Change Your Brain Every Day - Different Forms of Abuse & What You Can Do To Stop It

Episode Date: September 6, 2018

In the first two episodes of this series on abuse, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen describe the different forms abuse can take, and how to recognize when it’s happening to you. In the final episode of this series, the focus shifts to learning what you can do to change your circumstances when you find yourself in an abusive relationship.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back. We're talking about, well, what can you do if you're in an abusive relationship? Let me read one of the reviews. There's no, this is by I Don't Understand from the United States. I am grateful for your messages on your podcast. My husband is 59 and has been diagnosed with dementia, and it has been life-changing for us.

I would love the chance to be able to change this situation for him and to be able to help him more than just giving in and letting it take its course. So we so believe that too, which is what I wrote about in Memory Rescue. There has to be a way to give back some of his life. And the short answer is, you want to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. And that's the whole bright minds that we've talked about over and over again on our podcast. Another one from the lucky madness from the United States states i appreciate this podcast so much listening to them are reminders to keep making healthy decisions the addiction discussions are the best unique and compassionate discussions are so important awesome we didn't tell that story of the eight-year-old girl who is growing up in an

addicted family and the eight-year-old is so wanting to take care of she's the caretaker of her mother and father so no matter what it is they do, she immediately forgives them and wants to make it better. And in having a discussion with her mom, I was saying, I really need you to think about your behavior because what you're doing is you're teaching her that it's okay. In fact, it's normal. It's normal to be in an abusive relationship. Where you lie for people, where you help them when they are hungover, strung out, whatever. Where you become codependent.

So they have the addiction with you. And you enable it. So the question is, what do you do? So, yeah, I think it's really important that we spend one more minute on that because one of the things that happens in those relationships is people think that their behavior is normal, and they force it, which I think is abusive, on the rest of the family. So addiction is just a bear, and I grew up with it in my family.

And the lying becomes so pervasive that no one's quite sure what's a lie and what's not. And pretty soon it just destroys the relationship to where anyone who is somewhat healthy just never trusts you anymore. They just don't. And so there's this constant wedge between you and the person who's addicted and you're weary. You're just always weary and you never trust.

And there's just this sadness that goes along with it and you're exhausted and it just, it, it just ruins that bond. But with kids in a family like that, when they're forced to lie, and you talked about this, we talked about this in I think the first episode this week, you talked about how one of the signs of abuse, or maybe it was the last episode, one of the signs of abuse is when you force or coerce people to do something, right? And with children, in order to cover addiction, parents often force or coerce their kids to cover up for them. And one of the things they do is they threaten, and you talked about this in a different way, but it's the same thing, same concept.

They'll threaten by saying, if you tell anyone, we will lose our home. I think you said, if you tell anyone, we'll kill your parents, but it's the same thing, same concept. They'll threaten by saying, "'If you tell anyone, we will lose our home.'" I think you said, "'If you tell anyone, we'll kill your parents.'" But it's the same concept. "'If you tell anyone, you'll get taken away from me.'" And it'll be your fault. It'll be your fault.

As opposed to- You'll get taken away, you'll get put into foster care, we'll lose our home, like all of these things. And so kids are constantly scared and terrified and covering for their parents. And that becomes their normal. In fact, I've heard them say, shrug their shoulders and just go, it's just normal. And that breaks my heart to hear a child say it's normal. Because a lot of people will wonder, why would she stay with someone who's abusive?

Or why would he stay with someone who's abusive? And that's one of the big answers. Because they grew up thinking it's their fault. They're responsible and if only they were better than their mom their dad their husband their wife their boss wouldn't be the way they are maybe their parents were put into that's the first thing you do because we're going to talk about well what do you do if you're an abusive relationship? The first thing is to be honest with yourself and recognize that this relationship is not healthy.

Well, and you might need help with that because if you did grow up in that environment, and let's just say you were put into foster care or your parents were put in jail or died or something happened to them, that might be so deep, you might not be able to recognize it or admit it. Right. And that's where therapy can be very helpful. Because that was too painful. You don't want a therapist that just believes everything you say.

No. You want one that'll challenge you. And what I find is so important is when I'm hearing about someone who's abusive, I want them in my office. I want to meet them so I can make an independent assessment. And, you know, perhaps they have untreated bipolar disorder or they have borderline personality disorder. That's never usually something. Or they have ADD or they've had a head trauma. And, um, you know, I think when I was the director of the dual of the domestic violence, um, unit at Fort Irwin, um, I learned, so I would typically get women in my office, wives in my office, telling me how awful the husband was.

And I found when I got the husband in the office, I got more information. dyslexic conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, Asperger-ish kid at home, stoking the fire between them. And so if mom was drinking or dad was drinking or dad had a head injury, you see how complicated this gets. So as a therapist, I wanted all of the information so that I could make better recommendations. So before we talk about the healthy things you can do, I know two of the unhealthy things you can do because I've certainly done it. One of them. One of them is to become like the child we talked about who is codependent, enabling. She might grow up to go into an abusive relationship more than likely, which we see so often. them is to become like the child we talked about who is codependent enabling um right she might grow up to to go into an abusive relationship more than likely which we see so often the other

one is to become like me which was just build a wall don't let don't let any of them in push them all away you're all crazy stay out there and i'm not sure that that's much healthier um so it's almost an attachment issue with, especially with family, because you don't trust any of them. So. So we're back to the black widow story. It's not a black widow. I'm not a black widow, but with family, it was, they weren't trustworthy. Right. So, but both of those are extremes. So I think recognize it. I did therapy. I did like a lot of therapy. Well, I think that really helped because I mean, the whole Black Widow, people aren't going to know. When we were first together, almost 13 years ago, she'd like come and then she'd go

and she'd come back and then she'd go. And I'm like, you're a Black Widow. I was never doing the relationship thing again. After about a year and a half, she came and stayed. So I call myself the Black Widow tamer. Now you're not going anywhere. Right. She says it's the only reason she's running is if she's chasing me. And as you already know, I'm on her phone. She knows where I am at every minute of every day.

You put yourself on that. To clarify for the people who didn't hear the other shows this week, he put himself on the app. I did not force him to be on there. You want to be here. Oh, no, no question. I am in this black widow cage with you. No, it is consensual.

All right. What can people do? So those are the unhealthy things. So you can get therapy. Yes. Therapy can be so helpful. So incredibly helpful. But you want to see it from a family systems standpoint, not I'm good, he's bad, or I'm good, she's bad.

Because if you get that mindset, you're a victim and you can't change anything. It's what is it I can do today to make this better? You also want to build appropriate boundaries and assertiveness. One of our favorite books is from our friend John Townsend, Henry Cloud, called Boundaries. It's sold millions of copies. Like three million copies. And that is something we clearly recommend. It's okay for you to say, this is okay, this is not okay, and to draw respectful boundaries in your life.

So get help, boundaries, assertiveness. We actually teach people how to treat us by what we allow in our lives, by what we accept. I love a saying that you have. what we allow in our lives, by what we accept. I love a saying that you have, okay? Some people are afraid to go into this because it's scary and it's painful to go into it initially for a lot of people who have experienced pain in their past. Sometimes you don't do it for yourself.

Sometimes you do it out of love for someone else. And I know for me, when I was, I didn't want to dig into the past. Like I, like I said, I built this, not only walls, but facades. And it was just, I wanted to keep it out there. And so, but I had to step back and I'm like, number one, do I really want to keep pushing people away from me? Like I had this great guy, I had you. And I'm like, do I really want to keep doing that? That was a draw, but it might not have been a big enough draw at the time, but I had a, I had a child and what scared me, I was able to step back enough and look at it from a distance. I have this 30 foot perspective

thing that I do, like my meditation to look at it from 30,000 feet and check it out. It's like, am I going to really be a good mom if I keep pushing people away from me? And you might not think you're going to do that, but you will. So you have to find your motivation to get there. Sometimes it's not about you, sometimes it's about the people you love. The other thing that's really important is understand it from a neuroscience perspective. In my book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, I actually talk about relationships based on different brain systems. I talk about what they do, what happens when things go wrong, how to fix it. And I've had

so many people in abusive relationships tell me that they recognize themselves or the other person. And once we balance both of their brains, that their relationship became so much better. And so brain science can really be helpful. And in virtually no domestic violence programs does anybody talk about scanning people's brains or optimizing brain health. It's one of the things we're really trying to change here at Amen Clinics,

that we think brain health. It's one of the things we're really trying to change here at Amen Clinics that we think brain health should be central to any form of psychiatry or psychotherapy, because when your brain works right, you work right. You're more empathic. You're more thoughtful. You can see things from other people's points of view. Yep. So we hope this has been really helpful for you to learn more. I think getting John Townsend and Henry Cloud's book, Boundaries, can be just so helpful for you. And of course, we want you to read The Brain Warrior's Way and The Brain Warrior's Way cookbook. Stay with us. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast.

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