The Sabrina Zohar Show - 53: Navigating codependency, trauma bonds and how to be alone in dating with trauma specialist Logan Cohen!

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

On this weeks episode of The Sabrina Zohar Show, Sabrina is joined by licensed therapist and trauma specialist Logan Cohen! Sabrina and Logan go over navigating codependency, trauma bonds and how to be alone in dating! Want to work with Sabrina? HERE! Stuck After the Podcast? Master Implementation in 8 Weeks with Sabrina's Foundation Course Join the Make It Make Sense: Getting Through a Breakup course HERE! Get Ad-free episodes and 2 Bonus episodes a month HERE! Dont forget to follow Sabrina and The Sabrina Zohar Show on instagram and Sabrina on Tik tok! Video now available on YOUTUBE!  Disclaimer: The Sabrina Zohar Show, formally known as Do The Work, is not affiliated with A.Z & associates LLC in any capacity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Do the Work podcast. My name is Sabrina Zohar and I am your host. Happy New Year's Friends. I'm so excited. It seemed like the New Year's Eve episode and the New Year's episode with Masha were a fucking hit. So I am so excited. And this today, guys, we have Logan Cohen. He is one of my favorite TikTokers.

He is a licensed therapist and trauma-informed coach. And so I have him on today so that we can talk about navigating codependency, trauma bonds and how to be alone and okay and in or out of a relationship. So in dating. And I think, you know, I take shit like this very seriously. I didn't want to just have anybody come on. I wanted a trauma informed coach that really understands the ins and outs of this to talk about it. Because yeah, I could say shit all day from personal experience, but I wanted someone licensed that actually can attest to this stuff. And, you know, there's so much clickbait and bullshit on the internet that we have to be very cognizant of the people that we talk to.

So I'm so amped. And guys, as always, thank you for everything. Thank you. Thank you, thank you for rating the show. Please, guys, go on Spotify and rate the show. It's three dots towards the top, like where it says, do the work and it says the rating, and then there's three little dots. Click that press rate show. It takes you all of about a second and a half. On Apple, you scroll to the bottom, you can leave a review.

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grateful. Thank you for everything. Thank you for just being you and allowing me to be me. So without further ado, let's get right the fuck on into it. Hi, Logan. Welcome to Do the Work podcast. I am so, so excited to help you. Thanks for having me, Sabrina. Of course. And now, when it comes to trauma, I literally could not think of anybody better than a trauma-informed specialist. And like I've watched so many of your videos are like, I love the way one you articulate, when you educate, I love the way you speak to people and about trauma.

So I am just super, super excited. Of course. And I wanted to, you know, for anyone in our audience who doesn't know you, I'd love you to just introduce yourself a little so that they can become a little more acquainted with you. Sure. Primarily, probably define myself as a father and a dad.

It happened to be a mental health practitioner. It's going to know, what I've always done. I'm a marriage and family therapist. I also supervise for the American Association of marriage and family therapy. Additional certification as a level to clinical certified trauma professional. And then some of the other professional hats I wear is a content creator and influencer. And generally, kind of just think about myself as a socially conscious.

Oh, I love that. That's a really good way to put it. But I think I would love to put a dive right in, like, head deep because a lot of this stuff that I do, like, personally speaking, I think the word trauma right now, she's getting a bad rap. You know, like, it's thrown around. It's like a lot of these words. They're thrown around as buzzy of like, oh, it's my traumas. It's this trauma. And like, I get it.

I am the poster child for anxious attachment of, like, daddy issues and, you know, having two immigrant parents that, like, didn't know how to attune to our needs and just always truly, truly normal. like my experience is thinking that my dad hitting us was normal or walking out or cheating, all of those things. And so I think for a lot of people, I would love if we can just kind of talk about really starting with like the big T, little T traumas, but kind of just talking about like what actually is trauma and define it properly and then start kind of going into like how this can just like manifest in your life. Sure. Trauma is really, if you think about the raining of comfort that you have. And in clinical psychology, this is called the window of tolerance, where you can hang out

without getting stressed out. Some people are wider, some people is more narrow. When you go beyond that window of tolerance, there is a brief period of called you stress, which really just means excitement. Like positive stress is the Latin root. and then if you keep getting stressed out, it turns into distress. Trauma begins where distress goes to the degree where you dissociate, where your central nervous system can no longer regulate itself.

And what happens is the left and right hemisphere that process of dissociation. I'm going to talk with my hands called because that's kind of what, what I do and culturally what was it has been normalized for me as well growing up is so you've got the two hemispheres of your brain the left the very very thinking right very very stealing and when that level of distressed is broken beyond the left and right hemisphere don't talk to each other anymore there's a membrane sheets between them called the corpus colossum that basically it's like the traffic cop between your thoughts and feelings that shuts down. And it basically goes into hibernate mode as a way of protecting you from stress.

That is so wild. Right? Oh, okay. And all trauma responses are survival protective responses that the brain and the central nervous system gets stuck in constantly bracing for this traumatic event that already happened. And is there, like, for you, when we're talking, like, from the brain perspective, like, I think the big T's and middle T's, you know, like, it being the little traumas that experience when you're a kid versus, like, those big traumatic experiences, does your brain see them as the same in that degree of, like, it's shutting down and how it handles the trauma? Yes. Interesting.

Your brain really doesn't know the difference. Like, when you get really anxious or even panicky about something, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're. brain doesn't know if you're about to get blood drawn or if you just ran into a saber-toothed tiger. And then if, so like if we avoid whatever we're panicking about, some of that anxiety goes down and the brain basically goes, see, I told you this was threatening because when we moved away from it, anxiety went down. So it reinforces that anxiety response.

But it doesn't really know the difference. It knows what we're telling it about it. that is actually fascinating because I wasn't sure if there was like a way to actually be able to differentiate, but that actually does make sense when we really start to think about, you know, like so most of the people that listen are like daters or in the dating world or whatever and really have that anxiety, like that anxious, that high, hi, me, the me's of the world. And this is just like a really safe space for us all to kind of come together. But I think for so many folks, though number one thing I hear, sure that you can relate to this is the like, not a purpose.

for childhood. I didn't know. What do you talk about? I didn't even talk about any trauma. No, no, no, nothing happened. I'm just so anxious. I can't even sit still for three minutes without getting a text message. And so for me, what I hear is like one half, but like, obviously knowing when you're dysregulated, I'm like, your body doesn't know, like you said, if there's a tiger next to us or if somebody cut you off on the street, it doesn't really, your nervous system is going, hey, got to keep her safe. But when it comes to the folks, let's say that if they're like, man, I've been so anxious for most of my life, I don't even know how to date properly. Like, I can't even sit still, but I can't identify my child.

childhood. How do we help? How can people like that get help if they just have no understanding of like where the trauma came from or what trauma even is? You don't even have to have memories of the trauma to work through it. And that tends to be more of the case when it is little T trauma. It tends to be like one after another after another after another after another. So there's a lot of dissociation over time. So the brain doesn't have a chance to move those memories from working memory into episodic long term where it's all stored in the cerebell, right in the back of your head.

What is left over are somatic and emotional flashbacks. That sense of panic that goes to your body, even like getting the runs while it's happening or like a bird that flies off really quickly.

Animals are different species are not too much different from each other when it comes to those survival responses. Or those overwhelming feeling, of fear, shame, or insecurity that seem to just come up out of nowhere when you run into certain relational dynamics, that's really all you need to know.

So you need to know those themes, and then from those themes, you can start getting into the self-talk that we have, the intrusive thoughts that we have informed by those traumatic experiences. We might not even remember them clearly. And we learn how to regulate our central nervous system, bring ourselves back into rest, recovery, digest, so we can have enough blood flow to our frontal lobe to actually execute executive processing and work through those thoughts and feelings, and then decide how we would like to move forward from there, towards our integrity in creating a new narrative away from the trauma narratives around an external locus of control and fear and shame, and more towards an internal locus of control.

and compassion. Spiritual or woo-woo communities tend to call abundance. Yeah. And no, for somebody, like, I think, and I get it, like, I was, I was her. For me, I, like, I normalized my drama. I normalized all the experiences because it's like, of course, that's my coping mechanism of just being like, it's fine, just keep moving, just fine, just keep going until it was my late 20s where I was like, okay, you married your father. There's got to be something here. Like, I was, that exact thing. And for me, I went into therapy and then therapy, to tapping, which led to ketamine treatments with your child, like the list went on and on, and I continue to explore new modalities. But I think for anybody right now, is there anything,

like, do we, do people have to work with a professional to deal with especially those, I know big T's, I would imagine, but the little T's, or is there something that they can do for them, like self-help? I would say both. Okay. Because you can't self-heel or self-help through all of it. Yeah. especially when it's been relational trauma. As you know, a lot of the triggers won't even make themselves known until you get in relational dynamics. Part of the healing has to happen within a healthy relationship. That's not going to sound very attractive to a lot of people listening to this podcast.

It just sounds like the scariest catastrophic thing. ever, just, you know, describe. But if you've been wounded relationally, part of the work will be learning to regulate yourself, reworking those core beliefs, learning to have faith in your ability over time, see that in your mind's eye. And then learning other interpersonal skills in ways of working through the trials and tribulations that present themselves within those relational dynamics that mimic the traumatic experiences. Yeah, you're 100% right. I don't think people are going to like that.

And not because there's anything wrong with it, but because it is a reality. And it's a reality, honestly, I faced myself because like I, same thing, was doing a lot of work single, was doing a lot of work. And then you're dating and you're like, it's that comment of like, once I get a boyfriend, I'll be fine. I'm not going to, like, I just need to get them and then I'll be okay. It's like the least fine you're going to be. Boy, boy, is that accurate?

because now that I'm in like the healthiest, most secure relationship, I am triggered left, right, and center by stupid little things of like, hey, babe, do you want to go do this? No. And I'll just look and all of a sudden, I'll recoil inside and like, he said no to you. Exactly. I'm like, he doesn't like me, he doesn't love me anymore. I will create, I am a story.

I am an author, if you will. I will create the narrative of the day. But for me, now, of course, in those moments I've had to do the, wait a minute, what's happening in your body, Sabrina, you know this feeling. this is very familiar, regulate. And I'll just be like, okay. And then of course, a couple of minutes later, he'll be like, babe, sorry, I didn't mean to be rude.

I just meant blah, blah, blah. And that's where I've had so many experiences with him now where I'm like, let it play out. But I think for a lot of other people, they see it as like, oh, whatever, I just need to get into a relationship. And then I'll be fine. But I'd actually love to know, like,

I have a theory on this, but I'd like to know your thought. I think from a lot of people, they see it as like, I'm just experiencing this in my relationships. No, no, no, no, no. I don't have it in any other. place in my life. At least for me, I thought that until I became a business owner and was like, oh, there's that anxiety. There are those living in beliefs. There are those core beliefs. Do you see, is it, I mean, do you normally see like if somebody has that high anxiety and

relationship that it will transfer over into other areas of their life? It's going, it's definitely going to be in other areas of life because human beings are fundamentally social creatures. We're relational. And we relate to people in all kinds of different areas of life functioning. So really, any places that, you know, you who run into other humans, for humans is going to be a lot of places, they're going to happen. They might be more subtle in a nuanced,

not as dripping with adrenaline, as you've kind of been conditioned over time to believe this is where it's happening because this is where all the blood spatter tends to be and don't like notice the smaller ones. But yeah, they'll be more generalized. I, because I get that all the time. They're like, no, no, no.

My career's fine. My friends are fine. you don't experience like you know when you text a friend and like they don't answer and all of a sudden then like subconsciously I'm just going in my head of like did I say something wrong did I bother them did I upset them I don't even have the time notice and now I've been able like whoa okay hey let's not own this but I can't be it can't just be that like only in relationships though I do understand that that interpersonal relationships will mimic those that of younger years but I did want to actually ask you about core beliefs because I think those core beliefs I'm too needy I'm too much I'm too much I'm I'm too, whatever, the, is, is that like a, is that, I don't know about trauma response, but like, how does that, is it, yeah, I was going to say, is it a trauma response? It's part of it. Okay. It's part of it.

It's a layer of it. And what tends to happen is when we get dysregulated enough, they tend to come up as intrusive thoughts. They just like, totally. And it's not even, it comes up unconsciously and we're not. even aware that it's self-talk. It's assumed fact. Yeah. I know about the my sister always used to play the game with me of Sabrina, where'd you learn that from? And I got really good at being like, dad, or just pincerving. Exactly, like coping. Because I know I'm like the challenge, the coping mechanisms I created in my childhood were going to be the challenges I was going to face in my adult

relationships because that's like, I think for so many people, especially that fear of abandonment, that it feels so real and it feels so intense, but can, from a trauma specialist, can you say it out of your words, that if people actually start to deal with those triggers and the wounds, that those feelings over time don't have to feel as intense and traumatic, right? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You can absolutely reprogram your brain. And so that is actually. That sounds crazy. I was going to say, that's like, like, how much? Like, could we talk about the process of of that of the brain.

Like I know obviously neuroplasticity and and and and and things like that. But like what we're talking healing trauma, what does that look like? It looks like recognizing when you're getting to that place having and then having done enough work with, you know, trauma informed professional or professionals that helps you identify where you're operating with really strong confirmation bias, rooted. in the trauma that you wouldn't have otherwise understood because human and human beings process of information egocentricly, we can only be aware of someone time. And when you recognize yourself getting there, going ahead and assuming that your mode of operandi

is going to be these very external locus of control, shame-based, fear-based, pessimistic beliefs. In creating new ones, you're going to have to write them from scratch. and giving yourself an opportunity to sit in a space where you're self-soothing, regulating yourself, getting yourself back to rest, recovery, digest, and literally meditating on this new core belief until your endocrine system gets the message and starts decreasing the cortisol and adrenaline, dumps out a bit of dopamine and serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin, whatever is happening that is either associated with its new.

core belief or with how you're regulating yourself. And then you go manifest what you want that to be. So then you can experience it at an even more impactful level and over the time what fires together, wires together. But for this old core belief that you take it as a throwaway comment, it was like, I'm too neat. That's a very common one around abandonment trauma and betrayal trauma. and a new one that you might reframe or rewrite is I'm a human and humans have needs

which means that sometimes I have needs to I've been taught through scary painful experiences that I didn't get to control that they should be something that I'm ashamed of and put me at risk of abandonment but again I'm a human with feelings it's okay to have those feelings and I know some people that I can talk to who I can trust and co-regulate with to give me a bit of validation and help normalize the experience I'm having and I'll move through this. This feelings are not facts, their energy and they will dissipate if I let them breathe. so version of this, right?

And but you're going to have to write it from scratch. Yeah. Like the whole like be who you needed when you were a kid. Like you're going to have to be that parent for yourself as an adult now. Yeah. The inner child work and like reparenting at first I was kind of just like, the fuck is this? Like I have to talk to myself.

I was great. It's one of my favorite things to do. And it was in those moments of like these little memories. I remember even just like having one very specific one that I didn't realize that memory, the impact it had, like how that one situation of my dad walking out and losing, like him saying something for me to trust him and then him doing what he said he wouldn't do and I didn't trust him. I never understood how that was going to translate into like my career and being scared and scarcity mindset and things like that.

And I remember even just having one thought, one, even knowing that it was possible to expand my thought process because I had the thought of just because dad couldn't tune to your needs didn't mean that your needs were too much. And I remember even just being like, wow, I can even hold space for that thought. That even alone, even just being able to like, I recognize something contrary to the original one and then building off of that like, well, I validate your needs and I'm here to listen to your needs and I want you to share them with me. I didn't love myself by like taking like bubble bass and face masks and saying I'm a bad bitch in the mirror. every day. It's like, I loved myself.

It sounds like, don't get me wrong. She's cute up and ready for after. But the real like, because this kind of brings me into like our next, what I'd love to really get your thoughts on here is of like, by doing that, I actually was able to accept myself. I wasn't looking at myself as I'm a fucking, you know, wounded bird and I'm a victim and everything. Oh, everybody just can't handle me. I actually empowered myself to say people like my father who are limited can't handle my needs. That's okay. I can handle my needs and I can satisfy my needs.

Hence why with my partner I'm able to know when to ask for the reassurance and when to give it to myself. But I think for lots of folks, what we're really struggling with is like being okay, being alone. Like having that acceptance. And I would imagine that if you come from a deep root of trauma of being scared that you're going to always be alone, that as an adult now in relationships, like right before I came live, someone to ask, right becoming a mom, someone asked me to ask you, how do I, what do I do about? my loneliness. How can I move on from life? I just feel so lonely. And I was like, well, well, well, let's talk about this. I'd love your thoughts. I'm like, just alone versus lonely and just like being okay, being single when you're scared all your life that you're going to be abandoned. The short answer would be by making friends with yourself. Long answer. Yeah. So let's just go ahead

and reframe self-love into what I think the mystics meant by this. But, even, you know, like, look, this unconditional love of God from this. It's all about allegories that teach us and remind us that we are creative forces that all beings are and that in order to seek truths, we must also have compassion, that they're woven together. It's not self-adoration. It's not self-glossiness, self-bulbubble, self bubble baths, as you put it. It's self-compassion. It's permission to be who we are now.

Yeah. Good, bad at the ugly. I think that kind of goes back to like that acceptance. I'm just like really looking at myself and saying, okay, so I was, you know, you're a big personality. That's okay. Like, you can't beat them all. You can't what my mom has always said to me, you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all the people all the time. And I think when it comes to dating, it's so hard, you know, like I know you. I know you obviously. obviously you have children and potentially a partner. And so it's like, you know, and you're with somebody, of course, now we're like, oh, yeah, the good old days of dating. But like I, I've only been with my partner a year. Remember those good old days of dating of really just being so scared of being alone and like just that I'm always going to be alone and that narrative. And I think now I want to know like that compassion, that acceptance.

Do you think like if for people that are really struggling with like, am I ever going to find anybody and blah, blah, blah, like, How can they start? Is it really just like about starting to interject some other thoughts into this? Or like what can we give to folks that are really just struggling with being with themselves and that they're the scarcity mindset really is where I'm going with this? Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette. with a flame thrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon

and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like Habinier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. It comes down to redeveloping faith in yourself as a creative force. And again,

these concepts have been bastardized by high control religions over and over. But when you're rooted in your own sense of purpose about what you do, how you move, how you go about making hard decisions or confusing decisions according to what values that align with your personal integrity and you can have faith in yourself as an agent of change over time and you know where you're going, you care so much less about validation from other people. which actually is like great segue to bring us kind of into like I think by what you're describing by doing that you really understand who you actually are like what are your needs what are your wants what are your desires like sometimes I'll even ask like when I work with clients of like dating and I'll be like what is it that you want and you can see their face I'm like you've never even thought about that have you you've never even stopped to say I want this or I need this or whatever and I think by doing this practice and like for anyone listening it's like it doesn't mean that you have to be single forever and like you have to be alone in order to do this. It's like, no, but by reconnecting with

yourself, listen, if you're alone, great time to do it, right? But I think then we kind of segue into like, you've got this great sense of self and then you get into these relationships, codependency. Because I'll tell you, Mama fell guilty of that. My ex was a narcissist. He was my father. My father is like, heck's book narcissism. And so was my partner like no empathy, no accountability, like grandiosity, really arrogant. Like even people will message me like, he's such a fucking narcissist. And I'm like, it's not just me.

But we were codependent. Like I, if he said he was going to be home at eight, I had to be there at 759 because I was like, no, no, no, I can't not be home with him. And I think I'd love to hear your thoughts of like, what is codependency clinicallyically, like actually? Co-dependency is when two people who struggle with self-regulation and self-awareness,

use each other as the projective object for why things aren't going right. Oh, I love that definition. Okay, I actually have never heard that before. And now, like, how does that manifest? Can we give examples of just, like, behavior so people can know? Because I think people would probably wonder,

like, how do you know if you're in a codependent relationship? Obviously, my experience is one, but yeah. Sure. I mean, a pretty typical and higher functioning one would be partners who are both really anxious. So they tend to compulsively avoid conflict. And in doing so, develop a lot of resentment for each other. And then they're able to tell themselves that if their partner weren't just such an effing, whatever, this and that, yada, yada, yada, whatever they're resentful about,

that they're expecting their partner to read their mind about anyway, then their lives will be that much time. That makes that much sense. I remember I had one person. I said something of like, we were talking about. I was like, you know, when you're like, this person's in addition to your life, not instead of. Like, you have a relationship.

They don't become your life. Like you still have a life. They have a life and you're building one together. And I had a girl comment, absolutely not. I, he is the center of my world. And if I'm not the center of his universe, he can fuck off. And I was like, no, baby, that's, that's, sounds like codependency. I was like, that sounds like you want each other to be each other's

main focus. And to me, that just sounds like, I think for a lot of people, they're probably listening going, but what's the problem with that? So like, what would be the negatives of being in a codependent relationship? So I like how you put the, a relationship should make you better and should make each partner better. It should bolster who you already are and what you're already good at and make you even better and empowered at doing those things. Part of that is checking your confirmation bias is we are fundamentally egocentric animals. So if you can't have open, direct,

compassionate conflict with your partner, that's a really limiting relationship to be in. I don't think I could have said that any better. Because I see that it's like, I'm sure you hear that, oh, I don't want to say anything because then he'll walk away. Oh, I don't want to. say something and rock the boat. And it's like, oh, don't worry. It'll be more detrimental if you don't say anything than if you do. Because if this person can't handle a conversation or, you know,

like my ex. Like we were so intertwined. But it became that it started to become where like, we were so intertwined with each other that when I did want to have a life outside of it, that became an issue where it was, I was abandoning him and how dare I. And he was really trying to keep me away from people. Now, with codependency, I know. I know. you would say, like, for two anxious folk, can it also manifest with somebody? Because I know with a narcissist and so, and there, that could be a trauma bond, which is the next thing I'd love to hear your thoughts on. But when it comes to codependency, does it normally just happen between two anxious folk? Or do we see this as well in different kind of attachment styles with each other?

All kinds of different attachment styles or mental health issues and symptoms. it's very common for someone with insecure anxious attachment style and we partnered with someone who is more avoidant and the avoidant person can withdraw and continue telling themselves that if this anxious attachment person would just stop freaking badgering them that they would be willing to be more authentic and engage when they're withdrawing to get the person to pursue them

so they can blame them. And meanwhile, the anxiously attached person who's pursuing is like, gosh, if this other person would just like tune in to me and be with me and be present with me, then I could finally regulate myself. You can't regulate yourself because you're relying on validation from someone who's not willing to give you validation is the only thing that's going to regulate yourself. So of course, you're perpetually that's regulated. And then just kind of re-arral the Rosie. Yeah, I was going to say it sounds like a cyclical thing. But now entering trauma bonds because I think I had one, and you could tell me, like I had one therapist and we, like I remember saying something to her and she was like, you trauma bonded. Her definition of that was we bonded over the fact that we had the same death,

like same similar traumas. But that's not, I think, to my understand, like that's a bonding over trauma, I think, but not the traditional trauma bond. So I'd love to know, we know what codependency is now. what is that differentiation between a trauma bond and that? So a trauma bond is when you've been in an abusive relationship with somebody. And they're using a lot of these power and control tactics, a lot of manipulation and coercion. Sometimes it becomes physically violent. Sometimes it doesn't.

Physical violence doesn't necessarily have to be there for this to happen. And so there's a cycle of abuse that's constantly happening. baseline and tension building and an outburst, honeymooning, love bombing, baseline, tension building, outburst. And what happens is the person being victimized in that relationship learns to become hypervigilant about their abusive partner as the only way to keep themselves safe and keep tabs of this tension building phase before you get to the outburst phase.

they're essentially conditioned or trained to placate the abuser. And over time, even start defining their own values and needs according to the cycle of abuse. There's a degree of Stockholm syndrome within it. That's what I was starting to remind me of that. Yeah. I mean, it very much is. It's just kind of in a romantic. an abusive relationship.

So it's from, it sounds like the past therapist, they're a bit confused and what, what you were describing more was a codependency, right? Like, we kind of root ourselves back to this trauma that we went through together as why we're, you know, little neurotic or stuck in these places or whatever, but at least we have each other, eh? And meanwhile, we're like sleeping in the latrine every night. the trauma bond has the elements of captor captive and that the captive loses their sense of self within whatever they think they have to do to keep themselves safe

within the cycle of abuse that I saw firsthand with my mom and she to this day my mom after my father leaving a narcissistic marriage she says to this she's like I didn't know who the fuck I was I completely lost myself and I remember for so many years my mom would be like no, no, no, let me just, if I don't say this, he'll be fine. And it's like, and then he would blow up and it would be that same thing. And then my mom would blame herself and go right back into that loop. And I'll never forget my mom telling me that when in Florida they had to go to a therapist in order to, I mentioned this on a different episode, but like in Florida you have to go to a therapist to divorce.

That's like kind of the rules that they had. And so my father went. And my, because I asked her, I said, how fuck did you get him to a therapist? And she's like, oh, he had to. But it's the only way he was going to get the paperwork sign. And my mom said that when they're in there, she's crying and she's telling the therapist that she's trying and all this. And my dad just looks and goes, all right, you know what, hell, I'm enough with this.

He looks at the therapist and says, can you tell her what's wrong with her so that we could just be done and move on with this? And my mom, of course, is going, everything's right. She's going into that. And when they walked out of the office, the therapist grabbed my mom. She's like, I know that this kind of goes against the grains of what I'm allowed to say. She was like, you're dodging a bullet. You need to run as quickly as you can because this is a narcissist. And my mom, it's taken her 15 years after their more.

They've been divorced from almost 20 to even be able to like, I'll see the effects of that 25 years of that cycle where, you know, she'll say she'll put herself out there and people are saying, oh my God, thank you so much for sharing. And her response is, I'm an idiot. Oh my God. I'm so stupid. What's wrong with me?

And you can see just she's so used to be herself up. Now, I think for the, for a lot of people listening, they have been in this experience. I get people every day of like, I was in a trauma bond and I'm struggling to go no contact. What do I do? I'd love to hear your thoughts because I would imagine after you're done with that relationship where you finally move on.

I know with me after my ex, you lose yourself. You don't trust yourself because, of course, this person was telling you how to pretty much live. How can people handle this if they're going through the ending or the no contact time period, especially with a narcissist? Like, how can they move through? this. Really three main pieces to it. First, re-learning how to regulate yourself. You're going to be

chronically dysregulated. Do you need to learn how to upregulate from a freeze response and down-regulate from the fighter-flex response? Second, you have to rebuild your sense of purpose and who you are and what you're about and who you have faith then as the thinker of the thoughts. the feeler, the feelings, the censor and sensations, the conductor of the orchestra, your higher cell. And a lot of times it's also really helpful to get very familiar with powered control wheels, learning how to identify manipulation and coercion at a very nuanced granular level. And it's an area that doesn't get a lot of attention because it comes from domestic violence research.

and what we're describing is domestic violence. And the buzzword of narcissist and narcissism really took off several years ago. At the end of the day, this is all domestic violence. But it has such a negative connotation. Like those families on the other side of the tracks, doesn't happen in our neighborhood, that it's easier to call it this other stuff. But calling it the buzzwords keeps it mystical. It keeps it almost kind of fetishized in a way that you can't really put your finger on it and make it more black and white and granular.

So learning how to identify those tactics of manipulation and coercion helps you reclaim trust in your own discernment of other people's behavior. So you can have a chance of seeing who you want to dance with. I was going to say, I feel like that rebuilding trust in yourself is like, because it's true that for so long you have somebody telling you that everything you do is wrong, that you're doing it wrong and you're not right. And you can only trust them that after it's like even just being able, I remember even for me, the one thing that was a game changer was stopping to say, how does this feel? Like just something to the average human being like, really? That's what did it? Yeah. That's what fucking did it. Stopping to say, wow, I didn't realize for, for me, me, a year of being with my ex, what my nervous system was going through. I just, you know, you're going through the motions. And like you said to before, you're just trying to think, okay, if I do this, then this will change. Right. Okay, if I can just get them to do this. And I think, I hope that if anybody took anything away from our entire conversation here, it's like you, when we're talking about like these big serious issues, waiting for someone else

to act differently so that you can feel better, sounds like you're setting yourself up for disaster, right? That would be a very polite form of self-sabotage. Actually, I would love to know self-sabotage. I'm going to tack this on really quick because you mentioned it. I know one of my friends, she always says, she's like, I don't like to say self-sabotage, self-protection, whatever. But for a lot of people that are like in kind of experiencing that, because I think it kind

of goes into everything that we're experiencing, that's self-sabotish, self-protection. Is that just like rooted in that deep, like earlier, earlier, learned experiences of like how to keep yourself safe? As both what we experienced with caretakers as well as what we saw caretakers doing. If we grow up in environments that are really chaotic and dysfunctional, as an example of what you described, and there's one parent obviously acting in at us, what we tend to do, Carl Young called it,

that member of the family becomes the shadow bearer. They're like everything bad and nasty is happening because of them. They're the source of the nasties. So then the only other alternative the child has is to look at the other caretaker as the bearer of light. And they idealize the heck out of that parent. A lot of times what that parent doing is also a lot of enabling codependency stuff. But we send to go like, okay, you're awful and yucky. And then in the back of our mind, we think of the other parent as being as a role model citizen.

and every you know probably doing the best they'd know to do in the time enough they shouldn't be a roll bottle and a great person who protected us through all kinds of scared and scary and walkie experiences they certainly didn't teach us good mate selection certainly didn't participate in a model healthy conflict resolution

still didn't you know that taught us to pine after this really chaotic and dysfunctional person as the only way that you can feel safe in your own skin, and it just becomes more and more normalized. I was going to say, yeah, I think a lot of people ask all the time, like, how do I stop self-sabotaging? And I'm like, I'd love to hear, like, if you have any kind of like step by step,

I always love them like, what house is protecting you is a good place to start. But like for the people that are like, I always self-sabotage and blah, blah. What tips do you have for them on being able to at the very least, like stop making themselves to be like the villain? Probably starting with a trigger log. Oh, I love that. And time and date, then what happened, what are your thoughts and feelings about it, and then what you actually did?

And then every now and again, going back to those experiences and finding the median theme, finding like the main themes that you tend to be reacting to and what your behavior tends to be in response to it, taking a look at how it played out. Did that play out in a way that helped me meet my integrity or did I participate in my own suffering a bit in hindsight? And then from those positions, usually two or three themes light up

and you can claim ownership about what you get to control and start thinking about how you can create a different area. Yeah, I actually really love that, but the trauma log, I think that's actually a really great idea to at least have some kind of, you know, our brain is the first thing that's going to fuck up their memory. So at least to be able to like have some kind of paper because even just as you were saying it, I was like, okay, so many people like, oh, I self-sabotaged again and I like walked away

from this guy because I mean we need to be being mad, but like I didn't really give him a chance and why do I keep doing this? And it's like it sounds like you're trying to protect yourself from getting hurt because you weren't living. That's what's like you said. If we can start to map out, okay, what happened in your body? What was that moment right before, you know, right when you told him, fine, fuck off and walked out, what was happening for you? Because I'm fairly certain more often than not, we can trail that back somewhere that that was a reaction versus response.

Yeah. Absolutely. And their protective responses and I don't want to say this, mirage of control responses. you can tell yourself that you know how it was going to play out anyway by just go ahead and kicking the table over. Like seeing the table always goes, all right, you kicked it. Exactly. I went over. Like, but I knew it would. You know, it's like out of year. Yeah.

You don't say. You're like one plus one equal two. And it's like, I knew it. You're like, well, yeah, because. All right, fine. No, I actually, I love the way you said that. It's true. It's like this self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm like, oh, man, are trash. And it's like, well, if you keep going. out there with that mindset that like they're just going to hurt me or all men are going to cheat on me or no no guys want commitment it's like I would imagine your brain is just going to be like great let's keep finding more of this like let's just keep going because when all you know is all you know like you said we have to write the script I think people look at me and they're like no you're confident and I'm like are you fucking kidding me do know how many times I had to rewrite the script how many times I had to be like you're deserving of love knowing inside that I was like no she's not but I had to start

accepting a new reality of like, oh, there are good men out there. Of course, the reaction was, no, they're not. Yes, there are. And I mean, even as the example that you just gave, people are like, oh, men are trash. They're all Pite La Pue. What you're going to come off as, it is a really distrustful, combative person. So people who are Pipe La Pue are going to go, she's difficult

challenging I was going to say chow love me yeah like that I want to conquer her it's funny because as you said

that trust thing I actually had I made a video once where I was like a red flag for me as somebody that like says I don't trust anyone and people were like

well I had trauma and I don't trust anyone and I was like yeah that's you're just projecting not on to everyone else because if you're going to go around I don't trust anybody

so everybody has to prove that I'm not saying that you should I'm a neurotic New Yorker. Of course, I don't trust. I don't believe anybody. But like, I don't enter into situations half empty. Now you have to pour it to convince me. It's full. And I think like, if you enter in with that, then yeah, of course, you're just going to be seeing that versus being like, well, I trust myself, right? I know that no matter what, I'll be okay. I don't necessarily have to trust them. But I know that my decisions I trust, which means that I'll figure this out. And even if we kind of think about it further, a demand that people pour into our cup first in order to be willing to place a bed ourselves is actually a pretty fundamentally entitled position. Which we are in a place like that. Because it's even like some of this, somebody's fucking, there's like a coach online and she's saying, you have to wait three months to kiss somebody. And I'm like, are you, this is a joke, right? And I was like, so you want everyone to ask, everyone has to prove everything to you before you can say, fine, I'll be vulnerable and let you in.

But what you're actually doing is like, you're just gamifying things. So if I'm going to dangle a carrot and say, no, no, no, you got to come here to get it. Like you said, Peppa Lepew is going, snack time versus someone secure is like, yeah, I don't, I don't need to do this. Like, you just, you connect with, don't. You're not authentic. I'm going over here. Exactly. Oh, Logan, thank you so much.

This was an awesome conversation. And I'm like, just so jazz that you and I got to like really kind of debunk, especially with someone like of your stature that has worked so. incredibly in the field. I wanted somebody that like actually has the facts because I'm just so tired of my Narc X and you're like, no, girl, you had one day with this guy and he just didn't call you. Let's stop calling him your Narc X. But regardless, thank you so much. And I want to know for anybody that wants to find you, everything will be linked in the show notes. But how can they, how can people work with you or find you? You can just go to my website at Logan Cohen.com. power and control wheels and PDF form to send out to you as a freebie.

There's all kinds of information either about working with me directly, about a book that I wrote, as well as my social media platforms on the big ones of Healing Humanity 777. Perfect. And I'll link everything in the show notes. So if anybody wants to find you in any place, and I didn't know you had a book. So great, I can add that to the Amazon store. But awesome.

Of course. Thank you again so, so much.