Debrief | Boundary Crossing, Jealous Control, & Blame in Dove’s Story

Brandon Chadwick (0:02): To Narcissist Apocalypse everyone. I am Brandon Chadwick and today we'll be doing a debrief on Dove's story and we do have a content warning for today as we do discuss physical abuse in this debrief episode as well as sexual coercion, and we do discuss strangulation in this episode as well. So those are your content warnings for today, And for those of you who have not listened to Dove's story yet, here is a summary. Dove grew up in a loving and supporting home. She describes her early life as being healthy.

Brandon Chadwick (0:40): Dove knew the abuser for four and a half years before they became romantically involved. They met while living on the same property, stayed in touch over the years and had what felt like an easy friendship. He was charming, he was extroverted, he was fun to be around, he shared about his past including painful experiences with his parents, and Dove had lots of empathy for that. And then when neither of them were in a serious relationships, the friendship shifted into something romantic. They already had this history.

Brandon Chadwick (1:11): It felt like there was a foundation there. And then very quickly, the relationship became very intense and Dove went to live and work with him briefly. They were together in very close quarters living in a fifth wheel and working together on bathroom remodels. And slowly Dove began feeling like she was in trouble. She was being trained to anticipate invisible rules.

Brandon Chadwick (1:33): She could walk past him in the kitchen in the morning and later she would find out that that really upset him because she did not stop to hug him at the right moment. She was expected to know what he needed before he even said it. Then if she did not meet these expectations that she did not know existed, she was then punished through sulking sour moods or getting a really big talking to later. And at the same time, her needs were being minimized. She wanted clear communication.

Brandon Chadwick (2:01): She wanted to be heard. He dominated conversations, interrupted her, and when she asked if they could take turns speaking and listening, he mocked her as saying that she was talking like talk therapy. And when she asked for space and suggested having a small tent outside their little home, a private area for herself. He turned that into a story about rejection and abandonment of him. And this pattern just continued throughout the whole entire relationship.

Brandon Chadwick (2:27): Her needs became injuries to him. Her privacy became betrayal, her family time became abandonment to him, and her body became something he felt entitled to use, share, and define for her. And as this relationship went on, the abuse just escalated. There were rage episodes, there were accusations, isolation occurred, sleep deprivation occurred, sexual coercion occurred, big violations of privacy. There was physical violence, strangulation, and after all of that, they eventually did break up.

Brandon Chadwick (3:00): Then this person came back when they broke up, tried to hoover her back with crying videos, blame, shame, suicide threats, and Dove was still able to leave for good and not go back. And we're thankful for that because, you know, when someone gets strangled, that's a big sign that anything can happen after that, she's lucky to be alive. And that is the summary of Dove's story, and now we will get into the key takeaways. So the key theme, key takeaway number one is boundary crossing, and in Dove's story, boundary crossing showed up very clearly around sexuality and privacy. The abuser wanted openness in relationships.

Brandon Chadwick (3:42): He wanted the main relationship, but he also wanted the freedom to flirt and have sexual experiences outside of it. Dove was not interested in an open relationship and he knew that, but instead of respecting that as a clear boundary, he found what he called a safe way to explore these things through apps, sexting, porn, conversations with other people. The word safe here is important there because it just starts reframing his behavior as being reasonable and harmless when it was not and for Dove, this did not feel safe. It felt like pressure and something that she was being pulled into. He would show her conversations, sexual conversations he was having with other people.

Brandon Chadwick (4:22): He would hand her the phone and expected her to participate. He created a couple's profile, boundary crossing right there when she was not willing to do that. He just did it out of the blue even though she had already said that she was not interested in engaging in this way. There was non consensual sharing of images, nude photos of Dove with other people without her consent. This is all direct boundary crossing that is going on and sometimes these things really get minimized inside abusive relationships.

Brandon Chadwick (4:50): They can get framed as exploration or openness or curiosity and with Dove, her body, her images, boundaries all belonged to the abuser here. He was crossing all of them and not caring at all. Dove's boundaries were not respected as being real. They were treated as problems to solve, to push through or evidence that she was not giving enough to this relationship. So if your boundaries were being crossed like Dove's were, know, you're part of this system here where this person isn't respecting you and blanketing control and trying to dominate you.

Brandon Chadwick (5:30): And big key theme number two is jealousy and accusations became a system of control and in Dove's story, jealousy became a way to monitor her. It became a way to interrogate her. It became a way to demand access to her phone. It became a way to make her friendships feel very dangerous. It became a way to make normal interactions just look suspicious.

Brandon Chadwick (5:53): There's the big example of the grocery store, great example. Dove ran into a mutual friend outside the store. She said hi, they talked. That was the whole thing but Dove felt anxious because she knew that if she told her abuser that he might turn this into something and she was just saying hi, damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you did not tell him and then he found out later, he'll turn that into something too.

Brandon Chadwick (6:17): It's just a double edged sword here in a huge trap when it comes to these jealousy and accusations and it keeps this control going on. They feel anxious when they run into someone in public like Dove did and they may stop reaching out because you know connecting with people might have big consequences. This is what jealousy and accusations can do. It can make the outside world feel very unsafe and then the abuse victim's world will revolve around the abuser and the victim will just become smaller and smaller and smaller and this is control, it's coercive control and it can start here with the jealousy and accusations becoming a system of it. And then we have key theme number three where the abuser's imagined stories became Dove's problems to defend against and this is a big theme in Dove's story the way he created stories in his head and then treated those stories as reality.

Brandon Chadwick (7:11): So Dove asked for a little space and suggested that she get a bell tent. He turned that into a story that she would shut him out, avoid him, and spend all her time away from him. When Dove really only wanted space, Dove wanted to see her family, he turned that into abandonment. So this is just exhausting dealing with someone who's creating these imagined stories and when someone is committed to their story, when the abuser is committed to their story, it becomes almost impossible to defend yourself. So if you say that is not what happened, they can then say, They know the truth.

Brandon Chadwick (7:48): Dove talked about how the abuser here would claim to know the big truth of a situation. There was no room for two perspectives. There was no room for her experience. There was no shared reality where both people could talk about what happened and repaired it. There was just his reality, his imagined stories, his truth even though it was a false truth and Dove had to answer it and this is taking these imagined stories and creating this reality domination and one of the things that happened inside this reality domination is that a survivor can become very focused on explaining, hoping the abuser will understand and in Dove's story that became a huge pattern.

Brandon Chadwick (8:31): She was constantly being made responsible for the stories that he created and hoping that he would understand and all the stories that he's creating, a lot of them are just based around Dove's needs and not letting her access her needs. He's creating stories so she can't get her needs met in any way and that the world, the reality will be dominated by him and then all of a sudden, Dove is on her back foot trying to have him see a different way but her needs were treated like attacks which are his imagined stories. So, know, Dove's needs were not received as any sort of information. Again, they were proof that she was hurting him or if she was asking for respect or wanting space or privacy or wanting to see family. He saw these things as attacks and then created stories around them.

Brandon Chadwick (9:24): Thus Dove's needs will not get met, did not get met and asking for basic respect becomes a big problem. The person wanting space becomes rejecting to the abuser and then she's responsible for his moods and taking care of them too, keeping the focus on him. And then up next we have key takeaway number five and this is the escalation shows that the abuser is always putting his behavior on her. So if there was a rage episode over the lunch question that happened in Dove's story, Dove asked if he had packed a lunch and he exploded. He punched a hole in the cabinet, he threw his mug, he ripped his shirt off, he punched himself, he hit his head on the truck, he flipped the table saw and then he sat down crying and asking why she was making him do this.

Brandon Chadwick (10:19): Why are you making me do this? He said. Now his behavior right here, he has just done this, his behavior is being placed on her. He is the one raging, he is the one damaging things, he is the one escalating, but he is framing Dove as the cause of these things, and after that, the physical violence continued. He grabbed her biceps and shook her hard enough to leave bruises.

Brandon Chadwick (10:44): He jumped on top of her and he strangled her and after strangling her, the focus was pulled back to his complaint, back to his grievance. He's putting it all on her and taking no accountability, making her think that everything is her fault. I know a lot of you out there have gone through this and my heart goes out to you, you know, when someone is abusing you and then saying that you are the problem, especially when these things are escalating, you know, it's scary and you still think that you are the problem, my heart goes out to you, this is a very tough position to be in, you know, and again we brought up strangulation here and if this is going on, you know, do call, the domestic violence hotline. We'll put that phone number in our show notes. Those were our big key takeaways of Dove's story.

Brandon Chadwick (11:33): So going forward for Dove, the first thing I want for Dove is just to keep protecting her peace without feeling like she has to justify herself, You know, she should be able to heal without having to justify herself. You know, she should be very protective of her peace, her time and who she shares her energy with and she wasn't allowed these things for so long. We just want that peace for her. The second thing I want for Dove is to just keep trusting her need for that solitude. In this relationship, you know, her desire for space was really turned into the rejection of the other person and solitude is not rejection.

Brandon Chadwick (12:11): For Dove, solitude seems like just a big part of how she reconnects with herself and she should not have to defend that as if it is being harmful. So I really just want Dove to really get that solitude. And then the third thing I really want for Dove is to keep separating her voice from his voice. There were moments where his words started to come out of her mouth. So if that voice shows up again, know, don't believe that voice.

Brandon Chadwick (12:37): The work here is to notice that voice, name that voice and separate that voice, you know, that sounds like him. That is not me. And then the fourth thing I want for Dove is for her to just keep her boundaries simple. She doesn't need to over explain herself why her phone is private, she doesn't need to prove why her body belongs to her, she doesn't need to argue for what she deserves which is just sleep, space, friendships, family, safety, you know, these are just basic parts of being a person and these boundaries should just be there and simple and she deserves these boundaries. All of you deserve these boundaries.

Brandon Chadwick (13:17): So those are the things that we want for Dove going forward and I want all of these things for you as well who's listening, if all of you were going through something similar to Dove, and I hope you found this debrief episode helpful, enlightening in some way, educational, and if you want to be a guest like Dove was on our Survivor Stories, please do go to our website at narcissistapocalypse.com, click on our guest form button, fill out the form and we'll go from there. We also have a support group at our website at narcissistapocalypse.com, so if you need support, join our support group today, and we also have a newsletter where you get a free workbook for every new survivor story that we put out and you can sign up for that at narcissistapocalypse.com. And that is it for today's debrief episode. So for myself and Dove, we hope you have a good night.