i am Ekho Podcast: 001
Understanding Smear Campaigns in a Narcissistic Relationship with Lisa Happ
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Transcript:
They start to tell people all these awful things you did or said about them that have never been true. It feels to me like I am a drug addict. I know he is harming me. I know he is hurting me. And I keep going back.
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Welcome to I Am Echo podcast. I am your host Echo and today I have the pleasure of having with me Lisa Hath. How are you today, Lisa? I am fabulous. Thanks so much for having me today. Thank you for coming on the show. Could you start out by just sort of telling a little bit about who you are and what you do? Absolutely. So I'm a former therapist. I am now a certified divorce coach, certified narcissistic abuse recovery coach, advanced grief recovery specialist. I'm a hypnotherapist.
I'm a brain spotting practitioner and I'm a certified somatic coach. And you also have your own podcast. Yes. And I have my own podcast. I do the family law attorney divorce detox with Lisa and Jolie. And I help other women, mostly women, some men, but mostly women just going through all life's messy stuff. like to say I help women through the hottest of messes in their lives. I like that. I like that.
And you are also a survivor yourself of narcissistic abuse. I am. So I think I probably found myself a female narcissist in my life. I was married fairly young and looking back, my husband was definitely a covert narcissist. He was very difficult to get along with, never very honest and really turned our life into basically a dumpster fire.
And I got out of that divorce somewhat unscathed. Well, not really. He cleared out every single bank account and investment account we ever had. And I think left me with like 10 cents in a bank account. But regardless, I had my own business. I to build it up and I was okay. But what happened after that was a family friend who was actually a realtor at the time or had been a realtor in the past. we, had become really close friends with him.
Kind of swooped in to save the day. Typical story, right? He's 30 years older than me. We'd been friends for a while and he swooped in to save the day. And then the cycle of coercive control and narcissistic abuse began. We kind of continued through the cycle. And I was a therapist like in my past. I felt so dumb that I didn't see it. Like many women say to me now.
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And we were in a relationship for about eight years. tried to, it went from bad to worse. I tried to leave so many times. And I'd finally gotten to a point where I was like, I have to get out of this relationship. We lived in a small town. I knew there was going to be a lot of backlash, a lot of smear campaigning. So I prepped myself, prepped my business, tried to have all my ducks in a row before I left. A week before I was ready to get myself out of this relationship, my son passed away. So.
unexpectedly, I just it was a Wednesday night. I was home making my daughter dinner. I had come home from work and I got the call that like every parent dreads, but we never really think we're truly going to get. And yeah, when that happened, it just kind of like it sent me and to such a tailspin. I had business I was trying to continue to.
run and operate, try, I was trying to make sure my daughter was okay. My daughter didn't want to be in our house. It made her too sad to come home. It made us both sad. So we ended up looking back. I'm like, my God, what did you do? We ended up moving in with this man temporarily and it just got worse and worse and worse until I don't even know. We lived with him for a couple of years. In one day, I just woke up and was like, F this.
I swear I had a dream that my son came to me in and I woke up and was like, what am I doing? At that point, like I found us a place to move, until we did, we moved in with my sister and then the place we were moving to is being built. we had that had to be built and it was summertime and it was so crazy that I was like, well, let's get far away. So we went to Iceland cause my daughter had always wanted to go there. And that's when I really started building my coaching practice was after that.
I was already a divorce coach. At the same time, I also owned a wellness studio, Pilates studio. I decided I needed to leave the town we were in. My daughter went to a private school, so it gave us a lot of options. So we moved to another state where we could still get to her school easily. And I just really just like sold my business that I had built for 20 years, changed a lot of community, a lot of friendships, a lot of things that were still tied to this mian and literally just pieced out.
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and started an entire new life, a new home, a new community. Like I planned to take about a year off when I sold my business and it took about a month off and realized I just want to help other people. So I continued coaching and divorce coaching. And then I started just learning everything I could about narcissists, narcissism, coercive control, and like taking the time to just take every class and certification that I possibly could find out there and created this.
Incredible coaching practice. I've helped hundreds and hundreds of women leave, leave safely, divorce narcissists, go through grief of losing children, everything. I have helped so many women through this and as much as I'm obviously dislike this man, I was talking to his daughter-in-law the other day because I'm still very close with her. And I just said to her, I am so thankful for him. I'm not thankful for what I've gone through, but I'm so thankful for him and what he's
Created for me to be able to help other people help other people. I have often said the same thing It was one of the worst experiences of my life besides my twins dying I know we talked about that as well earlier But besides that this was the worst thing I've ever gone through but the silver lining at the end is I do feel like by talking about it writing my blog having my Podcast I'm helping other people to know they're not alone. Could I back up just a little bit? I want to really focus on the healing and the coaching that you do
But you mentioned the smear campaign and I, I, not a lot of people are willing to talk about that. Would that be something you would be willing to talk about? Absolutely. And because I knew it was coming, he followed a very typical maling- there's about seven different types of narcissists. He followed a pretty good pattern of a malignant narcissist. And once I figured out what was happening and this is the type of relationship I was in, I was j-
everything I could to learn everything I could, even before I did all these certifications so I knew what was coming, because I knew he was damn crazy and I knew he was gonna make my life hell. Could you define what a malignant narcissist is and then we'll go on to the smear campaign? So a malignant narcissist is like, in a nutshell, is a narcissist that has, I would say, more sociopathic tendencies. They're a little, they're presented to someone that definitely had some other mental health issues, they tend to have addictions, and they're just very dark.
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Was he a pathological liar? Like, did he make up things or? Yeah, he made up things. He was very calculated. I mean, like a lot of narcissists, a lot of people, well, I thought at the time everyone thought he was so wonderful. But when it ended, a lot of people told me otherwise. So I would say the other most common kind is the covert narcissist, where they're very quiet and sneaky.
That was probably my ex-husband. Sometimes he'd be nasty, sometimes he'd be nice. He would fluctuate. So moving on to the smear campaign, could you tell the audience what it is and then also talk about how it played out in your story? So a smear campaign is a pretty typical across the board for narcissists. How they hit the smear campaign typically depends on the type of narcissist they are, but it's always calculated and they try to bring as many people and people that are closest to you. And then they just layer out, out, out.
And there may be a tiny bit of truth to a story, typically not, but maybe there's a little bit of truth to a story. But they start to tell people all these awful things you did or said about them that have never been true. If anything, it's probably stuff that the narcissist did or said. And then they start to just, the story gets bigger and bigger and bigger. They try to hit the areas. They're very good at recognizing where your Achilles heel is or the things that are most important to you. So anybody that they sense that's really important to you, they're going to go to people or
referral to people of those people if they can't get to those people. I had a business, so I knew that he would try to touch that and blow that up. So I sent a giant email out to my mailing list telling people I was leaving an abusive relationship to head that off. Then he reached out to me and said, you know, all my friends hate you. All your friends hate you. They all know you're lying. He tried to like damage control my email. Well, this is pretty big deal. Yeah, this is a pretty big deal that he did that to begin with and kudos to you.
preemptively sending that email out to warn people what was about to happen. That's one thing I try to help clients do now. They come to me in the process of like a should I stay or should I go and you're getting ready to leave. I really try to help them pregame the narcissist. We already know kind of what they're going to do once I get to know the clients. I'm like, let's pregame this so they blow your life up as little as possible. So we're going to stay a few steps ahead of him in this chess game and this poker game we're playing. Wow. That is helpful because if you know you're dealing with a
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knew sort of at the end what I was dealing with. Had I been able to do that, you know, the smear campaign, I live in a small town like you did too. And it just goes on and on and on. It's layered and layered and layered. And we're two years out and I still am hit by what I call flying monkeys every once in a while. And that advice you give is priceless. And it just saves so much emotional energy for you. It's like, if you know you're going into battle, you can be ready to fight. But when you don't know it's coming,
There is a way to deal with that. Yeah. And there's a way to people deal with that. I try to give it no energy. I always encourage my clients, even though you want to be like, heck no, that's not true. He did this. They've already told everyone you're crazy. And so if anybody's believing that or even wants to listen to their story, I would just say, okay, if he said I'm crazy or if he said I did this, that's what you believe. I'm okay with that. I can live with that. And then it takes yourself out of the fight.
If you go into the fight, you're playing into what they want. And then this person is going to go back and tell the narcissist and just creates this cycle and keeps that energy going. So I just said, I don't really care what these people thought of me. I didn't like most of those people anyway. So that's how I felt. I didn't like them anyway. you know, I tolerated them because they were his friends or, you know, loose acquaintances or people that went to my church. But I didn't really like them anyways, the ones that have
believed him and listened to his lies and then tried to harm me. So I don't feel like it's any loss. No great loss. And if people choose to believe that about you, they're not people I want in my life anyway. I'm you feel the same, right? I feel like it's like the best weeding out process of who you are your real friends and versus who are your fake friends. And then you can just focus on your real friends and you don't have to spend any time, energy, effort worrying about these fake friends.
Absolutely, we're all busy, right? We only have so much time for so many people there, so it is a good way to just clean house. It is a good way. It is, yeah. That's one thing I've often said is in hindsight, it was awful, but in a way, it's one of the best things that can ever happen to you because you totally weed out the riffraff in your life. You do, and those people bring you down to see energy of those people, and the creativity of those people when you start to get rid of them. It just feels like layers are coming off for you and you can breathe.
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So much so that exactly like they were draining to be around they were always Negative and grumbling and didn't like this person and gossiping about that person like I don't have time for that, right? Yeah, exactly There's just some people you want in your life anyway You may notice one thing I often tell clients is once you leave her a relationship like this you start to notice maybe even some of your friends have some of these tendencies because we
Because of our core wounds and who we are, we tend to be empaths and people pleasers and givers. tend to attract people like this. But once you get rid of one of these ding-dongs, it is so easy to recognize them and you just start to shed them. Like there was at one point I was like, oh, maybe it is me because I really don't like a lot of the people in my life. But no, you shed these people in new amazing aligned people come in and it's amazing. It is amazing. You do share them because I am a people. Well, I'm trying not to be that.
I'm a people pleaser and I'm an empath. put up with a lot of a lot, you know, listen to people whine forever or whatever, you know, but once you do start putting up those boundaries and you do start weeding them out, the right people come into your life that you can be your authentic self with. Your energy isn't drained. It's it's it's
It's lifted up actually. It's so true. Like noticing who, how you feel around certain people is life changing. Like really sitting in yourself and noticing in your body, like does this person feel good in my body or does my chest feel heavy? Like, does my head feel spinny? And just noticing like what energy people bring to your life or to the table when you're around them can be life changing. It really is life changing. I totally agree. So what makes someone
not only decide with a narcissist, but actively harm you, like actively either spread gossip further or disparage you in some way. Like what type of a person does that? Not a great person. Obviously, like we said, not people that are your friends, but some of it is I try to tell people, okay, look at when you first met this narcissist. You started this relationship and they told you like all their ex partners are crazy. The ex wives are crazy. People they worked with were crazy and we believed them. We did. We did. Yes.
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I believe Tim too, because knowing that these people, they're just as manipulated as we were by them. Exactly. So even though I choose to have them in my life, I try to look at it like they don't necessarily know any better. There's also kids that love drama. There's also the people that love a fight. They love drama. They're probably really unhappy in their own life. So they're like, I'll jump onto this. And some people are just shit stirrers. They love to stir shit.
Right. So then you have, I think for all of those reasons. I like that because I can definitely think of people that probably were drawn into a story just like I was drawn into a story. So they're, they're more of, you know, they, they were fooled like I was fooled. Right. But then there are people that are very unhappy in their lives and they just love it. They just love that they can continue to, to harm you or disturb the pot or, know, to continue to spread this further. So after the smear campaign you were prepared for, but you left, you got out of town.
I got a ton. I still go back to that town quite often, but for years and later I tried to avoid it. I mean, a lot of my friends are there still, and I would look over my shoulder anytime I met a friend for dinner or a drink. It has so much anxiety going to that town. Now I couldn't care less. Like, I mean, I prefer not to run into him, obviously, but if I did, he'd honestly with all the work I do.
All the podcasts I'm on, my face is everywhere telling my story. I'm sure he would probably prefer not to run into me at this point. I kind of feel that way. At first I was avoiding him and his flying monkeys and now I notice they avoid me. Good for you. That's a good feeling. You're like, that is taking your power back right there. In fact, to the point where we were sitting in a restaurant, me and three of my friends, and one of them came in and they kind of like circled around and they realized it was me and they like
dashed out the door. It funny. It was kind of funny. That did not feel amazing. It does. It feels empowering. It does. It's just like, you know, I'm gonna I've always said I'm gonna live in this town. I can't move my kids are here. I co parent here. I'm not allowed. I can't legally leave because their father's here and they're established here. If I did leave, I'd lose my children. So I'm staying here. But
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I am going to go about my life. I'm not going to not go somewhere. I'm not going to not do something because I'm afraid of running into him or one of those flying monkeys. And they can be the one to feel uncomfortable because I don't feel uncomfortable. So amazing. I am so happy that you are at that place now. Thank you. It feels amazing. So how, so you had this awful experience with this narcissist to include a smear campaign, but thankfully you were able to kind of prep for. How did that then translate into what you do now?
The transit has already coaching people through divorce because I had a bloody studio for many years in a wellness studio. People knew I had been a therapist. But what started to happen with my studio over time and over the years after I got, I've been divorced like 15 years. But when I got divorced, it kind of became like the secret divorce lady in my town. Oh, people would come to my studio and be like, heard you could help me get divorced, but now my husband will see Pilates on our credit card statement. So I was like this underground divorce lady.
I didn't even know a divorce coach was a thing. And then one day I was like, I'm basically a divorce coach. I wonder if this is like a real thing. So I Googled it and I was like, well, I guess I should actually figure out like how to do this for real. This is what I'm doing. And I did a certification. I think it took like six months or a year and just started doing more and more of those. just saw such a need, like, especially once I came out of that relationship and went through my own healing. The universe brings us the people that we need or that need us. And just started meeting all of these women that were being.
abused physically, emotionally, like, coercive control type relationships, I've specialized my divorce coaching at that point in divorce and coercive control and narcissistic abuse because there is nothing like divorcing a narcissist. Divorce is not fun. Divorcing a narcissist can be hell, but it doesn't have to be. If you know how to operate, what they're gonna do, you can stay three steps ahead of them and know exactly what basically they're gonna do.
at every move in every place. I now, I work with clients, I help them get ready for like the business side of their divorce. With a narcissist. And then there's like that middle ground where we work on all the healing, all the trauma, because anyone that's been in a relationship, is messes with your head unlike anything else. We work on the rumination and trauma bonds and so forth, the core wounds that brought you here.
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because you want to make sure you don't find another one. You do not want to find this same asshole in a different outfit and you will unless you heal it. And then we work on, okay, what's next? Because you come out of these relationships and this divorce and it's so all consuming sometimes that it starts to become people's identity. So once the divorce ends, there's a grief process that happens. So I try to help them move through that grief process and really build their new life and their new community or whatever they want before the divorce. And so as a divorce is ending, they don't even care.
Like they're just glad it's done, whatever, because they're already living their new life. you mentioned that they are very predictable. are. Narcissists, once you understand it, they are incredibly predictable. What are some of the things you advise your clients to do before they divorce the narcissist to sort of do damage control or to prep? So depends on their situation. I try to make sure let's get all your finances together. A lot of times there's a lot of financial abuse and a lot of things hidden in these relationships.
Anytime they're not there, find anything in your house, anything in a computer with a number on it. It doesn't matter if you don't know what it is. Just start taking pictures of it, screenshots of it, making copies of it. We'll sort all that out later. I have amazing professionals that can help you with that. And then we start to create like what they want and the divorce as far as the parenting plan, as far as maybe what assets they want. Do they want the house? Do they not want the house? It doesn't mean it's a guarantee, but it's good to know what they want.
And depending on the type of narcissist, we're going to feed them little things to actually make them think we want the opposite or somewhat the opposite. Because they're always going to fight you on what you want. I also highly recommend getting your children in with a therapist before you start the divorce process because they will not allow you to and they will fight it. What I like to do is have my clients start picking an attorney, even if you don't retain them right away. Let's do the interviews. So if the shit hits the fan at some point you have.
somebody on Speedell, can call, can sign your engagement letter and you're ready to go. Yes, yes. Also, feel bad saying it on here, but if there are some really high powered attorneys in your area, maybe you can afford to use them because they're $1,500 an hour. We have some crazy ones where I live. Spend the $1,500 if you can and do a consult call with that attorney. Hit the high hitters that you don't want your ex to use. And if you do a consult call, they're conflicted out and they can't represent your ex.
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I know that, yes, I learned that. I didn't actually use that strategy, but I had already, for different purposes, dealt with a lot of the attorneys in my community for different purposes. And he had to go to someone that was not very good. That's amazing, That is an excellent tactic, yes. You get them and that is a conflict of interest and they can't represent these other people, your ex or whoever you're going.
you whoever you're in a lawsuit with. It's a great tactic, actually. It's a great tactic. And it seems like expensive in the beginning, but it's not because some of these attorneys are going to keep you in court forever. So paying that consult fee in the long term is going to save you tons of time and tons of emotional energy. Exactly. I love that. I love that suggestion. So you said depending on the type of narcissist, you will feed them little bits of information. So say you have a covert narcissist.
What would you recommend someone like, would be an example of what you might make them think you want, but you actually want this? So they're thinkers, right? And they're analyzers and they're real sneaky and they're really in their heads. So say you are getting divorced, but you had no idea. I would say play nice. You want to act like it is completely normal. If anything, you're going to be nice one day and not so nice the next day, almost like they do.
to create an intermediate reinforcement, which is what they do to control us. And I don't recommend it if you're in a great relationship or somebody nice. We're only using this as a means to an end to get you divorced. So I would start to do that. Like be nice, not so nice, nice, not so nice. Create that intermediate reinforcement with them to confuse them. And in the meantime, you're going to start getting all that information we talked about. can start, if you're doing that and confusing them, you can also start asking them financial questions if you don't know the answers to them.
But not all at once because that will tip them off. So just trickle in some questions if you need to. Then also with children, especially you want to make them think you want 50-50. So and they don't even know you're getting divorced yet. So you're going to start talking about how you really want to work. Maybe you guys really need to get a nanny. You can't handle the kids on your own. You're really exhausted and start leaving them with the kids. Sounds counterproductive, but giving them more of responsibilities of not too many.
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giving them more of the responsibilities of the kids so that, cause they don't want to deal with them. No narcissist wants to deal with the kids or take care of the kids. So you want to honestly make the kids be a big of a pain in the ass for them as you can, letting them think that like you need more time. You want to work on your career. You want your stuff on your own. You need your own time in your own things. The one thing I would not do is I would not have them start taking them to doctor's appointments. lot of their sporting events. Like you want to be the main.
primary caregiver for those things. But, you know, like let them have a lot of the responsibility for the real annoying stuff. Like let the kids really annoy them as long as it's safe to do so. That's, that's excellent advice. And it really is excellent. Like you said though, you do want to keep taking them to the doctor's appointments because they ask, you know, they, make a note of who brought that kid there. And then I've actually seen people in court where that was either used in their favor or against them.
And it was like, well, know, the dad took them to 90 % of the appointments and mom only came to 10 or vice versa. So they keep track of that. And like you said, the sporting events, who's taking them there. And then that also is like sort of what the community sees as well. Absolutely.
So that is so sneaky in a very good way. It's not sneaky. It's good advice because you're not dealing with a fair person here. No, it's not like divorcing someone that's going to play fair. They're using every sneaky tactic and beyond anything that a normal person like you or I would use. They're using to harm you. So you can't play checkers when they're playing chess. You have to play the game they're playing. You almost have to train your brain to think a little like that. That's I work with a lot of attorneys.
I mean, not attorneys can't know everything, right? And they're not, maybe they understand coercive control, but they don't live it. And I think unless you've lived it, you don't understand it. So I will work with attorneys also and train them or work one-on-one with them when they have a client to create a strategy going into court. Like, I know they're going to say this, so we're going to say that. And like, we're going to do this because they're going to do that. Just so we all know going in, we got this.
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Do you see a lot of times, because this was the case with mine, where he painted me as crazy and unstable and unhinged, yet when you actually looked at the evidence, it wasn't there to back it. For instance, he had two kids and up until he assaulted me and was arrested for the second time, and that's whenever our relationship ended, he left them with me for weekends at a time while he was at concerts. If I was crazy or insane and he did that,
he's the one that's in trouble with child protective services or whatever for leaving his kids with someone that was unstable. So it didn't add up any of his stories. And he never once mentioned to me any sort of alleged mental health issues he thought I had. We were in counseling for his alcoholism and abuse, not for anything to do with me. So there was no like evidence of this, but yet that was what he painted the picture. And I think due to just systemic misogyny, many people
bought that narrative that a woman is crazy, manipulative, that sort of thing. It's very, I don't think I've ever actually seen them not say the woman is crazy. That seems to be their go-to, crazy, unstable mental health. And I think part of it is they do view anyone as crazy, the narcissist does, who goes against them. Because they're so used to manipulating and controlling and gaslighting and they're used to controlling us. And then when we push back, they're like, well, dang, this person must be crazy.
No, I think that is 100 % true and that's their go-to. So anytime now I hear someone say my ex was crazy, that to me is kind of like a red flag. Not that there aren't people that don't have mental health issues that can be quite harmful to you. But when I hear that, it just pings me that like pay closer attention to the narrative that the ex is crazy, right? Especially if there's more than one crazy ex, like in the dating world.
anybody I've ever met that says, Oh, I have a crazy ex. I don't even stick around to see if it's a red flag. I just run. I'm like, there's a good chance. had good chances. You what did you do to her? Is the first thing that comes to my head when they tell me about the crazy ex wife is like, I wonder what you did to her. Yes, exactly. That's I think that too, because truth be told by the end of our relationship after five almost six years,
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I wasn't in tip top mental health. You know, I was, I was with a manipulative narcissist for five years. I wasn't insane. I wasn't unstable, but I was sad. I felt bad about myself. My confidence was broken. I was confused because of the intermittent reinforcement of one day he was this one day it was that I was dealing with this alcoholism and issues with that. You know, you are beaten down. You are worn down. You do have a lot of hurt and trauma you're dealing with.
It's so much trauma that intermittent reinforcement creates is so much cognitive dissonance. yes, they find people and partners who put up with this or get sucked into it. Because maybe we have more of an anxious attachment or a different attachment because of things that have gone on in our past. And a narcissist can sniff that out a mile away. They'll always find an empath. They'll always find someone that has like a childhood history of neglect, abuse, an alcoholic or addicted parent.
And they just, find our core wounds, which are typically wanting to be seen, heard, loved, whatever they are, they find them. And that's what that love bombing is. They're love bombing those parts of us that want to be filled up, those parts of our inner child that didn't get what it needed at that time. And they fill that up, then they take it away. Then they fill it up and they value it. And then they take it away. And every time the cycle goes around, it gets just a little bit worse, but then it gets better.
It never gets as good as the initial love bombing, it gets better. So what it does is it trains our brain to be addicted to the dopamine hits of when they're nice. And then we are literally addicted to these men more than you would be addicted to like a drug, a street drug like heroin. Our brains become so addicted to that dopamine hit, which is why we're trauma bonded and why I can remember feeling like I am so addicted to him. I don't know why, but I'm actually addicted to this person and you are. So if you feel like you're addicted.
To this person, it's your brain. You are addicted, but you can get out and break the cycle. I remember telling someone before I ever researched, I didn't know what a trauma bond was. I didn't really even know, except in the most generic ways, what a narcissist was. And I remember telling someone, it feels to me like I am a drug addict. I know he is harming me. I know he is hurting me. And I keep going back. And I don't know why I keep going back, but I can't, it's like a craving. I keep going back.
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And I do have an anxious attachment style. I've since learned that and I'm working on healing that, but I do have an anxious attachment style. talk about their intermittent reinforcement. I remember telling my therapist when this all came crumbling down, I'm like, it's like there's two different people there. One is nice and kind and attentive and relates to me and we're like very close. And the other one is this cruel, calculating, awful person. And that's when she looked at me and she said,
you need to realize there aren't two people. They're the same person and he's putting on a mask to fool you. You had a great therapist. I'm so glad you had her. Thank you. It was eye-opening to hear that. I would have never pieced that together because I was in the cognitive dissonance. Like what's going on here? Am I bringing out this bad person? Is it my fault or how do I keep this good person? And we can never keep the good person. We can never control the person. And typically somebody's mean.
They're a mean person. somebody's an asshole, would, I mean, we all have our days, right? Like you're angry, you got PMS, whatever. We all get grouchy. But if you're with someone that's an asshole and then sometimes they're nice, like they're an asshole. Like they're an asshole. No one fakes being an asshole, right? You fake being nice. Mostly an asshole and sometimes nice. You just got an asshole. you're so right. And you know, we're both reasonably intelligent.
financially independent women and yet we still got sucked into these relationships and trauma bonded to narcissists. So it can happen to anybody. can happen to anybody. I mean, I have women like very, very successful women, like CEOs of companies, owners of like Fortune 500 companies, women that you would see on TV and be like, you would know who they are. And narcissists, they want to be with someone that's successful.
They want to be with someone that's admired by the community. They want to be with someone that's involved with the community and they're kind of like known to people because it makes them feel good at first. Yeah, they want people that are like attractive and you make them look better. And what they do is because they want these people that they think make them look better, get them further in life. put you on a pedestal. Yes. But we're human beings. We're all messy. So none of us are going to ever be able to stand up to the pedestal they put us on. So the pedestal is part of the love bombing too.
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But then as they realize you're human and maybe you get mad, maybe you get sad, maybe like you have a bad day, maybe like, I don't know, you got sick and got the flu. But whatever it is, once you can't stay on their pedestal, they start to get mad. And that's when they start to resent you, which is where the devaluing starts and those little like anger spurts start and the little like dig starts because they've created this image of you that nobody in the world could ever live up to. And then they're super pissed at you for not being that person.
That's interesting because the first we were about three months into our relationship, everything was going fabulous. Great. And he, he pretended like he didn't have any money. He was a pro. He is a professor. He's not poor. He's not rich, you know, but he pretended like he had no money and we were going to go on vacation. And I said, okay, I'll pay for everything. That's fine. You know, whatever. I don't mind. And so we're on vacation and we're on our next to last day. And my
credit card and my debit card got frozen by my bank because they didn't realize where I was at. was still whenever they were blocking things if you were too far away. It was a holiday, so I couldn't unfreeze that. I remember he grabbed my debit card. He's like, you don't have any money. And he put it in to check the balance. And you know, the balance is there. had, know, thousands of dollars in there and it was just frozen. I couldn't access it. He was so mad at me that he pouted and gave me the silent treatment for the next two days.
Even after he got the card fixed and paid him back for the money I owed him, which was his and his kids meals, he still acted like that. And I think talking to you, he had me up on this pedestal. And when that debit card got frozen, that pedestal version of Echo came crashing down.
That's exactly what happened. sounds like and they tend to be really weird about money. They're really weird. Maybe in the beginning, they'll like try to like make you think they have money or shower you with things, but then they get incredibly cheap. Like I can remember this guy that I was with for many years, like we'd be out for in the beginning. He'd always pay, right? Like we were friends, like whatever you be. But as soon as the relationship started, the bill would come and he would hand it to me and be like, you got this like every single time. Yes. Yes.
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back we probably made comparable money. has two kids, I have two kids. You know, and I believe in paying half and half. I'm fine with that. You know, I don't expect anyone to pay for me. But you know, every time every time and you and then he would say things like, Well, I can't afford to go out. if you want to go out to eat, you're gonna have to pay for it. And so I either sat at home, or I paid for it if I want to go out to eat, you know, so yes, or forget the wallet. Did yours forget his wallet all the time? Of course he forgot his wallet. Yeah, a lot.
A lot, not like a whoops one day. mean, we all forget stuff, right? But like, yeah, I remember once we had to go to this like maybe like a 60th, 70th birthday for one of his friends. And I was like, no, he's gonna stiff me with this. So I forgot my wallet. And he's like, well, I forgot mine. I'm like, I think I'm gonna have to go home and get it. He was talking to me for days. Isn't this amazing? Like it's,
It's like they all read the same playbook. Everyone I talked to that's been through this, it's like we're telling almost the same story. Like their details are different, but there are major trends that are the same. Or we'd be grocery shopping and I'd go to check out and he'd have his cart and I'd have mine. And like a lot of his shit would be in my grocery cart. Like, know, we maybe we'd be at Walmart or something and he'd have like socks in there.
And razor blades that were not cheap. And I would be like, we would be checking out and a few times I just let it go. And then finally I was like, did you forget this? And he would make a huge deal like, my God, you are so cheap in front of everybody to cause a big commotion and to embarrass me. His tactic was to embarrass me. And like, as if I was wrong for saying, hey, these are your razor blades, please pay for them. Why am I paying for your razor blades? Yes, so.
so common, like I don't want anyone to know that they're cheap. Yes, like but they are so incredibly cheap. Like they want to be the one seen at the fundraisers and the gallows donating the back. But then you want you to pay for everything or I mean the man I was with for years, I he drove a Porsche, he had to like everything on the outside was like fabulous, right? It looked like fabulous, but he would take dryer sheets and cut them in four.
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because he was too cheap to use an entire dryer sheet. That's funny that mine was cheap as well. He wasn't flashy like that. But he would often like what I would notice is like he was the president of the church, right? So what I found interesting is like, there's a lot of behind the scenes work that people in churches or any organization do that you don't get any recognition from. He wouldn't be seen at anything like that.
But if there was like something where his picture was going to be taken and put in the paper or on Facebook or social media, boy, he'd be there shoveling with a big smile on his face, you know. Oh, absolutely, yes. Meanwhile, doing next to nothing of actual work, right? Oh, no. Anything that brings them like attention, accolades, people telling them how wonderful they are, they're totally there for that. Without the work, without any of the actual work.
behind it, right? Or they'll find ways to get other people to do the work and take the credit for it. They're super good at that. Yes, yes, yes. He and his best friend who he told me was a narcissist, his best friend. I think he has some narcissistic trait. I don't know if he is or not. I have no idea. But they formed this nonprofit that as far as anyone can see does absolutely nothing.
But boy, you would think that they were saving the economy. They're saving, making everything safe for us, helping to retrain all these people that have been let go from our local power plant. don't think they've retrained one single person, but the amount of notoriety and publicity and even one person I talked to that was on the board. She was like, I don't know what we do. She's like, we don't do anything, but boy, there's a lot of social media hype from this organization about all the good deeds we do, but we're not actually doing anything.
anything to get that recognition and attention, but actually doing pretty much nothing. It's like that's their jam, right? They're going to do as little as possible, but they want as much attention as possible. It is funny. swear there's a website somewhere that they all follow or like a playbook, like you said, because they're all very similar. Like you said, different details, same jerk. Same jerk, different details, yes.
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So let's move on a little bit to you briefly describe some of what you do as far as the divorce coaching goes. And you also do general coaching, brain spotting, all this stuff. Is there anything in there you'd want to talk about? Yeah, so I do a lot of, I kind of bring it all together. I work with a lot of people going through grief just because it's near and dear to my heart. The main thing I do is divorce coaching and narcissistic abuse recovery, because especially with these high conflict divorces and narcissistic abuse.
First, we need to get you through the divorce and during that process, we are gonna work on all your healing and stuff too. But in order to go out and live your new life, you have to process the trauma. And if you are in this relationship, there's a good chance there's some trauma from your past or from your childhood. So with brain spotting, it's kind of like a way to process trauma where you're not reliving it. As a therapist, I did a lot of EMDR on clients, but I found for myself included what I had done on myself, it can be very triggering for some people because it just activates your nervous system, your nervous system.
Not for everybody. I'm a big fan. think it works for so many people. But for me, didn't. felt like retri. And so like what your nervous system thinks is happening over and over again. That's why when you go to like traditional talk therapy after a while with narcissistic abuse, especially it doesn't work or if anything, you feel worse. It's because these are just all my opinions. But you're figuring your nervous system. So your nervous system doesn't actually know if it's happening now or in the past. So it's brain spouting. It helps you focus on maybe you focus on an event.
Maybe just focus on an emotion. I try to really focus it more on the emotion than a specific event. And you really tie it into where you feel it inside your body versus the actual event. And you sit with it and we hold it. And there's a whole process we go through and it's all done using your vision and a vision point, like a stick that you gaze at or a gaze point on a wall, tied into a spot in your brain is tied into your body and just gives you a chance to process it. I also do hypnotherapy with people.
So as we find this spot, we begin to process these traumas. I like to combine the two and create a hypnotherapy experience and a somatic experience for them. Now we're filling your brain up with all the good things because what our neural pathways in our brains do is they like patterns. So they get stuck and our neural pathways start to go in the same loop. So with brain spotting, we process the trauma and then we start to fill the brain up subconsciously with new things.
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So we're retraining in our own pathways to go the way we want them to, maybe not the way that they always have before. Cause I think we all do, we all tell ourselves a story, right? Like, I don't know, you drop your coffee and you're like, damn, I'm so stupid. I'm so clumsy. We always have a story we're telling ourselves. It usually comes from childhood or being shame. we're just changing the mindset and changing the way we look at things. And it's amazing. It's life changing. Is that using language also? I know there's a term like.
with the language where you're retelling the story. I might have this a little off where you're retelling the story in a way that doesn't make you feel shame, doesn't make you feel bad. You're yeah, you're reaching, changing your story, you're changing your history. And we're letting you know, like when you're in the process of brain spotting, that it's over, that it's in your past. So we're using those to timestamp it in your past. Because all of our perceptions and the way we look at the world is based on our past.
So we're letting that those are triggered because if we think it's happening again, like our nervous system doesn't know the difference. So when I'm in this process with people, I'll say certain words or things to let your brain know that, it sucked that that happened, but it's so far it's not happening now. You're safe now. You are okay now. And so things that normally would trigger you or maybe you are people that you would normally be attracted to that were a little more toxic. You're not anymore. You're not anymore. Okay. Wow. And that is done through.
Think of an emotion like shame and then focusing on something while you help them talk and process that and then retelling a story sort of in which that is no longer the narrative. Exactly. And it's so different here. Everybody, I some people cry. Some people like physically shake. I've had people throw up because we get so much trapped. I will do it on you. Let's make it. I'm going to make a few miles do it on you. It's amazing.
It's you tend to have some funky dreams after not scary dreams, but funky dreams because your brain, even after we do a session, will continue to process it for a couple of weeks. And then you might notice like, I don't know, I did it for somebody recently who was scared to drive on the highway. had nothing to do with abuse or narcissism or even divorce. And they said an incredible fear of driving on the highway. So we did the brain spotting on like the fear, the feelings around it. And I think an event actually did came up when they'd been in a car accident when they were a child.
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And we did the brain spot and we did it for about an hour session. And a couple of weeks later, they texted me that they left work. They always took this really obscure route home. So they didn't have to take the highway and they didn't even realize it until they got home. And they were like, my God, just sat on that, drove home on the highway. my goodness. That's, that has to be such a good feeling for them and you that you help someone get over that fear.
It's so amazing. feel like I always say it's like hundreds of hours of therapy in an hour without all the like trauma and processing and rehashing of your shit. Like you just comes out naturally it comes out on its own. It comes out as a sensation. Like somebody I was doing it on the other these legs were shaking like uncontrollably. And it came out that there were some things that happened in their life that did affect that part of their body.
And now, but they're like, you know, I feel so different now. Like these things that bother me don't bother me. I feel so good. I'm not scared to walk into work every day. It's just amazing. Wow. That is quite amazing. So this is the brain spotting. Is it just brain spotting or is it brain spotting coupled with another therapy? I usually couple it with hypnotherapy. It depends. are real freaked out by hypnotherapy. So I always ask ahead of time if they mind. Because sometimes I don't even know.
until we start until I see what comes out and what's happening. And I'm watching your body language the whole time. I'm watching your eye movement the whole time. I'm watching to make sure your nervous system doesn't shoot up the whole time. So sometimes I'll drop it into hypnotherapy or sometimes I'll just drop them into some breath work for a second because what you don't want is for your nervous system to get triggered because we can only, I always let people know, like, I don't know how long it's going to take. I don't know how long these healing sessions are going to, how many you're going to need. Cause I only can go as fast as your nervous system is going to allow it.
because we're there to heal it, not to traumatize it. Exactly. So, wow. So whenever I talked to you the one day, you said, I'm kind of switching gears here, that you were coming out of court. Do you spend time in court? I do spend a lot of my days in court. So one thing I travel actually all around the world to go to court with women when I'm working with clients because it's very traumatizing to go to court and see somebody who you've
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like been abused by, emotionally abused by, physically abused by, they tend to glare at you. tend to, you know, they have those, I call them the dog whistles, those little things they can do to trigger you that nobody else would notice. So we work around that. We do a lot of brain spotting on that. We do a lot of somatic processing on that. But I do go to court with them. As a support person, I cannot give legal advice.
but I also will consult with the attorneys. know they end up knowing the attorneys and my clients work with really well by the end. So I've already consulted with them. We've already like talked about it, built a strategy. So I'm also there as like, I guess a support to the attorney. Like I said, I can't give legal advice, but if I can notice I'm very good at reading body language. So I'll watch the body language of the ex. I'll watch often of the opposite attorney so that I can kind of be dialing in their attorney to what's happening and okay, they're really uncomfortable about this. So.
Look, let's push this. We get in front of the judge again. Yeah. wow. That's very helpful. I bet women and men would hire you all the time for that because being able to tell like this question is making him really uncomfortable that maybe I couldn't tell or the lawyer couldn't tell, but you can tell then, you know, ask more questions about that. Push there a little bit harder. No, starting to like scratch your neck a lot and they're starting to body starting to move around. So they're really uncomfortable.
Their eyes are shifting. So let's hit that question, but tile it up a notch. Wow. That's, that's fascinating. Do you find that maybe outcomes are different because of the advice you give? Absolutely. think so. And then attorney can only pay attention to so many things and they can only be an accident in so many things. So bringing me in as an expert to read all that and watch all that and like monitor that, but also just having a woman walk into court, extremely confident. would think walking into court, a judge would take pity on you if you're like,
feeling like you're a little scared and you have that body language, but you would hope that, but it's complete opposite. think the family law system is completely broken. They don't typically take pity on you. It's much better if you walk in bad-ass, strong and confident. So you have me, I walk in, I make sure you're feeling good. I make sure you're dressed however you want to dress and you feel amazing. We've processed the trauma. I'll sit and glare at that guy for you. Nobody even knows who I am. So I can sit and kind of give him like the death stare. You don't have to look at him.
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One thing I always tell clients to do in their first time in court, which might be helpful for your listeners, is you're gonna go in. You're gonna feel scared. Do not look away from them. When they walk in, they are gonna meet your eyes because they're trying to intimidate you and show power. And their attorney is gonna do the same thing. So what you wanna do is hold your gaze on them until it's like really uncomfortable, that like socially a little uncomfortable because you glared at them too long and not like a smile gaze, like a deep stare.
look at them and look at their attorney and hold your gaze on them and it's you can feel the energy shift. It is amazing. So I highly recommend everyone try that if you are in court with an abuser. I love that. Yeah, I do love that. I've even sometimes have done that when I have run into my ex. I will just look at him and it's not a happy, nice look. It's just, but I will hold that gaze and it's like, yes, you're not going to intimidate me. It's amazing. It just shifts the whole, do you feel it? Like it shifts the energy.
And one time I actually did it and he walked in, turned around and walked out. So I was like, good for you. It was a restaurant. And I was like, good for you. You know, like I am so glad because I'm not going to feel uncomfortable anymore. When this first happened, I felt ashamed. I felt uncomfortable. I felt all these things. And then after lots of therapy and being with a partner that supported me and being with support system that is an actual support system, I don't feel that anymore. And I'm just like, you know, you're you're a terrible person and I'm not going to be afraid of you.
No, because it just gives them more power and more control. And it's okay to be afraid. We can process that. But yeah, that just gives them more power. And the more power they have, it gives them the power to continue to do this to other people. So the more power we can take away from them, the better because you're just helping other women. agree. I agree 100%. So before we close, is there anything else you wanted to say? I would say you are going to be okay. If you are listening to this and you are in a relationship or thinking of leaving a relationship,
You are going to be okay. It is not easy. Often people go back up to seven times before they leave permanently. So if you've gone back and left and gone back and gone back, there's no shame in that at all. You will be okay when you leave. I promise you there's no rush and you have to do it in your own time and you have to do it when you're ready. But if you need help, you can reach out to either one of us and we will help you. We will give you advice and we will like walk beside you the entire way. You don't have to do it alone.
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Are you accepting new clients? Off and on, will do need to go on a wait list, but I'm always accepting new clients. And it just depends sometimes on a case by case. Like if I'm talking to somebody and they know I'm going to be traveling to London every other week, then I know that maybe I do. Then I just evaluate, do I have time for that or do I not have time for that right now with the other pieces I have going on? But I'm always taking calls. I'm always taking clients. And how can people get in contact with you?
So they can reach out to me. My website is just www.lisahap.com. It's just happy, but without the Y at the end. I'm at LisaHapCoaching on Instagram, or you can just email me at Lisa at LisaHap.com. Okay. So those are three different ways, Instagram, your website, or just email you at LisaHap.com. Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. It's so informative and it very empowering to talk to you. So thank you.
And I'm so proud of you for getting out and leaving and being happy and healing now.
