Why You Didn’t Know It Was Abuse w/ Chelli Pumphrey | S3E5

“If it was really abuse, you would’ve left.”  
 
 That lie has kept countless women silent and blamed for something that was never their fault.  

Psychological abuse is designed to confuse you. In this conversation, Lisa sits down with trauma therapist and survivor Chelli Pumphrey to expose why so many women don’t recognize abuse while they’re in it.  

Together, they unpack attachment theory, personality “super traits,” and how empathy, loyalty, optimism, and a belief in repair get weaponized against women who would never intentionally harm another person. Chelli shares her own story, even as a trained therapist, and names the shame that comes with realizing you were manipulated anyway. 

This episode dismantles the myth that abuse only happens to “certain kinds” of women. It explains why secure, capable, emotionally intelligent women are often targeted, and why staying isn’t a failure of strength, but the result of exploitation by design. 

If you’ve ever asked yourself, “How did I not see it?” - this conversation will finally make it make sense. Here are two helpful resources to support your next steps: 

1. Personality.co Test 

2. She Rises Collective: A trauma informed healing community where women reclaim their voices, rebuild their confidence, and rise together, surrounded by women who truly get it. Co-led by Lisa Sonni and Chelli Pumphrey.

Transcript

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


00:00:08:19 - 00:00:17:20
Lisa Sonni
This is Real Talk With Lisa Sonni: Relationships Uncensored, the podcast they don't want you listening to.

00:00:17:22 - 00:00:36:15
Lisa Sonni
A lot of people really believe that they were abused because they're weak or they're not securely attached. They're anxiously attached or that something is wrong with them. And I think it is just such a myth. And it does so much harm for survivors to think that they are somehow responsible for their own abuse, or at fault for what happened to them.

00:00:36:18 - 00:00:58:12
Lisa Sonni
I think what's really interesting is that anxiously attached people, securely attached people, believe that repair is possible. And I think that has a huge part to do with this. I want to introduce my guest, Chelli Pumphrey. She's actually a returning guest. She was on in Season Two where we talked about why victims don't understand that it's abuse. Until one day it just sort of hits you.

00:00:58:12 - 00:01:05:11
Lisa Sonni
So Shelly, can you just reintroduce yourself, let us know who you are, and then let's get into this really good topic about attachment and super traits.

00:01:05:11 - 00:01:33:22
Chelli Pumphrey
Yes, absolutely. I'm so happy to be here again with you. Thank you. I, am a therapist, and I also do coaching in this realm of narcissistic abuse recovery. I've been a therapist in Colorado for 30 plus years, and, I have a certification in working with narcissistic abuse survivors and also wrote the book. Insight is 20/20: How to Trust Yourself to Protect Yourself from Narcissistic Abuse and toxic Relationships.

00:01:34:04 - 00:01:55:02
Chelli Pumphrey
So I've dedicated much of my life to doing this work, and I'm also a survivor. And I think that is a primary reason behind a lot of this too, is I get it. I get it from that, that perspective of having lived to this and now, with you, we get to help lots of survivors get to the other side of the healing of us.

00:01:55:04 - 00:01:55:15
Chelli Pumphrey
Yeah.

00:01:55:15 - 00:02:19:20
Lisa Sonni
And I think that's so important. You know, you touch on having personal experience, which obviously that sucks, right? Okay. You don't want people to have personal experience with this. But I also think that it really helps therapists and psychologists and coaches and everybody understand it much more deeply when you've actually lived it. I feel like there's questions, and things that people bring to their therapist and try to get their therapists to understand. And you're like, no, no, I've been there.

00:02:19:20 - 00:02:44:21
Lisa Sonni
I get it completely. So I'm sorry that you've had that experience, and I'm glad that it has allowed you to help more people and understand this. Now, I'm sure as someone who has survived this, that you have experienced the blame and the shame that comes along with, you know, having having experienced this and I, I always wonder with therapists and psychologists, especially, you know, shouldn't you have known better, Shelly, like you, you understand all this.

00:02:44:21 - 00:02:55:23
Lisa Sonni
You understand attachment and trauma. So I think people think that you would be immune to it. But you're really not just like everybody is not immune to it. It really can happen to anyone. Right?

00:02:56:03 - 00:03:19:06
Chelli Pumphrey
Yeah, I think it this is such an important topic because never met a survivor who is not felt some degree of shame or embarrassment about this. And I know, I mean, that was a huge factor for me being a therapist. I've worked with domestic violence. And then, became more closely allied with working with narcissistic or cluster B personality, abuse, over the years.

00:03:19:06 - 00:03:41:05
Chelli Pumphrey
And I had several narcissistic relationships, and I also have some in my family growing up as well. And there was a point where I had had a narcissistic partner, I did a ton of therapy and even my therapist at the time, I mean, this was years ago before we were really even understanding this. she was, really trying to treat me through this lens of your codependent.

00:03:41:08 - 00:04:07:17
Chelli Pumphrey
And I'm like, this is not actually fitting. Like, I don't fit. It doesn't feel that way. And I could recognize that as a therapist, like, I'm not sitting in this box of codependency. and then after doing all this work, I wound up with another narcissist, for a partner. And I was just. I mean, I cannot even explain the devastation and the confusion and the shame I felt at that point, because I thought I figured out.

00:04:07:20 - 00:04:41:06
Chelli Pumphrey
And it was after that relationship where I really started doing more of a deeper dive into attachment and personality and all these other factors that we're just now really beginning to understand and highlight in psychology and coaching, that make us vulnerable. And it has nothing to do with being stupid, with being some doormat codependent person, and codependency. You know, maybe we'll talk about that here in a bit, but I just want to say it's kind of a blanket term to explain a lot of other things that we'll talk about today.

00:04:41:06 - 00:04:46:18
Chelli Pumphrey
it explains kind of behaviors in one way, but it doesn't understand the root of the behaviors.

00:04:46:22 - 00:05:05:00
Lisa Sonni
Yeah. I'm so glad you brought that up. I hate when people are like, oh, you're codependent is if oh well there's your answer. It's your fault. It's so infuriating. It's so much deeper than that. And really, that's what the topic is right now is what is the thing or things that make certain people more susceptible to it. I have this belief.

00:05:05:05 - 00:05:21:19
Lisa Sonni
I just want to start right here. I have this belief that there are people and it's men, but I kind of even want to focus on the women who sort of feel like, oh, that happened to you. That could never happen to me. I have I self esteem I, you know, came from a good family. I'm too smart for that.

00:05:21:19 - 00:05:41:19
Lisa Sonni
I all these, these sort of factors that they put in if like I'm not one of those women that would ever find themselves in an abusive relationship because if he was mean, if he was abusive, I would leave. I almost hate to admit that it's almost funny to me now. Not that I'm laughing at anyone being abused, but at the arrogance of some that feel like it could never happen to them.

00:05:41:19 - 00:05:50:19
Lisa Sonni
Because while I was not outwardly saying that out loud because that's an awful thing to do, I would think that I felt like it wouldn't happen to me. And then it did.

00:05:50:19 - 00:06:16:18
Chelli Pumphrey
Yes, absolutely. I mean just that belief on top of many other things we'll explore today, will make you vulnerable because you assume that it can't happen to you, so you're not going to even be looking for it. And when you don't know what to look for, these guys, well, whoever it might be, guy, woman. Any gender expression can come into your life and present as the most amazing human being and will catch you off guard.

00:06:16:21 - 00:06:41:17
Chelli Pumphrey
And sometimes it's your goodness. It's your kindness. It's your empathy, your compassion, your willingness to forgive, bad behaviors that those kinds of traits that make you a, kind of a nice person or somebody who can do well with others. It's exactly what they target. They need somebody like that. And I bet a lot of people listening can say, yeah, I have those traits and.

00:06:41:17 - 00:06:50:01
Chelli Pumphrey
Absolutely. Yeah. You grew up in a home where you didn't have abuse, you had healthy relationships, and you've never been through this. You can absolutely be a target.

00:06:50:03 - 00:07:12:05
Lisa Sonni
It's it's a terrifying thought. I think, you know, to think this can happen to anyone. I think that there's a real, need for that safety of. No. You made a bad decision. Shelly. This is on you. I wouldn't make the same decision as if that's going to protect me. Right. And again, kind of going back to this, like, well, people who are in an abusive relationship have low self-esteem or they have, trauma issues from their childhood.

00:07:12:05 - 00:07:34:11
Lisa Sonni
We always put it on the victim for not seeing it, for not being aware of it. Meanwhile, society conditions women especially, to be forgiving and to be empathetic. And meanwhile those are the traits. It's not low self-esteem. Now a victim may or may not have low self-esteem, but that's not the cause. The cause is actually, in my view, a lot of the goodness in us.

00:07:34:14 - 00:07:53:08
Lisa Sonni
we're going to talk about super traits and attachment as kind of two primary things today, because I see those things come up constantly and I see attachment get blamed as the thing. Right. You're just anxiously attached. So when somebody is mean to you, you pull them closer. I know it's a huge topic and I mean, I wish this episode was like six hours long to go through it all in detail,

00:07:53:08 - 00:08:03:17
Lisa Sonni
but first, can you just tell people what is attachment theory for those that don't know what it is, what is it and why do people think that's the thing that messes us up and gets us into these relationships?

00:08:03:22 - 00:08:41:00
Chelli Pumphrey
Well, attachment theory is something that was developed, by somebody called John Bowlby decades ago, and then Mary Ainsworth, and she started to develop it even more. It's been very well studied and researched over the years. So it's a real thing. And essentially what we're talking about is the bond that develops between a mother and a child. I'm going to say mother, just for the short version of this throughout this interview. But it could be your father. It could be a, adoptive caregiver, It could be, you know, anybody that's a primary caregiver.

00:08:41:01 - 00:09:06:20
Chelli Pumphrey
the short version is, let's say an infant, a child comes out of the womb and starts expressing needs. And usually they're very basic. I'm I need food, I need to be warm, I need a clean diaper, I need to be held, I need sleep, and the caregiver will come. And first of all, notice what those needs are. make an effort to try to meet those needs in an appropriate way.

00:09:06:20 - 00:09:35:06
Chelli Pumphrey
And then they meet the need, and then the child learns so much about relationships, really, their whole brain, their nervous system becomes wired in a certain way because of this cycle of I express my need. My need is met in this way, and it happens thousands and thousands of times, over. You know that childhood period, especially in the first 3 to 5 years, which is when attachment are kind of our global attachment style really develops

00:09:35:08 - 00:09:58:19
Chelli Pumphrey
I'm just going to give I'm going to try to make the briefest description of the four different styles. So I'm going to skip over a ton of details here. So just know like, and I know a lot of people already know a lot about attachment, but essentially to develop a securely attached child, the parent would need to meet this child's needs reliably, consistently with warmth and nurturing.

00:09:58:22 - 00:10:21:18
Chelli Pumphrey
So again, this doesn't mean they meet the needs perfectly 100% of the time. It's the majority of time this child is being responded to in that way. What happens is this child learns a lot of things from that. They learned that relationships are safe. They learn that they can trust others. They also learn they can trust themselves. This kind of develops later on as, adults,

00:10:21:23 - 00:10:43:06
Chelli Pumphrey
but essentially others are safe. My needs can be met, and I'm not too much if I need to express a need either. And that develops into people as adults who it doesn't mean they're perfect, but they tend to do better with communication, with intimacy, with relationships. They can still get divorces. Guess what? They can still be vulnerable to this type of abuse.

00:10:43:12 - 00:11:02:13
Chelli Pumphrey
So that's one that's kind of the ideal version. And I do want to say It doesn't mean that if you have something other than a secure style, that something is wrong with you. These are simply descriptions of how you relate to others. It is not a death sentence. It does not mean you're totally messed up in any way.

00:11:02:13 - 00:11:23:08
Chelli Pumphrey
So please hear that. the easiest way to describe it is kind of on a spectrum, even though we kind of look at it in a different way when we're more technically looking at attachment. On one side of the spectrum is an anxious attachment, and that's where the child's needs are met inconsistently. So it's sometimes caregiver is there, sometimes they're not there, sometimes they're really loving.

00:11:23:08 - 00:11:49:19
Chelli Pumphrey
Sometimes they might be angry or dismissive or unavailable. And that child learns that, well, basically their belief is I'm going to be abandoned or I'm afraid of abandonment. And they're main This kind of behavior or what kind of drives their attachment system is they have a need to be close to their caregiver, and so they will have a ton of anxiety mentally.

00:11:49:19 - 00:12:23:16
Chelli Pumphrey
They'll feel it in their body. So very anxious. They will try to be in proximity to their caregiver, as much as possible, because when they're close, it helps that system calm down. And so as adults, anxiously attached people can be come very deeply intimate with others. They tend to be sometimes be more emotional and expressive. And they really can go very deep with intimacy, which isn't a bad thing, but they struggle a lot if they're with partners that are inconsistent or unavailable or hot, cold, like a narcissist,

00:12:23:18 - 00:12:53:13
Chelli Pumphrey
let's say. Avoidant attachment is kind of this other end of the spectrum where this child's needs are not met. They're met enough for them to survive, but usually they're very inconsistent or not met at all. So this might be a baby crying because they're hungry and instead of the parent coming in responding to their cues, if they're hungry, they might ignore them for two hours, or they don't offer a lot of warmth, nurturing, eye contact, consistency.

00:12:53:13 - 00:13:11:21
Chelli Pumphrey
They also tend to give a lot of parenting messages of, you know, don't be a crybaby kind of shut down your emotions, don't be vulnerable. and it's often a parent who might even have an avoidant attachment themselves that can do that. Not always, but sometimes. So they grow up to believe that relationships are not safe.

00:13:11:21 - 00:13:30:13
Chelli Pumphrey
I can't depend on others, and they kind of turn inward to meet their own needs, and they don't rely on others. Disorganized is where child grows up in a home where there's a lot of neglect or abuse or a lot of chaos. And essentially what this child learns is fear when they are trying to attach to a parent.

00:13:30:18 - 00:14:03:05
Chelli Pumphrey
So they go into a free state. So their instinct is to attach. But the environment or the caregiver is terrifying or maybe The caregiver could be abusive to this child or the caregiver could also be being abused. Their nervous system is in a state of fight, flight or freeze. And so let's say some of these yelling at this mother that the father's yelling at this mother and a domestic abusive relationship and she's afraid the baby's going to make him even more mad.

00:14:03:05 - 00:14:27:00
Chelli Pumphrey
So she's terrified she goes to take care of this child in a terrified state. And that baby is, you know, we're essentially mirroring what's going on in our caregivers bodies. That baby learns love equals fear. And so a disorganized attachment sometimes they can lean toward more avoidant tendencies or anxious tendencies. So people can often be confused about which style they have.

00:14:27:04 - 00:14:47:08
Chelli Pumphrey
But this one has a lot of trauma in childhood. The other two can as well. But, sometimes it's a little harder for people to detect this, at least if you're not working with a therapist. So those are basically the four styles. So I'm going to pause there. I know that was a lot, but it's I think it's important just to get kind of a brief overview of this before we move further.

00:14:47:11 - 00:15:08:16
Lisa Sonni
I totally agree. I think there's a lot of misinformation about these these attachment styles. And, you know, if you're anxiously attached, it's your fault or you're just anxious, you're just clingy or just, you know, avoidant and actually topic for a totally different episode. But a lot of people think that the abuser is an avoidant, not narcissistic or not abusive, but just an avoidant.

00:15:08:16 - 00:15:28:04
Lisa Sonni
And I just want to say that that's not necessarily true. I think that abusive ness is a choice, and that people who are avoidant attached are not inherently abusive. So that's just a completely different thing. I also think that anxiously attached people are the ones that seem to kind of be accused of bringing it on themselves the most often,

00:15:28:04 - 00:15:49:10
Lisa Sonni
right? Like, well, you just keep chasing somebody who's bad for you. But I sort of referenced this earlier, and I kind of want to come back to this idea that belief that this person can repair, belief that repair is possible, I think is in a lot of these attachments. How do you think that sort of relates to why we think the abuser can change, or why we stay, or why we're picked.

00:15:49:15 - 00:15:52:03
Lisa Sonni
We're picked by them, not we pick them for clarity.

00:15:52:03 - 00:16:23:18
Chelli Pumphrey
first of all, I want to just share a little research. This might be helpful because I've done a lot of research on attachment styles. And there's been a lot of research about attachment and intimate partner violence, which is a bit of a wider umbrella. Then specifically working with narcissism. Cluster B and, psychopathy, types of abuse. However, we have a lot of theories that intimate partner violence and domestic violence kind of this big umbrella, is often caused by people with personality disorder.

00:16:23:18 - 00:16:49:17
Chelli Pumphrey
So I'll just gonna leave that there on the side. Research says, and this was as is recent as 2021, that people with anxious attachments going into a relationship are more likely to be the victims of intimate partner violence and or the perpetrators. And this speaks also to your saying of, you know, people think of like some of these abusers are like just avoidant or something.

00:16:49:22 - 00:17:11:06
Chelli Pumphrey
And the research actually doesn't show that, securely attached people have a negative correlation. So they actually do have a lower rate of abuse. However, we're going to talk about personality traits here in a moment. I'm going to share some of my thoughts about why we should be looking at this in a different way, because it doesn't mean clearly people are not vulnerable, And then avoidant

00:17:11:06 - 00:17:38:18
Chelli Pumphrey
attached people they are still more likely to be abused, but it's not as high as, anxiously attached. And another thing to think about is that people come into these relationships, these abusive relationships, Maybe they're secure, or maybe they have an anxious attachment. The majority of them come out with an anxious attachment. So your attachment style can be shifted based on a relationship that you're in as well.

00:17:38:19 - 00:18:07:23
Chelli Pumphrey
I'm going to insert another topic here because I think it will pull this together in a more complete answer. So I also want to introduce the concept of personality super traits. The super traits were developed by Sandra Brown. She's the author of Women Who Love Psychopaths, and she and Purdue University did, some research on. And this was only done on women, but they looked at their personality traits.

00:18:08:03 - 00:18:32:07
Chelli Pumphrey
there are categories of personality traits that people fall into. And if anybody wants to go and find out what the personality traits are, they can just search for big five personality traits online and there's tons of free quizzes. So what they found in their research is that these women who were in got sucked into these relationships they had high degrees of agreeableness and conscientiousness.

00:18:32:09 - 00:19:07:06
Chelli Pumphrey
And I'm going to add, even though the research didn't totally show this, my experiences, they also could have high degrees of openness. So there are those three traits. So agreeableness is the trait that makes us have empathy where we are very optimistic. we always see the goodness in things. So just even that part there, we have a lot of empathy for this partner who maybe they've talked about their childhood trauma or how horrible all the other exes were, and we feel bad for them, or we're very forgiving of every red flag that we see,

00:19:07:06 - 00:19:38:14
Chelli Pumphrey
all the horrible behaviors. We'll give them a bajillion chances. And it's the optimism, this hope, this belief that people can change, that I think comes back to this question that you're asking of why? Why is that? That, you know, we keep thinking they can change. Well, if we have this agreeableness trait. And then I'm also going to add the conscientiousness trait, which is somebody who has a lot of values, a lot of integrity about their values.

00:19:38:16 - 00:20:04:12
Chelli Pumphrey
Can be very success or goal oriented. And also sometimes, you know, maybe a little what we would call type-A-ish. But let's say you're married and you're your wedding vows till death do us part and sickness and in health and then you're having this partner who's abusing you, but you're confused because they're confusing, you might be more attached to the goal of never getting divorced, then saving yourself.

00:20:04:16 - 00:20:21:00
Chelli Pumphrey
So scared like I don't get. Maybe your value is I don't give up on people I'm loving. You know I have compassion. It's okay. So he's been traumatized. I mean, I know that was something for me. I'm like, I'm a trauma therapist. I can I can deal with this guy who had a lot of trauma even though he's abusing me.

00:20:21:02 - 00:20:45:12
Chelli Pumphrey
Right. So those two traits can be very influential on what you're saying. Like, why is it that we get stuff we believe that, you know, they will get better. And the most important part about personality is that once we hit around age 30, our personality traits are mostly pretty much cooked into us. Like it's hard to change our personality traits.

00:20:45:17 - 00:21:05:22
Chelli Pumphrey
We can become aware and we can work on managing them, but it's pretty much who we are. So if somebody's saying like, you're stupid, why would you? Why would you stay with this person? It is like it's nearly impossible. without getting the right kind of treatment or coaching or awareness around how this can get you stuck in relationships.

00:21:06:00 - 00:21:13:02
Lisa Sonni
The loyalty piece you're really touching on here too, right? If you're value is loyalty, which ties to conscientiousness does it not.

00:21:13:06 - 00:21:24:10
Chelli Pumphrey
Yeah. It's so there's what we call facets there, like the little mini describers of this main trait of conscientiousness. So loyalty is a facet of conscientiousness.

00:21:24:15 - 00:21:48:15
Lisa Sonni
it's not that it's bad to have these traits. It's bad that they're exploited. And I want that to be the focus, you know that. Yeah. The perpetrator is choosing to exploit these traits in you that are good traits. It's not like, well, you need to be less loyal. You need to have weaker values. You need, you know, it's such a ridiculous concept when you look at this from the perspective of personality traits, right? Not just attachment.

00:21:48:18 - 00:22:09:19
Lisa Sonni
And even then I will also say that attachment, you have just described it all so well as a result of upbringing and a result of interactions that you had in early environments, meaning it can't be our fault. Now we can go to therapy and learn and change and grow and become, you know, earned, secure instead of anxiously attached or buoyantly attached.

00:22:10:01 - 00:22:31:13
Lisa Sonni
I get that. But to know that to have the resources to do that, too, it's it's just very difficult. And it doesn't mean that just because you're anxiously attached it's your fault, or because you score high in the personality traits of agreeableness or conscientiousness. But you need to now be combative and disloyal and have no values, someone is choosing this.

00:22:31:13 - 00:23:05:04
Lisa Sonni
That really is like I think, exploited. If people are actually not looking for weakness. And that's a huge myth. And this is like he likes you because you're weak. Actually, narcissistic people despise weakness and they will punish you. Mental illness, who's a self-aware narcissist, has said to me and probably in many videos over time, but that if you get cheated on in a relationship with someone who's abusive and narcissistic, and then they beg you to stay with them and they plead and they're on their knees and they prevent you from leaving, and you decide to stay based on the promise that they won't cheat again.

00:23:05:07 - 00:23:10:03
Lisa Sonni
They still see you as weak for forgiving them, and they'll punish you for staying.

00:23:10:05 - 00:23:43:00
Chelli Pumphrey
I think the other thing I want to add about personality in particular is when we are wired to have empathy, compassion, you know, this flexibility or we have integrity. We wouldn't cheat on somebody or lie. You know, like if those are your core values or trait and you see the world that way, the thing that I struggle with sometimes the most with, with survivors is that it is like so impossible for them to understand that somebody could lack those things. Right?

00:23:43:00 - 00:24:06:23
Chelli Pumphrey
Right. let's imagine that you, have been a seeing person your whole life. And you're trying to describe colors and what this thing looks like to a blind person who's been blind their entire life, that has what it can be like. And so because you cannot imagine that somebody could be that cruel, that lacking in empathy or lacking in a conscience,

00:24:06:23 - 00:24:25:12
Chelli Pumphrey
then you you project your goodness and your traits onto them, and so assume that they are going to look at you in the same way, when in fact they aren't at all. And so, yeah, people have to get that through their heads sometimes. We've got to get it kind of hammered in there a little bit because it's hard to understand that.

00:24:25:17 - 00:24:42:23
Lisa Sonni
I watch that be one of the most difficult things for people to really grasp because once, once, I think as a coach, I can get people to see this person is exploiting you. They're manipulative. They basically know what they're doing. I know that's kind of a topic in and of itself, conscious, unconscious, but they know what they're doing.

00:24:43:03 - 00:25:05:16
Lisa Sonni
It's like, but why? Once you can get your head to the place where you accept it to be true, the why is still very much there, because we see it as why would somebody want control? Wouldn't it be easier to just love? Wouldn't it be easier to just be kind? But no, not for them. I don't think it would be easier. And I also don't know that easy is what they're looking for, we think.

00:25:05:18 - 00:25:32:09
Lisa Sonni
Wouldn't you just be happier? No, not because you want peace, right? And love and connection. They want control. So if we just look at the end goal of what the average person in theory wants oversimplified and the average abuser, they want power, control, dominance, superiority, you know, and they feel so entitled. So why is a tough question, I think a again, oversimplified answer, but an important answer is just because they can.

00:25:32:11 - 00:25:58:15
Lisa Sonni
It's really that simple. I've heard Doctor Peter Salerno say that Doctor George Simon because they can. Yep, So all of this, you know, this this belief that they're wounded, the abuser is wounded. How do you think they sort of take all of these traits and attachments that we have and then manipulate it and exploit it for their gain? You know, if we believe that it's caused by trauma, then how do these personality traits lean into that?

00:25:58:20 - 00:26:02:11
Lisa Sonni
And then it makes us susceptible to this, makes us vulnerable to this?

00:26:02:16 - 00:26:24:10
Chelli Pumphrey
Well, it's kind of like what we said. Like we we have empathy for people and we can see their woundedness and so when you can see that and you think, well, they had a lot of trauma. And so they're just reacting. They're getting triggered. And we're sometimes much better at having empathy for others and not having that empathy for ourselves.

00:26:24:16 - 00:26:52:00
Chelli Pumphrey
And another thing that happens with narcissists, and I'm I'm going to circle this back into attachment here is, this is very particular to the anxiously attached person or even if you come insecure and maybe abuse will start to kind of move you in this direction. But generally, let's say you're anxiously attached person. People without attachment style tend to have, beliefs that I'm too much or I'm not good enough.

00:26:52:01 - 00:27:14:00
Chelli Pumphrey
That's kind of the core beliefs. And let's say a narcissist in particular, or a psychopath with a lot of narcissistic tendencies. Like they will come in and will start, you know, once the abuse starts or once the the devaluation starts and they start criticizing or put their little jabs at you, what do they do? They reinforce that belief.

00:27:14:00 - 00:27:43:22
Chelli Pumphrey
I'm not good enough. I'm too much through every little thing that they do. You are blamed for everything. You're gaslit. Everything's twisted around to make you feel that way. If that's already your core belief, it's like a magnet. And so it's just like, yep, that's me, that's me. I, you know, you just keep building that up. And at the same time, what you're doing is and this is how the anxiously attached system works, the anxiously attached person starts to devalue themselves more and more, which the narcissist is adding more to that.

00:27:44:01 - 00:28:10:15
Chelli Pumphrey
And at the same time, they are putting the narcissist or the abuser on a pedestal. They're idealizing them. And what a narcissist love more than anything, to be idealized, to be on somebody's pedestal. And it creates this vicious cycle. And I believe this is a very big and overlooked part of the trauma bond that happens. the anxious attachment system. The core thing is not to be abandoned.

00:28:10:19 - 00:28:30:17
Chelli Pumphrey
So it's like our brain in whether you're just organized, avoidant or anxious, your brain is going to play tricks on you to convince you essentially of why you need to stay with this person. So think about it. If I'm not good enough, or if I'm too much, nobody's going to love me. And they're probably telling you this to no one else. Love me like this.

00:28:30:21 - 00:28:50:23
Chelli Pumphrey
You know, I can never go out on my own. I'm not a good mother, or I can't imagine dating somebody else. You know, we get kind of pigeonholed into. This is the only part where. And they reinforce that. And then we also, at the same time, believe there's nobody as good as this. I mean, he is like walking on water in my world.

00:28:51:02 - 00:29:21:10
Chelli Pumphrey
And the cognitive dissonance that we have where one minute everything's great, the next man, everything's horrible. We get confused. It plays into that as well. Right? So that continues to build up over time in the abuse and for anxiously attached people, this is the key for people to hear this. This is like the number one thing. If you can remember this, our attachment system makes us crave proximity to the person we're attached to. More than safety.

00:29:21:12 - 00:29:46:23
Chelli Pumphrey
This to me is the crux of this trauma. But my system is freaking out unless I am close or feeling like our attachment is not threatened. I don't care how unsafe or dangerous it is. That's not important because attachment is all about survival. It's often not very rational. It's something that has evolved in us over time. Probably started when we were caves. People and that was meant to keep.

00:29:47:02 - 00:29:59:08
Chelli Pumphrey
We've learned that's the only way I can stay safe is to be close. So if your body, your attachment system is on high alert, like do not leave this person or you will die. I mean, that's essentially what it's telling you.

00:29:59:11 - 00:30:00:12
Lisa Sonni
And it feels like it.

00:30:00:12 - 00:30:24:04
Chelli Pumphrey
Yes. Right. And you, you get either rejected or you start to feel fear that they're leaving or discarding you in some way. Your system is, you know, all you can do is ruminate about it. You're having panic attacks or feeling panicky. Everything you can do to try to get back right. And then if you add the personality traits that believe, well, you know, we can we can make this work.

00:30:24:05 - 00:30:40:21
Chelli Pumphrey
He'll get fatter all those thing. I mean, it's just like this huge salad of like, all the perfect ingredients to keep you stuck. And here we are blaming people, thinking that they're stupid or like, just some freaking doormat who can't say no to this. That is not the case.

00:30:40:23 - 00:31:01:22
Lisa Sonni
Yeah, I notice there's a real lack of empathy, which I always find so ironic, right? Lack of empathy. Right? Hmmm.... we have this lack of empathy for women in particular, but victims in general, but women in particular, who stay with an abusive man or get with an abusive man and it's like, well, you picked him, you chose him, you stayed, you knew, you knew what he was like.

00:31:01:22 - 00:31:21:05
Lisa Sonni
And it's like, did you know there's this concept, it's this really new concept. Nobody's ever heard of it before. It's called lying. People lie people. Can you people play the long game like we know that people lie. And and there's actually there's no evidence to support that men lie more than women. I found that interesting. I have to admit, I was

00:31:21:09 - 00:31:21:18
Chelli Pumphrey
thinking

00:31:21:20 - 00:31:43:01
Lisa Sonni
possibly it was more male. I can't find any research to support it, so probably wrong. Must just be my own experience. But they lie so much. People abusers lie so much. And yes, they can lie for a year, multiple years and even then people act like one minute they're nice and the next minute they're abusive and then it stays that way.

00:31:43:05 - 00:32:05:17
Lisa Sonni
The thing with these abusive relationships that really triggers all of your attachment, triggers your confusion, is that there's an oscillation between kindness and cruelty. So the person who hurts you is exactly the same person that comforts you. And to your point, we're seeking that out because anything else is too much for our brains to accept. So we stay and we unconsciously rationalize.

00:32:05:21 - 00:32:26:22
Lisa Sonni
But it can happen to anyone. We can all do it. I always find it so interesting. You see, like people very critical of victims online. And then you go to their bio and you see they're very religious, very Christian. And I'm like, wait a minute, aren't you all about forgiveness? So you're the same person that's saying, I would never let a man treat me like that is the same person who's preaching forgiveness.

00:32:27:01 - 00:32:42:14
Lisa Sonni
How does that go together? If your value is forgiveness and divorce is not ideal, right? You would try to stay and forgive. And we're forgetting that it's not a choice. My partner is abusive and I choose to stay. That's not really what's happening. Not at all.

00:32:42:17 - 00:33:10:15
Chelli Pumphrey
Yeah, it drives me crazy to see the, you know, the hypocrisy and all of it. And part of what also gets so confusing, kind of along the lines of what you're saying is, when we look at sexism and the oppression of women in our culture, that's such another aspect of it. It's like women get told, or we get the messages along the way and, you know, it can come from society, it can come from religious beliefs, it can come from our families of origin.

00:33:10:18 - 00:33:30:20
Chelli Pumphrey
You know that you we do still get this idea that the man is in charge or like we should be more submissive in some way, and we're kind of this inferior gender. And even if you are, I mean, I am a I have been a staunch feminist my whole life. I mean, I try to help women with that.

00:33:30:20 - 00:33:56:03
Chelli Pumphrey
And I've also had to confront some of those beliefs that were there, even, you know, with my relationships, which I'm like, I can't believe that's still wired into me. I mean, it's pretty a lot less now in this point in my life. But, you know, that can also be a factor in this, that, you know, we blame women for staying, and yet we are not looking at the system that women are living in.

00:33:56:06 - 00:34:23:10
Chelli Pumphrey
We don't blame the system that sets women up to be dependent on men, to sometimes be the person who stays at home and takes care of the kids, or gives up their career for 20 years to do that, or we can't earn the same living wage as men, you know, there's so many factors here. And then, yeah, let's not have empathy for women when there's stuck in a relationship like this because many women have no resources to withstand or they're terrified to leave.

00:34:23:12 - 00:34:38:12
Lisa Sonni
you're absolutely right. Yeah. It makes it sounds so easy. Right. All you have to do is leave. All you have to do is know that it's abuse, and then uproot your entire life and give up your family custody of your children, half of your money, your car, your life and everything you know to be normal. Just that's all you have to do.

00:34:38:16 - 00:34:39:07
Lisa Sonni
It's so. Easy.

00:34:39:07 - 00:34:40:01
Chelli Pumphrey
Just leave.

00:34:40:04 - 00:35:01:13
Lisa Sonni
Meanwhile, interestingly, just even connect this. For those that haven't watched our previous episode about not knowing that it's abuse, I actually think that's a massively important piece to kind of connect here is that we act like we know, okay, it's abuse, and now you should leave when abuse feels ambiguous. And I don't think that it is. I think that there's nuance and context, but I don't think abused.

00:35:01:13 - 00:35:21:17
Lisa Sonni
It's confusing. Don't get me wrong. Being in there abusive relationship is confusing. But on the outside what it is to me, I can define it quite easily. I think that there's a sort of oh, you women call everything abuse. Now that's just gaslighting, which is part of what makes it so confusing. The amount of people that are like, that's not abuse when it absolutely is.

00:35:21:21 - 00:35:48:13
Lisa Sonni
The amount of people pushing back on topics like emotional abuse and sexual coercion. And so once you even piece together that it's abuse, you have to get past all of these values and attachments and personality traits that make you who you are to realize that it's abuse, and then you have to do the really hard part of taking action, all while you are confused and trauma bonded and deeply experiencing traumatic cognitive dissonance. Like it's really no picnic,

00:35:48:18 - 00:36:16:01
Lisa Sonni
but we just focus on you should have left you should have. You shouldn't have picked this person and your your week. I know you know the belief that women in particular are weak or traumatized or came from abusive households in order to get themselves into an abusive relationship. It's not actually true, we know that, but it's still a very prevalent belief where it's actually, you know, things that we've been talking about, like obviously attachment, but a lot of people think like, no, no, my childhood was great.

00:36:16:01 - 00:36:25:14
Lisa Sonni
I had a good childhood. But when you dig in, don't you sort of hear things in your practice like neglect and inconsistency and performance based love and things like that?

00:36:25:14 - 00:37:00:05
Chelli Pumphrey
Absolutely. And I think, I think it's, you know, there's the research that Sandra Brown and Purdue University did showed that there were, you know, it confronted this belief that people that get abused in these relationships come from childhood trauma or what we call High A events. There's a thing called The A Study that showed, like, adverse childhood experiences where we had, you know, you can kind of look at this list of all the quote unquote, traumatic, big traumatic, down to like, my parents got divorced, which is also traumatic for kids.

00:37:00:10 - 00:37:21:10
Chelli Pumphrey
So you look at all these things, and the assumption was that people would have a high A Scores or abuse in childhood that led them to these relationships. That research showed that that was not true. my dream someday is to do a research study and look at the attachment styles, combined with this two. But for that study it shows this.

00:37:21:15 - 00:37:57:18
Chelli Pumphrey
So this goes back to those of you who have been survivors who are like, I grew up in this healthy home. I didn't have anything horrible happen. I've got a PhD. I'm wildly successful in my career. Like, how did this happen to me again? It's not about you being weak, unaware, or whatever. It's that you were preyed upon for your goodness, for your heart, for all those traits that we've talked about today that that are perfect for a narcissist or a psychopath or a sociopath to, you know, to bond and grow in a relationship.

00:37:57:23 - 00:38:18:11
Lisa Sonni
Yeah, people will exploit you if they can, but I want that to be clear. If they can, rather than if you let them. Because, you know, the expression like people treat you how you let them or you teach people how to treat you. I don't agree with that blanket statement. I can see where it came from. I get it, but I actually hate it because it's again, it just puts the blame on too, right?

00:38:18:11 - 00:38:47:10
Lisa Sonni
Well, you're letting it happen. And it's like, sure, if we can ignore everything about conditioning and trauma, bonding and cognitive dissonance and value and personality traits and attachment, sure, it's your fault. You have to do some real mental gymnastics to me to land on. It's the victim's fault for what happened to them. We need to take responsibility for our lives now and figure out how to get ourselves out in a way that doesn't blame us for getting into this in the first place.

00:38:47:10 - 00:39:09:07
Lisa Sonni
Because you didn't raise yourself and you don't know what you don't know. I think it's hard for us to look back and remember what it was like when we didn't know all of this stuff, you know, before you're a therapist. But for the rest of us that had never even heard of attachment theory, for people who didn't know what cognitive dissonance was, you didn't never even heard of a trauma bond if you thought that abuse was, he's punishing you,

00:39:09:08 - 00:39:32:17
Lisa Sonni
not the covert, insidious kind of abuse that you can often see in these pathological, character disturbed type of personalities. It's it's hard. You can't just cast all that aside and then say you picked them. It's really unfair, given the way that women especially are socialized to tolerate harm and explain harm and endure and be empathetic and be forgiving and understanding.

00:39:32:17 - 00:39:54:12
Lisa Sonni
You think about what people describe as a good woman, right? And it's all of those things. Meanwhile, on the flip side, we're saying that the first sign of any abuse divorce your husband immediately. Right. Which is it? Which one? Yeah. For those that are looking to kind of, you know, he'll learn how to get out of this, I obviously obviously both of us recommend therapy.

00:39:54:18 - 00:40:14:11
Lisa Sonni
I'm a certified coach. So I think that anyone who is qualified and anybody who can speak to this experience and knows the steps, like always be careful who you work with, but there's options out there for everyone. And just as a little aside, I don't want to turn this into a big pitch, but Cheill and I host a membership club called She Rises Collective and it's online.

00:40:14:16 - 00:40:35:04
Lisa Sonni
It's for anyone who's in or out of an abusive relationship and you want to heal, rebuild, exit the relationship. If you're still in it, or learn about the patriarchy and well, learn about unlearning the patriarchy, I think is a better way to put that. Learn what got you here, the systems, rather than you got yourself here. But what systems got you here?

00:40:35:04 - 00:40:39:19
Lisa Sonni
It's an amazing space and I know we're both very passionate about that club.

00:40:39:23 - 00:41:17:04
Chelli Pumphrey
Absolutely. I love it so much. the women in it are amazing and just doing such hard work to explore, build their awareness of this into healing, and in, in various stages of their relationships. So, yeah, I just, I like you. I don't want it to feel like a sales pitch here, but it is, a growing community and it can be very helpful, especially with a lot of touch points throughout each week where you can come in and meet with Lisa I for coaching and, just get a ton of support from the community and lots of opportunities for education as well.

00:41:17:04 - 00:41:33:10
Lisa Sonni
Yeah. And I think, you know, the more you know, I love that expression because I really see it as when you start to learn what got you here and you start to learn like what is the trauma bond and how can I rebuild and what roles have I played in my own life and how did I get conditioned all it

00:41:33:10 - 00:41:56:18
Lisa Sonni
it's so fascinating. I just I love the work and I see it help so many people. So I certainly recommend She Rises to anybody, but I recommend exploring yourself with curiosity, not with judgment, and really learn that this wasn't you being weak, right? You were chosen because you are strong. You were chosen because you're capable and attachment can make you hopeful.

00:41:57:00 - 00:42:06:02
Lisa Sonni
It doesn't make you foolish. So to anybody escaping a relationship like this and healing from it, it's not your fault. And any last words from you, Chelli, before we wrap up?

00:42:06:05 - 00:42:25:01
Chelli Pumphrey
Oh, I just want to echo all of that. You know, just just know that, you know, there's like, levels of being in a relationship like this. And, and usually we when people are saying just leave or you're blaming yourself, like, I should have seen this or I should just be able to leave, why can't I? That's up here.

00:42:25:04 - 00:43:01:02
Chelli Pumphrey
And your nervous system is traumatized and being hijacked, essentially by this predator who has taken over your life and your body is screaming confusion, but also survival and your survival instincts can look very different from what it says up here. So up here says leave and in here so stay. And so it's really important to again like Lisa said, work with somebody who understands that and can help you navigate that because it is just it's just not as simple as up here.

00:43:01:02 - 00:43:14:21
Chelli Pumphrey
People really have to understand what can be kind to yourself around that. It's this is one of the most difficult things you might do in your life is to, yeah, figure out I can't believe or heal from these relationships. So yeah, it was one of mine too.

00:43:15:01 - 00:43:33:20
Lisa Sonni
Yeah, I found it the hardest thing I've ever done. So ten out of ten do not recommend for anybody to do this. No abusive really. It so get the education learn. But I hope this was really helpful in having people not blame themselves or feel that they were weak. So thank you so much for being here and we'll see everyone on the next video.

00:43:33:23 - 00:43:38:03
Chelli Pumphrey
Thank you Lisa, so much. It was an honor. Goodbye, everybody.

00:43:38:05 - 00:43:47:14
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.

00:43:47:16 - 00:43:51:20
Music
Stronger than before.