Psychological Abuse & Trauma Bonds in Codependency | Interview with Lindsay Villandry (Part 1)

Cool. Hello, everyone. Hi. I am here with Dr. Donnelly snipes and Happy Friday. We have a lot that I want to talk about today. So not sure how much we'll get to, but we will see where the time takes us. But yeah, I want to introduce Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Doc Snipes a lot of people call you. Right, Let's.

I love that.

I was like, duck Snipes. So I met.

Well, I.

We haven't officially met in person, but one day, hopefully soon, we. Years and years ago, I would watch her on YouTube. She has in. In my video description. I have links for her, for her website, for her YouTube. She has lots of different types of YouTube videos. I even posted on there about trauma bonding, everything. And she also counts, not counsels counselors, but teaches counselors, trains them, and therapists. So I would watch her over the years and she has these informative videos. So many. And I was like, a fan girl. Is that what you call them? Like, fan girls? And someone one day, we were talking about you because I said, I was just watching your video or whatever, and they said, oh, I know her. And so they introduced us and we started talking. And you guys, she has helped me so much through the past, what, how many months? Like, six, eight months or so. Six, seven, eight months. Just with things going on and. And she. She, like, didn't have to do any of that. And I just, like, as soon as soon as I met you, I, you know, and talked to you, I was just like, wow. Like, she. Like a good person, a genuine good person. And I was just really excited to. To have you on.

Thank you.

So, yeah, so this has been a long time coming. She's just very busy. But, yes, I want you to introduce yourself and tell everybody a little bit about what you do better than. I just said it. I'm sure you can explain.

Well, we don't want to spend too much time that. I. Dr. Donnelly Snipes, I have my licensed professional counselor right now in Tennessee and Florida. Once the counseling compact goes into effect, hopefully I'll be adding several more states, but that allows me to practice in. In different states. I run all CEUs, which trains addictions clinicians as well as mental health counselors. And I really started that back in 2006. 6. Because I saw at that point I was getting continuing education and paying an arm and a leg. It was costing me, you know, more than a day's worth of pay. And I'm like, that ain't right. So I started all CEUs, and we were what we you call a disruptor. We started offering unlimited CEUs for a very, very low price. And we kept getting people going. Is this a scam? So we actually raised our price a little bit, but we've maintained ourselves as still one of the most affordable providers. So that was really what got me started. And the videos on the YouTube channel, I was getting to a point, actually started out as the content for the courses on all CEUs. And my feeling is it's important to pay it forward and making. Helping people translate research to practice. So I have the videos, which are a little bit more academic than a lot of the other channels out there, but that's okay. That makes me unique. And then if people want certificates and certifications and that stuff, that's when they have to pay. But getting the knowledge totally free. And that's important to me because there are people. We've actually recently started getting several signups from a couple of different countries in Africa. And obviously their economic situation is very different than the U.S. so that's. That's really been a blessing for me to be able to help people in, I guess you call them second world areas, places where their economic situation just not as good. And I've written a couple of books, but you know, they just kind of. They kind of do their thing. I prefer teaching. I love teaching. I love doing clinical supervision and that's probably where I'm gonna stay for the rest of my foreseeable career.

I love it. Yeah, I just like, I was so excited to talk to you, but you're so humble when you talk about that. I bought her book off of Amazon and I've done a few videos on it and people loved it. So thanks for that.

Well, thank you. Thank you for talking about it.

Yeah, it's great. I did post the link in the video description so everybody could see it, but. Yeah, it's a workbook, you guys, for people entering and in. In addiction. And it's great. And it's not just. It's not just substances, it's. It's all addictions. Another thing. So. So what is your specialty? Like you. You're all encompassing though, right? Like what. What do you.

Yeah, well, I tend to focus and it's kind of all encompassing on trauma informed dual disorder treatment. So most of the mental health issues I focus on are the mood disorders like anxiety, depression, and then ptsd. And a few of those things I don't do a whole people with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia. That's just not where I've had the bulk of My training, and I don't work with kids. Not. I love kids, but that requires really specialized training to do it well and not cause harm. So I stay in my own lane, and it's a pretty wide lane, which. Which is nice because two days are never the same.

That's so cool.

Yeah.

And you're. I. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So anybody has any questions, please put them in the chat. We'll wait till the end to go over them and answer them, but feel free to drop them in the chat whenever you want to. But. So today I wanted to talk about, well, a. A number of things, but related to psychological abuse, relational abuse, and healing is. Is the most important part. Right. So the. I mean, which it is. It's all. It's all trauma. And I wanted her to explain more about. About how psychological abuse occurs. Like, what exactly is it? All the things. So. And we were talking about before we went on, she has been. She's known personal things about me, as I said, and known what has been going on a little bit in my world. And so she knows. She knows a little bit about what I'm already trying to ask her. But yeah. So I just want. I want to ask you what is some people that say abuse? What can abuse be? Class? Like, how do you. How do you describe abuse? Because a lot of people say, oh, it's. It's physical only. And I don't know why people still say that, but here we are.

Well, if you go to your classes on abuse, they will say, it's emotional, it's physical, it's sexual, it's financial. And those are the ones that they typically kind of all lump together. But it is important to recognize that emotional abuse and neglect is every bit as damaging, if not more damaging to people than some of the other types of abuse. And we can't discount that. We can't discount the impact that words have on our loved ones. And I'm not saying that words are weapons and, you know, we need to be afraid of them. When I was a little kid, we used to say, I'm rubber and you're glue. What you say bounces off me and sticks to you. Yeah. Which actually helps me sometimes, even at my age, but especially the things that are significant others and our caregivers tell us in those relationships, we've let down our boundaries. We. We've let down our guard. Theoretically, we respect their opinion. And when they start telling us things that are hurtful or gaslighting us, we tend to think, oh, well, maybe. Maybe that's Right. And we start questioning our own perceptions about our goodness, our lovableness, our safety. Abuse and neglect are both trauma experiences in my book and trauma. The core feature of trauma is it leaves you feeling unsafe and powerless in your life, in your skin. Some traumas are a little bit more specific. But when we talk about relational trauma, that tends to permeate into all of our relationships. Yeah, I trusted this person and I gave them my heart and then they stomped all over it. Can I trust anybody else? And then you start becoming hyper vigilant or hyper aware, looking for clues in everybody else that whether they're going to harm you or not, when you're in that frame of mind, when you're in that threat state, guess what you notice, guess how you interpret things. Even if it's something that's benign, the person didn't mean any anything by it. You may interpret it as a threat, which makes you start believing that everybody everywhere, to use some cognitive distortions, everybody everywhere is dangerous. And yeah, people can be dangerous. Everybody in my estimation has the capacity to be dangerous. But are they going to be? And that's, that's a judgment call we've got to make. And sometimes we have to make on the fly.

We.

When I work with, I spent 20 some odd years working in a co occurring treatment facility and some of the people I worked with when they're using are not safe people. Their behaviors, they're good people, but their behaviors are, are not safe to be around. They tend to be, you know, they get into that stinking thinking. And I think it's also important, and I know I'm rambling, to recognize that addictions aren't just substances. We can have an addictive relationship. And what's the, what are the characteristics of an addiction? You spend more time doing it, thinking about it or recovering from it than you intended. You spend more money, you give up important things or relationships in order to maintain that thing. It starts causing you significant, in your own estimation, harm in one or more areas of your life. And that can be physical. You're feeling sick and tired all the time, or you're injured or whatever. It can be problems in your relationships. Maybe you're so focused on that person that you're neglecting your children, your loved ones. And so we do really need to recognize that addictions come in a lot of different flavors, if you will, and they're no less harmful. If it's a relationship versus cocaine, it's going to have, when it becomes addictive, it's going to have a negative Impact.

Well, and, and I was talking to you and I said, I don't know why this feels so much like an addiction to. Where it's illogical. Right. And. And you described to me exactly that, and it made a lot of sense to me and helped me. And. Because I know addiction that I could. I could feel a lot of those things and, and, you know, insanity, like people would say, like, you know, engaging in this behavior or relationship with someone despite ongoing consequences that. Where. I don't know if you'd say consequences, but, I mean, it's trauma, right? And. And so I think another thing too is the, the gaslighting. I really think a lot of people. There's a lot of people on the Internet, on YouTube that talk about narcissism and gaslighting and all of those things and toxic people. And I wanted to know what. How can you describe gaslighting? Because you mentioned it too, and like, the proper meaning of it and what it is.

You're not going to find it in the dictionary. So we've kind of created this term, but essentially gaslighting, and you probably know it dates back to Alfred Hitchcock movie from like 1940 or something. But gaslighting is when somebody tries to make you believe that your perceptions, your thoughts, your memories are inaccurate. That's not how it happened. Oh, no. I was. I was wonderful to you. You left me.

Or.

You know, I. We can come up with all different kinds of scenarios, but if you start questioning yourself. I went. I had to go before a board this past week, and I was presenting. I wasn't in trouble, but I went up there and I was asking a question. And I had already provided all the research and everything, so I didn't come armed, thinking I'd have to defend myself. And one of the board members laid into me and told me things. He said, what you're saying is an absolute untruth. It's not true. And I'm like, no, I read this over multiple times. I've had multiple, multiple people read it. And I'm thinking to myself that. But I was so caught off guard that. And it wasn't the appropriate place to try to argue the point anyway. But by the time I left there I was, got into my car and I called my husband. I'm like, I'm not sure if I'm going to pass out, throw up or cry. And that's when you know you're being gaslit, when you start feeling completely powerless because somebody is just doing their best to convince you that you're crazy.

Oh, my gosh. That's such a good. A good example. Wow.

Yeah. Well, wish I didn't have it, but.

No, I'm sorry about that. But yeah, that's a perfect way to describe it, because I never really understood it until the past year or so, what it really meant and how it felt. And I. I just thought it was kind of a buzzword, and I know it has become kind of a buzzword, and. And so has narcissism and this and that, you know, because it isn't even. It's not even a mental health disorder. Like, it's a personality disorder, and it's not even like narcissism isn't even like the disorder. Right. Or the. The personality disorder. It's. It's narcissist. Narcissist. Narcissistic personality disorder. Then there's traits and style and all that. Right. It's like a spectrum. Is that how it works?

Is not really a spectrum. You're either narc.

You have.

You either have narcissistic personality disorder or you don't. But most people don't meet the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder. We have, right. What we kind of offhandedly refer to as narcissistic traits, which means you have some of these symptoms. It's kind of like when you go to the doctor and they're trying to figure out what to diagnose you with, and you've only got, you know, three out of seven symptoms. And the doctor says, well, that's not enough for me to diagnose you with chronic fatigue syndrome or whatever it is. I hear you have these symptoms or these issues right now. And narcissistic behaviors. We're talking before we went live. Behavior is always communication.

Yes.

And each time somebody does something that we perceive as narcissistic, I think it's important for us to step back and go, number one. What was that person trying to communicate? Were they saying, I feel scared? Were they saying, I feel like I deserve to be in charge? Which could be. Are we perceiving it differently than it was intended? You know, some people come off as kind of arrogant or kind of harsh when that's just because that's. That's their personality. I have a friend of a couple friends who are lifelong sales people and marketer people, and they are all about telling you how awesome they are. And it's just not something I'm used to. It doesn't mean they're narcissistic. It's just the culture that they have come up in so recognizing that sometimes a person's behaviors may be indicative of something that's going on in them. It may be indicative of the culture they came through, or it may be indicative they're doing something and we're totally misperceiving it. We're thinking they're being. They're trying to tell us how wonderful they are and make us feel bad about themselves when in reality they're just. Maybe they're trying to toot their own horn because they feel inadequate.

Yeah.

And they're saying, you know, will you be my friend? Because I have all of these things.

So true. Oh, you're fine. So Mrs. J asked, what's this? What are the symptoms?

Yeah.

So because of the what? The dsm, Probably. I assume she's asking maybe.

Yes. And there is a whole laundry list of symptoms. I'm not going to remember most of them with Narcissist 1. Let me back up before I launch into that. Let me take my personal viewpoint, and this is not the viewpoint of the American Psychological Association. That's okay. My personal viewpoint, I just want to couch that, is that most, if not all personality disorders, because they have to start in childhood, are behavioral reactions to a traumatic chaotic environment. So what we're looking at is complex post traumatic stress that just manifests in a bunch of different ways. However, help that child survive, whether it was histrionic, where they have to be the center of attention and they're drama queens or, or kings or borderline, where they disregulate and they start self harming because they're afraid of abandonment or narcissistic and there's, you know, like nine others.

Right. To point out.

And even avoidant personality disorder, which is a whole different cluster.

Yeah.

Think about if I'm avoidant of relationships, if I have no desire to engage with others, where'd that come from? What would have prompted that? So anyway, characteristics. Did you want to say something first?

Well, yeah, I, I wanted you to talk more about that too. And I'm so glad you brought that up because I was just. I already forgot about it. But because of how personality disorders they. It's not like someone just becomes narcissistic one day or this and that. And I was wondering if you could talk about maybe after this, but about the, the trauma and how that, how that becomes like that. Because we've talked about some of the stuff too, from. Because I'm always looking at like my childhood and you can see how it affects. Right. Like different relationships. Everything affects every relationship in your life. Right. And so I was wondering if you could explain, like, the trauma and its relation to that after you describe some of that. Okay.

So with, for example, narcissistic personality, it's important to remember that in the dsm, which is the Diagnostic, A Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, there's a section on personality disorders. So narcissism, or narcissistic personality is characterized by a sense of grandiosity, typically by lying or blowing things out of proportion in order to look better than you are. A lack of empathy. And I want to emphasize that there are a lot of people who actually do, if you want to look at it, qualify technically for narcissistic personality that do have empathy. Too often people say narcissists don't have empathy. Well, a lot of them don't, but a lot of them do. So we can't rule somebody in or out based on that, but we. So it's important to recognize that they tend to use people for their own gain. I'm gonna have you. I'm gonna be friends with you in order to get a promotion, in order to get connections or because you're really pretty. And I need, you know, somebody on my arm that makes me feel good about myself. And then. And refusing to associate with others that they believe are beneath them. I will only associate with people who are of high status and. And we can think about some of that even if we go to particular schools. You know, if I went to this Ivy League school, then, you know, I don't want to associate with you. People who went to state schools and not everybody who went to Ivy League schools is like that. But it is important to be aware of those traits and recognize, again, whether it is something that they were indoctrinated into. If you went to this school for six years and that's all you heard, then, you know, you get out. You may start believing it. If it is a reaction to trauma. If I grew up in a very impoverished environment that, you know, I don't. I don't want to be associated with that. I don't want to remember that because it was traumatic. So I only want to associate with these people out here because it doesn't remind me of that.

Wow. And so. So do you think attachment theory and. And all that is, like, right in there because, you know, I'm, like, obsessed with learning about it lately. I'm just beginning my journey. So I don't know.

You know, attachment theory, in my opinion, is at the core of the majority of personality disorders because the primary caregiver is Responsible for meeting the child's needs and helping them feel safe and learn how to learn. Develop emotional intelligence and learn how to cope not only with the world, but also with what's going on inside them. And if the caregiver is not there physically or emotionally, then the child kind of feels like they're out there flapping in the breeze and they do the best they can. Remember, children do not think the same as adults. They're not little adults. Children think in all or none terms. You love me, you hate me. Well, what do we see with borderline personality disorder? You love me, you hate me. So that is what we call a schema or a mental shortcut that the child developed when they were very young based on what was going on, trying to understand what do I need to. Need to do to stay safe. I need you to love me. Otherwise, you know, I'm three. I can't go to the store. So I need to figure out what it is I need to do to make you love me. If. Whatever that is.

And.

Go ahead.

No, I was gonna say. So if, if you could talk about them more specifically, too. I know I'm all over the place, but a lot of this stuff is so important, I think that people don't. I don't know about the different attachment styles and how, and how the relation to the caregivers, like how those become, like, what they coordinate with.

Okay, so the mnemonic I usually use for attachment is cares, consistency, attentive responsiveness, encouragement and safety. And that's what caregivers are responsible for as a caregiver when I was, you know, young. But we also have attachments when in our adult life, they're just not as unifocused. You know, we have a few friends that we can count on, but we'll just stick with that primary attachment. If I'm a young child and my caregiver sometimes is there or and sometimes is not, or sometimes responds lovingly and. And sometimes as a real not nice person. It's going to feel chaotic and it's going to be scary. I'm going to be afraid to approach them when I need something because I don't know if I'm going to get Jekyll or Hyde.

Right, right.

Attention, as I use it in the, in the mnemonic is when a caregiver spends proactive time with the child. Not sitting there scrolling on social media all day long and putting the kid in front of the TV or giving them a tablet and saying, go, just do something. But when the caregiver takes time out of their day to say, you know what, you're important to me and I would really like to know about you. I've shared stories before about my son and he used to love to play with the little Matchbox cars and everything. And I just, I wanted to spend time with him so desperately, but I couldn't get into it and he picked up on that. So he would get up and toddle away. He's like, okay, I'm bored. But anyway, long story short, I ended up figuring out I want to spend time with him and it seems like he wants to spend time with me. I mean, he's two and a half, can't read his mind. But so we found things that we enjoy doing together. And that was, that enabled us to have quality time where I wasn't forcing it and he wasn't bored and. But that attention communicates to the child. You're important and you're lovable and for who you are, not for what you do, I want to spend time with you. Then we go down to responsiveness. The caregiver and I think we all you have kids when, when our children start to get upset, we can respond. Children can't identify feelings. We need to teach them feeling words. Children generally can't identify early warning signs. We need to help them identify early warning signs. My son again, when, when he was little, he's always had adhd. He was micro preemie, so he's neuro atypical. And when he would start to get over overwhelmed, or we call it over stimulated, he would need to go sit down in his room. And we had one wall that was just blank, white, there was nothing on it. I mean he had stuff up on other walls. But I remember one day he walked up to me when I was sitting at the computer doing some work and he said, mommy, I over stimulated, popped his binky in his mouth, toddled in, got into his little fire engine bed and stared at the wall for about 10 minutes. And when he felt like he had it together, he came back out. But that's not something that most children are going to pick up on their own. They he was able to identify that early. I'm feeling kind of like I'm gonna lose it.

Yeah.

And take appropriate action. And that's our job as caregivers, to help them learn how to identify the issue, identify the feeling, tolerate the distress, examine the situation and figure out how to respond. I mean that's all emotional intelligence. And when we don't have that, I mean, think about how scary for us as adults it feels sometimes when our grief or our anger or our depression is just overwhelming. Think about how a three or four year old feels when they're scared to death.

Wow.

And, and the caregiver doesn't respond. So then the kid goes, well, I better figure this out on my own. Then we go down to encouragement that's pretty self explanatory. Not being enmeshed, not trying to control and tell the child how to do everything, but helping them figure out how to do it. Providing there's a term called scaffolding. But that encouragement goes a long way. It says, I think you're competent, I think you can do this. So that helps children develop a sense of self esteem and self confidence which when we have that, then when we try something and we fail, it's like, well, that didn't work. As opposed to feeling like we are failures and separating the behavior from the person is so important. When a child grows up in a chaotic environment and doesn't have encouragement, they don't know what they can do and they are just pretty much spending their entire childhood in fight orf flight.

Wow.

When we're in fight orf flight, we do not learn. When you're in fight orf flight, you've got a chemical called glutamate that's kind of surging through your brain that says you need to worry about surviving right now. You don't need to worry about learning math or whatever else it is. So the child is kind of spitballing things, trying to figure out what's going to help him keep stay safe today and going on from there. And there's nobody there to say, hey, I see where that might have worked for you in the past. Let's talk about some other ways to address that besides if you're angry, besides throwing a toy at me.

Right.

And then safety that goes to that unconditional positive regard where you say, you know what, and separating the child from the behavior. You're not a bad child, that was a bad behavior. I love you, but we ain't going to do that. And there's going to be consequences.

Right.

But think about a, a person, a child who doesn't have those parameters.

Right.

Who can't, who doesn't believe that their care caregiver is going to be there to help them.

Yeah.

To provide safety to. And sometimes, and with insecure attachment, sometimes the caregivers do do it and sometimes they don't. And it's that inconsistency. It's like, well, Somebody gonna help me today or not. With avoidant attachment, the person has often experienced a lot of harsh criticism, and there hasn't been any good with it. So if caregiver responded, it was generally not a good thing. And so obviously they say, too dangerous, you're hurtful. I don't want to be around you because it hurts too much. The person who's anxiously attached is going to fawn. They're just going to be like, what do I need to do to make you help me to love, me to stay? Now, interestingly, there's another one called disorganized, and that's a combination of both of them. So there. That's the epitome of inconsistency. Right. But a lot of times with disorganized attachment, the person will fawn as long as they can. It's like, what do I need to do? And they'll reach a certain point. Or it's just like, screw it.

Yep.

And then get away. But then not too long later, you know, a week, a month, sometimes a day, they're back to fawning. It's like, okay, I've got some energy back. Let me see how I can, how I can fix this. And attachment styles can differ between people. If you may have insecure attachment with caregiver type types, an anxious attachment, and avoidant attachment with authority figures. So just kind of being aware and then go, going back and asking yourself, why did I develop that reaction to that person? So attachment is very interesting. And when we don't feel safe again, children try to figure out the best way they can to survive. And they've been doing the best they can to survive until now. But I, like I said, your children who are in that state, when they are feeling threatened, whether it's because they don't have enough food and they don't have a roof over their head, or because they're being abused or their caregivers are in active addiction or whatever the case is, when children don't feel safe, they are not going to learn. So the things, the skills that other children their age learn on how to cope with emotions, how to interact with others, how to feel good about themselves, how to have confidence, that's, you know, that's irrelevant. They're trying to figure out how to survive. And so then you end up with people who are adults who often have.

These.

Primitive coping skills and primitive interpersonal skills because they didn't have the benefit or the luxury of learning that stuff that. That was not super present in their mind.

Wow, okay. So so we talked about enmeshment before, too, me and you. Will you explain what that does? Because of how the autonomy with. With the. And not being able to detach from the mother and how that affects it too.

Enmeshment is. You could consider it a form of abuse. It's not intentional. The caregiver is not saying, I want to, you know, right. Try to screw up this kid's life. Enmeshment often results because the caregiver is desperately trying to either relive their childhood and get it right this time, or they're trying to, in their own way, trying to protect the child from themselves. So in an enmeshment, in an enmeshed relationship, the enmesher, if you will, violates the enmeshees boundaries. Constantly telling them what they're to think, what they're to feel, what they're to do, who they're to hang out with. And I think most of us, when we were in school, knew somebody or somebodies who had care parents who were like this. Anybody who's watched Dance moms probably has seen the same behavior. And it's important to understand that if a child is constantly being told what to think, what to do, who to hang out with, then if that person goes away and quits directing their life, you know, cuts the marionette strings, they kind of go to pieces. They're like, I don't know how to think for myself. I need you to tell me how to do it right.

Yeah, that was a great explanation.