? Are you being obedient to God in that area?”

It’s like getting run over by a car, and then along comes an ambulance, but instead of picking you up and putting you inside to see if your heart is still beating, they back up a little bit and then drive over you again, just to make sure you’re good and dead. Yeah, they probably shouldn’t be driving the ambulance.

What are the cultural consequences of covert emotional domestic abuse? Catastrophic. In the church alone, you’ve got the secondary abuse of children. Many of these children grow up seeing firsthand the hypocrisy of the church and take their leave of it as soon as possible.

These young adults are ill-equipped to deal with their own relationships in emotionally healthy ways, having been marinating in abusive behavior during their formative years. Lies lead to weakness and dysfunction. Truth leads to emotional health, strength, and stability. Lies in the home and church and culture lead to weak, dysfunctional homes, churches, and cultures.

Covering up abuse, pretending that it doesn’t exist, encourages apathy, neglect, selfishness, and broken lives, and that’s exactly what we’ve got. Dehumanizing people promotes chaos, hatred, abuse, and war, whether it is national war, cultural war, or personal war. It’s the enemy’s lie and the enemy’s agenda, and he’s crazy happy that his greatest supporters of this particular lie are religious people because then God gets a bad reputation among humans. It’s like a double prizes for him. “Go religious people!”

What can we do to expose and stop covert emotional domestic abuse? While we cannot control what other people do or don’t do to put a stop to the tsunami of pain, we can do our part in our corner of the world.

Are you a woman stuck in an abusive relationship? Start by telling the truth to yourself. Tell the truth to your spouse. Tell the truth to your family. Tell the truth to your church. And then when they turn on you and attack you for speaking the truth, let them go. There are eight billion people in the world. I promise not all of them are going to be like your spouse, your family, or your church iIf those people are turning on you.

Are you an adult child of emotional or verbal abuse? Tell your story, be honest, get therapy, find healing, live your life to the fullest, create healthy relationships, and poke the enemy in the eyeball.

Are you a therapist? Get training in how to help emotional abuse targets. Be trauma informed. Believe them and help them with their complex post traumatic stress disorder. Write articles in journals and magazines that illustrate how this kind of abusive behavior destroys people. Raise awareness on your Facebook page.

Are you a friend of an abuse victim? Listen and learn. Read books on the subject. Don’t stick your head in the sand and pretend this isn’t a horrible problem or that everyone has this problem. I promise it’s going to touch your life personally sooner or later. Narcissists are everywhere, and their power to ruin lives is great.

Are you a religious leader of some type? Read books, get training, listen to victims, and believe them. Start doing some research on how the Bible has been mistranslated by biased, misogynistic men, and start reading a Bible that is truer to the original languages. Learn how to learn from people who don’t have a penis. Value them in the same way your God values them: as equals.

Are you just a listener who stumbled on my website but you have no idea why? Maybe this is your first introduction to the problem. Now that you’ve seen it, be aware of it. Start to observe it in other places, because it’s there. The more we learn about the problem, the more we gain power over the problem. And maybe one day, the small things we’ve done to make a difference will change the course of history.

If you want to learn more about emotional abuse, go to flyingfreenow.com. You can do a search in the search box. Just search “emotional abuse” and all of the articles and podcast episodes that talk about this will come up. There are dozens and dozens of them so you’re probably going to go down a lot of rabbit trails. Or subscribe to this podcast and keep listening to this podcast.

And if you need more concentrated help, consider joining me and hundreds of other women inside of the Flying Free Kaleidoscope by going to joinflyingfree.com. That’s where we can really do the deep dive work and get some healing and move the dial in your life.