Unmuted: Healing Out Loud

 Part of healing and recovery from narcissistic and emotional abuse is learning some pretty deep, often disturbing things about yourself. I have asked myself more times than I can count "why didn't I leave? What is wrong with me that I stayed with a man that treated me so horribly?"  I've even discussed it at length with my therapist.   The answer is multi-faceted.  1)  You don't know what you don't know.  I didn't know much about gaslighting, coercive control, breadcrumbing, love-bombing, manipulation, or future-faking. So I didn't recognize them as red flags.  I saw them as "areas to improve". 2) I was told that because I had been subjected to those behaviors since childhood, they were FAMILIAR to me.  So I didn't run like a normal, healed, emotionally balanced person would've - I stayed and fought harder to fix things, prove my worth, and love harder.  I spend a lot of time now rewiring my brain.  In fact - I have an absolutely a...

  I have learned a lot of things in my life, but I can honestly say that this was never one of them. Until now. I made excuses for the shitty behavior, gave the "benefit of the doubt", believed that they were just dealt a bad hand and with my support and love - I could fix it all. What this method of operation has gotten me is:  cheated on, abused, lied to, manipulated, financially destroyed, emotionally destroyed and more. Why?  Because I didn't see myself as the Queen and I didn't act like one either. So here's my advice based on what I've learned and a practice that I've put into place in my life now...............  Queens Don’t Chase Jesters: Stop Settling for Clowns Let’s get real, ladies. There’s a quiet epidemic running wild in the dating world—and it’s not the lack of good men. It’s the number of Queens acting like servants, court jesters, and peasants just to get crumbs of male attention. Somewhere along the way, too many women forgot who they...