Why You Didn’t Know It Was Abuse with Chelli Pumphrey | S2E8

“If it was really abuse, you would’ve left.” That lie has silenced survivors for decades. The truth? Most women in abusive relationships don’t know it’s abuse, because abusers work hard to make sure they don’t. Lisa sits down with trauma therapist and “Love & Trust Therapist” Chelli Pumphrey to unpack the psychology behind not knowing. They dive into gaslighting, cognitive dissonance, and how abusers weaponize your empathy, optimism, and attachment against you. Chelli also shares her own story — as both a therapist and survivor — revealing how smart, capable women can still get trapped in psychological warfare disguised as love. This conversation will help you truly understand that manipulation is by design. Naming that truth is where your healing begins.

Transcript

00:00:00:06 - 00:00:08:17
Music


00:00:08:19 - 00:00:18:13
Lisa Sonni
This is real talk with Lisa Sonni Relationships Uncensored, the podcast. They don't want you listening to.

00:00:18:15 - 00:00:40:06
Lisa Sonni
Welcome to Real Talk with Lisa Sonni relationships uncensored. And today we are talking about how in the hell you could not know that you were being abused when you are in active abuse. And so today I have therapist Chelli Pumphrey with me to kind of take us through this insane way that we can't see something that's really happening right in front of us.

00:00:40:11 - 00:00:44:02
Lisa Sonni
So can you start with just telling us a little bit about you and then we'll get into it?

00:00:44:05 - 00:01:13:01
Chelli Pumphrey
Yeah. I'm just first of all, I'm so happy to be here. You know, I adore you. And these conversations about this are so important for us to keep having. I am a therapist. As you said, I'm a licensed professional counselor in Colorado in the US, and I have been a therapist for 30 years. I've always worked with intimate partner violence and got very specific and working with narcissistic abuse and pathological relationship recovery.

00:01:13:06 - 00:01:37:04
Chelli Pumphrey
I don't know, probably in the last ten years. So my background is just working with a lot of trauma. I am also certified as a narcissistic abuse survivor treatment, clinician, and I've worked closely with Sandra Brown, for those of you that might know her, she wrote the book Women Who Love Psychopaths and has done some work, on this big thing that we're living with and dealing with every day.

00:01:37:09 - 00:02:00:22
Chelli Pumphrey
So that's a little bit about me just professionally, but part of this interest is because I have had many narcissists in my life, in my family and several partners. And I, as a therapist, could not believe, like I couldn't understand what was going on with me because how is it that I could be doing this work and helping survivors every day?

00:02:00:23 - 00:02:19:06
Chelli Pumphrey
And yet I kept getting kind of bamboozled, we’ll say, by these narcissists and not seeing it so you know, it took me on a long journey of really trying to uncover what was going on and why. Traditional kinds of ways of healing and looking at this weren't working for me and others.

00:02:19:10 - 00:02:42:00
Lisa Sonni
Yeah, I find, I mean, understanding that you've been through it and then healing from it. I mean, there's just nothing harder. But I find it fascinating, despite having my own personal experience going through this and not knowing that it was abuse because something that I've noticed a lot since I became a coach and started working in this field is that people will say, if it was abuse, why didn't you just leave

00:02:42:00 - 00:03:03:13
Lisa Sonni
or if you knew it was abused, go to therapy and try to work through it, and it's like you're expecting the victim to have the language to call it abuse, as well as the safety to even label it that way outwardly. But you want to call it abuse. Know all the things, label it when the whole thing is in an abusive relationship, you have no idea because you're being gaslit and cognitive dissonance and all the things.

00:03:03:15 - 00:03:31:06
Lisa Sonni
And it's wild, I think, from the outside looking in like, how could you not have known? And to me, there's sort of two parts of this. There's psychological and emotional abuse, which is obvious only to experts, in my opinion. When you're in it, it's unbelievably hard to see. But then there's physical abuse that might not seem like abuse, which might sound crazy, but we're going to talk about all of that and why it might seem crazy when you are experiencing it. Because you were trained.

00:03:31:06 - 00:03:37:14
Lisa Sonni
I was not trained. Do you feel like you knew faster or better than anybody else? Or what do you think?

00:03:37:14 - 00:04:00:10
Chelli Pumphrey
You know, when I think back through the history of it, did not experience physical abuse. I mean, I there was one relationship where I did towards the end and that was kind of a tipping point, but it was mostly emotional and psychological abuse. And I knew that I felt horrible, I knew that I was being treated poorly, but the gaslighting was so severe.

00:04:00:12 - 00:04:24:18
Chelli Pumphrey
And the cognitive dissonance of questioning, you know, is it me? Is it him? Is he abusive? Is he just being a normal person? It was so severe that I really didn't know. And now, I mean, I will say my first relationships like long term relationships that were with narcissists, were, I mean, decades ago. And I've come a long way since then.

00:04:24:18 - 00:04:48:05
Chelli Pumphrey
So there was one in particular that I was in for a few years after a marriage, and it was very severe psychological and emotional abuse. And I was so confused and I was afraid to tell my therapist friends, I just didn't. I knew that something is wrong. I started to suspect he was a narcissist, but I really was.

00:04:48:06 - 00:05:09:07
Chelli Pumphrey
He had done such a number on me that I thought I was the bad person, and so. And I and I will say, like, I thought I did all this, I did it. I just kept finding like narcissist are you know, kind of emotionally unavailable men one after another. And then I did all this work, I stopped dating, I was like, I am figuring this out.

00:05:09:12 - 00:05:33:07
Chelli Pumphrey
I'm going to like, you know, I did all this work on my attachment style and, you know, thinking I'm getting it finally. And I just inadvertently, mistakenly met somebody and he was a covert narcissist and seemed like the kindest, gentlest human being you could ever imagine. He checked all my boxes. He was the opposite of everybody that I had dated.

00:05:33:11 - 00:05:54:10
Chelli Pumphrey
Now, in retrospect, I saw, I mean, the red flags were there from the get go, but they presented very differently. I mean, at least for my experience now. I'm like, oh yeah, it's just textbooks, you know? But I it it wasn't until I was further in and committed in this relationship that the mask fully came off with him,

00:05:54:10 - 00:06:16:20
Chelli Pumphrey
and I was like, oh my God, look at what's happened again. I was devastated, but I, I mean, it was still several years of a relationship. But I did finally leave. It was easier to see, but it taught me a lot about what I was missing. Like, like for example, codependency is not the only answer. It doesn't like fit, really.

00:06:16:20 - 00:06:19:11
Chelli Pumphrey
What's going on here? So I have a big beef with that.

00:06:19:15 - 00:06:45:19
Lisa Sonni
Yeah. So do I actually I feel that word is so overused. It's like oh you you were stuck in an abusive relationship. You're codependent. It's just an automatic. And I'm not saying that's never there. I'm just saying it's not always there. That's not. Yeah. It has a these relationships have a way of creating dependency. Even if you look at the, the sheer, way that a trauma bond forms, trust and dependency is built so early on that it's not just an automatic

00:06:45:23 - 00:07:02:22
Lisa Sonni
but not knowing is baffling when you can start to see it, like on the other side of it, when you're coming out and you look back, this thing that you're talking about with seeing the red flags, I used to say I didn't see any red flags. And then it was like it all came out of nowhere. But as you learn more, you heal.

00:07:02:22 - 00:07:20:23
Lisa Sonni
You're like, oh, I saw the red flags, which yeah, I think is used against women. And if you ever talk about well, I did in hindsight see the red flags. It's like, well Shelley, you stayed, you saw the red flags. Right? You didn't see them. You see them now I feel like that's the part we're missing is you didn't see them that time.

00:07:21:02 - 00:07:29:05
Lisa Sonni
You were small and you rationalized them and they rationalized them. It made sense. Like, to me, it wasn't a red flag. That's not fair.

00:07:29:07 - 00:07:57:06
Chelli Pumphrey
Right? Exactly. I agree, I it drives me crazy with that kind of thinking. There's such an element of blame towards us. And, you know, I, I don't want to get too far into all the nitty gritty, like kind of clinical aspects of that. But you know what we know, or at least you know what I'm what we're trying to, like, help people understand is you know, there are things about us survivors that make us very vulnerable to these types of people.

00:07:57:06 - 00:08:25:16
Chelli Pumphrey
And it is the goodness in us. And codependency. You know, we always think, oh, you just have no boundaries. You're just a woman who doesn't have a backbone or all this crap. And, you know, I look at codependency as kind of this umbrella term that kind of explains some higher level behaviors. But if you do not go deep and look at the root causes of what's creating what looks like codependency, you're spinning your wheels

00:08:25:16 - 00:08:51:02
Chelli Pumphrey
and there's an aspect of, you know, it could be our personality traits. Like some of the research done by Sandra Brown and Purdue University, it's like people that you know, women that are that are victims of this often have an agreeable personality trait where we are kind, we're forgiving, we have empathy, we are optimistic, we want to see the best in people, and we will give 100 chances to somebody.

00:08:51:02 - 00:09:10:18
Chelli Pumphrey
And that is just hardwired into us. And that's a good thing to have in society. But when you are being manipulated by this abusive person, that is what they want. They want somebody who's going to turn the other way. And that's part of why we don't see red flags between that. And then it could be trauma attached, you know, like you've grown up with it.

00:09:10:18 - 00:09:27:00
Chelli Pumphrey
It's your norm. Or it can be attachment related. And we just, you know, I say we just bleach the red flags white. We want to we see what we want to see or we dismiss it or we think, oh, he's that's just his trauma. You know. He's

00:09:27:00 - 00:09:27:05
Lisa Sonni
just

00:09:27:05 - 00:09:28:13
Chelli Pumphrey
angry, right?

00:09:28:15 - 00:09:54:01
Lisa Sonni
He was drunk. And honestly when I think back because to me, I'm in this little category of women who experienced severe physical abuse but not constant. I just want to be clear, you know, that that that's me defending myself, I think. But we went from arguing and your every day gaslighting and emotional abuse, which I didn't recognize as abuse to end in one argument, strangulation, just like it absolutely shocked me.

00:09:54:05 - 00:10:13:11
Lisa Sonni
And it was. I expected him to apologize, which I would have accepted. But he didn't apologize and but instead blamed me for it, which was so his mill. But it was also like, I think it was an isolated incident. He was just angry. He just lost control for a minute. He'd never done it before. He never did it again.

00:10:13:13 - 00:10:39:10
Lisa Sonni
So it was relatively easy for me to go. Well, it was just an isolated incident and I felt that he was sorry despite not saying it, because who wouldn't be sorry, right? So it was like, he loves me. Of course he's sorry I did. I could, I moved on without the apology. Nothing else physical happened for two years and then it got dangerously, dangerously violent for a pretty extended well, eight or 8 to 10 months.

00:10:39:14 - 00:10:59:17
Lisa Sonni
It was pretty violent. And like, on one hand, like dummy, I should have known, but I don't see myself that way. I felt that way in it. Like, how could I not have seen this? What's wrong with me? But I've studied now why? I didn't see it. And that's the part. It's like if somebody could have labeled it abuse, which nobody did in my life, maybe I would have seen it.

00:10:59:17 - 00:11:14:02
Lisa Sonni
But I also think that my cognitive dissonance would have prevented me from seeing that. Like, you just you just don't understand. He's he's traumatized. You don't get it. You don't understand him. But it's such an excuse. They're not doing this because they're angry. Yeah. That's

00:11:14:02 - 00:11:42:23
Chelli Pumphrey
not like exactly. No, not at all. And I agree it's like I think there's a lot of, you know, so many people come to me and I've had this experience with my own with a therapist in the past where, you know, people go and talk about it, but they often get, you know, like therapists in particular don't label it as abuse or were taught. We're trained not to be too directive, like not to say, don't, you know, leave this person or this person's a narcissist.

00:11:42:23 - 00:12:13:06
Chelli Pumphrey
And I, I am like, no, that is not how you do therapy with this population. People need to understand who they're dealing with. And you also cannot just tell a person, just leave. I mean, I had a couples therapist that I had, I was like, I don't even know why I'm coming to therapy because I know I'm in an abusive relationship, but I'm, you know, I was in severe cognitive dissonance at the time, and she she literally emailed me and said, if you are in a domestic violence relationship, you should just leave.

00:12:13:12 - 00:12:36:06
Chelli Pumphrey
I was like, all right. It just blew me away. It was like so lacking in empathy and depth and but you know, how many people have that experience or friends or family that are like, oh, you know, you guys should just go to counseling or, you know, we don't get that validation. But then even when we do, like you said, we will, we don't want to hear it.

00:12:36:06 - 00:12:45:21
Chelli Pumphrey
that cognitive dissonance puts us into kind of a state of denial. It's like Teflon and everything's going to bounce off of us that might validate that we're being abused.

00:12:45:23 - 00:13:03:17
Lisa Sonni
I think the truth is too hard. And like, so I there's an unconscious part of us that just like that cannot be the reason. But that's part of it, right? What's going on inside of us? But I think what's never talked about, and I find it interesting that this is not talked about enough. It's only survivors that ever bring this up.

00:13:03:22 - 00:13:26:08
Lisa Sonni
How hard an abuser works to obscure the truth, how much they hide behind the covert behavior, all those insidious actions, the fact that they use plausible deniability to kind of survive and function and make you think you're the problem, make other people think, you know, Shelly, I don't know, maybe he's just traumatized. Or maybe you're overreacting. Are you sure it's abuse?

00:13:26:08 - 00:13:47:12
Lisa Sonni
Or maybe. Maybe he's toxic. People in my life would say, like, I get that he's toxic, but insert excuse here, and it's like, you know, he has strangled me while I'm seven months pregnant, right? Like, you get that? He's bashed my head in and you're calling it toxic. So if I don't recognize it, it's no wonder even the people on the outside don't recognize it.

00:13:47:12 - 00:13:59:21
Lisa Sonni
Nobody saw it. And I'm the stupid one, right? But everyone else made excuses. So how was I supposed to know when he's actively obscuring the truth? How did you see that show? And, like, what has happened to you that made you not able to see it?

00:13:59:23 - 00:14:27:13
Chelli Pumphrey
Well, I think you know, one person in particular that I was with, he also looked so good on the surface, I would say, like he had this syrupy sweet kind of demeanor where nobody would imagine that he was so cruel behind the scenes and so that's also, you know, what we often experience like people, you know, they are really charismatic or charming in public.

00:14:27:15 - 00:14:50:11
Chelli Pumphrey
And then people, you know, are you sure you know, they people you can tell, like you can just see people's wheels spinning when you're talking about it because their experience is very different. And then they are like, you must be nuts. And so yeah, I think if you're really tuned in and sensitive, you're kind of reading that somebody is kind of set, you know, like you can I don't know.

00:14:50:11 - 00:14:58:06
Chelli Pumphrey
For me, I'm like super sensitive in that way. And I'm like, I can tell that they at least my perception is that they think I'm nuts. You know.

00:14:58:08 - 00:15:18:15
Lisa Sonni
Yeah. And but that's like really? Kevin? Oh my God. I've never had that experience with him. Listen. Yeah I know that's almost like part of the mask. It's part of the point they play nice. One of the things that I wish that the world could just magically understand is that most abusive men are the nicest guy you'll ever meet.

00:15:18:18 - 00:15:37:17
Lisa Sonni
They are so nice. They're nice to everyone else. And the weirdest part is that they're nice to the victim as well. Obviously not always. Yeah, but the oscillation of kindness mixed with the abuse, which I realize creates the trauma bond, but also it makes you be like, but he's not all bad. He's he's 80% nice or whatever the percentages.

00:15:37:17 - 00:15:54:22
Lisa Sonni
So you start to go, maybe that's trauma. And maybe, you know, I can tolerate this. Maybe he yells sometimes, but I mean, at the end of the day, he bought me flowers last week because he's telling me that too. Although I do kind of feel like they do nice things to earn the bad things. You know, it feels like a transaction,

00:15:55:02 - 00:16:02:13
Lisa Sonni
like I was. I took you to dinner last week. Shelly, you're still not over the fact that I cheated on you. Yeah, right. But it makes you feel invalidated.

00:16:02:16 - 00:16:27:03
Chelli Pumphrey
Yeah, well, and that's like an example of what we call transactional empathy. So they are doing something nice, and it looks like they have empathy for you, but there are always strings attached. And so sure enough, it's going to be held against you later on. But you're still confused because you're experiencing the nice thing. And yet if you know the pattern, they will come back and hold it against you,

00:16:27:03 - 00:16:35:06
Chelli Pumphrey
or it doesn't even matter because it's not consistent. You know, they could bring you flowers and then hit you, 15 minutes later. So confused.

00:16:35:06 - 00:16:51:02
Lisa Sonni
It keeps you on your toes. Yeah. It is. I think the most confusing part is that they aren't all bad. And I feel like that's when people say, okay, let's go back to this just leave thing. So you know that it's let's call it bad because maybe we don't know that it's abuse. You know that it's bad. So leave. Right?

00:16:51:07 - 00:17:14:23
Lisa Sonni
Okay. So you go to leave and he blocks the door, throws himself to the ground, begs you to not destroy the family or guilts you or blames you, tells you you're ridiculous for how you feel, and you at one point loved this person or still feel like you do. And you trust them and you're not going to throw away a 20 year marriage, a ten year relationship, whatever because of a bad mood, or because the guy has trauma.

00:17:15:01 - 00:17:36:03
Lisa Sonni
Everybody else abandoned him. You don't want to abandon him, too. All right. Act like it's so easy to walk out the door. But you're choosing okay. Sometimes he's mean, sometimes he's nice. So you should end your relationship because of a little inconsistency. That's what you're being told. While it's abuse, society blames women for staying and yet blames women for leaving.

00:17:36:03 - 00:17:36:16
Lisa Sonni
It's such

00:17:36:16 - 00:17:37:23
Chelli Pumphrey
a. Exactly a.

00:17:38:01 - 00:17:39:00
Lisa Sonni
Double edged sword.

00:17:39:02 - 00:18:00:10
Chelli Pumphrey
It is. It is. I mean, we just can't win either way. And yeah, yeah, I agree it's and that's where that empathy comes in. You know, we have this empathy. We feel bad for them. But we've also been you know our minds are just so destroyed because of the the all the dynamics, the gaslighting, the blaming, the lying.

00:18:00:10 - 00:18:20:21
Chelli Pumphrey
Just every you know, it just we don't know which way is up. And and there are also you know, we're talking about relationships, you know, that are you know, it's common where we have the moments of good and then moments of abuse. And there are also people where, I mean, my jaw drops, like there never a moment of good stuff.

00:18:20:21 - 00:18:48:02
Chelli Pumphrey
Maybe in the very beginning when they were pulled into the relationship. But, you know, there are some people, as you know, like who will, you know, who have been I was it's interesting. I was going to say who will stay. That's not accurate. Who have been coerced into this relationship and cannot leave because they are so terrorized. And and even people will be like, well, why would you stay if he's a psychopath who's beating you every day?

00:18:48:04 - 00:19:05:21
Chelli Pumphrey
And you know, for anybody else it might be an easy like to just leave. But no, not when you are completely terrorized or you're, you know, you're afraid to leave because you've been threatened, you know, with your life or your kids or your money or your house. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's

00:19:05:21 - 00:19:31:00
Lisa Sonni
you. Can't just. Network that easy. It isn't. And I think the people who think that it's so easy to say on the outside, I think even you and I who've been through it and have all the apathy in the world too much, probably. I can understand that. Just leave. I shouldn't say just leave. I understand the idea that you should leave, I guess. Yeah, but when you're in it, you are not able to access all the parts of your brain that is logical and sort of just weighing the options.

00:19:31:00 - 00:19:55:14
Lisa Sonni
There's so much emotion and confusion and it isn't a matter of like, so get confused. It's right deeper than that. I mean, if you could just resolve cognitive dissonance in two seconds flat, I promise you we would all do that very quickly. Yeah, but this sort of there's a slow escalation of abuse. And then even when the abuse is present, because there's that oscillation of kind and mean.

00:19:55:14 - 00:20:13:14
Lisa Sonni
And every time you think, I can't take this for one more second, like we survivors trying to leave the average of seven times, right? So if if we're continuing to go back, it's like what leads us back? I mean, and there's a million things obviously, fear and money and children, all the things you said. But it's also just not even recognizing this.

00:20:13:14 - 00:20:32:16
Lisa Sonni
And the world is set up to convince women that this isn't abuse to begin with. You are. We are. So it's so true that we are damned if we do and damned if we don't. We want so badly to believe that this person loves us and they're telling us they do. That's the crazy part. They tell you, I love you and I'm sorry, and I'll change

00:20:32:16 - 00:20:45:02
Lisa Sonni
and I promise, or they tell you that you're the problem. You're going to ruin a good relationship over absolutely nothing, and you feel like you're walking away from a lot, like women lose and leaving in these relationships. People don't seem to want to.

00:20:45:06 - 00:20:45:17
Chelli Pumphrey
Yeah.

00:20:45:23 - 00:20:48:01
Lisa Sonni
Acknowledge that obvious thing. Yeah,

00:20:48:01 - 00:21:11:22
Chelli Pumphrey
yeah. I mean, it's it's rare that a woman would come out on top of a divorce or a separation in one of these situations. And we have a, you know, our court system, our society. It's a patriarchal society that has created this imbalance between men and women for ever. And, you know, there's so many layers that make it hard for us to leave.

00:21:11:22 - 00:21:46:03
Chelli Pumphrey
And, you know, some of it is just the stuff that's in front of our face. Like, I won't be able to be with my kids 100% of the time, or I won't have enough money to afford my own house or something. But then it's these other parts of our system that we live in that are just so ingrained in our mind and in, you know, it just creates all these other hurdles for women in particular, and single mothers too, you know, women of color, like there's so many different aspects of leaving that can be just incredibly hard. So

00:21:46:03 - 00:22:10:14
Chelli Pumphrey
it's important to recognize that when you know and you know, I think the other thing that is really important for people to remember and I know, like I had this really, but in my most recent, relationships, which was years ago at this point. But, you know, when you have been severely abused or you've been in the relationship for a long time, we, I mean, essentially suffer brain damage.

00:22:10:17 - 00:22:34:02
Chelli Pumphrey
Our brain is completely off, like the part of our brain that is responsible for decision making, concentration, memory and like higher level planning. And think about it, that's all the stuff that you need to be able to make a decision. Strategize how to leave, how to figure out how to figure out your life after you leave this person that is offline.

00:22:34:04 - 00:22:52:14
Chelli Pumphrey
You are you know, you're kind of living in this state of fight, flight or freeze. When you are in, you know you're experiencing chronic trauma or stress and people are like, you know, I've just felt like a zombie. I couldn't I didn't know which way was up, you know? And then to have to figure out, like, where am I going to go?

00:22:52:14 - 00:23:08:18
Chelli Pumphrey
What am I going to do with my kids? Like, you know, it's impossible. So for people that are, you know, stuck in that, just understand that that's all. Like there's actual like physical there are physical reasons why it is also so hard for you to figure this out and leave.

00:23:09:00 - 00:23:41:11
Lisa Sonni
Yeah. Just even you know what? Even if we separate that to figure this out and then leave as a totally separate step, even to know that, yes, to use the denial and it could be denial, it could be betrayal, blindness, it could be cognitive dissonance or a nice little cocktail, all of these things together. But you don't even know, because every time you might say you, and even for the people who are maybe watching YouTube videos and social media and reading books, and you're starting to be like, you know, that's gaslighting and that's emotional abuse if you start to label it.

00:23:41:11 - 00:24:05:13
Lisa Sonni
I remember once saying to my partner, this feels so abusive, and it was the only time I ever used that word. And to be fair, even as I said it, I don't think I actually recognized it as abuse, which is crazy, but I didn't. But I remember him. Like what? Don't be ridiculous. You're so ridiculous. But actually, abusive ness is a pattern of more than two instances of this type of bad behavior.

00:24:05:13 - 00:24:32:13
Lisa Sonni
Which emotional abuse, verbal abuse, psychological abuse. If he's calling you names, that's abusive. So it's like, well, maybe he's just toxic. That's abusive. We need to stop downgrading. That's how people know that they're being abused. Is more women like us talking about it and exposing what this is so that people have the language and the tools. In fact, I wrote a book, Narcissism Unmasked, because I wanted people to have all the terms, all the tactics.

00:24:32:13 - 00:24:52:09
Lisa Sonni
It's got over 125 of them all listed in there so that people can go, okay, I get what's happening. Yeah. You know, and watch all the videos and YouTube content you can to learn, because as soon as you start to realize and let that education let that clarity in, you start to be like, wait a minute, this doesn't seem to be changing.

00:24:52:13 - 00:25:11:16
Lisa Sonni
I want people to realize there's a pattern. And if it continues to happen, like for example, if you are crying, tears are coming out of your eyeballs. He can see that you were crying in his face. So he knows that you're upset, angry, sad, distressed, brokenhearted. So if it continues, it's on purpose. Yes, it's a little oversimplified, but you know, it's on purpose.

00:25:11:16 - 00:25:32:06
Chelli Pumphrey
Yeah. At the same time it is. Sometimes I'm like, it is that simple. Like you can see these signs, you know, again, looking back in retrospect or for, working with it so much like for you and I like I can spot it in, in a few minutes when somebody is telling me a story. And, I mean, that's just because I listened to it all day long, you know.

00:25:32:11 - 00:25:49:16
Chelli Pumphrey
But These are the little things that you know, along with the big things like being strangled. But yes, we overthink it or, you know, each little, you know, I always call it death by a thousand paper cuts. And it is like every little paper cut, you think, oh, it's just a paper cut. It's painful, but it's just a paper cut.

00:25:49:16 - 00:25:57:00
Chelli Pumphrey
I'm not going to die from it. But yeah. Every paper cut is a cut. And you have to recognize it as like, yeah. And we

00:25:57:02 - 00:26:17:14
Lisa Sonni
don't know is too many. It's it's right. I would have called being strangled a paper cut in that sense, because I just saw it as like one other argument and. Yeah. Okay. But when, when a little bit far. Never mind the fact that you're like 750 times more likely to be on a lived when you're being strangled, but I it it's like it didn't register.

00:26:17:14 - 00:26:35:19
Lisa Sonni
But if somebody told me they got strangled I would be like, girl, do you realize that's abuse? And you need to leave and oh my God. But but when it was my partner, you don't understand. He was just angry and he's gone. Yeah. All this childhood trauma that you don't know about, you just, you know, you don't understand. I love him and he loves me.

00:26:35:19 - 00:26:44:11
Lisa Sonni
And. But meanwhile, love and abuse don't coexist. I have a very firm belief. Yeah. He doesn't love you. That's not possible, in my opinion.

00:26:44:11 - 00:26:48:09
Chelli Pumphrey
Yeah, absolutely. Somebody with that never happens to capable of love.

00:26:48:12 - 00:26:52:13
Lisa Sonni
You need empathy for you. Sorry that I completely. Yeah. Completely agree.

00:26:52:17 - 00:27:03:13
Chelli Pumphrey
I mean, how can you feel love if you don't feel the depth of emotion or or that, you know, I don't know. To me, love and empathy just go hand in hand. But these people don't have empathy.

00:27:03:13 - 00:27:15:07
Lisa Sonni
I've heard that if they have a little, they use it for themselves. Like fair enough. You know, I know most don't have it at all, but, they're, they're are challenging people to be in a relationship with. Talk about an understatement.

00:27:15:09 - 00:27:16:00
Chelli Pumphrey
That is, for it.

00:27:16:02 - 00:27:43:09
Lisa Sonni
But it is hard. I want people to be more educated to learn more about toxic relationships and abusive relationships, and really learn about what the differences are, because I think one way that I see women start to come out of that fog is to start to be able to label things and really start naming what's happening, because once you start to see the patterns, I'm telling you, it unravels from there and you really start to see the abuse, which is phenomenal.

00:27:43:09 - 00:28:02:06
Lisa Sonni
But it doesn't help that the world still has these garbage opinions, in my opinion. Right. And that actually leads me to this section of the podcast called Real Talk from the comment section. So I'm going to read you a couple of comments that people have left on my page. And let's see what you think of these comments, because these are the attitudes that are everywhere, right?

00:28:02:06 - 00:28:14:12
Lisa Sonni
Other people see these comments too. So here's the first one. Maybe she didn't know it was abuse because it's not abuse. You females will call anything you don't like abuse. The word has absolutely no meaning. What's your thought?

00:28:14:14 - 00:28:17:18
Chelli Pumphrey
I want to laugh and scream at the same time. Right?

00:28:17:21 - 00:28:18:15
Lisa Sonni
I mean, scream.

00:28:18:15 - 00:28:51:11
Chelli Pumphrey
To each other like it's it's such a representation of what's happening. Like. Like what you just said. Like our society. And I will say like this patriarchal society that does not look at the inequality and imbalance for women and anybody that is basically not a white, wealthy or, well, white upperclassman, that, you know, like it's not abuse, like you don't even we're going to take away your right to even identify what you are experiencing.

00:28:51:16 - 00:28:58:23
Chelli Pumphrey
Like that. Is the right gaslighting right there. Like, you can't even say it's abuse because that doesn't even exist. Oh yeah. Okay,

00:28:59:03 - 00:29:00:13
Lisa Sonni
I know. Right. So just which man.

00:29:00:17 - 00:29:02:11
Chelli Pumphrey
Shall I call this. Yeah.

00:29:02:15 - 00:29:26:17
Lisa Sonni
Right. Oh he's just mean. It's like we have and I'm very into labels. I think that if we the more we can label something. I know people don't fit into perfect boxes and there might be multi labels but labeling it abuse the word does have meaning. And men repeating it has meaning. Or this is an in the comment that this guy left. But I see this sort of like anytime a man says no to a woman, she screams abuse.

00:29:26:18 - 00:29:47:05
Lisa Sonni
That's garbage. Yeah, that's what men want you to think when she said no. You mean like she said no to sex and you kept pushing? That is abuse, actually. But anyway, we'll move to the next comment. Yeah. Women only call it abuse after the relationship is over. Ever notice that? So he leaves you and poof he was abusive. If he was actually abusive, she would leave.

00:29:47:07 - 00:29:49:17
Lisa Sonni
Stop acting like y'all can't just leave.

00:29:49:21 - 00:30:15:12
Chelli Pumphrey
Well, I think that kind of just goes right back to the entire conversation we just had about why we can't just leave. And like, yeah, again, like, I understand, like clearly somebody who has no idea of how these relationships happen, how difficult it is for somebody to leave when they're being abused and, you know, just such judgment. Like what I wish is that people could just be like, be curious.

00:30:15:12 - 00:30:33:21
Chelli Pumphrey
And like, if somebody says they've been harmed, why would you automatically assume they're like, why do we not listen to victims? Why do we not trust women or children or anybody that is coming out and saying, I was harmed? Why is it that they are the ones that have to build the case to make everybody try to believe them?

00:30:33:21 - 00:30:36:17
Chelli Pumphrey
It's insane that we live in a world like that.

00:30:36:20 - 00:30:37:21
Lisa Sonni
It absolutely. Yes.

00:30:37:21 - 00:30:38:06
Chelli Pumphrey
You're. Yes.

00:30:38:06 - 00:31:00:20
Lisa Sonni
My theory is that, trust me, I know. I think, though, that men like these two men, they probably benefit from this system. I mean, the everyman benefits from the patriarchy, but the one where we silence victims of abuse specifically. My money is usually on like they are abusive themselves and they've been called abusive and they're just trying to to sort of put it out into the world

00:31:00:20 - 00:31:19:15
Lisa Sonni
that women can't say that if he was abusive, she would leave. And and meanwhile, that's the same guy that's standing in the doorway being like, please don't leave me or you're not going anywhere scary in the doorway like this. She can't. Yeah, it isn't that. And there's a million reasons. I mean, they're not always blocking you, but they get you to block yourself in all honesty.

00:31:19:15 - 00:31:39:12
Lisa Sonni
But there's so much more to it. It's just it's deeper than these idiots seem to think. And I'm so definitely there's their label, idiot for sure. Now, my last comment that I want to read to you, it's not from a man. So you stayed with him for years. If he was really abusive, you would have left. People don't stay where they're actually being harmed.

00:31:39:15 - 00:32:02:13
Chelli Pumphrey
Well, I think we've already answered that. in the last half hour or so. And, you know, and I, I, I think it is important to know that. women hold these attitudes too. And really, when I take a step back and look systemically, we are all victims of a really messed up system. We have all been indoctrinated with all this bullshit, basically.

00:32:02:16 - 00:32:25:09
Chelli Pumphrey
And when a woman in particular is adopting those kinds of viewpoints, you know, I don't want to make assumptions, but I'm going to go out on a limb here for a second and imagine that she has been raised either by a family or has also been in a relationship where she has been gaslit and taught these kinds of concepts her entire life.

00:32:25:11 - 00:32:53:16
Chelli Pumphrey
And it's like, you know, it's like when I say this with tenderness toward this woman and even to these two men like the best example is like when we are in a cult and we are brainwashed and we do not know that what we're being told is wrong. But you have a group of people who are also brainwashed and you feel like collectively this must be the truth and you have no idea that you're just you're in a cult and somebody is manipulating you.

00:32:53:16 - 00:33:13:09
Chelli Pumphrey
It's like they're just talking the, you know, the messages of the cult or the group or the system or the patriarchy that has told them this is the truth. And we that's why we have to be curious. We have to be open. We have to listen to survivors and understand their experiences.

00:33:13:11 - 00:33:29:03
Lisa Sonni
So important it is I don't know, you know, I was going to say, I don't know why, but I guess I do know why, but it is so much more heartbreaking to me when I see these comments from women, especially survivors, who are like, I was in an abusive relationship and I left, do you want a balloon girl?

00:33:29:03 - 00:33:49:12
Lisa Sonni
Like, what do you want a gold star, a cookie? You a better victim than me because I'm stupid and I stayed like, do you not realize how much the shame that you are projecting onto me would keep me? And or people who are reading this comment in an abusive relationship. Shame is brutal and here we are shaming people on the internet, making them feel bad.

00:33:49:16 - 00:34:07:19
Lisa Sonni
And you. I mean, it's one thing to make fun of somebody, which is horrible for staying in an abusive relationship or not knowing that it was abuse, but to sort of like put yourself in a more superior position of like, well, I left you're not me. You don't have my life experience. Maybe yours wasn't as covert. Maybe you had more resources.

00:34:07:19 - 00:34:28:14
Lisa Sonni
Maybe he was more violent more quickly. I mean, there's just so many hypotheticals. But why we do that to each other? It's mind blowing. I like I want women to agree, Dick together, lift each other up so that we can recognize, abuse and feel that we can see it and then use what we see and take action. But shame is not going to help that.

00:34:28:18 - 00:34:33:03
Lisa Sonni
And these men that say these comments, you females. Yeah. Right.

00:34:33:05 - 00:35:00:21
Chelli Pumphrey
Right, right. Well see it immediately. I think the thing that I think of this might feel a little, I don't know, harsh. But you know, often people that are that really hold those beliefs, if they haven't been indoctrinated in that way, they also could have personality disorder themselves. You know, those can be the narcissists, the sociopaths that are just, you know, that have no empathy and hold those beliefs.

00:35:00:21 - 00:35:23:02
Chelli Pumphrey
And they're also indoctrinated in this system that has taught us this. But because of the lack of empathy, they can sit there and say things like that and shame people like to me that, yeah, you know it. I kind of think if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably a duck. Like there are certain types of people that feel okay with doing that kind of stuff, and that's what we're trying to heal from.

00:35:23:05 - 00:35:41:15
Lisa Sonni
Yeah, I was kind of a little sarcastic, but I'm like, that could never be me. Online shaming survivors of abuse and shaming people for anything that they're going through. You pick. Yeah. And it's so I always find it wild from men, because men are the first ones that will scream like nobody believes men when we're abused. Nobody believes victims.

00:35:41:20 - 00:36:03:13
Lisa Sonni
It's not about being a man. You think people believe women, right? They always say, oh, a woman just cries abuse and everybody believes her. Who? Who are these people? I know it's very rare, actually. Since when are women believed? I guess a lot of. People's. Love. Yeah. Let me go find a comment section filled with people who believe women who are not also a survivor themselves, because that's a little bit different. Sadly. The world doesn't.

00:36:03:17 - 00:36:25:18
Lisa Sonni
All of this, you know, friends and families and therapists and pastors, and there's so much pressure on women to be loyal and to be forgiving and all of this. And it leads us to not recognize it. It leads us to not know that it's happening. And even if you can kind of start to come out of the fog, people are just trying to confuse you more, some unknowingly and some knowingly.

00:36:26:00 - 00:36:49:14
Lisa Sonni
But people who are abusive really benefit from keeping this going and keeping victims from even being able to see it. So I think that conversations like this are just so wildly important, right? Is there anything that you would say to sort of like a collective, like all survivors who are maybe not in that place now where they know it's abuse, yet they're that in that maybe he's just mean stage.

00:36:49:19 - 00:36:50:15
Lisa Sonni
But would you say.

00:36:50:17 - 00:37:13:01
Chelli Pumphrey
if somebody's listening to this, you're you're in the stage of discovery. And we all have been through that stage. We live in a time where we can go on Google or the social media or whatever and start looking at, you know, usually the first thing people Google is like is my partner narcissist, or my partner did this or like keep doing it

00:37:13:01 - 00:37:46:12
Chelli Pumphrey
like Lisa, like you said, like labels are important. Education is important because it will help you feel less crazy. And I will tell you in my experience, like I often burst out laughing, I not in a mean way, but like when my clients are telling me stories about, oh, my partner did this or this and I am like, it's literally like they have all gone to the same school and followed the exact same like formula of how to, like, entice a person into this relationship and abuse them.

00:37:46:12 - 00:38:12:18
Chelli Pumphrey
And even though the details are different for every relationship, the patterns are so strongly like the same all across the board. So that's why it's important to keep researching. Find a coach, find a therapist that understands this. If you are with somebody, a therapist or coach or somebody that's like giving you information that makes you feel worse or ashamed or telling you to just leave, don't work with them.

00:38:12:20 - 00:38:33:00
Chelli Pumphrey
There are a lot of people who do not understand this. I highly recommend working with people who are survivors themselves, because it is such a unique kind of abuse that, you know, we we do get it. But survivors who have training to be able to help, you know, like Lisa, the other others in this field that are trying to help you see the light.

00:38:33:05 - 00:38:57:17
Lisa Sonni
Yeah. I'm glad. I mean, it's such a good message. There's hope. You can learn. We can break, we can move on. We just need more empowerment, more education, less shameless men on the internet saying this nonsense and less patriarchy all around. All around us. Thank you so much for being here. I really it's such a good conversation. I hope everyone listening, you know, took something from this and just feels really validated.

00:38:57:21 - 00:39:09:08
Chelli Pumphrey
Yeah, I agree, thank you so much for the work you're doing and your courage and just speaking out about this. I'm just grateful to have people like you in the world to keep spreading the message. You're

00:39:09:10 - 00:39:18:20
Lisa Sonni
If this episode gave you clarity. Share it with someone who needs it. Thanks for being here and for being honest with yourself. And remember, you're stronger than before.

00:39:18:22 - 00:39:23:01
Music
Stronger than before.