You Are Not Crazy

You know something is wrong, you just cannot name it yet. In this episode, I walk through the cycle of abuse — tension building, explosion, reconciliation, and the illusion of calm — and explain why that cycle is exactly what keeps you hooked. I break down what a trauma bond is, how intermittent reinforcement conditions your nervous system to crave the person who is hurting you, and why your confusion, your self-blame, and your inability to just leave are not weaknesses. They are ...

I break down some of the most insidious and subtle ways abusers use language to dominate the narrative and erode your sense of reality. I walk you through five distinct patterns of weaponized communication: emotional manipulation disguised as vulnerability, defensiveness used as a silencing tool, blame-shifting hidden behind false equivalence, coercion dressed up as ultimatums, and silence deployed as punishment. Each example reveals the same underlying strategy — redirecting accountability, ...

If you've ever felt like you're doing everything right — showing up, advocating, holding it together — and still somehow ending up as the problem, this episode is for you. Int his episode, I get honest about what it actually feels like to be in the cycle: the exhaustion of defending yourself against false narratives, the way every act of good parenting gets twisted into evidence against you, and the invisible toll of a system that wasn't designed to recognize coercive control. So many p...

BPD is often misunderstood, reduced to stereotypes of moodiness or drama — but if you've loved someone with unmanaged borderline personality disorder, you know it feels nothing like that. In this episode, I break down what it actually looks like to be in a relationship with someone who splits, who swings from adoring you to discarding you in an instant, and how you slowly begin to disappear in the process. This isn't about demonizing people with BPD. It's about naming the impact o...

Before I knew what a trauma bond was, I was hiding my phone under my mattress. I deleted his number, wrote it on a piece of paper, folded it into a journal, and made myself work to find it. At the time I thought I was being ridiculous. Looking back, I was surviving. In this episode, I talk about what it actually looks like to break a trauma bond when you can't go cold turkey — the messy, imperfect, sometimes embarrassing strategies that create just enough friction between the craving an...

If you've ever wondered why the person who hurt you seems completely unbothered — even convinced they did nothing wrong — this episode is for you. I break down why people with personality disorders genuinely don't experience themselves as disordered, how shame avoidance rewrites their reality, and why no amount of explaining, evidence, or emotional appeals will get them to "see it." Understanding this isn't about giving up — it's about stopping the cycle of trying to reach someone who doesn't...

This month’s Patreon episode dives into a theme that kept surfacing in your questions: When does mental illness explain behavior… and when does it become an excuse? Before answering your submissions, I break down what we actually mean when we talk about pathological abuse — repeated patterns rooted in personality structure, not just “a bad fight” or poor communication. We explore coercive control, gaslighting, intermittent reinforcement, blame shifting, and the power imbalance that defines th...

“No one sees it. They just think he’s nice.” If you are in a high-conflict divorce or co-parenting dynamic, you probably feel this in your bones. One of the hardest parts of covert abuse is that the “nice” isn’t safe. The "helpfulness" isn’t genuine. It’s strategic. When you are the only one seeing it and reacting to it, you start questioning yourself. In this episode, I talk about what it’s like to live inside a pattern that other people can’t see. Courts, lawyers, evaluators — they ar...

This episode puts words to what a trauma bond feels like before there is language for it. The quiet erosion. The logic loops. The way your needs slowly become “too much.” The way calm, rational explanations are used to invalidate your emotional reality. The way you start rehearsing conversations, monitoring your tone, silencing yourself, and shrinking—just to keep the peace. This is not a story about explosive fights or obvious cruelty. It is about subtle control, emotional superiority, and t...

In this episode, I talk about what happens after the fight, the discard, or the emotional explosion, and why the aftermath hits you so much harder than it seems to hit them. I break down a pattern I see constantly in emotionally abusive, high-conflict, and narcissistic dynamics: one person unloads their rage, shame, blame, or dysregulation, and then walks away feeling lighter—while the other person is left carrying it. I explain why this isn’t about resolution, communication, or vulnerability...

If you’ve ever been told you “can’t communicate” — especially by someone who constantly twists your words or refuses to take accountability — this episode will help you see what’s really happening. I break breaks down how abusers weaponize communication to destabilize you, create confusion, and control the narrative. You’ll learn why phrases like “you’re too blunt” or “you don’t make sense” are often not about clarity at all — they’re about power. You can view my courses here: https://j...

This episode unpacks what happens when speaking your truth gets twisted into a blame game. You finally name the pattern—gaslighting, neglect, constant eggshells—only to have the conversation hijacked. Suddenly you’re defending a mistake from years ago, a text tone, or an unrelated incident. Instead of accountability, you’re trapped in deflection, false equivalency, and emotional erasure. Jessica breaks down how this tactic shows up in everyday conversations, why it’s such a powerful tool of e...

After leaving an abusive relationship, it’s common to find yourself stuck in an exhausting loop of self-doubt. You replay conversations. You question your memory. You wonder if you overreacted—or if maybe it wasn’t that bad. In this episode, I break down why second-guessing yourself after abuse isn’t a flaw—it’s a survival response. I talk about how abusers train you to distrust your own perceptions and why that confusion lingers even after you leave. I also share practical ways to start rebu...