Save Your Sanity - Help for Toxic Relationships

Drama! It keeps you walking on eggshells, wondering when the next supposedly offence on your part will be jumped on. Or, an event will be blown out of proportion. That event may or not have actually happened, right? Accepting responsibility for allowing drama to continue in your life is the first step to putting an END to it. I know, the other person does create it. You may be allowing it, even en...

Keeping you in chaos, confusion, and uncertainty is a hallmark of a #Hijackal®. They do it to keep you on guard and off balance. That's a very shaky combination that destroys any possibility of stability in a relationship! Recognizing when a Hijackal is trying to control you (which is always) is an important skill to have for taking back your personal power and sense of self. It's particularly imp...

Holidays or any celebration can be stressful. It may be exciting--which is stressful in itself--and it may be distressful. Give yourself permission to recognize and act on the three empowering tips for surviving the holidays with other humans. In fact, these three tips will always help you feel empowered. Are the holidays duty, dread, or delight for you? Can you look forward to any celebration, wi...

What a pleasure and honor to have this deep conversation with Patricia Evans, author of The Verbally Abusive Relationship. ! Patricia Evans stepped up, spoke up, and spoke out about verbal abuse. Her first book--with four following--is a tribute to her indomitable spirit and unwillingness to stay silent about this gateway behavior. Before a partner hits you, you will have been verbally abused: dem...

When you have a #Hijackal® parent, you tend to model their traits, or be set up to be the unwitting "prey" for other predators like them. Having a #Hijackal parent can turn you into "Hijackal Bait." Hijackals are attracted to you, and you are attracted tot hem. Why? Because they seem so familiar. You feel somehow comfortably uncomfortable with them...at least for the first while. Having a Hijackal...

Difficult, defensive, and destructive behaviors can turn into dangerous ones! These six steps to keep you safer around toxic people, around #Hijackals, are absolutely vital to recognize and take. Keep yourself safer! In today's episode, I'm defining "dangerous" as dangerous to your well-being in all ways, and to your children's well-being and best interests. I give you six vital questions to ask y...

CRAZY-MAKING! That's what these ten mind-games are! #Hijackals--those relentlessly difficult, toxic people in life must always win. You've noticed that, right? They have to be right, make your wrong, and have their way. That why it is important to recognize these ten mind-games narcissists play to confuse you. Narcissists want you to live in uncertainty. They want the ground beneath your feet to b...

You've divorced a #narcissist, a #Hijackal®. That was difficult, no doubt. Now, you're settling in--or trying to settle in--to some kind of reasonable co-parenting model. That's tough, too. I know, I've done it. It's not easy to co-parent with a #narcissist . It's not what you expected to have to do. You're still resentful about the relationship , and devastated by the divorce . BIG RULE: Never ma...

BAIT-AND-SWITCH! That's an illegal activity in the U.S. and many other countries, when it comes to advertising great deals. It would be SO good, if it were illegal when it comes to #Hijackals everywhere, too. In advertising terms, bait-and-switch is described as a scam that entices people with a great product of high quality at a very attractively low price. Once a person buys it, they find that t...

Emotionally Impaired? There's no breathalyzer for that! So, how do you know some is? Every now and then, each one of us may be a little incapacitated by life events. There can be temporary emotional impairment. Where the real problems come is when a person is often emotionally impaired , or more difficult, usually emotionally impaired ! You cannot have the three hallmarks I suggest every healthy r...

Are you with someone who is empathy deficient? Someone who shows almost no interest in your thoughts, feelings, needs, or wants? That could be a parent, partner, ex, sibling, or co-worker. It's so hard to comprehend when someone doesn't seem to have the interest or the bandwidth to take you into account, right? Empathy deficiency! I've done a lot of reading on the topic of empathy , the lack of em...

The #Hijackal Trap usually closes slowly. At first, everything seems rosy, wonderful, and just what you've always longer for. Then, it starts to close. Narcissistic behavior is crafty! You want to believe what you fell in love with was true, so you rationalize, justify, and excuse red flag behaviors. Did you do that? Are you doing that? That will keep you trapped! In this episode, I walk you throu...

Have you heard the term, coercive control? You may not have as it's just slowly coming to awareness. And, it is SO important that it does! Coercive control is life-sucking! That's why I've chosen to give you an understanding of the many aspects of coercive control in today's episode. Evan Stark, PhD , coined the term "coercive control" and he defines it this way, "...an ongoing pattern of dominati...

So often, clients and members ask me if the relentless difficult, toxic people in their lives are that way on purpose. Followed closely by the question: does s/he want to hurt me? Have you wondered if your mean, blaming partner wants to hurt you ? Did you have a #Hijackal parent who told you you were unwanted, or n ever good enough ? Are you in a toxic relationship now? #Hijackals are made, not bo...

Stop playing these shady, passive-aggressive games! Right? It's not that easy. In this episode, you'll hear three better ways for you to bring clarity to a conversation that is going down that shady, #passiveaggressive path. If you have a relationship with someone--a friend, parent, sibling, partner, co-worker--whose weapon of choice is a passive-aggressive remark or behavior, you know just what I...

I know. You don't want to be accused, or accuse yourself, of abandoning a person. You especially don't want to be accused of abandoning a person in need. #Hijackals are always in need: in need of you to use, misuse, and abuse. Does that make you want to stay? I hope not. Would you tell your best friend to stay in a situation like yours? Hmmmm....pause for thought, right? I'm Dr. Rhoberta Shaler, a...

Parents who were emotionally available, perceptive, and responsive to you, to your needs and mental states, are a great gift! They tend to provide you with attachment that is secure. This is an excellent foundation for a healthy emotional life. Parents who were emotionally unavailable , or inconsistently available, perceptive or response to your needs, and tended to intrude their own states of min...

Don't kid yourself! Your "silences" speak volumes! I work with people whose relationships are in crisis for so long, and their hope that not speaking up about things that are bothering them mostly does more damage than anything. Suffering in silence can be the exact opposite of healthy living. It's a poor--and often highly toxic--approach to relationship issues. It's possible that folks who button...

Any chance you've been walking on eggshells around someone in your life? A parent, partner, sibling, friend, ex? If so, there a good chance you're going to recognize some of their abusive behaviors in today's episode. In fact, you may learn--and you may not want to--that, you're experiencing what I call an " emotional terrorist !: You need to know this, even if you'd prefer not to. I know, who wan...

Do you have a feeling that what's going on in your relationship is less than honest , and yet, you feel strangely like you're not doing enough? You may well be with a covert narcissist! Even for me, working with couples all over the world, it takes longer to identify covert narcissism in a person, and in a relationship, than with other demonstrations of narcissism. Why? Because it is sneaky, under...

Abuse in any form is bad news: verbal abuse , emotional abuse , physical abuse , financial abuse , spiritual abuse , sexual abuse . All bad! And, you need to know what intimate terrorism is because it has the most dire consequences. Domestic violence is a term you're likely familiar with. You may not think of the verbal abuse as domestic violence, or the emotional abuse. It is, though. Often, it i...

#Hijackals--those relentlessly difficult toxic people--want to define your reality for you. Right? They try to tell you what you think, what you feel, or what you remember or want. Crazy-making! Telling you who you are and what you think and feel is # gaslighting. Sure, you have friends that you might ask, or be discussing these things with because you value their opinion. Whole different story! H...

People can be difficult. No lie, right! Sometimes, they are difficult for a moment. Sometimes, through a rough patch. Today's episode is help for dealing with those two kinds of occasionally difficult behavior. Although these strategies are foundational to what you have to do when you're with the relentlessly difficult, toxic people I call #Hijackals , there is SO much more to learn about how to e...

Are you tired of being wrong? #Hijackals--those relentlessly difficult toxic people in life--cannot be wrong, so everything HAS to be your fault. That's exhausting, right? And, of course, it's not true. If you stay with a #Hijackal for long, you may begin to second-guess yourself too often . You may question your sanity . Or, you can get so worn down and torn down, that you don't have any self-est...

Being abused is a BIG deal! Not recognizing it is also a BIG deal. Often, when it happens when you are young, it becomes buried in the fabric of your life and you don't realize that you are operating from it. That happens too often. Maybe, you've downplayed the emotional abuse , or any other kind of abuse, in your mind to somehow make it alright, or at least, tolerable. Maybe, you've made up excus...