Tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine. Secret Life is a weekly podcast hosted by Brianne Davis — author, recovery coach, and creator of The Fantasy Loop™ framework.
With 16+ years of personal recovery from sex and love addiction, Brianne goes deep every Monday on one subject: toxic relationships, emotional addiction, codependency, limerence, trauma bonding, narcissistic dynamics, identity, and the patterns keeping you stuck in cycles you can't break.
300+ episodes. Raw, honest, and never sanitized.
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This week on the Secret Life Podcast, host Brianne Davis-Gantt takes a deep dive into the often misunderstood world of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). She breaks down the complexities of this chronic personality disorder, which is characterized by emotional regulation difficulties, fear of abandonment, and turbulent relationships. With a focus on the four distinct types of BPD—quiet, impulsive, petulant, and self-destructive—Brianne sheds light on how these variations manifest in behavior and emotional responses.
Listeners will gain insight into the signs and symptoms of BPD, including intense mood swings, self-harm tendencies, and struggles with self-identity. Brianne emphasizes the importance of understanding that BPD is not a life sentence but a treatable condition that requires ongoing work and coping strategies. She shares valuable techniques for managing symptoms, such as developing self-awareness, utilizing mindfulness practices, and establishing healthy relationships.
This episode is an empowering reminder that healing from BPD is a journey that involves facing trauma, learning emotional regulation, and cultivating self-love. Tune in to discover how to navigate the challenges of BPD and reclaim your life with resilience and hope.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com
Donate - You can also support the show with a one-time or monthly donation via PayPal (make payment to secretlifepodcast@icloud.com) or at our WEBSITE.
Connect with Brianne Davis-Gantt (@thebriannedavis)
What happens when you know you should feel something but just... don't? In this enlightening episode of the Secret Life Podcast, host Brianne Davis-Gantt uncovers the often-overlooked phenomenon of emotional blunting. Brianne shares her personal journey of discovery surrounding this term, revealing the symptoms that include a lack of emotional reactions, mental fog, and feelings of disconnection from others.
Through candid discussions, she explores how emotional blunting can stem from trauma, prolonged use of antidepressants, and various mental health disorders. Brianne highlights the importance of recognizing these signs and understanding that emotional blunting is not merely a personal failing, but rather a symptom of deeper issues that can be addressed and healed.
Listeners will gain valuable insights into the impact of emotional blunting on relationships and daily life, as well as practical advice on how to reconnect with their feelings and reclaim their emotional well-being. This episode serves as a reminder that it is possible to navigate through the darkness and rediscover the beauty of life’s emotional spectrum.
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If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com
addiction recovery, mental health, alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, love addiction, OCD, ADHD, dyslexia, eating disorders, debt & money issues, anorexia, depression, shoplifting, molestation, sexual assault, trauma, relationships, self-love, friendships, community, secrets, self-care, courage, freedom, and happiness.
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Limerence: An Involuntary Obsession with Another Person
Episode 206
Monday, December 23, 2024 • Duration 16:52
Are you caught in the throes of what feels like love at first sight? You might be experiencing limerence, a powerful emotional state that can mimic true love. In our latest podcast episode, we dive deep into the world of limerence, exploring its addictive nature and how it differs from genuine love. Join Brannne Davis-Gantt as she shares her personal journey and offers insights into breaking free from this cycle. Discover the signs of limerence and learn how to cultivate real, lasting connections. Tune in now for an enlightening discussion that could change your perspective on love.
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If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com
Get your copy of SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD SEX & LOVE ADDICT -- Secret Life Novel
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Bianca: I’m Addicted To Social Media
Episode 148
Monday, April 10, 2023 • Duration 26:40
Likes, Love, and Lipstick: The Ups and Downs of Social Media Addiction -- Brianne and Bianca dive into the world of social media and its impact on self-expression, addiction, and attention-seeking behavior. They offer valuable insights into the authenticity of social media, the harm it can have on mental health, and the obsession with external image. With a focus on being true to oneself, the hosts provide valuable advice to younger generations on how to use social media mindfully and not let it consume one's life. Join Bianca and Brianne in this insightful and serious conversation about the impact of social media on our society.
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If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com.
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To share your secret and be a guest on the show email secretlifepodcast@icloud.com
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SECRET LIFE’S TOPICS INCLUDE:
addiction recovery, mental health, alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, love addiction, OCD, ADHD, dyslexia, eating disorders, debt & money issues, anorexia, depression, shoplifting, molestation, sexual assault, trauma, relationships, self-love, friendships, community, secrets, self-care, courage, freedom, and happiness.
Get your copy of SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD SEX & LOVE ADDICT -- Secret Life Novel or on Amazon
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Michelle: I’m Still Trying To Protect My Abuser
Episode 147
Monday, April 3, 2023 • Duration 30:43
Michelle was determined to break the general trauma she suffered with an abusive father, and found herself unwittingly falling in love with someone so similar. Michelle's journey is similar for so many victims of abuse, the push and pull, the gas lighting and lies. Listen how Michelle pushed through to provide a better life for her daughters, even though she's still struggling to find her abuser at fault.
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If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com.
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To share your secret and be a guest on the show email secretlifepodcast@icloud.com
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SECRET LIFE’S TOPICS INCLUDE:
addiction recovery, mental health, alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, love addiction, OCD, ADHD, dyslexia, eating disorders, debt & money issues, anorexia, depression, shoplifting, molestation, sexual assault, trauma, relationships, self-love, friendships, community, secrets, self-care, courage, freedom, and happiness.
Get your copy of SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD SEX & LOVE ADDICT -- Secret Life Novel or on Amazon
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Cassie: Sexual Anorexia & Infertility - I Stoped Telling My Partners I Couldn’t Have Kids
Episode 146
Monday, March 27, 2023 • Duration 25:16
Cassie opens up about the difficult secret she kept from partners for years: her inability to have children due to abnormalities in her ovaries. Her story sheds light on the little-discussed issue of sexual anorexia and the impact it can have on individuals' emotional and sexual lives. Host, Brianne Davis encourages Cassie to seek help and put herself back out there. Through their honest and vulnerable conversation, the importance of honesty, connection, and seeking help is emphasized. This episode is a must-listen for anyone struggling with similar issues and seeking support and understanding.
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If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com.
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To share your secret and be a guest on the show email secretlifepodcast@icloud.com
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SECRET LIFE’S TOPICS INCLUDE:
addiction recovery, mental health, alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, love addiction, OCD, ADHD, dyslexia, eating disorders, debt & money issues, anorexia, depression, shoplifting, molestation, sexual assault, trauma, relationships, self-love, friendships, community, secrets, self-care, courage, freedom, and happiness.
Get your copy of SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD SEX & LOVE ADDICT -- Secret Life Novel or on Amazon
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Parker: I’m Recovering From an Eating Disorder, But There’s A Lot That’s Not Recovered
Episode 145
Monday, March 20, 2023 • Duration 23:19
Parker bravely shares her journey with an eating disorder that started at the age of six. She reveals how her struggle with controlling her body became intertwined with her identity, making it difficult to imagine life without it. With honesty and vulnerability, Parker unpacks her experience as an addict, comparing her behavior to that of a heroin addict. Her story sheds light on the complexities of eating disorders, the impact they have on a person's well-being, and the importance of seeking help and support. Tune in to this episode of the Secret Life Podcast to gain insight and understanding on this critical issue affecting millions worldwide.
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If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com.
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To share your secret and be a guest on the show email secretlifepodcast@icloud.com
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SECRET LIFE’S TOPICS INCLUDE:
addiction recovery, mental health, alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, love addiction, OCD, ADHD, dyslexia, eating disorders, debt & money issues, anorexia, depression, shoplifting, molestation, sexual assault, trauma, relationships, self-love, friendships, community, secrets, self-care, courage, freedom, and happiness.
Get your copy of SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD SEX & LOVE ADDICT -- Secret Life Novel or on
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Tess: I'm a Grateful Recovering Alcoholic
Episode 113
Monday, March 13, 2023 • Duration 26:28
Grateful recovering alcoholic Tess shares her journey to sobriety and the role of addiction in coping with chaos. With raw honesty, she delves into the underlying issues driving her drinking and how recovery programs like AA have been a source of support and relatability. Alongside Secret Life host, Brianne Davis-Gantt, they dive into the role of ego in human behavior and how recovery has shifted their focus from self-serving to being of service to others. This thought-provoking episode sheds light on the struggles of addiction and inspires listeners to attend meetings and hear other people's stories to find support in recovery.
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If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com.
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To share your secret and be a guest on the show email secretlifepodcast@icloud.com
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SECRET LIFE’S TOPICS INCLUDE:
addiction recovery, mental health, alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, love addiction, OCD, ADHD, dyslexia, eating disorders, debt & money issues, anorexia, depression, shoplifting, molestation, sexual assault, trauma, relationships, self-love, friendships, community, secrets, self-care, courage, freedom, and happiness.
Get your copy of SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD SEX & LOVE ADDICT -- Secret Life Novel or on Amazon
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Amelia: I Kept My Abuse As A Child & As An Adult A Secret For Years
Episode 143
Monday, March 6, 2023 • Duration 28:39
Have you ever wanted to share a secret but felt you couldn't? On the Secret Life Podcast, we explore the stories of people who have done just that and how their experience changed their lives. From hearing Brianne Davis talk about her journey in getting sober to listening to Amelia discuss her abusive relationship, we're here to make sure you know you're not alone. Tune in and start your journey to self-acceptance, connection, and freedom today.
*Trigger Warning: Please note that this episode contains the topic of suicide. Some people may find it disturbing.
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If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com.
______
To share your secret and be a guest on the show email secretlifepodcast@icloud.com
_____
SECRET LIFE’S TOPICS INCLUDE:
addiction recovery, mental health, alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, love addiction, OCD, ADHD, dyslexia, eating disorders, debt & money issues, anorexia, depression, shoplifting, molestation, sexual assault, trauma, relationships, self-love, friendships, community, secrets, self-care, courage, freedom, and happiness.
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To find more about Amelia, head over to https://selflovestory.com
Get your copy of SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD SEX & LOVE ADDICT --
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Alexandra: I Suffered Verbal Abuse in My Marriage
Episode 142
Monday, February 27, 2023 • Duration 36:32
Alexandra and Brianne explore the hidden epidemic of verbal abuse. Hear Alexandra’s story of marriage, trauma, and recovery. Gain insight into how to identify and escape verbal abuse. Learn ways to process the experience and regain joy. From understanding the danger of verbal abuse to setting healthy boundaries, this podcast offers a necessary and empowering journey of healing.
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If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com.
______
To share your secret and be a guest on the show email secretlifepodcast@icloud.com
_____
SECRET LIFE’S TOPICS INCLUDE:
addiction recovery, mental health, alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, love addiction, OCD, ADHD, dyslexia, eating disorders, debt & money issues, anorexia, depression, shoplifting, molestation, sexual assault, trauma, relationships, self-love, friendships, community, secrets, self-care, courage, freedom, and happiness.
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ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Alexandra Eva-May is a divorcee, podcast host, wellness warrior, mental health advocate, new mother, survivor of infertility, writer, blogger, motivational speaker and recently, a best-selling author of the book, Her Awakening. You can grab your copy on Amazon!
Donate - You can also support the show with a one-time or monthly donation via PayPal (make payment to secretlifepodcast@icloud.com) or at our WEBSITE.
Connect with Brianne Davis-Gantt (@thebriannedavis)
Donate - You can also support the show with a one-time or monthly donation via PayPal (make payment to secretlifepodcast@icloud.com) or at our WEBSITE.
Connect with Brianne Davis-Gantt (@thebriannedavis)
Donate - You can also support the show with a one-time or monthly donation via PayPal (make payment to secretlifepodcast@icloud.com) or at our WEBSITE.
Connect with Brianne Davis-Gantt (@thebriannedavis)
Donate - You can also support the show with a one-time or monthly donation via PayPal (make payment to secretlifepodcast@icloud.com) or at our WEBSITE.
Connect with Brianne Davis-Gantt (@thebriannedavis)
Donate - You can also support the show with a one-time or monthly donation via PayPal (make payment to secretlifepodcast@icloud.com) or at our WEBSITE.
Connect with Brianne Davis-Gantt (@thebriannedavis)
[0:00:00] Cassie: I took his hand and I said, okay, there's something I got to tell you. And I told him. I said, from an early age, I found out I couldn't have children, and I explained to him the details, and I want to spend a life with you. If you can't accept this, let's just go ahead and break up now. Shh.
[0:00:26] Brianne Davis: Welcome to the Secret Life Podcast. Tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine.
Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to reach the light. That's what I did. After twelve years of recovery in sex and love addiction, I finally found my soulmate myself. Please join me in my novel, secret Life of a Hollywood Sex and love Addict, a four time bestseller on Amazon. It's a brutal, honest, raw, gnarly ride, but hilarious at the same time. Check it out now on Amazon.
Welcome to Secret Life Podcast. I'm Brianne Davis-Gantt. Today, I'm pulling back the curtains of all kinds of human secret. We'll hear about what people are hiding from themselves or others. You know those deep, deep, dark secrets you probably want to take to your grave. Or those lighter, funnier, ha secrets you don't ever want to tell anybody. You know the how, what, when, where, and why of it all.
Today. My guest is Cassie. Now, Cassie, I have a question for you. What is your secret?
[0:01:43] Cassie: I stopped telling partners that I could not have children.
[0:01:48] Brianne Davis: Oh, so you stopped telling somebody you're with that you were unable to have kids?
[0:01:54] Cassie: Yes.
[0:01:55] Brianne Davis: Okay. Take me back, girl. Take me back.
[0:02:00] Cassie: This was 14 years ago. I was in a serious relationship. I was 24, and he was my first experience of everything. I was that goody two shoes girl, if you know what I mean.
[0:02:14] Brianne Davis: Goody two Southern girl.
[0:02:18] Cassie: That was me.
[0:02:19] Brianne Davis: Yeah.
[0:02:21] Cassie: Anyway, he took my virginity and I fell in love, and I thought for sure he was in love with me. So six months of us dating, I knew I had to tell him this because at an early age, I found out I could not have children. So I knew I had to tell him before he pulled out a ring and said and proposed because I thought it was going down into that. So six months into the relationship, we were driving home from visiting his parents, and I told him.
[0:02:56] Brianne Davis: What did you say? How did you say it? Do you remember?
[0:02:59] Cassie: This is how I said it. I took his hand and I said, okay, there's something I got to tell you. And I told him. I said, from an early age, I found out I couldn't have children. And I explained to him the details, and I said in the only way I said and the reason why I'm telling you this is I didn't want to take I knew this is where this was leading, and I want to spend a life with you. And if you can't accept this, let's just go ahead and break up now, because I want a partner that's going to be there, because this is going to be a fight. The only way I could have even fathom having a kid was IVF or adoption. I said, So if this is how you want to fight, if you want to be my partner and fight with me, we'll do this. And I'm trying to try not to cry.
[0:03:48] Brianne Davis: Talking about it. Don't cry. Cry, girl, cry, because I know the shoe is about to drop and I'm going to start crying.
[0:03:56] Cassie: Then he squeezed my hand, and all he said was, I know I don't want to break up with you. So I was like, okay, so maybe we're leaning somewhere good. And that's really all he said. In about ten minutes down the road and this is where your book comes into play with me, because this is where I felt like Roxanne. And he ten minutes, we're driving 1520 minutes down the road, he says, So this means I don't have to pull out anymore.
[0:04:28] Brianne Davis: No, he did not.
[0:04:32] Cassie: He did too.
[0:04:33] Brianne Davis: Oh, my God, that makes me so angry on so many levels.
[0:04:39] Cassie: Oh, my that ain't all. About a month or two down the road, he would take snippets because we stayed together a year and a half, and he would take little sniff. Oh, and that night yeah, that night, I felt like rock stand because I gave in. Yeah, I gave in. And just looking at the ceiling blades, and I just spinning.
[0:05:11] Brianne Davis: Disconnected.
[0:05:16] Cassie: And a month or two down the road, he would always make little snippet comments about adoption, and he would always say, well, adopted kids, they just are my gosh, it could turn out so bad. And again, that rock sand feeling. But this is what I think hurt the most, too. It's about a month or two down the road. He looked at me one day, and I remember I was cooking in his apartment, and he said, you know, if you did get pregnant, if it worked or you did get pregnant, you would look like an uncle. But again, what did I do?
[0:06:04] Brianne Davis: You stayed.
[0:06:06] Cassie: Oh, my God.
[0:06:08] Brianne Davis: What is he like, trying to torture you? Like you've already shown your heart? As a woman, not being able to reproduce is already difficult. And then on top of it, he's like, it's just crazy. Sometimes, as humans do to each other, it is.
[0:06:27] Cassie: But yet when he finally broke it off with me, because he moved and transferred, and God did for you what.
[0:06:37] Brianne Davis: You couldn't do for yourself, girl.
[0:06:39] Cassie: Exactly. But I still could not let go. We still saw each other. I had an aunt that she's passed now, but she was like a little bit of an enabler, and she was like, Just go and scene. Go and sing. Because my deal with her was, as long as you told me you're driving somewhere to go see as long as you tell me where you're at and then when you get back. And so I remember calling her and saying, I'm going. And she said, well, just call me when you get back. Anyway, I'm telling you, I don't know why I did it. I guess because he was my first.
[0:07:30] Brianne Davis: For so many reasons. I always think it's something in us feels broken and we feel like someone else is going to fix it. And especially when that person that we love is unavailable, we want to convince them to become available for us. But I do want to take you back a little bit further. I did have a question I wanted to ask. When you were younger, what you found out why you couldn't have kids. Can you share that or you don't want to share that?
[0:08:00] Cassie: Yeah, I'll share that. So when I was born, as my family says about me, I'm the persevere, is what they say.
[0:08:14] Brianne Davis: Okay.
[0:08:16] Cassie: So when I was born, there was abnormalities in my ovaries, so they had to take them when I was a baby, okay? So it's kind of like straight from going from mom to this. So when I was 1110, 1112 years old, and this is my fault because I'm such a strong person, I'm there for everybody else. I'm the one that everybody leans on, or I feel that way. So when I was ten or eleven years old, my mom told me I just didn't want to talk about it. I didn't know what to do, what to say, so I never discussed it again.
[0:09:01] Brianne Davis: Right. And how can you comprehend that at such a young age? I wouldn't be able to comprehend that I had endometriosis or a huge fibroid at the age of eleven. You know what I mean? We don't understand. So I get it.
[0:09:14] Cassie: Right? My mom, too, love her to death. She's a rock for me. That was some things we just didn't discuss in our family. There's things you just don't discuss.
[0:09:31] Brianne Davis: No, I get it. Why can't we discuss female hormonal issues with our mothers, but that generation doesn't discuss that stuff. I get it.
[0:09:43] Cassie: No, that's where it started.
[0:09:50] Brianne Davis: Did she ever say anything that made it worse? I know parents do the best they can, but was there anything ever where it just reiterated.
[0:10:03] Cassie: The only thing? Because when I was contemplating finally telling him, I went to her and this is what I said, because I had discussed it with two of my best friends, okay? And they were like, you need to and my mom is the type of, no, you wait till you have a ring. And I'm like, no, because that would be in my mind, that was accepting it on false pretenses, right? Because he didn't know the whole story. So she was like, she was like, I see what you're saying. If this is what's leading in your heart to do it. I said, because I didn't want to lie to him. You know what I mean?
[0:10:40] Brianne Davis: Yeah.
[0:10:41] Cassie: And so I let out my most vulnerable. And that's what scares me to get close to another guy is because I let out my most vulnerable.
[0:10:54] Brianne Davis: Yeah. And your biggest fear that telling this, then you would be rejected. And it seems like he dragged it on and also at the same time was rejecting you little by little, it sounds like.
[0:11:07] Cassie: Right.
[0:11:08] Brianne Davis: So then you moved on and you didn't tell another soul.
[0:11:13] Cassie: I moved on, didn't tell another guy ever dated. I went on a wild streak.
[0:11:23] Brianne Davis: Oh, so you rock sand it.
[0:11:29] Cassie: I went on a wild streak. I met a friend, like Roxanne Hat, and we met at a gym and had the same trainer and so I rock sanded.
[0:11:44] Brianne Davis: Okay.
[0:11:45] Cassie: It was a bar every weekend. And I was just like, well, I'm not going to be a wife. This moping ain't going to work out.
[0:11:55] Brianne Davis: Yeah.
[0:11:56] Cassie: So I'm going to just break it open. And so that's what I did. And I met another guy who was my other experience.
[0:12:08] Brianne Davis: Okay.
[0:12:12] Cassie: He was like, to explain him was like a cover off of romance novel. Okay. He looked that good. And so I was like, oh, my gosh. I felt like I had power. You get what I'm saying?
[0:12:30] Brianne Davis: Please. Do I get what you're saying? Please. We know. I got what we were saying.
[0:12:36] Cassie: I felt like I had taught two. I would walk into a bar and I would look at my friends and I'm like, I'm kissing that guy by the end of the night, let's play bed sound. And I would be kissing that guy at the end of the night. But this guy, I'll never forget it. And I don't know, it was just like that how you wrote in your book. When you feel that much strong social connection, run away. Not me. Okay. And we talked a little while and then my grandmother was really sick and she was on her deathbed and I was out of town working, and he came and saw me, and I just wanted comfort. And he came that night and it all went down and he got up and left. I felt like the walk of shame the next morning when people at work and one of my friends was doing brown chicken, brown cow, I was like, hate you right now. But anyway, I ended up getting ghosted after that from him. That was it?
[0:13:51] Brianne Davis: Yeah. Can I ask if you allowed him to? Did you have a condom on? Is that an inappropriate question, Brianne? Probably.
[0:14:04] Cassie: No. Either time. No with my first and no with my second, which was stupid.
[0:14:10] Brianne Davis: Okay. Yes. We are not smart sometimes in our decision making. We get that. Okay, so you then get ghosted, which is horrible. People should never ghost anybody. And then you kept just not telling people that you got involved.
[0:14:25] Cassie: Just not told that I dated another guy for six months. Not too long after that, broke it off with him, never told him. And then finally after the dating, just quit. What do you mean it quit?
[0:14:38] Brianne Davis: You just life said I'm done.
[0:14:41] Cassie: I didn't want to date. I would go out here and there and I just could not get close.
[0:14:47] Brianne Davis: You turn sexual anorexic, then you just shut it down.
[0:14:51] Cassie: I shut it down?
[0:14:52] Brianne Davis: Yeah. Nobody talks about that. Your emotions and your body just shuts down because of all the damage or trauma and stuff and rejection and abandonment. You just shut that part of you off and it's called sexual anorexia. And nobody talks about it.
[0:15:10] Cassie: Nobody talks about it. And here I am 1213 years later and I'm like, wow, are you still.
[0:15:17] Brianne Davis: Shut down right now?
[0:15:18] Cassie: Oh, yeah.
[0:15:20] Brianne Davis: I didn't know that. You have not dated for twelve years.
[0:15:25] Cassie: I have not dated anybody serious or had a serious relationship. Yes.
[0:15:31] Brianne Davis: Right.
[0:15:31] Cassie: I have not been intimate with a guy for twelve to 13 years and I have not told him that. And it's probably saddened me to say this, I am talking to someone, but it's like I feel like I'm a damaged good.
[0:15:45] Brianne Davis: I know, I get it. I felt like that when I turned sexual anorexic and shut down like that. I felt like I was damaged and something was wrong with me. I totally know that feeling.
[0:15:58] Cassie: And so part of me is always going to feel inadequate because I can't do the one thing that the main thing a woman was created for.
[0:16:09] Brianne Davis: Right.
[0:16:09] Cassie: And you're just like.
[0:16:12] Brianne Davis: But here's the thing. So many women are going through that now. You're not alone. I know. So many women that have had to do IVF five times and still haven't. So you are not alone. But when we're going through it or we feel life, we're not doing what women are supposed to do that we're broken. And that's not true. Just so you know, you are not alone.
[0:16:35] Cassie: Right. And trust me, there have been nights, especially when he broke up with me. I mean, I would just cry myself to sleep. And finally I have a piece. I feel like I'm getting a piece, but I know that I still have work.
[0:16:53] Brianne Davis: Well yeah, I mean you definitely have work if you're still stuck in that sexual anorexia. That's the hardest part. To get out of the acting out over sexual and doing all that. It's easy, easier. But to get out of the cycle of sexual anorexia is brutal. It's brutal. So how are you going to put yourself out there? Because you deserve love, girl. You deserve it.
[0:17:25] Cassie: Well, thank you, I guess. I don't know, other than like you told me before the meetings. Go to a meeting.
[0:17:40] Brianne Davis: Yeah, there's a great sexual anorexia meeting on Tuesdays, just so you know, in Los Angeles at 07:30 p.m.. Really? Yeah. It's an amazing meeting. If you're out there and you find yourself shut down. There's an amazing meeting. You can reach out to me. I will give you the information. But this is something that is so difficult to get out of, to put yourself back out there, to step into that unknown.
[0:18:07] Cassie: It is an unknown. And you kind of almost feel like you're in a rut. And I throw my life into work and family and friends, and I'm that's what I do. And I'm that friend. I worry about everybody else but me.
[0:18:25] Brianne Davis: Yeah. Normally that is what happens.
[0:18:31] Cassie: And I'm that friend that will run over right away. And sometimes you got to take care of yourself to take care of others, and I don't do it.
[0:18:46] Brianne Davis: Well, here's an idea. Is there anybody in your life right now that you could call and say, I need help getting back out there, and they can sit with you and talk to you and maybe enter on one of those dating apps or go with you out and start putting yourself back out there? Because, yes, rejection and abandonment is going to happen. But when we shut down emotionally and sexually, we're denying ourselves a part of life.
[0:19:15] Cassie: Right. And there might be sometimes you just.
[0:19:21] Brianne Davis: Got to mention it to one person in your life. Like, I'm struggling.
[0:19:24] Cassie: Yeah. And I think there is that. Most of my friends are married with kids and they do their own life. You're like, I don't want to bug them about it, but I think I have a friend.
[0:19:38] Brianne Davis: Yeah, but here's the thing. Those married people probably are struggling just as much as you are with sexual anorexia. I know a lot of married couples that get stagnant, so maybe you mentioning it to somebody that you think wouldn't have that problem, probably is going through something similar.
[0:19:57] Cassie: Yeah. In the small town I life in, there are things you just don't talk about. Gossip will start.
[0:20:07] Brianne Davis: But there's something about you telling your truth that then helps other people tell their truth.
[0:20:14] Cassie: Right. It brings it out. Yeah.
[0:20:16] Brianne Davis: It brings that darkness out because you're drowning in darkness.
[0:20:20] Cassie: Right. And I have been really talking to a friend that is single. She's a little bit older than me, and she has been through everything with me with this. All these years ago, I confided in her. She was the phone call I made to say, hey, this is what I'm telling him. And so if there was anyone, it would probably be her.
[0:20:48] Brianne Davis: You got to get back out there. Promise me you'll come to one of the anorexia meetings. I'll be in the room with you. I will be in the room with you. I will give you the information because it is not a place to live. I know people that have gone 20 years without having a partnership and living alone, and I just don't think that's good for anybody's psyche.
[0:21:11] Cassie: No. Because we were built for relationship yeah.
[0:21:14] Brianne Davis: And connection.
[0:21:16] Cassie: We were definitely built for it. And that's a huge reason why I'm talking today. Yeah.
[0:21:24] Brianne Davis: I'm so grateful you reached out to me and you're willing to come forward. And I had no idea, though, that you've gone that way. I thought you got on the other side, but you being still in it, I would be honored to help you get out of it.
[0:21:41] Cassie: Thank you. It would be great to have that. It would be great to have somebody like that. Definitely.
[0:21:47] Brianne Davis: Well, let me ask you this question before we go. If anybody out there is going through the same thing you're going through, heartbreak, disappointment, even fertility issues, what would be your advice for them? Even though you're still in it? Is there anything you can help someone else with?
[0:22:05] Cassie: My advice would be don't do what I did.
[0:22:08] Brianne Davis: Don't shut down.
[0:22:09] Cassie: Don't shut down. Don't shut down. Don't act a fool like I did and do stupid things. Find the right people to be around. Don't make a mistake and get that crazy friend that throws you into it.
[0:22:29] Brianne Davis: Right.
[0:22:29] Cassie: And get a friend who's going to help you and lift you up. And that's the main thing. If I would have to say the takeaway and yes, and don't shut down.
[0:22:41] Brianne Davis: Don't shut down because it's so hard to dig your way out of it. I still struggle with intimacy. I still do. After almost twelve years of recovery, it's still difficult for me to attach my feelings and my sexuality and intimacy. So I get it. And once you go down that hole and you shut down, it's so hard to put yourself back out there again. So that would be my advice. Don't shut down. Like lean into not shutting down as much as you can fight through it. If you can fight through it, fight like you're like fighting a dragon. Because that's what it is. It's literally like a dragon.
[0:23:18] Cassie: It is. And you don't realize it before you know it because I think age, the older I got too, it just was like it just crept up because age too. Yeah.
[0:23:34] Brianne Davis: The year goes by and you're like, whoa. A year just went by? The time you're like five years. And then you're like, oh well. And then you're like seven years and eight years. I get it. So we are going to dig you out of this anorexia once and for all so that you can connect and be a whole person and give yourself to somebody else and feel loved. Because that's what it's about, right?
[0:24:01] Cassie: It is. It's about that. Like I said, I'm never comfortable I'm hardly the comfortable one sharing things because I'm always the one that I'm the shoulder you cry on. I don't cry on your shoulder.
[0:24:16] Brianne Davis: Well, now you do. Now you're going to wear that mask. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing this. I feel like it's going to help so many people because this is something definitely nobody talks about. So I'm beyond grateful that you told me all of this.
[0:24:35] Cassie: Well, thank you. And thank you for letting me talk.
[0:24:40] Brianne Davis: Well, if you want to be on the show, please email me at secretlifepodcast@icloud.com. Until next time.
[0:24:51] Cassie: Bye.
[0:24:52] Brianne Davis: Thanks again for listening to the show. Please subscribe rate share or send me a note at secretlifepodcast.com. If you'd like to check out my book, head over to SecretLifelifeNovel.com or Amazon to pick up a copy for yourself or someone you love. Thanks again. See you soon.
Donate - You can also support the show with a one-time or monthly donation via PayPal (make payment to secretlifepodcast@icloud.com) or at our WEBSITE.
Connect with Brianne Davis-Gantt (@thebriannedavis)
[0:00:00] Parker: So I eat these Quest bars, you know, and sometimes it's like, that'll be pretty much all I eat in a day. And then while I do it, I get on Instagram and I go to like, Search, and then it's just food. And I watch layer cakes, cupcakes, donuts, pizza. And then I'm just thinking about the binge. Just like thinking about it.
[0:00:24] Parker: Shh. Shh.
[0:00:26] Brianne: Welcome to the Secret Life Podcast. Tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine. Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to reach the light. That's what I did. After twelve years of recovery in sex and love addiction, I finally found my soulmate myself. Please join me in my novel, secret Life of a Hollywood sex and love Addict. A four time bestseller on Amazon. It's a brutal, honest, raw, gnarly ride, but hilarious at the same time. Check it out now on Amazon. Welcome to Secret Life Podcast. I'm brienne. Davis.
[0:01:07] Parker: Gantt.
[0:01:07] Brianne: Today, I'm pulling back the curtains of all kinds of human secrets. We'll hear about what people are hiding from themselves or others. You know, those deep, dark secrets you probably want to take to your grave.
[0:01:16] Parker: Or those lighter, funnier secrets that are just plain embarrassing. Really, the how, what, when, where, and why of it all. Today. My guest is Parker. Parker, I have a question for you. Dun dun dun. What is your secret?
[0:01:33] Parker: My secret is that I have an eating disorder. And I know that sounds like, yes, you and everyone else on the planet. And it's not so much that no one knows that I have eating disorders, but the secret is more, that all this shit that I'm still doing, because my story is that I'm recovered. But the truth is, there's a lot that's not recovered.
[0:02:00] Parker: So when did this secret first start? When did you start going through those eating disorder situation when you were younger?
[0:02:09] Parker: Well, okay, so I starved for the first time when I was six, and that wasn't necessary. And that wasn't necessarily about wanting to be thin. That didn't happen until nine. But six was more. My mom was mentally ill and she had my baby sister at home. And I really felt unsafe with them being at home by themselves. I was like, she can't do it. I need to be there. So I was in first grade and I realized, oh, if I don't eat my lunch, I will start to feel really sick, like I have the flu. And then I can go to the principal. I can go to the principal's office and say I feel sick and I can go home. And then I can make sure that my mom and my sister are okay. So that was sort of the first time that used the tool of starving to serve me. And then a couple of years later, I remember being in the car with my mom and seeing this girl jogging, and she was like, really tan. I'm really not tan.
[0:03:10] Parker: And she had thighs that were thin but also very muscly and very defined. And my thighs are just creamy white and they're just soft. And I just remember looking at her thighs and then looking down at my spreading thigh life spread over the car seat. And I was like, no, this is not acceptable. And honestly, I'm in my still feel the same way about my thighs.
[0:03:39] Parker: Did anybody say anything ever about your thighs? Or is it just something you have always felt?
[0:03:46] Parker: It's more just something I've always felt. I was an early bloomer, so I've never been overweight. But I was definitely big. I was like one of the tallest kids. And I had big feet. And I had a lot of girlfriends who were like little, and they were like a size one. And I wore like a size nine. So I always felt very big in space. And also my mom is obese, and she's been obese my whole life. So just having that as a woman and a girl having and she hates her body life. I never saw her naked. Like so much shame. Doesn't want her picture taken. So I think I got a lot of that hardwiring of just like even though I know intellectually that I am not big, I feel big. And a lot of times too, that's what I see.
[0:04:37] Parker: So it's life, even to this day. I'll say crazy shit to my husband, and he'll be like, I'll see someone and I'll be like, do my legs look like hers? And he's like, honey, you're like half the size of that. But I literally don't see it. I'm not trying to be an asshole. That's not what I see.
[0:04:52] Parker: No. I have had an eating disorder too, so I complete in high school. So I remember until I got so thin. And everybody used to tell me how great I looked. And so I got a little thinner. And then it wasn't so good looking anymore. And people started telling me that, and I would just think they were jealous or something. But I remember specifically someone took a picture of me, and I saw the picture, and I saw what they saw. And my eyes didn't see the same thing. It's life, this distortion or something.
[0:05:29] Parker: Yeah. And honestly, that's part of my disorder too. And that's something that's still a thing. Because it's like I'll look in and I have this weird thing. Like, if it's a new mirror, somehow magically, it's like a thin mirror. So I'll go to Cheesecake Factory and I'll be like, damn, bitch. All right, we're getting cake. But then if I'm home and it's my regular old mirror, I'm like, no. Oh, boy. Now what are we going to do? Get out the sweats, cover it up. And I forget where I was going with that.
[0:05:59] Parker: But it's okay because I have a question. You withheld food from yourself instead of life. Binging.
[0:06:07] Parker: Oh, no, I do that, too.
[0:06:09] Parker: So it was a combination of both.
[0:06:10] Parker: Yeah. It's a lot of control and over exercising life. I never actually threw up, but I think one of the tricky things and how I can still carry it today is I'm very good at looking like I have my shit together. I was never £80. I was never £800. I would go to twelve step meetings that are about I've gone to food programs for years and I did all the stuff and I read all the books and I had a sponsor and I sponsored, and the entire time I was lying. Like, not all the time. Not about everything.
[0:06:48] Brianne: Like what?
[0:06:49] Parker: Give me some examples.
[0:06:51] Parker: Okay, so in these programs, they talk about being abstinent and sometimes, and that just means life. It's individual, it's whatever that thing is for you. For some people, it's no sugar. For some people, it's no binging. For some people, it's three meals a day with nothing in between. And I mean, it's been so long, I can't even tell you what my abstinence was. That it's like, I would have it and then I would lose it and I wouldn't say anything. And part of it was because I was getting away with it. And I would go to these meetings and people would say things to me like, what are you doing? Because I looked normal. I was like a size. I wasn't big, I wasn't small. And so to them, they would look to me like I had the answer. And the whole time I'm thinking like, this is a life. And that's tied into the anorexia too, right?
[0:07:37] Parker: Because it's life. Even when you are teeny tiny, and even in that microsecond that you might actually be feeling it too, your head's going, you're a fucking liar. This is a fucking sham. Do you know how fucking hungry I am right now? And I'm doing all this so I can look like this for you and I can't even own it because it's not even real. Because I know the moment I eat a pizza or eat a sandwich, it's all done anyways. It's just giant illusion. Yeah.
[0:08:06] Parker: And for me, it was all just about the one thing. I can control life. I can control my body. No one can stop me from controlling it. And I remember my parents one time wanting me to drink a milkshake. And I was life. I am not drinking a milkshake. That's disgusting. Which today I'll drink a milkshake. I love a good milkshake, right? Anyways, and then if I drank the milkshake, I would then beat myself up about it in my head, right?
[0:08:34] Parker: Or be so afraid. And for me, I think part of why I still do what I do and I want to get into what I do.
[0:08:43] Parker: Yes.
[0:08:43] Parker: Because it's gnarly. But a part of it is the disorders are so wrapped up into my identity that I'm literally like, I don't know who I would be without this. Every once in a while, I will dare myself to just dream about what if I had freedom from food obsession? What if I didn't spend? And these are the days that I'm not worrying about a job or my kid or my husband or somebody being sick or life the bigger stuff. If I don't have that stuff to obsess about, then this is where I go. The default is food. What did you eat? What didn't you eat? When can you eat again? Did you eat too much? I still track calories like a fucking weirdo on my calculator app and I'll go into the next day. So it's like you're 600 negative for Life Tuesday and it's Sunday. But I'll keep track of it because somehow in my head I'm like, I'm going to catch up.
[0:09:43] Parker: So is that some of the stuff you're still doing today?
[0:09:46] Parker: Yeah.
[0:09:47] Parker: That's the secret you're holding?
[0:09:48] Parker: Yeah. Well, I just want to backtrack, really. So I did all the lying within the program and I think part of a lot of times because I do believe eating disorders are an addiction. That's just what I believe and that's why I fully qualify as an addict is I never really hit a bottom. And so I actually ended up leaving my whole life and went back to my parents house. And coincidentally, my sister was living in my parents basement and she is a drug addict. And so she had just gotten back from rehab, she had no job, she had no car, like nothing. So she's hit her bottom. She's in the basement life doing her thing, and she was counting days. And so I would drive her to her A meetings, but then subsequently I'm one level above in the living room and something about the move, because this wasn't a conscious decision on my point on my part, like, I'm going to leave my life and kind of put myself in rehab. But that's kind of what happened. So I'm at my parents house. I have no job, I have no health insurance, I have no money. And I remember for six weeks I sat on my parents couch and I just ate, which I'd never let myself do before. It was like, I'm going to binge, but then I'm going to starve and then I'm going to go to the gym.
[0:11:12] Parker: And it was like this life and all these meds to the antidepressants that would make me speedy and they would make me be able to eat even more because it would raise up my metabolism. So then I'm taking the downers so I can go to sleep, but those aren't working. So then I'm driving to 711 at 03:00 A.m.. It was so crazy.
[0:11:30] Parker: Yeah. That's everything you just said a heroin addict could say and it would be the same exact description.
[0:11:39] Parker: Yeah. And I would be driving around on all those downers that were supposed to make me sleep. I'm driving my car, like going like, I need to get ice cream. So when I went home and I just ate and I remember I even like, I got a really expensive gym membership and I would like, go to the gym and I'd try to get on the elliptical. And I'd be like, no. And I would go back home and.
[0:12:03] Parker: Being on the elliptical.
[0:12:07] Parker: And I was like, the bitch. She was like 05:00 a.m in the middle of winter, like doing running her 5 miles because I wanted to be able to eat that day, right? I want to eat, but I had to earn it. So I went home and just sat on the couch and I hit a bottom. And it was like the best thing I could have ever done for myself. And so I did that. I just ate for probably like a good month and a half. And then one day I went on a weird internet date with some random guy and he took me to a Tori Amos concert. And I'm obsessed with her. And it was like I've seen her life so many times. And so I'm watching her and I've just had this moment. And I really believe this was life from God, like direct channel. I just looked at her performing and this voice said to me, do you see that greatness up there? You have that too, life. You have all that in you.
[0:13:01] Parker: And aren't you so tired of hating yourself? And literally in that moment, it was a gift. And I've never gone back to that same place. And so my secret that I'm sharing with you, because that's the story I tell. And it's true that I've never gone back to that place. But really, sometimes the only difference between that and now is that I don't judge myself in the same way. And I don't get scared that because if anyone's listening that has eating disorders, first of all, I love you. Second of all, for me, I had to create a life that I wanted to show up for. So that was the other difference. It was 2005. Like, I didn't like my job. I didn't life my apartment. I didn't like where I was living. I had sort of set up a life for myself that I didn't want to show up for. So it's like, of course you're going to and call in sick and life and do all the shit you were doing.
[0:14:06] Parker: And now today I have a life that I want to show up for. First of all, the level of fantasy. So I still binge there. There's my secret. I binge and I don't even know it's probably once every couple of months. And it's very secret. And the first crazy part is just the level of fantasy that I do. I mean, it's like when people talk about suicidal ideation, I feel like I do that with binging.
[0:14:41] Parker: If I'm feeling you plan your meals, what you're going to get. You go on Yelp and you look like, OOH, I'm going to go to that place and get that.
[0:14:48] Parker: Yeah, well, here's another thing this ties back. This is another disordered thing that I still do. So when I was really anorexic, I used to eat my diet yogurt with like the two tablespoons of grape nuts and I'd put a ton of salt in it because the salt would give it more flavor.
[0:15:03] Parker: That sounds so gross. I'm sure every listener is going, what?
[0:15:08] Parker: I ate everything with salt. I used to cut pears and dip them into kosher salt, like every bite. And I think it was just because my body wanted flavor so badly and it was like that was all that I would give to myself. So somehow that was maximizing it. So anyways, I would eat this diet yogurt and I would look at food magazines and I would look at Life ribeyes and baked potatoes and I would literally pretend that that's what I was eating while I was eating the same 90 calorie key lime pie bullshit nutrisweet yogurt. Right? So I still do that. So now today my thing is Quest bars. I'm obsessed with Quest bars. And this is part of my disordered eating too, is I get into these right now it's summer, so it's like it's all about salads and then winter it's all about soup. Yes, but I do this weird fucked up shit with my soup too. So it's like not even soup, it's kind of like stuffing. And I bake it with like egg whites because I want volume, I want to eat a lot. It's like whatever I'm eating, it has to be like a lot of it. I eat these Quest bars and sometimes that'll be pretty much all I eat in a day.
[0:16:23] Parker: But I have this ritual where I get the bars. It's always the same kind. It's always I eat the one first and the second 1 second. And then while I do it, I get on Instagram and I go to Search and then it's just food. And I watch layer cakes, cupcakes donuts, pizza and so. And then I'm just thinking about the binge. Just like thinking about it and planning it and it's very complicated because I want to do it where it's like I don't have to work that day, I don't have to work the next day. I need life two days to do it properly. Which is really hard when you're married and you have a kid. So it's like I'm trying to be like, don't you guys want to go on a camping trip without me? It feels like this is the one thing that I truly look forward to. Which how sad is that? Because of course, you know, I mean from I'm assuming you've binged before.
[0:17:18] Parker: Oh yeah.
[0:17:19] Parker: Okay. So you know. Right? So it's like the first whatever, probably ten minutes is kind of amazing. And then you're like, I feel sick.
[0:17:26] Parker: Yeah, it's life. The first couple of bites, and then the rest of it kind of I remember I used to want to eat it really fast so that my mind couldn't stop me, I guess, is what I remember a long time ago. But yeah, it was only those first couple of bites for me.
[0:17:46] Parker: And then you're like, it stops tasting good. It stops tasting good. And then your mouth starts to hurt, and then your stomach starts to hurt. And I'll literally go to, like, I feel like I'm going to throw up, and I don't throw up. It's like I just don't want to throwing up is not a thing for me. I keep it. Yeah, but it's just so interesting. It's like, what is that definitely when I'm mid binge or definitely when I'm in the after part when you just feel kind of comatose? One of the thoughts that always comes up for me is like, honey, you can take a break. There's this lead up when it's like, I've made the decision and I'm off to the races and it's happening. That it's like, in those moments, I don't see you could have just taken.
[0:18:38] Parker: A bath or just had one slice of the pizza or two or three and not enough.
[0:18:45] Parker: Right.
[0:18:46] Parker: Why do we always have to let.
[0:18:48] Parker: Yourself extreme or let yourself lay in bed and watch Netflix all day? Because that's what I'm doing. And that's really I don't want to say where all the pleasure comes from, but a lot of it, a lot of it is like, I want an excuse to lie in bed all day.
[0:19:01] Parker: But here's my other thing for you that I don't think we're hitting on, okay? There's something inside that just doesn't allow us or people or you to just be to be where you are, to be present. And instead, we eat, we instagram swipe, we compare and despair to other people to get out of ourselves. So my question for you, I'm just going to jump to how do you move forward?
[0:19:31] Parker: Okay?
[0:19:32] Parker: And my question for you, where's the pause button before you do those things? Before you put that whole pizza or layered cake? So where's that pause and go? Why? Because for me, the moments I go, why do I want to do this so bad right now? And why am I obsessively thinking about this thing? Something else deeper is going on. What is that? And for me, it's usually fear. It's usually sadness. It's usually all those abandonment sometimes, right. So for you, how do you move forward?
[0:20:15] Parker: Well, I know what works for me, and it's really simple. It's just reaching out. And I'm really lucky that I have a husband who is also a compulsive overeater. We actually met in the program, and it's really beautiful because I've seen him struggle. He's seen me struggle. And we have this really beautiful. Very like it's unsaid because we both understand to our core that there's nothing that you can say to that person in that moment when they're in their disease.
[0:20:47] Parker: Totally.
[0:20:49] Parker: But I've said to him many times, and he'll do it to me, too, I'll be like, I am done. I'm done eating for the day. Or I'll say, I want to binge and this is what I want to do. And then we just talk about it. And like, nine times out of ten, that pause is enough.
[0:21:07] Parker: And you just have to be good enough with that. There's no perfection. And we just do the best we can and we show up for our life. And I think that's lovely that you have a partner that you can have that communication with.
[0:21:22] Parker: Yeah, it's really special. It's really special because I feel like normies people that don't have eating disorders, like bless them, they don't get it.
[0:21:32] Parker: No, you can't get it. No, you can't get it. And people that have had eating disorders or still going through it, now, you are not alone. And the problem is you're probably going to have it the rest of your life. So you have to manage it or it will kill you. We don't think it's as deadly as drugs or alcohol or that kind of addiction, but it will kill you because you're taking your body through this thing that is not healthy.
[0:22:04] Parker: Yeah. And especially if you're like me, it's just it progresses. I've noticed the more I do it, the more it's like, I'm eating it faster, I'm doing it more. Because I didn't used to do that. I was the savor and I would savor it, and now I'm just like I can really see it's. Like, I just so badly want to numb out. I just want to numb out.
[0:22:29] Parker: Well, thank you for sharing your secret with us.
[0:22:32] Parker: You're welcome.
[0:22:33] Parker: Thank you for listening to Secret Life podcast. If you have a past secret that you've already gone through and you're on the other side, or a present secret you're still living with, please reach out to me and message me below or email me at secretlifepodcast@icloud.com. Thanks again. Until next time you.
[0:22:57] Brianne: Thanks again for listening to the show. Please subscribe rate share or send me a note@secretlifepodcast.com. And if you'd like to check out my book, head over to secretlifenovel.com or amazon to pick up a copy for yourself or someone you love. Thanks again. See you soon.
Donate - You can also support the show with a one-time or monthly donation via PayPal (make payment to secretlifepodcast@icloud.com) or at our WEBSITE.
Connect with Brianne Davis-Gantt (@thebriannedavis)
Secret Life Podcast - Ep 144 - Tess: I’m a Grateful Recovering Alcoholic
TRANSCRIPT
[0:00:00] Tess: Like, addiction, you know, life.
[0:00:01] Brianne Davis: What?
[0:00:02] Tess: Like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, Look, I don't I know you guys are like, a top rated place in the country, but you have no idea what you're doing. These are my exact words. I'm like, if I'm an addict or an alcoholic, and so is every other 23-year-old in La. Like, to write famous last words.
[0:00:21] Brianne Davis: Welcome to the Secret Life Podcast. Tell me your secret secret, I'll tell you mine.
Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to reach the light. That's what I did. After twelve years of recovery in sex and love addiction, I finally found my soulmate myself. Please join me in my novel, secret Life of a Hollywood Sex and Love Addict, a four time bestseller on Amazon. It's a brutal, honest, raw, gnarly ride, but hilarious at the same time. Check it out now on Amazon. Welcome to Secret Life Podcast. I'm Brianne Davis-Gantt. Today, I'm pulling back the curtains of all kinds of human secrets. We'll hear about what people are hiding from themselves and others. You know those deep, dark secrets you probably want to go to our grave with are those lighter, funnier secrets that are just plain embarrassing. Really, the how, what, when, where, and why of it all.
[0:01:25] Brianne Davis: Today guest is Tess. Now, Tess, I have a question for you. What is your secret?
[0:01:34] Tess: Hi, I'm Tess, and I am grateful for recovering alcoholic.
[0:01:39] Brianne Davis: Wow, I really liked that. That was very profession like. We were in a meeting.
[0:01:43] Tess: Thank you.
[0:01:46] Brianne Davis: Sometimes I have to say, when people used to say grateful and whatever their addiction was, I used to get annoyed with them.
[0:01:52] Tess: Oh, it's the worst at the beginning.
[0:01:54] Brianne Davis: When you don't understand, like, spare me. But I love it now. It's such yes, because I am a grateful, sex and love addict. And when I hear people say that, I'm like, OOH, that sounds gross, but it's a blessing. Do you find that 100%?
[0:02:11] Tess: I find that it's a blessing. It took me a little bit to get to that spot where I really did feel grateful and that it all happened kind of for a greater good, but definitely take some hard work to get to that place.
[0:02:24] Brianne Davis: So when did this problem start with you? With alcohol?
[0:02:28] Tess: Well, I'm 27 now. And you're a baby. I'm a baby. I'll have three years on October 13, which I'm really excited about. So I did get sober young, but I always hear in meetings, because we go to so many of them, that you kind of grow up in the rooms and either AA or NA or whatever program that you're in kind of teaches you how to live a sober, happy, healthy life. And I feel like sometimes we grow up and we don't learn those huge AHA moments, but I really feel like I have kind of grown up in this program.
[0:03:06] Brianne Davis: So when did the drinking start? For you? What age?
[0:03:10] Tess: I would say the first time I consciously remember drinking to life, what if I was upset or to numb? Kind of like that was 16, which I felt was kind of I don't want to say average. I mean, everyone's story is so different, but for me, it was 16, and then it really kind of took off next level when I was in college.
[0:03:30] Brianne Davis: So can you take us through that progression for you?
[0:03:34] Tess: Sure. I mean, growing up, my family is from Germany, and, you know, everything always looked kind of perfect from the outside. I was really good at making sure everything looked great.
[0:03:46] Brianne Davis: Life.
[0:03:46] Tess: I was good at school. I did all the extra curriculars. I have friends, I had a boyfriend, whatever it was, I always make sure it looks really pretty from the outside, and that's a really hard facade to keep up as things start kind of crumbling down beneath you. And I was in college when things kind of really started to spin out of control, and things really started to take it up a notch. So, yeah, that's kind of when I noticed that I had a really close friends of mine pulling me aside and say, hey, what's going on? This is getting out of hand.
[0:04:19] Brianne Davis: But what were those behaviors that they were noticing that was getting out of hand? Were you at parties? Would you just life?
[0:04:25] Tess: Yeah, I would be going out every single night, and I was always really good at making things look like I had it under control. Right. That's like the attic thing. No, I got it. It's all good. I got it. Don't worry about me. Everything's fine. And so I was really good at making it look like I had it under control until I didn't have it under control. So I would be going out every single night. I didn't think I was hurting anybody because it was like my own actions and my stuff. Right. That's the classic. I wasn't hurting anyone or doing anything, which is just so not true. So, yeah, I would say it took me about four years, and then I love to kind of escape.
[0:05:03] Tess: And if I was feeling a certain way on the inside, I had to find external validation and go out and have superficial friendships and superficial things to make me have that whole my stomach and in my heart feel complete. You know what I mean?
[0:05:20] Brianne Davis: Yeah, completely. Yes. So I love filling that void, that empty. I always say it's life, that empty part in your soul that we just keep filling it with attention, buying dresses, makeup, life, eating life. We just keep filling it. And it's insatiable. It never is full 100%. So do you feel like your pattern definitely was, like, out in clubs with superficial people? Life was that tied into it?
[0:05:52] Tess: All tied into it 100%. So that's part of the story. Right. And then I actually went to school in the south. I went to school in Dallas, and then I moved to La. Which then is just like the Super Bowls, kind of that kind of situation.
[0:06:05] Brianne Davis: And I really just come to La. It seems like we're just why we.
[0:06:11] Tess: Have such a great recovery program. They always say wherever there's high levels of addiction, there's great levels of recovery, which is true. Yeah.
[0:06:19] Brianne Davis: La is a breeding ground for that.
[0:06:22] Tess: That's so funny. Yeah. But I made my way to La. And I was there for eight months before I went to treatment, so that was a pretty fast descend, I would guess.
[0:06:31] Brianne Davis: So what was that bottom moment? There was a lot of things.
[0:06:39] Tess: I have a two part story. I went to treatment in January 2017, but I didn't necessarily go for addiction. I went for trauma, depression, and anxiety, because that, like, overwhelming. You know when you have that hole and it feels like it's eating up inside you? It was just getting so overwhelming.
[0:06:55] Brianne Davis: Yeah. Like a snake life. I wanted to peel my skin and crawl out of my skin.
[0:07:00] Tess: Exactly. So I just kind of felt like that, and it was kept growing and growing to the point where I just felt like if this is what life was like, I didn't want to do it anymore. I'm like, this isn't fun. This isn't a good time. I don't get the point. Life dark thoughts and things like that, but I was just like, I need help. The first time I voiced that, and that was eight months after La. But I still didn't think I was an addict or an alcoholic. I wasn't even going for that. That wasn't even crossed my mind. I was like, I just need to figure out how not to feel so shitty all the time. I didn't even think that drugs and alcohol were a correlation to that.
[0:07:37] Brianne Davis: Let me ask you a question, though. You said you just didn't want to be living anymore. Did you actually have suicidal thoughts or you just didn't want to be on this planet? Life, you were like, I'm kind of done.
[0:07:49] Tess: I just didn't get it. I was life so negative, and I just felt like everyone was always happy, had that friend or that happiness, and I was like, so I missed how to Be Happy 101 class. I missed a day of school or something because everyone seems to have figured it out but me. And so that's how I felt, but I didn't know that's. Just like the underlying any type of ism alcoholism or whatever, however they talk about it in meetings. That's kind of the thing of, like, am I not enough? I'm not good enough. Why does everyone have this but me? It's kind of all the same underlying system, right?
[0:08:21] Brianne Davis: Yeah, they all are the exact same.
[0:08:24] Tess: Yeah. So I went to treatment, but I just wanted to figure out not to be so miserable, you fill out those giant questionnaires when you get there. Like 40 pages, 50 pages of every question you could ever be asked. And I meet with the counselor for the first time, and he's like, okay, so we're going to put you on addiction track one. Like, addiction?
[0:08:43] Brianne Davis: What?
[0:08:44] Tess: What are you talking about? And I'm like, Look, I know you guys are, like, a top rated place in the country, but you have no idea what you're doing. These are my exact words if I'm an addict or an alcoholic, and so is every other 23 year old in La. To write famous last words.
[0:09:00] Brianne Davis: I love it. I love it when people come to my program and they're like, I don't have a problem. I just don't want to be with this person. Really? You're walking in the room, you kind of saying, you have a problem.
[0:09:11] Tess: So I had kind of no idea what it was all about, but I started learning a lot, right? Because whenever you're in a treatment program or somewhere for 30 days with no outside contact, all you do is you really get to focus on yourself and your issues and kind of like, what makes you tick. So I was really grateful for the opportunity. I was actually so excited to get to treatment because I remember I was like the drug driver that picks you up from the airport to take you to the center. I was like, don't take this the wrong way, but I've never seen someone so happy come here, right? He's like, all my people are kicking and screaming or upset. He just said, you just seem so happy. And I was life. Look, I know there's no way in the hell that I'm leaving this place worse off than when I came in, which was true. I learned so much, and it was incredible.
[0:09:55] Brianne Davis: Did you think it was that pink cloud moment? Did you have that where you're like, okay, this will be the answer? This will fix me?
[0:10:03] Tess: Yes, until treatment is a very protected area. And then they're like, well, you should do sober living. You should do aisle pieceway. Did all those things. And then I returned back to La. But then life started getting hard, and shit started happening, and life got really tough really quickly.
[0:10:19] Brianne Davis: I find that to be true. I find that the people that go to treatment and then there's always slips afterwards than if you just stay in where you are and then go to meetings, is it different? Exactly, because it's like taking you out of your it's safer in the treatment center, but then you have to come out and learn how to relive again in your life with these tools while you're still trying to go through this withdrawal and stuff. Am I right?
[0:10:50] Tess: Yeah. I was in treatment for 30 days, so I didn't have any withdrawals or anything at home. But then I went to sober living and did that I think for two weeks. And then I was like, look, my apartment is so close to here, I'm just going to stay there and I'll go to Iop and I'll do all the courses and that kind of stuff. So I did that until June. So that was February till June of more intensive therapy and stuff like that. But then life started getting really tough. I had a friend who died of a Fentanyl overdose at the end of June. He was like 23 years old. And that's when you're like, oh shit, this is real. This actually happens. And so that was a really hard thing to understand because it was someone so unassuming. You're like, oh, that person has it all together. They're doing great. You know what I mean?
[0:11:41] Brianne Davis: Yeah.
[0:11:42] Tess: And then that kind of was one of the reasons. And then I had two more instances. One where a really close friend of mine was also in the ICU because of drugs. And then the last one was I came home and my roommate was having some type of overdose from Xanax. And so I was like, if every single person in my life has been closest to me over the past, you know, ten months or so, however long it was, is like dying or nearly dead. Like, I just feel like I was dancing with the devil. And so like, that night after I went home from to my roommate and she was in the hospital, I was like, never again. I can't do this. Because I felt like I was next. So that was October 12, and then my sobriety date was October 13.
[0:12:30] Brianne Davis: Wow. What? So sad. But at the same time, that's such a God shot for you to like.
[0:12:38] Tess: Touch that God shot in your face.
[0:12:40] Brianne Davis: And it's like, this is going to be you next. Look at all these people around you and you have a chance to save yourself.
[0:12:46] Tess: And the beautiful part of that story is that both of those other two people are now sober as well.
[0:12:51] Brianne Davis: That makes me so nice.
[0:12:54] Tess: I know it's very full circle and it's very interesting, right?
[0:13:00] Brianne Davis: But here's a question that just hit me, and I don't know if you even know how to answer it, but you're younger than me. And I feel like I've been sober for eleven years now and sex and love addiction, but I feel like recently younger and younger people are coming into recovery programs. Twelve step and all that, because I feel like the younger generations are even more disconnected. Are you finding that true with your generation and everything going on?
[0:13:35] Tess: I don't know what it was like previously, obviously, but for right now there's definitely I'm not the only one. Look at it that way. There's definitely a lot of young women, cool women are meetings because I definitely go to women's meetings more. They're full people of all ages, young, older, the whole nine yards.
[0:13:56] Brianne Davis: Yeah, the gamut of people.
[0:13:58] Tess: Sure, there's everyone. But for me, I know getting sober was I had that hole, right? And I kept trying to fill it and nothing was ever filling it. And then when I started getting some clarity and some momentum about what was actually happening around me, the greatest shot that I have to live a life with someone that I'm proud of and I'm proud of who I am and the life of true happiness is to do it sober. And so I was really lucky that I got that revelation at a young point in life, because some people it takes a little bit longer and everyone has their own past and that's totally incredible. But for me, I was really fortunate that I picked it up very young.
[0:14:37] Brianne Davis: Yeah, I mean, my husband, which he talks about, but he got sober at 19.
[0:14:42] Tess: That's incredible.
[0:14:44] Brianne Davis: And he got sober at 19. But what I was talking about is life with the social media, everything being out there, all your personal stuff, this filter society we live in, where you put filters and you make it look perfect, I feel. And I'm getting the gist that more and more people are disconnected from their reality and living.
[0:15:08] Tess: I would agree, for sure. Which is why I love having these types of conversations. And it's interesting, right? Because I would think, what would it be like if I didn't have an outlet life? AA. Right? That's when you hear the really raw conversations, emotion, all the ups and the downs, life, you hear all of it. But if you don't have the privilege of having a program like that, where do you find that kind of support of that type of authenticity? I don't know. I feel like it would be difficult.
[0:15:36] Brianne Davis: I don't think it exists anywhere else, honestly, unless you're at a therapist office and you're sitting with a therapist. But a community where people come in and just tell all their shit and all their dirty laundry and they just put it out there and say, I am feeling empty and alone. I mean, where does people say that right now in society?
[0:15:57] Tess: I mean, 100% agree with you. I have no idea. That's why I think it's so amazing. And also just because this whole COVID quarantine shit that's been happening, it's been so wild. I have found that the people that have coped and dealt with it the best have been addicts or alcoholics or someone in a twelve step program because they know how to deal with chaos in some type of way.
[0:16:17] Brianne Davis: Yeah, and they turn it over when things are chaotic and we have no control. I mean, this whole situation sees that we have no control over anything in the world. Right?
[0:16:29] Tess: 100%.
[0:16:30] Brianne Davis: Or I always thought life, I make my path, I have control over all that stuff. And really we have no control. So it's like turn that over to God or your higher power or whatever you want to call it ASAP, because that's the only way exactly. You find serenity in peace life.
[0:16:49] Tess: I couldn't have said about it myself. I think people also being so willing to try to figure out a new solution in this time, like, okay, we can't go to physical meetings. We'll do zoom meetings, right? And now you can be anywhere, literally in your house, and connect to however many millions of meetings there are online right now, and just pop in and share your experience, strength, or hope with someone. And we figured it out, and we move forward. And I think that type of adaptability has been huge as well. My fiance is also in a program, and so I feel like every moment with him is a meeting, because that's what they always used to say, that it's just you need two people to have a meeting. That's all it is. It's true.
[0:17:24] Brianne Davis: I mean, my husband and I, our whole conversation almost every day is about, okay, can we turn that over? How are you feeling? You triggered me when you said this life. It's this whole other form of and it's so lovely to talk to you. I didn't know your fiance or you were engaged is also in a program. How is that as a couple? Can you explain to our listeners?
[0:17:47] Tess: It's beautiful. It's definitely a blessing because I feel like we both know how to properly communicate and not just say right, that you don't have your ups and downs and your fights and things of that nature. But I think we also met in treatment, so I'll preface that. But our stories definitely coincided on day one, and so we met in treatment, and I disconnected a little bit, and then kind of came full circle, and it's been pretty crazy. I mean, we both go to meetings. We both know what we're supposed to do. We have conversations, we talk about triggered if our feelings are hurt. We use eye statements. We don't try to blame. Not to say that it doesn't get into that we don't have fights and things like that, but it's definitely much more. I feel manageable, and I feel like you feel like you're on the same team. Does that make sense?
[0:18:38] Brianne Davis: Yeah, it's like you understand, you know.
[0:18:41] Tess: A partner, you know exactly what everyone's hearing. We're hearing the same message, and we try to live our life that way, which is amazing, because I feel like wherever our home is, it's so peaceful and serene. You can get to that point because, you know, everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing. Does that make sense?
[0:18:59] Brianne Davis: Right? And I also sometimes if we're having a conversation and we can't work it out, one of us are mostly him, we'll be like, I think you should call your sponsor, which I hate hearing that. I'm like, don't tell me to call my sponsor.
[0:19:14] Tess: It's so funny, but so true, because it's a thing.
[0:19:17] Brianne Davis: It's a thing. Don't tell me who to call. Or maybe don't take my inventory.
[0:19:22] Tess: Yeah, exactly. Don't take my inventory. But that's the best.
[0:19:26] Brianne Davis: Oh, my God. I remember we had that life a month ago, and I was like, don't tell me to call my sponsor. And then I was like, Damn, I need to call my sponsor.
[0:19:36] Tess: But more than 99% of the time, essentially, they're right. You're like, yeah, I definitely need to check in. But I was at a dinner the other night, and we were with another couple, and they were talking about how kind of like your partner is almost like your guru. Right. And just bear with me. That is kind of like they teach you things that you still need to learn and understand about yourself. And it's like, okay, if I am looking at this through a way of patience, I definitely need to be more understanding or see it through a different perspective. And so they challenge, I think, the parts of you that still need to be challenged to grow. So that's been the best for me.
[0:20:09] Brianne Davis: Yeah, I definitely think you pick someone that can trigger those things that you still need to look at, and it's your choice to lean in and do the work and take risks.
[0:20:19] Tess: Exactly.
[0:20:20] Brianne Davis: Because I believe if you don't work it out with a healthy partner, that you're just going to be replaying those scenarios with the next person.
[0:20:30] Tess: Exactly. You're going to replay the same tapes until you figure out how it goes. Yeah, the ego. Ego is happening. There's so much ego and everything that we do as humans, it's like, what best serves me. It's all about me, the whole thing. And then for the first time in my life, when I went through treatment or recovery, it's not so much about me. How can I be of service to you? That's really all it's about. Right. And the whole reason the program exists is so we can pass what we know and help another alcoholic or addict in need.
[0:21:02] Brianne Davis: Well, that's why I do this podcast. Honestly, I'm only doing it to help others that don't have a voice and don't know how to get out of their ego because they're edging. The edging gods got out. Exactly. And just so you're listening, listeners, everything we're saying, if you would have said to me, like, ten years ago, I would have laughed in your face.
[0:21:24] Tess: You can tell that we both done some level of work, because it's very understanding that if you would have said this to me at 21, I've been like, what are you on?
[0:21:31] Brianne Davis: Yeah, life, get out of here. It's a cult.
[0:21:34] Tess: It's 100% I'm like, I don't relate to any of this.
[0:21:39] Brianne Davis: And my last question for you, and it's for the listeners especially a younger 23 year old. 22 year old, 21 year old is struggling with excessive alcohol in the lifestyle and all that you encountered what would be your advice for them if they are finding that whole finding that they don't really like themselves or they don't know what's wrong?
[0:22:03] Tess: Well, it's interesting, right? Because I never once thought that it could possibly be due to alcohol. I was life. I actually felt better when I was drinking, but then I'd be coming home, and I feel hungover the next day, right? And then I would feel worse. And it was just the spiral. Spiral. I kind of felt like, you know, life in Wonderland when she falls down the rabbit hole, I felt like I was always in that free fall. I remember drawing that when they say, draw a picture of Disney figure that you feel like your life relates to. And that's what I drew. I just felt like I was always falling down. And so sometimes I feel like if you've never been around a or things of that nature, you necessarily wouldn't know. Sometimes people are like, hey, I heard your story, or, you want to come to a meeting with me? I didn't have any friends that were in recovery, obviously, because your circle, you kind of are who your circle is, right? People I was hanging around weren't talking about a meetings.
[0:23:02] Tess: That wasn't my conversation. And so it wasn't until it was such a blessing for people to go to treatment, and I went for literally depression, trauma, and anxiety. And it was so funny because when you were there, you're like, hi, I'm Ted. I'm an alcoholic addict. I was literally there for everything but physical pain because I didn't have any broken bones or major surgeries. So I was in every single program, like addiction, alcoholism, trauma, depression, anxiety, all these different things. But I learned so much from learning. That is how I learned that it was really alcohol and my relationship to alcohol and my relationship to myself that drove me to drinking. That was what I needed to look at. And so I think for me, I was turning to using and drinking because I didn't do the work yet. You know what I mean? I wasn't exposed to doing the work, and I guess I wasn't ready to, otherwise it would have happened earlier, but I had no idea how much work it would take to learn how to that's the only thing that fills the hole is doing the work.
[0:24:09] Brianne Davis: Oh, yeah.
[0:24:11] Tess: It's the only thing. And when I started doing that, then I started feeling better, and I was like, okay, this is directly correlated 100%.
[0:24:22] Brianne Davis: I always say that work you do on yourself, that nobody can take it from you. Nothing on the outside can take it. If your fiance or my husband leaves me or anything. The work you do on yourself is yours and yours alone.
[0:24:37] Tess: 100%. It's yours and yours alone for forever. Yeah. And that is such a strong thing, I think, and the ability to stay sober through hard things and that just keeps adding to that, you know what I mean? Now, it's what I'm most proud of and it's what I hold probably nearest and dearest to me, in terms of someone who's young and thinking that they might be struggling with the same things, I would suggest life hopping on a meeting and seeing if that's the space where you relate the most. Because it wasn't until I started hearing other stories where I really was like, oh, that's me. I saw myself and other people, I heard similar stories and I was like, hey, it's not the same exact thing, but I can relate to you. I can relate to the same underlying feelings. And that's just why I think the program is so special and why it's so great and help so many people. Because we're all kind of the same but different.
[0:25:29] Brianne Davis: No, we're all the same. We all have fears of abandonment. We all want to be loved, we all want to feel worthy. And all those things is humans want to feel for sure. Well, thank you for coming on and sharing your story with us.
[0:25:42] Tess: It is just thank you so much. For having me and I'm so grateful. For you for doing I'm so grateful for having this and being able to share the story on your platform. So thank you so much for having me.
[0:25:53] Brianne Davis: And if you want to be on the show, please email me at SecretLifepodcast@icloud.com. Until next time!
Thanks again for listening to the show. Please subscribe, write, share or send me a note at secretlifepodcast.com. And if you like to check out my book, head over to secretlefenovel.com or Amazon to pick up a copy for yourself or someone you love. Thanks again. See you soon.
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Connect with Brianne Davis-Gantt (@thebriannedavis)
[0:00:00] Amelia: Like, I think of Secret as, like, these energetic rocks that you carry in your heart, and the more that you hold on to them, the heavier life gets.
[0:00:17] Brianne Davis: Welcome to the Secret Life Podcast. Tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine.
Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to reach the light. That's what I did. After twelve years of recovery in sex and love addiction, I finally found my soulmate myself. Please join me in my novel, Secret Life of a Hollywood Sex and Love Addict, a four time bestseller on Amazon. It's a brutal, honest, raw, gnarly ride, but hilarious at the same time. Check it out now on Amazon.
Welcome to Secret Life Podcast. I'm Brianne Davis-Gantt. Today I'm pulling back the curtains of all kinds of human secrets. We'll hear about what people are hiding from themselves or others. You know, those deep, dark secrets you probably want to take to your grave. Or those lighter, funnier secrets that are just plain embarrassing. Really, the how, what, when, where, and why of it all. Today, my guest is Amelia. Now, Amelia, I have a question for you. Dun dun dun. What is your secret?
[0:01:30] Amelia: I love the drum roll. Thanks. Actually, I'm really proud to say today that my secret is I have no secret. I know. No, it wasn't always that way, though. It's a big reason why I love what you're doing with this podcast, because I definitely was a woman of many, many secrets for a long, long time.
[0:01:58] Brianne Davis: Well, first of all, I have to give you a gold star for putting all your crap out there. But my question for you is, when did you decide to let go of all that package?
[0:02:12] Amelia: And Secret Life would have to say letting go. Like I said, I had many secrets for years.
[0:02:22] Brianne Davis: Can you tell us some of your old secret?
[0:02:25] Amelia: Yeah. One of them was that I was abused a lot when I was a little girl, and I didn't share that. It's not because I didn't want to necessarily. It's just because our culture had me believe that I was okay life, it didn't matter. And that, oh, well, it happened a long time ago, so I don't need to look at that and I don't need to talk about it. Clearly, that was wrong.
[0:02:56] Brianne Davis: Clearly that stays in your body. And when you experience any kind of abuse, if you don't go through it and figure it out, it stays with you. I mean, mine did, for sure, and.
[0:03:08] Amelia: I had no idea that that was the case at all. And other ones that are kind of like lighter and fun and squirmy is like when I start to have feelings for a friend and life, romantic feelings for a friend, and I just put that all out there too. Now I make it a point, really, to not hold on to any secrets. And the reason why I decided to do that and I started letting them go for the last ten years. Now it takes a while sometimes to start letting them all go because I really learned that holding onto secrets, it holds our power and it has me walk through life heavier and unable to really enjoy connections with people or even my success because there's always that thing weighing you down. I think of secrets as like these energetic rocks that you carry in your heart, and the more that you hold on to them, the heavier life gets. And so once I started letting them go and feeling the difference that life could be being lighter and having more joy and connection and intimacy, that's when I was like, you know what? No more secrets. I'm putting it all out there and I'm freeing myself. It's really about freeing myself and also in freeing other people too.
[0:04:33] Brianne Davis: What do you mean?
[0:04:34] Amelia: Well, because it's like when I share something that's personal to me and another person can relate to it, maybe they share it too, and it frees them. Or even just hearing that they're not alone. It frees 100%.
[0:04:51] Brianne Davis: I mean, that's why I wanted to do this podcast. You know, I let go of this really big secret and I thought the world was going to end and nothing happened. I was like, Wait, nobody really cares? Not that they didn't care, but nobody was like, oh, shame on you, you're a horrible person. And it just made me realize how freeing that felt and it connected me to other people so much more. And that's why I want to do that.
[0:05:21] Amelia: Absolutely.
[0:05:22] Brianne Davis: But I want to ask, do you remember one of the first big secrets you let go of? Where you felt that weight kind of lift?
[0:05:31] Amelia: Oh, yeah. I want to say it was life ten years ago, and I was with some close friends and I don't remember what prompted me to share this, but I had actually I was in a very abusive relationship in college from life ages 19 to 21.
[0:05:52] Brianne Davis: Was it abusive emotionally or physically all?
[0:05:57] Amelia: It started off verbally and then mentally he would get in my head and then it eventually got really physical. And when it got physical, that's when I really, really felt trapped. And I didn't tell anybody. I was going to school, taking my test, hanging out with friends, acting like nothing was wrong.
[0:06:16] Brianne Davis: Why did you keep that a secret?
[0:06:21] Amelia: I don't even know. I was just so ashamed that people would know that I was so stupid enough to get into that situation. And I was also just so afraid of him that my life was consumed by my fear of him and by trying to not make him mad and trying to just make sure that he stays happy. And then when he was mad, it would be a big blow up. So my life was also just consumed by that as well, that I couldn't really I didn't have time to really tell anybody else. But then I didn't want my friends or my family or people to look at me a certain way or be disappointed in me or think like, oh, you're supposed to be smart and you're supposed to know what you're doing and how did you end up in this relationship? And he also would convince me to not tell people life, oh, are you really going to let people know that I'm a horrible person? You know that I'm not bad, you know that I love you and that's.
[0:07:29] Brianne Davis: How manipulative it's like mind game and I love you. I didn't mean but I do have a question about that and I'm curious. Do you think the mental and emotional abuse was worse than the physical or I know all of it is bad, I just want to know which was harder for you to move past.
[0:07:48] Amelia: Definitely the mental and the emotional because that gets deep in the soul and deep in all the cracks of my insecurities. And also I think that's what broke me down to even get to the point where it got physical. And one thing that I say to people about this because people don't understand like, oh, well if he hits you then you can just leave. It's not that simple. Life. Abusive relationships go on for as long as they do because it's like a little by little conditioning that happens that then just becomes a habit. And then it's like, this is just how the relationship is. And it's like all this pile of shame built on top and secret and lies and trying to hide. And then it becomes this really big convoluted web that feels really hard to get out of.
[0:08:41] Brianne Davis: Yeah, you're life isolated and alone because you're not sharing that with anybody. I also had a really good friend a long time ago. Her husband almost killed her and went to jail. And as soon as he got out, she went and went back to him and no one could understand. But when I talked to her, she said the exact same thing. It was like this complex situation that all this shame and isolation and all that.
[0:09:08] Amelia: Yeah, it really becomes a really strong attachment that it doesn't make logical sense, but if there's like a conditioning around it that's like, this is what I know, so this is what I'm going to go back to and oh gosh, I have such empathy for that, to go back to that person. But thankfully for me, I definitely broken away from him for good. But actually I did go back again.
[0:09:36] Brianne Davis: You did?
[0:09:38] Amelia: Briefly for a couple of night fling.
[0:09:43] Brianne Davis: Did anybody know about that or is that actually secret?
[0:09:46] Amelia: No, that's the secret we got. You.
[0:09:52] Brianne Davis: Not like that's a great thing. No, but I'm saying we all have these little things we just don't tell people. And you think you're life light and free and done with secrets, but really? We still hold secrets sometimes.
[0:10:05] Amelia: Yeah, no, I said I have no secret, knowing that I probably do, but yeah, so we can always uncover or something. But yeah, actually, as I was saying it to you, I was like, oh, my gosh, I actually never told anyone about that. So that's technically a secret. Well, now I told you, so now it's out there.
[0:10:26] Brianne Davis: Now you're free of it. But you were talking about the moment, that moment where you let that big one go. I think it was about this relationship.
[0:10:34] Amelia: Yeah. And the other big part of that secret was that when I was in such a desperate moment to get away from him, when he was really like, berating me and emailing me and texting me and calling me and I was trying to get away, like, I really was. And he was saying things like, you're worthless and you should just kill yourself, and you're so selfish, and all these life terrible bad names that start with B's and C's and FS and all of that. And I was so desperate, I didn't know what to do. I just went to the store and I bought all this ad bill and pills and nightclub and I drank a bunch of it and I just wanted to get away. I didn't want to take my life. It was an interesting thing to explain to the doctors because as soon as I did that, I immediately went to a friend and I was like, I need you to take me to the hospital. This is what I just did.
[0:11:35] Brianne Davis: Right.
[0:11:37] Amelia: And so that was the other big part of the secret that I let go in that moment. And I think that's probably what sparked me to say that, because I think it was a group of close friends and we were just like, naturally revealing stuff to each other. And someone mentioned something about thoughts of suicide and things like that. And I mentioned I attempted it once and so then I told them the whole story and why, but it was really like a cry for help for me because I did not want to take my life. I just wanted to do something to be like, leave me alone. Kind of like a scream for help.
[0:12:15] Brianne Davis: I mean, I remember my first year when I was getting sober in my program. I didn't want to be on this earth. I didn't want to commit suicide, but I definitely wanted to crawl out of my skin, not be on this earth because the pain and everything I was experiencing was too much. And it sounds like similar thing. You were in this painful situation with this person that was abusing you and you could not get out of it, and you just didn't want to be here anymore for that.
[0:12:44] Amelia: Yeah, I love that. Thank you for describing it that way because it just sounded weird to me to be like, okay, so you went to the store, you bought all this stuff, but you didn't want to commit suicide. And it was like, no, I just didn't want to feel the pain anymore. I just wanted him to stop. And he wouldn't stop. If I was crying, if I was screaming, if I was hitting at him, throwing things, life, stop, stop. He would not stop. And so, yeah, I just didn't want to feel that anymore. Yeah. So hard. Dark times.
[0:13:16] Brianne Davis: Dark times. And listen, I'm sure the listeners, we all have them, we've all been through our own journeys, but I think that's beautiful that you cried for help and then you shared it. And that moment of letting go, was it euphoric or was there, like, a crash afterwards?
[0:13:39] Amelia: I definitely think one of my favorite terms is vulnerability hangover, where after you share something really deep and real and the next day you're like, oh, my gosh, did that just happen? I believe I probably had a little bit of that the next day. But in the moment, to be with those close friends and to be received with love, and they didn't try to fix anything or change anything or even say anything. It was just to be heard and witnessed and loved. I mean, that yeah, it felt as euphoric as like as if there was a big boulder on my chest and someone finally lifted it off. I felt like I could load for a second because it was like, oh, my gosh, I let that go. Yeah. Even just describing it, I feel it again, and I'm just like, that's so good. It feels so good.
[0:14:31] Brianne Davis: It's the best feeling. And when I was even asking people to be on this, they're life. I'm not comfortable sharing it. And I'm saying this to you, I'm not saying who these people were, but I was like, you will feel so much better, life. No one will know it's you. I promise. It will be so much lighter. And they're like, I'm not ready. And I was like, okay. To each his own.
[0:14:51] Amelia: Yeah, absolutely. I think when we're carrying so much, like I said, I used to have a lot of secret, and I was just so used to it. But I think when that first big boulder got removed, it was like, oh, I can do this. And I think, too, the thing to remember is you don't want to tell the world everything. I think it's also knowing who is safe and who will be there to witness their secret. Or even on a podcast like this, where you can be anonymous. I think that's also very healing, where it's like hundreds of people can hear it and they don't even have to know it's you. But even just saying it out loud is so freeing. Yeah, absolutely.
[0:15:39] Brianne Davis: So you said you've gone through this process and you've let go of all these secrets, and it's been years, life. My journey has been like, eleven years. And so each time you did it, what came about? Is there something specific? Like, each time you let go, you felt, like, a little different?
[0:16:00] Amelia: Yeah. Each time I let go, even if it was like little ones or big ones, I would feel a little bit freer, a little bit lighter, a little bit life, more possibility, a little bit more loved. Especially if I was letting it go to someone, another human being, and then having them just witness it and hear it. It just was like, there's just that moment where I'm like, I can really let that go now. I really don't have to carry that and have that in the back of my mind, because the energy that it takes to hide these things, we don't think it takes a lot of energy until we do let it go, and we're like, whoa, that would take a lot of energy.
[0:16:47] Brianne Davis: It takes so much energy, and it also keeps you so disconnected from other people. That's what I felt like I felt every time I had a secret. Even if it was like a teeny thing you would never thought would keep you separate from someone, but it does.
[0:17:02] Amelia: It's kind of like where you have the pebble in your shoe and no one else can see it, and you could easily pretend to walk and be like, whatever else, I don't feel like taking my shoe off right now, so I'll just keep walking. But little by little, it'll start to get at your foot and eventually probably cut it up or just be really uncomfortable. And it's not impossible to walk with that, and no one else will know unless you're like, there's a pebble in my shoe. So it's kind of like that, but it's really annoying. And the more you walk with it, the worse it'll feel over time, until you're finally like, oh, my gosh, I lost a toe. I guess I should have removed that pebble a long time ago.
[0:17:44] Brianne Davis: Or you get, like, a callus, and then it starts life building up that hard skin as I was like, you're building up that hard shell on your outside. People are like, please don't talk about feet right now. But that's what I keep thinking of.
[0:17:58] Amelia: Life.
[0:17:58] Brianne Davis: Every little secret, every little lie just builds a shell around yourself.
[0:18:04] Amelia: Yes. And yeah, you might be, quote, unquote, protected. However, it's also keeping you from life. The love and the joy and connection you can feel. And even with the closest people in your life, that actually adds to the pain. So now you're carrying this weight of all these rocks for, like, mixing metaphors here, but you're carrying the weight of all these rocks, but now you're wearing all these layers, and you're just underneath all these layers, and you can't actually feel people anymore to the extent that you're but then you get used to it. And then you wonder, why am I so unhappy? Life there could be alone.
[0:18:42] Brianne Davis: Why am I so alone? Why do I feel uncomfortable?
[0:18:47] Amelia: And it's like, well, years and years of conditioning yourself to build those layers and carry those rocks and that weight. That's why it's myself. Just let it go.
[0:18:57] Brianne Davis: But here's my question for you, because I know you're starting to work with this, like, self love and helping people find their authentic, true selves. But my question for you and I always and I already kind of know the answer when I answer it myself, but from your perspective, when people are struggling, why do they have so much trouble asking for help when they have these secrets that they know they need help with? Why can't people ask for help?
[0:19:26] Amelia: Well, I think one of the big things is we're conditioned not to. I mean, from the time at least here in the United States, because this is where I went to school from the time you're in first grade, you're conditioned not to cheat, quote, unquote, which means you're conditioned not to ask other people for help. Like from the time we're six years old, we're taught, oh, if you ask someone else for help, that means you weren't good enough to do it on your own. And I think our schooling system, a lot of our schooling systems condition us that way and our culture, too. It's like there's this sense of pride and life completing something on your own and doing it all yourself, and this belief that asking for help is a sign of weakness and also just the vulnerability of sharing your true, authentic emotions. Life it's interesting how when we talk about if I'm crying, that means I'm falling apart or crying is weakness. So there's all these associations that we have with things that are actually really natural, but then we attach like a negative meaning to it. And actually, one of my friends, we were talking about something random today because the time that we're recording this, it's raining here in New York City, which is where I am right now. And we were talking about how, oh, it's so ugly outside. And then we were like, isn't that interesting how rain and thunderstorms are so natural, yet we call it ugly.
[0:20:49] Brianne Davis: Oh, I don't I love when it rains. I love weather storms. But that is interesting because people are like, oh, it's gross outside. And I'm like, the earth is cleaning itself. I think it's beautiful, right?
[0:21:02] Amelia: And I think thunderstorms are with the darkness and then the lightning and the sound, it's beautiful. But it's interesting. Life, when we notice as something as simple as the weather, that we attach a negative meaning to something that's natural. So crying, feeling sad, feeling angry, feeling jealous, feeling greedy, life, all of those things are natural things. And then it's like, oh, if you're crying, you're falling apart, you're weak if you're sad. And that's showing your weakness. And that means that they win life, there's just this win, lose, good, bad.
[0:21:36] Brianne Davis: Instead of it just being neutral, just is what it is. You're sad today. You're feeling your feelings today. And the beautiful thing and I'm trying to teach my son, too, that we're talking about life, feeling your emotions and crying that I allow him to cry. I'm like, I know you're upset. It's okay, because I don't want those feelings to get trapped in him. Like, it happened to me, it's happened to other especially young boys.
[0:22:03] Amelia: Yeah, absolutely. Especially. That's so beautiful. I love that.
[0:22:09] Brianne Davis: But here's the next question. I only have a couple more, but what do you think the benefit is that people keep secrets? And what do you think the harm it causes them, from your perspective?
[0:22:27] Amelia: The benefit of keeping secrets is you avoid the negative reaction or the backlash that you will get. That's kind of why a little bit earlier I mentioned about there is such a thing as, like, revealing too much and also revealing to the wrong people. And so I think we keep them because we don't know how the other person is going to react. And I'm reminded of a wonderful Brene Brown quote about vulnerability, where it's like vulnerability is about showing up authentically exactly as you are. I'm paraphrasing, even though we don't know what the outcome is going to be. And so the benefit, though, life, for example, life, me not telling a friend that I've fallen in love with him, the benefit is that I don't have to face potential rejection if he doesn't feel the same way.
[0:23:16] Brianne Davis: Right, right.
[0:23:18] Amelia: But the harm it does is that's another rock that I'm holding on to. And also he doesn't know that someone loves him in that way. So I think any secret you could probably find life a benefit and a harm.
[0:23:35] Brianne Davis: Right.
[0:23:35] Amelia: And so with my big secret, the benefit I guess I got was I didn't know what would happen if everybody knew that I was in this abusive relationship life. What were they going to be? Cops coming to my house and people asking me all kinds of questions and being like, why did you get together with him? Why didn't you tell us sooner? I think we just make up this we think of the worst case scenario of what could happen when we reveal the secret. And so we want to avoid that worst case scenario, and that's why we don't reveal. And so we think that's a benefit, but really it's the harm. Yeah, and then the harm, there's harm to yourself because you're holding on to it. That pebble that's going to eventually cut you up or create calluses and stuff. And also, there's so many ways that it could harm other people in your life as well.
[0:24:29] Brianne Davis: And my last question for you is if someone else was going through the situation that you went through, or what would be the advice, like, letting go of your secrets for people.
[0:24:40] Amelia: Yeah, I really love this question and the first tiniest step you can do is admitting the secret to yourself. Even if you say it out loud to yourself. Or maybe it's even too hard to say it out loud, although that's what I would recommend because hearing your own voice and feeling it released from your body physically will also release it. You don't necessarily have to tell someone else, but even if you just life write it down at first. For me, when I'm feeling sad, sometimes it's really melancholy because I have life a tendency towards melancholy and sometimes I just have to say out loud, like to myself in my room, like I'm sad, I'm really sad or I'm heartbroken. And even just saying it out loud to myself relieves a lot of that weight. And so I would say don't feel pressured to life, tell the world or hop on a podcast or scream from the come on, but also definitely come onto the podcast. But I'll say a tiny step, right, would be to first admit it to yourself. And then I think from there a natural next step would be who's a trusted friend or trusted advisor or mentor that you can reveal it to. Because I will say too, revealing it to another human being is so freeing. So more than admitting it to yourself and you can say to them, I just need you to listen and love me, I don't need a solution, I don't need a fix or whatever, right? But just please, while you sit, I'm about to reveal something that's really big and just have them witness and love you through it. But first step to yourself if it feels like too much and then get on brief show.
[0:26:37] Brianne Davis: Yes. Then come on and reveal it to me because I have no judgment.
[0:26:42] Amelia: Exactly.
[0:26:43] Brianne Davis: Well, if people wanted to find you, find out what you're doing now to build the self love to letting go of past trauma, where would they find you?
[0:26:52] Amelia: Yeah, absolutely. So my website is selflovestory.com. So just all one word, selflovestory.com. And when you go there, there's a ton of free resources. I actually just revamped my website where you can look at three different categories dating and relationships, career and business or money and abundance. And when you click whichever category you want, there's like free videos, podcasts, blogs, all kinds of just free resources there for you to devour. And I'm really happy because this is a recent new revamp of my website. I know sometimes it takes a lot to reach out to someone. There's always a possibility to reach out to me through my website, but I know that that's a big step sometimes. So I like to just give the resources that you can read and listen to and there's a lot, a lot there for you.
[0:27:45] Brianne Davis: Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your past secret and also revealing a new secret that you didn't even know you were carrying.
[0:27:54] Amelia: I know you're really good at this. Definitely get on the show, guys. Well, thank you.
[0:28:00] Brianne Davis: I appreciate it so much.
[0:28:02] Amelia: You're welcome. Thank you for having me on.
[0:28:05] Brianne Davis: And if you want to be on the show, please email me at SecretLife Podcast@icloud.com. Until next time.
Thanks again for listening to the show. Please subscribe rate, share or send me a note at secretlifepodcast.com. And if you would like to check out my book, head over to secretlifenovel.com or Amazon to pick up a copy for yourself or someone you love. Thanks again. See you soon.
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Connect with Brianne Davis-Gantt (@thebriannedavis)
[0:00:00] Alexandra: So for me, like, for a long time after, like, any kind of conflict with a man is just like hugely triggering. Because my experience was this will lead to someone saying these awful things to you.
[0:00:18] Brianne Davis: Welcome to the Secret Life Podcast. Tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine.
Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to reach the light. That's what I did. After twelve years of recovery in sex and love addiction, I finally found my soulmate myself. Please join me in my novel, Secret Life of a Hollywood Sex and Love Addict. A four time bestseller on Amazon. It's a brutal, honest, raw, gnarly ride, but hilarious at the same time. Check it out now on Amazon. Welcome to see your life podcast. I'm Brianne Davis-Gantt. Today, I'm pulling back the curtains of all kinds of human secrets. We'll hear about what people are hiding from themselves or others. You know, those deep, dark secrets you probably want to take to your grave. Or those lighter, funnier secrets that are just plain embarrassing.
[0:01:19] Brianne Davis: Really, the how, what, when, where and why would it all. Today. My guest is Alexandra. Now, Alexandra, I have a question for you. Duhn, Duhn Duhn. What is your secret?
[0:01:33] Alexandra: So my secret is that when I was married, I was suffering verbal abuse silently within my marriage and I didn't tell anyone that it was my secret.
[0:01:45] Brianne Davis: How long did that go on for?
[0:01:47] Alexandra: It was over the extent of the marriage and the marriage wasn't very long. I was married for about a year, I guess, that we were together, living together. The marriage continued. Like, we didn't get a divorce right away, but we were together for about a year and it went on throughout kind of the whole time.
[0:02:03] Brianne Davis: How long were you guys together, though, before you got married together?
[0:02:09] Alexandra: We were together probably before the marriage, I think it was six or seven years.
[0:02:14] Brianne Davis: Oh, wow. So you waited.
[0:02:19] Alexandra: We started dating when we were, I think we were like 23, 22, 23. So young. Yeah, and then we just kind of dated. We even lived together for three years before we got married. And then we got married and then it started happening. So it was crazy.
[0:02:39] Brianne Davis: You know, that's so fascinating because I thought, honestly, you were going to say after you said that you guys were together for like six months and then you got together and got married and I was like, oh, did you not know the person? Because I feel like a lot of people rush into things not knowing. But you knew the person.
[0:02:56] Alexandra: Yeah. And the thing with what I experienced, he could be that way with, say, friends or even family members, but he never did it to me. So in my young, immature, naive brain, I thought, well, he's not doing it to me, so it's okay. Well, he's never okay. And that would be like one thing I would say to any man or woman because it can happen to anyone.
[0:03:21] Brianne Davis: Yes.
[0:03:22] Alexandra: What they do to other people or what they say to other people. And in my context of man. So, like, what a man does to other people or women he will do to you in your marriage even if he's not doing it before when you're dating, it will eventually you will become the target.
[0:03:38] Brianne Davis: Can you give me some examples? Because I know people are listening out there and even if they're experienced it, there's something about we downplay it to ourselves because we don't want to believe that it's happening for sure.
[0:03:51] Alexandra: So when it was happening throughout my life, nobody had spoken to me like that or treated me like that ever. So when it started to happen that way, it just felt so foreign. I didn't know how to make sense of it. So again, yeah, I just kind of downplayed it in my mind. But it was subtle things. Like subtle, like sarcastic, jabs, passive aggressive comments. But it can also be really overt things. Like with him, like being called a bitch or being told, like, there's something inherently wrong with you. And so it's like these we sometimes say these things very loosely, I guess. But when it's targeted at you from the person that's supposed to love you the most, it's so unsettling and it just unsettles your idea about yourself.
[0:04:34] Brianne Davis: Yeah.
[0:04:39] Alexandra: It would come when there was a conflict in the relationship and he was in a place of stress and that's how he dealt with it. I understand. So for me, for a long time after, any kind of conflict with a man is just, like, hugely triggering. Because my experience was this will lead to someone saying these awful things to you.
[0:04:58] Brianne Davis: Yeah. Because you guys were together for six years and you saw him call, like, other people bitches or talk bad about other people in his life or coworkers or whatever. Right?
[0:05:11] Alexandra: Yeah, it could be, say, I have seen it. He would talk about not my female friends, necessarily, but, like, female sometimes that were strong will and he would say, called him a bitch. And at the time, like I said, it's not okay. It's never okay to use that language towards anybody, especially women. But like I said, I was young, I was naive, I was in love. And I kind of was like, oh, well, he doesn't mean it. He doesn't actually believe it. But now, looking back, he probably did. And eventually I became the target.
[0:05:50] Brianne Davis: So why do you think that happened? Because you were finally, completely committed to him and, like, the marriage. Do you even remember the first time it happened?
[0:06:01] Alexandra: Sort of like I kind of do. Yes, actually, I do. It was about, I think, three months in and I can't remember the specific incident. It's crazy. I can remember because it led to trauma. I can very much remember how I felt. And I can relive moments of the moment, but I can't remember all the details, which is kind of interesting.
[0:06:24] Brianne Davis: Not really, because we black it out when there's trauma or ptsd, when there's, like, a bad breakup or bad toxic relationship that creates trauma in our body, and we cut off some of our memory to make it easier for our psyche to handle.
[0:06:40] Alexandra: Yeah. Three months in. Like I said, it just is so foreign. And it's just like, all of a sudden, it's like being hit without being hit, and then you have this invisible wound, but no burgess to show for it. That's how I kind of look at it. So it kept happening. And then eventually, when we did split up, I had so much trauma. And I just thought it was from the end of my marriage, because it was quite sudden, which was very it was traumatic itself. But there was so much trauma for years that was just about the verbal abuse. And I didn't realize that actually till like, a year ago when I was having I would have sometimes conflict with my partner, which we do. Like in a relationship, we have conflict. And I would have these massive overreactions.
[0:07:28] Brianne Davis: Over hysterical historical hysterical historical.
[0:07:37] Alexandra: Classic trauma reactions. Like, I would need to go to an enclosed space. I would close the bathroom door. I would flee, get a fight fight or flight fight.
[0:07:53] Brianne Davis: I always ran to the bathroom and shut the door whenever I was in conflict.
[0:07:58] Alexandra: Yeah. And then it would get to the point. Also, sometimes I would fight. I would just react extreme. And then I just sat in that and we sarah and he was like, Why am I reacting? And I realized I still had a lot of trauma to work through. And my trigger, like I said, was a conflict with any man, because with ix, I would either be called back or I would just avoid conflict altogether to avoid kind of that aggression coming at you. Yeah. And for him, he dealt with stress, like I said, anxiety and anger by lashing out. I'm not saying it's okay, but it helped me understand the whole experience, I guess.
[0:08:41] Brianne Davis: Do you know if his parents fight like that or he was raised well.
[0:08:47] Alexandra: His story his dad wasn't around, and I'm not sure, growing up how his family relationship was, but I would imagine he thought somewhere that it became okay.
[0:09:02] Brianne Davis: Or when it became normalized.
[0:09:05] Alexandra: Yeah. And in his life, too, because, like I said, I would sometimes see it with friends or whoever, and people kind of they didn't expect it from us, but they just are like, oh, that's just like him. It's okay. It's just him. And I think sometimes with people that have damaging behaviors or toxic behaviors or abusive behaviors, there's not enough people that say it's not okay.
[0:09:29] Brianne Davis: Usually it's hard. It's hard. I think, when you just said earlier, and I want to go back to it, that it was like getting punched, but you don't see the bruise. And that's what I always say, like, those toxic behaviors, those toxic relationships when they're not physical, not that either is worse than the other, but it's like a million little cuts that you don't see that you're killing yourself with. Like someone's doing these little cuts all over you and you're bleeding out and you have no idea, and you can't see it 100%.
[0:10:04] Alexandra: And I'm a big reader. I try to reading things. And after our relationship ended, I read this book. I think it's called The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans. I believe that's the title. And she listed off all these different ways someone could be verbally abusive. And some of it's like that outright swearing at you, that kind of thing. But it's like little stuff, like yeah, like sarcastic comments about any kind of aspirations you have, or passive aggression or stonewalling gas lighting. Gas lighting. It's all kind of part of that. And I realized he didn't check off all the boxes, but it was a lot more than I even realized myself. And when I actually sat down and I remember one day after I wrote in my journal everything, I could remember all the different things he had said. And I couldn't believe the list that I compiled because I think in the moment when it was happening, I just tried to not black it out, but forget it real fast. The secret, I guess I didn't tell anybody till after because I was really ashamed. So I think and I think this is for, like, a lot of abuse survivors, whether it's physical or emotional, financial or verbal, we feel shame because we actively, I guess, chose this relationship.
[0:11:25] Alexandra: We've got along with it, and even though someone's treating us badly, we continue to stay.
[0:11:31] Brianne Davis: Yeah.
[0:11:32] Alexandra: And so there's a shame that you're continuing to stay because abuse isn't black and white. Like this person that's doing these awful things. When you're being abused, you don't look at them as, like, a monster. You look at, like, their behavior. Like, this is like when you make.
[0:11:45] Brianne Davis: Excuses and you, oh, he had a bad day at work. He lost his job. We couldn't pay that bill. You always make excuses and then you try to turn towards the moments. Oh, but he was so loving the day before. Or, he bought me that sweater or something. Yeah.
[0:12:02] Alexandra: And if you have money I realized in this episode, I even made excuse. I was like, when he was stressed, he would do this. Which is kind of an excuse because.
[0:12:08] Brianne Davis: It'S never yeah, you said it three times. She said it three times. You're still trying to justify the abuse. And you're like, I know, I understand. He's probably going through a lot. And it's like, no, he didn't.
[0:12:26] Alexandra: Even pass that. I realized what he did and that it was wrong. And sitting here making excuses. So I think you feel shame, or at least I did, because well, first of all, if you tell people, if you start telling people they're going to tell you to leave, they're going to right away say leave. And maybe you're not in a position to leave, whether it's like kids or whatever.
[0:12:46] Brianne Davis: And financial.
[0:12:49] Alexandra: You'Re just, like, not ready to throw in a towel or something.
[0:12:51] Brianne Davis: Or a love addict. There's a lot of people that stay in those relationships because they're addicted to that person.
[0:12:58] Alexandra: Yeah. And for me, well, I was raised in a Catholic family, so I had that. We were married, and I wasn't super young, but I was, like, 29, which is young, is in the marriage sector. I wasn't 50 or anything. So I also felt like I couldn't leave because I just sort of gotten married, and I felt like I was young to be going through a divorce. And there was a lot of shame with a divorce itself. And I felt so shamed that someone was treating me like this. And I let it be okay, sort of because I didn't leave.
[0:13:35] Brianne Davis: Yeah, but here's the thing, and I also is it because you were just married, too? Because it happened pretty quick. Usually it doesn't happen so fast.
[0:13:45] Alexandra: Yeah, that was kind of crazy because.
[0:13:48] Brianne Davis: I remember someone that was in a bad relationship and they just got married, and she's like, we just spent all this money on the wedding. And I was like, who cares? But it's hard to tell someone when they're wanting something to work so badly.
[0:14:02] Alexandra: Well, yeah, and like I mentioned earlier, we had been together for six or seven years, lived together for three years, and so, like, people exactly, they were like, didn't you know? Like, how could you not know? And even my mom asked me that. Like, how could you not know? And it was like, well, yeah, I saw the sign, but I was never the victim. I was never the target until we got married. And then, yeah, like you said, it happened so fast. So I felt like, how could I get married and then just split up so fast? I would feel so embarrassed about it. Even though you're right, like, who cares?
[0:14:35] Brianne Davis: Now?
[0:14:35] Alexandra: I don't care if I ever ended that relationship again, I will leave like this.
[0:14:40] Brianne Davis: But you're right, you can't tell people to leave, because I work with a lot of people, and I can't ever tell them to leave. I can say, I suggest this. This is what should be. This is how you should talk. But you can't make someone leave a bad situation. You just can't.
[0:14:55] Alexandra: And sometimes I think you're also so connected to that person, and so you protect them. That's the big thing with abuse, too. We protect our abusers. And so someone's saying you should just leave sometimes feels like a bit of an attack, even though you're not you're trying to help and you're trying to tell them, no, you need to go. But I think if you're suffering it at the time, it can feel, and then you can just turn into the relationship more. Because you're like oh, yeah.
[0:15:23] Brianne Davis: Because you're like, yeah, you stick it out, and then you kind of start blocking out other people and just trying to focus, like, fixing this relationship, which you can't fix the person. Right. Did you do that towards the end or anything?
[0:15:36] Alexandra: No, I think because I hadn't experienced abuse in my life. I was raised by relatively healthy parents, and my friends were all very healthy for the most part in life.
[0:15:48] Brianne Davis: Come on, come on, please. I believe everybody has some sort of ism. Everybody goes some place where they don't want to feel their feeling.
[0:16:05] Alexandra: Yeah, that's true. But I just had never been abused. I guess I just didn't have that understanding. So when it was happening, it was just so boring, and it was just felt so extreme. So for me, instead of trying to fix him, I weathered it for a while, and I thought in my head, maybe this will change. I didn't do anything on my end to change him. I guess I just thought, maybe it will stop. And then just like, it didn't. And I was just like and at one point, it just like in one of our interactions, it was an episode of verbal abuse, and I was just like I had been kind of pushing it down and pushing it down, just dealing with it, and then I literally exploded. I remember that incident. I was just like, you know what? I want a divorce. And then I just got my stuff and I left.
[0:16:54] Brianne Davis: Wait, you're the one that asked for divorce?
[0:16:57] Alexandra: Yeah.
[0:16:58] Brianne Davis: So what happened that got you to a place where you were like, Enough. What was that moment?
[0:17:05] Alexandra: Well, I think it's like that fight or flight for the whole time it was happening, I was like, or avoiding. Right? Like, I was avoiding it, and I was, like, pushing it down. I guess I wasn't flying away, so I wasn't doing flight, but I was just, like, avoiding it.
[0:17:19] Brianne Davis: Right.
[0:17:19] Alexandra: And then that pushing down, eventually it kind of exploded in this incident. And that was like, the flight. Like, I want I want a divorce, but also flight because I just left.
[0:17:27] Brianne Davis: Right.
[0:17:27] Alexandra: But then I always thought in my head I might go back, even though I had said those words and I had laughed. I thought, well, maybe people reconcile, and maybe this will be the moment where he'll like, okay, I need to go to therapy and I figure this out. But he never really did, and he never really put in like, he I imagine in his mind, he thought he fought for the relationship after the marriage, but I didn't feel it. And so after we split up because it didn't there were still episodes of, like, sarcasm and passive aggression, and so I just kind of never went back. And then we had talks and stuff, but I just never returned to the marriage. And I just realized that I wanted not only more for myself, but I wanted kids. So I thought, if I'm going to have children, there's no way I would ever want them to be spoken to like that from their father. So if I want children, I need to end this marriage and seek out another relationship or whatever that looks like. And also just for me, even if I never had kids or never had another relationship, it's way better to be alone and feel sane and happy and healthy versus in a relationship where someone is making you not only not feel loved, but also, like, you start hating yourself. It was great. At the end of the relationship, I would talk to my best friend and just like, the words I was saying what myself were just so untrue.
[0:18:53] Brianne Davis: Like, what were you saying?
[0:18:54] Alexandra: So I was saying things like, I would be telling her stories, and then I would pause, like, but I'm just like, I'm not a good communicator. And she saw you, alex, my job as a teacher. I'm an elementary teacher. She's like you're a teacher. You talk the whole pace like you're not a bad communicator. Oh, okay. That's weird. Why am I saying this? Or maybe things like, I'm quite a sensitive person. She's like you're not. You're not sensitive.
[0:19:29] Brianne Davis: Isn't it so funny that we try to turn it in on ourselves? Always, like, to take responsibility for someone else hurting us. We then turn it and twist it and make it about ourselves, like, there's something wrong with ourselves. Did you do that a lot at the end or during the relationship? After?
[0:19:50] Alexandra: Yeah, it was crazy. That honestly, it was very traumatic. Obviously, I just pushed it away while it was happening, and then it was after the fact. After we split up, I had a full year of just a really dark depression. And during that time, it was just like I was just, like, saying horrible things to myself about myself. Like, no one's going to love you. Because he also told me that it's going to take a very special person to love me again.
[0:20:18] Brianne Davis: Oh, my God, I want to strangle him right now. Everybody worse being loved. Like, if you're on this planet right now and you're born, you're worth loving. If anybody's telling anybody out there, that is the most abusive thing to say to somebody.
[0:20:33] Alexandra: Yeah, it was stuff like that. Like I said, it was swearing. But it was also things like, there's something inherently wrong with you. It's going to take a special person to love you. There's something wrong with your family. So it took a long time of like, I believe these things, and then it took a while, and then I started seeing it to myself. I don't need to plug anything, but I have a book coming out. And in the book, I kind of talk about, like, I said these horrible things to myself after we split up for a long time, and I all of a sudden realized nobody's abusing me but myself. I was doing it.
[0:21:10] Brianne Davis: I was the person to me, that's so fascinating. You just said that because I had a moment like that the other night, and I haven't talked about it, but I'm the villain of my story. I'm the one that speaks to myself the worse than anybody else. And I had this moment at 03:00 A.m. That I woke up and my subconscious was like, you're a loser. You're not good enough, all this stuff. And I literally was telling my brain, like, Stop. It's not true. But when other people tell you those things, you then start to believe them.
[0:21:44] Alexandra: Yeah, and I think I wrote once, I said something like he had said words that planted invisible roots in my mind, and they were really hard to pull out. And I think that's what verbal abuse does and other abuse, but like, verbal abuse, it like, plants these roots and they grab your brain, and it's really hard to just pull them out and get them out of there because you're like, well, if they said it, there must be some truth to it. But there's not. Typically. There's not. Well, not usually. It's almost always about them. Always about them, not you.
[0:22:19] Brianne Davis: Yeah. So you went through this dark, dark place. I mean, how dark did it go for you?
[0:22:25] Alexandra: I talked about this online on social media and my blog. I went through depression and anxiety, and I was in a place like, I have suicidal ideation secretly again, that was another secret.
[0:22:39] Brianne Davis: Here's another secret.
[0:22:43] Alexandra: I remember that year after we split up, we still had the house we were trying to sell. And I'd be in that house, like, alone, and I would be coping by drinking, like, bottle after bottle of wine kind of thing, crying alone. And in those moments, I remember I had, like I thought I had written in my journal, like, I just want to, like, melt to the ground things. Like, I felt like I wanted to die.
[0:23:06] Brianne Davis: Like disappear? Yeah.
[0:23:07] Alexandra: Yeah, disappear. And I would sit there on the floor and I would like empty pill bottles. That's how I decided I would do it. And, like, every time I thought, okay, this is the time, I never did, because I didn't want to die. I realized what I wanted was to be free of what was going on in my mind. But at the time, I was suffering depression, so I couldn't logic that out at the time.
[0:23:30] Brianne Davis: No, you can't. And that's the thing. I mean, I write about it in the book too. I love that you have a book coming out and telling your story. But it's like, I write about all these moments. You think about your death, and you're like, what is it going to be like? People are going to do this. Even at the beginning of my recovery, I talk about, like, I wish I wanted to just drive my car into the middle of the median just because I didn't want to feel this pain anymore. And you don't know what to do with it. The only thing I can say, and I think that's what you're saying, is you have to walk through it. You have to walk through that pain.
[0:24:04] Alexandra: You have to. Otherwise it will continue to haunt you as long as you don't face it. If you can do it by yourself, great.
[0:24:15] Brianne Davis: I don't know anybody that can do it by themselves. Because you can't fix your brain when your brain is what's? Sick.
[0:24:23] Alexandra: Yeah, I need a therapy. Like, I need therapy. I didn't need pharmaceutical. That was something we talked about. But I decided in the moment, because event and experience created this, I thought, I can work through it in different ways. Because I hadn't been suffering, arguably, I hadn't had a chemical imbalance my whole life. So I was like, well, I'm going to try. And then that was always an option. Tosserize. But never had to. Which is I'm thankful I didn't have to, but I would have if it had continued, or if I had continued to have those intrusive thoughts. But yeah, just going through all that, I realized how traumatic verbal abuse really was. Because a lot of the trauma was from the divorce, but a lot of it was from this abuse.
[0:25:10] Brianne Davis: I think, 100%. It's those invisible cuts, those invisible emotional cuts. I always think those are the hardest ones to, like you said, rip out the roof. Like, if someone hits you, you see the bruise, but if someone verbally abuses you, you can't see it. You can't say, See right here? When he said this, it made this mark on my soul or my face. You know what I mean?
[0:25:33] Alexandra: Well, yeah, and I know this is going to sound crazy, sorry, I don't like that word, but kind of natty.
[0:25:39] Brianne Davis: She's natty. I don't mind the word crazy people at all.
[0:25:43] Alexandra: I've had people, I've used it before in reference to myself, and they got offended. So I don't want to offend anybody.
[0:25:49] Brianne Davis: We offend people here all the time, and it's okay. We're all in this together.
[0:25:54] Alexandra: Okay, good. But at the end of the relationship, I had wished that he had hit me, because then I'd have a bruise to show the evidence why I had to leave so fast from my marriage. And even during the marriage, there were moments where I was like, I wish you would just hit me. Because then I could be like, here's the bruise. Now you can see. You would for sure be like, oh, good. I'm glad you left. But verbal abuse, some people, they have a different, I guess, level of tolerance of it, too. Some people would be like, oh, he called you bitch. Like, that's not a big deal, whatever. Deal with it. Where other people would be like, that's horrible. Whereas physical abuse is very like, I think cut and dry people are like, no, leave. Which is that's why I say it's crazy. Like, I wish she had hit me, but at least then I'd have something to show.
[0:26:41] Brianne Davis: I've actually said that too. I've said that even with friendships. Because let's talk about friendships for a minute, which we never thought we were going to discuss. But even friendships, sometimes people abuse you or are a passive aggressive, like you said, and at moments, even with friendships. And I was like, I wish they just do something physical so I could get enough to work up the courage to leave. No, you should leave anyway. They're horrible up people. Like, they're abusive, but it's hard.
[0:27:12] Alexandra: And friendships can sometimes be the hardest thing to break away from.
[0:27:15] Brianne Davis: Oh, those are the worst, right? Friendship breakups are horrible. They are the worst pain I've ever been in.
[0:27:25] Alexandra: And you will never be friends again. Like, even with a divorce or a breakup. Like, maybe one day you'll get back together, but likely not. But with a friendship, if you break up a friendship, you're probably done, because it's pretty extreme because people don't break up, they just sort of save each other out. Or there's a friendship break up. I was just talking about the other day about someone who has a friend that is arguably not treating them right, like being very passive aggressive and just saying weird things. And I said, you wouldn't tolerate it from your family, you wouldn't tolerate from your boyfriend, so why are you tolerating it from your friend? I think you need to establish a boundary with your friend and talk to this person, and hopefully they'll respond and realize, oh, my God, I'm being awful. And if they don't, then that's your evidence that you shouldn't be friends.
[0:28:12] Brianne Davis: Yeah, I 100% agree. And that's what I think doing all this work for me is. It's like every relationship, it's just not about sex and love. It's literally every relationship.
[0:28:23] Alexandra: Oh, for sure. Because a friendship can really if they're not treating you, that can just be awful.
[0:28:30] Brianne Davis: It's just as bad. I believe it's just as bad. Now, you said you are now with someone, right? How is that? Obviously you've done the work, so that's the first thing you got to do the work afterwards because you'll take it into the next relationship, you'll bring that baggage. Correct?
[0:28:47] Alexandra: Yes. And arguably before that, I should have done a bit more work. Like, I had done a lot of work, and I thought I was totally healed. And then when we had these consultants, I realized, well, maybe. There's a little bit more work to do.
[0:29:00] Brianne Davis: Oh my God, that's so funny. I've literally done twelve years of intense work and I still get triggered by my husband. I'm like, there's another layer that I have to work on.
[0:29:15] Alexandra: But it's been good. He's a deharta himself, so he understands that experience. And it's kind of funny. I'm kind of happy I ended up with someone who also went through that because we can kind of understand if stuff comes up, we can talk about it. And neither one of us is going to be like, oh, you're not over it. No, it's just this really crazy thing, extreme thing happened in both of our past, so we can kind of understand that. So he's super understanding. And sometimes if I do have a trigger and I overreact, I'll talk to him after it's done and the next day, I'm really sorry. And he was like, no, I understand. It's okay. And so he's so understanding and so he's kind of yeah, he's a great guy to be with, for me, for sure.
[0:29:58] Brianne Davis: Yeah. But he doesn't fix it. That's the thing. You have to do it. You can't get into a good relationship because you won't know how to handle it because that trauma comes up. And one of the things we say is we tell each other like, okay, I'm getting really triggered. I don't know why right now. So I'm going to walk away and let's just put this on the table. Like that's what we said. We're like, time out. Something that's out. Or we use that word mistletoe, like mistletoe no more.
[0:30:29] Alexandra: I love that.
[0:30:32] Brianne Davis: It really does. Because there's something about you're going to get triggered. You're going to get triggered with your partner about family stuff, about things you haven't dealt with, your family, your friends, past relationships. And it's like you have to have that pause.
[0:30:48] Alexandra: Yeah. And he's so good too. I didn't have, I guess, many serious relationships after my marriage. He was probably the most serious, but I had like, little things going on, relationships with people, and one of them, this guy would say if anything ever came up, and not even that much, but anything, he would refer to my ex husband as like a scumbag. That also was not a healthy response and it didn't help. It definitely didn't help because I was the one that married a scumbag. But then you feel bad, you're like, Well, I loved him. At some point he's like, that's not. And so with my now partner, he definitely even if I'm talking about these things that happen, he'll never take aim at him, which I appreciate it's more. Just like the things that happen and how I'm feeling and how I'm healing and stuff. Not nothing about him really calling him names, because that's just a sabbath, I think.
[0:31:40] Brianne Davis: Oh, I love that because part of me wanted to call him a scumbag a couple of times and put an asshole like you know what I mean?
[0:31:47] Alexandra: Like I wanted to say you can actually, I think I heard about that too. In my book, I say I'm a last call in the stomach and anybody that I give that privilege to can, but not some kind of dating doesn't have the right to say that.
[0:32:01] Brianne Davis: Well, I know you have the blog with where's the blog so people can, if they want to reach out to you, if they're going through a similar thing, where can they reach you?
[0:32:10] Alexandra: Yeah. So you can find me at the splendid Path. So www dot the splendidpath.com. And then I'm also pretty present on instagram at the alexandra. eva mae yay.
[0:32:25] Brianne Davis: And one last question I have. If anybody out there is listening and they are in this type of relationship or feel like they are, they're not sure what would be your advice for them, like recognizing it, what would you wish you would have done?
[0:32:39] Alexandra: So I think if you feel like you're in that type of relationship, you might be keeping it all to yourself, which does a lot of people do. I think the first step is to book therapy with a professional. You can do that now with the pandemic. There's so many people online. You can do it online, you can do it through an app even, or in person. I think some people are doing that. But focus therapy appointment to try to work through it with the professional. So that would be number one. And then number two, I think, realize that their behavior is not about you. It is about them. It is about how they handle whatever they're handling. It is completely about them. And what they're saying is not true. It's not true. It's a way to kind of take you down to make you feel as bad as they're probably feeling.
[0:33:26] Alexandra: It's a way to like, erode your self confidence and it's not true. And you don't deserve that. And it would be better and healthier to be alone than to stay in this relationship or even seek out another one. It's healthier just to be alone and to be abused than to be with anybody. So if you're scared of being alone, like, it's tough. It can be tough to be alone. But it's so much better. And I was so much happier even when I was going through a grief, and I was like, I was so much happier because I was away from trauma.
[0:34:00] Brianne Davis: Yeah, well, and I also just had this thought, even writing it down, like, you know, you have a communication with something and it just doesn't feel right in your stomach and you're like, oh, that hurt. Or I felt something writing it down, say I felt this way when he said this, or she said this. And it's like when you start writing it down, it's almost making it like so you can look back and go, oh, then this happened. Then he called me a bitch and then he was saying how ugly my dress is and no one would love me. I don't know, I'm just calling, but there's something about writing it down.
[0:34:36] Alexandra: Oh, for sure. I think that no, that's actually what I did. That's a good point. I need like a list.
[0:34:41] Brianne Davis: Look at me, I'm like I'll proud of myself, people, you can't see me, but I just smiled.
[0:34:47] Alexandra: I need like a list.
[0:34:49] Brianne Davis: Great.
[0:34:49] Alexandra: I need a list because I was trying to make heads and tales of it and so I need a whole list and not actually after we split up because I was thinking of going back, which I made this list and it was like crazy long. Why would I go back to this? And so maybe yeah, you're right. Writing it down, making a list, and you can actually have a full scope of like, all that's happened.
[0:35:10] Brianne Davis: Yeah. And write a list right after it happens. Like, yeah, this just happened because there's something about we can our minds can twist and manipulate ourselves and when it's written down, you can't twist that because it's written down that it happened. Do you know what I mean?
[0:35:25] Alexandra: Yeah, exactly. I agree.
[0:35:28] Brianne Davis: So glad you reached out to me. I'm so glad we talked about this. Honestly, I think people need to discuss this more because I think people use verbal abuse all the time and it's an epidemic and it's not okay anymore. So thank you so much for reaching out to me. Honestly, I'm so grateful.
[0:35:44] Alexandra: Thank you so much for having me. This is so fantastic. And yeah, like you said, I agree, it's an epidemic and it starts with a young girl, a girls and teenage relationship. So it should be talked about more.
[0:35:57] Brianne Davis: Well, thank you. And if you want to be on the show, please email me secretlifepodcast@icloud.com. Until next time, thanks again for listening to the show. Please subscribe rate, share air or send me a note at SecretLifepodcast.com. And if you like to check out my book, head over to secretlifenovel.com or Amazon to pick up a copy for yourself or someone you love. Thanks again. See you soon.
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