009 - Breaking Up With Bad Love for Good

Welcome to this week's episode of Actual People, hosted by Chauncey Zalkin. Today, we delve into the intricate world of relationships, trauma, and the journey towards healing and self-love with relationship and trauma therapist Jasmonae Joyriel PsyD LP, brings her expertise in navigating the aftermath of toxic relationships and sheds light on the path to healthier connections.

In This Episode:

• Introduction to Healing: Chauncey opens up about personal experiences and choices in love.
• Expert Insights: Jasmonae Joyriel, a therapist specializing in relationship trauma, joins us to explore the underlying causes of why individuals find themselves in harmful relationships.
• Societal Reflections: We discuss how societal norms and gender roles contribute to the cycle of relationship trauma.
• Breaking Cycles: Insights into how individuals can recognize toxic patterns and take steps towards healthier relationships.
• Self-Love and Recovery: The importance of nurturing self-love and establishing boundaries as foundational steps in healing.
• Q&A with Jasmonae: An enlightening conversation on the dynamics of "bad boys," the allure, and the path to empowering oneself to seek better.
• Conclusion: Chauncey wraps up with key takeaways and reflections on moving forward with hope and resilience.

Resources Mentioned:

• "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Lives of Angry and Controlling Men" by Lundy Bancroft is a book I highly recommend and I mention inside the episode. It really sheds light on empirical evidence about abusers motivation to abuse as well as shattering stereotypes of who abusers are by breaking down the 'types' of abusers.
• Jasmonae Joyriel is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Austin, Texas who rose up from her own wounds and experience with abuse to help others heal and thrive. She  holds retreats for women on intimacy and healing in relationships. We met and bonded in the women's network Hey Mama. This is her website: https://igniteanew.com/

Written, directed, and executive produced by Chauncey Zalkin. Intro/Outro sound engineered by Eric Aaron. Photography by Alonza Mitchell with Design Consulting by Paper + Screen.

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Transcript

 ”I don't think I loved myself.  And I definitely didn't think I could find  love.  I didn't really think that that was  available.” - Jasmonae Joyriel PsyD

In today's episode, I sit down with a therapist. Her name is Dr. Jasmonae Joyriel and she specializes in healing from relationship trauma among other things.  I invited her onto the podcast because I have a lot of questions about bad relationships and abuse. The statistics on intimate partner violence are startling.    From that level of abuse, to your run of the mill unsatisfactory relationship, we as a society have a lot of healing to do. We're healing from toxic gender roles, but there's also this fear of vulnerability and intimacy that is pervasive in both genders and  just in everybody as we live our lives on this public stage,  I'll be honest, a lot of my own pain and growth in life comes as a direct result from choosing partners that are not good for me  and those choices are a direct result of having disordered parents where dysfunction felt familiar, felt like home. Nowadays, my life looks like this. I nurture myself and take care of myself and set the example of what love looks like in my home. I'm not perfect, but I have a love first policy and I prioritize safety, autonomy and fostering a sense of agency and self acceptance in my kids because I have been affected by personality disorders in my parents, especially my mother I'll be going into this in a later episode, But today we get into the topic of toxicity in relationships and healing from those relationships. We examine why we as women specifically though, I know there are abusive female partners as well, why we put up with toxic behavior and relationships and even abuse. 

Why do we let harmful relationships go on too long? How can we make better choices? Or if we've come out the other end, how have we turned a corner to allow for better choices in our lives? , what have the costs been? What's changed. 

How do we create better relationships and healthy boundaries? How do we nurture self love? It's a really interesting conversation. So let's get into it. 

 Welcome to Actual People, a podcast hosted by Chauncey Zalkin, dedicated to meaningful conversations about the evolving landscape of our lives and the power of our own creativity and imagination to make magic. 

 I've already had four sessions today.  Well, you just, you, you had four sessions today.  So, what I wanted to talk about was this, I have a question for you. And the question That I, you know, it's just the question I have for the universe is why strong women get into these relationships with crappy men and then I wanted to sort of explore personality disorders and getting into a relationship with a disordered partner. Especially for those of us who might have a parent that is disordered and how we might replicate that  but I do notice a pattern with strong, ambitious, independent women  holding themselves back in relationships with men who are not  good for them and not necessarily good people.

 I  wanted to talk about that because I think it's a phenomenon. I went through it several times in my own life. I'll never go through that again where I've made choices of men that are  not good, you know, like unequivocally  not good people. A lot of women have done that and  they eventually come out the other end. So I thought we would discuss why they do it and then how they come out the other end a little bit. 

I love it. Let's do it. 

My take is that women who are strong tend to do this. Do you agree or disagree with that ?

So I don't think it's just women who are strong I think you know, there's a lot of reasons why people get intoxic behaviors But one of the things I always talk about is we go for what's familiar not what is good or safe.  So we are looking for homeostasis. We're not looking for  stability necessarily. If I tease that part out first, I think after that, really getting into ‘what does it mean to be a strong woman?’ If I'm going with this sort of archetype of a woman is that strength is a protective factor and a protective layer for some other things, and that we could totally pull apart.  I'd like to talk about that. What is a strong woman? What does that mean?  

Yeah, so if I think about what it means to be  a strong black woman and all of the tropes that go with that  I think once I peel back that layer oftentimes it comes as  a feeling of trauma a feeling of not being adequate, not being valued, not being cherished  I think when you look in the context of  women as a whole, there's ‘why do I feel the need  to be strong?’  

There's this movement now; the soft girl era, the soft woman movement, as this rebellion or  reaction to this need to be strong. Oftentimes I think the need to be strong comes from the need to survive  and that's anyone is that I need to do this because I need to protect myself when I think about strong I think of  a shell,  that outer layer of a shell that you may have that ooey gooey center, but at some point in time,  life has given enough experiences that it is not safe. It is not okay, it is not appropriate, to let that ooey gooey center  be exposed and so we create this really hard shell of being this  strong woman  when we haven't fully integrated that into the ooey gooey center,  then while it looks strong on the outside,  usually what's going on the inside are all of these wounds, all of these insecurities, all of these ways that we have been harmed and  we go and repeat that.  We go and try to fix those wounds or heal those old patterns through these relationships  that oftentimes are familiar, but not good.  

When I was younger,  a guy would be like an asshole and I'd be like, Oh yeah, I totally get why you're being like that. I would almost agree with them , yeah, yeah, yeah.  I get it. I'm being annoying or I get it. You're frustrated by this or that.  I would approve of asshole behavior because I saw so many other men being assholes and they were usually powerful and got what they wanted or had money or   clout,  or bravado or edginess so I was basically accepting that they treat me a little bit like shit because that's part of them being an edgy person. ...  but even that part where you're said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was annoying.   It came out at the very beginning, and it was so subtle.  How could I tell you what I need and what I want and what I deserve?  Yeah, , , the words I would say are like, I get it, I get it, , it's okay, it's okay when someone's being like a total asshole, just be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, and getting it means like, there's a part of me that can understand  why you would treat me this way which comes from a part of me that feels I  either deserve to be treated or that I don't deserve to be treated differently, that I don't deserve something different.  Right. That's when you say, ‘I get it. I get it.’ It's, ‘yeah, this makes sense.’ Right?  

This is a little bit  retrograde but  it used to be that  the women who were , oh, I just want to get married and I'll stay at home and I'll serve my man or whatever that was. Even though I wanted a partnership and wanted to be part of a family and , a lot of those traditional things. I thought I was  being punished because I wasn't really like that like, okay, I understand why it's annoying. I should be this other way or, but it does seem like a lot of women who are strong or independent do end up in these relationships with men who treat them like crap. Even in, in movies and TV shows, you see that kind of like, think about like Tina Turner. 

Yeah. So even  traditional women.  I don't think that got really wonderful men either. I think a lot comes intoare you allowed  to have what you want and what does that actually look like?

So I just did this workshop  this young lady, she's in her mid thirties and she's talking about  what she really wants from a partner is a certain level of income.   I was like but what does that mean?  Up until that point, she had never defined what that signified and so she's looking at, you know, and it's like a hefty six figures.  What she hadn't put in was that, well, what I'm actually looking for is security. I'm looking for confidence.  I'm looking for  stability, and I said, okay, so what does that look like? And she's like, I don't know. And I was like, okay, so any of these men that you've dated,  do they have those things? No.  So do you actually know what you're going after? And so I think part of where you're, where you're going digging into this about how we end up with the partners we ended up with,  do we actually go through that process of truly digging in and being like, what is it that I want? What is it that I need? Do I know the difference between a need and a want? And what do they do for me?   We can't help who we're attracted to.   I used to say when I was younger, because like now I'm in a kind of dead zone, like I'm not attracted to any, like I'm just raising kids but  I used to say I'm  physically attracted to one type, I'm intellectually attracted to another type, and my heart is attracted to a third type altogether. And it was obviously very problematic. . Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I want to be attracted to this type that  seems so great, but it's just, I'm bored. 

Bored or safe.  Right. You don't want to be interesting.  Right. I do think we change who we're attracted to, but the change is internal.  When we change how we feel about ourselves,   I used to love the bad boy  unknowable, maybe, yeah, like,  man, I don't know if he's coming home tomorrow, the next day, right, any of those things  but  a lot of those men came from a place of insecurity.    It didn't matter how I was in the relationship because they didn't have confidence, they showed up in the relationship as someone who lacked confidence, which often then meant belittling or demeaning me, or that if I was ambitious, then this means I'm in competition or if I have an opinion, this means I'm somehow belittling them. Where it's like, no,   we're peers, but it came from a place of insecurity.  And also, they don't know who they are, and they don't feel like they have a lot to offer then disappearing or  being elusive is a way to hide that they don't really feel like they have that much value themselves,\. 

Right. Right? But the thing I think I realized was once I started doing my work,  that wasn't the most attractive thing to me. In fact, if anything, that started to say proceed with caution.   If I dated someone who had this certain quality, it no longer was like, Oh, this is so sexy, but was , Oh, okay. Are you confident? I mean, it's a great package, but is there anything inside the box? Right.  That takes  becoming  self aware and an integrated person yourself.   I ,  think it can be a  long journey because it's not like a movie where the bad guy is  always an ostensible jerk on the surface,  they're not ,  2D characters, and it can happen over and over again I've talked to a lot of women who are in these really bad traumatic situations, and then they do eventually get past it. But I saw you had an article,  then you don't use the word hypervigilance in the title or anything, but about , being in a healthy relationship and then being suspicious all the time looking for red flags and kind of yeah, like maybe we could get into that a little bit because   I have throughout my life, maybe been in,  I'd say four abusive relationships, very different packages,  one was, machismo, very outwardly, visibly macho, one was please take care of me type of pathetic, almost, , veneer, but    abusive too, and then there was another one that was  just, cold and elusive. Then there was like an anger problem. And then there was one that was just a complete monster , like, something out of  mythology, almost a horrible person. And that, I think that's where I reached my final apex of I’ve seen all the different archetypes of bad , and they all have something to do with a personality disorder, a disordered society also. And now I'm  super hyper vigilant and just like, I am completely done.  I know you're in a healthy relationship, last we spoke. 

I am. 

So you've gone through  trying to not  get in your own way,  and being able to enjoy a healthy relationship. That sounds hard too.  

So  it is.  I will say ,  I also came from a very abusive marriage. , one that almost cost me my life. ,  my ex husband was arrested  for choking me  in front of our kids,  I think this is where maybe I diverge a little bit  I think part of  moving past it was realizing  this is another  human that's deeply traumatized and  has so many ruptures within their sense of self that you can't show up in a relationship and you can't love in a relationship if you can't love yourself. If you can't offer enough of an anchor and enough of a foundation for which both people can grow .  My ex husband couldn't  .  Didn't matter what I did, it didn't matter  what I wanted, what he wanted  he didn't have access to that, and that left me then with a lot of wounds because I left the relationship and there is a part of like, how did I get into that relationship, right?

A lot of self blame.  Initially there was some blame and maybe a little bit of shame, but I think it  was coming to this place of like, man,  I don't think I loved myself.  And I definitely didn't think I could find  love.  I didn't really think that that was  available.

 There was a little bit of security even in ‘I won't get hurt if I don't really try for that awesome guy. I won't be devastated when he throws me away.’ In a way I was hedging my bet with my ex husband where it's like,  I don't know if I deserve what I really want. Um,I don't know if I'm good enough, if I'm lovable.  When I look back, there's so many moments when I could have been like,  I just want and need something different than this, that it's not about you, I don't hate you, but  this doesn't fulfill me, right?

This, this isn't how I define partnership. This isn't what I'm looking for. I would get close to that. I would be fed up and, and yet I would not fully show up for myself. And I remember,   when I first put my foot down with the physical abuse.  But my voice was so very weak back then that it didn't last very long. ,  I was  like, nope, this will stop. , and for a while, the physical abuse did stop. It stopped for a good, six or seven months. , and then,  slowly crept back in. I, lost my voice again. And then there was separation. And  there was a divorce. But then,  one of the things that terrified me was I don't want to take all of these new wounds that have been inflicted upon me,  to someone else.

when we're talking about how do you not bring wounds into another relationship? Like, I think I was terrified.  of becoming my ex husband. I did not want to be that person in another relationship and so I refused to date seriously. I'd only date casually. I went to therapy. I had a lot of trauma. I had a lot of things I needed to work through, 

the filter in which I'd been living had been  twisted, twisted, turned up and then  cracked and  put back on.  I was like, this now looks like  those fun houses everything's distorted. 

Yes. And I did  a couple years of  really intense trauma therapy, of really digging into  where I was  after the relationship, but also how I'd gotten into it, like, and really from a place of curiosity. What did I miss?   Because I used to be that person who was like I will never put up with that. you know, and also learning how you get there because I think that's the other part with being a strong woman is you think you can take it. So you're tolerant. Let me stop. Let me, let me stop you there. That, that's it. You thinking you can take it. 

I think that's a really interesting insight that  you're so strong you can take it 

 It's almost like you want to be able to challenge yourself to be able to take it somehow. They're  pushing that lever, how  they can break you. 

Our impulse to be able to take it comes directly from the way we were raised. We were raised to  be a good girl and be polite and that  primes women for abuse.  If we're told to follow rules, blindly  then how can we ever stand up for ourselves? 

If we don't question what's going on. I tell my own kids to question everything, even what I tell them I want them to think critically, for themselves.  I'm wary of talking about men as poor things that can help themselves.  In my mind,  an abuser is an empowered, angry person who is enabled by society. And I really felt  that was confirmed for me when I read this book called "why does he do that? inside the lives of angry and controlling men?" Have you heard of it? 

I have not.  The guy who wrote the book specializes in interventions for abusive men and their families. His name   is Lundy Bancroft and he co-directed what was the nation's first counseling program for men who batter  and he says in the research  that there's no such thing as an abusive man who is just misunderstood or simply needs a second chance.  , he clearly states that abuse is a choice. 

He also says it's been proven not to be a result of mental illness or abuse. or alcohol. , 

 The gist of the book is that they don't want to be rehabilitated. They enjoy it. They get something out of it. They're not just wounded and  can't fix themselves or get out of their own way that this is a source of pleasure and satisfaction 

They are  not fixable, because this is something that works for them. 

I would agree that it works as far as the fixable,  I would say   Everything we do serves a function. There's a function  to wanting to prove that I am big enough. I am bad enough. And the question to me would still be  why?  Why do you need to be that big and that bad?  And that's where the wound is. 

But in the end, it's like,  So what. In those abusive relationships, which are not black and white,  those people also have a lot of good parts  and there's good moments where you know, we're not idiots.  but there has to be a point where you do have to, you know, be cold and you can no longer look at the nuance. Absolutely. Because that's what gets us into trouble. I think that's part of the way women who  think that they can help or exert some sort of control over the situation and make it better and fix something

 and for something that's not fixable

And that is what has to change.

What makes me want to get into a relationship with a man. I need to fix. 

 Maybe we think that we can fix our parents,  we're doing the work on them instead of on ourselves.

 But really when you're in it, hormones, endorphins, serotonin, all these things are also in the mix, the chemistry,  which is, I think in and of itself, pretty scary  we are not thinking clearly.

But even that, right, it's like, how do we define love, right? Does love feel safe and comforting or does love feel dangerous? And if I define love by  my sympathetic nervous system being activated, being in fight or flight, then yeah, that might be what I think is love but if I define love as feeling settled, right, I think you said bored, that took me a long time to feel like that being a feeling of love because that's the other thing then that we can also often recreate. It's like, Oh, wait, everything, everything is good right now. What's wrong?  That's hypervigilance. And I think that comes from childhood.   My mother has a complex personality disorder and so when I recognize that, I mean, this is what I've come to learn. If I recognize that in a mate, I'm like, Oh, this is home. Someone who's really inconsistent and a little bit crazy. And I'm like, Oh, that's my comfort zone. It's horrible. You know, and hopefully it's in my distant rearview now, but that is the kind of thing that we do end up repeating  you know, it's too late by the time we realize, oh, no, that's again, another form of that same  thing  and so , what would you tell women who are in the middle of it right now where they  know they should leave a situation, but   they haven't been able to figure it out, what is that first step , , to shortcutting it cause sometimes it can go on way too long?

 So the thing that  when I was in it,  that was the most helpful  if we're still talking about women who are  type a high achieving, super ambitious women, is knowing the difference between  walking away and failing.

So I think that’s one part. Can you answer that question? What does it mean to walk away? And what does it mean to fail?  Sometimes we,  what's the word? I'm trying to conflate. You conflate the conflate. There you go. It's like it starts with a, “C”,I do that all the time. But then the other one and I thought  this was just profound. Just know that there's a wall. You know, it's like being in a dark room, you might bump your knee on some tables  and some chairs, and you may not know where the wall is,  but everyone has a wall.

Like a limit you mean?  

Yeah. And if you, if you start to recognize that, I don't need to say my wall is today. I don't need to say my wall is tomorrow. Can I just acknowledge that I have a wall?  And what would it be like for me to start putting my hands out and noticing the wall? What would that look like? What would that feel like to me? 

I like that.

and so it's not go and do this that's not realistic and that's just not how it works  but knowing that there's a wall out there and knowing that you could reach your hand out and start feeling around for it.  There's something that is both  encouraging and motivating, but also grounding, know that it's there,  and if you need some help, you can seek out support of someone who will actually help you answer those questions that maybe part of why I stay is because I also would have to confront myself  and maybe I'm not ready to confront myself.  I think there was a point when I  thought I was.  done, but then I wasn't ready to rip up my kids.  Like,  oh, I have to  deconstruct my meaning of family. I have to deconstruct my meaning of stability. I have to deconstruct my meaning of community because I may be losing people, friends. I have to  prepare myself financially.    I like this idea of a wall,  if you were in the dark on  a cliff side  and you had to feel around for the next rock, but you don't know where it is, but you have to have  faith that it's there and , okay, okay.

Yeah. It's not that easy, but it's there like one little step at a time. I love that. The visual on that. I wish I'd had that a long time ago. Even though the other side of that might feel like this vast  expanse of nothingness,    the abuse is a known quantity at least. And so I'll just stay there and not go into the scary abyss of, no friends, no community, no job or whatever.  It's almost like a death. 

Or just simply, maybe I see if I can find new friends.  I could look for what else is around in my immediate vicinity.  Is there a way for me?

After this, we did a part two where we go into how we might solve some of the problems that alienate us from one another and how we might go about re-imagining relationships in the future. 

According to the CDC, nearly half of all women, 48.4% experience what they call psychological aggression by an intimate partner. 

Why is this so prevalent? 

And why do women come across this again and again in their lives? 

I think there's a couple of reasons.  The first is how we're socialized,  what it means to be a woman versus what it means to be a man, how you're supposed to act and engage in relationships, and I think one of the things that we have to start doing is deconstructing this idea of femininity and masculinity and really getting into like, what does it mean to treat a human being? How do you treat a human being? And what does it mean to be a partner? There's this idea of this is what I'm supposed to do and this is how I get my needs met.  Redefining how I get my needs met that getting my needs met is not about getting big and bad and scary but what would it be if I could ask if I could say that this is what I really want from you, or if I can share how I'm feeling with you without having just access to anger and aggression.

And that really comes from how we raise young men.  If men don't have access to the full spectrum of emotions, how they proceed with everything is anger and aggression.  For women  learning how to notice the difference between what is  okay and and what is inappropriate for how you treat me.  I think with young girls is that it's okay for how anybody treats you, you play nice, you be sweet versus what is it like to set a boundary? What is it like to say no? What is it like to actually build consent and how we ... interact and engage with each other  like, no, you're not allowed to treat me this way. You're not allowed to talk to me this way. What is it like to have a voice?  The other part of this  comes from  the ways that we  think about what we want in a relationship,  I think  if I want a relationship that I need to deal with this versus being able to say like,  I want to be respected in a relationship, and it's not that I need the relationship, and so therefore I deal with everything that comes, but instead I want the partnership, and I don't take any relationship that doesn't come with that.

And that means  getting to a place where you're okay being alone.  throwing out we need to have that partner to be okay in the social system and being like I am okay by myself so that when you find someone, it's not out of  a panic or a need, but  a want. , even though partnership is pretty foundational to being a human being.  I think we've been accepting whatever at a huge cost. Yeah. , there's so much impact there because that's reconstructing how we look at relationships as a whole and community. ... We absolutely need relationships and community and, and deep intimate connections and what form that that needs to come. That we can play a lot with and we can go all the way back into the history of marriage and marriage was a business contract  and so one of the things that we have to do is  look at what are we wanting in a relationship now. And what does that mean to change?  If I'm looking for this emotional component, I may not be looking for what I looked for back in the 60s, 70s when it was about taking care of me and taking care of all of my financial needs and stability.  I can do that now. So if I can do that, then how do I want to rethink and reimagine what I actually want from ... an intimate partner  and what do I want from  my other relationships? What do I want from my friends? What do I want from my neighbors, my colleagues, my family?  Absolutely. Your parents.  So  how do you observe that most people successfully, eventually stop a cycle of abuse and take ownership of their life?  What are the changes that you, usually  see happen when someone really does  empower themselves to leave or move on or change their life. What is the thing that sort of seems to happen if, if there is something? 

Yeah, they fall in like and love with themselves. and that relationship gets very strong.  

That's amazing.

Thanks so much to Jasmonae for being with us today. I hope you enjoyed this.