Love Lives - Lalalaletmeexplain on abusive relationships and toxic femininity

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

This week, we speak to Lalalaletmeexplain, the bestselling anonymous author and relationships educator with more than 200,000 followers on Instagram. Lala posts about all sorts of subjects on her account, from abusive relationships and cyberflashing to f*** boys and coercive control. On the show, Lala talks about how she started the account, her former role as a social worker, and delves into some of the issues she explores.Check out Millennial Love on all major podcast platforms and Independent TV, and keep up to date @Millennial_Love on Instagram and TikTok.If you, or someone you know, have been affected by child sexual abuse, call Childline on their helpline for children and young people who need to talk. Phone: [phone]The Victim Support helpline provides emotional and practical help to victims or witnesses of any crime, whether or not it has been reported to the police. Phone: [phone] (24/7)Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. This episode of Millennial Love contains themes that some viewers may find distressing. Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, a podcast from The Independent on everything to do with love, sexuality, identity and more. This week I am very excited to be joined by La La La Let Me Explain, the anonymous author and sex educator with more than 200,000 followers on Instagram. La La posts about all sorts of fascinating subjects on her account, from abusive relationships and cyber flashing to fuckboys and coercive control. Today, she joins me on the show to talk about how she started the account, how it became so popular, and we also talk about some of the issues that she explores, including abusive relationships. Enjoy the show.

Hello, Lala. How are you? I'm good. how are you I'm good how are you I am very good thank you thank you so much for doing this I'm so excited to talk to you um can you start us off by telling us a bit about your account and what kind of things you post on there for those who don't follow you well my account is really aimed at helping people to um date in a healthier way my main objective is to get people to recognize red flags and react and avoid to them avoid them before entering into an abusive relationships um so I post lots about dating and all the things that kind of come with love and dating um and I do that via like Instagram live so I answer lots of people's questions on Instagram lives I do lots of different story threads so at the moment my current story thread is about excuses that people have given for ghosting um and I do captions so a lot of the captions that

I do I'll see a post on Instagram like by someone else that that is when you look at it in the first instance a lot of people will like it and go yeah that's so true but I try to kind of break it down uh so that people can get a better understanding of some of the information that's being pushed to us and how actually that gives us a really negative view of relationships um so I just do loads of stuff on my account um with the aim to either help people to find better relationships or identify that they're in an abusive relationship and to get out of it. I mean, it's so brilliant. And you've got such a big platform. You've got like over 200,000 followers.

And clearly this stuff is really resonating with people, which is brilliant. But if anything, it also is a bit alarming because it just shows you how much there is such a lack of information about this kind of stuff out there. And, you know, I'm sure it is out there somewhere but it might be buried in some sort of academic book which is why I think it's so brilliant to put this stuff on social media like you're doing um and obviously you have the book as well which we'll get onto later but can you tell me how you got into this because you used to be a social worker didn't you so what made you kind of pivot towards sex and sex education, I suppose? Before I was a social worker, I was a sex and relationships educator for the NHS.

And that involved going around to schools and youth settings. So we worked with anyone between 11 and I think it was 21 or 24. I think it was 24. So we would go out to schools, colleges, youth offending institutes, youth clubs, all sorts of stuff and deliver information about basically safe sex and relationships. But a lot of it was geared to I mean, our first two sessions were about relationships and self-esteem. And then the second two sessions, so we always did four sessions, and the second two were about contraception and sexually transmitted infections. But it did feel, even then, that everything was much more geared towards

don't catch chlamydia rather than be in a really good place and sort out your shit before you get, you know, and even you can't really talk to 11 year olds like that anyway, because they haven't really, you know, they're still in the midst of, of their childhood traumas, I guess. So, so they're a long way from therapy, but so I did that for a few years and that's what motivated me to become a social worker because I would get a lot of disclosures from young people. So if you're sitting there talking, opening up conversations about sex and then you'd have young people coming and saying, my uncle did this or I've got a new boyfriend and he's been doing that. And I'd have to then make referrals to social workers and then leave it. You know, that was like the end for me. And I always really wanted to be involved. I wanted to take it further. I wanted to help those young people all the way through.

So I trained as a social worker. And I don't think you realize until you become a social worker that literally 80 percent of all referrals have got domestic abuse in there somewhere. It's so prevalent. And so it was the combination of those two jobs, but also the combination of the fact that while I was doing all this work and I had all this knowledge, I was still choosing really shit men, repeatedly choosing shit men, telling people at work, like the greatest advice to heal their lives and then coming home and running after a man who was either being ambivalent or emotionally abusive or, you know, all of those things. So it was like, I got to this point where I'd had like shit relationship after shit relationship. And then I sort of had these epiphanies like why the hell

am I not applying everything I know academically and professionally to myself um and that was that was the point where I was like okay shit I've got it like ah it's all starting to make sense to me and then I just I wanted to let other women know I think that's so interesting that you had that realization of why am I not kind of applying this to my own life because people people say that to me a lot as well they say you know you you're so good at talking about this stuff and you you know all of these things about sex and relationships and and my friends are like what it's so ironic that you make such bad choices in your own life but I think it's a very difficult thing isn't it because even if I think the only difference with being in this position is that when you do make those mistakes

you're conscious that you're doing it but you're you're not you're not going to stop doing it necessarily yeah the um and so now you're no longer a social worker are you now you focus on the account I'm still a social worker in the sense that I am registered licensed and able to be a social worker and and and I still feel like I am a social worker just in a different format so I still do one-to-one advice with people uh and I feel like so my podcasts and a lot of my work are accepted by Social Work England uh for continued professional development so other social workers can listen to my podcasts and meet their training uh criteria for the year by doing that so I feel like I'm still a social worker but I'm doing more like educate social work education but now I'm not out on the front line anymore and and how quickly did the account grow because it's it's it's really boomed were you were you surprised by that and did it kind of all grow quite organically was it other people kind of

talking about it and sharing bits of advice that you were posting about yeah it's all been through word of mouth a lot of people ask me for my like tips on on growing an account um and I really don't have any I never went through any kind of social media experts or anything and I think it's just that I've been completely consistent since I started I haven't diverted I've been talking about the same thing and uh and people tell their friends I started in 2017 with like zero followers and because I'm anonymous I couldn't even like rope in like friends and be like hey can anyone follow me so it really started at zero and I don't know why anyone followed me because my account was so rubbish at the beginning like genuinely crap uh but yeah it just grew and grew and it keeps on growing which is nice

it's just like a steady it's about a thousand a week I think it goes up by um that's amazing and the anonymity is that something presumably that's something you started because you were running this alongside your job but is that something you're planning on keeping now and why why would you like to keep the anonymity it just makes so much sense to me like I have no desire to be famous at all I like my own privacy I've got a couple of friends who are pretty well known and you know when I've been out at like festivals with them and stuff it's just a nightmare because people are stopping every two seconds asking for a picture and shouting their names and I would hate that uh but there's sort of you know much deeper reasons really

I was a child protection social worker I've been into court removing people's children from them with good reason um I've helped women to leave abusive men. I feel like I'd feel quite vulnerable if my face was attached to all of this and people were able to go, she was my social worker, you know. I live alone with my son and he's about to go to secondary school. I don't really want him to become a target as a result of like, oh, your mum talks about sex online, which is sad. But my anonymity holds me back massively. Like I'm I could I'm not earning a great deal of money. And and I said occasionally the only thing that pulls me to not be anonymous is that is the knowledge that if I was to just relinquish all of that, I'd be in a completely different place. You know, I'd be able to do TV. So it really holds me back. It's really

holding me back financially. It is something I may have to think about as the cost of living crisis continues, but I genuinely do not want to not be anonymous ever. I much prefer it. Yeah, well, I think it's really admirable. But I think it also it makes the quality of what you do, I think, all the much higher. Because in a way, it doesn't the focus is purely on what you're doing and the messages that you're sending. And like you said, you know, the things that you do talk about are so important and I think you know maybe that's a problem with our culture that we get these people who you know start they start off on social media by creating a really important message whether it's about sex and dating or or whatever it is about and then because of the way the world works they become a personal brand and it's sort of you know the more and more you do the things that you were talking about the advertisements the tv appearances and

all of that stuff it becomes more and more about you as a person less about the actual message you're sending and I think it's um it's just really interesting that that's the world that we live in it's quite toxic oh it's so toxic and it's so toxic that I'm held back by anonymity and it's so toxic that I have to if I was a man I doubt very much that I would have felt the need to be anonymous highly unlikely that I would have even thought about it because I wouldn't have felt embarrassed about the things that I talk about in relation to being a mum not that I'm embarrassed but you know I know that the world could potentially judge my son not the world but you know this his secondary school um the fear that I feel about potentially

facing physical ramifications from ex-clients and stuff I mean all of that stuff I don't think I'd I'd be I think if I was a man none of that would exist so I think it's really sad but like you say I think there's also something really beneficial to the anonymity uh in that any woman can connect to me they I can be who they want me to be and I've there's certain accounts that I have followed and then I've seen the person who runs it and I think we're probably not seeing the same kind of men you're much older than me or you're much younger than me or you're you know just complete different style and and it may it affects the way that I receive the information um so I I think that the way the anonymity helps my information to be received by by many more people yeah god that's

so true I didn't think about it like that and so what are some of the things that people ask you about the most on your account? Oh, it's such a range. I get so, so many DMs. I mean, a big common theme is ghosting. So people going on a few dates, sometimes even more. I get quite a lot of messages about people who are like I met someone he was amazing uh it was going really well we've seen each other for like five or six weeks or whatever and then he's just gone like disappeared off the face of the earth he made all these promises to me we had all these plans for the future um so I get a lot of those I get a lot of those. I get a lot of people who are feeling quite desperate.

Like in a sense, there's lots of sort of rejection that goes on on apps and things like that. There's lots of people who are finding themselves lonely and are not able to find anyone, not able to meet anyone, especially now that we all kind of are much more familiar with red flags and things like that once you become kind of woke and awake to it all it becomes much harder to find partners um I get a lot of messages about abuse people in abusive relationships loads of messages from people who've got friends or sisters in abusive relationships and who feel really stuck and don't know how to uh help but but such a range like I've got a live tomorrow there's one about meeting a guy who um she really likes but his breath stinks we get a few like that you know like tiny penises or smelly armpits or whatever you know so there's a whole wide range I want to talk to you a bit about dating apps what you touched on there because this is something that I talk about a lot my kind of general

thesis about dating apps is that yes of course you can meet someone on dating app and people do meet people but I think the system is against you from the beginning and I think if you do meet someone on a dating app you're very lucky and I'm surprised that people are contacting you so much about ghosting because I would think given how much we talk about that now and we have done for a while people wouldn't do that so much anymore but clearly they are doing that and presumably a lot of that comes from dating app interactions what's your view on on dating apps and whether that they can lead to a successful relationship I mean it's important to start by saying that they certainly can and that there are many successful relationships and even marriages that have resulted from dating

apps but I think that they have changed dating beyond recognition and put it into a place. I feel like we don't even know how to kind of interact with people in the normal sense anymore. And I think when dating apps first came to prominence in around, you know, the early 2010, 2011, that kind of time, they were very different to how they are now. I certainly experienced them very differently. People seemed more genuine. People seemed more able to have proper back and forth interactions and conversations. People were willing to date and meet. I had a great time on the apps back then. You know, I met loads of men, not for sex, but for genuine dating. And whether that worked out or not, a lot of them are still my friends now.

Whereas now I don't use dating apps anymore because some assholes screenshot my pictures last time I was on there and put them on a bullying site. Oh, my God. It's horrible. So I can't use dating apps anymore which is so shit as a single person but actually even if I did use them my my experience of dating apps in recent times is that people don't know how to hold a conversation anymore people aren't you know it's very dull um people are less willing to set up dates. And when they do, they're less kind of even committed to it, you know, and that's why a lot of ghosting happens

at that point. People aren't even often getting to first dates. And then when they are getting to first dates, you know, people are like, back on Tinder, the second the date has finished and looking for more people. I think it's become especially post lockdown I think something has happened to all of our brains I don't know if you've read Johan Hari's Stolen Focus excellent book and everybody should read it and it is all about I mean I've just written a book but I can barely read a book now I have to listen to all my books on Audible. If I pick up an actual paper book, it takes me, I have to read the same page like over and over again before it goes in. Even when I'm watching TV, I'm looking at my phone every five minutes. You know, I don't have

that ability to connect and concentrate in the way that I did, you know, maybe five years ago. And I think that that kind of behavior is now falling into the way that we date, you know, maybe five years ago. And I think that that kind of behavior is now falling into the way that we date. You know, it's just like, I can't concentrate on this. I can't stick to this. I can't commit to this. I can't be bothered to talk to this person. I can't be bothered to leave my house and have a date, you know. So I think dating apps have ruined everything. I think people are still trying because where else are you going to meet people? But I think I think dating apps have ruined everything I think people are still trying because where else are you going to meet people but I think a lot of people are having the same experiences that it's just very vapid it's very shallow and and it's very difficult to make real proper good

connections it is and I think the other quite depressing thing about it is that it doesn't just hinder the way that we can meet people online but I think it hinders our real life interactions as well because I think because so many people are on dating apps it means that when we are out and about people are less likely to approach one another because we're not used to it anymore because we're just we're so used to just going on our phones and flirting with someone there I think a lot of people now lack the confidence to actually start talking to someone in real life now I was listening don't judge me I was listening to Joe Rogan and Bill Mayer um uh podcast just as I was going for a walk the other day and they were talking about this thing and it instantly irked me I instantly

got my back up but they were talking about this thing where it's like actually you know post me to post all the um rise of feminist conversation online younger men are now actually afraid to approach women um and it did get my back up because I thought are they you know is that true or is this just like oh you know me too means that we can't even talk to anyone anymore but they're having this kind of conversation and I did I did think maybe I mean are men now more fearful certainly younger men who may not have been raised in the same way that men you know who are upwards of 30 or whatever, were raised. I don't know. I mean, I still get approached by men out and about. But, yeah, so I just, I think it's affecting everybody.

Yeah. It's interesting, that line of argument, because I remember that coming up a lot in the immediate wake of Me Too. And there were a couple of actors uh who said things like that I can remember off the top of my head I think it was Henry Cavill and um Taron Egerton they said things along the lines of you know I just don't want to go and talk to women anymore you just don't know how to talk to women anymore um because you don't want to be accused of something was the kind of paraphrasing of what they were saying and it's a really difficult

thing to empathize with because a part of me thinks well the fact that you are worried about that just shows that you have grown up in such a toxic environment in terms of your relationships with women and you have no understanding of what what it should be like and inequality and and verbal and emotional cues and all of those things I just think that it shouldn't even necessarily be something that you're thinking about you know I'm worried that they're going to think I'm harassing them if you're thinking about that then you clearly need to go back to step one because that that shouldn't ever be something you're thinking about and I I'm the same as you. I've been approached by guys in real life recently. And weirdly, it never used to happen,

but it started happening more since post-pandemic, a little bit. So I think there is this sort of feeling of, oh, we're out and about now, so maybe we will try and take those risks a bit more. And I've actually never had it in an instance where it's been you know anything particularly creepy or untoward it's just it's just sort of like um hi can I get your number or something you know yeah yeah and I don't I don't think any woman's gonna call the police

about that you know I think and it really shouldn't there's no gray areas really like I think most women are fairly happy as long as we've kind of given a green light I wouldn't want somebody to come running up behind me and like tap my shoulder or something that would freak me out but if we've been standing in a bar or at the gym and we've clearly been making eyes at each other and you come over and you're like hey uh you know would you be up talking? I don't think there's any woman that's going to be like, oh, you know. But like you say, if you are now scared to approach women, I think maybe they need to reflect on how you were approaching them before, you know. Yeah.

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Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. And so the subtitle of your book, which is brilliant, by the way, is it's Block Move. Block Delete Move On. It's Not You, It's Them. Yes. So I'm really interested in the title and particularly the tagline. It's Not You, It's Them. really interested in the title and particularly the tagline it's not you it's them uh where did that come from and is that aimed the them at anyone in particular you know I want anyone um to be able to apply that after reading chapter three because there is a chapter in there which is about doing the work and making sure that you're not the person who keeps waving the red flags for me one of the so it's so so the them could be anyone who you know and I think that that is something that's quite important to remember when you're dating that if

you're getting ghosted if you're not getting matches on dating apps if you know people are being horrible to you or whatever it isn't you it's them and I think sometimes placing the fault on ourselves it gives a real knock to the self-esteem and I really wanted the book to make people feel like dating is shit for everybody for a lot of people um don't blame yourself you know but uh for me as as a cishet woman who who dates cis het men, it was quite an epiphany when I really started to understand that half the shit that was happening to me would not be happening if the roles were reversed and if I was a man. And that a lot of the things that I was experiencing were purely happening because I was a woman so it was when I you know I'd known about misogyny I'd worked with it I'd studied feminism I'd done all these things again it wasn't I wasn't applying it to myself I wasn't thinking

about um how much misogyny impacts on dating I mean it impacts on queer dating too um but specifically if you are a cishet woman dating a cishet man there are so many things you know the orgasm gap getting ghosted straight after sex getting finessed into bed under the guise that this was going to be some big long relationship you know so many little things that were just like, this is a gender issue. And actually, it's so freeing. It's really liberating when you go, oh, hold up. Like, this is not me. And I'm not getting treated like this because I'm some flawed woman that only deserves to be fucked and left or whatever, you know.

It's happening because of the patriarchy. So even though that line doesn't directly mean that, it mean you know it's just not you but also to me it was important to include that because it was such a liberating thing and an empowering thing for me to realize how much my gender was affecting all of this so really it's it's not us it's them it's these bloody idiots So really, it's not us, it's them. It's these bloody idiots. It's so good. But also, I think what I really like that you started that answer with is that you touched on that chapter in your book where you do talk about taking accountability as well. Because I think, you know, everything that you have just said is so, so important.

is so so important but we need to talk about that alongside everything that you put in that chapter about recognizing your own behavior and recognizing you know the own the red flags that you are creating because actually I think so much of the rhetoric when we talk about dating in modern culture is about exclusively you know sort of blaming other people and and to in a degree sort of framing yourselves as completely free of of any wrongdoing and that's obviously not right because if there are all of these people who are complaining about being hurt clearly someone is out there hurting them and there's not enough talk about recognizing that in yourself and I think that's why it's so important that you talk about in the book um I guess just quickly on that note can you explain how you do go about having that process of self-reflection

and looking back because chances are all of us have done things to hurt someone in the past um you know whether and that will be on a on a sliding scale of course but how do you go about addressing those internal issues I suppose the quick answer is therapy but aside from that yeah um I mean self-reflection is incredibly important and I find personally the best way is journaling um so I think it's really important to start by thinking about the patterns and maybe think about the significant previous relationships that you've had and looking at whether there are any patterns within those. really quickly with your intensity or have you found yourself being a little bit manipulative to people like getting upset if they want to go out for the night out and creating dramas or whatever like have a look think about those things and start right just right and that's what I love

about journaling is it's not about creating a story it's not about anything that anybody else needs to read it's just free writing and what I have found with journaling is it's incredibly therapeutic because you just start writing and once you you know so you may talk about one scenario and you might want to write out you know some of the details some of the key things that happen within that and that might lead you to another one and it suddenly sparks off these things um so so so that really I mean therapy is the key there there is there is no way of getting around it I know that therapy can be expensive but there are different options there's a list at the back of my book of ways to uh or like resources and things like that but um but yeah so I think

journaling and just unraveling stuff in your own head by looking at the patterns, by looking at the way you have showed up in relationships and writing that out to me is just maybe that's because I'm a writer. I don't know, but that's it's really effective for me. And in fact, I did a lot of my healing on my page. I wasn't fully healed when I first started. I started out doing massive blogs and I was doing them every few days. started I started out doing massive blogs and I was doing them every few days and when I read back on them now I'm like oh my god like you were I've taken them all down because actually me five years ago it was a complete different person I was reading one the other day and I was chatting to this guy and it was just like red flag central and I'm writing this out in this blog like um

and he said like on our first message on a dating app, are you talking to anyone else? Because if you are, I don't want to talk to you. And I'm like, of course not, you know, trying some people please. And, you know, as I'm reading out these things, I'm like, ah, that was a massive, I was not healed. I was still talking to this guy. But that was a real key thing for me was this whole people pleasing thing so then after listening to that I sat down and I got my journal out and I was just writing about people pleasing when have I tried to please people where did that come from you know just writing it out really helped me unlock like quite a lot of things um so but yeah there's

nothing that can replace therapy, unfortunately. Yeah. I was really interested by something you posted about recently, which I've seen kind of being spoken about more and more online. But I think there's quite a warped understanding of what it actually means. And that is toxic femininity. Can you explain what that phrase means, where it comes from, and why do you need to understand it? means where it comes from and why do you need to understand it I mean I I think where it comes from is as a backlash to uh feminists talking about toxic masculinity I think it's just been flipped around by MRAs and incels and uh misogynists um I don't believe that there is anything I don't

believe that that toxic femininity is a thing not in the same way that toxic masculinity is I don't believe that there is anything I don't believe that that toxic femininity is a thing not in the same way that toxic masculinity is I don't think women are perfect by any stretch of the imagination and in the course of my work and in my life I have met some really evil nasty horrid horrid women so to say that toxic femininity doesn't exist is not me saying women are all brilliant. It's me saying that toxic masculinity also doesn't mean that men are shit. What it means is that they're trying to aspire to an ideal of what it means to be a man that's actually really unhealthy and actually is quite dangerous. But there isn't that for women. There isn't a flip side. You know, toxic masculinity is fueled by this idea that you have to be like an alpha male, powerful, aggressive, violent, controlling, superior.

And it leads to male on male violence and male on female violence. And it leads to pretty much the vast majority of problems in this world look at Putin um and Trump and all of these people um and what people have tried to do is sort of flip it around and I saw this version of toxic femininity the other day which is why I did a caption about it and it was it was listing all of these kind of traits like submissiveness, fragility and emotions and all of this kind of stuff. And I was just like, well, that's that that's not hurting anyone. And in fact, those traits, the only people, the only person that's going to hurt is the woman who's who's holding them or aspiring to them. the only reason a woman would aspire to be submissive and delicate and fragile is because toxic masculinity requires her to be that in order for the man to to be superior um so so I I just

don't think it exists as a concept as an equivalent to toxic masculinity but yeah just to reiterate that doesn't mean that women are all great there are horrible people but it's just not a thing as far as I'm concerned yeah I think a lot of what you just touched on it it basically to me translates to if there are toxic traits or toxic ways that women behave actually a lot of that does come from the patriarchy and the way that men behave. I mean, a really obvious example would be the kind of like scarcity mindset of women pitting themselves against one another and women being super competitive with one another, particularly in the workplace. And that obviously comes from this idea that there's not enough room for women at the top. And so you have to like fight to the death in order to get there and every woman is seen as a competitor or a threat in some way and you know I think you feel that across across our

professional and personal lives you know we feel that in dating a lot it's the reason why we are conditioned to hate our partner's ex-girlfriends you know um and it really it really it's interesting because it does actually all kind of come back to that same idea um I know you've mentioned abusive relationships which I really want to talk to you about because obviously you have such a unique um insight into that because of your job as a social worker um I guess the thing I want to talk to you about specifically is sort of the psychological abuse side of things because that is something that I think is still really widely misunderstood. So I guess to start off with, could you tell me some of the more subtle signs that you might be in a psychologically abusive relationship?

So the first thing to really always look out for is something called love bombing. So the first thing to really always look out for is something called love bombing. And love bombing is where things start out really wonderfully and really, but very intensely. And sometimes that feels wonderful. Sometimes it just feels like, yeah, I never want to be away from this person. Like we've clicked, we've connected. I really fancy them. They make me feel safe and wonderful. But the thing about love bombing is that it will be like

too much too soon. And they might really invest in you. They might buy you stuff. They might take you to expensive places. They might do all of these things for you. And then when you decide one weekend that you can't see them because you're going off to your mate's hen do or something, they start to get a bit pissed off or maybe not even pissed off because if they were pissed off then you'd kind of notice it more you'd kind of be like oh this is weird but actually they're not pissed off they're just a bit sort of sad and hurt and upset like and it'll be that thing of what I've done so much for you like I bought you that phone like I thought we were spending this weekend together you know and you're saying you're going to this hen do like have you thought about me and then that might spark off something in you that makes you feel a little bit guilty

for going out and then so you'll cancel your best friend's birthday next week just to make them feel better and then this becomes a bit of a pattern So they've given you all this love and they've really hooked you in. And then they can start manipulating you quite easily and the behavior can turn quite easily. And even though you still get that love and you get that intensity, it's also coupled with you are now responsible for my feelings. And if you go out or if you wear something that I don't like, or if you post you wear something that I don't like or if you post something on Instagram that I don't like that's really hurting me and I've done so much for you you know which is how they get us into it because it's like oh yeah there's this niceness and I owe him and or her um so we really have to watch out for those really subtle things at the start. And of course, jealousy

is a really important one to look out for. Some jealousy in relationships is fairly healthy. But not jealousy that would make a partner want to tell you what to wear, where to go, who to speak to. Any type of control is is worrying and the thing that people need to remember is that if you're starting to get those kind of gut feelings that oh this seems a bit controlling but it's just a one-off at the beginning of the relationship and we can go through you know I think certain things are pink flags and other things are red flags so if they display some like controlling behavior at the beginning and you kind of are able to say well mate like nah I'm not going to

tolerate you getting upset if I don't reply to your messages within half an hour or whatever and they go oh shit you know this this may be to do with my attachment style this is something I need to figure out but I'll never do it again cool you can maybe move forward but if it's just insidious drip drip small amounts of control um you have to get out even if it hasn't got a properly abusive yet these are the signs that it's going to become extremely abusive and the thing is it always escalates it always escalates um there are lots of there are there are lots of signs you know like anger even the way they treat other people you know if you're on a date with somebody and they get really fucked off because the food has arrived cold and they're really nasty to the

waiter or you're in a car with them and their road rage is like scary you know little things like that we need to really pay attention to like little outbursts and things like that yeah it's so difficult though isn't it because it's like I think the thing with this stuff is that your initial reaction might be to try and talk about it with them and to try and maybe maybe you're quite educated about this stuff and maybe you recognize it and maybe you talk to them about it but their immediate reaction is going to be to deny it and to make you feel like you are crazy and that you're either imagining it or that you're overreacting or they'll try and justify their reaction in some way so in that kind of situation how do you how do you get out of it and what what advice would you give to someone who has started

to kind of question their own perception of it you know all the signs you've talked about are quite clear but I think it's easy to list those off but when you're in that actual context you know how um yeah how how do you recognize that you need to get out of it and how do you do that how do you gather up the strength and the confidence to do that oh my god it is so hard it is it is so hard to recognize it it really is and it's so obvious when you see it in other people's relationships but when you're in your own because there is always this love and this connection or maybe not even love it could be lost because you have this thing with this person that is like, yeah, but there's all this good stuff.

It can make it very difficult to spot the bad. There's a question in my book that comes in from a woman who talks about the fact that she had a really crap relationship before and the guy cheated on her with her best friend I left her for her best friend um and that means so in her new relationship what she's doing is getting really angry when the guy tries to go out um is checking his phone and all of this sort of stuff so so even though there is context to that behavior because she's been so hurt and damaged before that she's finding it difficult to trust that doesn't excuse it whereas I think when we're in those things you know I've certainly I dated somebody who was really strange guy actually he

was definitely a narcissist and there was never any physical violence but he was odd and there was definitely uh weird psychological shit going on and I kind of knew like right from the first day and I was very well versed in all this stuff at this time I was already a social worker but I also knew what he told me again very early on in our talking was that he'd witnessed very serious domestic abuse. His mum, he told me all these stories, like horrific stuff that he'd experienced as a child. And because I then understood the context when he was doing this weird shit, I was like, oh, but this poor unhealed child you know so so so even though I could recognize it was abuse because I understood where it came from and because I felt like well I can fix this I can be the one who can heal this you know and especially after people do fucked

up stuff they normally are very remorseful and apologetic and then things feel wonderful afterwards so it's really really hard to withdraw yourself from it and actually unless you withdraw in the very early stages where you're like no red flag red flag red flag I'm out once you start getting that emotional connection it's very difficult to get out and most people don't get out until it's actually reached that point where they're thinking this man's going to kill me or woman or or where they're thinking I can't do this to my children or I can never have children with this person because what the fuck like you know usually once you've headed into it very difficult to extract yourself from it which is why my whole goal is to be like spot a red flag and run from the beginning. You know, let's not even get ourselves to this point because it's very difficult. But once you have reached that point, you know, you must seek out support,

even if you have become isolated from your friends, because that's what happens a lot. You get into a relationship, you stop seeing your mates as frequently. And then when you need them, you feel awkward because you're like fuck I've basically neglected these friendships but just be bold know that anyone is going to want to hear from you anyone who previously loved you like your family your friends call them tell them what's going on start the ball rolling or contact refuge or women's aid or um south all black sisters there's lots of resources out there again they're in my book uh they're on my page but you can just google domestic abuse and put in your local area and resources should come up but but speak about it talk about it don't ever feel embarrassed or

humiliated or ashamed because you're really not alone thank you so much for that honestly I think it's such helpful advice and I think you really really can't hear it enough um or or talk about it enough particularly in the context that you did and I think your expertise in the area provides a really helpful um extra level to it um which is obviously why your account is so brilliant and so necessary thank you finally I mean I could talk to you for a lot longer, but finally it's time for our Lessons in Love segment. So this is the part of the show where I ask every guest to share something valuable that they have learnt

about their previous relationship experiences and something that they are taking forward in their love lives. So what would your lesson in love for us be today? That we really are all worthy of love and I think that that is what messed me up for so many years is that I never believed I deserved it or that I was worthy uh or that I was good enough and it and that made me run towards red flags because I was just so happy that anybody would want me. That I was like, yay. So I think that that is the thing.

And if you don't feel worthy of love, please don't date until you do. You know, that is not a healthy or good place. And dating will not fix your loneliness or make you feel worthy. The only thing that's going to do that is real self-healing and if you can't do that through therapy get on youtube look at loads of self-help things i really love the law of attraction the law of attraction really helped me to change my headspace um so so yeah if you feel unworthy if you feel, if you feel unworthy, if you feel desperate, if you feel terribly lonely, dating is the worst thing you could possibly do. Yeah, I think that's so important to remember, isn't it? Because so often we will put ourselves in those positions of dating when we are not ready.

And then that's when we make bad choices. That's when we avoid the red flags. So we miss them. That's when we end up in a situation that we shouldn't have ever been in the first place I think you're right it's so important to recognize that when you need some time to work on yourself um and then that's how you'll hopefully get towards a healthier relationship absolutely that like if you you know if you are dating because you feel wonderful and you want to share that with someone else then that that's great if you're dating to fill a void then then you're likely to fill it with shit you know and it won't help you and then you'll need you know your therapy bill will be even higher because there'll be another relationship that's going to mess you up yeah exactly ultimately save your money

thank you so much Lala it's been so wonderful to chat to you um I've really really enjoyed it that's it for today thank you so much for listening if you are a new listener to Millennial Love you can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast or anywhere else if you are more of a visuals person you can now watch us on independent TV so please do head over there and like and share and subscribe and do all of those things that more people can find us and you can keep up to date with everything to do with the show on instagram just search for millennial love and i will see you soon bye Thank you. mastering a strength program. They've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are.

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