Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Making Sense of Narcissism with Nadine Macaluso (Ex Wife of Jordan Belfort "Wolf of Wall Street" - Episode 33

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

HAVE YOU SEEN THE WOLF OF WALL STREET?   Had the honor of spending time with the real ex wife of the infamous Jordan Belfort "The Wolf of Wall Street" the amazing Nadine Macaluso - What an amazing story and what an amazing human. The episode was about Making Sense of the Narcissist!!! This Podcast episode is available on Apple and Spotify.   SUBSCRIBE / RATE / FOLLOW The Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/makes-sense-with-dr-jc-doornick/id1730954168   Follow/Connect with Nadine Website: https://drnae.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/therealdrnadine Her Tell All Book: RUN LIKE HELL - https://amzn.to/3z8GBqT The Makes Sense Podcast available on Spotify and Apple - You will find a "Follow" button top right. This will enable the podcast software to alert you when a new episode launches each https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/makes-sense-with-dr-jc-doornick/id1730954168 Click this link to SUBSCRIBE/RATE/REVIEW - https://ratethispodcast.com/makessensepodcast Thank you for your support with our podcast on apple and spotify. Our mission is to remove the blindfolds from the sleepwalking masses and begin the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. OUR SPONSOR: MAKES SENSE ACADEMY Enjoy the show and consider joining our psychological safe haven and environment where you can begin to thrive. The Makes Sense Academy. https://www.riseupwithdragon.com/makes-sense-academy   0:00 - Intro 05:17 - Who was Nadine before she met the Wolf of Wall Street? 07:40 - What do Narcissists look for in the people they target? 09:29 - What was it like when you first met the Jordan Belfort 13:05 - Was the story where he crashed his Lambo on Quaaludes True? 16:01 - What was it like to be married to a guy that had such crazy friends? 19:00 - What was the first red flag that made you notice you were with a narcissist? 21:44 - Does a narcissist have the ability to acknowledge the irrationality of their behavior? 23:11 - Can my love change and fix him? 27:21 - Are people born as narcissists? 30:20 - What did you learn about yourself through all of this? 32:00 - The big 5 personality assessment. 33:11 - The Trauma Bond 35:42 - How does someone break free from a trauma bond? 27:47 - Tolerate the guilt of protecting yourself. 41:39 - Did this stuff happen to you or for you? Is there a blessing in disguise?   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hmm, makes sense. Great morning, humans. This is Dr. J.C. Dornick and welcome to another episode of the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. Dornick podcast. I want to welcome today's very special guests and somebody that is known as a woman whose story resembles yours. As a 22-year-old, Nadine McAluso never could have understood what she was committing to when she married Jordan Belfour. The fraudulent stuff. dockbroker, infamously known as the Wolf of Wall Street. Their eight-year marriage began as a fairy tale, filled with romantic dinners, expensive gifts, and lavish parties. But once they were bonded,

Jordan's mask began to slip, an acts of infidelity, narcissistic abuse, insatiable greed, and uncontrollable drug addiction became Nadine's living nightmare. Nadine naively believed that their connection was real and that her love could save him. So she, She remained trauma bonded until the pain of their relationship became simply too much to bear. It would be decades before she realized her story resembled thousands of other women's relational experiences. Everything changed when she began therapy. At 30, Nadine packed up her kids and her curtains and left Jordan relocating to Los Angeles,

California. She began a transformative process of intense therapy and deep self-reflection, which required facing her pain, admitting, and owning her mistakes, and reconnecting with the authentic self she'd lost due to Jordan's abuse. Through her own healing, a passion for helping others was born. She returned to school at 39 years old to become a psychotherapist and 10 years later, graduated with a PhD in counseling and somatic psychology. And then she found her passion and purpose. Dr. Ney's private practice quickly flooded with women recounting and all-tubeau. familiar story of abuse with a pathological partner. Her goal of helping people develop healthy

relationships took on a life of its own as she realized that the trauma bonds were increasingly prevalent and destroying the lives of hundreds of women. Nadine embarked on a 12-year journey of learning about domestic violence. She combined her academic background with her experience and that of her patients, eventually leading her to become an industry expert in narcissistic abuse, trauma bonds, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Now she wants to help you. Her combined 30 years experience have led Dr. Nay to produce her first book, and I've read it myself, and it's fantastic.

A profoundly insightful guide on why women enter and stay in abusive relationships with pathological partners. The psychological makeup of vulnerable women and pathological lovers, how to leave a trauma bond, and how to heal and find healthy love. The book is called Run Like Hell. A Therapist Guide to Recognizing, Escaping, and Healing from Trauma Bonds. And it's out now. Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. Dornick podcast, Nadine McAluso. So honored and privileged to have you here.

Oh, that's sweet. But thank you for having me. I want to just open up by telling you why I'm so fascinated with having you on the show. The whole premise of this show is to take ideas. And today we're going to open up the jar, narcissism. and trauma bonds and a lot of things that you're very passionate with. And obviously there's this amazing story that you carry. But for me, personally, you know, my own life experience,

and I happen to be married to a mental health therapist and a relationship coach and a sex therapist. And I'm also a man, you know, so as somebody that is very, very much interested in being a good husband, but at the same time, recognizing that I still have some sort of caveman inside of me, I'm so fascinated by. this thing that you've done such a great job with your your book run like hell and a lot of your content to make people aware of something that a lot of people just don't know about so yeah that's what that's why i'm i'm so excited to have you here thank you thank you for sharing that so what i'd love

to do is you know i know a lot of the the listeners have questions i kind of pulled a lot of people and said what do you want to know from nadine and i'd love to get deep into the narcissism and the trauma bond but first and foremost, some of the goodies that you very often talk about about this past that you have. I find it very, very interesting where it all started, even before you met the Wolf of Wall Street. Because I believe that that movie was based on his story. Am I right? Correct. Yes.

It's his narrative, his perspective, for sure. So when everybody sees, you know, the woman that played you come in, they don't have any knowledge of who she was. before that, you know, shoot. So what I'd love you to do, because I've heard, heard you, you talk about this and it shares it in the book. Tell us a little bit about who Nadine was prior to that day in building up to it. Yeah. Yeah, thank you for that. Yeah, because I definitely was a person before that day. She did exist. She did exist. So, yeah, I grew up in Brooklyn and with a single mom. And it was really fun in the 1970s in Brooklyn. Kids were just playing on the street. There was no internet. And I grew up in a house that was very psychologically

oriented. My mother allowed me to talk about my feelings and she was reading Sigmund Freud when I was a young girl. And so I was very blessed in that way. But, you know, growing up adjacent to New York City, not having parents that I wasn't a Nepo baby, let's just say that, that we're going to just throw money at me or barely even pay for my college and support me. I figured out, hey, I have to support myself at a very young age. So I really had to support myself, I would say it like 17 or 18. So I became a model in New York City to do that. So this is what's really fascinating to me. And I would assume plays into the eventuality of you becoming a therapist because it was kind of ingrained. What I am fascinated to hear you talk about, though, is did this transition, you know,

I mean, I understand the household that you brought in, but you also became a very independent person. Did that set you up for what eventually happened in any way? This was what I was thinking about when I read your story in the sense that you were very open and curious and that the fact that you were taking care of yourself and you became independent. Did that you make you susceptible to opportunity? Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, I think, well, I think the fact that I was very open and very curious. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I was definitely open to opportunity. I was looking to better myself, right? Right. I always wonder about this because the side of the story of what unfolded with Wolf of Wall Street is I always wonder how

these guys target their people. You know what I mean? I mean, obviously you're a young beauty. I mean, obviously a lot of people probably noticed you when you walked into that infamous party, but there's a lot of work that goes into this whole narcissistic behavior. I just wonder if they have their eyes out or ears open to certain scenarios. Do you have any knowledge on? Yeah. I mean, first of all, you know, if we think about men like that that are very into their image, right?

And they like objects that make them look better, right? So a man like that likes a beautiful woman on his arm. So I think that that plays a piece of it. And energetically, I do think when, I don't think when he first met me, because I don't think, you know, he could tell what type of person I was. But when we started to get to know each other for sure, the fact that I'm highly agreeable and loyal intolerance and all of those sorts of things, like I love relationships, I'm sure that he's a very bright man. I'm sure he picked up on that. If I was just a total, like,

difficult person and negative all the time, I don't think he would have been like, let's get married. Right. I mean, that's the fascinating thing. I don't know what it's like to be a narcissist. I only know what it's like to be knowledgeable about the characteristics. So I'm just, I'm just curious about that. But I think what I just took from what you said is they probably don't put that much thought into it, they probably more look for anything that will elevate them and their ego and things like that. I think that's, I mean, listen, we've never had that discussion, but I'm just assuming that he saw me, that's a hot, young, beautiful girl, she's mine.

So is the blessing and curse of being beautiful, right? Yes, everything's a paradox I've learned at 56. So another thing that I wanted to ask you, because I can see. seen now that, you know, on the other side of this, you're such a driven, passionate, you know, person that loves to help people. I would assume that prior to meeting him, you were on your way somewhere and very driven. And there were probably some other things falling into place that you all of a sudden ended up putting on hold. So that must have been a pretty powerful moment. And the way that you explained it in your book, it's like you didn't have this like, you know,

divine intervention moment when you first met him. It actually came later. That first grip of even pondering and considering it and getting off your path must have been pretty powerful because I would assume that you were probably a very driven girl at that time. Yeah, yeah. I'm very conscientious and I'm driven and I'm ambitious, right, hence why I got my doctorate. And so I was modeling at the time.

And then in Los Angeles, pilot season happens in January. So I was going to, by the way, I am the worst actress. So this would have not. And my accent, by the way, nobody's hiring me to be in a movie with this accent. They all told me that. But I was going to go to pilot season in Los Angeles that January because I did a lot of commercials because I was short. Right. So, but then meeting this over the top love bonding person, it changed the whole trajectory.

of my life. Now, you had a very unique situation in the household that you grew up. You mentioned that you were aware of, you know, some of these psychological things and you were, and I don't know if there was religion or anything, but you probably studied what now is such a common thing, but personal growth and self-development. You probably knew a little bit more about that than the average person. But a lot of these things that you have now discovered on the other side of all these things you've been through didn't really exist, like, like love bombing and narcissism. Like, They were words, but they weren't like up in front of us as much as they are now. So you probably weren't aware of a lot of those things that were happening.

Oh, oh my God. To say I was clueless is like an understatement, honestly. Because we weren't talking about those, these things back then. You know, it's only in 1970s that, you know, domestic violence became a crime. I'm pretty sure, you know. So it's like, when we're so about narcissism, trauma bonds, love bombing, And I just thought I was a young girl falling in love, you know, believing the Disney myth that someday my prince will come and rescue me.

I have three kids. And they're just growing up in this crazy world right now. And I just try to. And by the way, just so you know, we recently adopted a little girl who is 14. And I don't even know how, but she's seen the wolf of Wall Street. So I had to like have a sit down with her and in preparation for this conversation, give her access to a couple of things. Because I think when people see a movie, regardless of what it is, they don't really

absorb what's going on. It's just the visuals and they make assumptions and stuff like that. So my little girl is just, she's amazing, but you're having impacts on little girls as well. You know, so hopefully none of this stuff happens for them, you know, because they can. Yeah. And I really do want to affect the young women because, you know, we've got to jump off the bandwagon of that myth. because ain't nobody coming to save us. And that's okay.

Right. I didn't really need saving. I was doing just falling on my own. That's right. But, you know, when you're a young girl and the hormones are flying and feelings take over, I gave in to my feelings. Just a couple of quick little things that I know people want to know. First of all, knowing that this movie was made by Jordan,

I find it ironic how much of it, just from listening to other interviews, reading your book, how many things he actually did, you know, mention, you know, that were accurate. And I would assume that comes from him being proud of how fucked up he was or I don't know how to say it. But one instance, and I've heard you talk a lot about the fact that, you know, somebody had exposed themselves to you and you were so shocked by this and recognizing right there that we got to get the hell out of here with your boyfriend, which, you know, that's probably a whole other story. But I think what everybody became enamored with him and his character, which is really, really interesting, most people, I happen to know people that worked with him that talk about him as like, this guy is the devil, right? Like, I mean, I know, and I won't mention their names, but the movie made him out to be like a hero, you know, like.

So one of those, one of those scenes where him and Ronnie got, you know, so messed up and he crashed the car and crawled down the, the stairs, which everybody fell in love with him because he did that. Is that an accurate story? Like, did he actually drive around and crash his car into everything? And then the cops? He did. You know, and that, you know, they changed a little bit in the movie. But, yeah, him and Donnie, they were doing preludes and he gets a phone call from Bo.

So he has to go to the country club, right? Which, you know, I'm a member of, which is so funny. And so he goes to that country club and he makes a phone call. and he makes that phone call. Now, again, I wasn't there. And, you know, that scene falling down the stairs, which is hysterical, I don't know if that happened, but the car did come home totally trashed. And he came into the house, unbeknownst to me.

I had no idea he crashed the car, put him up to bed. The police came and they said, your husband's been an accident. I was like, no, yeah, he has. He's upstairs sleeping. And I came out and saw the car. which which is probably very, very analogous to a lot of your relationship with him. But needless to say, this man, you know, and this is way after you probably started noticing what was going on, this man did get that messed up. And that was not an uncommon thing for you

to see. And I want to get into that first moment where you started to notice this. But in this process, you were getting whined and dined and all of these things. And I love the way you explain that story and how you make the women that come to you recognize that it's not their fault and that you know they don't even know that there's an there's an agenda attached to things but his friends did you because i know that my wife she will spot the wrong person for me to hang out with a mile away especially narcissistic people what was that like for you knowing that he hung around with guys that were just, for the most part, idiots. Yeah, yeah.

And that's a great question. And I, you know, and I can answer it from my naive self. Right. You know, at 22, 23 years old, right, even if I had a gut instinct about something, I really wasn't in enough of my power to really make a statement. Because they were for sure, some of them. I was like, whoa, Nelly, this is no good. But I think I looked up to him so much.

and I projected a lot of my power onto him, actually. He could carry it for me. So I really didn't give voice to a lot of that. And honestly, quite frankly, even if I would have, and I'm sure I probably did, my voice didn't matter. Your voice didn't matter. Yeah. And that's kind of part of the love bombing and the gaslighting.

It's making you quiet your thoughts and feelings down. And not like, did you have, here's another question I had. Did you have like a best friend at the time? time that you could talk to or did you not have that you did yes i got a lot of friends yeah but you have to remember a lot of the friends wives were wives of the guys uh so it was this whole thing where like he was the band you know he was the leader and everybody kind of followed him so even when i pressed for him to get sober i basically you know had to have a talk with everybody and just be like listen if you're not on my side i'm suing you for manslaughter because this man's going to kill himself

Right. Enough with everybody going along with all this just to make money off of him. Right. Because you were worried about him in another sense as well. Of course. And so I finally did that, I think, at 29 or 28, I can't remember, where I just was like, this madness. I don't care. This has to stop because he's not going to live.

Right. And he's alive now, so I'm happy about that. Yeah, I was about to say, you did it. You know, you managed that. And I think a lot of people probably maybe, and maybe this episode would help people see it. but a lot of people don't understand what you actually did for him. Yeah. Because I know that you don't get a lot.

I follow your social media and I love your, love your content. And I love, you know, I mean, every now and then you get a little bit of a stupid response. But, and that's another story. But I think that a lot of people are starting to come alive and see that you're a pretty strong human being. And it's not, this was not just a story of you like naively hanging around. around. Like, you actually cared about this guy and you, and you helped him a little bit more than most people understand. Yeah. Yeah, I did. I said to him, if you don't get sober, you know, I'm leaving you and he did get over. And that helped. So that makes me. What was the first,

because there's a conscious and an unconscious version of this story. But if you go back, and I'm not saying when was the first time you mentioned something about it, what was the first time, you know, because we know the story about how it all, I mean, he got, he got, he had whined and dined you and professed that you were the, the apple of his eye to the point where you were overlooking some things that you just had a non-negotiable status about, like the fact that he was married and things like that. So I understand how you got to that place, but what was the first red flag? What was the first thing that you noticed where you said, uh-oh? Yeah, the first, and I talk about this, but the first thing was when I did not want to get married right away because I was young in 23 and my parents were divorced when I was six and I just had it in my brain that I wanted to get married when I was 30.

Some arbitrary number. I really, not that even makes that much sense, but it was my value and it was important to me. He would not have that. He wanted to get married right away. no matter how I spoke to him about it, he could not hear me. And then that went into like also about having children, wanted them right away. I was like, this doesn't feel right. These are big decisions.

These are big decisions. Like I need to have a voice. But I just was, I would rationalize it and just like, oh, he just loves me so much. But that was really when I just noticed that the real dominating, intimidating, threatening way of being, which I've never experienced that before in my life. I would assume this falls under the early stages when the love bombing is happening. What fascinates me about narcissism the most, and I know people like that, I dread the idea of like one day, same same, Jay C's a narcissist.

Like that's probably one of my biggest fears. So I try my heart is to be conscious. But I would assume that that behavior of doing something irrational, but can convincing you into it. Part of it is that he wanted to probably claim you because that was the goal is to claim you as his. But did he know that he was doing something irrational? In your opinion, you don't know what it's like to be him, but I know that you know a lot about this. Did he know that that was irrational or was that just like out of sight, out of mind for him? Well, I think that a person in this, the pathological lover in this relationship wants power and

control over their love object. And so I became the love object to have power and control over. So you're going to do what I want, when I want, when I say. And that desire to gain control and project that to you, would you say that superseded his ability to look at things rationally? Does a narcissist not have the ability to see the inappropriate or irrational side of their behavior? Yes, I would say that they don't have a strong reflective capacity often unless it's about themselves. Right? And there's not a lot of empathy for other people. So instead of saying, you know what, even Nadine really doesn't want to do this, I hear her. She said this multiple times. Let's wait a year. Right. There's that, there's not that consciousness there. It's driven. It's what I want when I want. That's it.

I remember when I met my wife and I had that moment probably too early where I was like, this is the one and I want to be with her for the rest of my life. But I also remember rationalizing like, hey, that might be a little fast, you know, like, why don't you ask her what she thinks and stuff like that? Yeah, yeah. This is fascinating because I heard you say the other day how one of the biggest joys that you have now with the women that you work with is when they say, hey, the same thing happened to me, but because of you, I got out of it quicker, right? I heard you say that. And I can imagine how great that feels. But I also hear you speak a lot about the fact that, and you're trying to empower women to not take so much blame, there's this moment where you say something like,

well, I played a role in it too. And then also you'll get comments and say, she knew what she was doing and things like that. Back to what we were just saying is, do you think the fact that a narcissist gets away with some of their bad behavior because their partner says, oh, he didn't know what he was doing. Or maybe saying, oh, it's not his fault. It's his parents or something. And speak a little bit about that because you had to find ways to be okay with things. Yeah, you know, the thing for me, too, is I am,

and it's good for my patients. I'm probably the most optimistic person in the world. My name actually means hold. So I'm a very optimistic person and also I'm very driven. And so one therapist made me laugh at myself. He goes, you know, Nadine, you're so grandiose. You thought you could manage Jordan Belfort. And I think I laughed and there was a little bit of truth in that, in that I thought like a lot of women do, like I can fix him or we can, my love will heal him enough that he'll change.

or, you know, this love that we share is so special that he'll wake up one day and recognize what he's doing. So I think that there was a lot of talk with that. And then there's also in between the dominating, threatening, intimidating behavior, then there's the love bombing. Right. So that keeps me totally confused. So I think it was a mix of optimism, determination, and confusion. Explain a little bit.

more about what love bombing is, you know, and for any dad's listening right now, specifically of daughters, this is a huge thing because, you know, I think a father's biggest fear is that their daughter gets taken advantage by a knucklehead, because guys can pick out knuckleheads, you know, the only person that can't pick out a knucklehead is the one that is the knucklehead, right? And they can't acknowledge that. But there's this idea that women have a tenet of liking the bad boy. Love bombing is something that perhaps, I'd love you to explain what love bombing is, but is it something that, is it like a strategy and a technique to get past that? And, you know, just to make the girl think, oh, no, you found the right guy. Let's take a quick break to hear from our

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the Make Sense podcast. You know, love bombing is, it's really when someone is giving you so much attention and so much adoration, and it's very intense and it's all at once. And it happens at a very quick pace. And also what happens is that then there's gifts and there's whining and down. and there's promises of forever. So it's behavior that causes extreme euphoria inside the victim or the partner. And they're just like, oh my God, this is, I've met a unicorn. This person is meeting all my needs.

So is it safe to say, therefore, that a narcissist or somebody that effectively executes this love bombing, at some point they must have learned how to play the role of the unicorn. Because if their intention is to gain power, is that something that they learn from their parents? Are people born as narcissists? Like, where is the narcissist born? Is that parenting?

Or where does it come from? It's from parenting. Yeah. I mean, also, a child can be born with the dominating temperaments. Like, I'm born with a conscientious temperament. Jordan was probably born with the dominant, dominating temperament. But then you put a certain temperament either into environment where the child is verbally abused or physically abused and somebody is very dominating over them. And they're like, nobody will ever dominate me.

I will dominate everybody else. Or they can be very coddled and entitled because this person is very entitled and thinks they're superior often and lacks a moral compass. but if a parent is very entitled, you know, like gives the child everything without the child actually earning it. So it can be two extremes of parenting at the very basic level. It's much more complex than that that can cause this person. So sometimes it's learned behavior, for sure. Is the premise upon which, because I know that if I ever do something to put another person down, I'm smart enough through my experience to learn that in some way I'm trying to bring myself up. is a self-esteem issue or an insecurity.

Are narcissists extremely insecure people with self-esteem issues? They can be, but the grandiose narcissist is pretty agentic and knows how to get things done. But the vulnerable narcissist is a little different. They're more neurotic. So it depends on the type of narcissist that the person is. So this is just an uncontrollable ego issue then? I mean, because if they don't have a, the grandiose version, And if they don't have a self-esteem issue or something like that, is it just their inability to

accept defeat? Could be that. But then let's think about it. The way I describe this person is they are entitled. They feel superior. They don't have a moral compass. And they will use harm, betray, and exploit anyone to get their needs met for money, power, pleasure, and status.

Wow. Sounds like a lot of people that run our country. You know, it's pretty scary. I think it would be easier if we just pretended that none of this existed. But unfortunately, that doesn't. And, you know, you bring up the shame piece. And, you know, I work with my patients on this. We all swing between pride and shame.

So if a person that has narcissistic tendencies is feeling a lot of shame, they can cover it up with a lot of pride. That's so fascinating. Yeah, yeah. Like I know I know that. that one of my shame, like the way I dealt with my shame was trying to be perfect, which by the way, failed famously because no such thing is perfection, right? Mistakes, failures, rejection, all part of life.

So we all have ways that we compensate for shame. What did you learn about yourself? Because you didn't know this about yourself before. But in looking back, because your life is pretty cool right now. I mean, like you have a sense of purpose and you're helping people. people. And you're just, in my observation, you're just getting started. You know, so like I feel like when I tell people, you know, I'm going to have Nadine Megaluso, ex-wife of Jordan Belfort. They're like, oh, that's so cool. But they're looking at it on the surface. And I'm like, this woman's

stirring a movement of sorts. If you look back, what did you learn about yourself? Not, not women, but did you look back and say, man, I was vulnerable? Yeah. So what I learned about myself, so There's been like act one, act two, and act three of that, I would say. You know, when I first left, everybody was like, you're codependent and he's an addict. Right. Right. And in my mind, I was like, okay, you know, maybe I people please. But now that whole notion has really changed.

We realize there's no, been no diagnosis of codependency, right? I think actually I was just part of my personal development as a young adult. Learning how to set boundaries, learning to say no, learning to tolerate disappointing people. So these are things I think we all have to learn, you know, unless you're very narcissistic. But then what I learned through my research when I read Sandra Brown's wonderful book, Women Who Love Psychopaths, she really changed my life in 2018 or 19 when I read it because she named the personality traits that a lot of these women have. And so there's a big five personality trait assessment. You can take it. It's on my website.

You can take it too, J.C., if you want. Okay? And it measures neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness. And when I took the test, I scored very high in agreeableness and conscientiousness. And I was like, there we go. Perfect candidate for a narcissist. Perfect candidate. Now, some women that are in these relationships don't.

they have more developmental trauma. They score different. Some women are more dependent. They score different. And I break that down in my book. But that, to me, was huge. And I also learned, too, that my parents were 19 and 20 when they had me. So, I mean, I was walking and talking at nine months.

I'm sure I was a tad neglected. Right. And I think I also learned that I love to caretake others also as a way to compensate for a little bit of that early. childhood stuff. You know, so I've learned a lot about myself, but I think for women out there, really important to understand your personality traits and your attachment patterns or for anybody out there.

So you just said attachment patterns, and that brings up this concept of the trauma bond. Yeah. You don't know you have a trauma bond until you know, but it is pretty, it's pretty powerful. So how, maybe just in short, how does somebody uncover that that They have a trauma bond. And what's the process of navigating through that to the other side? Yeah. So the way you realize that you're in a trauma bond is you realize that your partner is having

too much power over you because it has to have a power imbalance for it to exist. So your partner is having too much power over you. They're too coercively controlling. They're pressuring you all the time. And slowly but surely, you're losing your voice. And it can start with the love bombing. so that can leave you very confused. That's actually what's happening.

And you feel in a constant state of confusion. Are they good or they bad? Am I crazy? Is he crazy? Is the relationship good or bad? And then the second piece is the intermittent abuse, which starts with the love bombing. But then in the middle or the trauma vortex, I call it,

you start to see that the person's lying or you're catching them in a betrayal or they're being abusive or they're, they're being controlling, and you're like, what, what's happening? And so that behavior, that negative controlling behavior ends up like probably happening about 70% of the time and the kind, caring behavior happens about 30% of the time. And then all of a sudden, you're trapped. Yeah.

And you actually do feel trapped. And that's the frustrating and difficult part of it. And couple that with the obvious society, that has made women, I would assume, and you know, you have a lot more to speak on, but I would assume that society has made women to accept their part of the problem. And if you start to identify a trauma bond, you know, it's, I don't know if it's just something that's inherent in men or from Mars, women or for Venus type thing. You can get a guy that is just like inherently thickheaded, but then you can have a woman that just finds a way to make things.

look okay. So it's got to get to the point where life is becoming unmanageable. Like to your listeners, somebody that is resonating and saying, I'm going through that right now, but, and then they bring their butt into it, what needs to happen for them to be able to break free? I mean, they have to want to. It's got to get that bad. Or how does somebody headed it off at the past? Yeah, I think that, you know, I have a Tronelban checklist too on my website, right? So it makes it easy for people. But I think if you, you know, once you start to feel that confusion and you start to isolate and you realize you don't want to call your friends anymore because you've told them this story 10,000 times and nothing changes, probably good to check and start to really get

educated about it and discover in depth what it is because it is a psychological process. And don't beat yourself up. Everybody and anyone falls for this. We are social beings. We are wired for connection in love. Yeah. Fell in love with the wrong person. Doesn't make you a bad person. Just you need to get out. And then the first step would be?

To get educated. Yeah. And your book would be a good first step. Yeah, work is a great first step. And then get a therapist or find a group that works with women that are in these trauma-bondent situations, even going to co-dependence anonymous, even though I don't love the codependence anymore. but anything that's going to empower you because a trauma bond, you really get beaten down.

And don't isolate. Find a smart person about it and go talk about it and develop the strength to leave. I've had women come to me. They're not ready to leave and that's okay. Right. Everybody goes through their own process. And I would assume probably not a good idea to leave run like hell on the coffee table in the living room. Oh, no, no.

I have a video about that. That's the e-book. And if you do decide, hey, internally I'm going to leave. I always say don't let them see you coming. Because if they're not nice to you while you're in the relationship, and then you tell them you're going to leave and they're losing control over you, sometimes that's when the abuse can even escalate. So I say, do everything behind the scenes and prepare to leave and then be very prepared when you leave.

And I would assume that that's tough because there's guilt associated with doing things behind the scenes, right? Oh my God, J.C., you're so smart. I just wrote, I was working with somebody and I said, I'm going to do this for social media. Tolerate the guilt of protecting yourself. Say that again. Tolerate the guilt of protecting yourself. Yeah. It's like an ingredient in the recipe for your success. It's necessary. It's like, yeah, you do feel guilty and that's okay because you're a program to feel that way. but it's part of it. So just tolerate.

Oh, I love that. You're going to do some social media on that? I'm going to do some social media on that again. I have a great teacher once tell me, Nadine, when you feel guilty, it's probably good. You're going against your pattern. Interesting. God, there's so many different things that I know people are going to want to know from this interview. But you know what I'll tell you is if you follow Nadine and read her book, you'll get those things.

that you wanted to know plus so much more because we can't have a five-hour conversation today. We could. I would love it. Well, you know, what you're doing so well, and I've got an interesting question for you to finish today, but you're doing such a great job of helping me and also the listeners make sense of it. I think people might assume that all you would do was just bastardize these people and all of that stuff. But you speak from a standpoint from both sides of understanding. There's one side of teaching women not to feel like, you know, it's your fault and get out of that victim status.

But you also recognize that these hypothetical monsters are walking around and to a large degree don't know how much they're fucking people up. You know, it's like they have their agenda on what they want, but just like somebody would have an agenda to eat when they're hungry, to a certain degree, to a certain degree, do they know not what they do? Right. How do you answer that? Because when I say this to my wife,

my wife goes, oh, they know what they're doing, you know, that kind of a thing. But, I mean, do you believe that a narcissist intends to harm? Or do they overlook the side effects of their damage because they're too caught up and what they want out of it? Because they're too self-centered. Interesting. And they lack more sympathy. compassion. So they're just, again, if we go back to it's all about getting their needs met, then the people are collateral damage. And people always ask me, do you think they can change?

And I think anybody can change them in the business of change, but somebody has to want to change. Right. And I worked with a man who changed a lot. And I asked him, like, what do you think when you were doing all this. He's like, I just thought that's who I was. Right. He had to have his run like hell moment from himself, you know. That's right. Maybe that's right. Maybe that's book two, how to get out, how to get out. It's almost like you're in a gang and you can't leave because you're going to get like jumped if you do. I do a lot of fun talk about a disease that I call assholeism. because, you know, like an asshole doesn't typically know he's an asshole, you know, and he doesn't hang around with other assholes that'll call him on being an asshole.

Like, I would assume that Jordan had minions around him that just praised him and never really called him on his bullshit. For sure. Tons. Just the same thing. Just gathering power, gathering power. Yes. So here's an interesting question.

And I, in following you, I can tell that. you're in a healthy place, right? Would you agree? Yes, yes, yes. I mean. Yeah, it's great. You've got these kids. You're in a relationship and, you know, you're the greatest gift that will ever receive in the world is this feeling of being useful in the lives of others and you're doing that. And like I said, I think you're just getting started and I'm so excited for you. But that being said, if you look back at all of this shit that you went through, some people would, feel as a victim like this guy wasted your time. But can you see, do you have the ability to look back? I have to be careful the way I ask this. I don't want to ask it the wrong way. Do you have the

ability to look, look back and see how all of that stuff happened rather than just to you, but for you? And see it almost as a blessing? I do. I do see it like that. And, you know, if somebody would have told me that you and I would be sitting here having this conversation, you know, because I'm actually living back in the area where I lived with my ex-husband. I would say, get that hell out of here. Right. I would never believe it. And for me, it did make me who I am today.

And I have two of the most beautiful children and my grandson's inside. So I would do it. That's so cool. He's so cute. He's so much work, but he's so cute. I would do it all over again. And I want to say to anybody who's listening, I also don't want to have toxic. positivity. I understand you're in the hell of it right now and two things can be true. You might not

see what you're going to learn from this or how you're going to get through it and that's okay too, you know, so I can hold both there. But for me right now where I am, I can see all that because I love what I do. It is life affirming. It makes me feel so alive. I love helping everybody, not just women. I have, you know, men too that I help. And I don't know. It's like just, you know, it's just for somebody to say, you help me leave or you validated me or I don't feel crazy anymore

because writing this book was the hardest thing I've ever done. And there were moments where I didn't think I could do it. Very humbling experience if you want to write a book. Be careful people, what you wish for. It's hard. But it's just beautiful because, you know, life is hard enough. A narcissist, especially like him, and you know, you see what he's making a go at his old stuff right now. Again, he's very, very much aware of what you're doing and on all of this stuff.

Do you think that he looks at what you're doing and the success that you're having with anger? Or do you think that he says, she wouldn't have that, if not for me? How would you, how would you guess that? I would say probably both. A bit of both. Yeah, I think, I think he's come to accept what I'm doing. doing, which is, listen, he had to. He wrote a book.

He made a movie. I get to make a three-minute TikTok. Right. Right. And we both did our things for very different reasons. I think he's over the anger. And I'm sure. I'm sure he thinks that.

But you know what the great part is? I don't care. You don't care. And that's the free part, people. That's the free part. We sell a shirt to a lot of our members in our private community. I do a lot of coaching and stuff that says break. news, I don't care. And it just means like about stupid shit. Like I only care about what I care

about now, you know, so that's right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I don't care. So obviously, so easy to find, I mean, just Google Nadine's name. You find so much about it. And her book is just awesome. You know, my wife, as I said, is a therapist. And, you know, she she just loves the book. I find that the only people that don't agree with the book would, Here's the most toxic person out there. The narcissistic therapist that will actually look at somebody like you and not only say something bad, but say she doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about. You know, so, oh, my God, humans are just so crazy.

And it seems like you have the ability that just laugh and just acknowledge like what matters and what doesn't. I don't care. You know what? There's so many references in that book. It's all based on research. Yeah, exactly. And those people since killed me. And you know what?

I'm old enough now that I know what most people feel towards me is a projection. A projection. Which is all over me. I don't know. I'm 56. Yeah. No. And everybody's entitled.

They can have their opinions about it. But I've just gotten such really wonderful feedback. And of course, there's always going to be, you know, negative naysayers. And that's okay, too. Yeah. And you know that your intentions are in the right place. Oh, yes. Yes.

I mean, listen, again, if somebody would have said, you're going to deal with domestic violence, you're going to get a movie made about your life, you're going to become a therapist who write a book. How do they get the hell out of here? What, if somebody is listening and they really, really resonate, because like I said, it's easy to find you, and I recommend that everybody gets the book, and we're going to put that in our newsletter. But if somebody wanted to work with you or however, reach out to you, what's the best way to do that? Yeah, the best way to get me is to go on my Instagram, the real doctor, N18, send me a direct message, we connect, and then they can send me an email.

And yes, I love my clinical work. I'm not going to give it up. It's what I want to do is help women one by one or, you know, a man as well who's ever in this situation. Yeah, they can just reach out to me. And I answer every single direct message myself. while I still can. While you still got, as I care for what you asked for.

So they can reach out to me and I get back to them. Okay, cool. Very cool. Well, God, you know, I'm going to carry this conversation on with you by just learning more about you and following you. What I can tell you is that your superpower is your ability to be relatable

because you're not just somebody that knows about this stuff, you're somebody that went through it. So that's probably what people need to know the most about. You know, I mean, it's one thing to have like a guru on a topic, but it's another to meet the guru that became a guru after going through the mud. So, you know, you're doing, you're doing a great work. But thank you. Yeah.

Now, I'm just a regular suffering person like all of us. Right. Right. Like all of us. Yeah. So thanks so much for. for being on the show, Nadine, and we're going to make sure that a lot of people find out about you. You know, I think people watch the movie and they go, I can't reach out to Margot, Robbie.

You know, it's like, well, but you can reach out to Nadine McAluso because she's just a regular suffering human. That's right. Exactly. Thank you. Well, thank you so much. Makes sense.